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The circus! J Edgar Hoover! Bunker Hill! Marty Feldman! All these answers and more could be correct in a simple game called "charades"! Charades is a fun acting game loved by all of us except for those who are self conscious and refuse to act out things like "Dehumidifier" thereby becoming royal wet blankets. But other than those anomalies, charades is a classic time-waster. So timeless is the game that it's spawned many board games based on acting, the names of which I have neither the time nor interest to Google.

But what is it about these games that make us so ready and willing to try and act in a way that makes people think "Dr. Zhivago"? Why are we chomping at the bit to imitate Mounties? Why do we love to make silent asses out of ourselves for the sake of a board game? How many times can I rephrase the same question? Apparently 3.

The first attraction as far as I can reckon is the challenge of it. There is a moderate amount of brain-power needed to properly act out "anti-telharsic", and the difficulty in figuring out how to make your hands emote the prefix "anti" is quite attractive. Often people will practice at home, trying to figure out the best way to act out the most common prefixes and suffixes.

Another big attraction is the simplicity of the games. It doesn't take much of a learning curve to learn charades or its boarded counterparts. The rules are usually quite simple and the fact that little talking is needed makes it easy to bring with you around the world. The real challenge is trying to initiate a game of charades with those whom you can't actually communicate with, either through language barriers or general hatred. You end up trying to charade the word "charades" adding a very MC Escher feel to your life. Well done.

The final, and probably most effective reason, is our desire to see our friends and relatives make complete fools of themselves in a sizable group of people. I know it may sound cruel, but there it something about seeing your father doing his best to make a gathering of business partners yell out "Baryshnikov". From what I remember from psychology class, which is absolutely nothing, this is a primal instinct, going back to the days when cavemen would force others at club-point to dance like pansies for the general amusement of the tribe.

So that's it, from Charades to Cranium (yes, I looked it up) acting games are here to stay. Then maybe in the future there will be huge charades games over the internets, millions of people on webcams acting like Liza Minnelli. Isn't technology great?

Learn more about this author, Andy Paulo.
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