Marco Polo (game)

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For other meanings, see Marco Polo (disambiguation)

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The children's game of Marco Polo is a form of tag, often played in a swimming pool. The game is popular in the UK, the United States, Australia, Argentina, Canada, Paraguay and Brazil, and possibly in other parts of the world.

[edit] Rules

The game is played by three or more persons. At any time there is one distinguished player, "It", who must swim around the pool with his or her eyes closed, attempting to tag the other players. The "It" player can only sense where the other players are by sound, but may call out "Marco!", at which point all the other players are required to yell "Polo!". When the "It" player succeeds in tagging another player, the latter becomes "It".

There are a few common minor variations. Fish-out-of-water allows the non-It players to get out of the pool (thus protecting themselves from being tagged by the water-bound "It"), however, should "It" call "fish out of water" while some one is out of the pool, that person becomes "It". If there is more than one person out of the water, the person who is "It" has the choice of picking anyone out of water to become "It".

"Mermaid on rocks" is a variant itself of fish-out-of-water. This is when a person is sitting on the ledge of the pool with their legs in but their body is out. When the "it" person calls mermaid on rocks, and someone is doing this, they are it.

Alligator Eyes allows "It" to call out "alligator eyes" or "submarine" and then swim underwater with eyes open for one breath. Usually, "It" is limited to one use of alligator eyes. Other variations on this rule allow "It" to look around underwater but not to move until he or she is above water with eyes closed once again.

[edit] Variations

There are many variants to this game. It may be played on dry ground; in that case, it is similar to "blind man's bluff".

Another variant is "Sharks and Minnows" or "Silent Witness", which uses the tag rules of Marco Polo, but the players are not required to make a sound at any time.

In Argentinian Marco Polo, the one who is "It" has to grab the tagged one say his name outloud. If said correctly, the tagged one becomes it. If not, the player who is "It" has to start again.

[edit] Media references

Bart and Lisa are shown playing Marco Polo in the episode "O Brother, Where Art Thou" of The Simpsons. During the scene, Bart tiptoes around the edge of the pool while Lisa, oblivious to the fact that he is cheating, continues to shout "Marco...Marco".

In the Family Guy episode "E. Peterbus Unum," pool party guests Yassir Arafat, Mao Zedong, Fidel Castro, Ayatollah Khomeini, and Mobutu Sese Seko play Marco Polo; Khomeini is caught being "fish out of water" by Mobutu. Also in Family Guy, the character Stewie Griffin recalls a time he supposedly played Marco Polo with Helen Keller. He continuously swims round the pool saying "Marco...Marco...Marco...Marco..." to an unresponsive Helen.

In the South Park episode "Super Best Friends", Stan plays a sort of game similar to this to find his Super Best Friend, Kyle by calling out the famous catchphrase "Oh my God, they killed Kenny!" (usually said after the death of the character Kenny in that period), to which Kyle responded "You Bastards!" Stan kept calling out his catchphrase, and Kyle kept responding, until Stan followed his voice straight to him.

In one of the Easter eggs of Teen Girl Squad episode 6, Cheerleader calls out "Marco" from inside a lion's mouth. What's Her Face answers "Polo" (from outside the lion), whereupon Cheerleader calls "Fish out of water."

In the movie Wild Hogs, a gay policeman catches up with the four protagonists, who are skinny-dipping in a pool, and initiates a game of Marco Polo.