Hopscotch is a hopping game that can be played on any flat surface you can draw on. One can chalk a hopscotch pattern on the ground or use masking tape on a floor.

A diagram with 8 sections is created and numbered. Each player has a marker such as a stone, beanbag, coin, bottlecap, shell, button, pog, etc.

The first player stands behind the starting line to toss her or his marker in square 1. They hop over square 1 to square 2 and then continue hopping to square 8, turn around, and hop back again. A pause in square 2 to pick up the marker, hop in square 1, and out. Then continuing by tossing the stone in square 2. All hopping is done on one foot unless the hopscotch design is such that two squares are side-by-side; then two feet can be placed down with one in each square. A player must always hop over any square where a marker has been placed.

A player is out if the marker fails to land in the proper square, the hopper steps on a line, the hopper loses balance when bending over to pick up the marker and puts a second hand or foot down, the hopper goes into a square where a marker is, or if a player puts two feet down in a single box. The player puts the marker in the square where he or she will resume playing on the next turn, and the next player begins.

Sometimes a dome-shaped "rest area" is added on one end of the hopscotch pattern where the player can rest for a second or two before hopping back through.

Hopscotch

Release date: 1980
Color; 105 Minutes
Directed by Ronald Neame
Screenplay by Brain Garfield and Bryan Forbes
Based on the novel by Brian Garfield

Starring
Walter Matthau as Miles Kendig
Glenda Jackson as Isabel von Schoenberg
Sam Waterston as Joseph Cutter
Ned Beatty as Myerson
David Matthau as Ross

A delightfully funny spy comedy starring Walter Matthau as Miles Kendig, a CIA agent relegated to a desk job by his annoyingly short boss, played by Ned Beatty. Kendig decides to write his memoirs and consequently the memoirs of the "Dirty Tricks Department" of the CIA. With the help of ex CIA member Isabel, he sends chapters of this astonishing body of work to all the big players in the Cold War. He suddenly finds himself pursued by the Americans and Russians, all desperate to get their hands on him, for their own reasons. Kendig deftly escapes all attempts at capture with his usual aplomb. This is a terribly undervalued classic of the spy genre. It was recently released on DVD by the Criterion Collection.

Trivia Note: To the best of my knowledge, this is the only film in which Walter Matthau appears with his son, David Matthau.

Hop"scotch` (?), n.

A child's game, in which a player, hopping on one foot, drives a stone from one compartment to another of a figure traced or scotched on the ground; -- called also hoppers.

 

© Webster 1913.

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