Tall Card (Firefly Game) Pt. 1
In Shindig, Jayne, Book, and Simon gamble their chores during a game of cards before River distracts them by ripping labels off of food cans.
This is the game “Tall Card” that was invented for the show. It exists as both fan created print outs and official merch.
The charm of Tall Card lies in the fact that there's no one official way to play it. This means that you can play it however you want! There are a lot of fan created rules floating around out there.
I had misremembered that the deck was entirely invented and thought that it was just a standard deck of cards with the addition of round novelty cards. Apparently the cards they actually used were metal cards that drove the sound guy nuts.
I can only imagine the struggle of trying to not pick up metal clinking noises while also still keeping Sean Maher's whispery delivery at audible levels.
BTW that is an amulet card that you're supposed to put in your wallet for protection/health/wealth. The sort of thing your uncle buys in bulk and hands out at family reunions. Here's one of mine:
I get why the prop master spraypainted them, because they can sort of hurt to look at and I imagine he didn't want both the sound guy AND the lighting department on his ass.
I think it's fun that they decided to invent an entirely new game for such a short scene instead of just having them play poker.
The fact that the game has 70 original playing cards and 9 round cards means I'm going to put images of them in a second (and maybe third) post.
