It’s a Game of Quick Draw

It’s sort of a cross between charades and first-grade art class.

The name of the game is Pictionary and the object is to get your partner to guess the secret word. The only clues you can give are those you can draw on a piece of paper. No letters or numbers allowed. Artistic expression only. And you have just 60 seconds.

The artwork that results is sometimes more fun than playing the game.

All of which makes Pictionary nerve-wracking, funny and the most popular game of the new year.

“They were stacked up to the ceiling and it only took a week to sell out,” said Wendy Hickerson, head cashier at Karl’s Toys, Hobbies & Stationers in Sherman Oaks, one of several Valley stores that have run out of the game.

Over 350,000 games have sold nationwide since July. And the concept has caught on elsewhere. Burt Reynolds is producing a television game show, unconnected, but similar to the board game.

Marilyn Unsworth, 24, of Burbank rates herself as an “awful” artist and said that when she played Pictionary, the pictures she drew only sometimes looked like the secret word.

“I’m a bad drawer, but you can still play the game,” she said. “It’s fun because you can play with a group of people.”

The secret words can be as easy to draw as “ice cream cone,” or as difficult to describe in pictures as “import” or “laughing gas.” Teams of two players or more advance along a game board with each correct guess.

The game was invented by a Seattle man, Robert Angel, who played it for years at parties before finally deciding to market the idea.

“He would just pick up a dictionary, flip through the pages, pick a word and try to sketch it,” said Debbie Baumann, a spokeswoman for Pictionary.

Pictionary comes with note pads and pencils, a timer, a game board and cards with thousands of secret words in five different categories. Simple enough, but the game costs $30. If you can find a store that still has one.