POW! The Cannon Game for Boys (1964)

Back in the mid-1960s, Milton Bradley published a pair of wonderfully sexist games: POW! (for boys) and WOW! The Pillow Fight Game for Girls. The games are essentially the same: dexterity games that consist of sending a small projectile over a barrier with the intent of knocking over the opponent's pieces.

POW! is a soldier game "in which boys try to 'shoot' the opponent's Army with Cannons that gently toss harmless cannon balls." The game board is divided into two sections by a cardboard barrier. Each side has a plastic cannon with a cannon ball (marble). The cannon "shoots" the marble over the barrier to knock down the opponent's soldiers. As described in the directions, POW! is "a safe, fast-action soldier game..."

The Australian made version by John Sands has minor differences to the US Milton Bradley game in that the instructions are not printed under the box lid but on the inner carboard support, the board was a bit thinner and not as sturdy and the blue cannon is of a lighter colour