There's an old saying. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. So what in the world would possess Hasbro, the makers of the classic board game Clue, to give a game which has been delighting families since 1949, a makeover?

Evidently the Rhode Island-based toy company felt the board game needed to be updated for today's tabloid culture. Gone is the conservatory, ballroom, billiard room and library. They have been replaced with a theater, spa and guest house. They have also done away with some of the old weapons like the lead pipe, revolver and wrench. Instead we now have a dumbbell, trophy, bat and ax.

Hasbro also felt the need to spice up the characters we have come to know and love by giving them a biography. Say good bye to Colonel Mustard. He's now Jack Mustard, a former football player. Miss Scarlet is now Kassandra Scarlet, a famous actress whose antics often land her in the tabloids. Mr. Green is now Jacob Green, an African-American with all the right connections. Professor Plum? Well, he's now Victor Plum, a billionaire software designer. I kid you not.

I don't know about you, but there is something wrong about guessing Kassandra Scarlet in the spa with a trophy that just doesn't sound right. Have we become that shallow that we can relate more to a spa than a conservatory? And heaven forbid that a home should have a (gasp) library!

Personally, I don't care if Jack Mustard played football. I liked him better when he was the loveable colonel with the monocle in the funny looking hat. And why did they have to get rid of the lead pipe? I guess Hasbro figures more young people will relate to a dumbbell and a home theater than a revolver and billiard room, and to a starlet and a football player rather than a stuffy old "colonel" or "professor." Give me a break.

Call me old fashioned, but I liked the old Clue the way it was. What would the game's creator think? Clue was originally created by Anthony Pratt, a solicitor (I bet most young people today don't even know what a solicitor is) in Birmingham, England in 1949 to entertain his friends. It was set in an English mansion and the characters were supposed to be people you would find at a typical World War II era dinner party. His wife is the one who designed the board. As a young child I always thought it was neat to visit the billiard room or the conservatory. There was just something exotic and foreign about it. Now we get a new version which the company says is supposed to appeal to someone born in the 1990s. If you ask me it's just another example of the dumbing down of our culture to fit an "anything goes" attitude that seems to have set in to our society.

As for me, I'll stick with the old version, thank you.