What is "bananagrams"

Bananagrams is a word game invented by Abraham Nathanson of Pawtucket, Rhode Island, wherein lettered tiles are used to spell words.

Nathanson conceived and developed the idea for the game with the help of his family. The name is derived from the founding family's claim that it's the "anagram game that will drive you bananas!" Beginning as a family innovation, Bananagrams was made available to the public in January 2006 at the London Toy Fair. The game is similar to the older Scrabble variant Take Two.

Game play involves arranging one's tiles into a grid of connected words faster than one's opponents. The object of the game is to be the first to complete a word grid after the pool of tiles has been exhausted. The tiles come in a fabric, banana-shaped package. Bananagrams is listed as a must-have and one of the top ten best travel games, and it has been listed as a best-seller among toy and gift retailers.

Bananagrams is an online social game developed by Large Animal Games in partnership with Majesco Entertainment. It launched on Facebook on November 17, 2008. Success of the Bananagrams tile game developed by the Nathanson family prompted Bananagrams International to extend the brand online. Bananagrams was later released on Bebo and MySpace.

Bananagrams was featured as a top ten addicting game on Facebook by industry insiders on May 6, 2009. On February 18, 2009, Bananagrams received an honorable mention by Bebo as a top five out of over 20,000 applications on the social network in its B.E.S.T developer competition.

In 2013, the Facebook version of the game was retired.