Sardines, a game

From the Peppa Pig episode “Chloé’s Big Friends” (first aired November 22, 2010). Cousin Chloé’s friends Belinda Bear and Simon Squirrel don’t really want to play what they call “baby games.” They’re almost grownup! And they’ve already sneered at Hide and Seek.

Peppa: “Let’s play another game. Have you ever played Sardines?”

Belinda: “What’s that?”

Chloé: “Someone hides, and we all try to find them.”

Simon: “That sounds like Hide and Seek.”

Chloé: “But when you find them, you keep quiet and hide in the same space until everyone is hiding there.”

Peppa: “Like sardines in a tin!”

I’d never heard of it, but the Internets confirm that Sardines, the game, is a thing.

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Later in the day: The Oxford English Dictionary has this definition: “A party game of hide-and-seek, in which each seeker joins the hider upon discovery until one seeker remains. Also sardines-in-the (also a)-box (U.S.).”

The dictionary’s first citation, from Mendell and Meynell’s Weekend Book, says that “Sardines is gaudier still” and goes on to explain the game. (Gaudier than what?) The next citation is more interesting: “‘Hide-and-go-seek’ or ‘sardines-in-the-box’ with all the house thrown open to the game.” From F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby (1925).

Also from Peppa Pig: Edmund Elephant is a clever clogs.

Related reading
All OCA sardine posts (Pinboard)