Wayne Shorter's "Footprints" was released in 1966.
Milton Bradley's "Twister" was released in 1966.
COINCIDENCE?
¡!¡ NO !¡!
Wayne Shorter was one of the game company's test audience, and he composed "Footprints" by playing twister after painting note names on the dots.
In fact, the idea for the game came in 1960 from none other than John Coltrane, who had painted notes and dots on a bed-sheet before inviting musician friends at a party to stand on different random note values he played on his horn, just a game to begin with, but he saw the composition potential – this is how Coltrane actually composed "Giant Steps"!
Shorter was aware of this Coltrane-MB connection and wanted to try his own hand (and foot) at a Twister composition.
It was only late in the games development that Milton Bradley expanded the rules to include other appendages; note names were dropped to give it wider appeall; alas, game development was slow going because most development participants wound up having sex with each other and the game release date kept getting held up by the board of censors who (at the behest of other game developers) indeed accused Milton Bradley of selling "sex in a box".
Incidentally, the game is where the expression "Get knotted" comes from.
