Creator of Operation Board Game Needs Money for Real Surgery

— -- John Spinello, who created what would become Operation, the classic board game that allows players to test their fine motor skills using a tweezer, is now in need of a real operation that he apparently cannot afford.

Spinello – who sold his game for $500 in the 1960s to a toy company that would then license it to game giant Milton Bradley – reportedly needs $25,000 in oral surgery.

Spinello’s friends, toy designers Tim Walsh and Peggy Brown, have started a fund on CrowdRise.com to raise the money. As of Tuesday night, people had donated more than $8,000.

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Spinello has had “a good life, but has admitted to us that he is struggling to pay his bills and is in need of a medical procedure without sufficient insurance coverage,” according to a letter from that Brown and Walsh posted on the website ILoveOperation.com.

"I had fun playing this game when I was little and I think I owe this man for the happy memories," one fan wrote.

"Thank you for the years of fun," wrote another.

At ILoveOperation.com, people may send a $3 “thank you” gift to Spinello. They may also purchase for $50 copies of the game signed by Spinello.

"People are still enjoying it and we enjoy being there and showing them the game and watching them play it," Spinello told ABC News of Operation's lasting popularity.

Walsh and Brown have invited members of the public to show their appreciation for the game’s creator by writing him “Dear John” letters at ILoveOperation.com. Several people have already written to Spinello to wish him luck on the surgery and tell him they will be donating to the effort.

In Operation, players carefully guide a tweezer through body of a “patient” to remove his illnesses. If their tweezer motions aren’t precise and they go out of bounds they could set off the dreaded buzzer.

In an interview with HuffPost Weird News, Spinello said he wasn’t bitter about the situation.

"Look, everyone needs medical care," Spinello told HuffPost Weird News. "I prefer not to dwell on that aspect and focus more on the joy that the game has brought to so many over the years."

He told HuffPost that he developed the game while he was an industrial design student at the University of Illinois. He said he received an “A” for the project, adding that his creation also impressed a top game designer, who offered him $500 and the promise of a job for the rights to it.

He eventually got the money but not the job, he told HuffPost.