Play along with the upcoming Ken Burns documentary
Leave it to Ken Burns and PBS to crash our romantic Boardwalk Empire fantasies with a scholarly five-and-a-half-hour, sepia-tinted tome about the rip-roaring Twenties. As it turns out, there's more to America's fabled alcohol ban than tales of sex, booze, and crooked pols. In fact, Ken Burns and Lynn Novick, whose Prohibition series airs October 2, 3, and 4, are wagering that the real story is even sexier than fiction — they're premiering the first installment in direct competition to Martin Scorsese's Emmy-winning HBO show.
While any good and educated snob has to watch Prohibition and Tivo Boardwalk Empire this Sunday — or else face scorn around the reverse-osmosis machine at work next week — that doesn't change the fact that Burns docs can be excruciating. With boredom in mind, we designed a drinking game to help you slug through the slow parts. As the most serenaded documentarian of all time, Burns has a number of toast-worthy signatures, all of which you'll find especially nauseating after three nights of boozing like it's 1929.