Monopoly's New Token: the Cat

Say hello to the Monopoly cat. A monthlong contest to replace one of the board game's old tokens ended late last night, and Hasbro announced today that fans voted to chuck the iron and welcome the cat. (Not exactly a shocker, this being an Internet contest and all.) The shoe and the wheelbarrow were spared as fans from more than 120 countries voted in the "Save Your Token" campaign, the AP reports.

What could have been: a robot, diamond ring, helicopter, and guitar. "But I think there were a lot of cat lovers in the world that reached out and voted for the cat," says a Hasbro VP. The cat token will be introduced in versions of Monopoly later this year, and one version sold at Target will include all the tokens, even the doomed iron. (More Monopoly stories.)