John Spinello, who invented the board game Operation nearly 50 years ago, ironically, now needs a real operation — but the 77-year-old Illinois man can’t afford it.

Spinello, who sold the rights to the classic electrified game for a mere $500, needs $25,000 for the oral surgery.

“Look, everyone needs medical care,” Spinello told Huffington Post. “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.”

A crowd-funding campaign at Crowdrise.com has raised more than $2,000 by Tuesday afternoon. The site ILoveOperation.com is also raising money by selling signed copies of the game.

He also is planning to auction off his game prototype in December.

Spinello invented Operation while he was an industrial design student at the University of Illinois.

“I got an A,” Spinello told the Huffington Post.

The game features a frightened patient with a red nose that lights up when tweezers touch metal edges while steady-handed players try to remove the man’s broken heart, funny bone, spare ribs and other body parts.

The loud buzzer startles the young surgeons with unsteady hands.

The game, now owned by Hasbro, is estimated to have generated at least $40 million in sales since its launch in 1965.

And now, Spinello, whose warehouse company went out of business in 2008, needs some help to fix his teeth.