Mattel Football: 1979’s King Of Timewasters

@Jrsy Devil's Food Cake®: Oh wow... I was born in '72...it bring memories of countless hours of playing at granmas house.

Micho

@dolo54 blows minds and blows engines!:

Got an iPhone? Relive your yoot.

http://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewArtist?id=289808582

mcdj

Now you're going to make me watch bottle rocket again to see when it's shown.

electricarchie

I found my Football II a couple of years ago, and it works great! Brought back so many memories! Hockey was pretty good too!

rclAlaric

That was my first electronic video game!! I remember calling Best Products every day asking if they had come in. When they came in, I remember running to the display and grabbing a box, heart pounding. That was the most excited I've ever been about an electronic product. Except of course when my wife brings one home. ;-)

Tank

@dolo54 blows minds and blows engines!: I had the basketball one. It was a sooo cool. I wasted a lot of hours with that thing.

token_illiterate_commenter

@Jrsy Devil's Food Cake®: Oh yes. Played it nonstop. Best of them all. Loved the little switch control. *click* *click*

They also featured it on Seinfeld when Jerry started drugging the woman with the toy collection so he could play with the Scuba GI Joe, George could play with this game, and Elaine could play with the Easy Bake Oven and get the Gum Balls for the "Sideler".

Yeah I watched TV in the 90's. I was product of the late 80's and 90's but I remember the game from friends who still played with one until he was able to get a Game Boy.

quayzar

I remembering finding this game in my Uncle's attic a few years back. I took it out of the box and appreciated its awesomeness.

ZuluWave

@Jrsy Devil's Food Cake®: I remember that! Good friend of mine had it. Very cool.

Had it, loved it.

I also had one of these beauties.. click the pic for more info

Had it, played it, lost track of it. It's probably sitting in a box in my parent's attic slowly getting eaten by the corroding 9 volt that was inevitably left in there.

Fun memories of playing with it, though. And I can't even stand Football.

Oldbrass

Wow, that brings back some memories. I loved that game. I can totally remember those bright bulbs hiding behind the super dark tinted plastic screen. I wonder where mine is, and if the 9 volt battery inside has completely fused itself to the connector and exploderzed acid everywhere...

Ribs

I had Coleco's version, which as i recall was much more popular than Mattel's. It seemed like everyone had one.

Touchdown! 'Dah-dee-dee-dee-dee' I can still hear that tune..

Now that I think about it, the one I played most was football II

Such a simple game, but it was so fun. And I didn't even like football that much, but I loved playing it. They also had baseball, but the best one was the basketball one.

i think birth control was more the beginning of the end. but i suppose video games were the first downward step for those to whom the pill didn't apply...

I mostly remember the green Football II game. Along with Basketball.

And of course, this:

http://www.handheldmuseum.com/Coleco/H2HFootball.htm

rip

@tazm0n: Merlin got me through an extended hospital stay when I was a third grader

I didn't even like football and couldn't put that down!

@tucker: If I'm lucky, mine's still sitting at my parent's house. I used to play that hours on end, though I wasn't alive in 77.

secretmanofagent

I still have mine - I 'modded' it (circa 1979) to have a speaker on/off switch - I could play in it during class!

They (Mattel?) made them again in the late 90's or early 00's and opted for a volume switch on those models - but the gameplay/heuristics were not quite the same as the original.

@92BuickLeSabre:

first app that I bought, worth all 99 cents!

peetah

I still have mine!

Ohhh, good old memories playing that thing for hours!

uRbAnlP

I used to have that one. The hockey one too. I played them a lot! The bus to school was a great place to play them.

@tazm0n: Edit comment finally (thank you!), but gotta learn how to use it.

tazm0n

I played the crap outta the one I had in 1981.

tazm0n: BTW, it would be a shame not to mention Parker Bros. Merlin game :)

tazm0n

I remember something similar, but it was more like a racing game. One day I took this ancient piece of technology to kindergarten show-and-tell.

OblivionVII

Wow, I haven't thought of this game in, uh, decades... one of these kept my buddy and I well entertained during our 6hour wait in line on opening day of "the Empire Strikes Back". Though it might have been a head-to-head model, IIRC. We were 10 yrs old and it was the first movie I saw without parents.

tazm0n

I had the space invaders one and was the king of the hill for one week in grade 6... Ah the good ol days...

HA! I still have one! And a Blip, and Basketball. good times. And I aint even from 79'.

SprinklesTDD

I played that game to death. I think I had a few of them since they suffered from button death.

Brian S Paskin

Timewaster? Hardly. This game was pure fun, and still is thirty years later.

OH man I had that! Beep Beep Boop. Little red leds to cool.

JohnnyGTO

It's not quite the same, but there's an App for that.

And it's not half-bad.

That brings back memories. I played this every time I was in the car. It was one of my first electronic devices.

Woz

oh gosh I had that football one! and the baseball one posted in the comments. Awesome.. I actually played the heck out of them. They were old when I got them.. not sure where I got them... but i was playing them in in the 90s I believe.. all old, dusty and with tarnished plastic. I think I still have them with my atari collection

Serpent2

Yeah, I played that back around 1980. Once you learned the trick, it was super easy to repeatedly run down the field and score over and over again.

encyclia

That was one fun game, once yout got the hang of it.

vqro

Had that one, and this one too, much more fun:

BlackSmokeDMax

I had the Coleco version. Hours and hours of time spent. I got to where I could score a touchdown on every possession, but I still played it and played it. It think it's still at my Parent's house.

jdjonsson

I wasted a lot of time with one of those...

I had this exact hand held, it has 9 rows of i think 3 LEDs (or whatever they were) that would light in different patterns and you had to move your brighter lit led through the gaps until you were "Tackled" or you made a touch down. you could also punt or kick off. At the time it rocked. I also had Head to head baseball.

Weakskills

@dolo54 blows minds and blows engines!: oh wow, I had every one of these at one point. And i was born in '86! i never bought one. i usually found them in my parents friends' basements, eventually someone just gave them to me cause i loved playing them so much.

Once you got the pattern down, it was a piece of cake.

kchendricks

wow almost re-bought this, until that is i saw the $99 price tag...sigh

deliciousburglar

OMG, now this was totally awesome. They had these at a drug store near where my friend lived, and we used to go down during the summer and just play the game there. They had this, I know they had the race car one...and I'm not sure if the soccer had come out yet.



I bugged my parents for months for the football game and got one for Xmas. Though it eventually paled in comparison to the games that added the passing option.

bitgod

yes! i still have football, soccer and baseball II..... my football II got lost....

indeed a time vacuum of my youth.

One of my favorite games from my childhood. Although I purchased one a few years ago when I was going through a whole nostalgia thing and it didn't quite have the replay value like Halo 3 and COD

I either "found" one or got it in a trade. I never wanted my parents to buy me one because I hate sports. But as a geeky stupid game, it was a lot of fun. I'll have to see if mine still works.

Loved Football. Played it a lot back in the day. In fact, had Football II and Soccer and Basketball

@OblivionVII: I think you're referring to this one:
http://www.handheldmuseum.com/Mattel/AutoRace.htm
My brother got this one for Christmas and I got the football game.

@dolo54 blows minds and blows engines!: I second you on that one. The difference is I like football more than basketball, but still enjoyed the basketball game much more.