America’s Bicentennial Year The American Bicentennial year started with Coleco launching its Telstar home video game console at Toy Fair. In addition, 1976 started with Munro Games on the way to bankruptcy (July). So neither company was overly concerned about … Continue reading
Munro Games Is In Trouble Munro Games overextended itself in both Electric Football and table hockey in the early 1970s. So by 1975 the company is in deep financial trouble. Desperately trying to make a go in Air Hockey while … Continue reading
Oil Crisis Hits the Economy The oil crisis hit the U.S. at the end of 1973. This sent the U.S. economy into free fall and the toy business into turmoil, with toy shortages during the 1973 Christmas season. The toy … Continue reading
Too Much Electric Football Part 2 Coleco was also starting to downsize and economize, making smaller Electric Football games and games with more plastic in them – i.e. cheaper games. They were even making several Electric Football models that didn’t … Continue reading
Too Much Electric Football Almost 40 different Electric Football games were available in 1972. That was a much different number from a decade earlier, when Tudor and Gotham combined for a grand total of four different models in 1962. And … Continue reading
A Battle For Toy Buyers With four different companies making Electric Football games, catalog space and toy store shelf space was becoming scarce. The problem was so serious that by summer there would only be three Electric Football makers left, … Continue reading
Munro Lights Up Electric Football Munro Games was the one making Electric Football headlines at the 1972 Toy Fair. The company showed up with something that had never been seen before in Electric Football. An Electric Football game with working … Continue reading
1971 Part II Tudor and Gotham Tudor continued to bring out new models in 1971, including a College game. Once again they supplied Sears with a Super Bowl, and Ward with a special model. But in Sears they had to … Continue reading
Coleco Command Control Coleco continues to push the competition in Electric Football by bringing “Command Control” to Toy Fair. Command Control consists of two metal rods under the game offering magnetic control of one player on each team. Kids playing … Continue reading
The Electric Football Game Top 20 Countdown continues with one of the “grandest” games ever commercially produced at No. 4 — the 1972 Munro Day/Nite Electric Football game. The Day/Nite game story really begins in the 1960’s, when Tudor and … Continue reading
The ranking of this game at No. 11 caused some controversy the first time around. We agree, that this is one of coolest and best looking games that Tudor ever made. It’s at the top of any Electric Football “Must-Have” … Continue reading
Electric football…in continuing with our Canadian theme of earlier this week, here is a 1971 Munro Vibra-Action Football Game. It has a metal field, and the Canadian configuration with dual 50-yard lines. This game was “store stock” – that is … Continue reading
Electric Football history in the “here and now” was our blog topic last week, and we continue today with the Electric Football makers that were headquartered outside of New York City. And what’s unique about toy makers Coleco and Munro … Continue reading
It was 45 years ago this spring that Electric Football’s third manufacturer stepped onto the vibrating gridiron. That company was Coleco Industries of Hartford, Connecticut. Coleco’s path to Electric Football began in late 1968, when they purchased Canadian toy maker … Continue reading
Our Electric Football Top 20 Recap reaches the Final Five games. They are all wonderful examples of Electric Football at its very best. “Must haves” for any Electric Football aficionado!! Links to each Top 20 post are located below the … Continue reading
The Electric Football Game Top 20 Countdown continues with one of the “grandest” games ever commercially produced at No. 4 — the 1972 Munro Day/Nite Electric Football game. The Day/Nite game story really begins in the 1960’s, when Tudor and … Continue reading
An Electric Football game that didn’t make our Top 20 is celebrating its 45th birthday this year— that would be Gotham’s ambitious Super Dome. The Super Dome debuted in 1969, a time when Gotham was choking on the dust of … Continue reading
Electric Football got a great reception from John Voperian of “Beyond The Game” the other night at White Plains Community Media. I had a great time talking with John – he’s a gracious host who asked great questions. He made … Continue reading
We finished our last collecting post talking about the Tudor NFL 620 model… Tudor used the 36” x 21” 620 template from 1967-1977, including on many NFL models that were numbered something other than “620.” Not all of these large … Continue reading
It is with tremendous thanks that we send out this Holiday greeting. We have been truly humbled by the response to The Unforgettable Buzz this past year. In almost every way our expectations have been surpassed – we’ve had many … Continue reading