A Large Tudor NY Giant posed next to Lee Payne’s Big Bengal.

Electric Football still has a lot of mysteries. One of them is eternal/infernal question…did Tudor ever make any Large/Big Cincinnati Bengals in the late 1960’s?

Large/Big 1968 Tudor NY Jets in away white. The Big players are posed on the left.

The Bengals came into existence for the 1968 AFL season, and Tudor painted it’s large NFL and AFL teams in 1967.  At least most of them, as Large/Big New York Jets in white DO exist, and like the Bengals, they weren’t part of Tudor’s team line up until 1968. (See the Tudor AFL No. 520 in on our Top 20 Electric Football Game Countdown.)

So, there’s no question that at least a few Large players were painted for 1968. We say “few” because these Large Jet individuals are usually discovered within teams of regular-sized Jet players.

As for Large/Big Bengals…we know of one.

It was painted by Lee Payne while he was at Tudor. Lee then passed it on to us in the late 1990’s. The player is a guard or blocker figure, which is coincidentally the same pose that Tudor used when the Bengals were introduced in the 1969 Tudor Rule Book. (The 1968 Tudor Rule Book used the same AFL team photo from 1967, which did not included the Bengals). Tudor then used a guard figure for dark jersey Bengals throughout the Rule Books of the early 1970’s.

The 1969 Tudor Rule Book – is that Lee Payne’s Bengal in the left hand corner?

The Bengal’s player in the Rule Books has No. 68 on his back — the figure Lee passed on has no number. And when asked, Lee couldn’t remember if this was the player that was used for the Tudor photo session or not.

So is this the Bengal from the Tudor Rule Books? If Lee Payne couldn’t confirm it, we’re willing to let it remain a mystery. As for large Bengals — or at least a Bengal — there is no mystery. One is the loneliest number.

Earl & Roddy