A little fun for kick-off The Buzz on July 1, 2013!!!
The Unforgettable Buzz is Published!!!
The Unforgettable Buzz is available now on Amazon. Just click on the cover or the Amazon widget on the right side of the page to get to our Amazon page (if you don’t see the widget, check your ad-blocking plug-ins).
We are grateful for everyone’s support over the last year. This wouldn’t have happened without!
Earl, Roddy & Michael
Remembering Norman Sas
It was a year ago today that Norman Sas passed away. Over the past year we have written many words about Norman Sas and Electric Football. Really to the point where we’re almost out of words. So we put together this video taking a look at some of things Norman Sas accomplished while he was guiding Tudor. We hope you enjoy this look at Electric Football’s amazing creator.
Earl & Roddy
Electric Football on Baltimore Television – Part III
Here’s the final segment of the 1999 Rodricks for Breakfast Show in Baltimore.
A Front Row Seat to Electric Football History
Wrigley Field 1963 ©Neil Liefer
Most Neil Leifer photos are amazing, and the one above is no exception. Wrigley Field, November 1963, the Bears and Packers — and looking at the photo you feel like you’re on the field. Or at the least, you are part of the scene. At one with the photo. You can almost feel the chilly wind whipping off of Lake Michigan.
That’s we tried to do with The Unforgettable Buzz. We’ve tried to place you “in the picture” of electric football with both words and images.
The opening spread of Chapter 3 in The Unforgettable Buzz
What was it like to be at the 1949 Toy Fair when electric football made its debut? What was it like for Norman Sas to see a competitor “borrow” his very successful toy concept in 1954? What drove this same competitor to make the largest electric football game ever in 1961? How thrilling was it for Norman Sas and Lee Payne to bring a miniature NFL to life in 1967?
We like to think we’ve succeeded in putting you in the front row for these and many other important moments in electric football history. We’ve gotten some great feedback from a very well-known NFL writer and historian who is a Dick McCann Award winner. So it seems like we did something right.
To all our mailing list members….keep your eye on your inbox. And to everyone else, keep checking here and on our Facebook page. Your front row seat to electric football history awaits….
Earl, Roddy, and Michael
Electric Football’s Architecture Legacy
Gotham’s version of the Astrodome – the 1969 Electric Football Superdome. The real Superdome wouldn’t open until 1975.
Electric football and stadium architecture are very much intertwined. So that makes it especially hard to hear about the dilapidated state of the Houston Astrodome. How does a stadium go from being the “Eighth Wonder” to a step away from the wrecking ball…in such a short time? (“Short” being part our lifetime).
Current state of the Astrodome.
It’s amazing how many of the stadiums that were considered new “wonders” back when we were waiting for deliveries from Brooklyn are now just memories. Stadiums once named Fulton County, Shea, Three Rivers, Riverfront, Veterans, Schaffer, and Texas, are all gone.
And Miami, the city with the most storied Super Bowl history of all, couldn’t land the golden anniversary 50th Super Bowl because a stadium built in 1987 is viewed as “outdated.” Is this a case of planned obsolescence, or skybox revenue being the overriding influence in stadium planning?
Long before the advent of the skybox, Gotham was the company who pushed electric football stadium architecture to its most realistic point. They built some beautiful games, even if some of the stadiums were difficult to construct and play with. Unfortunately, Gotham’s field design wasn’t very robust. As a result, their games don’t age very well. There are few working examples left of the majestic stadium legacy that Gotham created.
No sky boxes necessary…..
We are fortunate that Lee Payne and Norman Sas didn’t go in for planned obsolescence. Most 1967 NFL No. 620 games will play just as well now as the day they were loaded on the truck in Brooklyn. The grandstands do age sometimes, but you can still clip it onto the game. Yes, it’s a time machine, but also a “classic.” It’s still an inviting game to sit down with.
No skyboxes necessary.
Earl & Roddy
Deacon Jones 1938 – 2013
A Lee Payne-painted Deacon Jones electric football figure. The brass master shadowing Mr. Jones is the father of ALL the Tudor tackles ever produced.
Electric football was and is a game that fuels our imaginations. One of the players who added fuel to electric football was Deacon Jones. When you got your set of Rams, one of the first numbers you ever put on a player was no. 75.
It was so easy in electric football to “see” your Rams’ Deacon Jones streaking into backfield and leveling either the quarterback or the running back for a significant loss. Deacon’s persona was larger than life – and so were his achievements. There is a legitimate argument that he may be the NFL’s all-time sack leader (sacks statistics weren’t kept until 1982).
He’s also one of those players who marks time for us. Our memories of him are so clear, even now, that’s it’s hard to believe that someone so larger than life and so enduring is gone. Has it really been 40 years since those amazing days…
To one of the NFL’s true All-Time greats, Deacon Jones.
Earl & Roddy
Electric Football Games to Wish For – Super Bowl II
Electric football has a rich heritage that is tied directly to the NFL. It’s this bond that keeps us coming back to the games, the players, the Rule Books, and the order forms.
The Rule Books and the order forms are still a magical thing. Maybe, just maybe, we could fill it out and send it off, and those teams we never ordered 35 years ago will show up in our mail box. Somewhere out there time stood still, and 176 Johnson Street is still producing electric football games. The orange pant Broncos are just waiting for your $1.50.
We know it can’t happen but we still dream about it. And we dream about other things too, like the games that were never made. Tudor made its first Super Bowl in 1969, but how about one from the year before. Super Bowl II with the Raiders and Packers. Both teams would have to be “large” of course.
But maybe, just maybe this dream could come true. Are you listening Doug Strohm?
Earl & Roddy
Donnie Anderson is not large….
Memorial Day Thoughts
Electric football and Memorial Day wouldn’t seem to have much of a connection. But there is an electric football story that does connect electric football to the holiday. It’s a story that was told to me in the mid-1990’s, and has stayed with me ever since.
Within our web page and our Facebook page we’ve recounted the joy of what it was like to grow up with electric football and the other amazing toys of the 60’s and 70’s. Without question, it was a great time to grow up. But other things were happening in the world. Major cultural changes were occurring, and also, there was a war going on.
Depending on your age, you knew someone who was drafted and went to Vietnam. A cousin, a neighbor, maybe even a brother. Invariably when they returned they were changed by the experience. Some of us are even old enough to have been following our own draft numbers. Not that we were old enough to go…but it was a rehearsal for an adult outcome we thought we might have to face. These conflicted feelings, like the war itself, were quickly swept aside when our soldiers finally came home from southeast Asia.
During the 1990’s I ran ads in just about every issue of Toy Shop and Toy Trader. From these ads I fielded a lot of phone calls. And there was one gentleman from the Midwest who called me and stopped me in my tracks.
His story was this – while in Vietnam, he and his platoon had an electric football league. The game stayed at a base, and they played it when they came back from their times out in the field. Electric football was their refuge from the unreality of their daily existence.
I had a number of conversations with this man, as he would call every so often just to talk electric football. I always thought his story would be perfect for our book. It exemplified just how powerful electric football could be – in the midst of war the game offered an escape.
Eventually I stopped hearing from him, and my electric football contact list became dated and obsolete during the extended period when it seemed there would never be an electric football book (at least not one written by us). But this is a story we will never forget, and one we want to highlight and honor on Memorial Day.
To all of those who serve and have served…our humble “thanks.”
Earl
We Can’t Stop Thinking “Big”
A field full of 1967 Tudor NFL teams
“I can’t stop thinking big, I can’t stop thinking big” – Lyrics from “Caravan” by Rush
“Big” things are definitely not far away right now for The Unforgettable Buzz. Luckily, we never stopped thinking big, otherwise we wouldn’t have made it this far.
And we can’t say this enough, but helping us think big over the last year was our designer Michael Kronenberg. We had no idea just how big things could be before he became part of the project.
In honor of thinking big, we have a truly dream lineup of 1967 teams — spread over an entire electric football game.
All the hours spent studying Tudor catalogs…if money was no object, we all would have ended up with something like this!!!
Earl & Roddy
Electric Football And Munro Games
Munro’s 1972 Day/Nite Electric Football Game.
Electric football has many great stories, and one of the stories we’re most proud of in The Unforgettable Buzz is that of Canadian toy maker Munro Games.
A 1963 Munro table hockey game. Sears Wish Book.
In a fortuitous turn we were able to make the acquaintance of Don Munro Jr. in the late 1990’s (a big “thank you” to table hockey historian Rob Raven). Mr. Munro’s father founded Munro Games in the 1930’s, with the company establishing itself as a serious toy maker through the high-quality table hockey games that it made during the 1940’s and 1950’s.
By the early 1960’s Don Jr. and his brother Bill were running Munro Games. By that time the company was the main table hockey game supplier for Sears, and was also making table hockey games for Tudor and Norman Sas.
Bill eventually grew tired of the toy business, so Don partnered with a Buffalo aerospace engineering firm called Servotronics, Inc. The owner of Servotronics was looking to diversify, and toys were a profitable endeavor as the 1960’s came to a close.
The Servotronics’ owner also liked making bold decisions, thus Munro Games blitzed into electric football in 1971 with only minimal preparation. But within a year they had created the legendary Day/Nite game, which was the first electric football game with floodlights. It was also the largest electric football of the time (40” long).
Munro’s grand entrance into electric football happened to coincide with one of the biggest economic crisis since the Great Depression – the OPEC oil embargo of 1973. Even the major toy companies suffered enormously during this time, and Munro Games was quickly adrift in a sea of red ink.
Munro Games would never recover, soon joining the long list of defunct toy makers. Don Munro had a front row seat to his company’s rise and fall, which he thoughtfully recounted for us in The Unforgettable Buzz.
Unfortunately, Mr. Munro passed away not long after speaking with us. So it’s been our hope for many years now that we would one day be able to tell his story. It’s had to believe that that day isn’t very far away anymore. And the Munro story is one that is not to be missed.
Earl & Roddy
Electric Football’s Dream Machine – The Tudor Rule Book
1967 Tudor Rule Book
Electric football, from the early 1960’s on, was associated with the NFL. Actually, for most of us the equation looks like this:
Electric Football = NFL
There aren’t many other toys or games that carry such a strong association with a major sport. Table hockey will always be the NHL, and Madden will always be the Madden, but beyond that…comparisons get pretty thin (in other parts of the world the game Subbuteo = soccer)
One of things that made Tudor electric football special was the catalog that came in each game. In the center of the catalog were four amazing color pages that showed off the latest NFL games, and of course, the latest line of Tudor NFL teams.
Whether intentional or not, Tudor created a portable dream machine that was easily hidden in notebooks at school. No math problem could ever match the tough calculus of 49ers in white or dark. Or maybe the Cowboys in dark. Nah, they can wait…how about those cool looking Steelers with the yellow apron?
Teams on the order form were checked, unchecked, then checked again until the paper was almost worn through. Such were the impossible choices that needed to be made before sending your order to Brooklyn.
One of the important things that Tudor’s miniature NFL did was keep you interested in electric football year after year. Tudor didn’t have to sell you a new game each year to keep you playing. A new team or two on the field each year was all you needed.
So long after other toys had found a permanent place in the attic, we’d keep playing electric football. It was always fun, and there was always something new to dream about. And that’s why so many of us are still at it – we discovered we can still fulfill our team dreams some 40 years later.
Earl & Roddy
Tudor’s 1973 Electric Football NFL Rule Book
Electric Football…Where It All Started – the 1949 Tudor No. 500
The 1949 Tudor Tru-Action No. 500 Electric Football Game
Electric football…this is where it all started. On the Tudor Tru-Action No. 500, which was first displayed at the New York City Toy Fair in March of 1949. By the fall, the No. 500 was being sold throughout the eastern part of the country in both toy and department stores.
Most of the stores that carried the game found themselves restocking the No. 500 multiple times in the lead up to Christmas. And eventually there were no more games to order. Tudor had completely sold through its first year’s run of electric football games.
No one was more surprised than Tudor President Norman Sas. He and Tudor Vice President Joe Tonole had high hopes for the game, but those hopes were entirely surpassed as 1949 came to a close. Sas and Tonole now had to see if electric football was just a one-year wonder, or if the game had staying power.
As 1950 began both men were optimistic, yet cautious. The toy business was, and still is, renown for its fickle nature. Could electric football repeat its success of 1949, or would Sas and Tonole be looking for a new toy to take its place in 1951?
Tudor’s story will unfold very soon in The Unforgettable Buzz. Stay tuned…
Earl & Roddy
Book Update And Sample Page
Electric football is one step closer to having its history published. The Unforgettable Buzz is at the printer, getting its ankles taped and shoulder pads on. It’s also getting a little spinal adjustment, making sure that the book stays in the electric football starting lineup for a long time to come.
Being the superstitious lot that we are, we’re reluctant to say anything more. But at this moment, The Unforgettable Buzz is closer to being a reality than it has ever been. We’re incredibly excited — the final product has far exceeded our dreams and expectations.
It won’t be much longer. Thanks to everyone for your persistent patience and support.
Earl & Roddy
Electric Football Article on FoxSports Wisconsin Web Site
Photo courtesy of Lynn Schmidt and MFCA
There’s a lengthy and thoughtful article about electric football up at on the FoxSports Wisconsin web site. Definitely check it out. A great read, and great information! There is also a link to the article if you click on the photo ———->
Buying NFL Teams at The Tudor Factory in Brooklyn – A First Hand Account
Posted below is an amazing account of a visit to the Tudor factory. It was written by John Morano in 1996 and appeared in a Miggle newsletter – we remember it well. This is a copy of the original text, which has been shared with us by Frank Salles.
Frank is part of the story too, as it was he and John who made visits to the factory. They actually made three trips — one while Tudor was still a functioning company, and two other visits after the contents of the factory were moved to Chicago.
It’s a riveting “must read” for any electric football fan. Thank you John and Frank for sharing your excellent adventure!!
Cover of The Unforgettable Buzz
Cover design by Michael Kronenberg.
Electric football’s story will soon be told. It won’t be long before “The Buzz” arrives…..
The First Official NFL Electric Football Game – Gotham’s G-1500
The first official NFL electric football game – the majestic Gotham G-1500
Electric football and the NFL first came together on the Gotham G-1500 model in 1961. It was a groundbreaking game on many levels. It really was, in modern terminology, a game-changer, and set the stage for all that came after it, including Tudor’s miniature NFL.
Gotham’s sideline grandstand, complete with a players’ bench and NFL shield.
The story of how Gotham beat Tudor to the NFL is explored in great detail in The Unforgettable Buzz. In a surprising sequence of events, Norman Sas’ business judgement lets him down. But without that letdown, the Tudor NFL line that we know and love may have never come into existence.
Here are the electric football “firsts” from the Gotham NFL G-1500:
- First officially licensed NFL electric football game.
- First “big” electric football at 36″ long.
- First game with a sideline grandstand.
- First player “uniforms.”
- First electric football game to be shown in full color in the Sears Christmas Book
With all of these firsts, the game made a huge impact in the world of electric football. It set the course for all that was to come over the next decade. Without the Gotham G-1500, we might not still be talking about electric football in 2013.
Earl & Roddy
Sample Page From The Unforgettable Buzz – Joe Namath
Electric football fans will soon have a book to call their own. The design of The Unforgettable Buzz is complete and we’re preparing the book for the printer. The final stats of the book are this: 652 pages long, more than 300 photos, and 45 pages of notes. It is a big book.
It wasn’t our intent to create such a lengthy volume. But we discovered early on that it was impossible to write a comprehensive electric football history without weaving the game into the timelines of pro football and the toy world of the Baby Boomer generation (see the page above). The result, we like to think, is the most complete and compelling “toy story” ever written.
We couldn’t have done it without the support of all our friends in electric football. You’ve really helped us push on to this very pivotal point. Many, many thanks. It won’t be long!
Earl, Roddy & Michael
Getting Closer…Back Cover and More
“This is such a great book. Historical, colorful, and warm. It immediately took me back to those incredibly special days of my childhood.”
— Rick Burton, David B. Falk Professor of Sports Management, Syracuse University
The back cover of The Unforgettable Buzz
As you can see, we not only have a back cover for The Unforgettable Buzz, we already have comments. Some very nice ones at that. So, yes, if a reviewer has read the book, it means that we’re very, very close. There are still some final things we’re working out — we’ll keep you posted.
Thanks for all of your support!!!
Earl, Roddy & Michael