The Table of Contents from our upcoming Full Color Electric Football™ book.
It was two years ago today that our Electric Football history book The Unforgettable Buzz was published. The long odyssey to getting published was one thing, and the odyssey we’ve been on since June 26, 2013 and been something else entirely. A humongous “thank you” to all of you have out there who bought the book and supported this web page, our Facebook page, and our other social media sites. We are grateful to each and every one of you. We sold more books than ever imagined was possible.
What we’ve experienced over the last two years has been amazingly positive. Yes, we’ve run into our share of Spinal Tap moments, but they’ve been few and far between. And we’re not finished yet. In the not too distant future we’ll be publishing our second book Full Color Electric Football™. To help celebrate the second anniversary of The Unforgettable Buzz we’re posting a Michael Kronenberg-designed sample page from Full Color Electric Football™.
We’re really excited with how the new project has all come together. We can’t wait to get it out. Just like an original Tudor NFL Giants-Browns No. 620 game, it’s going to be a Christmas present you’ll never forget!
The former Coleco factory in Montreal. Most of the companies’ Electric Football parts were made here.
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 Games is that they had manufacturing sites in both the U.S. and Canada.
Coleco’s former corporate headquarters in Hartford, CT.
Coleco came into Electric Football in 1970 with a corporate address in Hartford, CT (945 Asylum Avenue). But most of the manufacturing of Coleco’s Electric Football games and parts took place in Montreal at 4000 St. Ambroise Street. It was there in a former textile mill that Coleco used Eagle Toys table hockey design expertise to bring its “World of Sports” to life in 1970. This stunning building along the St. Lawrence River still stands today as an upscale commercial real estate development called the Chateau St-Ambroise.
The front of the impressive Chateau St-Ambroise building in Montreal. Coleco once had 800 employees working here.
Canadian table hockey giant Munro Games, who actually spent a short spell making Electric Football from 1960-61, had manufacturing capabilities on both sides of the border when they reentered the Electric Football market in 1971. Their original Canadian factory was at 2442 Fairview Avenue in Burlington, Ontario. This address, once the home to the inventor of table hockey, is now the site of a Swiss Chalet restaurant.
The original Munro Games factory once stood at this site in Ontario.
In the U.S., Munro Games was partnered with Servotronics, Inc., a company that was headquartered in Buffalo, NY at 3901 Union Avenue (technically Cheektowaga, NY). This was the address that you ordered Munro Electric Football teams and parts from. Today it’s a strip mall with a Harbor Freight Tool store and a Mexican restaurant.
Where Munro Games was once headquartered in the U.S.
The actual Munro factory that produced the famous Day/Nite Football game was on New York Route 98 in nearby Arcade, NY. This nondescript building still stands, it’s impact on Electric Football and the toy world a nearly vanished distant memory.
The former Munro Games factory in Arcade, NY. The Munro Day/Nite Electric Football game was made at this site.
The legacy of all of the sites we’ve talked about over the last two weeks, and the people who once worked there, should not be underestimated. These factories were all major employers where people could make a living working in toys. When these companies shut their doors — Munro being the earliest in the mid-1970’s, Tudor and Coleco being the last in the late 1980’s — they left a major economic hole in their communities. And in terms of manufacturing none of these buildings have equaled the economic output they had during the glory years of Electric Football. It was a unique time — one we’ll not see again.
Munro’s Day/Nite game…its lights and our dreams fully turned on.
It’s a time that’s really even hard to imagine now. Electric Football was once so popular that four different toymakers were trying to outdo each other in a “features” race that brought us giant grandstands, painted NFL players, Command Control, TTC bases, and even lights. What a time it was…
Gotham advertising their new factory to the toy world in 1940.
Electric Football history can still be found in the “here and now,” being scattered across a few anonymous sites in the U.S. and Canada. The skeletons of the game, or at least where the games were conceived and produced, are there to be found…if you know where to look.
Tudor’s former 176 Johnson Street site is now a condo building called The Toy Factory.
We know that in Brooklyn, where the game was born in 1949, the old Tudor factory still stands at 176 Johnson Street. And in what seems a fitting tribute to Tudor’s long and storied history, the building has become “The Toy Factory,” an upscale condo development that helped spur the revitalization of the neighborhood.
Gotham’s former factory in the Bronx. The company was at this site in the 1930’s, and from 1960 to 1973.
Not far away in the Bronx, two different old Gotham Pressed Steel factories still stand. One is a large building that takes up almost an entire block of Wales Avenue at East 144 Street. Gotham used this site during the 1930’s, and then moved back to the building in 1960. While it’s really remarkable that the structure is still standing, its fate seems quite the opposite of Tudor’s Brooklyn building. Having been converted into a chemical plant after Gotham was absorbed by Munro Games in 1973, the building now has a real state sign on it. It remains to be seen whether any manufacturer would find the site attractive in 2015, or whether the owner is waiting for this part of the Bronx to become the next Brooklyn in terms of revitalization.
Another Gotham factory site in the Bronx. Gotham occupied this building from 1940-60.
Gotham’s other factory site is at East 133rd and Cypress Avenue. This is actually where Gotham was located when they entered into Electric Football in 1954 and became Tudor’s main competitor. Gotham operated in this building from 1940 until 1960. At one point in last decade this was home to an auto repair business, but the area appears pretty quiet in 2015. A far cry from the toy world bustle this building witnessed in the past.
So for anyone who wants to view the living fossils of Electric Football, they are still out there. And you don’t have to risk going to Jurassic Park to find them.
It’s sad news that the famous FAO Schwarz toy store in New York City is set to close its doors in July. Even though Schwarz never took Electric Football to heart like retailers Sears, Montgomery Ward, and JC Penney, and that most of us never had the opportunity to wander those hallowed Manhattan aisles, there is something poignant about the store’s demise.
Gotham Electric Football in the 1967 FAO Schwarz catalog. For Schwarz, Electric Football was just another toy.
On occasion while growing up in the 1960’s the FAO Schwarz catalog would arrive in my family’s mailbox. Compared to Sears and Wards, it was exotic, with cars you could drive and other expensive playsets and toys that where well beyond what my family could afford. I knew and accepted that, never asking for anything from the FAO Schwarz catalog. But I kept those catalogs and would still go through them from time. There was just something about the “possibility” offered by the eclectic FAO Schwarz line. It made it clear that there was “more” out there in the way of toys than I ever imagined.
The $75 FAO Schwarz “Besieged Castle” playset in 1968. The equivalent cost in 2015 would be $509.
That possibility of “more” was hammered home on a 1969 trip to Scotland when I turned a corner in an Edinburgh department store and ran smack into a Subbuteo Table Soccer Display. Within an hour we were in the store’s shipping office having a Subbuteo game — with battery operated floodlights! — sent back to my tiny house in Pennsylvania.
Subbuteo Table Soccer with Floodlights – confirmation there was more to the toy world than I ever imagined.
Without a doubt it’s this “more” element that inspired us to: play tape-recored NFL television theme music before kicking-off our games; cut NFL player names out of TV Guides for the backs of our Tudor NFL players; build stadiums, keep stats, collect teams and games; make Electric Football as realistic as possible through painting, molding, and tweaking.
A collection of 1967 Tudor NFL and AFL teams illustrating the concept of “possibility” in Electric Football.
Many claim that Schwarz’ special aura has long since disappeared, along with all the other independent mom and pop toy stores that once populated the toy world. Yet it’s still sad whenever and however the spirit of “possibility” fades from view. Perhaps that’s why we work so hard to keep it alive in Electric Football.
It was our pleasure to appear on The Knee Jerks 6th Anniversary Podcast last night to talk about our upcoming Full Color Electric Football book. This was our 3rd time on the show. Hosts Greg Eno and Al Beaton are so much fun to talk to, and very much Electric Football guys. They definitely get what’s special about the game.
Our segment is right at the beginning of the show. Thanks so much Greg and Al!!!
Like Electric Football, Mag-Powr Football offered two complete teams of 3-D players. And the players could move all over the field, just like Electric Football. The difference was, the players were controlled by a magnetic wand below the game. Sound familiar? Yes it does, and in fact Coleco’s Command Control patent cited the 1959 Mag-Powr patent.
Each human player had two magnetic wands, and could move their miniature football players around the field however they wished, as long as it followed the rules of real football.
The teams, like Tudor, were red and yellow, and the players did come in different football poses. There was even a quarterback figure, although it’s unclear how he actually threw the ball. Each player was mounted on top of a hefty magnet, which acted as the players “legs.” While the molding of the players was a bit crude, the field was a green felt material, which added a “touch of grass” realism.
Mag-Powr football and baseball were first available in 1959, with company expanding to hockey in 1960, and basketball in 1961. Although the line wasn’t carried by Sears and Montgomery Ward, Mag-Powr games can be found in other Christmas catalogs of the period. Unfortunately by 1965 the Mag-Powr line vanished from the toy world. But the magnetic wand concept lived on in the Remco Thimble City line.
As we’ve said here many times, Electric Football’s staying power in the toy world makes it one of the most amazing toys ever produced. It’s legacy as building block for NFL Properties will never be equaled.
Electric Football has a lot of great “pieces.” And we think some of the coolest pieces in all of Electric Football are the Tudor Rule Books. In fact, they were a large part of our inspiration for our upcoming Full Color Electric Football book.
In this post we’re going to examine in detail a 1979 Tudor Rule Book. One of the most important things for any rule book is being able to figure out what year its from. Some of the early Rule Books make it obvious with a price list of “Fine Tudor Products” that has the year. Unfortunately, later versions aren’t so obvious. But there is one sure place where you can find the date of your Rule Book.
Look for the Copyright on the inside cover. This will accurately date your Rule Book. As you can see in the bottom left hand corner this page says “Copyright 1979.” Some Rule Books have multiple years listed. The most recent year will be the date of the Rule Book.
You can date a Tudor Rule Book by finding the Copyright on the inside cover.
Now for the good stuff, the color NFL pages. There are four pages in the 1979 Rule Book. This one unfortunately, has some water damage, but it still works!!
And last, but not least, the order form!!!
There you have it, the most vital parts of the 1979 Tudor Rule Book. This was actually pretty fun, maybe we’ll post some other years in the near future. Remember…look for that Copyright date!
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 Eagle Toys. This acquisition gave Coleco a large share of the table hockey market, as well as the ability to create and mass-produce sports games. After a year of prototypes and planning, Coleco launched its all new “World of Sports” at the 1970 Toy Fair in New York City.
A 1970 toy trade ad for the Coleco World of Sports
In addition to Electric Football games, this new Coleco “world” included hockey, baseball, and basketball games. Coleco was also promising a promotional push that featured television spots, as well as ads in stadium programs and Sports Illustrated.
Coleco’s 1970 Pro Stars games
Coleco had six different Electric Football models at the 1970 Toy Fair. The Pro Stars line consisted of a large game and small game, both of which were available in American Conference or National Conference versions. Then there was Coleco’s innovative College line, consisting of the Collegiate game and the smaller College Bowl game (there are questions as to whether this line was ever actually produced).
Coleco’s 1970 line of College games
Toy trade ads promoting the World of Sports had appeared months before Toy Fair opened. Coleco was a major toy company — in fact, they were the world’s largest manufacturer of above ground swimming pools. So they weren’t fooling around with their entry into sports games. As a large company with a lot of “leverage” in the toy world — any retailer who carried Coleco’s very popular swimming pools would now be “asked” to also carry the World of Sports — Coleco felt it would just be a matter of time before they would be the top player in Electric Football.
Tudor players as pictured on a 1970 Coleco Electric Football game box lid.
The lack of regard Coleco had for Tudor could be seen in Coleco’s promotional material — posed on their Football games were thinly disguised Tudor players. Coleco also “borrowed” Tudor’s goal post and first down marker to fill out the details of their games. And finally, Coleco thought nothing of using Tudor’s players for their 1970 television commercial.
Even though Coleco’s vision of Electric Football conquest never came to fruition, the company’s debut into Electric Football in 1970 did alter the course of the game. It forced Tudor to be more competitive (see Command Control), and thanks to its heft in the toy world, Coleco ended up playing a large part in the demise of both Gotham and Munro Games.
Coleco’s own demise came in the late 1980’s, about a decade after it stepped away from Electric Football for the thrill of computer and hand-held electronic games. But ultimately, Coleco left us with some very nice games that have proven durable even 45 years out. Their fiberboard fields still vibrate and play well, not seeming to warp and bubble as readily as Gotham’s fields do. (The plastic grandstand supports, unfortunately, are another matter entirely.)
And based on our conversations at TudorCON 14, Coleco games are fondly remembered. They still have a significant amount of admirers despite never having any official NFL affiliation. Most us seemed to have quickly figured out that Tudor NFL teams looked good and performed well on Coleco games.
There are many more details about the Coleco in The Unforgettable Buzz. There’s no doubt that the company played a major role in the story of Electric Football.
A Gotham shipping box from 1964 with 3-D hockey players.
Electric Football ephemera is something we have a special passion for. We love finding old shipping boxes, or dated invoice forms with Electric Football items checked and tallied. A special thrill came this year at Toy Fair when Tudor President Doug Strohm showed us a folder that contained 1967 Tudor price lists with Norman Sas’ handwriting on them. There’s just not much of that stuff left around anymore.
Which leads to the piece of ephemera we’re featuring on the blog today. It isn’t Electric Football related…but it’s close. It’s a Gotham Pressed Steel shipping box. If you ordered Electric Football spare parts from Gotham — their instructions and Rule Books always included a Price List — this is the type of box that you would have received.
Gotham’s 3-D hockey players, molded in the same red and white plastic as Gotham’s Electric Football players.
The postmark is from the Bronx on January 30, 1964. Inside were Gotham 3-D hockey players — our best guess is that they were replacement players for a Gotham hockey game that was received on Christmas in 1963. Since Gotham 3-D hockey players were only sold in 1963 and 1964, they are pretty rare. And it seems that they are pretty fragile. Only one of seven players here is intact. This adds another layer of “rare” to the players.
1964 Gotham Super Deluxe hockey game with 3-D players
But we still think the box is the rarest part of this find. Gotham’s football players, at least the 3-D versions, were almost unbreakable. And Gotham’s standard hockey players were made of metal. So how many replacement orders did Gotham ever actually receive…at least compared to all the orders Tudor received through the years for NFL teams?
Postmark on the back of the box.
For us, this box is something we never thought we’d see. It’s another “lost” piece from the puzzle we’ve spent two decades putting together. But does it have much value beyond the couple of bucks we paid for it? Probably not. As we all know, one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.
Electric Football inventor Norman Sas (far left) with NFL Commissioner Pete Rozelle in 1971.
Electric Football inventor Norman Sas would have turned 90 this Sunday (March 29). When he took over the struggling Tudor Metal Products Corporation in mid-1948 he was only 23-years-old — just “a kid” as he recalled to us in an interview. But he did already have degree in Engineering and also one in Business from M.I.T.
Tudor’s future rode on Electric Football. If the game Norman created wasn’t a success, the company was headed for bankruptcy. Even if it survived bankruptcy, it was likely to have new owners. And the company, no matter who owned it, would have discarded any toy that almost put it out of business. (Let’s all take a moment to contemplate a world without Electric Football).
1949 Electric Football newspaper advertisement.
Norman felt pretty good about Electric Football when he unveiled it in March of 1949 at the American International Toy Fair in New York City. The game was well received by toy buyers, and once it hit toy store shelves in the fall of 1949, it became a very popular item. Even with a $6.95 price tag ($68+ in today’s dollars). It was so popular that stores publicly announced the arrival of new Electric Football shipments after Christmas.
Tudor’s 1973 Electric Football NFL Rule Book
Over the next four decades Norman guided Tudor and Electric Football to some amazing heights. The NFL license, featured games in Sears, Ward, and JC Penney, and a decade as NFL Properties top money earner. An amazing track record for any toy.
And this success allowed Norman to have some pretty amazing experiences, that every so often, he would reveal. Attending over 20 Super Bowl games, getting invites to Pete Rozelle’s legendary Super Bowl parties, fishing outings with Dolphins’ owner Joe Robbie — it was stuff that made our jaws drop. But these were things that he only revealed after years of conversations. For the most part Norman was reluctant to talk about his accomplishments, even his very public ones with Tudor.
Earl Shores, Norman Sas, and Roddy Garcia, Florida 2010.
Norman sold Tudor in 1988 and retired from the toy business. He eventually moved to Florida where he passed away in June of 2012 at age 87. He truly led a life that touched millions. He was even featured in LiFE Farewell Remembering The Friends We Lost in 2012, sharing a page with Pro Football Hall of Fame running back Steve Van Buren (see image below).
Our Joe Namath photo being animated in Errol Moriss’ ESPN Electric Football documentary.
Electric Football has never seen anything quite like Errol Morris’ recent ESPN documentary. We were proud to be an integral part of the project, providing 16 images that made it into the film’s final cut.
We make our entrance at the 0:42 mark, with a collage of turning pages from The Unforgettable Buzz. This graphic included, in order, pages 74, 15, 82, 138, 79, and 76 from our book.
Page 79 from The Buzz in ESPN’s “The Subterranean Stadium.” Our caption is visible.
Next up were a series of Electric Football game boxes, which included eight images from The Unforgettable Buzzweb page.
The Munro Day/Nite box with out watermark on it!
Check out this image from the ESPN Electric Football documentary — our theunforgettablebuzz.com watermark is still on the box (bottom right corner).
Then at the 3:37 mark, page 15 of The Unforgettable Buzz appears. This page has the 1961 Gotham Rule Book on it, and the comic-like images of the Rule Book receive a nice bit of animation showing how the grandstand would be assembled.
Page 15 from The Buzz, coming to life in the documentary.
Finally, just a few seconds later, our 1969 Gotham Joe Namath game shows up shows up with some very cool animation of the grandstand setting up…all by itself!
Our Gotham Joe Namath photo that was brought to life in ESPN’s Electric Football documentary. (See top photo.)
It was thrilling to have an Academy Award-winning filmmaker consider our artwork to be good enough for his documentary. And it was totally stunning to watch all our images go by and see the wonderful end credit for The Unforgettable Buzz. As we’ve said all along, it was a complete honor to be part of The Subterranean Stadium.
The great credit we received at the end of the film.
This gives us great confidence as we move forward with Full Color Electric Football. If our art is good enough for an Errol Morris documentary we must be doing something right!
We’re thrilled to unveil the entire cover of our upcoming book Full Color Electric Football.
This new book will tell the story of Electric Football in glorious color. That means every single page of the book will be in color…which is an Electric Football first. But what pushes the book into the realm of “stunning” is having every single page designed by Marvel Graphic Artist Michael Kronenberg. If you marveled at Michael’s work in The Unforgettable Buzz, just wait until you see what he’s done with our all-photo format in Full Color Electric Football.
Our inspiration for creating this book was simple. We all loved studying the colorful NFL inserts that came in our old Tudor Rule Books. So we’ve tried to create a Rule Book insert that’s 124-pages long, and covers not only Tudor, but also the Electric Football lines of Gotham, Coleco, and Munro.
With the design phase of Full Color Electric Football almost complete, all we can say is “WOW!” It has the best images from The Buzz, as well as hundreds of newly taken photos that truly bring Electric Football to life. In going through the pages…let’s just say we’re very, very excited.
We’ll be posting sample pages in the not too distant future. So stick around and get ready for Electric Football in Full Color!!
It’s really been a busy couple of weeks, so we’ve just recently had the opportunity to fully soak in Errol Morris’ sublime Electric Football documentary “The Subterranean Stadium.” We’re not even sure where to start — it gets better with each viewing.
There are so many layers to the story, and Mr. Morris captures them all thoughtfully and with total respect. That’s probably what strikes us more than anything. The respect Mr. Morris had for every piece of the story. John DiCarlo, Cindy DiCarlo, the “eccentric” group that plays in the league…everyone has a story. From Wayne Palumbo’s time in Sing Sing and Attica, to the hippie past of the free spirited “Hotman,” to the poignant back story of John himself — these are all stories worth hearing.
And that’s pretty much how we all feel about Electric Football. The game has a fantastic story that is worth telling and cherishing (not to mention writing a book about). It seemed that Errol Morris felt the same way and respected our hobby in much the way that we do ourselves.
It’s just an amazing work. And it is a “work” — it was art, both in how the film looked and how the story was told. It was the work of a great filmmaker taking our hobby, with great care, to the mainstream.
The Subterranean Stadium
We don’t think anyone could have done it better. As we said in our post previewing the documentary, we hoped it would be something that we’d talk about for a long time. It lived up to that and then some. The story of The Subterranean Stadium is now a living breathing part of Electric Football. It’s part of Electric Football history — part of our history.
So…many, many thanks to Errol Morris and his entire staff for creating this amazing work. Thank you John DiCarlo for your dedication to Electric Football, and your ability to share the game with equal parts passion and humility. And thank you to the entire Charlotte Crew for letting us into your Electric Football universe. You’re what Electric Football is all about!
Toy Fair is always a unique and overwhelming experience. The 2015 event was no different, and even carried the additional factor of near zero degree temperatures on the streets of New York City. But it was business as usual inside the massive Javitz Center. And somehow it was actually hot in lower level of aisles and displays.
It has been an eye-opening pleasure to watch Tudor Games expand and grow at Toy Fair over the last 3 years. From a small booth in the back that buyers seemed to quickly pass by, to a more prominent location where buyers eagerly stopped to talk about the NFL, to this year, where Tudor’s success was illustrated by a spacious 20’ x 10’ booth.
Super Bowl Champion Patriot in a new Tudor Games hang tag pack.
This was twice the size of the previous years, and allowed Doug Strohm and Team Tudor Games to spread out in a most professional way, even to having a dedicated center demonstration table that provided a focus for all toy buyers. The table looked fantastic, including a Deluxe Tudor NFL game and the new NFL clamshell team packaging.
This year the Tudor Team had a different challenge than in previous Toy Fairs. Thanks to Doug’s hard work during 2014 toy buyers were well aware of the reestablished NFL -Tudor Electric Football relationship. Last year’s Fair carried the buzz of the the NFL being “back.” That was old news in 2015 — buyers this year wanted to know “what’s new.” And it was obvious that the hang-tag clamshell NFL teams were a popular answer.
It looks like another winning year for Tudor Games. There’s no question it will be a busy one. Just as soon as the Toy Fair booth was broken down, Doug was readying for a trip to the NFL Licensee gathering in Houston. A very special reunion for the toy, that according to Norman Sas, “made NFL Properties.”
Electric Football will be front and center this Sunday night on ESPN at 9 pm EST. That’s when the network will air a short film on our favorite hobby as part of a 2-hour special titled It’s Not Crazy, It’s Sports.
The entire program was directed by Errol Morris, whose film credits include The Thin Blue Line and the Academy Award wining The Fog Of War. To have a highly respected documentary film maker like Mr. Morris in Electric Football’s corner is really mind blowing.
The subject Mr. Morris chose to feature was John “Larue” DiCarlo and his Charlotte Electric Football League. John has organized and run this Rochester, NY-based league since 1981. The games are played in John’s elaborate basement “Subterranean Stadium,” which is also the title that ESPN chose for the Electric Football segment.
The subject of Errol Morris’ ESPN Electric Football short film – John “LaRue” DiCarlo
It was by total coincidence that we ended up sitting next to John at the TudorCON dinner in January of 2014. Within 5 minutes of conversation he quickly became one of our favorite people in all of Electric Football. Knowledgeable, generous, unassuming, and hilarious — all at the same time.
Earl and Roddy enjoying a chat with John DiCarlo at TudorCON 14.
Mr. Morris’ office has been in contact with us since the filming started. Mr. Morris read our book The Unforgettable Buzz, and used it as a historical reference text for the film. There was even very serious discussion that The Unforgettable Buzz would be the title of the Electric Football segment.
We’re very pleased that The Unforgettable Buzz will be listed in the film credits. It’s truly an honor to have a great director like Errol Morris use our book for one of his projects.
We’ll be seeing the documentary for the first time on Sunday night just like everybody else. But we have a feeling that the pairing of Errol Morris and John DiCarlo is going to be a memorable one. Something that we’re going to talk about for a long time to come in Electric Football.
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 photos.
That wraps up our Electric Football Top 20 Countdown. It’s been a lot fun. And there’s a lot more fun stuff in store for 2015. Especially when our new book Full Color Electric Footballhits the bookstore shelves!!
The Electric Football Top 20 recap moves on with games No. 10 thru No. 6. A little big of everything in this group, including the first ever Electric Football game (1949 Tudor No. 500), and the first player endorsed model (1969 Gotham Joe Namath G-812 model).
Links to the individual Top Countdown post are located below each photo.
The Unforgettable Buzz is on the reading list for University of Central Florida course 3823!
Electric Football’s history is currently being told in a new and unexpected venue — the college classroom!
That’s right, The Unforgettable Buzz has gone academic. For the spring semester of 2015 The Unforgettable Buzz is being used as a textbook for course No. 3823/The Role of Business Entrepreneurship in Sport and Entertainment at the University of Central Florida.
How did Dr. Harrison became aware of The Buzz? We’re not really sure, but we would presume that he is “one of us” — that is, someone who found happiness over an Electric Football game. What we do know for sure is that in taking The Unforgettable Buzz into a college classroom, Dr. Harrison has given the book a very special validation.
The Unforgettable Buzz — yes, the humble history of Electric Football — is “academic.”
In more definitive terms, a professor at a major Sports Business Program considers the quality of the research in our book to be scholarly.
We knew all along that Electric Football had a great story, and we wanted to tell it in the most accurate and complete way possible. So weeks were spent in the Science, Business, and Industry Library in Manhattan, months were spent splicing together our extended conversations with Norman Sas, Lee Payne, Albert Sung, Roger Atkin and Don Munro, and years were spent painstakingly rewriting paragraphs over and over and over. We did it because we believed in the story and we believed in our work. That our efforts are now being recognized as worthy of a college classroom…it’s incredibly gratifying.
Many, many thanks Dr. Harrison for adding another chapter to The Unforgettable Buzz story.
Our Electric Football Top 20 Countdown recap continues with Games No. 11 thru No. 15. There are some REALLY nice games populating this part of the Countdown. Our previous post left off at Game No. 16 — 1971 Coleco Command Control. Links to each actual Countdown post are located below the photos.
10) 1949 Tudor Tru-Action No. 500
