RIP Electronic Football Guy
Jul. 12th, 2012 08:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bedsitter23You may have heard Norman Sas has passed away.
If you don't recognize the name, he is better known as the founder of Electric Football.
I'm going to steal from Bill Bryson:
The worst toy of the decade [the 1950s], possibly the worst toy ever built...it took forever to set up each play because the men were so fiddly and kept falling over, and because you argued continuously with your opponent about what formations were legal and who got to position the final man...it hardly mattered how they were set up because electric football players never went in the direction intended. In practice what happened was that half the players instantly fell over and lay twitching violently as if suffering from some extreme gastric disorder, while the others streamed off in as many different directions as there were upright players before eventually clumping together in a corner, where they pushed against the unyielding sides like victims of a nightclub fire at a locked exit. The one exception to this was the running back who just trembled in place for five or six minutes, then slowly turned and went on an unopposed glide toward the wrong end zone until knocked over with a finger on the two-yard line by his distressed manager, occasioning more bickering."
Jim Rome and others have spent time on this passing and I hate to say it, but i have to agree. No toy (as a kid) was looked at it with so much excitement, and then once I had it, was so disappointed. I don't want to be someone who hates on nostalgia but it is accurate.
There is something born into me (and many men) that I desperately want to be a professional sports manager or owner. It is why I( and millions of men) love fantasy football and Madden. For me, it was because there was no way I would grow up to be an athlete. In others, it might be that 'armchair quarterback' instinct that if it was up to them, their team would have made that one move that won it all.
i actually had this game and friggin' adored it (and another football game that was decided by dice)- you would put an offense play down and the defense would put a play down and then you would turn on a light bulb and it would reveal what went down. of course, video games made all of the above obsolete, but I am still a huge football coach wannabe.
Anyway, enjoy some Electric Football greatness (I apologize for the video host's enthusiasm).
If you don't recognize the name, he is better known as the founder of Electric Football.
I'm going to steal from Bill Bryson:
The worst toy of the decade [the 1950s], possibly the worst toy ever built...it took forever to set up each play because the men were so fiddly and kept falling over, and because you argued continuously with your opponent about what formations were legal and who got to position the final man...it hardly mattered how they were set up because electric football players never went in the direction intended. In practice what happened was that half the players instantly fell over and lay twitching violently as if suffering from some extreme gastric disorder, while the others streamed off in as many different directions as there were upright players before eventually clumping together in a corner, where they pushed against the unyielding sides like victims of a nightclub fire at a locked exit. The one exception to this was the running back who just trembled in place for five or six minutes, then slowly turned and went on an unopposed glide toward the wrong end zone until knocked over with a finger on the two-yard line by his distressed manager, occasioning more bickering."
Jim Rome and others have spent time on this passing and I hate to say it, but i have to agree. No toy (as a kid) was looked at it with so much excitement, and then once I had it, was so disappointed. I don't want to be someone who hates on nostalgia but it is accurate.
There is something born into me (and many men) that I desperately want to be a professional sports manager or owner. It is why I( and millions of men) love fantasy football and Madden. For me, it was because there was no way I would grow up to be an athlete. In others, it might be that 'armchair quarterback' instinct that if it was up to them, their team would have made that one move that won it all.
i actually had this game and friggin' adored it (and another football game that was decided by dice)- you would put an offense play down and the defense would put a play down and then you would turn on a light bulb and it would reveal what went down. of course, video games made all of the above obsolete, but I am still a huge football coach wannabe.
Anyway, enjoy some Electric Football greatness (I apologize for the video host's enthusiasm).
