Coleco Games Catalog Circa 1980
At 12 y.o., Jason Scott of digitize.textfiles.com was what you might call obsessive. He collected computer and gaming magazines and received all their various extra goodies, leaflets and magazines from their partner companies. he has now take steps to digitize them all into high quality jpg’s and pdf’s and upload them for us all to enjoy.
One of the highlights of his collection is this 1980’s Coleco Games catalog. I was thrilled to see my favorite olde schoole hand-held game, The Electronic Quarterback (pictured) listed here along with another childhood favorite, the Holly Hobby Oven. I was beginning to tire of my electric football game that was basically just a vibrating metal tray with football player shaped figures attached with magnets that moved randomly around the board. so The Electronic Quarterback with it’s thrilling red lines that blipped around on their own accord seemed like a huge step up, although I really didn’t understand how to play. Needless to say, The Electronic Quarterback is the closest I would ever get to actually playing sports with the possible exception of mini-golf.
Other notables in this catalog include The Telstar Colortron game system (a sellout in ‘79!), Lil Genius (a nerd themed calculator), and the Star Trek electronic game
Thanks to Todd R for the tip!
Fruit Brute
Posted to Video Games on 24 October 2006
· Comments (6)
Other stuff like this: 1980, catalog, coleco, handheld, toys
Oh my god, my sister had the Holly Hobby Oven. I wanted that thing so bad. It was the epitome of coolness. A toy that gave you CAKE? Lord, take me now, there ain’t much better to be seen on this here earth no how.
Oh My God! I’m looking at the catalog, and recognizing a few things…and then I see it! Good Puppy!!!!!! I’m a total toy geek—-still buying action figures to this day—but as a little kid, my absolute FAVORITE toy was Good Puppy!!
I dragged that little guy EVERYWHERE The poor toy was all scuffed up on the bottom since I would drag him across gravel. But, as a kid who couldn’t have a dog…he was the next best thing! I mean, he even ate biscuits!
Thanks for the memories!
I totally had that Coleco football game which I find ironic because I don’t care for football one bit, but it was something to do in the car.
Not only do I still have my Electronic Quarterback game (with the 9-volt battery still masking-taped in) but it’s even here at my house, not back at home in my parents’ attic. I even bought a cheesy LCD recreation of it a couple years ago, though it’s still in the plastic box. I’m no better at it now than I was then, so I don’t know why I’m so into it.
I also had Quiz Wiz. Mmmm, trivia. As for Holly Hobby, my little homo-in-waiting heart lusted after the Kenner Easy-Bake Oven…. which I finally got for Xmas as a gag gift 2 or 3 years ago. I wanted to hump it like it was a Nintendo SIXTY-FOUR!!!!11one.
And it’s weird that by 1980 Coleco had given up on the console thing (these Telstars were basically what we would now call “plug’n’play”) when they had one of the first consoles with ROM cartridges (the Telstar Arcade). But what do I know, I was playing an Odyssey2 that year.
I’m glad you guys enjoyed it. I have since found out it was handed out at the 1980 Toy Fair, which was basically like a comdex or E3 or other such event, but for toys. Coleco dated back to the 40s, after all.
One mis-statement there is raindog’s claiming Coleco gave up on consoles by 1980. In fact, they came out with the Colecovision in 1982, and the Coleco Adam soon afterwards. So actually, they were just dipping in at this time, before going for broke. (Which, ultimately, they DID go. Broke, that is.)
Well, I did have a Colecovision so I knew they produced that. I was talking about ROM cartridge based consoles, of which they only produced the Telstar Arcade (already discontinued as of this catalog), Colecovision and Gemini (Adam used tapes…. I lived pretty close to one of their plants so Adam and CV stuff was showing up in our dollar stores for a couple years after they cratered.)