Blast from the past...

One of the few Christmas gifts I actually recall receiving when I was a kid (although I'm sure I got my share) was the old-school electric football game. I remember we'd done the gift exchanging and things were winding up when my dad said "oh yeah, there's one more thing..." and he went out to the trunk of his car and brought in the oversized box containing the electric football game that I'd really been hoping for. Almost like the scene in A Christmas Story where Ralphie gets his Red Ryder BB gun -- guess that trick is something they teach at dad school.

Sadly, the game never really lived up to the TV commercial... it was a lot of tedious set-up resulting in random motion for a few brief seconds, then more set-up. And as Ernest Hemingway said, "Never mistake motion for action." So after a few attempts, it was basically abandoned, being so large that the only place to store it was out of sight under the bed. The box did live on a good while longer though, as it was a perfect size for storing my baseball card collection, one of my first addictions.

This little trip down memory lane was prompted by seeing this morning that they still sell a version of the game.
At least it now operates off battery power, as I remember my mom being very worried that the old version plugged into the wall. I'd be curious to see if the actual game play has improved at all -- various videos on YouTube seem to indicate it hasn't. But don't get me one for Christmas -- I'd probably just play with the box.