First memory

Yep... That`s the one!!!
WOW, $63.99!!!! It was probably about 15 bucks, when it came out...
Then again gas and smokes were under a buck, and minimum wage was probably about $3.25... LOL!

 

Quick story, I was young and at A Pitt Game at Pitt Stadium and Terry had JoJO there with him
signing autographs, wow was she good looking, as a an adolescent I thought Terry had hit a homerun
great football player and beautiful ice skating woman by his side. These guys were larger than life in those days.

 

The 1976 playoff game at Memorial Stadium stands out as one of my earliest memories since some guy crashed a plane into the stands after the game. Had the Colts not been blown out there would have been fans in the seats where that plane hit.

 

I remember SB IX.......

Fran Tarkenton and the Purple People Eaters were riding the hype train. The Black & Gold didn't stand a chance. Kept waiting, and waiting for this Tarkenton guy to do something against the Steel Curtain; no chance. The Purple guys were tough, but the Steelers were tougher!

 

I can't remember the specific game but I remember DDawson vaguely playing in games.

 

If I didn't know better I'd swear it was Johnny Manziel showing up for the combine.

 

This stuff was hilarious from the pre-electronics world that Mattell later took by storm with those little blinking beeping handheld football and baseball game devices. I had an obnoxiously loud vibrating cardboard and metal version that I think pre-dated yours where each player had a metal base with rubber feet under it like 3 rows of tiny squeegies. The ball was wooden with a tiny magnet on the end and you attached it to the base of your running back for running plays and then essentially played touch FB. But for passes you used this little metal catapult type gizmo that launched the ball in the air and it had to hit your downfield receiver who had hopefully ran a semi straight line to go far enough to actually catch the magnetized ball on the fly on his metal base (no small feat since the ball would often fly about 6 feet on a 3 foot field.) For kickoffs, punts and field goals you used the same metal passing boingy thing but keeping it in the field of play was difficult as was determining if a FG actually traveled between the metal uprights as it sailed about 4 feet high from your table top into the kitchen or bedroom. The common brag in this game was that your players could run circles around your opponent - which was literally very true since none of them would ever run in straight lines - just concentrically larger circles if you were lucky that eventually arced over the goal line.

 

LOL!
I was a HUGE fan of the "little hand held electronic devices", where you moved a little blip of light around other little blips of light!!

I was also trying to remember how "pass plays", worked on the much improved electric vibrating board, with the foam football...

I do remember reading something in the rule book that came with it, involving you physically "throwing" the foam f-ball towards your intended receiver, but I couldn`t for the life of me remember how it worked...

It didn`t have a "catapult", I`m thinking it MAY have involved the QB having a spring-loaded arm...
That you launched the f-ball from..(Although I don`t actually remember a player with that feature, and it sounds pretty well above the manufacturing processes of the day, to make one, cheaply enough to include in the game. Also, you would have to stop the players` movement, to perform such an act).

Anyway, the fact that all I remember is using running plays, tells you all you need to know about how effective the passing "upgrade" was...

Howevr it worked, I`m pretty sure everyone I played with simply gave up on trying to pass,
and ran in circles around each other for bragging rights.
(Woody Hayes would have been proud )

Until the Mattell revolution came around, and Coleco upped the game with the "head to head" version, where both players held the beeping device at the same time... LOL!!!

I wonder what the "Vintage" version of the game with the wooden football would fetch on Ebay nowadays?

Can`t be many left...

GO STEELERS!

 

Yes it was a spring loaded QB - my cousin had that version - and you're right - you starting the loud vibrating feature and waited until a receiver hopefully ran down the field far enough to receive a spring loaded FB chuck and then hit the switch freezing everyone in place to complete the passing maneuver and then start it up again if the foam ball hit any receiver (of course if it hit an opponent it was an INT). I still have a first generation of the Mattel football and baseball handheld devices - gotta be worth something.

Far exceeding anything that resembled football was of course the awesome hockey table top rinks with all the side levers - similar to Fusball but players swung in circles parallel to the surface like real players rather than perpendicular like Fusball players. The deluxe version had a blinking light and possible buzzer go off when a puck entered the net. I never had one of these and was way jealous of any friends who had one.