Saturday, January 26, 2013
Coleco New Dimensions '78 (PART TWO)
More highlights from the Coleco "New Dimensions" 1978 sales guide (check the previous post too), and this time we see guns and sports (and The Fonz) typically marketed at the boys, while the girls get hot mini bake ovens (I know someone who is going to poop her panties when she sees these), as well as cutting edge baby strollers. Oh wait, I'm sorry, it's not just any 'ol baby stroller-- it's a ROCK 'N ROLL BABY STROLLER!! Say, who wants to bake a bunch of mini pies with me in the Holly Hobbie oven and then throw them at the creepy face in the Snow White Talking Magic Mirror? (*queues Three Stooges or Benny Hill music)-- better yet, let's just launch them at her with the Mr. Quarterback Football Passer.
And just to be clear, as much as I love all the toys featured in this post, my favorite thing is actually the kid's pants on the GOOD PUPPY page!
ReplyDeleteok - i don't even know where to start here...
ReplyDeletea. yes, i pooped my pants
b. HOW CAN YOU BAKE A PIE WITH A 100 WATT BULB? i don't get it.
c. WHERE DID ALL THE PIE BAKING TOYS GO???
d. i totally remember seeing the commercials for most of these toys - even the "boy" ones
e. i want those pants! (i didn't even notice till you pointed them out - thank you)
f. yes to everything you said but also can we wear matching Good Puppy page boy pants?
g. i super dig all the shooting toys too. maybe we can bake a buch of pies and launch them and then shoot at them while they're in the air!
h. and omg to that rock and roll stroller. just omg.
this is sooo freaking cool. i do not remember coleco being anything but video games.
oh and btw - that kid has to crouch down real freaking low to play that fonz pinball game. wtf? couldn't they get a shorter kid?
I had an Electronic Quarterback handheld game! I remember getting it one Christmas Eve and entertaining myself with it in the backseat that night during the long drive home from my grandparent's house. I never liked football all that much, and so I had no idea how to play the thing properly. And yet, much like an ape might, I learned through direct trial and error how to progress through the game.
ReplyDeleteHaha, ok new strategy: A - H
ReplyDeleteUse Mr Quarterback Passer to just launch mini oven pies (and Mickey Mouse Snow Cones) right into my mouth until I'm so stuffed that I poop my Good Puppy kid pants. Then, put me in the Rock 'n Roll Baby Stroller and push me to the Looney Bin, where me and Mr C can go head to head with the electronic hand held football. REPEAT.
ok - but you don't get all the pies and snow cones mr. greedy poopy puppy pants. while you and mr. c are playing your handheld football games i'm gonna run around and shoot stuff and eat pies and snow cones.
ReplyDeleteCareful you don't get curvature of the spine playing The Fonz!
ReplyDeletei'll lay on the floor while i'm playing it.
ReplyDeleteBesides those little hockey games, I've never seen any of these toys, ever! Looney Bin looks like a lot of fun, I'd've been all over that one.
ReplyDeleteI really like the artwork in that Looney-Bin game too, thanks for the comments! If anyone wants to see more old toy sales guides, check back next month, I've got lots more!
ReplyDeleteYep, it's the artwork that attracted me to it, I'm going to be looking for one of those now...
ReplyDeleteOn another note, remember that Pirates of the Caribbean book I told you about? It's up on my blog now :)
AWESOME!!!
ReplyDeleteI'm trying to orient myself here -- 1978 would have been when we had "pong" and were about to go into Atari? Or we weren't doing video games yet?
ReplyDeleteI was a late-bloomer with the video stuff, and never really stuck with it anyway (at least I had more quarters in my pockets).
I don't remember having a home video system (and that was an Atari 2600) until about late eighty or early eighty-one. I have no idea whether I was an early adopter in my part of the world or not, but I note that Wikipedia says the Atari was in US retail stores as early as seventy-eight. My friend Richard had an Intellivision system shortly before I caught up, but that system wasn't really available till nineteen eighty. Hope that helps.
ReplyDeleteSame here, took my family a few years to get an Atari 2600 after its release, and even then I barely bought their game cartridges, totally preferred the Activision stuff. My neighbors had Intellivision which I hated because of the wanky controller... another buddy had ColecoVision which I immediately liked better than Atari simply because it was the first home system to have Donkey Kong.
ReplyDeleteThe Coleco joystick was the damn bomb. And yeah, I'd forgotten about the creepy Intellivision keyboard controller things that held those cellophane inserts that came with each game. The second you lost that slide-in cell you were totally screwed because each game retasked all the buttons of the controller. Yuck. That was totally what drove me to Atari when I finally pushed the family into getting something.
ReplyDeleteI was disappointed with the all home video consoles because I was a real arcade junky. Spending a quarter made you care! technological Darwinism kept everything fresh! Nachos! And obviously 8-bit home video monophonic sound was not nearly as overpowering as the cacophony down at Putt-Putt or the Myrtle Beach Pavilion. My underwhelmedness didn't prevent me from buying all kinds of cartridges though, even if each was just one more disappointing sixteen dpi blip version of a real game.
Well, since everyone else is sharing their experiences:
ReplyDeleteI was probably the last one in a 500-mile radius to get an Atari (about 1981), and I was able to buy most Atari & Activision cartridges on sale (that's how late I got into the game).
I didn't bother with any of the video games (except an occasional Pong or Pac-Man) until I played Activision's Freeway at someone's house (that's where you try to get the chicken across the road).
A lot of people I worked with thought nothing of dropping $20 worth of quarters, but I was too worried about paying NYC rent at the time, so I was content with the home versions.
I remember the Snow White mirror! I got it as a kid for Christmas. I guess if it was out in 1977, that was the Christmas I got it. I remember unwrapping it and playing with it at my grandmother's house.
ReplyDeleteAfter a while, the sound on it went wonky. I don't know how long it lasted but I remember enjoying it.
I bet you wish you still had it, no?
Delete