Top ten Xmas toys from my childhood #5

Mattel Electronic Football (1977)

Before the PSP, before the Nintendo DS, before the Gameboy, handheld gaming was defined by little red LED’s and the molded plastic surrounding them. Mattel came out with a surefire hit by the name of Electronic Football. The great thing was that you could hand this off to your friend and play each other (that’s what we call multiplayer today), or simply play alone. Long car rides were made bearable again. Mattel’s version followed the basic rules of football, with 4 downs and a “full-length” football field. You couldn’t pass, nor could you run backwards. It seemed like a marathon when you broke free for a long run. You mashed on that button forever hoping you were getting close to the end zone and would hear the touchdown signal.
Football was very difficult to find after the initial release because Mattel relied on Sears to provide market data to tell how well the product sold. Production was halted at 100,000 units out of 500,000 because of “bad sales”. Sears revealed they had made an error, then asking for 200,000 more a week, then followed by 500,000 a week thereafter.
Mattel followed up with Electronic Football 2. You now had the ability to pass and move backwards. It couldn’t get any better.
Electronic Football is also featured in the ending of Supertramp’s 1979 hit “The Logical Song”. Listen closely and you can hear the 4th down whistle tweet about 3:24 into the song.
You can now re-live the experience again. In some cases you can still find the re-make of Electronic Football in stores. It was brought out again several years ago for around $10. It can also be found as an iPhone app created by touchGrove called LED football.