Tuesday, June 17, 2008

In memory of vibrator football

Before John Madden lurched his overweight likeness into an annual videogame series, even before the crazy Japanese Tecmo Bowl inventors put their bizarre, blocky-graphics spin onto the game, we had Vibrator Football to sate the lack of an interactive NFL in our lives. The game took place on a long sheet of aluminum, placed over a whirring, gyrating Woman’s Best Friend.

Little plastic players scurried around the surface, turning in concentric ellipses, while one player had a tiny, tiny foam football impaled on his jutting arm. You’d turn the vibrator on, then tear your hair out as your spinning ballcarrier unwittingly turned a 12-yard gain into a 7-yard loss, then back into a 14-yard gain, then into his own end zone for a safety. I don’t believe anyone ever played a full game of Vibrator Football, because it was so damn frustrating and poorly designed. It was always fun, though, to take the box out, set it up and tell your baby sister she wasn’t allowed to play.

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