Mattel Electronic Football

Football you could play anywhere! Dodge the glowing red defenders and run that little LED ball carrier all the way to the end zone.

By today's standards, the game is amazingly simple. You are the offensive player - basically a tiny red LED hyphen. Use the buttons to maneuver through the glowing red defenders and make it all the way to the end zone. That's about it. And somehow, it felt like real football.

I remember seeing one of these for the first time on the school bus. One kid had one. Then a couple of kids had them. Before long, several did. And you could always tell when somebody was playing from that distinctive "chirp, chirp" electronic sound. (If you're a Supertramp fan, listen closely to "The Logical Song" sometime - you may hear a very familiar sound.)

Mattel introduced Electronic Football in 1977, and it quickly became one of the hottest electronic games around. Stores had trouble keeping them on the shelves, and its success helped launch an entire generation of handheld electronic games. Similar electronic baseball, basketball, and soccer games soon followed, along with plenty of competitors.

There wasn't much in the way of graphics. In fact, calling them "graphics" might be too generous. I also recall discovering that as the batteries started running low, the whole game slowed down - suddenly those defenders weren't quite so quick. Maybe not exactly how Mattel intended you to improve your game, but it worked for me.

At the time, being able to carry an electronic football game around with you was something special. No television. No game console. Just a little plastic handheld game, a handful of red LEDs, and those unmistakable electronic chirps.

Original Mattel Electronic Football games are mostly collectibles today, although used versions and copy-cat versions of the classic game have been released over the years. The graphics couldn't have been much simpler, but that's part of what makes the game so memorable. Not bad for a football game where every player was basically a red hyphen.