Norman Sas, Inventor of Electic Football and Father of the Unforgettable Buzz, is dead at 87
For those of you too young to remember (or even be aware of) electric football, it was a pre-video age, mechanical football game that "transformed a vibrating sheet of metal into a thrilling and sometimes exasperating tabletop game."
Mr. Shores said Mr. Sas may have also been drawn to football because of one of the frustrations of the technology: the vibrations tended to steer figures unpredictably, often into clumps that resembled a pileup at the end of a football play. The unpredictability--and the effort to mitigate it--came to define electric football as much as its tiny felt footballs, which were easily lost between sofa cushions.
Electic football was characterized by lineman rotating in tight circles, players unexpectedly running out of bounds or dropping the ball for no reason, and defensive players unable to find--, or too slow to catch--, the player with the ball. Its ongoing influence is known to anyone familiar with Notre Dame football.
another big part of my childhood is gone with the passing of Sas. Though Norman Sas was completely unknown to me as that game's inventor, Electic Football was my all-time favorite toy.
I will admit that I had only heard of this one - I was hitting the target age for this one around the time Super NES came out, if I am guessing correctly, but I can definitely see where the unpredictably here could be a bit exasperating, especially in this video, where the kick return guy starts to turn around ten yards short of the end zone. Pretty cool all the same though.
I'll buy the exasperating part, but not so much the thrilling. I'm not sure anyone over age 12 or 13 found it thrilling after the first time or two. Still, it had it's place in history.
That's probably worth some money.
I had one of these, the Super Bowl edition of the Vikings vs. the Chiefs.
To attempt a pass, you turned the game off, pulled the QB's arm back, and flicked his arm with the ball in the direction of your reciever. If you hit your reciever, you completed the pass.
Bo's teams of that era completed more passes per game.
In 1971 I hand painted with toothpicks to do numbers Michigan, Texas, and Notre Dame. Used toothpicks to do M helmets also. 1971 offense. Bo Rather, Billy Taylor, Brandstatter etc. Mom sold game at yard sale years ago. Still have all the little guys and a bunch of NFL teams also. It was fun in 71.
Way, way old. The rams still had their original white and blue jerseys, and Roman Gabriel and Bart Starr were the respective QB's when we got it. I think some of my sons have a few pieces squirreled away somewhere.