Page 22 - OSG Presents Classic Gamer Magazine #4

L arcade games. Though the game
et's say you're a major toy
bore authentic side art that dis-
manufacturer named
Kenner. Let's say it's late
played Q*Bert employing a colorful
1983, and your last big li-
said "OUCH" when Q*Bert was
cense - a little summer flick called metaphor, the score display simply
"Return of the Jedi" - is now but a quashed by Coily in the tabletop
memory, with no sequels in sight. version.
TV is a barren wasteland of variety All the industry insider predic-
shows and programming that just tions said that Q*Bert would be the
doesn't lend itself to toys. next Pac-Man. All the elements
What do you do? Why, you seemed to be falling into place.
hitch a ride aboard a multicolored These companies were ready for
disk carrying a little orange guy Q*Bert to hop into their bank ac-
with a big nose! This guy's gonna counts and start spewing cash -
be a star! rather than mock profanity - from
Q*Bert was premiered by that increasingly famous single
Gottlieb in 1983 to a great deal of nostril. (Pretty disturbing image,
hype, and it wasn't without reason. isn't it?)
This intensely cute, easy-to-learn- Sadly, all of these manufactur-
but-hard-to-beat coin-op featured a ers who gave up a hefty chunk of
large cast of memorable, and thus Slick (the little green bastard who change for the license to make
marketable, characters. And the goes around changing the colors of Q*Bert products were caught off
game was a success the moment it your cubes). Other figurines took a guard by the great
hit the arcades. Toy li- little more artistic license, such as videogame crash of
censes, among other Q*Bert on a skateboard wearing a Christmas '83 -
things, were a natural walkman, Q*Bert with a baseball pre-
evolution for cap on his head (and a baseball cisely
Q*Bert and his lodged in his nose), and so forth. when
qonglomeration of Toy giant Kenner wasn't the a lot
qo-stars. only company to pony up some big of
Kenner aimed for bucks to peddle a guy who con- these
both the boys' and stantly says "@#$*@!" to kids. toys and
girls' toy markets with Q*Bert Colorforms sets, T-shirts, other items ar-
different variations on Q*Bert. Ten- pencil toppers, Frisbees (some of rived in stores.
inch and foot-tall plush versions of which were modeled after the Though the
the great orange one, complete game's colorful last-resort-escape games didn't seem
with squeaky noses (!), could be disks), and other items were made to lose their popular-
found in toy stores, along with a available. And of course, there ity, it became harder to sell items
series of small, solid PVC figurines, was the cartoon. based on video game properties.
and a wind-up "hopper." The wind- Parker Brothers snagged the Indeed, the 1983/84 holiday sea-
up “hopper” would bounce across license for actual Q*Bert games son was the last hurrah for toys
your table—all that was missing and quickly turned out very good based on videogames until the
was a pyramid of colorful cubes. cartridges for the Atari 2600 heyday of Mario and Luigi a few
Some of the figu- and 5200, Intellivision, years later.
rines were based on ColecoVision, and even - While Bally/Midway, Namco,
characters and though it's astoundingly and their licensees cleaned up on
situations from rare - an Odyssey 2 ver- Pac-Man paraphernalia at the be-
the game - Q*Bert sion. Parker Brothers ginning of the video game boom,
on a disk, Q*Bert also came up with a board Q*Bert and his qohorts quickly be-
in the clutches of game and an LED tabletop came qasualties of the end of that
Coily, and Q*Bert game in much the same boom. It's a shame, too, because
standing next to style as Coleco's mini- the follow-up game, Q*Bert's

Classic Gamer Magazine Summer 2000 22