I came across a story from 2013 about someone buying the electric football game rights from Miggle Toys and it got me thinking about some of the cool gifts I got from “Santa” back when I was a kid. Probably one of my favorites of all time was the Tudor Games NFL Electric Football game i got back in 1973. The way they used to do it, you got the teams who played in the previous Super Bowl so I got the Dolphins and Skins. Over the years, much to my Dad’s chagrin, I discovered you could order additional teams by mail—remember that anyone? No ordering on-line and receiving your order in a couple days, you had to fill out the order form, send it to the company in Brooklyn by snail mail along with a check and then wait about 6 weeks for your order to finally arrive. I still remember the packaging when my Colts and Rams came...and then the big sales, buy 1 team, get 3 more for some really low price- in fact, it might have been free. I remember getting the Eagles, Chiefs, Browns and Tampa Bay Buccaneers back in 1976. I spent hours and hours playing that game with my best friend and one of my cousins. Eventually, I wound up with every NFL team, half in home jerseys and the other in away. It was the beginning of my love of football. I used to get the Street & Smiths Football Preview mag every year so I could use the roster to update player numbers on my EFL teams. I still regret giving all my teams away to a girlfriend’s little brother, wish I had kept them.
What amazed me when reading the article was that the new owner returned the company to its original name, Tudor Games. the company was started in 1947 and started with hand-painted NFL teams in 1967. The new Tudor Games has also renewed the NFL license agreement so you can again get painted players in your favorite team’s colors (yes, both home and away). The liscence lapsed under Miggle Toys (quick aside, the owner of Miggle Toys was ill with cancer and didn’t get the royalty check in to the NFL on time—the NFL then decided to use that as the excuse to terminate the license-at least that’s the story). Anyway, apparently the “new” game is run by batteries, the field is made of a different material and the players have been somewhat redesigned- they don’t go in random directions anymore, they apparently can be controlled much better these days. You know, if I wasn’t 50 years old and if my wife and kids wouldn’t think I really lost it, I just might have bought one of the new games... and who knows, maybe I still will. Heck, I bought my son the Miggle Toys version the year after the Giants Ravens Super Bowl- the game board, which is similar to what I knew as a kid myself, is up in the attic somewhere, my son never even put the numbers on his players LOL, guess the allure of video game football (Madden, etc.) made electric football nearly obsolete— the cool thing is, it appears it’s now coming back.
Now it's your turn, what was your favorite gift from Santa? You don't have to keep it to just one, if there were a few, please share.
What amazed me when reading the article was that the new owner returned the company to its original name, Tudor Games. the company was started in 1947 and started with hand-painted NFL teams in 1967. The new Tudor Games has also renewed the NFL license agreement so you can again get painted players in your favorite team’s colors (yes, both home and away). The liscence lapsed under Miggle Toys (quick aside, the owner of Miggle Toys was ill with cancer and didn’t get the royalty check in to the NFL on time—the NFL then decided to use that as the excuse to terminate the license-at least that’s the story). Anyway, apparently the “new” game is run by batteries, the field is made of a different material and the players have been somewhat redesigned- they don’t go in random directions anymore, they apparently can be controlled much better these days. You know, if I wasn’t 50 years old and if my wife and kids wouldn’t think I really lost it, I just might have bought one of the new games... and who knows, maybe I still will. Heck, I bought my son the Miggle Toys version the year after the Giants Ravens Super Bowl- the game board, which is similar to what I knew as a kid myself, is up in the attic somewhere, my son never even put the numbers on his players LOL, guess the allure of video game football (Madden, etc.) made electric football nearly obsolete— the cool thing is, it appears it’s now coming back.
Now it's your turn, what was your favorite gift from Santa? You don't have to keep it to just one, if there were a few, please share.
