!! a real game from the 70's that never quite made it
Posted: Mon Jun 22, 2009 11:06 pm
From "Uncle Johns' Bathroom Reader", quoted from a book by M. Kirchner:
Ballbuster!
Product:
No joke- the Mego Toy Co. introduced it in 1976 as "a family game that's loads of fun." It consisted of wire stalks attached to a base. Each was topped with a hinged plastic ball. The object of the game, according to Mego, was to "use your balls to bust your opponent's, if you can. Break 'em all and you're a winner!"
Problem:
Somehow, Mego thought it could get away with the name. But the first preview of the Ballbuster TV commercial - shown to buyers from major toy and department stores - ended that illusion. The ad showed a family of four playing the game, after which the husband turned to his wife and said, "Honey, you're a real ball buster!"
"The stunned silence that followed", Kirchner writes, "triggered the first suspicions that Ballbuster was not destined to displace Parcheesi in the pantheon of classic games."
Ballbuster!
Product:
No joke- the Mego Toy Co. introduced it in 1976 as "a family game that's loads of fun." It consisted of wire stalks attached to a base. Each was topped with a hinged plastic ball. The object of the game, according to Mego, was to "use your balls to bust your opponent's, if you can. Break 'em all and you're a winner!"
Problem:
Somehow, Mego thought it could get away with the name. But the first preview of the Ballbuster TV commercial - shown to buyers from major toy and department stores - ended that illusion. The ad showed a family of four playing the game, after which the husband turned to his wife and said, "Honey, you're a real ball buster!"
"The stunned silence that followed", Kirchner writes, "triggered the first suspicions that Ballbuster was not destined to displace Parcheesi in the pantheon of classic games."
