Coleco (Connecticut Leather Company) released a number of electronic toys over the years. I have hesitated to cover many electronic games on this site, it is hard to call them "toys" - people generally think of them as "games". However, due to their popularity, I decided to include some here. Coleco also made games for rival systems (like Atari) and what is interesting to note is that some of these companies wound up cutting their connection to Coleco and cranked out their own video game systems - which is where Nintendo and Sega systems originated.
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Other Coleco Products Did You Know?
Building on the popularity of the four hottest arcade games, Coleco released four "table-top" video games. These were Pac-Man, Donkey-Kong, Galaxian and Frogger. A the time of their release (1981), these were the hottest coin-up games at the arcades. All have the same basic structure and differ only in the electronic board component and graphics. They teamed up with Nintendo, Sega and Midway to obtain the rights to produce these games. My favorite was Galaxian, but we actually had all four at one point. These are fairly common but can be expensive, if in complete working condition.
Coleco and Mattel battled for video game dominance and Mattel probably won out. However, you will recognize a few of the Coleco head-to-head games. We had a couple of them, and I loved the baseball ones. The four-play game is probably the most complicated game made (prior to 1985) and was a huge flop, just because it is physically impossible to pile four people around a little video game so they can hold the controller.
As Atari was raking in thousands, Coleco used it's experience in the video game world to create it's own video game system, Colecovision. I remember when I got mine, I was blown away by it's awesome graphics! They were, like, rad! Games like Donkey Kong, Smurf and my all-time favorite Slither with the track-ball kept me entertained for hours. Coleco unveiled a great steering wheel expansion module as well as a computer system spin-off (Adam) that was meant to rival the Atari personal computers (ugh talk about basic).
Coleco knocked out all kinds of electronic gadgets including some that hardly lasted a week on the shelves. Some of these might ring a bell, but most likely you never saw these before!
Ever wonder what happened to Coleco? Blame it on the girls! One day they lucked into an idea for chubby over-stuffed dolls called Cabbage Patch Kids that, amazingly enough, became such a hot commodity for kids across the land that parents camped out for new shipments to arrive at stores. Coleco had less competition in that market and, heck, the mark-up was about 500% on a cabbage patch doll, so why not?
Have a question about a toy you have or one you are looking for? Send me an e-mail!
