At Flashbak: Leonard Nimoy and Magnavox

This week at Flashbak, I remembered the great Leonard Nimoy’s stint as a spokesman for Magnavox products.

Here’s a snippet, and the url: (http://flashbak.com/leonard-nimoy-magnavox-brightest-ideas-world-play-48959/)

“William Shatner is known as a pitchman extraordinaire for products including Promise Margarine, the Commodore VIC-20, and Priceline.com.  His Star Trek (1966-1969) co-star, Leonard Nimoy also had a career hawking products, however.  Most memorably, Mr. Nimoy acted in the early 1980s as the spokesman for Magnavox, manufacturer of TVs and high-tech home video products.

For example, Mr. Nimoy hawked the One Star System Color TV sets by Magnavox, which combined “advanced design concepts, high technology, and new manufacturing systems to deliver the highest level of reliability in Magnavox history.”

Mr. Nimoy also promoted the Magnavox Videodisc player – an early laserdisc player – which was described by the company as “gourmet video,” or “video for people who know and love video.” 

Specifically, Mr. Nimoy starred in a promotional video (actually produced for the video-disc format), describing how the Magnavox system works. 

In this video, a glowing, colored, translucent alien rock appears in a 1980s living room, and Nimoy – taking on the dispassionate tones of everybody’s favorite half-Vulcan, Mr. Spock – explains to it the specifics of the Magnavox system.  The rock only speaks in beeps and whistles, but Nimoy seems to understand its language, and respond with a lesson on laser-disc technology.”

Continue reading at Flashbak!

At Flashbak: Thought, Action, and Reaction: The Magnavox Odyssey (1972)

This week at Flashbak, I remembered the age of the Magnavox Odyssey, the first home video game in history.

Here's a snippet and the url (http://flashbak.com/thought-action-reaction-age-magnavox-odyssey-1972-46539/):

"I’ll admit it, I don’t actually remember this console, the Magnavox Odyssey.

It was released on the market when I was just four years old, in 1972.  Yet it is historically important, since video game scholars mark it as the first commercially available home video game system.

Created by Ralph Baer with Bill Harrison and Bill Rusch, the Magnavox Odyssey is described in its promotional material as “the exciting Electronic Game Center for children and adults.” 

The same advertisement notes that the game system makes TV into more “than something to just sit and watch,” transforming the boob tube into a “challenging electronic playground of fun and learning for the entire family.”

The Magnavox, its manufacturers note, is “thought, action and reaction. It is a play and learning experience for all ages.”

The Odyssey is very different from the other game systems that I have covered here, for certain.  For example, the Magnavox Odyssey features no sound card, runs on six C batteries, and features color overlays that you can place over the TV set to make it appear that the games are produced in color. 

The Magnavox Odyssey also was sold with poker chips and dice, so that you could play casino style games with the machine (like “Roulette.”)

In 1972, 100,000 Odyssey units were sold, and over its life, 27 Odyssey games were produced. Twelve came with the console unit (including “Table Tennis”).

One of the most interesting add-ons for the Magnavox Odyssey is a pump action rifle or shot-gun to be used with such games as “Shooting Gallery,” “Shoot Out,” “Dog Fight” and “Prehistoric Safari.”

The makers of the game also faced a lawsuit from Atari, because the Odyssey’s Tennis game apparently too closely resembled the popular Pong arcade game..."

(Continue reading at Flasahbak).