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You know how at any party or celebration there's always that one jerk who insists on bringing up their grandparents or ancestors or fallen comrades/homies and proceeds to bring the festivities to a screeching halt by giving a tedious speech or decanting the contents of their 40 onto your freshly shampoo'd rug? Well, I'm going to be that guy.
This time we're celebrating the grand old Atari 2600, and I'm about to bring up the 2600's cranky grandpa, Pong. Without Pong bleeping its way into the human experience in 1972 there would have been no Atari, no Mario, no Mr.Nukem, no Lara Croft, and sure as hell no Sonic the freaking Hedgehog.
Lots of people remember Pong fondly, even today, but what is rapidly fading from memory is the incredible impact on American pop culture pong had back in the early '70s. In order to remedy this lapse of our national memory I have taken it upon myself to locate and display these samples of a magical bygone era, an era in the early 70s when the public imagination was held captive by two white rectangles and a sqaure, bouncing back and forth in a neverending ballet of mild fun.
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Exhibit 1. Pong action figures. Wow, remember these? I remember my older brother telling me all about this, about how bad he wanted a Left Pong Paddle action figure for Christmas or Hanukkah, whichever came first. The Left Pong Paddle was considered the 'good' paddle, and the Right one the 'bad' paddle. To really 'play' Pong at home, you wanted both, so you could keep the story lines rich and interesting. Interestingly, very few Right Pong Paddles were manufactured, due to some kind of distribution problem. Plus, Right Pong Paddle figures included a free Ball action figure, making them very valuable.
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In addition to the Left and Right Pong Paddle action figures, there was the ball action figure and the Score digit action figures, 0-9 (actually, it was later learned that the '1' action figure was the same as the Right Pong Paddle action figure, so lots of kids just used one of those for the Right paddle).
The ultimate Pong Home Playset included the rare and wonderful Pong Playset Board Matª, a vinyl mat printed to look like the actual Pong playfield, only available with proofs of purchase from all the action figures. With all of the action figures arrayed on it, it was like you had died and gone to Heaven, where a bunch of rowdy angels crammed you into a Pong machine.
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Exhibit 2. The Incredible Adventures of Left Pong Paddle Cartoon Showcase animation cell. Very few people seem to remember this, but, in 1973, ABC ran a Saturday morning children's cartoon starring the Pong characters and an irritatingly forced multi-cultural assortment of preteens. Left Pong Paddle was the leader of the ragtag group of fun-and-adventure seeking kids, and their enemy was Right Pong Paddle, who was always trying to win, both on and off the Pong screen.
The one thing I do vaguely remember (I was only 2 when these were on) is that every episode always included Left Pong Paddle having a 'Pong-Battle' on the black video Pong court with Right Pong Paddle, set to very 70s funk music. Of course, he always won.
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Exhibit 3. Plush Pong Paddle Dolls. I never had one of these, but my sister's boyfriend was kind enough to send in the picture you see here: him as a young boy, giving some good old funtime kid squeezin' to a Gund Pong Paddle Plush Toy. These weren't differentiated between left or right, and I think they just had the paddles (though I seem to remember an ad featuring a ball as well, which looked like the offspring of a persian cat and a softball). I think they came in various sizes, and the one pictured here was the biggest and furriest one. If anyone has any other information on these, or perhaps still has one, let me know, if only to keep them out of the hands of those creepy Plushie fetishists. |
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