Intellivision Christmas memories

[IntellivisionDude]

So where do i start. Would you believe my Intellivision christmas memories are not that vivid. Most of my memories were times other than christmas. Sure i got my Intellivision for christmas of 83, but i don't have a vivid memory of opening it. I do have a slight memory of playing Burgertime for the first time. Most of my memories are of non christmas and playing Intellivision with my friend and looking at all the games for sale at Toys R Us, Meijers, Odd Lots, etc.

I do have a memory of somewhere around 87-89 and my mother just let me pick out some Intellivision games at Toys R US and those would be my christmas presents. But which games? I don't remember. It would of course had to of been INTV games. Probably not Body Slam because i have a faint memory of looking at the box on the way home. Same for Mission X. But it could of been Diner, Thunder Castle, Slap Shot, Slam Dunk, Centipede, Motocross, Super Pro Decathlon, Super Pro Football or WC Baseball. I really don't remember. I do remember the uniqueness of having to take the game tag to area where the games were stored and have to wait in line for them. I'm also have a faint memory that once one of the game came in a bag instead of a box. But once again not sure which game.

 

My other memories are of wanting an Nes and my mother not buying it for me, and wanting either a Snes or a Sega Genesis and making a list of all the games that came with it, and once again, nada. The Intellivision was the only system she ever bought me. But that's okay. I loved my Intellivision. I could go on all day with stories of playing the games with my friend and now wish i would of kept all my childhood high scores i wrote down. Or my obsessive Slam Dunk record stats i kept. Most points in a game, most 2 pointers in a quarter, 3 pointers, most points scored by a free agent, and a ton more of ridiculous stats.

 

 

I know some of you have seen these pictures before since i have posted them numerous times. But this first picture has been re-scanned because part of the TV image was cut off. So what was i watching christmas morning of 83? My only guess would be Grizzly Adams since i seem to have this faint memory of watching it one christmas morning. And i have one more non intellivision memory but intellivision related. I remember waking up around 6 am one christmas morning (and as far as i know it could of been 83) and guess what was on TV? The Jack Lalanne exercise show.

 

Christmas of 83

 

 

 

Christmas of 84

[Carl Mueller Jr]

DZ,

I enjoyed hearing about your experiences with Coleco's Donkey Kong back when it was released. I'm also happy to hear that DK Arcade did something to shrug off the apparent psychological damage wrought on you by Coleco's original release. (Kidding, of course.)

I remember a neighbor getting Coleco DK first – of course I was dying to get it, too. I had seen it in the arcades many times, but only had played it a handful of times (my parents were also not very enthusiastic about dishing out quarters for play at the arcades). I only remember being absolutely slaughtered on the first screen, but absolutely loving it nonetheless.

I don't really remember being disappointed by the game when I saw it on Intellivision. I was so thrilled that it could be played at home (and the Intellivision saw so few arcade releases anyway), that I completely overlooked the downgraded graphics (which I'd come to expect anyway). I would go over to my neighbor's house just to play the game, and eventually got my own copy.

I didn't realize how awful it was until one Christmas when I was at my cousin's house, some relatives decided to play their Intellivision, and of course the first game they chose was Donkey Kong. To make matters worse, they were the proud owners of the Colecovision (and it's Donkey Kong). And guess what they did when they turned it on? They laughed, of course! They couldn't stop trashing it, and I'm pretty sure they didn't even try another game. Their whole perception of the system was based on that one title. It felt awful. :-(

However, when I started on DK Arcade for the Intellivision, now over 10 years ago, I don't really remember being motivated by a desire to prove that the Intellivision was capable of a superior version. I remember just being curious about how difficult it would be to improve on the graphics. (By the way, the answer to that was, basically, not as easy as I had originally thought. The sprite graphics were not hard to improve upon, but the backgrounds were a different story.)

After I had completed the graphics for the first screen, it looked promising enough that I eventually started to tinker with the gameplay. Being unsatisfied with the EXEC's clunky sprite updates, I got curious again about how hard it would be to write an engine that move the sprites more smoothly, etc. and it all kind of snowballed from there.

Carl

[shadow460]

Well, I can't say I have a Christmas story, but I'll tell you how I got introduced to the Intellivision. My brother and I were members of the youth group at our local church. There were a brother and sister, Lance and Brooke, in the youth group whose Dad, Lynn, became friends with my Dad. Lynn invited us over for Sunday lunch one day. My Dad accepted and we spent that Sunday afternoon with Lynn and his family. One of the last things we did was to play Night Stalker on their Intellivision. We'd been playing the VCS upstairs for a while, and for sure I had bragged about the large collection of VCS games we had. Lance assured us he had something better.

 

Fast forward to 2008. I had found some deals on several lots of boxed Intellivision titles and I'd traded for some loose titles. I kept grabbing Inty games off and on until this summer, I had the feeling to walk into a dingy thrift shop nearby. I spotted my console on one of the bottom shelves and, literally, you could barely see a console under the dust. It looked like they'd just dug it up out of the desert. I brought it home, removed the mass of random wires it was tangled in, and cleaned it up. I fixed the controller wires and fired the thing up. Only one of the games I'd been collecting over the years failed to load: Frog Bog. Night Stalker was in the mix, so I played it and had several memories of a certain family and a certain youth group.

[pimpmaul69]

DZ,

I enjoyed hearing about your experiences with Coleco's Donkey Kong back when it was released. I'm also happy to hear that DK Arcade did something to shrug off the apparent psychological damage wrought on you by Coleco's original release. (Kidding, of course.)

I remember a neighbor getting Coleco DK first – of course I was dying to get it, too. I had seen it in the arcades many times, but only had played it a handful of times (my parents were also not very enthusiastic about dishing out quarters for play at the arcades). I only remember being absolutely slaughtered on the first screen, but absolutely loving it nonetheless.

I don't really remember being disappointed by the game when I saw it on Intellivision. I was so thrilled that it could be played at home (and the Intellivision saw so few arcade releases anyway), that I completely overlooked the downgraded graphics (which I'd come to expect anyway). I would go over to my neighbor's house just to play the game, and eventually got my own copy.

I didn't realize how awful it was until one Christmas when I was at my cousin's house, some relatives decided to play their Intellivision, and of course the first game they chose was Donkey Kong. To make matters worse, they were the proud owners of the Colecovision (and it's Donkey Kong). And guess what they did when they turned it on? They laughed, of course! They couldn't stop trashing it, and I'm pretty sure they didn't even try another game. Their whole perception of the system was based on that one title. It felt awful. :-(

However, when I started on DK Arcade for the Intellivision, now over 10 years ago, I don't really remember being motivated by a desire to prove that the Intellivision was capable of a superior version. I remember just being curious about how difficult it would be to improve on the graphics. (By the way, the answer to that was, basically, not as easy as I had originally thought. The sprite graphics were not hard to improve upon, but the backgrounds were a different story.)

After I had completed the graphics for the first screen, it looked promising enough that I eventually started to tinker with the gameplay. Being unsatisfied with the EXEC's clunky sprite updates, I got curious again about how hard it would be to write an engine that move the sprites more smoothly, etc. and it all kind of snowballed from there.

Carl

now you need to take your donkey kong back to those bastard relatives and laugh at them.

[Carl Mueller Jr]

now you need to take your donkey kong back to those bastard relatives and laugh at them.

 

LOL. I'll have to invent a time machine just for that purpose.

[mr_intv]

Great stories people! I enjoy reading everyone of your experiences with this fantastic console.

 

[IntellivisionDude]

Great story! We sold out intellivision at a garage sale or something. I remember back in 2000 or 2001? I re-bought an intellivision on ebay and then the next year I sold it since i has into the gamecube and xbox and FPS games.......it wasnt until 2007/8 i got back into retro games and havent left since or ever will. So much better games, but I like the new games as well...mostly Nintendo franchises and racing game these days.

 

My story is very similar to Rev's. My Intellivision + games got sold at our garage sale somewhere back in the early 90's. The controllers didn't work anymore and i had already moved on to the Sega Genesis. I wasn't even living at home when my mother sold it so not how much she sold it for.

It wasn't until 2009 that i got the retro bug and haven't left since. It started with a 2600 i got at a garage sale for $5, and then a i found a Sega CDX for $1 at another garage sale. Since i had sold my Genesis back when the PS1 came out i was partly reliving my Genesis youth right away and going hog wild buying all the old games i had when i was younger. Then in Dec 2009 is when i found "The Forums" I actually found Digital Press before i found Atariage. But i found the wonderful place called the Buy Sell Marketplace and found a seller who was selling an Intellivision + crap ton of game for super cheap. I was back in business.

 

Then i found Atariage, and i'm not 100% sure but i don't think i was here a week or 2 before the Intellivision forum was created. I'd have to go back and check.

 

I have no idea why i never searched Ebay for Intellivision before 2010. I may have searched it a couple times but didn't think much of it. I guess i was still living in the present with my PS1/PS2 etc. But before that i did dabble in retro gaming in the middle 2000's by buying an Nes and Snes off Ebay. But they both would sit and collect dust for 5-8 years. Until 2010 that is.

 

 

Also i have a couple more non Christmas Intellivision memories. I remember one day my Intellivision II puked on me. The system wouldn't stay on. As soon as the red light came on, it would shut itself back off. But i got lucky and my mother replaced it for me one day while i was at school. As soon as i walked in the door and glanced over at my Intellivision on the floor i knew it looked different. You see there 2 different looking Model 2's. One with a red stripe and one without. I don't remember which one i owned first and which one i owned second. But i knew right away it wasn't the same Intellivison. She couldn't fool me.

 

My other memory was later in life. Not long before the controllers gave out, some of my games didn't work right anymore, especially the ones i played the most. Burgertime was the first victim. Of course now i know all they needed was a little cleaning, but i didn't know that back then. I didn't know you had to clean the contacts or how. I just figure it stopped working because i wore the damn game out.

 

I had 36-38 games for it originally. And just like DZ all the boxes got thrown out. Not sure if my mother threw them out or if i obsessively man handled them until they disintegrated.

[nukeshed]

IntellivisionDude, those pics are great.

[IntellivisionDude]

IntellivisionDude, those pics are great.

 

Thanks. There is a small chance my mother has more. I tried to get my sister to find them and so far that's all she found. There has got to be more than that. I live in TN and they live in MI so i have to rely on her to find them.

[sqoon]

IntellivisionDude, you must have eventually sprung for your own Genesis system because you said you begged your parents for one but nada.

[IntellivisionDude]

IntellivisionDude, you must have eventually sprung for your own Genesis system because you said you begged your parents for one but nada.

 

Correct. So the Genesis is very special to me since it's the first system i bought with my own money from my first job. The excitement of buying my Genesis and playing Sonic 2 for the first time completely equals the experience of me playing my Intellivision and Burgertime for the first time.

[ebelhaki]

I shed a tear when I saw the box your game was wrapped in for Christmas 83.... Hostess... now if you could only find that box and sell it on ebay.

[dr. kwack]

Ahh yes. Many memories although dates may be fuzzed...

 

Christmas 1981. My brother and I had been pestering Dad for an Atari and were slighlty stunned when we got an Intellivision. "Santa said it was a better system". We had Baseball, Space Battle, and LV Poker & Blackjack. A few weeks later I bought my first game- Electric Company Math Fun. I was a HUGE EC fan and never even made the connection that EC was a reading show. Still played the hell out of the game. Actually it's even more fun playing it drunk as an adult. A buddy & I do so every Christmas.

 

Christmas of 82 would yield Donkey Kong, Carnival, Triple Action, Lock N Chase & Space Hawk- and my parents threw a fit that year because my brother spent his paper route holiday tip money on Pitfall three days before Christmas!

 

1983: Q-Bert, Burgertime. That was also the year my brother static shocked the system and blew it out a few days before Christmas. My Dad managed to get the INTV slightly working but none of our games played right.

I still remember sitting by the tree and drooling over the Parker Bros. catalog that came with Q-bert convinced that James Bond and the Star Wars games would be on INTV within the year!

 

1984: Dad got us a new INTV "for a really low price!" in the spring. Santa brought me the uber weird Sewer Sam.

 

 

My final and fondest memory was Christmas of 85. Unbeknownst to me, the crash had hit. I remember going late night shopping with my parents on a snowy December night. I walked into KB Toys and there were bins overflowing with $1-$3 titles. I had my own paper route by then a snapped up Night Stalker, Snafu, and Beauty & The Beast. Had I known what was happening I would have gotten more.

 

Man what a great thread!! Merry Christmas everyone!

[mr_intv]

I also remember going to my cousins house Christmas day evening.....he told me he received the coolest game ever....the graphics will blow me away.....all I could think was yeah right!......like you have an Intellivision game that I don't....well he was right, Hover Force did blow me away and it is still one of my all time favorites. I was so jealous that I did not have this game. Lucky for me I think the following year my cousin got a sega master system and gave me first dibs on his Intellivision games. He ended up GIVING me Hover Force, Super Cobra, Super Pro football, World Cup soccer and Donkey Kong JR. And now I kick myself every day that I in turn gave all my games away back in the day. I really miss that CIB Super Cobra.

[+DZ-Jay]

Excellent stories, dr. kwack & mr_intv! I love this thread.

[Games For Your Intellivision]

I will share my Christmas Intellivision story.

 

In September 1980, my brother and I had just finished basic training in the Canadian Forces reserves (National Guard / Territorial Army equivalent) and were walking in the mall with our dad, when we came across an Intellivision playing baseball at the local toy store. We were all blown away by it, and really wanted to buy it right then and there. However, the unit was $400 and the carts were $40. (In the USA they were 300 and 30 at the time)....I had only made about 1200 bucks all summer, but was seriously considering buying it with my brother. We walked away disappointed that it was just too expensive, but thought it was a really cool item.

 

Fast forward to Christmas.......my dad was always getting us cool electronic gadgets.....but nothing much more than stereos and turntables/records etc.

So, when we got a BIG box with wrapping paper on it, to my brother and me, I wondered what it could be......we tore it open together, and lo and behold......a TURNTABLE.....which confused me, because I wondered how in the heck we would share it.....my dad said, no, that is just a box.....open it up........well, inside was a big box, and 5 smaller boxes all wrapped in Christmas paper....we were told to open the biggest one first......when we did, we were absolutely blown away.....I mean, I was 17, and my brother was 18.......but we just freaked out like we were 7 and 8......it was just TOO COOL......and then we excitedly opened the 5 other carts.....We KNEW how much this present cost.....400 plus 5 x 40......600 dollars.....that was a HUGE amount of money at the time. It was the BEST Christmas gift EVER! I mean, nothing has had that impact on me before or since.

 

And, just the quality of the master component and the packaging was there....the manuals were full colour.....everything top notch....i even recall an expensive felt tipped pen being included in the package to fill in your warranty card.

 

My dad had bought us The Master Component with Poker & Blackjack, Checkers, Space Battle, Armor Battle, NFL Football, and Major League Baseball......3 games that could be played 1 player, and 3 games that required 2 players. Although, it was not a problem finding someone to play Intellivision with. We drove my mom nuts with the laser sound of shooting aliens in Space Battle....and rocked each other in Armor Battle....not to mention fierce Baseball and Football matches......going from Pong to Intellivision was a HUGE step up.....it was like having an Arcade.

 

Eventually, my brother and I started buying games together......and I bought games alone as I made more money, and new titles started coming out like Bowling, and Boxing. I had no idea what was coming....so, going to the electronics stores or toy stores and seeing a new Intellivision game on the shelf was really exciting and an event.

 

My brother and I both owned the system, and both enjoyed it a lot....but eventually, I just took over ownership of it, as my brother got other interests.....I never lost the joy of playing with the Intellivision, even after I started buying computers a couple of years later.

 

The Intellivision was the best toy my dad ever gave me. When he was dying of brain cancer a couple of years ago, I told him that a new Intellivision game was being dedicated to him (DK Arcade)......the game is dedicated to his memory in the credits. I said to my brother yesterday,....."I wonder what dad would say if he saw the Intellivision cartridges I am making now?"........He said "I think he would say 'Wow.....that's cool'".

Edited December 1, 2012 by Games For Your Intellivision

[Rev]

####### The Intellivision was the best toy my dad ever gave me. When he was dying of brain cancer a couple of years ago, I told him that a new Intellivision game was being dedicated to him (DK Arcade)......the game is dedicated to his memory in the credits. I said to my brother yesterday,....."I wonder what dad would say if he saw the Intellivision cartridges I am making now?"........He said "I think he would say 'Wow.....that's cool'" ########

 

[1980gamer]

The Intellivision was the best toy my dad ever gave me. When he was dying of brain cancer a couple of years ago, I told him that a new Intellivision game was being dedicated to him (DK Arcade)......the game is dedicated to his memory in the credits. I said to my brother yesterday,....."I wonder what dad would say if he saw the Intellivision cartridges I am making now?"........He said "I think he would say 'Wow.....that's cool'"

 

Wow, What a great story! I lost my Mom and Dad weeks apart.. Mom was Dec. 2 2009 and Dad was Jan. 13 2010. Tomorrow will be tough at times. But I have GREAT Memories of them both. Lots of the memories of my younger days are intellivision related.

 

Bowling was one of Dad's favorite games. He would get high 270's+ every game. Lots of 300's too. He loved watching my brother and I play MLB. what battles we would have. Basically, however got a hit with less than 2 outs would win 1-0.

My Mom, would put up with me playing against her. I was to young to understand, I could let her get a hit now and then... Sorry Mom! But what I remember foundly, was her playing ANY game.... She would lean in whatever direction her on screen character was moving.

If she played Donkey Kong, She would lean right...climb the ladder, lean left and jump in her seat when a barrel would come. It still cracks me up thinking about it! Miss you Mom and Dad!

 

Oh, My wife and I put up the tree today.... First ornament to go on....The new Intellivision Running Man ball. Pick one up... All profits go to Autism. This is an epidemic that needs to be cured/stopped/prevented!

[dr. kwack]

Ah! Here's another...

 

I had one school friend who was also an Intellivision owner. He and I always traded games (not for keeps of course). One year during Christmas break he invited me over to his house. We sat in his unfinished basement with kerosene heater ablaze (that smell always reminds me of playing INTV) and his cousin shows up. He went to another school in the county but he also had Intellivision. He brought Donkey Kong Junior with him and we were mesmerized. I ran home and told my brother and he and I begged our folks to take us to Canton/Akron shopping so we could find it. I specifically remember going to a now defunct chain called Zayers and we found it but something (probably $$$) kept us from getting it.

 

Never saw it again until years later at a game convention. The same friend also managed over the years to get some pretty cool titles for Christmas like Ice Trek and Dracula. Never knew where his folks found that stuff...

[Binth]

IntellivisionDude too bad you dont have that box of Hostess Cup Cakes you might have been able to parlay that into 125 CIB!

 

My story is much the same as others, some family friends got on in 80 and we got one the next year. I remember playing my friends games that he found in his parents closet and he would carefully open them and play them when his parents were not home, wonder how they did not catch on to that one! Now that I have kids the closet gets guarded.

[sqoon]

I specifically remember going to a now defunct chain called Zayers and we found it but something (probably $$$) kept us from getting it.

 

We had a Zayres store in our town, Coolest thing I remember was they always had 24-hour sales at Thanksgiving weekend, long before Black Friday became popular and Wal-Mart started 24-hour retailing.

[dr. kwack]

Our local grocery store, Buehler's Food Market, opened a video game section around 1982. It was near the checkouts. When Mom went shopping, my brother and I could be found in one of two places. Standing at that rack checking out all the latest for all systems (and swiping as many free catalogues as we could- I swear we had a million Activision pamphlets laying around) or we were in the stationary isle reading the latest ish of Electronic Games,

 

Christmastime was especially memorable for us at that store. I can remember going there at least once a week when Coleco announced Donkey Kong for INTV. My brother was determined to get it. I clearly recall driving through downtown in the snow with our town's Christmas decor up and my brother foaming at the mouth to get DK.

 

Just up the street from Buehlers was an electronics store called TV Specialties. They were the only dealer of Odyssey! Every time we went past that store we could see the O2 display in the window.

 

To quote Archie and Edith Bunker "Those were the dayyyyys!"

[mr_intv]

Well, I get a package from Voltron Christmas Eve from the post office. I'm expecting a small package containing World Series Major League Baseball cartridge. Now once the clerk hands me the parcel I quickly realize it is wayyyyt to heavy to be a loose cart. Also included were a 3 sealed Voltron DVDs a intellivision brotherhood patch and pencil. Such a wonderful surprise. What a super guy! My wife got me some Microsoft points so when I get home tonite I'll be download intellivision lives onto the Xbox. So 28 yrs after getting my first run of intv goodies, I've gotten some more.

[jaybird3rd]

My first introduction to the Intellivision happened thanks to a Christmas gift. My great-grandmother gave me a copy of Intellivision Night Stalker, probably because she found it in a clearance bin while she was out Christmas shopping and knew that I was into video games. I only owned an Atari 2600 and a TI 99/4A at the time, so I could not make use of her gift, but I was very grateful to get it nonetheless because it made me aware of the Intellivision, a system I had never seen or even heard of before. What I was able to learn about it from the Night Stalker documentation fascinated me and fired my imagination: the unique design of the hand controller, the use of the overlays, the system's apparent graphical capabilities, etc. I even began to create my own version of Night Stalker on the 99/4A based only on the description and screenshots provided in the manual, and I'd love to have that version now just to compare to the original. Many years later, I was finally able to use my Night Stalker cartridge when I got my own Intellivision system, and I still have it today; it is currently "hosting" one of my Cuttle Cart 3 boards.

 

I think about this story around Christmastime in particular because that was when my great-grandmother passed away, about twenty years ago. Every Christmas since I've had my Intellivision, I always take a few moments to play a few rounds of Night Stalker.

[+DZ-Jay]

My first introduction to the Intellivision happened thanks to a Christmas gift. My great-grandmother gave me a copy of Intellivision Night Stalker, probably because she found it in a clearance bin while she was out Christmas shopping and knew that I was into video games. I only owned an Atari 2600 and a TI 99/4A at the time, so I could not make use of her gift, but I was very grateful to get it nonetheless because it made me aware of the Intellivision, a system I had never seen or even heard of before. What I was able to learn about it from the Night Stalker documentation fascinated me and fired my imagination: the unique design of the hand controller, the use of the overlays, the system's apparent graphical capabilities, etc. I even began to create my own version of Night Stalker on the 99/4A based only on the description and screenshots provided in the manual, and I'd love to have that version now just to compare to the original. Many years later, I was finally able to use my Night Stalker cartridge when I got my own Intellivision system, and I still have it today; it is currently "hosting" one of my Cuttle Cart 3 boards.

 

I think about this story around Christmastime in particular because that was when my great-grandmother passed away, about twenty years ago. Every Christmas since I've had my Intellivision, I always take a few moments to play a few rounds of Night Stalker.

 

Great story, jaybird3rd. Thanks for sharing it.

 

-dZ.