JayAre

Seeing the Special Edition of Activisions above (with the Greatest American Hero contest) reminded me of another promo item. As detailed in that issue, Activision ran a contest called the Starmaster Challenge. Aside from the grand prize, Greatest American Hero t-shirts were also awarded. Here's Mr. Activision wearing one.

Thanks for posting the Activisions newsletters. Well, the first one you posted was a Special Edition, which is actually one of the rarer Activisions newsletters. Below is a scan of the cover page for Volume 1. And to answer your other question, Volume 7 was the final issue. And there were also two "UPDATE" issues, for which I'm attaching the cover pages; these two are pretty rare as well.

Thanks, CVGA. You got it; it's the Stampede belt buckle. I've seen that picture of Dan Kitchen so many times, and I never realized it was that buckle until now.

A little off topic, but anyone ever notice the Activision promo item that can be seen in this picture of Dan Kitchen from the Crackpots manual?

Some of you may remember this post from a few weeks ago, in a different thread. I hadn't thought of this until now, but I guess the "Activision Cup" trophy seen in the picture can be considered a promotional item, right? Kind of, I guess. Well, here's an article which talks about Activision's ICE HOCKEY video game contest, along with a pic of Bryan Trottier during the contest. Participants had to be 15 or under. Mr. Leibowitz, if you're reading this, and you still have the trophy on your mantel, please post some pictures of it.

OK, thank you.

Rom Hunter, I never noticed that StarMaster shirt. Thanks for pointing it out. Have you seen that shirt before? Any idea what the front of the shirt says?

Thanks for the kind words. That's great that you've enjoyed the thread. It really has been a lot of fun.

Well, I'm pretty much done posting Activision promo items from my collection. If I ever acquire any more, I'll be sure to update the thread. I took one last look online and found these two items. Thanks once again to everyone who has contributed/commented to this thread; it's been wonderful seeing all these incredible items. Kaboom mobile Chopper Command poster

You know, for the longest time, I thought this was for Stampede. Until I realized it was for Happy Trails on the Intellivision. Still cool though.

Now this is really bizarre. If you look at the map, you'll notice that there's a bat, a rat, and what appear to be some condors. Doesn't that sound familiar? All three of those creatures would later appear in Pitfall II. But Pitfall II was still more than a year away. Coincidence?

Rob, the first one on the left is from 1978; the other two are from 1981. Here's a link where you can see the scans for all three: http://www.atarimania.com/list_catalogs_atari_publisher-_33-_2.html

In keeping with the Pitfall theme... In January of 1983, the Winter CES was held in Las Vegas. If you visited the Activision booth, you were give a Pitfall Treasure Map. It was a game you played, using the map and three clues that were given. The winner received a prize of $1,000. The map is really cool, and the info. on the back is an entertaining read. This looks to be a pretty rare item, especially considering that you had to turn in the map to enter the contest. I know this is a long shot, but does anyone know what the three clues were? Here's a link to the Atarimania page where you can get a better look at the map (it's towards the bottom of the webpage): http://www.atarimania.com/game-atari-2600-vcs-pitfall-pitfall-harry-s-jungle-adventure_13995.html

CVGA, thanks for the cool info. on Ken Uston. Awesome posters. Especially the Stampede one. AND THAT'S NO BULL!

Ladies and gentleman, the Pitfall Party (aka the Rumble in the Jungle)! In June of 1982, the summer CES was held in Chicago. To coincide with this event, and on the evening of June 7 at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, Activision hosted the Pitfall Party to celebrate the release of the game. It took place in the hotel's grand ballroom and multiple adjacent ballrooms. There were three bands playing simultaneously, dozens of party-style midway games, several open bars, live animals in cages hanging from the ceiling and hundreds upon hundreds of attendees. It was rumored that Activision spent in excess of $250,000 on the party. Earlier in this thread, CPUWIZ posted a wonderful pic of the invitation package, which I'm reposting here. Attendees were given a safari jacket and an explorer's hat. Activision even printed Rumble in the Jungle matchbooks; attached is a picture of these three items. Activision employees also received the "Survival Kit" zippered pouch (pic attached). It contained a badge to get into the party, an Instamatic camera and coupons for the midway games. Thanks to Dan Kitchen for providing much of this information. By the way, Ken Uston, the infamous blackjack player, also attended the party. He wrote several books relating to blackjack and video games. I remember reading somewhere that he showed up with an exotic pet that he had. If I remember correctly, it was a pet monkey!

This one looks to be pretty rare. It's a Chopper Command promo cap. It looks like a French foreign legion hat, with the flaps on the back. I can't find any pictures of it online. But I did spot it on two occasions in the pictures that I have of the Activision Family Vacation to Maui. In the first picture below, you'll see Dan Kitchen wearing one; and in the second picture, there's someone on the left side of the pic with one as well. Hopefully, a better picture of it will surface at some point.

That's interesting, Bill. I'm willing to bet not many of those survived. Thanks for sharing.

CVGA, last night, I emailed my friend, who is a former Activision employee, regarding your Starmaster patch; and she just got back to me on this. Well, she told me that she remembers the patch very well. She thinks she might have one but hasn't found it yet. As she recalls, the patch was made with the purpose of introducing/promoting Starmaster when the game was released in 1982. Based on this, CVGA, we can definitely arrive at the conclusion that the patch wasn't initially made to reward the world record holders. This supports the theory that we were tossing around earlier. Perhaps Activision never used the patch to promote the game and decided to use it to reward these players. Or maybe they had patches left over and decided to use them for this purpose. At least we now know a little bit more about it.

I wanted to submit this just to document what I believe to be a complete set of documentation that you would receive when sending away for an Activision high-score patch. I could be wrong, but I don't think Activision sent any other documents, aside from the ones in the picture. Does anyone know if any additional documentation was sent?

I would imagine it's in a landfill somewhere, but you never know. And you're right about the 280ZX. It was a blast to drive. And it had a cool look to it.

This is perhaps the most expensive Activision promo item ever. When Enduro was released, Activision held the "Race for Riches" sweepstakes. Several prizes were awarded, and part of the grand prize was a Datsun 280ZX pace car. Attached is the ad for the sweepstakes. Here's also a pic of a car that is very similar to the one in the ad, except that it doesn't say "Activision" or "Enduro" on it. I don't know if this is the car that was actually awarded, but it's pretty close.

Excellent! Thanks. These vintage t-shirts are pretty rare. You don't see them come up for sale very often.

CVGA, are the t-shirts from the 80s? Either way, they're so cool. Fantastic artwork!

Boy, with all the Activision clothing items that were made, I think all we need is some Activision underwear and shoes, and we'll have a complete Activision outfit.

The Pitfall Pouch. This backpack was sent to retailers as a promotional item. Some retailers then passed the Pitfall Pouch on to their customers as a pack-in with a copy of Pitfall. In some cases, the backpack was folded and placed on the back of the Pitfall box, and everything was shrinkwrapped together.