Astrosmash Shootoff details (1982)

[BiffMan]

While the Intellivision Astrosmash Shootoff contest entry form and Houston finals are fairly well documented, including the awesomeness of Mattel Electronics not being aware the "unlimited" scoring wasn't so unlimited, I haven't seen mention of the alternative option that was given to winning entrants.  As one of those who opted out of all expenses paid trip to Houston for the 9/10-9/11 finals, I've always known there was a "door 2" option of taking a 50" Sony Videoscope Projection TV (valued at $2,500), but thanks to Intellivision Contest Archivist Extraordianaire (aka Mom), I have a few additional documents and history to share with the community.

 

For those who hadn't heard, once you get beyond 1,000,000 points in Astrosmash, the difficulty doesn't increase further so if you can hack it at that level and gain more ships than you lose, you can play indefinitely.  As the 8/11/1982 contest submission deadline loomed, my Dad and I decided we would get serious and see just how high we could get.  I recall after many hours of trade-off play, we made it to around 6 million when we had a power blip at the house and lost the score!  Crap!!  Since little power hiccups like that weren't at all uncommon during a Houston summer, Dad, being quite the electronics savant, spent the next day rigging up a homemade UPS with big flashlight batteries so if that happened again, it would sustain for the few minutes and hopefully not lose our progress again.  I don't recall what all he did, just that we moved the Intellivision to the kitchen TV so there would be "slightly less chance of fire"... so that was very safety conscious of him.  ?

 

So we're now down to the wire with only a few days to go before we need to get the score picture in the mail to make the deadline and we figure we'll give it one more go and see how far we can get.  I don't recall exactly how long it took to set that score, but I'm pretty sure it was over 24 hours of trade-off play (including Mom & Sis occasionally providing a break) and that we played through the night since we didn't want to risk losing a really good score.  Some time later, we get over 32 million points and the score goes negative!  Dad thankfully recognized that as some form of integer overflow and, as further points kept "decreasing" the negative score, he was confident if we just let the extra ships run out, it would still give the correct 32 million point peak score.  I don't recall exactly how many ships we  had built up at that point, but it was well over 4,000 and it took several hours of constant death to finally get the game over peak score screen.  Confident we have as good of a score as can be had, we send in the pic and anxiously wait for our entry to the finals!

 

Flash forward a couple of weeks to 8/20/1982 and we get the attached Western Union mailgram congratulating us on qualifying for the finals in Houston on 9/9-9/11/1982.  Since I think this is a delightful bit of Intellivision history I've not seen mentioned before, in addition to attaching the scan, here's a full transcript of the mailgram:

 

--------------------------------------------------------

Congratulations!  Your photo entry in the Mattel Electronics Intellivision Astrosmash Shootoff qualifies you to enter the Astrosmash Shootoff competition in Houston, Texas on September 9, 10, and 11, 1982.

 

Due to the number of entries received with scores comparable to your own, a preliminary Shootoff competition will be held in Houston on September 10, 1982 to determine the 16 regional finalist' competition commencing on September 11, 1982.

 

At this time, Mattel Electronics extends the opportunity for you should you wish to decline participation or be unable to attend the preliminary Astrosmash Shootoff competition and accept in place a Sony Videoscope Projection TV with 50" screen valued at approximately $2500.00 in lieu of travel to Houston and prizes which might result from continued participation in this contest.  Should you wish at this time to accept this prize and decline further participation, you may do so by calling collect (415) 989-4845 (and ask to speak with Mary Wong-Gee) by Wednesday, August 25, 1982.

 

If we do not hear from you by this date you will receive a package from the Astrosmash contest officials containing the following items:

 

1) Affidavit of eligibility and release for qualification, participation, and/or prizes.

2) Information regarding contest schedules, travel arrangements, and requirements for preliminary competition participation.

3) Return postage-paid envelope for signed affidavits required by law prior to further participation.  These documents must be returned to contest officials on or before August 30, 1982.

 

Once again, congratulations on your success with Astrosmash.

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I've often wondered how Mom & Dad managed to talk me out of attending the Astrosmash finals and taking the TV.  It turned out to be a bad-ass TV that was our primary TV for over 15 years, and a $2,500 bird-in-hand is certainly a good selling point.  Also, we lived in Houston and an all-expenses paid trip to Houston wasn't much of a selling point.  The clincher, which I confirmed in my research into the Intellivsion VideoChallenge parent/child competition (see my other thread here for more details on that), was that we had just won the Houston regional competition the prior Saturday (8/14/1982) and knew we had the Los Angeles finals of that to look forward to in December.  So, we took the TV.

 

Mom looked into door #1 and attended the finals in person as a spectator on 9/11/1982.  Since they had originally intended to have the top 8 from each of East and West of the Mississippi as the finalists and wound up with many, many more, they had a preliminary contest on 9/10/1982 to determine the top 8 from each who would compete in the originally scheduled finals.  Can you imagine the scrambling that Mattel Electronics had to do to pull together an entire extra day of competition and hand out TVs to those who didn't attend?  Mom chatted with contest officials while she was there and was told that (over 100 people, she can't recall the exact number) submitted qualifying scores and we've heard before that 73 people were made the finals, so that means ~30-ish people must have also taken the Door #2 TV like we did.  Not sure why I didn't go with Mom to see the finals, but I'm assuming there was a fair amount of teenager sulking involved.  

 

When Mom got there on 9/11/1982, they had handouts available of the results of the 9/10/1982 preliminary contest and, because she's Mom, she of course still has those, so attached for your viewing and archival pleasure, I present the names and scores of everyone who participated in the Houston Astrosmash Shootoff finals!  The top 8 for East and West are delineated with a line.  Mom has scribbled a few additional notes, so those with an "*" are the folks who made it to the top 8 semi-final (confirmed in the EFwC&G article) and the "821,270 -> 617,130" on the West listing is likely the range of scores the top 8 made in the semi-final.  She circled 5 names once we received the bios of our 17 other competitors for the VideoChallenge finals, so they must have gone on to represent their (or other) cities in those finals as well.  In the final, Manuel Rodriguez whooped up on Chuck Tappan in 2 straight games of the planned best of 3.  I believe Mom brought all of that home to me as a "so there!" that I wouldn't have been able to make the finals if we had gone and wasn't it great we took the TV instead.  Moms.  ? 

 

Also attached is a small article from the Houston Post that ran ahead of the contest.  Not sure what date as Mom only saved the area around the article itself.  Total fail there, Mom!   

 

1982 was a hell of a year for Intellivision contests and I'm still floored at the amount of time, effort, and money that Mattel Electronics sunk into planning and hosting those competitions!

Thanks again for your time and if anyone else has additional details to share, please do!  I'm very hopeful we'll eventually hear from some other participants in either the Astrosmash or VideoChallenge contests!!

 

[jcalder8]

This was great to read through, thanks for sharing it all!

[+cvga]

This is great stuff. Thanks for sharing! Sounds like you had the most awesome parents ever!

[+JasonlikesINTV]

Thanks for sharing this!  Do you remember who received patches?  I've always wondered how many were given out and what it took to win one.

 

Edit: Answering my own question, it seems all you had to do is send a submission photo to win a patch.

 

Also, a pic of my patch (purchased more recently, but still cool):

 

Edited February 8, 2020 by JasonlikesINTV

[BiffMan]

24 minutes ago, JasonlikesINTV said:

Thanks for sharing this!  Do you remember who received patches?  I've always wondered how many were given out and what it took to win one.

 

Edit: Answering my own question, it seems all you had to do is send a submission photo to win a patch.

 

Also, a pic of my patch (purchased more recently, but still cool):

 

Yes, I believe that is true that they were given out to everyone per that blurb, so does that mean they made 13,000 of the suckers?  The definitely seem to be showing up more often than would be accounted for if they only made 100 for those who qualified for the Houston finals. 

 

I don't believe I was ever aware I had one, but Mom apparently still has mine, so I'll finally get to have it next week after all this time.  ?  

[+JasonlikesINTV]

2 hours ago, BiffMan said:

Yes, I believe that is true that they were given out to everyone per that blurb, so does that mean they made 13,000 of the suckers?  The definitely seem to be showing up more often than would be accounted for if they only made 100 for those who qualified for the Houston finals. 

 

I don't believe I was ever aware I had one, but Mom apparently still has mine, so I'll finally get to have it next week after all this time.  ?  

That's awesome!  Good on your mom for keeping your stuff all this time.  I could easily see thousands of these patches having been distributed, but it's definitely rare these days.  I've seen under 10 on eBay in the last decade.  Prices ranged from $30-100+.  Even the flyer is pretty rare.

[BiffMan]

One additional bit of info for posterity, here is the finishing order of the top 8 per a handout given at the final.

 

The only other bit of Astrosmash Shootoff documentation I have is the release and consent affidavit from Flair Communications Agency, Inc to receive the TV in lieu of attending the finals, but I will go ahead and assume that's not of sufficient interest to share.  ? 

[Stephen Rechter]

An interesting side note of the Astrosmash tournament - The day before the tournament, a bunch of participants played an impromptu Intellevision baseball tournament. Several tvs were taken into one hotel room for a round robin tournament.

Unfortunately for me, my baseball results were better than the Astrosmash results.

[Crash7]

The baseball games for the Intellivision and the original NES are still the two best baseball games I've ever played.  

 

Every player was equal so it comes down to how you handle the play yourself.

[+Psycho Stormtrooper- Rog]

Very Cool read. Thank you for sharing. I enjoy hearing stories like this. The history of Intellivision always peaks my interest.

[IntellivisionDude]

Very awesome. I remember watching this video 13 years ago of someone who competed in the shootoff. I love history.