The excellent retro-site Plaid Stallions recently featured a post on the 1978 Mattel Electronics catalog. Mattel’s hand-held games; Football, Basketball, Auto Race and Space Alert are shown.

I had each and every one of these Mattel hand-held games and enjoyed them immensely. Football, however, was my absolute favorite.

The “players” were tiny red LED dashes but it didn’t matter. I played that thing to death, making lists of teams and playing them against one another.

I learned how to “game” the system and consistently score a touchdown. By pressing the down arrow, drawing all the defenders low, and then shooting up to the top tier and rushing forward to score. Bleeeep! I can still hear that glorious sound effect ringing out.

Basketball, Matell Electronics catalog 1978 (Photo courtesy Plaid Stallions)

Check out the complete catalog pages at Plaid Stallions.