Electric football
Encyclopedia
Electric football is a tabletop American football game played on a metal vibrating field.
Video games of football have supplanted electric football in popularity partly because the game did not live up to its potential. The game lacks procedures and game structure. However, electric football still thrives and has also benefited from technological progress. Players became more realistic in sculpting and appearance but there has been very limited advancement in the game play.
Miggle sells pre-painted players from 18 college teams, including home and away jerseys. Leagues, clubs and tournaments continue to play the game. The Electric Football League, headquartered in Highland Park, Illinois
, held its 17th annual Official Electric Football Super Bowl & Convention in January 2011, in Columbus, Ohio. Jamel Goodloe (Auburn Tigers) was crowned national champion, as he beat Ken Allen in the championship game. Both players hail from the Michigan-based Great Lakes Electric Football League (GLEFL).
. The ball is a football-shaped small piece of foam or felt. When the players are set up, a switch is activated that turns on a small electric motor which causes the field to vibrate, and moves the players around the field. The imagination then takes flight as players run around the board in an unpredictable manner.
Each player is attached to a base, with prongs on the bottom that allow the player to move. Rookie bases are not adjustable and the player hopefully runs forward. Pro bases have a dial that you can turn to have players turn to the right or left.
A special player called the Triple Threat Quarterback (TTQ) allows players to pass, punt or kick field goals. The ball has a slit that lets the game player place it on the TTQ's arm. The arm is pulled back and released to pass the ball. Use of this figure is a very difficult skill to master and was the primary form of advancing the ball.
For kicking the ball is placed on a tee on the TTQ and a plastic leg is flicked to kick the ball.
History
In 1947, Tudor Games created electric football, using a vibrating car race game made by Tudor as the base for the game technology. Electric football was an immediate hit. More than 40 million of the games have been sold since its creation, and new editions are sold each year.Video games of football have supplanted electric football in popularity partly because the game did not live up to its potential. The game lacks procedures and game structure. However, electric football still thrives and has also benefited from technological progress. Players became more realistic in sculpting and appearance but there has been very limited advancement in the game play.
Miggle sells pre-painted players from 18 college teams, including home and away jerseys. Leagues, clubs and tournaments continue to play the game. The Electric Football League, headquartered in Highland Park, Illinois
Highland Park, Illinois
Highland Park is a suburban municipality in Lake County, Illinois, United States, about north of downtown Chicago. As of 2009, the population is 33,492. Highland Park is one of several municipalities located on the North Shore of the Chicago Metropolitan Area.-Overview:Highland Park was founded...
, held its 17th annual Official Electric Football Super Bowl & Convention in January 2011, in Columbus, Ohio. Jamel Goodloe (Auburn Tigers) was crowned national champion, as he beat Ken Allen in the championship game. Both players hail from the Michigan-based Great Lakes Electric Football League (GLEFL).
The game
The game is played on a small metal field, with plastic players placed on the field in formations, just as in real footballAmerican football
American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...
. The ball is a football-shaped small piece of foam or felt. When the players are set up, a switch is activated that turns on a small electric motor which causes the field to vibrate, and moves the players around the field. The imagination then takes flight as players run around the board in an unpredictable manner.
Each player is attached to a base, with prongs on the bottom that allow the player to move. Rookie bases are not adjustable and the player hopefully runs forward. Pro bases have a dial that you can turn to have players turn to the right or left.
A special player called the Triple Threat Quarterback (TTQ) allows players to pass, punt or kick field goals. The ball has a slit that lets the game player place it on the TTQ's arm. The arm is pulled back and released to pass the ball. Use of this figure is a very difficult skill to master and was the primary form of advancing the ball.
For kicking the ball is placed on a tee on the TTQ and a plastic leg is flicked to kick the ball.
In popular culture
- Steamroller Studios and Chillingo released their version of the classic game for the iPhone and iPod Touch in September 2009. Called "Super Shock Football" It includes the ability to have the phone actually vibrate just like the original. You also have the ability to pass, kick, design custom plays, and throw laterals.
- In the film Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey, the two main characters, in a parody of The Seventh SealThe Seventh SealThe Seventh Seal is a 1957 Swedish film written and directed by Ingmar Bergman. Set during the Black Death, it tells of the journey of a medieval knight and a game of chess he plays with the personification of Death , who has come to take his life. Bergman developed the film from his own play...
, challenge DeathDeath (personification)The concept of death as a sentient entity has existed in many societies since the beginning of history. In English, Death is often given the name Grim Reaper and, from the 15th century onwards, came to be shown as a skeletal figure carrying a large scythe and clothed in a black cloak with a hood...
to a series of games in order to escape HellHellIn many religious traditions, a hell is a place of suffering and punishment in the afterlife. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hells as endless. Religions with a cyclic history often depict a hell as an intermediary period between incarnations...
. One of the games Death loses is electric football. - In an episode of the animated comedy series The CriticThe CriticThe Critic is an American prime time animated series revolving around the life of film critic Jay Sherman, voiced by actor Jon Lovitz. It was created by Al Jean and Mike Reiss, both of whom had worked as writers on The Simpsons. The Critic had 23 episodes produced, first broadcast on ABC in 1994,...
, a clip from a Ken BurnsKen BurnsKenneth Lauren "Ken" Burns is an American director and producer of documentary films, known for his style of using archival footage and photographs...
documentary about electric football shows an elderly man saying that "electric football is a metaphor for America: always shaking, always noisy, never really knowing where it's going" before suddenly changing his mind, saying, "Wait a minute. America's nothing like electric football. It's just a stupid game that doesn't even work!" and yelling at the cameraman to get out. - In The SimpsonsThe SimpsonsThe Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...
episode "Bart StarBart Star"Bart Star" is the sixth episode of the ninth season of the animated television series The Simpsons, which originally aired November 9, 1997. The title of this episode is a play on Bart Starr...
", while coaching his son's peewee football team, Homer SimpsonHomer SimpsonHomer Jay Simpson is a fictional character in the animated television series The Simpsons and the patriarch of the eponymous family. He is voiced by Dan Castellaneta and first appeared on television, along with the rest of his family, in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987...
uses an electric football table, even instructing one player to "spin around in a circle". In "Marge Be Not ProudMarge Be Not Proud"Marge Be Not Proud" is the eleventh episode of The Simpsons seventh season. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on December 17, 1995. In the episode, Marge refuses to buy Bart the new video game Bonestorm, so he steals it from a local discount store...
", comforting his sonBart SimpsonBartholomew JoJo "Bart" Simpson is a fictional main character in the animated television series The Simpsons and part of the Simpson family. He is voiced by actress Nancy Cartwright and first appeared on television in The Tracey Ullman Show short "Good Night" on April 19, 1987...
when his parents refuse to buy him a present, Homer offers these dubious words of advice:
- "I know what you're saying, Bart. When I was young, I wanted an electric football machine more than anything else in the world, and my parents bought it for me, and it was the happiest day of my life. Well, goodnight!"
- In Bill BrysonBill BrysonWilliam McGuire "Bill" Bryson, OBE, is a best-selling American author of humorous books on travel, as well as books on the English language and on science. Born an American, he was a resident of Britain for most of his adult life before moving back to the US in 1995...
's "The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir," the author describes electric football as "The worst toy of the decade [the 1950s], possibly the worst toy ever built...it took forever to set up each play because the men were so fiddly and kept falling over, and because you argued continuously with your opponent about what formations were legal and who got to position the final man...it hardly mattered how they were set up because electric football players never went in the direction intended. In practice what happened was that half the players instantly fell over and lay twitching violently as if suffering from some extreme gastric disorder, while the others streamed off in as many different directions as there were upright players before eventually clumping together in a corner, where they pushed against the unyielding sides like victims of a nightclub fire at a locked exit. The one exception to this was the running back who just trembled in place for five or six minutes, then slowly turned and went on an unopposed glide toward the wrong end zone until knocked over with a finger on the two-yard line by his distressed manager, occasioning more bickering." (hardcover version, page 113)
- In Bill Bryson
Sources
- Miniature Football Coaches Association Unifying the miniature football hobbyist by promoting miniature electric football, educating the public and providing a unified association which recognizes and supports the diverse coaches and leagues.
- Miniature Football Coaches Association Forum A forum dedicated to the discussion of all aspects of miniature electric football. This site is made possible by The Miniature Football Coaches Association.
External links
- I Remember JFK: A Baby Boomer's Pleasant Reminiscing Spot - Tudor Electric Football
- The Miniature Football Coaches Association Taking the game of electric football to new heights as the hobby known as Miniature Football
- Super Shock Football for the iPhone
- The Virginia Electric Football League a member of the MFCA and a great website with lots of pictures of the game
- Cool Things - Electric Football Game on Kansas Historical Society website