Electric Football
A vibrating tabletop football game with moving players.
Electric Football is a tabletop American football game played on a metal vibrating field. It is enjoyed by football enthusiasts from young to old. The game features moving players that react to vibrations created by an electromagnet motor under the field.
Quick Facts
- Inventor
- Norman Sas
- Year invented
- 1948
- Original manufacturer
- Tudor Metal Products Corporation
- Total games sold
- 70 million
- Flagship model
- Model 620
Facts from the source article.
History
In 1948, Norman Sas took over Tudor Metal Products Corporation from his father, Elmer, and created Tudor Electric Football. The idea came from a vibrating car race game the company already made. The first version, the #500 model, was the first tabletop football game where players actually moved, shaking in response to an electromagnet motor beneath the metal field. It also let players pass and kick. The game took off right away and stayed popular through the 1960s and 1970s. Tudor has sold 70 million copies so far, which inspired other toy companies to make their own versions. Tudor made the first all-plastic 3D player figures, and in the 1960s, designer Lee Payne brought Norman Sas more realistic prototypes. These debuted on the larger #600 model, featuring five different player poses. Payne also helped Tudor get an NFL license, so the figures could be painted in real team colors. He later became head of Product Development, designing more detailed fields, crowd backdrops, and scoreboards. He created the Triple Threat Quarterback from a softer plastic, able to run, pass, and kick. In 1967, Tudor released the Model 620, which had a metal playing surface, a cardboard scoreboard backdrop, NFL-style goal posts, and NFL-painted teams. That model set the standard for the game. Later came the Total Team Control (TTC) base, which added a directional dial for better route control. Tudor was sold to Miggle Toys in 1990. In February 2012, Doug Strohm became president and CEO. He brought back the NFL license, made new figures and fields, and officially added products created by hobbyists. Today, local, regional, national, and international leagues and tournaments lead up to a World Championship event.
The game
The game is played on a metal field ranging from 24 inches long by 13 inches wide up to 61 inches long by 27.5 inches wide. Detailed plastic players on bases react to the vibration of the field and are placed in formations. After offensive and defensive coaches complete formations, audibles in the form of pivots or motions are made to gain advantage. A switch activates an electric or battery powered counterbalanced motor causing the field to vibrate and players to move. Each player is attached to a base with prongs or brushes, also called cleats, underneath. These prongs can be coached before play using smooth mouthed pliers to stretch, shape, or flatten them for faster, stronger, and exact route performance. The base and action figure combination is placed in an on-field position best using their combined attributes. Special players pass, kick, or punt the ball, which is a small slit oval piece of felt, rubberized foam, or leather. The throwing quarterback has an extended arm on which the ball is placed; the arm or entire figure can be bent backward to flick the football to an intended receiver. If the ball touches the receiver figure or its base, it is a complete catch. Special players for kicking and punting have spring legs that kick or punt when pulled back and released. The original iconic quarterback, the Triple Threat QB or TTQ, can pass and kick. In 2016, an app called Electric Football Challenge was created, serving as a digital scoreboard with configurable timers matching real football flow. The app can perform passing and kicking in place of the traditional Triple Threat QB/Kicker, and includes a playbook with over 45 plays and a rules section.
In popular culture
Steamroller Studios and Chillingo released a version of the classic game for the iPhone and iPod Touch in September 2009 called Super Shock Football, and an HD version for the iPad in January 2010. In the film Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey, the two main characters challenge Death to a series of games to escape Hell, and one game Death loses is electric football. In an episode of the animated comedy series The Critic, a clip from a Ken Burns documentary about electric football shows an elderly man saying electric football is a metaphor for America, then changing his mind and calling it a stupid game that does not work. In The Simpsons episode Bart Star, Homer Simpson uses an electric football table while coaching his son's peewee football team. In Bill Bryson's The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir, the author describes electric football as the worst toy of the 1950s, possibly the worst ever built. In the Pinky and the Brain episode Brain's Song, Brain uses an electric football game as his field to broadcast a tearjerker sports movie, but the game's vibrations cause him to vibrate randomly and foil his plan. In the Fringe episode Safe, Walter demonstrates a substance rearrangement by placing a canister of rice and an action figure on a vibrating football game.
More in Sports Board Games
Spotted an error? Know more?
Reader corrections go straight into our review queue. Suggest an edit · How this site is sourced