Retrogaming ads 1982 – 1985

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Pink Panther hand held electronic game by Orlitronic. France. 1984.

TVTA is pleased to present a selection of retrogaming ads from 1982 to 1985 … featuring The Pink Panther, Mickey Mouse and The Smurfs hand held games from Orlitronic … Atari … Coleco Vision … Parker Brothers … CBS Electronics … and the not-much-known-about French electronics company ITMC.

Mickey Mouse hand held electronic game by Orlitronic. France. 1984.

Smurfs hand held electronic game by orlitronic. France. 1983.

Atari. France. 1983.

CBS Electronics / Coleco Vision. France. 1984.

CBS Electronics / Coleco Vision. France. 1983.

Amidar by Parker Brothers. US. 1982.

Pole Position by Atari. UK. 1983.

Scott Adams presents Hulk, Spider-Man and Fantasic Four home computer games. US. 1985.

Atari video games. France. 1984.

Let’s get dizzy…

This 1983 ad for Solar Fox does its worst to perpetuate the sexist trope of the dumb blonde. CBS Electronics… what space cadets!

Solar Fox by CBS Electronics. US. 1983.

In. The. Mystery. Corner.

We end with these colourful and fun adverts for hand held pocket games from hard-to-track-down French company ITMC. When researching ITMC I found very little information other than these 1983 hand helds were made in Japan and sold in France along with other ITCM-branded gaming consoles. There is also a connection to the French toy chain JouéClub, either in promoting or co-producing certain models.

Panique Spatiale / Space Panic by ITMC. France. 1983.

Guerre des Astres / War of the Stars by ITMC. France. 1983.

That’s all for now. Thanks for looking 😎

24 thoughts on “Retrogaming ads 1982 – 1985”

  2. Awesome post! I managed an import/retro video-game store for 12 years (we unfortunately closed down about 8 years back) so this post brings me great memories of my favourite ever job! I still have some of my old Grandstand LCD games somewhere too!! 🙂

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  3. Ah! These are cool… I remember those Orlitronic games… or at least I have vague recollections of similar looking games. A pal had Pole Position for the Atari and I remember playing it at his. Good times.

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  5. Had loads they used to eat battery’s. Would end up buying transformers which never lasted more than a few months. Happy Days, sore elbows from lying on the floor for hours playing frogger and space invaders

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  6. Electronic handheld games! There’s a blast from the past in the tablet age. I remember having Sonic the Hedgehog and The Crystal Maze ones, think they were both by Tiger (and they were both awful!). I don’t know much about the Colecovision, but that racing game looks quite cool for 1983. Fun stuff, as usual 🙂

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    • Cheers Jacob. I have a couple of ads for Tiger hand helds… Batman Returns is one of them. Me, I had the Nintendo Game and Watch Snoopy tennis and Donkey Kong – both good games, and a Tetris clone. I remember there were a ton of clone games at the time including table top consoles and game watches.

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      • Hello TVTA, I remember handheld gaming, I owned a Grand Prix racing handheld. I think it was a Tiger model but was re-branded as Systema, a much cheaper version than the Tiger models (they were sold in bargain £1 stores like Poundstretchers). I bought it for £2 back in the late 80’s early 90’s. I was then lucky enough to buy a SEGA Game Gear colour handheld games console (which could also work as a TV with a special antenna adapter). I still own the Game Gear to this day.

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      • You’re right, there were a lot of cheap hand helds back in the late 80s and 90s. The Tetris clone I had was about £2 from a shop like Poundstretchers. Tell you what though, it lasted years and on the same battery too – remarkable considering how much I played it.

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      • I totally agree, mine lasted about a decade and had a watch/hearing aid R-type battery. Another couple of handheld games I have are the WCW Thumb Wrestling Electronic game and a WCW Championship Challenge which is integrated into a figurine of the wrestler named Sting. That thing still keeps beeping now and then and I got that in the 90’s!

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      • I think batteries nowadays suffer because they are made so they don’t harm the environment, the older batteries had stuff like zinc and lead in them that probably isn’t good for nature!
        The Sting game had the screen and control buttons built in the figure’s chest, but his arms were modeled as if holding a belt above it’s head in victory – which makes it hard to pack away.

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  7. That’s a fun post! I never had a hand held game. I did have an Atari (my first) that had a Spiderman and all he did was climb, or fall off a wall. It was a couple steps up on Pong, which I never could win.
    How anyone could always lose when that pong thing is so slow? 😀 x

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