BiffMan

As good as I can do with a keyboard...

Thanks to my Mom, packrat extraordinaire, I will have a wealth of stuff to scan next week related to the Astrosmash Shootoff and the VideoChallenge. Turns out, she has a file folder marked "Intellivision".... I henceforth and forevermore relinquish the right to nag Mom about how much old crap she holds onto... ? One of the items is an itinerary of the trip and it does have a few more details on the games played. Yes, I'm pretty sure we used the modified Astrosmash cartridge with the built in timer. Don't recall how Night Stalker was handled. I remember we all started on "go" but whether that means it was timed or they told us when to stop, I don't know. The itinerary doesn't mention a time limit on either Night Stalker or Astrosmash, but obviously there must have been one on Astrosmash at least and I'm pretty sure there was a time limit on Night Stalker since I clearly remember the crushing humiliation of losing before time ran out. In addition to the VideoChallenge stuff, she also has the 8/20/1982 dated Western Union telegram Mattel Electronics sent out to everyone who qualified for the Astrosmash finals offering a 50" Sony Videoscope projection TV ($2500 value) instead of the all-expenses paid trip to the finals in Houston. Given that we lived in Houston at the time and had just won the VideoChallenge regional, we took the TV. ? I have a photo of it from Mom, but will hold off till I can get a proper scan to share and put that up in a separate thread about the Astrosmash Shootoff competition. I don't ever see that option mentioned in stories about it, so fun to capture that for posterity as well. Plaque photo attached. I also apparently have a photo of my Dad and I with George Plimpton at the finals. I'd totally forgotten about that. I look *awesome*! ? Also attaching a photo from a Clear Lake City local newspaper about the Houston competition. It mentions that Houston was the 1st of the 18 city tournament, so I lucked out there. Several of the eventual finalists had to go to multiple cities in order to make the finals, but at this point I'm guessing no one had any idea about it. We only knew about it the day before after seeing it mentioned in the upcoming events part of the paper.

Since I can't pass the IQ test to edit the original post, here are the revised details based on recent findings: Edit: Original post edited now that I'm a subscriber... ?

Some additional sleuthing and I managed to fill in a few gaps (how do I edit my original post?), including a completely excellent find for me personally. First off, I had never heard of the Electronic Games bi-weekly newsletter "Arcade Express" and I found a great mention with cities & dates in issue 4 (9/26/82) and in general it is a completely fascinating time capsule on the boom and bust of the summer '82-'83 timeframe. These are floating around here and there, but Atari Compendium seems to have the easiest to read archive: http://www.ataricompendium.com/archives/newsletters/arcade_express/arcade_express.html Apparently before this was a parent/child competition in summer/fall of '82, it was an individual competition at 6 cities in '81-82. Issue #3 of the Intellivision Game Club newsletter has a writeup on page 3 about the Chicago individual competition and mentions the upcoming 18 city tour which became the parent/child version. http://www.ataricompendium.com/archives/newsletters/intellivision_game_club/intellivision_game_club_summer82.pdf By far the largest bit of awesome is the May 1983 issue of Electronic Games which contains a brief writeup at the bottom of page 12 as well as a pic of a few contestants. Far right of that picture is a bearded man in a "Houston" contest shirt... a certain father of mine who shared in one hell of an experience with his son that year... ?

Hi all, in my excitement about the Founder's Edition this week, I've been sharing some of my memories with my kids, particularly where the contests were involved, since those are such strong memories. Or so I thought. Apparently this thing happens when you age where to don't remember everything as well as you should, so I'm hoping that one or more of you can help me fill in the details, particularly with the timing of the regional contests. My father and I won the Houston competition at Baybrook Mall and I think it was the summer of 1982, but not at all sure of the date. I do know the date of the finals in Los Angeles were December 10th, 1982, because it says so on the plaque I'm looking at. ? If you will indulge me, I'll share what I recall and much appreciate if anyone can fill in the gaps so I can paint the story a little better with my kids. National Finals 18 cities represented with 18 different parent child teams with "over $5000 in prizes" Took place at the Bonanventure Hotel in Los Angeles the morning of December 10th, 1982 Multiple elimination rounds of competition across 6 games. Settings as listed in the "Fact Sheet"/itinerary given out to particpants Frog Bog - night time mode Astrosmash - disc speed, auto fire, 30 minutes timed Night Stalker - disc speed Skiing - slalom, slope 11, disc speed PGA Golf - regular play, no handicapping Lock 'N' Chase - disc speed They flew the winning teams plus 2 additional family members, put us up in the Bonaventure, took us to Disneyland one day, and generally treated us well (hell of a thing for a young teenager) Won by Pittsburgh team Ed and Ed Jr Mandziuk beat Baltimore's We finished 10th, would love to find a list of the final rankings. No memories on the prizes, other than getting an Intellivoice and 3 launch games (before release? I at least didn't have them as of 12/10/1982), our choice of 7 other Intellivision games, a Walkman, and some other minor Intellivision-related swag. Regional Finals Held in 18 cities across the US in summer/fall of 1982, benefitting Variety Clubs International with $1 donated by Mattel Electronics for each team entry. Houston (8/14/1982) Denver (8/21/1982) San Diego (8/28/1982) Dallas (9/11/1982) Portland (9/18/1982) St Louis (9/25/1982) Minneapolis (9/26/1982) Chicago (10/2/1982) Detroit (10/3/1982) Pittsburgh (10/11/1982) Baltimore (10/16/1982) Washington DC (10/17/1982) New Jersey (10/23/1982) Long Island (10/24/1982) San Francisco (10/30/1982) Boston (11/6/1982) Philadelphia (11/7/1982) Atlanta (11/13/1982) Advertised via local newspapers (have seen a few mentions), usually with just a day or few days advance warning 15 open qualifying rounds on Skiing with the lowest sum total of parent/child run time for each round advanced to the next round. You could take multiple attempts at qualifying because my Mom & Sis had to try several times to win their round and make the cut. 2nd round - 30 minute timed Astrosmash competition using the special competition cartridge also used in the Astrosmash Shootoff and other compeitions Final - Top 2 teams did a 10-frame game of PBA Bowling with the winning team advancing to the National Finals in Los Angeles 12/9-12/12/1982. Prizes were handed out for folks who qualified to advance to the 2nd round (Mom & Sis got 2 pieces of Andiamo luggage for placing 7th) but not for the winning team, who "only" got entry to the finals. Pilot parent/child VideoChallenge held in Los Angeles 5/15/1982 with $10,000 in prizes for the top 100 winners. Grand prize was an RCA projection color television, Intellivision Master Component, plus full set of 25 games, worth more than $4,000. Sounds like this was a stand alone test event and not actually one of the 18 city regional events. Thanks in advance if anyone here was a participant or can find details, and happy to share memories of the events if anyone is interested!