I was a feral little kid who read cereal boxes like scripture, so retro video game ads basically raised me. Nobody warned me they were written by grown men running on espresso and zero supervision.
That is a real ad, approved by real adults, for a toy sold to children. It only gets louder from here.
Somebody got a raise for this pun.
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A hedgehog with a major attitude, which is also how my mom described me in 1993.
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Goodbye to everything else, including depth perception.
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Cheaper than therapy and about as effective.
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Mario's 2004 era. We don't talk about it.
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Six tasty colors and zero people who wanted to picture that.
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Console wars, but make it a cookout.
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Yelling FIRE at the TV with three siblings in the room went great, I'm sure.
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The milk is a choice. The milk is always a choice.
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Still cooler than any console I can afford now.
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The arcade's liability waiver was four pages long.
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Nothing says buy our game like a car wash run by nightmares.
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The trash talk is what gets me. The console wars were apparently fought by copywriters who had just been dumped, because one ad calls you a weenie for owning the wrong system and another builds a literal tower of cartridges to look down on the competition. I have sent calmer texts to an ex at 2 a.m. Retro gaming had a whole rivalry and nobody handled it maturely, which honestly makes me feel seen.
Then somebody in marketing discovered innuendo and never recovered. Half of these funny vintage ads are one wink away from a warning label, and the other half went straight for body horror, including an actual skull X-ray selling a brain transplant for $39.99. I once bought a used car because the commercial had a golden retriever in it, so I am in no position to judge anyone’s purchasing logic.
What I love is that none of this was focus grouped into mush. Somebody believed a ferret joke would move handheld consoles, and they were right, because I wanted one immediately. These ads were loud, weird, and a little unhinged, which is exactly how it felt to be a kid holding a controller for the first time.
The batteries are dead. The cartridge needs blowing. The ad still wins.
24 Vintage Ads From Back When Marketing Ran on Pure Confidence and Innuendo is the obvious next stop if this got under your skin, and 24 Retro Gaming Products That Belong In A Game Room Shrine will empty your wallet in spirit. Bring snacks and a spare controller.
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