Yes, This Almost Happened: The Car Game--for Kids!


When looking back at the history of the American toy industry, it’s amazing to consider some of the toys that the industry thought would be “appropriate” for kids. Take Kenner, for example: After making boatloads of cash from Star Wars toys, it hastily picked up the toy license for Alien simply because it was a high-profile space movie without giving a second thought about how horrifying the film actually was. Along those lines, Kenner did something else based on movie popularity, with likewise questionable results. It created a game for kids based on the 1977 horror movie, The Car, about a possessed, driverless car that loves to run over people. I had no idea that this game was even an idea in someone’s head, let alone something that Kenner thought about releasing to toy stores, until I found a post about it on the Plaid Stallions site.


With Kenner's The Car game, kids can get run down by
a demonic vehicle in the privacy of their own homes.
(Photo courtesy of Plaid Stallions.)


From licensing and design perspectives, The Car game sort of makes sense. Ideal released a similarly-themed game based on Jaws that proved to be quite popular, so someone at Kenner probably thought that a game based on a Jaws rip-off would be almost or just as popular. Furthermore, toy cars and motorcycles that could be propelled from a launcher base had been reliable sellers during the 70s and 80s, so I could see Kenner utilizing such a design as part of a game, possibly based on a preexisting launcher design that could be modified and relabeled for the game at minimal cost. Nevertheless, just reading the description of the game in the picture above makes it pretty clear that the players who lose the game are killed by the monster car, thus making the winning player the survivor. Candyland this isn’t.

I’m not sure why Kenner never actually produced the game, although I suspect that it was scrapped after The Car failed to live up to expectations at the box office. It should be noted that the movie went on to become a cult classic and that ERTL released a die-cast replica of the titular vehicle back in 2003. Those replicas now go for a few hundred dollars on the collectors' market.


ERTL's replica of The Car.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Art of Tron: Uprising (Part 1 of 4): Characters

Image
This month marks the one year anniversary of the cancellation of Tron: Uprising , which aired on Disney XD for 19 episodes. Set between the events of Tron and Tron: Legacy , Uprising chronicled the events shortly after Clu’s rise to power within the stand-alone Grid created by Kevin Flynn. Personally, I think that Tron: Uprising got a raw deal from Disney. It’s a fantastic addition to the Tron saga that went on to win both Emmy and Annie Awards , yet Disney clearly had other priorities and was willing to toss Uprising aside without so much as an official cancellation notice. Even to this day, Uprising has yet to be released on DVD or Blu-ray and I’m wondering if it ever will. In honor of this amazing animated series that was cut down in its prime, I have decided to do something that Disney won’t. Since there will never be an official Tron: Uprising art book, I have searched across the Internet to find a selection of art from Uprising that I can share here on my blog with
Read more

The Thing 2: A Sequel Frozen in the Lost Video Game Wasteland

Image
Since I added The Thing prequel to my Blu-ray collection (read my review here ), I've been on a bit of a Thing kick lately. I watched John Carpenter's 1982 movie again, and I've been looking through various Thing fan sites to see if I can learn anything new about this sporadically active franchise. While the poor box office performance of 2011's The Thing precludes another Thing movie any time soon, I was surprised to discover that there was yet another Thing project in the works even before anyone considered a prequel on the silver screen. The project was called The Thing 2 , and it was designed by Computer Artworks as a sequel to their 2002 The Thing video game. From what I've been able to piece together, development of The Thing 2 was discontinued after Computer Artworks shut down in 2004. I've found some conceptual artwork for this game online, which you can see in the picture gallery I've assembled below. Read on....
Read more

The Art of Tron: Uprising (Part 2 of 4): Vehicles and Equipment

Image
In this second of four posts devoted to the art of Tron: Uprising , we'll be taking a look at the vehicles and equipment used by the characters in Uprising . The original Tron movie revealed a selection of vehicles and equipment that became closely associated with the franchise. The Light Cycles, Recognizers, Light Tanks, and Identity Discs of Tron were also featured prominently in the movie's tie-in arcade games and would reappear later with updated designs in Tron 2.0 and Tron: Legacy . Uprising featured these same items as well, along with new vehicles and equipment that are analogous to things in the real world: boats, helicopters, rail transportation, and hand-held tools. Of particular significance is the Recoder tool used by Beck, which gave fans a look at how programs assemble, disassemble and repair the virtual machinery within the Grid. Click below to see the portfolio of vehicles and equipment from Tron: Uprising .
Read more