Electric football was invented in 1947 by Norman Sas of Tudor games in Brooklyn New York. The first games were small what are called #500 models with tiny little red, yellow, or blue men that were one solid color. These figures today are commonly called "Gorilla".See example:
Then in 1967 Tudor brought out the 1967 deluxe figures painted to represent the then 16 nfl teams (dark and white jerseys) and 9 afl teams (dark jersery only). These men were very detailed and looked like the true NFL teams. All 67 Bigmen
have the words "hong kong" engraved on the bottom of all the bases, have black shoes and are a little over an inch high.
In late 1968 Tudor switched to slightly smaller men. the legs and butts are thicker and wider than the ones produced the year before,they would become to be known as "hoglegs".
In late 1968 Tudor switched to slightly smaller men. the legs and butts are thicker and wider than the ones produced the year before,they would become to be known as "hoglegs".
Hoglegs are still highly sought after by collectors around the world. HOGLEG players are smaller than BIGMEN and only 4 players are marked Hong Kong on the bottom of their bases.
Once again in 1970 Tudor switched their men again and made what we call "chicken legs". Chicken legs were almost the same size as hoglegs but not as thick and not as detailed. Chicken legs were made from 1970 until 1974. CHICKEN LEGS were still NFL teams with black shoes, but none have the Hong Kong marking. See Picture:
Once again in 1970 Tudor switched their men again and made what we call "chicken legs". Chicken legs were almost the same size as hoglegs but not as thick and not as detailed. Chicken legs were made from 1970 until 1974. CHICKEN LEGS were still NFL teams with black shoes, but none have the Hong Kong marking. See Picture:
In the mid 70’s Tudor switched production from Hong Kong to Haiti . Haiti figures were bigger than Hoglegs but smaller than 67 Bigmen. Haiti figures were probably known best for nice neat paint jobs. Like all their older "brothers" from Hong Kong that had certain identifiable characteristics., Haiti could be identified by the little "burs" on each side of their base on the bottom side. All of Hong Kong and haiti teams from 1967 until about 1975 or 76 had black shoes.
In 1978 or 79 production was switched back to Hong Kong, players were made with white shoes and stayed there until the early 90's when China took over production.
In 1978 or 79 production was switched back to Hong Kong, players were made with white shoes and stayed there until the early 90's when China took over production.
4 comments:
I've learned more here than from my uncle that actually worked at Tudor's factory on Johnson street. Great site. Mike
Great post. I can't believe there have been no comments yet. I went to this sie because I have an old eletric football game. It looks identical to the the first picture under A quick history lesson except my goal posts are flat stamped metal. They players are red and yellow. I am jsut rtying to find out when the game I have was made. If you have an idea please e-mail me at swolfe66 at comcast.net Thanks
Very informative; thank you!
Its a crying shame that there is no more traffic than this on a great site dedicated to electric football, im a life long collector of tudor electric football games, how ever not so much of a bigmen or gorilla figures collector, im more into the hogleg and chicken leg teams and have collected quad platoons in home and away jersey for all 32 teams and have every 620 field ever made with the exception of the model 655, Im also a collector of the Gotham game fields, with the SUPERDOME in my collection and hopefully the model G1500 in the very near future im closing in on rounding out my collection but still hunting for the bigbowl game very hard to locate those,im building scale field with complete stadium and scoreboards from the 50"s 60" and 70"s its a very addictive hobby for me and also a lot of fun creating it all, in closing thank you for the site a cool place to land and comment about the greatest board game ever created, thank you
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