TWELVE YEARS OF CHRISTMAS: YEAR FIVE

1977
The Red Baron velcro-wrapped ball game, the magnetic alphabet and even my sister's pink phone were all fun, but this was the year I received one of my all time greatest Christmas presents. No, it wasn't a Star Wars "early bird" pack of action figures or even a voucher box for them. (Those wouldn't come to town until early Spring.) I got an amazingly fun game called Chutes Away!


It played remarkably like an arcade game. It's control console and view through the eyepiece foreshadowed video games like 1942 and its subsequent copycats. The artwork on the rotating playing field was captivating and I studied it during my gaming breaks. It depicted a treacherous land populated by stranded survivors who had suffered a variety of distinctive calamities...

No wonder I like the show Lost so much.

More on Chutes Away! here and here.