The History Of Video Games On TV

Take a look back and see how far we've come.

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Image via Complex Original
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Trion just released their new video game, Defiance, an online shooter that's integrated with a live-action TV show by the same name on the Syfy channel (airing April 15). There's been quite a bit of chatter in the gaming community about the game with comparisons to the hit video game PlanetSide 2 and a in the earlier days of video gaming people referred to it as being a fad and now decades later, it's one of the most lucrative business in entertainment. It makes you wonder if the same thing was said about television in its infancy. Not too far in the distant past, video games were rarely seen on TV. Sure there were the occasional news reports but as far as an official outlet, the world of gaming was a barren desert of a topic.

In the mid to late 80s that desert began to change into an oasis for video game fans and there was programming to cater to them. Game shows like Video Power and Saturday morning cartoons popped up all over television and without even knowing it, paved the way for video games like Defiance to be possible.

Here's our look back at the beginnings of TV's courting of video games with the milestone moments that got us to this point.

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The First Commercial Of A Video Game Console Airs

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Year: 1973

The Magnavox Odyssey was the first ever home video game console ever made. That's right, it pre-dated Atari's Pong which came out a year later. If you wonder why you've never heard too much about the Oddysey, it was poor marketing that made it fail. Since it had the Magnavox brand name, consumers thought that it only worked on Magnavox televisions. This led Atari to boast that their Pong console worked on any television and scoop up the market share. If only video game marketing was so simple now. Anyhow, Magnavox created the first television commercial to ever advertise a video game console which you can check out below.

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Interactive Programming Gets Its Start With "TV POWWW"

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Year: 1978

Not everyone could afford a home console back in 1978 so Florida TV syndicator Marvin Kempner came up with the idea of a segment where people could call in and play video games on the Intellivision video game console over the phone. A caller would dial-in and by using a phrase (in New York City it was "Pix") they would be able to shoot down alien spaceships or shoot basketballs into a hoop. TV POWWW was syndicated all over the United States and picked up over seas until 1982.

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"Saturday Night Live" Introduces "Alan" The Video Game Junkie

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Year: 1982

As video games gained more pop culture relevance, Saturday Night Live took a satirical swing at the culture with their Confession of a Video Junkie sketch. The short mockumentary explored the seedy underworld of kids that were addicted to video games through the eyes of "Alan." Most notably was "Phyllis" who supported her video game habit "the hard way, one quarter at a time." The classic sketch still brings laughter to gamers to this day.

"Silver Spoons" Has Arcade Games On The Set

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Pac Man Makes His TV Debut

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Year: 1982

During this time, Pac Man was the most popular video game on the scene. This sparked Hanna Barbara (who brought us The Flintstones, The Jetsons and Scooby Doo) to bring the title to TV. Pac Man looked like your everyday working man and in typical Hanna Barbara style spoke with a thick New York accent. The cartoon didn't have much in common with the actual video game itself but it was the first animated series to feature a video game character.

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"That's Incredible!" Hosts The First Televised Video Game Competition

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Year: 1983

Before this special episode of That's Incredible! aired, there was never a televised video game competition. Thanks to gaming forefather Walter Day of the Twin Galaxies arcade and the producers of That's Incredible!, gamers got to see the best players in the country battle it out on TV. This was one of the greatest steps forward in bringing video game culture to the masses without it being the butt of a joke.

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Video Game Inspired Cartoons Get A Boost

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Year: 1983

By this time, video games had fully gotten the attention of the American mainstream and the idea of a line up of Saturday morning cartoons was wouldn't seem ridiculous. So when CBS decided to run Donkey Kong, Frogger, Kangaroo, Pitfall, Q Bert and Space Ace, as their Saturday Supercade package, they had hit a gold mine. The classic arcade game inspired cartoons ran all the way up until 1985 proving that video games could indeed work in television.

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Video Game Cartoons Become Interactive

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Year: 1984

Origninally made by artists from Disney, the Dragon's Lair arcade game revolutionized the use of animation in video games. When the TV version came out, the producers of the show brought with it the same choice-based feature of the video game. When it came time for a commercial, viewers were asked what would they do in the cliffhanger situation. When the show came back, we'd see the results of the choices offerred. How's that for interactive programming?

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Motion Video Games Arise

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Year: 1984

Before we had Xbox Kinect, PlayStation Move and the Nintendo Wii, there was Photon. Originally, it was a line of toys that allowed players to shoot lasers at each other with the tagged player being the loser. The television show sort of followed the object of the toy game but was more story based. Horrible special effects, and clunky, ugly hardware was the death of the Photon show and made way for the birth of Lazer Tag.

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Driving Video Games Get In On The Televised Action

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Year: 1984

No one into classic video games could ever forget the grand daddy of all driving games, Pole Position. When it made its 1984 debut on TV, fans of the game immediately noticed that it had no relevance at all to the video game itself. It was a crime-adventure series with cars in it. The intro was awesome though and you really can't complain since Pole Position was the first driving video game turned TV show.

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Motion Video Gameplay Returns With An Upgrade

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Year: 1987

Lazer Tag took its cue from Photon by making people the controllers of a fast paced shooter. Lazer Tag Academy was the cartoon version of the highly successful game but if you're at an age where you can remember when it came out, you'll know that the commercials for the physical game were better than any of the episodes that aired.

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Now check out the badass live-action commercial for the toys.

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Hardware Meets Interactive Television

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Year: 1987

People slept on the Captain Power series as it was the first series that interacted with real-life toys. Viewers that had either of the toy fighter ships could shoot at or avoid enemies on the screen as the show played. If you got hit too many times, the cockpit on the toy would open and eject the pilot but if you won, you got, well, a series of beeps indicating that you were awesome.

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Live Action Mixes With Animation

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Year: 1989

Nintendo was at the top of the video gaming world and everyone wanted a piece of the action. That's when The Super Mario Supershow began its run on Fox bringing Nintendo's most popular characters (Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda) to animated glory. The show had such an impact that it even sparked the "Well, excuse me princess" internet meme.

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Enter Branded Programming

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Year: 1989

Before Captain N: The Game Master, no other video game company had been able to make an entire series based around its brand. The show focused on teenager Kevin Keene who gets sucked into a world of all things Nintendo. You have to admit that pulling such a bold move takes a pair of cojones the size of Nintendo's main offices.

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The First Game Show For Video Games

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Year: 1992

The first competitive video games show series started in the U.K. with Gamesmaster which put contestants against each other for the coveted golden joystick trophy. At the time, video game companies didn't have an outlet to promote their games so the show was a godsend. In fact, Gamemaster was able to show off the N64's Blast Corps before it was released.

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The U.S. Gets A Video Games Game Show

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Year: 1991

The United States finally gets its proper game show about video games although Video Power didn't start out that way. At first the series was an animated show about a guy who teamed up with a rag-tag bunch of characters from various Acclaim Entertainment video games. In its second season, Video Power switched up into a game show where contestants would play through five rounds of trivia and NES and Gameboy gameplay.

Here is the intro for the first season.

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And now the second, more Vanilla Ice-ish season.

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"You Don't Know Jack" Finally Gets A TV Show

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Year: 2005

Hosted by Paul Ruebens (Pee-Wee Herman), the 1995 hit video game You Don't Know Jack became an actual televised game show. Who knows why it took so long for it to happen but unfortunately, the run didn't last long and after only a month, it was cancelled.

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"Pokemon" Fever Hits American Shores

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Year: 1997

After the success of Nintendo's Japanese only Pokemon Red and Green Gameboy title in 1996, the cartoon which thankfully held true to the game version aired. The characters in the Pokemon show traveled around searching and caring for rare pocket monsters. At commercial breaks, viewers were challenged to guess a mystery Pokemon creature and at the return found out which one it was. If you think about it, that was the most ingenious way to get kids to beg their parents for more games and merchandise.

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"Red vs. Blue" Becomes A Cult Classic

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Year: 2003

Inspired by the Halo franchise, Red vs. Blue followed the careers of the game's Spartans through a run of silly adventures. Rooster Teeth, the creators have been cranking out the hilarious series for about 10 years now and have been cleaning up with DVDs, merchandise and the team was also responsible for animating the latest Halo/Mountain Dew campaign. 

Here's the first ever episode of Red vs. Blue.

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"Code Monkeys" Shows Another Side Of The Video Game World

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Year: 2007

Instead of in-game characters, Code Monkeys focused on the business of video games instead. Credit that to the growing interest of gamers in the making of video games or the craze of everything retro for its 8-bit art stye but Code Monkeys can pat itself on the back being the first sitcom about video game developers.

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The Internet Moves In On TV Programming

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Year: 2007

Created by actor and gamer Felicia Day, The Guild was one of the greatest success stories in video gaming. Taking its roots on YouTube, the show follows the lives of a group of gamers and their online guild. Since its start in 2007, The Guild has won numerous awards from Yahoo, YouTube and South By South West. Not bad by someone who just wanted to do something productive with her gaming experience.

Check out the first episode of The Guild.

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Crime Dramas Include Video Games

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Year: 2004

Hollywood is more than comfortable including video game related content to their scripts and feel open enough to make it a part of their crime shows. On shows like Law & Order and C.S.I., there's an abundance of episodes that portray video games as a catalyst to crime. One of the most ridiculous was the "Game" episode of Law & Order Special Victims Unit where a criminal takes a cue from the Grand Theft Auto games to violently kill women and take their money.

"Defiance" Arrives

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Year: 2013

For the first time, a show is taking its lead from a video game instead of the other way around. Syfy's Defiance allows gamers to influence the show's plot through gameplay. Hopefully, this will spawn a movement of TV show producers to take more chances with concepts like this. Sure some will fail and others will win but the fact that Defiance was greenlit in the first place is proof positive that someone in the Hollywood hills is thinking outside of the box.

Check out the video game trailer.

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Now the TV show trailer.

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