TIGER ELECTRONICS HANDHELD GAMES

As a kid growing up, in the 80s there wasn’t much in the way of handheld or portable video games. That is, until the emergence of Tiger Electronics LCD games in the late 80s and early 90s. First let’s take a little trip into the past and see how they came to be. Gerald, Randy and Arnold Rissman founded Tiger Electronics Ltd. in 1978 where it was headquartered in Vernon Hills, Illinois. When it first started out, they made low tech products like phonographs. As the company progressed, they made several different familiar products like the 2-XL robot in 1978 and K-28, Tigers talking learning computer in 1984, which were sold around the world at K-Mart and other chain stores. Other notable products were Brain Warp, Lazer Tag, and the world famous Furby. Also, an early hit of the 1990s was a variable speed portable cassette player and recorder known as the Talkboy, made famous in the 1992 hit Home Alone 2: Lost in New York. The company’s cash cow however, would come from there numerous licensed handheld LCD games. The success for these games was just the sheer amount of different popular licenses they were able to obtain. Just to name a few, there were games like RoboCop, The Terminator, Double Dragon, Spider-Man, Batman, and a slew of Disney properties as well as sport games. Tiger Electronics merged with Hasbro in 1998 and still remains to this day.

The simplistic and addictive gameplay appealed to children ranging in ages from 5-12. Although, there wasn’t much too them the property licenses they were able to acquire, made them super fun in my opinion! As of recently, maybe over the past few years, a few of these handheld games have made a resurgence. I bought an X-Men Tiger handheld from GameStop. Still enjoyable to me as an 80s kid. Go listen to Episode 6 of the Retro Resurgence Podcast, where Chad and I talk about these games and share some memories. Happy Thanksgiving everyone! – Ken