Even a guy that may or may not be James Bond enjoys a good game of Lazer Tag.
Did any of you ever actually own one of these growing up? Do you know anyone who did? My answer to both questions is “I didn’t”. But, man oh man, I wanted one! Lazer Tag was cutting edge technology! Forget about playing good old fashioned “war”, Lazer Tags let you uprgade to “future war”!
Of course, along with the invention of Lazer Tag (and the similar Photon, both of which came out in ’86), there were all kinds of laser gun arenas popping up. I’ve been to a couple of those in my time and they’re always fun, even if I’ve always found the “refs” or whatever to be a bit high strung and have a low tolerance level for kids. There’s a laser arena here in Lansing, based out of an old AMC movie theater. Maybe I should go there some day.
Outside of the arena (literally), the closest I ever got to Lazer Tag was having a tin Lazer Tag waste bin. Now isn’t that just an extremely cruel thing for parents to do to their kid? “Oh, here’s that thing you really want… See, there’s a picture of it on this TRASH CAN.”
On one side of the bin, there was a really cool photograph of the gun shooting a laser out, and on the other side there was a cartoon scene of a battle taking place. I was mesmerized by a trash can!
After a Saturday morning cartoon (see video below) and three Choose Your Own Adventure books, Lazer Tag is still going strong today and it is now manufactured by Hasbro.
Tags: 1980s, Commercials, Lazer Tag, Lazer Tag Academy, Toys
I vaguely remember the cartoon, but I never owned any of the equipment (brand name or otherwise). As a young adult, however, I did participate in a few “laser tag” sessions w/ a large group of guys out in a big park where you could be all covert, hiding behind trees & whatnot. That was super fun.
I can’t believe it’s all still going on!