Flashback Friday: ColecoVision

The header to my blog used to mention some influences from my youth, like the movies Sandlot and Labyrinth. Now my header is more brief, so people can get right to the meat of posts.

In order to hearken to the olden days, I'd like to start a series that will highlight topics from my childhood.
It will be called Flashback Friday, and will be posted on, you guessed it, Fridays.

To start, I was thinking the other day about my family's first video game console.

ColecoVision.

Did you have a ColecoVision? Or did your friend from Mrs. Jensen's 3rd grade class have one?
Perhaps you're too young to remember anything before Nintendo, or even SuperNintendo?

It looked like this:

Yes, now it looks positively archaic. But it was cutting edge at the time.

It made having an arcade game possible in your very own home. No more dropping quarter after quarter into that slot, wasting all the loot you earned by taking out the trash and drying dishes.

And I think I can speak for the whole Smyth family when I say we loved the Smurf game the most.

Not The Smurfs or even Smurfs, but simply Smurf.

Over the past 20+ years, I'm sure my mind has greatly romanticized the quality of gameplay.

In fact, playing it now would probably frustrate me to no end.
Those stupid fences, stalactites/stalagmites, and bats always got me.
But I'd also love every second of it.

Memories can do that. Even if technology has been innumerable improvements, those memories still make the experience wonderful and exciting.

Anybody got an old ColecoVision laying around that I could borrow?

If you have any suggestions for other Friday Flashback material, I'd love to include them.
And believe me, I've got a bunch already listed out to start with. This will be a fun trip down memory lane.