[ Retro Scan of the Week ] Censored by Electronic Games Magazine
May 12th, 2008 by Benj Edwards
Click above to see the full ad.
Close your eyes! The above picture is too hot for young minds to take. Or so thought Electronic Games in 1983 when they elected to censor the poster-girl’s bikini-clad crotch with an inelegant black circle.
When I first saw this ad for “video game sports accessories,” I thought the censorship have been a joke. But since it was published a video game magazine in 1983 — hence, “for kids” — it makes more sense. She’s clutching that phallic-looking broken joystick awfully close to the operative parts of her reproductive anatomy, and I guess that made the magazine nervous. God forbid she conceive a child with an arcade machine.
But what exactly has been gained by covering her crotch? It makes one wonder what hideous, kinky, suggestive imagery might be lurking under there to warrant such a circle. And therein lies the problem with arbitrary censorship — it draws undue attention to what otherwise might have been a mundane affair.
Discussion topic of the week: Imagine you’re ten years old in 1983. What would you think of the image above?
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May 12th, 2008 at 11:56 am
Video Sports Glove >>> Power Glove 😉
May 12th, 2008 at 1:28 pm
I think I would have been looking for $5 to order that poster……I wonder if the address still works. 😉
But I agree with your point. Calling attention to something that you want to hide doesn’t really do a whole lot of good. This day and age, photoshopping something is a much better choice. You can adjust the “tastefulness” (subjective term who’s definition is left to the beholder) in a less obvious way.
Layne
May 12th, 2008 at 3:10 pm
I COMPLETELY remember this ad, believe it or not. Must’ve had some impact on my innocent brain, showing all that skin.
May 12th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
I’m pretty sure I have a copy of EG with this ad uncensored somewhere. I too remember it from when I was a lad. 🙂 I’ll see if I can’t dig it up…
May 13th, 2008 at 7:43 am
“She’s a Man Baby!”
May 13th, 2008 at 7:56 am
Found it! I guess by May of ’84 they had gotten over the need to censor… Here it is
May 13th, 2008 at 9:59 am
Thanks for finding that, Dave. The censored truth is just as boring as I thought. Bizarre.
By the way, nice comment, Geoff. 🙂
May 13th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
Do you think there was no longer a need to censor? Or do you think that they had to alter the image so that there was more “coverage”? I could see it going either way.
May 13th, 2008 at 12:21 pm
You’ve got a good point, Layne. Perhaps they added more bikini to it. Unless someone can find an earlier, uncensored version of the image, I guess we’ll never know.
May 13th, 2008 at 1:54 pm
That bikini looks totally fake. We need to find the original poster.
May 14th, 2008 at 11:33 am
Through the magic of the internet, I found out very little about the company that made these products. It was started by a man named Robert Chavez. I found this picture from Twin Galaxies:
http://www.twingalaxies.com/index.aspx?c=17&id=756
May 14th, 2008 at 12:33 pm
Good work, Jim.
Now if he were only holding the original Video Maniac girl poster in that picture.
May 26th, 2008 at 1:50 am
i think that ad gave me my first boner :O
May 26th, 2008 at 4:12 pm
I’d dismiss it as a lame marketing ploy concocted by the ad execs. Trouble is, uncensored, it’s just a different type of lame marketing ploy.
June 6th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
Wow- I don’t have to imagine what it was like. I was 12 yrs to be exact- and this definitely made an impression ; ) Haven’t thought about it since but recognized it immediately.
October 2nd, 2008 at 2:01 pm
Yikes! Ditto, Keith. I knew the picture as soon as I saw it. Crazy that an image like that has been wasting space inside my brain for such a long time…but then I can remember a number of things from that magazine.
January 6th, 2010 at 3:43 pm
I was 13 when this ad came out. I don’t have to imagine.
What’s more amusing is that later on this ad appeared without the black circle. Not so thrilling!
April 16th, 2010 at 1:14 am
Two words: dromedary tarsal.
February 23rd, 2011 at 12:40 am
That image may have led to my lesbianism!! I remember it when it came out:)