 Ready for its closeup. Almost. New stuff-Plaid holograms! wow! |
The Lost Prototype?In early 1986, Brooksfilms was doing pre-prodcution work on Spaceballs and was devising merchandise for Yogurt's scene; Spaceballs the cereal, etc. What is more prevalent than the movie-based tie-in video game?The plan was to have Lone Starr put in a quarter and set a new high score, triggering a Shwartz Patrol team to come running in to recruit Starr, in a reference to 1984's 'The Last Starfighter'. (Atari had previously been utilized in providing a prop video game cabinet for that movie) In April 1986, Atari was contacted for clearance and possibly licensing the game for an actual arcade or home game. Following some negotiations between Atari and the film's production staff, a modified Asteroids Deluxe cabinet was delivered to the studio prop department for setup. Atari's art department designed a marquee for the game, and the control panel had (track) balls, in keeping with the theme of the movie. A pair of special translucent trackballs were designed and installed resembling two star-fillled spheres, lighted by two 5v bulbs under the control panel. Due to prior licensing agreements, Atari could not provide one of their Star Wars cabinets for modification, so the older style game waqs deemed suitable for the production needs. It did not contain a vector monitor, nor was it set up in the same fashion as the orignal Asteroidss Deluxe game, but was instead fitted with a multisynch raster monitor for displayng a video feed of simiulated gameplay for filming. While other scenes were being filmed, developers at Atari were assigned to both make a simulated game and explore the potential for an actual game if development was approved. Numerous photographs of Brooks and other actors in character were sent to Atari for integration into the game demo, and a preliminary script and sound effects were developed for the video loop. Developement stopped when a rewrite of the script removed the Starfighter recruitment joke, and the costs of developing the simulated game were too excessive, so the fully-decorated cabinet was set aside and not used in filming. The cabinet was not seen for 20 years until rediscovered in 2006; it had been sold to a arcade operator who had converted it to a Jamma cabinet and was running 'Street Fighter 2' in it. |
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Very little documentation exists of this 'prototype', but the cabinet is being restored to its
film-ready state for historical purposes.
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 This parts pile held a useful thing- a working 1989 Atari CPU! |
Spaceballs: The Video Game: The RestorationAtari video game fans should appreciate this little bit of history coming back to life.. |
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