| Joysticks | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | Greydon Clark |
| Written by | Al Gomez Mickey Epps Curtis Burch |
| Produced by | Greydon Clark |
| Starring |
|
| Cinematography | Nicholas Josef von Sternberg |
| Edited by | Larry Bock |
Production company | |
| Distributed by | Citadel Films Liberation Entertainment |
Release date |
|
Running time | 88 min. |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $300,000 (estimated) |
| Box office | $3,952,448 (USA) [1] $1,256,315 [2] |
Joysticks is a 1983 American comedy film directed by Greydon Clark.
Jefferson Bailey (Scott McGinnis) runs the most popular video arcade in town, much to the chagrin of local businessman Joseph Rutter (Joe Don Baker). With his two bumbling nephews, Rutter aims to frame Bailey and have his business shut down. Bailey, however, is wise to Rutter's plan and teams with best friends Eugene Groebe (Leif Green) and McDorfus (Jim Greenleaf) to stop this scheme, which also involves a video game duel with punker King Vidiot (Jon Gries).
Director Graydon Clark decided his next film would be an R-rated teen sex comedy based around video games when he saw a group of teenagers playing arcade games in the lobby during a test screening of his previous film, Wacko . The original title was Video Madness. [3] The production took 13 days. [4] Midway Games allowed the film to use the image of Pac-Man just for featuring its games in the film. These included Satan's Hollow and the then-unreleased Super Pac-Man used during the film's climactic video game showdown. [3] It also showcased a game by Los Angeles company Computer Kinetics Corp. called Stripper, which was a mod of a Shoei game called Streaker. [5]
The film was theatrically released on March 4, 1983, in the United States by Jensen Farley Pictures and was the fifth highest grossing in its first week. [4] It grossed $3,952,448 in the United States. [6]
The film was released on VHS and Betamax by Vestron Video. Liberation Entertainment released the film on DVD in 2006. It was released on Blu-ray by Scorpion in 2013 as a 30th anniversary edition.
The film's soundtrack was released in November 2015 by Eczema Records. [7]
The Atari 2600 is a home video game console developed and produced by Atari, Inc. Released in September 1977, it popularized microprocessor-based hardware and games stored on swappable ROM cartridges, a format first used with the Fairchild Channel F in 1976. Branded as the Atari Video Computer System from its release until November 1982, the VCS was bundled with two joystick controllers, a conjoined pair of paddle controllers, and a game cartridge—initially Combat and later Pac-Man.
Pac-Man, originally called Puck Man in Japan, is a 1980 maze action video game developed and released by Namco for arcades. In North America, the game was released by Midway Manufacturing as part of its licensing agreement with Namco America. The player controls Pac-Man, who must eat all the dots inside an enclosed maze while avoiding four colored ghosts. Eating large flashing dots called "Power Pellets" causes the ghosts to temporarily turn blue, allowing Pac-Man to eat them for bonus points.
Centipede is a 1981 fixed shooter arcade video game developed and published by Atari, Inc. Designed by Dona Bailey and Ed Logg, it was one of the most commercially successful games from the golden age of arcade video games and one of the first with a significant female player base. The primary objective is to shoot all the segments of a centipede that winds down the playing field. An arcade sequel, Millipede, followed in 1982.
Berzerk is a multidirectional shooter designed by Alan McNeil and released for arcades in 1980 by Stern Electronics of Chicago. Following Taito's Stratovox, it is one of the first arcade video games with speech synthesis. Berzerk places the player in a series of top-down, maze-like rooms containing armed robots. Home ports were published for the Atari 2600, Atari 5200, and Vectrex.
Ms. Pac-Man is a 1982 maze arcade video game developed by General Computer Corporation and published by Midway. It is the first sequel to Pac-Man (1980) and the first entry in the series to not be made by Namco. Controlling the title character, Pac-Man's wife, the player is tasked with eating all of the pellets in an enclosed maze while avoiding four colored ghosts. Eating the larger "power pellets" lets the player eat the ghosts, who turn blue and flee.
1983 has seen many sequels and prequels in video games, such as Mario Bros. and Pole Position II, along with new titles such as Astron Belt, Champion Baseball, Dragon's Lair, Elevator Action, Spy Hunter and Track & Field. Major events include the video game crash of 1983 in North America, and the third generation of video game consoles beginning with the launch of Nintendo's Family Computer (Famicom) and Sega's SG-1000 in Japan. The year's highest-grossing video game was Namco's arcade game Pole Position, while the year's best-selling home system was Nintendo's Game & Watch for the third time since 1980.
Defender is a horizontally scrolling shooter video game developed by Williams Electronics in 1980 and released for arcades in 1981. A side-scrolling shooter, the game is set on either an unnamed planet or city where the player must defeat waves of invading aliens while protecting astronauts. Development was led by Eugene Jarvis, a pinball programmer at Williams; Defender was Jarvis's first video game project and drew inspiration from Space Invaders and Asteroids. Defender was demonstrated in late 1980, before entering production in early 1981. It was distributed in Japan by Taito.
Galaga is a 1981 fixed shooter arcade video game developed and published by Namco. In North America, it was released by Midway Manufacturing. It is the sequel to Galaxian (1979), Namco's first major video game hit in arcades. Controlling a starship, the player is tasked with destroying the Galaga forces in each stage while avoiding enemies and projectiles. Some enemies can capture a player's ship via a tractor beam, which can be rescued to transform the player into a "dual fighter" with additional firepower.
Dig Dug is a maze arcade video game developed by Namco in 1981 and released in 1982, distributed in North America by Atari, Inc. The player controls Dig Dug to defeat all enemies per stage, by either inflating them to bursting or crushing them underneath rocks.
Ikari Warriors, known as Ikari in Japan, is a vertically scrolling run and gun video game released for arcades by SNK in 1986. It was published in North America by Tradewest. At the time there were many Commando clones on the market. What distinguished Ikari Warriors were rotary joysticks and a two-player cooperative mode. The rotary joystick controls were in turn based on SNK's earlier TNK III (1985). Ikari was originally intended to be an official licensed adaptation of the film Rambo: First Blood Part II (1985), but SNK were initially unable to acquire the rights to the film.
Robotron: 2084 is a multidirectional shooter developed by Eugene Jarvis and Larry DeMar of Vid Kidz and released in arcades by Williams Electronics in 1982. The game is set in the year 2084 in a fictional world where robots have turned against humans in a cybernetic revolt. The aim is to defeat endless waves of robots, rescue surviving humans, and earn as many points as possible.
The golden age of arcade video games was the period of rapid growth, technological development and cultural influence of arcade video games, from the late 1970s to the early 1980s. The period began with the release of Space Invaders in 1978, which led to a wave of shoot 'em up games such as Galaxian and the vector graphics-based Asteroids in 1979, made possible by new computing technology that had greater power and lower costs. Arcade video games transitioned from black-and-white to color, with titles such as Frogger and Centipede taking advantage of the visual opportunities of bright palettes.
Super Pac-Man is a 1982 maze chase arcade game developed and published by Namco. It was distributed in North America by Midway. Super Pac-Man is Namco's take on a sequel to the original Pac-Man; Midway had previously released Ms. Pac-Man, which Namco had little involvement with. Toru Iwatani returns as designer.
1982 was the peak year for the golden age of arcade video games as well as the second generation of video game consoles. Many games were released that would spawn franchises, or at least sequels, including Dig Dug, Pole Position, Mr. Do!, Zaxxon, Q*bert, Time Pilot and Pitfall! The year's highest-grossing video game was Namco's arcade game Pac-Man, for the third year in a row, while the year's best-selling home system was the Atari 2600. Additional video game consoles added to a crowded market, notably the ColecoVision and Atari 5200. Troubles at Atari late in the year triggered the video game crash of 1983.
1980 saw the release of a number of games with influential concepts, including Pac-Man, Battlezone, Crazy Climber, Mystery House, Missile Command, Phoenix, Rally-X, Space Panic, Stratovox, Zork, Adventure, and Olympic Decathlon. The year's highest-grossing video game was Namco's arcade game Pac-Man, while the best-selling home system was Nintendo's Game & Watch. The Atari VCS also grew in popularity with a port of Space Invaders and support from new third-party developer Activision.
Pac-Man is a 1982 maze video game developed and published by Atari, Inc. under official license by Namco, and an adaptation of the 1980 hit arcade game of the same name. The player controls the title character, who attempts to consume all of the wafers while avoiding four ghosts that pursue him. Eating flashing wafers at the corners of the screen will cause the ghosts to turn temporarily blue and flee, allowing Pac-Man to eat them for bonus points.
Thunder Blade is a third-person shoot 'em up video game released by Sega for arcades in 1987. Players control a helicopter to destroy enemy vehicles. The game was released as a standard stand-up arcade cabinet with force feedback, as the joystick vibrates. A helicopter shaped sit-down model was released, replacing the force feedback with a cockpit seat that moves in tandem with the joystick. It is a motion simulator cabinet, like the previous Sega Super Scaler games Space Harrier (1985) and After Burner (1987). The game's plot and setting was inspired by the film Blue Thunder (1983).
Leif Green is an American actor and production manager. He is perhaps best known for portraying Davey Jaworski one of the T-Birds in the Grease 2, the 1982 sequel to the 1978 motion picture Grease as well as the hero Eugene Groebe in the 1983 sex comedy film Joysticks.
RealSports Baseball is a 1982 sports video game developed and published by Atari, Inc. originally for the Atari 2600. It was also launched on the Atari 5200 and 7800 machines. A version for the Atari 8-bit family of home computers was also in development, but it was cancelled.
Twin-stick shooter is a subgenre of shoot 'em up video games. It is a multidirectional shooter in which the player character is controlled using two joysticks: the first for movement on a flat plane and the second to shoot in the direction the joystick is pushed. Usually shots are fired as soon as the second joystick is moved, but in some games there is an additional button which must be held. Keyboard and mouse or touch input may supplant one or both joysticks. A few games, such as 1981's Vanguard, don't have a second joystick for shooting, but provide four buttons arranged in a diamond to fire in the cardinal directions.
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