Justin

And of course around the same time there were the commercials for Bubble Tape that were done very much in the same style as the opening credits to "You Can't Do That On Television" - almost a strange and choppy animation that had been done on black and white newspaper, and then colorized:

Or Whatchamacallit?

While we're taking a look back at candy bar commercials from 1989, who can forget the Caramello "Stretch It Out" jingle:

PB Max commercial (1989) - PB Max isn't TJ Maxx. PB Max can be confused with a lot of things, which is the theme of the commercial. Early television commercials for PB Max declared that the "PB" in its name didn't stand for things such as piggy banks, polka band, portly ballerina, platinum blonde, penguin black-belt, pig basketball, plow boy, pure bliss, parachuting buffalo, or pink baboon — but that it in fact stood for peanut butter. PB Max was a candy bar launched by Mars in 1989 to compete with other peanut butter and chocolate products such as Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and Twix bars. PB Max bars were made of creamy peanut butter on top of a square-shaped whole grain cookie, enrobed in milk chocolate. According to former Mars executive Alfred Poe, PB Max was discontinued due to the Mars family's distaste for peanut butter, despite $50 million in sales.

HEY @RadioPoultry!! It's an honor to have you join us again in High Score Squad! Hope you've been well

I love the decor from @socrates63 ☺️

Thank you @Atari 5200 Guy Let's review @Video 61 original question to us all: My suggestions are to simultaneously investigate two options: Reach out to a homebrew artist with experience in overlays. What recent homebrew games have come with the best overlays? I would research this, find a few home brewers and reach out with questions, it wouldn't hurt to send them an email and ask. "I love your overlays! How did you get them made?" I'm sure they'd love to hear from you! Reach out to a local print shop with a good reputation. Explain to them in basic terms what you're trying to do, and provide them with a sample - let them take a look at original overlays from Atari Jaguar, Atari 5200, Intellivision, ColecoVision, whatever is closest to what you need. If you're doing something with the Atari 2600 Video Touch Pad or the Kids Controller, you're going to want to go with something a little more durable, even vinyl, but it's easy enough for a print shop to do. Tell them the budget you're working with, and the quantity you're looking for. Remember: Jaguar, 5200, Intellivision and ColecoVision games typically come with TWO overlays per cartridge, one for each player. If you're developing a new game and planning a total run of, let's say, 100 cartridges total, you'd be in a position to speak with the print shop about an order of 200-250 pieces, which may be their minimum order. If they're doing this with digital printing, and you don't need the overlays tomorrow, they will schedule you in with a much larger job, and position your overlays at the edge of whatever else they're working on, basically making good use of print material which would otherwise be scrap. Let them know you're flexible in that regard, and that there's not a hurry to get this order by the end of the week, and that will likely give them the ability to work with you on price. Let them print off a sample for you and make sure you're happy. In my experience, these items print for pennies on the dollar. Sometimes much less expensive than printing at home on an inkjet printer, and with far superior results.

A template to create the overlays? Is there an example of this somewhere that we can see?

@Atari 5200 Guy if you have a cousin who already has the equipment to print and stamp out controller overlays, that would be a terrific option. If he's willing to help you out, or do this for a reasonable price, that's likely the best way to go! Having to buy the equipment needed to make a small run of overlays is a different story, and would likely be the most costly route to go.

Yeah it's really cool paper, and again it's doable, it's not anything expensive to do, but if you're working on an overlay project it would need to be something other than paper. Card stock with a coating, etc. If you give a rep from a print shop a sample of what you're trying to do, they can get back to you with samples of what they have and what they can do for you. You'll know it when you feel it in your hands. Overlays are weird. They always feel so delicate, and the Atari overlays (5200 and Jag) both felt papery on the underside, and filmy on the top.

Good question @Atari 5200 Guy. It's durable to be touched, ink won't rub off and you won't easily wear through the paper. However, it's still paper, you can still tear through it about as easy as any other paper, and it crinkles and bends at the edges if you're not careful. You'll want something that's not paper for an overlay. I just took this picture for you, take a look:

BTW: None of these items are "fancy" or expensive. Everything was ordered for pennies per piece. I created all of the design work and provided all of the print-ready files to the printers. You can look really good for less than a pack of ink cartridges. It can be done. I'm the legally registered owner of the "SYZYGY" trademark since June 21, 1993 according to the United States Federal Government. Here are some registration documents provided below which show SYZYGY registered to me in four classes, namely: Video Game Hardware, Software, Clothing, and Printed items such as books and comics. We never claimed any direct lineage to Atari-Syzygy. I chose the name "Syzygy" to honor our creative roots of coming from Atari, as almost everyone on our team were former Atari people, from the top down, who wanted to continue that Atari "creative thread" into the future, despite that thread having been cut. We were all h4x0rs and gamers and creative people, Regan was doing all of our product design and Gene had done Chuck E. Cheese with Nolan and served as our business-minded figurehead. He was amazing and fun, everybody was. The "SYZYGY" name not only was abandoned and had not been in use for some time, it had never been registered nor exercised by Nolan and the guys in 1972. There was never a question about this.