The WWF Wrestlemania VCR Game – AKA Joy in a Box

by: Steve Caronia

In 1988, the WWF (as it was known back then) came out with a true gem in the VCR Wrestlemania Game.  This was part of the VCR Game series by Acclaim, which also included Hockey, Basketball, Golf, and Quarterbacks.  I had this game as a child, and holy crap did I love it.  I hardly ever actually played the game, I would just watch the video over and over again.  The video consisted of about 200 clips of matches, each clip lasting about a minute, of two of your favorite WWF stars beating the shit out of each other.  There were a few promos sprinkled in too. The basic flow of the game is that you land on spaces and draw cards that either push you forward or back on the board based on various wrestling moves.  There are a bunch of VCR spaces that lead to watching a clip from the tape.  When you make your way around, you win one fall, and best of 3 wins.  There are a couple of other ways to lose a match, like going all the way backwards or being “counted out” (remember that).  It was pure genius.

So, Carlo (Aka, Sports-lo) and I (Aka Dr. Dan Marino) were talking about this game a few weeks ago and, adding fuel to my maintenance that the world never truly existed before the internet?”, I found it on eBay and snatched it up for 17 bucks.  Carlo supplied the VCR and away we went.

Get ready for pure joy.

Before the game begins, Carlo looks at the game box and sees in the top corner a picture of Demolition.  He notices, in a picture about 2/3 of an inch by ½ inch, that the second member of Demolition is not Smash as played by Barry Darsow but by the original Moondog Rex (Randy Colley).  He regales me with the reason Colley was let go from the role. This is the start of a terrifying journey into Carlo’s encyclopedic knowledge about the WWF/WWE.

We pop the tape in and watch the intro. Here it is:

My takeaways:

1)      What’s with that crappy football clip? A recovered fumble in the end zone? They could have done a lot better than that. Where’s Ken O’Brien to Al Toon?

2)      Hulk Hogan, even after all of the nonsense surrounding him in the last few years, still brings chills.  I pretend that everything after he lost to Yokozuna never happened.

3)      They really must have been short on “guys who can wrestle and act like Elvis” in 1988.

4)      Ted DeBiase was an artist in the ring.  This head roll was one of the single greatest athletic feats along with Nadia Komenich’s perfect ten, Bob Beamon’s long jump, and the Triple Lindy.

5)      I defy you to find better music than the old WWF theme.  I’m totally pumped and ready to kick some VCR-Carlo ass.

The board is set and we’re divvying up cards.  Carlo reads the instructions.  I’m completely not paying attention, because all I can think of is watching the clips.  Get ready for me asking: wait what do I do now? about 9,000 times in the next 30 minutes.  Besides, the rules are insanely convoluted.  As a rule of board games, there is a direct inverse proportional relationship between the number of times “if” is in the instructions and the amount of fun you will have playing a game (ie, if you land on a blue space you go ahead 5 if you roll an even number and 3 if you roll an odd number, but if you draw a green card you go back 10 if you are from Chicago and ahead 9 if you have eaten potato salad in the last 16 days).   I’m realizing why I never played the game as a child.  I also realize I have the same attention span I did when I was 5.

We have to draw “interview cards” and read them aloud before rolling the die to see who goes first.  They have absolutely no bearing on the game.  They just want you to act like a wrestler doing a promo. I get it.

Mine says: It’s time to shuffle the cards and I’ll be the one holding the ace of spades…

Carlo’s says: You’re nothin’ until you beat me, then if you do, maybe you’ll be something.

Not exactly stylin’ and profilin’, but ok.

We start hitting a bunch of VCR spaces.  There’s an early Hogan promo featuring the line “King Harley Race, you may think I’m going to bow to you in servitude, but I only bow to one man, Mean Gene, and that’s Big Dude walks on water!” A reading from the book of Bollea.

Carlo and I exchange big jumps after Hogan pummels Harley Race and Andre the Giant chokes the living shit out of Hacksaw Jim Dugan.

I get to move ahead a whopping 20 spaces after Hulk Hogan beats the piss out of Ted DeBiase, makes him accidentally shoulder check Virgil, and pins him. I now think this game is fucking awesome.

Carlo just lost the first “fall” based on the aforementioned countout rule that states if you land on the same space and roll an 11 or 12, you instantly get counted out (and lose).  He denounces God.  On to fall number 2.

After watching these clips I soon realize that you can play a game called “dead, destitute,  or evangelical.” In one match, we see Ted DeBiase (evangelical), Virgil (Homeless), Bam Bam Bigelow (dead) and Oliver Humperdink (dead).   The life of a wrestler is pretty unkind.

One Man Gang spars with Bam Bam Bigelow. Before OMG turned black, of course.

Brutus Beefcake is wearing tights that are completely sheer except where it counts.  He sort of looks like a roided out Peter Gabriel.

You thought I was kidding.

We now return to Carlo’s terrifying encyclopedic knowledge of the current state of every wrestler in this video.  Some highlights: Tito Santana, or Merced Solis, is currently a teacher in New Jersey, Dino Bravo is dead because he was shot 17 times by the mafia for muscling in on cigarette smuggling, and simply knowing that One Man Gang isn’t dead.

Macho Man does a completely insane promo about his match with the Honky Tonk Man while wearing an incredibly glittery poncho.  He is “east of the Atlantic Ocean, west of London England, south of Mars and north of Hell.”  I’ll let you guys figure out exactly where that is, because I have no fucking idea.

Amazingly, Carlo and I land on the same space yet again, and to my utter delight, he rolls another 11!  He is counted out for the second time! I strut around the room like Ric Flair while Carlo is basically despondent.  It’s a cheap victory, sure.  But aren’t most WWF wins cheap? And this one was fully legal.  There were no foreign objects involved or evil twin referees. As it stands, I am the current Wrestlemania VCR Game champion.

Dramatization.

I haven’t watched pro wrestling since Razor Ramon was popular.  I can’t possibly imagine it ever being better than the era we just witnessed on this hallowed tape.  The over the top personalities and characters, the drama, the mostly poor wrestling covered up by the soap opera, and the utter nostalgia is mesmerizing.   This was the transitional era of the WWF into the stratosphere and it isn’t hard to see why.  I’d get into it more, but I have some clips to watch…

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