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Coleco was a company founded in 1932 by Maurice Greenberg as "Connecticut Leather Company" to sell leather supplies to shoemakers. This led to a business in leather craft kits in the 1950s which led to the sale of plastic wading pools in the 1960s. The leather part of the business was then sold off. The company is best known for producing the video game consoles Coleco Telstar and ColecoVision.
Under CEO Arnold Greenberg, the company entered the video game console business with the Telstar in 1975. Dozens of companies were introducing game systems that year after Atari's successful Pong console. Nearly all of these new games were based on General Instrument's "Pong-on-a-chip". However, General Instrument had underestimated demand, and there were severe shortages; but Coleco had been one of the first to place their order, and as a result was one of the few companies to receive their full order. Though dedicated game consoles did not last long on the market, thanks to their early order Coleco was able to break even.
While the dedicated game console market was short lived, Coleco continued to do well in electronics. They transitioned next into handheld electronic games, a market popularized by Mattel. Coleco produced two very popular lines of games, the "head to head" series of two player sports games, and the mini-arcade series of licensed video arcade titles.
Coleco returned to the video game console market in 1982 with the launch of the ColecoVision. While the system was quite popular, Coleco hedged their bet on videogames by introducing a line of game cartridges for the Atari 2600 and Mattel Intellivision. They also introduced the Coleco Gemini, a clone of the popular Atari 2600.
When the video game business began to implode in 1983, it seemed clear that video games were being replaced by home computers. So Coleco made the transition by introducing the Coleco Adam home computer. Unfortunately this turned out to be a huge miscalculation. The Adam flopped due to the fact that early Adams were often unreliable. By the end of 1984 Coleco would completely withdraw from electronics as they teetered on the edge of bankruptcy.
Also in 1983, Coleco released the Cabbage Patch Kids series of dolls which were wildly successful. In 1986, they introduced an ALF plush, as well as a talking version and cassette-playing "Storytelling ALF" doll. But the staggering success of the dolls wasn't enough to stem the tide of red ink that had begun with the launch of the Adam computer, and the company finally went broke. In 1989, the assets of Coleco were purchased by Hasbro.
In 2005, River West Brands, a Chicago-based company, re-introduced Coleco ( www.coleco.com ) and Coleco Vision into the marketplace.
Coleco toy lines with wikipedia articles
See also: List of ColecoVision games
References in popular media
- One episode of The Simpsons has ever unsuccessful salesman Gil trying to unload all his old Coleco Adams on Springfield Elementary School, before exclaiming "Now, lets talk rust-proofing. The Coleco will rust up on you like that! Shut up, Gil, close the deal!".
- On the Family Guy Episode I Take Thee Quagmire Peters free maid Joan pulls a Colecovision out of peters navel.
- During one episode of South Park, it's mentioned that Kenny owns a Colecovision, to the puzzlement of his friends. Cartman went far enough as to say: "Oh my god, this is like a Third-world country."
- In the song 'Skew It on the Bar-B' by OutKast, rapper André 3000 says "I'm sorry like Atari who's the cousin to Coleco / Vision caught a Rico, back on the street like Chico."
External links
- Article at The Dot Eaters, a history of Coleco and the ColecoVision products
- Action Figure Archive Sectaurs, Rambo - Vintage Coleco action figures guide, message boards and online store.
1932 establishments | 1989 disestablishments | Defunct computer and video game companies | Defunct computer hardware companies | Toy companies | Defunct companies of the United States
"Coleco"