Odyssey Home Arcade Center: Win One for the Turtle!
n early 1983, probably in March or April, North American Philips introduced Turtles – one of the most significant Odyssey² games to date. It was the first (and ended up being the only) licensed arcade port to appear on the system in the United States. To promote this momentenous release, Philips sponsored a nationwide contest in cooperation with local video game retailers and advertised in gaming magazines and related publications like Boys' Life The grand prize? The "giant, six-foot-tall" Odyssey Home Arcade Center, complete with a 19" color television set, an Odyssey² console, and games – including Turtles of course. The magazine ad promised that 50 such Game Centers would be awarded. No purchase was necessary; people could enter the contest by filling out a form at their nearest Odyssey² Dealer. Entries had to be received by August 1, 1983 (sorry if you missed it!).
Through a combination of research, contributions from readers, and good luck, I've been able to track down a lot of information about this contest. I've acquired scans of the brochure that marketed it to dealers. I talked to the illustrator who created the artwork for the magazine ad. I interviewed the Magnavox manager at the lithography studio that prepared it for print. But perhaps most amazingly, I've acquired one of the 50 grand prize packages!
Read on or jump directly to the Promo, the Grand Prize or the Makers behind contest material!
he Win One for the Turtle contest was a nationwide promotion, probably the last truly serious marketing push the Odyssey² ever received. North American Philips reached out to videogame dealers sometime in early 1983 with a brochure that touted the sweepstakes as a "Traffic building contest with national support." The contest ended on June 30, 1983, when the winners were drawn.
The proposal was straightforward: dealers who carried Turtles would receive a Point of Sale kit that contained marketing material. The kits included a poster, buttons, ad slicks, a "shelf talker" to hang from a display rack, and a stack of contest entry forms. Dealers were to offer customers the chance to enter the contest after they gave Turtles a try. Philips apparently believed they had a winner on their hands with Turtles, and that trying the game would entice customers into making a purchase. If you've played Turtles, you have to believe their faith was well-founded.
Dealers were encouraged to take the promo one step further and host their own high-score contests. Participation in this part of the promotion was optional, but dealers who chose to do so would be provided with items to be used as contest prizes. These included Turtles t-shirts, subscriptions to Odyssey Adventure magazine, and Win One for the Turtle buttons.
Odyssey² collector Tim Cotter provided scans of the dealer brochure. It features two-tone illustrations of the Point of Sale kit, which it emphasizes were printed in full color. Unfortunately, at present I don't know if any contest entry forms, shelf talkers, or contest posters have survived to the present day. However, at least one of the buttons did. I have a copy of Turtles with a Win One for the Turtle button pinned to the box's front cover. I don't know if affixing the button was a standard practice during the contest or just the action of a lone dealer – or maybe something a local high-score contest winner did on their own. Either way, it's a cool artifact!
The contest brochure stated that the contest would be promoted in "youth oriented magazines" as well as in radio spots. In 2025, Videopac historian Marc Verraes unearthed a cassette tape of 1983 Odyssey² radio spots, which he uploaded to YouTube. The tape is dated February 21, 1983, and even though it features two versions of a spot advertising Turtles, no mention of the contest is made. If a radio ad for the contest really made it to air, hopefully a recording will surface someday.
The magazine ad, however, was undeniably printed in publications such as Boys' Life and contemporary titles that covered home videogames. Click here to meet the artist who created the contest illustration as well as the head of the lithography studio that printed it!
he grand prize was one of 50 Odyssey Home Arcade Centers. Take a look!
What the contest called the Home Arcade Center was originally known as the Odyssey Game Center, created to market Odyssey² consoles in stores. Odyssey² Selling Aids, a booklet aimed at dealers, describes it like this:
Sturdy, built with metal frames and hardboard sides. Holds one 19" TV and Odyssey mainframe. Storage for six demo cartridges. Multi-color plastic header. 27" wide × 28½" deep × 75" high. Part #AB9115.
Whether any Game Centers survived past the 1980s was not generally known until 2017, when two unassembled units were purchased at an auction in the North Carolina area. One eventually found its way into the hands of a private collector, and the other was sold to Trade-N-Games, a retro game store in the St. Louis area. But none of the contest prizes surfaced... until 2020, when I bought one.
The winner of this Home Arcade Center was a woman from North Dakota who didn't know anything about Odyssey at the time, she just saw one of the contest forms and figured, why not? Then a few months later, several boxes were delivered to her door! The Game Center became a beloved fixture in her home for almost the next 40 years. This was despite the fact that neither she nor her family were that interested in video games. Before I purchased it, I was told the console had been played only a handful of times despite being set up for decades. The experience of winning the contest was just a great memory for the owner.
In late 2019, the owner's family was looking for a new home for the Home Arcade Center and contacted me through my site. Naturally I jumped at the chance, and the unit made the journey all the way from North Dakota to Southern California the following November. Included was everything that had been awarded in the 1983 contest – the owner had kept everything complete and in great condition. So for the first time, we now know the entirety of the prize package! The winner received:
- 1 Home Arcade Center with assembly instructions
- 1 19" Sylvania color television
- 1 Odyssey² console
- 1 Odyssey² Voice module
- Attack of the Timelord!
- Casino Slot Machine!
- Computer Golf!
- Killer Bees!
- Las Vegas Blackjack!
- Pick Axe Pete!
- P.T. Barnum's Acrobats!
- Speedway!/Spin-Out!/Crypto-Logic!
- Turtles!
- UFO!
Of course, there's no way to confirm that every prize package had exactly the same contents. Judging from the wording of the contest ad, all the packages would be very similar to this one, but perhaps with different games (other than Turtles, of course).
Hands On with the Home Arcade Center
Assembly is straightforward, as explained by the large fold-out instruction sheet. The side panels are smooth, lightweight boards (I believe particleboard). The large front panel on the bottom, the TV shelf, and the Game Pedestal shelf are made of thicker wood and are sturdier. The Odyssey² logo header is made of formed plastic. It is not lighted; there are no electric components in the Game Center. It's all held together by lightweight, metal tube brackets. The Selling Aids brochure called the whole thing "sturdy" but that's debatable. It's not flimsy, but the side panels aren't very thick, and the fact that the game pedestal is detached from the main body of the unit makes it feel a bit more fragile than it may look. For that reason, I'm not storing the heavy TV set in the unit. I only set it up once to take the photo.
The flat panel that holds the Odyssey² console comes with a low-tech anti-theft setup. There are two small metal cartridge holders, big enough to hold three cartridges each. Connected to the back of each holder is a 35" beaded chain that was meant to be threaded through the cartridge handles. This would have made it difficult for someone to just walk off with the display cartridges when the unit was used in a store setting.
Directly below the console is a thin wooden panel with the words VIDEO GAME CENTER painted in yellow letters.
Behind the console and just below the TV is a small bracket that was meant to hold an advertising Copy Card. Sadly, my unit did not come with a Copy Card, nor did either of the boxed units found a few years ago. We know vaguely what these cards looked like from the brochure photo, but hopefully a real Copy Card will pop up someday. It would be great if reproductions could be made.
The TV is a Sylvania model CC9152W, manufactured in 1980. I've been trying to track down exactly what this TV was worth in 1983 but haven't been able to find a primary source. It looks like it sold for about $265 at the time of its debut in 1980. By 1983 it may have been worth a few dollars less. Let's say it was worth $250 in 1983. That's equivalent to roughly $650 in 2020, when I purchased it. I guess I got a deal?
I never saw a Game Center in stores back in the day. When I first learned of their existence in the late 1990s, they quickly became my Odyssey² "holy grail" – the ultimate collectible item that I wasn't sure I'd ever find. To now own one of the original contest prize packages is something I never dared imagine. Apparently dreams really do come true.
IN ONE FOR THE TURTLE.
"Win an Odyssey Home Arcade Center and play TURTLES and all of the over 50 other great Odyssey games. It's a combination that's hard to beat... but easy to win."
So states the magazine ad that announced the Turtles and Home Arcade Center contest, as it shows an excited boy intensely gripping an Arcade Center. He's holding on as if for dear life, because an Odyssey² console and controller have started crackling with electricity, and a veritable army of turtles has burst forth from the television just above the child's eye level.
It's a striking image that really draws your attention. The background of the page is black, while the trim of the Game Center and silhouette of the amazed child are rendered in muted, dark colors. The Odyssey² console and the stream of turtles bursting from the screen are much brighter in comparison, which highlights them brilliantly. The effect fits perfectly with the "explosive" art style that had characterized Odyssey² advertising from its inception. True, it was just for a silly contest about a goofy game where turtles run away from beetles, but the artwork is first-rate.
The Artist
(Photo courtesy: Ken Graning)
That's no surprise, because it was created by Ken "Kentity" Graning, who had a 30-year career as an illustrator and adjunct illustration instructor at the Center of Creative Studies in Detroit. Today, at the age of 85, Ken states that he's been making art for eight decades. He retired from illustration in 1995 and became a painter of fine-art pieces, focused mainly on landscapes. At the time I talked to him, he was in the process of sending a landscape painting to the American Watercolor Society in New York City that was juried into the annual international painting competition, a rare and impressive feat.
His Turtles illustration is featured on page 5 of the Summer 1983 installment of Odyssey Adventure magazine, its final issue. Luckily, this presentation of the art includes Mr. Graning's signature – it's cropped out elsewhere – and that's what enabled me to track him down. He immediately recognized the piece. "Yes!!! That is my illustration. Brings back memories. I had forgotten all about that illustration so it was a pleasant surprise to see it. I can't remember if I did this when I was working for a Detroit art studio or when I was freelancing. I worked for Detroit studios for the first ten years of my illustration career. In about 1970 I went freelance for the next 20 years and worked out of my home studio."
I asked Mr. Graning if he could share some details about the illustration process from those days and whether he still had the original work. Unfortunately, he doesn't. "Typically in the illustration business the original art is kept by the client after the job is printed. If memory serves I did not get the original back for this illustration. I do keep an archives of all of my work going back to my early days but I don't think I have the original art for this one. I would have remembered that one."
He explained, "In the illustration business, when a client commissions in illustrator for a project, the client usually provides a rough sketch done by an art director that shows the illustrator what he has in mind. It's the illustrator's job to execute that idea and paint it in finished form and then it is delivered to the client for approval. If the client approves the illustration, [it] then goes to the printer and is printed. This is typical of how the advertising business works. I don't remember if the flying turtles was my idea or whether the art director sent me a rough sketch for this illustration."
(Click to see more of Ken Graning's art on Flickr)
"My painting technique for this [Turtles] illustration was mostly airbrush and my medium was Gouache, which is opaque watercolor. Watercolor medium was required for airbrushing because the paint is thinned when you put it into the color cup of the airbrush [so] it feeds well going through the nozzle of the airbrush [when] sprayed onto the surface of the paint board. It's a very tedious process because you need to cut masks for all of the shapes."
The Turtles piece is not the only place you may have seen Mr. Graning's art. "Most of my work in those days was done like this with the exception of editorial illustrations (work for magazines done to illustrate a story). As an example, in my freelance days I had a client who published a magazine called Realms of Fantasy. Lots of flying dragons and medieval themes. They would send me a manuscript of the story and I would read it and then execute a rough sketch of what I had in mind. I would send them the sketch and if they approved of the idea, I would proceed to execute the finished illustration."
"Editorial work did not pay as well as advertising illustrations, but I would get my paintings back. Playboy magazine had a different policy. In 1972-73 I did some illustrations for stories in that magazine but they kept the originals. The payback for me was the international exposure. Millions of people would see my art, which was a big career boost for me. This was very early in my illustration career. I was 28 years old and working for a studio in downtown Detroit."
The Lithographer
In May 2020, a transparency of Mr. Graning's Turtles artwork was auctioned on eBay by Tim Chaney, the former vice president of Precision Litho, Inc. – a lithography company with close ties to Magnavox. Mr. Chaney sold a number of Odyssey² pieces on eBay at this time, including transparencies used for printing game boxes and manuals, proof printings of ads and material from Odyssey Adventure magazine, and even some original artwork used in posters and manuals!
I contacted Mr. Chaney and he was kind enough to answer several questions. As it turned out, Precision Litho handled the printing needs of essentially the entire Odyssey and Odyssey² product line! As he put it, "We did their pre-press work, proofing, short run printing for almost everything. The only work we did not do for Magnavox was the pre-press on their national consumer ads that were handled by their advertising agency in New York City. The types of print pieces that we provided pre-press lithographic film and some short run printing for were—
- Catalogs
- Brochures
- Posters
- Point-of-Sale Displays & Materials
- Black & White Dealer Ads / Ad Mats
- Specification Sheets
- Packaging Pre-Press
- Product & Game Boxes / Instruction Books / Support Material Pre-Press
- Misc. Collateral Pieces
- Corporate & Employee Sales Materials
- Commercial Sales Materials (B2B)"
("Our best advertisement is someone else's")
(Photos courtesy: Tim Chaney)
When I asked Mr. Chaney for a bit more background on Precision Litho, he responded, "The company started as Precision Litho Plate, Inc. in 1957, in Fort Wayne [Indiana], by my father [Kedric Chaney]. He worked for an engraving company in the early '50s and landed Magnavox as one of his accounts. With the onset of ‘offset printing’ he started his own business called Precision Litho Plate, Inc. to focus on providing lithographic film for offset printing rather than metal engravings, as had been the norm. He took the Magnavox account with him to the new company. We changed the name of the business to just Precision Litho, Inc. in the early '70s. We opened a second production plant in Knoxville, TN, called Precision Litho of Tennessee, Inc. in 1980, when Magnavox moved their corporate headquarters from Fort Wayne to Knoxville."
"I worked for my father at Precision starting in 1973 during the summer months while in high school and college. I started in shipping and delivery, then into product and eventually into sales. I helped with the Magnavox account some during those years. When I was a junior at Indiana University in 1978, Magnavox announced they were moving their corporate headquarters to Knoxville, TN, in 1980. The advertising work we did for Magnavox was very detailed and usually had short deadlines, so we knew just putting a salesman in Knoxville and shipping all the work back to Fort Wayne for production just wouldn't work. Therefore we decided in order to keep the Magnavox account we'd need to open a plant in Knoxville. I quit college in 1979 in order to start handling the Magnavox account and get to know everyone there because I was going to move to Knoxville to open our new production facility and handle the Magnavox account. In May of 1980 at 23 years old I moved to Tennessee. I handled the Magnavox account from 1979 through the 1990s."
The Transparencies
(Photo courtesy: Tim Chaney)
(Photo courtesy: Tim Chaney)
(Photo courtesy: Tim Chaney)
In 2019 and 2020, and once more in 2024, Mr. Chaney sold a small treasure trove of Odyssey² transparencies and other pieces on eBay. All his pieces had been well stored in climate-controlled conditions, and were in incredible condition for being almost 40 years old! Unsurprisingly, collector interest was high and all of the pieces sold, most for respectible prices. Because of the sheer volume of amazing pieces and fascinating background information, I plan to write another article covering all of the sales in greater detail. But for the topic at hand, it can be noted that an 8"×10" transparency of Mr. Graning's Turtles artwork was sold in 2020. The lot listing described it as being "made for the print production" of the ad and a one-of-a-kind. The transparency came in the original clear plastic protective sleeve, labeled with the word "ORIG". According to the lot listing, the word "ORIG" meant this was "Original" artwork to be used for the color separations and print production.
The auction closed on May 10, 2020, with a final sale price of $229.49 plus $20 shipping. When I told the artist that a transparency of his Turtles artwork had sold for over $200, he seemed amused. "It is interesting that someone would pay that much money for a transparency. I did not know transparencies had collector value," he wrote. If you're a collector yourself, I'm sure you don't share his surprise – pieces like this are incredible, rare in the extreme, and an amazing part of video game history. We can only hope his original watercolor illustration is still housed in some Magnavox archive somewhere.
I'd like to thank Mr. Graning and Mr. Chaney for their time answering my questions and sharing their stories. When it comes to video game history, the lion's share of attention is usually directed at game designers and programmers. They are indispensable of course, but the craftspeople – the freelance artists, the printers, the engravers and the lithographers – they had an important role to play as well. It's been my privilege to speak to many such behind-the-scenes folks who helped make Odyssey² so much fun for all of us.