Saturday, November 18, 2017

Gaming Ads: Fanfare, Firebird Licensees, First Row Software Publishing, and Fisher-Price

There are a lot of publishers this week because I have so few ads for any one of them. I only have one ad for Fanfare, a publishing label for Britannica Software. Fanfare published only a few games between 1989 and 1990 but Britannica is still in business and is best known for its encyclopedias.

British Telecom's Telecomsoft published games in the U.K. under the Firebird Software and Rainbird brands. The publisher's U.S. branch was known as Firebird Licensees and it released close to a dozen games in North America between 1985 and 1988.

First Row Software Publishing was a Pennsylvania-based company that published computer games in the late '80s. It released a couple licensed games based on the classic television programs The Twilight Zone and The Honeymooners. Coincidentally, one of its games, Star Empire (known as Empire! in the U.K.), is from the aforementioned Firebird Software.

Fisher-Price was founded in 1930 by Herman Fisher, Irving Price, Margaret Evans Price, and Helen Schelle. Of course, Fisher-Price is very well known as it has made thousands of toys since its founding and continues to do so today, primarily for young children. Its early games and toys were made of steel and wood, and the use of plastic in its toys began in the '50s. In the late '80s the company released educational computer software for children with distribution handled by GameTek.

Firebird Licensees albums: Facebook - Google Photos
First Row Software Publishing albums: Facebook - Google Photos




After leaving Flickr I opted to group publishers with a single ad in the same album so Fanfare and Fisher-Price no longer have individual albums but both ads do appear on this page.

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