Bite-Sized Game History: RIP Stan Lee, NBA Jam’s Expensive Balls, and a Wii Remote Prototype for the GameCube

In this edition of Bite-Sized Game History, we look back at the first time Stan Lee brought his “carnival barker” enthusiasm to video games, as well as a pair of auctions for some very unique artifacts.

With a pocketful of catchphrases, and hiding behind a giant pair of sunglasses, Stan Lee began to resemble a real-life superhero more and more in his later years. Lee’s bombastic speaking style and boundless energy gave his many cameos a zippiness well into his 90s, and it felt like he would always be with us.

Sadly, Lee passed away yesterday at the age of 95.

Along with Steve Ditko and Jack Kirby, Stan Lee redefined the very idea of what a “superhero” was, and their work caused ripples throughout all of pop culture. In this edition of Bite-Sized Game History, we look back at the first time Stan Lee brought his “carnival barker” enthusiasm to video games, as well as a pair of auctions for some very unique artifacts.

You can find a lot of dedicated video game historians on Twitter, and in 280 characters or less, they always manage to unearth some amazing artifacts. Bite-Sized Game History aims to collect some of the best stuff I find on the social media platform.

By the 1980s, Stan Lee had ceded the Marvel writing room to the next generation of comics creators, and he traveled to Hollywood with his family to become the company’s chief dealmaker. But Lee didn’t just have his eyes on movies and television. He wanted to have Marvel’s characters on t-shirts… and toys… and video games.

In 1982, Lee teamed up with Parker Brothers to release Spider-Man for the Atari 2600. It was the first video game based on a Marvel Comics character, and Lee took the opportunity to don his familiar pitchman costume when he posed for a promotional photo with the console, a couple of kids, the Green Goblin, and Spider-Man himself:

NBA Jam‘s distinctive iconography was as familiar to schoolyard ballers as Nike’s Jumpman logo in the mid 90s, so it’s not surprising that the actual basketballs used by Acclaim in the game’s marketing would fetch a high price at auction.

But even Reyan Ali, the author of the upcoming Boss Fight Books: NBA Jam, was surprised by how much they sold for:

Another very important piece of video game memorabilia recently hit the auction block in Japan. A very lucky collector was able to obtain a prototype of Nintendo’s revolutionary Wii Remote that was designed to work with the GameCube’s controller ports. Ars Technica speculates that this device was given to developers to interface with existing GameCube development kits before the Wii hardware was finalized:

That’s it for this edition of Bite-Sized Game History. Be sure to follow me on Twitter for more bite-sized history lessons.

Author: VGC | John

John Scalzo has been writing about video games since 2001, and he co-founded Warp Zoned in 2011. Growing out of his interest in game history, the launch of Video Game Canon followed in 2017.