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YOUTUBE HALL OF FAME

YouTube HOF: Classic Game Commercials

By Grantland staff at

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Thunder Road


Alex Pappademas: Because apparently in 1986, one year after Mad Max: Beyond Thunderdome, Milton Bradley thought kids ages 10 and up were old enough to contemplate a brutal post-apocalyptic wasteland future in which vehicular homicide is the only law: It's Thunder Road, you little assholes! I can't tell if there was any object to this game aside from occasionally picking up large sections of "road" and dumping everybody else's little muscle cars off the table, a feature I bet never, ever led to bloody playroom-floor brawls. But the off-brand Ted Nugent wailing the narration ("Only one surviiiiives!") over hot-rodding heavy-metal guitar definitely implies white-knuckle death-race excitement, as do the kid actors' super-intense, agonized game-faces. This is maybe the most coked-up-seeming board game commercial ever made; in the shot around the 20-second mark where they're all freaking out and pounding the coffee table it really looks like they've been awake for four days blowing rails and trying to muster the courage to go rob Alfred Molina's house.

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