The Great Massachusetts Video Arcade Panic of 1982

Meredith Wilson lit up Broadway in 1957 with The Music Man, a whimsical musical tale about a flim-flam man, Professor Harold Hill, who whips fictional River City, Iowa into a frenzy over the possibility of the town’s youth “frittering away their noontime, suppertime, chore time too” in a billiards parlor.

The recent discovery of a 1982 video clip from WBZ-TV reminded me immediately of The Music Man.

It was about that time that politicians like then-Boston City Councilor Ray Flynn began to worry that video arcades with games such as Pong, Pac-Man, Galaga and Space Invaders were causing too many youth to fritter away their time, just like the kids of River City 70 years before.

In the vintage WBZ News clip, legendary anchor Liz Walker introduces equally legendary beat reporter Sarah-Ann Shaw, who interviewed Flynn about his plans to “seek stricter licensing procedures for arcades with video games.”

At the time, youngsters between the ages of two and 16 could only play video games in the arcades between 2 p.m. and 6 p.m. on school days. Flynn argued for further restrictions.

Shaw reported, “Video games are “seductive, challenging, and expensive.” Each game cost 25 cents in 1982.

It might have been impossible in 1982 to imagine that video games would one day be played on hand-held gadgets, home television screens, personal computers and virtually.

By the way, the Broadway musical and the 1962 movie version of The Music Man would make a star out of Robert Preston who starred as Prof. Harold Hill.

The film version co-starred Shirley Jones, the headliner for the grand reopening of New Bedford’s Zeiterion Theater on September 25, 1982.