Back in the old days, people either forgot that pants had pockets or sewing pockets into pants had not yet been thought of because everyone was trying to jam a bunch of gadgets onto wrist watches. Pep Streebeck, Tom Hanks' character in 1987's sadly underrated film Dragnet, sports a Casio wrist watch with a small, color television screen. I really thought that Pep was cool, and that the watch was so badass. Obviously, I wanted one, but I, unfortunately, had to settle for a less awesome, less expensive Casio calculator watch, which were all the rage in my elementary school. 1990s Dick Tracy didn't do much to slow the roll on cramming more shit into wrist watches, as the titular character runs around with a watch that does all kinds of mess. People continue to make ridiculous wrist watches I just discovered via a google search. Why? No one knows, particularly when Tiger Electronics won the space race to make the best gizmo one could ever strap to one's arm years ago.
The Tiger handheld games were simple and kinda fun. You couldn't switch cartridges or play them in the dark, and were sometimes hard to play with too much light. But they didn't kill batteries too fast and did the trick on a long car ride. Taking the winning formula of their simple handheld games and turning them into something kids could have on their wrist all the time was a stroke of genius.
I didn't own any of these wrist watch games, though, I'm sure I wanted them when I saw them advertised. But I wouldn't have understood the value of the thing then, as a stupid little kid. Sure, it would have been fun to have one to play in class or on the bus, but it wouldn't have been nearly as fun or useful as it now could be. I can just imagine how pleasant meetings at work could be, leaning way back in my chair, tapping the little red buttons, making a squiggly little Batman leap and throw boomerangs at tiny digital bad guys.
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