Gerri Brioso: Halftime Battlin' Bands, Coco-Notes, Movie Musical Madness

Gerri Brioso is part of The Dovetail Group, a company that created three children’s games for the Atari 400/800 and Commodore 64 computers. All three games were released in 1984: they were Halftime Battlin' Bands, Coco-Notes, and Movie Musical Madness, all of which were released by CBS software.

Wikipedia says "These games are notable as they represent some of the earliest examples of the music management subgenre of music video games." The games were also notable because each of those games included a plastic record album, playable on a phonograph, which served as the games’ instruction manuals. The characters in the games and records — Swivel Hips, Wahoo, and Mr. Bass Man — made up a fictional band called The Jazz Scats.

This interview occurred on July 30 and 31, 2015.

Teaser quotes

“They made it doubly hard for us because they suddenly wanted us to not just create for the Atari platform, but to also create for the Commodore platform. So the work became double ... and suddenly deadlines were not being met.”

“Rich had to hold me back because my hands were going around the computer programmer’s throat. I thought I would kill him. ... Where’s the backup? He said, ‘I was just getting ready to back it up.’ I was like, “You didn’t back it up in stages? What, are you crazy?!”

Links:

Brioso’s web site

Jazz Scats record albums

Photo of the Jazz Scats