Tooth Protectors

Tooth Protectors is one of the stranger releases in the Atari 2600 library. It came out in 1983 and was published not by a game company but by Johnson & Johnson, the dental care giant. It was a promotional item rather than a store release, which is why so few players ever came across it.

The concept fits the sponsor. Viewed from the side, you defend a row of teeth against falling snacks hurled from above. Teeth that take too many hits need attention with a brush, floss and rinse before they are lost for good. Underneath the branding it is a straightforward single-player reflex game, exactly the kind of design the 2600 handled well.

The game also works as a time capsule. In 1983 the console market was flooded with licensed and advertising tie-ins, and Tooth Protectors shows how far a corporation would go to put its products in front of children. Unlike many of those tie-ins, though, the core loop here is competent and the difficulty ramps up at a fair pace.

Technically it lives within the usual 2600 limits: a few colours, simple sprites, score chasing instead of saves. That simplicity keeps it easy to pick up decades later.

Advertising cartridges from this period have become sought-after curiosities, and Tooth Protectors stands out because for years hardly anyone knew it existed. Cartridge collectors count it among the rarest pieces of the 2600 library – a strange fate for a game about brushing teeth, and one that emulation has happily rendered irrelevant for anyone curious about the content itself.

You can judge this oddity for yourself on OldGame.cz, where it runs straight in your browser with no cartridge hunting required.