{"id":1856,"date":"2024-11-26T17:00:23","date_gmt":"2024-11-26T08:00:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/?p=1856"},"modified":"2026-05-09T13:31:38","modified_gmt":"2026-05-09T04:31:38","slug":"memories-of-the-bag-a-tel-arcade-in-valley-west-mall","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/2024\/11\/26\/memories-of-the-bag-a-tel-arcade-in-valley-west-mall\/","title":{"rendered":"Memories of the Bag-A-Tel arcade in Valley West Mall (Glendale, AZ)"},"content":{"rendered":"
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When I was a boy, the #1 game arcade I went to in Glendale, AZ was Bag-A-Tel in Valley West Mall. My #1 go-to game was, of course, Atari’s Star Wars sit-down cabinet. Released in 1983, this game came out the same year as Return of the Jedi, yet it involved the first Star Wars movie. I remember playing Atari’s Red Baron, a similar vector graphics shooter cabinet, before Star Was was released. The Return of the Jedi game by Atari came out in ’84, featuring an isometric view that I really could not get the hang of. Then in ’85 the first game was modified to play the Empire Strikes Back vector graphics game, which was not as good. <\/p>\n\n\n

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If Star Wars was occupied, my #2 choice was the Namco’s Pole Position II (released by Atari in the US) sit-down cabinet, which was located next to Star Wars. (This animated gif is actually of the first Pole Position game though.) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have very fond memories of Bag-A-Tel. I loved that place. Whenever we’d catch a movie at the dollar theater, we’d be sure to stop by that arcade. Valley West Mall was eventually closed down, then later re-opened as Manistee Town Center. Eventually that mall went goodbye as well, and the mall was used for filming the movie Eight-Legged Freaks<\/em> starring David Arquette and featuring a very young Scarlett Johannsson. The mall was demolished for that movie. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here is a photo of the movie theater in Valley West Mall, courtesy of the CinemaTreasures nostalgia website.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n

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When I was a boy, the #1 game arcade I went to in Glendale, AZ was Bag-A-Tel in Valley West Mall. My #1 go-to game was, of course, Atari’s Star Wars sit-down cabinet. Released in 1983, this game came out the same year as Return of the Jedi, yet it involved the first Star Wars … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Memories of the Bag-A-Tel arcade in Valley West Mall (Glendale, AZ)”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160,2],"tags":[223,219,10,222,12,106,282],"class_list":["post-1856","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nostalgia","category-video-games","tag-1980s","tag-animated-gif","tag-gaming","tag-pole-position","tag-retrogaming","tag-star-wars","tag-the-80s"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1856","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1856"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1856\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3086,"href":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1856\/revisions\/3086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1856"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1856"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevethefish.net\/stuff\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1856"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}