In an era when it wasn’t uncommon to see Domino’s Noid on the NES, or the original Tapper slinging Budweiser, Yoyodyne figured they’d get in on the commercial game craze too. Of course, few companies felt safe in the hands of an unproven firm. That left Yoyodyne developing spec prototypes for some unusual clients that weren’t already pursuing their own games. I found a gem under a stack of prototype copies of Super Lehman Bros.

One of the first boxes I found after inheriting my great uncle’s estate was a box detailing the development of Susan Butcher’s Iditarod ‘83. I wasn’t familiar with Susan Butcher but found out that my relative had produced this game after her 1982 2nd place finish in the famous thousand-mile Alaskan dog race. Susan would go on to become the second woman to ever win the Iditarod and eventually win four times.

One of the first boxes I opened was a pile of large floppy disks. It looks like these were various intro animations. This first one seems incredibly indulgent, it takes about 30 seconds to run. I can’t imagine sitting through that before playing a round of Improv: The Video Game. Anyway, with no further ado, here is the original YES logo animation: