I've always considered the backstories of the various enemies of the game, as to give them reason to keep poor Pete Pepper from his job in completing the burgers. Here's my takes: Hot Dogs: long considered America's fave fast food item, from boardwalks to fairways, they became insanely jealous after being unseated (unbunned?) by burgers. No longer content to play second fiddle, they attack en masse any patty-flipper they see. Fried Egg: a steadfast believer in "The Most Important Meal of The Day", one could imagine the ova's offense at finding out that some people had taken a liking to using egg as a burger topping! Pickle: sick and tired of people often ordering "hold the pickles", has decided to take its briny revenge.

Burgertime is literally the first videogame I ever played on the Intellivision. Good times, good times!

Loved playing burgertime on the Intellivision as a kid

In Intellivision, if you and an enemy are in the same level, and there's a ladder between you, the sausages always go down the ladder, and the egg and pickles go up. Interesting enough, in the arcades it's the opposite. This can be used to make the enemies walk overlapped, so we can drop them collectively with the burger ingredients. Burger Time was the game that made me want an Intellivision as my first console.

Arcade - Many people wonder why there's an egg in a game about making burgers. Apparently in Japan, a fried egg is a popular burger topping. Atari 2600 - I once read that the enemies looked like that because they used the dedicated missile graphics built into the 2600, I think to avoid flicker. Aquarius - The system didn't have sprites, so everything had to be done with redefined character graphics. C64 - As I recall, the biggest problem with the official port was that you didn't "throw" the pepper in front of you, you just dropped it. So instead of being able to hit an enemy with it as you walked toward them, you had to stop, press the button and then let the enemy walk into it. There was a much better version called Burger Time '97 published by Loadstar, but I don't know if it was an official license or not. Seems like if it was unauthorized, Loadstar would have gotten in legal hot water, though. NES - They used this version for the miniature arcade machine, rather than the arcade ROM. I was thinking of buying one just for the novelty until I found out that they put the NES ROM in it. Boo!

OMG, THANK YOU for including the TV ad for the home version (even though you said you wouldn't cover the myriad home versions available); I have been trying to tell people about this ad for years (especially because I often have occasion to use the "we are closed now" snippet in conversation), and no one remembers it or believes me! First time I've come across it in my search for evidence (I just knew the truth was out there!).

The Killer Hot Dog: "WE'RE CLOSE NOW‼"

I don't know why but this has always been one of my favorites, if not my favorite arcade game from the 80s.

Nothing like a good helping of Burger Time, washed down with a generous amount of Tapper's.

Absolutely love this game, I’ve been playing it recently on an archive website cause i remembered it from when I was little. Good job man.

In "Bump 'n Jump", if you can go the whole level without touching ANY cars at all you get a huge bonus. It's harder to do than it sounds though...

I was always floored when I learned of the actual inner workings of Atari. You would think it’s some huge corporate entity but it was a bunch of dude drinking and eating pizza and sleeping in the offices!!

Great summary! I never new about Diner - it would seem there was a bunch of Intellivision games that never saw wide distribution because of the crash?

The only time i have EVER even seen an Aquarius, was as a prize on Starcade! The kids that won it were always like... "wut?"

Fun fact: the Texas Instruments computer was a 16-bit machine.

1:50 - I always wondered why I used to see so many arcade games that had nothing to do with the artwork on the outside of the cabinet. Now I know.

Awesome documentary. You have a great voice for the art form and have clearly done your research. Subbed!

I owned an Aquarius back in the 80s and I own one now. There's a game for it called Dungeons and Dragons Treasure of Tarmin that my brothers and I used to play all night after homework was done. It was one of the first 3D crawlers. You had layovers for the rubber keyboard and the controllers.

Super Burgertime has been on the Switch for awhile now

Of course the difficulty level ramps up fast - it’s an arcade game. It needed to steal a new quarter every few minutes to he worth arcade owners investing in it.

The work you do is important and a testament to the notion that the entire internet is not a toxic hellscape.

The key to scoring high, and completing numerous levels, is learning how to group enemies together. Once done, they act as one (because they occupy the same position). The enemies follow predictable patterns to head towards your location. So once you group them together, never give them an opportunity to split up (on high levels, that will get you killed). Also, you need to collect every pepper. The peppers should not be used on the lower levels (once you learn how to avoid the enemies without using peppers). You will need every last pepper, in order to survive on the higher levels (eventually the enemies get so fast that it is impossible to get anywhere without using a pepper). By grouping the enemies together, and carefully using them to build your burgers, you can flip the score (it flips at 999,999 -- there is no million). From 990,000 to 0, you receive a free life for every item that scores points. Those lives are not really helpful (because you will have already accumulated more lives than you can use). More important than lives is peppers. You can have 10,000 lives, and they will each die in a few seconds of each turn (on the higher levels), if you run out of peppers. It has been a while, but I have accumulated over 40 peppers (43 I believe was my best). I have reached level 22 (or maybe 23 -- hard to remember). The enemies are so fast -- they are running at breakneck speeds from the moment the level starts. It is at this point where zero peppers means the game is over (you will never reach anywhere to score another point). Once you learn how to group the enemies, and follow patterns to complete levels, the game can become a bit monotonous. But I love the game, in proper doses. Cheers!

Thanks for another great video! I played it on my Commodore 64 and thought it was fun but then I had never played the original at the time. Not until today did I learn that the C64 version by Interceptor is apparently not an official conversion, which would explain why it's called Burger Time and not BurgerTime. I would assume this would have led to problems for Interceptor.

Burgertime is an all-time favorite of mine that I play on the Multicade cabinet every time I get a chance

Awesome history and video pat! Once again u never dissapoint. Burger Time was the first NES game i owned as a kid aside from the mario/duck hunt pack. Great classic gameplay.

Great commentary and history of all of these games. Thank you for doing this, great series to watch thanks to your presentations. Funny too.

Just discovered your channel and loving the content ! Thanks for your hard work !

Peter Pepper might have been animated in "Wreck-It Ralph" but this wasn't the first time of sorts Burgertime was animated. The second season premiere of "Captain N: The Game Master" introduced new N-Team member "Game Boy" and the first world he brought Captain N, Simon Belmont and Mega Man was "Burgertime." Captain N got turned into Mr. Hot Dog (with his Zapper shooting ketchup), Simon was Mr. Egg (he bemoaned "I've got egg on my face!") while Mega Man was Mr. Pickle ("At least YOU'RE not in a Mega-Pickle!" replied Mega Man). Game Boy took the role of Peter Pepper.

The MS-DOS version is one of the few games that uses composite CGA output to output additional color. The game is substantially more colorful if you connect it to a composite monitor or TV

I remember being under six years old and playing this the arcades. I never got past the first level. Huge disappointment, but it must’ve been fun because I kept going back to it 😄

Loved this game had a Intellivision back then and yeah those disk controllers where harsh but man the memories of Video Game Saturdays after Saturday morning cartoons...ah childhood

An interesting choice to cover, but a thoroughly enjoyable documentary all the same. Another excellent video, with a format that is easy to follow and remains insightful throughout.

I owned an Aquarius. It was either that or a Vectrex for Christmas. I had Snafu, Biorhythm, Tron Deadly Disk and Burger Time. I enjoyed the hell out of those games.

While I worked at Showbiz Pizza Place, I encountered one lady who could really play Burgertime.

Loved this in the arcades, it's probably in my top 10. The art of the cabinet is great too. And you can't beat a good 🍔

Sad to say I'd never heard of this game. Closest thing I knew was Burger Boss from "Bob's Burgers".

Thank you, Pat, for all your hard work. God bless.

Nice review, and great video Patman! Will be including a recommendation, and a link to your video on my channel's review video of the Atari VCS/2600 port Wednesday.

Played this game more times than I wanted because all the good/popular Arcade game were full. Dig Dug was the next one I played after this one.

EPIC classic arcade game and absolutely WICKED hard game to master. If you don't have Burgertime in your classic arcade collection, you don't have a classic arcade game collection. Hands down, one of the all-time best games ever made.

this game was hard.... I'm still pissed off about the whole thing

Peter Pepper in the Aquarius version looks like a can of beer with legs, which just reminds me of the Rainier Beer commercials I used to see on TV as a kid in the 80s.

A well-made and info-dense resource on an overlooked pice of gaming histoy. Nice stuff!

Well, I might as well stay home. I’m already super late from watching these vids!!!!

I appreciate you actually using the composite color with the DOS version!

Great game! Hilarious concept! Love it-thank you!!! Hey I’d love to see how qix made it into arcades, it was such a simple concept but I loved it....thanks again!!

Inspiration from an experienced fry cook! That is so sweet! Man, I was bad at this game in the arcades. Next paycheck, it will be full of quarters to practice on this treasure.

Thank you for the great documentary! I always loved this game though I was never that good at it. I had the Atari 2600 version. Few games converted very well to this system, so I have to give kudos to the programmers for giving it their best shot. I also had the C-64 version, which was (as you said) just okay. And, for the record, I have never heard of the Aquarius system. Judging from the graphics, sound, and gameplay, I wasn't missing much (it makes my old VIC-20 look like WOPR from Wargames by comparison, lol). Again, thanks for sharing this! I look forward to watching your other videos.

Thats Ike Eisenmann in the TV advert (witch mountain, star trek the motion picture etc.) i love burger time. it was called mr wimpy on the commodore 64 in UK (either a copy or they did a deal with wimpy) it is one of those games where if iever see a machine of it in a arcade or pub i will play it. that doesnt happen any more, think last time would have been late 90s.

What a fantastic video... Have subscribed and look forward to watching your other videos. For me, the first time I encountered Burger Time was through a clone... It was on the Spectrum and was called Bear Bovver. This had you play a bear who had to make the batteries drop to move the electric car along. It was a great version. Of all the versions though the Gameboy rendition is brilliant and has much better balance in difficulty. I have actually last weekend at Arcade Club (Bury near Manchester England) played the original arcade cab of Burger Time, and as much as I love the game,, boy is it hard... Consequently I ended up playing more of Atari Food Fight for my food themed gaming needs.

Damnit man! I just got done telling you that I typically didn't get into these older games (before the Nes and Master System) and you bring out another game. How did I forget Burger Time existed?! I loved this game as well. For some reason it always reminded me of Blimpie from Popeye. "I will gladly give you a dollar for on Tuesday for a cheeseburger today." Wait...did I get that right? It feels right but it has been a long time. I did not know about the cassette tapes. That is absolutely fascinating my friend. I bet it's nigh on impossible to get an original arcade cab working today. It really makes me wish companies preserved these cabinets for future generations. I hope when we have kids (likely this year) that I will be able to share with them what their dad played as a kid. I plan on turning them into (age appropriate) games when they are old enough to really grasp them. I'm thinking, maybe around 5 or 6 year's old.

Another TOP video thanks for being so comprehensive. Hey our beige Texas Instruments cartridge got much use by most all our family and the music really works

Such a fun game. I love that arcade1up redesigned the cabinet that the game is on to look just like the arcade version. It is going to be awesome.

Okay the guy that decided just make green burgers for the NES version must work for Burger King's marketing now. They have an ad showing a burger turning moldy to prove there is no preservatives.

I sub’d to the channel. I enjoy the content. The audio quality is a little on the low side, but i get it, mic’s aint cheap. Other than that, this is top notch stuff. Keep it up!

In the early 2010s, Namco-Bandai had some free online games to play on its website, and one was "Burgertime Deluxe." This was before "Burgertime World Tour." It showed Peter Pepper with his kids as the Burger Wars drew in another generation.

I lost track of how many quarters I dropped into this game as a kid. I also remember the commercial and the tag line "We are closed now!"

I actually have an Aquarius. Burger Time was one of the more difficult carts to acquire for it. The system is a quirky footnote to computer history. It's no wonder it was only on the market for four months. Definitely an item just for us obsessive collectors.

One guy in my class in circa 1984 had an Aquarius. And i was having Spectrun 48k. Greetings from Finland.

The biggest difficulty in the game is the overly generous sprite size...I first encountered it at the burger joint behind my dad's office in 1981

Great video. And now there's also Burger Time Party on the Switch, which came out in 2019. It's for 1-4 players

Really enjoyed the history of Burger Time. Thanks. :)

First version of this game i played was the NES version in the early 90s. Great video.

I had the little yellow handheld burger time. I was 8 years old and that really helped pass the time in the backseat going on vacation somewhere with my grandparents..lol

I enjoyed it when I played it at work, but it's REALLY hard, and the pepper runs out so quickly. Good vid!

Great video! Spent many a hour playing Burgertime on my TI-99/4a!

Your voice sounds straight out of an 80s commercial, perfect for these documentaries.

I read once the Egg was in the game, which always seemed odd, because egg on a hamburger was popular in Japan back in the day.

I watch that Burgertime commercial and all I can think is "Of course it's to go, you dingleflop, you're in a drive-through!"

Super Burger Time. Is really fun. Love when arcade games have boss fights

This is my grandpa’s favorite game can’t remember which version game he had I just know it had wired controller with a number pad and slide in plastic to go over it

A classic favorite of mine. I would have loved to tried World Tour, but the license expired. Thanks for the video!

Also, have you had a chance to look at the Nintendo Switch "Burgertime Party" game? There are a few "Solo Burger" rounds where you're trying to score a target level of points to get different stars depending on how much you get before your 3 lives are over. There is a "classic burgertime" mode where there are other power ups besides pepper shakers: "D" drinks give speed and glow, chili peppers let Peter blow flames in front of him but he can't go up or down ladders (he can only run left-right AND could still be hurt from behind) though any enemies flamed get killed, and potato cakes/hash brown patties that trap the enemies in what seem like potato dumplings and thus can't harm Peter while stuck in them (until they get out).

Loved this game in the arcade back in the day.

Oh Lock-n-Chase wow hadn't heard that mentioned in forever. The Bob's Burgers episode where he plays a knock off called Burger Boss with DRL helping him is seriously funny. The chiptune of Burger Time is stuck in my head again UGH!

Why is he called "Peter Pepper?" He could have easily been named "Salt Peter."

My family had a Mattel Aquarius when I was growing up. We didn't have Burger Time, but we did have a couple of games for it. We had Night Stalker and Tron Deadly Discs. Night Stalker was actually pretty fun, however Tron was a bit boring. Unfortunately my father through our Aquarius away one day without telling me. It's a shame as I would have loved to have hung onto it. It wasn't a great computer, but it had that old 8-bit computer charm to it.

Will be including a recommendation, and a link to your video on my channel's review video of the ColecoVision port Wednesday.

I owned Aquarius and I used to make a bunch a games on it, the characters pallet of 256 had unique characters in it to make games for, I had lots of fun making games on it, Till I got my Commodore 64

This game kicked ass on the Coleco!

I enjoyed this one in the arcade and once in a while I actually completed a level~! Most of the time I got overwhelmed by the enemies, but I still enjoyed playing it.

Crying shame that burgertime never got a physical release on ps3 and Xbox 360

I just played the NES version earlier. One of the first games I ever played, I always loved it even though I'm not great at it. I've always found it rather difficult, but it's a lot of fun.

I love this game still to this day.

The Data East DECO system was short lived, as the tapes proved to be unreliable and prone to errors due to temperature, magnetism, etc.

I played Bear Bovver, a not so blatent rip off of Burger Time in which you control a bear who has to drop batteries into his Sinclair C5 car. The game scared me a bit, I think the monsters with long legs were the oddest, and the various clone bears.

Mr. Egg is so nefarious he chases me in my nightmares

The Coleco Vision version. HOLY CRAP!!! Such memories

Loved the video and am excited to check out more. Random Question - do you know why there isn't a space in the title (e.g. 'Burger Time' vs 'BurgerTime')?

I enjoyed this a lot more than I thought I would.

There is also a version called Flintstones Burgertime in Bedrock for the Game Boy Color. It's Burgertime with Flinstones characters and a story

I own the NES and Game Boy ports, as well as two homebrew ports. Beef Drop (Atari 5200) and Beef Drop VE (Atari 7800). VE doesn't include the Pokey Sound Chip, but it's also available with either the Pokey chip or the AtariAge compatible equivalent PokeyOne.

My dog, my cat, the pets next doors, and his owners had a Aquarius. That shop owner, and the farmer had it too.

The day that Midway went bankrupt made me very sad what an iconic video game company I remember it like yesterday! 😢😢😢

Super Burgertime is available on the Nintendo Switch via Johnny Turbo's Arcade, along with a few other Data East classics.

Thanks for the video I haven't seen a game like this ever I was born in 87 but NES and atari was the oldest console's I've seen and played

One of my favorite games of all time.

Best 1st level game ever! i've never beaten the 2nd level. i just play it for the 1st level. Hit reset & repeat! i played it on the NES growing up & never noticed the green burgers until i heard you talk about it! Ha-Ha!! This game use to gross out moms everywhere as you walked across the food to then be served the Peter Pepper way!

AQUARIOUS!!!! I have one!! My uncle Mike gave me one prob back in 1985. He wasn’t into ‘computers’. I was 12. I was like WOW a COMPUTER! Well, that’s what it WAS...back then. Thanks Uncle Mike!!!

Great video, but you are wrong about Peter Pepper’s Ice Cream Factory and Super BurgerTime. The former got a release on the Wii in 2010 as part of Data East Arcade Classics, and the latter got a release on the Switch and PS4 as a download only title, so we have a way to legally play them without owning the original arcade boards. If anyone lives near Chicago, the Galloping Ghost Arcade in Brookfield has Super BurgerTime if you want to play it on arcade hardware.