CGL’s Frogger shrinks Konami’s 1981 arcade hit into a miniature yellow arcade cabinet, and the moment it lights up you see why collectors prize it: a big, magnified, pin-sharp screen glowing in blue, green, red and amber.
The display is a vacuum fluorescent tube, seen through a magnifying window under a tinted orange hood that shades it like a real arcade marquee. The bezel labels every lane – Grass, Road, Bank, River, Goal – like a cut-away diagram. Inside, it is Gakken’s Japanese Frogger, badged for Britain by Computer Games Limited.
Interesting facts
Who were CGL? Computer Games Ltd of Loughton, Essex imported games from Tomy, Gakken and others and sold them under its own CGL badge, alongside Nintendo’s Game & Watch. It later sold Sord’s M5 computer as the CGL M5, before Amstrad took it over.
Gakken in a British coat. Under the CGL badge this is the same machine as Gakken’s Japanese Frogger, made in Japan, with a vacuum fluorescent screen and four C batteries. The leaflet keeps Gakken’s “LSI Game” tag and Konami’s copyright.
The frog that nearly croaked. Konami’s Frogger reached Japanese arcades in August 1981. Sega/Gremlin almost passed on it, licensing it only after a staffer found it in the company’s library. It became Gremlin’s biggest hit, earning over $135 million in US cabinet sales.