Atari was at the top of the video game business in the 1970s with arcade games like ‘Pong,’ ‘Space Invaders’ and ‘Asteroids’ and their home console, Atari 2600. But after the company’s founder Nolan Bushnell sold the company, and was later replaced as CEO, the company went downhill. Several engineers left to start other companies, including Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak, who began Apple Computer. By the ’80s, the company had to bury truckloads of its failed ‘E.T.’ game in the New Mexico desert. ”’Video Game Invasion: The History of a Global Obsession,’ a two-hour documentary executive-produced by Palisadian David Carr and his business partner David Comtois, traces the industry’s bursting upon the scene in the ’70s, followed by its many ups and downs. At age 39, Carr has lived through the evolution of video games from their infancy to today’s $20 billion-a-year industry. ”The documentary premieres Sunday night on GSN (formerly the Game Show Network) at 6 and 9 p.m. GSN (Channel 108), which is expanding beyond just game shows to video games, dating games and reality games, came up with the idea. ”Carr and Comtois lined up 40 interviews with video game pioneers and experts. ‘All these folks were off-the-wall, wildly colorful pioneers in a business with no boundaries,’ Carr told the Palisadian-Post. ‘We couldn’t have asked for better subjects.’ ”He traveled around the country to conduct many of the interviews. ‘There’s no consolidated place for the video game industry. There are little shops all over the world.’ ”The documentary, named on TV Guide’s ’10 Reasons to Stay Home This Week’ list, is hosted by professional skateboarder Tony Hawk, co-creator of ‘Tony Hawk’s Underground’ video game. ”Using archival photos, old-fashioned consoles and lots of video game footage, the documentary begins with the primitive video games which were created in the ’50s and ’60s. In 1972, the Magnavox Odyssey was introduced, a home TV console with a primitive ping-pong game. The kit came with plastic overlays to put over one’s TV screen and create different games. ”Around the same time, Nolan Bushnell founded Atari, and Al Alcorn developed ‘Pong.’ They built on the concept by adding sound and a score and the ability for the ball to speed up over time. ”’Pong’ was a hit in arcades and Atari’s ‘Space Invaders’ soon followed, which had the innovation of a high score display. Then came another Atari hit, ‘Asteroids.’ ”The Japanese game makers exploded onto the scene with ‘Pac-Man,’ which featured a memorable character that could be licensed. Nintendo came in with ‘Donkey Kong’ and ‘Mario Brothers,’ followed by ‘Super Mario Brothers.’ Meanwhile, several other companies joined the competition. ”The next important phase came in 1982, when the TV console was replaced by the personal computer as the most popular mode to play video games such as ‘Tetris.’ ”The documentary also covers the Senate hearings on violence in video games, which led to the rating system, and the next wave of TV consoles such as Sony PlayStation and Microsoft Xbox. ”New and ever-more-inventive games, such as ‘Sims,’ which allows the player to create his or her own characters and run their lives, followed. And now a new generation of games is available on cell phones and PDAs. ”’The pioneers of video games’Trip Hawkins, the founder of Electronic Arts, the biggest publisher of video games, and John Romero, who created ‘Doom’ and ‘Quake”are now involved in cell-phone gaming,’ said Carr. ‘It’s the new frontier of video games. ”’These pioneers are used to working with rudimentary computer processors. Cell phones right now have a similar lack of computer power. ‘Tetris’ is a great computer cell-phone game.’ In Japan, Carr said, interactive cell-phone games are especially popular. ”Carr has lived in the Palisades for 12 years with his wife Carol and children Stephen, 10, and Jacqueline, 7, who attend St. Matthew’s School. The family is very active at St. Matthew’s Church. In addition, Carr is a coach in the Palisades Pony Baseball Association and the Santa Monica Bobby Sox girls’ softball league. ”Carr believes that video games are popular because of their increasingly lifelike graphics and audio and the interactivity of video games, compared to more passive media. ”As a parent of young kids who play video games, Carr hopes the documentary helps demystify the new world of video games for parents. ‘In general, there is a lot of fear among parents. It takes education. I love the movie ‘Raging Bull,’ but I won’t take my 10-year-old son to see it. I love ‘Halo,’ but I won’t let my son play it. As more people understand ratings and the different video game genres, parents can catch up a little bit.’ ”He and Comtois, who met at Boston University, founded Beantown Productions 13 years ago. The company specializes in creating marketing for television, and makes promos for shows like ‘Seinfeld,’ ‘The Simpsons,’ ‘Cops,’ ‘King of the Hill,’ ‘Pyramid’ and ‘Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?’ The two are currently working on a TV show that will allow viewers to play a video game within the context of the 30-minute program. In the course of this, Carr has rediscovered video games for the first time since playing Pac-Man in high school and has been playing them as research for his show. ”The producers also hired a full-time researcher to find old footage and photos of early video games. During the eight months of working on the documentary, they found numerous old consoles and video games on eBay and played them in order to get footage of the different games. ‘We created our own museum of the history of video games in our office,’ Carr said.

Four large trees on Tramonto Drive were cut down two weeks ago, bringing to an abrupt end a debate which had persisted for almost a year between Castellammare residents and two of the homeowners over how to save the trees or widen the street, or both. The trees, an old pine and three eucalyptus, which lined a curvy section of the road just below Revello and flanked a four-house development site owned by Peter Engel and Michael Brunelle, were leveled immediately after a Board of Public Works hearing on March 1. After listening to testimony from both sides, the board ruled unanimously that the two men had the right to remove the trees rather than relinquish up to 14 feet on at least one of three properties they are currently constructing on Tramonto. ‘What it came down to,’ explained Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski’s senior deputy Debbie Dyner, ‘is that they were not willing to incur any further delays or costs on the project, which is their right.’ To save the trees, the two men would have needed to get a variance to expand the road onto their lots, which would have entailed a public hearing and perhaps a further review by the Coastal Commission. ‘I can understand that cutting down the trees is extremely frustrating for everyone involved,’ continued Dyner, ‘considering the amount of effort on both sides to work out a compromise.’ On March 2, the day after the hearing, Miscikowski, whose office was involved in the ongoing debate, sent a letter to local residents outlining the dilemma. ‘As you may know, when the subdivision [of the lots] was approved several years ago, the Planning Department applied a condition that required widening of Tramonto Drive to today’s safety and engineering standards. At the time, this seemed straightforward enough. However, once the developers’ engineer looked more closely at the requirement and the actual placement of the trees, he realized that either the trees would have to be removed or the road would have to be routed around the trees, possibly cutting into the front yard of one or two of the houses.’ The tree controversy began last May when Castellammare resident Bart Greenhut noticed signs posted by the city indicating the four trees were slated for removal so that the street could be widened from about 22 feet to 28 feet to meet city standards. In addition, street lamps, curbs, gutters and four-foot-wide sidewalks were to be added on both sides of the street for both better drainage and pedestrian safety, all at Engel’s and Brunelle’s expense. Greenhut immediately rallied about 150 supporters to save the trees. Neighborhood meetings were held. Miscikowski’s support was enlisted. And new design plans were drawn up ‘that would both save the trees and meet city requirements,’ Greenhut told the Palisadian-Post last July. Even though Engel and Brunelle had applied to the city for the permit to remove the trees, they appeared to agree to the compromise, which would require them to cede to the city a portion of their land so the road could be rerouted around the trees. ‘We want to keep these big, beautiful trees,’ Brunelle said in an interview with the Post at the time. Greenhut now feels deceived, especially after a meeting on February 4 in which he came away believing that the city, as well as Engel and Brunelle, agreed to a design that not only improved Tramonto, but ‘met city requirements and saved the trees,’ Greenhut wrote in a letter to the Post after the March 1 hearing. He wonders if the intention of both the city and the two men was to tear down the trees ‘all along.’ Dyner saw the February 4 meeting differently. ‘While everyone was in agreement with the concept, and it seemed that what was proposed could work, when the developers finally crunched the numbers they had problems with it,’ Dyner said, adding that she only found out that they wanted to remove the trees the morning of the March 1 hearing. The first tree came down shortly after the hearing, the other three the next day. Engel said that in the end it came down to the question of how to widen the street without violating property setback regulations, which proved to be a ‘physical impossibility.’ Part of Engel’s and Brunelle’s agreement with the city is that they must replant eight trees for the four they cut down. ‘When we finish the construction, we will fix and landscape the street,’ Engel told the Post yesterday. ‘It will be very attractive and woodsy and look a lot better than it has in a long time.’ Resident Norma Spak, who last December received a Community Council service award for her work at Los Liones Gateway Park (where she works as a landscape volunteer), is looking forward to that time. ‘They [Engel and Brunelle] told us when we met with them a couple of months ago that if the trees did have to come down that they would replace them with some oaks and sycamores, which are native to this region,’ Spak said. ‘Now that the trees are gone, Tramonto is finally going to get widened and improved, which I think everyone agrees is long overdue.’

By LINDA RENAUD and BILL BRUNS What a difference six weeks can make. Developer Ken Kahan’s appearance before the Pacific Palisades Community Council last Thursday was a lot less contentious than on January 22, when he was confronted by angry Castellammare residents, who accused him of being insensitive to their concerns about ocean views, hillside stability, construction, traffic and health issues. Since then, Kahan has made an effort to meet with them, attending a dozen or so meetings with adjacent homeowners, neighbors, and renters who will have to be relocated if his Palisades Landmark project, now five years in the planning, gets final approval from the city of L.A. (see editor’s note). ‘We listened to all the community’s concerns,’ Kahan said in his opening remarks at last week’s meeting, where he presented his modified plans for the proposed development of an 82-unit condominium/townhouse complex at 17331-17333 Tramonto Drive, which will be nestled into the hillside and resemble an Italian hillside town. The property, which Kahan purchased in 1999, occupies 3.98 acres of hillside terrain overlooking Santa Monica Bay, above the Sunset/PCH intersection. It is zoned RD2-1 (multiple family), and while Kahan could build up to 87 units, only 82 are proposed, 11 of which are townhomes. The project, which will require the demolition of an existing apartment building and fixing an adjacent landslide that occurred in 1965, has been redesigned with one main objective in mind: to preserve the ocean views not only from the 36-unit condo building just above the proposed site, but those from half-dozen neighboring homes. ‘Everyone will keep their ocean view,’ Kahan said. ‘And some will have a better view than they have now.’ To appease residents concerned about the noise and traffic that will result from at least two years of hillside excavation, recompaction and actual construction of the project, Kahan suggested that in certain phases of the project, ‘work could begin at 8 a.m. instead of 7,’ in which case the job would take longer to complete, he pointed out. He said flagmen would be provided throughout the project, as well as a hotline for community input and complaints. To allay health concerns, Kahan said he would provide household air filters ‘that clean the air up to 3,000 sq.ft.’ to all affected residents to help control dust contamination. On Fridays, all affected balconies would be swept and hosed off, and car-wash vouchers and window-cleaning services would be provided ‘upon request.’ He also agreed to resurface potholes caused by trucks on Tramonto during construction and, upon completion, to repave the already deteriorating street from the project down to Los Liones Drive. And as part of his effort to be more ‘responsive to the community,’ Kahan announced that because residents have told him ‘that if there’s damage to their home, they don’t want to sue us, knowing the time and expense involved,’ he will arrange for them to deal directly with his insurer, to facilitate claim processing and avoid possible litiga- ?tion himself and the residents. On Thursday night Kahan appeared before the council accompanied by four members of his firm, plus chief architect Eric Zubiak, geologist John Irvine of the J. Byer Group, landscape architect Dan Weedon, and Ben Resnick, a land-use attorney. When Resnick requested that the council support the project, board member Barbara Kohn, who represents Area 1 (Pacific View Estates, Castellammare, Paseo Miramar) indicated her opposition. Although no motion to support the project was made, as there is still some concern regarding the risk the construction might pose to existing hillside homes in a known landslide area, one citizen did thank Kahan for his recent willingness to meet with residents and respond to their concerns. ‘He really did listen to us, and he responded in a positive way,’ said John Williams, president of the Castellammare Homeowners Association. ‘A lot of the issues have been solved, although there’s a lot more work to do.’ (Editor’s note: A public hearing was held yesterday on the Tramonto condo project. The results were not known at press time Wednesday. If the project was approved, it will now have to go before the Coastal Commission, if there are no appeals.)

By JOAN HILL Special to the Palisadian-Post Palisades community and religious leaders are giving their full support for the upcoming 29th annual Pacific Palisades CROP Hunger Walk. ”The 5K walk begins and ends at the Palisades Recreation Center (851 Alma Real) on Sunday, March 28. Registration is at 12 noon and the walk begins at 1 p.m. The walk raises funds to aid CROP (Communities Reaching Out to People) which helps alleviate local and world hunger. ”’Feeding people is one of the most worthy causes on our planet,’ said Steve Guttenberg, the walk’s honorary chairman. ‘By joining together in the walk through the Palisades business district, Palisadians have proved in the past, and will prove on March 28, that we make a positive difference in our world.’ ”Local community groups, schools, and religious institutions including Palisades Presbyterian Church, Kehillat Israel, St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church, Corpus Christi and Palisades Methodist Church, are taking part. ”’We who have so much have an obligation to share our blessings with those who have so little,’ said Rabbi Steven Carr Reuben of Kehillat Israel. ‘Our annual Hunger Walk is an opportunity to make a difference in the world and demonstrate with our feet and hearts that what we do matters.’ ”Added the Rev. John Todd of Palisades Presbyterian Church: ‘This is a joyous coming-together of the Palisades community, well known for its open-hearted generosity, for a wonderful afternoon of communion with friends and family while at the same time helping to alleviate a local and international problem.’ ”Last year’s Hunger Walk raised $32,500. ”At St. Matthew’s, fourth graders have been keeping a daily total of the money they have raised and have set a goal of $17,000 for their class contribution alone. Fourth grade teacher Anne Hillard observes that ‘the students are enthusiastically looking for sponsors for the walk, soliciting family and neighbors to do chores, and will be working on Sundays at the Swarthmore farmers’ market and after church services at St. Matthew’s. As a teacher, I feel an extreme sense of pride as the students strive to help others while gaining important life skills.’ ”Hunger is a worldwide problem, as statistics show nearly one of four children in Los Angeles County goes to bed hungry every night. Aiding the hungry in this area, 25 percent of the funds raised will go to the Westside Food Bank, which annually distributes more than 4 million pounds of food to over 60 local social-service agencies. ”The remaining 75 percent benefits CROP, a nondenominational program of the Church World Service, which partners with agencies in more than 80 countries providing food, shelter and water resources to the malnourished and impoverished. ”In addition to walkers from KI and St. Matthew’s, students from Marquez, Corpus Christi, Palisades Elementary and Curtis will be participating. ”’The great thing about the Hunger Walk,’ said David Miller, rector of the Parish of St. Matthew’s, ‘is that people from all over the community band together to make common witness about how we feel about world hunger, and that is why I will be putting on my sneakers after church on March 28.’ ”Corporate sponsors are John Aaroe and Associates, DBL Realty, Union Bank, Wells Fargo Bank, and the Palisades Junior Women’s Club. Contact: Don Mink at 477-3633.