Home > Double Dribble: An 8-Bit Symphony of Squeaks, Dunks, and Glitches

Double Dribble: An 8-Bit Symphony of Squeaks, Dunks, and Glitches

A deep dive into Double Dribble, the NES basketball classic famous for its glitches, dunks, and weird announcer voice.
Disclaimer: Images on this page are provided for illustrative and historical context. They represent classic video game themes and eras rather than actual gameplay footage or promotional materials.

Before NBA Jam, there was Double Dribble. It was the first big basketball game on the NES, famous for its giant slam dunk animations, a garbled announcer voice, and a corner shot so broken it started family feuds. Let's take a look back...

The 8-Bit Court

In the early days of the NES, sports games were pretty basic. Nintendo's own "Sports Series" included games like Baseball , Tennis , and 10-Yard Fight in 1985. 1 They weren't trying to be super realistic, just fun arcade-style games with little blocky sprites. 3

Comparison of blocky 8-bit sprites from early NES sports games like Baseball and Tennis with Double Dribble.

Basketball was wide open. Most of the famous NES hoops games like All-Pro Basketball and Jordan vs Bird didn't come out until 1989 or later. 5 Before 1987, the NES basketball court was empty. This is where Konami, a giant in the arcade world, stepped in with Double Dribble .

The game promised a full five-on-five game on a scrolling court, which was a huge deal at the time. 8 For a while, Double Dribble wasn't just another basketball game, it was the NES basketball game. It set the standard for everything that came after.

From Arcade to Your Living Room

Double Dribble started out in arcades in 1986, where Konami was already a big shot with hits like Frogger and Contra . 9, 11 The arcade version was a success, and Konami's earnings exploded from $10 million in 1987 to $300 million by 1991, thanks to games like this. 10

Getting the game from the arcade to your house was a quick and smart move. It came out in Japan in July 1987 for the Famicom Disk System as Exciting Basket . 11 Just two months later, it hit North America as the Double Dribble we know and love. 11

Side-by-side comparison of Double Dribble's graphics on the original arcade cabinet versus the NES console port.

But it wasn't a direct copy. The arcade game was a "quarter-muncher," designed to make you keep paying to add more time to the clock. 11 You even had to keep tapping a button just to dribble, making turnovers a constant pain. 15

For the NES, Konami knew people wanted to play for longer. They replaced the timer with regular quarters and made dribbling automatic. 11, 16 These deliberate design choices made the game much easier to get into and more fun to play for a whole afternoon.

How to Play

The game is a five-on-five matchup on a side-scrolling court. 11 The controls were simple but worked great on the NES pad.

On offense, your player flashes, and you move with the D-pad. To pass, you face a teammate and press the A button. 16 To shoot, you press B to jump and release B at the top of the jump to let the ball fly, which added a nice bit of skill to scoring. 16

On defense, you control the flashing defender. The B button smartly switches you to the defender closest to the ball. 16 To steal, you get right in front of the ball carrier and hit A. 16

The game plays fast and loose with the rules. It calls fouls for blocking and tracks things like the five-second inbound rule. 16, 18 Funny enough, the game's name is a total lie, in a good way. A "double dribble" is an illegal move in real basketball, but it's impossible to do in the game because dribbling is automatic. 18 The name was probably just chosen because it sounded catchy.

Ironic Title: Despite its name, the "double dribble" violation is impossible to commit in the game. Dribbling is automatic, so players can't stop and start again illegally. The name was likely chosen simply because it was a catchy basketball term.

The Sights and Sounds

The game was usually simple-looking and quiet. That made the big, flashy moments feel like a huge deal. The dunks, the voices, and the sounds made it a cultural touchstone.

The Famous Dunks

The best part of the game was the slam dunk cutscenes. If you got a clear path to the hoop, the game would cut to a huge, detailed animation of your player throwing down a monster jam. 11 The computer picked one of three different dunks, and for kids used to tiny sprites, it was mind-blowing. 17, 22

The iconic slam dunk cutscene animation from Double Dribble on the NES, showing a large, detailed player sprite dunking the basketball.

But the game could be cruel. Even after the cool animation started, you could still miss the dunk if your timing was off, turning triumph into instant disappointment. 21

That Garbled Voice

Double Dribble was one of the first NES games with digitized speech. 11 When you started the game, a robotic voice would announce the title, "Double Dribble!" Or at least, that's what it was supposed to say.

The title screen of Double Dribble on the NES, featuring the logo and the famous garbled announcer voice clip.

Most kids heard it as "Dubble Dwibble," "Bubble Bibble," or something even stranger, which became the game's hilarious calling card. 20 It turns out the famous sound clip is a sped-up or corrupted version of a clearer recording hidden in the game's code, a happy accident of programming. 27 There were other voice clips too, like "Shot!" after a basket and a ref's whistle for a foul. 28

Squeaks and Swishes

The game starts with an 8-bit version of "The Star-Spangled Banner" and has a catchy menu tune. 11, 31 But once the game starts, the music stops. All you hear is the constant thumping of the basketball, the squeak of sneakers, and the perfect swish of the net. 21, 32

How to Win (The Cheesy Way)

To really get Double Dribble , you have to forget the instruction manual. The real game was in the glitches and secret strategies players found on their own. Mastery came from exploiting the game's code.

The "Corner 3" Glitch

The most legendary exploit was the "corner three." If you stood in the far bottom-right corner of the court, just inside the arc, you could hit a three-pointer almost every single time. 8 You had to jump, let your player float out of bounds, and release the B button at just the right moment. 35

A player in Double Dribble positioned in the bottom-right corner of the court, exploiting the infamous 'corner three' glitch for a nearly guaranteed shot.
Game-Defining Glitch: The "corner three" exploit wasn't just a fun trick; it became the central strategy of the game for many players. Matches often devolved into a race to secure this single, overpowered spot on the court.

This one glitch became the whole game. Every match turned into a fight to get the ball to that one magical spot. Defense wasn't about guarding the hoop, it was about guarding the corner. 21

Other Tricks

Besides the corner shot, players found other "hot spots" on the court where shots were more likely to go in. 11 Some people swore that certain spots on the floor marked these high-percentage zones. 34

Good defense meant constantly hitting B to switch to the closest player and going for steals with the A button. 36 There was also a rumored bug that gave the second player an advantage, letting them hit their shots more easily and grab more rebounds. 37

Then vs. Now

How people see Double Dribble depends on when you ask them. When it came out in 1987, it was a massive hit, selling over 1.5 million copies. 8 People loved the five-on-five action, the voice clips, and especially the dunk animations. 23 Nintendo Power magazine even ranked it as a top ten game in its first issue. 40

Today, it's remembered as a goofy, flawed classic. People point out the simple controls, the "rubber-band" AI that lets the computer cheat to catch up, and the lack of a season mode. 23 Plus, with ten players on screen, the sprites flickered like crazy. 32

But even with all that, its legacy is huge. It pioneered using cinematic scenes in sports games, a trend that's still around today. 11 It's remembered right alongside other classics like Blades of Steel and Tecmo Bowl . 42

The funny thing is, it was praised for being "realistic" back then, but now it's loved for being completely unrealistic. The giant dunks, the messed-up voice, and the corner glitch are what everyone remembers. Sometimes, a game's quirks are what make it a classic.

Double Dribble in Pop Culture

The game's biggest moment in the mainstream spotlight came almost 30 years later, on the show Family Guy . A 2016 episode called "Run, Chris, Run" had a cutaway gag that perfectly captured the game's most famous flaw. 43

In the scene, Peter plays Cleveland in Double Dribble . Cleveland says, "Okay, but no stupid ass shots from the corner, because that's a glitch in the software". 44 Peter agrees, then immediately runs to the corner and sinks a three, shouting "Corner three!" over and over as Cleveland gets angrier. 44 The joke only works because millions of people who grew up with an NES knew exactly what they were talking about.

A still frame from the TV show Family Guy where Peter Griffin is shown exploiting the corner three glitch in Double Dribble against Cleveland.

The scene also caused a little drama. The show used gameplay footage from a YouTuber named "Sw1tched" without asking. Then, the studio's bots filed a copyright claim against the YouTuber's original video, getting it taken down. 35 The claim was eventually dropped after the story got some attention online.

Copyright Controversy: The Family Guy scene inadvertently led to a copyright dispute. The show used gameplay footage from a YouTuber's video without permission and then, ironically, Fox's automated system issued a copyright takedown against the YouTuber's original video. The claim was later retracted after public attention.

There's also a 1946 Disney cartoon starring Goofy called Double Dribble , but it's just a weird coincidence. 47 The Family Guy scene is the video game's true claim to fame. 48

Sequels and Emulators

Konami did make sequels, but maybe not the ones you think. There was no direct sequel on the Super Nintendo. Instead, Double Dribble: The Playoff Edition came out for the Sega Genesis in 1994, and a handheld version called Double Dribble: 5-on-5 hit the Game Boy in 1991. 11, 50

A graphical comparison between the original Double Dribble on NES and its sequel, Double Dribble: The Playoff Edition, on the Sega Genesis.

The Genesis version was more advanced, with better graphics and real NBA team logos (but no real players). It even had a full playoff mode. 51 But it wasn't as popular, many felt the gameplay was sluggish and the computer AI was frustratingly hard, losing the simple fun of the original. 51

Today, the original NES game lives on through emulation. People searching online for "Double Dribble nes rom" are driven by nostalgia and a desire to preserve these old games. 52 As old cartridges and consoles die, emulation is the main way to keep these classics from disappearing forever. 54

This fan-driven effort creates digital archives (ROMs) of games and the software to play them (emulators). It's a vital way to make sure games like Double Dribble can still be played by anyone. It keeps gaming history alive. 53

Final Buzzer

Double Dribble is a perfect snapshot of the 8-bit era. It showed up when the NES needed a basketball game and completely took over. It's a game that was first loved for being realistic, but is now remembered for its totally unrealistic glitches.

The real magic of Double Dribble was in the moments it created. The shocking cut to a slam dunk, the silly announcer voice, and the all-powerful corner three became a shared experience for a generation of gamers. The game's flaws are just as important as its strengths.

In the end, Double Dribble is more than just an old game. It's an icon that was built by both its creators and the players who found and mastered all its wonderful quirks.

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