Table Football - in Popular Culture

In Popular Culture

There have been several instructional books on table football, including The Complete Book of Foosball, and Zen and the Art of Foosball.

Table football figures prominently as a Scottish bar sport in the short story "Kingdom of Fife" by Irvine Welsh.

The game has been the subject of movies such as Foos: Be the Greatest and Longshot. The German movie Absolute Giganten features a table football game on film. In the award-winning Italian movie Il Postino, which is set in the 1950s, the eponymous character of Mario Ruoppolo fell in love at first sight with Beatrice Russo while playing table football. In the classic 1993 movie Dazed and Confused, the entrance scene at the Emporium takes Mitch, Pink, and Wooderson through to find Pickford who is playing table football.

Television shows have also featured table football. The characters Monica Geller, Joey Tribbiani and Chandler Bing from the Friends TV show (1994–2004, USA) often play table football. The sitcom featured a Dynamo table in earlier seasons, and later a Tornado (Valley) brand table, each of which were central to many episodes. It was destroyed in "The Last One" by Monica, when Joey's pets (a chick and duck) are stuck inside. In House and in Zoey 101, table football is played by characters in leisure settings. In an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000, Dr. Forrester and Frank told how they took a table football table, caulked it, filled it with water, and turned it into a water polo game. In the season three premiere of Regular Show, a Foosball table appeared in the back of the thrift store that Mordecai and Rigby were at.

In music, The cover of former Genesis guitarist Anthony Phillips's 1979 album Sides features a Peter Cross painting depicting a Foosball table in which the foosmen all resemble Phillips.

The British band Depeche Mode insist on a Foosball table in their dressing room before every concert.

In the Xbox and the PS2 version of The Sims 2, the player is required to beat the NPC Torin in a game of table football in order to move to the next house.

Foosball was a prominent part of the episode "Foosball and Nocturnal Vigilantism" on Community, a popular TV series.