[3] Released in 1983, Tooth Protectors is one of the earliest "advergames" or "promogames" – games with overt tie-ins to retail products – and one of several released that year for the Atari 2600 platform (others included M Network's Kool-Aid Man and Purina's Chase the Chuck Wagon.

The player's character is a small smiling face carrying a strand of dental floss above its head.

The player must prevent the snack squares from reaching the row of white teeth along the bottom of the screen; repeated hits by the snacks cause the teeth to blink and disappear from tooth decay.

If teeth begin to decay, the player can press the joystick's fire button to call in the "Tooth Protectors": an orange toothbrush, green box of dental floss and purple dental rinse bottle move across the teeth, brushing, flossing and rinsing them.

[4][8] The instruction manual included with the game ends by presenting "The Real Tooth Protectors": advertisements for Johnson & Johnson-branded toothbrushes, dental floss and dental rinse.