[Cerek the Barbaric]

I'm talking about the old-timey original Nintendo System, designed to give the Mario Bros their own private electronic playground. My wife bought the system from a friend whose kids have outgrown and we also got 4 games with it.

We brought it home and I just finished connecting it to the TV...but it isn't working. I have the TV cable run through the cable adaptor box on the back of the game system and I've got both control hooked up, but I get NOTHING on the TV screen. I tried changing channels and when I reached Channel 3 (the normal "default" channel setting for running any auxillary hardware on the TV), all I got was screens changing colors. Blue, orange, green, etc. The entire screen would turn this color, then fade out and the next color would come up. I also tried switching game cartridges - same result

So - what have I overlooked or what have I done wrong? Or is the game system just shot?