Tallarico attended Cathedral High School, and later Western New England University for a year. However at 21, Tallarico went to California to try and obtain a job in the video game industry. While homeless and living under a pier, Tallarico took a job as a keyboard salesman at the Guitar Center in Santa Ana, California. On his first day, Tallarico caught the eye of an employee of the new video game company, Virgin Mastertronic, because he was wearing a TurboGrafx T-shirt. Tallarico was then given a job with Virgin to be their first play-tester.