# Moving Units Part 2 – The Class Of 1981 **Source:** Silverball Chronicles **Type:** podcast_episode **Published:** 2020-10-16 **Duration:** 141m 1s **Beat:** Pinball **URL:** http://thepinballnetwork555350716.wordpress.com/?p=507 --- ## Analysis Silverball Chronicles hosts Ron Hallett and David Dennis discuss the 'Class of 1981'—a selection of Bally pinball machines from early 1980 representing the pinnacle of pinball art. They analyze sales figures, design decisions, and notable machines including Silver Ball Mania, Space Invaders (with its controversial H.R. Giger-inspired alien art), and Rolling Stones, exploring how art direction and licensing shaped the era's most creatively ambitious pinball designs. ### Key Claims - [HIGH] Silver Ball Mania sold 10,340 units in February 1980 and was designed by Jim Patla with artwork by Kevin O'Connor — _Direct statement by David Dennis during game-by-game breakdown; specific production numbers cited_ - [HIGH] Space Invaders (April 1980) sold 11,400 units and was the largest-selling Bally wide-body machine — _David Dennis provides explicit sales figures and comparative context within Bally's wide-body lineup_ - [MEDIUM] Bally was pitched Alien by 20th Century Fox but decided to pass and instead use H.R. Giger's art style influence — _Paul Ferris recollection relayed by David Dennis; describes executive meeting where Fox was 'incredibly protective of the design' and only showed a quick image to Bally executives_ - [MEDIUM] A lawsuit occurred between Bally and 20th Century Fox over Space Invaders' alien artwork, which was eventually settled — _David Dennis mentions Fox thought Bally took the alien image from their meeting; lawsuit and settlement are asserted but not elaborated with specific details_ - [HIGH] Rolling Stones (February 1980) sold 5,700 units and featured artwork by Greg Ferris — _Direct statement with specific production number; Greg Ferris confirmed as artist_ - [MEDIUM] Paul Ferris had been trying to convince Bally leadership to do something in H.R. Giger's style for a long time before the Space Invaders project — _David Dennis relaying Paul Ferris's recollection of the Alien pitch meeting; describes Ferris's influence on creative direction_ - [MEDIUM] Kevin O'Connor hid self-portraits in the Space Ball Mania backglass reflections and included a Jeep on the playfield plastics — _David Dennis describes Easter eggs in detail (beard visible in wizard reflections, Jeep in playfield); framed as 'stealth portraits' but not independently verified_ - [MEDIUM] Heavy Metal Magazine was a huge influence on pinball art during this era and served as a gathering place for influential artists — _David Dennis mentions this influence 'three or four times' in previous episodes; Den character from Heavy Metal was modeled reference for Silver Ball Mania_ ### Notable Quotes > "They've taken the scoop from the top of the playfield and gotten rid of it. And then they just put a horseshoe at the bottom to shoot for all the time." > — **David Dennis**, mid-episode > _Explains Silver Ball Mania's one-note playfield design; Ron sarcastically agrees the game is 'a bit of a one-trick pony'_ > "It's the Alien, man. Like, it is pretty darn close." > — **Ron Hallett**, Space Invaders discussion > _Directly acknowledges Space Invaders' striking visual similarity to the Alien film despite licensing differences_ > "If you really want to experience Silver Ball Mania and really enjoy it, just buy a playfield and stick it up on your wall." > — **David Dennis**, Silver Ball Mania wrap-up > _Humorous critique suggesting the game's only merit is its artwork rather than gameplay_ > "Well, it kind of really looks like the Alien. It's close enough." > — **Ron Hallett**, Space Invaders analysis > _Confirms the visual correlation while acknowledging the legal/licensing ambiguity_ > "The best thing about this game is the art. Ha ha ha ha ha ha." > — **Ron Hallett**, Space Invaders mechanics discussion > _Recurring refrain emphasizing artwork over gameplay quality; becomes running joke in episode_ ### Entities | Name | Type | Context | |------|------|---------| | David Dennis | person | Co-host of Silverball Chronicles podcast; primary narrator and historian discussing pinball art and design | | Ron Hallett | person | Co-host of Silverball Chronicles podcast and Slam Tilt Podcast; provides commentary and personal anecdotes | | Kevin O'Connor | person | Pinball artist at Bally credited for Silver Ball Mania artwork; known for detailed backglass compositions and hidden self-portraits | | Paul Ferris | person | Lead artist at Bally during 1975-1980 art revolution; designed Space Invaders artwork inspired by H.R. Giger; currently at Deep Root Pinball | | Greg Ferris | person | Artist credited for Rolling Stones (1980) artwork; head of art at Stern Pinball (mentioned in context of modern-era influence) | | Jim Patla | person | Pinball designer at Bally; credited for playfield designs on Silver Ball Mania and Space Invaders; known for giving artists freedom on visual direction | | Bally Midway | company | Pinball and video game manufacturer producing games discussed in episode; owned both pinball and Midway (video game) divisions; involved in licensing disputes | | 20th Century Fox | company | Film studio that pitched Alien to Bally; protective of alien design; eventually settled lawsuit regarding Space Invaders artwork | | Williams Electronics | company | Competing pinball manufacturer; sales figures cited for comparison (Firepower, Black Knight, Pharaoh, etc.) | | Gottlieb | company | Competing pinball manufacturer mentioned as also entering video game market in early 1980s with Pubert | | Stern Electronics | company | Competing pinball manufacturer mentioned as producing Berserk arcade game during era | | Silver Ball Mania | game | Bally pinball machine, February 1980; fantasy theme; 10,340 units sold; horseshoe-centric playfield; iconic artwork by Kevin O'Connor featuring metallic figures inspired by Heavy Metal Magazine | | Space Invaders | game | Bally pinball machine, April 1980; wide-body; 11,400 units sold (largest-selling Bally wide-body); features H.R. Giger-inspired alien artwork; subject of lawsuit with 20th Century Fox over Alien movie similarity | | Rolling Stones | game | Bally pinball machine, February 1980; rock theme; 5,700 units sold; artwork by Greg Ferris; features all band members including bassist; plays Satisfaction audio | | H.R. Giger | person | Swiss surrealist artist whose biomechanical art style directly inspired Space Invaders' alien artwork; influenced Space Invaders design after Bally passed on Alien license | | Heavy Metal Magazine | organization | Publication that heavily influenced pinball artists of the era; featured surrealist and sci-fi art; Den character referenced as influence for Silver Ball Mania | | Silverball Chronicles | organization | Podcast hosted by David Dennis and Ron Hallett covering pinball history and design; part of Poor Man's Pinball Network; sold to This Week in Pinball | | This Week in Pinball | organization | Pinball news and media outlet; acquired Silverball Chronicles; maintains promoter database where reviews are submitted | | Slam Tilt Podcast | organization | Pinball podcast hosted by Ron Hallett and Bruce Nightingale; Bruce provided correction on Paragon scoop count | | Zen Studios | company | Digital pinball developer; referenced for comparison to modern pinball marketing/design approaches (Dialed In comic book approach) | ### Topics - **Primary:** Pinball art design and influence of Heavy Metal Magazine, Bally vs. competing manufacturers' sales performance in 1980-1981, Licensing, IP disputes, and legal shenanigans (Alien/Space Invaders case), Specific pinball designer and artist contributions (Kevin O'Connor, Paul Ferris, Greg Ferris, Jim Patla) - **Secondary:** Video game industry boom impacting pinball manufacturer focus and resources, Easter eggs and artist self-references hidden in backglass and playfield art, Playfield design philosophy and mechanical gimmicks ### Sentiment **Positive** (0.72) — Hosts express enthusiasm and respect for the Bally Class of 1981 art direction. Acknowledge playfield design shortcomings (Silver Ball Mania being 'one-trick pony') but celebrate artistic achievement. Light-hearted humor throughout. Some mild criticism of gameplay vs. art trade-offs, but generally celebratory tone toward the era's creative ambition. ### Signals - **[event_signal]** Silverball Chronicles podcast episode analyzing Class of 1981 Bally machines; part of 'Moving Units' series on pinball history; hosts acknowledge audience submissions and corrections from previous episode (confidence: high) — Episode structure, audience reviews cited (Joel E., Justin, Mike O.), corrections requested for Paragon scoop count from Bruce Nightingale of Slam Tilt - **[community_signal]** Silverball Chronicles audience engagement through Pinside reviews, email corrections, and merchandise (Silverball Swag), indicating strong community appreciation for historical pinball content (confidence: high) — Multiple audience reviews cited; hosts thank contributors by name (Joel E., Justin, Mike O., Grant, Glenn, San, Jim, Jared); mention of merchandise sales; encouragement of email submissions for corrections - **[design_philosophy]** Space Invaders' alien artwork visually indistinguishable from Alien film despite licensing separation, creating legal and creative ambiguity; H.R. Giger influence so direct that machine effectively functions as unauthorized Alien tie-in (confidence: high) — Ron: 'It's the Alien, man. Like, it is pretty darn close'; David acknowledges lawsuit with Fox over perceived IP infringement; notes Giger's influence creates visual Alien similarity despite nominally being Space Invaders - **[design_philosophy]** Jim Patla gave artists (Kevin O'Connor, Paul Ferris) creative freedom with blank playfield whitewood, resulting in groundbreaking art direction but sometimes sacrificing gameplay diversity (confidence: medium) — David Dennis describes Patla giving O'Connor 'blank whitewood and just told him to do whatever the hell he wanted' on Silver Ball Mania; resulted in 'killer art package' but one-note horseshoe gameplay - **[market_signal]** Sales performance variation across manufacturers in 1980-1981: Bally Space Invaders (11,400 units, wide-body record) vs. Williams games ranging 2,300-10,000+ units shows designer and theme impact on commercial success (confidence: high) — Detailed sales breakdown: Firepower (10,000+), Black Knight (10,000+), Barracuda (2,300), Hyperball (5,000), Pharaoh (lower avg), Williams average ~5,000 units; Bally figures cited for comparison - **[community_signal]** Paul Ferris (Bally lead artist) transitioned to Deep Root Pinball; hosts express anticipation for future work despite design philosophy concerns (confidence: medium) — David Dennis states 'Paul Ferris is with Deep Root' and 'I can't wait to see what he's going to come up with' in context of Class of 1981 artists still active in industry - **[community_signal]** Greg Ferris (artist on Rolling Stones, 1980) later became head of art at Stern Pinball, indicating career progression from Bally-era designer to modern manufacturer leadership (confidence: medium) — David Dennis notes 'Greg Ferris is the head of art at Stern Pinball' in context of artists from 1980 still being influential 40 years later - **[product_concern]** Silver Ball Mania has severely limited playfield design (horseshoe-only objective) despite exceptional artwork; hosts suggest playfield alone is primary draw, not gameplay (confidence: high) — Ron: 'It's a bit of a one-trick pony'; David: 'just buy a playfield and stick it up on your wall' if you want to enjoy it; Ron: 'I was too busy looking at the horseshoe that I was hitting repeatedly. Oh, it's horrible.' - **[technology_signal]** Pinball industry in 1980-1981 experiencing pressure from video game boom; Bally Midway focused significant resources on video games (Pac-Man licensing, Midway titles) while pinball sales showed softening demand (confidence: medium) — David Dennis: 'video game industry being shaky' / 'money was just being thrown at video, just left and right'; Notes Bally had both Pinball and Midway divisions; competitors (Williams, Stern, Gottlieb) all entering video game market - **[licensing_signal]** Bally passed on Alien license from 20th Century Fox due to executive protectiveness of design IP; instead pivoted to H.R. Giger art style influence for Space Invaders, leading to lawsuit settlement over unauthorized similarity (confidence: medium) — Paul Ferris recalled meeting where Fox was 'incredibly protective of the design' and only showed quick image; Bally decided to 'pass on Alien' but use Giger's style; lawsuit mentioned but settlement details sparse --- ## Transcript Most people don't realize how much of their personal information is being bought and sold every day. Data brokers are making millions pulling details about you from public records and the Internet, then packaging and selling it, usually without your consent. That's how your information lands in the hands of scammers, spammers, even stalkers. It's why you get endless robocalls and why ads seem to follow you everywhere. That's where Aura comes in. Aura actively removes your data from broker sites and keeps it off. They also instantly alert you if your information shows up in a breach or on the dark web. But Aura goes beyond data protection. With one app, you get a VPN, antivirus, password manager, spam call protection, dark web monitoring, and even up to $5 million in identity theft insurance, all backed by 24-7 U.S.-based fraud support. Other companies might just sell credit monitoring or just a VPN. Aura gives you all of it together at the same price competitors charge for just one service. Start your free trial today at Aura.com slash hidden. Protect yourself now at Aura.com slash hidden. The Pinkball Network is online. Launching Silver Ball Chronicles. Ron, do you ever get into this spiral where you get new sneakers and you're like, I'm going to use my old sneakers when I mow the lawn, and then you don't change them when you mow the lawn, and then your new shoes are all like lawny? No, no, not really. I'm just in that spiral forever. It's just looking at my shoes. Another month, another Silver Ball Chronicles. Hello, I'm David Dennis, and with me this month, Like every month is my co-host, the snappy Ron Hallett. Ron, what's up, fella? Hey, you worried me when you said this month. Do I not know something? Am I going to be replaced? You know, I never have anybody on my short list to replace you, but if anybody would like to replace Ron, just let us know. And no, it will not be Zach Minney. Oh, God, no. If you try to sing, that would be bad. There's no singing on this podcast. Nope, no singing on this podcast. Exciting announcement in the hobby. Finally something. Yeah, new games are coming out. Who would have thunk? The month of September, a big, big month. We have the Avengers launched now with beautiful art and a unique, odd layout. Lots of neat little features in there. I don't know. After the reveal stream, I'm a little more, eh, ho-hum. I think it's awesome, but I, you know, I was on the hype train pretty hard, but I think I got off somewhere around that reveal stream, so I've calmed down, I've relaxed. And how about you? A lot of habit trails. A lot of habit trails. A lot of habit trails. I think you were going for an airborne record, trying to take on Capcom's airborne habit trail record. All those aluminum tariffs that the American government has put on must be really impacting that game, I'll tell you that. Crazy stuff. Deep Root has announced at least a date. We'll be able to chat about that next time. Either an epic announcement or an epic flame out, but either way, it'll be tons of fun. We've heard that the latest JJP, the Jersey Jack Pinball game, is well through its development cycle. And hopefully you've got your dad rock pants on. Oh, yeah. It's supposed to be Guns N' Roses. No, spoiler. Uh-oh. Spoiler. What's it going to be? Oh, it's going to be Guns N' Roses. Oh. I've heard it's in Australia already. Ooh. Ooh. Anywho, swing on over, Facebook.com, Silverball Chronicles. Engage in some posts with us. We've got our own dedicated Silverball Chronicles podcast channel, so search on your podcast app. Yeah, that's right. You can look us up and no one else. Not that you would want to do that. Not that you would want to do that. You would want to check out all the other wonderful podcasts on the Finball Network. What if you just wanted to make sure that you knew right out of the gate with an automatic download. You can search for us directly under Silverball Chronicles. While you're out there in the internets, please take a moment, jump over to This Week in Pinball's promoter database. Give us a five-star review. That way, when others are searching for podcasts, they'll be able to see the ones that people love the most. Most of you do know we've sold out to This Week in Pinball. So if you'd like to support the hobby, they kickback 25% of the profits on their Patreon at patreon.com slash TWIP. Ron, what did you do with your $1.50 last month? I got $1.50? Well, I kept it, but you did. Oh, okay, cool. Yeah, thank you. You're welcome. Thank you for that. Yeah. So we have some comments. Is this from the TWIP page? This is from the promoter's database. We love to recognize everybody who leaves us a review, and it also feeds my ego, which makes all of this worthwhile. Yeah, Joel E. says, I find history very boring. I mean, it already happened, right? Who cares? But this podcast is fantastic and engaging. It's amazing how many people in the pinball industry have worked at so many different companies. It's awesome to see their journeys to where they are now. Great dynamic between the two hosts, and I look forward to every new episode. Highly recommended. Ooh, not just recommended, but highly recommended. Yeah. Thank you so much, Joel. And I think you'll find a lot of the artists we talk about today and that we talked about in the previous episode are still active and working at a pinball company somewhere. This eclectic group was so influential that even today, 40 years later, they're still so greatly involved in the industry. Games like KISS, the new KISS. I believe KISS themselves said, we want that guy that did the original art on our first game. Can he do this one? And that was Kevin O'Connor, and he did. Paul Faris is with Deep Root. I can't wait to see what he's going to come up with. Greg Freres is the head of art at Stern Pinball. Wow. Man, what a portfolio that these people have. Well, Justin, over on the Twit Pinball Promoters database, one of my favorite things about pinball is its rich history. So it makes perfect sense that this is one of my favorite pinball podcasts. This podcast is hands down the best for learning the ins and outs of everything pinball. the two hosts are excellent do you hear that Ron? it says especially that Ron guy he knows everything I don't see that the info they gather along with the commentary makes it very entertaining slash informative I hang on every word and I often re-listen to each episode to make sure I retain all of the great info that, that's a great review that's an awesome review thank you Justin he hangs on every word Oh, I see, you hung there Did you see that? Yeah, I like that That was like Cliffhanger with Stallone Where's my Cliffhanger pin there, Stern? Get on that Mike O also tells the Twit Database This podcast is different than most of the others Love their takes on the best pinballs As well as the new stuff they put in the mix Thank you Past pinballs, not best pinballs I'll just cut that all out Thanks Mike O I mean Dennis doesn't always get to pass pinballs right I mean he thinks a lot of them are good that aren't And vice versa but we'll forgive him I'm here to set everyone straight on what the actual good games are The ones that are really worth getting Yeah because opinions are a fact of course If you do enjoy the show You'd like a shirt Swing on over to silverballswag.com Take a look at some of the hoodies or mugs or stickers and that's a way you can support us and actually get something in return that you can physically put on your body and think of Ron. Oh, my. If I go to a pinball show and see someone with one of those shirts on, that's going to feel weird. Yeah, somebody like Daniel from California, he ordered a couple of shirts and he is now the coolest guy at work. In fact, I think he should just burn all of his other clothes and just wear his Silver Ball Chronicles shirts. I agree. Corrections, comments from the previous episode. We've got a couple of things here. Oh, finally. We got some. Okay, good. I like being wrong. How many scoops does Paragon have? I think I said two, and it's three. And that's my podcast mate, Bruce, from the Slam Tilt Podcast, which I have to plug or he'll yell at me. I told him once again, why don't you just write in, and supposedly other people had comments, and I said, please write in. Please write in with these corrections, and no one ever writes in. So if you don't write in, it's fact. That's right. It's solid, written in stone. It's flat unless you write us and tell us it's wrong. That's right. Just send us an email over to silverballchronicles at gmail.com. We got a lot of emails, a couple from Grant, Glenn, San, Jim, Jared, and Mike. Really, really, really great. Thank you so much for the interaction. We love to chit-chat back and forth. Some of the other comments, Ron, We've got a couple of them here for you. Why didn't you talk about Voltan? Escapes Cosmic Doom. Yeah, the famous game that was a very short production run. Art by Dave Christensen. We mostly cut that out of time because they didn't really make a lot of them. And it might have a record for the most text in a speech bubble. Yeah, that's a good one. Maybe Dr. Dude might have more, but, man, this one's close. There's like a whole paragraph. that the guy, what is it, like, this was a great place once or something, and then she says, forget about it, we're on our way, or something like that, and they're flying off into space. Yeah, Christensen did a lot of those speech bubbly things that were pretty cool, but, you know, if you've got some corrections or comments or things you'd like us to address, shoot it in to us, we'd love to hear from you. And again, you can check out facebook.com slash silverballchronicles if that's something you want to check out too. Ron, anything else you want to add before we jump into today's topic? Not really, except with corrections like I said, feel free to send in corrections because sometimes even the people involved with the history themselves don't remember it correctly Yeah, we've got a few comments actually today on some of the artists talking about, you know, when people ask them like, how many units did it sell and were you excited about sales? There's some interesting comments that we have about that. So they're in the middle of it, the mix. They probably don't remember more details than most of us do because we've got the space in our head to remember that stuff. As mentioned in our previous podcast, Moving Units, the Bally Art Revolution, during that time, Bally produced some of the most beautiful and best-selling art packages ever. From 1975 to 1980, barely changed the pinball landscape and, along with their solid-state computer board technology, were breaking sales records. It seemed that Paul Faris' art team could do no wrong. That meant the money kept flowing into the art team as they developed new ways to not only illustrate pinball, but also to print backglasses. In 1981, the gaming industry's footing started to feel shaky. In an effort to hold their ground and boost sales, Bally pushed out some of the most creative works ever. The class of 1981 was, and still is, the pinnacle of pinball art. Today's podcast, Moving Units Part 2, The Bally Class of 1981. And I would say as far as the industry being shaky, more along the lines of the pinball industry being shaky, In 1981, the video game industry would have been hitting on all cylinders. The thing to remember about Bally is they were Bally Midway. So they had the Midway section that did the video games. Currently, actually, over the last little while, I've been watching a couple of episodes of the docu-series High Score on Netflix, and it covers some of the old gaming of the 1980s. And they talk a lot about how in 81, the money was just being thrown at video, just left and right, and everybody was making anything they possibly could. And that's kind of one of the next steps in the industry is that we're on this sugar high, and then it just all kind of comes crashing down a little while. Yeah, and even the pinball manufacturers, you had Gottlieb. They made Pubert. They joined in. And Stern Electronics, they made Berserk. Williams had Defender, Robotron, those kind of games, and Bally had Midway, which mostly did licensing of other games, like Pac-Man was actually by Namco, but they licensed it in this country. So they're all making money in the video game land. One thing, Ron, that I wanted to bring in were the sales numbers of all of the other manufacturers kind of at the time. Our previous episode of O'Cotley System Ones, You know, they were selling some decent units, but were falling off by 1980 big time. I've got the sales figures for Williams up right now. They've got games like Firepower and Black Knight by Steve Ritchie, who are their, you know, 10,000 plus units. If you want Elver 10K, you've got to have Steve Ritchie design it, obviously. Yeah, Blackout is a really great one, 7,000 units. I know there's a guy in Canada on the for sale thread in Canada who's looking for a nice blackout. Doesn't want to pay too much, but he's willing to pay if it's in good shape. So swing on over there. I can't believe there was only 349 Algars because I've played so many of them. You've played every one. I think I've played every Algar that exists still. We've got games like Alien Poker with 6,000 units. Barracora in 1981, the end of 1981, selling 2,300 units. Even Hyperball sold 5,000, and that wasn't even a pinball machine. So we can see that kind of, you know, we've got peaks and valleys here at Williams, really based on designer, I would say, and theme. Things like Pharaoh, although a decent game, sort of lags behind Jungle Queen, 5,000-ish. average maybe if you average them all together per unit. Yeah, and Firepower had multiball. That was its gimmick, so it sold a ton. And then Black Knight was the first, the bi-level one. So that, I guarantee, based on that, they probably sold a ton. I'm like, whoa, what's this? Williams changed, like this was the new thing. Everything's got to be a bi-level. And that didn't really work out. Yeah, there's diminishing returns thereafter, that's for sure. So that's kind of where we're at in the industry. They're selling, you know, 5,000-ish units, but there's these peaks and valleys. So let's start at the beginning of 1980, right where we left off from our previous valleys art revolution. Now we're moving into 80. And I had someone who asked me, like, did you talk about Silver Ball Mania? It's like, I think it's next. And there it is, Silver Ball Mania. It's a fantasy theme, February 1980, sells 10,340 units, designed by Jim Patla and artwork by Kevin O'Connor. I have never played a Silver Ball Mania, but I hear it mentioned a lot for some reason when people are chatting about playfield designs and horseshoe loops and things. It's probably because it has a horseshoe, and that's all you ever hit on it. Ever. So what they've done is they've taken the scoop from the top of the playfield and gotten rid of it. And then they just put a horseshoe at the bottom to shoot for all the time. And you have the lanes up top. Killer art package, though. Killer art package. Just insane by Kevin O'Connor. What was happening here is Jim Patlow was just banging out playfields. And he gave Kevin a blank whitewood and just told him to do whatever the hell he wanted. So Kevin sits back and he comes up with the idea for Silver Ball Mania. This primarily focuses on the back glass, which is like this. Silver man holding a pinball in his hand. All of the color is very silver and metallic. There's a fellow playing pinball on the left side who's really thrusted in there, if you will, to play pinball. He's got some amazing pinball abs. And don't forget the topless woman. But she's the metal. Again, they're going by the old theory. I think we talked about it on the Stern episode when you had a viper. Like you can show the nudity as long as it's metal. Yeah, as long as it's not real. Yeah, as long as it's not real. It's just a metal person. Yeah, the main focus of the silver dude there, that was modeled after a character called Den, D-E-N, from Heavy Metal Magazine. I'll include that in the show notes if you want to take a look. He's also in the movie, played by John Candy. Yeah, Heavy Metal Magazine was a huge influence. And we've brought this up three or four times now when we talk about artists and art, that it was such a huge influence of pinball at the time, because that's where all the crazy, cool, off-the-wall artists were hanging out at the time was Heavy Metal Magazine. There are two stealth portraits of Kevin O'Connor in the reflections on some of the outside images. So it's not the obvious face on the left side. Kevin actually had a beard at the time. So if you get looking at that back glass, he is very much hidden on the left. There's like these wizards, and then on the wizards they kind of have beards, and then it goes down on the sides and around the player windows. On the left side in one of those pinballs is Kevin O'Connor's face. Ron, do you know anybody that has a Jeep? No. No. Well, I have a friend with a Jeep, and he loves to tell me he has a Jeep. And anybody who owns a Jeep basically loves to tell you about their Jeep and how much they Jeep stuff. And a normal person would generally say, oh, I left my sunglasses in my car. But not a Jeep owner. A Jeep owner will say, I left my Jeep glasses in my Jeep, and I got to go back to my Jeep to get my Jeep glasses because they love to talk about their Jeep. Well, Kevin O'Connor, he had a Jeep at the time. On the playfield plastics at the back of the playfield, you can see Kevin O'Connor's Jeep if you look close enough. I missed that. I was too busy looking at the horseshoe that I was hitting repeatedly. Oh, it's horrible. It's a bit of a one-trick pony. Kind of cool, though, the art. That's really the tip-top. If you really want to experience silver ball mania and really enjoy it, just buy a play field and stick it up on your wall. What do you think of that flyer, though? It's a three-page flyer. It wasn't just a front and a back. It was actually a... Lots of pinballs on it. Lots of pinballs. It's so silvery. Mm-hmm. It lights the pinball world. Sure it does. Each Silver Ball Mania letter, when lit, is worth 1,000 points, up to 44,000 bonus points. I do like the supreme wizard bonus. We need to bring that terminology back. We need the supreme wizard bonus. Yeah, get on that, Steve Ritchie. Yeah. Very cool. Up next, now this is where we get into some shenanigans again. In our previous episode, we talked about 8-Ball and the use of a guy who sort of looks like Fonz. Sure it does. We spoke about sort of the loosey-goosey, let's say, licensing rules at the time. Space Invaders from April of 1980, the sci-fi slash alien with a lowercase a theme. It's a wide-body machine with 11,400 units. Jim Patla on the design and artwork by Paul Faris. It's their largest selling wide-body. They did. out of the class of widebodies. I think we talked about, so far, Paragon in the last episode and Future Spa. Yeah, this is the third one they bring up. Now, Paul Faris would say in an interview that Bally actually passed on the Indiana Jones theme. They also considered Disney's Tron because of all of its groundbreaking graphics and really cool art that they could do. But since it did poorly in the box office, they likely dodged a bullet with that one. Well, pinball might have, but their video game department took it. Actually, George Gomez worked on it. Yeah, and it's an iconic cabinet. Not a great game, but an iconic everything else. I think it's a good game. I disagree. Yeah, well, there's the part where they shoot, like, spiders, digital spider things. They actually cut that out of the movie. Yeah. So there's a whole part of the game that doesn't even exist in the movie. Mm-hmm. Yeah. But shenanigans, but shenanigans, because this is Space Invaders, which obviously Bally owned rights to because it's Midway, Space Invaders game. So you figure it would look like Space Invaders, but it doesn't. It looks like something else. Yeah, they were doing a lot of this licensing stuff. They figured they could cross over with Space Invaders, but they were doing Six Million Dollar Man kind of very close to this. They didn't want to do too many licenses. So they decided to go out on their own and just use their own imagination and create art. But I'll tell you, that back glass and play field looks very familiar. Yeah, it looks like a certain movie with Sigourney Weaver called Alien. Like, it is literally the alien from Alien. There's where we get into the weeds here. Now, 20th Century Fox pitched Alien to Bally. the executives at 20th Century Fox hadn't shown the alien because they were incredibly protective of the design the people at Bally only saw a quick image of like a doll Paul Faris was in that meeting and the way he would remember how the meeting went is that he remembered an artist called H.R. Geiger. He said, wow, that looks, this alien that they've got in this movie looks very much like H.R. Geiger's art. And he had been trying to convince Bally for a long time to do something similar on a pinball machine. And in the end, Bally decided they would pass on Alien, but they said, let's go for Geiger's style. So Ron, I'm going to bring up a link to H.R. Geiger, and I want to get your live reaction to what you think of this, okay? What do you think of this? Well, let's see. I see Alien. I see Barracora. Oh, you're getting too far ahead. That's for another episode. Oh, but I literally see the Barracora face completely ripped off. But yes, I see the Alien. It's creepy. This guy's got something going on in his head that is very weird. And it is all creepy ribs and spacey long arms. And you can tell that this is the influence for the movie Alien. And it's art style, that's for sure. So if you're going to look that up, that's in the show notes. That will probably give you nightmares. So there you go. So, after that meeting, the alien meeting with 20th Century Fox, they decided to go with the theme around H.R. Giger's images. And leadership at Bally had no problem with that at the time. Now, as it turns out, of course, Fox thought Bally took the image of the alien from their meeting around the movie. There was a lawsuit with Fox. and, of course, in a sequence of events, leadership and consultants and all of those things, they decided to settle with 20th Century Fox. Now, do you think if Paul Faris wanted this to be a total ripoff of Alien, that he could have just drawn it to really look like the Alien? Well, it kind of really looks like the Alien. It's close enough. It's the Alien, man. Like, it is pretty darn close. It's got this awesome infinity backlash, doesn't it? Once again, the best thing about this game is the art. I've never played Space Invaders. I have a friend with one. He got one just after the last time I saw him, which was about a year ago. And super sad that I haven't played it yet. But it's got some nuance to the rule set, doesn't it? As I said, the best thing about the game is the art. Ha ha ha ha ha ha. IPDB has a couple of really cool blank playfields. It's very cool. It's got, like, blues and purples, but it's mostly gray, which is really cool. It's got these scary Space Invaders things. Do you find it somewhat interesting that none of the aliens in this Space Invader game, by the bally, actually looks like Space Invaders? Eh, not really. it does make the background noise from Space Invaders. Doot. Doot. Doot. Doot. You know, that. That drone. It continues to escalate. Yeah. So, you have that. So, at least if you were a video game player, which obviously this was to try to catch their attention, you would at least say, oh, okay. It's like brand recognition. But to be fair, most of the artwork on the cabinets of the video games were not even close of what you'd actually see in the video game. So it's almost like it's telling a story, the play field a little bit. Now, they have thrown in on the inserts some of the alien pixel kind of looking art, like the squid guy and the brain-looking fellow from the Space Invaders video game. They've sort of thrown it in there to be like, look, it's Space Invaders. But it's like they could have called it anything else. They could have called it alien, right? Or they could have called it invaders from space. They didn't have to call it Space Invaders specifically. Yeah, this alien artwork is probably better than the actual alien game artwork. It totally is. And it's off the wall. It's very weird. You can see the H.R. Giger influence in there, the sort of mechanical kind of mixing with the organic. Very creepy, very weird. It's neat. It's a neat little effort there. This also came in an advertisement with its own story, its own comic book. Reminiscent of what they did recently for Dialed In, had its own little couple-page art panel, like comic book, like art panel stuff going on. Swing over to IPDB if you want to learn about that story, But basically, in the middle of the play field, there's like a four-eyed female-esque character. She's the focus of the story. It's kind of neat. Paul Faris, I think, really kind of really went out there to create this really creepy and weird alien storyline. Totally cool. I mean, it's a bit unsettling, actually, because that's the art style. Well, there's a picture of the pinball machine coming out of the alien. Yeah, it's... Which is cool. It would be the greatest backbox ever if you had a pinball machine that looked like that. Yeah, it's like these little aliens, and then they start to, like, change form, and then they rise up slowly from the floor and mutate, and then it finally mutates into the pinball machine. Wow, man, that actually sounds a lot like Alien, the movie. Yeah, it does, doesn't it? Gee, I wonder why. Okay, so let's just put a pin in that one. One of your favorite machines of all time is up next from February of 1980. It's a rock theme, sold 5,700 units, designed by Jim Patla. Greg Frera is doing art. It's Rolling Stones. Hey, I'd rather play that than the last two games we just talked about. Yeah, yeah. You know what this game needs? It needs Mick on a stick. It would have made it that much better. It plays actual songs. Well, it plays satisfaction. So they were able to do that. They were able to pull that off. Yeah, people can't see, but I'm shifting my shoulders. I'm just like, yeah. Now, my brother, my brother is much older than I am. He's a half brother. He told me that he remembers playing this at the rec center in Summerside of Prince Edward Island. And this is the game that is his iconic childhood pinball thought. I got T2, and he got Bally's Rolling Stones. So I guess I got the better side of that one. It's not that bad. Rock and roll your way to profit with Rolling Stones' new hit features. Plus this actually has all the Rolling Stones on there, including the bass player, who is not in the later Stern one, because they don't officially have a bass player, I guess. Yeah, they just put a tape in. Well, I think they have the same guys played with them for years, but I don't know if he's a full member, one of those deals. So it has the full group on the back glass. It's got, Mick Jagger looks weird. Mick Jagger looks, I mean, let's face it, Mick Jagger looks weird to begin with. Yeah. But he just, he's got the arms back like he's sort of mid-prance, you know. He's shaking his shoulders. he's always known for his iconic sort of big mouth. But it represents the license well. It's got all the songs on the plastics and things like that. The detail on the face is fantastic on all of the characters, the ones in the back end, Mick in the front. It's, you know, Greg really spent a lot of time focusing on, you know, the real selling point of the art, which is them themselves, right? They were really big and popular and sex symbols, I guess, at the time. And he really knew that, you know, if they don't look like the characters, this is all for naught. So it looks really, really cool. I'm trying to remember, is this one Rolling Stones and the newer Stern is The Rolling Stones or vice versa? Yeah, that's it. Yeah, I had it right. Okay, so this is actually Rolling Stones. Technically, the Stern one that came out in the 2000s, that was The Rolling Stones. It's almost the bottom half of the play field is symmetrical, which I think is weird. The whole play field isn't symmetrical, but half of it is. It's got these really cool sort of mini U-turns over star rollover, which are kind of neat. I've never played Rolling Stones, but I feel like it's probably kind of fun. It's not bad. It's not bad? Okay. And I think it is. Watch it. It's either the first Bally game that used their new linear flipper design or the last Bally game that used the previous design. One or the other. Okay. Okay. Maybe it says it here. I don't think so. It's one or the other. You'll know if you go to buy parts, they'll have, I want a Bally flipper Mac, and it'll have from this game to this game. And I know Rolling Stones is always one of the ones listed. Ah. So, now it still has 5,700 units. That's sort of a poor seller, right? For now, well, nowadays, that would be a great seller. Yeah, that's true. But compared to the 10K+, that Space Invaders sold, yeah. I mean, this time, again, we're starting to see that sort of spin down a little bit, and we can see even from the sales numbers over at Williams, you know, they're sort of suffering a little bit at the time, too. They're not, you know, knocking it out of the park, to use another cliche. The Union Jack on here is very nice, right? I think that's very iconic of this time of that sort of British invasion. And there are two cabinets out there, one of them with the correct color combination for the Union Jack on the front and one of them with the incorrect version, where the colors, the red and the blue, are backwards. Damn Americans. Can't get everybody else's flags right. I won't even get into the World Cup Soccer 94 where the flyer shows a picture of a football stadium with a football game going on as opposed to soccer. Ooh, that's awkward. Yeah, we're not good at that. The international market, not so much. Rolling Stones was the first to use the linear flipper design. Confirmed. So the sales are starting to sort of, let's say, teeter a little bit. But how do we boost that up? Well, let's go out there. We've got the Rolling Stones, which is a great theme. We've got a knockoff Alien, which is a pretty good theme. Let's find something awesome here to really pump it up, and that's Mystic from June of 1980. It sells 3,950 units. Standard body. It's like a circus magic carnival kind of theme. George Christensen, I'm sorry, George Christian doing the design art by Kevin O'Connor. This is a great game I've never played this Now this has a unique rule set in the middle of the playfield Is that right It does the tic thing It got the grid in the center It also has the wizard dude on the back glass which has been used in multiple different pinball shows, artwork. They'll use that guy. He's very iconic. He's like a magician. He's got those awesome white gloves. Yeah, I've seen his face used in multiple pinball marketing materials for various shows, but it has a grid in the center. You're trying to complete the grid. It's kind of like OXO. You can, depending on which way it's toggled, you either get one character or another character in the space in the grid, and you want to get the same character all the way across. yeah that grid changes what's chosen based on the drop targets is that right yeah I think slings actually will toggle it back and forth too if I remember okay very cool very cool from the art perspective the interesting thing about this game is it has an eye in it and in the really early models the eye was an actual 3D thing it was like recessed into the back glass I've only seen one of those, and it's at the Museum of Pinball in Banning, California. It's the only one I've ever seen that actually has the original, the very early back glass. Yeah, if you remember Margaret Hudson, she is the person who posed for the eye in that back glass. Kevin O'Connor would say, Patla said, do whatever you want. I was buying magic books at the time, and learning about Houdini and magic. So it was a magic theme. So literally, Kevin O'Connor must have loved working with Jim Patliff. Yeah. Every game, just do whatever you want. I don't care. Just get it as long as it doesn't suck. And I mean, Kevin O'Connor, even his themes that aren't really that great, the art shines, even though it's a magic-y theme. But again, this iconic magician wizard-y fellow. This was done with airbrush, but he was still using lacquer. We spoke a little bit about his experimentation in using lacquer paints and that it was not very good for you. And this is sort of in that era of him trying to figure out, is this something that we can do on a go-forward basis? It's also done with a black ink brush to add in all of the detail in that back glass. There's an earlier version, actually, that has a blue cabinet, and it has more yellow tones as opposed to that. So if you've got one of those machines, keep your eye out. That could be worth $200 more. Now, there was actually a production change in this machine too, Ron, and you're more of the mechanical kind of fellow. But that change was made to resize the long plastic next to the messenger ball lane, And that's to provide a hood over the stand-up target so the messenger ball, if it was hit by a hardball in play, would not jump the lane after hitting the target. Can you imagine that? Them making a game that needs an adjustment? That's unheard of. That never happens today. Imagine. How embarrassing. NYPDB has some of the early production back class, so if you want to see what the eye looked like. Creepy. Now, I've played a lot of the next game. Really? Hot-dogging, which is a very rare game. Yes, this is in my weekly league. I play it every week. This is all about bonus, all about your bonus multiplier, trying to stay alive. And although it's really two shots, maybe, it is a buttload of fun. And it's about mustaches and skiing. It looks like it has the guy from Future Spa, the totally ripped dude. He's now skiing. He's got out and on the slopes. Almost looks like the same guy. It's winter sports theme, July 1980. It's a wide body. Sells 2,050 units. Designed by Gary Gate and Greg Freres doing the artwork. Now, I'm going to include a documentary from the CBC, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, which is an archive from the late 70s where they talk about hotdogging, which was another word for freestyle skiing. And it's a riot to watch that little video. That'll be in our show notes. I saw a very cool YouTube seminar from one of the old pinball conventions. You remember those, right, Ron? Well, remember, they still have those now because this show can be listened to any time. It's an historical show. It has nothing to do with current events. As far as everyone's concerned, there is no COVID. Everything is fine. Greg actually spoke about his Polaroid camera. So I don't have a Polaroid camera. Do you know what a Polaroid camera is? Can you describe that from some of the younger folk here? Polaroid camera? It's just you take the picture and it comes right out of the camera and develops in front of you and you have your picture. It's sort of like how when you take a picture with a digital camera, you can just look at the picture right away. Because before, you used to have to send it off to a lab at your Walmart or photo studio, and then a couple of weeks later, your pictures would come back. The photo mat. Yeah. They'd all be overexposed and not look very good, and you wouldn't know. But a Polaroid camera would spit it right out, and you'd just sort of shake it in the air, and it would magically appear. You can get one of those now. It's like a Fujifilm Intax or something. Super cool. You should get one of those young folk. Greg Freres had a Polaroid camera, and what he would do, trying to get perspective or focus on body parts, like, for example, Margaret Hudson's eye from Mystic, take a picture with the Polaroid, and then they would review it. Now, they might use a different model for the face or for the inspiration, but if they're trying to get the perspective of somebody or body positioning, this Polaroid method was actually quite innovative. Greg has a huge stack of these old Polaroid camera pictures of people from Bali posing for some of your favorite backglasses. Greg himself modeled in the Polaroid for the backglass skiers in Hot Doggin'. One day in the Bally factory, he set up a bunch of chairs, and he laid on them strangely and awkwardly while somebody took a picture with the Polaroid camera. He, in fact, actually brought skis into work and stood on top of chairs upside down to get some photos. And if you look at that back glass and you see those skiers doing their splits and flips and jumps, Greg Freres actually made those positions on chairs at the Bally factory. Ah, the days before health and safety. Now, I think besides hot doggings kind of off-the-wall art, one of the coolest things is what's called the disappearing kick-up mechanic on the right side. It's this really crazy mech. Have you seen one of those, Ron? Hot Dog is the one game I can think of that has it I can't remember seeing it anywhere else I'm sure it's probably on some old EM somewhere So the way it works is it's like this kick up, so if you've ever shot into a kick out hole it'll have an arm with a solenoid and it'll shoot the ball kind of back up the play field once it falls in well if you shoot up to the top lanes in Hot Dog and it goes through K in Ski it will raise up this post on the right side. And then once the ball falls in there, it collects your bonus and then shoots the ball back up the playfield. And then it disappears. So the kicking arm pops up from the bottom of the playfield and will disappear from the top of the playfield after the bonus is collected. It's actually a very unique and complex mechanic. I'm surprised they didn't use it again because it was so neat but it's probably due to cost and you want it up too you don't want the thing to be disappeared or you will drain probably down the right side exactly it will my favorite part about this mechanic is the way that it will catch the ball count down your bonus it shoots the ball back up it'll hit a pop bumper and come right back down and it'll come right back down just as the mechanic is disappearing under the playfield, and it will go right down the outlane, and I swear, and leave the room. Thanks a bunch, Gary Gaten. Ron, do you like beards? Beards are great, especially in the 70s. Do you like drinking a bunch? I don't drink, actually. I know. Do you enjoy old medieval and mythical themes? Uh, not particularly. I'm failing here, aren't I? Do you like long ships? Sure, long ships are great. Well, Viking is the game for you. July 1980, standard body, uh-oh, 2,600 units. Designed by Jim Patla, artwork by Kevin O'Connor. O'Connor stated he designed the artwork for this game, delivered to him as a whitewood, because he was reading Franz Gunner Beg... Why'd you give me this to read? I can't pronounce that name. That's because I couldn't say the name, so I gave it to you. Franz Gunnar Begtossens, The Long Ships at the time. So once again, he gets another play feeling like, here, do some art. The Backglass is Kevin O'Connor's version of King Harold's Christmas Feast. I love games about feasts. It was a feast where a fight broke out because they're Vikings, and that's what they do. That's right, they just fight and pillage. This is the second time with a self-portrait. Kevin is next to the king. The character in green with a beard to the left of the fighters is a self-portrait by Kevin. Do you think that the ladies back then really wore dresses like that? No. It's not very historically accurate. Brooke Shields is actually drawn in the background as one of the characters on the right next to the king. Now, Brooke Shields, she was a large sex symbol at the time, and she's probably best known for being famous, as opposed to any work that she actually did. But she was also in Blue Lagoon from 1980, which was a big hit. Isn't that right? Yes, she was also in a pinball movie. Oh, really? A very famous pinball movie. She was the pinball wizard. Look it up. Oh, yeah. That's worth a Googling. She was also in, what was that thing they used to have every year? The Circus of the Stars, where they'd have all the networks battle each other. She always did the same thing. She would walk across glass. Ouch. She did that like multiple years in a row. Yeah. Scary. Now this was all done with paint and brush. And then with that four color process that we discussed in the previous episode, it was all put on to the back glass. Now, Kevin in this instance wanted to stay away from airbrush and he wanted to have those brush strokes in his final piece of art. And I think that that was a very smart choice because it adds a lot of depth and adds a lot of sort of interesting features that are a bit different than when you sort of airbrush and everything is very smooth. Man, that guy's ripped on the back glass holding that sword. Everyone's ripped back then. It's amazing. Man. I need to get on a treadmill. So do you like the outlanes in that game? Oh, this is, see, this is the thing here, okay? I I'm one of those people that very much prefers that very standard, boring, in-lane, out-lane kind of structure. I don't like silly things going on in the in-lanes and out-lanes. It's silly. It's skill. You can save the ball. The out-lanes here actually give you a chance to save the ball. You can bounce it off a rubber and it'll go through a gate and save the ball if you time it right. And I don't so much have an issue around that. I do have an issue with those pop bumpers that are so close to the end of the note. Oh, come on. Apologize to Viking. Apologize. You are getting power drains out of those things. Or it'll power hit the outlane rubber and bounce it right back into play. It'll look super cool. It's got awesome drop targets on the left side, which are, I would say, in a really cool position because they're really close to one of those super dangerous pop bumpers. and the return, if it doesn't come down quite right, is dangerous and your shot up there, if it's not accurate, is quite dangerous. It's a cool play field. I have played a Viking, actually. I am a fan. And I really enjoy it. Although when I played it in tournaments, a lot of times they'll remove the rubber from the out-lane savers, so you're screwed. You can't save it at all, which is kind of mean. And we'll see a lot of interesting choices when it comes to those in-lane and outlaying structures in the class of 1981. Oh, the next game. Now, I think the next game is tons of fun. Yes. See, if you look at Skateball, Skateball is Flash. It is literally the same play field with some stuff added. Now, it didn't sell quite like Flash. This one sold 4,150 units. Slash of Fernandez, if you look at it side by side, there is no way Skateball exists without Flash. It is the same play field. It's got the same plunge across the play field up to the top lanes. Upper flipper was moved back and down. So instead of being in front of or to the left of where the scoop is, it's now to the right of where the scoop is. Yeah, there's no repeatable top loop, basically. One of the lanes was removed and replaced. They made the left upper section a little bigger and put drop targets there and added a flipper. Spinner is in the exact same spot 5 bank is in the exact same spot They changed the left side To make it non-standard So you have the in lane is actually the out lane And the out lane is the in lane And this also has the Physical issue If you trap on the right flipper And you do a quick flip and you can get the ball to roll back And go over the switch The in lane switch You do it like 5-6 times It will light one of the targets for extra ball and then you hit the target and get an extra ball, and you can just play all day long. Oh, no. Yeah. That was no one's issue with this game, so sometimes when it was in tournaments, they'd actually cut the in-lane switch. What do you think of the art here? Art is awesome. I always loved the art. Out of this world. Out of this world. Now, it was actually done by Greg Freras, Margaret Hudson, and Kevin O'Connor. All three of them worked on this project. Greg did the back glass, Kevin O'Connor did the play field artwork, and Margaret Hudson did the plastics. Greg called this a fill-the-line game. everyone gang up and we got to get this out fast kind of game. The van and the woman's chest were lifted from Greg's test back glass from his job interview, which we talked about in the previous episode. Yeah, it's so cool, this one. And the back glass is really what stands out, I think, the most. Because it just is like end of the 70s kind of cool. It's got Buddy with a mustache. Long hair, got to have the mustache. Guy, of course, is ripped Because just everyone's ripped then He's got the van It's very California cool Gotta have the van, we got surfboards Skaters Palm trees Maybe a young Tony Hawk saw this and decided to take up skateboarding Who knows Actually, you know what, that's a true story Yep, that's what Tony Hawk thought He played some skateboard and said Damn it, skateboarding looks so cool Yeah, little do you know I think this is a stand-up kind of game. Very cool. I know that this is the first game that Albert Agar over from the Pinball Nerds podcast, he had one of these for a while, and he loved it. Absolutely loved it. And he thought that Claude Fernandez was probably one of the best forgotten pinball designers. But I think he's crazy. I think Mr. Fernandez had a bit of an issue with designs. Yeah, ripping off other designs. But I will say, although he did rip it off, it's actually a better game than Flash. Oh! In my opinion, yep. I said it. Hot take! There's way more to do on the game. Another fill-the-line kind of game, and that's Frontier from November of 1980. We're just trying to close out the end of the year here. Standard body cells, 1,850 units. George Christian artwork again by Greg Freres, Margaret Hudson, and Kevin O'Connor. Greg Freres told IPDV, Frontier was loosely based on the lifestyle and appearance of the husband of a ballet executive. Most people just thought we were riffing on the Grizzly Adams TV series. I thought it was supposed to be Kenny Rogers myself. He's so manly in this thing. If you look at this, jump on IPDV, this back glass, it's like Buddy with a beard and a fur jacket and a hat, like a frontiersman hat. It's got, he's on a horse. He's being attacked by, looks like wolves. And it's like, it makes me feel like I'm not very manly. I know this Frontier is actually one of Stern designer Keith Elwin's favorite. early solid state games. He actually has a Frontier t-shirt he wears on occasion. Well, I'll tell you what, I'm expecting some Frontier callback in the next Keith Elwin game, and hopefully it's a person being attacked by a bear somewhere on that game. There's a grid of animals that I guess are trying to kill the animals, and I never understood that. I think you're trying to kill them as they go. But there's the Frontier bonus, there's multiple bonuses, You gotta, on the flyer, I think they're really trying hard, let's put it that way, to pull that theme into this game. It's rugged entertainment from out of the pinball wilderness. Shoot for the den of predators and frontier. Track down the grizzly target. Ride for the right drop target bank. yeah it's yeah i'm i it is it is something else it's got inline targets on the left which lead up to the top lanes it's got a orbit spitter yeah oh yeah a great weird sort of capture a hole at the top but it's kind of in the it's behind a plastic and kind of a roundabout way looks like a neat game they didn't make very many of them so the art is great and probably one of its most recognizable features is the background sound, which is crickets. It's literally crickets? It's crickets, and they will increase in intensity and number of crickets as you go further until it gets insane. It's awesome. It's got that death target there in the middle that's like, shoot me. Shoot me. They should have called that the bally target. It's on so many of their games. The bally death target. actually one of the pictures of the game on IPDB is from Keith Elwin must have been his Frontier down in the early production play field around that sort of bonus grid at the bottom was the Den of Predators you've got a picture of all of the different predators you're collecting I think Frontier is probably one of the forgotten kind of interesting games out there. It's one of those ones where you're like, oh, that's different and weird. Within the hardcore community, it is not forgotten at all and usually commands a high price. We're about to peak here, okay, when it comes to Paul Faris and his entire art team. We're at the end of 1980. We're talking about the sci-fi theme, Xenon. Sells 11,000 units. We are back in stock here, folks. We've got the design of the play field by Greg Kamek, and I've written that out phonetically. I've got a few comments about how I say that. Music and sound by Suzanne Chani, who was a very famous electronic music composer at the time and artwork by Paul Faris. Tom Neiman would say at Expo 2013, Xenon was an unusual opportunity because it was a property with no immediate brand identity. And do you know what's so special about Xenon? It's the first ballet game to do this. Talk. And they were a little behind there because you had Williams, had Gorgar in 1979 talking. We're at the end of 1980, and Bally's finally getting their games to talk. Tom Neiman would say that it was the license that usually brought the first quarter in pinball, and then it was the designer and the gameplay that kept those quarters going in. Well, they needed that sound and that art to draw you in because they didn't have a license. As Paul Faris would describe the world of Xenon, he says the theme was a female alien in a futuristic world. tie the theme into transformation, an exotic and mechanical world. And they made sure to show her butt, you know, art. Because that helps. Yeah. Xenon was the third pinball machine that I owned. I bought one that needed to be broken down and fixed. It had mice living in it. I have a special place in my heart for this. And, in fact, I would really love to have one back. I think this is one of just the most iconic games of the 1980s, because it's so unique and different and weird. And I think some of that comes down to the design by Kamek, but the art is the selling feature, and it's the sound that drives it home. So let's break down each one of those sections. I have my own Xenon story. I remember Xenon specifically as a little kid, because I remember being scared of the backless. That's awesome. They had this at the tavern my father went to, and they'd only have one game there, and they'd rotate new games in on a regular basis, and I just remember this one specifically because it just freaked me out, that back class. It's very cool. So let's break down each section. So we'll start with KMIC's design. So one thing when I purchased this game that I was specifically told is there is a hidden red post up on the top left and Kamek did this on all of his games, and I was told by the person who I was buying it from to repair it that if I threw that post out, he would hunt me down. Yeah, I have a Harlem Globetrotters, and it's on there. But Harlem actually has red posts, but it's like a different red post than all the other red posts. It's like a solid colored red post. He put those in all of his games. I love that. So Try the Tube Shot was one of the sort of the unique bits to this game where on the right side you shoot it up this sort of clunky kind of ramp by some drop targets. It goes through this weird tube to the left, falls down literally just this little ramp and into a hole. Very, very neat. Every game needed a thing, and this was Xenon's thing. It also had an infinity backbox, just like Space Invaders, with lights that kind of go around, a piece of glass in the front, and then behind it, the back glass with a bit of mirroring. Super, super, super cool. Let's try to paint some word pictures when it comes to the art of this machine. Try a tube shot. Let's start with the Backglass. On the Backglass is like a blue female alien with big, you know, bold eyes and shoulders. It looks like you're looking into a tube. And that's really that Infinity Backglass creating this sort of sense of distance. Very cool. There's a lady in front that's looking at the Xenon character. and then there's two people like floating down the tube. It's very cool. I can see why this scared the crap out of you, though. Yeah, I think her eyes scared me. The play field is really insane, too. You've got the Xenon woman in the middle with your bonus countdown in a circle, and they're using blue inserts on the bonus instead of your sort of standard whites. It's got the best butt in pinball down there, right between the flippers. There's two people floating up the ramp to go through the tube, just like in the back glass. There's like an alien with naked breasts looking up into the pop bumpers. There's weird, weird things going on in here. What about the orbit on the left side with the spinner? What do you think of that? through the spinner there's like a man transforming, you know, from an alien into a person. I think this game is all about the look and the sound more than the gameplay. Oh, absolutely. You're not going to see, especially with, I don't know, tournament players, it's not considered a great player, but it's definitely one of those experience games. Yeah. Like the whole sound package, the art package is very unique, and it's not like anything else that has existed. It's all about shoot that scoop at the top, right? That's the thing. That's the thing. And it has multiball, not just speech. It's awesome. It's so awesome, this game. I'm telling you. And it paid off. Gameplay, like you said, not so much. We've often had these issues with Bally where the use of the female form and women in general has always been a bit of an issue. This game is a bit different, wouldn't you say? Well, Paul Farah says, one thing I wanted to make clear was that we'd sometimes get grief about having women on our games in subservient roles. I wanted to ensure that the woman was not subservient. Xenon would be eight foot tall. She had this wonderful voice, blue skin, large eyes, highly intelligent, highly evolved woman. So it wasn't lost on them that they were getting that critique and that commentary of the use of, like, the slave woman in Paragon and that kind of stuff. That wasn't lost on the artists at the time. So it's interesting that they said, okay, well, let's make the woman the powerful character in this example. But let's also put a woman at the bottom with the best butt I've ever seen. The other thing is the sound on this game was so much better than any sound before. Because Williams had the sound samples of maybe seven to ten words, and they would just record them one at a time. And they'd piece them together. And they'd piece them together. Fire, power, destroyed, you. You know, those were all just separate words. I am the Black Knight. Yes. This game, they're full sentences. Full sentences. Try a tube shot. Exit pilot one. Exit pilot two. Tom Neiman, he would say that Xenon didn't have that first quarter appeal of a license. What we could bring to life was a concept. What we couldn't do with visuals, we could do with sound. And they leveraged what they called the sound board and the vocalizer board versus what would come in the future called the squawk and talk. Yes, they had the vocalizer module and the sounds plus module. It actually says sounds plus on it. and I would say Xenon probably sounds better than most of their later games because they combined the two boards into one squawk and talk board, and it just didn't sound as good, in my opinion. The real foundation to the sound and voice of this game was, as I mentioned before, Suzanne Chianti. Ah, s**t. Suzanne Chianti, who was an American musician, sound designer, composer, and recording label executive, who found early success in the 1970s with her innovative electronic music and sound effects for films and television commercials. Her career included works with quadraphonic sounds. She had been nominated, actually, for a Grammy Award for Best New Age Album five times. Her success with electronic music has her dubbed the diva of the diode and America's first female synth hero. The first female voice in a pinball machine was Suzanne herself, and female voices were generally not used, Ron, in soundboards, because the higher pitch of a female voice meant that it needed twice as many bits of information to be saved. saved. That's why Williams just used a deep Steve Ritchie for everything they ever did. In 2013, Suzanne Ciani was inducted into the Pinball Expo Hall of Fame for her work on Xenon. I was there. Actually, I have a video of that seminar, if you actually attended that seminar. I'm going to include that in the show notes so you can relive it, Ron. She does the voices. You can hear it again in person. Live. It's one of the cool parts of the game Is the way that the sound effects and the voice are all included It's rather... Try a tube shot One thing's for sure The sound that is in the game along with the voice is certainly very intimate, passionate. It's really, really something else. And I don't know if that was the full intent of the game, because it was all about sort of like transformation and space. It just sort of came out that way, I think. But it does add to why I think the game is so cool. What do you think about the sound kind of in an overall sense? The sound package is one of the highlights of the game. Yeah, if you didn't have the sound and you were just going on artwork and play, play style, play field, I don't know if this game is sort of the ultimate kind of package that it is. And great comics names on the play field. Oh, yeah. Kind of. Yeah. So if you think about that, there's a K-M-I-E-C, and that appears near the right flipper, which is an acronym for Kinetic Molecular Integrated Evolution Cylinder. I love that. Way over the top. And Margaret Hudson's name also appears. Hudson appears on the other side near the left flipper near the head of the robot. Margaret Hudson did most of the artwork for the play field. We mentioned in the previous episode that they experimented with four-color printing processes on playfields, and Bally tried to come up with a method where they printed the artwork on Mylar and then attached that to the playfield as a cost-saving measure. Well, it turned out that it was very difficult to actually get it to go around the inserts, and the overlay didn't quite work. Almost like a hardtop today. Now, if you look that up on Pinside or something. The first hardtop. One thing that I spent a lot of time researching here was trying to find some more information on the design of Xenon. And, again, it falls into a few of those bally tropes. And it was originally called Saberdance. Greg Kamek spent a lot of time playing with different inserts on this machine, which is a bit different. He used blue inserts instead of the traditional yellow and white. And then he added the tube. and then when he passed it off to Paul, Paul looked at it and said, oh, this has to be space-themed. Look at this tube. This is, I think the rest is history. It's an awesome, awesome all-around package. Could have been better, like some games, but I think this is, if you've got a chance to play one, you know, give it a go. It is lots of fun. Everything's a metaphor. Although technically not part of the Bally class of 1981, I have to say that Xenon was really the beginning of that trend. Now we're moving into 1981, the reason everyone is listening to this podcast this month. Flash Gordon is the first game out of the gate in February 81. It's a movie license, sci-fi theme. It is a standard body, bi-level game, 10,000 units, and it's designed by Claude. I stole this idea from Steve Ritchie Fernandez and artwork by Kevin O'Connor. Did you see the Flash Gordon movie, Ron? Oh, yeah. How do you summarize that movie to somebody who's never seen it before? Ah, weird. Don't take it seriously. There's, like, flying Hawkmen, and it's very colorful. James Bond is in it, our future James Bond. Oh. Yeah, Timothy Dalton. I love Timothy Dalton. The best character is the leader of the Hawkmen. Was it Voltan? I think that was his name. Oh, and the music is by Queen, which is incredible. That's the other thing. Yeah this sort of period in sci movies everything is like a space opera You know we mentioned it when it came to the Star Trek pin when it came to Star Trek the motion picture Oh, I wasn't going to mention that movie ever again. Anyway, movie studios were looking for sci-fi themes that they could make into a space opera like Star Wars, and this is what they came up with, was a Flash Gordon comic strip by Alex Raymond. And as you mentioned, Queen did the music. The whole film cost $20 to $27 million to make, and it had a $27 million worldwide box office. Ouch. So it probably didn't make money. It holds an 83% Rotten Tomatoes fresh rating, though, which kind of confuses me. The audience score on Rotten Tomatoes is 69%, and usually the audience score is higher than what the critics say. So that's a whole thing. I haven't seen Flash Gordon. I guess if you go in, like you said, to just have a good time and don't expect to think too much. Oh, you've never seen the movie? Fail. Never. Oh, you owe it to see the movie. So what's some of the controversy around this game? Well, Steve Ritchie claims that Claude Fernandez stole the bi-level design from Black Knight. Claude was working at Williams at the time, and then when he left for Bali, he basically saw Steve Ritchie's concept for the bi-level game, and Steve believes he stole it. Do you think he actually stole it? I mean, it's a different type of bi-level. To explain, in Williams' bi-level game, they used two different sheets of wood. You can hit shots that go under the upper play field. Valley, they did the cost-saving method, which is you just take a play field, and if you're going to make an upper part, you cut it where that part's going to go up, and you have ramps that go up there. So you'll notice games like Flash Gordon and their other bi-level games, you can't go underneath the play field. And the ramps are steeper. All from one sheet. Yes. There is a Flash Gordon in my league as well. I don't particularly like it. I very much prefer Black Knight. It is the better game, obviously. I can see there's some influence there, But when I look at Claude Jose Fernandez list of games, and we've got a game like Blackout, he's not this crazy, innovative guy that just comes up with these concepts, right? Like, he's not an all-time designer, in my opinion, like a Steve Ritchie, or even, you know, like a John Borg, who's come up with some kind of neat things here and there. To be fair, he came up with Elektra, which is a three-level game. I mean, I don't know if he snagged this idea or not, but I would say it is quite convenient that somebody who has never really made really great games somehow comes up with, at the same time, one of the most innovative things of the early 80s. That's not fair. Blackout's a good game. Blackout is good. It's got three spinners. No multiball, no lane change. The thing about this is, maybe he ripped off one of the rants, but I've never, other than it being bi-level, I've never played Flash Gordon instead. Oh, a total rip-off of Black Knight. No, no, no, no. As opposed to playing Skateball, where I look at that and, like, this is Flash. This is completely Flash. That's way more of a rip-off. I wouldn't say the shots are the same, but I would say that the idea of raising the playfield up and having a bi-level design was totally stolen. Right? Like, when we did our Steve Ritchie episode in the pilot, in our first pilot episode with Steve Ritchie before the mullet, we spoke in depth very much about how many whitewoods he did over and over of Black Knight. And when you play it, you can feel that. You can feel that it's a very refined type of design and play field. When you play Flash Gordon, you can tell that it is not refined. It is like there's something, what makes Black Knight special is missing in Flash Gordon. Opinions expressed by David Dennis don't necessarily reflect those. That's right. So if I ever go to Pinball Expo or something like that, and somebody sees Claude Fernandez, Please tell me who that individual is so I can avoid them and they don't punch me in the throat. Well, the thing, Claude has been at Expo multiple times when Steve Ritchie's been in the same room and nothing's happened. So I don't think it's that big. Oh, okay, good. I just don't want to hurt his feelings. I just don't want to hurt his feelings. The same reason that Zach many never says anything mean about Stern. They had to do this quickly. They didn't have a lot of time to do this game. And they wanted to get it out when the movie was out, or at least closed. Everybody loves mirrored back glasses. Kevin O'Connor actually signed his name in mirror on the back glass. And he is actually quite proud of that fact, that he was able to get that in there. And at the time, the movie Flash Gordon had like a lot of pizzazz. And Kevin wanted to bring some of that pizzazz to the art. And I think he did that. It's black and red. It's the mirror on the back glass. The painting really stands out on this piece. It really, really blows all of the other things out of the water. Some of the design items that were actually changed on this was that Flash Gordon originally, instead of those inline drop targets, it was supposed to be a capture kind of, it's not a capture. Scoop. It was supposed to be a scoop. It has the two-way kick out between the pops, which is actually pretty cool. The last time that was used was in 1950 on Gottlieb's Rockettes. But when you put the ball into the scoop, sometimes it shoots down the playfield, sometimes it shoots up a little ramp into the top playfield, which is very cool. And the lights will let you know which way it's going, so you're not surprised. This is the first game that uses the new single Squawk and Talk soundboard versus the Bally Vocalizer and Sound Plus board that they used in Xenon. However, if you have a very early Flash Gordon, it will have the vocalizer and sound plus boards and it will sound much better than the later Squawk and Talk board. Yeah. I sent a sample to Dave. I will include the link to that in our show notes if you actually want to listen to it. It's a person pushing the sound test board and I got to say, it sounds so much better. You can actually understand him clearly. Ignite death rays, 15 seconds. It's like, wow, is that what he's supposed to sound like? Very impressive. It's very, very nice. And the other thing is the strobe light. Oh, yeah. So in the back glass where it says flash, it's strobes and blinks. It's actually quite complicated and dangerous if you touch it. Yeah, it's got a big strobe light in the center, which when I listened to Claude Fernandez speak at Expo, he said how that was removed very early in the run, and there's very few flash scorns that have that, which is not really true, as in most flash scorns I've seen do have that. It almost never works, but it's almost always there. And if it is working, usually it eats away at the art of the back glass because it's so bright. I love the spinner sound. When you get those spinners lit, so you drop down the left drop target, and it lights your spinner, and you drop that again, it lights the other spinner. It has just the coolest spinner sound. It just grinds on and on. And the thing to remember is it's a different era. Like, if you look, the artwork is primarily red. And you look at the back glass that has the stars in there, it has, I think it was Max Monsanto, it was Ming, the Merciless, Sam Jones himself as Flash Gordon. And none of these actors were like, oh, redo the back glass. so I don't like the way this looks. And we're just happy to be on a game. Like, I'm in a pinball machine? This is awesome. Of course. Could you imagine being on a pinball machine? And they're all on there. I just know it's Waltan. Timothy Dalton is on there. I can't remember his character's name. Timothy Dalton's character is Timothy Dalton. The plunge is really cool. It goes up and around over these rollovers. But one thing that's really annoying is that you kind of soft plunge it up there, or it gets going too fast. but when it releases the switch in the shooter lane, it goes flash, and then it'll roll back down, and then you pull it again, it goes flash. Isn't that great? Oh, it's so annoying. Oh, it's great. Emperor Ming awaits. Emperor Ming awaits. Yeah, it's cool. It's cool. But it's like, I mean, it's too hard. It's so deadly. Every shot is dangerous. There's not an easy shot. According to Claude Fernandez, there wasn't really a white wood. It was just one shot, this is it. Boom. No time for real refinement. Wow. It's out the door. You can tell, can't you? Oh, look at that. There's a pop bumper on the top play field. I've never seen that before. Yeah. And I literally play this every week, and I have not noticed that before. So you didn't realize they had three pop bumpers, not two. Wow. They could have saved some bomb on that if they just took it out. Huh. Well, the best plastic probably of the era is the one that sits just above the pop bumpers on the lower play field to the left. It's almost like a window, and people are sitting at a table, like a conference room table in an evil lair. And on the screen is General Ming, and it's... Emperor Ming. I'm sorry, Emperor Ming. It's like a... Emperor of the Universe. Just get it right. It's like a 3D kind of look. It is super cool. If you can see this machine, play it. But it's really, really, really hard. This was actually in the Pinburgh final last year. And they made a lot of them. Speaking of classic games. Ron, do you like mustaches? Do I like mustaches? Of course, especially in pinball. Do you like cowboy hats? I'm not really into cowboy stuff. Sure, yes. Cowboys are great. Do you like riding mechanical bulls? Hell yeah. Urban Cowboy is my favorite movie of all time. Well, 8 Ball Deluxe is the game for you. It's pool and cowboy theme. This is April of 81. 8,250 units, so still a really high seller, but significantly lower than the last two. Designed by George Christian. Artwork by Margaret Hudson. There's a new name. Well, not new, new. We haven't heard it as a lead. Now, Margaret Hudson, through all of the interviews, any time that Margaret Hudson comes up in any of these interviews, it's always about her being super detailed and a really hard worker. And she was the production assistant for Paul Faris and Kevin O'Connor. And this was her first solo machine where she ran the whole show as the lead artist. I think the fact that she was super detailed and a very hard worker was very much why she was such a good production assistant. We mentioned in the last episode that when you're doing what they call key line and ruby lifts and all of those things, you're slaving over a hot light table. You have to be calm. You have to be a detail-oriented person. And I think that's why she excelled so well in the pinball industry as an artist and why she was given the lead for something like this. So who was Margaret Hudson, Ron? She started right out of college, Southern Illinois University. Her first job at pinball, she answered an ad in the newspaper, and they needed a graphic artist. She needed a job, had no experience, and didn't care if it was pinball or not. When she thought of pinball, she could maybe remember the Dinosaur Game. She was interviewed by Paul Faris when Valley was building their in-house art department. Margaret says, it's always been exciting when you interview for a job. I was willing to work in a factory to get a job, so to get a job as an artist was amazing. She was a production assistant working multiple roles, getting art ready for production. She worked primarily with Paul and Kevin, that's Paul Faris and Kevin O'Connor, doing the finer points and finalizing production. Paul Faris would say of Margaret that Margaret started doing playfield separations by hand. She was an art major from southern Illinois, very good, very detailed. She knew how to take on the role. She could screen with detailed art, and I appreciated that. She could always do what needed to be done with top quality. And, of course, Paul was ready to actually trust her with her own art project. And 8 Ball Deluxe shows that she was truly something special because I think she did a great job on her first machine. As Margaret says, I got this game because no one wanted to do it. No one wanted to do an old pool game, and it was my first chance. I worked really hard on it. Paul had a lot of input, but it was my project. Yeah, why cowboys and pool? Because it was dictated to her that's what she was going to do. Yeah. Cowboys and bars were very popular at the time, and that would have been probably right around the time Urban Cowboy came out with the mechanical ball and the country music and all that. Oh, look, it's right in your notes. I didn't even see that. And I just said that before because it's the one movie I could think of that reminds me of 8 Ball Deluxe. Yeah, she tried to draw women. So let's bring this back again to sort of women in pinball. And this is, I would say, the woman when it comes to art in pinball. How does somebody in an industry that's male-dominated, focused on specifically getting quarters from adolescent men, you know, how does she draw women? Well, through her interviews and things that I've read about Margaret Hudson was that she tried to draw women in a more wholesome way. She wanted them to be less objectified than the other artists at the time. And when you look at somebody like a Kevin O'Connor or even a Paul Faris, of course, that is a sound critique of their artwork. Margaret says, in the beginning, I was very idealistic. And you think you can change everyone's way of thinking. I would get upset. We worked in the engineering department, and they were all men, older men. You can't go in to change the way people think of women. I just learned how to get along. Just don't make waves and learn to laugh at things. I mean, it's a bit of a sad statement, actually, that she went in sort of feminist-ish, and then eventually you're just sort of beaten down, which is a bit sad. But I think it's because of women like Margaret Hudson that, you know, the use of women in pinball machines has significantly changed, specifically in the last three to four years. And society is changing from where it was back then. And I think Margaret was probably part of the generation of women in important roles that would eventually influence where we are today. Margaret also spent a lot of time helping make changes to the art for production, and she was always a perfectionist. Most artists are always perfectionists. They'll always look back at the art projects they've done and say, oh, if I could just change this or add another brush stroke there, I think they would always do it. And it speaks to Margaret as that she's always a perfectionist. And when asked what she would change on 8 Ball Deluxe, She would say, some of the play field I'd like to change. Some of it is a little too dainty and not as bold as I would have liked it. But it was my first play field. Always the perfectionist. It must be tough to look back and always kind of want to change what you've done. You remember we spoke earlier about Greg Freres and his Polaroids. Greg Freres is actually the model for the guy on the back glass. But it's not his face, but it's his body, if that makes any sense. When you look at it, it's like a cowboy shooting a pool ball, and he's kind of looking directly at you, and then there's the ball and the cue and then the cowboy. And to get that perspective right, Greg worked with Margaret on taking the photo and then designing it. Now, the model of the cowboy, the face and the thing was actually not Greg himself. Yeah, Margaret says the cowboy was modeled after a friend of mine. It was very common to put people you knew into the art. He just had the look I wanted. If you're just using your memory, you'll miss things. If you want to talk about, you know, really nerdy mechanical stuff, I mean the stuff that really gets Bruce Nightingale, your friend from the Slam Tilt podcast, excited, that is little bits and facts like this one. This is the first game by Bally to be manufactured using wedge sockets and triple five bulbs in production. Now, there was another machine that they tested them out on, but this was the first production game. Hmm. I'd like to get more clarification on that one, because I know the... because they redid this game twice. They had an LE version, and then they had the 1984 version, where they just did it again. The 84 version, I know, has all 555 bulbs in it. I'm just wondering if that's what they meant. If anyone knows, they can email us at silverballchronicles at gmail.com. That's right, and we will probably not read it out on the air. Oh. I will. Oh, hey now. Okay, so let's tie a nice bow in on... Okay, let me sum this up. I play 8-Ball Deluxe in my league as well. It's a fun, fun game. On the right side, it's got all the drop targets representing the cue balls. It's got all the drop targets on the right side representing the pool balls. It's got some awesome inline drop targets on the left side. Really, really tight shot between the orbit and it. It has a side flipper, which is a bit dangerous and useless, but at the same time, you use it a lot, and it works. It's very, very unusual. It has some very cool cowboy art on the bottom. It's got firing guns. It's kind of an iconic play field, isn't it? I'd say iconic play field, definitely iconic backless. Everyone knows the backless. I think this game inspired a lot of people to really love and play pinball, and I think they still do today because of this game. Yeah, they reproduced this game. is in LE. They reproduced it a third time. Then you have Bad Girls, the Gottlieb game, which is basically this reversed. Stern also did Sharky Shootout, which is inspired by this. Very popular play field. This brings us into the next theme, which is Embryon, which is a sci-fi theme. It's June of 1981. It's a wide-body, 2,250 units, designed by Claude Fernandez artwork by Tony Ramuni, who is the first, his first pinball machine with Bally. Tony, you'll remember from games like Alien Poker, Black Knight, and Bally's Motor Dome. This is another sort of alien movie-esque theme and backlash, isn't it? It's just weird. It's all around weird. And it's not like scary weird like Space Invaders. It's like creepy weird. Like gas station sushi. Okay. You know, this game has the player in charge of some unspecified futuristic eugenics program responsible for growing and birthing various multicolored humanoids in organic pods. Yeah. It's weird. For a time of weird art, Tony Ramuni really goes out of the... He certainly paints out of the lines on this one when it comes to weird. It's like you're in a facility, so it's got, like, you know, walls and metals and walkways and things on the playfield, but then it also has, like, an egg in the middle. Would you say that in the middle of the playfield this looks... It looks like something, all right. Something that I won't say on the air. I don't think that's what it actually is I think it's more of like an organic pod or something I think it's less of what people think it is But you hit it over and over again To build up, to spell embryon Oh, maybe I'm wrong then It has speech, it has multiball It's a packed game It's one of their widebodies Now, all wide bodies, of course, need a gimmick, right? Well, this gimmick was that on the right out lane, there's like a mini flipper that the player can control. Flip save. And when your ball comes down that, it flips it through a one-way gate. They trademarked it. Flip save activated. It even says it in the game. And if you don't hit it quite right, it's still going to go down the out lane. Like if you hold it up and it rolls down, you actually have to flip it out. Yep. Does it work? Yep, it works. Wow. It's hard to light. It's one of those things. Everything in that game is hard to light that. It's hard to get multiball because you have to spell embryon by hitting the center a bunch of times without dying. Then you have to lock a ball. Then you have to hit down targets, then hit a captive ball to try to hit into another target. It's just so convoluted. Yeah, people don't like hard games. Well, you would never play it that way. All you have to do is hit it to the top right and then use that upper flipper and just hit targets and stuff, and that's it. That's it. Ignore the entire rest of the play field, and you're all set. Never played one. Probably won't see one unless I go searching it out. 2,000 is not very many for this game. It does have very cool artwork. But I believe this was the last of their wide-body series. Oh. Kind of ended. Let's have a moment of silence for the valley wide-bodies of the 1980s. So we started in the 70s into the 80s. We had Paragon, Future Spa, Space Invaders, Hot Doggin, Embryon. I'm missing one, I think. I'm probably missing one. And this was the last one. Oh, I was right. The last slide body. I'm saying these things before I read your notes. But the artwork is insane. You won't forget it. The original concept artwork is actually on IPDB, if you want to take a look at that. Which is still weird, by the way. This brings us into a game that I've played a little bit. and I enjoyed it. I don't think it has a lot of lasting appeal, and that's Fireball 2. And it's a mythical, demonic theme. June of 1981, standard body. Sells 2,300 units. Designed by Gary Gayton, and artwork by, oh, Dave Christensen. I thought we said he left the last episode. Yeah. Back to doing slots and stuff. What happened? So this game was done, the art for this game was done before he had left. And what's also interesting is he did the art for the original Fireball and Fireball Classic. Look at the flyer on this one, Ron. This is part of the Bally Superhero Series, which I've never heard of before. I've never heard of that. So Fireball, the Fireball guy was actually a Bally superhero. Yeah. Okay. I don't think they ever had a superhero after that in their superhero series, but they did this time. It was a limited series. And look at this awesome, awesome catchphrase. It's a combustible combination of features. Whoa! I don't want to have that in my bar and burn it down. That's crazy. It's actually a very good art package. Very red, because it involves fire. the interesting thing about this game to me is what they used in the center. It has the ball underneath the play field that bounces up and down. When it counts down the boats. Yeah, do they have a name for it in their marking materials? Because I'm curious, because that is from Doodlebug. It was a Williams innovation. It's animated captive ball feature. Okay. This was used in Doodlebug, Dipsy Doodle, a series of games that Williams did in the early 70s that used this toy. And then, actually, Williams brought it back. They used it in Solar Fire. So, obviously, they didn't patent whatever this was because Bally used it. It's literally the same thing. Yeah, it sits in the middle of the bonus, and there's like a little see-through window. And when the bonus counts down, it just sort of bounces up and down for no apparent reason. There's a magnet, and the ball bounces up and down, and it's cool. So I still call it a doodle. No matter where it is, it's a doodle. Yeah. It's a really tight, close play field. Drop targets all around, but they're really, really close to the flipper. It doesn't have an orbit. It sort of, I mean, it has an orbit, but it's not like most of the orbits of that Bally era where it goes up into the top. It's two ball and three ball multiball. Yeah. It has two balls. I'm trying to remember if it has two balls, but I know you can lock... Yeah, you do. It does. Yeah. You can lock multiple balls. It has speech. So we still got all the features going, plus the extra little doodle feature. Would you say that it's a combustible combination of features? Yes, sure. It's combustible. And it says... And the speech is weird. It says, like, zap, wow, bang, whatever, when the game ends. During the call. It's kind of cool. I forgot it. It has the little demon post. Yeah. It's basically a ball saver in between the flippers. And that's kind of a neat... It's like a player-controlled little post with a rubber. And instead of it having, like, the Kirk post in the middle or just a post with a rubber, it literally will smack it back up the play field. And you can build up the amount of little demon hits you can do. So you can use it multiple times through the game. And we might see it again. Ooh. Meaning in this episode. Oh. Probably a few games down. Because another one of the class of 81 has it. The reason I did not like this game is that I'm a bit of a pinball diva, and one of those things is in-lane and out-lane, and this thing is annoying when it comes to in-lane and out-lane. It is regular in-lane and out-lane. It's just that it's shaped a little different. Well, no, so it has an out-lane, and then there's a post, and then you've got to kind of nudge it to get it to go through a gate. Nah. Like, it doesn't have a return lane that just kind of comes down and in. Or, like, I'm okay even if it's backwards, right, where the out lane is the in lane, and then the in lane is the out lane. We'll talk about that in a minute. But it doesn't quite, I don't know. It was so annoying, and I don't know. At the time, I was, like, I'm not a very good player. At the time, I was even worse, and it really did not help. That was fireball, too. Very Christensen-esque, the art. When you look at it, you're like, yep, Dave Christensen right out of the gate. No mistaking it, it looked nothing like every other artist at the time in the class of 81. Well, this is the one that everybody talks about now. August of 1981. It's fantasy and water sports theme. No, not that water sports. It sells 3,500 units. It's designed by a gentleman named Ward Pemberton and artwork by Greg Freras. Now, listener to the show, Pete says, there has never been better artwork. This is arcade jewelry. He is correct. That's why this game sells for an exorbitant amount of money now. This thing sells more than Avengers Premium. This sells for insane prices, and it is primarily because of the artwork. It is not because of the gameplay. If you really want to experience the art of this machine and you absolutely think, man, this is the pinnacle of the pinnacle, just buy a repro playfield and stick it up on your wall. Because, man, the prices that this thing pulls in, you know, $4,000, $5,000, $6,000 a U.S., that's just crazy talk. Now, a new name we've got on here is Ward Pemberton. Ah, good old Ward. And Ward, now his father worked at Bally Manufacturing for 22 years. And every now and then, his dad would be able to bring a prototype back to the house to flip and to work on because he worked in the quality control section. And one game that Ward specifically remembers is one for some reason that pops up all the time is 4 Million BC. In high school, Ward took a drafting class, which eventually helped him get a job at Bally. His father introduced him to Norm Clark, who ran the design team, and they needed a junior designer to help them on the Whitewoods and production oversight. In his own time, Ward would actually spend time doing his own playfields and own designs. he was, I guess the best way to describe Ward is he was like that solid backup designer. Not really your second string designer, but a third string designer. Somebody that you needed to fill the line, who always worked hard, and always worked with a great team, positive outlook, super nice guy, but he was always, for some reason, the lowest person on the totem pole. And when times got tough at manufacturers, across his whole career, Ward was always the guy that somehow got the sh** end of the stick, you know? He did? Yeah. So when he was at, like, he got canned from, like, Williams, like, first, when he left Williams. And at Capcom, he got in a fight with Python. I thought he just left Williams. I think in his interview, I got it on my notes somewhere. I'll take a look. But I think he said that he was one of the first guys that was let go. Now, the Fathom play field, if we take a look at just the design himself, it's cool, but I wouldn't say it deserves the accolades that it does get. It's a good play field, but it's not the greatest play field of all time that demands amazing return on investment when it comes to prices. What do you think, Ron? It has cool features. It has the two bonuses. The whole top of the play field was used again in 8-Ball Champ. the whole orbit, the spinner, and the long gate up there. It's just literally copy and paste into 8-Ball Champ. Who did 8-Ball Champ? That's a good question. I probably should have known that before saying that. And 8-Ball Champ is a really good game. It's George Christensen. Christian, yeah. Oh, George Christian, yeah. Yeah. But the artwork in Fathom is insane. So for the fat on play field, Ward Pemberton would say, you design a play field, and if it played well, you put the rules and theme together. Greg Freres came up with the theme. I let Greg sell the marketing team. He didn't have to convince me. It's like Jim Patla, I think, was probably very instrumental in Ward's career because he had this very samey, hands-off approach, right? Just let the art and marketing guys do it. You focus on the play field. That's kind of neat. Now, how does it actually play? Because I've been around a Fathom, but I've never played a Fathom. I believe it has the reversed in-lane, out-lane, so you probably would not like it. No, I'm okay with that. I'm just not okay with the out-lane. You have to nudge every time it goes into the out-lane, or you get screwed. You're okay with their flop, but not if they're different. Yes. Okay. Yeah, not if they're totally different, just slightly different. All right. One thing that I do think is cool about Fathom is you can backhand that spinner, which is kind of neat. you can forehand or backhand the spinner. And I love me some spinners. It has, I think, two ball, three ball, multiball. It has the blue bonus and green bonus, I believe it's called. I'm going from memory here. It's got the fish spinner. It's got cool sounds, just the cool droning, like you're under the water. Very unique sound package. Dive again. Dive again. if you look at the very top of the playfield, sometimes it's actually better to find an unpopulated playfield to look at some of this stuff. If you look at the very top of the playfield, there is a woman who is on a dock looking down into the water, and that's where all the other stuff is occurring. Yeah, it's like she's looking over the boat or something, and then there's a diver down there, and there's the death mermaids. And, of course, this is 1981, so all the mermaids are topless. Yeah, because it's not a cold ocean. It's a warm ocean. Yeah. And they're pulling him under. Even on the back glass, they're pulling him under, ripping his hose out from his oxygen tank. His hose? Oh, his oxygen tank. This is more like my other podcast. But, yes, that's fairly empowering, I would say. Basically, the women are killing this guy. I don't know why they're killing him. They never really explain why. I mean, is he just diving down there, and they're like, this guy's in our space, let's kill him. I never understood this story. Could be global warming. Like, why do they want this guy dead? I mean, was he, maybe he was hunting other mermaids or something, and they're getting revenge? That would be cool. Yeah, it's super, super cool. I really... I always wanted to know the full story of it. Like, why are they cutting his hose? Why are they trying to kill this poor guy? What did he do? Oh, with the backwards return lanes, Jim Patla was a big help with Ward, and Ward would say that the reason the return lanes were backwards the way they were is that he wanted a constant flow to the flipper, and it was much quicker if it went the other way. And he was always super humble and gave a lot of credit to others Now it had low sales at the time for such a pretty great game especially one with some amazing art And Ward would say, I was happy with the sales. There weren't many games at the time that were selling quite like that. And Gray Ferris said it was a sleeper hit. We didn't expect it to carry such weight into the future like it has, i.e., really expensive. Yeah, one of the most expensive out there. Now, the name Fathom, at Chicago Expo 2012, Greg Freras stated that Ward Pemberton's working title for the game was Barracuda. Sounds like a horrible name for a game. And Greg wanted to use the name Deep Threat, and both names were rejected by Bally Management, and they settled on Fathom. And I think if it was called Deep Threat or Barracuda, I think it would reduce the impact of the game. I think Fathom is just a super cool name. Great Freres would say, a lot of people think this is my best work, but it's not the style I use currently. I was 26 when I did that, and I've learned a lot since then. Of all the pieces I've done, I get a lot of kudos for this piece. There you go. Again, artists, right? They're always like these weird perfectionists that can't help it. They just need to, you know, find ways to improve their art. No, don't touch it. Don't touch it. It's perfect. The back glass, in fact, let's go back again. Greg modeled for the individual on the back glass with the Polaroid. But what's interesting is he didn't bring in a fish to tie around his body and take a photo with this Polaroid. kind of the way the gentleman's arm is holding the mermaid's flipper on the back where he's dropping his knife. Well, he's holding onto it with his other arm. He was holding a coffee pot so that he could get his arm positioning just right, which is super cool. You couldn't do one of those with those K-cup pods anymore, could you? I don't know what that means. You know what a K-cup is? Those Tassimo machines? Those, like, one-cup-of-coffee machines you put it in? Oh, I don't drink coffee. I'm unfamiliar with coffee. You've just dropped out a peg for me, my friend. Actually, just the smell of coffee makes me ill. Really? Yeah, I hate it. Oh, I love coffee. Coffee, coffee, coffee. My favorite part about this play field is the lady on the top looking down into the water. It's telling the story, right, where the individual, the man has gone into the water, and she's looking over the top down in. And as you get further down the play field, it gets more congested and more scary and dark. It's so smart the way it's done. Which is almost opposite in some ways to some playfields. Yeah. It's simpler at the bottom and it gets more congested near the top. Yeah, exactly. And the man is being dragged down the out hole on the bottom. She's never going to see him again. He's a goner. Ugh. So sad. Well, if you wanted to know what the story was of what's going on. Oh, I didn't know this. There's a comic. There is another comic. This one's done by Kevin O'Connor, but the story by Greg Ferraris. You can see this on IPDB or the other link I have in the show notes, which talks about the brochures. And here is that lady and the fellow on their boat doing some scuba diving. And it has really, really cool art. Like, it is very cool. And the boat they're in is the valley. Yes. Of course it is. Boy. Will the Coast Guard arrive in time? So they are trying to kill him. Were those stories the old man spoke of just stories? Find out. Play Fathom. Oh, it's cool. Inline drop targets. Tons of fun. The only thing is the blue over time seems to kind of change to almost a greenish color. Yeah, yeah. You can see by the original flyers the color it's supposed to be. Yeah, it's a very dark, rich blue. And then in the play field pictures, it's like this green that's faded over time. Present ages, yeah. Would you buy one? No. Gameplay is number one. I have a tier system that has to pass gameplay before it gets to the next sections. And it just doesn't make it for gameplay. Not really. Like it's not for four grand. No. Yeah. I'd get an 8-ball champ instead, and I'd have the top of Fathom. Not much cheaper game. You could just color in the colors if you wanted to with a magic marker. Medusa was up next. Fantasy mythology theme. September of 81. It's a standard body. 3,250 units. You can see that we are on a downward spiral here, aren't we, Ron, when it comes to unit sales? We're on a downward trend, but they're still trying. Yeah. They're putting more and more stuff in these games. This game, they brought back zipper flippers, which they hadn't used in forever. It's actually the last game they used them, as far as I know. And you remember that little out-hole saver we talked about in Fireball 2? It's back. I can't remember what they call it in this game. They call it something. This was designed by Wally Welch and artwork by Kevin O'Connor. Who the hell is Wally Welch? Who's Wally Welch? Very little is published about Wally. He was a behind-the-scenes person. He was an engineer at Bally working on a lot of their mechanics, and he designed a few machines, Medusa being his biggest project. Sadly, you know, he's one of those people that has such a hand in all of the machines we know and we love, but they are often forgotten by time because they aren't given the credit that they deserve. He also worked at Alvin G & Co. in the mid-90s. And he's currently a design engineer at Jersey Jack Pinball. And he's worked on The Hobbit, Dialed In, Pirates, and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. How cool is that? Wow. I wouldn't have thought that. The guy designed Medusa is still kicking it around. Now, the Medusa artwork is awesome. As Medusa herself, of course, on the back glass. The snake's coming out of her. yeah medusa the mythological um person was that if you looked at her eyes you would turn to stone so so the back glasses there's stone on the outside there's there's one individual in the front with a knife who's going to kill her and to kill her you have to cut her head off he's frozen in stone there's another guy on the right who's in stone and there's a guy on the left who's turning to stone. His hands. Awesome. It's so cool. The thing is, the backless was censored. You mentioned zipper flippers, of course. Ward Pemberton would say that I always tried to get zipper flipper features in one of my games, but I never could. But yet, for some reason, Wally Welch did. Which is funny. Good job, Wally. Good job, Wally. And it had good question mark sales numbers, right? So Kevin O'Connor, I was always on to the next, on to the next project. The art, so... Originally, okay, the art. Originally it was a magic marker sketch. It was deemed too sexy, too overexposed, since the, uh, yeah, it was a specific part of her clothing. You can see on IPDB the original prototype back glass, and the clothing that Medusa was wearing was very transparent compared to the production back last. You could see how cold it was in the battle that they were having, as well as there was a little bit of tighter down on the bottom there. Yeah, we'll just say that. I didn't even notice until now, it actually says Bally on the stone arch. Yes, around the, but it's written kind of almost in a Greek lettering kind of style. Yeah, the Ballymedusa, and then it says Ballymedusa. Yeah. Kevin O'Connor says, I painted the original revealing version and then was asked to paint over the naughty bits, which truthfully, in reference to the groin area, was unintentional. It was just the way the folds in her gown turned out looking. Oh. There. There you go. That's all cleared up. That's all cleared up. So it's not a bad game. The zipper flippers are cool. Again, the art would be one of the highlights of the game. Yeah. Now, it has an upper play field, but it's a single-level game. Yeah, everyone calls it the upper play field. It's like it's not an upper play field. You can call it the upper part of the play field. It's like Zeus is sitting at the top, and he has two Zeusettes, let's say, sitting next to him. Yeah. And they're his guards, and he's playing with the universe with his hand there, and you shoot the spinner, the Gorgon spinner, and it goes right up into that top half or top third of the playfield. The zipper flippers close and you can flip around at the drop targets at the back and it has a capture hole, a Neptune's Cove on the left side. It's cool. It's very unique. It's very neat. And again, the art is the standout of this game. And a couple of features that, you know, you don't see very much, which are the shield of the gods, which is the little demon post. That's what they call it. Okay. And the zipper flippers. And the other thing about the flippers themselves, the blower flippers, the zipper flippers are the two upper flippers, but the two lower flippers, instead of using the regular flipper baths, they use translucent flipper baths with lighting underneath them. So when you flip, the whole flipper is lit up in red. Yeah, the modder of the times. I don't remember that before that. I don't remember any game having that before that. They also had the extra display they put in the center of the play field. Yeah, and that would keep track of a few things. It would keep track of how many flips your shield of the gods would have left. It would also have extended play time units from a different type of play thing, as well as your extra ball award. I mean, I don't know if that's... I guess they're trying to try something new and fancy. It doesn't do it for me. This game also has really annoying outlanes. Oh, outlanes are fine. Thing is, we need to bring back cool terms like Shield of the Gods. Yeah. I don't see that anymore. Everything had to have... Every feature had to have a name, even if it was just some... Mundane thing. Mundane thing that they used 30 zillion times. Like, no, we need a name. Yeah, it wasn't just the top left capture. It was Neptune's Cove. Yes. And it wasn't just the spinner, it was the Gorgon spinner. Come up with some really cool names for your ramps there, Elwin. Come on. Okay, so let's say Fathom's like 1A, Centaur's like 1B. It's a future sci-fi fantasy theme as October of 81. Standard body cells, 3,700 units, so a little bit of a rise in sales there. Designed by Jim Patla, probably his best design, and artwork by Paul Faris. Now, the playfield design is something else here on this one. Yep. Jim Patlis says the design was inspired by Bally's Balls a-Poppin' from 1956, which had a nine-ball trough. Yeah. Nine-ball multiball. Balls a-Poppin', which I have played, it's actually a wide-body wood rail. The name of that game makes me feel awkward. It's freaking awesome. It's one wood rail I would actually own. Just because you're blown away that this thing has, like, a nine-ball multiball or eight-ball multiball. And see if this sounds familiar to you. Basically, in this game, you build your wild ball count, which it keeps track of on the back glass. Now, again, no reels yet, so it's just like lit. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. You get it by hitting things in the play field. It increases your wild ball count. Then there's a saucer in the middle of the play field. If you hit the saucer, it'll shoot out however many balls you had in your wild ball count. So if you had like seven balls there, it'll shoot out seven balls from the left. There's actually a launcher on the left side, and it will fire the balls out, and it's insane. So that's what the whole Centaur is designed off of, even the rule base, where you're building up, except they call it orbs, you're building up your orb count, then you do one of several different things to release the orbs, and they fire out from the right side. Now, there's only 750 balls of poppin' that were actually made, So it's very much possible that not a lot of people have played Balls of Poppin', nor even at the time had ever heard of that game. So when you see something like Centaur that has almost like today's auto launcher, it's hidden under the shooter lane and it pops up. Which is a maintenance nightmare, I've been told, at least by a couple people. A good friend of mine, Pete, he had actually done a playfield swap to a new CPR Gold back in the day, and he said he would never, ever, ever do it ever again because it was that horrible. That whole mechanic, the way it sits, the way you've got to line everything up, horrible. Jim Patla, of course, the designer of the game, was recently on the Jersey Jack Pinball podcast hosted by a ghost, a man named Ken Cromwell. He would say, at the time I was doing Centaur, there was only 40 switches allowed in the game, and two colors. It was actually three colors with the red to bring the game on budget. It was something that we really had to do. But when we were doing the Marc Silk screening, every screen was X amount of dollars. So, by having only three screens of color on the game, I had more money to spend on mechanisms. so I was able to spend the money and make the game I wanted to make. So there you go. One of the major reasons it was black and white was that he needed that budget for mechanics. Because of that, he was able to help Paul Faris create probably one of the most iconic art packages in pinball history. Now, it has these really cool attract mode features, right? It actually walks you through the rules of the game if you hit the flipper buttons. It'll go through all, everything's feature Orb feature Guardian feature Bonus feature And the voice It uses what they call the say it again board It's basically a reverb board Yeah, it sort of has like an echoey noise to it The sound is absolutely insane It's very cool It seems like the game is from another era Like it's far ahead of its time When you play this thing With the five ball multiball the crazy sound. Around this 1980s ballet, there was, like, the guy that did the voice, and it was always the same individual. But this one doesn't. If it is the same person that did that voice, they were able to modify it in a way that it doesn't sound like that person at all. And the art is ridiculous. The back glass you have. Ridiculous. He's centaur, but instead of part man, part horse, he's part man, part motorcycle, because that's far cooler. He's like a man-bear-pig motorcycle. Yeah. And his girlfriend's there who has, like, bug eyes. Yeah. So they had to make the game stand out, and to get your attention, they wanted to do something totally different. And that's this black-and-white Mad Max-style art. And, of course, it was quite controversial at the time, but it certainly got a lot of plays. They really ended up jolting people and shocking them into playing the pinball game over the video games at the time. So pinball was growing year over year, and now pinball was starting to struggle. So this is the ideas that they were bringing to the table. Let's really start kind of jolting people, getting them to play the game. Paul Faris says you kick ideas around in the factory, a biomechanical parallel universe, like the H.R. Giger space invader influence. The woman was insect-like, light-sensitive biomechanical implant for her eyes. What? This is what goes on in Paul Faris' book. Oh, my God. The man was a motorcycle. You create a mythology and draw to that story. And they use the four-color process, which is kind of funny, even though there's only three colors blended in with grays and reds. So, you know, they're still there. There's some really cool stuff going on in this. Like, in the back glass, you've got, like, the pig guy that's ripped, and he's the front of the motorcycle where like the handlebars are and the girlfriend all in like leather um with like a some sort of fur shawl on and but his legs so the guy has like horse legs on the back but there's still wheels for the motorcycle and then the orbs are sitting in the front there's like five orbs sitting on the play field it's got studs all around it right like these metal button studs all around the back glass yeah the artwork was so good that lady gaga used it for an album yeah she has an album that is very obviously inspired by this back glass oh man one thing that is i would say good but kind of a disappointment as well is that it has inline drop targets on the left side so there's like a captive ball that you can smash and it'll go up and hit down drop targets there's uh there's four of them in a row and then there's like a another target at the top of that. That's where you get your special. And it was the captive ball feature, I think is what it's called, right? I don't know. I think if that were inline drops without the captive ball, I think this game would be just so much better. What do you think? I'd go with that. It's good that they didn't just recycle inline drops like they have been for every game we've talked about over the last two podcasts. But at the same time, it's like there's a reason why they kept using it, because it was awesome. And they had a patent on it. Yeah. No one else could use it. The other thing is in the middle, and you spell orbs, so if you spell O-R-B-S in order. Instant multiball. Right out of the gate. But if you screw that up and you hit the or or the or, the R, the B, or the S first, you're not, you know, it's going to have, you're going to have to get them all down and reset it and then you're not going to get instant multiball again. It's also one of the first games I can remember that actually had, inlanes you could change the lights. Yeah. You could move the lights around on the inlanes. And it has a magnet in the upper right. Yeah. Yeah, I really like it. Now, this has different in-lane and out-lanes, but there's still a return lane in the middle, and you can save it from the out-lane, which I'm good with. I'm okay with it. I love Viking. Yes. Same method. And black flipper bats to match with the entire everything. Yeah, black apron. So cool. At the bottom, there's this woman, like, sitting on her legs, like, with her feet out, and she's raising up an orb in the middle to release the power orbs. This is awesome. So awesome. That's why it's so expensive. Another one that is just... Again, artwork is a huge part of that. They were able to get enough gameplay to be unique and cool, art that is just stellar and out of the ordinary, and a couple of features in there that just stand right out. And because they got eight across the board, well, let's say art is a 10, you know playfields like an eight there's no oh man if you know the the gameplay is horrible but the art is amazing or the or the gameplay is the greatest game i've ever played but the art is the worst they were able to get it high enough on each piece now would you want a fathom or would you want a centaur i take centaur over fathom if i had to pick one or the other i think i would too i really really would. There's some original playfield artwork on IPDB that's done by Paul Faris. Well, Ron, that brings us to the last game of 1981, Electra. Electra Claude Fernandez again. Yes. I don't need to see the notes on that one. That's a big meh for me. Man, just anti-Claude. Poor Claude. This is a three-level design, because two are not enough. And one of the levels will never ever have playfield wear. Why is that? Because it's actually covered with a surface. It's like plexiglass. Oh. Actually, it might stay in the IPDB when it actually is. I think it's like plexi. So this is from December of 1981. Sells 2,950 units. It's a fantasy theme. Art by Tony Ramuni. And it's packed. And, again, this looks very much like his previous game. It's got his sort of style to it. It's very soft and cartoon as opposed to sort of very serious or European style like a Dave Christensen. It's very embryonic. Yeah. And, again, it's another one of those, like, what exactly is this? What is Electra? What does this mean? There's different, what is it, time units? There's a lot of units going on. It has two-ball, three-ball, multiball. It has speech. It has an extra display in the play field. It has three levels. It is just packed to the gills. Is it fun to play? It's an interesting game. Would you rather play this or Flash Gordon? Flash Gordon. Yeah, me too. But this is a very interesting game. The scoring is kind of skewed because you want to get to the lower play field. That's where all the points are. So you want to try to get as many time units as you can so you can get down to the lower play field. The artwork again, just like Embryo, we've got a lot of faces going on. I don't really know what the story is. I wonder if the flyer explains what world we're in. Does the flyer say what happens in the world of Elektra? There's two pages of just art. Pictures, yes, and crystals of some kind. A three-level electrifying experience. So we're going to plug the three levels. So this would have been, this is probably a before Haunted House. Yes. So they beat Gottlieb there, but it has all these great features. You can see that they noticed that things were starting to kind of trend downward. They were throwing everything at it. Yeah, we went from things like Strikes and Spares selling 12,000, almost 13,000 units, Kiss selling 15, Star Trek selling 16. Like, at this time, a myth was like Rolling Stones or Mystic, and then it just starts kind of slowing down, and then Xenon, Flash Gordon gets a good bump, 8-Ball gets a good bump, and then it starts to come back down again real slow. Damn video games. Yeah. This is the end of 1981, and can we keep trying to shove stuff out and seeing what we can get? Well, there's really only one more after this. Only one more that matters. What do we got, Elektra? So after this, they do Vector. Yeah. Vector was kind of their last attempt that we're going all out. We're putting everything in this game. Everything in this game. It was an experiment because I believe they had multi, it was multi-designed. Yeah. Like a team effort. It was from February of 82. To save pinball from video games. So it has crazy art package. It's totally unique. Greg Freres. They created this new sport. I don't know if the sport's called Vector, but it's some kind of weird, I don't even know. They're like on kind of motorcycle. I can't even explain it. That's how great it is. You can't even explain. You have to see the artwork. What's that sport where you throw the ball? High lie? High lie. It's like high lie. They're on a, it's like a Segway, a single tired Segway. So here we go. We got the infinity back glass lighting going on. Two back glasses. We have bi-level play field because one isn't enough. We have multiball, speech, and then we have the extra display in the middle of the game. We have a feature where it times you. You hit this one orbit shot, and if you do it fast enough, it'll keep track of your time, and if someone else beats it, it'll go, new vector record. So how does it track the speed, or is that just BS? No, it does. It detects when you enter the orbit and then when it goes to the end of the orbit. And there's a timer on the little mini display in the center of the play show. Which they must have taken from what they had in Medusa? Or it's probably just a standard six-inch display. Okay. But it's packed to the gills. They have levels of drop targets. To get up the left orbit, you have to knock down, like, three targets and then three more. They're, like, in a row. they're like there's three in a row and then another three in a row behind it they just went all out it has saucers on the outland so if you bounce it you can get in the saucer and it'll save your ball it has everything if you lift the playfield up on this thing it's got so much crap in it it's insane and this really was their last effort to try to compete with the video game so we're going to throw everything at this We've got to innovate. We've got to do it all. And since it's the art episode, the art is excellent. As in all these valleys, there's no downturn on the art. It's still top notch. It's weird. It's weird, but weird is good. But it has, I mean, really all out. You hit the left orbit, it goes into the saucers on the right, which I don't think Dave's ever seen this game. Are you familiar with Circus Voltaire? Yes. You know the juggler when you hit it on the left and it goes in the saucer and it bounces it to another saucer and it bounces it to another saucer? Yeah, very cool. That's what this does. on the right side. So there was one of these for sale not too far from me, and I was like, oh, that looks kind of neat. But then I'm like, I'm not really into Hi-Li. Future Hi-Li. But it is packed. It didn't really sell. Is it fun? No. So it's kind of like 10 pounds of crap in a 5-pound bag. It's unique. You really try to get the multiball started, and you think something cool is going to happen. Like, for example, on Centaur, Anytime you start multiball, it, like, flashes the GI and says it. And, like, pulses. Yeah, this thing just says, what does it say? It says, like, one line and just starts releasing balls. And I was just so, like, let down. Like, that is so lame. I thought something super cool was going to happen. Yeah, they didn't get it like Williams where it was like an. No, they never got it like Williams. No one, only Williams understood the beginning of multiball should be the super cool event. But, you know, Dave's looking at some of the pictures here, the multi-layered back glass. After this, they basically did, they started doing the, well, they did the Mr. and Mrs. Pac-Man pinball, like the combo pinball. That actually sold 10,000 units. So they actually, they had one little last try there. but then they used the leftover cabinets actually I think they had that rapid fire which was the rip off of Hyperball which sold which they made $5,000 of but they had so many Hyperball, they had so many rapid fire cabinets just like Williams reused the Hyperball cabinets, they reused them for their limited edition series, the 8 ball deluxe limited edition and the Centaur limited edition yes, Centaur 2 And they, since R2, they called it. Because the sequel is always better. Yep. And Spectrum literally was, we have leftover parts. We don't care if this sells. What kind of weird game can we make? And that's what they did. Literally, that's what they did. We have leftover parts. We don't care if this doesn't sell that much. We're going to make this game. So they made a game based on masterminds. Now, Margaret Hudson would say that this is her real 100%. She came up with the theme, the ideas, and everything. You can tell when you look at it that it is super cool. It's based on Masterminds. If you don't know, I get confused playing this thing. And it's super detailed, the art, even on the play field. You can tell it's Margaret Hudson because it's so perfect. The faces on the play field, the transistors. You've ever wondered what people would do? It's like, we don't care if this makes any money. Just make whatever you want. We have these leftover parts. This is what Bally decided. This is what we're doing. Man. Yep. In Spectrum, it's got, yeah, there's even little diodes on the play field, like all these little intricate. So that was kind of the end of the Bally story. Yeah, the Bally manufacturing. They would eventually, I think they would change their name at some point. It would become Bally Midway. Bally Midway. BMX was the last game I think they had that actually had the pure ballet. Yeah. But most of those artists would still be there and stick around all through the 80s. Yeah, they didn't go very far. Now, they would start sort of paring down the production teams. They would move into Bally Midway, where they would more or less come into the midway. The video more or less ran them. They would develop that new Bally Midway cabinet and boards. Yeah. Yeah, they had the new board set with the keypad that everyone loves. Everything would get cheapened down. The squawk and talk became the cheap squawk. You'll notice, like, after Vector, it's like either the game is going to have multiball and not talk, or maybe it'll talk but not have multiball but not both. Yeah. Just because of cost. And then it would eventually become Bally Midway Williams. Eventually they started kind of coming back. Well, the whole pinball started coming back after high speed around that area. So they started making some of the really crazy games, like Lost World, Blackwater 100. Yeah, you can really tell. All the plastic in it. And then they got bought by Williams. And a lot of the crew that we see here, Great Ferraris, Warp Hemberton, these guys, they would transition on over to Williams. It was an interesting time because we went on this rocket ship ride, right, in the late 70s to the 80s, just nonstop upward motion, and then sort of a little bit of a faltering and then a slow come down. And then by 1983, 84, you know, things were in trouble, big time trouble. It was interesting to see when you put the money and the dollars and the experience behind it, the things that you were able to pull out. And the ballet class of 81, I think, is a prime example of that. Paul Faris would say, one of the wonderful things of doing pinball art was when I was traveling in Europe and I walked into a bistro in Paris and there was my artwork on a machine. It was very overwhelming at first. Yeah, your art is everywhere, right? So if you paint a famous painting, it's locked up somewhere or it's in a gallery or it's online in just a photo, you don't get to see it or experience it. Well, if you're a pinball artist, it's in people's houses everywhere. People experience that all the time. I think one of the reasons Valley Art Team was able to soar to such high highs was that everyone on that team was so close. The creativity was able to flourish, and everybody wanted to dream and draw what they wanted to do. Greg Freres would say, we all stayed lifelong friends. Kevin O'Connor, Pat McMahon, Margaret Hudson, Paul Faris. This was the best fraternity I could ever be in. Jim, anything else you want to say, Ron, to sum it up here at the end? Art rules. Yeah. I think you'll find Stern figured that out somewhere around Metallica, that maybe we shouldn't Photoshop everything and art could actually sell games. it has sold games for them. I mean, the artists now are known as much as the programmers and the designers are. Yeah, you basically just have to say something like Christopher Fanchi or Zombie Yeti and people immediately go like, huh? What? Or Dirty Donnie. Hopefully he comes back. I'll tell you what. Next month, Ron, we're working on something. We're going to go to one of those designers that I really, really enjoy, but we're going to leave that for everybody else to figure out. Ah. Well, as always. Oh, hold on. What? Stewie? Okay. Stewie wants to do this. Are you sure? Can we afford him? Yeah, I'll let him do it. I'll let him do it. Hold on. Stewie, get over here. Yeah, thank you. As always, we refer your comments, questions, corrections, and concerns to fillablechronicles at gmail.com. We look forward to all your messages, and we read every one. What? That's it? You're not going to do the whole thing? Okay, he's walking away. All right. please subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, or your favorite podcaster. Turn on automatic download so you don't miss a single episode. Wait a second. You won't read the rest of it? You'll only read the first? Yeah, I don't care. He usually reads the whole thing. He's becoming a diva, I think. This is all going to his head. This is what happens. This is what happens when you're on CPN. Remember to leave us a five-star review wherever you found us or on this week in Pinball Promoter Database. That way more people can find us. Want to support the podcast? Need a new shirt? Well, swing on over to silverballswag.com and pick up a Silver Ball Chronicles t-shirt to help us keep the lights on. It's got music and sound by an individual named Suzanne Chianti. S***. It's not how you say it. No, there's no T there. Oh, no, I listened to this a bunch of times just so I could get it right. Shiani. Shiani. S***. I specifically went out of my way to make sure I didn't screw this name up, but I still did it. S***. 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