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Episode 348 - 1962 Gottlieb Tropic Isle and 1963 Bally Moon Shot

For Amusement Only EM and Bingo Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·10m 10s·analyzed·Feb 22, 2016
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.019

TL;DR

Tropic Isle (1962) and Moon Shot (1963) compared—Moon Shot as direct clone.

Summary

Nicholas Baldridge analyzes two classic early-1960s electromechanical pinball games: Gottlieb's 1962 Tropic Isle and Bally's 1963 Moon Shot. Baldridge reveals that Moon Shot was essentially a direct clone of Tropic Isle playfield layout and point values, designed by Ted Zale as his first game for Bally during the company's strategic pivot back to flipper machines after years focused on bingo production. The episode details the gameplay mechanics of both machines and discusses Bally's engineering innovations highlighted in Moon Shot promotional materials.

Key Claims

  • Moon Shot (1963) was a carbon copy of Tropic Isle (1962) in terms of point values and playfield layout

    high confidence · Nicholas Baldridge, episode host, stating 'his first effort as a designer was actually a straight-up carbon copy of Tropic Isle. Everything from the point values to playfield layout was exactly cloned'

  • Ted Zale designed Moon Shot as his first effort as a pinball designer for Bally

    high confidence · Nicholas Baldridge describing Ted Zale role in Moon Shot development

  • Wayne Neyens designed Tropic Isle and Roy Parker was the artist

    high confidence · Nicholas Baldridge crediting designers and artist on Tropic Isle

  • Bally had been focusing on bingo production for years and decided to refocus on flipper games in the U.S. market due to changing legal climate in 1963

    high confidence · Nicholas Baldridge explaining Bally's business pivot: 'they really decided to refocus on their flipper business in the States'

  • Bally's floating armature design was transferred from their bingo machines to their flipper games for improved relay performance

    high confidence · Nicholas Baldridge discussing Bally's engineering innovations in Moon Shot flyer: 'Bally novelty relays are actuated by the famous Bally floating armature, developed and perfected for the heavy-duty precision performance required in bingo operation'

Notable Quotes

  • “his first effort as a designer was actually a straight-up carbon copy of Tropic Isle. Everything from the point values to playfield layout was exactly cloned”

    Nicholas Baldridge @ ~08:30 — Directly reveals that Moon Shot was a complete mechanical and point-value clone of Tropic Isle, establishing the relationship between the two games

  • “Well, if you're going to copy, you should copy from the best, and that's the market leader here at the time, Gottlieb”

    Nicholas Baldridge @ ~23:45 — Provides context and justification for why Bally would clone Gottlieb's design, positioning it as copying from market leader

  • “Bally novelty relays are actuated by the famous Bally floating armature, developed and perfected for the heavy-duty precision performance required in bingo operation”

    Nicholas Baldridge (reading Moon Shot flyer) @ ~14:15 — Demonstrates Bally's marketing pitch for engineering innovations carried over from their bingo machines to flipper games

  • “Remember, in 1963, Bounty, the next-to-last magic screen, had been produced, but they had trouble selling it in the United States because of the legal climate”

    Nicholas Baldridge @ ~06:30 — Provides legal/regulatory context for why Bally pivoted away from bingo machines to flipper games

  • “The nylon gears, as long as the operator didn't throw a bunch of grease on them to lube them up, are pretty trouble-free, and they don't tend to wear very badly”

    Nicholas Baldridge @ ~18:00 — Technical commentary on Bally's nylon ratchet design choice versus metal ratchets used by competitors

Entities

GottliebcompanyBallycompanyNicholas BaldridgepersonWayne NeyenspersonRoy ParkerpersonTed ZalepersonTropic IslegameMoon Shotgame

Signals

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Bally's engineering strategy of transferring proven bingo machine components (floating armature relays, nylon ratchets, 50-volt circuits, gravity-pull trip relays) to flipper game design, positioning their technology as superior through bingo-proven reliability

    high · Moon Shot flyer explicitly marketed these features as carrying over bingo-tested engineering: 'Bally novelty relays are actuated by the famous Bally floating armature, developed and perfected for the heavy-duty precision performance required in bingo operation'

  • ?

    business_signal: Bally's shift from bingo-focused manufacturing back to flipper games in U.S. market due to changing legal climate, signaling regulatory pressure on bingo machines and business model adaptation

    high · Nicholas Baldridge explains: 'Bally...had been building bingos and selling them by the truckload...the legal climate starts to change...they really decided to refocus on their flipper business in the States'

  • ?

    historical_signal: Evidence that direct mechanical cloning of successful competitor games was an accepted industry practice in early EM era; Bally cloned Gottlieb's market-leading design as market re-entry strategy

    high · Ted Zale's first design effort was 'a straight-up carbon copy of Tropic Isle. Everything from the point values to playfield layout was exactly cloned' with only theme/artwork differentiation

  • ?

    product_strategy: Moon Shot and Tropic Isle demonstrate manufacturer strategy of using identical mechanics but completely different artistic themes (island monkeys vs. space astronauts) and back glass animations to create differentiation

    high · Same playfield layout and point values, but 'completely different artwork as well as a different back glass animation' with monkeys climbing tree on Tropic Isle vs. rockets launching to moon on Moon Shot

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.030

0:00
What's that sound? It's For Amusement Only, the EM and Bingo Pinball Podcast. Welcome back to For Amusement Only, this is Nick Baldridge. Tonight I want to talk about two very different, yet very similar games. We'll start with 1962, when Gottlieb put out a game called Tropic Isle. Tropic Isle is a game about mischievous monkeys who are throwing coconuts and disturbing birds and women that are hanging out on the island well, this game has a unique triple roll-under arrangement where right in the center of the playfield below the pops, which are arranged in a fan up above, you can roll the ball around these three swinging gates, and each one scores five points when you swing through it. Well, if you manage to complete A, B, C, and D, the sequence on the machine, then it'll light the roll-unders for 50 points, which is quite the jump. So it's well worth your time to attempt to do that. Now, down in the lower third of the playfield, there's a rollover button on the left, which will light the two purple bumpers for 10 points apiece instead of a single.
1:41
And on the right-hand side, there's a rollover that lights your green bumpers, again, for 10 points apiece instead of a single.
1:51
Your slings are a single point. unless you light them, in which case they become 10 points. And then you have a sequence at the top, 1 through 5. If you complete the entire sequence, it will light special on the playfield, and you can collect either by draining directly in the center, or on the left and right outlanes, which normally score 50 points apiece. The back glass has a cool back glass animation There is a set of monkeys that climbs a palm tree Now in order to make them climb and reach the top you have to hit A B C and D If you do so several times, then you'll earn a special. The more you do it, the more specials you earn.
2:50
Bounty
game
Williamscompany
For Amusement Onlyorganization
  • ?

    design_innovation: Bally's use of metal bumper skirts to reduce replacement labor, though with trade-off risk of ball/playfield damage if metal deforms

    medium · Nicholas Baldridge notes this innovation in Moon Shot flyer as way to reduce bumper service: 'rather than having to disassemble the entire bumper to replace the skirt, you just make it out of metal'

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: Bally's promotion of unitized flipper assembly for easier field service and replacement, suggesting standardization approach to machine maintenance

    medium · Moon Shot flyer highlighted 'unitized construction' with flipper assembly that 'you can just swap out the whole assembly and you don't have to mess around with pieces and parts'

  • ?

    regulatory_signal: Bally's difficulty selling Bounty (last magic screen bingo) in U.S. market in 1963 due to legal climate, forcing strategic retreat from bingo to flipper focus in domestic market

    high · Nicholas Baldridge: 'in 1963, Bounty...had been produced, but they had trouble selling it in the United States because of the legal climate'

  • ?

    historical_signal: Gottlieb's position as market leader in flipper games by 1962-1963, with Bally entering as follower using direct design cloning to rapidly re-establish flipper game competence

    high · Nicholas Baldridge: 'if you're going to copy, you should copy from the best, and that's the market leader here at the time, Gottlieb'

    • So it's well worth your time to shoot that sequence. But it's fairly difficult. that main feature right in the center of the play field it's pretty easy to brick a shot right off of one of the posts and drain but all in all this is a very fun game Wayne Nions was the designer and Roy Parker was the artist and so you kind of know what you're getting into there you've got the classic duo and great gameplay well Well, Bally, in 1963, really hadn't put much money into flipper games for quite some time. If you'll recall, they had been building bingos and selling them by the truckload. They were just selling tons of bingos at the time.
    3:44
    So, what happens when the legal climate starts to change? It kind of changes your opinion of what you're going to manufacture. And this happened for Bally too. And so they really decided to refocus on their flipper business in the States and work on bingos for export until they could figure out a friendly way to get those into the U.S. market. Remember, in 1963, Bounty, the next-to-last magic screen, had been produced, but they had trouble selling it in the United States because of the legal climate.
    4:25
    And so they brought in designer Ted Zale. And Ted Zale, I've talked about before on the podcast, he designed many of Bally's unique and interesting features on their EM machines.
    4:40
    But his first effort as a designer was actually a straight-up carbon copy of Tropic Isle. Everything from the point values to playfield layout was exactly cloned Valley game was called Moonshot and of course had completely different artwork as well as a different back glass animation You have a space game with female astronauts all over the playfield and one male astronaut down at the out hole.
    5:18
    What's interesting is the back glass animation feature, as it is on Tropic Isle, it carries over from game to game. So once you get all the monkeys to the top of the tree, then you earn your replays on Tropic Isle. While on Moonshot, it's rockets, and you're launching them to the moon. And once you get all three there, you earn replays. Let's take a look at the flyer for Moonshot and see what Bally thinks makes this such a great game.
    5:47
    Remember, this is the first flipper game that they've made in some number of years. So the first bullet point is unitized construction. and they show a flipper assembly, and they say that essentially you can just swap out the whole assembly and you don't have to mess around with pieces and parts.
    6:06
    Of course, that probably wasn't true because the assemblies probably cost a whole lot more than the pieces and parts, but hey, at least they were thinking, right?
    6:16
    50-volt circuit, so very similar to the bingos where almost everything is driven by 50 volts. You have all your coils driven by 50 volts in this flipper game.
    6:31
    Heavy gauge wire. Apparently they used a heavier gauge wire than had been used in the past or perhaps used by Gottlieb.
    6:43
    Metal bumper skirts. This is interesting. I don't know that I've seen original Bally metal bumper skirts before. If I have, I did not notice.
    6:57
    But that's an interesting idea. The thought being that your bumper skirts break, of course, over time, being plastic and hit by a big metal ball. And so rather than having to disassemble the entire bumper to replace the skirt, you just make it out of metal and then it can take a lot more abuse. Well, of course, the issue is, as that metal deforms, you got a much bigger problem because it's going to nick up your ball which will then nick up your playfield pretty quickly. Nylon ratchets. This is something that I actually like quite a bit about Bally machines They are instead of metal ratchets on the back of the stepper units they use nylon, and the nylon gears, as long as the operator didn't throw a bunch of grease on them to lube them up, are pretty trouble-free, and they don't tend to wear very badly. The metal ratchets, as used on Williams games and some Gottlieb games, do sometimes wear. Sometimes teeth break and so forth. And of course that can happen on the nylon ones too. It's just less likely to do so. Floating armature. This one's pretty interesting. And they reference our old friends, the bingos.
    8:19
    Bally novelty relays are actuated by the famous Bally floating armature, developed and perfected for the heavy-duty precision performance required in bingo operation. Lateral action and valley floating armature equally actuates every switch leaf in a relay, eliminating the frequent touchy adjustment required in relays actuated by pivot-type armatures.
    8:39
    And these are just the same type of armature plates that they used in the bingos. Time-tested trip relays. Now, the trip relays used in these games were very similar to the bingos, and of course they're referenced here, too. Trip relays in Bally novelty games are the positive action type proved in hundreds of thousands of busy Bally bingo games.
    9:04
    So rather than having to pull up, these relays use gravity and pull down. And I believe that's what they're saying. I've certainly seen the opposite from other manufacturers.
    9:17
    So this is pretty interesting. Like I say, Ted Zales' first game, and it's essentially just a carbon copy of a Wayne Nions game from the year before. Of course, if you're going to copy, you should copy from the best, and that's the market leader here at the time, Godley. Well, that's all for tonight. Thank you very much for joining me. My name again is Nick Baldrige. You can reach me at 4amusementonlypodcast at gmail.com, or you can call me on the bingos line. That's 724-BINGOS1, 724-246-4671. you can listen to us on iTunes, Stitcher, Pocket Casts via RSS, on Facebook, on Twitter at Bingo Podcast you can follow me on Instagram also at Bingo Podcast or you can listen to us on our website which is forumusementonly.libsyn.com thank you very much for listening and I'll talk to you next time