The Shouting Grasshopper: THERE HAS TO BE A TWIST

Monday, August 9, 2010

THERE HAS TO BE A TWIST

Slide show images: Pacific Pinball Museum

Soundtrack : Uno Hoo -- Irvine 2002
NB: song sync sux @ end :(

5 comments:

Parm said...: Oh, very nice! I presume that all the images are DC originals, true?

Saw some old memories there but many I'd never seen before, too. Wish a few more shots of the KISS machine were included (talk about natural subject matter for a cartoonish offering).

Did they have the infamous Playboy-themed machine?

This all gets one to thinking about pinball machines that SHOULD have been made! The AC/DC "Big Balls" machine (with oversized bearings, of course)! And every time the ball hits a particular bumper, it sounds the cannon from For Those About to Rock! Or how about a Harry Potter machine (the ball could be the Golden Snitch and a little motorized Harry keeps swooping down to try and grab it out of play)? Or the Jacques Cousteau model (various sea creatures doing this and that, and sometimes an octopus squirts "ink" and the entire field of view is momentarily blacked out while the ball continues to bounce around)?

You know what would be cool??? A 1 or 2 week program one could attend where you design and customize and build your very own pinball machine! WAY better than a baseball fantasy camp!

Thanks, TSG, for stirring up the imagination!; August 10, 2010 at 10:26 AM
Willy B. said...: Wait a minute...there was a KISS pinball machine in that slide show? Where? What's the timestamp on the image that you're talking about?

Inquiring minds want to know. (That IS our motto here, after all...)

p.s. I didn't see any "Playboy-themed" pinball machines. But, as the pictures show, the female form is widely used in pinball art. The museum's collection has many fine examples of pinball-girl art. By the way, I have to say my favorite machines were The Creature From The Black Lagoon and Cactus Jack's (the one with the dancing saguaros...I mean, how can anyone resist a dancing saguaro?; August 12, 2010 at 6:09 PM
Parm said...: Hmmm. Well, the image that I took for "KISS" appears around 1:18, but upon freezing the frame, I see I am mistaken. There IS a KISS-themed pinball machine, however, and is quite excellent in its over-the-top graphics.

And, yes, the female form is well represented, if not well represented, in pinball machine art.

I do agree that that Creature From the Black Lagoon machine was cool! I do not recall ever having seen that one before. Does it date back to when the movie was new? Or is this some well-after-the-fact offering?; August 13, 2010 at 8:53 PM
Mister Biscuit 2u said...: Speaking of KISS, did you know that I have a mint-condition copy of KISS COMICS #1? It's the one with real KISS blood in the red ink! And, no, that's not an urban legend, by the way. (Hey, if snopes says it's true, that's good enough for me!)

The Creature pinball museum was probably from the 90s, I guess. It was right next to the Indiana Jones machine--which was out of order, unfortunately. The Indy machine featured miniature vintage airplanes that somehow flew over the pinball playing area. Also adding to the cool factor were the flipper actuators, mounted in the triggers of Smith & Wesson pistols on either side of the machine.; August 14, 2010 at 7:24 PM
parm said...: KISS # 1. Very good!

Tell me, was there a KISS # 2?

Just kidding. Actually, I remember reading that comic! Wasn't it something about a carnival or park or something like that? Perhaps it wasn't #1 I read.

Wouldn't it be cool if the Indy machine had a whip-like thing that sometimes snapped out into the gameplay area???; August 17, 2010 at 6:32 AM