Pinball In Allentown

It's unfortunately going to have to go on without the Mackey Bros. this year, but the annual Pinball Wizards Convention is underway in Allentown, PA, at the Agri-Plex. Go there and play all the pinball you can.

TILT

Bob Sassone of TV Squad discusses "The Magnificent Marble Machine" and links to a YouTube presentation of what is possibly the only existing episode of the short-lived 1976 series.

Sassone gives all the facts correctly. The program was a concoction of the Merrill Heatter-Bob Quigley production company, which had greater successess with stuff like "High Rollers" and "The Hollywood Squares".

At the time of the show, pinball was ruling the arcades, with Gottlieb (Surfer, Bank Shot, Buccaneer), Williams (Space Mission, Aztec), Bally (Black Jack, Night Rider, Old Chicago) and Chicago Coin (Cinema, Sound Stage) putting oustanding product on location. (Of those four companies, only Chicago Coin still is in the pin biz under the name Stern.)

So why didn't this game show work? Because of its size, the machine action is very clunky, and the camera angles favored by director Jerome Shaw did little to enhance the action. Celebrities included the likes of Florence Henderson, Gary Burghoff, Leslie Uggams, Earl Holliman... you know the type. And one wonders if host Art James was aware of the absurdity of the whole exercise and just played along because he was such a pro.

The one thing that was improved about the show since this episode - which I believe was the fourth episode produced - was that music man Mort Garson eventually came up with more cues for the front-game ticker. And I do believe that NBC eventually demanded the show convert to an all-star format, which proved that the network didn't learn their lesson from tinkering with "Baffle" in the same way several years earlier.

Pinball in Allentown This Weekend!

If you love the pin and ball as do the Mackey Bros., check out the Pinball Wizards Convention this weekend at the Agri-Plex, in Allentown, PA. We'll be there Saturday; any more time spent there and my wife would have my head. It's $15 a day to get in, and you can play pinball all day for free. Our hands are usually aching by 5 or 6 p.m., but it's a happy day well spent (and afterwards, we eat at the Waffle House off the Interstate, which is the nearest one to my house). It's also a great place to buy or sell your machine. We are planning on bringing my three machines next year, all Gottliebs: Mayfair (1966), Roller Coaster (1971), and Spin Out (1975).

The Mayfair was a machine I picked up last October intending it to be a surprise Christmas gift for my wife and stepdaughters, but lack of suitable space in the house nixed that idea, so the machine is currently in storage. I won it on an eBay auction for $200, priced low because it wasn't working. (It turns out the guy I bought it from is employed by the same school system I teach in, as a bus driver.) Within a day or two of bringing it to my old house, I had the thing running again. I put about $200 worth of new parts on it, including new rubbers and some new lane guides, and it looks and plays like a champ. The playfield on this one is in outstanding shape. Roller Coaster and Spin Out were purchased in the late 1980's-early 1990's and were on location in arcades near me - the Roller Coaster was at the old Palace Amusements in Asbury Park, while the Spin Out was purchased from Buccaneer Bill's arcade in Lavalette. They haven't been set up lately, so I'm just wondering what they're going to do once under power again.

Good Sunday Morning

Good Sunday Morning. As you can see, not only does the counter work (thanks to "recalculate hyperlinks"), but we now have funky digits. They look very familiar to anyone who grew up in the 1960s and visited arcades, for the digits are from the original D. Gottlieb & Co. pinball score counter readouts. I didn't have a clean copy of the digits (I don't own a machine of that vintage, just a couple of more recent ones), so I cobbled them together from graphics of game backglasses on the Web.

The number on the counter now represents all versions of www.davemackey.com since the site's inception in 1995.

We have also fixed the problem with the Nova Bus serial numbers. Buses 1216-1226 were the culprit. The corrected serials are as follows:

1215: XR834161
1216-1226: XR834333-834343

Again thanks to Fred McGullam for catching the error.

Oh, unabashed plug time again. Tuesday I went to NYC with Robair to catch a taping of "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire" and I have determined that every time I go to New York, I must always stop at The Manhattan Chili Company for a bowl of their Number One topped with cheese and jalapenos. The Manhattan Chili Company is on Broadway right next to the Ed Sullivan Theatre. In fact, it occupies the space previously held by Sullivan's Restaurant, a noble concept but ultimately a colossal failure. Stop in before or after the Big Show and tell em Dave sent you. (Just don't tell them which Dave. It'll sound more impressive.)

Other NY Impressions: 42nd Street really looks nice all fixed up with great looking facades and exciting new businesses. Eighth Avenue is still a sin wallow, however, and should be the next target of the city fathers. And how weird is it walking past the Winter Garden Theater and not seeing the familiar marquee for "Cats" after all these years?