arborelia

Silver Ball Century ep. 59 - Late 1990 - Silly Season

Tables in this episode: Dr. Dude, The Simpsons, Title Fight, Funhouse, Bugs Bunny's Birthday Ball

It's striking that, of the five tables we'll see in this episode, the one that would be most seriously considered for use in a pinball tournament is the one where the animatronic puppet head calls you names. All of these machines are very silly in one way or another.

Dr. Dude and His Excellent Ray is a sneaky entry in Dennis Nordman's "party" series, following Party Animal and Elvira and the Party Monsters. Its theme describes finding your way from being a boring nerd to being a "party dude" with the aid of Dr. Dude's machinery of masculinity, so, uh, it's a deeply off-putting theme to many folks I know. On the other hand, for transmasc people, I hear it kind of hits.

The Simpsons get their first pinball table the same year that they get their first season. They don't even realize Homer is the protagonist yet! This is a Data East shoot-the-ramp table with some good cartoon sound effects.

Title Fight is another Gottlieb street-level jank-fest that brings back the "several mini-playfields" style that they pursued in the 80s.

FunHouse is the standout classic of the episode, featuring Rudy, the sassy puppet head who yells at you and calls you names. In addition to wanting to progress toward multiball and the jackpot, you really just want to shove a pinball in his mouth.

Bugs Bunny's Birthday Ball is consistently one of the bottom 10 machines on pinball-ranking site PinBetween. I understand why you'd never see it in a tournament, with its extremely unbalanced and random scoring. We'll have fun with it.

Silver Ball Century goes live at 8:30pm Eastern, on Thursday, May 28, on twitch.tv/arborelia.

Tables in this episode

#pinball #silver ball century