Silver Ball Century ep. 8 - 1966 - It's Time for Capers
It's 1966 in pinball. Another big-name pinball designer, Ed Krynski, is on the scene. But to me the most defining thing about this year is the art of Jerry Kelley:
If you think of what '60s pinball looks like, the first thing you probably think of is the "wedge heads" on Gottlieb machines, but possibly the second thing you think of is the bold cubist artwork of Jerry Kelley, who did art for Bally and Williams. I love it every time I see it. It reminds me somewhat of the visual style of Casino Royale - not the one with Daniel Craig, the unhinged self-parodying 1967 movie with Peter Sellers.
Speaking of 1967, I took a look at the tables I'll want to put in the 1967 episode and there were too many of them. So Gottlieb's "King of Diamonds", released in January 1967, gets to be part of the 1966 episode.
This episode will be live on twitch.tv/arborelia at 8:30pm on December 10.
Tables in this episode
Here are the downloads for the tables we see recreated in VPX this episode. (As usual, you need free accounts on VPForums and VPUniverse to be able to download, which is a bit of a pain, but it's the only community-approved way to get tables for VPX.)
- 8 Ball (Williams, 1966) - VPX by EMUnderdogs - Pinball Primer guide
- Masquerade (Gottlieb, 1966) - VPX by Ext2K. I don't know if the Pinside rankings mean anything, but this is currently their highest-rated EM. It's not Ed Krynski's first design, but the first one we'll see recreated on Silver Ball Century.
- A-Go-Go (Williams, 1966) - VPX by PinPlayer. There are a few things that are "off" about this implementation but it's such a distinctive table, including the first of many times we'll see a roulette wheel embedded in the playfield.
- Rancho (Gottlieb, 1966) - VPX by Loserman76. You see another model of this machine, named Buckaroo, in the movie Pinball: The Man Who Saved the Game, because it was the first machine Roger Sharpe owned.
- Cross Town (Gottlieb, 1966) - VPX by bord. The same movie used this machine a lot in a montage.
- Hot Line (Williams, 1966) - VPX by SG1bsoN
- Capersville (Bally, 1966) - VPX by Scottacus. The second game ever to have ball locks for multiball, and it has two different multiballs. Pinball Primer guide
- King of Diamonds (Gottlieb, 1967) - VPX by EMUnderdogs