FOR IMPORT ONLY: chapter 2

From "Hula Hula" to "Sea Side"

1966: the situation is evolving. Someone notes that winning five or more balls is equivalent to the winning of a replay, and so the government re-examines the situation and changes the text of the law, and the way pinballs must be operated. One could argue that at that time the Italian government thought it had nothing better to do! ;-)

The biggest change from the former situation was the notion that, if you can win five or more balls, it's the same as if you win a replay: so, there should be _no_ prize in pinballs, including extra balls. What identifies an extra ball? First of all, the fact that you have a certain number of balls left to be played, and this number can increase (in a game where balls are counted down as played). And also, the fact that these are really extra balls, as the player can actually shoot them. If the number of balls to be played remains the same, and the player doesn't shoot more than five balls, it means that he or she really hasn't won anything.

Maybe the first to solve this new situation was Chicago Coin, introducing their new pinball "Hula Hula" (07/65). As I was telling you before - again, the same name for a different pinball. They included some changes in the backglass art -no credit drum, as usual, and also no word 'flipper' in the bottom metal arch or in the backglass - but also they tried a different approach to this last problem. If the extra balls are not shot by the player, but are simply shot back in play by the machine itself, these balls can't be considered extra balls won by the player: it's just a feature of the game. So, they added a bi-directional eject hole just before the normal outhole at the bottom of the playfield: when you lose a ball, it goes into this outhole which could send it back in play from between the flippers or it can throw it toward the normal outhole, just underneath. It was a device similar to the bi-directional hole used later in some solid-state Bally pinballs, like "Flash Gordon" or "Mr. & Mrs. Pacman". The curious thing is that Bally solved this problem in a very similar way, with really different hardware that we'll see later. But let's go back to "Hula Hula": to have this outhole return the lost ball, you have to earn "Kick-ups" (93) - and you can have up to 10 "kick-ups". This was the key to the game: instead of winning replays, you could win these "kick-ups" which were shown on the backglass by the lightning of a row of palm trees (94).

Also note that each player had his own 'tilt', as the game could be set to void the whole game or only one ball. You could earn a "kick-up" by reaching a score threshold, as well as by hitting specials on the playfield. This "Kick-up" feature is the distinction between a normal CDI credit pinball and an italian game. (10v) There's no doubt that a kick-up CDI pinball was made for Italy: just look under the playfield. You'll find, handwritten at the side of the "kick-up" mech, the words "Export Playfield". (11v) And, if you look in the wiring, you'll find somewhere the word "Italian", to avoid any doubt about the destination of that game.

After "Hula Hula" there was "Festival" (08/66). Probably there was an Italian version of this too, but the only way to discover for sure would be to find one example. (87) A side note: we know CDI also built German versions: the "Festival" I own has the writing 'German' in the score motor chart. The curious thing is that it's the same as the original American version, with English text and everything.

After "Festival", CDI produced "Kicker", of which there was an Italian version. It was a pinball about soccer, with the "kick up" light positioned where we would expect a shoot-again light (89). The internal score motor card reminds us that we are looking at a "Kicker - Kick Up", if there was the need. It is erroneously known as a pinball with animation in the lightbox, maybe because there is an inside plastic in the head to give the scene more depth, but in truth there were just a few lamps showing the progress of a soccer ball toward the final goal. (95B)

CDI was also the first to solve a hardware problem: to give two plays for a coin without a credit unit, forbidden in Italy. As we've seen before with "Electra Pool", at that time in Italy it was 50 lire -1 play and 100 lire for 2 plays. (95) To achieve that latter price, CDI introduced a "100 Lire unit" - basically a credit unit without the drum, invisible from the outside, which kept count of the remaning credits. (27v)

This fact was also the one Bally referred to when including Italian text in their parts catalogs, for example about games like "Mini Zag". Using Italian language even in their American catalogue, Bally instructs the operator to specify the name of the game and the fact that it's a "Bocce addizionali" (add-a-ball in Italian!) version, when requesting parts. To justify this, they say that "games especially built for Italy are different for technical reasons", but in fact the only difference is in the use of an 'alternator' - a score unit without the drum - to manage to give players 2 plays for one coin without the use of a credit unit.

The 'alternator' unit was also used by Williams (23v), for example in their "Star Action", and by Gottlieb to solve the same problem. It should be noted that while Williams, Bally and Gottlieb systems could give at most two plays for one coin, but if the player inserted another coin with a credit already stored, the result would have been to start a new game and to delete the existing credit! Chicago Coin's unit could store up to 25 credits, in a similar way to a normal credit unit.

Let's return to the problem of the added balls. (8) If it wasn't CDI with "Hula-Hula", it was Gottlieb with "Hawaiian Isle", solving the problem with a really different approach. In "Hawaiian Isle" (01/66), extra balls (9) were displayed using a special animated plastic in the backglass, which showed one to five different fruits in a basket held by a girl, and the balls to play remains the same. That unit was called the "Continue to play unit". In this way, the extra-balls were seen just like a continuation of the ball in play, not as a prize awarded to the player.

By the way, as that game still used a mechanical ball lift, it wasn't possible to solve the situation differently. (18v) A mystery concerns "Hawaiian Isle": it's the only Gottlieb game ever built, to have no project or model number. Even in the schematic or on the playfield. Also, in Italy they started to advertise it using just a hand-modified picture of "Pleasure Isle", as we can see in this original Italian flyer. I believe that at the time, with the new restrictions, Gottlieb was considering if it was worthwhile to continue to build games for the Italian market, thus connecting their name to a game in a country where they were forbidden. So, they didn't make a flyer, but only the production photo for internal reference, which was never sent to the Italian distributor; who had to use his own resources. He printed a flyer with Italian text, obtaining a picture of it by retouching the picture of a "Pleasure Isle", the already existing American add-a-ball version. (10a)

That animated unit gave Gottlieb the idea for the system they used in the following games for Italy. Instead of a special mechanism, Gottlieb used a particular system to show players extra balls they had won: they just included in the design of the backglass five special objects - persons, birds, stars, etc. - which would light according to the extra balls won by the player. The maximum of five was the number indicated by the law as the maximum which could be won, as winning more than five balls would mean winning a full replay, even if the score doesn't reset like when starting a real new game. Now, the extra balls unit was called the "Lightbox advance unit": in effect, all it did was to advance or retract some lights in the backbox.

Just in case this little subterfuge proved itself not sufficient, operators were also given the opportunity to turn off any ball awards, adjusting the special to only award 1000 points, like on "Ice Show" (03/66)(10)(note that in the prototypes of this game, like the one pictured in the flyer, it was possible instead to add extra balls to accumulated balls to be played, but this was corrected in the normal production machines) and "Hurdy Gurdy": the only export (11) version with backglass art modified according to the country, Italy, where the game was supposed to be used. The only remaining reference in the graphics, with respect to the original credit and add-a-ball versions ("Central Park" and "Hurdy Gurdy"), is the depiction of Central Park at the top of the flyer. Apart from that, (12) everything was changed in the backglass: the panorama looks like the one you could enjoy in Capri or another famous Italian sea resort (15); there's even a car which isn't American, but it looks like a Volkswagen or something European of those years. I was telling you of the five similar objects usually inserted just to identify the extra balls: in this pinball (13), there were five monkeys on the tree, under the box "Punteggio Massimo Raggiunto" (High Score to date), to show when lit the total of extra balls won by the player. Usually that blank space to write players' records was inserted where it would have been the credit unit in the backglass in the replay-model pinballs. (16a)The game following was "Hyde Park". Again, we can see that there are five colored circles in the sign held by the man, to show the extra balls (16b); and again the usual Italian verbiage is present.

But a very interesting thing can be noted from the flyer, which here we can see in the version without any text, though it's most common complete with Italian text and the name of the Italian distributor, just like the other flyers we'll see.(16). When the flyer of an Italian version is complete with Italian text, it's because it was added in Italy. The flyer without any text, only the picture of the game and the Gottlieb logo, was printed in the USA; it was then sent to Italy, were it was presumed that the translated text was added by the Italian distributor. (17) The hint for these came when I found a flyer for "Grande Domino" (11/1968) with the text erroneously printed overturned! Obviously, there was a flyer upside-down in the pile sent to the printer. (18)

After "Hyde Park" came "Rancho": the Italian version of the famous "Cowpoke". A curious thing has to be noted: the original kicking horse was changed to a bull (19). Actually, there is no explanation for this. The function of the objects in the backglass is very similar to "Hurdy Gurdy", with the five birds on the top right corner for the extra balls. (19b)

"Subway", the Italian version of the add-a-ball game which had the same name in America, was the next game.(22) Here are some pictures, showing for example the five persons waiting for the train, or the fact that in the playfield the word "Special" (26) was removed and that space was left empty: this because someone was starting to identify the "Special" award on Italian games - a ball or 1000 points, it was an operator-adjustable option - with the forbidden gambling games, where it has the same identical name. So a new solution had to be found. Meanwhile, no "Special" in the pinball playfields. (21) "Subway" was one of the few Gottlieb pinballs to feature, on the internal score motor, a switch installed just to let a few lamps light up. (15v)

There's something interesting to be noted about the Bally products, too: especially about their "Loop the loop" of this year. A really interesting game, with the same ball shooter alley used later on "Four Million B.C." - also, no thumper bumpers, just that revolving bumper also installed later in games like "Rocket III". (14v) Although the American flyer says that two distinct models of the game are available, the add-a-ball implementation was accomplished by plugging an add-a-ball kit into an adapter socket. You only got one extra ball at a time (in "same player shoots again" mode). The normal credit version had a 'special' left outlane in the playfield: but the add-a-ball version had a big change. The special was no longer useful in a game without credits: so they added a coil to shoot the ball back into play from the same lane. Yes, they created what today is known as the "kickback". (13v)If we look closely at the art of the playfield, it's obvious it was a later change - as was the removal of those playfield latches used up to this game. Word is that at the time this feature was called the "Italian return lane" - a way to give extra balls to players without the players having to shoot them themselves.

(27)1967: "Solitaire" (02/1967)(the name was referring to the fact that, as I told you before, pinball has to be considered just an electromechanical solitaire, by the Italian legislators, to be considered a legal game. What better way than giving it that name?). This was the first Italian version with an automatic outhole: this gave the possibility of introducing an "automatic shooter" for extra balls, an operator-adjustable option. When a jack was left on 'automatic control', there was a gate, at the side of the normal outhole, deviating the ball toward a kicker, the one normally used in slingshots. The ball was then kicked back into play from between the flippers. (28) There was a special window in the bottom metal arch to let you see where the ball was landing, and if you note this wasn't present in the first games produced, like the one in the flyer. This change caused the presence of the three different bottom metal arches seen in Gottlieb's parts catalogues of those years. (25) Note that in these arches, the credit light, when present, has no writing around it: it was left to the player to understand that there was a credit left. (31B) "Solitaire" was a big success, and it was some months later produced again under the name "Hit a Card" (03/67). Gottlieb even changed not only the name, but also some colors in the backglass and playfield. After all, they were the only manufacturer to actually give different names to each different version, Italian or not, so this explains why they did so. Checking the schematics (and the actual pinballs) the only difference I was able to locate was that a different transformer was used between the two versions. (Donal Murphy, can you explain this?) (32)

Other Gottlieb Italian versions, that year, were "Super Duo"(07/67) - a conversion of their (32A) "Super Score", a real strange game with a roulette wheel in the middle of two bottom sets of flippers - (32B) and Gottlieb was obviously careful that the word 'flipper' wasn't visible anywhere, for example in the pinballs (32C) depicted in the backglass. Obviously, no automatic ball shooter in this game, due to the big roulette wheel just in the front of the outhole. (33)

Then, it was the time for "Harmony"(08/67) that, (34) despite the picture, was produced in August and re-released in November with the name "Troubadour" to satisfy the great demand from Italian operators for that game. (35) It was Gottlieb's luck that that at the time, there was practically no Italian manufacturer able to copy their games to build themselves - when this happened later, Gottlieb sales decreased rapidly, and with that the production of Italian versions. (36)

An interesting thing to be noted about "Troubadour" was that they not only changed the colors in the playfield, backglass and plastics, but they also changed some particulars! For example, they changed the musical notes in the art under the name. I would like to know from the audience, if there is a musician, if these musical notes are a real tune, or random. (40) That year, the last product for the Italian market was "Sea Side" (12/67), very similar to "Surf Side".

Illustrations mentioned in this chapter: