FOR IMPORT ONLY: chapter 3

from CDI "Beatniks" to Gottlieb "Wizard"

1966 also saw the last Italian version from CDI, "Beatniks", with the same differences from the original flyer as their previous Italian versions, like the two separate tilt lights (85) and the musical notes, up to 10, to show the kick-ups available to the player, and the playfield with the kick-up hole at the bottom.(86).

And Bally? Bally wasn't especially concerned about this new rule regarding extra balls displaying: they continued in their way to use match numbers on the backglass, otherwise unused, to display up to 9 extra balls. Unlike Gottlieb, they also built add-a-ball versions of their most successful four-player pinballs, like "Capersville", "The Wiggler", "Dogies", etc. (29v)

The only problem was that each player had to play his own extra balls before ending his turn. So, playing a multi-player game against other good players was extremely boring. But they began with "Trio" to build games with this feature, and they continued in this way with only one important exception: "King Rex", which we'll consider later.

(35v) 1967 also saw the one and only pinball especially built for Italy by Williams: "Lunar Shot". Identical in the game play to their add-a-ball game "Blast Off", it only had the difference that when you won more than five balls, still added to the current ball in play, they were showed using stars instead of numbers. Italy was not after all a very big market for Williams, at least until 1971 when some Italian company started manufacturing copies of the latest Gottlieb machines, thereby reducing Gottlieb's share of the Italian market.

(17v) Also, a lot of the Williams games (like "Magic Town" and "Big Strike" from the previous year, already very popular in Italy) could be adjusted to only award points instead of extra balls. Anyway, a lot of Italian operators preferred to modify the Williams games themselves to automatically shoot the ball back in play, usually from an outlane, in a very similar way to Bally's kickback.

There are several Williams games of which we don't know much about their differences at the moment - games like "Zodiac" and "Planets"; "Klondike" and "Yukon" and "Yukon Special"; it's possible that an Italian version is hiding amongst them, but until we find the set, we can't be sure. At the moment, Steve Kordek said that the only Williams especially built for Italy was "Lunar Shot", and who am I to refute Mr. Kordek?

Anyway, if you own a Williams flyer, look carefully at the coin chutes, like the ones used in "Granada". You could find something interesting. ;-)

(41) 1968: Again, Gottlieb was playing the part of the lion in the production of games for Italy, with a lot of Italian versions. (42) Games like "Elite Guard" (02/1968), (41A) the Italian version of the add-a-ball "Palace Guard"; "Fun Fair" (06/68) (46) and "Tivoli" (08/68); (48) "Big Jack" (10/68) from "Paul Bunyan"; and "Grande Domino" (11/68). All of them with the 'automatic ball shooter'. (43A) The American replay game was Fun Land, which still scored in the single points, (45) while this particular Italian add-a-ball used a fake zero to multiply everything by 10, some operator's field modification.

Something interesting has to be noted about "Fun Fair" and "Tivoli": the schematic is the same for both of them. (46A) Perhaps it was expected from the beginning that a second similar version has to be produced, or the schematic I've found is the one which was included in the second game, "Tivoli", and it also included a reference to the previous version. There were some big differences in the backglass and playfield art: (46B) in Fun Fair the girl shoots at ducks while in (46C) Tivoli the girl is non-violent, rabbits instead of gooses, and so on. Maybe, it was here that the idea behind secret cows, hidden in today's pinballs, was conceived. ;-)

(50) 1969: Only two games from Gottlieb: "Hi-Lo" (03/1969) derived from Spin-A-Card, and "Bumper Pool" (06/69) derived from Target Pool. But sales were starting to decline, as some Italian manufacturers were starting to build games for the internal market, obviously priced much less than the American ones, if only for the absence of shipping charges. Usually the quality of the mechanics inside was the same, as they were often built using original parts taken from disassembled old games.

Even Zaccaria, the famous Italian manufacturer based in Bologna, whose games "Pinball Champ" and "Soccer Kings" managed to enter Replay magazine charts of the eighties; even they started by copying and producing exact copies of Williams games, as you can see by looking for example at their coin doors. Usually, these copies were Williams games (playifelds and backglasses) adapted to be fitted into old Gottlieb and Bally games - this conversion destiny was common to many rare games of this era.

In this year, there were also many Gottlieb games which didn't survive the prototype stage. Luckily, prototypes were sent to Italian distributors, so in most cases we are able to see some of them. (52) This was the case for games like "Western" (game #273), which was the last 2-player Italian game and resembles (52B) Wild Wild West and (52C) even more closely Lariat because of its 5-digit scores; "Super Bowl" (12/69), of which I've found a playfield, and that it was the last pinball to feature that "automatic ball shooter"; and maybe "Auto Race" (game #276), which should be the adaptation of "Stock Car" and "Road Race", of which up to now we have no picture.

(54) 1970: "Card Trix" #300 (04/1970) derived from Flip-A-Card and the American Card Trix #283, and (56) "Psychedelic" (08/70), which was a single-player adaptation of Groovy and Crescendo, were the two Gottlieb offerings for the year. A curious note: there must have been some problem with exports to Italy of pinballs that year, because these and other games were declared by the factory as "Brazilian" games - but as we can see from the pictures, it's obvious they were for Italy instead, which is where they could be found. (67B) This is a common practice even today: I can't give the names, but when someone tries to import a parallel game from the USA, the American exporter will declare it as a game for Brazil erroneously sent to Italy, to justify it with Customs. I don't know how it would be possible to plan a similar mistake, but it worked then and it works still today.

(2) The real big news, that year, came from Bally, with their pinball "King Rex". In an unofficial listing, this game is mentioned as 'Italian'. (Note: this slide is a digitally-altered photo, from a real flyer I found in Italy.) In fact, it is really different from the replay version, "King Tut": different graphics on the backglass and playfield, it's an add-a-ball game, (4) and it has a special way to show and keep count of extra balls, very similar to the one used by Gottlieb, with five objects in the backglass lighting up. Only, they missed the 'secrecy' of the system by adding the words "Extra Balls" pointing it out! (1)

This game was also available in New York. As there were in NY some limitations similar to the Italian ones, games built for Italy could usually be operated in NY and vice-versa, apart from Gottlieb games, which had Italian words in the backglass and so were unacceptable in another country. Williams and Bally add-a-ball and special versions were usually very popular in Italy and NY. "King Rex" could be adjusted to work in three different ways: "Extended Play", where the extra-balls were added to the existing ball in play and, if you won more than 5 balls, they were shown using the "Extra balls" light; "Add-a-ball", where the extra-balls were just indicated by the five "Extra ball" lights and the ball in play remained the same; and "Novelty", where scoring a special only awarded some points.

(3v) The outhole of "King Rex" was the same previously installed in their "On Beam": it was able to rotate, (4v) so the ball was shot back in play from between the flippers: it was possible to adjust the game to do so, when the player had one or more extra-balls to be played, just like in the old Gottlieb games. (3) Some additional notes about it: it was the first Bally game to feature a dummy zero in the score, with a normal drum fixed in some way to the wood insert of the headbox. There were only 275 games produced, and considering that Bally always started serial numbering at 1000, (5) you can see why my "King Rex" is peculiar from its serial number...

(57) 1971 saw the arrivals of four more Italian versions: "Galaxie" (01/1971), with its rows of drop targets; (58) "Star Trek" (03/1971), with no reference to the famous TV serial also because in Italy it wasn't even televised at the time; (59) "Card King" (08/1971) and the most famous of all, Gottlieb's "Wizard" (12/1971).

About "Galaxie", we can say that it saw the introduction of a big technical change, which was mantained until the last electromechanical pinball: the 'wow', which replaced the 'special'. This change was necessary because it was now possible to adjust the game between two different modes, in which the 'wow' has a very different meaning: "add-a-ball play" and "5 ball play". If in add-a-ball play, the game works as usual, with the 'wow' scoring an extra ball tracked in the usual "lightbox advance unit" in the head, with the lighting of up to five different objects, in this case five stars. (108) By the way, even if the maximum score which the score drums could count was 99,990, it was possible to top it thanks to a 100,000 light in the backglass, driven by a relay. (71) But there also were other lights, which could show scores up into the millions... They are used only if you select the "5 ball play" setting. In this way, the "lightbox advance unit" no longer keeps count of the extra balls: and it's no longer possible to win them, thus the definition "5 ball play" as you'll always have only 5 balls to play. But if you light a 'wow', it now scores big points: usually 50,000. So, it's very likely to have scores in the range of millions, and they are displayed using that lightbox unit. (109) The 100,000 relay is now unused in this setting. The knocker, which is normally connected to sound each time the player wins an extra ball, now sounds each 10,000 points scored: you can imagine what it sounds like to score a 'wow'! Usually, during this setting, game rules are a little different, with the 'wow' no longer resetting when you lose a ball, but remaining lit until game-over. 5 ball play became the most popular setting among Italian players and operators, at this point they started modifying the existing games by adding score drums or lights in the backglasses even in the oldest games.

(62) Now, let's examine the fourth one I mentioned, Gottlieb's "Wizard". On that page of the famous unofficial Gottlieb listing with project numbers and names you'll get the story sorted out. I don't remember who sent it to me many years ago, but we believe it was compiled by someone at Gottlieb, in a similar manner to those non-official Bally listings with quantities of machines produced. Many believe that "Wizard" (Gottlieb game #324) was the (60) Italian version of "Abra-ca-dabra", a one player game with similar backglass art. But the similarities stop here: (63) the playfield is really different, while all Italian versions have a playfield very similar to the original credit version. Also, the cabinet art is really different. (65) And, most important, "Abra-ca-dabra" was produced later, in 1975, being Gottlieb game #383, and it had a traditional Gottlieb bottom.

But if we look closely at this list, we can discover that there was a game with the same name, "Abra-ca-dabra" just before "Wizard": it was game #323, and it existed only as a prototype, never produced. There was also an add-a-ball game, #325, "Magic Wizard". And is not so hard, noting the game's name, to imagine that "Wizard" was just its Italian version.

Here are some pictures from the "Wizard" in my collection:(67) also, the one I own is a prototype, with serial number 1005 S, where 'S' stands for 'sample game'; (67A) this can be noted from the schematic, too. (64) Note that "Wizard" was the first Gottlieb built for Italy to feature an end-of-ball bonus. (61) A trivia item from the backglass art: what do you think these balls coming out from the magician's cauldron are? (Incidentally, these five circles are the ones used to display extra balls.) (61A)

Look at the schematic... They are moons!

Illustrations mentioned in this chapter: