The Penny Arcade on Disneyland’s Main Street has a ‘game’ that is awesome. Man, I love this thing!
It is a cabinet with an electrical coil inside, and a large gauge at the top. There are two simple metal handles protruding from the front of the cabinet. You drop your money in and grab the handles. An electrical current flows through your body. As the current increases the needle on the large gauge moves up and up. The ‘game’ is to hold onto the handles – with ever-increasing current – until the needle reaches the top and the bell rings. If you let go, or when the bell rings, the game is ended and the current is shut off. After playing it several times in a row, your biceps start to flutter and you feel energised. It’s a great game!
What is this game called, either by trade name or generically?
Do any plans or schematics exist online?
What kind of coil does it use? Something out of a Model T Ford? Or is it from another device? Or were the coils made specifically for this machine?
If the current is flowing thru your torso to the point of pain and fluttering, I imagine it is coursing thru your heart as well. That might have been a great thrill in 1906, but do you really want to take that kind of chance with your main life support system?
If it’s like the ones I’ve seen, it’s simply vibrating the handles at increasing speeds to make it feel like electricity is flowing through you. The coils and the guage are just for show. Even knowing this, it’s still a challenge to hold on till the end, though.
No, that’s not the same as the one at Disneyland. The one at Disneyland actually does send electricity through your body. You can even do it with other people, with one person holding one handle, another person holding the other handle, and the two people holding hands.
I’ve seen this creepy, kooky, mysterious, and spooky novelty game at Seaside Heights, New Jersey. It seems to be in the same style (I didn’t try it), and it apparently works according to Bike Rider’s description.
Eisner might be evil, but do you really think he would actually electrocute parkgoers?
As litigious as this society has gotten, I would highly doubt that this really does send electricity through your body. What would happen if someone with a pacemaker used it?
The Penny arcade shocker at Disneyland and the like have been around a long long time.
To the best information I can recall it is a high voltage, low current device. The current being so low as to not cause concern heartwise with the possible exception of a heart patient.
The piezo-crystal lighters for gas grills will give you such a jolt every time you push the button if you are in contact with the ‘hot’ tip and the lighter ground.
I tried the machine at the Disneyland arcade in ~1980. The juice got pretty intense after a while. It’s electric, not a vibrator. The machine is still there? That’s surprising.
That’s why I liked it! I thought it could be juiced up a little though. Not quite intense enough. (I guess they have to the current low enough to be safe; but still!)
I was last there about three years ago, and it was still there. They used to have two of them, but I only saw one the last time I was there.
