Here is some information on the Disneyland machine found in a Disney Fan Forum.
Here is a link from that forum to an arcade site.
Well, ok, except those pictures & videos are all of ye ole’ timey ones, back when shoe stores had foot X-ray machines to see how well your penny loafers fit! But if the one in Disney does indeed work with three people linked together like you say then yes, it would have to be electricity.
JpnDude’s links seem to indicate they’ve been replaced by the vibrating kind. Pity, that. Even when I worked near Disneyland and had a season pass (early-2000s), I noticed that they went from two machines (one in front, one in back) to one machine (the one in front).
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I’ve been going to Disneyland since 1957 and there is no question that the original arcade machines delivered a true electric shock, and yes, they now only vibrate.
People weren’t as litigious back then and I can’t imagine anyone with a pacemaker being stupid enough to have a go at the electric shock machine.
I would think if you research “Electronic Muscle Stimulators” you would have more luck discovering the ins and outs of shocking yourself without having a bad day.
Goddammit! I came in here just to say that! I understand your play it with two forks.
Now that oughta be fun, Gabe–can I watch? 
I was thinking of turning my TV on, putting on a blindfold, and sticking two screwdrivers into the back of the set. Your idea sounds like more fun.
Jokes aside, it was a fun game.
When I was a kid at school, our physics teacher made a Wimshurst machine Wimshurst machine - Wikipedia
His real fun idea was to get the whole class holding hands in a semi circle, and then give an electrode to the boy on each end (it was a boy’s school). He would crank it up until all our hair stood on end. The big problem was that some boy would always let go early and get burned by the resulting spark.
Shame we didn’t have webcams back then:)
My dad told me about a fun physics professor long ago. The sort who’d freeze mercury into a hammer and drive a nail…
He’d bring a Leyden Jar (old enough?) into the class, charge it up, and demonstrate resistance in series by having students hold hands in a circle, and then they’d drain the charge through students in series. To demonstrate RC time constant, he’d then hold one contact, put the other to his nose and there would be a spark as the remaining charge was drained. Apparently the last time he did this, one clever student persuaded the one next to him to not hold hands. The prof then demonstrated the remaining charge. When he regained consciousness…
This Disney game - did it also have an optional chair and helmet?
I’m pretty sure there was a game like this in a James Bond movie. A View to a Kill? It had the two players opposing each other and using the handles as controllers to play a strategy game of some sort. Every time you suffered a loss in the game, it’d give you a shock. The game lasted until someone let go.
Johnny, if you want to build something, check about in the BDSM community.
A few years ago I chatted with a hubby and wife who were both masochists who were into restraints, alligator clips and probes connecting dangly bits and internals to their home-made electro-machine that would vary the sensation from tingling to screaming pain and spasms. To get in touch with folks who could help you build such a device, sign in to FetLife – lots of nice people there, some of whom are big into electo.
I’ve heard of folks using old-timey hand crank telephone magnetos to zap the shit out of each other. Now I know squat about electricity, but I was wondering, if you connected one of these magnetos to a board of light bulbs and to yourself, could you increase resistance/reduce the current that is zapping you by screwing light bulbs in, and reduce resistance/increase the current by unscrewing light bulbs, thereby changing the intensity with which you are zapped? Like I say, I don’t know anything about electricity.
I hope to God nobody sneezed.
Sometime in the mid-60s, I built a simple circuit using a battery, a transistor and a few other bits that provided a surprisingly strong ‘tingle’ when you touched two electrodes. I recall building it into a cardboard mailing tube with two bands of tinfoil as electrodes.
I wonder if I can find the circuit diagram… or if an EE type Doper would understand my description.
That sounds easier than building the thing in the drawing. Cheaper, too. Any way to make the charge build to a maximum so as to duplicate the ‘endurance test’ of the arcade game?
A quick search turned this up. FK901 Low Power Tingler
YES! I used to do that, back in high school!
We had a hand-crank generator, which you could use to light (dimly) a light bulb. There were two leads in parallel, extending beyond the light bulb. I’d hold these two leads, a friend would crank the crank, and I’d get a little electrical zap.
Then we’d change places…and I would surreptitiously put the light bulb out of the circuit. I’d crank the crank, and my poor victim would get all of the current; none was now being diverted into energizing the light bulb. The poor soul would shriek and let go the wires as if they were red hot.
Ah, the days of youthful sadism!
Starting with Otto von Guericke in the 1660s demonstrations of electricity used to do this all the time in the 18th century.
In fact, it’s practically all they did,
They can also be used to fish.
Dynamite results in more fish