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I love me some pinball. To start off, ‘ride the ferris wheel’ came from Cyclone, 1988.
My favorites were all of the ‘superpins’/wide bodies released by Williams in the mid-90’s: Twlight Zone, Addams Family, Star Trek:TNG(I own this one), and Indiana Jones among others.
Also high on my list was Banzai Run unique in that it featured pinball play in the backglass of the machine.
Medieval Madness was brilliant almost in its simplicity. It took everything that made Terminator 2 and **Attack from Mars ** great and improved upon it.
Earthshaker and Funhouse featured fast, fun designs with gimmicks that did not distract from the gameplay.
Haunted House and Jungle Lord even though neither had bumpers, were great split level designs along with Black Knight and its sequel Black Knight 2000 which had a catchy theme song.
Lastly, but not leastly, Genie was an older widebody that featured lots of flippers, lots of targets, and lots of fun.
Absolutely. My ex-girlfriend’s brother had this in his basement - I could kill hours.
The ceramic power ball was great, and all the sound clips.
As a teenager I worked in an arcade at the mall in the late 80’s. What bliss what joy, what free games after hours. (Only on certain machines without counters.)
I started with what I consider the first of the theme games where you had to do things in order to get multi ball. The oldie but goodie High Speed.
Eventually I came to love Funhouse* ride the ferris wheel*, Elvira thank you boys, and pinbot..
Once, summer of '89 I put a dollar in bride of pinbot. I experience pinball Nirvana. Eventually I had all four high scores, the grand champion score and walked away with twenty or thirty credits on the machine. I was shot and desperately needed to piss and get a smoke. To hell with the fact that I was over an hour late to meet my friends. The 10 or so year old kid I told that machine had all the free plays on it almost wet himself.
sigh
My favorite is The Addams Family. When I have a place to put it, I’d like to look for one. I’ve spent silly amounts of money playing that game. Ridiclous high scores but never ever quite finished the mansion. Grrrrrrrrr.
Yeah - make that 3 votes for Funhouse! What other game lets you shoot a ball into a busker’s mouth, after which he chokes on it and spits it out, all the while screaming at you?
Plus it gave me nightmares when I played late at night…
great game.
You know, it’s weird: they have the Addams Family one at the bowling alley where Mr. Bunny has his league every Sunday night, and I’ve played the hell out of that thing, but I just don’t get all the love for it. I’ve kinda gotten sick of it, honestly. Although I do like the “IT’S SHOWTIME!” multiball.
The laundromat down the street from our apartment for awhile was going through tons of really classic pinballs: Twilight Zone, Star Wars…and this one Magician one that I can’t remember the name of, this woman kept saying “YOU HAVE THE MAGIC!” Mr. Bunny ruled that game. Now all they have is that damn World Cup Soccer, and it doesn’t even work most the time. Grrrr.
One of the oddest tables I ever encountered featured two sets of rails that apparently went nowhere so, of course, I had to try it. Put in my quarter, pulled the plunger, and used the flippers to get the ball up to those rails to see what they were for. After a while, I hit a target, my ball disappeared, then: “BOOM!” With the sound of cannon fire from the speakers, my ball came shooting up from below the table and into one of those rails!
Wish I could remember what table that was.
I remember a machine where the ball could go vertical, i.e. you played on the backboard! Some sort of BMX/offroad racing theme.
Then there was the Moon or Mars-themed one where the ONLY things besides the sides of the machine were three circular bumpers. They had magnets on them so when your ball approached it could go off in a weird direction and speed! Plus the surface wsa contorted into hills and craters (on the sides of the board there were some standard knock-down targets and bumpers but it was still weird.)
I came in (late) to mention The Black Knight and Fire, the latter had a bell mounted externally that would peel during moments of excitement (multiball or the like). But how could I have forgotten Pinbot? I spent many a week’s allowance on that one… memories.
Oh, and Addam’s Family is good too, but don’t forget Elvira If you press start without putting money it she’d say, “Don’t touch me there”
On re-read it appears you didn’t forget Elvira I guess you CAN go blind if you do it enough…
The “Ride the Ferris Wheel” voice was from Cyclone, as far as I remember. Great great pinball machine.
Elvira and the Party Monsters, another favorite. Addams Family, of course.
Always enjoyed Monday Night Football, as well.
Another vote for Medieval Madness, and also World Cup Soccer (1994).
But I think my all-time favourite is Fish Tales!
Well, like everyone else mentioned, The Addams Family, but a definate second would be Fish Tales
Oh my god, they have this game (Funhouse) in the lobby of one of the more skeevy, run-down casinos downtown, and it scared the holy hell out of me when Mr. Bunny and I played it. It wouldn’t let us leave!! We kept winning free game after free game, and when we’d run out we’d win another one when it would match. I think it was lonely…
That huge talking head gave me nightmares.
Oh, I forgot Hook.
Bangarang!
Lot of good games mentioned here. I’ll add a few of my favourite old games, in no particular order:
Trail Drive: Shoot the hole and watch a little mechanical cat spin on the backglass.
Captain Fantastic: Just plain fun.
Royal Flush: Gain bonus points by shooting poker hands from drop targets. Targets are worth 1000 points for each joker you have. Asymmetrical playboard, very challenging.
Spirit of '76: Difficult as anything to get a decent score (“You mean I need 80,000 for a free game and all these dumb rollovers give me is 100 points?”). But when you were playing well on that game, you were playing well. A good challenge.
Silverball Mania: Spent a quarter and lasted all afternoon on that one. More than a few times.
Taxi: Pick up Gorby and Marilyn!
And one machine is nothing special to anybody but me, I suppose: Gottlieb’s Out of Sight, which rolled off the line in January 1975. Symmetrical EM game, challenging but not overly so, pretty standard. But one sits in my basement den, and I still play it occasionally. Gotta love those old EM games; they were (and still are) easy to fix if something went wrong.
Scylla, when I’ve needed parts, rubber bands, and so on, in the past, I’ve gone to a local place that does repairs on coin games. Usually, I can get parts the same day I need them. Look in the Yellow Pages under “Amusement Devices” for a list of operators and repair places for coin games.
The Simpsons was another fun one. First time I ever saw a ramp that went behind the playfield. I’m not sure if I ever played The Simpsons Pinball Party.
Super Soccer held balls in the backglass. I don’t remember why, though; haven’t seen a table since '83.
He has to make up his lousy taste in politics with great taste elsewhere. 
It’s rather a pity that there isn’t any effort in capturing the old analog pinballs in some sort of computer emulation (short of PinMame, which is rather underground-ish). Littlewing Pinball did an awesome emulation of Eight Ball Deluxe, and their original pins are terrific, but I wish that level of skill could be applied to reproducing a lot of the titles listed in this thread…
I loved banzai run, the difficulty/reward factor for the backglass machine was just perfect. You got to love the speed of verticle pinball.