Disney Pinball
A schizophrenic Mickey Mouse has a delusion that the parrot on top of the pinball game is talking to him. Mickey proceeds to talk some smack right back, inserts a quarter and initially works the machine, probably as the shop owner is frantically dialing 911. Then Minnie shows up and Mickey starts losing, implying she’ s the reason and revealing the misogyny ingrained in the Walt Disney Company.
Mickey pumps more money into the game attempting to get the upper hand and Minnie grows impatient and tells him to quit playing. Sounds reasonable, right? But the whole reason Minnie wants him to “wrap it up” is because her broke ass can’t afford a soda and she’s waiting for Mickey, the breadwinner, to buy her one. She needs to go get a J-O-B and quit playa-hating. Hell, her man wouldn’t be paying attention to a pinball machine if she was delivering the goods. I was hoping Mickey would give her some strong pimp hand but that is one whipped mouse.
Mickey then proceeds to pump his life savings into the machine. The combination of the stress and flashing lights sends Mickey into a full-blown psychotic episode with visual and audio delusions. Mickey imagines he’s inside the pinball game fighting the evil pirate who has kidnapped Minnie . Clearly Minnie represents Mickey’s lost sanity and his attempt to regain a grasp on reality. This cartoon is a metaphor for One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest.
Mickey emerges from his psychotic episode having won a free game and again he imagines the talking parrot taunting him. Initially tempted, his sanity (Minnie) wins out. Not only does Mickey refuse the game he physically destroys it, a confident testament to his desire to recover and live a normal life. This cartoon is a metaphor for Fight Club.
Ride that funky pony – mature content
Probably not safe for work. A song whose video is a delightfully demented re-imaging of the Sesame Street number count. Music ain’t bad either.
Astro Pinball
Slash and the Pinball Machine
Reading an autobiography of a person with paranoid schizophrenia, the author relates this bizarre experience involving a grandiose delusion. You can read another 20 pages of this guy’s extremely unfortunate yet interesting condition:
http://www.schizophrenia.com/stories/out.of.it.htm
SLASH AND THE PINBALL MACHINE
The pinball machine was themed to be Guns ‘N Roses, the rock and roll band. The more I played this pinball machine, the more sure I was that Slash, the guitarist for the band, had designed it himself.
While my clothes were washing, I looked over my shoulder between games at the other people in the laundry—mat. There was a young Hispanic-looking family standing and talking, they had a little baby girl walking and babbling around. I dropped my quarter in the pinball machine and started playing again. Almost half—way through the game, I sensed someone watching over my shoulder, turned and looked, and there was Slash.
His face was right next to mine, he nodded his head in a gesture to say hello, and then he said, “Play on.” I turned my astonished gaze back to the pinball machine, and continued playing. Slash had cut his hair back so that it was only to his shoulders, but it was still that curly frayed hair of his. I had only seen Slash’s face a couple of times, but this man had his eyes and face. I decided since he knew that I loved his guitar playing so much, that he was visiting my computer-world just to let me know that he appreciated my adoration. He watched for a couple more minutes, and then began playing the video game next to me while I finished my game.
My clothes in the washers were done, so I left the pinball machine and told Slash (not daring to say his name) that I was done if he wanted to play on it. After I was done loading the dryers, I watched Slash play on the pinball machine. He was really skilled and scored much higher on the pinball than I could have ever dreamed. After his first game was over, he gave me a wise smiling expression, and slipped his hand into his pocket and pulled out a large pocket—knife. In one swift move, he kneeled down and jimmied the quarter-slot with his knife, and the pinball machine started another game. This impressed me but didn’t really surprise me; I already knew that Slash was cool. His little girl came up and was holding on to his leg, and I started to feel a little overwhelmed, so I went outside for a cigarette.
Pinball Tournment Feb 25 – Pinball Mafia
The Oakland Pinball Mafia will be hosting a tournament on February 25th. Details to follow. Please spread the word by emailing a link to this post or clicking the Facebook icon below. Or if you’re into sky-writing that’s cool too.
alka seltzer
Austrailian Coke ad
Pinball in Spain – New Canasta
A company in Spain started manufacturing pinball games about year ago. The game is called New Canasta (‘Canasta’ is Spanish for ‘Basketball’).
New Canasta has a relatively simple layout and is a remake of Canasta 86. It’s basically a modernized classic game. While I enjoy those old school games my personal experience is that most players gravitate toward the modern games with ramps, modes and faster action. Thus, New Canasta with its innovative features, but Tears for Fears-era gameplay, may have players scratching their heads.
Pinballnews.com has a write-up and some pictures here.
What’s most different from typical pinball games made today is the inclusion of an LCD monitor, a very welcome departure from the geriatric dot matrix display (dmd) that is sadly still the norm in even the newest pinballs. Seriously, I’m in my mid-30s and I was playing DMD games back in HIGH SCHOOL.
And not even like two months before I graduated, either, but when I was a freshmen listening to Vanilla Ice and rolling up my pant legs still.
Above: Don’t hate: there was a crack epidemic going on.
Now that the game has been out for awhile I decided to go hunting for some videos and frankly the results are a bit disappointing. I wasn’t able to find much of actual location play or owner videos. Most of the vids appear to come from the manufacturer. Hopefully this will change at some point but until then this is what we got.
Gameplay:
Technical:
Configuration tutorial video. It’s in Spanish but it’s still pretty easy to follow if you’ve ever adjusted settings on a modern pinball game.
Assembly-line walkthrough:
The game’s display can be set up for 3rd-party advertising.
Boot-up:
Menudo – Like a Cannonball
Check out some of this here Latino heat.
Wildwood Arcade – 1971
With that guy from Airwolfe.
Bay Area Pinball Wizards play Avatar
Here’s some more Avatar videos for all you flipper fiends. We’ve got some overhead tourney cam style footage from the SF Avatar launch party, as well as some more footage from the final game at the Pacific Pinball Open.
Don’t forget there’s a tournament coming up Sunday January 30 at Pacific Pinball Museum. Free Entry. Click the link up top for details.
Let’s play the nutrition game
Pinball Bay Area 