exploring the arcade in ワンパク番外地 / Wanpaku Bangaichi (1971)

TOO-san has given us another wonderful arcade thread! (archive)  This is from the TV show ワンパク番外地　第1話「ワンパク勢揃いの巻」(1971年4月8日放送) (Wanpaku Bangaichi Episode 1 "Wanpaku Lineup Volume" (broadcast on April 8, 1971))

First let's look at the two pinball machines.

The one on the left is Royal Guard

1968 Royal Guard by Gottlieb

exploring the arcade in La belle équipe (1936)

 La belle équipe is a movie from France circa 1936.

Not much to see here except for this one gorgeous crane game.  With the bartender distracted, 3 men tilt the machine to help them retrieve 2 choice prizes.  I am unsure if tilting the machine like that actually provides any advantage.

2022-09-24 bagatelle lecture by Ed Nickels

I was finally able to get this video edited and up online.  On September 24th, 2022 Ed Nickels gave a lecture about his bagatelle pinball collection that was on display at the Field House Museum.

You can see the prior lecture by James Masters from 2022-08-16 over here.

the teeny tiny table games

There's 10 of them now.  10!

How did this happen?  A Redgrave bagatelle had been on my wantlist for a while.  Then shortly after I discovered an auction in the UK for a scaled-down bar billiards table at a good price, and I had to go for it.  I do not think that the Singer bagatelle will be sticking around.

For the sake of discussing them, I will number them.  Tables number 1, 2, 5, 6, and 10 are all miniature / toy versions of tables that are regularly full-sized, usually 7-10 feet in length.  Tables 3, 4, 7, 8 and 9 are all made for the home parlor / toy market.

1. Cockamaroo: Seems to have began early 1800s.  Left and right shooter lane, and uses a cue or mace for both.  Place a King Ball at the top dot, and then there are 6 cups to land in on the way down, plus scoring columns along the bottom.
2. Pin bagatelle with plunger, first seen mid 1800s.  An example of how bells were introduced into the game.  Dual shooting lanes, with one for the plunger, one for shooting with a cue.  There is no King Ball spot here.
3. 1876 Redgrave bagatelle.  First USA patented coiled spring plunger from the front of the table, the way we now know with contemporary pinball.
4. Singer bagatelle: different style of plunger to avoid Redgrave's patent.  This has scoring slots along the bottom, a remnant from cockamaroo that would disappear by the 20th century.
5. 9-hole English bagatelle:  the classic English Bagatelle layout, 1 center cup encircled by 8 others.  Still played within some parts of the UK and USA.
6. Japanese rolling ball table: by 1870 there were variants of the English Bagetelle table sold that had cups in multiple lines.  In Japan, early meiji era, tables like this were used for ball rolling, and points exchanged for prizes.  This is the birth of modern redemption arcades.
7. Japanese rolling ball toy:  After the success of Japanese Rolling Ball in the USA, toy versions were sold from the 1900s to 1950s, though only some models had references to the Japanese origin.
8. Poolette: post-ww2 bagatelle toy from Japan, similar to Corinthian tables popular in the early 30s
9. 20th century bagatelle toy from the UK.  Corinthian style board, but with springed plunger and bakelite (maybe) plastic surface.
10. Bar Billiards: supposed "arriving from the Dutch" in the 1930s, bar billiards is still popular in parts of the UK today, as well as in a few other countries.  Sometimes referred to as "Russian Billiards", the game has under-table troughs to bring sunk balls to the labeled point slots at the front.

Winners Circle! A Bally prototype arrangeball derby game, probably from 1974

I am incredibly excited to share photographs of this seemingly unknown Bally prototype game, Winners Circle!

The owner has graciously allowed me to post these photographs and video.

This is an arrangeball game with derby rules.  The remarkable thing is that it seems to have been made for potential USA markets.  I would like to get into the rules of the game, then review what is going on inside, and then I'd like to share context of why this is significant and what else was going on in the industry at the time.

updates

exploring the arcade in 愛欲の罠 / Aiyoku no wana aka Trapped in Lust (1973): identified the missing pinball machine!!  (search for "Update 2022-10-27" in the post)  Also previously add Sun Trial!

bagatelle notes: Trou Madam, Mississippi, Pigeon Hole - significant update as I declare Trou Madam to be the true spiritual birthplace of pinball.

Japanese Rolling Ball: 2 photos added to the very bottom, from Salons Vénitiens.  Plus a new postcard added to 1908.

Niche Mechanisms 004: rotation - added Xenon, Automatic Obstacle Race, Steer Crazy II

Niche Mechanisms 001: the drop shelf - added Funky Circus, Dream Rail, Dream Rail Lovely, はっぴーぴえろ Dream Rail 2

Niche Mechanisms 002: catchers - added ダイナマイトキーパー, 電動ホーマー (Electric homer), Catch The Ball

exploring the arcade in 女獣 / Mejû / Woman Beast (1960)

Like the previous posts, I found this movie through a tweet by TOO_yoshikawa.  I have also included this in my "exploring pachinko in Japanese cinema..." post, but since this has smartball in it, I wanted to post it separately as well.  I'm going to include a few extra photos in this post.

The movie starts with a great pan of a bustling downtown streetscape, and then we pan down to a pachinko parlor exterior shot.

"Shinjuku Tokyo"