Month: April 2022 - thepinballloft.com

Creature from the Black Lagoon. The name alone puts your mind in a place of intrigue and mystery. I was made aware of a “Creature” that was local to Knoxville at a time when I was in the process of upgrading the collection while not “expanding the game count”. I planned to fund the Creature purchase by selling 3 other games: Roller Games, Jokerz and Volcano. When those games sold, I had no idea what would be replacing them and the idea of a Creature from the Black Lagoon was not even on my radar.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0046876/

Creature was a game that was known to me since my first year of collecting. It has an interesting background and building it required the acquisition of a license by Bally from Universal Studios. Bally made 7,841 units of the game and it uses the Williams WPC board set. It’s loosely based on the 1954 movie and because Bally wanted to use the Creature, logo and name – they sought and acquired the licensing rights. They did not get the rights to use the actors voices or likenesses so they had to get creative with those assets. The game was designed by John Trudeau. One of the main characters (Richard Carlson) who is represented on the backglass with the pith helmet is actually an aged image of John Trudeau’s son who was then a teenager. The call outs are fantastic and were all done by Bally employees:

Paul Heitsch [Creature sound & music] – “On with the show!”, “Thank you, enjoy the film!” and “I’m suffocating!”
Allison Quant [uncredited market employee] – All female call-outs
Matt Booty [Bally sound dept manager] – “Oh, come on!”
Rich Karstens [Bally sound programmer] – “Move your car”

The game ends with an image on the DMD of an Illinois license plate from 1959. Given that the movie was a 1954 release, it makes you wonder why? John Trudeau answered that question and it relates to the music in the game and keeping continuity. Some of the songs that are included came out AFTER 1954 so the 1959 license plate is meant to show a “revival” presentation of the Creature movie and thus preserving the timeline.

The music is 100% pure unadulterated nostalgia and there are 5 songs in the game from the 50’s:
“Rock Around the Clock” by Bill Haley and the Comets
“Get a Job” by The Silhouettes
“Summertime Blues” by Eddie Cochran
“Willie and the Hand Jive” by Johnny Otis
“Red River Rock” (Johnny and the Hurricanes version)

The DMD begins the game with a strange term “Dot-Mation” and with no explanation as to what that means. The programmer, Jeff Johnson explained that it was a new marketing term meant to show a competitive advantage to Data East at the time. Dot-Mation was a term that referred to the ability of the DMD to by synchronized to voices in the game – a first at the time.

Some interesting tidbits:
The peeping Tom is a dot-matrix representation of Dwight Sullivan (now at Stern Pinball)
The guy getting strangled at the Snack Bar is Jeff Johnson (now owner of Smashhouse Games)
The song “At the Hop” was originally selected to use in the game but was pulled due to costs
Kevin O’Connor shot 35mm images of a videotape of the movie playing on his TV in order to do some of the backglass art
There are 2 flasher bulbs behind Julia Adams hair on the backglass – they were originally planned to be behind other parts of her body – management found out and made an “adjustment”.

Now on to the rest of “my Creature” story!
Over a year ago, a colleague at work shared that he had a Creature from the Black Lagoon pinball game and we chatted briefly about it and about my collection here at the Pinball Loft. A few months ago that same person mentioned that he might want to sell it and get a more modern game. I told him at the time (due to massive price inflation) that I would likely not want to pay what he could get out of it on the open market. I made an offer and in the same message shared that I was certain he could get $1,000+ more for it by posting to Facebook Marketplace or on Pinside. A few weeks passed and he reached back out again sharing that he thought I should buy it and he would be willing to drop his price. he said it was easier for him to sell to me and he would like to see if we could work it out. I told him that I could also come up a bit on my offer and I would love to come see it. We are both insanely busy at work and it took a month just to find an evening that worked for both of us. We finally scheduled it and I drove the short distance from the office to see the game in his basement. When I left my house that morning (well aware that I would be checking out and likely buying a game) I checked the weather and there was NO indication of rain whatsoever. Hint to readers of this blog … that meant that if I DID buy the game the chance of rain would shift to 100%. I did and it did – rain that is, just short of a downpour and I was ill prepared. You can see in the images of the game sitting in the lawn and behind it the clouds look ominous. I’ll get back to the weather in a minute but first I’ll finish out the buy!

One of the big mistakes I keep making (in life and pinball) is assuming that the other person I’m working/communicating/negotiating with is in the same place as I am from a knowledge or preparedness perspective.

I left the house that morning and DID think about bringing a dolly but … no way he wont have a dolly, after all he’s a pinball guy right? I did bring a few tools but just the basics, like a wrench for the leg bolts etc. Probably all I’ll need if I buy the game right? We’ll see how this ends but go ahead now and assume the worst.

When I got down to the basement, the game was set up and working and a quick examination of the boards showed a brand new CPU board so no worries about battery corrosion. The playfield was very good but not perfect (images NEVER show the real condition unless they are purposefully shot close up). There was some insert separation (nothing major) but no insert wear. There was some broken star posts and at least one that was yoked out of it’s hole. The lock down mech was bent badly on the right side and the coin door bezel was in rough shape. None of these things were deal breakers in any way, just things that tended to bring the buyer (me) back down to earth from the pie in the sky thoughts of HUO games with under 500 plays. This was not one of those games. The hologram did not light up either but I know and trust the seller completely and he shared that it previously lit up fine and that the creature hologram was mostly green with some blue hues (later proved to be spot on accurate). I checked to see if the hologram was at least “there” because a replacement is $1,000, IF you can find one (it was installed). When I pulled the playfield to check the underside and cabinet, I noticed it did not pull smoothly and saw the pivot hinge bolts were loose with one installed backwards. The game had no mods on it whatsoever. Odd for a Creature and an indication that it had only recently been off-route and then owned by a non-pinball person. There are a half-dozen must have mods for Creature and this game had none of them. Bottom line was that it was priced right for the condition and I told my colleague I would take it.

When I began the process of folding the head, we hit our first snag and it was a big one … it was missing the locking mech. Ugh. Crap. Ugh again. Pinball reader you know the pain this is going to cause. There is no way to fold the head without the DMD and translight simply falling out of the backbox. That $8 lock holds $500 worth of parts in place while they are folded and mine was MIA. Oh well, there’s a fix but it will take a minute. I chased the wiring from the DMD back to the boards and began to photograph and unplug each in a methodical order. Once that was completed, I set the DMD aside and opened the coin door to pull the glass, remove the balls and clean the cabinet of any parts (including the coin box). When I pulled the coin box, I found the entire lock mechanism and key sitting in the bottom. Assuming that it was originally pulled for a very good reason, I nonetheless took a shot at re-installing the lock. It took a bit of McGivering to get it to work (the lock barrel was just a bit long causing the rotating hasp/latch to extend past the relieved wood area) but I did get it to function. I quickly reinstalled the DMD (didn’t take the time to plug it back in) then popped the translight on top of it, turned the lock and folded the head carefully down to a doubled up piece of cardboard.

A few minutes later we had the machine wrapped in plastic and I asked my buddy where his hand cart was. He said “I don’t have one”. Followed by “I thought we would just carry it up the stairs”. Followed by “I have a bad back” (he really does). I recalled the nearly vertical flight of stairs we came down to get to the game and groaned inwardly. I agreed that given the circumstances, going up the stairs was the best solution and shared with him that we would have no choice but to remove the legs to do so. It was at this moment I was kicking myself for not bringing my Escalara. He grabbed a couple of sawhorses and set them at the base of the stairs so we could easily pop the legs off and get prepared for the “big lift”. As he was setting the sawhorses, I asked him again how difficult he thought it would be if we just took the game out the back door, then around the house. He had previously told me that this was an all grass and fairly steep route with no pathways. He invited me to check it out and I immediately changed our plans. We would go out the back, leave the legs on, carry it as far as we could comfortably and sit it down to rest as needed. I was less worried about me going up the stairs and more worried about doing permanent damage to my buddy’s back over a pinball machine. We got it up the hill and to the driveway in just a few minutes and with no incidents larger than his son taking a few shots to the shin from the front legs (he was backing up the hill).

I took a few quick pictures of the game sitting on the lawn and noticed some ominous clouds over the Smokey Mountains in the background. Wait … it’s not supposed to rain tonight. Wait again … I just bought a pinball machine and now you can bet it will rain. It did. A lot. As we loaded the game I got hit with a few sprinkles. My buddy asked if I had a tarp. I said that I purposefully didn’t bring one because the weather report showed 0% chance of rain. He ran inside and grabbed a Harbor Freight furniture blanket (thank goodness). By the time I had it strapped down, said my good-byes and closed the tailgate, it was raining “hard”. He ran back in the house and before I could leave the driveway, he came to my truck, reached through my rolled down window (in the rain) and handed me a roll of painters plastic while saying “you might need this”. I put the truck in gear, still in denial that it’s raining because it’s not supposed to and drove off. It rained harder. Not biblical levels but “anything you are hauling the bed of a pick-up truck that is not covered is going to get wet” levels. I pressed on because I could see clear spots in the sky. The rain followed me. I made a turn that I believed would get me home but in the rainstorm I must have misjudged and wound up on a road that ended in a cul-d-sac and … it was raining there too. I was trying to keep my speed up because that provided some shielding to the game from rain via the truck cab acting as a blocker but as you know driving on the wrong road in a cul-de-sac is not the best way to maintain speed. I finally recognized where I had gone wrong and was back on a path to get home. It was a 30 minute drive that ended up delivering various amounts of rain for 20 minutes of the total. I was thankful for the furniture blanket and hopeful that it was drying out in between the rain drops and assisted by the wind whistling by at 75mph on the freeway. I finally arrived home as it was getting dark and quickly unloaded the game and removed the wet (but surprisingly not soaked) blanket. The game was dry and in fine shape.

Right away, in the bright LED light of the garage, I could see that I had a bunch of minor work to do. First order of business was to simply wash the cabinet of some of the years of stains and dirt that come from being on a game route. Next I had to trim the cabinet decals where the legs had pressed into them and subsequently ripped and pushed them back. Once the game was safely up in the loft, I quickly crafted some “Stern style” cabinet protectors from black fiberboard and installed them underneath a fresh set or (much larger) leg protectors (the colorful ones) that would hide any of the decal damage. With my fiberboard protectors on, the decals would be forever safe from any further damage. With the game setup and running I turned my attention to the playfield and backbox. Over the next week I tackled the following:

Added a fresh sheet of PDI glass
Printed and installed apron cards
Replaced the backbox lock with period correct one
Wired in Brightcap EVO pop bumper lights (tied to GI)
Leveled the lagoon window to reduce edge wear
Rewired the hologram bulb (wire had been cut)
Waxed the playfield and cleaned old wax from posts
Repaired the coin door service menu button mount
Washed the speaker panel
Vacuumed the cabinet
Replaced a missing nut on the KISS plastic
Replaced 3 broken orange star posts
Fixed the slide ball deflector placement
LED’d the entire backbox (flasher remain incandescent)
Re-attach J133 pin 9 (start button lighting)
Removed backbox diffusor and installed new 3D print
Replaced a dozen burnt or dim LEDs under the playfield
Added a few color matched LEDs under inserts that needed them
Pulled the translight off the backglass to thoroughly wash both
Added an MRS switch in place of mechanical one in bowl

I’m not done yet! I’ve got a brand new lock down bar on order (the one in the game is bent), and an acrylic Creature to install in place of the hologram that is just now beginning to lose it’s bright green luster. By the time I’m done I’ll have added another $1,000+ to the cost of the game. It’s a keeper so that’s OK with me.

As I completed the repairs and upgrades I recalled that a year ago I had went on a month long streak of buying up every 3D movie I could get my hands on. The studios were not making many more movies in 3D as the home projector 3D phase was coming to an end. I have an Epson 3D capable projector and the price of the companion 3D wireless glasses had dropped enough ($75 per pair) that is was now a viable option to buy the glasses, get some movies and experience 3D right in my own home. One of the movies I bought and watched was “Creature from the Black lagoon”. I remembered how tame it was by today’s horror standards but at the same time how tense some of the scenes were and how cool the 3D was during some of the scenes – especially given the age of the movie. I thoroughly enjoyed it. One of the cool things about the Pinball Loft is that for most of the licensed themes in the collection, I have signed memorabilia from the artists, actors or entertainers. For Creature I had nothing. It was time to fix that. I went online and was quickly able to find a drive in speaker and original autographs of Julia Adams and Ricou Browning (Creature in the water). After receiving the items it took a few hours to crack the speaker in half, and I’m now in the process of creating a proper companion piece to go alongside the Creature pinball!

Well a few days and a few dozen games later, I marveled that Creature was finally part of the Pinball Loft collection and although the game count in the room had now dropped below 40, the quality was climbing. At least the perceived quality. To be honest, I had only played Creature once and I barely remembered the gameplay. I’d read every review I could on the game and already knew it was “beloved” by seasoned veterans and newbies alike. Before I brought Creature home, I wondered if I would feel the same? After all, I own Medieval Madness. The number one rated pinball of all time. I bought the remake because it was a bargain when it was introduced by Chicago Gaming and it had legendary status as a classic Pinball from the 90’s that was a “must own”. I’ve played it a bit and it’s still in the collection, but it never connected with me. There are things about the game that I think are cool and amazing but I’m a long way from loving the game play. The exploding castle may be one of the coolest mechs in pinball. The call-outs are among the funniest. The playfield art is stunning. Chicago Coin built it like a tank. Yet, at the end of the day I just don’t play it much. The gameplay does not draw me in. There is no “one more game” feeling after I finish.

Creature has been VERY different. In a good way. Literally from the first games I put on it when I got it home it felt “good”, easy to play, simple to understand and easy shots (for the most part). It’s hard to just pick one or two things that make it special. It’s not just the simplicity that has me playing the game every night (and not turning my Godzilla LE on at all). It’s the whole package that makes it work. The music just makes you feel good and reminds you of life before cell phones and the internet. It’s a nostalgic sounding and looking game. I have many fond memories of going to the drive-in as a child and a a teenager. Drive-ins were (and are) such a unique and special experience. One night, after finishing a game on Creature, I spent a half hour just researching the “Starlight Drive-in” hoping I would discover it was a real place, with a specific history that I could learn more about. I found the name only to discover there were dozens of “Starlight Drive-ins” and several that were well known and had long histories before the modern world gobbled them up. The call outs are “just right” too with modes that match the culture and vibe of the drive-in era. From “Move Your Car”, to “Double Feature” to the “Focus” that gets screamed at you when you drain – all of it aligns perfectly with the drive-in experience.

The story that Creature invites you to join … of going to a drive-in and paying your ticket, kissing your girl, riding the slide and getting some snacks is simple and engaging. Follow that story and with some luck and skill, you’ll start the multiball and become part of a movie in progress to “search” for the Creature from the Black Lagoon. Were it not for the latter part (Creature multiball) the game would likely just be “too easy” for some and downright boring for others. The addition of the Creature multiball creates a very unique juxtaposition of simple and easy (pre-multiball FILM effort) to intense and challenging (Creature multiball) and all in the blink of an eye. It’s the excitement of chasing that multiball and the challenge of playing it well that gives Creature it’s unique last ability. After a dozen plays or so, I remember standing with my hands resting on the lockdown bar with a big smile on my face and thinking to myself “I get it”, I now know why this is considered a classic.

I had the game for about a week when my daughter popped over to the house for dinner. When we were done I asked if she wanted to play some pinball. She’s not a fan but begrudgingly agreed in order to keep her old man happy. Of course we would play Creature as it was the hot title in rotation (read: the only game I had turned on in a week). It was VERY interesting to watch her play. It was not the same as other games I’d seen her engage with. Normally she would just flip around, trying to keep the ball alive like so many other casual players. I spent 30 seconds explaining to her how the basic rules worked. I shared with her that she was going to a drive-in and had 4 things to do at that drive-in before the story shifted to her becoming part of the Creature movie. No surprise she understood the rules – they are simple. The big surprise was watching her attempt to achieve the goals. She was shooting for the items that helped her spell out “Film”. She was targeting them purposefully. She knew where they were and at the end of game one had achieved 3 of the 4 letters. I was impressed! Her very first game and she was able to understand rules, know where the shots were and then execute on them. That’s a lot of real pinball packed into a first game, on a new machine from a very casual (barely interested) player!

We ended our 2 game session with her saying “I really like that one”. Out of nearly 40 games in the room, that’s quite a compliment to Creature. It’s also a testament to why after 30 years have passed, it’s still a much loved game. Creature is special in the way that it brings ALL of the elements of pinball together into one cohesive, nostalgic, campy, fun package. My only regret is that it took me 10 years to get one.

Creature Feature