JAPANESE-MADE PINBALLS

[Rock-ola]

The, 17 Jan 2013 23:55:00 GMT
Not many people know about them, but in the 1970s Sega of Japan made a number of pinballs with some unique features. Our roving reporter John find out all about them.

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[sleepy]

I thank a Bot for his report on Pinball Machines!

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

well, i'll be danged.

okay, if they were mainly produced for the local japanese market, why did they sport western motiffs and english printing? is it because the japanese were that obsessed with americana, or because all of the units shown were converted for english-speaking markets?

and i wonder... since those relays are in clear boxes, does that mean they vacuum-pumped them so as to cut down on future corrosion? i could see the box being a tremendous help, if so, or a PITA if it was necessary to take it apart every time one needed to clean the contacts (like at arcades on the east or west coast, for example).

i did have a cover glass break on me once even though i was being ultra-careful in sliding it out... so that part makes sense. and jimmying the top off was perhaps of less concern in nippon.

and i'd love to see those sega slingshots in action. do you know how those work, mister ola? i mean, rock... i mean, looks like the ball just sort of thuds off of those mofos. :D

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

mister ola.... oh, mister ola!

 

[sleepy]

Is there a "Mister Ola"?
I am under the impression that he is a Bot,
so maaybe...

public void paint(Graphics g) {

g2.drawString("Mister Ola?", 100, 100);
g2.dispose();
}

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

TBH, i was hoping that if any bots (organic or silicon) suddenly came to life, they might want to discuss these interesting machines.

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

but in the 1970s Sega of Japan made a number of pinballs with some unique features

phew...! it's great to talk to a live person once again. :D

 

[sleepy]

So, does anyone know who the person is who writes under the pseudonym
"Rock-ola"?

I do know that "Rock-ola" was the name of an arcade manufacturer
who built *I think* "World Series 1934" or something like that, and they had a number of video games in the early 1980's.

Funny though. I remember playing a specific Rock-ola video game around '81 or '82 involving an adventurer in *I think* a hot air balloon and in the game he traveled to several islands, but I cannot find this game in my copy of Mame.

???

 

[faralos]

Rockola made jukeboxes mostly

 

[faralos]

and as for sliding out pin glass I hated that with a passion
especially in a seedy bar where patrons tended to spill drinks
so the liquid traveled under the side rails onto the glass
usually gluing the glass in with the stickiness of the drink
it would take a half hour and lots of window cleaner
squirted between the rails and glass to get it loose enough
to slide out with minimum breakage

 

[sleepy]

Hey, this is pretty good.
Rock-ola was linked to Chicago Organized Crime and turned State's Witness.
Then in the 40's they manufactured the M1 Carbine for The U.S. Military,
for use in WW II.
Also, Please see: "Organized Crime and the Jukebox Business", second link,
and Thank You!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock-Ola

http://www.jitterbuzz.com/jukeboxes_companies.html#crime

...Joseph Barbera?? ...I wonder...

 

[sleepy]

So...was pinball in the U.S. illegal because "it was considered a gambling device"?

Or was it made illegal as a means "to cut off potential revenue for The Mob"?

 

[sleepy]

I found it.
The Rock-ola game was "Fantasy".
Funny how it is not listed in Mame under Manufacturer > Rock-ola.
EDIT: Oh. It was an SNK game, licensed to...

 

[faralos]

In 1952 Alan Freed visited a Cleveland record store and learned that R&B records were being snapped up by white teenagers.
Sensing the makings of something big, he changed the name of his popular music show on radio station WJW
from "Record Rendezvous" to "Moon Dog's Rock 'n' Roll House Party" and began playing R&B tunes.
Freed apparently used the term "rock 'n' roll" to describe the music
because he thought the racial connotation of "rhythm and blues" might turn off the white audience.
In any case, the term stuck.

 

[faralos]

the mob was making enough what with bootlegging and prostitution in those days
pinball was actually illegal in that it constituted a gambling device and those were outlawed

 

[faralos]

here we go:
Pinball was banned from the early 1940s to the mid-1970s in most of America's big cities,
including New York, Los Angeles and Chicago, where the game was born
and where virtually all of its manufacturers have historically been located.
The stated reason for the bans: Pinball was a game of chance, not skill,
and so it was a form of gambling. To be fair, pinball really did involve a lot less skill in the early years of the game,
largely because the flipper wasn't invented until 1947, five years after most of the bans were implemented.
Up until then, players would bump and tilt the machines in order to sway the ball's gravity.
Many lawmakers also believed pinball to be a mafia-run racket and a time- and dime-waster for impressionable youth.

Read more: 11 Things You Didn't Know About Pinball History - Popular Mechanics
​

 

[faralos]

and this is the part that pisses me off the most
n New York, the pinball ban was executed in a particularly dramatic fashion.
Just weeks after Pearl Harbor was attacked, Mayor Fiorello La Guardia issued an ultimatum to the city's police force
stating that their top priority would be to round up pinball machines and arrest their owners.
La Guardia proceeded to spearhead massive Prohibition-style raids
in which thousands of machines were rounded up in a matter of days,
before being dramatically smashed with sledgehammers by the mayor and police commissioner.
The machines were then dumped into the city's rivers.

​

 

[sleepy]

Many lawmakers also believed pinball to be a mafia-run racket

Yeah, I know about the way it was. I'm from the era and can remember when the pinball machines in Pennsylvania were only found in backrooms of roadside Italian restaurants and the temporary sheds of Kiddieland amusement park outside of Kittanning, Pa. Never in the sunshine in the 1950's and 60's.
The Kiddieland pinballs were set up to return your money (5 cents a game) and a replay if you won.

I don't think you understand it.
I'm asking if maybe the lawmakers used "game of chance" as an excuse for getting at The Mob and reducing their cash flow.
The Mob pushing illegal gambling, drugs and prostitution still needed legitimate businesses like pinball arcades, restaurants and cleaners to launder the money.

Have you watched the CBS show "Vegas"? The character "Vince" is constantly making sure the casino is clean, not to run a clean game, but because any discrepancy in the rules will give the government an excuse to shut them down. This serves as the dramatic tension between Vince and Sheriff Lamb, but it's probably accurate. Look at the RFK quote on the page I linked to.

 

[faralos]

I don't think first that the lawmakers of the time
had the smarts to offset any of the mobs doings
and second that they had the manpower to pull it off completely
the mob also had a very heavy influence in the joker pokers
we used to have set up in various locations in North Jersey in the 80's
we had over a hundred illegal joker pokers and kenos
set up at different locations all throughout North Jersey
these machines EACH pulled in over 5grand per week! yes per week!
and every two weeks we had three 'gentlemen' in striped three piece suits come into the offices for their 'take'
and twice a year there were raids
that we knew of beforehand so the days prior to a raid
we'd collect all the machines and hide them in various storage facilities
all over Clifton and Paterson NJ
gotta' love organized um...family run businesses
and yeah the owner of our little company was very much Italian
(Cue Vending of Clifton NJ...now defunct)

 

[sleepy]

Well, not back when it was outlawed by that pinball-smashing guy from New York, Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia. He was who I was thinking of, and he was definitely prohibiting pinball as a Mob-controlled game, which is why he was photographed by and for The Press while smashing the pinball machines in a raid.
He was sending his message to the Mob. Note the similarities in bold.

http://www.answers.com/topic/fiorello-la-guardia

Crime

LaGuardia loathed the gangsters who brought a negative stereotype and shame to the Italian community.[24] His first action as mayor was to order the chief of police to arrest mob boss Lucky Luciano on whatever charges could be found. LaGuardia then went after the gangsters with a vengeance, stating in a radio address to the people of New York in his high-pitched, squeaky voice, "Let's drive the bums out of town". In 1934 LaGuardia went on a search-and-destroy mission looking for mob boss Frank Costello's slot machines, which La Guardia executed with gusto, rounding up thousands of the "one armed bandits", swinging a sledgehammer and dumping them off a barge into the water for the newspapers and media. In 1935 La Guardia appeared at The Bronx Terminal Market to institute a city-wide ban on the sale, display, and possession of artichokes, whose prices were inflated by mobs. When prices went down, the ban was lifted.[25] In 1936, LaGuardia had special prosecutor Thomas E. Dewey, a future Republican presidential candidate, single out Lucky Luciano for prosecution. Dewey led a successful investigation into Luciano's lucrative prostitution operation, eventually sending Luciano to jail with a 30–50 year sentence. The case was made into the 1937 movie Marked Woman, starring Bette Davis.
LaGuardia proved successful in shutting down the burlesque theaters, whose shows offended his puritanical sensibilities.[26]

 

[faralos]

I love the fact that they dumped them
into the cities rivers and waterways
makes ya' wonder what else may be hiding in those depths
(Jimmy Hoffa anyone?)

 

[Isaac Sauvage]

just checking in here for a moment... hoping not to have to skim-read a million different side-points you guys raised...

did either of you respond to any of the talking points / questions that i raised?

if not, that's totally cool, of course. just checking!

 

[sleepy]

Well no Ike, that's not cool. We with the Mob discourse are totally off-topic.
My fault for veering off with the Rock-ola mob connection, jukeboxes, etc.

As for SEGA Japanese pinball, it is indeed very interesting and I spotted those machines at ipdb many years ago with an eye to VP, but I've never played a real-life SEGA of Japan machine, so I have no clue as to feel or rules or anything necessary to move it along.

What I find amazing is not so much that the SEGA relays used sealed units, but how the American machines did not, especially with the problems of spilled beer and Coke at the bar. Else, this lack of attention to quality and protection is what makes the American parts replacement business a success.

On the other hand, the unsealed units might be easier to monkey with, to keep them operating past their prime. Tinker with the electrodes or the coil armatures or sandpaper the barf off the leaf switches or do whatever it takes.
Maybe when the sealed units quit, the operator is then stuck until they are replaced in whole, like a bad microchip?

 

[sleepy]

Not sure about the American fetishes, but I'm guessing the Western influence was maintained because Pinball is a game from Western culture.

At the same time, there was still Pachinko Machines in Japan and, again I'm guessing, there you did not see the themes of Western culture because pachinko is considered to be a local Japanese game.

For a time in the early 1970's, after the initial legalization of pinball in cities such as Los Angeles, there was also a push to promote Pachinko in the States, though mostly as a game sold to the home. I didn't see pachinko parlors, but several outlets including Sears sold authentic reconditioned or NIB Pachinko Machines and they were definitely of the Japanese style, easily at home when sold at the old school Pier 1 Imports store next to the Japanese rice paper candies and incense and bottles of Akadama Royal Plum Wine or Saki, or at home mounted on the wall alongside one's Sansui Quad receiver with the electro-blue Japanese styling. I loved that look.

Needless to say, pachinko did not catch on and the machines were discontinued at Sears.
EDIT: Let me rephrase that. Pachinko surely did sell for awhile, but was later discontinued.
See below.

 

[faralos]

My family was one of the ones to buy the Pachinko machine from Sears
back in the 70's the docs were written in Japanese! it was fun to play once we figured it all out!
We lost it in a house fire though unfortunately along with a pinball machine
also bought from Sears
as well as all my dads' rc airplane hobby stuff in the basement
when our oil furnace split a seam and poured burning oil all over the floor
1980-xx-xx Sears Christmas Catalog P648 | Flickr - Photo Sharing!
just click on the title at the top of the black screen to see the pic