Happy-Go-Lucky

The Happy-Go-Lucky, manufactured by D. Gottlieb & Company in March 1951, is a scarce and appealing example of early-1950s electro-mechanical pinball design. Designed by Wayne Neyens with artwork by Roy Parker, this single-player game (Gottlieb model 48) carried an ice skating theme and had a confirmed production run of just 600 units. Its features include two flippers, two pop bumpers, four slingshots, ten standup targets, and two kick-out holes, with sound provided by two bells and a knocker.

The game's most distinctive feature is its V-shaped Safety Gate, which raises to close the wide gap between the flippers - a dramatic save mechanism Gottlieb used on only a handful of games of the era. The game also has an interesting development story: designer Wayne Neyens had a machinist fabricate extra-long metal flippers, which appeared on the game in the promotional flyer, but production games shipped with standard shorter flippers and rubbered posts to make up the difference. Neyens' original name for the design was "Ten Little Indians," to go with the sequences of ten on the playfield, before Gottlieb used that name on an earlier 1950 game.

With its low production run, its Safety Gate, and its Neyens/Parker pedigree, the Happy-Go-Lucky is a rare find and a worthwhile addition to any collection of wood-rail era Gottlieb games.