Jolly Joker

Jolly Joker, designed by Harry Williams and manufactured by Williams Manufacturing Company in August 1955, is an unusual entry in the company's catalog: a flipperless rolldown game rather than a conventional flipper pinball. Players roll balls down the playfield into a field of 25 trap holes, aiming to form poker hands in keeping with its playing-card theme.

The game offered five balls per play and used Catalin composition balls of 1 1/8 inch diameter. Its cabinet was advertised at a compact 32 1/4 inches long and 22 inches wide; a Cash Box article from October 1955 even suggested that with its legs removed the game would fit perfectly on a counter. The manufacturer's original playfield drawing is dated August 24, 1955 and bears the signed initials HEW, Harry Williams' own.

Jolly Joker appears to have been well received in its day: that same Cash Box article reported a heavy volume of orders, and a November 1955 Billboard piece credited Williams sales manager Art Weinand as saying a second release of the game had begun. Its rolldown format and poker-hand scoring make it a distinctive curiosity for collectors of 1950s Williams games.