Keen-A-Ball

Keen-A-Ball, designed by Harry Mabs with artwork by Roy Parker, was manufactured by D. Gottlieb & Company in September 1939. It is a single-player, flipperless electro-mechanical (EM) pinball machine -- as with all pinball games of its era, it predates the 1947 introduction of player-controlled flippers, so scoring depended entirely on the ball's path across the playfield and its interaction with the machine's mechanical bumpers.

Keen-A-Ball's standout feature is its bank of fifteen spring bumpers, a substantial number for a late-1930s playfield, which would have produced a lively, bumper-heavy ball path typical of pre-flipper EM design.

Little further documentation survives regarding Keen-A-Ball's artwork or specific scoring rules, which is common for Gottlieb's output from this period. It remains a notable, if under-documented, example of Harry Mabs and Roy Parker's design-and-art partnership in the years just before flippers reshaped the industry.