Lady Robin Hood

Lady Robin Hood, released by D. Gottlieb & Company in January 1948, occupies a special place in pinball history as Gottlieb's second game with flippers, following directly on the heels of 1947's landmark Humpty Dumpty. Designed by Harry Mabs, the man credited with introducing the flipper, and featuring artwork by the prolific Roy Parker, it arrived at the very moment the flipper was transforming the industry.

Like other flipper games of this brief pioneering era, Lady Robin Hood carries six flippers arranged around the playfield rather than the familiar pair at the bottom that would become standard in later years, along with a single kickout hole. The name is presumably an allusion to the legendary outlaw of English folklore, given a feminine twist typical of the era's backglass art.

The game was a commercial success: Gottlieb produced a confirmed 6,000 units, nearly six times the volume of each of the three flipperless games that preceded Humpty Dumpty and Lady Robin Hood. A March 1948 Billboard article even reported that Nate Gottlieb had come down with laryngitis from fielding so many inquiries about the game. Gottlieb also showed off two special prototypes at the 1949 Coin Machine Manufacturers Show in Chicago, one accepting nickels, dimes, and quarters via a large ABT coin mechanism, and another with glass sides, chrome-plated interior mechanisms, and wiring laid out in straight runs for display.