Balls-A-Poppin

Balls-A-Poppin holds a genuinely important place in pinball history: it was the first flipper machine to feature multiball play. Released by Bally in 1956 (its list price of $485 appeared in Cash Box that December), this two-player widebody with a circus/carnival theme saw a confirmed production run of 750 units. An earlier flipperless electromechanical game, Dudley-Clark's 1934 'Live Power', had featured multiball, but Balls-A-Poppin brought the concept to the flipper era.

The gameplay is built around that pioneering multiball system. The playfield offers two flippers, four pop bumpers, two passive bumpers, four slingshots, and a kick-out hole, plus a left ball shooter lane. Four rollover buttons advance a Wild Ball counter on the backglass, and a ball landing in the kick-out hole launches all accumulated Wild Balls from the left shooter lane, starting multiball with up to nine balls in play. With multiple balls on the playfield, rollovers and the kick-out hole are hit more often, so a continuous multiball session can often be sustained for a long time. Although the backglass counter stops at six, the game carries nine balls to keep the action going, and every rollover and lit bumper pops a small knocker - a sound that becomes wonderfully frantic during multiball, as the game has no bells.

The widebody cabinet measures 24 inches wide (25 with its side wood rails), and the playfield design was used again on Bally's 1957 'Circus'. As the flipper game that introduced multiball, Balls-A-Poppin promises an immersive experience and stands as a landmark of electro-mechanical innovation wrapped in carnival revelry.