Band Leader

Band Leader, manufactured by J. H. Keeney and Company of Chicago in October 1949, is a single-player electro-mechanical pinball machine from the early flipper era. Its music, singing, and dancing theme captures the lively spirit of late-1940s entertainment. Keeney announced in late October 1949 that the game was on display in distributors' showrooms.

The game offers five balls for five cents and features two flippers with an unusual control scheme: pressing either flipper button operates both flippers simultaneously. The playfield includes four pop bumpers, five kick-out holes, and a rollover button, but notably no slingshots. Specials award a replay, and the operator could adjust the game in the lower cabinet for either Replay or Novelty play. The replay wheel maxes out at 99, the maximum displayed point score is an impressive 9,490,000 points, and two bells provide the sound.

One detail for restorers: the manufacturer's flyer shows the three white posts in center playfield sharing a white rubber looped around them in an atypical way, with a separate rubber shared by two green posts and a white plastic switch tower just below - a configuration often incorrectly restored on surviving examples as a single rubber around all five posts.