Rio

The United Manufacturing Company's Rio, designed by Gordon Horlick and released in January 1947, is a flipperless electromechanical pinball machine themed around music, dancing, and world places. It arrived just before flippers were introduced to the industry -- United's own first flipper game, 'Wisconsin,' followed in April 1948, and operators of the period would often retrofit flipperless games like Rio with flippers added afterward, sometimes in unusual playfield positions.

Gameplay centers on two kick-out holes, a relatively simple feature set typical of flipperless EM games of the mid-1940s.

Gordon Horlick's design gave Rio a distinctive place among United's pre-flipper catalog. Little additional information about the game's specific artwork or development history has survived, but Rio remains a useful example of the transitional period just before flippers reshaped pinball design.