Side Kick
About This Machine
The Side Kick pinball machine, manufactured by Daval Manufacturing Co. in 1939, is an EM Flipperless machine from the early days of pinball design, predating the invention of flippers by nearly a decade. Its playfield features 12 spring bumpers and two thrust magnets that propel the ball from the center lane rollovers toward a side rollover, an inventive mechanism for its era.
Side Kick's design cleverly addresses a mechanical challenge common to Flipperless games: the offset, symmetrical playfield (apart from the bottom rollover and outhole trough) is arranged so balls are carefully fed to the outhole trough rather than piling up there, which allows the extra-ball feature at the bottom rollover to function reliably. Landing on that rollover when lit awards an extra ball, giving skilled players a reason to keep coming back.
Advertisements of the era show that Side Kick was sold in three variants: a novelty high-score model, a high-score model with a $50.95 reserve bank, and a free-play version, reflecting the range of business models operators used for coin-op games in the late 1930s. A related Daval title, the 1938 'Odd Ball Junior', also awarded extra balls at the bottom rollover.
Images (37)
Technical Details
- Notable Features:
- 5 balls per play. Spring bumpers (12), Thrust magnets (2). Bottom rollover awards extra ball when lit. The playfield is symmetrical with the exception of the bottom rollover and outhole trough. Both are offset to allow balls to be carefully fed to the outhole trough instead of piling up there, so that the extra ball feature will function. The two center lanes each have a rollover to score points and a rollover to activate an electromagnet to propel the ball towards a side rollover. According to the Billboard ads, this game was available in three different models: 1) Novelty high score 2) Hi-score with $50.95 Reserve Bank 3) Hi-score with free play