Swing-Along

Swing-Along, released by D. Gottlieb & Company in July 1963, is a two-player electro-mechanical pinball machine with a music-and-dancing theme, designed by Wayne Neyens with art by Roy Parker. According to Gottlieb's own promotional flyer, Swing-Along holds a genuine claim to pinball history: it was the first machine to feature spinning targets, a mechanism that would go on to become a staple of pinball design for decades.

Gameplay is built around two flippers, four pop bumpers, two slingshots, four standup targets, and three spinning targets, with a maximum displayed score of 1,999 points per player, a replay wheel that tops out at 26, and sound effects from two bells and a knocker. Swing-Along had a confirmed production run of 4,710 units, making it one of the more widely distributed Gottlieb titles of its era.

Interestingly, export copies of the game sold in Italy sometimes carried plastic backglasses missing the word "Flipper" from Gottlieb's usual "A Gottlieb Flipper Skill Game" branding. One surviving Italian example has a playfield modified (not by Gottlieb) to display scores above the standard 1,999-point maximum, and its cabinet has been repainted with an unknown serial number. Rather than being among the earliest music-themed pinball machines -- a claim not supported by the historical record, since Gottlieb and other manufacturers had produced music- and dance-themed games for decades before 1963 -- Swing-Along's real historical significance lies in introducing spinning targets to the pinball vocabulary.