Cat's Paw

Cat, manufactured by Rock-ola Manufacturing Corporation in June 1935, is a single-player electro-mechanical machine from a company that had already been making coin-operated games since 1932, so Cat represents Rock-ola's established rather than earliest work.

As with other EM machines from 1935, Cat predates the invention of the flipper by more than a decade, so gameplay relied on a plunger-launched ball moving through a fixed playfield of pins and scoring pockets rather than player-controlled flippers.

Details of Cat's specific artwork and theme have not survived in available records. Its age and rarity make it a notable, if lightly documented, entry in Rock-ola's mid-1930s pinball catalog, a period when Rock-ola was one of several Chicago manufacturers competing in the fast-growing EM pinball market.