Merry Old King
About This Machine
The Merry Old King pinball machine remains one of the more enigmatic entries in pinball history, with its manufacturer unrecorded and little documentation surviving. IPDB researchers believe it may be a flipper conversion of Gottlieb's 1945 'Stage Door Canteen,' or possibly related to Gottlieb's 1947 'Miss America,' which uses the same playfield layout with different artwork.
Beyond that connection, specific gameplay features and design details for Merry Old King are not well documented. Its uncertain origins suggest it could be a conversion, reissue, or rebadged version of an existing design rather than an entirely original machine, a common practice among smaller operators and distributors in the mid-1940s.
While little else is known about its designer or original theme, Merry Old King's mysterious history offers a small puzzle for pinball historians tracing the lineage of Gottlieb's mid-1940s playfield designs.