Circus

Bally's Circus is an unusual electro-mechanical (EM) widebody game from the 1950s, notable chiefly for its variable multiball feature - up to nine balls could be in play at once, on either 3- or 5-ball play. Multiball of any kind was a rarity in this era, and Circus shares its playfield design with Bally's 1956 'Balls-A-Poppin'', the game famous for introducing multiball to pinball. On Circus, the Bonus Balls counter appears on the playfield instead of the backglass.

The two-player game is otherwise equipped with two flippers, four pop bumpers, and a kick-out hole, wrapped in a cheerful circus/carnival theme. The widebody cabinet gives the play area extra room for the chaos that ensues when multiple balls are loose at once.

Documentation on this game is thin: no designer is credited, and even its production quantity is uncertain - a previously reported run of 3,550 units is now believed to be an error, having been confused with Bally's 1973 game of the same name. That air of mystery only adds to the appeal of this early multiball oddity for collectors of 1950s Bally games.