Colorama

Colorama, designed by Ed Krynski and manufactured by J.H. Keeney and Company of Chicago in December 1963, is a two-player electro-mechanical game with a pageantry theme. The game's namesake feature is its biggest draw: lighting the letters in COLORAMA awards a Special, and that progress carries over from game to game - a strong incentive for repeat play.

The playfield offers two flippers, four pop bumpers, two passive bumpers, two slingshots, and three standup targets, finished with a Hard-Kote playfield coating. Scoring uses distinctive green score reels with white numbers, with a maximum displayed score of 1,999 points per player and a replay wheel maxing out at 20. The sound package is two bells and a knocker (which the schematic amusingly calls a 'clapper'). Operators could set 3- or 5-ball play.

Colorama occupies an interesting place in Keeney's history. The company, better known for gambling machines, returned to flipper games in 1963 after the Eastland Bill outlawed interstate shipment of gambling devices. Colorama proved a genuine success, selling well in the USA, Europe, and Tokyo by early 1964 and enjoying a long production run through that summer. It was long thought to be Keeney's last pin game; that distinction technically belongs to 1964's obscure 'Arrowhead', though Colorama's lengthy run may well have made it the last Keeney pinball out the door.