Aloha

Aloha, manufactured by D. Gottlieb & Company in November 1961, is a two-player electro-mechanical game designed by Wayne Neyens with artwork by Roy Parker — the prolific team behind many of Gottlieb's classics of the era. Model number 183, it had a confirmed production run of 1,700 units. Its Hawaiian theme arrived at a moment when Hawaii, newly a state, was a fashionable destination in the American imagination.

The playfield offers two flippers, three pop bumpers, four passive bumpers, two slingshots, and two kick-out holes, plus a gobble hole with an end-of-ball bonus. Unusually, the game has no outlanes. The maximum displayed score is 1,999 points per player, with a replay wheel maximum of 26.

Roy Parker's production backglass centers on a Hawaiian woman dancing with both hands above her head — interestingly, the manufacturer's flyer shows a different central figure with lowered hands, likely from sample games, and surviving glasses show the women's skin tone in either brown or an unrealistic pink, possibly indicating separate production runs. These variations, along with the game's charming theme and Neyens/Parker pedigree, make Aloha an appealing piece of early-1960s Gottlieb history.