Bally Manufacturing

[laughs] So Baby Pac-Man, and you're gonna already guess the theme of this by reading the, from what I read here.

It's a pinball/video game hybrid from Bally Manufacturing Corporation, uh, specifically their pinball division.

Now, uh, both of these games we're talking about tonight.

Give a theme giveaway-

Mm.

But I, uh, brought together, uh, eight Bally pinball artists b- to be on one panel.

Uh-

Yes

he had to tell and the history of the work that he worked at.

Did...

Uh, on that point, did he actually work at Bally? I, I, I know he worked for Williams, but did he do Bally?

I'm sure he did.

One side, we have Williams' 1989 classic Black Knight 2000, Steve Ritchie's incredible music, iconic artwork, and a game that remains a favorite for more than 35 years.

And on the other side, Bally's Hard Body from 1987, a game remembered mostly for sweaty bodybuilders, questionable sound effects, and being one of the strangest machines Bally ever produced.

But there's just one problem.

We don't know which game is better.

Moving on to hard body, for some reason uses bodybuilding as its theme to capitalize on the 1980s fitness craze.

The back glass features a photo of... or features photos, rather, of two-time Miss Olympia winner Rachel McClish in four distinct fitness poses.

Bodybuilding was actually chosen as the theme for the game, partly because Bally's parent company at the time owned Bally Total Fitness, which is really not shocking when you think about it.

I would

Uh-huh

... and Casino in Las Vegas, and then he was the Southern Nevada distributor for Bally Manufacturing, which at the time was the largest slot machine company, uh, in the world, based in Chicago.

But there were some investigations at the time, and the one that I had mentioned-

Yeah

Here's just a couple of the companies that Drexel helped refinance and that, and that Leon Black was involved with.

7-Eleven, Circle K, AMC Entertainment, Bally Manufacturing, Barnes & Noble, Caesars World, Calvin Klein, I mean, Duracell.

So a lot of people think about these guys as corporate raiders and, but they actually set up the financing for private equity to get involved and actually save some companies, but there's a lot of distress investing that they did as well.

So it was a transformation of the industry.

772 for Circus Voltaire.

But this is apparently because 1772 was stated as the year that the troupe La Voltaire... was formed by Monsieur Voltaire, according to the backstory printed in the original manual of the Bally game.

So, yeah, entirely made up in the first place.

But, hey, it's as good a number as any to pull out of there.

Yeah.

Differently.

Williams bought the Bally brand.

But it does suggest there's a very tight integration between Pinball Brothers, Pedretti and the Euro Pinball Corp.