licensed – EPOCH

Charlie’s Angels
Gottlieb
1978

Charlie’s Angels was the sixth solid state game released by Gottlieb and based upon the television crime drama of the same name, which appeared on the ABC network between 1976 to 1981. The game features the likenesses of Cheryl Ladd, Kate Jackson and Jaclyn Smith, the 1977 cast of the ever-changing Angels team. The iconic Angels silhouette is used throughout the backglass, playfield and cabinet art. Two sets of drop targets and a stand up target work to increase bonus and advance the bonus multiplier. There is indication that this Allen Edwall design was originally used to test the limits of Gottlieb’s solid state hardware upon its implementation at Gottlieb, some years before the design was assigned to carry the Charlie’s Angels theme. An electromechanical version of this game was also made by Gottlieb in fewer numbers. The SS Model was manufactured in late 1978, the EM Model in early 1979.

theme | television crime drama

design | Allen Edwall
art | Gordon Morison

SS
4 player game
7.600 units produced
acquisitie | september 2022

Star Trek
Bally
1979

Star Trek is a pinball machine from April 1979, manufactured by Bally Manufacturing Co. A total of 16,842 units were built. It was the first officially licensed Star Trek pinball game which extended into many other machines later on. There were three significant versions of the backglass. It’s not known how many of each was produced on production machines. The earliest version had had the colorful TV series uniforms and a small character in the lower-left shooting a humanoid. The next version of the backglass removed the humanoid for a ball of energy but still had the color uniforms from the original Star Trek TV series. The final version was changed (along with two playfield plastics) early in the production to show them dressed in gray single-color clothing to fit with the Star Trek Hollywood movie that was coming out at the same time as the game. Sound was accomplished with the AS-2518-32 sound board. This is the first generation of electronic sound boards from Bally. It mimicked the sounds of the EMs in that most of the sounds were based around the 10, 100, and 1000 point chimes. The chime sounds could be replaced by simple electronic noises with MPU DIP switches s8 and s32. The designers strung together sounds to make tunes that played at the start of the game, saucer exit, bally bonus, and the end of the game. The sounds paid no homage to the theme. Gameplay include 2 flippers, 3 pop bumpers, 2 slingshots, a 4-bank drop targets, 5 standup targets, 2 star rollovers, a kick-out hole (saucer), and a free-ball return to the shooter lane.

thema | outer space

design | Gary Gayton
art | Kevin O’Connor

SS
4 player game
16.842 units produced
acquisitie | augustus 2022

Tag: licensed

CHARLIE’S ANGELS

STAR TREK