On a recent Galactica Watercooler podcast, one guy said he was walking through a bar/restaurant when he heard Raul Julia's voice shouting "Mamuska!" He wheeled around and found himself face to face with an old friend. The "Addams Family" pinball machine.
This brought back some very fond memories for me. Sometimes I wonder how I spent hours upon hours in bars. The answer is pinball. I can almost check off the pinball machines that they had at The Mounty back home in Hancock County, West Virginia, on Rt. 30. I gave the full location for posterity sake because I assume this blog will live on and future beings will want to mark the location on their holographic maps.
I believe (1) Tomcat was the machine in the bar when I first went in there as an underage lad around 1989. It was a lame F-16 themed game. The one that seduced me, however, was (2) Bad Cats about 1991. Occasionally a chorus of white people would sing "Seafoooooood!" I really enjoyed that one.
I think next might have been (3) Dr. Who, which was addictive but I remember very little about it. That might have been 1993 when I was finally twenty-one. Next up I would guess Addams Family. This was perhaps the king of the pinball games. Something infectious about Raul Julia as Gomez yelling crazy shit like "Mamushka!," which was followed up by Russian folk music. Incidentally, I never liked the movies.
I'm thinking mid-1990s would have been Indiana Jones (4), a mish-mash of scenes from all three movies. Some catch phrases featured in the game graphics : "You chose wisely"; "No time for love Dr. Jones"; and possibly "Junior!"
Now somewhere in there was another great, possibly the late 1990s: The Twilight Zone (5). I had little idea what most of it was about, but I loved that there was a crazy magnet thing that would happen where it might stop the ball on a dime or make the ball swerve around the board.
As I talk about the pinball, I can't help but picture myself with a mindless smile and wide eyes, jumping and clapping at the pretty lights and loud noises. The truth is not so far off. Except picture me, David, and Benji with beers in our hands--in fact, picture us on mug night with our own mugs from back home--and we are watching Greg play endlessly and clowning around. For future beings, just picture three guys watching one guy thrusting his pelvis into the pinball machine in an obscene fashion.
Incidentally, "mug night" lasted for about five weeks one summer until the bar owners wife put a stop to it for illogical reasons. But mug night lives forever in my mind.
7 comments:
I'd say Dr. Who was my favorite of the bunch. I remember the Daleks screaming some phrase in a shrill voice which was really annoying. But I ruled that pinball machine so I put up with it.
Certainly the highlight of Mounty pinball was Greg. He was always so drunk and so lound and so... Greg. He was a pinball wizard and managed to tilt more pinball machines than any man I've ever seen.
Speaking of mug night: My favorite theme night at the Mounty was the one we heard about but never witnessed because it only lasted one night. You may recall the tale...
I don't remember the name but the theme was that everyone sitting at the bar could drink for free (starting at like 8 pm) until one person had to get up and take a piss. Needless to say the promotion ended when the first guy that had to piss ended up whipping it out and pissing at his feet so he wouldn't have to get up and ruin the free beer for everyone.
I loved that place.
First off, I can't help myself, Tomcats were F-14s.
Secondly, I never really played a lot of pinball, but I always enjoyed it when I did. I think my favorite was the Terminator 2 game.
Mug night sounds like a lot of fun, did Louie bring his Strawberry Shortcake mug? I remember he got that when he was 15, loudly proclaiming, "One day, I shall MARRY Miss Shortcake!" We tried to explain it to him, but he would only say that we couldn't take away his dreams, then he would grasp at the empty air in front of him, trying to catch something that the rest of us could not see.
I didn't really like the Addams Family movies either, but there were moments of genius in them and I loved them conceptually. The problem was that they were always trying to have a plot and that all but ruined them. But, as on the TV show, I loved the weird stuff that Gomez was into.
Who whipped it out? Did he cry?
My favorite modern pinball machine? A toss up between South park and Revenge from Mars. It was a sad day when Dave & Buster's took that machine out.
Lou,
I remember Indiana Jones mostly because it was the only pinball game we took advantage of the flaws, and ideocyncracies of. It was also as I recall not that easy to tilt. My favorite line was "See ya tomorrow Indiana Jones!" Also, I believe, if memory serves me, David was able to get away with using a nearly half gallon kitchen pitcher as his mug. That was classy.
Bud
Clearly, I will have to go to Dave & Busters. Perhaps I will be able to get there without accidentally driving a complete cirle around Pittsburgh. I will try to sneak my own mug in, as well.
Bud, those idiosyncracies are the best part of pinball, aren't they? The things the ball gets hung up on, etc.
Mike, nobody likes a know-it-all.
Know-it-all? ME?!?!? Look, I'm sorry I told everyone about your love of Strawberry Shortcake. But just because I knew you when you were younger does not make me a know-it-all.
I was always the kid who had a coupla dollars, run through them in minutes, and have to stand around for another 45 whilst my friends seemed to dominate arcade games on a single quarter. Thus scarred, I remain an inadequate gamer to this day. Alas.
Lou, do you remember when those guys downstairs got a space invaders game from the mountainlair? Being free, I could enjoy it. What were their names? I always thought the one guy was weird cause he had copies of a magazine called "Shaved". Being a fan of "simply naked girls" it seemed a little strange for one to be attracted to a specific genre of naked girls. Especially when that seemed to make them look "younger" in a jailable sense. Now, of course, it is hard to find a real live vagina with any hair on it. If we can find the capital perhaps we can finance a mag called "with hair" and ride the wave to the future. Oh, and the Pac-man and KISS pinball machines were decent.
Post a Comment