Believe it or not, the sweet game of pinball is alive and well. It was the first “arcade” game and has evolved over the past century into a stalwart of generations. Mark Helms’ documentary follows his earlier pinball doc, The History of Pinball. In Pinball: Beyond the Bumpers, Helms gets into the details of where the game began.
Helms starts right from the very beginning, in the 1600s, when the British social elite played a game called Nine Hole, an outdoor game where you hit balls into holes. The French took the idea and adapted it into an indoor game called Bagatelle, played with cue sticks. At the turn of the 20th century, a factory worker transformed the popular, centuries-old game of Bagatelle by adding a plunger that sent a steel ball bearing onto the field and into a hole for points.
In 1932, a game that became what we know as pinball today hit the market. It was called Ballyhoo and spawned its own gaming (and gambling) company we know as Bally’s. With Ballyhoo’s popularity came parental concerns that the game was corrupting children, sparking a decades-long fight with local, state, and even federal governments to legalize it. The ban wasn’t lifted until 1976, with New York as the last holdout.
Once the game was legal, innovation took over as digital scoring replaced analog scoring with the advent of cheap microprocessors. Heading into the ’80s, pinball faced its first real competitor, the arcade video game, and then the home gaming console. For a while, people thought pinball was dead, but clever thinking and engineering soon resurrected the classic game.
A red ball sits on the pin-studded wooden playfield of an early game in Pinball: Beyond the Bumpers.
“…a pretty comprehensive look at the history of pinball.”
Pinball: Beyond the Bumpers is a pretty comprehensive look at the history of pinball. This is one of those documentaries you run on an endless loop at pinball and arcade museums. It’s chock full of history and expert interviews, including pinball historian Roger Sharpe, Stern Pinball’s Gary Stern, and legendary designer Steve Ritchie. Each builds on the story of how a tabletop pastime turned into flashing lights, ringing bells, and a quarter-eating machine that dwells in American arcades. Along the way, Helms finds rare games most people have never seen in person, like the old Ballyhoo machine.
Of course, we’ve got celebrities too, like Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash, along with a new generation of players, like Reby Hardy and Crystaltina, who talk about their own love of the game.
Today, the International Flipper Pinball Association tracks more than 137,000 ranked players, up from around 500 in 2006. Once-bearish manufacturers are now watching new machine sales climb 15 to 20 percent a year.
Mark Helms’ Pinball: Beyond the Bumpers is a thorough, info-packed trip through the history of the silver ball, from Nine Hole on the lawns of the British elite to the flashing machines packing tournaments and vintage arcades today. Whether you’re a flipper fanatic or just a casual quarter-dropper, this is the kind of doc that’ll put a permanent nostalgic smile on your face.
"…Believe it or not, the sweet game of pinball is alive and well."
