1976 BALLY CAPTAIN FANTASTIC PINBALL MACHINE ARCADE GAME, ELTON JOHN

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1976 BALLY CAPTAIN FANTASTIC PINBALL MACHINE ARCADE GAME, ELTON JOHN:
$7900.00

Capt. Fantastic Pinball Machine

Bally Manufacturing

Type: Electro Mechanical

Model Number: 1062

Date of Manufacture: June, 1976

This Capt. Fantastic Pinball is a completely original machine that is in beautiful working condition. A recent service has been performed and it plays with absolutely no issues.

All of the rubber components have been replaced with the correct parts along with all of the lights being replaced with the correct color LED lights. The machine looks and plays as it did in 1976. The cabinet is original and in very nice condition as is the back glass and playfield, as you can see from the photos.

All of the mechanical and aesthetic aspects of the machine work and look as they should. The glass covering the playfield has been replaced with brand new glass that makes the machine look like the day the pinball was delivered new. If you would like the original glass, you are welcome to have it as well.

If you would like a video of the game running and playing, please let me know and I can email it to you. Local pickup only, as I don’t know of a shipper I would trust to deliver it. If you have a shipper you trust, I will assist in loading the machine, and will remove the head and legs to facilitate easier shipping if requested.

And now for a little history on the Capt. Fantastic pinball…

'Capt. Fantastic' was inspired by the movie 'Tommy' and includes a representation of Elton John, as his character from the movie, playing pinball on the back glass. The game name, however, is the title of Elton John's 1975 autobiographical song and album where "Captain Fantastic" was Elton and "The Brown Dirt Cowboy" was his then-lyricist Bernie Taupin. Included in the song lyrics are the words "From the end of the world to your town" which appear at the very top center of the back glass.

Tom Nieman, VP of Marketing for Bally Pinball, tells us the flyer was made while Elton was recording a new album in Canada. For this flyer, a game was shipped to the Toronto hotel where Elton was staying. That is why he is shown wearing a Canadian hockey jersey. Elton then asked Nieman to send a game to his various residences and one to his "mum" in the UK.Artist Dave Christensen included in the backglass several depictions of people doing things that, at first, escaped notice by Bally management. A small number of games with these so-called "X-rated" or "uncensored" backglassesmade it through production before changes were required to be made. Specifically, small mirrored stars were added over the objectionable parts and, curiously, these stars did not effectively obscure the offending art in all instances. Nieman explained to us that he and Christensen wanted the correction to be as minimal as possible because they knew they had "a monster hit" on their hands. The X-rated version is often referred to as the "no stars" version even though all of the back glassesin the production run did contain a certain number of peripheral decorative stars anyway. Nieman is depicted in the back glassas the man in the three-piece suit, and he says that 'Brutus' is artist Paul Faris.Mr. Nieman attended the 1975 New York premier party for the movie "Tommy" held in the 57th Street subway station. He had agreed with artist Christensen to represent the date of this event in theback glass art as the score 31775. A biography of Keith Moon records the date of this party as March 18, 1975. It is easy to believe that the party extended over both days.Bally made an unknown quantity of playfields for this game having orange star rollover insertsinstead of the usual green ones. This version is seldom seen, which indicates the quantity made was small.