Fireball (pinball)

Fireball is a pinball machine designed by Ted Zale and released by Bally in 1972. The table was one of the first to have a modern sci-fi/fantasy type of outer-space theme and featured elaborate artwork, on the sides of the table, painted by Dave Christensen.

The game itself is notable as it featured several pinball innovations, including a spinning disc (called "whirlwind spinner"^[1] on the flyer) in the centre of the playfield which spins continuously throughout a game, moveable "zipper" flippers, and trapped ball bonuses. The zipper flippers move to their inner position if the blue mushroom bumper is hit, or to the outer position if a yellow mushroom bumper is hit; when in the inner position the gap between the flippers is smaller than the ball. It also includes the "messenger ball", this is a ball trapped in a channel that can be hit with the ball in play to try and get it to hit the target behind it.

Fireball was an early table to feature multi-ball (three balls, in this case). This was started by locking a ball in each of the games saucers, Odin and Wotan (in this game, the fire gods), and the hitting a target with the messenger ball.^[2][3]

Fireball's playfield and backglass featured elaborate artwork of a flaming "fire man", flames, and stars in space. The concept of this fire god came from a comic book.^[4]

Chip Carter bought one of these machines in 1977 while his father, Jimmy Carter, was president; it was inspected by the secret service on delivery.^[5]

Richard Linklater owned a Fireball, and it appears in two of his films. In his 2001 film Waking Life he plays a rotoscoped Fireball in the penultimate scene where he expounds Dickian gnosticism to the protagonist. Also, Linkater's 1993 film Dazed and Confused features a scene that shows extreme close-ups of a game being played on a Fireball.^[6]

During the episode "Pinball" (Original air date: November 29, 1985) of the television series Mr. Belvedere, the title character becomes obsessed with a "Firebomb" pinball machine, a slightly altered Fireball.

The table was included in the arcade game cabinet UltraPin in 2006.^[7]

Fireball was a licensed table of The Pinball Arcade,^[8] but was removed from sale on June 30, 2018 due to the loss of the Williams license.^[9]

Partly due to the success of the original Fireball pinball machine, Bally released a "Professional Home Model" available to the regular consumer beginning in 1976. The layout was different from the arcade Fireball; it was a slight modification of the Bally's Hocus Pocus playfield with the subtraction of a ball diverter gate. Sears sold it for $645.^[10]

In June 1981, Bally released Fireball II which used similar style of artwork, also by Dave Christensen; the artist described this as "more sinister" than the first version.^[11] Another backglass for "Son of Fireball" was created, but no machine with this title was produced.^[4]

The playfield layout unrelated to the original. It included the "little demon post", a post between the flippers that could be raised a limited number of times by the player using an additional button next to the right flipper button. In the centre of the playfield is a captive ball similar to that used on an earlier game, Doodle Bug.

In a review for Play Meter, Roger Sharpe found it to be an average game, rating it at 2/4.^[12]

In February 1985, Bally released Fireball Classic. While the playfield closely resembled the original this version was electronic and used standard size flippers instead of zipper-flippers.^[13][14] In a review for Play Meter, Roger Sharpe rated this machine at a generous 2/4 due to nostalgia for the original version. He noted that the 1972 version had helped propel Bally to be a leading pinball manufacturer.^[15]

• Fireball at the Internet Pinball Database
• Fireball (home edition) at the Internet Pinball Database
• Fireball II at the Internet Pinball Database
• Fireball Classic at the Internet Pinball Database