Boomerang was the first prototype game built by internal Bally staff around 1975 to demonstrate the concept to senior executives. Only one solid state Boomerang was made. For the four score displays, they used simple 7-segment red LED display elements that were common at the time. By the time Bally received the patent the electronic technology was widely used by other companies and the patent was widely ignored. Not sure if Bally was ever able to receive any royalties from Williams or other manufacturers that sold electronic pins. I think the concept of using a computer to control a game was such a broad interpretation that the rights were unenforceable. In any case Bally was gone from the industry a few years after the patent date.

My first office was in the old Bally lab on Belmont Avenue. in Chicago. The basement of that building was where we parked a lot of prototypes. That was where I first saw this Boomerang languishing around 1977-78 time frame. When we moved to O’Leary Drive the test games were put into storage, most likely in the 'Lame Idea Warehouse'. In early 1980, a few months after I moved into my new office, Boomerang appeared and was parked in the hallway behind my office window. This is around the time of the patent so I suspect they summoned it from the warehouse for legal inspection. Eventually it was put back into storage where it’s eventual fate is unknown.

I "invented" background sound at Atari, but management wouldn't have it, so I asked Randy Pfeiffer to create a continuously cycling complex sound that increased in pitch and speed of cycling, and he did both. That changing background added a tension and excitement that was never present in earlier games. That sound also broadcasted how well the player was doing. If you heard the only game that made a background sound in an arcade at high pitch and a fast cycle, all eyes were on you, sometimes gathering a small crowd in those days.

Towards the end of the run of Flash, I asked Jack Mittel, then-VP of sales, why we wouldn't try to push past the 20,000 unit mark. He replied, "We want to leave the market wanting."

We printed two backglasses in a blue background because management was scared that the black background wouldn't be accepted. We also printed two red ones. I owned them all, but both reds and one blue disintegrated as I unwrapped them after being in storage for 34 years. The ink was in a pile at the bottom of the package!

No games were sent out with any color other than black background, which was widely accepted and dramatic when lit "back in the day."

Larry DeMar shares with us some of the design efforts:

There was a mechanical clock created for Fun House. However it was a very
different design than the clock which was used in Twilight Zone.

Cost was one of the issues that led to the removal of the mechanical clock but the initial design which used two solenoid-operated stepper wheels rather than an electric motor was not reliable and Pat was uncomfortable with getting it fixed in the time frame we had to finish the game. So John Krutsch started work on the later design which was finally used in Twilight Zone.

Rudy "names" each player and addresses that player by their name. Most interesting in a multi-player game but in my opinion a feature that we put a lot of effort into which had very little impact on the quality of the game (most people just didn't notice).

The concept of [naming one of the players] "Slick" was that Rudy didn't like you and was picking on you, which we thought would cause buddies to rib each other in multi-player games but no one noticed this either besides discovering certain "rare" phrases like "zooooooooooooooooooooom"!

Matt Walsh comments further:

Light inserts on the lower playfield take the place of the clock's functionality.

Each player who starts a game of Funhouse is given a name...like Chucky, Spunky, Bucko, and Slick. That name sticks for your player for each ball. It's not that obvious; I'm sure many people don't even notice that.

Originally, the idea was that each of those names was to have it's own 'personality' such that Rudy would use varying phrases for each person. But all that remains of this feature is that some of Rudy's phrases will have the player's name inserted in. Well almost. If the player receives the name "Slick" - which is only possible in a two or more player game - the semi-derisive phrases will be used.

In this listing are two close-up images of the Diamond Plate logo. One shows a playfield part number of 31-1605-SP while the other one shows 31-1607. Pat Lawlor explains why this is so:

Funhouse playfields have a wide variety of part #'s and designations on them, both depending on when they were made in the run, and the vendor making them. VERY early prototype playfields have NO part # on them at all and do not say Diamond Plate. There ARE playfields that say " Protected by LS topcoat" since Lenc Smith did not use the Diamond Plate name. Williams had a problem with all of their vendors and keeping them straight. 31-1605-SP is an early Sun process playfield. 31-1607 is a later MULTI-vendor designation. Later, the only way to tell who made the playfield was to look at the edge of the playfield wood and check the marker designations. Adding to this confusion is that playfields could have been stored and then used early or later in the run, AND part sales playfields could have been done at almost any time in the run. What does this mean? Williams was worried that they needed to track the different vendors playfields in case of early wear out problems. So the odd part numbers were a way to try and track the vendors. It is simply a reflection of how many vendors were needed to keep the assembly line running on a daily basis.

I was walking up Broadway [in Chicago], near Sheridan, carrying a portfolio to teach for a semester at Mundeline College, and this guy with a thin moustache, leaning on a building having a smoke, says "Hey...you an artist? I wanna show you something." So we go in this big garage and I saw these guys silkscreening backglass and boards for pinball games. I tried not to look excited, but I was. He wanted to know if I would be interested and could do some art for a game called Spanish Eyes. I didn't like the theme, but I said I'd like to do it, hoping that it would lead to some more interesting subjects.

This guy's name was Joe Mascheck and he was, I guess, their art director of sorts. I know I went out to the Williams factory for one of our meetings and I remember two things about that. One was this room, that once was like a lounge, but now was a lunch room, which once had a grand piano, but no one there could play, so it was a player piano. He talked about the days when there would be lots of women hanging around. Sounded like some private club. The other thing I remember was this little room with a row of 4 or 5 pinballs, which had no art on them, just the parts on plywood, and these guys who were paid to play them, looking for play appeal, and for bugs. According to my books, I was paid a little each time some of the art was done, from rough sketches in late June of 1971 through the final art in November 1971. I received $1000 for doing both the backglass and playfield. I was doing illustrations for Playboy [magazine] around this time too, and I remember doing a full page illustration for an article on pinball machines.