Are you sure you're on the right table?

[mikehg]

There are occasional things that leap out as inappropriate when I'm playing TPA... Not as in; "Elvira! Wash your mouth out, you hussy!" inappropriate, just incongruous, somehow jarring with their surroundings. Some look or sound like they belong to another table, or like they simply have no place on a pinball table at all. Others are mere artefacts of the TPA conversion. I thought it would be good to have a thread to discuss them (the alert reader will have noticed by now that most of my threads here don't have much purpose, but they seem to get funny responses, so ho hum... )

1) Central Park. Monkeys. Need I say more? The one with the bell, unsurprisingly, is the most noticeable. But they're all over the graphics as well. I find the little vignette in the triangle in the middle of the table particularly disturbing. Did that sort of thing happen a lot in Central Park in the 60s?

2) Centaur's 'slide whistle'. It's a dark, menacing table. Except when it plays its disconcertingly cheery "Whoooo-uuuup!" sound. I half expect it to play 'Pop goes the weasel' when I lose a ball...

3) T2's 'smiling toadstools' pop bumpers. An evil cyborg has been sent back from the future to destroy humanity, but at least the fungi are having fun...


Any more?

 

[vikingerik]

Champion Pub's multiball. The entire rest of the game is so dedicatedly on theme to the boxing and the training and even the other old-timey stuff like the spitting video mode. But then multiball is suddenly a thoroughly modern standard pinball lock-lock-jackpot sequence.

And Harley-Davidson's video mode, though everyone knows about that one.

 

[PC.Doctor]

Is this an example:

Medieval Madness - Peasant ramp. When ever you make a shot at the Peasant ramp, you hear some body say "They took our cows" or "They took our shoes". However, you also hear things like " They took our marshmellows" or "They took our pinball machines". Aren't those out of place since marshmellows and pinball machines didn't exist in the Medieval times?

4/11/2014 The Twilight Zone - Clock Chaos. Hitting the target for Clock Chaos would result in hearing Rudy (from Williams Funhouse) say "Quit playing with the clock!"

 

[mikehg]

Champion Pub's multiball. The entire rest of the game is so dedicatedly on theme to the boxing and the training and even the other old-timey stuff like the spitting video mode. But then multiball is suddenly a thoroughly modern standard pinball lock-lock-jackpot sequence.

And Harley-Davidson's video mode, though everyone knows about that one.

I still haven't really played much Champion Pub... Need to give that a proper whirl - I quite like it.

Everything about Harley is odd. But especially the video mode...

Is this an example:

Medieval Madness - Peasant ramp. When ever you make a shot at the Peasant ramp, you hear some body say "They took our cows" or "They took our shoes". However, you also hear things like " They took our marshmallows" or "They took our pinball machines". Aren't those out of place since marshmallows and pinball machines didn't exist in the Medieval times?

They're supposed to be anachronistic (which may be another shout out to Python, since Holy Grail had funny anachronisms and fourth-wall jokes). But then I suppose the monkeys in Central Park are there for humour too - it's just a different kind of humour that I don't get.

So if it leaps out as 'not quite fitting', then sure, it counts...

 

[PoSTedUP]

pin·bot in taxi. dude, dont you like have a spaceship and s***? go home pin·bot, youre perfectly able to fly. you cant* get drunk, youre a robot, remember?

 

[Fungi]

Great, now all I can see in T2 is smiling pop bumpers.

 

[mikehg]

You didn't see them before?

Maybe it's just me, but they were one of the first things I noticed. Had to stare at them for quite a while before I could convince myself that wasn't what they were supposed to look like...

 

[brakel]

There are occasional things that leap out as inappropriate when I'm playing TPA... Not as in; "Elvira! Wash your mouth out, you hussy!" inappropriate, just incongruous, somehow jarring with their surroundings. Some look or sound like they belong to another table, or like they simply have no place on a pinball table at all. Others are mere artefacts of the TPA conversion. I thought it would be good to have a thread to discuss them (the alert reader will have noticed by now that most of my threads here don't have much purpose, but they seem to get funny responses, so ho hum... )

1) Central Park. Monkeys. Need I say more? The one with the bell, unsurprisingly, is the most noticeable. But they're all over the graphics as well. I find the little vignette in the triangle in the middle of the table particularly disturbing. Did that sort of thing happen a lot in Central Park in the 60s?

2) Centaur's 'slide whistle'. It's a dark, menacing table. Except when it plays its disconcertingly cheery "Whoooo-uuuup!" sound. I half expect it to play 'Pop goes the weasel' when I lose a ball...

3) T2's 'smiling toadstools' pop bumpers. An evil cyborg has been sent back from the future to destroy humanity, but at least the fungi are having fun...


Any more?

Monkeys were a big part of Americana. Sometimes the monkey would crank an organ while the owner played it. In other shows the monkey would just run around with a hat to collect the tips. There isn't anything out of place with the monkeys.

 

[PoSTedUP]

Monkeys were a big part of Americana. Sometimes the monkey would crank an organ while the owner played it. In other shows the monkey would just run around with a hat to collect the tips. There isn't anything out of place with the monkeys.

i concur. especially central park, lots of different forms of weird/entertainment; still 'till this day...

 

[Extork]

Carcus canyon 'I was drinking that" is offensive because if I lost a beer due to a rough 'ball', I would be furious. And they shouldn't just make a joke about it. It's not funny

 

[Extork]

Funhouse, Rudy's always lookin at me and it makes me feel uncomfortable

 

[mikehg]

OK, sorry Central Park, all is forgiven. Except the triangle in the middle. You're not forgiven - you're still weird.

 

[Espy]

Carcus canyon 'I was drinking that" is offensive because if I lost a beer due to a rough 'ball', I would be furious. And they shouldn't just make a joke about it. It's not funny

Off topic, but... what on earth is your avatar?

 

[Extork]

Hah, remember those 'made for TV' Star Wars movies? This dude hangs out with the ewoks and runs really fast. It was so weird I had to take a pic of it. I'm not sure how it came up, but my friend told me he had the DVD, and i had to borrow it cause I vaguely remembered seeing those on TV as a kid. What that has to do with pinball, I've no idea

 

[Captain B. Zarre]

Tee'd Off. Multiball diverts from the entire theme of the game (just shoot for Jackpots that don't mean anything), and Go-Fore Par-Tee just feels like something thrown in from an unfinished Premier game. Along the same lines, every single round in Cue Ball Wizard.

 

[mikehg]

The "Don't drink and drive" sign in High Speed looks a lot like a public service announcement, rather than just street furniture... part of the background imagery.

Coming over all responsible now, are we? "Only a fool would get drunk and try to outrun the cops. The sensible approach is to wait till you've sobered up first..."