Bingo Pinballs

Created on 3-31-2003 - Last Updated 7-13-2010

~ I don’t know if anyone knows who did the artwork on the Bingos ~

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http://www.pinballstore.com/pinball/1080.htm
Comment form the "pinballstore team" on Bally's Gayety: "General Information about Gayety Bingo: I think the art is by George Molentin. Manufactured by Bally in 1954 or 1955."

Would love to have additional facts - anyone?

~ That link is worth a look-see – They have some pretty cool Gayety pics spinning a trick-viewer ~

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Terrance Fagan wrote an article in 1996 titled "bumper to Bumper" which helps shed some light on the George Molentin:

Or perhaps you prefer pinballs for their backglasses. With the electromechanicals, that pretty much means two artists: Leroy Parker and George Molentin.

"Leroy Parker, probably one of the best backglass artists of all time, was great at drawing those Vargas-type girls," says Mark Houk. "There's no such thing as a flat-chested woman on a backglass. The reason for that is that pinball has always been geared toward young males. Everybody says, 'Oh, pinball's for everybody.' Baloney. Look at the backglass--it tells you one thing: it's geared to young men. There's not one backglass around, hardly, without beautiful women on it."

Arnold also singles out Parker's particular style. "His specialty was always--we call them 'Parker babes'--women in various stages of undress. It was just amazing the quality as well as the quantity of what he did. And he did it not only for Gottlieb. He did it for Genco, Chicago Coin, Marvel Manufacturing, a lot of the Williams games and a lot of the United games--the backglass art, the playfield art and the cabinet designs. As far as we can tell, [his prolific output] would only be humanly possible if he came to work at 8, sat down and drew till noon, took a half hour off for lunch and drew till 5, from 1937 or '38 through 1964." Arnold estimates Parker did the artwork for more than a thousand games.

Molentin, an artist at Williams during the 1950s, had a very different style than Parker, says Hasse. "Molentin was much more in the mold of the great fashion illustrators, whereas Parker was much more in the genre of the cartoon, or panel artists--the Milt Caniffs, Wallace Woods, Alex Raymond’s. Parker tended to draw his women in kind of a very stereotypical, cartoon, leering sort of way. They were always wasp-waisted, melon-breasted, just fabulous-looking women. George, on the other hand, his women were at once more realistic and yet more romantic. He drew them a lot softer; they were clearly no less voluptuous, but they were always ladies. You always had a sense that there was a refinement to George's illustrations that was lacking in Parker's. It was a more sophisticated approach, to be honest with you."

Some collectors collect nothing but backglasses, dubbing them an art form. "They are the Tiffany glass of tomorrow," predicts Bueschel.

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Based upon a little more research, following pinball dates attributed to George,

this is the based picture I can paint of his employment history:

Rock-ola Mfg Corp - from April 1935 to Sept 1935
Chicago Coin Mach Mfg - Nov 1947
United Mfg Co - Dec 1948 to May 1950
Williams Elect Mfg - Jan 1948 to Feb 1967
Bally Mfg Corp - Oct 1963 to Aug 1966
Midway Mfg Co - July 1964
Game Plan Inc - May 1979 to May 1982

Well Bally was way into bingo pins between 63 and 66!

Now in two of the Tom Arnold Bingorilla Videos he discusses Bally bingos and the artists behind them based upon his expertise, which we have

to give considerable weight, based upon the vast numbers of machines he has and his interaction with the pinball world. In the first video he is

demonstrating the 1955 Crosswords and says without hesitation, the work is George Molentin. In the second video he is showing off the 1977

Miss America Deluxe and says him and his buddy are undecided, between Paul Ferris and Christian who obviously didn’t make Fagan’s list above

who speaks in regards to the bulk of the electro-mechanicals. So all-in-all my listed “employee dates” above are both meaningless and helpful

in establishing the artists. Helpful in demonstrating that these guys were getting around and over-lapping commitments.

Bally's Crosswords Bingo Pinball

Bally Bingo Pinball Miss America Deluxe - Part 1

Now as you have seen me mention, things started changing at Bally in 1960 – Don Hooker was gone or leaving in the next two years and the

artwork also seemed to start changing up along with the lull in designs. The Fun & Barrel games came out and had the “large smooth babes” but

CanCan, Lido, and the other Magic Screen games seemed to show a distinct difference in the ladies from the earlier generation games – Both a

bit smaller and less-sophisticated group of gals. By the time the Wall-Street style and 20-Hole Special games appeared, the Vargas-Style work

was gone all together, never to be replaced. Orient and London had cool artwork that showed detail of an advanced artist, but………

~ Would love to hear from you with information and thoughts on this! ~

~ Bingo-Style Pinballs – The Designers ~

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