Fun Cruise

~ Just what are these Gems ~

~ From Michael Sands in 1999 – Sands Museum ~

I am restoring a Bingo, Silver Sails. I also got a Fun Cruise by Bally. This game was made using bingo parts, but was a ruse to allow gambling machine parts to be transported across state lines. The game uses bingo parts through out but is not a bingo.

Fun Cruise has no flippers. There are mushroom targets scattered around the center of the game and funny plastic targets on the sides. The targets are all numbered from one to 13. There are 15 flags in the back box, corresponding to all the numbers, plus two. The final two flags can only be lit by a random pattern for a capture hole, located in the bottom center of the playfield.

So,, no flippers. You shoot the three balls, watch them bounce around, and finally drain. The game then adds up your flags and gives you replays for flags beyond eight or nine.

But the sling shots are absolutely amazing! They are a huge assembly under the playfield and contain two coils each. I thought they might push harder when the game is percentaging easy and lighter when being more difficult.

The sling shots are angled more horizontally, allowing a ball to be shot farther up the playfield. In fact, these can easily shoot a ball up to the top!

During play you hear this ker chunk, thunk, pop, with the last pop being the familiar sling shot sound we all love to hate. It is almost like a catapult sound!

The sling shots are cocked before play, using the huge main coils and super big solenoids. The small coil is just a trigger, and gets released when the ball comes in contact with the sling shot rubber. Then a strong spring shoves this huge paddle back against the rubber, blasting the ball upwards. The paddle is not this wimpy 1/4 inch wide shover we usually think of, but a inch and a half wide piece of metal.

Once expended, the huge solenoid re-cocks the sling shot and gets ready for the next blast. The game is worth playing, just to hear the sound of this going off!

In the taped interview between Bally designer Don Hooker and Russ Jensen and gang, Don talks about how he wished he would have got a patent on this "sling-shot" device since it was deployed in most all the games immediately following the Bingos – These “Sling-Shot-Kickers” where definitely deployed in the Queen games.

~

Vic Camp on Fun Cruise Machines:

Danny,

I remember playing a Fun Cruise growing up back in the 1960's and early 1970's. Fun Cruise is a completely different playing game then the normal 25 hole playfield lay out most bingo players are a custom to playing, but are quite interesting to play and challenging too. Fun Cruise attract me as a bingo player because of the large replay payouts and really it is at least half bingo pinball for sure anyway so you got to like.

I have seen some pretty nice condition Fun Cruises pass through my reach but i never bought one only because i would have no where to set it up to play it. Sooner or later one might show up at the Allentown or York show.. maybe even set up and playing inside too and then i can once again play the Bally half breed bingo pinball machine.

Vic

~ Thank you Sir ~

A couple of references from Mark W who was kind enough to write in:

Those Fun Cruise used to be a lot of fun to play too, about the same thing as a queens. The bars all started running the fun cruises when the six cards started disappearing.

Yes they did pay off on the fun cruises, I never seen a queens on location. I was in a bar one time when three undercover state cops busted the bartender for paying off on a fun cruise.

~ Thank you Sir ~

A few references from the google-group rec.games.pinball:

May 27 1998, 3:00 am

Newsgroups: rec.games.pinball

From: bak...@aol.com (BAKarr)

Date: 1998/05/27

Subject: Help ID:Bally Deluxe Fun Cruise

I have a Bally Deluxe Fun Cruise Serial # 1023. I cannot find anywhere the year
this machine was made. A search of the net came up with a game with same name
but description said it was a baseball game. This is not a baseball game; it
is a flipperless machine, has metal legs, hit bumpers to light flags on
backglass.

Would greatly appreciate any help on finding out year and possible value.

Thanks for your response

The 1995 Pinball price guide lists Bally Fun Cruise as( 2/66 release date)
single player, no flippers. Value $ 50.-$ 225. I wonder if this is a gambling
machine like a bingo ?
Dennis Cannan

There was, I seem to remember, an article in pinGame journal
about this game and its sister game Gay Cruise (it meant
something pretty different in those days!). The author seemed
to think that those games were really used to transport bingo
parts across state lines, skirting around gambling machine
laws. Looks like a bunch of bingo-type mechanisms are present
in those games.

There was a LARGE op here in Cincinnati that, 4-5 years ago, destroyed and
pitched 150 6-card bingos and Fun cruise machines.

The game came out in 1966. The info on Pinball Pasture about it being a
baseball game is incorrect. I am taking steps to have that corrected. I have a
copy of the original flyer for the game.

This is one of a series of games Bally put out in the 1960's, which I personally
refer to as the "Queens Games". This is because most of the ones of this type
put out in 1960 had the word "queens" in the name (Ex: BEACH QUEENS, ISLAND
QUEENS, etc.) They were all non-flipper games and had a feature of trying to
light a series of numbered objects (girls) to get a bonus. They did have
pop-bumpers, and kickout holes - but no flippers.

Most came out in 1960 - but in 1965 they released 2 additional games of this
type - FUN CRUISE and GAY CRUISE, and in 1966 DELUXE FUN CRUISE. There has
been a rumor that Bally released these games so they could legally sell parts
used in "bingo" gambling type pinballs, but some dispute that idea.
Incidentally, the Bally product listing lists these games as "Novelty".

There was an excellent article on this subject (and particularly about one of
these games called BEAUTY CONTEST) in the June-July 1992 issue of Pingame
Journal written by Italian pinball expert Federico Croci (with a picture of the
game on the cover).

I hope this clears up some of your confusion about this game. I do have a copy
of the flyer and could send a scan of it to you if you like.

In 1966, several years after Bally resumed production of flipper pinballs, they came out with a flipperless machine in the "Queens Game" tradition. This game was called FUN CRUISE and Bally's brochure for it stated "by popular demand! Old favorite, 'lights out' scoring." This game had 15 numbered flags on the backglass which could be made by hitting bumpers, targets, or a "mystery spotting" kickout hole. In addition to the numbers it also had the standard point scoring typical of the flipper games of the period.

The game gave the player only 3 balls. The ad further boasted of the game having no flippers by stating "no flippers....restoring the happy arts of nudging, tapping, and body English....speedy action of 3 sling-shot activated balls which deliver twice the excitement, suspense and satisfaction of 5 'flipper flapped' balls." And, a few months later, Bally introduced a similar machine called DELUXE FUN CRUISE with many of the same features, plus a "mystery spotting" thumper bumper. So even in the mid-sixties pinball players could still play a real old-fashioned "number sequence" flipperless pingames.

1960's Bally: silver painted coin door (complete) wanted. Door accepted 5 cent,10 cent and 25 cent. This door was used on Bally games such as: Fun Cruise, Gold Rush, Campus Queen, Loop the Loop, Bazzar, Capersville and Safari.

Contact:
Rich
St. Louis, MO. 63128

[No flippers pinball]
1947年以前のフリッパーの無いピンボールの総称。他に1960年代Bally社の「Fun Cruise」や「Beauty Contest」などがある。

La compagnie BALLY fondée en 1932 par Ray Moloney remporte son premier succès en 1947 avec le Ballyhoo et ses couleurs arc en ciel. Le Ballyhoo restera célèbre car il donnera son nom à la compagnie BALLY MANUFACTURING COMPAGNY. En 1947, Bally est le premier à équiper un flipper d' un système de Pay-Out automatique et de bumpers. Les années 50 sont difficiles pour la production de flipper car elle produit peu de modèles: le Balls-A-Poppin, Beach Queens, Circus. A noter le Target Roll avec sa roulette. Durant cette période, Bally ne construit que des Flippers-Bingos et il faut attendre 1963 pour qu'il recommence à fabriquer des flippers: le Moon Shot. Dans les années 60, Bally invente le système de la porte latérale et les zipper-flippers qui en se rapprochant, évitent de perdre la bille au centre. Le Bazaar est le premier avec des zippers-flippers. En 1966, sort le Fun Cruise et son plateau sans flippers. Mais le succès arrive avec le Capersville fabriqué à plus de 5000 ex: c'est un multibille (3 billes à la fois) au design assez géométrique.

Ted Zale

war der geniale Designer von Flippern bei Bally in den Jahren 1963 bis 1973.

1964: 2 in 1, Big Day , Bongo, Bus Stop, Grand Tour, Happy Tour, Harvest, Hay-Ride, Mad World, Monte Carlo, Sky Divers

1965: 50/50, Aces High , Aces Top, Band Wagon, Blue Ribbon, Bullfight, Bull's Eye, Discotek, Fun Cruise, Gay Cruise, Magic Circle, Sheba, Trio