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Beach Time, Big Show, Key West, and Sun Valley Article,
posted 11/01/05
The mid 50's must have been an exciting time, and a bit disquieting as well, as the gambling issue with bingos started to heat up. The innovation of the MAGIC SQUARES must have drawn attention as nothing before. It's hard to imagine any two elements that could complement each other better than the MAGIC SQUARES, and the red and yellow lines and score boosters of
BROADWAY and NIGHT CLUB, except red, yellow, and GREEN lines, with matching triple deck scores, and each color scoring seperately, as with BIG SHOW and KEY WEST. The R,Y and G lines and triple deck scores,
combined with the MAGIC SQUARES, and later on, the MAGIC SCREEN, brought the bingos into a whole new dimension and level of entertainment, and earning potential, as well as the misfortunate but inevitable
controversy that followed.
The "corners" games, as the MAGIC SQUARES are so often referred to, were a highly significant developement as far as the evolution of bingos, and it's difficult to cover them all in one article. The bingo "super site" listings pretty well cover the particulars of each machine, and I would highly recommend it for those who enjoy my articles and would like more pictures and info. I would also like to acknowledge Chris Dade and his excellent digital images shown here as well as the many others he has reproduced, which can be viewed on the super site by clicking on the "Bingos in Great
Britain" link. Thanks Chris, and keep up the good work! KEY WEST is one of the last corners games I can remember restoring, and I really enjoyed going thruogh it. KEY WEST went one up on BIG SHOW with the addition
of the "select a score" feature allowing players to collect the highest red or yellow score that was lit. Also, "extended time", for scoring purposes, debuted with KEY WEST, but only by hitting a lit rollover. So if you happened to hit the after 5th rollover, you could still move the numbers AND score in whatever color/line. Also, if the select a score feature was enabled, you could collect both the red and yellow scores, until the 6th ball was shot. The BALLYHOLE feature, introduced with BROADWAY, added a lot to the corners games also. It isn't something that's in the foreground, and it's usually a surprise whenever you hit it. I can't count the number of times I've plopped into it on my first ball! With SHOW TIME, Bally reconfigured the screen unit to allow for the alignment of adjacent numbers, and introduced the best juggling ever with the magic "E" line, and a new and improved selection feature to boot. Finally, with SUN VALLEY and the addition of the magic "F" line, the corners game screen was now loaded to the max with MAGIC! And with it's "green 3 in line scores green 4 in line" feature, SUN VALLEY has my vote for tops of all the corners games. In fact, in terms of widespread commercial longevity, I believe SV, BEACH TIME and CARNIVAL QUEEN outdistanced all the rest, including many of the OK's.
Whenever I overhauled a corners game, I always included the complete tear down and reconditioning of the corners unit. This took some extra time, but the results were well worth the effort, and had to be done if the machine was going out for commercial operation. And there was nothing I enjoyed more than sitting down to a fine tuned, well lit, and reconditioned SUN VALLEY. My "test" time could last for hours. The "green 3 in line scores 4 in line" feature, especially, always had me chasing after it. SV is a "loaded", and fast, fun machine, with a ton of "holding power", and my goal was always to get it, as well other bingos I went through, as clean and close to factory condition as possible.
MISS AMERICA '57, between SV and CYPRESS GARDENS, was squeezed between the still hot and popular corners games, and may have been a little ahead of it's time. Regretfully, I've never had occassion to really play or to go through one. I do recall uncrating several MISS AMERICA '75's {interestingly transposed with '57} at United Coin in Las Vegas, and considering how many MA's have come out since then, it looks to me like the MA design made a huge comeback. Which brings me to BEACH TIME, the last and certainly no less than SV as the best of the corners games, although SV is my personal favorite. BEACH TIME adds two new features, introduced with CYPRESS GARDENS. With BT, the BALLYHOLE guarantees an ABCDE screen the next game, and an "improved" SCORE FEATURE, allowing players to deposit coins or play credits to increase the scores only, until the 3rd, 4th, or 5th ball was shot. This always seemed to me to be a little tight. I never went into the schematic to check into it, but it would be interesting to know. Based upon my own playing experience, I doubt whether most players ever "took advantage" of the CG or BT score feature. I can recall restoring a BEACH TIME and all the cabinet work I did, including metal bracing around the outside corners and repainting a lot of the beach scene. I did this as one of my projects for a long time associate, but unfortunately this person passed away and I don't know whatever happened to it.
I want to thank my readers for bearing with me on this rather lengthy column, but I wanted to include as much as I could about the corners machines in one article, rather than split it up. The good news is that now, since you have all been so patient and well versed with the basics of it's predecessors, we're ready to move up to the heavyweights of CARNIVAL QUEEN and the MAGIC SCREENS! I'll be taking roll call for my next post, so don't miss out!
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