Going forward, I plan on sifting through them more often to look for interesting things to talk about. I came across one such thing this week in the July 1992 Play Meter Magazine. Thirty-three years ago this month, the short-lived pinball company Alvin G & Co. was founded.
The company was created by David Gottlieb's son Alvin Gottlieb and grandson Michael Gottlieb. Unfortunately, by that time the rights to the Gottlieb name were owned by Premier Technologies, which essentially was operating as a modern Gottlieb (I still call Premier games from that era Gottliebs). So the two descendants of the original founder opened a new pinball company that they called Alvin G & Co. They started off with a small 40-person factory in a Melrose Park, Illinois warehouse.
That year, Alvin G's launched its first game - a fun, head-to-head pinball machine called "Soccer-Ball." Its sales didn't light the world on fire, coming in at 500 units, but it served as a very solid proof of concept for the Company. They also made 100 units of a redemption version of the game using a similar design called "U.S.A. Football."
The high-water mark for Alvin G, from a production standpoint was its third game, the strangely named "Al’s Garage Band Goes on a World Tour." They produced 1,000 units of Garage Band.
Alvin G's fourth game game came in 1993. Even though they didn't produce nearly as many units of it as Garage Band, the machine - Mystery Castle is probably its most sought-after and best game. Only 500 units were manufactured.
The final three games from Alvin G also came in 1993, the very rare Pistol Poker and the redemption games Punchy the Clown and Dinosaur Eggs. Only 200, 103 and 100 units of them were built, respectively. I'm known for liking almost every pinball machine I see, but man oh man I hate Punchy the Clown. It's a smaller, redemption-type pinball machine that I find nearly impossible to drain on. I have played one ball on that game forever...so long that I finally had to walk away. They must have called it "Punchy" because you want to punch that darn clown in the face after playing it.
Alvin G had several pinball machines in various stages of development when it finally closed its doors in 1994. They included "Dual Pool" - in which two players could play on the same side at the same time, "The Death Dealing Adventures of Maxx Badazz Champion Kickboxer" - which was more of a concept than even a flippable whitewood, "Slam 'N Jam" and a flipperless redemption game called "A-Maze-Ing Baseball."
Thus ends the short-lived, yet fascinating life of Alvin G Pinball. If you're interested in more information on Alvin G, make sure to check out the fantastic Silverball Chronicles podcast episode on the company:
Meet The Gottliebs Part 2: Alvin G. & Co.
https://www.silverballchronicles.com/meet-the-gottliebs-part-2-alvin-g-co/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
Dual Pool Whitewood