Ice-Revue

The Add-a-ball version of this game is Gottlieb's 1966 'Ice Show'. Sample games (test games) had cabinets painted in a yellow base color, with webbing, instead of the white color used in production games. The colored circles under the five round playfield bumpers were all red in production games, whereas the sample games had three yellow and two red. Also, sample games had six outlanes, while production games had only four. Instruction cards are different for the two versions. In this listing are three Instruction Cards in the 9401 series (this series does not reference a match number, while series 9402 does reference match). These cards are A-9401, A-9401-1, and A-9401-2 and all indicate they are for Model 221, Ice-Revue. We know that production games use Card A-9401-2 because that is the only card of the three with text that does not require lighting six bottom outlane rollovers when of course production games have only four. As well, this card correctly indicates for production games that all five bumpers (four pop bumpers and one passive bumper) need to be lit in order to cause a top rollover to light for Special. The remaining two cards, A-9401 and A-9401-1, each require all outlanes be lit to enable the kick-out holes for 100-200-Special therefore both cards could only be used for Sample games. Except, card A-9401 specifically indicates that only the pop bumpers need to be lit, not the passive bumper, to enable a top rollover for Special. Card A-9401-1 requires all the bumpers be lit. How can both situations be true for Sample games? We notice the two Sample games pictured in this listing each display the Instruction Card A-9401. If this is the correct card, we wonder why no one has pointed out that Sample games differ from Production games in the number of lit bumpers required to enable a top rollover for Special. Interestingly, we have only seen the card A-9401-1 appearing on a few production games with their 4-outlanes, making that card incongruous for these games. One such game is pictured here, credited to Mr. Lankar. It seems unlikely that there would be two variations of Sample games, and less likely that Sample games have an operator option to toggle between requiring only four bumpers or requiring all five. Either of two theories might explain all that we see, depending on how Sample games are actually wired: Theory #1 - Samples games require only four bumpers and were correctly issued with A-9401 cards. Gottlieb issued A-9401-1 cards intended for production games but didn't notice they were misprints until a number of production games went out the door with these incongruous cards. They corrected the text with A-9401-2 for the remainder of the production run. They may or may not have allowed any amount of the misprints to go out the door with production games rather than discard them. Theory #2 - Samples games require all five bumpers but were issued with wrong A-9401 cards (and nobody today is noticing this). Corrected cards A-9401-1 were printed for Sample games but some of them got issued with a few production games as well. Gottlieb fixed that by issuing A-9401-2 for the remainder of the production games. We don't have a Sample schematic for this game to investigate which way they were actually wired. If anyone has access to a Sample game, please advise us if the game requires only the four pop bumpers or requires all five bumpers in order to light a top rollover for Special.