Moon Shot

Bally produced bingo machines during the 1950s and into 1962 until the implementation in December 1962 of the Eastland Bill (S-1658, for James Eastland, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee) outlawed the interstate transportation of gambling devices. One of the visible proponents for the Senate Bill was Rufus King, attorney for D. Gottlieb and Company. Gottlieb had requested and received a legal opinion specifically exempting Gottlieb products from the terms of the new law (per Billboard, December 29, 1962, pages 27 and 32), saying, "no Gottlieb games, free-game, multiple player or Flipper (add-a-ball) type are covered by the new provisions, and that accordingly neither your company nor anyone else at any level in the industry will have to register or otherwise comply on account of handling Gottlieb products." With bingo production shut down by this law, Bally turned to making flipper pinball machines full time after not having made one since 1957, starting with 'Moon Shot', a blatant copy of Gottlieb's 1962 'Tropic Isle'. On the backglass, the rocket is shown launching not from Cape Canaveral but seemingly from an area of tropic isles off the coast of Ecuador. Christian Marche is listed in other pinball resources as the artist for this game. In an interview appearing in The Pinball Compendium 1970-1981, he states he moved to the USA in 1964 where he started work at Advertising Posters. Therefore, we have removed his name as the artist for this 1963 game.