Mr. Bali Hai, who keeps an excellent blog called The Eye of the Goof, has long desired a pinball machine for his in-the-works home tiki bar. Through a tip, he learned of a 1973 Bally pinball machine called “Bali Hi.” The back imagery is perhaps more Thai/Asian than Polynesian, but it has a very exotic look to it, and clearly this was the pinball machine for Mr. Bali Hai. It’s a rare machine — only 80 were produced — but amazingly Mr. Bali Hai was able to track one down in excellent condition. He’ll be making a 1,400 mile round trip journey to Cleveland, Ohio bring this beautiful beast to its new home in Western Wisconsin. A fellow named Wolfgang, from Hamburg, Germany, was inspired by Mr. Bali Hai’s pinball find to create some artwork send him a pic of a piece he’d created a few years ago for a fictional tiki pinball game with a similar graphic design.
- Tiki Pinball Serendipity [Eye of the Goof]
- A present for Mr. Bali Hai [Paintings by Wolf]
As it turns out, Wolf created that image a few years ago, not specifically for me. I’m devastated, of course…;-)
Thanks!
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Nooooo! Well, it’s uncanny how finely his image and the Bali Hi image work together.
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That angular backglass artwork is typical of Bally pins from the 60s and 70s. Jerry Kelley and Ted Zale are some of the better-known artists.
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Fantastic! Thank you for opening my eyes to a whole new style of art! There’s some great stuff there, I’m going to have a great time going through it.
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