The invention of the player-controlled flipper changed the game of pinball forever!
In the history of pinball, early coin-op machine manufacturers believe that the allure of winning money was the sole attraction. These early pin tables were made as gambling devices and winning or losing depending on luck.
Later pinball machines shed their gambling aspects, due to laws and the evolution of pinball machines to pure amusement devices. Machines that attracted players for the fun rather than the payoff.
Pinball machines as amusement devices could only be possible with more player control. In early machines the only player interaction was the initial plunge and nudging of the machine but that all changed with the introduction of the flipper.
Accidental Tinkering Changes Pinball Forever
Back in 1947, Gottlieb engineer Harry Mabs was playing around with solenoids and levers. He thinking of creating a switch that would activate the lever when the ball rolled over it.
With the wires hanging loose Harry accidentally brushed against the wires and the ball shot up the playfield. After playing around with this exciting new playfield action, the idea of a player having control of this action rather than the ball.
Control buttons were added to the cabinet and the first game with player-controlled buttons 1947’s Gottlieb Humpty Dumpty was released with six of these “Flipper Bumpers”.
The idea was an instant sensation within the pinball industry and just about every pin game since has included some form of flipper. The invention instantly made older games unattractive so conversion kits were made to “upgrade” older games to include a flipper or two. Unfortunately, this often led to uneven scoring as the original game was not designed for flippers.
ON FLIPPER CONVERSION KITS…operators generally had no idea where to locate the flippers on the playfield. As a result many of these “flipper conversions” had flippers in a position where they often were of little use to the player.
https://www.ipdb.org/archive/russjensen/flipper.htm
It would be a long time before flippers end up in their “normal” position as seen in contemporary pinball machines.
“What’s good for the industry was good for Gottlieb.” – Dave Gottlieb
The Gottlieb company never patented Harry Mabs invention of the flipper. The thought was that this invention would further the move of the industry away from gambling devices towards amusement games. Dave Gottlieb was a patriotic family man who detested Bally’s Bingo games which were basically gambling devices with a grid of gobble holes and an objective of trying to match a bingo card.
Gottlieb’s vision was more wholesome, amusement games that would be welcomed in family-oriented establishments rather than banished to sleazier realms like the union all shown in the photograph above. Hense, Dave Gottlieb’s idea of basing a series of games on fairy tales like Humpty Dumpy and Cinderalla. Around the same time, another great cultural influencer Walt Disney was working with the same source material for his films. Cinderella than animated musical was released in 1950 by Walt Disney.
The invention of the flipper helped pinball build its reputation as a game of skill rather than luck which allowed the market to expand as in many states and/or cities, slot machines, Bingo machines, horse racing machines and the like were seen as mob controlled and the source of crime. Cities and states started banning these luck-based games.
Pinball Flipper Trivia
The first pinball game with player-controlled flippers – Gottlieb’s Humpty Dumpty release in 1947,
When flippers were introduced on Humpty Dumpty, they were referred to as “flipper bumpers”; this term is no longer used and “bumpers” never refers to “flippers”.
The first game to feature the familiar dual-inward-facing-flipper design was Gottlieb’s Just 21 released in January 1950.
The industry stuck with two-inch flippers up until the late 1960s. Williams was the first to switch to three-inch flippers with Hayburners II in mid-1968.
“Zipper flippers” are a configuration of the two flippers at the bottom of the playfield in which, if a certain game function was accomplished, both flippers would move in line toward each other such that a ball could not pass between them.
Bally first used Zipper Flippers on their 1966 pingame BAZAAR.
https://www.ipdb.org/archive/russjensen/flipper.htm
Big Flipper is a pinball machine from January 1970, manufactured by Chicago Coin Machine Mfg. Co. and featured oversized flippers.