Haha, I love how many people hate on Popeye for being too slow. They must have played an old one with worn out flippers/rubber. My Popeye plays very fast. One of the only pins in which every shot can be made both fore hand and back hand consistently (if you are good), that is the definition of a good layout to me. And of course I have fixed all know problems with the machine and it is absolutely a blast to play, but I also have made a lot of upgrades to make it more enjoyable. LEDs are a must for Popeye, or I agree it does not look great, but with LEDs throughout it looks great! Also with a subwoofer added you can feel many audio clips as if there was a shaker, very cool that the audio was that good. I also have added some small Popeye action figures around the playfield and a large topper of Popeye hooked directly up to the GI and 5 flashers matched to the flashers on the playfield are also in the topper. No matter what pins I play out in the wild whether it be Cactus Canyon, MM, AFM, or TZ I always look forward to coming home to play a few rounds on Popeye to call it a night, very enjoyable pin when setup correctly and maintained.

Here is a photo of my Popeye:

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I played a Very nicely maintained Hurricane a few weeks ago at the Houston Area Pinball Expo and I loved it! Very enjoyable. But once again it was very nicely maintained and had LEDs throughout, looked and played great!

The first CFTBL and SimpsonsPP I played were poorly maintained and it was a terrible experience to play and I ended up hating the pins because of this, until I played a well maintained CFTBL and SimpsonsPP at the last Expo and wow did I enjoy those! Great games when well maintained! I think a lot of perceived value, playability, and enjoyment has to do with how well the games are cared for.

1) Upper playfield does block your line of sight of the pop-bumpers, but do you really NEED to see that? There is a clear "knee deep pool" on the upper deck of the ship layout that is clear plexiglass so you can see through to the roll over lanes which is the only thing back there you need to see, so it works perfectly. There are 2 drop holes back there as well, but they have arrows in line to aim for and after a couple attempts you do not even notice that you cannot see them, you know if you hit it correctly or not.

2) I was a fan of the cartoon growing up and I understand people thinking the Popeye's Ark theme is strange at first, but really I think it is a clever and unique update to the long running series. I could definitely see the spinach eating good ole gentlemen navy boy Popeye piloting an ark to save Olive OYL and some animals. I think it is awesome that Bluto's face is front and center and you must hit both a right and left jab before locking a ball in his mouth.

One of my favorite things about Popeye is all the clever small touches in the artwork. Here are many ignored cool little art touches around the playfield:
-turtle and hare racing and hare is tired while turtle is easily winning
-lion and tiger playing shuffle board with turtles down the out lane
-deer lounging around the pool looking at a "Play-Doe" magazine sideways
-monkey playing xylophone on hippos teeth
-zebras playing horse shoes with sneakers
-mother porcupine knitting gloves for her young one who is being dropped off by a stork on the launch ball ramp/skill shot wheel
-Bluto being sat on by a huge elephant because he was causing problems with a chainsaw
-shark taking a bath in a trough with a baseball bat
-Various stages of Bluto evolving from an ape going up the escalator ramp
-ostrich sticking head in pipe on one side of outlane and coming up out of different pipe on other side of out lane
-birds made nest in antlers of deer on side artwork
-spider hanging from lizards tail on side art
-penguins are dressed in tuxedo's and are the servers on the ark
-snake chasing mouse up escalator
-2 giraffe's intertwined necks kissing
-bear lounging in chair eating honey from bee hive
-butterfly drinking from the bottle of extra pure virgin olive oil next to olive OYL on back box
-Bluto trying to chisel off elephants tusks in side art
-lion licking lips at zebra and zebra looking scared
-lizard's tongue going down out lane to catch a fly
-3 little pigs heading up to the knee deep pool
-3 monkeys on roll over area, 1 wearing headphones, 1 wearing dark shades, and one eating a huge sub sandwhich (hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil)
-badger chasing ducklings which are following mother duck on upper playfield
-panda chowinh down on some bamboo
-gorilla eating bananas and leaving the peels behind him and penguin servers are slipping and crashing all over the place
-dolphin taking a shower in a bathtub
-huge gorilla holding Olive OYL by the butt on the side art
-sugar free spinach cola next to Popeye on backbox

Lots of little hilarious touches that make the artwork fun to show off.

Here is the hilarious deer with the pipe reading a "Play-Doe" magazine (sideways) on Popeye's upper playfield. Just one of the hilarious small details in the artwork:

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