I love mine. I sold it & was sorry I did. About a year later I bought it back for cheaper than I sold it to him the rules are deep,the sounds & music are great,& has cool dot animation. The top mini playfield is tough to master. The complaint everyone has is you can't see the shots under the top playfield but once you get them down,it's all good! I've got 17 pins & it's a keeper for sure.

1.) You can usually find it for 1,300.00 and under (at least on the east coast), great WPC DCS value
2.) Sound and music quality are great. Popeye's talk under his breath quotes are funny, some call outs have priceless 'cheese factor'
3.) Seahag multiball. You need to complete 4 tasks between the upper and lower playfield while keeping the balls in play
4.) As WOZ225 stated, top mini playfield is tough to master, but rewarding when shots are executed, makes Seahag mutliball that much more difficult
5.) Deep ruleset logic as the other 4 WPC DCS pins have
6.) Family friendly pin
7.) Backglass art is great, the rest of the art, not so great
8.) Short flippers and hidden shots make it challenging

So much push and pull in either way. Popeye, I bet, cost more to make than TZ, and I bet was the single most expensive machine to produce. The hidden shots are a nuisance. Despite what you might think in aiming at the inserts should suffice, it doesn’t, and about 4 shots, all important, are kind of a pain.

The theme is unanimously agreed upon as flat out stupid. It should have just been Popeye. Why we are helping Popeye save endangered animals while collecting wrenches and baby bottles as a theme for Popeye is beyond me, and everyone else.

The skill shot is a nice idea, and cool at first glance, but is really a lot of wasted space and a waste of a very expensive and complicated toy. I would have preferred after the choice is made, that you have to hit a ramp or the scoop or something. Given the deep rules, which I will get to, that would have been a nice addition.

The overall designed is one of the few games where it feels Williams just did not put this thing through QC and rushed it out the door. The ramp alone has two major issues, in that balls fly off the rear when they enter fast (needs a clear cover) and the ball gets stuck in a common spot on a back left rear corner (needs a post), and secondly the exit from the ramp to the wire ramp is not smooth and does not transition well (raise the union screw with a spacer). Neither of these issues are seen on any other Williams machine, and this alone tells me that this game was not manufactured in the same manner, which is a rarity from Williams, even until they closed.

The entrance to the escalator causes bounce outs, and needs dampening foam all around both sides. The ramps in the upper PF are hard to aim (Clay recommends moving the lightning flippers up there, and I wish I had seen that before I sold mine). The ramp itself is too steep, and hard perfect shots will often fly into the PF glass and back out. The ball will even, once into a shot/door in the ramp, sometimes roll to the right and activate the wrong door, despite making the desired shot. The entire animal ramp/plastic thing should have been in a clear plastic at the least, and really isn’t pinball and is a lot of action for little fun.

The outlanes are horrendous. Even if you install bumper posts where they should be (factory only put a screw in the PF to the under PF rail supports), and lower the side star posts to the lowest setting, the opening to the outlanes is still larger than any other machine with the posts to the highest point. When this is how it was factory, the game is virtually unplayable, and balls drain faster than pinbot, A LOT faster.

Everything Steve Ritchie posted about this machine in his rant one time on RGP is bang on. The game was a complete and utter disaster, given the height that pinball was at, and this thing should never have been produced.

Having said that, we are now in the home use environment where we can alter/mod and appreciate in a new light. Once the changes are made, and the game becomes playable, we can begin to review the rules - and the rules in this machine were IMO **ground breaking, deep and as a whole impressive**.

In the time of mode mode mode, this game was the first to start an objective completion type of play, similar to AFM, MM and other later wpc95 machines. You have to save all the animals, collect all the (stupid) items, start the 3 ball MB, complete the 4 mini modes, and then starts another MB, where you have to make most of the shots in the game. There is a 4 and 5 ball multiball as well, and once the objectives are complete, and some other things to complete, and then you can attempt to save olive, which utilizes all of the main shots in the game and is a 6 ball mulit, and is very hard and challenging to get to. I only beat the machine once. I beat TZ almost every night I play it, and AFM once a month in relation.

The skill shot comes back into play big time in the objectives, as you can basically get a free whatever you need towards starting these objectives here, and this is a great idea.

As well, the finding sweat pea is I believe the only pinball play/vid mode interactive thing in pinball. It is very hard, and I have only completed this once as well. I believe this to be the greatest vid mode in pinball, as you not only have to keep the ball on the upper PF, which in itself is very hard, but you have to aim at the right doors, get ready for the ball to return fast, and keep your eye on the map on the screen as well. Why oh why could more vid modes not be like this?

Call me crazy, but this idea was a theme and vigorous testing from QC away from being one of the best machines of the 90s. Instead, most consider it a joke.

Let me first say I like Popeye quite a lot:
- Unique playfield which incorporates the theme quite well (even if the theme may not be great)
- Good audio package (the highscore entry music is especially brilliant)
- Hard to get ball control due to far away slingshots and lightning flippers (it's rare to get a ball trapped). I actually like this because it makes the gameplay unique.
But:

I have to agree that the hardware is flawed in several areas as pointed out above by Atomicboy.
- If someone could redesign the lock (target-scoop-target) area to make it nicer to shoot and also make the left saucer hole more makeable that would be great.
- The Swee'Pea gates, opto's and ramp have to be redesigned to...

In addition the software is not great either:
- The way shots are lit (lamps) and communicated when made (audio, dmd) is lacking, inconsistent. This is especially the case during the Bluto modes and during Multiball (the ramp/scoop flashers can't seem to keep up with your shot making. The player is not really guided towards the wizard mode.
- The shots that are used for the 4 Bluto modes are poorly chosen (mostly 4 targets). They should have used the spinach cans for that IMO.
- Ball saver has no grace period and doesn't handle SDTM scoop releases well.
- If the lock mechanism's one-way gate let's a ball through the software should compensate this by awarding a (virtual) ball lock. Instead it just shoots the ball back.

@Atomicboy
Finding sweet pea is actually quite easy: just shoot the middle gate 3 times and that's it. I don't understand why you only did that once when you can beat TZ almost every night.
Of course it's rarely that straight forward though because the right opto gets triggered by a diverted ball and you still have to go another route. I agree that in theory this is the best videomode; but both hardware and software are lacking.

@Atomicboy
I don't think the 5 ball multiball that is advertised on flyer and promo video is included in the latest roms. Can someone shine some light on that?
3-ball multiball: standard multiball
4-ball multiball: Item multiball
5-ball multiball: ???
6-ball multiball: Wizard mode / Save Olive

White Water basically has the exact same build up to Vacation Jackpot and was released 14 months earlier... and still did it better (Status report is clearer).

Anyway... a lot of issues with Popeye can be solved with software. I'm actually considering doing a P-ROC rewrite for this machine (but first want to finish the Bride of Pinbot of course).

Wow, awesome write-up Atomicboy!

Jeff R.

On mine, which was HUO, it was so fast, that is was crazy to aim. From the right side the aim was the worst, and again, when you would hit it, it was so fast, it popped back many times. Often, one bad shot takes you off in another direction that takes you FOREVER to get back from.

I often thought that the bat height should have been slightly higher, and thought of changing the stops to allow for better control, but never got that far.

Man, if you can do that every time, post a vid will you. I had a lot of machines, and sweat pea was by far one of the hardest things I have ever come across, which was great for when I finally did it.

i hear from gagno that item mb is damn near impossible to get. i wish i could find a popeye someday. nice old widebody for sure. like the upper playfield too.

I always had fun playing Popeye. Having said that, I'm not a great player, so all I can do is comment that I had fun and found it challenging.

I'd enjoy having another someday.

Atomic, this was probably one the better reviews I've read regarding issues with Popeye......but the OP asked what you LIKED about the game

I thought it to be a good time to give a full review, sorry I added it to my reviews.

In all fairness, I mentioned what I like as well! For the sake of the game, it is worth noting all the things that *should* be done to it to maximize the potential. I really consider it unplayable in the original condition.

I have a hard time passing up a Popeye thread without sharing the glory that is Popeye's proposed theme by Python. It's defiantly worth a read.

http://mirror2.ipdb.org/files/1851/Popeye_proposed_theme_from_Python.pdf

I had Popeye for a month, just couldn't get into it.

Everything Atomicboy said I agree with .. I Enjoyed play-n Popeye and It lOOked Great in Led's

I Sold it to the Banker & he Likes it too. I Hope he Chimes in . Here's a Vid- of it ..

PoPeye_004.JPG PoPeye_003.JPG

Heres one for sale in KC MO. I know the guy that has it for sale. His name is Monty and he works on pins and arcade games for a living. He is a very honest and trusting person who works on all my machines that I cant fix my self.
I seen and played the game in person, but its just not for me. Monty asking $1800 for his which may sound a little high but its all shopped out , waxed up and in great condition , so that makes up for the price.

kansascity.craigslist.org link

Bought from BR about 9 months ago. I thought only my grand children would enjoy this the most, but everyone seems to like playing.

I absolutely loathe Popeye.

WTF!?!?! Knowing what is known about his wackiness, I wonder if Williams asked for a progress update on the machine while in production, and Python provided this instead haha

For anyone who hasn’t read Ritchie’s comments:

“Some Popeye Facts and My Opinions and Recollections:
Barry Oursler designed the game, but it was Python's theme, including
the weird euphorics-influenced eco-connection.
Python was not, and never will be a game designer. He will SAY
anything, truthful or not. This is not to say that he didn't come up
with many good ideas for the games he worked on, but he never drew
anything more than sketches except when doing the artwork for the
playfield, back glass and plastics. A pinball designer makes a full
scale drawing of his games with all components shown. He does the
fitting of components and at least some of the mechanical
engineering. A pinball designer chases down and looks after every
component and mechanism on his game. He deals with a BOM, management,
and other members on the team. Barry was the designer of Popeye.
The game designer was not always the team leader of the pinball teams
at W/B/M. If another member of a team was more suited to carrying the
vision and dealing with other members, then he would take the reins
with the designer's permission. Barry liked to let others on his team
lead things. Steve Kordek, Chris Granner and Python were probably
the most influential on Barry's teams to my recollection.
Popeye was the game that followed ST:TNG. Popeye didn't make money on
the street. The theme was stinky and the geometry was funky, chunky
and clunky. No real players liked the hidden shots and generally poor
visibility that allowed function to follow form. Its hard-to-play
upper playfield didn't win it any friends. Graphics and art were just
nasty, and speech, sounds, script and music were less than stellar.
Popeye was expensive to build and carried hefty tooling and mold costs
that were never amortized. Williams lost money on Popeye, something
that hadn't happened for many many years prior.
The real reason that Popeye is/was universally despised was that all
of the Williams/Bally/Midway distributors were signed up to take
minimum amounts of every run of machines we manufactured. They were
not upset when they had to buy minimum quantities of ST:TNGs and other
titles, but they were very angry that they had to take a minimum # of
Popeye machines. To make matters worse, Willy raised the price of
Popeye! The theme was ridiculous. Who cares about Popeye? Popeye
was nothing in Europe (our second through fourth ranked markets) even
when it was fresh. Not one distributor cared for the license. We who
were in charge should have stopped the game, because we all knew that
it was a steaming pile well before it was released. There were
politics involved, and I seem to recall that we couldn't get anything
on the line quickly enough if we did not release Popeye to production.
The distributors were screaming and making threats of lawsuits and
dumping Willy as a represented manufacturer. Eventually Williams
canceled the minimums clause in their contracts with distribs. Popeye
had a very bad stigma attached to it for a long time which, of course,
was played up by our competitors. Some people say Popeye was "the
beginning of the end" of pinball at Williams. It was hard to sell
large runs of games after Popeye. The failure of pinball cannot be
blamed on Popeye, but it sure didn't help our business.
I do not agree that less people like wide bodies than regular width
games. They were harder to design because of the slightly larger
spans of time required for the ball to get to the targets. The worst
wide body width was Stellar Wars/Superman/Pokerino. Until I/we moved
the flippers and slings into the same familiar location as a narrow
body, they were really horrible in my mind. Some designers went crazy
with more flippers and more drain space between them! The outer orbit
shots were actually miserable to make because the ball was so far down
the flipper end in order to hit them. The ball doesn't carrying much
speed or power at that angle. The widest games are the ones that I
never want to make again. The Superpin width was/is much better. I
can design in at least one more shot in a Superpin width, and more and
larger toys can be utilized.
I do have to admit that my favorite playfield size to play and create
within is the standard 20-1/4" X 46" I would like to make a longer
(48") game someday, but it is not a high priority.
I don't enjoy dumping on others games, but don't try to tell me that
Popeye was a good game. If you enjoy playing it, that's certainly
your prerogative. Most Williams engineering/management folks don't
want to think about Popeye. It was an awful time in Williams
history.
Regards,
Steve”

https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups#!topic/rec.games.pinball/Brmc4Jdbn3s

Yeah, I've posted this years ago but Steve's comments about Popeye were mainly personal, because he obviously has a huge problem with Python (still to this day). That's why he picked Popeye to rant on.

Many of the problems between operators/distributors and Wms began the year before with the TZ pre-sales. TZ was entirely presold and very expensive, hyped like 2nd coming, and had overall flat earnings. The fact that Popeye didn't earn the following year didn't help. But were distributors clamoring for Judge Dredds any more than Popeye? I think the fracturing of the operator/distributor relationship began with TZ and Popeye was the game they decided to really take a stand on.

Also it's easy to see in retrospect that the decision a few years later to purposely and prematurely pull MM from the line, in favor of NGG, was infinitely more detrimental to Wms than any decisions regarding Popeye production ever were. So for Steve to come out and just trash Popeye (ie. Python) is kind of transparent and in poor taste.

Just my opinion. Notice there are hours of Ritchie interviews out there, and in all the High Speed talk he never once gives a mention of credit to Python for one of the most important backglasses of the 80's. Apparently he and Python during HS development had screaming matches, kicked in doors to each others' offices, which all led to Python not doing the playfield art (and HS's to this day still suffer from that decision, as good a game as it is). Just to paint a clear picture why you see Ritchie rant so hard against Popeye, when there are SO many other games and situations to rant on with Williams...

I hear what you are saying, but I don’t think Steve really trashed Python in this post on RGP. He states Python wasn’t a game designer, and was sort of put into a spot with this machine (I believe is noted in another post). It has been well documented that the two have personal issues with each other, and while I totally agree with the TZ comment (which most don’t realize the numbers for this machine are based solely on it being the next great thing by the man that made TAF – which it was not), I still think Popeye was a complete mistake for the time, there is no doubting that.

Again, games can be reviewed an critiqued now in two different lights – when they came out as earners (with their ability to draw anyone in and have them dump in money) or now as home use entertainment, where you have more time to appreciate, alter and explore machines that in the day you likely would have passed up on after the first game if you deemed it a “drainer” or simply not worth your money or 30 minutes of pinball time you might be able to allot in a week’s time that you had back then.

For example, most of SR pins from the 80’s and 90’s were outstanding at knowing what would draw someone in to play and insert money, *which was the sole goal back then* but most are not all that deep by today’s standards in comparison to other games of the same era (more so with his late 80s and up). They are still fun, but the home market, as a whole, gravitates more to depth (on average, of course, we all have our quick and dirties!) rather than quick and dirty bright lights as whole, as we are not confined to limited time like the majority of arcade goers back in the day. Of note, I own 4 SR pins.

As this time, Popeye can be altered and appreciate differently, and I believe it can be made to work as noted. The goofy theme is unfortunately the hardest part to swallow of the entire project. It can definitely be appreciated how some do not see it as this though, and it will always remain a machine that has very mixed reviews, regardless.

Love me some Popeye. Would love to pimp it out, but have a cracked upper pf part that's NLA. That said, I read the theme. Almost as embarrassing as Python's expo speech a couple of years back. He MUST have been drunk when creating this.

I think that about sums it up Bellbrand. I played it two times with a friend and we both looked at each other after the second game, and he said "What was Williams thinking?", and we just walked away disappointed.

Now that I have researched the rules, and know what to do, I'd like to give it another shot.

However, the one thing I know I couldn't ever stand is the blue plastic animal ramp that comes down the left side which covers the inlane/outlane area. You simply can't see the ball coming down in order to nudge it away from the outlane. That's one of the fun things to me about pinball, the inlane/outlane nudging battle that happens in every game, and that blue plastic ramp robs me of that fun on the left side.

Exactly, it's the main reason why I picked one up, I had to experience it for myself, it's probably not a keeper but certainly no buyers remorse either

Thanks a lot for this review! I played that pin only once - a week ago! - and will try to find it again.

Has there been any other games beside Popeye that use the mech on the left side ramp? I mean the part when as the ball rolls down and you hit the flippers to pop the pegs out and knock the ball on the hole you want.

Popeye is the only one I have noticed it in....but I do see that feature a lot on Pinball FX2 tables.

It's a great game, I own one.

A friend of mine is currently shopping out a Popeye and just noticed this weird plastic in the place of the custom molded one Bluto.

index.jpg

He thought it looked odd because of the way the flasher just sticks out like that and going to mention to the customer to see if they want him to order the original part from marco here:

large.jpg

http://www.marcospecialties.com/pinball-parts/03-9034

Does anyone know where this plastic came from? It doesn't appear to be homebrew because it is screened, laser cut and secured with rivots.

My understanding is bally made those later in the production run because customers complained the larger bluto blocked the playfield.

That plastic is a replacement so you can see the lock shot and the stand up targets. It's cheap and ugly. The molded Brutus face is really nice and the nose lights up when lock is lit. I had the molded plastic Brutus on mine and I wouldn't have had it any other way. Tell him to get the molded one.

Thanks a lot for your reply and insight guys.

I missed the original thread until now, but I'll add in my two cents...

Right now, I have Popeye set up in my basement. I do not have JD, DM, or Batman Forever there, even though I could (I own them all). TZ came and went too. Popeye for now has the nod because of two reasons...

It's fast as can be if it's set up right. I LOVE fast games.

The art package on Popeye is my favorite in all of pinball. Seriously, there is nothing as well integrated as that ship. It flows from the backbox to the cabinet to the playfield.

I get why some people don't like it - and quite frankly, if / when I swap out one in the basement, it'll be the first to go, but it has its charm.

I just had the disappearing pinball event happen to me the other day. Glad to know that it's not just me, even if it is an unfortunate QC issue. I have had a few airballs into the switch just after and above the ramp entrance. Hitting that will either reject, or reject and reset the game.

So now I have to take the game apart if I want to get the ball back. Will make a tube to cover the ramp to attempt to eliminate the airballs.

I don't get the 'hidden shot' complaint. Ok, you can't see the entrances that well, but once you know where they are, is anything more really needed? Just pick some aim points and have at it. The Bluto thing is the worst of all. That flat thing is terrible.

Popeye is the house favorite. Very underrated game. Multi ball is great on this machine.

IMG_0590 (resized).JPG

IMG_0589 (resized).JPG

IMG_0588 (resized).JPG

I'd love a Popeye for the house. My favorite cartoon growing up.

Yes sir, especially the Fleischer Brothers black & whites! My favorite too!

Looks great with the ColorDMD