FIRE! and Addams Family.
That bell on top got me hooked. Would ride my bike 4 miles to pinball arcade and drop ten bucks everytime.
Then...when Addams came out i played the hell out of it!
Took 20 years and both were my first pins within a month.
Now i have owned 4 And almost 5 Fire's.
Ive become a Fire master. Looking at another next week. Took awhile but got my champagne couple years ago. I enjoy bringing this machine back to life.

TSPP! Purchased one NIB back in 2005ish

Meteor

FUNHOUSE. I played pinball before this, but wasn't hooked as I was when Rudy talked to me for the first time.

A bit of a homer pick, but it was MM. Played it back in the mid-90s at a shop that specialized in Magic the Gathering.

Yup, played family guy in 2010 at a bar across from Sunday River Ski resort in Maine. Decided that night I wanted a pinball machine and bought a used rollergames a few weeks later.

Today I'm up to 6 games (usually rotate 1 a year) and have decided to hunt down a Family guy, the game that started it all.

For me it was playing an original fireball at a camp resort in northern Michigan in about 1976.

Later, it was a firepower 2 at a bowling alley in Westland and a eight ball deluxe at a pool hall. On the east side. We would skip school and go to the bowling alley and play a few hours In the morning. For all the time I spent on 8 ball delux it's surprising how the game just doesn't do anything for me anymore.

My favorite modern is theatre, which I own. I am eyeballing an AFM or AFMr for number two. After that I would like a mm or mmr and a Tron. All three of my kids like mm so that says something about that theme.

Fireball started it all.

even though I PLAYED pinball, long before, South Park was my first purchase

Twilight zone it all ways kicked my ass at the arcade I like a challenge tho

Been playing them since I was old enough to see the flippers over the lockbar BUT....Road Kings started it all for me when it first came out in the Hot Spot arcade in Prince Rupert BC. There was a lineup to play it for weeks. I used to show up when they first opened in the early afternoon just to get my games in. What a game. No idea how many quarters I plugged into it.
Great memories

It was the first machine I got and will be the last machine to go.

Pinball Magic

There was a few key moment that started it all for me. When I was younger I remember playing the very occasional pin at Alladins Castle in my home town of Mattoon IL. Mainly it was with my older sister or to spend a moment or two with my parents then it was back to the vids. At that time though it was all about the video games and most especially my NES. Later, a year or two after high school a friend and I found a Shadow machine at la bambas burritos. This is when pinball finally clicked. We started to understand rules and perfecting shots. The best feeling is hitting all four ramps in a combo. And I loved how strongly the dagger ramp diverter slammed into place. Eating way to many brottios as big as your head and smokeing way to much pot and playing shadow endlessly. A few more years went by and I moved to Colorado and was old enough to do the bar thing. Found a few pins and played them all night while downing beers. That brings us up to about now. My step son's grand parents were selling there house and we were all helping move them. I had now idea he use to own some pizza parlors back in the day and had 2 Night Moves cocktail pins in his garage. He had been fixing them up to give to his grand kids. He asked my son if he wanted to take it home. You couldn't believe my excitement. It had never really occurred to me that people actually owned pins. Once I got my hands in there and fixed something for the first time, i was hooked. I now like fixing game almost more than i like playing. The Shadow and Night Moves will always be very special to me

Actually now that I think of it....
It was atomic arcade pinball I got for Christmas in 1979. At the age of 5.
I still have it.

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Ultra Pinball Creep Night! Someone got me that for Christmas around 2004 and I started remembering how much I loved Pinball from that fun computer video pinball game! It was actually really I might have to see if I still have it! Anyway then I started looking up Pinball Machines on ebay and pulled the trigger on a really sad Silverball Mania my first game. A new playfield and all boards rebuilt and about 2 grand later I had a pretty nice game! Payed way too much for it but learned a ton fixing it and still have it today! Great Game Great fun and got me to buy about a couple dozen more! I'm down to 12 games now and that's enough. Truthfully I could be happy with 8 to 10 nice games but for a while there I really had the bug! Still love Pinball though!!! That silly computer game sparked it all off though!

i was always kind of fascinated by pinball, but i never really got a chance to play it. my parents never let me go to arcades, and by the time i was old enough to go into them without their permission, all the pinball machines were shoved into the back corner and usually not working right. i would put my quarters in, and a flipper would be wonky or the game would lose track of the ball when it went into a scoop, and i wouldn't be able to get to see what the thing could really do.

even though it's no substitute for the real thing, i have to give credit to "Pinball Hall of Fame: The Williams Collection" by Farsight (predecessor to The Pinball Arcade). in 2008, my wife bought that game for me on the Wii, and that is what truly rekindled my interest in pinball. For the first time i was able to play WORKING games, learn the rules, and begin to understand nuances like nudging and working towards wizard modes and so on.

EBD when I was young. Then when TAXI came out it all came back again...

Played pinball as a boy, but F14 is what "hooked" me as a teen.

I will never forget the day that machine arrived at our local arcade (Video Pupi on Av. Monroe in Villa Urquiza - Buenos Aires). The lights, soundtrack, Gen Yagov callouts - all just in attract mode...it was CRAZY compared to its predecessors. I decided right then that when I was an adult and could afford it, I would own one.

Fast forward 20 years later - and I purchased my first pin - F14. Owned it about 6 months and was just thinking about how it was the best money I'd ever "wasted"...so I bought another (Mata Hari)...and another...and now, well you get the point.

I can't remember the first machine(s) I played as I was very young but it's been an ongoing affair throughout the decades.
Black Knight would be the one I can point to and say is what made me a fan.
Space Shuttle
GNR
ST:TNG
TOM
Kept me a fan for many years.
Then BK2K and Stern Star Trek brought me back after a long hiatus.
I'm never taking another long break

Back in the day........1978, pins were everywhere....but Alladin's Castle in the newly built mall was the place. I'll never forget seeing current EMs of the time and brand new Power Play and Mata Hari. The digital scoring was amazing then. Gas pumps didn't have that technology yet. Would spend a lot of coin from allowances(which wasn't much), mowing yards, returning glass soda bottles for the deposit, on pinball. So glad to have some of these games now. Good memories..........

Dammit, you broke the needle on my sarcasmeter. That's the third one this week.

I like that f-14 is a favorite. What a crushing game. I always try to play it a few times when I see it just so I can do ok if needed.

The first game I really took note of was Pinbot. My aunt and uncle bought one NIB and they had it along with a Missile Command in their workout room. I didn't know what I was doing with it, but I liked the sounds and lights. Years later my parents bought us a Data East Simpsons for Christmas, and that's where I really learned that you can aim your shots and that there were actual rules (albeit DE Simpsons is super basic) to these things. From there I started playing pinball in between my quarter-hogging JAMMA games at the arcades. I remember when Jurassic Park came out, my dad and I used to play it before movies and sometimes immediately after. It seemed like that machine was at every theater, and I loved everything about that game.

When I got married and we got our first place, Jurassic Park was the first game I picked up. From there it steamrolled and I've had well over 100 games come and go. Pinbot woke me up to pinball, but I think that DE Simpsons keyed me into what was great about playing. JP cemented it.

Great stories everyone I am enjoying all these pinball details I never would hear or think of. Fun!

I'll post a reply on someone else's behalf--a newb who recently bought my F-14 as his first pin. When he was in high school, he remembered playing F-14 at a pizza place during lunch break, and he wanted one ever since. 30 years later, he bought his first pin--my F-14--and he drove 16 hours round trip in the snow with his wife and kids to pick it up.

The game that the younger generation will say got them into pinball

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My uncle had a Wizard! in his basement. I played it like crazy at holidays, etc. Loved it, but didn't get into pinball as a kid. Then, in college, the student union had a DE Star Wars and BOP. Played those like crazy, but it still didn't really give me the bug. Many years later, played MM at the 1up, which finally gave me the full-on contagion.

Crosstown, as a 5 year old i was hooked first play and 49 years later still love it.

Whirlwind. My dad and I would play for hours at my first job (local pizza shop). He would come over early to pick me up and we'd play for a bit before my shift was over. He was the first to point out that there is an actual objective while playing and together we figured out the rules after hours of playing.

My brother and I played hockey as a kid and so I spent a lot of time at the ice rink. They always had a pinball machine, so I spent a lot time playing. When El Dorado came out I played that one for hours, usually on a single quarter. Then in college my wife (girlfriend at the time) and I spent a lot of dates playing pinball. So it's been in the family most of my life. We bought Highspeed in 93 and that was the start of our collection.

We went to the arcade for video games, Donkey Kong, Space Demon, Lady Bug, Star Castle were ones we played. One arcade had a Black Knight and one day there was a crowd around it. We watched, and were drawn in by the action and sound. From then, we also played pinball. I have a Black Knight today and still love it.

I actually won a pinball machine in a TV competition around 1975 when I was a young kid. I still remember the day a truck turned up to deliver it, and I remember it in our kitchen at home. Unfortunately, although my parents remember it as well - especially Dad - they haven't ever found any photos of it. All I recall is that it was BIG. Dad said that a couple of years after we got it the thing broke down and he ended up giving it away!

I loved Pinball Construction Set on the Apple II and then C64 after that.

Fire! & Funhouse - side by side at the local pizza place.

Flight 2000. This was the one of the rotating pins in my aunt And uncles bar that really got me hooked. I was 8 and people would give me quarters, it was awesome! This was 1980 and they had the bar from mid 70s to late 80s. I remember gorgar also and they would have space invaders, asteriods,pacman and star castle (which i would love to own).
As a side note this was a restaurant/ bar honkey tonk kinda place and back in the day i have pics of crystal Gayle and jerry lee Lewis playing there.... crazy to think of it really. My uncle passed away and i have some of the old bar signs and mirrors, also have his old booze barometer that i loved to shove nickels in. Have the old lugwig drums that I'm pretty sure jerry Lees band played on also!

My uncles with Crystal Gayle.. have to look for other pics.

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WHIRLWIND, when I was about 9 at the arcade. First one in the house was '72 Snow Derby that got a lot of plays and started a passion !

Taxi, I was 13 and there was a car service on Allen st called Allen car service. And they always had arcades, till one day super sprint was missing. And in it's place was a taxi pinball, and as I got older I forgot the name of that pin... till I watched spida1a YouTube channel talking about taxi.... And now I found my own taxi and I am hooked for life.

mbaumle was this campground down in Elmer, NJ by any chance? If so, I remember that machine! They had High Speed for a while too.

I'll answer one my brother's behalf (he's not a pinsider): Fire! He played it regularly as a teenager 25 years ago. It was the only pin at a donut shop in our tiny little hometown of Jersey Shore, PA, and the shop used to give away prize money in a little monthly pinball tournament, which he always won. Five years ago I found him a project Fire! and got it running for him, and it's now in his basement and getting regular play.

Well, Grand Lizard, it was the first pin i ever got, in trade for a big red bike Hang-On.

Before that i played alot of pins at the local arcade, at the local amuement park every summer and the single pin at the local videorental shop (a Indiana Jones).

all 3 of those locations are gone now, though

1972 Williams Klondike could barely reach both sides of cabinet to reach the flipper buttons while standing on a chair. The sounds and the smell of the sparking score drum and 10 point unit going to town. Played till i got board with it and turned it off. The joys of free play.

I really got hooked about 2 years ago by playing a Rocky & Bullwinkle machine a lot at my business. I learned the ins and outs of the game, and really enjoyed it. My vendor at the time eventually swapped Bullwinkle for a Rollergames and Twilight Zone, both of which were just as (or even more) fun to learn and play. Now I own a PinBot, Genesis, and Count-Down. Once you've got the bug, there's no stopping it!

i was like a lot of kids in the 80's , hooked on vids. i played some pin , but i dont remember any in particular. Then i played earthshaker , the upper playfield split part and the shaker kicked in and i was hooked , learned if i knew the rules i could get free games and extend my quarter ! then fishtales and the getaway came along OMG.

Space Shuttle. Golfland arcade 1985.

Pin*Bot... When I was 10 the music just blew me away, and it talked, which I know wasn't new, but felt pretty advanced for the time. I remember watching the demo where he would tell you to open the visor and lock his eyes and I was like... whoa.

Data East Simpsons was the first one I played for any length of time, in 8th grade. It was a great intro because I could hit the ramp enough times to get a free game

the williams: indiana jones machine down at the local pub, still have the highscore on that after 3 years