On eBay right now there’s a set of three clown-face drop targets for sale, but the base color is white—instead of yellow—which I have not seen before.

ebay.com link: Gottlieb Used Play field Drop Targets Blue Clown Face Match Your Other Targets

I don’t think Gottlieb used these clown-face drop targets on any other game besides JJ/JitB. Every single photograph of these games I have ever seen has yellow as a base color for the drop targets.

So I went to look at the flyers for these games. In both of them, the drop targets are white! Jumping Jack was released three months after Jack in the Box, so I can’t imagine it’s a fluke.

I emailed PBR to ask them about this mystery. Anybody here care to share their insight?

Auction
Jumping Jack Flyer
Jack in the Box Flyer

A friend says he thinks the flyers show sample games, and they must have switched the color for the production run. Even though they were released three months apart, both of these game model numbers are sequential (339, 340) and appeared in the engineering department together at the same time in January of 1972.

Good catch. I forgot about Circus.

Well, the mystery appears to be solved. Thanks all for your insights!