Also a good point, O-Din but Louis Raynaud was a frenchman like Christian Marche and he started work at Ad-Posters after Christian, who himself started in 1965, Shangri-La being his very first design.

Molentin's girls all have some kind of the same look, it's easy to select them.
Somewhere I read the men designed by the mystery-artist have a Charlton-Heston-chin and this is a very good description.
"21" could be one of these games where some artist did the 'surroundings' and another one the details.
It looks a bit that this could be an early design by the mystery-artist.

But I think our conversation could be some kind of boring for most people watching this toppic, maybe we should start a new toppic regarding exclusively the mystery-artist?

The "Mystery Artist" I'm referring to is the one who did Bally Blue Ribbon. Safari was probably a different guy. The artist for Williams 8 Ball (1966) is a mystery; could it be the Safari guy?
.................David Marston

Williams 8 Ball was designed by Art Stenholm.
But Art Stenholm surely did not Bally Safari.
Safari must be from the same artist that designed Mardi Gras, Big Daddy, Pretty Baby and much more.

What's your source for saying Stenholm did the art for 8 ball? None of IPDB, Mr. Pinball, or PinballEric give that attribution. And 8 Ball doesn't have the kind of black-lines that are charcteristic of Stenholm.
.................David Marston

Art Stenholm worked in different styles, I think you should compare 8 Ball to Mad World then you probably will agree.

There's also a 'big' discussion going on if Roy Parker or Art Stenholm did the artwork for Gottlieb's North Star, for example.
Me (and some others too) are quite sure that A.S. did the Backglass and Roy Parker the playfield.

I discussed this with Wayne Neyens recently for his cover story in the upcoming 5th issue of Pinball Magazine.

Michael Stroll played a mean game of Firepower for the BoD and myself at the XCOR International
shareholder meeting held in Mayfield Heights, Ohio in 1980

I'm wondering 5 years later if anyone figured out who the mystery artist for Bally and Williams in the 1960's was? A real history of Ad Posters and those two companies would be fascinating. but will probably never happen.

I'm also interested which artist did work on the United (Williams-owned) bowler arcade games of the mid-60's. One French commentator had Jerry Kelley doing some of the games, but I haven't located a source for attribution.

The recently-published book, From Pinballs to Pixels - by Ken Horowitz, has some interesting solid state history, but was very disappointing in the way he handled EM's, slots, and other parts of Bally and Williams art history before the solid state era.

Key material from Ad Posters was lost in a fire. As far as I have heard, there is no news on the Mystery artist, or possibly two of them.

Thanks for the book review on the Ken Horowitz book!
.................David Marston

One more attempt to find out more regarding THE MYSTERY ARTIST - there just was some new discussion about him on Pecos "The Pointy People Ponderings Toppic" but I guess it would be better to discuss it here on o-din 's Toppic.

There STILL MUST (!!!) be someone who remembers that man and his name - the rumours seem to get even more crazy the more time passes. OldHockeyGuy even told he had heard some weird rumour that "Disney-Dick" White was the mystery-artist - which is insane.
Regardless all the wild stories from a destroyed building or whatever there must be some information available if only one tries hard enough. Isn't there a Pinsider in Chicago who could do a bit of research? Maybe the last person still alive who could tell some more dies this month - who knows?

Fact is that the names of the artists do not appear in all of them Williams-Documents of the sixties. The artworks were delivered by Ad-Posters, approved and that was that. That's also why there is still some confusion regarding Christian Marche and Louis Raynaud and who did what.

Christian Marche hand-typed a list of all names he remembered in the 00ies but he was fully aware that this list was largely incomplete just because he could not remember each name of ca 180 machines he designed 30 to 40 years ago. IPDB-Jay uses that list too. Sadly the guy who asked Monsieur Marche to write that list did not ask him about the Mystery-Artist.

I asked Jerry K Kelley in 2000 if he knew the names of the ad-posters-artists. He did not, because he was a Loner and a free designer with his own studio who delivered his work directly to the manufacturers. He said it could have been 3 Frenchmen - which goes along to the rumour that the Mystery-Artist was a Frenchman too like Marche and Raynaud. I also asked some german guy who visited the Expo's to ask Steve Kordek about the Mystery-Artist - he did not remember his name too.

But still - it's not THAT long ago, Jesus Christ! It wasn't in the middle-ages and there were (believe it or not, Millenials!) already Computers and (believe it or not, Millenials!) people DID walk upright on two legs and could talk and write and (believe it or not, Millenials!) they could lead a happy Life without Smart-Phones and Facebook !

Maybe there's a Housekeeper and his wife still there who can remember anything --- this could be possible for heaven's sake - but the Time-Window is getting closer and closer - so please, if there's a Pinsider in Chicago who could do some research - it's getting urgent.

...and YES, it's only a name we search, that's clear - but still I think it's important!
Don't you agree o-din ?

There are two main mystery artists.
One who worked for both Bally and Williams in the 60s, ( Big Daddy, Campus Queen etc) Milton Caniff inspired.
and the other who worked for just Bally in early mid 60s. ( Trio, Blue Ribbon, BullFight) His girls were prettier but with V shaped chins.

Other uncredited games (or at least debatable) include CCoin Festival, Bally Loop the Loop, WMS Big Chief to name a few.
Plus there are a couple games that i think ate miscredited to certain known artist that i think ipdb has got wrong,
like Bally Star Jet (I do not think this is Molentin, but the Mystery artist (Caniff inspired).

Does anyone know if Jerry Kelley worked, as an employee, for any of the individual companies, including Bally, Williams, or even Chicago Coin or LC Algoren, or instead, he contracted with Advertising Posters to be assigned by them to different companies? Do we know which boss he parodied in the backglass of later work? Did he have to work under George Molentin or was he a free agent who worked with each manufacturer until there were creative differences? I'd like to assemble a draft, tentative chronology of his work for arcade companies.

Check this post topic out
https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/pointy-people-pin-ponderings-homage-to-marche-and-kelley/page/2

Hook up with Mardi-Gras-Man
who has more info regarding Kelley than most anyone on here.

I believe he contracted with Ad Posters. I attended the one seminar he ever gave at Pinball Expo, and I must have some notes in my archives. Unfortunately for history, he talked only about his art for pinball, though he clearly did very influential art for shuffle alleys (aka puck bowlers).
.................David Marston

David,

You are one of the people I enjoy so much reading about from the history of pinball. I may have seen and printed out notes from that talk. Others have helped with their exposure to Kelley and Marche. I just want to get my chronology down of what I can piece together of Kelley's arcade career and artwork so others can pick it apart and we can reach the best consensus of his works and also his influence.

I'm trying to use 2024 as a year of consolidation of work and focus on outstanding projects. Last year I got to tour some magnificent arcades and museums, taking way too many pictures in the process. Met some wonderful people.

Hope to meet you someday at a conference and see one of your presentations.

Fred

Hey Fred,
Right back at ya! I'm hoping you'll GIVE a presentation at Pintastic when you've assembled some findings.
.................David Marston

David,

I wish I could attend Pintastic this year, but have an old guy hockey tournament to play in that weekend~

Russ Jensen made some notes from that Jerry Kelley talk @ Expo, but I would enjoy your take if you can locate yours.

Fred

In addition to wanting to learn more about Williams of the 1960's, I specifically would enjoy finding more information on the ten "Styling of the 60's" game cabinets for Darts, Viking, Jungle, Music Man, Black Jack, Magic Clock, Bo Bo, Caravelle, Highways, Hollywood, and in part, Ten Spot.

Be fun to know who designed them, production numbers, and the reason, beyond sales, why they were not continued. As others have said, the Jetsons game would have looked great in one.

Past Times Arcade has a terrific collection of them open to the public.

I've got a WMS Darts, and one reason I can imagine the cabinet was discontinued was they are a PITA to take the legs off & on. They're basically table legs secured by carriage bolts. You need to remove the playfield for access to the nuts used to attach the legs.

That being said, these games have a cool, unique wobble when nudging.

I recall that Mel Boldt & Associates designed those cabinets and more for Williams/United.

Not only are you a ray of sunshine in Las Vegas, but you have some terrific background to share on Williams/United. Thanks so much.

According to Mardi-Gras Man : ( when talking about his conversations with Jerry Kelly)
One of the most interesting questions would have been this - he told me that he designed both Williams "Styling of the 60ies" and the follow-up-Cabinet. Which isn't "that" astonishing since he became a Star in the Industry for his ground-breaking new design for the "one-armed-bandits" ... BUT I sadly forgot to ask him if he designed the new Metal-Rail-Cabinet for Gottlieb too. Looking at the heavy-duty and very stylish big Lockbar for the 1960-61 Gottlieb-Multi-Players I guess this could be indeed possible. This would mean that he invented the modern Metal-Rail-Cabinet in general and so the modern Look of Pinball that still is up-to-date, with the V-shaped Backbox. Maybe a Gottlieb-specialist could tell more about this

So many creative artistic and game design ideas flowed at Williams in the 1960's. The three most intriguing to me are: 1) the cabinet design "Styling of the 60's;" 2) the two chrome metal flipper eras in the mid-60's; and 3) the modern art on Williams (and Bally) playfields, including plastics, and backglasses, from 1965-1975. Someone must have been driving this need for innovation.

I'd like to think that Steve Kordek played a role in much of the innovation. Not been able to uncover anyone associated with the idea of chrome metal flippers. Clearly, Jerry Kelley did the original spade work on modern artwork, mainly cubist, followed by Christian Marche. Kelly may also have had a role in the beautiful, but short-lived, elongated, splayed leg cabinets of 1960.

Unfortunately, Shaloub's history of the era is heavily Gottleib-oriented, and finding research on flipper and cabinet design is very sparse, but it is a fun discovery journey.

Styling of the 60s was also applied to Williams rifles, such as Hercules and Vanguard.
.................David Marston

That is interesting.

Well, the advertising for those games is less explicit and the legs are different than those in the pinball games. More research to be done.

Meanwhile, you have a big event coming up!