Funhouse

Photo of the Fun House backglass as described in the post.

Funhouse, Williams, 1990. This game is so evil I wrote a short story about it.

The conceit is a funhouse at a carnival. There’s a hot dog cart and a mirror maze and a trap door, but the primary feature is a giant ventriloquist dummy head named Rudy that talks to you throughout the game.

He’s creepy normally especially if you’ve watched the ventriloquist episode of Twilight Zone, but at one location I play at his eye is upside-down and he goes from creepy to cursed.

A photo of Rudy's head with the upside-down eye looking super especially creepy especially if ventriloquist dummies creep you out to begin with

The backglass is… a thing. Rudy as a giant head with giant hands nearby holding doorways into the funhouse looks like he’s sitting on the stage of a 1940s dance stage. A large crowd is in the foreground surrounding the stage. Some scary posters are to the left. Beyond the first horizon in both directions are circus tents, balloons, etc.

The building behind the creepy head has lots of people riding slides around building edges as if the funhouse was also a water floom.

In the right foreground, Rudy stands with a very large clock slung around him, and the sign for a ticket booth declares that the funhouse closes at 12 (an integral part of the game play).

Flight 2000

Photo of Flight 2000's backglass as described in the post

Flight 2000, Stern, 1980. Space ships zoom between planets while something planetoid explodes to the left. Same general hard sci vibe as the space ships on Mars Attack, but without the scary floating head.

Flash Gordon

Photo of the Flash Gordon backglass as described in the post

Flash Gordon, Bally, 1980.

If you’ve seen the show, you’ll recognize the myriad characters on the backglass. I think I saw it once or twice as a kid, so from my standpoint it’s a bunch of people on a mostly red background with some space ships.

Chance, an epilogue

It is a statement about terriers, and especially my terriers, that when I tell my friends, “I’m worried that Chance might have gotten rejected from heaven, and that if he did get in, he’s misbehaving. Do you think he’s ok?” the unanimous vote is that of course he’s misbehaving. He’s Chance.

I don’t know how many of heaven’s sofas have been peed on so far but I have a good idea of what purgatory will look like. It looks a lot like an infinite bottle of Nature’s Miracle and an unending roll of paper towels.