BRING BACK THE ARCADES AND THE SMOKE FILLED POOL HALLS
The image above may bring out a GASP in some of you – in others it will simply look like a pile of abandoned scrap. I fall firmly into the first group and almost felt a teardrop form as I glanced upon a graveyard full of my childhood. Growing up a child of the 80′s and early 90′s I had the chance to have the arcade experience while it was in full swing. You walk into a smokey room, your ears filled with the bloops and bleeps of the low quality audio from machines all around you – it was hard to decide where to start pumping in your quarters first. So many games worthy of play and yet so little time to get to all of them.
Sure you had your downsides during every trip as well but they were never able to dampen your spirits. The dickish kid with the stack of quarters from parents that didn’t feel like spending time with him hogging your favorite machine all day. The kid jumping up and down stomping his feet and crying for more quarters blocking out any bit of hearing you had left while you were in the middle of a boss battle. The guy behind the counter that looked at you just a little too longingly. Alright, that last one might have just been an experience I had – but you get the picture. Nothing anyone could say or do short of pull the power cords out of the wall could keep your spirits down while you gamed. It was a glorious time to be a kid.
A few years later as a part of growing up most young people is when you discover the smokey pool halls that might as well serve as dungeons under some shady establishment that you can only get to down a rickety flight of stairs and through a security door.
Who wouldn’t want to get kidnapped and possibly killed somewhere like this? As a young person you feel like this is your ticket to freedom. “I’m going to play pool, mom. Be back in a few hours.” Going to the pool hall in most cases felt as if you were breaking some rule that you weren’t supposed to be breaking when the grim reality was you were just breaking common sense for your own safety. If your local pool hall establishment was anything like mine you had all sorts of characters that you wouldn’t want sharing the same room with your kid.
From the jukebox in the corner playing Whitesnake half the night to the sharks gulping up smaller fish left and right and taking their next-day’s lunch money it was an atmosphere all it’s own similar to the other worldly feeling you got when you stepped inside an arcade. From the rise of home game consoles to the ban in most cities on indoor smoking and just a rise in personal common sense – many factors have played into the death of arcade and pool hall establishments.. but I for one would somehow welcome them back regardless.
Those of you lucky enough to have a Dave and Busters or one of the few remaining mall arcades near by should take the kids out one of these days and show them what they missed. You’ll all have a great time.
15 Comments
Jujubeez
01.03.2012
I was a product of the 60′s and my first foray into the great world of bleeps and bloops came to me at a local pizza joint close to my home. It was Atari’s PONG and game creator Nolan Bushnell was my hero. Just a box with a paddle control a couple of lines, and a bleep you could hit like a ping pong ball, or tennis racket. I was 12 years old and I hooked from the start.
I had had some experiences with arcades during the 60′s by spending a couple of weeks at the beach in ocean city, Md every summer. There I discovered Marty’s Playland which opened in the 1940′s. It’s still open to this day.
Playland didn’t have video arcade games back then, but rather games of chance or games that used balls or pucks, and you could win tickets, to a kid growing up, the wondrous stuff you could get with your tickets was fascinating. My favorite games at playland was Skee-ball (still 10 cents a game to this day)
And look at those fabulous prizes you can win.
It had a ramp and 9 balls which to acquire points, and it spewed out tickets like crazy. Other games of chance like the claw games, where 10 cents could give you the possibility of winning just about anything, like a plastic whistle. Oh boy :)
Adults could win cigarettes and lighters and adult stuff. Adults who would watch me claw crap with ease, would sometimes ask me to play the cigarette claw games, I had alot of luck there too, Sometimes an adult would give me a quarter for a win. A quarter to a kid in the 60′s meant candy or all sorts of neat stuff.
By the time the 80′s came around Playland added coin eating video games, lots of them, and the noise level grew, and probably the smoke level. I played those in ocean city too, Pacman, defender, missile command were my early favorites, but was always drawn back to skee-ball, and those great old time claw machines. Luckily Playland has kept those elements and still has them, which for me makes the trip to OC more than with it.
Arcade parlors to the most extent have come and gone, but in Ocean city, Maryland, the dream lives on.
Thanks Marty
Mr. Classy
01.03.2012
Great post Juju. Skee ball is still one of my favorite games of all time. Even to this day game systems like the Wii are putting out carnival game collections that have Skee Ball included and its still a fun time even in video game form. Doesn’t beat the real thing but unless you’ve got a county fair in town or your own personal machine that one can be hard to come by.
Jujubeez
01.03.2012
Sadly I just read that Marty’s playland suffered a fire in 2008, it started in a Dough Roller pizza restaurant on the boardwalk, and quickly spread to adjacent buildings, a t shirt shop, and Marty’s play land.
In March of 2008, Playland suffered fire damage from a nine-alarm blaze in a neighboring structure and took 225 firefighters from 19 nearby towns to fight. Thanks to quick actions from the management, the arcade was back up and running within several weeks. Thanks to the structure’s sprinkler system the building was saved along with nearly 70 years of memories. Several vintage games were sent away to be dried and some newer games were purchased to replaced damaged units, but amazingly hardly any evidence of the fire damage exists today.
Source Marty’s Playland.
They say Marty’s is operational again, hopefully the charm of the old Skee-Ball ramps, and the claw machines were not harmed. Time will only tell til my next visit.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=im9HToDm5i4&feature=related
Marty’s is right of the Dough Roller.
Mr. Classy
01.03.2012
It always seems the case that bad things happen to great hangouts.
Jujubeez
01.03.2012
The boardwalk is really just a bunch of very old wooden buildings that would burn like kindling. The Pizza restaurant and the t-shift shop were entirely lost. Marty’s had the good fortune of sprinklers and the luck of the draw that it was the 3rd building down from the starting point of the fire.
RockNTheFreeWorld
01.03.2012
It is amazing that those old wooden buildings always seem to survive years and years, until some dude opens up a pizza or hot dog joint on the very end. Then they inevitably burn down.
Reminds me of all the old Cotton Mills around here. Brick buildings that stood for 100+ years close shop and then always burn down when the homeless and drug addicts move in and start fires for heat.
Jujubeez
01.04.2012
Found a cool arcade emulator that lets you play many of the early 80′s games. Pac-Man, Frogger, Ms. Pac-Man, and many more great ones.
http://www.1980-games.com/us/
Spader
01.05.2012
I loved the old arcade when I was growing up. We had a small one in the Mall in Flagstaff, and my buddies and I would go there and blow all of our money, then go panhandling through the mall telling people we needed a quarter to call home for a ride, then blowing those quarters on the arcade as well.
My favorite game had to be Afterburner!
Talk about awesome!
Jujubeez
01.05.2012
Afterburner is a great, any of the sit down games were great. Daytona 500 another sit down game. I have a quarter story about how my best friend and I were able to get quarters. But it’s kinda embarrassing and I felt alot of guilt after. Hahaha
naavar
01.05.2012
My parents sure hated how much I loved arcade games. There even was a huge arcade center down town with almost every arcade possible. My parents’ wallets knows I spent time there
Biggest favorite was without doubt Hydro Thunder! That flying saucer boat was the shit
wetbedknob
01.06.2012
I used to love going to the arcade. My mom would give us $5 each for quarters. I’d usually try to talk my little sister into giving me some of her quarters so I could play. I had too many favorites to mention.
Mr. Classy
01.06.2012
One of the great things I should have added to the story as well is that the arcade experience even as a kid allowed you to hang out with other kids that had things in common with you. Home consoles may bring the visual arcade experience to you at home but you miss out on meeting new people and just the fun of gathering together with a bunch of people and beating the hell out of game together while everyone not playing cheers you on or laughs at the funny things that happen. Things like Rock Band (with enough people and alcohol) come close to reproducing this at home but it’s just not the same.
commanderscruff
01.24.2012
Oh yeah, the arcade. Try and meet girls, smoke, maybe get a little high. Fun times.
I was a little too old for the video games. I always hung out at the pinball joints. Same thing different era.
Jujubeez
01.24.2012
Pinball was one of those great games. If you could use those flippers and give the cabinet a nudge without tilting the machine then you would make it last. In my dreams of having a game room in my house I always wanted a “Williams” or “Bally” pinball machine.
Bust'm
01.24.2012
If you are ever in the Detroit area, you can relive your childhood at Marvelous Marvin’s Mechanical Museum:
http://marvin3m.com/
I have been there with my daughter and it is a blast from the past.
edit- Well, that flew like a lead balloon. Can you hotlink Youtube’s in here, and if so, how?
Here’s the direct link if you wanna check it out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2_nohRkcdE
eidt #2 – Well weren’t that easier than starin’ at Cindy Crawford? Answer: Uhhh, Yup!
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