Gottlieb Ugly Skinny Door

Gottlieb/Mylstar’s “The Games” featured the skinny door. (The button here should be a lock, and is here to help a home owner add credits.)

I don’t have much real information on these doors, so I’ll make fun of them instead.

In 1982, the bottom fell out of the arcade market. In 1983, the same thing happened to the home market. Pinball was already hurting, but the manufacturers wanted to keep the companies in business.

Gottlieb changed their name to Mylstar to help people forget Gottlieb’s pinball heritage, and started slashing costs. Gone were multi-level games and widebodies, and instead we got a back-to-basics approach. Unfortunately operators weren’t buying those, either, and Coca-Cola Columbia Pictures pulled the plug on Mylstar, Gottlieb, D., & Co, in 1984.

During this time, games went from the “big” door to this, and after, to Coin Controls doors. I believe this happened as soon as the next game (the SS remake of El Dorado) but I have also seen a Touchdown with the skinny door. The factory must have made them both ways, given the cabinet has to have the right size hole.

I think this is a Wico part, but I haven’t confirmed. Wico is also out of business.

I don’t think these are very good looking doors. They do save some money on sheet metal by being narrower, but they limit the size of the coin box. In this sense, perhaps the manufacturer just knew these games weren’t going to make much money. Unfortunately they are also hard to interchange with the full-width doors Gottlieb changed to right after.