The Addams Family Pinball

A movie license that became a pinball landmark

Released under the Bally name in 1992, The Addams Family belongs to the period when electronic pinball combined physical toys with animated displays and elaborate rules. Its theme draws on the 1991 feature film rather than presenting an unrelated haunted-house story. The mansion, its eccentric residents, and the machine’s theatrical effects work together to give the player a recognizable world to explore.

The game combines film characters with physical playfield mechanisms: Thing picks up the ball, a bookcase opens to reveal a vault, and hidden magnets change the ball’s path. Mansion awards give players a sequence of goals alongside multiball.

Inside the design process

In his 2003 Pinball Expo account, Larry DeMar described the challenge of developing a Bally-branded game within the combined Williams/Bally operation. He recalled that the team initially considered alphanumeric displays, with the cost of dot-matrix hardware competing against money available for playfield features. The finished game adopted the newer display format.

DeMar recalled that Chris Granner traveled to New York to record Raul Julia’s voice for the game. He described Julia’s commitment to the performance—a reminder that its sound was part of the design, not simply background decoration.

At the team’s 2012 Pinball Expo reunion, Pat Lawlor showed the original full-size hand-drawn playfield layout and photographs of factory assembly. The presentation also showed a late development playfield with differences from the production game.

What makes the playfield distinctive

Thing’s mechanical hand emerges from its box and lifts a ball using a magnet. The rotating bookcase reveals the vault. Beneath the playfield, the Power magnets disrupt the ball during selected sequences. These devices make the family’s supernatural theme part of the actual ball movement.

Thing Flips is a separate feature: the game operates a small flipper automatically and uses information from previous attempts to adjust its shot. It should not be confused with the mechanical hand. The Bear Kick and side ramps, electric chair, swamp, and vault form the main geography of the game.

How a game unfolds

A straightforward starting goal is to collect mansion awards at the lit electric chair or swamp kickout. Completing GREED opens the bookcase and advances the route to multiball. During multiball, the train-wreck target and side ramp become important jackpot shots.

Collect the mansion awards to reach Tour the Mansion, a sequence that revisits the game’s modes. Operator settings and software revisions can change scoring and award thresholds; the rules and strategy guide explains the details.

Original game versus the later collector edition

This page documents the original 1992 game. IPDB lists 20,270 units for that release. The 1994 Special Collectors Edition, commonly called Gold, is a later related edition with its own record and a reported 1,000-unit run. The original production figure should not silently include those additional machines.

Gold includes gold-colored trim and changed software features, including Pugsley and Wednesday’s Trap Door in place of the original 3 Million mansion award. Cosmetic upgrades to an original machine do not establish that it is a factory Special Collectors Edition.

Documentation and preservation

The original operations manual covers assembly, diagnostics, adjustments and parts. It specifies three physical balls installed in the machine. This is separate from the operator-adjustable number of balls each player receives during a game.

When documenting a surviving machine, record its installed software and modifications alongside its original model identity. The market snapshot on this page describes reported prices for the 1992 game, not a valuation of a specific example.

The people behind the game

Concept

Pat Lawlor

Game design

Pat Lawlor and Larry DeMar

Mechanical engineering

John Krutsch

Software

Larry DeMar and Mike Boon

Artwork

John Youssi

Display animation

Scott Slomiany

Music and sound

Chris Granner