A new theory on who made the sideart Mr. Do!?

Edit Nov. 2018 – For several years I was actively trying to figure out what company manufactured a series of games in white cabinets with quirky artwork, and wrote a series of posts looking to surface new information.

Eventually in 2012, we were able to pinpoint that a company by the name of Glak created these cabinets based out of Rhode Island.
The owners of that company had formed several companies in the same building and were known by multiple names including Omni and Eagle.

While we don’t know who actually manufactured the wooden cabinet itself for sure, it wasn’t Falcon or Orca that created the artwork or distributed the game. We have confirmation that Glak / Eagle had the facilities to create their own artwork at their headquarters in Rhode Island.

I had someone contact me on my post earlier this week on another mention of white Mr. Do! machines in upstate New York. They said that these Mr. Do! machines were very similar to Crazy Kong and Crazy Kong Jr. cabinets made by Falcon. Same cabinet design same ‘water soluble sideart’ (This was an interesting comment, the idea being that the sideart would come off with water whether it was soluble or not).

I checked Xmission for photos of the cabinet without any luck. I also posted on the Klov forums looking for better photos of the Crazy Kong cabinet. It was not surprising that I got little help. But I did find one other decent photo and I can see some of the similarities in the cabinet design. Here they are.

Falcon Industries, Zaccaria and Gleeb

Is Gleeb for real? I don’t know. I find it hard to believe that with all of the great websites out there like klov.com and arcadeflyers.com that there would be some minor mention of this company. This isn’t an absolute, I am sure there are some arcade game kit makers that just fell to the gaming history wayside, but you would think that if Gleeb did exist it would be likely to find at least a small reference.

On the other hand, I have done a lot of reading online about the white Mr. Do! and licensing and have seen a couple of passing references to Zaccaria making a Mr. Do! cabinet. But Zaccaria was a European game maker and there were enough of these sideart Mr. Do!’s to make me think they were produced in the USA.

Falcon Cabinet Comparison

Here is the comparison of the dedicated Crazy Kong(s) (Regular and Jr.) produced by Falcon out of Texas vs. the white Mr. Do! that until earlier this week I thought was produced by the mysterious company named Gleeb. (Bezel and cabinet shapes outlined in red)

The profile of the cabinets and the strange bezel is indeed the same. On these cabinets the bezel artwork went about half way up the back wall. This is a cool idea to display more artwork, similar to Universal’s Mr. Do! – the bezel comes in two pieces. (I own the lower bezel piece with the Mr. Do! character artwork). From what I can tell from the Crazy Kong photo the coin door does look the same on both cabinets – rounded edges with over under style doors.

I think I read somewhere that Zaccaria could have even designed / produced the art for Falcon, but that would also seem unlikely to me that a European based company would make artwork for a small company in Texas.

The Crazy Kong Jr. cabinet front is different. While the cabinet profile looks the same, the two piece bezel goes a little bit higher up the back of the cabinet and the coin door looks more like a Midway, a rounded square.

I’ve contacted Crazy Kong owners on VAPS

So far I’ve heard back from one of the 5-6 people I’ve contacted, and two of them are overseas. I could still use some detailed high resolution photos of either Crazy Kong or a Crazy Kong Jr., or heck, any other Falcon cab of the era to help me do a little more comparison.

The part that I am most interested in is the sideart, to see the style of artwork and the wear. If Falcon did indeed make these Mr. Do! cabinets, it wouldn’t be out of the realm of possibility that they had a license for multiple Universal games including this Ladybug with similarly styled sideart and cabinet. It was easy to identify the similarities in the Mr. Do! to the Ladybug, and I am guessing the same would be true for the Crazy Kong.

If anyone can shed some light, or point me to some links to help with my accuracy of information I am always grateful.

Update with Crazy Kong images

Here are some better photos showing the artwork on Falcon’s, or is it actually Orca’s Crazy Kong.

Same cabinet shape, and although there is no similarity in the illustrative style of the sideart on Crazy Kong, the sideart has worn in a similar fashion to the Mr. Do cabinet. I know people would have put their hands on the side and that is where the artwork has worn off, but you can see that the sideart looks like it was printed onto the cabinet, not necessarily stenciled, certainly not vinyl. I am also starting to notice the exact same speaker cutout right under the marquee. Circular pattern with circle holes, this is consistent across Crazy Kong, Mr. Do! and the Ladybug.

Other artwork similarities

Also of note, some other similarities between the cabinets. On both the Mr. Do! and Crazy Kong the control panel is bent plexi that wraps around the front of the cabinet. The artwork is screened on the backside of the plexi, how did they do that? They must have bent it after it dried.

I was wrong about the monitor bezel, but I had wondered about this. The monitor bezel artwork is also one piece & bent at the back and of course the artwork is screened on the back. The Mr. Do! bezel must have been from a conversion kit for this artwork version for other cabinets. Apparently, the marquee is lit by several indicator bulbs, small bayonet bases like #44s. Since I haven’t found any markings in any of these cabinets this might be another good source of comparison.

Steve mentioned that he saw one of the white Mr. Do!’s in a warehouse in Connecticut. The same warehouse had several of these Crazy Kongs, fueling the idea that an operator might have bought different games from the same manufacturer. But again, more mentions of Mr. Do! cabinets seem to come out from the east coast.

Who is Orca the arcade manufacturing company?

I am now trying to find information about Orca, at least there is some. There are some 14 games by Orca listed on Klov, only one or two have ‘true’ cabinet images which make me think that either a. the games were in such small production we’ll never see a dedicated unit, or b. Orca sold conversion kits which some of my previous research supports.

However, Crazy Kong is hardly a conversion kit. I really like the artwork, minus the fact that the base color is pink. But it has depth, showing the character imitating a little bit of the gameplay and I like that in my arcade artwork. Is it better than the original Donkey Kong artwork? Donkey Kong is iconic, so no. But this Crazy Kong isn’t terrible. Well thought out and composed, obviously some money went into this knockoff.

Here are some similar arcade posts

• Strange Jungle King Cabinet Artwork
• Different Mr. Do! Bezel Sizes
• More bootleg artwork cabinets – Time Pilot & Vanguard?
• Ladybug with Sideart – Artwork style similar to White Mr. Do!
• Seen this Zaccaria Mr. Do! before?

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