Arcade Resources
Super Punch Out Decal Reproductions
There was a post on the forums about a month back of someone looking to do reproductions for some Nintendo Super Punch Out Decal / Sideart Stickers. At the time, I jumped in, thought it would be a fun short project that could help me get to know some more collectors.
The collector sent out polite emails to all VAPS members who had a Super Punch Out to see if any of them would be willing to help get a scan of the Super Punch Out sideart. As it turned out, one member had one NOS decal, un-applied and was open to getting it scanned. They took it to a local print shop to get a nice full oversize scan of the Super Punch Decal, it turned out nice. They sent me a copy, but the collectors decided that is made more sense to do the decal reproductions on their own and I didn’t feel that strongly about this game personally so that was fine. (I haven’t ever actually played Punch Out or Super Punch Out in the arcade, only Nintendo)
Here is what a smaller version of what that sideart Super Punch Out Decal piece looks like;
There were two challenges with the artwork. The is a dot gradient of sorts on the swooping “Super” lettering, and the original artwork was screen printed on reflective material of sorts. Here is a closeup of the gradient.
I had originally contacted Rich at This Old Game to get his input on how the gradient would be done. It doesn’t sound like the Super Punch Out decals will be made with him, however;
We are looking for people interested in buying a set (two decals, one for each side of the machine).
The decal in question is approximately 18″ x 10″ and is placed above the regular Punch-Out side art when converting to Super Punch-Out. It says “Super” on it and looks like this – http://maxim.skyphix.com/super.jpg
This illustration from the Super Punch Out manual shows where they are applied on the machine;
I have an NOS Super Punch Out decal that I scanned in at 600 DPI and vector traced. The NOS decal will also be used by the screen printer for color matching. The original Punch Out decal has portions that are a metallic silver-gray in color, and I was concerned about them being able to recreate that. I visited their place today to show them the decal and they showed me a piece they were doing for L.L. Bean which used a nearly identical metallic silver-gray ink, so that part should be no problem.
The Super Punch Out artwork will be screen printed (AKA: silk screened), 3 colors, with the black being halftoned to represent the gradients (which is how the original was done), onto white self-adhesive vinyl, and cut to the outside shape on a plotter.
When looking at the original, they noted that it was laminated, which gives it a glossy appearance. They showed me a piece they had done that was laminated in the same way, and the finish/gloss was identical.
The cost was originally estimated at $26 per decal, but with lamination, it was estimated at $27 per decal ($54 per set). I know it is a bit pricey, but it is a small run (minimum order of 24 pieces).
Anyone interested in buying a set for a Punch-Out or Super Punch-Out machine will only need to pay actual cost.
There was a tremendous response to the reproduction decals, which is awesome for them because they’ll both get a couple new sets of the Punch Out Decals as well as recoup some of their cost. Sounds like the order was placed on the 27th of this month, so the Super Punch Out Decals will probably be done sometime in December of 2007.
Update: 02.06.08
The Super Punch Out Decals were finished at the beginning of the year, around the second week of January 2008. Here is a photo of the final product. Not the best photo of the sideart decal, but it is a reflective material so what can you do?
They sold out in the pre-order with only about 10 sets of Super Punch Out art reproduced. Make sure not to miss out as Maximum Recoil is continuing his quest on reproducing artwork for this, his favorite game, by doing a limited fun on the “Duck Pull” artwork.
Retro Arcade Video – Chardon Jeans & Stern’s Berzerk
Cop out tonight, I have too much to do and no time.
Saw this retro arcade video link posted in the Google Coin-Op groups. It’s a commercial for Chardon jeans, smacking of true 80’s design, cool at the very least for the girl that is rollerskating like life couldn’t get any more simple. The jean commercial is set in what looks like an arcade, I was not old enough at the time to know if this is a typical looking arcade or not. Oh yeah, and Larry Bird is also in the commercial.
The game of choice in the commercial is Stern’s Berzerk, and it looks as though the marquee doesn’t have any flaking just yet:)
Original Universal Mr. Do! Backglass
There isn’t all that much vector artwork out there for the original Mr. Do! arcade game. On Local Arcade there is a quick Universal bezel that was vectorized, but that is about all I can find. (Search “Universal” and you should find the bezel) You will also find the Mr. Do! instruction card and the circular sticker sideart that is really easy to find, and I am concerned with neither of those Universal items. As you can see, the Universal bezel isn’t accurate, it is just a rough with the monitor view center off center in the artwork.
In terms of other artwork, granted, the original Mr. Do! cabinet just has the red strips on the sides, but there are a lot of other parts, like the control panel overlay, the marquee, and the backglass.
Back in 2005 there was a post in the BYOAC forums about a member who had a scan of the Mr. Do! backglass, and had finished a trace. He was going to reproduce the artwork for himself at the very least, and then release the vector trace to Local Arcade. I don’t think that ever happened.
I posted on the old topic to see if I can get a copy of that Mr. Do! backglass file, and emailed one other contact to see if he could help me out. It is a really cool design, even though I don’t know what the design has to do with Mr. Do! Universal seemed to put a lot of planning into the games and the quality, but not a whole lot into individual cabinet designs.
On a related exciting note, I got an automated email back from a feeler I sent out. I found the name of the former Vice President of Universal Distributors of Nevada. I emailed asking him to see if he knew some of the companies that licensed out Mr. Do! from Universal back in the early 80’s. I hope he can give me some information and can remember back that far.
~Edit – 11/27 Heard back from the contact I emailed to see if he had a copy of the Mr. Do! backglass already in vector format. Zorg on the Mame forums is working on vectorizing the whole thing, here is the bezel and backglass as one file and the progress to date.
Pretty awesome, it will be cool to see this classic arcade bezel preserved.
Finding The Rare Pengo Bezel
I saw this Pengo flyer over a week ago with the rare “dark blue” bezel and I can’t curb my curiosity. I can only see a small image of the full upright Pengo, but the bezel looks like it is a dark blue color, with a completely different design for Pengo and the Sno-Bees. The only bezel I have ever seen is the one on my machine, but I have to wonder if any other collectors out there have this more rare Pengo Bezel.
Here is the link again to the original Pengo flyer released by Sega back in 1982. Dan Hower lists the source as Leandro Dardini, who is probably just an arcade game collector. Is this version of Pengo shown in the flyer a “beta” test version that Sega later revised after consumer feedback? For now, I am going to refer to this bezel version as “version B”.
I don’t know the answer to that question. In just under a half hour of searching today I came up empty handed, other than I fond a couple other collectors who own Pengo’s.
Sega’s Pengo has a pretty loyal following. I sent out emails to about 12 of the Pengo collectors listed on VAPS to see if I could find out any more information. We’ll have to see what, if anything I hear back.
July 10th, 2008
I ended up buying a copy of the Pengo flyer and scanning in the rare Pengo bezel prototype version at a resolution. Take a look, you can see what looks like huge versions of the characters, the Sno Bees and Pengo himself, with no ice mountains in the background. Now that I scan it in, it looks funny, with Pengo only on the right side and hardly the focus of the artwork.
Another White Gleeb Mr. Do!
I forgot I had bookmarked this website in the middle of September. Chattanooga Pinball in Nashville Chattanooga, TN has an image gallery showing that they own what looks like a couple of Universal Mr. Do!’s. The gallery shows two Mr. Do!’s, the original version and what I believe is the “white” sideart Gleeb manufactured version of Mr. Do!.
I had kind of forgot that I saw this white sideart Mr. Do!, because Chattanooga’s prices on games are quite steep. $750 for this white Mr. Do! Yeah… I don’t think so. Plus, part of me doesn’t believe that they actually have this version of Mr. Do! with the smaller sticker sideart, that they stole this image from somewhere else. But, I am sure at some point we’ll be down that way, Nashville isn’t too far from Indianapolis, so I’ll have to plan some arcade coin-op sidetracking when we’re in that southern area again.
But, if this was a true white Mr. Do!, then this would be the fourth one I have seen.
If there are any arcade collectors in Chattanooga or Nashville that could help me out, that would be great. Whether you could stop by Chattanooga Pinball and see if they actually have the white Mr. Do!, or if you know someone personally in the company that could vouch whether the stock on the website is up to date. Eventually I will give them a call and see for myself, but knowing I won’t buy the Mr. Do! for that price might make my conversion difficult.
Update August 26, 2008
Curious what you might find inside of Chattanooga Pinball’s warehouse of arcade games? Here is a video on You Tube of a walk around at the Tennessee location. The original author of this video did a terrible job filming this video, even for an amateur, racing through the rows and not really giving us a sense for most of the games / condition of what was there. But, you can see that most of the arcade games, if you can call them that, are empty shells with the parts sold off.
I didn’t see the white Mr. Do! I thought I might have towards the beginning with the Congorilla, but like I assumed, the Chattanooga Pinball website is more than likely extremely out of date and does not at all use real photos of the machines in the warehouse.
Review: Universal’s Jumping Jack
I was surfing yesterday, trying to find information about who licensed Mr. Do! from Universal and made the white Mr. Do! with sideart. I read some references to a game similar in theme to Mr. Do! called Jumping Jack from Universal.
I decided to try this classic game out in MAME. I was pleasantly surprised.
In Juming Jack, you are Jack and you jump (if you didn’t get that from the title). But seriously, Jack is is little guy with a white sombero and I can only imagine is in the jungle somewhere.
You jump from a number of different obstacles, tetering boards on mounds, to bouncy mushrooms, to platforms that are attacked by Rhinos, all sorts of stuff. As Jack you have to make sure to land on the wood before the monkeys do. The whole point is to throw them off, and when you land second, no matter where on the board, the monkey will go flying.
Jumping Jack feels just like a Universal game. There is a cute catchy music in the background, and of course, you have to get cherries. (Because that makes sense for a dude in the jungle). Plus all of the lettering and theme design is the same, and it looks like you can get “EXTRA” guys just like in Mr. Do!
I played it for a couple of settings, about 20 minutes each. I had a hard time beating level one in Jumping Jack, but I beat level two on my first try.
In terms of the original game, it looks to me like it was a conversion kit for Mr. Do!, the only different piece was a different marquee. Pretty lame overall, I think the marquee even used the green backgound from Mr. Do!
The game has a number of levels, I am not sure what happens when you beat them all, if it goes back to level one but more difficult, like most games, or not.
A lot of fun, I would recommend it.
Mr. Do! for Sprint Cell Phones
Came across an article on the Iquirer by chance today about four new video game releases for North American Sprint phones. The four games are Mr. Do’s Castle, Mr. Do!, Popeye and Atlantis: Sky Patrol. I am not familiar with the last game (and a quick search on Klov turned up nothing), but the other three are classics from either Universal or Nintendo.
Namco is publishing these classics with new enhancements. Apparently there are regular, and enhanced game modes. Enhanced mode can add more levels, powerups, and things to do. That is pretty cool to think that there are some new variations on old classics. I don’t know if new levels and powerups are available on other portings of Universal’s Mr. Do! to other platforms, but this is the first I have heard of it. Hell, I didn’t know that Namco owned the rights of distribution for the Mr. Do! properites.
Would I want to play Mr. Do! regular or Mr. Do! Castle on my cell phone…mmmm, probably not. I tried to send my first text message today and couldn’t figure it out. But I am a different general, and if Mr. Do! and Popeye can live on with a new generation I am all for that. It is weird to think about the original full size upright coin-op versions of these famous games, and to see the games now on a cell phone. I don’t need to comment on how far technology has come.
Mr. Do! didn’t have a screenshot on the inquirer for the Sprint cell phones, only Castle. Mr. Do! is available now and Mr. Do! Castle should be available later Quarter 4 2007.
