Oh, Summertime. You're coming, I can feel you. I'm already sweating because of you. I was getting tired of waiting for you, Summertime. I was gonna go to the casino arcades a little early this year. Spring wouldn't mind. Oh, Summertime...you made it just in time.


Our destination: Point Pleasant, New Jersey. One of the state's cleaner beach & boardwalk communities, Point Pleasant makes up for its comparatively small amount of attractions by boasting the least stanky gum-ridden boardwalk planks on the East coast. I much prefer the sleazy charms of Wildwood to the Point Pleasant's pricey pristine punch, but for the ends of what we'll be discussing today, it'll have to suffice.

Gather those couch cushion quarters and get your crane hands ready -- we're headed to the casino arcade!


I can't express in words how much I love casino arcades, but that won't stop me from trying in no less than 300. For as long as I can remember, I've been enchanted by the charms of Skee-Ball, stuffed animal claw games, token-spitting slot machines and the true cornerstone of any casino arcade: the prize center. My parents, best described as gambling addicts within their means, had long used the "family fun" justification of a seedy shore-side amusement park to continue piddling money away into more games of chance. I chose to be a good son and follow in their lead. Long before I could add three sevens, I knew that they stood for big winnings.

What separates a casino arcade from someplace you'd find in Vegas or Atlantic City? You don't win money. Instead of pondering ways to spend their newfound fortunes, visitors to the casino arcade must justify blowing half a grand to go home with a couple of Lucite paperweights and "Bonezy," the 16,000 point stuffed puppy from Hell. So enormous is the gambling sickness in my family that, one summer, we actually racked up enough points for me to take home a Super Nintendo. Seriously. Even had enough leftover to pick up Super Wrestlemania, a game I almost never played but kept on in the background anyway because I loved the Undertaker's spooky entrance theme so much. The Super Nintendo cost a little over a hundred bucks in stores at the time, but being 150,000 points and all, I think we spent around forty-thousand dollars on it. Thank God Super Mario World had a 40,000 dollar kinda ending. Baby Yoshi eggs hatching in unison? Put it in theaters!

If there's no casino arcades in your area, I pity and hatey you. Make the pilgrimage. You know, to New Jersey. Here's an in-depth look at one of Point Pleasant's three casino arcades -- it's not the best I've seen, but it's far from the worst. Very few machines stole my quarters, and of the ones that did, only a fraction smelled like some woman's baby threw up on them.


So much to choose from! Video games! Clawsy cranes! That machine where a virtual Madame Zelda tells me I suck in bed! With adequate funding and absolutely nothing better to do, one could easily spend five or six hours in these places. The constant lights and music and bells and buzzes lull your brain into autopilot; you temporarily exist only as a zombie, incapable of any independent thought that extends past wasting money. You must play, over and over again. You cannot stop. You must win the big prize -- one of those 9' stuffed snake dolls with fluorescent spots and comical eyes. Join me on a fabulous adventure. Let's walk around the casino arcade with magnifying glasses and pads. Pens are optional; pads are just for effect. Here's a look at everything worth noting in a typical casino arcade, because in a world where tutorials on how to fuck dolphins and guides to playing Nirvana songs on the harmonica are prominent, I need to really dig deep if I want to teach something fresh.

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Our first stop: Skee-Ball. Just hearing the word makes me gush. In Skee-Ball, players engage in a modified game of bowling, trying to nail the highest score so they can collect more tickets to trade in for plastic spider rings at the prize center. The game rarely provides many tickets when compared to a casino arcade's other activities, but it's just so much damn fun to play. Basically, you've got all of these circular fields, each denoting a different score value. An easy shot will only grant you ten or twenty points; a terrible shot will get you zip. Higher point values are found in the much smaller fields at top. Here you'll find the 40-pointers and elusive 50-pointers, not to mention the almighty Skee-Ball championship super honor: the two 100-point ball-sized targets in the upper corners. It takes a lot of luck to hit those bitches, but every five-year-old in a ten foot radius will be staring at your ass if you make the shot.

As I've grown older, my love of Skee-Ball hasn't waned a bit. What has changed is my exhausting paranoia while playing. When I was a kid, I didn't give a shit if I scored forty points or four hundred points -- I just wanted to roll those balls as fast as I could, and pretend it wasn't intentional when I threw 'em so hard that they flopped into a Skee-Ball alley three doors down. It was an exercise in madness. Nowadays, I'm more concerned with my score. I don't want to look like a sissy in front of the veritable debutantes that so often infiltrate seedy South Jersey casino arcades. I'm looking at those 100-pointers and saying to myself: "I must do this." On occasion, I'll succeed. More often, I'll try really hard to make a perfect shot, bounce it right off the 100-pointers and land my ball squarely in the dreaded Zero Zone. The two tickets that pitifully spilled from the dispenser matched how big my dick felt. It's safer to aim for the 40-point zone -- the shot becomes easier with practice, and if you nail three or four of 'em in a round, your total score is usually high enough to warrant a touchdown dance. So long as you're brave enough to do it in front of the guy with the magic key who corrects all of the claw machine faux passesess.


While you can't win cash at a casino arcade, the games are plenty more interesting. Pop-A-Ball has always been a personal fave -- it's like Joker Poker, only you get to "deal your own hand" by popping rubber balls up and seeing which card spot they finally land in. Skill really isn't much of a factor, but you do sorta feel like you're controlling your destiny. Only you're not, you're just hitting a button to make handballs fly around. It's the kind of game you can spend hours playing.

Similarly, Poker-Roll uses the rubber ball card-markers, only this time, players get to do the ball-throwing themselves. Even though it's more or less impossible to hit a specifically desired target with any real accuracy, it's easy to convince yourself that you're capable of doing just that. There's a few hot spots that have more easily sought card-markers, but even then it's pretty hit or miss. Regardless, when compared to an electronic slot machine that's rigged to fuck you over 40 times in a row before coughing up a cherry, Pop-A-Ball and Poker-Roll are cutely named heroes of the casino arcade.


Course, no casino arcade is complete without its fair share of video games, and this usually includes a decent lot of pinball titles. The Addams Family version had the best sound effects, but for my money, there's nothing like hitting one of the Jurassic Park targets that makes the machine growl like it's gonna eat you. Moneywise, the pinball games are probably the best deal in the place. Fifty cents buys you a few good minutes of fun, and with the addition of extra balls and super-bonuses, you might even get a full ten minutes outta the thing. Elsewhere, another poor soul loses 50 bucks in two minutes trying to snatch a bootleg Garfield doll with a broken metal claw.


Ah, the not-forbidden fruits of the coin-op section. Most casino arcades are sure to include at least a handful of hot new hits, but for the most part, you're walking through the Valley of the Lost. There's just something neat about knowing that some of these games haven't moved an inch in over fifteen years; they're worse for wear due to age and grubby kiddy hands, but monthly refurbishings keep 'em operating, and they're just as fun as ever. It's hard to physically negotiate yourself into this section (it seems to be the surrogate teen table of the casino arcade, and you're going to have to lure 'em out with a bogus pop idol sighting to get your spot), but once you do, it's all about Heaven in a Joystick and Light Gun Babylon. Speaking of which, all of the games shown here are of the shooting gallery kind, with cult faves likes Lethal Enforcers, Virtua Cop, and some other one where you aim a pistol shaft at a bunch of alien ladybugs with bad attitudes. I think it was called "Play This While Someone Else Is Playing What You Really Wanted To Play," but the marquee was covered in stickers for sad local bands with many things to say about beachfront angst.


Here's two of the best I could spot -- the original Ms. Pac-Man, which despite the fact that it's literally been in every arcade, game room and quirky gas station I've ever been at, seeing it always makes me smile. It's kinda weird how much more often you'll run into Ms. Pac-Man than her tangibly more famous husband; it's like the last vestige of the Women's Movement. Even more alarming: see that machine next to it? That's one of those brand spankin' new "arcade classics" machines, with Galaga and...Ms. Pac-Man! Where's the love for poor ol' regular Pac? Sure, he had a sucky Atari game, but jeez...time should've healed that wound six years ago.

Next up, The Simpsons. Okay, even if that game sucked, we all would've plopped hundreds of quarters inside. The Simpsons was just about the hottest commodity on the planet at the time, in days long before hardcore fans would feverishly debate which season marked their "suck point." It was a can't-miss title, but unbelievably, it surpassed all expectations. From each character's little superpowered nuances to the insane amount of soundbytes, The Simpsons was a monster hit even during a time when arcades were about as commonly encountered as those swank 1943 silver pennies. Oh Abe, you're so second place trophy kinda beautiful.

The video games are nice, but that's not why I go to these places. The coin-ops are just there to ensure that my money doesn't vanish too quickly. I may sample all the wares, but deep down, I know my true calling. I'm there for the claw machines. We call 'em "cranes" around these parts. Welcome to my obsession. The only thing I'm almost good at...


I've never met a crane I didn't like. Okay, not true, but I've never met a crane I didn't play. I don't know how the obsession began; perhaps the tongs that lifted me from my mother's womb impressed me at my most impressionable age. A more likely explanation is my affinity with prizes, even shitty ones. Playing a crane game is the ultimate rush. Forget bungee jumping and surfing the big wave -- you want adrenaline? Plop a quarter in one of these babies.

Unlike most of the other games at the casino arcade, cranes actually require some skill. This is the reason six-year-olds break the norm by letting their parents give their game a shot. Cranes require finesse, and a Midas touch can be the difference between a bountiless claw and a METAL HAND FULL OF FANTASY. The place had dozens of cranes, ranging from the cheapo quarters ones (which are usually the easiest, but provide prizes of the "hey why is this generic monkey Spanish?" nature) to the almighty dollar cranes with prizes so valuable you'll need rubber gloves and an armored van to get 'em home safely. Not kidding when I say that I can blow through 50 bucks in 15 minutes in this section of the arcade, never once stopping to remind myself that I could just buy the prizes for a twentieth of the cost. THERE IS NO TRIUMPH IN BUYING THE PRIZES. We're supposed to obey our thirst. The soda said so. And I'm thirsty for CRANES.


Shown above are two of the more "upscale" cranes, each costing 50 cents a try and boasting prizes that, arguably, some folks may actually care for. Not pictured are about thirty-five glass prisons containing dried-out Yo-Yo water balls from five years ago and another sixteen with extremely timely Spuds Mackenzie knockoff dolls inside. We tend to avoid these. I picked up the Wario doll from the crane in the left picture; in a war of wits between he and Sire Kong, I decided that it'd be more interesting to own the guy with the best laugh from Super Mario Kart. All Donkey Kong did was make ape sounds. Not even an ironic heehaw.

The crane on the right is filled with Care Bears, but not just the regular sort: Care Bear Cousins, which strike back at their namesake by being not bears, but instead a varied assortment of lions, penguins and elephants. These were the true stars of The Care Bears Movie 2, a film so surprisingly fucked up that I'm really pissed I haven't reviewed it and will get on that right away. We went home with many of the Care Bear Cousins, some in doubles. What's better than a Care Bear elephant? Seven of them.

Oh, but the best crane was yet to come. I had never seen a crane like this before, which kinda shocks me because it's the size of a small moon. Meet the born-legendary king of cranes, "The Big One!"


Here's a long shot: who remembers the movie trailer for Bird on a Wire? Remember the part that showed Goldie Hawn piloting a plane upside-down? Remember how she kept saying "Oh my God, oh my God!" over and over again in a progressively more erratic tone? Okay here's the thing: when first I witnessed "The Big One," I performed the world's first absolutely perfect "Goldie Hawn From The Trailer For Bird On A Wire" impression. Then I used my newfound distinction to get her daughter into bed, but it really was just so I'd be close enough to stab her in the throat.

Unfortunately, "The Big One" blows a big one -- oh no, oh no that was way too obvious. I'm writing headlines for the Post now.

"The Big One" looks impressive, but it's a big hunk of impossible, cheating junk. There aren't many great prizes inside -- a couple of giant kickballs and a row of large stuffed animals that are too far for the claw to reach. Better than the norm, but wait until you hear the price: two bucks a chance. It gets great business since hey, who can resist the planet-sized claw, but it's an unbelievable rip-off and I'm just so unbelievably unbubbla over it. Price aside, there's also the fact that the claw...cannot...pick up...anything. It's a giant metal hand -- seriously like three times the size of your head -- and it's got absolutely no might. The claw buckles under pressure, invariably letting go of its grip so it can make a more graceful slide to its start position. We should've taken the fact that there's no prize dispenser as a tip-off.

But whatever, you've gotta play it, y'know? It's just too huge and monumental. After you fill it with eight (!!!) quarters, the lights and music that stream from this bastard will have the entire arcade fixed on your every move. Enjoy it while you can -- you'll hate it after you lose. Nobody likes being looked at when they just finished failing to win a car-sized Dora the Explorer kickball.


Guess where my jaw went when I saw this thing. Fucking China.

Yes folks, it's a crane full of officially licensed Gremlins plushies, including about 1,000 adorable Gizmos and four treacherous Stripes that were absolutely not possible to win. Shown at left is me and Gizmo, sharing a tender moment in the casino arcade's photo booth. I was elated to grab a Giz, but come on...Stripe? Leader of the Gremlins? The uncredited prototype for pro-wrestling character "Stone Cold" Steve Austin? The cool ass little goblin with a mohawk? How are you supposed to avoid trying for him? How was I supposed to stop myself after wasting twenty bucks and still showing no signs of victory on my audibly christened "Stripe Search?" After what seemed like a zillion attempts, I finally called it quits. I realized that I could've funded Gremlins 3 with the money blown trying to win puffy-legged stuffed animals. There would be no Stripe on this day. At the time, it was so hard for me to admit that.

Then I had an idea!

Then I saw the sticker on the front of the crane.

Shitheads were on to me.


Keep in mind, we'd been collecting casino points the whole time. Every now and again, we'd mosey on down to the various slots for a quick round of "trade money for shit," hopeful that we'd hit the casino's progressive jackpot of "lots of shit." Colored tokens of different point values, Skee-Ball tickets and other charms of the prize world were carried around in one of those dusty, sloppy, everyone-on-the-planet-has-touched-this plastic buckets, gleefully provided by the casino in big stacks right on top of the brim-filled garbage pails.

On the second page of this feature, I'll show you what our bucket of tokens and tickets bought us. You'll be shocked and amazed. Unlike killer games like the aforementioned Pop-A-Ball, the brunt of the slots were broken down, ugly and boring. Like these!


Nah, they're not that bad. It's just so hard to get down with these when so many of the other games let me develop royal flushes with handballs. We're not even close to finished, a fact that kinda depresses me since it's two in the morning and I'm going to be up till 2005 before I finish this. If I'm really hated by the heavens, I'm missing a Wings marathon right about now. FAY! CHAIRMAN OF THE OLD LADY FAY FAN CLUB RIGHT HERE. Go to page two. You need to. It's got a picture of Aerosmith!