Black Hole (pinball game)

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Black Hole

Manufacturer	Gottlieb
System	Gottlieb System 80
Designer	Designers: John Buras, Adolf Seitz Jr. Programmers: Artwork: Terry Doerzaph Mechanics: Music / Sound:
Release Date	October 1981
Production Run	8,774

Black Hole is a pinball game released in 1981 by Gottlieb. It is notable for having two playfields: one on top with a conventional slope, and one mounted underneath, sloping away from the player.

[edit] History

Black Hole was the first machine to feature a lower playfield viewed through a window in the upper playfield. It was touted as the highest-grossing pinball game of all time shortly after its release, partly due to (or despite) the fact that it was the first pinball game which cost 50 cents to play.^[1]

It has appeared as an "extra" in the movies Les Compères (1983), Strange Brew (1983), and Next Of Kin (1989).^[2]

The attract mode included robotic like speech generated by a Votrax SC01, which taunted the phrase "Do You Dare To Enter The Black Hole?". This slogan was etched in the vinyl runout grooves on LP versions of the band Hovercraft's 1997 album, Akathisia.

It features as one of the playable pinball machines in the video game Gottlieb Pinball Classics, released for the PlayStation 2, PlayStation Portable and Wii.