There are some fantastic, long-running game show concepts. An elaborate version of the children’s game Hangman is the framework for Wheel of Fortune. A giant version of tic-tac-toe evolved into The Hollywood Squares.
But sometimes the concept just doesn’t work when you turn it into a game show. And for that, I bring you The Magnificent Marble Machine.
It’s a game show with a gigantic pinball machine as the main game.
No, I’m not kidding.
Look at the size of that thing. Paul Bunyan couldn’t make that thing go TILT.
Two contestants were paired with celebrities in an opening quiz round, with the winning player (and celebrity) later advancing to the Magnificent Marble Machine itself. With each person operating one bumper, they had 60 seconds to try to hit seven different targets (the “thumper bumpers”) to win cash and prizes. After 60 seconds, or if the ball went through one of the out-holes, the game ended.
I mean … this looks great in theory.
Too bad that gigantic pinball machine didn’t exactly follow the laws of physics.
A normal pinball machine uses a steel ball bearing and the action is lightning fast.
The Magnificent Marble Machine used what can charitably be referred to as a painted big ball, and any action the flippers provided were kinda meh. Yeah, the ball moved through the machine and around the bumpers, but boy did it take forever to hit any targets.
After a few weeks in this format, the show changed its gameplay (mostly because that gigantic pinball machine had a tendency to NOT register all the correct bumper and target hits, and the producers had to watch the tape to double-check scoring). Instead of a mixed team of contestant and celebrity playing the opening trivia round to reach the pinball machine, the gameplay changed to two celebrities competing to allow a studio audience member to participate in the pinball action.
This game had a lot going for it. It was visually vibrant for its time, and yeah the idea of trying to reach a certain pinball score for cash and prizes is a novel concept. But man, after a couple of episodes, the pinball action just looked dull. Those pinballs moved with the speed of sloths.
Even for all its tweaks, The Magnificent Marble Machine barely lasted a single season on NBC’s loaded daytime game show lineup. In its final weeks, it was whittled down to a 25-minute show (to allow NBC to air a five-minute news break). The show ran from 1975 to 1976, and then the proverbial last ball went down the out hole. Game over.
A few episodes exist on YouTube, and 50 years after the show aired, we can see today what they tried to achieve … and how it just fell apart.
Maybe they should have gone with a Pachinko game show instead. That might have been more fun.
Chuck The Writer 
The Magnificent Marble Machine came from the producers of Hollywood Squares, who also had High Rollers running at the time. Heatter-Quigley was a primary packager of games for NBC (Wheel being an exception).
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