THE WIZARD OF OZ:
PLAYFIELD INSERTS

Date: 21st November, 2011

More details of the playfield in The Wizard of Oz have been released, and this time it's the layout of the lamp inserts which gives us some idea of where the key shots and feature indicators are going to be.

Speaking at the Southern Pinball Festival in Florida this past weekend, JJP's Jack Guarnieri showed this picture to the assembled audience of pinball fans during his presentation.

A whitewood playfield with insert cutouts
A whitewood main playfield with insert, lamp target and mechanism cutouts

Interesting features to note include the triangular insert below the upper flipper, pointing into the shooter lane and suggesting it may be possible to send the ball back to the plunger if that flipper is raised, and the sheer variety of different pointer inserts, from triangles and arrows of various sizes, the a 'V' shape beneath the ramp and an arrangement of smaller inserts into an inverse 'V'.

That inverse 'V' points to the shot between the pop bumpers which is flanked by two targets as it heads up to the top of the playfield.  At the top, we find two rollover lanes (O-Z?) - down from the three in the original drawing - which also seems to be where the shooter lane sends the ball when it is first launched.  There looks to be a pop-up post to stop the ball and send it into the rollovers, which in turn feeds a kicker to provide some pop bumper-like action under the ramp.

The R-A-I-N-B-O-W inserts in front of the seven standup targets around Munchkinland appear to have gone, so their functionality must have moved elsewhere (possibly that inverse 'V' of inserts on the left).

There don't appear to be any inserts between the flippers, which would make this a good area to place artwork of one or more characters from the movie.

We also have images of the two mini-playfields with their cutouts.

The Witches Castle mini-playfield
The Witches Castle mini-playfield

The Munchkinland mini-playfield
The Munchkinland mini-playfield

The inclusion of a flipper-shaped cutout would suggest the Munchkinland mini-playfield can be lifted up and removed without having to disassemble the flipper.  Three of the four circular holes at the top are probably mounting holes for the motor and gearbox beneath, with the central hole being for the shaft which spins the house around.  The other two lozenge-shaped holes are presumably for wiring to the illumination of the mini-playfield.

It's important to say that this is not necessarily the final layout for all these components, but it does give us a good idea of both the positioning and the number of inserts and shots in the game, which is still due to go into production on March 13th, 2012.

However, it's clear that there are a large number of inserts in the playfield, and if these are all individually lit, it may well become the game with the most controlled lamps so far produced.

To help visualise how the cutouts relate to the playfield features, Peter Schotvanger from The Netherlands overlaid the known playfield elements to give us this composite image of the main playfield and the two below of the mini-playfields.

Peter's composite image of the playfield and the cutouts
Peter's composite image of the main playfield with the cutouts

The two mini-playfields with the inserts and cutouts
The two mini-playfields with the inserts and cutouts

The spiral of inserts on the main playfield is expected to follow artwork of the Yellow Brick Road as it heads towards the top of the playfield and the image of the Emerald City on the back panel.

With no cutouts so far for lighting at the bottom of the playfield, it will be interesting to see how the flipper area is illuminated in the final production version.

Little by little we are getting more and more details about what will be in The Wizard of Oz, and Pinball News will bring you all the latest developments as they happen.

 

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