Elvira and the Party Monsters

Elvira and the Party Monsters is a 1989 pinball game designed by Dennis Nordman and Jim Patla and released by Midway (under the Bally label), featuring horrorshow-hostess Elvira. It was followed 1996 by Scared Stiff, also designed by Nordman.

Elvira and the Party Monsters

Manufacturer	Midway
Release date	October 1989
System	Williams System 11B
Design	Dennis Nordman, Jim Patla
Programming	Mark Penacho
Artwork	Greg Freres
Music	Chris Granner
Sound	Chris Granner
Voices	Cassandra Peterson (Elvira)
Production run	approximately 4000

Design

Most of the game was designed by Dennis Nordman, but after a motorcycle accident near the end of the design stage, Jim Patla completed it.^[1]

The game is a combination of three game ideas:

1. Monster Mash, with dancing Boogie men was conceived of by Dennis Nordman when he observed finger puppets with dancing arms at Halloween in 1984.
2. Greg Freres conceived of Party Monster as a follow-up to Party Animal which had released in 1987.
3. Roger Sharpe, working as Williams marketing director, thought of using Elvira as a theme^[2][3]

The marketing slogan "Elvira is No Cheap Date!" referring to the new .50/.75/1.00 pricing scheme.^[4] Elvira and the Party Monsters was manufactured shortly after the merger of Williams and Bally. Although the game uses a vaguely Bally-style cabinet and flippers, all the rest of the game hardware are completely made up of Williams parts. The machine uses a System 11B CPU and associated board setup.^[5] It includes rubber bogeyman characters and coffins that open during play.^[6]

Backglass design

The games designers are shown on the backglass, with Dennis Nordman as the werewolf, and Jim Patla as Dracula.^[1]

The arms of the creature from Creature from the Black Lagoon are shown on the backglass, three years before the Creature from the Black Lagoon pinball machine.^[7]

Reception

At the AMOA 1989 awards, Elvira and the Party Monsters won the best in show award.^[8]

Digital versions

A game cartridge called "Pinball Jam" was also produced for Atari Lynx, which includes two pinball games, Police Force and Elvira and the Party Monsters. This version of the table includes a scrolling 2D screen, a two-ball Multi-Ball, and more or less self-censored Elvira quotes.^[9][5]

Elvira and the Party Monsters was available as a licensed table of The Pinball Arcade for several platforms^[10] until the loss of the Williams license in 2018.^[11]