The Who's Tommy Pinball Wizard

10 pre-production prototypes were made for promotional use in conjunction with the off-Broadway productions. These prototypes had six pop bumpers. The game made its debut at the Hard Rock Cafe in Dallas in October of 1993, one of these games fell off the truck and was destroyed. Another was used in the 1993 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, this special machine was rigged for "autoplay" and had no backbox, electronics were cabinet-mounted. Reportedly, these prototypes may have had EM chime units. Pictured in this listing is a game with 3 pop bumpers and which has a playfield matching the one in the manufacturer�s flyer, showing the Union Jack with fat white stripes and the hard-to-read Acid Queen inserts, two details that were changed for production games. The entrance to the VUK has two unused drilled holes not found in production. The inside of the cabinet is tagged �S/N P7.103� and the upper playfield has a plain white airplane with markings on it. We contacted Eric Winston, one of the Data East tech engineers who brought Tommy to life, for his comments. He did not specifically recall this game or the white airplane but he did say that the 'P' on the airplane meant 'prototype' and the 545-5483-00 is a part number, and the signature below it would be Ed Cebula who would sign off on the part. He did not know if the serial number P7.103 meant a prototype but after seeing the bare metal habitrails on this playfield instead of chromed production ones, he offered his best belief that the serial number was a 'cabinet prototype number'. Considering also the white airplane, the Acid Queen inserts, and the pre-production Union Jack, Eric said that everything points to believing this is a prototype game. We note the manufacturer sticker on the back of the game shows a serial number 103046 which is early in the run but not the earliest number. The green tag on the cabinet front may be from an operator. This tag carries Dutch language and a date of '07 februari 1994'. The game is located in the Netherlands. We have categorized this game with its 3 pop bumper design as a prototype. Another 3 pop bumper prototype game presented here (serial number 102959) and located in Germany shows its upper left flipper mounted higher than in production games. The owner states a second hole is underneath the flipper to accommodate the flipper shaft if relocated. Like the aforementioned prototype game, the entrance to the VUK has two unused drilled holes not found in production. This game has a white flipper blinder instead of black. The Date of Manufacture sticker is stamped as Jan 07 1994, a day earlier than the start of production as indicated on a company document that we have. On this sticker, we see an earlier date of Jan 04 1994 had been present. Production games can be found with one of two different color schemes on the playfield surrounding the VUK hole. One version shows unpainted wood just below the hole and white paint just above the hole. The other version shows black paint both above and below this hole. We previously listed the Manufacture Date as January, 1994 (no day specified). This game was produced from Jan-8-1994 to Apr-9-1994. We previously indicated a production run quantity of 3,500 units.