Backbox Light Animations

Backbox light animations are Backbox Animations drawn in light rather than machinery: lamps banked behind the Backglasses flash in sequence, making the figures painted on the glass appear to move.

The effect predates Flippers: lamps carry racing cars around a track on the glass of Motordrome (1936, O. D. Jennings and Company).^[1] Gottlieb took it into the flipper age at the very start — Humpty Dumpty (1947) animates its namesake’s fall in stop-motion light,^[2] and the fairy-tale series it opened ran to seven games, every one carrying a backglass animation.^[3][4]

Where a Mechanical Backbox Animations unit turns real wheels, the light show is wiring alone, and it kept a place on the backglass long after scores moved to electronic displays: Gottlieb’s Silver Slugger (1990) and Stern’s High Roller Casino (2001) both sequence backglass lamps beside their score displays.