Cardboard Arcade. Featuring boxing game PUNCH THE DINOSAUR and ROCKETSHIP TO GRANDMA'S COUCH. Mystery Fun Night. Grottoblaster archives 2006. Langdon Street Cafe Montpelier, Vermont
A Long-Winded, and Semi-Entertaining History of Cardboard Pinball Machines in Northern Vermont
from CTI founder, Professor Ben t. Matchstick
The beginning of cardboard pinball machines began in the fall of 2001 at the first Brementown Hand & Foot Powered Carnival in South Glover, Vermont. A single full-scale pinball contraption was nestled among similarly cheap arcade and rigged midway games. The next year the ceremonial Carnival produced “On Top of Spaghetti Pinball” where George W. Bush was the bush that turns the meatball into nothing but mush. This time the attraction was mounted on a bicycle trailer and a puppeteer could be hidden within it to give off the illusion of electronic gizmos and lights. I toured around the Northeast performing puppet shows and pulling the pinball machine as I worked my way up the coast of Maine and back with Ken Neville, with a puppetry, juggling, and pinball act.
As time went on, more puppeteers became interested in cardboard pinball. In 2007, I was an artist-in-residence at the Langdon Street Cafe, and hosted a monthly community-inspired immersive theatrical happening called Mystery Fun Night. In March 2007 and 2008, the theme was “Grottoblaster” which somehow included a live Dungeons & Dragons-type role-playing game, shadow puppets, and a crew of ugly trolls performing hip hop. The preshow was a cardboard arcade, with multiple pinball machines created by Meg Hammond, Ken Neville, Emily Hershberger, Sara Grace, myself, and many others. You can view archive footage of someone playing the “Rocketship to Grandma’s Couch” pinball machine created by Meg Hammond and Ken Neville.
Artist Erin Riddell mounted an entire gallery of collaboratively created cardboard pinball machines inside the Langdon Street Cafe in 2008. The exhibit was called “Off The Wall Pinball”. Players could remove the games from the walls of the Cafe gallery, and engage in a battle of man vs. cardboard machine. The month long event created an enthusiasm for cardboard pinball connoisseurs like myself. Only one pinball machine from this exhibit remains. It is on display here and features graphics by Ben Leavitt.
Two years ago, I toured Vermont with a marble eating oracular contraption called the Randomizojustificator that offered folks a chance to randomly justify their present moment and way of life. It was performed here in Burlington at last year’s Art Hop. Though technically not a pinball machine, it does represent CTIs commitment to interactive performing sculptures that speak to our modern life tethered as we are to our devices.
In 2014, when CTI Professor Pete Talbot and I first talked about creating a pinball machine that could be replicated by employing the laser cutter at the Generator in Burlington, I said “wait a little”. At the time, we were in the midst of remounting a large-scale version of a new Grottoblaster show at the Haybarn Theater at Goddard College, complete with cardboard arcade preshow. We used the laser cutter here to cut these cardboard commemorative tokens. “If Cardboard Teck cannot make money, then Cardboard Teck will make money.”, I said. CTI Prof Pete Talbot produced around 600 cardboard coins in a laser-cutting spree.
Now you know way more than you ever thought possible about cardboard pinball. If you would like to play pinball, please come to any CTI licensed representative and make a DONATION and enjoy the debut of The Pinbox 3000 Arcade System!