01/10/2025
We took a quick detour to show Sasha the Kid the 1993 Gottlieb table Gladiators, which has a very fascinating piece of trivia, because it had a different title before it was called "Gladiators." In case you didn't know, the original name of this table was, I sh*t you not........
The Legend of Zelda.
Nobody knows exactly why that didn't happen since Gottlieb's Super Mario Bros. table was a big, profitable hit for them (update: designer Jon Norris did talk about it: https://forums.arcade-museum.com/threads/legend-of-zelda-pinball-machine.323143/post-2872730 Apparently they decided American Gladiators, in 1993, mind you, was better for business than Zelda. This is the same company who did a Rescue 911 table without William Shatner doing the call-outs).
I'm not a big fan of the Super Mario table. I think if it had been anything BUT Super Mario Bros, Nintendo fans wouldn't call it one of their favorites. Regardless of what *I* think, it sold 4,200 units, at a time when Gottlieb was not in healthy shape. Mario was their 4th best selling table of the "Premier" era (1984 to 1996), which was the final era of Gottlieb's existence. A table based on Street Fighter II was their second best seller of the era (5,550 units. Cue Ball Wizard was the best seller at 5,700), so video game licenses were a lifeboat, and they sank their own lifeboat. My theory: their out-of-touch execs hadn't heard of Legend of Zelda and confused it with Zelda Fitzgerald or something along those lines. But the layout, with its twisty-turny, maze like structure, is inspired by Zelda dungeons and, unlike a lot of pinball themes, you can genuinely feel the connection. It really does feel like Zelda! Seriously! The name "Gladiators" is because, after they dropped Zelda, the table was THIS CLOSE to being based on American Gladiators, but they ordered the table changed before they even had the license, and when they didn't get the license, they didn't have enough time to re-up the Zelda license so it was just the generic "Gladiators." And this type of thing is why they went belly-up.