Gottlieb’s Melody, released in 1967, is a delightful wood-rail-era survivor, a music-and-caroling-themed electromechanical from the height of the company’s late-1960s dominance. Presented in the classic wedge-head cabinet, it offers the warm chimes, score reels, and uncluttered charm that make games of this vintage such treasures — and an unusually flexible setup, with operators able to choose three, five, or even eight balls per play.
The scoring revolves around lighting numbers and working the four relay kick-out holes. Keeping an eye on your lit numbers is key: once all four glow in matching colors, the aligned saucer hands over a coveted extra ball. There’s genuine strategy in the saucer mechanics, too — each saucer kicks the ball rightward into the adjacent pit, so the savvy player lights the rightmost lights first to chain through them, always banking the green pit’s points along the way. The game’s signature challenge is its tight flipper gap and fat center post, where the wise move is often to let a center-bound ball roll rather than flip.
Quaint, characterful, and increasingly rare, Melody is a wonderful window into pinball’s late-60s golden age. For collectors who cherish the tactile, mechanical joys of the wedge-head era, it’s a charming and historically rich classic.