The Wizard of Oz, released in 2013 and designed by Joe Balcer, holds a landmark place in pinball history as the very first machine from Jersey Jack Pinball — the boutique upstart that shook the industry by daring to challenge Stern. Built around the beloved 1939 film, it was also among the first pins to feature a big, high-definition widescreen LCD in the backbox, ushering in a new era of color animation. With five flippers, a swarm of magnets, twin vertical up-kickers, and a Crystal Ball mechanism, it’s an ambitious, feature-packed table that announced JJP’s arrival in style.
The game is stuffed with Oz characters and clever mechanics. You complete the colored rollovers to spell out characters and light locks, hitting the right ramp three times to start multiball, while the central pink Glinda target dishes out random helpful awards. The Crystal Ball is the strategic heart: stacking it with other multiballs grants a playfield multiplier, since each active playfield adds 1X to your scoring and the Crystal Ball doubles it — for as much as 6X. The masterstroke is setting up Munchkinland with one house-spin left before triggering the main multiball, then stacking the Crystal Ball on top and watching the score explode.
There’s real depth in the skill shots, too — every skill shot you make raises the value of that same shot later in the game, rewarding consistency across balls, and completing three Witch hurry-ups lights the frantic Fireball Frenzy, where you shoot the blue water shots and dodge the red fire ones. Beautiful, deep, and historically pivotal, The Wizard of Oz is a gorgeous showpiece that helped launch the modern golden age of pinball. There’s no place like home — and few machines this lovingly crafted.