Williams’ No Good Gofers, released in 1997 and designed by Pat Lawlor with Lou Koziarz, is a riotous golf comedy starring two of pinball’s most beloved characters: Bud and Buzz, a pair of wisecracking animatronic gophers who pop up from the playfield to taunt you and swat your shots. It’s a machine built around personality and a clever, satisfying ruleset, with elevating ramp entrances that reveal the gopher bash targets.

The gameplay is pure golf-course mischief. You raise Bud and Buzz via the center ramp and shoot them twice each to lock balls, then hit the putting green to start multiball. The signature thrill is the hole-in-one shot — a full plunge can fire the ball up the side ramp for an ace right off the bat, and when lit at the putting green, it also starts multiball. Finishing holes at the putting green dishes out awards from the spinning disc (the Ripoff multiball is a great one), with the spinners rotating that disc.

There’s real strategy in the gophers themselves: a raised gopher “recovers” and pops back down after a while, so you must lock quickly, and after three or four center ramps Buzz rises to block you, forcing you to shoot elsewhere. Learning to backhand the right ramp makes multiball easily repeatable all game long. Funny, fast, and full of charm, No Good Gofers is Lawlor at his most playful — a hole-in-one of a machine that’s as entertaining to listen to as it is to play. It’s in the hole!