Back in June the Cult Film Club watched a movie from last year called Ping Pong Summer.
It’s a quirky summer comedy set during the summer of 1985 in Ocean City, Maryland. We all loved it. Well, one of the locations that is lovingly showed throughout the movie is a community center/arcade called The Fun Hub. It has air hockey, ping pong and a ton of video games. So, I think it’s time for one of my patented video arcade walk throughs, don’t you?
If you haven’t seen the movie, I urge you to watch it. It’s pretty great. Now check out the awesome, awesome arcade in which most of the movie is based, The Fun Hub.
Brad (nicknamed Rad) and his family arrive in Ocean City, MD for their summer vacation. While there, Rad walks into town and finds Anthony’s Beer & Wine. Here our hero, gets schooled in proper Icee pouring etiquette. Then he’s told about a door hidden in the alley behind Anthony’s.
That door leads to the Fun Hub.
Within the Fun Hub are games galore for all types. There are skill games like air hockey and ping pong as well as arcade games lining the blue cinder block walls. Let’s see how many games we can identify. I get lots of help from The International Arcade Museum.
As you can see in the establishing shot of Fun Hub above, our first games to see are the air hockey table on the right as well as this Super Chexx Hockey table from 1983. This game may look familiar as it was seen previously in the Golf n’ Stuff arcade in Karate Kid.
Here’s a quick shot of Data East’s Karate Champ (right) and Capcom’s Commando (left) machines. The former is one of my favorite fighter games and I recently got to play it at The Galloping Ghost arcade in Illinois. The other is the precursor to the much more popular Bionic Commando game.
Here are the heroes of our movie, Rad and Teddy. Just over Rad’s right shoulder is Nintendo’s Donkey Kong Jr from 1982. Just over his left shoulder is the amazing Harlem Globetrotters On Tour pinball machine by Bally from 1979. I love pretty much all things Harlem Globetrotters, so this was a nice one to spot.
The guys actually play the Globetrotters pinball later in the movie and you get a great shot of the awesome art and lights in the table.
Cavalcade of Awesome 