Overview
Elvira and the Party Monsters is a 1989 pinball game designed by Dennis Nordman and Jim Patla and released by Midway (under the Bally label), featuring horrorshow-hostess Elvira. Most of the game was designed by Dennis Nordman, but after a motorcycle accident near the end of the design stage, Jim Patla completed it.
The game is a combination of three game ideas:
1. Monster Mash, with dancing Boogie men was conceived of by Dennis Nordman when he observed finger puppets with dancing arms at Halloween in 1984.
2. Greg Freres conceived of Party Monster as a follow-up to Party Animal which had released in 1987.
3. Roger Sharpe, working as Williams marketing director, thought of using Elvira as a theme
The marketing slogan was "Elvira is No Cheap Date!" referring to the new .50/.75/1.00 pricing scheme. Elvira and the Party Monsters was manufactured shortly after the merger of Williams and Bally. Although the game uses a vaguely Bally-style cabinet and flippers, all the rest of the game hardware are completely made up of Williams parts. The machine uses a System 11B CPU and associated board setup. It includes rubber bogeyman characters and coffins that open during play.
The table spawned a sequel in 1996 called Scared Stiff, also designed by Nordman.
