Pinball / Junk Yard

It's not hard to play in the yard.

The meanest game in the whole darn town.

Junk Yard is a 1997^note though prototypes were around in December of 1996 pinball machine made by Williams Electronics. It was designed by Barry Oursler and Dwight Sullivan, while Paul Barker and Pat McMahon provided the art. Unsurprisingly, it takes place in a junkyard, where you collect trash to build a flying jalopy to ultimately head into space and fight Crazy Bob. Along the way, you'll make a toaster gun so you can save the girl from the Angry Guard Dog, take a ride on the Magic Bus, and hop for a spin in the Time Machine to start a mode from an earlier Williams title.

Yeah, it's that kind of game.

Junk Yard was the final pinball game from veteran Williams designer Barry Oursler. He was laid off early in the project, leaving Dwight Sullivan to complete the game. The table was available as part of Season 3 of The Pinball Arcade before the license to all Williams and Bally tables expired on July 1, 2018. However, on September 4, 2018, Zen Studios announced that it had gained the rights to this and other WMS tables to be released within Pinball FX3. In particular, this and three other tables (Fish Tales, Medieval Madness and The Getaway: High Speed II) are the first to get this treatment, with others to follow.

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The Junk Yard pinball demonstrates the following tropes:

• Bathtub Scene: The backglass has a lady bathing in a bathtub. The obvious question, of course, why would she be bathing in a junkyard?
  Woman: "I'm gonna need a bath after this!"
• Button Mashing: Required in the "Run From Spike" Video Mode.
• Company Cross References: A number of them, aside from the Time Machine mode.
  • One sound effect is taken from Earthshaker!.
  • The voice that says "Come on, hurry, hurry, hurry" during Crane Hurry-up is decidedly similar to one of the voices from Dr. Dude (used for the Gift of Gab, among other things).
  • The Angel's voice is the same as the Candy 2000's from Safe Cracker, and both the Angel's portrait and the Devil's voice are in WHO dunnit (1995).
  • The backglass indicates that the junkyard itself is located behind Tony's Palace, the setting of WHO dunnit (1995).
  • The Super Jackpot animation is from The Getaway: High Speed 2 (or Red & Ted's Road Show, for that matter).
  • The quote "Evasive maneuvers" during the Air Tactical Combat adventure is possibly a reference to Star Trek: The Next Generation.
• Damsel in Distress: The titular girl in "Save the Girl".
• Down in the Dumps: The main location.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: The early prototypes and sample machines had a magnet under the wrecking ball which stopped the wrecking ball from moving. Later production machines replaced the magnet with a light under the playfield that flashes when the wrecking ball is hit.
• Easter Egg:
  • A secret mode is available by hitting both flippers three times when the Time Machine clock shows 3:33.
  • In "Run from Spike" video mode, running fast enough turns you bionic.
  • Playing a game at 12:00am starts Midnight Madness. The game falls dead, draining the current ball, then starts a four-ball multiball frenzy where every target is worth 30,000 points.
  • There is a rare chance the Saucer Mission mode in the Time Machine nostalgia level may switch to the Cow Attack Video Mode from Attack From Mars.
• Edible Ammunition: You can use a toast gun on Spike to get extra points in the video mode.
  "Eat hot toast, sucker!"
• Excuse Plot: There's no given reason for why Crazy Bob has trapped you in the junkyard (other than that, well, he's crazy).
• Fat Bastard: Crazy Bob.
• Female Angel, Male Demon/Good Angel, Bad Angel: An angel and a devil occupy the slingshot bumpers and often pop up on the display to advise you. Hitting the slingshots changes which of the two advise you.
• Gotta Catch 'Em All: Collecting all 10 pieces of junk awards a significant bonus, and the player can enter their initials as Junk Champion.
• Homemade Inventions: You collect junk in order to build machines that let you go on Adventures, culminating with a flying jalopy used to battle Crazy Bob in space. You can also use a Toast Gun on Spike to earn more points in the Video Mode.
• Locking MacGyver in the Store Cupboard: Crazy Bob has trapped you in his junkyard, with free access to everything you need to build a rocket ship to escape.
• Mad Libs Dialogue: When you get a new piece of junk, your advisors will suggest another one to go after.
  Angel: Great! Now get the [Hair Dryer].
  Devil: Don't listen to her. Get the [Weather Vane].
• Magic Bus: The game even calls it exactly that.
• Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Spike, the Angry Guard Dog.
• New-Age Retro Hippie: Lives in the Magic Bus.
• New Game Plus: After completing Outer Space, you get to keep all of your collected junk, effectively re-lighting all five Adventure modes instantly. This makes subsequent trips to Outer Space much easier and quicker, since you don't have to worry about reassembling the requisite contraptions for each mode.
• Nostalgia Level: Hitting the Time Machine brings you back in time to start a mode from an earlier Williams game - "Move Your Car" from Creature from the Black Lagoon, "Payback Time" from Terminator 2: Judgment Day^note though this was later removed because it was "out of balance with the rest of the game", "Mamushka" from The Addams Family, and the "Saucer Attack" Video Mode from Attack from Mars. The other mode, "Knight Mission", is not a reference to Black Knight 2000, however, and its accompanying date is in 1999, two years after the game released.
• Pinball Scoring: Averted; like Tales of the Arabian Nights, scoring in this game is pretty low (jackpots within the millions).
• Permanently Missable Content: Lighting Outer Space effectively locks out the Time Machine mode for the rest of the game due to Adventure modes taking preference at the mode scoop (see New Game Plus above).
• The Player Can Breathe In Space: Judging by the backglass, you're heading into space with nothing but a fishbowl on your head for air.
• Power Up Letdown: Assembling the Toaster Gun changes the Video Mode from running away from Spike to attacking him with the Toaster Gun. The mini-game where you run away from Spike is not only easier, it yields more points. Hence, assembling the Toaster Gun actually hurts your overall score.
• Projectile Toast: The Toaster Gun shoots these, naturally.
• Real Song Theme Tune: The main background music is an excerpt from "Money (That's What I Want)."
• Rule of Fun: The entire game runs on this — why else would there be toilets, magic buses, a time machine, and all sorts of other stuff pulled at random?
• Rule of Three:
  • In "Save the Girl", Spike must be hit three times.
  • A secret mode is accessed by hitting both flippers three times when the Time Machine's clock shows 3:33.
• Schematized Prop: The blueprints for each contraption are shown on the playfield, doubling as an indicator of which components remain to be collected for each.
• Shout-Out:
  • According to Word of God, running fast enough in "Run From Spike" causes the famous sound effect from The Six Million Dollar Man to play.
  • The bulldog named Spike can't possibly be a coincidence.
  • Also, when you run from Spike, your character says "Nice doggy... maybe I got a Milk-Bone...", with the voice even bearing some resemblance to that of actor Rick Moranis. Moranis' character Louis Tully says the same thing when he first sees a "dog" in his apartment in Ghostbusters.
• Smart Bomb: Like in its source game, pushing Start during Saucer Attack clears the screen.
• Spelling Bonus: D-O-G starts one of two dog-related Video Modes, and M-U-L-T-I-B-A-L-L... well, guess.
• Sub Story: With enough junk to build the "Submerger", you can start "The Great Toilet Adventure".
• Time Machine: Once you have the Cuckoo Clock, you can hit this shot to start a mode from an earlier Williams game.
• Toilet Humor: Much like South Park, there is a toilet on the playfield that gives rewards. It even has its own mode - "The Great Toilet Adventure".
• Video Mode: Two of them, both involving Spike:
  • If you don't have the toaster gun, "Run From Spike" plays, where you mash the flipper buttons to run from Spike.
  • If you do have the toaster gun, you play "Save the Girl" instead, where a girl is trapped with Spike and you have to shoot toast in the left and right openings to hit Spike 3 times.
    • Both of these games get harder after successfully completing them once, leading to moments where (in the latter game) the girl chases Spike!
  • Also, Attack from Mars's Saucer Attack reappears in the Time Machine mode.
• Villain: Exit, Stage Left: "Outer Space" ends with Crazy Bob escaping once you're out of fireworks unless you're able to complete all the shots in time, and shoot him down with your own rockets.
• Wizard Mode: Outer Space, reached by playing the four other Adventures. The player must shoot various shots before Bob can re-light them within a limited amount of time determined by how many fireworks they have collected.
• Written Sound Effect: Smashing the crane into car targets nets one of these (i.e. "CRASH!", "SQUISH!", and occasionally "DOHO!").

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Crazy Bob: "Get out of my junkyard!"

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