Certain Pinball tables have figurines (AKA "toys") of some description, ranging from a statue/doll (some movie tie-in tables use action figures from the relevant film as Off-the-Shelf FX, making the descriptor of "toys" oddly apropos) to an animatronic puppet that reacts to the player's, well, playing. This also includes Toppers, which are bell-jars containing a toy placed on, erm, top of the cabinet's backglass. Some digital pinball tables may include enemies; either to be hit or avoided by the ball. This straddles the line between Mooks and pinball toys.
While the term "toy" often refers to these figurines, it can also refer to gameplay gimmicks. For clarity (and alliteration)'s sake, we have chosen to call them Pinball Props instead.
This is something of a Dancing Bear, but since Space Shuttle added its model shuttle, a fair few players will ignore any table without a toy on the playfield. And of course, "sometimes, the bear dances well."
Examples:
- Aerosmith has the Toybox, which triggers the Multiball mode (inspired by the song "Toys in the Attic") when it's saved up enough balls.
- The Addams Family: Thing (a disembodied hand) comes out of a box and steals the ball if it can.
- Alien (2017) has a trio of Ovomorph (xenomorph eggs)-shaped bumpers, a pair of animatronic facehuggers on the slingshot bumpers that react when hit, and a hypersleep chamber that stores up balls for Multiball.
- Apollo 13 has a Saturn rocket (the titular Apollo 13) and the moon, which has an electromagnet in it to make balls orbit.
- Austin Powers: Similar to the South Park table, there is a miniature toilet on the playfield. Fat Bastard is hiding behind it.
- Avatar is populated by various Mattel Avatar action figures (actual toys!). The Special Edition has an animatronic AMP Suit, and an added Banshee.
- Batman
- Batman '66 is a re-skin of Stern's earlier Batman table, with Batman and Robin toppers added. The Joker Tube of the original has been replaced with an action turntable which alternates between the Batphone, a nuclear reactor, and a working miniature television set.
- Batman (Stern) has the Bat Signal, which lights up, Scarecrow's crane, which swings around, and the Bat Pod. It's also studded with The Dark Knight action figures. The Special Edition has The Joker in a tube, which rotates to a clear section for his Chair Reveal.
- Big Bang Bar has a dancing girl suspended in a green tube.
- The Big Lebowski has a White Russian cocktail, an actual rug that needs to be unfurled, a physical bowling minigame, and Lebowski's half-wrecked car that can be hit for bonus points.
- Black Rose (1992) has a working cannon above the flippers, which pays a big part in its gameplay. The player has to hit a Broadside target with it at the other end of the playfield.
- Bone Busters has One-Eye, a talking skull in a bell jar on top of the backglass.
- Bugs Bunny's Birthday Ball has Wile E. Coyote riding a rocket to chase the Roadrunner, several Cartoon Bombs peppered around, and a birthday cake that Honey Bunny (who was made up for this table and pre-dates Lola) jumps out of to reward the player with 50,000,000 points.
- Cactus Canyon has a moving locomotive.
- Centigrade 37 has a thermometer on the backglass that measures your patient's core temperature. The goal of the table is to get it to thirty-seven degrees Centigrade.
- The Champion Pub has a wheel that alternates between a Heavy bag and an enemy boxer, as well as a Light bag with a set of fists and a jump rope. These are linked to alternate play modes.
- Cirqus Voltaire:
- The head of the ringmaster, which lowers underneath the table.
- The oversized "menagerie ball" stuck in a cage on the lower left part of the board.
- Congo has a light-up volcano in the top-right, and a building from Zinj marked with a Gorilla's face in the top left.
- Corvette has a rocking V-8 engine in the top-left.
- Cue Ball Wizard: Touted as having a real billiard cue ball as part of the game, which could hit a pair of targets positioned just ahead of it, and activate a kicker solenoid that would knock an 8-Ball towards another set of colored targets at the very rear of the playfield.
- Deadpool (Stern) has a bobble-head of "Li'l Deadpool," who reacts to hits.
- Dialed In! has a large electrical switchbox in the top left, the Quantum Theatre in the top-center with a giant hillbilly behind it, and the evil smartphone you're using to ruin New York City in the top right.
- Doctor Who has a Dalek figurine in the top-middle and the Doctor's hat on top the backglass.
- Dr. Dude has booths for the Gift of Gab coolness-enhancing surgery and the Molecular Million jackpot, several bells in the top-left, a stylized cupid's heart (the arrow is given guitar frets and strings) labelled "Rock & Roll", and a figurine of a tough guy in a wrestling uniform labelled "BIG SHOT."
- Early Earthshaker! tables had the Earthquake Institute retract into the table, but this proved to be too expensive for mass-production.
- Elvira's House of Horrors has the eponymous Haunted House in the top-center.
- Embryon has a (yonic-looking) Uterine Replicator in the top-center.
- Family Guy has the Griffin family arranged in a sort of inverted "Y." Peter and Chris at the top-center, Brian slightly below them, Stewie and Lois to the mid-right (stewie higher than Lois), and Meg by herself on the mid-left.
- Fire! (1987) has the fire hall at the top-center.
- Fish Tales has a water-wheel in the middle-left and a power dam in the top of the playfield.
- The Flintstones has a couple of caves from Bedrock and a waving brontosaurus head and neck.
- Foo Fighters (2023): Pro and Limited Edition has a red tour van and a figurine of The Overlord.
- ...From Mars:
- Attack from Mars has a fleet of red-centered Flying Saucers; one of which is bigger and has a green light in the center and blue lights around the middle, and jumping Martians around the playfield.
- Revenge from Mars has a saucer in the bottom-right, and a silver ball in the bottom left.
- Full Throttle has a bust of Francesco in the top-left.
- FunHouse (1990) and its mod Rudy's Nightmare has Rudy the Dummy, an animatronic head with moving eyes and yapping jaw.
- Game of Thrones has a castle in the top-left.
- Ghostbusters has the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man coming thru Manhattan in the top-right and the Courthouse on the mid-left.
- Gilligan's Island has the Volcano God Kona in the top-left.
- Godzilla:
- Godzilla (Sega) has an animatronic Godzilla head in the top-left.
- Godzilla (Stern) has Godzilla and a collapsing suspension bridge in the top-left and Mechagodzilla in the middle-right.
- Guardians of the Galaxy (2017) has Groot's head in the center-top (who can swallow the ball), Ego the Living Planet in the top-right, and a figurine of Rocket the Raccoon in the top-left.
- Guns N' Roses (Jersey Jack) has Slash's top hat on the playfield.
- Harlem Globetrotters On Tour has a basketball player in the center of the playfield.
- Harley Davidson 1999 has a motorcycle that pops a wheelie in the center-top, a working traffic light next to it on the right, and a light-up Traffic Authority logo figure.
- Harry Potter (2025):
- The upper-right portion of the playfield has a rotating Grand Staircase that can move the ball along several different paths, having three distinct entrances and thirteen different exits.
- A Death Eater figure pointing its wand forward has the ability to fire balls onto the playfield.
- One of the game's pop bumpers is decorated with a small Whomping Willow, a Ford Anglia stuck in its branches.
- The rightmost ramp has three replicas of the main trio's wands underneath it, leading into a small potion cauldron the ball enters.
- A small Mirror of Erised is positioned near the back of the cabinet, allowing the player to better see a nearby part of the playfield.
- The upper-left portion of the playfield, which is largely dedicated to Quidditch, has a figure of a witch on a broomstick holding a Quaffle.
- A small decorative Sorting Hat sits above the right outlane.
- Heist! has a whole model village comprising the top of the playfield, plus an electromagnetic crane that manipulates the ball.
- High Roller Casino has a pair of Craps dice on the top right and left, a roulette wheel in the top-right corner, a "Pharao's Treasure"-style coin-pusher game in the top-left corner, and a cashier's booth on the middle-left habitrail.
- High Speed has a traffic light that counts down from green, to yellow, to red in the top-mid-right.
- High Speed 2 returns with the traffic light (albeit a different kind, though), and adds a Supercharger that accelerates the ball.
- Hook has Neverland in the center of the playfield.
- Indiana Jones:
- Indiana Jones (Stern) has, in an arc in the middle of the playfield, the Holy Grail, a Shiva stone, the Ark of the Covenant, and a Crystal Skull (from left to right).
- Indiana Jones: The Pinball Adventure has a temple with a huge stone head in the mid-right, and a messerschmitt and a biplane in the top-center to top-right (arranged to make the fighter plane look like its attacking the biplane).
- Indianapolis 500 has the "supercharger," a device to hold captured balls in.
- James Bond:
- GoldenEye has the Stevreneye sattelite facility in the top-right and a tank in the top-left.
- James Bond 007 (Stern) has an Aston Martin with an "ejection seat" popper that launches the ball into a habitrail, as well as a giant bumper in the top-right shaped like a Soviet ICBM.
- Jaws (2024):
- All versions of the game prominently feature a great white shark toy with a captive ball that can hit 3 different sensors. However, the other details differ significantly:
- The Pro version, being the least expensive, has a static model of a shark bursting through a shark cage.
- The Premium and Limited Edition models have a small boat and a moving shark that rises from underneath the playfield when triggered.
- In the upper-right corner of the playfield is a horizontal spinner themed after a fishing reel.
- A model chum bucket sits above the relevant shot, rocking back and forth when the Newton ball underneath it is hit.
- All versions of the game prominently feature a great white shark toy with a captive ball that can hit 3 different sensors. However, the other details differ significantly:
- Johnny Mnemonic has a booth representing a bar in the top-middle of the playfield, as well as a robotic insect in the top-left.
- Judge Dredd has a spinning portal to Deadworld, represented by a black glass dome with red LED's inside being orbited by an acceetion disc.
- Junk Yard has a miniature wrecking ball on a chain.
- Jurassic Park (Stern) has an Island Adventure jeep and an animatronic T-Rex that interacts with the ball.
- King Kong: Myth of Terror Island:
- Many of the game's toys are present in the lower-tier Pro version, but are upgraded in the more expensive Premium and Limited Edition models:
- King Kong himself is represented by a figure in the back corner of the cabinet. The more expensive models allow him to move his arms, potentially holding the ball in place for a moment.
- A subway train car functions as a ramp near Kong. In the higher-tier versions, it can lock balls for King Kong Multiball (which are then released when the ape flips the car over).
- The right side of the playfield prominently features a gong attached to an arch near a vertical up-kicker. The Pro model has a static plastic placed right above the shot, which the higher-tier models replace with an actual sculpted toy that the ball can hit and make wobble.
- The biplane ramp unsurprisingly has a small biplane near it — a proper model on the Premium and Limited Editions, with the Pro instead featuring one constructed out of plastics.
- Exclusive to the higher-tier versions is a moving Giant Spider figure situated near the Pit.
- Many of the game's toys are present in the lower-tier Pro version, but are upgraded in the more expensive Premium and Limited Edition models:
- KISS (Stern) has Gene Simmons's head in the top-right, displaying his distinctive Overly Long Tongue. It can vomit up a multiball mode.
- Knock Out contains a boxing ring with small mechanical figurines that will animate when a certain number of specific targets were hit, rollover switches or saucer holes were activated, or when either was hit when lit at a specific time.
- Laser War has the Ion Cannon in the top-left.
- Last Action Hero has a crane in the top-left, which can mess with the ball.
- Led Zeppelin has Icarus (the band's Winged Humanoid mascot), who reacts to hits in the middle-center, and the zeppelin the band takes its name from on a habitrail in the top-left.
- Lethal Weapon 3 has a traffic light, and a building with an orange lamp on it to represent Multiball.
- Lights... Camera... Action! has a box of dossiers on the film's actors on the mid-right.
- The Lord of the Rings is populated with action figures of Aragorn riding Berégond (mid-right), Legolas (left slingshot), Sam (right slingshot), and the Witch-King (top-right), while the Balrog's upper half is a bash-toy in the top-center.
- Magic Girl has a skeleton wizard in the top-middle.
- The Mandalorian has The Child/Grogu in the upper-left corner of the playfield, and a miniature Razor Crest spaceship flying over the center.
- Mary Shelley's Frankenstein (Sega) has a bust (plus both arms) of The Monster, who acts as a Popper (thing that throws the balls around, usually to a new playfield).
- Maverick The Movie has a riverboat on the mid-left, and a topper depicting a Royal Flush.
- Medieval Madness features a Collapsing castle, a Moving drawbridge and gate, and a pair of trolls that pop up from underneath the playfield.
- Metallica has Sparky (the guy in an electric chair from the Ride the Lightning album cover) in the top-center, and a snake's head in the top-left. The premium version has a hammer smash balls into a casket under the playfield.
- Monopoly has a signpost for Park Way in the top-left, a Railway station in the lower-middle (slightly left), and the Bank in the upper-middle (slightly right).
- Monster Bash has a scene from Bride of Frankenstein tableu'd with figurines in the top-center, and a Chamber of Horrors in the top-left. The right side of the playfield has a coffin; at certain points in the game, Dracula comes out and the player can try to hit him with the ball.
- The Munsters has Eddie Munster and an osciliscope in the top-center.
- Mustang (Stern) features a slowly-spinning model car.
- NASCAR has a test car in the middle of the playfield, and Hot Weelz toys underneath the ramps.
- NBA has a horde of players all simultaneously slam-dunking into a magnetized hoop in the center, and a full-sized basketball in the top-left.
- No Fear: Dangerous Sports has a flaming skull in the top-right corner.
- No Good Gofers has the titular gophers Bud and Buzz, a golf cart, a spinny plate (whirr-wheel), a ramp that lowers onto the playfield, and a captive ball.
- Operation: Thunder has mouldings all over it to represent the mountainous Iraq army base the player is airstriking.
- The Party Zone features the head of Captain B. Zarr.
- Red & Ted's Road Show: The top of the playfield has Red and Ted's animatronic heads, with moving eyes and yapping jaws.
- The Simpsons Pinball Party: The top-right corner of the playfield has the head of Homer Simpson that lights up when he talks and rotates a bit to follow the ball to a degree. (The designers couldn't fully have him follow the ball due to patents owned by Williams relating to FunHouse.) There's also a Daredevil Bart figure on top of the trapped ball, and a little TV over the small living room upper playfield with its own dot-matrix display mainly used to show the timer for TV Mode.
- South Park has a toilet in the upper-left corner that has Mr. Hanky the Christmas Poo pop out of it.
- Space Shuttle is the Ur-Example, having a scale-model of a NASA Space Shuttle in the playfield.
- Stern's Starship Troopers has a Brain Bug.
- Star Trek: The Next Generation has a pair of ball shooters themed as phaser cannons.
- Star Wars Episode I has Obi-Wan's lightsaber, complete with Energy Blade (that is, a green neon light) taking up a whole fifth of the right-hand side.
- Stranger Things has a bust of the Demogorgon in the center, who can be shot in the gob for points, but usually hides behind a semitruck grille. This grille can fold down into a ramp when certain conditions are met.
- Tee'd Off has a gopher plushie holding a golf ball as a topper.
- Theater Of Magic has a spinning locked trunk.
- The Twilight Zone features a gumball dispenser, loaded with pinballs, and a functioning analogue clock.
- The Uncanny X-Men: As a general rule, the game's props are simplified in the Pro version but get upgraded in the more expensive Premium and Limited Editions.
- A giant Sentinel head with glowing red eyes acts as a bash toy — hitting it with the ball enough times will cause its mouth to open, revealing a target within. In the higher-tier models, the head starts off (mostly) underneath the playfield, only rising up after repeated hits.
- In the higher-tier versions, the Sentinel's hands are placed on different areas of the playfield. One can intercept the ball while the other can temporarily destroy a nearby ramp. (In the basic Pro edition, the former is absent while the latter is reduced to a plastic standee.)
- While the Pro version represents Beast's lab with a simple leaper target, the more expensive versions instead depict it as a themed vari-target that's elevated off of the playfield proper — when the player hits it, a captive ball inside moves, with varying results depending on how hard it was struck.
- The upper-left corner of the playfield features a representation of Wolverine mid-Fastball Special: either a standee (Pro) or a custom-made figurine (Premium and Limited Edition). In either case, he's situated near a Colossus standee.
- WHO dunnit (1995) has a set of moving slot wheels under the playfield.
- Wipe Out (1993):
- The left side of the game's layout is dominated by the "ski lift," a chain that catches balls and sends them up a model mountain.
- The right side of the game's layout hosts the "slalom" mini-playfield. It can tilt left or right — at times, the flipper buttons will move it in the appropriate direction, allowing the player to control the ball's trajectory to some degree.
- Crüe Ball has wandering Mooks, such as worms, disembodied brains, skeletons, and Waddling Head skull-monsters wearing sandals. It also features a Boss Fight against a Giant Enemy Crab named Crabula.
- Crush Pinball:
- Alien Crush has a pair of jabbering maws on the top left and a trio of eyes in the top center.
- Devil Crush has a giant woman's face in the center and the playfield is studded with demon soldiers.
- Jakai Crush has slingshot bumpers that look like dead Giant Spiders, and a dragon's head.
- The Ghostbusters digital table based on Haunted House has Slimer in the top-left and middle-left, the Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man on top of the apartment building in the top-right (it's big enough to stretch from the middle to the edge), and Ecto-1 on the bottom-right.
- The NES version of High Speed has an added bumper in the form of a mechanic (ie, somebody who fixes cars) who shoots the ball straight down the drain. It also features power-ups to collect (safes and helicopters) and threats to avoid (bombs and tumbleweeds).
- Pinball Deluxe:
- Wild West has a whirr-wheel.
- Jurassic Links has several; a quartet of dinosaur eggs (that can be hatched with a skillshot, whereupon they react when hit), a bronosaurus figurine, and an animated golf cart being chased by a T-Rex.
- Rydes has a diner in the Town section, a gas pump in the Garage, and a quintet of traffic cones that play a honking car horn SFX.
- Tradewind is studded with various toys (a mine, a windmill, and some pine trees on table 1, and a gem mine and more pine trees on table 2. In the Galactic Trade skin the windmill is changed to a uranium enrichment facility, and a cooling stack is added to table 2. The trees are also kept in biodome sattelites). It is a very quest-heavy table, with all the toys needed to be hit in order to collect and refine various resources.
- Table 1 of Pinball King has a space ship that rattles around.
- The Pinball of the Dead has, in addition to wandering zombies and boss monsters to destroy:
- Wandering has a clock that counts how many zombies you've killed. Once it's counted enough, the sundial in the middle playfield moves out of the way of a massive zombie head coming through the floor.
- Wandering has abandoned lab equipment and experiments.
- Cemetary has a wormlike thing that spawns zombies and a huge zombie who smashes through the floor.
- Sonic the Hedgehog Spinball:
- There are clucks that appear occasionally, which serve as a random obstacle. In the second level, they are also used to finish the jump in the steam arena.
- Each level features a Boss Fight against one of Dr Robotnik's robots.
- Zen Pinball:
- Aliens Vs Pinball:
- Aliens has the Alien Queen hovering over the the top of the table (who can catch and eat the ball under certain circumstances), an upper-right sub-playfield containing an Alien egg, and three giant bumpers that resemble Atmospheric Processors that glow blue when hit. A doll of Ripley asking if Burke intends to wipe out the Xenomorphs welcomes players to the table, and the ball is dropped off at the launcher by the APC. The Slingshot bumpers also have Power Loader grippers coming off of them.
- The AVP table has a xenomorph and a Predator staring each other down across the field, a Drone stuck in a hole that screeches when hit (and can steal the ball as payback for it under certain conditions), a trio of canister-shaped bumpers on a rotating platform, a rotating groove and retractable segment of a ramp to represent the Yautja Temple's Chaos Architecture, and the Temple the film takes place in on the upper-right corner. The ball plunger is also a Xenomorph head hitting the ball with its inner mouth, and the left-hand slingshot bumper has a Facehugger on it.
- Earth Defense has a Flying Saucer in the upper left, and a Tank-Tread Mecha in the upper right.
- Sorcerer's Lair has the sorcerer himself, two Mage Towers that rotate, a Magic Circle that can lift up. It also features a trio of glowing, grille-capped bumpers, an animated gargoyle and treeant, and a Cute Ghost Girl called Whisper who can be hit for extra points. The Sorcerer's demon idol also has a fire in a brazier.
- Aliens Vs Pinball:
