When I first played South Park, honestly, I wasn’t all that interested in pinball at the time.   I happened to be in Dave and Buster’s and they had this machine against the wall next to a Williams Pinball 2000 Revenge From Mars.   I had some extra credits on my card so I gave it a try.   Within minutes, I was laughing and having a great time with this machine.   This machine was also an early production which had the very controversial video graphics and adult language…. which was one of the reasons I laughed so much at it.   It fit the theme perfectly with the over-the-top cartoon.

Sega purchased Data East a few years earlier and continued to make solid pinball machines.  They added proper menus and diagnostics and had the financial backing to continue to create great machines.   South Park is a well built machine but slightly rare.   Only 2200 machines were made world wide.

This particular machine was in good shape physically and cosmetically.   Sega machines suffer from cabinet wear around the buttons and this was no different.  However, their playfields are beefy.  The only wear on these machines come at the cut-outs… Kenny and Cartman holes where the ball bangs against the side grain of the hardwood and slowly wears it down.

The plastics are next to impossible to source for this machine because of the licensing issues on re-creating aftermarket parts.  So we were challenged with finding replacement and often making our own back to factory specs.

Lastly, we just couldn’t leave this machine alone and put it back to stock.  This machine craves modern technology updates and modifications.

Restoration

This machine received the following treatment to get it back to stock condition

• Circuit boards removed, cleaned and repaired back to original condition
• Fresh plasma display and rebuild driver
• New board firmware and video driver code to the pre-rev version to bring back the full original controversial game
• Backbox and cabinet repaired from dings.
• Backbox and cabinet sky repainted and forest areas touched up.  Entire surface protected with automotive clear
• New cabinet buttons
• Restored coin door
• Restored legs, lockdown and side rails
• New T-molding
• Playfield stripped, cleaned, buffed and waxed.  Rebuilt with new plastic posts and rubber
• New slingshot and Kenny plastics
• Custom toilet wrap around plastic replaces always broken original 2-piece set
• Custom Kenny plastic to replace missing and unavailable piece
• Full keychain accessory kit
• New translucent targets
• New target stickers OEM
• All figures cleaned and re-installed
• Toilet remolded back into correct shape
• Ramps removed, cleaned and flame polished to crystal clear
• Kenny opto sensors replaced

Custom Upgrades

The following items are Castle Classic Arcade original upgrades that cannot be purchased – to make this machine unique and better in every way!

• Playfield lamps all replaced with custom color LEDs
• Backbox flourescent lamp removed and replaced with coordinated LEDs which can be animated.  This gives the backbox great color and more life
• Under cabinet LED flash effects tied to the game for specific functions (Chef, Kenny Ramp etc)
• Custom South Park full size figure toppers!   Each character is lit internally with LED flashers that tie into the game when the character talks.

Here’s a generic video of the machine on diagnostic test to see the various flashing and animation effects:

PIC PLACEMENT HERE COMING SOON