I purchased this one from a fellow collector along with a handful of other Willis overlays. I’ve seen it in pictures on other sites but have never had a chance to examine it closely. It is supposedly for crystal castles by Atari and I have no reason to doubt that. One thing is certain though, it isn’t a Willis product.

Besides lacking all of the usual clues that identify a Willis overlay (can you name them all yet?), it is one flimsy piece of art. Cheaply made and probably one of the thinnest overlays I have in the archive. (more…)

I’ll be polite and call this one interesting. Someone decided to bootleg a moon patrol control panel overlay, using the reverse screen process, 3M adhesive and die cuts for the buttons and joystick. Unfortunately they neglected the most important part, the artwork.

I’m not sure why so much effort was put into this bootleg, perhaps it was for one of the foreign made knock-off pcb kits that were so popular with some operators. Maybe it was just for a local group of operators that had a half dozen or more Williams Moon Patrols needing fresh overlays. (more…)

Another collector tipped me off about a Willis Elevator Action overlay for sale at the Eldorado Games website. I bought it because I had never seen the Willis version before, only the bootleg Spy Agent version. Well, I still haven’t seen one because this overlay is a bootleg.

How do I know? There are lots of reasons, the first one is that Willis never copied existing work. (more…)

When I think about Q*bert, I think distinctive yellow cabinet, hopping orange character and colorful bad guys that might cause the occasional @!#?@! to escape your lips while playing. I certainly don’t think drugged out green guys wearing shades, pink pigs or snakes. Someone did though, as can be seen in this bootleg version of a Q*bert control panel overlay.

While the artwork leaves something to be desired, at least the production quality of the overlay is good. 3M adhesive backed paper and clean die cuts for the buttons and joysticks. There are no markings anywhere on the overlay, so this gets filed under bootleg in the archive. If anyone has more information or has seen one in the wild, drop me a line! Happy gaming.

I’ve always thought that this control panel overlay was the Willis version of Elevator Action. At least that’s what I had been told and never had any reason to doubt the claim. Until one day when the KLOV “machine of the day” was a Spy Agent. Whoa, that’s the Willis EA overlay, what gives?

After some more investigating, it appears as if the overlay is a bootleg for Elevator Action. The first picture is an overlay I found available at QuarterArcade and the second a copy I own. The QA copy has some text on the middle right that I can’t quite make out, unfortunately, as it might shed some light on the true manufacturer of the kit. The cabinet picture is from KLOV and shows the overlay installed on a Taito cabinet control panel. According to KLOV, Spy Agent made by Taito, is a bootleg of Elevator Action. Huh? Elevator Action was made by Taito. Why would you bootleg your own game? Since Spy Agent was a bootleg and seems to have been a conversion kit, I’m guessing Willis had nothing to do with it. The overlay is missing all the tell tale signs. If you have any more information, post a comment.

I connected with another video game collector recently, Steve23, located in Georgia. I had referenced a Wico catalog, on my resource page in response to Steve’s Willis side art post on KLOV. He liked my efforts to preserve a little bit of the history behind the video game industry and messaged me. After a brief discussion via messages, Steve offered to donate a box of miscellaneous artwork to my preservation cause; very generous. (more…)

Showcasing that nice Ghosts ‘n Goblins bootleg bezel (here) got me thinking about the control panel overlay. I was pretty sure I had one, so I dug through my stash of artwork and pulled out this little gem, a bootleg Ghosts ‘n Goblins cpo. Not quite a matching set… (more…)

Just in time for Halloween! This little gem showed up at my door thanks to Jeff Rothe of rotheblog and hand delivered no less! I was hoping the bezel might be an NOS piece to replace the badly scratched bezel currently on my game, but as soon as I saw the partially exposed artwork I knew it had to be a bootleg. Take a look. (more…)

This is the second NOS overlay I picked up from Troy Smith (vidgameseller), the first was a Popeye cpo. Troy got a whole bunch of NOS parts in a bulk buy when IPB sold off most of its parts inventory in an attempt to downsize operations. (more…)

I recently picked up this NOS (new old stock) Popeye control panel overlay from Troy Smith (vidgameseller). The initial thought was that its a Willis piece, but after examining it, I’d say it’s a bootleg. Here’s why. (more…)