I’ve added another Willis overlay to the growing archive, this time the 4 player version of Atari Football. A big thanks to Jeff of rotheblog for this one. Now Atari is famous among the collecting community for fabulous cabinet artwork and the Atari Football cocktail cabinets were no exception. I had a chance to see and play a HUO example at a party not so long ago and it was amazing.

The artwork and color scheme on that game exude 70’s funk and I love it. The cp artwork was originally screened right onto the metal panels, just like on Asteroids and Missile Command. Unfortunately that means when it wears off, its gone forever. So besides being a replacement overlay and not a metal panel, the Willis piece just doesn’t fit well with the Atari cabinet artwork. Sure, the big “football” and a bunch of football players make it obvious what game its for, but so boring. Still has all the earmarks of a quality Willis piece and makes a nice addition.

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…)

Willis made a few different overlays for Atari games, the Asteroids cocktail table being one of them. This overlay has very simple styling, partly taken from the very understated original control panel overlay. The artist added some color and shapes to create an overlay that works well with the cocktail table, in my opinion.

Now I’m not saying that it’s super fantastic or anything, it just works well and looks better than the original in this case. Quality materials, die-cut button holes, part numbers and copyright info all in place. Another piece for the archive.

Here we have the famous, or infamous, Willis Donkey Kong cpo. I think this one went a long way towards creating the bad reputation Willis developed with arcade collectors and its easy to see why.

The original control panel overlay was reverse printed on a thick piece of plexi which made it quite durable but prone to scratching or graffiti. The reproduction was made in the same way Willis made all their products, reverse printed on lexan material with 3M adhesive. (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…)

This NOS overlay came with the batch of donated artwork from a fellow collector, check out the original post if you missed it. At first I wasn’t sure what game this cpo was for as I couldn’t find any information about Video Ware, Inc., at the usual sources. I posted a few online inquiries and quickly had an answer.

The control panel overlay is for Champion Boxing by Video Ware, Inc., licensed by Sega. This game was released in 1983 by Sega, likely in kit form only for conversions. I don’t recall seeing the game on location and considering that Nintendo’s Punch Out was released less than a year later, I imagine Champion Boxing did poorly. (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…)

Not the most exciting piece, but even boring control panel overlays have a place in arcade history. If you hung out at the arcade back in the late 80’s or early 90’s, you probably saw more than your fair share of generic control panel overlays.

This one is a standard space theme overlay, meant to be used with any number of space conversion kits or simply as a cheaper alternative to the pricey OEM* replacement parts. (more…)

If you haven’t seen it before, this is the Willis version of the Nintendo Popeye control panel overlay. Produced using high quality 3M paper with die cut holes and four or more colors in the silk screening, it was certainly a quality product.

However, the original was reversed screened on lexan and the artwork was a little more refined than the Willis attempt. I keep thinking about prismacolor markers when I look at the details. (more…)

OK, simple frog pattern on the right to mimic the original tire tracks, pointing frogs around the joystick to indicate jump direction, got it. But what’s going on with that background? Is that supposed to be pavement or some kind of Rorschach test? I keep staring at it with my eyes a little squinted, hoping the secret message or shape might appear before my eyes.

It does bear the Willis name and even a part no, so there is no doubt that this version is the actual Willis Frogger reproduction overlay. It will hop on over to the archive. Enjoy!