The artist that worked on this one made an effort to do some color and design matching for the layout so the cpo wouldn’t look out of place on the game. He(?) even worked up a cool looking Centipede to add to the CPO, an element that was missing from the original design. Good color, cool Centipede, mushrooms and horizontal stripes. What else could you possibly need? I’ve only been able to find a couple of hacked up versions of this overlay and I’m on the lookout for a nice example. Check out my Willis artwork page for more information about Willis and their history.

I would like to add one of these overlays to the Willis artwork archive. If you have a nice example of this control panel overlay for sale or trade, drop me a line!

So I did some digging through my archives to figure this out. I re-read my 2009 post about The Wico Willis partnership. If you check out the catalog pages in the old post you’ll see another centipede overlay clearly listed, and it has the exact same part number. Well, minus the “00″ at the end, but otherwise identical. So the same part number exists for two pieces of artwork, but why? Here are a couple examples I have of the overlay from the Wico Willis catalog. Some genius decided it was a good idea to trim off the top and bottom, so its impossible to read any identifying marks, but you get the idea. So what’s the scoop on these?

My guess is that sometime after the Wico Willis partnership dissolved, Wico decided to make their own control panel overlays (or maybe they had made them previously, I just don’t know). Wico would have used their own printing company, possibly a vendor they had been working with for awhile and that company just didn’t use 3M paper products. They whipped up their own artwork and just kept the catalog part number on the front. I mean if you’ve already sent out a couple thousand product catalogs with the numbers listed, why change them? Just replace the product with your own and keep selling. Seems reasonable to me.

If you know anything about the relationship between Wico and Willis, or any information about either company, I’d love to learn more. This piece of arcade artwork gets added to the growing archive. Game on!

Operators were notorious tight wads and didn’t like to spend money on OEM parts, often turning to Willis for their more cost effective products. While not always the best looking, they were better than a worn or ratty original (in the ops eyes at least). So here we have the Willis Asteroids cpo, released in 1981, and measuring in at a whopping 26-1/4″ x 23-1/3″. This thing will completely cover the original metal control panel.

Now with every Willis overlay the production quality is excellent, and this overlay is no exception. 3M backer paper and adhesive, artwork screen printed on lexan, and die cut button holes. This particular example still has the majority of the die cut outs in place. My favorite little Willis men adorn the p1 and p2 buttons, but there isn’t much more to say about this one. Very simplistic, kinda boring, and lacking in color variety. I’ll add it to the archive anyway.

If you were an operator back in the day, these large wall hanging graphics were meant to give your arcade a little ambiance, to spruce things up a bit, or just to act as some quality signage for contests. Now when I say large, I mean 30″ x 50″ kinda large, we’re talking 1500 square inches of Willis graphical delight! These were some darn big posters! I have been looking for WEG pieces, any of them, on and off for a couple of years, without much luck. I did find the little Battle Damage sign, but what were the chances that any of the massive, foam core mounted artwork actually survived? Apparently chances were pretty good. Enter Pete in MA. Pete contacted me through one of the arcade game collector social forums to ask if I’d be interested in some Willis artwork. I get these messages a lot because not many people are actually looking to buy Willis artwork, most just want to get rid of it. Typically the seller has one of the more common overlay’s that I’ve already got a stack of, always a let down. Not this time! While Pete certainly had a snoozer cpo for sale, he also had the mother load of Enviro-Graphics! Here are a few pics of Pete’s game room.

I was pretty amazed to see all that WEG artwork in the wild as it had eluded me for so long. Pete told me he found the artwork during a warehouse raid on the East Coast, apparently the operator had stored the whole set in a series of architectural flat files. Some of the set had been given away to local collectors but he still had a fair amount and with new games coming into the game room he wanted the wall space. While not willing to sell it all, we did agree on two pieces. Including the amazing die cut piece shown below which is wider than two Midway cabinets! Now how to get them from MA to IL without paying $150 to ship? Pete got the pieces packed up at his buddies sign shop and gave me the details. 48″ x 48″ x 2″ and about 18lbs, yeesh, this would be fun to ship. I tried a couple of the, “Anyone heading from MA to IL want to bring something back?” posts in the forums and almost got lucky, but ended up pricing out the shipping via ground service. I opted for FedEx which cost $64, very fair compared to the other pricing I got. $64 is a lot to spend on shipping for a cheap a** arcade collector like myself, but I figured what the heck, why not splurge and get something for myself? Before long I had the tracking info and the package was on its way.

Besides a slight snafu, and FedEx toying with my emotions, the package arrived safe and sound. I can’t really call it a package, it was more like a flat tank. Pete really went out of his way to make sure the artwork was packed safely, thanks Pete. It took me a few minutes to carefully undo the box as I didn’t want to slice the artwork. But here it is, two pieces of Willis Enviro-Graphics artwork to add to the collection. Now I just have to figure out where to hang it

This particular Willis replacement overlay does a good job at trying to keep the original feel of the game. With bright colors, fun character’s from the game, and the brick motif, it could actually be used as it was intended – to replace your worn out original overlay. NOS overlays are tough to find and reproduction cpo’s have long been sold out, so this replacement might be your only choice.

As a stand alone piece of arcade art the Willis Zoo Keeper is one of their better attempts. The eyes on the moose make the character look a little nutty, but perhaps the placement of the joystick has something to do with that. A little Disney-esque humor at Willis perhaps? Now when I see the Willis overlay applied to a control panel and put back on the game, I’m not so sure that I like it. I expect to see the original dark color scheme that worked so well, much better than the brightly contrasting light blue and yellow on the reproduction. I wonder if the artists working on these overlays were ever given a chance to look at an actual cabinet? I’m guessing no. While the Willis Zoo Keeper cpo isn’t perfect, when you have a torn up original, it just might have to do.

Now with every Willis overlay the production quality is excellent, and this overlay is no exception. 3M backer paper and adhesive, artwork screen printed on lexan, and die cut joystick and button holes. The replacement overlay was produced in 1983 by Willis and instead of a part number we get, Willis Replacement Overlay Zookeeper. This particular example still has all the die cut holes intact, which gives a better look at the complete artwork. A good one for the archive.

Now of course with every Willis overlay the production quality is excellent and this overlay is no exception. 3M backer paper and adhesive, artwork screen printed on lexan, and die cut joystick and button holes. The control panel overlay is labeled part number 2001 and was produced by Willis in 1983, which makes it one of their later production pieces. I try to find something I like on every piece of artwork, so on this one I’ll say the player one and player two select character works for me. If I’m not mistaken, this guy makes an appearance on a few Willis overlays, quite the character. Overall the cpo is in great shape and will make a nice addition to the archive.

I was really looking forward to opening up this package to get a first hand look at the artwork. I ran some errands with my kids, recapped a wg4900 series chassis, and just kept busy. I would check the FedEx website every 30 minutes or so to see if anything had changed. Nope, it was still on the truck for delivery. By about 6pm I started to get a little worried, but the status hadn’t changed so I figured the holiday packages had kept the driver behind schedule. At 8pm I figured I was screwed, but it wasn’t until 8:20pm that I saw this…

I could think of lots of things to say, but none of them are nice. It looks like I’ll have to wait until tomorrow. Stay tuned.

The sign has the standard Willis logo, date and trademark info right on the front, typical of Willis artwork. Being just a sticker, it wasn’t printed using the heavy duty 3M paper and adhesive, just a generic plain backing. I can’t recall ever seeing these on games back in the day, usually it was just a hand scrawled note that said “Out of order” taped to the bezel. Not sure if sticking one of these on a game would have been a good idea anyway, would they come off easily? Doubt it.

I had never heard of Enviro-graphics, or known about artwork packages that operators could use to decorate their arcade. I was too busy finding my next quarter for that new game, or waiting for the 6 tokens for $1 special at Aladdin’s Castle. Who paid attention to the décor? I vaguely recall the way my local arcade looked back in the day, with a simple neon exterior, lots of games inside and a pseudo space theme. The atmosphere did contribute to the overall memory, though my strongest memory seems to be of dark and smokey spaces, with lots of flashing lights and sounds! Even so, perhaps Willis had a good idea. Token signs, out of order signs, score boards, event schedules, specials, rules…all things the operator needed to communicate with his customers. The random space scene posters remind me more of the black light posters you’d find at Spencer’s gifts in the mall, along side the edible underwear. The brochure states that the posters were directly screened onto 1/8″ thick foam board, which made them more durable and easier to hang, but is also probably why so few (if any) survive today. Once they came off the wall if you couldn’t store them, they got tossed.

One thing I noticed is the apparent change in relationship between Willis and Wico around the time this stuff was being produced. If you recall my post about the partnership they shared, apparently it didn’t last or just wasn’t working out. Whatever the reasons, the brochure above is a lot different from the unopened one you see below. Dated September 10, 1982 it has the Wico name and distributor information prominently displayed. A few additional pieces of artwork can also be seen on the back. The almost identical brochure above has all traces of the Wico name removed and “Now operators can buy direct from Willis”. Interesting move and even before the industry crash really took hold. If you can shed any light on this relationship or if you have a Willis Enviro-Graphics poster you’d like to sell, let me know.

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.