Ball-Holding Toys

Ball-holding toys are Interactive Toys that catch the ball and keep it — themed stand-ins for plain Ball Locks, usually staging a Multiball. The catch is the show: a rotary fishing reel locks the balls on Fish Tales (1992, Williams),^[1] Thing’s disembodied hand plucks the ball from the playfield of The Addams Family (1992, Bally) by magnet and drops it below,^[2][3] the ball flies more than twenty inches through the air into the steamer trunk of Houdini: Master of Mystery (2017, American Pinball)^[4] and Soundwave’s chest opens as a working cassette door to lock pinballs on Transformers: More Than Meets the Eye (2026, Stern).^[5]