Mr. Do!
Mr. Do White Sideart History
Mr. Do is quite a popular, classic game. Play it once and you will be hooked. For that reason, it appears that any original versions of this game are hard to come by. The popularity of the game drove it to have one of the most popular and successful conversion kits ever made and as a result, most of the Mr. Do games you come across and conversions. I have seen a ton of them in the cabinets with the presidential wood siding venire. They have everything, the marquee, the control panel artwork, but they have nothing on the sides, which, for a guy who loves sideart is really disappointing.
Here’s a little other bit about the game’s history. Apparently even what I thought was the original cabinet from Universal, isn’t even true. If this is even true (skeptical) the original Mr. Do had a black joystick, and came from Japan. Most of the common ones were made by Universal in a very similar looking cabinet, but were actually conversions from another game called Lady Bug, and had an orange joystick. Therefore the true-true original Mr. Do’s out there are even that much more scarce. Check out photos below of the most familiar Mr. Do cabinet.
Which brings me to the “White Sideart” version. I found out about this version / artwork in October of 2006. A friend of mine forwarded me an auction on ebay for a Mr. Do with some strange artwork on the side that I had never seen before. I didn’t think much of it, kept an eye on it, but it was about in Mass., so that would be quite a distance for this game.
Now, like I mentioned above, there were some conversion kits out there, possibly for both versions of the game, the white sideart and the regular version that most commonly had the green marquee. Some of the white conversion kits were more thoroughly applied than others, because the kit came with sideart but finding a machine with it applied is difficult. The artwork was printed on white with Mr. Do and his enemies in a maze like pattern with the cakes and fruits from the game. It is pretty different looking but I do like sideart, and in a way, I like this just as much as the original because the original was void of any real artwork other than the red lines on the side of the cabinet.
These are the photos that I have found so far of this cabinet. They are a little more plentiful in photos then they are in finding actual owners. Right now I know of none.
Please Contact Me With Information
If you own, or know anyone who owns one of these, or just know some more of the history of this particular version, I would love to know more. I would look to buy, but that is not the main idea. Most people who have rare, or hard to find games aren’t looking to just sell.
What I am looking for, is someone who would be willing to take some hi-res photos of the different pieces of artwork so that I can trace them in Illustrator and reproduce them for my own machine, and only my own machine.
If you can help me out, shoot me an email, I would really appreciate it. Any information at all would do.
However, as of this writing in February of 2007, I haven’t found a site that has the art, or anyone who is talking this much about this one piece of artwork. If you know that to not be true, please, I would be happy for you to show me any other sites, drop me a line.
15 most valuable classic arcade games
Back in June I had this idea, what are the most valuable arcade games? If there was a list of the 10 most valuable arcade games, what would they be and what would the prices be?
This list is highly subjective, one rare valuable arcade game is worth some amount to one collector and a different value to another collector. I will try to explain my criteria for this top fifteen list of most valuable arcades so read on.
Falcon made the sideart Mr. Do!?
Short note. I had someone contact me on my post earlier this week on another mention of white Mr. Do! machines in upstate New York. They said that these Mr. Do! machines were very similar to Crazy Kong and Crazy Kong Jr. cabinets made by Falcon. Same cabinet design same ‘water soluble sideart’ (This was an interesting comment, the idea being that the sideart would come off with water whether it was soluble or not).
I checked Xmission for photos of the cabinet without any luck. I also posted on the Klov forums looking for better photos of the Crazy Kong cabinet. It was not surprising that I got little help. But I did find one other decent photo and I can see some of the similarities in the cabinet design. Here they are. (more…)
Mr. Do! control panel overlay artwork
With my final exam having wrapped up tonight, I had a good part of the day to ‘play’. I started this over the weekend, I felt like I needed a small celebration to start me off for my three weeks off from my masters program.
Yesterday I started vectorizing a scan of an NOS Mr. Do! control panel overlay. Today I finished that artwork. (more…)
Another White Mr. Do! Mention
It’s taken about six months or so, but this arcade game blog is starting to get the volume and type of traffic I had always imagined. I had always hoped that by having a public website, I would get emails from people all over the United States giving me snippets of information about different arcade game projects. This time, it’s my beloved Mr. Do!
I got one the other day from a guy in NY who says that at one time a buddy of his bought 15-20 of the rare white character sideart Mr. Do! machines in an auction. (more…)
Mr. Do! Conversion Control Panel Artwork
I saw an eBay auction a week back or so for a Mr. Do! conversion that had some conversion artwork on the control panel that I hadn’t seen before. I thought it was worth posting here at the very least to see if someone else has seen this control panel overlay artwork and has any information about it. (more…)
New (old) White Mr. Do! Mention
Was online talking to g3n3r1c (Klov forums) tonight about reproduction artwork and he mentioned that he used to work for an auction house in Royal Oak called SkyRocket Amusements. Not only did 200+ games come through per week, he said that he saw one of the white Mr. Do!’s. (more…)
Another Rare Mr. Do! Bezel on ebay
The second in a little over six months, here is another one of the rare artwork Mr. Do! bezels on ebay. This bezel appears to be in better condition than the Mr. Do! bezel I got back in late July of 2007 for $13 ($12 of which was shipping).
I could care less about an NOS Mr. Do! variant marquee, the marquee that actually goes with the white sideart Mr. Do!. I would like to have this version, but I would take one that is used, I would actually prefer it that way. Then there is no decision about keeping the marquee as a New Old Stock piece of artwork or not.
Hard to justify buying the two pieces of Mr. Do! artwork. With a starting bid of $19.99 and $20 shipping, a best case scenario o f $40 to have a duplicate, but better condition bezel with the marquee….it would be nice to have, but I would have to find a buyer for my other bezel first to rationalize that in my mind. Either way, I’ll be watching it:)
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