All of the photos in this installment are via Rad Arcade’s Vintage Arcade Pictures and Magazine Scans set on Flickr. The set makes up more than half of the Growing Up In Arcades group and is a hugely important cultural document.
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(1) Damn, it’s hard out there for a pimp. (2) How awesome is that raised platform in the background? Talk about product placement. That’s Tempest on the left, so this must be at least ’81. I think that’s Turbo on the right, which also came out in ’81. (Click on the pics for a bigger image.)
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Ladies and Gentlemen, we are floating in space.
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Check out what’s playing on the big screen in the background.
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“Here comes John Travolta. Let me just flash my bell-bottoms…”
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“Over here, John!”
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The wall art. Gnarly.
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What a great shot. I knew kids that never skipped school to go to the arcade. I just wasn’t one of them.
2 Warps to Neptune 
The amount of detail and planning that went into some of these places (i.e., SPACE STATION and that RECREATION DECK) is amazing. That other crazy portal right below the recreation deck pic is also insane…with a LIGHTED floor!!
Ironic that a place called Star Command would be totally low-key in comparison. I guess some places really indulged in creating a total immersion into that electronic, futuristic escape, while others just relied on the arcade games to do so.
I still don’t get why L.A./SoCal never really went that far.
LoL, those total metal “quarter dispensers” that those guys have in front of Time Out. Talk about obsolescence. Those things are long gone. I always dug those things.
Just think, those guys are somewhere out there maybe. It would be great to hear their stories.
Yeah, I don’t remember any space-themed arcades in the So Cal area, except for the Disneyland Starcade, and that wasn’t nearly as elaborate as these others. We had Malibu Grand Prix, Chuck E. Cheese–I remember at least one Time Out. Maybe they figured we had the beach and didn’t need space? They were wrong.
I would love to interview these guys who worked in arcades back in the day. Those quarter dispensers had a very tasty sound. Even today, when I see a pile of quarters somewhere, I can’t help thinking of all the games I could play.
When I was a kid I used to think those quarter dispensers were some kind of complex machinery, and that it was a total privilege to own and operate one (I always wanted one of my own).
Funny; as time went by, those “mobile” change-makers were replaced by those booths with a dood just sitting inside, literally only waiting for people to hand him dollars for him to break into quarters, or to be summoned if one of the machines wasn’t working. The Westworld Arcade in Westwood had the classic setup for that.