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Have you ever wanted your very own tabletop pinball machine? Have you ever wanted your very own tabletop pinball machine that you could reconfigure on the fly in order to create new challenges and adventures? Have you ever wanted your very own  tabletop pinball machine that you could reconfigure on the fly in order to create new challenges and adventures that didn’t cost an arm and a leg?  Have you ever wanted your very own  tabletop pinball machine that you could reconfigure on the fly in order to create new challenges and adventures that didn’t cost an arm and a leg AND you could eat the ball when you’re done playing!!?? Well have I got a TREAT for you!? In this episode of the Dandy Fun House we’re going to learn about the educational toy making powerhouse of the company THAMES AND KOSMOS who are currently nominated in several categories for a coveted 2025 TOTY (Toy of the year) AWARD AND we’re going to unbox, assemble, play and review their 2025 TOTY AWARD NOMINATED STEM experiment kit: PINBALL MACHINE MAKER – GUMBALL RALLY! Are you ready to rally my pinball-loving friends? Let’s step into the Fun House!

Hello and welcome to the Dandy Fun House, video show, podcast and blog! This is where flop our flippers and flappers for the most frivolitizing retro pop culture, toys and games and all the fun stuff you can chew with your mouth open! I’m your host Neil Dandy and this is our first episode of the year of our Lord and Savior and I’m kicking things off with a full-on review of PINBALL MACHINE MAKER: GUMBALL RALLY by Thames and Kosmos! If you’re watching the video version of this show you might notice my background isn’t quite as snazzy as it usually is and that’s because instead of having colorful draping or a graphical animated background, I just have what’s actually behind the Dandy curtain which is my production and tinkering room that’s currently being overhauled for increased efficiency, productivity and capability. But for today it just kind of looks like a mess. If you wanna make an omelet, you have to break a few eggs, folks. 

OK we’re going to get into this review of the PINBALL MACHINE MAKER GUMBALL RALLY… BUT FIRST! I want to rally your attention over to these sweet Dandy Fun House t-shirts! Let them know you’ve arrived ready for 2025 looking oh-so Dandy! As you might have guessed, for your wearing convenience we’ve included a front and a back so you don’t get cold! But wait! There’s more! Not only do you get a front and a back, but we’ve also custom-cut 4 special penetration-points perfect for poking your arms, head and torso through! Now how much would you pay? Prices are subject to change so I can’t really tell you here, otherwise a hundred years from now I’d have to sell them to you at 2025 prices, but head over to the Dandy Fun Shop at dandyfunhouse.com or if you are watching on YouTube, we also have a Dandy Fun Shop there as well!

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Alright! PINBALL MACHINE MAKER: GUMBALL RALLY by Thames and Kosmos! I first heard about this company Thames and Kosmos while I was putting together the year-end episode for 2024. I had never heard of these guys but they were nominated in several categories for TOTY Awards. (Toty stands for toy of the year). I was looking over all the different toys and picking the ones I found most interesting in each category and Thames and Kosmos not only kept coming up over and over, but I kept picking their products as the ones I found most interesting. And I was so intrigued by one of their products in particularly, the PINBALL MACHINE MAKER: GUMBALL RALLY where you assemble your own actual working tabletop pinball machine that you can reconfigure at will and you shoot a gumball that you can actually eat when you’re done. Of course how are you going to play after you’ve eaten all the gum balls? That will be another issue for another time. But anyway, for the longest time, I have been wanting to incorporate pinball into this show. I would really like to have an expert in the industry send me segments on exciting new machines and retrospectives on pinball classics and make it a regular occurrence here on the Dandy Fun House. If that’s you, please reach out. I want to make this happen. Anyhoo, this seemed like a great way to start dipping this show’s toes into the pinball waters. 

Now before we unbox, assemble and play this thing, I’d like to dig into this cool company Thames and Kosmos. 

THAMES AND KOSMOS HISTORY

Thames & Kosmos was founded in 2001 when a small science center and toy store called the Thames Science Center, located in Newport, Rhode Island, teamed up with the publishing house Franckh-Kosmos Verlags to create science kits for the U.S. market. 

Kosmos was originally founded as a book publisher in 1822 by Johann Friedrich Franckh. 

After 100 years of publishing, In 1922 Kosmos published its first science kit aimed at  children and young adults with hands-on experiments. We’re talking chemistry sets, physics labs, electronics kits and much more. These days, in conjunction with Thames, Thames and Kosmos has diversified into almost every area in science and have been a virtual and literal conveyor belt of award winning science-based toys and games loved the world over. 

I could start naming off products of theirs but I would seriously be here all day and honestly they’ve got so much cool stuff I wouldn’t know where to start. If you’d like to explore for yourself, just head over to thamesandkosmos.com and check them out for yourself. 

As for me, I think it’s time to check out this little goody of theirs that I actually picked up at HOBBY LOBBY because that’s where I found the best price and they had it in stock along with a very good selection of other Thames and Kosmos educational kits. Sort of in the area with the model car kits. This right here is the (as of the time of this production) TOTY AWARD NOMINATED PINBALL MACHINE MAKER: GUMBALL RALLY kit! 

Supposedly this kit right here not only lets you build your own actual working tabletop pinball machine, but supposedly you can configure it in about ten different ways. Well, we’re going to find out right now! Let’s crack it open but first let’s uh let’s have a look over the box.

OUTER PACKAGING:

Looking at the box here I’m gonna say the front is rather sterile. When I first started looking into this I didn’t really realize that it was an educational kit and the the looks of it sort of seemed to imply that it’s got kind of a Sharper Image kind of look about it. You know it’s got that kind of educational toy thing going on. Ages six through twelve plus. Well you know that plus is good. The hobby lobby sticker is still on it.

You know most toys and games I get have got a little snazzier packaging but Thames and Kosmos kind of has their own thing here. I do think they should jazz it up a little bit though. I think they could uh stand with some good marketing. Now looking at the sides you get a picture of one of the configurations on the side it it looks like they’ve got nutritional facts for the gumball.

That’s hilarious um that’s right because it does have an edible part of it and and all the the different sides look pretty much the same. Let’s check out the back here. A whole lot of stuff to read… Engineer the ultimate gumball rally. Alright sounds good works for me! 88 pieces 10 experiments and 20 manual pages! I don’t really want to read 20 pages of a manual here. I just want to check this thing out and play with it and show it to you guys otherwise we could be here all day…

UNBOXING:

Let’s go ahead and pop open the packaging here and get our first look. Dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun dun.

And not much to see just just brown packaging but let’s see what happens when I unveil stuff. OkaY NOW we’ve got some color! Oh boy look at all this stuff!

This looks like stuff for the backboard. We could be here a while doing this…

All kinds of colorful parts and tubes and runways and this looks like part of the part of the playing field here. I think I might want to just do a box dump! There’s so much stuff in here!

I don’t really like reading instructions so wherever the instructions are we’ll set those aside. I’m just going to start see if I can actually put this thing together without reading a whole bunch of instructions.

ASSEMBLY:

Now that it’s all put together, I think the only thing left to do is to play some pinball!

And I will say it tends to work very very well the the way that they channel the gumballs down into the into the mover-a-longer. They can get stuck though…

It actually flipping works! Oh this is great!

I mean it’s not a good pinball machine by any stretch of the imagination but it is a pinball machine and it works.

And you can’t get too crazy with it otherwise the the gumballs fly all over the place and then you’ve got an ant problem.

FINAL RANKING:

My thoughts on this? Well… it needs more attractive packaging for the marketing purposes but it’s an educational toy and it’s packaged like it’s an educational thing to take more seriously. It’s something to where a teacher could bring this in for their kids at school and not be looked at like they’re having nothing but play time. They can still look like they’re doing their job which I guess might be the point.

Is it what I expected? In some ways yes in some ways no. I thought it was going to be battery powered somehow for lights and sounds and audible effects. I didn’t expect it just to work under its own kinetic power and springs and things like that although I am happy that it did. I’m happy it didn’t take batteries. I think it’s a great lesson in physics and engineering.

Did it spark my imagination? Heck yes! I think kids are going to have a great time with this and they’re going to get a gumball.

So how am I going to score this on a scale from one to ten? I got a deductive point for a little bit of lackluster packaging. Although I think I understand why it might be this way. Oh there’s a bunch of decals I didn’t stick on it I should have. Maybe another time.

But other than that the fact that you can make an actual working pinball machine and it actually works okay. I bet you if I got some little silver ball bearings I bet something that were properly round I bet you that it would work a lot smoother and a whole lot better. You really have to lock things in and it’s real thing really easy for things to come unlocked off the cardboard backboard but I mean it actually works. I’m giving this a nine out of ten.

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Okay well how’s 2025 treating you so far? Maybe you’re listening to this or watching this in 2026 or 2027 or beyond. Hello year 3000! Does everybody speak in echoes echoes echoes? Do you live underwater water? Water water like the Jonas Brothers song song song song? All right I gotta get along. You guys stay dandy. I’m gonna play more pinball. Come back here real soon right here to the Dandy Fun House where everything is always FUN AND DANDY!