1955 · Williams
Snafu
Sunny small-town high street, red-brick corner shop with striped awning, green-gabled building, orange-red multi-storey building, pavement kerb and road, green fire hydrant, street lamp, potted shrubs and trees, pennant flags at left edge and blue sky with white clouds.
- Year
- 1955
- Maker
- Williams
- Type
- Electro-mechanical
- Display
- Backglass lights
- Players
- 1
Made by
- Design
- Harry Mabs
- Art
- George Molentin
Vision analysis
On the backglass
Written by a machine from the photos, so details may be off.
Backglass
- red
- blue
- yellow
- green
Fingerprint: SNAFU on maroon open-top vintage car, huge red numbered roulette wheel left half, blonde woman in red top yellow skirt from behind, high street with BON TON shop striped awning, SPECIAL segment wheel band, small-town americana
The huge red numbered wheel with the word SPECIAL on it fills the entire left half of the glass. The most memorable figure is the blonde woman in a red top and yellow skirt, drawn from behind in the right foreground, looking back over her shoulder. A maroon open-top vintage car carries the single word SNAFU in enormous yellow black-outlined capitals down its side. Behind it is a cheerful high street of brick shops with a BON TON sign, a red-and-white striped awning and windows labelled 900 and 700. An angled maroon MILLIONS banner with numerals 1 through 8 runs across the top right sky.
Setting
- Sunny small-town high street
- Red-brick corner shop with striped awning
- Green-gabled building
- Orange-red multi-storey building
- Pavement kerb and road
- Green fire hydrant
- Street lamp
- Potted shrubs and trees
- Pennant flags at left edge
- Blue sky with white clouds
Symbols
- Roulette-style numbered wheel
- Special segment band
- Millions number banner
- Round car wheels with whitewalls
- Striped shop awning
- Fire hydrant
- Street lamp
- Pennant flags
- Hedge shrubs
Lettering
- Bold sans-serif capitals throughout: cream millions and cream 1-8 numerals on a maroon banner; large yellow numerals with black outlines around the wheel; heavy red special block capitals on a yellow band; huge slanted yellow snafu capitals with black outline along the car flank; white serif bon ton on a dark shop board.
Themes
- Humour word gag
- Small-town high street
- Vintage open-top car
- Roulette wheel
- Score values
- Mid-century americana
Title on it
- Snafu
Text on it
- MILLIONS
- 1
- 2
- 3
- 4
- 5
- 6
- 7
- 8
- SPECIAL
- 20,000
- 10 000
- 100 000
- NUMBER SCORE
- SNAFU
- BON TON
- 900
- 700
| Kind | Description |
|---|---|
| Woman | Blonde woman with a short bobbed coiffure, seen from behind, standing on the pavement in the right foreground; wears a short-sleeved red top, a knee-length yellow skirt and red high-heeled shoes, head turned back over her left shoulder towards the car. |
| Man | Young man seated at the wheel of the car, dark hair, smiling, wearing a red top. |
| Man | Second young man seated beside him in the car, fair-haired, smiling, wearing a yellow shirt, one arm resting along the door edge. |
Bright flat-colour comic-style backglass. The left half is dominated by a huge red roulette-style wheel with a white rim studded with small white dots and oversized yellow numerals 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 spaced around its edge. Inside it, a red-and-yellow segmented ring carries the values 20,000, 10 000 and 100 000, with a small red centre disc reading NUMBER SCORE, and the word SPECIAL in large red block letters on a yellow band across the lower part of the wheel. Across the top right, an angled dark maroon banner reads MILLIONS in cream capitals, followed by large numerals 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 with pale blue dots between them. The background is a sunny small-town high street under a light blue sky with fluffy white clouds: a red-brick corner shop with a dark signboard reading BON TON and a red-and-white striped awning, a green-gabled building and a taller orange-red building, all with white-framed windows marked 900 and 700. Two young men sit in a maroon open-top vintage car with SNAFU painted in huge yellow letters outlined in black along its flank, chrome radiator and lamps, and red wheels with whitewall tyres. On the pavement a blonde woman in a red top and yellow skirt is seen from behind, looking back over her shoulder. A green fire hydrant stands at the bottom right.