We picked up our Kangaroo last night. For any of you out there that have not tried to move a full size Kangaroo, they are ridiculously heavy (duct tape their mouth closed before moving, or you will definitely be bitten).

The seller swapped the monitor out. This one has a little burn in, but not bad and everything is working for the most part. When I first plugged it in, the wife got the first game and whacked a few monkeys into monkey heaven (or monkey hell if they were bad, and these monkeys were very bad). There was no sound, but it was working before we moved it. I wiggled the connector on the sound board and it came back.

The overall condition is pretty good. The side art looks great at first, but when you look closer you can see some scratches through it. Some one scratched a big X through the baby kangaroo on the right side.

Why would they do something like that!? If anything, they should have scratched the damn monkeys! There is no justice in this world.

The game had no keys for the locks in the front, and a missing lock in the back. I had visions of a coin box full of quarters, grabbed my drill and drilled the locks out. I found 2 quarters, and the original manual and schematics stuffed in there. I didn’t hit a jackpot, but at least I don’t need to buy a manual now.

The marquee bulb was burned out, so I figured I would replace it. Upon unscrewing the marquee brackets, I found a former residence of a mouse. MICE ARE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE INSIDE KANGAROOS! Only baby kangaroos should be in there!

Someday I’ll tackle fixing this up to make it a bit nicer, but for now it stays in the gameroom, which now looks like this:

Last week I won an auction on eBay for a Kangaroo! (the game, not the marsupial). We are definitely going to have to start rearranging furniture soon if this keeps up. I got a good deal on it, and it was listed as working and in good shape. I went to pick it up Monday night, and when the seller powered it up something screwy went wrong with the monitor. That’s about as technical as I can get at this point. It’s my official opinion that something went screwy. It played blind. He shut it off and turned it back on and a little bit of something showed quickly on the screen and then it made a noise that sounded almost like a fuse or something went and then nothing. I’ve heard stories about flybacks going bad, but I didn’t see any visible signs of burning around it.

The guy seemed very nice, and felt bad that it decided to die right when I came to get it. He’s having his friend put in another monitor, and hopefully I’ll be picking it up this weekend. My wife does not care for monkeys. Hopefully this weekend she will be able to punch some in the face.

On a side note, while I was there the seller gave me a tour of his collection and I was amazed. He’s into older games (50s, 60s, 70s), pinball, and especially antique slot machines. The place looked like something that should be in a magazine or on tv. He had a giant 2 floor building with several rooms full of amazing toys. The drive there was worth it just to see them.