Get the best things to do in NJ sent right to your inbox with our Weekend Buzz newsletter.
Thaddeus Cooper still remembers his first time playing Skee-Ball in the early 1970s on the Point Pleasant Beach boardwalk. “I was hooked from the start,” says Cooper, who grew up in Union Township. “It was different than any game I’d ever played.”
His fascination with the game, invented in Vineland by Joseph Fourestier Simpson and patented in 1908, led Cooper, now 63, and his wife, Kevin Kreitman, to direct And the Balls Roll On…: The Real Story of the Beautiful Game of Skee-Ball.
Available on Amazon, Apple TV and Google Play, the documentary blends archival with contemporary footage shot in Atlantic City, Lavallette, Seaside Heights, Wildwood and Vineland.
Simpson incorporated elements of bowling and skiing into the game, in which players roll a grapefruit-size wooden ball. Kreitman, who wrote the screenplay, says that the keys to its success are “the game’s simplicity, the ball hop, the elevated target.”
Simpson, who sold his rights to Skee-Ball in 1914 and died at 77 in 1930, wouldn’t live to see the game become an international success story.
Innovations over the years have added to the game’s popularity. They include shortening the alleys from between 32 and 36 feet to about 10 feet, adding 100-point targets, and the automatic dispensing of prize tickets. One thing remains the same, however.
“Skee-Ball is easy to play, but hard to master,” Cooper says.
