THIS GALLERY OF PINGBALL MACHINE PHOTOS ISN'T AS INTERESTING AS I'D HOPED IT'D BE, SO YOU MIGHT LIKE TO IMAGINE THE PEOPLE IN THEM ARE POPSTARS

Before there were video games there was pingball! Please, what is pingball? It was a game in which players would "ping" a "ball" around a special type of table called a pingball table. It was invented by Pingu.

Here is a gallery of vintage images showing people playing pingball, though sadly it's not quite as interesting as we might've all hoped for.

Fortunately, there's a way to remedy this: by pretending that all of the people paying the pingball are popstars - the most important and coolest people around! 

Look: it's the band Supergrass - Gaz, Daz and Ba-Nimbus - and they're playing a sweet game of pingball!

Why, it's the Bohemian Rhapsoder himself - none other than the King of Pop, The Queen's Freddie Mercury... and he's leaning on a pingball machine, rubbing his forearms against it in order to create sufficient friction to set it ablaze!

Typical crazy popstar antics!!!

This arcade is full of the pop stars of the day! L-R: Sonny Bono (arm only), Sonny Rollins, Bono, Henry Rollins, and The Rollins Tones! And get this: they're all playing pingball!!!!

Male-female duos are a rarity in the pop landscape these days, but there were loads of them back in the 60s and 70s, or whenever this photo was taken. And who is this particularly memorable pairing, sandwiched in twixt the pingball machines? Why, it's Art Garfunkle and Dutch!

One... two... three... four... four members of the pop band Oasis, seen here playing pingball.

L-R: Madonna, Lady Gaga, Paul Simon and Dutch's Father - two of whom are playing pingball, and two of whom are talking about how they are soon going to be playing pingball. Nice one, guys! Love it.

It isn't every day that you get to see The Pet Shop Boys playing pingball - but today you do. Today is the day that you get to see The Pet Shop Boys, Neil Tennant and little Bruno Tot, stood side-by-side playing pingball.

And here we see The Who, best known for their pingball-celebrating song, I Am A Pingball Wizard:

I am a pingball wizard,
I'm not a lizard,
Or a gizzard in a blizzard,
Ping! Ping! Pingball!
Ping ping ping ping ping ping ping ping!
Murder everyone!

Hello there, skinny feller. I see that you're all hunched over that pingball machine. Shouldn't you be off finishing your next album, seeing as you are a member of the Baha Men?!

For whom doth the pingball bell toll in our final picture? Why, it's The Specials AKA, and the lady one is doing her diarrhoea all over the pingball table!!!! Thrrrrrrrpssssssss! Pingball? More like PONGball!!!!

FROM THE ARCHIVE:
​HOW THE GAMES COMPANIES GOT THEIR NAMES
10 VINTAGE MECHANICAL ARCADE GAMES
​A TRIBUTE TO STEVE JOBS