1973's low budget horror fillm The Crazies features a silver bowl & ball design identical (albeit smaller) to those used in the Hallucimill storefront.

I captured the clip from The Crazies in slow motion, directly from my TV screen (quality isn't so great, but you get the idea) and posted it on youtube.com
Click here to view

Perhaps these were common novelty items in 70's (like a lava lamp), but I never saw them around at the time. I would love to find one the size seen in the The Crazies. They must have been mass produced because The Crazies did not have any budget for custom set design.

There definitely were these funcadelic objects around in the 70's. They usually comprised a highly reflective bowl and a rubber ball suspended on a cord or wire.

The concavity of the bowl would magnify the ball as it moved in and being rubber it would bounce out to give the illusion that it was beating.

The one I have is made of silver plastic.

The silver bowl & ball also make an apperance in the 1972 Television series THE SIXTH SENSE. Here's a couple screen grabs from the episode "I Do Not Belong to the Human World."



Appears to be the same size as used in The Crazies.

I'm surprised that nobody asked this: "Where can I get one?!"

I want one too. :)