New wave in bowling is Cosmic

David Renzi

Friday, July 19, 1996 | 11:59 a.m.

Dale Savage is always looking for the red head. Now, don't get the wrong idea. It isn't the female variety, in which case he'd be looking for the "redhead" -- one word.

Nope, it's the red head, all right. The red headpin -- a Pavlovian image that can mean free hot dogs and drinks for the lucky bowler when it descends in a group of pins.

It's one of the attractions of the weekly "Rock 'n' Bowl" at Mahoney's Silver Nugget, which introduced it six weeks ago in an effort to make the most of its slow time (midnight to 4 a.m. Friday night-Saturday morning) and attract youths to bowling.

Here's how it works: When Savage sees a red headpin, he hauls butt over to the lane with a wireless mike and propositions the bowler.

Get a strike, get a soda.

Roll the ball between your legs, knock down five, get a hot dog.

"He's my buddy," Keitha Munerlyn, 18, says of Savage. "He usually makes me hit only 6 or 7 (pins)."

Of course, the free drinks and food aren't the only incentives. As the name implies, half the attraction of "Rock 'n' Bowl" is the "rock." Savage provides it with a double turntable and a battery of speakers from his regular gig as a disc jockey.

In addition to the music, "Rock 'n' Bowl" offers bowlers another sensory sensation for their $12. Except for the lights illuminating the pins, the lanes are otherwise dark.

"It's more like bowling in a nightclub than bowling in a bowling center," says Steve Lown, general manager of the bowling center.

However, the Silver Nugget soon will replace it with something called "Cosmic Bowling," the trademark name for a game patented by Brunswick (the alley people) in an attempt to revive the flagging industry and attract young bowlers.

"Cosmic Bowling" includes rock music and darkness, but goes "Rock 'n' Bowl" one better with lasers, fog, black lights, glow-in-the-dark pins and a spinning disco ball.

Lown says the Silver Nugget will offer it midnight to 4 a.m. Fridays and Saturdays and 8 p.m. Sundays. The Showboat will also implement "Cosmic Bowling" soon.

The price of the equipment necessary to outfit Sunset's 40 lanes would run around $90,000, he says. The installation would run another $25,000.

"It depends how involved you get," Lown says. "You can probably spend as little as $10,000 to get it started, or as much as $100,000. We're gonna be somewhere between that. We're spending a good amount that's gonna make it very nice."

"I think it's a great idea," says Bud Lang, assistant general manager of the Sunset Lanes. "The concept is great. But really, in our situation in Las Vegas, with most of the bowling centers not having open lanes until 11 or 11:30 (p.m.) almost seven nights a week, it isn't a necessity.

"Other parts of the country don't have late leagues. Most of 'em are dying on the late shift. In most areas, you can start 'Cosmic Bowling' by 9 (p.m.). In my case, I couldn't start it till 10:30 or 11."