A typical Whac-A-Mole machine consists of a waist-level cabinet with a play area and display screen, and a large, soft mallet.

Five to eight holes in the play area top are filled with small, plastic, cartoonish moles, or other characters, which pop up at random.

If the player does not strike a mole within a certain time or with enough force, it eventually sinks back into its hole with no score.

In this version, there is a large bank of individual Whac-A-Mole games linked together, and the goal is to be the first player to reach a designated score (rather than hitting the most moles within a certain time).

[1] Mogura Taiji was invented in 1975 by Kazuo Yamada of TOGO, based on ten of the designer's pencil sketches from 1974.

[7] In the late 1970s, arcade centers in Japan were flooded with similar, derivative "mole buster" games.

Mogura Taiji made its North American debut in November 1976 at the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions (IAAPA) show, where it drew attention for being the first mallet game of its type.

Gerald Denton and Donny Anderson saw it and saw great potential for converting it into a carnival game by putting it in a trailer.

[21] The timing of the moles was originally controlled by tones from an audio tape which then drove an air cylinder system.

[22] The term "whac-a-mole" (or "whack-a-mole") is often used colloquially to refer to a situation characterized by a series of futile, Sisyphean tasks, where the successful completion of one just yields another popping up elsewhere.

[23] In an Internet context, it refers to the challenge of fending off recurring spammers, vandals, pop-up ads, malware, ransomware, and other distractions, annoyances, and harm.

[26] In a military context it refers to ostensibly inferior opposing troops continuing to appear after previous waves have been eliminated.