# Ep 30: Off The Rails with Jeff Rivera

**Source:** LoserKid Pinball Podcast  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2020-03-20  
**Duration:** 78m 1s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://zencastr.com/z/RSPWmcwx

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## Analysis

Jeff Rivera returns to the Loser Kid Pinball Podcast after a year-long absence to discuss personal struggles with OCD and divorce, alongside broader pinball industry impacts from COVID-19. The conversation shifts from mental health advocacy to economic uncertainty affecting manufacturers and the community, with uncertainty about upcoming game announcements and event timelines.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Jeff Rivera sold almost his entire pinball collection (went from 17 machines to 2) to fund OCD treatment — _Jeff directly states: 'I sold almost my entire pinball collection to fund that' and 'I went from 17 machines to two real fast'_
- [HIGH] Jeff has been separated since fall 2019 and has not seen his children or dog since December 7th — _Jeff: 'I've been separated since fall, but it's been kind of crazy... I have not seen my kids or my dog since December 7th'_
- [HIGH] Zach Minney (Flippin' Out Pinball) reported that business has not slowed down significantly yet due to COVID-19 — _Josh: 'Zach Minney... said, so far, that hasn't been such a slowdown'_
- [MEDIUM] Deep Root's Robert Mueller has sufficient funds to weather the economic crisis — _Jeff: 'Deep Root's fallback is Robert. He has the funds to actually weather the storm'_
- [MEDIUM] Smaller manufacturers like Spooky and JJP lack volume to weather economic downturns like larger manufacturers — _Jeff: 'you're going to see spooky hit to an extent because they just don't have the same volume that Stern does to float'_
- [HIGH] Haggis Pinball representative Damien Kelt cannot travel to America due to airport shutdowns — _Josh: 'poor damien over at with kelts over at haggis pinball he's no longer coming to america because they've shut down virtually the airports for him'_
- [HIGH] Texas Pinball Festival and Deep Root launch have been cancelled/postponed — _Josh: 'we are all in this weird zone where we were ramping up for this big Deep Root launch and Texas Pinball Festival, but it's all gone. Every last bit of it.'_
- [HIGH] Josh Rivera attended a court date in California and subsequently developed a cough after contact with NBA player Donovan Mitchell — _Josh: 'The day before Donovan Mitchell got his positive test, I was talking with him in person and I ended up developing a cough like right after... I had to go get tested'_
- [MEDIUM] Stern's next major game announcement (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) timeline is uncertain — _Scott speculating about TMNT announcement: 'what happens to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles now I mean usually the schedule is as TPF happens then Stern reveals not even like two days later do you think that pushes back Ninja Turtles'_

### Notable Quotes

> "I sold almost my entire pinball collection to fund that. And then just, um, to take one more slap on the face and really not a lot of people know this yet, but, um, I'm going through a divorce on top of it all"
> — **Jeff Rivera**, ~15:00
> _Reveals major personal crisis driving absence from pinball community and podcast_

> "I have OCD and it's not like the wash my hands 500 times OCD. It's called intrusive thoughts. And I have things that hop in my head and I have no control over them at all."
> — **Jeff Rivera**, ~12:00
> _Candid disclosure of mental health struggle, normalizes discussion of OCD beyond stereotypes_

> "Your brain is another organ in the body. And so if people had issues with their liver, or if they had issues with their kidney or their heart. There's no sort of stigma with that."
> — **Josh Roop**, ~25:00
> _Frames mental health as medical issue deserving same support as physical illness_

> "I don't see how a pinball is a complete luxury item. I don't see how people when they're having their decrease and the government's talking about giving everybody a thousand dollars to help them make ends meet... It's got to affect us in the next two to three months."
> — **Josh Roop**, ~40:00
> _Economic analysis of COVID-19 impact on discretionary pinball spending_

> "Stern is the biggest company out there and they are dominating the market. So I think they will have to scale down a little bit, but the bottom line is they're the ones who are still manufacturing."
> — **Jeff Rivera**, ~48:00
> _Positions Stern as most resilient manufacturer during economic crisis_

> "Pinball is a weird thing. People expect a certain cadence of releases and announcements. I mean, yeah, time's coming to show the next game, but I don't know."
> — **Jeff Rivera**, ~52:00
> _Reflects uncertainty about marketing timelines for upcoming game reveals_

> "Within 48 hours, it was a, yeah, I think we'll still be able to go forward. It's not global to, yeah, it's off. It's over."
> — **Josh Roop**, ~58:00
> _Captures rapid shift from normalcy to crisis regarding event cancellations_

> "I'm all alone in a six bedroom house trying to make ends meet. Like it's really weird. It's been a, you know, for the past 10 years, been a pretty noisy house and lively."
> — **Jeff Rivera**, ~30:00
> _Conveys isolation and emotional toll of separation and collection liquidation_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Jeff Rivera | person | Co-founder of pinball podcasting, IFPA organizer, returning guest; currently managing OCD treatment, divorce, and financial recovery from collection liquidation |
| Josh Roop | person | Co-host of Loser Kid Pinball Podcast; anesthesiologist; possible COVID-19 exposure connection to Donovan Mitchell |
| Scott Larson | person | Co-host of Loser Kid Pinball Podcast; recovering from varicose vein surgery |
| Stern Pinball | company | Largest pinball manufacturer; positioned as most resilient during economic downturn; TMNT announcement timing uncertain |
| Deep Root Pinball | company | Boutique manufacturer with delayed product launch due to COVID-19; owner Robert Mueller has personal funds to weather crisis |
| Spooky Pinball | company | Smaller manufacturer expected to be hit harder by economic downturn due to lower production volume than Stern |
| Jersey Jack Pinball (JJP) | company | Mid-size manufacturer expected to face economic headwinds from COVID-19 |
| Haggis Pinball | company | Manufacturer unable to attend events due to airport closures; representative Damien Kelt stranded |
| Texas Pinball Festival | event | Major pinball event cancelled due to COVID-19; traditionally hosts Stern game announcements |
| Deep Root Launch | event | Product debut event cancelled due to COVID-19 |
| Zach Minney | person | Owner of Flippin' Out Pinball; reported minimal business slowdown early in COVID-19 pandemic |
| Robert Mueller | person | Owner of Deep Root Pinball; has personal financial reserves |
| Damien Kelt | person | Associated with Haggis Pinball; unable to travel to America due to airport closures |
| Christian Line (Dr. Pinn) | person | Anesthesiologist; discussed COVID-19 hospital protocols with Josh |
| Donovan Mitchell | person | NBA player; tested positive for COVID-19; had recent contact with Josh Roop |
| Rudy Gobert | person | NBA player; first confirmed positive case; triggered NBA shutdown |
| Pinball Life | company | Pinball parts supplier mentioned in economic discussion |
| Hot Wheels | game | Recent/upcoming pinball game title; minimal enthusiasm expressed |
| Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles | game | Expected Stern announcement; timing now uncertain due to COVID-19; speculation about Venus variant |
| Twilight Zone | game | Jeff Rivera's all-time favorite machine; previously owned for 12+ years; was liquidated |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Mental health and OCD, COVID-19 pandemic economic impact on pinball industry, Personal crisis and collection liquidation, Divorce and separation
- **Secondary:** Manufacturer resilience during economic downturn, Event cancellations and announcement timelines, IFPA and tournament participation
- **Mentioned:** Movies and media recommendations

### Sentiment

**Mixed** (-0.3) — Episode balances heavy personal disclosure and vulnerability with moments of humor and community support. Dominant sentiment is serious/somber regarding Jeff's mental health and personal crisis, but podcast hosts affirm importance of normalizing mental health discussion. Economic analysis of COVID-19 impact is cautious/uncertain. Movie discussion provides lighter tone at episode end.

### Signals

- **[business_signal]** COVID-19 pandemic creating significant economic uncertainty for pinball manufacturers; luxury discretionary spending expected to decline sharply in 2-3 months (confidence: high) — Josh: 'I don't see how people when they're having their decrease and the government's talking about giving everybody a thousand dollars to help them make ends meet... It's got to affect us in the next two to three months'
- **[community_signal]** Hosts emphasize importance of staying connected to people struggling with mental health; normalize discussion of brain/mental health as medical issue deserving same support as physical illness (confidence: high) — Josh Roop: 'the best thing to do is to stay involved with the person... the best thing to do is to reach out and to let them know that, hey, you're still thinking about them'
- **[event_signal]** Texas Pinball Festival and Deep Root product launch cancelled; Stern game announcement timelines (TMNT) now uncertain (confidence: high) — Josh: 'we are all in this weird zone where we were ramping up for this big Deep Root launch and Texas Pinball Festival, but it's all gone'
- **[market_signal]** Smaller pinball manufacturers (Spooky, JJP) more vulnerable to economic downturn than Stern due to lower production volume; Haggis Pinball international operations disrupted (confidence: medium) — Jeff: 'you're going to see spooky hit to an extent because they just don't have the same volume that Stern does to float'
- **[personnel_signal]** Jeff Rivera absent from pinball community for ~1 year due to intensive OCD treatment and divorce proceedings; severely reduced IFPA tournament participation (6 events in Texas vs. typical higher volume) (confidence: high) — Jeff: 'I only made it to like six IFPA events last year in the state. That's very low for me.'
- **[market_signal]** Game Exchange offering $500 introductory rate for first pinball machine rental with 2-month minimum; $250 for subsequent games to capture cooped-up audience (confidence: medium) — Josh: 'Game Exchange... doing an offer on AU's Games. It's like $500 for the first game. You have to agree to have it for two months, but then it's like $250 every game after that'
- **[product_strategy]** Uncertainty about Stern's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reveal timeline; historically announced shortly after Texas Pinball Festival, now unclear (confidence: medium) — Scott: 'usually the schedule is as TPF happens then Stern reveals not even like two days later do you think that pushes back Ninja Turtles'

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## Transcript

 Hey, thanks for tuning in to the Loser Kid Pinball Podcast. You are on episode number 30. This week, as always, I got my co-captain with me. Scott Larson. And Scott, who do we have with us today? Well, we have one of the founders of the podcasting world in pinball. We have Mr. Jeff Rivera, who has gotten me farther in pinball than anybody else, and he has been able to break away from his busy schedule and to join us, which would have been our Texas Pinball Festival preview. But instead, we're going to take a left turn and talk about a lot of states of pinball. How are you doing, Jeff? I'm doing all right. I've also gone further with you than anyone else in pinball, Scott. Yeah, that's probably true. That's probably true. We've gone all the way. I've purchased two games from Jeff. I'm glad you're clarifying that because from my end, it does not sound right when you guys both say you've went all the way. We've consummated our pinball relationship. That's just because you have such a dirty mind there, Rube. It's not dirty. Hey, the people are already sitting in the car going, what the heck is going on? Hey, we are still family friendly, okay? Nobody's in the car. There are no commutes right now. Exactly. Everybody's at home sequestered with their kids, and because they are so sick of listening to their kids right now, they are desperate for any pinball podcast-related material. They have their headphones on, and they're doing the dishes. Well, I'm glad we can be like the pinball podcasting world's ex-girlfriends. Now that you're desperate, you're coming back to us. We're the backup podcast. That's what we are. You know it. So desperate action is still action. Hey, I'll take it all day, every day. Oh, where are we even going with this? Well, let me put it. Well, let's open up. Let's talk about Texas Pinball Festival and the Deep Root Launch. All of us were planning on going to the Texas Pinball Festival. I was planning on going to the Deep Root Launch. and essentially the world is melting down with a contagion. So everything has been, I would argue, appropriately shut down while we're trying to prevent a worse pandemic than what we have. So it has really thrown a wrench into many things, including all the collateral damage with millions upon millions of dollars being lost daily because a lot of these events are a lot of the people who code to these events, they're making their money off it. And they're either selling their merchandise or they're the facilities people. They're selling, they're enabling these conventions. And right now it's a major hit on the economy. I was talking actually with Dr. Pinn the other day and he said, I don't even like where my 401k is going. So, of course, I had to log into mine. And yeah, it's a good thing I have about 20 years left in my career to recover everything that's going on. I didn't look at my 401k. Just don't. Don't, don't, don't. I don't need more bad news. Yeah. Oh, and you forgot to mention, too, we all survived the earthquake here in Utah. So there's that. Okay. But I had the best story, though. I was actually sitting on the porcelain throne and it started vibrating not in a good way and then i shout out to my wife i think we're just having an earthquake right now i'm sorry i just said hey hey but i do have one of those special things last year uh carol was in europe and so i got her one of those as a surprise because everything in europe has special toilets and has one of those bidet toilet seat things. And so now when you sit down, it actually heats up to greet you, and it actually has like a humming sound as it sprays down water just so it creates a mist so you don't create too much noise. So it was almost like an amusement park ride. That's great. I've been on the bidet bandwagon for a few years now, never going back. So with the toilet paper shortage, I'm good. As long as you're on that toilet. Yeah. Actually, all my kids come in. So there's five toilets in the house and even my kids, they all come in to use that one. So essentially we have one toilet in the house. That's great. Yeah. Welcome to Potty Training Talk with Jeff, Josh and Scott. Oh my goodness. Okay. So you've hit a ton of topics all at once. And honestly, I'm going to stop you right there just for a second because I want to catch up with Jeff before we start diving in. Because I feel like the whole episode we're going to be talking about coronavirus and economy and all that jazz. But people haven't heard from Jeff for how long has it been, like a year or so? The last episode we put out was It's Not Pinberg yet. So that was probably June or so, May or June of last year. Yeah, getting close to a year. And so what have you been doing in the last year? You've been hiding in your bat cave? Because we've called you Batman here on the show before, and you've been called that in the slap group before. Yeah, that's fine. I actually have friends and other friend groups that also call me that for some reason. So I'll just own it. Wow. The last year, huh? Well, it's not just me. Jessica moved from Oregon to Florida. So she's in Florida right now and is trying life out there for right now. So I'm going to ship her a microphone. and we're going to pick the show back up and it'll be, we're still super far apart, but we'll be together online again. So that's why the show took some time off, but not the only reason. There are plenty of other reasons. Okay. So I've always been open about stuff that's been going on on my show and you're not used to bummers on your show, but it's going to be a little bit of a bummer. I'll try and be brief with it. So I have OCD and it's not like the wash my hands 500 times OCD. It's called intrusive thoughts. And I have things that hop in my head and I have no control over them at all. They come in, they do their thing. They get me to try and compulse and do stuff. And for the most part, I was pretty good about handling it, but it got really, really bad and I had to go into treatment for it. I've graduated that program. It was every single day and it basically made it so I couldn't work during that time. The type of treatment it was is a exposure-based therapy. So it was exhausting. And for a few months there, I couldn't do anything but basically just go to treatment, come home, sleep. And that was it. And it was also very, very expensive. So I sold almost my entire pinball collection to fund that. And then just, um, to take one more slap on the face and really not a lot of people know this yet, but, um, I'm going through a divorce on top of it all has not been an easy process divorce. and I've been separated since fall, but it's been kind of crazy. I can't get into a lot of the details because there's some legal stuff going on with it, but I have not seen my kids or my dog since December 7th. So I've been working to fix that, and it's been a legal process, which has been going well for me. it's just been crazy expensive. Um, so anyway, that's where I've been and that's what I've been doing. If I have any free time and I'm able to stay awake through that free time, I'm just scrambling to get my business making money again. Um, it kind of put full stop on everything when I went into treatment. So pinball podcasting really kind of fell low on the priority scale there for a little while. Um, yes, I want to bring the show back. Um, I'm starting to get back to life again. Um, having gone through the LCD treatment and getting my mind back was really, really big. So for people who haven't seen me for a little while, they'll notice that I'm a lot more focused, more awake. Uh, but with everything else going on, I'm just really preoccupied. So, uh any questions since i work in medicine um a couple things i want people to to understand you and i actually talked about this roughly a year ago and i was actually overwhelmed and gratified and humbled that you would actually share something so intimate and personal with me. It's always challenging when you have a friend and you see them struggling because a lot of people don't understand how to deal with someone who is dealing with something that is on the mental side. And I want to clarify a few things that your brain is another organ in the body. And so if people had issues with their liver, or if they had issues with their kidney or their heart. There's no sort of stigma with that. And we just accept them and we try to help them out as much as possible. With the brain, I think a lot of people really do have this stigma where they don't want to – they want to be sensitive to the needs of the individual, but they also – they feel in this halfway of how do I help. I would argue that the best thing to do is to stay involved with the person. And yes, there's going to be limits on how much they will let you in or what they will accept. But the best thing to do is to reach out and to let them know that, hey, you're still thinking about them. You still care about them. And you are there if and when they need you. and I think that's the from my standpoint anybody who has friends who are going through and regardless of what it is if it's depression, if it's OCD if it's anxiety as long as they know they are not isolated and alone in the world that seems to be at least one thing that you can do for someone you care about in your life totally agree with that support, validate and be present I guess so yeah and even if it's just sending messages and guess what in today's society if they don't respond that's fine i guarantee they're getting your message and they're actually reading it yeah and if you have to send memes because everyone looks at a meme well and and that brings a question to my mind too jeff is um because i've known you for a couple years now and you've always been the go-to guy like whether it be that because you were the head of um kind of everything that goes on here pinball wise with the ifpa um and like if even if we had a question about podcasting like you always seem to be the one that's that's helping all of us and so how how do i'm trying to think how to put this how do we reach out to someone like you that is always giving but sometimes needs people to take care of them as well? Well, that's actually one of my issues was I have a health compulsion. I haven't quite figured out what support looks like for me yet. I'm barely getting back into kind of normal everyday life. and with me having been in treatment, they focus on like what your family members can do or your friends can do, but very much just in regards to helping you manage your OCD. Now, I've kind of been equipped with what I need to do to handle that. I have no idea what is going to come my way over the next few months, but just knowing that people are willing or even like, um, wanting to help or support, it means a lot. And I think emotional support is probably the biggest thing for me right now. Cause, um, I'm all alone in a six bedroom house trying to make ends meet. Like it's really weird. It's been a, you know, for the past 10 years, been a pretty noisy house and lively. And, um, you know, I've had to strip away a lot of the things that I like, like my pinball collection or a lot of free time that I would dedicate to go fly fishing or other things like that. I mean, for those that are local, they noticed I think I only made it to like six IFPA events last year in the state. That's very low for me. And, you know, I was the last person qualified for the SCS. So I'm hoping that's not going to be the case this year, but for all the people that did reach out and have been, it's, that's kind of all that I've really been needing. Um, so yeah, it's, it's nice to see people stepping up and doing that. Yeah. And, and I would argue that it, this is not a downer, uh, to talk about things. This is actually life. And this is important because I guarantee that we have degrees of separation of one. We know someone personally, whether or not you know that they are struggling with these things or not. This is something that will affect every single person. And at least being aware that, you know, being there, being involved in their life is important because it would be so easy to say, that's, I don't know what to do. I'm going to isolate myself from that situation, but open yourself up, try to reach out, try to, try to help all those people who are struggling because you can make a difference in someone's life and whether or not it's just being there that it, we've always talked about pinball, having some of the best people and being there in someone's life. I can't imagine anything more important than just knowing that someone actually gives a damn about them. Yeah, it's nice. Well, I appreciate you coming on and even, I wasn't even expecting you to share that. I just, I figured, you know, I don't know. It's awesome that you're willing to be open about what's going on. I appreciate that. Yeah. I just, I feel like, uh, mental health is one of the things that it would help a lot of people, whether you suffer from it or not, if it was normalized a bit. So, um, yeah, I'm, I'm there for it. So no, no. Okay. Okay. Well, I, one, I want to make sure that we get, we give enough time due for what is really important Because really, you know, we've been talking for 16 minutes and I would say that of the 30 podcasts we've done so far, this has been the most important 16 minutes that someone could possibly hear out there. Because in this world, we become so socially isolated that it is so easy for us just to feel in a world of six billion people that we are completely alone. Now that we're in forced isolation, at least physically. Yeah. I think it's good. I've had a lot of time to process what's been going on and having gone through the intensive outpatient treatment, learned how to process it in a lot more healthy manner. So I'm probably doing a lot better than I should be. So if you really want to help Jeff out, you're still trying to sell some of your pinball collection, right? I know you don't want to get rid of it, but you've been trying to sell it. yeah so i've got interest in my dialed in um i'm gonna have to sell that and i'm hoping not to have to sell my wonka but uh that would be next in line so everything else is gone man i went from 17 machines to two real fast that is that's crazy that's it's i know when this all started you messaged us like mental health issues suck like don't let it get this this far and like it's been hard for like a lot of us to watch because like i said you're our batman i don't know how else to put it so it's hard to see like you have to get rid of your collection but it's awesome to see that you're willing to take that step to to better yourself yeah long term long term it'll be cheaper and easier to face it all now. So I'll rebound with the collection and everything once I get back to full working capacity. It'll be fine. It's just going to be... Some of those machines I let go, I've had for 12 years, 13 years. So it's kind of crazy seeing them go. But yeah, it's all right. Even games we know that you love like Twilight Zone. Since I've known you, that's like your baby. Yeah, that's always been my all-time favorite, and I've had longer than any of my kids. Well, I still have my Twilight Zone in my garage, so you're welcome to borrow that and use it as much as you want if you need mental health with a pinball machine. Awesome. I'm willing to babysit and fix pins, people. There you go. Okay, so transitioning, we are all in this weird zone where we were ramping up for this big Deep Root launch and Texas Pinball Festival, but it's all gone. Every last bit of it. Well, and everything else is up in the air too. Yeah, we saw Hot Wheels, which, yay. I don't know what else to say about Hot Wheels. That's what you're getting from me on that. But seriously, we still have Possible Stern. We've got Deep Root, which I can't remember what they have or haven't confirmed, so I'm not going to confirm myself what's going on. That's smart. And so we know that I think the pinball show talked about they're still tempting to push through to do something with it. But, I mean, you look at those guys and they missed last year's date, and then it's like they're all ready to go for this date and then this happens. um poor damien over at uh with kelts over at haggis pinball he's no longer coming to america because they've shut down virtually the airports for him it sounds like well and the earthquake shut down our airport so i don't know yeah i mean it's just crazy we had so many reveals that were happening in the next two weeks are we still on those timelines is it still going to happen No no chance This is a global economy pause And so I don see any of them being able to ramp things up You and I messaged JJ, and I think he posted on Facebook, and we were asking about how the business was. Actually, I'm sorry. It wasn't JJ. It was Zach Minney. And he said, so far, that hasn't been such a slowdown. But I don't see how a pinball is a complete luxury item. I don't see how people when they're having their decrease and the government's talking about giving everybody a thousand dollars to help them make ends meet. I don't see how that's going to change with people just buying the same amount of pinball machines that they have in the past. It's got to it's got to affect us in the next two to three months. Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of dominoes yet to fall economically still. So I don't know. Like, it's pretty early to project what's going to happen to pinball. Who knows? a vaccine could come out for this thing and like really squelch it or it could become a yearly issue, which would be awful. Um, we don't need a flu on top of the flu during flu season. But, um, as far as what's happening now, like I've, I've lost a lot of work personally that, um, definitely impacted what I'm going to be doing in pinball this year. Everything from certain shows I was going to attend that I've had to budget out to, um, you know, possibly budgeting for a pinball machine later in the year. Once I kind of got work going again, but, um, the longer it takes to get back my feet, the less I'm going to be able to buy. And I know I'm not, I'm not alone in that. Um, so with the uncertainty, I can't take that thousand dollars and put it towards like an EM and, you know, an order of parts from pinball life or something. Honestly too. It's like, I don't know, like JJ over at Game Exchange, we were talking about him, and right now, because he knows everyone's cooped up, he's doing an offer on AU's Games. It's like $500 for the first game. You have to agree to have it for two months, but then it's like $250 every game after that. And so, I mean, if you're cooped up, that's an all right deal, but then again, we don't know where we're going to be sitting in a month. So it's like, do I dare take that risk? And then in a month, do I need that $1,000? I don't know. it's so goofy right now. Well, I, I guess what I would say is that there are ways that we can help out people with the pinball community and, and even like friends who have businesses. So some, sometimes in the service business, if you can't get their service right now, then you can buy like, it's essentially a gift card. Like you can actually say, Hey, I know you can't do this service right now, but I'm going to prepay you for this. and then anticipate that when things get less crazy, you can do that. And so whether or not that's with restaurants, whether or not that's with a contracted person who does something for you, you can do that and still try to keep things lubricated until they actually get back on their feet. Because if you have a restaurant and you just don't get anything, you will shut down. If you have some sort of contracting, whether or not you're a photographer, whether or not you're a caterer, whether or not you're any of these things, if you want to help out your favorite people, contact them and say, hey, I know you can't do it right now, but can I prepay? Yeah, that's a good point. I totally agree. I think there's other ways that you can help. I know that the government's stepping up, which is awesome. But where do you guys think? So do we even throw out any scenarios? Where do we think the pinball economy is going to end up at this point? I mean, you have Deep Root. We can only guess how many machines they were going to debut. It depends. It depends on what their fallback is. Deep Root's fallback is Robert. He has the funds to actually Carl Weathers the storm. Um, Stern is the biggest company out there and they, they are dominating the market. So I think they will have to scale down a little bit, but the bottom line is they're the ones who are still manufacturing. I think the part that you're going to start seeing is you're going to start seeing in some of the smaller ones. Um, even JJP to an extent, you're going to see spooky hit to an extent because they, just don't have the same volume that Stern does to float. Haggis, who knows if Haggis will be able to Carl Weathers the storm because this is a global, this will be a global economic depression that will take years to get out of. Any of these small other things we haven't talked about is the gangster one. Oh, Kingpin. Yes, Kingpin. So we're going to see if they're going to be able to Carl Weathers the storm. Also, small people in the service industry. You have Chris over at High End Pens. Are people going to be willing to spend $5,000 in restoring their dream pen if their 401k took a 20% dive? That's a good point. I hope it's only 20%. I guess I have an optimism for all of it. I really hope that here in a month we'll have a better clarity of what's going on my biggest thing and I know Jeff is maybe on the same ship with me but what happens to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles now I mean usually the schedule is as TPF happens then Stern reveals not even like two days later do you think that pushes back Ninja Turtles it allows them to add Venus in there Venus the Mellow no The best turtle. I hope you know this awkward silence is because of you, Scott. It's not awkward. It's just an angry silence is what it is. No, I don't know what it's going to do to marketing timelines because, like you said, it's still so early to know what it's going to do to people's buying habits. If people aren't willing to buy, you can't really invest in promotion. So you would want to sit and hold it. But how are you going to convince people to buy the next thing without showing it? Pinball is a weird thing. People expect a certain cadence of releases and announcements. I mean, yeah, time's coming to show the next game, but I don't know. I guess they look at sales of things that are on the line and see how that's going to be impacted. I mean, this three weeks ago wasn't that big of a deal. It's so short, the timescale of all this happening still. So who knows what's going to happen. Yeah, because even like last week, it started hitting, but I was still debating whether to go to Texas Pinball Festival or not. It didn't seem like it was that big of an issue until it started becoming a state of emergency. Right. Well, it literally went in 48 hours because I was actually messaging Christian Line Dr. Penn because we're both anesthesiologists. So I was just messaging back and forth and finding out how his hospital was doing and what they were doing to limit services. And I'm not kidding. Within 48 hours, it was a, yeah, I think we'll still be able to go forward. It's not global to, yeah, it's off. It's over. and that's 48 hours and the the first time it felt real to me was when the nba canceled games right that seemed that seemed to be oh this is this is a big deal and i'm gonna see everything cancel thanks to utah by the way too here's something kind of funny about that so the first two players that were um positive were obviously rudy gobert and donovan mitchell um the day before Donovan Mitchell got his positive test, I was talking with him in person and I ended up developing a cough like right after. So I had to go get tested. Um, and my results came back yesterday. I'm clear. I'm clean of virus. I have something else. But, uh, it was just like, did he give it to me? Did I give it to him? If I give it to him, was I the one that shut down the entire NBA and basically the sports world because I had just come back from California from a court date. And so I'm like, did I pick it up in California? Did I give it to Donald Mitchell? Did he actually give it to Rudy Gobert? What happened here? I'm so glad that I'm not the one that shut down the NBA, though. It wasn't me, guys. Okay, but did you see that meme that went around that it was cold but it was hilarious? It had Rudy Gobert, and he said defensive player third time in a row. He literally shut down the NBA. I didn't. But, I mean, it was almost my fault. Almost, yeah. I was going to say, what's even worse about the situation, too, is just, I don't know if any of you follow the NBA closely, but Rueduke O'Bear was kind of like, I don't want to say making fun of it, but he was very nonchalant about it. Oh, he was making fun of it. He was totally making fun of it. Yeah. Three weeks ago, it was kind of a joke, and today it's not. Like today, people are really afraid and people are worried. And three weeks ago, it was kind of like, I don't know. We had the same thing with swine flu. It was funny for a couple of weeks and then it was everywhere. And I actually got it. I had my aunt died from it. So it stopped being funny at one point. And I think we're at the it's not that funny anymore. The memes are still great. But yes, they are. Like the actuality of it is it just kind of sucks being stuck in your house. and being limited to one loaf of bread per trip to the store. Well, you have to find humor in crises. And people can look at it as cold-blooded, but really if you lose your humor, then it really puts you in a really dark state. You have to just accept that life follows some ironic paths. Yeah. Life finds a way. I just watched that the other night. okay you know what it that's one of those things where the book and the movie they are different but they're both equally awesome yeah yeah so i'm not saying that the movie doesn't have flaws or it's cheesy moments or what's going on their moments but i put that in my list of perfect movies so if you have time i mean it seems like a lot of us have time you really should go through the Rotten Tomatoes What's the Perfect Movie and What Isn't. My son and I sat down and watched Jaws. It's his first time. For a 1975 movie, it really does hold up. I totally forgot there was nudity at the very beginning. Are you serious? The swimmer. Well, it had been a little bit since I'd seen it. But you do know that amity means friendship, right? Really? But long story short, on Rotten Tomatoes, it's like 98%. Would you agree that that is that good of a movie? I do. I think so. I'm not going to get into my full list of what are perfect movies, but just to throw out a few of them so you kind of know what I consider perfect. Jurassic Park, Jaws, Back to the Future, Ghostbusters. there's a zone and you kind of look at the time period those are all like late 70s to early 90s but all of them still hold up extremely well so they've already stood the test of time how do you feel about Last Jedi? it's not a perfect movie the only perfect Star Wars is Empire Strikes Back and it is perfect Rogue One is a perfect movie, I watched it the other day and I cried a little bit well maybe maybe when they need to sell the remaining star wars pins they'll re-theme it to rogue one oh wow that that hurts it hurts it would work probably would because you die on the plunge oh my goodness that's terrible nobody survives you know my list of movies uh what My all-time favorite is The Dark Knight. I mean, and it holds a very respectable score. That's a perfect movie. Yeah, it really is. Every time I watch it, it's just amazing. The other movie my son and I started watching was Gremlins. That is cheesy 80 goodness. Oh, it's crazy. Why is that no one's favorite Christmas movie? It takes place during Christmas. It is a Christmas movie, and it is self-aware. They know they're being cheesy, which helps. Oh, yeah, that whole bar scene and the flashing, everything, just fantastic. Okay, so my favorite movie is really old school. It has to go back to like 1950-something. It's Ben-Hur. Okay. And it's probably because I'm a 90-year-old trapped in a 45-year-old man's body. No, your body's about 92. You're breaking down. Ouch, that hurts. Actually, it's probably true. I've been working on a plantar wart on my foot. Seriously. Like who has to deal with a plantar wart? And I've been dealing with it for four months. So Josh, when he dies, I'll happily fill in on a weekly basis because his body's crumbling. Wait, wait. Am I turning into the Jeff? Is this just going to be my health updates? I haven't been able to breathe deeply for a year either. Should we talk about that? Plantar warts, varicose veins, diminished lung capacity. I'm sorry. We've got to share this first. Now that you've brought it up, we've got to share this. So the last tournament we did at Scott's house, he didn't play with us because he just had surgery for his varicose veins. So we're playing pinball, and there's Scott laying in the middle of the floor with his legs in the air because that's part of – Yeah, wrapped. And we're just like, you all right? Yeah, I'm fine. No, I'm fine. I'm fine. Just keep playing. Hey, that's commitment. That's commitment to pinball. Yes. Yes, it is. I share my health issues too I'm still trying to find the best rated movies on Rotten Tomatoes and I'm completely lost on the site just watch Sing Street that's my always recommendation for people everyone likes it Sing Street you want my always recommendation? me and my wife's always recommendation is the rundown with The Rock and Sean William Scott uh huh now that is cheesy 2000s fun you've never seen the rundown? Okay, is this like Aquabats 2.0? No, it's got Christopher Walken in it. Where you bring up some esoteric thing that nobody knows except you? I know what the Rundown is. Yeah, see? Never saw it, but I know what it is. Sing Street is the band in Ireland, right? Yes, in the 80s. Yeah, no, that's a great one. Yeah, that's a great one. Fantastic. Yeah, it's time for you to watch the Rundown. It's very cheesy. It's kind of got some wrestler-esque moves to it because it's got the rock in it. But it's hilarious because the bad guy is Christopher Walken. You can't say no to Christopher Walken. Does he ask for more cowbell? He does not in this one, but he does talk about the Tooth Fairy, and it's hilarious. Because he's trying to explain the Tooth Fairy to these guys that only speak Portuguese. Okay. Yeah. Anyway, just do it. It's like three bucks to rent. you've got time. I know you do. It's probably true. I want to move on. I want, I want to, let's talk to whippies really quick. So, okay. Okay. Well, one thing I also don't want to talk about. So Texas pinball festival, they had all the merchandise. And so they, uh, in order, I, Ed took a bath on this. So please go out, buy a t-shirt, buy a banner, buy a key chain. I don't care what you do. Just go ahead and buy something. And so try to help them out too. Um, again, And seriously, look for any of your favorite places you frequent and call Tilt Cycle. See if he has anything for you. Just figure out some way of buying one of these small things from them. But again, Texas Pinball Festival, go buy the merchandise. Same with the two people we were supposed to give a shout out. We were going to be supporting while we were at Texas Pinball Festival was Brad Hunter of Lit Frames. He's got some wonderful product. And also the other gentleman I was going to start talking about too is Jockton because he was going to be at TPF as well with his pin shades. And so I feel bad because like pin shades is something you got to like experience yourself to like understand how awesome it is. And so I was like, dude, like rock on. I'm excited for people to get this in their hands. And then, well, we all know how it ended. So, hey, when I had retinal tearing, those light sensitivity glasses absolutely saved my pinball life. So I kind of want to see them. We'll have to bring them up. OK, come on down. We are going to do something this week or next week, and I will bring them up. Because you don't have AR glass on your pinball machines, do you? No, I don't. Yeah. So that'll be great because we'll be able to try that out. Yes, I do, because they're just JJPs now. Oh, you're right. You're right. Okay. Yeah. We can go to Keto's and try them out. Okay. Okay, so let's talk some Twippies if you don't mind. I don't mind. Awesome. So for those who don't know, Jeff Patterson, not Jeff Rivera, Jeff Patterson has decided to keep going on with the Twippies. The show must go on, right? I'm pretty for Shurimoto and Carrie's still the host. Yeah. Yeah, but we're going to be doing – we're still going to be presenting – I don't know if we talked about this last show, but we're going to present one of the – was it topics? No, not topics. Awards. Awards. Well, yeah, sure, awards. We're going to go with that. but I want everyone to tune in and support this. Cause like Jeff is still get, the thing is, is like a lot of us don't have much to do between if, if your job has shut down at this point or it's been tore down by an earthquake or whatever it may be, you know, you're gonna be staying at home with a lot of time. And so Jeff is putting like an amazing amount of effort into making this still go on. So what do you guys hope to see in the Twippies? Well, I was supposed to be the photographer at the show for the Twippies so am I going to take pictures of a computer screen maybe? yeah you can do that I should act like I taking pictures just screenshot them all you know I still have the outfits the two suits that I ordered They still upstairs And my wife came home because she was in Europe. Yes, thank you very much. She just got home on Sunday. And so she's been sequestered. And she looked at it and was like, why do you have these Dumb and Dumber suits? And I'm like, well, it's a funny story. She didn't know? Well, okay, so I didn't tell her. No, you can't release all your pinball crazy on your family at once. You have to dole it out slowly. Okay. That's awesome. I'm not going to lie. So what did your wife say? She's just like, oh, yeah, par for the course kind of thing? She just rolled her eyes. One thing I actually would like to see with the Twippies is I'd like to see some of the announcements of games integrated into them. Because we have the awards and we have things like that. But a lot of the times that like E3 and stuff for the video game industry, they do all their announcements at their big shows. And I know it's not an award show, but when Spike does the video game awards, they announce new stuff there. So I think it'd be kind of cool because if they were announcing product or games in the Twippies, it's probably not possible this year. Who knows? But it would bring a lot of viewers to it, and it would help to really drive the show for future years. The more people will watch, they're going to be involved in the voting next year. And I think it'd be a really cool nod by the manufacturers of whether they're mods or full games to support the show in that way, saying, hey, we've got something coming out. We'd love to debut it on your show. So, again, probably too late to do that kind of stuff this year. But I think it'd be something that'd be neat if companies started thinking that direction. And I think it would cement its legitimacy as well. I think there's – the problem is that people always kind of question its legitimacy, whether that's warranted or not. But that would be really cool. If you guys win, it's totally not legit. I'll just say that. Absolutely. Well, I voted like a thousand times. Is that bad? I voted. With the old Chicago vote early, vote often. Exactly. you know what that's true all right let's let's let's beeline it out of that topic really quick so jeff you own a wonka do you think that jurassic park has it locked down for game of the year do you think wonka has a chance i mean wonka has a chance but it's a small chance um i think jurassic park pretty much has it the only thing is is like a lot of people and i wish we could kind of get away from this they are kind of like advocate voting so like they might be mad at stern because of the uv kit for stranger things so now they're not going to vote for jurassic park and they're going to vote for anything else just to stick it to them and i hope people aren't really doing that but that's always a factor in these sorts of things um but no i think jurassic park's pretty much got that i agree it's just way more widely played as well um i mean most shows you go to have like four or five Jurassic Parks and one Wonka. Well, and I think that's really what hurt Pirates of the Caribbean last year. Legitimately, I think Pirates of the Caribbean is a more ambitious game. And with what Eric did, it was unbelievable. But I think it was hamstrung just because there weren't as many of them out there. And so people didn't get exposed to them, whereas Iron Maiden was flooding the market. Yeah, it matters for sure. what what about uh the rookie of the year like what do you feel about that because it ended up being basically a dragnet category of hey uh you're kind of new to pinball doing something different well the problem is it's not even like you're new to pinball like dead flips been in the hobby for five years now sure like actively so what you're doing is making a game for the first time yeah true so i guess that's he's been in pinball but maybe not the industry i don't know how they want to like split those hairs but um i will say the layout he's making looks pretty awesome i don't know i just i think rookie of the year is um it's one of those things they need to better define it or they need to get rid of it that's just my opinion i think i think last year was justified you had Scott Danesi you had Keith Elwin and you had eric mignere right you had it was very defined no one gave a crap about it because those were three people that were obviously rookies in the category that they were going for. I think the way I would refine that sort of category, because some years you're just not going to have anybody that's, you know, new on the scene or you only have one or two. I think what you should probably do is change it to like a breakout award where, you know, a designer that's been around could win it, but maybe they've done something different or unexpected. And it's not like a comeback award, but it's just like this year you kind of set yourself apart and then the newcomers would naturally fall in there as well because if somebody's first time um designing a pinball machine then obviously they would be considered for like a breakout award so but we'll see i mean like uh it would be cool if they kept getting enough newcomers to the industry to support that award i mean that'd be great well and i think the other thing that was brought up with it too is do you do you define it solely someone that has done something to further the pinball industry or do you let it be a drag net for the whole hobby in general because that was kind of the problem with this go around i mean you got tim sexton obviously a man that deserves it with his work on black knight um but you know okay i'll use us as an example because i feel like i can take a swat at us without anyone being mad your mom will be upset yeah does our contribution to the hobby even come close to compare to tim sexson's contribution the hobby it depends like what if uh people don't like modern pinball but they do like podcasts and there's a lot of players that don't really it pinball is getting enough variation into it that the things that people value some people don't even really like playing that much. They just like the hobby. Like they like to have a few machines that they can tinker around with. They like discussion, but they're not big time players. And that sounds weird to say, but pinball offers enough content aside from actual playing of pinball that you can be involved that way. Maybe you really just enjoy the art or you enjoy, I don't know, the general excitement of it. But, um, for a person like that, they probably don't care about the intricacies of code and updates and such. But for like the tournament player, they're going to say, yeah, fresh ideas and code is extremely valuable. The most important thing going on right now. It's going to be perspective based. What would you think about instead of having a rookie of the year, having, you know, like in the Oscars, how they have like, you know, the in memoriam where they have the famous people who have died. And so it's all the people, you know, you can't just have best person who died this year, which would be kind of interesting. But what they could do is just say, hey, these are the, for an Instagram term, these are the influencers who made a splash this year. And you can just have like 10 people and just talk about them. Or I don't know. Do you think that's, it's unnecessary? I mean, I'd get tired of being put on the list, but I'm down for it. Sure. you're so hipster using that word influencer I used to work for an influencer marketing firm wow yeah yeah sorry guys I'm not going to lie I've been doing a project while I've been talking to you guys I know it's terrible of me but I got my new arcade one up Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles bar stool and I've been putting it together because I want to test ride this baby while I'm on air with you guys. Because if you don't know this, my recording studio is a cold cellar in the bottom of the farmhouse and it's not very comfortable down here. So I have something nice for my tissue. It would be hilarious if there was just a loud crack and a, I'm all right, I'm all right. That would be awesome. Are you trying it right now? Yes, I'm setting it down next to the microphone. this is going down okay so how how did you get this because i bought the uh the teenage mutant ninja turtle game and i i didn't get a bar stool uh it came out last week you can get it via walmart oh like with the game or without it without the game how much was it it's uh 80 bucks if i remember correctly i don't think it's worth it yeah it's ninja turtles it's worth it i'm sorry I'm not a Ninja Turtle fanboy I actually already have a Ninja Turtle game didn't I show it to you? I got it for $5 oh my goodness the pinball machine for Ninja Turtles has been inevitable because they've had so many toy pinball machines made different iterations and stuff it was just a matter of time better not to rise to the tip I just hope when you sit on it, it has a vanilla ice, go ninja, go ninja, go. It does not. It's got a nice cushion to it. It's a nice bar stool. It doesn't rotate like most bar stools. Okay. It's officially licensed. That's all you need, right? You know, the only time that I actually got near the end of Turtles in Time was when the game crashed on me, so I still haven't done it. Okay, the arcade one up, like, don't get me wrong. I love the little guy, but it kind of takes the fun out of it when you can dump 999 lives into the thing and just go to town. Okay, that's all my kids do. My kids, I'm sitting there trying to hit and fight the characters, and they're just hitting the add character button. So I'm just hearing cowabunga, cowabunga, cowabunga. Well, I'm trying to fight, and they're just standing around. We put limits on the number of credits. So when I'm playing those games with my kids, I'm like, all right, guys, we're each going to get five credits. We're going to see how deep into this game we can go. And sometimes they want to continue beyond that. And I'm like, all right, I'll give you one more. And you reach up and turn it off, right? You're like, no. Click. I don't actually backhand, but I show them my backhand. And they understand. Don't you dare touch that credit. Yeah, because you will smack the machine, right? Because that's what the backhand means. smack the machine. Well, we've had a couple of parties and it's just, the kids come down and that's seriously what they gravitate towards. They hear the sounds. And then as soon as they push the, add the player and it's cowabunga or is it let's kick shell is the other one, depending on which game you're on. And my wife's like, I'm going to kill me some kids. Cause seriously, like that's all they do. And they can't just leave the sound turned down. No, no, no. They got to turn all the way to 15. And so you can hear it through the whole house, just yelling, let's kick shell. Let's kick shell. Like, ah, And they can never let it go all the way out either. So it's like, let's get it. You're like, okay, we get it. Yeah, I get it. That's your Ninja Turtle talk for this episode. I wonder if people are sick of the Ninja Turtle talk. They're like, can we please just release this thing so Josh has nothing else to talk about? I feel like it's become our Maverick. Oh, that's good. That's a good one. A non-existent one is your Maverick. That's great. Yeah. I did buy it on VHS the other day. I saw it at a thrift store, TMNT, the 1990 movie. Okay. Ooh, very nice. Yeah. And it was from a rental place, so it's got that hard plastic shell you squeeze. You squeeze it, and then the VHS slides out. Oh, yeah. It's like that hard shell condom thing. Yeah, and what it does is it makes sure that the box stays in perfect condition, though. Yeah. Does it have a sticker that says, Be Kind, Please Rewind? It has something about rental on it. I don't have a VHS player anymore, I don't think. But I bet you it still has that awesome Pizza Hut ad in front with the kid playing baseball. Yeah, just so you know, I do have a VHS machine, so you can come down and try it out. I have one as well. that's great. That's great. Did you know that Ninja Turtles actually held the highest grossing independent film made up till like Napoleon Dynamite came out in like 05? That makes sense. It was hot stuff. At least they got taken down by someone with like nunchuck skills. Boastaff skills. Boastaff skills. Nunchucks. Who wants to take a roundhouse kick to the face with these sweet babies off. Bad boys. yeah these bad boys so that's the next spindle machine right oh napoleon daniel that would be an le purchase right there you know what the uncle rico edition or whatever yeah i love the way he's playing tetherball by himself and he's like hitting it you could have a tetherball mech in there yeah it's kind of like the jurassic park car but it just keeps spinning uh-huh yes i yeah I love it. It's not the Jurassic. Okay. That's what Hot Wheels has. Did you see that? Hot Wheels. It's the Jurassic Park car. Car spinning around. Yeah. Yeah. Oh my goodness. Yes. Okay. We're on this now. What are your guys' first impressions of Hot Wheels since we've seen wonderful cell phone footage of it? I don't like to judge a lot off of cell phone footage. But since that is all that we have, I'll say this. It looks fine. It's very standard, which I think is probably a good thing for coming from American Pinball. If we're either one of you guys in the four-player group of Oktoberfest at Denver that lasted for like an hour and a half. Yeah, and it was you and Dan played on ball one for like 45 minutes. Yeah. Yeah, and I think I wandered by. I think I wandered away and played like five games of Black Knight, and I came back, and you guys were still playing with it. Yeah, and so that's not going to happen here, which is nice. It doesn't look like there's going to be a lot of complex things that are going to be problematic, but I don't know. It's going to see how well they are at building a standard game because it's got a couple of little surprises and stuff in there, and it's got some of their little trademarks. I do love that on the out lane and the in lane lights, it says spells epic. Yeah, that kind of – I didn't know they poached Jared from Stern, but – Epic. Yeah. Okay, my take on it is, you know what? This is going to be that game that 70-year-old grandpa is going to buy and put in his basement. Yeah. This is exactly catering to that crowd. And I actually have said it before. It's actually good when you have options outside of my wheelhouse because I am perfect. The main demographic for Stern, I am the 45-year-old dude with a pinball basement. And so this theme is not for me. However, this is a theme where grandpa is saying, hey, I'm trying to have some cool things for my grandkids to come over. And they, you know, are you kidding? They're not going to buy Iron Maiden. They're not going to buy Kiss. They're not going to buy Motley Crue. They're not going to buy any of those things. But they're like Hot Wheels. Oh, okay, I'll buy that. So as long as it plays somewhat – as long as it is good enough, they'll sell. And so I think it's actually a good thing. And perhaps it's one of those things where they're going for a market that is currently untapped. And really, that older guy with a game room, you know, in some ways it's a little bit like the Jetsons, but this is something that even they will relate to, the 70-year-olds. Right. Hot Wheels has been around. Well, and I hope it's one of those games that's like The Shadow where no one likes the theme, but it's like such a killer game that you're just like, I have to own The Shadow. Because, like, you've got to admit, the whole price in that title is solely because of gameplay. It's not in theme whatsoever. Right. The resale value. Yeah. Well, the nice thing about Hot Wheels is it's not going to be, for a lot of people, a theme that gets them excited, but it's not going to be a turn-off theme. Like, Iron Maiden plays really well, but there's a lot of people who don't like the theme, and it's a turn-off theme for some. Who's, like, irritated by toy cars? You kind of have to be a grumpy person, right, to just say I'm flat-out irritated by that? I can see not enjoying it. not liking it, but it shouldn't annoy you. I agree. It's basically a non-threatening theme that you recognize. Yeah. Do you think it's the theme at the bar though? The people walk over and they go, Hey, hot wheels. And they're not going for the bar. That's Oktoberfest. And then Gottlieb will come out and make matchbox, uh, cars. The premier will be back. That would be so sweet. It'll be like burning tires. is what it would be or something like that. Nice. Micromachines. You remember those? They were awesome. I was so jealous because I was so dirt poor when I was a kid that all those little brats who had every single toy, the guy who had the AT-AT machine, I was so jealous of the guy with the AT-AT machine and the Yoda underoos because I didn't get those. I'm sorry. I don't know what to say to that. You know, I kind of want to – did you know you can buy adult-size underoos now? I kind of wanted to buy some Yoda underoos just to surprise my wife one night and, yeah. It was a surprise to her. Not in a good way. Yeah. Yeah. That's an idea. Yeah. You're done having kids though, right? Yeah. Yeah. No, I've been fixed. I'm shooting blanks. Okay. So, yeah. It's not going to change a whole lot for you. Go ahead. Yeah. I'll give you an update next episode no no I'll just figure that you did it leave it to your imagination we'll hear about it on Facebook it didn't work yeah exactly oh my goodness I don't know why we've been watching a lot of Big Bang Theory lately because you know time and so yeah now all I'm thinking about is like because Sheldon that's all he wears is like Spider-Man and Superhero under ruse because it always comes up as a joke when you know this was still on the laundry and anyhow Well he usually has the Flash shirt on That his go Yeah Yeah I had to stop watching that when my kids were old enough to get all the innuendos Well, my wife points – they literally talk about sex every single episode. I'm like, no, they don't. No, they do. Yeah, they do. We're in like season four. It's every – I've never noticed it. It must be – I don't know what it is. but yeah, I guess I'm oblivious. I don't know. Cause this is our fourth or fifth time going through the whole series. By the way, did you just said you're Bolivious? Cause that's awesome. That, that I did. And I will own up to that. Yes. I want to be Bolivious. I pretty, for sure. I said oblivious, but Hey, sure. Yeah. Yeah. Fine. Oh my goodness. I hear Bolivious is beautiful this time of year. I heard a Bolivian is a fantastic game. So it could, be okay so so the last topic because we've gone completely off the rails but the last thing we did talk about it or we wanted to talk about is it's probably the uh the end of having hey i'm buying this license and i get everything with it including the music the actors the uh the videos everything with it and so exactly where are we in pinball and themes because it seems like we have to pick and choose with the theme okay so which parts of the theme are paramount is it the name is it the music is it this actor is it that so like what is it that will allow you to still purchase a theme but have enough of it that it's relevant so hold on i want i want to do a couple of examples before we develop into this really quick okay um so the reason this is getting brought up i mean obviously Jurassic Park is a fantastic game. And the main complaint was, is there was no movie, like actual movie footage and stuff like that in it. But what they got with the, the, the theme was the dinosaurs, the logo and the music. And so it's proved that you can make an awesome game with just some of the elements from the movie. And we've heard the rumor, this has been talked about on multiple different podcasts, that Jaws was only going to be like the shark and the boat, maybe the music, but that's it. So I think, first off, I think if you're going to buy anything asset-wise from Steven Spielberg, you're going to run into this. And second off, do you think this starts becoming a trend where Jurassic Park-like games becomes the standard? Yeah, it's actually something that's been going on for a long time, but they've been hiding it better because they use DMDs, so they didn't need to buy the video clips. They didn't have to buy this always get the image rights to certain actors. If you take a game that sounds like it has a lot of theme packed into it, and it does, let's look at Simpsons Pinball Party. Now, the trick there is that most of the voice actors on The Simpsons voice like four to five characters. So they only needed to get a couple of people and they got a whole bunch covered. Plus, they used Fred Young to imitate a few voices. But if they were to do The Simpsons today, they probably have to sacrifice and get down to a single voice actor. They'd probably go with, you know, Homer's voice or Bart's voice. And then they'd use video clips, which would be a whole different cost. And I think that the introduction of live video started causing that tradeoff because they have to get, again, with real time movies like Jurassic Park, they would have had to get Jeff Goldblum to sign off on his image being used and like all that complicated stuff. Um, personally, uh, I like what they did as far as limiting, um, the image assets and not using video clips as much as I love Jurassic Park, the movie. And we already went over that. Um, I think it just opens up possibilities to do what they want with it. If they're not having to tie in certain shots to trigger this scene or that scene. And if you look at the Munsters, it's just like a clip show of repeating clips over and over and over. And it just feels like there's a little bit less freedom to do what they want within the game at that point. But, yeah, they're going to have to keep dividing these up. The cost of these licenses seem to be going up more and more. And they're going to because there's more competition for them now. It's not just Stern being the only builder saying, hey, we want to do a pinball machine. and they approach Disney and Disney say, yeah, but we are also talking to JJP. They want this too. And, you know, who else might be putting in for it? So the cost of the stuff is just going to go up constantly because of that. Yeah, I think that it is actually beneficial to have a story that's within the world of Jurassic Park, but not necessarily the same story. right i i know someone who had it was gary uh my buddy he had an le star wars and he's and he actually he liked it it was fun he it was the most beautiful star wars because he had blinged it out he had done all sorts of really cool things with it and he said eventually it was the constant call outs from the movie that made him want to sell it because it was making him not like the movies anymore i could see it just repetitive right it was just repetitive so you know every time the ball drains it's yoda control control you must learn control and and that's one of the most powerful parts of empire strikes back is that that teaching uh that teaching scene with him and Luke. But if you get so tired of those little clips, then eventually you're going to hate the game. So I like having the option of having a different storyline, but still, it still makes you feel like you are involved in the world. Now I will completely argue that the difference is with Lord of the Rings, you are going through the movie of the Lord of the Rings. Right. But they're not video clips. It feels great. They're not video clips, and it feels good. And that was when the first time that I played Munsters, I about wanted to die the fifth time Grandpa walked over to that stupid book and flipped it. I was like, I don't care anymore. Just keep moving. So now I will say that The Hobbit, if you want theme integration, The Hobbit is probably the best theme integration ever made. Yeah, and they did a lot of custom stuff too, though. on top of it. No, absolutely. But I'm saying that that was one of those where, yeah, that is, that is the way to do it. Right. But it is so hard to do that. And I would argue pirates of the Caribbean, um, the new, uh, JJP one with Eric, he did an amazing job of getting you in that world while not feeling like you are just overwhelmed by that world. So it's that fine line of how much is it worth? Uh, are you willing to spend $1,000 to get the theme that you want? People always say that, that they're willing to pay the money. But when it comes down to it, they're going to holler every time they're like, oh, they raised $500 for this. They're like, well, we could have lowered it $500 and stripped some stuff out, which is what has probably happened with some games. So do you think it's acceptable then? So would you prefer to be playing the movie like a Lord of the Rings type of game, which I guess we've established you're really not because it's DMD and stuff like that? Or would you prefer to be kind of like in the role, like Jurassic Park, you are like the new hire, the employee? Let's take Gremlins, for example. Let's say that all you got with Gremlins is literally just the Gremlins. You don't even get Gizmo. You get gremlins, right? And you get the logo. But you're the idiot that decided to give the little magua water, and now you're cleaning up as many gremlins as you can. You know what I'm saying? Do you think something like that would work? I dig it. I mean, that's what they did with Ghostbusters. You're the recruit. And Ernie Hudson's doing the voice as Winston, and he's talking to you as the new guy. And it works fine. It feels like you're in Ghostbusters. the theme integration in Ghostbusters is actually fantastic. They did a really good job with that one. It's fantastic, yes. I like it, though, because it leaves a little bit to be left unexpected as well. I don't know. I don't know how many things are so iconic. These are all popular themes that they go after, but I don't know how many things are so dead iconic that you can't have a take on it or a story within a story. Like even star Wars, they could say, Hey, you're the leader, leader of a, uh, fighter squadron. Um, at, you know, at these big battles and, you know, you could have very passing references. Like maybe the Millennium Falcon just flies by on the screen at times or something like that. But you have your own story going on. It'd be interesting. I mean, that's what rogue one was as a movie. It was the, you know, the side story. So they, they could do really cool stuff with that, with these themes. But sometimes that's hard. because they don't want you generating new art assets within those themes. They want you to use their package stuff. So I think the concept works fine. It's up to the license holder of what they're going to let you do with it. I don't know. I'm getting more and more to the point where I enjoy being immersed in the game by being someone in the game, like Jurassic Park. I think it's awesome, and it makes me nervous when people are throwing such a fit about, hey, why are not all the movie clips in there and this and that? Like, I don't think it's such a terrible problem that all the assets aren't in the game. It should just feel like the theme. You don't necessarily have to have all of the famous scenes played out as you play. Well, it matters, though, on location. It will. If someone is only playing a game because they're at a pizza joint and they see Star Wars out there, they want to see the familiar stuff. And so it's finding that fine line of how familiar is necessary versus repetitive. Yeah, sure. I guess that does go to your point. I mean, if we made a Star Wars and you didn't get any of the characters from it, you literally got like what? The Millennium Falcon and maybe a couple of Wookiees because that's what they're giving you. People might be upset with that. And I could understand that. But we don't have to go to the whole degree of every single specific scene from each movie. Sure. but how, how fun would it have been to have a star Wars filled with custom call outs rather than movie clips? Well, if only there was a star Wars actor that was really good at voice work. Yeah. I mean, someone that could really hit the mark. Yeah. I don't know. Maybe they can get some, the guy who did the Joker in Batman. Maybe they could have, how could you imagine if they had used him in a Batman pin? Oh, that'd be so cool. That would have been great. Yeah. Let's vault the Dark Knight and not into Batman 66. Let's vault it. Oh, okay. Let's just vault Batman 66. I would vault Batman 66 and put it into just the animated series. I would take that over Batman 66. Yeah. That'd be awesome because then you get Mark Dick Hamill. Yeah. Oh, that's who did it? Oh, man. Has he been in anything else? No, he's the best Joker ever. Yeah. Yes, he really is. He's great. I don't know. When, when it comes to Joker lists, there's, there's two that float to the top and it's either Heath Ledger. It's a, it's Mark Dick Hamill. And it's seriously every Joker list I've looked at. It's one of the two. Yeah. Right. So I, that's true. I'm Mark's done it twice. He did the animated series, then the video game stuff. And, um, Oh, which was amazing. Arkham city is some of the best voice acting I've ever seen, but yeah, he's an incredible Joker for that. Yeah. Arkham city, the pinball machine. Do it. Come on, Stern. Do it. Yes. Yeah, I'm all for that. I love that series. My son loves that series. I mean, it's just a wonderful series. Well, I think that pretty much wraps it up. I honestly think the whole time, we've said this multiple times, we've went off the rails. I really think that's going to be the title of this episode. Went off the orange plastic track. Yeah. The Hot Wheels track. We crashed a few times. But you know what? That's part of the fun. Hey, dude, I'm still disappointed. I still want to play, even though it's not my game theme that I want. I'm still disappointed that we're not gonna be playing these games. It sucks. No, I was so looking forward to this Texas pinball festival. But you know, I was gonna win the tournament. I mean, yeah, I felt it. I felt it. Yeah. Yeah. I think a lot of people thought I would. Yeah. Well, Jeff, you do have some pinball-related stuff. Why don't you go ahead and tell us what you have and how they can find it? I have a podcast that has plenty of episodes to catch up on if you want to do that, The Pinball Podcast, the most pretentious name in pinball podcasting. It's just pinballpodcast.com or Facebook or whatever. You can find us. We're coming back. also I'm selling a dopey shirt that is peace love happiness and pinball everyone wants peace love and happiness but I really think you need that fourth thing to be truly content for us a lot of us it's pinball so I'm selling that shirt find my Facebook profile I posted it there and I made it public that'll do otherwise support my co-host Jessica and Soft Plunge soft plunge pinball her her merch that she's doing um she just came out with some new stickers and it's awesome like jessica does a good job with that um you see her stuff everywhere now it's just softplungepinball.com but if you were at um uh pinberg last year you saw her pinball summer tinks all over the place in those shorts and stuff so yeah check yourself out scott scott Scott got some of those booty shorts, and he sports them for his wife. Yeah. And, I mean, come on. She's got the Wu-Tang one, the Pinball Rules Everything Around Me shirt. That's just – you kind of got to have that. Okay. Actually, I have totally forgot. I have to actually give a shout-out to Dr. Pin and Mrs. Pin. So we have been getting this package together to send off to them, and Mrs. Pin actually said, hey, I need your logo. And we're like, oh, okay. So I sent off the logo and they sent me a package and they asked what size my wife was. My wife got a custom shirt of two things. She got an exercise shirt of Mrs. Pin's Pinball Podcast. And also it has Womp on there, which is hilarious because I had to explain to my wife what Womp was. and she liked it but she says we're never telling our kids what that means and they also yeah they also gave me a bag and they gave me earrings and they gave me a whole bunch of sweet swag so we are in the process of engineering our return gift bag to send up to them but uh just wanted to give them a shout out for everything they sent me and how absolutely amazing that was and if you haven't checked out their pinball podcast it's mrs pin pin pinball podcast and also uh christian is dr pin and he is on the is the super awesome pinball podcast is that what is it yes that's right okay because they changed their name a few times but that go check that out too um uh i just need to actually say one thing i offered to send a box of fun pinball stuff to them about a year ago maybe longer probably longer still gonna do it okay bring it down we'll just send a giant gift package okay that that reminds me our shirt should be done tomorrow i will check with our people that was we were supposed to have these for tpf listen you guys are people you're so fancy on this show i know um sounds so elitist to you people but we should have those done tomorrow We do have some extra. We were planning on having some extras down at TPF. If you want to reach out to us and get one of those T-shirts. I got hats. I've got beanies. We were locked, cocked, and ready to rock for TPF, and then this all happened, and I already put in the order. I was like, well, we'll make it work. So if you want to get a hold of us, we are the Loser Kid Pinball Podcast at gmail.com. Don't put the in front of it. Just put Loser Kid Pinball Podcast. you can find us at Facebook at facebook.com loser kid pinball podcast I cannot talk tonight my tongue's tied if you want to get hold of me or Scott you can find us on Facebook that's probably the easiest way we talk through messenger a lot we are on Instagram and we're on SoundCloud so if you want to check us out if you're not checking us out right now I don't know how you're doing it but yeah oh and I want to do one quick shout out we have a fan that has listened since every single episode and I've never talked about this guy even though he's an awesome dude. His name is Spencer Chapman. Dude, thank you so much for the support on all the shows. I had him down last weekend and he's telling me how much he loves the shows. You're an awesome dude. So I'll have to introduce you to Scott and Jeff next time you're around and about. Absolutely. Other than that, guys, Jeff, thank you so much for coming on. We really appreciate all the conversation, the banter, even though we went off the rails. I apologize. Don't. Yeah, but I think it was important. We actually talked about things that were even more important than pinball. Yeah, Hot Wheels. You know we're going to go off the rails when we're talking about Scott sitting on the toilet again, shaken during an earthquake. It worked. I'm just putting that out there. Rock my world. But thanks again. Thanks for tuning in. Thanks again for joining us, you guys. Yep. Thanks, guys.

_(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 00bdf3bd-0744-403c-9ce3-bb5b0f67e09f*