# episode 37. spring thaw. **Source:** The Spinner Is Lit Pinball Podcast **Type:** podcast_episode **Published:** 2021-04-03 **Duration:** 92m 33s **Beat:** Pinball **URL:** https://soundcloud.com/thespinnerislit/episode-37-spring-thaw-1-final-mix --- ## Analysis The Spinner Is Lit podcast episode 37 returns after a three-month hiatus with hosts discussing a Wyoming road trip, their experiences at Flipper's Arcade in Cheyenne, newly played games (Elvira House of Horrors and Led Zeppelin LE), Spooky Pinball's facility expansion, and recent podcast industry trends including discontinuations by Spooky Pinball and Super Awesome Pinball Show. ### Key Claims - [HIGH] Spooky Pinball is expanding their corporate headquarters/operations to make more games quicker — _Hosts discuss Spooky's expansion announcement, framing it as necessary to increase production capacity_ - [HIGH] Spooky Pinball did a podcast for 11 years in a row, with their last episode in February or March — _Hosts explicitly state Spooky was 'one month shy of 11 years in a row' and their final podcast episode reached episode 11_ - [HIGH] Super Awesome Pinball Show is taking a break from podcasting but not discontinuing entirely — _Host states Christopher Franchi released a two-hour music/requests playlist instead of a traditional episode, and 'he's not done podcasting. He's just taking a break.'_ - [HIGH] Flipper's Arcade in Cheyenne, Wyoming has impeccable equipment maintenance and is a model venue — _Hosts praise the location extensively: 'these guys take impeccable care of their equipment. Everything was level. How did they treat the horse? I don't know. I'm going to say pretty good.' Location is at 1617 Capitol Avenue_ - [HIGH] Led Zeppelin LE has a sparse playfield with four ramps for the Premium/LE and feels like a classic late 70s/early 80s Valley game — _Host provides detailed gameplay impressions: 'the layout is very sparse...it had to me the feel of a great classic late 70s, early 80s valley with ramps' with smooth, fast, flowy ramp shots_ - [HIGH] Elvira House of Horrors topper costs $1,000 — _Host states 'The topper for Elvira? It is $1,000. I know it is.' and mentions it's tradeable for an EM or sold separately_ - [MEDIUM] Dennis Nordman is 'the Duke of flow' and king of flow design, distinct from Steve Ritchie who is king of speed/overall flow — _Host references Black Knight podcast claim: 'somebody once said Steve Rich is the king of flow. And he said he's not. He's the king of speed. The king of flow is actually Dennis Nordman.'_ - [HIGH] The Twippies awards occurred while the hosts were in Wyoming — _Host notes 'This is the first year I've actually watched the Twippies' and mentions being in Wyoming during the event_ - [MEDIUM] Pinball Network shows require subscription access and are difficult to access compared to traditional podcast platforms — _Host expresses confusion about Pinball Network access: 'i can't figure out are they on like itunes or do you have to get like some sort of subscription like you really went all wacky when they did the whole you have to subscribe'_ - [MEDIUM] Zach Meany (Pinball Network distributor/host) hadn't released a show in 'a couple, three weeks' — _Host notes 'Zach Meany. He hasn't done a show in a couple, three weeks, so I'm like, wow.'_ ### Notable Quotes > "this is how we do it. Oh, I don't know that reference. The following message brought to you by the Wyoming Tourism Board." > — **Host**, ~15:00 > _Humorous tagline after praising Flipper's Arcade as a model for how arcades should operate in America_ > "Elvira played flowy, and it played fast as hell, and it was fun as hell. I loved everything about that game." > — **Host**, ~22:00 > _Strong endorsement of Elvira House of Horrors after first play experience_ > "the way this game shoots and the way the layout is, because the layout is very sparse, okay? It is, especially for a premium LE. The way this game reminds me that it shoots, it had to me the feel of a great classic late 70s, early 80s valley with ramps." > — **Host**, ~35:00 > _Detailed design analysis of Led Zeppelin LE playfield and shot mechanics_ > "if you're a Led Zeppelin fan, it's a must-buy. Absolutely must-buy." > — **Host**, ~50:00 > _Clear recommendation for Led Zeppelin LE for fans of the band_ > "Steve Ritchie doesn't make bad games. He makes Steve Ritchie games, you know, so you're love it." > — **Host**, ~55:00 > _Commentary on Steve Ritchie's consistent design style and quality reputation_ > "Spooky is enlarging. They're expanding. Boom. They're expanding their corporate headquarters or operations." > — **Host**, ~65:00 > _Announcement of Spooky Pinball facility expansion_ > "It's going to take them so long to build all their Rick and Mortys that they decided it's going to be quicker to build a new facility." > — **Co-host**, ~66:00 > _Humorous jab at Spooky's production delays for Rick and Morty, suggesting the expansion is needed_ > "it's like the twippies happened, and I was getting some of the local guys. Shout-out to Moe." > — **Host**, ~78:00 > _Reference to Twippies awards occurrence and local pinball community engagement_ > "I don't watch a lot of television. You've played the pinball machine. I love the pinball machine." > — **Host**, ~92:00 > _Humorous statement of priorities: pinball over TV consumption_ > "it's just like I see him going timeout, going off the big cell phone, and then being a dickhead that weren't at the school." > — **Host**, ~90:00 > _Playful comparison of Zach Meany to Zack Morris from Saved by the Bell_ ### Entities | Name | Type | Context | |------|------|---------| | The Spinner Is Lit Pinball Podcast | organization | The podcast producing this episode; noted for not posting regularly, returning after 3-month hiatus | | Flipper's Arcade | venue | Arcade location in Cheyenne, Wyoming (1617 Capitol Avenue) praised for impeccable equipment maintenance and game variety; hosts visited and played multiple games including Elvira, Led Zeppelin, and Monster Bash | | Elvira House of Horrors | game | Pinball machine played by hosts at Flipper's Arcade; praised for flow, speed, toys, and fun factor; topper costs $1,000 | | Led Zeppelin LE | game | Steve Ritchie-designed pinball machine recently located at Flipper's Arcade; has four ramps, sparse playfield, electric spinner mechanism; described as reminiscent of classic 70s/80s Williams games | | Spooky Pinball | company | Family-owned pinball manufacturer expanding facility operations to increase production capacity; ran 11-year podcast series that ended; has Rick and Morty in production | | Steve Ritchie | person | Legendary pinball designer; designer of Led Zeppelin LE; known for flow and speed in game design; regarded as 'king of flow' | | Dennis Nordman | person | Pinball designer; described as 'Duke of flow'; referenced for strong flow design in games like Whitewater and Indianapolis 500; noted for quality code updates | | Christopher Franchi | person | Host of Super Awesome Pinball Show; pinball artist; announced hiatus from podcast format but plans to continue content in different format (radio station playlist) | | Super Awesome Pinball Show | organization | Pinball podcast hosted by Christopher Franchi and Dr. Pin; taking a break from traditional podcast format; hosts describe it as well-produced and entertaining | | Zach Meany | person | Pinball distributor and host of Pinball Network shows; runs subscription-based pinball content; described as legitimate business operator | | Pinball Network | organization | Subscription-based pinball content platform; hosts note difficulty accessing content and confusion about distribution model | | Twippies | event | Pinball awards/community event; hosts watched it while in Wyoming; treated as community fun rather than serious competition | | Pinball Map | product | Community resource for locating pinball machines; hosts reference checking it to find games and adding newly discovered machines | | Wyoming | location | Location of hosts' recent road trip; visited Casper and Cheyenne; hosts emphasize seeing Devil's Tower in person as a must-do experience | | Monster Bash | game | Original Monster Bash machine located at Flipper's Arcade in Cheyenne; noted as playing well | | Rick and Morty | game | Spooky Pinball machine in production; hosts jokingly suggest Spooky had to expand facilities because it's taking so long to produce | | Black Knight | game | Referenced in discussion about designer capabilities; host watching Rick's stream of Black Knight gameplay during podcast recording | | Aerosmith | game | Existing pinball machine compared to Led Zeppelin LE for similar playfield feel and song-based theme | | Attack from Mars | game | Pinball machine played by Rusty (host's wife) at Flipper's Arcade | | Deadpool | game | Pinball machine played by Rusty at Flipper's Arcade | ### Topics - **Primary:** Pinball venue experiences and arcade location standards, Game design philosophy and designer comparison (Steve Ritchie vs Dennis Nordman), Pinball podcasting trends and show discontinuations/hiatuses, Specific game reviews: Elvira House of Horrors and Led Zeppelin LE - **Secondary:** Spooky Pinball business expansion and production capacity, Pinball community engagement and tournament events (Twippies), Pinball distribution and subscription-based content platforms - **Mentioned:** Pop culture crossovers in pinball themes and music licensing ### Sentiment **Positive** (0.78) — Hosts are enthusiastic and positive about their Wyoming trip, Flipper's Arcade, and the games they played. General praise for Elvira and Led Zeppelin. Supportive tone toward Spooky Pinball expansion and other podcast shows taking breaks. Some mild criticism of Super Awesome Pinball Show's timing (quitting before Twippies) but framed humorously. Critical of Pinball Network's subscription model and accessibility but not of the content creators themselves. ### Signals - **[venue_signal]** Flipper's Arcade in Cheyenne, Wyoming praised as exemplary venue with impeccable equipment maintenance, clean machines, proper leveling, and excellent game variety including both classics and new releases (confidence: high) — Hosts describe it as 'a do not miss this place' and 'every town in America should have an arcade like this' with specific praise for equipment care, lighting, and mixed game selection - **[gameplay_signal]** Led Zeppelin LE analyzed as having sparse playfield but excellent flow, speed, and satisfying ramp shots reminiscent of classic 70s/80s Williams games; fun factor confirmed through multiple plays (confidence: high) — Host provides detailed breakdown of playfield layout, shot mechanics, magnetic spinner mechanism, multiball accessibility, and overall enjoyment despite game being 'really sparse' - **[gameplay_signal]** Elvira House of Horrors received strong endorsement after first play experience; praised for flow, speed, toys, humor, loud callouts, and satisfying shot mechanics (confidence: high) — Host states 'I loved everything about that game' and 'It checks all the boxes' with specific mechanical highlights including coffin kickout and backdoor spinner - **[business_signal]** Spooky Pinball announced facility expansion to increase production capacity and accelerate game manufacturing timelines (confidence: high) — Hosts explicitly state 'Spooky is enlarging. They're expanding their corporate headquarters or operations...to make more games quicker and get them out to all of us' - **[content_signal]** Spooky Pinball ended their 11-year podcast run with their last episode reaching episode 11; transitioning to video content instead (confidence: high) — Host confirms 'they were one month shy of 11 years in a row, doing their podcast. So their February, was it their February or March podcast? This one went to 11. This one went to 11. It was their last podcast.' - **[content_signal]** Super Awesome Pinball Show taking break from traditional podcast format but not discontinuing entirely; released alternative two-hour music/requests playlist format instead (confidence: high) — Host notes 'They put up a new episode. How did I miss this? So, it's not an episode of the podcast, but it's like a two-hour playlist of music and requests' and 'he's not done podcasting. He's just taking a break' - **[community_signal]** Multiple pinball podcasts pausing/discontinuing simultaneously (Spooky, Super Awesome, The Spinner Is Lit itself), suggesting broader trend in the medium or production demands (confidence: medium) — Host jokes 'Doesn't it seem like the hot thing to do these days is quit doing your podcast' in context of three separate shows going on hiatus; hosts themselves announce indefinite break between episodes - **[design_philosophy]** Dennis Nordman positioned as 'Duke of flow' and primary flow designer in contrast to Steve Ritchie's speed/overall excellence; differentiation in design philosophies acknowledged (confidence: medium) — Host references Black Knight podcast analysis: 'somebody once said Steve Rich is the king of flow. And he said he's not. He's the king of speed. The king of flow is actually Dennis Nordman.' - **[market_signal]** Elvira House of Horrors topper priced at $1,000 as premium accessory; tradeable for EM or sold separately (confidence: high) — Host explicitly states 'The topper for Elvira? It is $1,000. I know it is. It's much more impressive in person.' - **[product_strategy]** Pinball Network shifted to subscription-based access model causing accessibility issues for casual audience; contrast with traditional free podcast distribution (confidence: medium) — Host expresses confusion about access: 'i can't figure out are they on like itunes or do you have to get like some sort of subscription like you really went all wacky when they did the whole you have to subscribe' - **[competitive_signal]** Twippies awards event occurred and was monitored by community; hosts acknowledged watching it but treated as casual community fun rather than serious competition (confidence: medium) — Host notes 'This is the first year I've actually watched the Twippies or listened to it or whatever...It's a fun little thing to do. It's fun. No big deal. But there's something I would never take seriously.' --- ## Transcript Welcome to the Spinners Let Pinball Podcast episode... 37. 37. In a row. In a row. In a row, yeah. At least that wasn't number 36. Things my girlfriend has done for 100, Alex. Just see the movie Clerks. Is that all in the excess? I was going to hit the intro music by our own good friend Mark Scott. I'll do it on the outro. Hey, man, it's been a while. It's been, I think, nearly three months since we've had a podcast. In a row? In a row. In a row, wow. I know, in a row. Don't blame me for this one. I didn't ask this time. You know, we haven't had really – I've been waiting. I've been wanting to do a show, but I've been waiting because, honestly, we just didn't have anything to talk about. I mean, that's just been the meat and potatoes of it, man. We wanted to wait until we had something to talk about. So this episode is Spring Thought. It's officially spring. What's been going on with me? Well, I'll tell you. I quit smoking. I'll be nine weeks Monday. My lovely wife, who has beat cancer, finally quit smoking. Yay. So we're doing good, man. We're doing really good. And we just got back from a road trip, which I'm going to talk about, to Wyoming. And so we went to Casper, Wyoming. It's not a road trip if you take an airplane. Well, we drove, when we were in Wyoming, we drove through, like, the whole, most of the eastern half of the state. Yep. And Casper doesn't have a lot of pinball. There's a couple of locations. They're not on pinball map. A couple of bars. And Eagles or Elks Lodge has a Beatles, which I got to add to pinball map. But stuff's just really starting to open up there. You can go places again without a mask if you choose or if you choose you can wear a mask. People don't care either way as long as you're there and having a good time. That's terrific. We went over to Cheyenne, which is about a two and a half to two hour, 45 minute drive from Casper. and we went to Flipper's Arcade. Now, there's several great locations there. Check on Pimall Map. The Ice Rink also has about 15, 20 games, including a Guns N' Roses LE and a Dialed-In LE. We didn't get over there. We're pressed for time. But Spinners has – look on their – Flippers, I'm sorry. Flippers in Cheyenne, Wyoming, fantastic location. They have old classic video games. They have new modern video games, including the Rothwell's Halo game, the Ninja Turtles game, the Star Wars pod. They got old classics like Skee-Ball and the punching bag thing. We punch the punching bag for fun and prizes. That's called Robin Gibbons. They have, right? The Radisson has a Walking Dead premium. There you go. Yeah, they do. Well, so does Flippers has a lot of premiums than L.E.'s. Did you stay at the Radisson? I did not. We stayed in Casper at the Marriott with a really great pool and hot tub and bar and lovely people. Keep them very hot. You guys ever had a White Claw? I've never had one. I'm not having one. They had a White Claw claw machine. They have pizza. A White Claw claw machine. Yeah. You can grab White Claws out of the claw. Yeah, and drink them. The claw. I'm out of the loop here, but what the fuck is a White Claw? right no i know what it is so um interesting yeah so they had a bar because you know other states have different laws in california but you can have kids so we were the we were we were way there 10 minutes before they opened yeah i just raised my hand here spencer no no yes you don't need a bar to have kids right yeah well it helps it helps depending on what she looks like there you go um but so you can bring kids but they have a bar so obviously the kids can't drink the white claws or the alcohol but they were making pizzas Just for the kids. All the games were perfect. All of them working. Everything was working there. Everything was clean. Everything was in good working order. The premiums and LEs that had toppers. I mean, you had the Elvira House of Horrors. House of Horrors. House of Horrors. That's actually the name. House of Horrors. House of Horrors. House of Horrors. Had the topper. Walking Third Premium had the topper. They had some of their own made toppers, which were also really nice. But the games were, they had the musters, Ellie with the topper, and it was clean. It was well lit. Everything was nice. I mean, these guys take impeccable care of their equipment. Everything was level. How did they treat the horse? I don't know. I'm going to say pretty good. But Rusty and I had a great time. She played, of course, the town of Deadpool and Attack from Mars and had a great time. She played other stuff. She played, she didn't play in Led Zeppelin, but she played Elvira with me. so if you guys for any reason whatsoever find yourself in Wyoming which you should go because it is you have to see Devil's Tower and you have to see it in person you have to I put that on my tinder bio I'm telling you because you just you guys see it in person you just have to it means something it really fucking does mean something it was a wonderful road trip for us we saw wild horses running were they broken? not yet 25 cents to ride my saddles you guys are salty tonight but no it was a great trip and if you find yourself in Wyoming Flippers Arcade is an absolute do not miss this place every town in America should have an arcade like this every arcade in America should be like looking at these guys going this is how you do an arcade in the 21st century, especially in a small town. Got to say it right. Got to say it right. This is how we do it. Oh, I don't know that reference. The following message brought to you by the Wyoming Tourism Board. Anyway, but shout out to the wonderful folks at Flipper's Arcade. Downtown, I don't remember the exact address. It's on Capitol Avenue. There's only like four roads in Wyoming. I know. There are. I'm a location guy. Yeah, but they're like 250 miles long. Yeah, they are. It doesn't matter. You know the world. And the speed limit is 80. 1617 Capitol Avenue, Cheyenne, Wyoming. And you can see the Capitol from the outside of the place. So check it out, folks. And big, huge shout-out and thank you for the hospitality from the lovely people at Flippers Arcade, man. So that's a real quick one. With that, we're going to talk about Elvira and my experience because I finally got to play one. House of Horrors. House of Horrors. Somebody once said it was the Black Knight from Pitside, and he was on another podcast. And he said that people always say Steve Ritchie is the king of flow. And he said he's not. He's the king of speed. The king of flow is actually Dennis Lornman. And I think there's Nordman. Thank you. Nordman. Nordman. Jeez. You know what? I'd say that's a valid statement. I agree with that statement, especially after playing your Whitewater so much, playing a lot of his other games. Indianapolis 500. I love that game. I really do. That's got some match-perfect ball. There's, yeah, he's good with flow. There is some stop-and-go, but, you know, that's fine. It doesn't have to be one or the other. Yeah, and he's defined both types of games. His Pirates of the Caribbean game is more of a stop-and-go game. It's got some elements of flow. Wheel of Fortune. Wheel of Fortune. And, you know, another underrated fun game. Just needs some code rewrites. Steve Ritchie is the king of flow. Well, Steve is still the king, and we all love Steve. Dennis Nordman can be the Duke of it. Well, I'll tell you what. Elvira played. That Elvira played flowy, and it played fast as hell, and it was fun as hell. I loved everything about that game. And Elvira, she looks great. And the call-outs and the fun of it. And the games that were loud so you could hear them, you know. Elvira's a great game. Granted, I haven't played it in over a year, and I haven't played with the new code update. But when we played it, it's a fantastic game. It's really fun to play. I don't have anything really bad to say about it It checks all the boxes It checks all the boxes It's got the toys and gizmos and gimmicks It's got the great ramp shots It's got the flow It's got the satisfying little things when you hit it You go alright It's got the humor It's got the really cool Yeah I love the Weird skill shot The coffin kick out Are you talking about the back door the backdoor kick out. I didn't even realize I'd hit it, then I got it, and I'm like, oh, alright, cool. By the way, folks, Spencer was in the Navy, which is why I didn't recognize hitting the backdoor. Any part of the story, babe. Just close your eyes and pretend it's a girl. So, yeah, man, so if you still haven't had a chance to play one, like me, I finally did get a chance, seek one out. If you find yourself anywhere near Cheyenne, Wyoming, which nobody's gonna find them sells near because it's in Wyoming. Just check Pinball Map at a city near you, man. There's one somewhere. It's a good game. I agree. It's fun. I want one. I would love to see the original Nordman Rams. I would love to see those as well. That is a cool game. Lyman is doing amazing work on it. I haven't played the new code, but I've watched some streams and they've added a ton of content, movies, modes, just all sorts of crazy cool quotes and soundbites. It's dope, man. That's one of the coolest turns going. Absolutely. And that topper is a giant rip-off. I will say it looks much better in person. The topper for Elvira? It is $1,000. I know it is. It's much more impressive in person. And you can't get one. It comes with $1,000. The topper? Or it's an EM. I could trade an EM, yeah. I'd rather have the EM. I'm with you. Look. So between Surf Champ and a topper? Surf Champ. I'll take the topper. Is this the one right here? Yes. No, that's it. That's it, yeah. On to the next game. This was a wonderful surprise because when I checked. Wonderful. When I checked Pinball Map. Yes. When I checked Pinball Map, it was not listed on their games. So they just got it. Alex, you're fucking. No, no, no, no, no. They just gotten it. Alex. We're back. Flippers again. Led Zeppelin, L.E. I want that right now. We haven't played it yet. None of you guys have played it. Wow. I played something before you guys. That's kind of different. You guys all know I'm not a huge Led Zeppelin fan. I don't think they had no idea. Well, actually, I'm going to head and add it in. For the listeners. They have a kiss there? Spencer is about five foot two, so he's not a huge anything. Hey-o. Hey-o. What about a Monster Bash? Yeah, they had an original Monster Bash. It played great. It was very nice. Tell us about Led Zeppelin. Led Zeppelin. Let's talk about it. So it's Led Zeppelin, L.E. Everybody was like, when I was in high school, I graduated in 1984, okay, before a lot of shit happened. But when all the cool shit happened. You come from the land of the ice and snow where the midnight sun and the hot springs blow? I do, actually. You're going to get us DMCA'd, man. Anyway, so you are. Shit. Okay. So Led Zeppelin. So you know what, man? the way this game shoots and the way the layout is, because the layout is very sparse, okay? It is, especially for a premium LE. The way this game reminds me that it shoots, it had to me the feel of a great classic late 70s, early 80s valley with ramps. And it shot, think about like, you know, three-foot per game? Think about like a um... 80s, 90s? Early, early, like early 80s ballads like 80 81 classic like that like like uh deluxe or something eight ball deluxe except without the uh drop target yes yeah but you had that feel but then with with with the premium le you get four ramps okay right the ramp shot smooth it's what you'd expect from Steve Ritchie it was fast and flowy the people bagged on the art package for the cabinet uh in person it's beautiful and it fits the theme, the color scheme, the artwork on the play field looks nice. The live show on this is superb. It fits everything well. Everything that the video displays fit that early mid-70s feel. Kind of brings you back to 1975, 76, 77. Ten years before Alex was even thought of. Right. But I remember that time. Alex's parents are still underage. I remember that time as a kid. So now the thing I liked most about it, the ramp shots were good. The other features were good. They were, you know, once they started playing it, I looked at it and went, man, this game is really sparse. There's not a lot on this play field. But the electric whatever the hell they call it. Electric magic? Yes, where it lifts up out of the play field and you've got the spinner. And there's another, there's a left spinner shot. It's like a pop-up magnetic spinner mechanism target thing. Okay, now, I never once had a center drain hitting that center spinner. It would kind of shoot real fast up and get a beautiful spinner up, and a lot of times I would hit the target that would raise up the little fallen angel dude, Michael the Archangel, whatever he is, and then it would come back down. It would kind of jiggle through there. Sometimes it would hit the spinner real good, but it would almost always come right to the right flipper. So I didn't have drains. That mech is so goddamn fun to hit Then when you get enough spins on it You hit whatever targets I played half a dozen games on it Really was just trying to get the feel for the game And the shots Didn't really pay attention to the rules that much But then you would get the magnet lock And then you would get the multiball I got several multi-balls They weren't super easy to get But they were easy Not super hard A nice mix The hardest shot obviously is off the right flipper That weird right ramp It wasn't super difficult But you had to really work to hit it So it was a bit rewarding. It was an okay shot. The regular ramp shots were great. It's a good game. It's a solid game. It's a lot of fun to shoot. I don't know how much fun the Pro would be at the price point with the light show. You know, you've got to pay extra for that extra light show kit in the cabinet. But overall, man, if you're a Led Zeppelin fan, it's a must-buy. Absolutely must-buy. It sounds a lot like Aerosmith. Kind of. And I really like it. I love Aerosmith. That's the thing. The band and the – I never got into it. Aerosmith, the band, I know their songs. I haven't gone to any of their shows or anything like that, but I know their songs. But even when it came out and is now, it seems like it was a weird choice because when I think bands with massive followings, I don't think Aerosmith. again I'm not familiar with like their fan base or anything like that but it sounds kind of like that you know that play field felt a little especially the pro felt a little sparse yeah um the the le and the premium were fine I prefer the le and the premium over that game any day of the week and I would love to get one or at least have more time on one someday right hopefully we get someone around here gets one or an arcade gets one we get some time on because I'd like to try the the led zeppelin i like led zeppelin everyone and their mother my age you know mid 40s or we listen to led zeppelin it was classic rock right that's it still is but you know different age than you when they were actually still performing and not as you know um cut tony katane on a couple of jaguars right that one so it'd be probably someone around here guess when we can get a chance to play yeah uh what i'm doing if you're in sacramento uh we're just begging to come over and play the game. We're begging to come over and play it. I'll bring Dan and that's like begging yourself not to get invited. Dan DeVreen, sorry. And we should be good. What's this? If you find one on location or you got a buddy that gets one give it a chance. Led Zeppelin? Yeah. I'm sure it's a fine game. Who has a Led Zeppelin around here? I don't know. It's a Steve Ritchie. Steve Ritchie doesn't make bad games. He makes Steve Ritchie games, you know, so you're love it. If you like the music, I'm sure it's a big winner. You're saying it's good? Yeah. And the music they picked I like well enough. That's how I feel about Iron Maiden, except for the rest of Iron Maiden's fucking rad. There's just a Led Zeppelin song. It's one of my favorites that's not on there. Over the Hills and Far Away. That'd be a hard one to get into a pinball game, though, because it starts out slow. It does. And that's a problem with a lot like Stairway to Heaven. That's a hard one to fit in because it's like, what, a seven, eight minute song? Yeah, like the immigrant song. long time to reach up to speed. Just like, you know, when they are in main sound list or sound trackers are released and they said, Bride of the Ancient Mariner's Home. That's a 13-minute song. Right. So it's just like, I get it. You have to choose something. You can put slow songs in a game. Metallica's had one. Metallica's slow songs are not... But I mean, you know, every song doesn't have to be like Paul's pound name. No. It doesn't. It doesn't. I agree. But again, Made in Black starts out slow when you're... Yeah, it doesn't stay slow. But, you know, Led Zeppelin, like, Stairway to Heaven, biggest song, you know, period, if they did. And it takes a good five minutes to pick up a little bit of tempo. And for most average players, five minutes is a couple of games. But, you know, you don't have to play the whole intro. No, you don't. You're right, they cut out Number of the Beast, they cut out You can get into the song They cut out the talking part of the poem on Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner You can definitely trim it down In the end It can maybe save you some money Because you're not going to be paying for the whole song So why would you have to pay the whole ride show You're going to be proud of me, Ryan I finally started playing songs in Metallica, or not Metallica, in Iron Maiden Besides Ace is High I always played Ace is High too I'm running my horizons Nice. I'll agree with you some right there. I've always played Ace is High as well. I was doing that a lot for a while, and then I went to Wasted Years, and I kind of bounced back and forth. It's all about the number of the beast, man. Yeah. Anyways. So that sleds up on my review in a nutshell, you know, because it kind of came out right in the dead center of, you know, the zombie apocalypse. Do you like the electric little spinner thing in the middle? or like right out of the gate. Yeah, like Rick Magic. That's what he was saying. That's what I'm saying, man. That's my thing. Did you not pay attention? You weren't paying attention at all. No, I was. Alex was looking at porn and looking at his phone. Well, it's not porn, but we're watching Rick's stream. Yeah, we're watching Rick's stream. Is that what you guys are doing? He's playing Black Knight. I was going to try and tell you guys that, but I'm just super rolling our brand. Wow, you guys are fucked up. Well, I'm not the one who was on the podcast during my friend's stream. it's like shout out he's not the one yeah shout out to Elbow Pinball if you don't want to watch the stream go ahead and watch him we're not live yeah we're not live he is that's fucked up you know what you were fucking up my joke speaking of jokes I got one for you oh man why did the dead baby cross the road it was stapled to the chicken no no no you guys are going to love this one okay pay close attention Alex my contact Thanks. No, pay close attention. Stop me. I think I might've told you this, Brian, but okay. Hey, a priest, a minister and a rabbit walk into a bar. The bartender says, uh, what, what do you have fellas? The rabbit says nothing. I'm only here because of autocorrect. I did tell you guys that didn't I? Like, you know, I'm not smoking. My brain's still, You told me that joke like four times. Have I? Papa's getting old. I'm like, where's Papa? I'm on the air because I'm auto-corrected. I want ice cream. To be fair, he works with a lot of chemicals. I did. That is, to be fair. That's the help of something completely different. So we're on to, we're going to talk about Spooky Pinball. No, we're not. Yes, we are. Why? Well, because they're great, man. They're an awesome dude. They're an awesome family and family-owned pinball manufacturing company. You know, manufacturing. Deeper, take note. It's called manu... Say it. Manufacturing. This comes under the Navy and the rear admiral thing. Yeah. Hey, I just want to make sure. Okay. So, yeah, man. Spooky is enlarging. They're expanding. Boom. They're expanding their corporate headquarters or operations. They're expanding their operations. Extending their operations so they can make more games quicker and get them out to all of us. Make more games quicker. So here's the thing, right? It's going to take them so long to build all their Rick and Mortys that they decided it's going to be quicker to build a new facility. Right. Than to finish building their game. Yeah, I know. So, no, and they got some good stuff coming down the pipe. So, and. Again, Navy joke. Hey-o. Hey-o. Hey-o. They got to have something good coming next. They do. if they feel the need to expand the facility. And not just more TNA. More TNA is good TNA. I guess that they were talking about I don't know if it was a podcast or whatnot but Denise was talking about TNA 2.0 which is not a new TNA it's just a new run of TNA. I thought it was going to be TNA inside of a brighter pinball. Exactly. That would be good. So we're wishing them well. They also, after they were one month shy of 11 years in a row, doing their podcast. So their February, was it their February or March podcast? This one went to 11. This one went to 11. It was their last podcast. They're still going to do video stuff down the road. They're going to have like a video podcast thing because they're doing that now. I haven't seen if they've done another one yet, but we wish the team at Spooky well. and they put out a hell of a good podcast with a hell of a good run. Sounds good Speaking of podcasts Doesn it seem like the hot thing to do these days is quit doing your podcast fucking i never quit so we have an announcement to make no we don this is the last episode of the spinner is lit until the next one there you go and there you go and it was it's only been three months i've been wanting to do another episode forever in a day but we just literally didn't have fuck all the talk about you know it's like stopped us before i know it hasn't, but... We have nothing to talk about, so you put a bottle of scotch. When the episodes are so bad, because I listen, I'm on the road, so I listen to every episode. When the episodes are so bad that even I'm like, I can't finish this garbage. Certainly, we just put a bottle of scotch in the middle of the table. That seems to solve the problems. Well, at the time, and then I go, oh, God, what was I thinking? Who said we had to listen to it? We said have a bottle of scotch. Well, there you go. So, hey, it's free entertainment. So calling entertainment is a bit of a stretch. The Super Awesome Pinball Show is also called The Quits. Now, if you don't know the Super Awesome Pinball Show, I don't know. I don't think I have. You've never listened? Oh, my God, you missed out. It's Christopher Franchi, the pinball artist extraordinaire, and Dr. Pin, who his real name is Dr. Pin. Christopher Line, I think. No, Christian Line. Christian Line, yeah. really great people really nice guys and then his lovely wife Mrs. Dr. Penn who does a podcast about as often as we do and a lot better well she does a really good podcast so aim low America in my humble opinion I thought it was the best pinball podcast since Coast to Coast with Nate Shivers that was really well done. It was very well produced. It was definitely the most slickly produced. Franchi, I guess, has a background in that. Yeah, it was a good... It was an entertaining, fun show, and I always look forward to it. Now, here's the thing, though. They put up a new episode. How did I miss this? So, it's not an episode of the podcast, but it's like a two-hour playlist of music and requests and intros and outros. Oh, really? From a mock radio station. Oh, cool. And he's playing music, and he's getting requests from pinball notable people. According to Franchi, he's not done with what... He's not done podcasting. He's just taking a break. Well, they're just not going to do the show. Okay. All right. Fair enough. It's a lot of work. You know, I mean, what do you do? A real nice podcast? Now, I don't want to sink him, but does anybody find it coincidental that he bitched out before the Twippies and then lost? Who cares? Yeah. He cared. Franchi was hell-bent on beating Kaneda. And he didn't. This is the first year I've actually watched the Twippies or listened to it or whatever. I didn't do anything. I was in Wyoming. It's a fun little thing to do. It's fun. No big deal. But there's something I would never take seriously. This is all for fun, right? Yeah. Well, that's the thing. We do this for fun. I don't make it. We don't make any money. Wait, we're not getting paid? No. Fuck this. I'm leaving. No, you know, we're having fun. We're having a good time. We get together. We have some pizza. Where did Alex go? He's in the can, dude. Okay. All right. his irritable bowel syndrome is acting up. But he's talking. Anyway, but we wish him well. And, yeah, they're going to do something down the road, whatever it is. And, yeah, like the twippies happened, and I was getting some of the local guys. Shout-out to Moe. Shout-out, whoop! So he hit me up via our, you know, super secret club. You mean your phone? Dude, Grindr's not secret anymore. And no, our Slack group. And he hit me up. He's like, hey, Twinkies are on, da-da-da-da-da. I'm like, oh, cool. I'm in Wyoming. Actually, I think I sent him a picture of Devil's Tower. He's like, oh, holy crap, you're in Wyoming? This means something. This means something. It does. I'm like, yeah, man, I'll be home in a few days. Love you. Spencer forded four rivers and killed four of his kids. Good job, man. Killed two buffaloes. He got 99 pounds and had to waste the rest. There you go. He could only carry 100 pounds back to Oregon. It was Oregon Trail. It was sedation on his goat. Oh, wrong buffalo, Bill. What the fuck was I? Anyway, so. Well, I'm not even sure what we got for you all. Just beer tonight, ladies and gentlemen. Just beer tonight. So, yeah, but we had, you know. Oh, anyway, so we wish them well. And, you know, hopefully they'll be doing something in the near future. I'd also like to shout out to The Pinball Show. The Pinball Show. On the Pinball Network. On the Pinball Network. They've been taking a break. so the other shows have been going but the one with um i don't know i don't listen to any of the pinball networks now and it's not because i have anything against them it's just i can't figure out are they on like itunes or do you have to get like some sort of subscription like you really went all wacky when they did the whole you have to subscribe to the gary kubeda gold network channel gary gary gary gary gary robot translator 2000 is required to listen and you might have to know the full. What is, now I can't think of his name. Gary Guetta? No, no, no, no, no. Gary, Gary, Gary, Robot Translator 2000, by gold. The guy that does the host of the show. He's a pinball distributor. Oh, Meany, Zach Meany. Zach Meany, okay. Yeah, Zach Meany. He hasn't done a show in a couple, three weeks, so I'm like, wow. Can the world rejoice? No, I love his show, and I think he's great, and I love what he's doing. He seems like a good dude. Whenever I hear his name, all I can think of is Zack Morris from Saved by the Bell. And you're not far off. That's just. And he's a shrink, too, or he's a psychologist. That's all I can imagine. No offense to the guy, but it's just like I see him going timeout, going off the big cell phone, and then being a dickhead that weren't at the school. There you go. And somehow coming out on top. I would know this, except I've never actually seen an episode of Saved by the Bell. Oh, you're a lul. I've never seen an episode of Baywatch. You're a liar. I've never seen an episode of A-Wild. I don't watch a lot of television. You've played the pinball machine. I love the pinball machine. You've spanked off to Pamela Anderson's other movies. No. Don't lie. No. Don't lie. Your room looks like a Jackson Pollock thing. Well, it does, but it wasn't Pamela Anderson. Okay, Tommy Lee. Whatever you want to call it. Okay, why not? It was Louis Anderson. It was Louis Anderson. Not that there's anything wrong with that. It's nothing against that, right? I mean, the guy does nothing but try to create pinball content, and apparently he runs a pretty good outfit. I know guys who bought a couple games from him and have been generous. He's a legit dude as well. He takes care of his customers. He just, like, he came on really strong. We're just trying to get ratings. Right. He's trying to reinvent the game, and he just makes absolutely sure that you know that he does it, and it's just like I can see why dudes are kind of like, dude, fuck this guy. I like him, and my favorite segment I absolutely look forward to don't even say pinball market trend I fucking love that segment I fucking love that segment I love it man I don't watch any television like dude the only television I watch is like fucking letter candy my family show me what you've got see he's pulling the family you know what I just actually watched before you guys got here because I'm curious oh the worst kind man They watch, yeah. Charles and Charles. I watched the Soleil Moon Pie documentary. She was so cute. Kid 90. I haven't watched it yet. It's really good. It's really good. Man, I had the hugest crush on her. It's really good. She's always been gorgeous. Who's this? I will watch. It's on Hulu, I think. I'll watch it. Punky Brewster. Soleil Moon Pie. Soleil Moon Pie. I'll watch it sometime. It's a really good documentary. Soleil, if you listen to this, I'm 44, two kids, and I'm single. Really single. And we can talk about Police Academy and all that good stuff. Did you know she was in Pumpkinhead, too? Yeah. I did not know this. Never saw Pumpkinhead, too. Pumpkinhead as well? Pumpkinhead as well, yes, too. Also, yeah. Was it T-O or T-W-O or T-O-O? T-W-O. For you Americans out there. Oh, damn, she's hot, yeah. Okay. He's got a blank screen on his phone. Yeah, I'm just looking at the name. this is actually going well for about 8 minutes I actually did see a preview for the new Punky Brewster review that they did and she is looking pretty good she's a really bright intelligent woman yeah she always struck this is way off topic I know somebody might be doing a Punky Brewster right now we should do it it's coming right after Raza Raza's coming soon Yeah, it's so coming soon. I have one on the line right now. She always seemed, at least, you know, the public persona they put out, always kind of more down to earth and didn't either, didn't publicly show the normal downfalls of child celebrities, or she avoided it. Or she didn't, it wasn't publicly broadcast. She didn't Britney Spears it. Right, right. Or any other stuff, which is awful to say. She dodged a bullet, basically, from the documentary. Alright, let's get back on subject of pinball Let's play Moonfresh, she's kind of hot She looks a lot better than most pinballers Yeah, she does Except maybe Zingy Bing Classic Sterns People are asking Insane money these days Before we even get started Dan Has a really good idea On why all those games Are skyrocketing in value All of a sudden do I? Yes. I'm insightful. You are insightful. We've talked about this many times. I think we were actually talking about it too. We were. That was a good segue. That was a great segue. You have the floor, Dan. I read my shirt. Why do I have the floor? He started the topic. I'm not Dan. Go get him, Brian. You're the man. My nipples are in a wreck. So, yeah, Dan. Tell us your idea. Well, my theory is that the price of new games obviously drives the price of used games, right? Yes. And your general entry-level price should be half the price of a new-in-box common game, right? Which for a stern these days is 6K. So 3K is kind of the baseline. And that's why everything is crazy expensive. At least to our eyes. Because, you know, we're so used to, you know, especially those of us who have been in the hobby for, what, 15 years, 15 plus, 20, 25. Because we go back to when games were $3,500 brand new and the entry-level game was $1,750. Maybe a little less, maybe a little more. And as a result, every time that we get a price bump, which is pretty much every year, the price of a decent entry-level game goes up. And, of course, you have, you know, a certain kind of game that always is going to be a little bit more expensive because they're hot at the moment. Ten years ago, wedge heads. Crazy expensive, right? Everybody was looking for wedge heads. But if you looked at the average age of the pinball enthusiasts then, that was kind of where their feels were. Right. You know, now you're getting to the point where, again, that early 80s stuff, the classic sterns. And, you know, again, I've always been saying that, what, Stern is the new Valley Williams, right? Yes, they are. So, you know, people now are going back to the early Sterns, even though they're not by the same company, Stern, because they want to know where the shit that they like comes from, you know. And, you know. There you go. Let's be honest, right? Sea Witch is a cool fucking game. It's a great game, man. Meteor is a cool game. You know, the Stern Dracula, which is just the wackiest game. I love that game. Oh, yeah, that is great. The one at Flipper Room is just outstanding. Yeah, with the Castlevania soundtrack. It's amazing. So I can kind of understand why some of those games are getting up in price. But how about the $7,000 Stargazer? Yeah. That's like, oh, God. That's on the high. A $6,000 to $7,000 Quicksilver with a roasted playfield. Every one of those is roasted. There was also the Stern Stargazer that came out a couple days after. The Silver came on that had wear in the middle of the play field, but it seemed to be a deal at $3,700. Right. Of course, once you see something for $7,000, $3,700 feels pretty good. Well, of course. You know, that 69Z28 at $82,000. Well, they didn't make hardly any of those. The Quicksilver and Stargazer, they made so few of. Well, and people don't always understand, and just like any other business, if they could have sold 15,000 of those games, they would have. maybe it's the stinker of the game maybe it was just to fill time in line we don't really know right but a lot of those games that are ultra rare like that aren't always the greatest games to play right which 30 years later everyone wants because they're rare even if they're not the most fun to play and sometimes they end up being super fun and sometimes like you said they're just okay i'll sidetrack to gauntlet real quick tf sector loved it when it was a 600 game kept talking about it, kept going, look at this video of it, and then the classic Game Room video. And now everybody, now, one went for $3,800 last week or two weeks ago. I'll tell you why TX Sector got expensive, and it's not even your fault. It was because Coast to Coast Pinball kept using the music from it for intros and outros. And after, I kept talking about it. That's happened before, though. Even way back in the day, when Joshua Clay was still doing this old pinball, you know my favorite game is you like pinball you know he would pick up a game and all of a sudden the price like Banzai Run he did the really good system 11 with that Banzai Run bonsai runs have always been expensive they've never been cheap but he did he did that video on it and it went up yeah we've always had a flavor of the week in the sloppy it's always been like that there's been flavor of the week for safe cracker right um indie 500 like back in the long time ago days shot up to like four grand overnight because three guys got in on RGP. All of a sudden decided it was like the shit hot game. It is a great game. And it shot up and it's come back down. That always happens. There's always going to be flavors of the week in this hobby. Now with the older Stern games, like you mentioned, the newer collector, the younger guys, like a lot of the guys we know are Stern guys. And that's fine. That's cool. And like Dan said, they want to see like the old school Stern stuff. That's what they're into right now. And so the prices are coming up. Some of those games are so damn much fun. A lot of those games are a great ton of fun. I like the older Solid State. Meteor. And thank God it's one they made so many, it's still affordable. Meteor, Flight 2000. I love that game. That's a great game. It's not the greatest playing game, but they made a metric shit ton of those games. And they're fun. It is a fun game to play. Another one, Galaxy. The banisters have a beautiful one. Shout out to the banisters. Hey. And that's one that's still, you don't see them around much anymore, but you can still pick because they made a lot of them. And I love Galaxy. but you know and then we talk about Sea Witch and they remade Sea Witch as the Beatles which if I had the money and the choice I would take the Beatles because it just shoots better oh dude, Beatles is right you can't say shoots better when you come to Beatles man oh wow that's a fucked up thing to say oh I got a better one they were going to do a reunion record too the Beatles minus one or better late than never you know I remember a long time ago Back in junior high, I was like, hey, what's it going to take to reunite the Beatles? It was like three more bullets. Oh, I was just picturing that as the title of a Rocky and Bullwinkle episode. You know, there's the Beatles minus one, or better late than never. There's always going to be those fun over games that are going to all of a sudden skyrocket in price because they come the flavor of the week, or people realize, oh my gosh, this game's a lot of fun. yeah you may not agree with it but if more people do yeah it's going to definitely drive the price as games get more expensive yes games are going to come up in price that being said games have gotten really really expensive and i know everyone's saying oh you know they're always you always have the two sides it's going to go up forever or it's going to crash it's going to be in the happy medium but they haven't gotten really expensive again if you look at the price of games they're simply tracking with what the new game is. Well, you have to admit, it's a good chunk of change. Well, sure. 4K is a lot of money. I mean, well, situationally, 4K might not be a lot of money. I don't care who you are, 4K is a lot of money for a fucking Fishtails. Well, you know, that depends on how many Fishtails that you own. But ultimately, I think that what you're talking about is, again, is Fishtails an entry-level game? Yeah. Sure. What does it go for? $3,000, $3,000 plus. You know, is it worth it? That's all to your purview of how much you like the game, how much you like the theme, what the condition is. You know, but that's just sort of it. I mean, I feel like, you know, the constant bitching that pinball is expensive, pinball is expensive. Pinball was always expensive. It was expensive. I never said it wasn't. No one said that. You said that. Yeah, it's always been expensive. Except for Alex. Alex was saying it was expensive. It's always been expensive. Alex, you bastard! Oh, my God! Mike, when you look back to what these games went for new in the 70s or the 80s or the 90s, they were still hovering brand new around $2,000, $2,000. Back in the 70s, 80s, that was a shit ton of money. Oh, yeah. A fully loaded, again, stupid card game, but a fully loaded Trans Am in the 84 was $11,000. Wow. You could spend $3,000, give or take, and get a brand new pinball machine. Yeah. And I'm sure that people in the 90s were bitching, oh, my God, man, and Adam's family is $3,500. They were. You're out of your minds. No one's going to buy those. They'll never make a profit in the arcade. Well, and that's the big difference is that back then also the arcades were much more prevalent. Well, but that's the other thing. Well, what I'm saying is we're all old enough to remember at the conception of Alex of you go down to the local liquor store, laundromat, even grocery store sometimes. 7-Eleven. Anywhere, 7-Eleven. Gas station. there's a good chance that there's going to be a pin and they're making so many money. Yeah. Every little mom and pop, you know, quick stop at a pinball or two. Nowadays, you're not going to go and see that because the return of income on pinball is just there. My, my, my Holy grail of all Holy grail items from my childhood is a slide named Rosebud. No, it's a sign. It's a sign about 18 inches long by about probably four inches, five inches high. and it simply says skill center. Tours for California. And all the local 7-Elevens above the pinball machine said, you remember the little skill center sign? I will perform a natural act for that sign to put in my game room. Depending on the neighborhood, they have those about the cash registers too. And how quickly they load the gun and if somebody was there, they caught a copy. No, but that's just how it is totally awesome way to go harrelton you know the pinball now you're lucky to have locations like you mentioned while we were everything was pristine and perfectly played uh even now you know you can go into a you go into like a giant or not a giant because they don't just don't exist anymore but like a corporate owned arcade right it's a chain they're gonna be looking at those numbers it's like okay you know we know we have a switch out or whatever it's going to cost us x amount of money to fix it we're only bringing in x amount of money in this it's going to take us a month to recoup the cost of that switch we're just not going to worry about it all right but that's that's an aside from what we're talking about which is which is prices right but it does have a good point to future prices because later on down the road there are going to be fewer used games out there fewer routed entry-level games. Everything is going to be HUO. I like everything from the 90s, which is not HUO. Nothing from the 90s is actually HUO, or very, very, very little. I think you're right. I think older games like EMs, you're still not going to... The price is always going to be remaining lower just because it's a different age segment. They are coming up. Because your price and EMs are coming up, but they're also not being stuck on the route in most cases. I'll argument that one. But you're aging out of the EMs. When I was a kid, car collectors would collect Model Ts. They were very common. You'd see them all over. You'd always see my local hometown, the Spring Parade, the local car club, and there would be 30 or 40 people with their little Model As. Oh, yeah, of course. You never see those anymore because all the people that really enjoyed those and knew them when they were young are all dead now. Yeah, they passed on. And, you know, Dan remembers this. When we went to the Atleat's house to pick up my infamous bowler, Her recently passed husband, one of his hobbies besides pinball and it seems like a lot of other things was restoring model tees. Yeah. But it wasn't like he had the parts sent out. They came back restored and he put them together. You remember what this guy had. He restored model tees. Like one of the shops on the property was where he did the interior work. Oh, wow. He had spaces where he was working on wheels. Like this guy was on a completely different level than most people. And you're always going to have that part of the hobby, no matter how old the games are. Right. But you are right. EMs are they slowly but surely getting phased out There still collectors that like them I like a ton of EMs They fun And I think as other games come up in price people are going to start discovering those again But you're not going to, with a few exceptions, you're not going to go find a jive time for three grand. Right. But like you were saying about the Model T guy, the problem is that the dudes who really knew everything that were to know about EMs are passing on, or they're too old, they're not going to deal with it anymore, Plus, again, the people who are spending money right now are the people in their 40s. Right. The last year of EMs was Gottlieb. Fuck off, Spencer. 78. So they're in the prime of their earning potential. They're putting the kids in college. They're getting the kids out of the house. And they are starting to buy the things that they remember from when they were in their 20s, which is shit from the 90s. Right. And you know what, of course, else is with EMs. Don't talk over me, Spencer. Dan, of course, at the EMs, you just can't toss a new board in it and have it work magically. No, you just got to polish a couple contacts. You have to know what you're doing. No, that's my point exactly. You brought up the 90s now. Right. You know? And there's time for clacks. There is. And Crystal Pepsi. You're in your guys' zone where I still remember what, you know, my Sir Champ, because it was a Grail, when it was a new game. You remember when Jesus Christ used to walk around Bethlehem. We played surf camp to settle in and drank orange sorbets. There you go. Back in those days, there were no orange sorbets. There were two flavors, cherry and cola. And if you got them together, you could have cherry cola. No, it was cherry and blue raspberry, actually. No, blue raspberry was icy. That was icy. Ah, shit. Get stuck, bitch. Hold on. No, it was before cola, though. It was cherry and... It wasn't Coke. It was just cola. Yeah, it was cola because they wanted to pay the money for the license. Right, right. Listeners, you have to understand, we've got 40-ish people here with Dan and myself. We have young 20s with Alex. Then we've got folks like our lovely host, Spencer, who back when he was young. We're not 25, 45, and 55. No, back when Spencer was young, his history class was called What I Did Yesterday. So we have a varied age group here. But some of the old EM stuff, even that's starting – some of them, the rare stuff is starting to come up in price. Yeah. Pigeon bats have gone crazy. Again, they've gotten more expensive because they did videos on them. Right. Ball bowlers have gotten extremely expensive. Well, you never see them out here either. Not on the West Coast. No. They're rare. Gold Rush. Gold Rush. I've got to get you a better chair. I've got a $1,000 select bet that somebody sold. Oh, yeah. I wish I could have actually gotten that. Really? The thing that was not working, Neo Skywalker was selling it. Dude, $1,000? Yeah. That way you used to remember Dan knows. I used to be expensive for that. I know. Oh, yeah, man. $1,000 for a slug bag. That's going to give me like a salary boost. I remember passing on one for $900, fully working. $500. $900? Come on, man. Give it to me for $600. He's like, nah. I passed on one for $500. It was loaded with garbage pail kids instead of baseball cards. That would have been awesome. That would have been awesome. Damn. What's our next topic, Glorious Leader? anyways pinball not that expensive deal with it yep you're whining okay uh sorry okay the bad news not at least bad news in general yeah we all knew this happened a while ago you use up over bandwidth no bad news we haven't been recording oh oh shit our usual podcast our usual podcast 49 it was nice talking for 40 minutes just now 50 50 50 minutes in and three seconds four seconds five seconds we gotta start all over no we're good we're we're good we're metering good everything's looking good um no uh bad news is uh gspf golden state pinball festival has been canceled for a second year in a row thank you zombie apocalypse fuck you dr Fauci, baby raping motherfucker. You know who he is. Fucking Nazi war card. You fucking know who he is. He's not old enough. He's old enough. He was Hitler Youth. Okay? Anyway. Not even close. It was going to happen. We knew it was going to happen. I don't listen to Fox News. It's very likely that California Extreme is probably going to be cancelled as well. We're at severely limited. California Extreme is going to make it. Or it's severely limited people allowed. They're going to let us all in. You got to believe. We're all going to lick all the controls. Well, that would still be cleaner than normal. A stinky unicorn in the trench coat, the leather trench coat, will still show up. Lick the pedals off-road. It'll be Alex in the not-disguised. But anyways, that's bound to happen. You know, things are slowly getting back to normal. right now, Pindagogo is going to be most likely the best shot. We'll see. I'm not going to look into the future and get upset about stuff that has or has not been announced yet. Because here's the deal. There's a show that's announced and it's happening. They're doing it. I need a date on that, Alex. I think it's the 19th of April, isn't it? I'm not even sure. What's this? Arcade Expo and Banning. I'm not sure It's expensive, it's limited It's limited too You can go there and play pinball For one day, 12 hours For $150 Entry fee Now that doesn't include lodging Your transportation That's just a ticket to get in Well, they have to keep the lights on, man And you know, instead of having 3,000 people April 24th 10am to 10pm Okay, so you can go online to Arcade Expo and check it out and see if you want to reserve a ticket. Get it right, because Arcade Exposed is just naked chicks in front of a Q-Bert. Hold on, I'm going to check out that website. I've checked it out multiple times today. Oh, nice. And what's it called? The Pinball Brewfest is happening. Where's that? I'm not even sure. I was listening to it on another podcast. I'm just excited for beer. Buffalo Pinball. It's somewhere out east. I'm not going. It's probably in Buffalo. We're not going to make it. It's not in Buffalo, but it's close enough. So, I mean, shows are coming back online. So, you know, there's a chance that hopefully by, you know, summer, late summer, early fall. Fight over the Rocky Mountain pinball show. Oh, yeah. That's usually right after. That's usually like right after the original pinnago go. Yeah. It's probably like early June. Early June, yeah. I think that might happen because Colorado is pretty open. Wyoming is like, do whatever the hell you want except at the airport. Ha! Come on, Don. Come on, Don. If you're listening, Golden State pinball is flaking. Do Pinnagogo the day after or the week after Mother's Day. I dare you. I know. He's like, I'm taking back my spot, bitches. What? I would assume that. I don't even know if I'll be. I don't even know if Rocky Mountain Pinball Show has another show. We have a Rocky Mountain Pinball Show. Well, I figured we'd look at it anyway. Well, Seattle's been canceled. Yeah, I know that. Yeah, we knew that. That's a great show. I never made it, and that's how my bucket list is. That's what I've been wanting to go to. And I hear nothing but good things about both those shows. I hear so many good things about so many shows now. We've got to check them out. There's something really amazing about that show because it's on the top level of the – Space Needle, right? No, not the Space Needle. That would be amazing. No, but of the convention center. It's not even in Seattle. It's in Tacoma. But it's on the top level of a convention center. It's just really amazing to know that you're like four floors left and there's like 150, 200, 300, 500 pinball machines there. Nice. Just because I just figured we'd skip a month doing the time capsule because there's only so many years we can do the time capsule. You know what I mean? 1926. Well, you know, so I figured we'd skip a month. 1947. I just think we'll skip a month and kind of freeform and talk about more of what's going on right now. You really hit the nail on the head, by the way, Dan. We've definitely freeformed. Well, we always do, and that's what we do. Fuck it, you know. But you did really well on your pricing and why the pricing's the way it is. What do you got in the repair bin? It's been rattling around in my head, man. We talk about that on our drives a lot. I've got a project that I can't talk about. Uh-oh. Dan knows about it. I can't talk about it. You've already told me about it when we were drinking. I am absolutely not. When we were drinking in your patio the other night. I'm not allowed to talk about that. You can talk about my World Cup soccer. Dan's World Cup soccer. Everything's in place. The world's longest shop job. Not even close, but I can extend it if you want to. I'm down to like that greenish blue on the play field. I've been really struggling to match it. Is it teal or no? it's this really weird it's an off blue teal um and it's hard because like oh you know i've been struggling with it matching and i just been struggling with i was like i'll take a plastic in plastic's not the same color as one playfield which is very common but i do have an old uh color chrome guide and i found the one that matches and i'm gonna end up taking it into home depot the only problem is is that it's literally the paint spot size is like the size of a dime but it's getting covered and then once i get those colors matched uh it's a spot clear and then the normal polish metal reassembly redo the um mechanic the mechanicals as needed polish the metal get it all cleaned up get the new stuff that dan wants installed and get it the hell out of my house there you go and then after that um i'm done i got a gotley high hand to finish for our friend. I remember that one, yeah. And it just needs minor tweaks and a re-rubbering and then heavy metal meltdown. But after the high hand, I'm kind of done taking on project with a couple of exceptions for close friends and stuff like that. I'm just kind of done. Just taking a break. It's just because my head and heart's not in it right now. I've been very fortunate to have people like Dan or Henry who kind of understand where I sit right now. So if I have a game for a month Or a year or whatever I got 17 other games to play Who cares You're not under a timeline You can do it when you're filling up to it And right now with all my other garbage It's been slow going Hey man the last year and a half has been hell on everybody But I'm looking forward to get the World Cup soccer done Because it looks miles ahead of what it did I know Dan will be happy I know Jamie will be happy Even just the cat work I did like every time I go out there to work on it or do laundry, I look at it because the stuff I did by hand, you can't tell until you're about three inches from the game. And nobody is that close to the game. When it's in the lineup, you're not going to see, my God, there's a brush stroke. What the fuck? Instead of like, well, couldn't airbrush that. Wait, there's brush strokes? Yeah. I know. You should be disappointed. I'm crushed. But don't worry. I'm going to get Midna to put some scratches on the capsule and match it with a black knife. Oh, good. It'll match my black knife. beyond that, it's just, it's going to be my stuff. Heavy Metal Meltdown, I'd really like to get at least playing again. Oh, yeah, we got to work on it. The more I look at it, it's like, man, I just, I need to get it going. I was watching some video of that a while back, that game. It's a super fun game. Yeah, we got to get that running. Well, I got to get it running, but also it's one of those games that when it doesn't have the sounds, it's part of the package. You kind of need it there. and Dan knows my, unfortunately, my radio on top of that thing has seen better days. Well, the speakers are still there. Speakers are there. That's about it. Right. But I have some ideas. You have some ideas. Dude, I told you, we just build a box, put the speakers in it. I mean, it doesn't need to look like the original. It's probably not going to end up, if I can find it, and I got to, we can probably make something that looks cooler. When that surplus store that moved, that used to be near the flea market on Folsom, it moved. every time I've driven past it, it hasn't been open yet, but I'll go ahead and up that electronic surplus. If I could find anything that resembles like an old school 80s, like, you know, 400 pounds worth of D cell ghetto blaster. If I can figure out a way to make it work, I will. I just saw some reproductions of Believe It or Not on a wish. It just popped up on my phone on my feed. And I'm like, oh, that was pretty cool. But I really want to get that game working again. um, one of my repair stuff is just, it's slowed down a lot. Yeah. And it kind of ties in probably to me raising my prices by $10, which evidently was just like the ultimate no go for it. Oh my God. 10 whole dollars. Yeah. Imagine $35 an hour for pinball repair. $100 less than the next cheapest person. Have you seen, have you seen the price of wood lately? I have. It's about $5 a pill. Yeah. Yeah. Look at, Look at what a two-by-four or one sheet of one-inch ply was going for. Can you hammer a nail through a piece of plywood with your penis? No, no, no. Girls got to have their standards. Girls got to have their standards. I just want to rest these all-time favorites. I love that movie. Am I a real genius? Yeah, it's one of my favorites. But, you know, it's not a big deal. You can't stop touching yourself. This is the Lord. It'll be fine. It is Jesus. I'm sure, you know, that once I get the World Cup soccer novel, then we're spacing the garage. Why don't you get the bowler out? We won't even talk about that. That's never happening. I really want to get the whitewater back home, but thankfully Adam has it. And right now it's not a priority. Adams. I've been helping people out. I've been helping out Dan Costa with some stuff. Dan and I both assisted him. That guy is the best. He's great. He's a great guy. He bought this shadow and it's had more than its fair share of problems. I'm not mad at him yet. But it was great. He's done one flipper rebuild and now he's going to do a play-through swap. Thank you for interrupting me. I'm sorry. I was telling Alex. So Dan bought this shadow and it's had more than its fair share of problems, especially considering the price he paid. But he did complete flipper swaps. first time he's ever done anything like that that's awesome it's awesome and now he's just like i'm doing a play field swap well good for you and i love it because it's like dude you're just you know two feet what's that sign say i don't care i'm jumping in head first fucking hey how you gonna do it how you gonna learn well it's fun and you know what there's enough people that can help him if he hits a roadblock that's true and my my biggest thing with this is it's nice to be around people uh that have that enthusiasm i used to have you know years 17 years ago or whatever like when it's just like man man you don't know shit fuck you i'm doing it fuck you i'll do it anyway it's been fun that's great you know going over there and watch just watch him in his infection with it's been awesome um you know we went and picked up a lord of the rings last week you're telling me yeah man i was so excited to see him get that we're excited about it he had a good deal on that didn't he yeah it was a good deal where'd he get that from uh he bought it from bob oh nice and uh shit we got to talk about that off air it was a good deal and he's super excited. I just sent you a contact. Oh, he did. Now you've got to get tested for that contact. Exactly. I've got a story about that. There's a swab test. I want to go to Dan's place. It's not dirty or anything. It's just I've made somebody freak out, kind of. Spencer can't do it because he's got a narrow urethra. That's why I was in a urethra. Tell you what. It's been fun to hang out with the newer people in the hobby who have that enthusiasm because I love you guys. Everyone's still enthusiastic about it. We're into those people who are just new into it. He's not completely jaded. Yeah. It's nice. We're all kind of... I still remember when I was the new guy. You were the new guy. No, I'm one of the old dudes now. Dan and I have talked about that. When I first got in, I was the young guy at 25. I'm 44 now. I was younger than that. I remember it's like 20 years. I went and it's just like, no, I remember when you used to pop up on the boards all the time and I'm like, wow, God, I got to meet this super big guy someday. This guy's such a trip. I'm sorry to disappoint you. Yeah. You're not disappointing me at all. Now we live what? Like 10 minutes from each other. Cause it was cold out. Shrinkage baby. But, uh, yeah, man. Um, no, you bring up a great point. And that's, that's awesome. That, that new people are not just buying games and going, uh, why it's time for somebody to fix it for him. Like, Hey man, I did a flipper rebuild. We're doing a play field slot. Let's do this. I love that. That's awesome. Because that says, okay, the future is going to be safe. People are going to know how to work on the games. Because that's, you know, and I'm throwing my glasses. I actually took a nap. It's free entertainment, folks. We ain't paying for this. And we're barely over an hour. We're doing great. No, I took a little nap because I was really tired. So, okay. That's why I got a rock star. You were smart. I cannot do this thing. I'm drinking a Coke now. Favorite game that many think is a dud. So, Alex, go. Okay, I like Gilligan's Island. That's Brian's game. No, there's plenty of games that work. All right. Go ahead. Go ahead. Oh, man. Well, I mean, I know a lot of people think it's underrated, but I don't think it is. Okay. I know Shack Attack I don't like. for underrated. You don't like it? No. What game do you like that everybody else you know says, that game sucks? NASCAR. And you own it. And I like that game with you. We talk about it all the time. What do you like about it? I like the flow of it. I like how it's like a Pat Lawler meets Steve Ritchie design. We talk about that a lot too. It's got some good flow. It's got some good shots. The short track shot's great. The short track, the loop shot is great. The track is probably one of my favorite things on that. pinball zooms around like an actual race car you can put your NASCAR in your house and you can leave beer bottles around in Cheetos bags or Frito bags and all sorts of trash and use condoms and it's just like a topper on the floor because it's NASCAR not a big deal there you go left turn left turn left turn left turn left turn left turn so no man's right turns well it's a road course but anyways NASCAR I remember when it came out And I remember Dan remembers, you know, the big thing was like, oh, my God, the loop track's going to chew up the balls. We were talking about putting the Mylor T-nuts and all this stuff. Right sides only. It's an okay game. That's why they remote it. You know, it's one of those games where, and this is just from my personal opinion, because new NASCAR I find boring because you can't buy those cars. Back in the day, you know, late 70s, especially the 60s, if you could see Tom Petty go out and win a NASCAR and a Superbird, you could go down the street and buy one. Richard Petty. Tom Petty. People are asking like 5, 6K for a NASCAR now. I'm not kidding you. I know, and it's an all right game. It's a 2K all right game. It's a good game, a 2K. It definitely is a 2K. If you're asking for a 5K, they can shove it in. Exactly, yeah. Definitely a product of its era when it comes to Stern. It feels like that era of Stern. That's not a bad thing. It's just what it is. I don't think it deserves all the hate. Dan and I have plans for one if we can ever find one, like, for a wink and a smile price. Ricky Bobby. You shut up. If we could find a dead one, that would be happening. Dude, I will pull one out of a fucking lake for you guys if we can get that done. Actually, somebody had a fucking Dell Junior, the LE version, and they had it. It wasn't cheap, but it wasn't stupid expensive either. It was like $3,400 or something. Was it in McAville? I think it was. Was it Bill Barks or something? I don't know. It was on Craigslist. It's an interesting game. I remember way, way back in the day that Ron Chan wanted one, and I think I hooked him up with one. He did. He got it from Vic Ireland cheap for a home use only game. It wasn't terribly expensive. Oh, wow. Vic Ireland up and ready? If I was going to do one, it would have to be like a NASCAR. I don't want to be that. it's not like I care but you know I know there's always oh you messed up in early it's like it's Dale Jr. who gives a shit it's not his dad that's kind of where I'm at like really that should be on Dale Jr.'s car it's like I'm not my dad who gives a shit no offense Dale Jr. I like you but you're not your dad exactly you need the regular version you do you have to and we will do that someday I will what about the European version Grand Prix Grand Prix Grand Pricks. Grand Pricks. I would just leave that as Grand Pricks and then do the Ricky Bobby shit around. I wouldn't even do that. I do Grand Pricks because I saw the cars with penises and googly eyes. Put the eyes on the tip of the dick. That's just overboard. We don't talk about that. Oh, my God. Why were you talking about it? He went there. He went there. There's a line and you cross it out. It's like this podcast is like five 15-year-old boys with their first beer and pizza on a Friday night. He is a perennial line stepper. So what about you? What's your underrated? What's your... Lethal Weapon 3. You're a sick puppy. I own the game. I would love to own another one. At the price point at the time, $800 for a dot matrix game with multiball, ramps, spinners, drop targets, vertical up kicker. It's got that cool corkscrew ramp. Everybody's biggest complaint about that game... It's got CZ Top Music and C&C Music Factory. Everybody's biggest complaint... No one said C&C Music Factory for like 20 years. I know. But it's got it. It's got a CZ top, man. Sharp dress, man. But the biggest thing, it's got a gun. It's got fucking like, what, five or four video modes? It's almost exactly got the layout from Terminator 2. It's a lethal weaponator, too. It is. It is. When that game came out, it was a killer license for them to get. Sold a shitload. They sold a metric shit ton of them That movie made a ton of money Yeah They sold a of those games I remember when I was in college in 2002 they were still on route The only downside to that game is God awful Joe Pesci. I love Joe Pesci. He's a great actor. He's done nothing but stellar roles. That call-out was nails on the chalkboard. It makes people crazy. Strangely enough, it really never bothered me. What Leo wants, Leo gets. Never mind, never bothered me. I just love shooting that ramp. I love hitting that spinner orbit. I'm driving. Well, you know, the great thing about that spiral ramp is, you know, some dude took that and modified it to go into a twilight zone. And now it's a dumb mod. I don't understand why you do it. I saw one for sale with that mod. Yeah, there's one that's for sale. But that one or a twilight. No, it's a twilight zone where they put the spiral into it. I don't get why you would do that. It doesn't make sense. But they did it. and it's just okay cool whatever right but like the local bar i would go to had one and you know they had that or an earth shaker in like the same corner you know it was like six months and then six months the other one i was fine i played it but they were everywhere and just like you know data east managed to get some licenses that is surprising didn't go to williams that being one of them lethal weapon lethal weapon 3 jurassic park star wars batman batman Like, let's just, Kamikow had, like, really good relationships with the studio heads. He had to, because. Yeah. Kamikow's a licensing guru, man. He still is, to this day. He's doing slot machines now. Yeah, and some pinball with his Kapow brand. But that's my go-to. I mean, it's a game that, you know, people just turn their nose up constantly. It's still, well, you know. Hey, now you can have it for low twos, a dot matrix game. You know, it's got all the goodies. The one I had had multiball, not tri-ball. So, yeah. So, see, I had the good one. Same thing. Licensing disputes or copyrights or whatever. The tri-ball thing was always really weird. But, you know, man, it's just, it's like, it was like I was having fun because the second Dot Matrix game I owned, the first one being Royal Rumble. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I missed that game too. Love that game. Sorry to interrupt, but I saw a thread earlier today online somewhere and the guy was like, what game needs to be remade and why is it South Park if someone put WWF Royal Rumble and sometimes they forget about the really shitty other WWE game that came out and the guy wrote back, yeah I did Everybody did Dan and I had a great laugh for months at a time because there was an LE, a WWE Royal Rumble, or whatever it was Not Royal Rumble, WrestleMania Legends of WrestleMania WrestleMania LE for sale and it was what? That was what? A $7,500 game? $4,000. $4,000 for an LE. I saw a pro going for $3,000 and it's set for the longest time. It's not a great game. Yeah, it's not. It's kind of like the first Avengers. They messed up on that one. The LE had all the wrestlers that people wanted to see. The legends. The giant, those cool guys you wanted to see. The other ones didn't. Jimmy Snuka and all that. Unfortunately, the people like we talked about, 40s, who are in that prime buying market and they're going after, they don't give a shit about the new guys for the most part. I'm sure they don't. They don't. They want the macho man. They want the stuff in their kid. Macho man, doink. Right, yeah. Tugboat. Undertaker. Undertaker. Oh, the dead man? Yeah. Yeah, that's true. Rowdy Roddy Piper. Yeah. You know, it's just, it was a miss. They missed the mark, unfortunately. Absolutely. I think if they actually concentrated more on the classic guys with those games, they would have sold better. Yeah, and the layout wasn't very good. Yeah, I played it a couple times at Pinnagogo, and it's just like, I'm not a wrestling. Back in college, you know, we'd get drunk and watch WCW because why not? Nothing else is on. But now it's just, no, and my kids aren't into it. Yeah, nobody's. I tried to watch, we tried to watch some classic matches on YouTube, and they're like, Atticus wanted to watch stuff about science and how to build a catapult. It's like, all right, cool, whatever. Even better. So that was mine. So what's yours? I have a lot. You know, I think about it. Sure. We talked about, you know, Gilligan's always going to be a favorite of mine. I love that game. I still love it. Yeah. But, you know, when you're going to trade off a Gilligan's and another B-list for a maiden, we wouldn't do it. Right. But, you know, Gilligan's, I'd say, would probably be my main one just because it was the first DMD that came out. Yes. For Williams. You know, it wasn't planned, but it came out. it had that very easy to follow rule set, which when that came out, you know, when I was playing at that age, I didn't know what the fuck to do. You know, my goal was I'm going to make the thing hand come out or I'm going to somehow get Rudy to midnight and put him to sleep. I didn't know the rules. My goal is keep the ball playing. Gilligan's had it very easily laid out. You have to get the eggs, the pineapple, the rope or whatever. And then this slide, it was very easy to follow. The rules are laid out there. They're very simple. Right. And that's really what helped me to start becoming, excuse me, learning how to play better because it was that easy to follow. And every game doesn't have to be Simpsons or Lord of the Rings or some wood chopping game. You make such a great point on that. It was fun. It was, you know, for a long time, it's still cheap. It's still that popular. Cheap as Williams DMD you're going to get. It's a pinball machine. All right. It was fun. I still enjoy it. You know, it's just, yeah, the rules and balance. Yeah. Fuck. It's $50 million a shot once you get to Kona. You get to Kona, okay, you can do it. You know, it needs a rule rewrite, but that's fine because we're looking at it with your rose-colored glasses from the period of 2021 and not, what, I think about 1991 or something. Yeah, 1991. Yeah, no one was sitting around in 1991 pitching about the rules of Gilligan's. You know. Oh, this is – Okay, that rotisserie thing is a cool map. It's really cool, and, you know, knock on wood, mine never had any problems. you go online, people have to spray paint there's blacks so the authors can see it and all this other stuff I didn't have to do that you know, another game that I always thought was severely underrated even though it was a ton of fun never mind, I forgot, I'm sorry that's okay, I do that I have no idea what I was talking about I do that like on the daily anymore Dan, you got a great one that's what I said to you for laughs back to the future seriously yep okay no i know everybody has a problem with dating his back to the future because it's because it's fucking shallow as a mud puddle and it's got this weird knockoff marty mcfly but it does have great voice calls it does have cool 90s you know synth versions of the back of the future music it's super quick and easy to understand yes you know it's not incredibly hard but it's fun to lock the balls and move through the different sounds once again we got some ZZ Top in there. It plays double back. Nice. It plays some Huey Lewis. I've always thought that was a way more fun game than people give it credit for. No, I don't think it's worth $4,000. I know it rides on the strength of the license alone. But I've always thought it was a cool looking and fun game. Nice. You know, I've got so few games on a good working one. Finally, was it the last Pinnagogo or the first Golden State when Steven brought that nice one. That was not a good working one. That was the best one. That's the best working one I have played. Okay. Because usually they're just roasted. Well, and that, again, that's because that's one of those Data East titles that they sold a shit ton of. And they stayed on location forever. And they stayed on location ever and made that money. And Data East, you know, at that point, they weren't using like their hard clear coat yet on those games. Right. They were using their tough code or whatever the hell it was. But it's still war. Jet code or laser code. Yeah, jet code. Jet code. You know, Gary's, Gary's, Jackie, whatever the fuck it was called. Jet code. There we go. But those games, Back to the Future is a good example. Simpsons. Simpsons. Batman. Batman. Those games, they sold a shit ton of them. Yeah. And they made money. And operators. Dude, there's still Batman and Daddy Simpsons on locations around here. Of course. And finding a play field for that? Impossible. it just doesn't happen. Every Simpson's right by where the ball is. It's always in that weird little spot. With the little donuts. It's always that weird spot, and it's a weird spot to have it happen. Yes, the balls have to go through there, but the rest of the play field, except because they followed that weird multiplexing where you had a relay that would turn on a flasher or like a coil, but if it shorted on, it would just turn on the flasher instead of the coil making the game unplayable. that's why you'd always have flash or burn on any Data East oh okay I remember when I was a kid I didn't know what the hell was going on go up and play a Data East Star Wars hit your button couldn't fucking launch the ball but that flash on your R2D2 would go off because the relay was stuck was stuck on but they made money and those are you know those games performed and did exactly what they were supposed to do they made money hand over fist And if I remember right, day-to-east games were traditionally cheaper. So your return on your investment was going to come quicker. And those early day-to-east games had really, for the time, really awesome stereo sound. Yes, they did. Laser Wars. Laser Wars. Torpedo Alley and Secret Service. Well, that was a big thing. A lot of those, especially the DMV games, I know where Guns N' Roses would pop up once in a while, would be stereo sound. Right. sound. And Williams games with the exception of like a handful. I don't remember which one. 94 when they came out with the DCS system. If I remember right, that was... Indy was the first game. But that was DCS. Indiana Jones was the first game to have that. Okay. I just remember like Popeye had it. All the Superpens except for Twilight Zone did, I think. Twilight Zone was supposed to be the first. And Twilight Zone was 1993. Yeah. Yeah, it ended up being like the first or the last Yamaha. Oh, wow. And, yeah, the Indiana Jones became the first PC. Okay. There's a bunch of games out there that were like that, that were just, you know, it's going to be different for everyone. They were just fun. Even Hook. You know, we had one on location in a pizza place for a while, and we'd go play it. All I wanted to hit in Hook was that wind chamber ramp. That's it. That ramp is great, isn't it? That is such a great-looking game. It really is. Yep. It just needs a software reboot. Same with like TMNT. Like TMNT, everybody should know that game. That game's beautiful, though. Didn't that get a software rewrite or did it not? That's a fun game. Like I said, just a lot of those days. But yeah, Back to the Future is the one I just give people back on. And again, I understand, you know, the price is not commensurate with the amount of game that you get. Right. But, you know, it's always going to have a certain amount of value because it's the Back to the Future pinball machine. Yeah. Right. Robocop is just like that. Oh, Robocop is terrific. But it's like... The jump ramp. The jump ramp, yeah. Yeah, your move, Kree. The wrecking crew is here. The wrecking crew is here. Like I said, there was a bunch of games in there that were just kind of overlooked and were underrated back then, and now they've kind of come into their own. Well, it became a thing. Like we've talked about it a bunch of times. Like, oh, man, I can't really afford a Monster Bash. I'll get a RoboCop or I'll get whatever. I'm like, hey, this is really fun. And then, oh, wow, I discovered this game. Like all those early 80s Gottlieb games. What's the one Todd has that's beautiful? Punk? Genesis. Iron Raiden? No, that's a Stern. Genesis, and then what's your favorite, Dan? Sitting in the game room right now. Car Hop? Car Hop! Dude, those games are great. All that weird generation, that early premiere generation, pre-DMV, those games are all So cheesy, but so cool. Yeah, they're great. They're great. Gauntlet leaves are like your entry-level pins. Yeah. Like I saw someone was selling a Mario Andretti for like $1,500. And that is such a great game. And for a DMV game, man. And that. That is, that gets you in the door, man. Yeah. That's one of the better gauntlet leaves. It is. It's a good one. It's up there with Stargate. Even like, you know, yes, even like gauntlet leaves with Evil Madness, which is Stargate, you know. Actually, the weirdly expensive one is Super Mario. Yes. Well, that has strictly because... 100% fee. Yeah. There was a guy online telling me, like, a drop-in Mario play field for, like, $250 somewhere recently. Yeah. It's like, dude, that's smoking because people are paying $500 for those ramps. Right. But, yeah, there's... God Leaps are definitely... It's definitely entry-level now, but there's a couple of games. Stargate, Mario Brothers. Oddly enough, Street Fighter you'd think would be up there because Street Fighter is massive still. Yeah, but Street Fighter... It's an awful game. I like it. Actually, that'd be a good pick for a game that everybody shits on that I find oddly endearing. And I can't believe that I've never owned one. I had a choice. I could have got one for labor. I did some work for a guy, but I ended up with a Rocky and Bullwinkle instead. I feel pretty good about that. Oh, a Rocky and Bullwinkle. But Street Fighter, man, that game had a lot going on. I love Big Hurt. That is a fantastic game. Oh, Big Hurt is great. That's a great game. Very rare to find, too. They didn't make a lot. Again, that ties into Spencer and his Navy days. Big Hurt's interesting with the glove like that was always kind of cool I know I've told Dan this you know when I bought my first game it was at Funhaus and I overpaid it at $1800 and the guy had three games they were $1800 each and it was a Big Hurt, a Funhaus and a Theater of Magic knowing now what I know now I should have got that goddamn Theater of Magic but really knowing now because I could have bought both would be Theater of Magic and Funhaus but I still don't regret buying Funhaus Funhaus is a better choice Oh, you wanted to give a shout out We'll get to that Unless anybody's got anything else they want to talk about We're at an hour and 23 minutes and 51 seconds And we're at Shout outs and thank yous, kids Shout out to Out of Order Arcade in Auburn For being open Friday, Saturday And they got pins there Yes, they do Turtles, Jurassic Park Theater of Magic What Jurassic Park? Stern Stern. Stern. And Sam and Ninja Turtles. Yep. The new Stern. Iron Maiden Pro and Deadpool Pro. Not bad. Very good one. And they're all dollar a game. Yes. All of them are dollar a game, including theater. And then it's what, $7 an hour or $12 all day for the video games? No, $8 an hour, $15 all day. You do not need to pay if you're playing pinball. Oh, really? Pinball is coin drop. It's coin drop. Okay. I'll tell them I'm going to play pinball so I don't have to pay for me. I'll pay for the boys. Although I'll play video games anyway. Yeah, exactly. You'll end up doing that anyway. Dude, because they've got a nice collection of video games. NFL Blitz, NBA Game. Now the one I'm thinking of and I can't think of, it's not Asteroids, but it's like Asteroids. You have Asteroids? Omega Race. Omega Race, yeah. Omega Race. My dad does. My dad does. Can't sit down. Can't sit down. Can't sit down. Shout out to the Coin Op Game Room, which is open again. Yes. Yes. Thank you. Our man Joe, back at it. Yep. bringing pinball to the masses. All the pins are on, too. They got a Rick and Morty there. Yep, go play it. I might do that Sunday. Go get Schwifty. Yeah, thank you. I was going to bring that up, so thank you for bringing it up, Dan. And plus, you can poop in the floor over there and just say it's the Easter Bunny with even chocolate because you're kind of short. Put 20 years on, buddy. I will wear my pink nightmare bunny suit. All right, I'm looking for your Tinder profile. It's going to be 80 fucking degrees this weekend, so high 70s. Now, Brian, you got any shout-outs other than to the local breweries? I don't think David Foothill is a local brewer. Okay. Medela? No, what is that? No, just, you know, folks, Dan, for always being Dan and being there. Heyo. Dan Costa for kind of getting me re-energized. Heyo. Mike Garcia for giving me a shit ton of energy drinks and bubble gum. Heyo. Yeah, thank you to Mike Garcia for the Red Bulls. For just being cool. For just good people in the hood. I got so many shout outs and I don't even know. Real quick, before we get off the kind of quasi location pinball, Press Start is totally gone. Oh, yeah. Like they built a gym on top of it or something. They're moving though, right? Oh, yeah, that's right. You work up there once. I was just up there the other day and I was like, oh, this is where Press Start is. Oh, not anymore. Yeah, they're moving to another location They're moving to a new location. And you wanted to talk about a new arcade coming to Reno. There is a new arcade coming to Reno. It is called, I'm sure all the Reno people know about it. So, Mark. That's a really weird name for an arcade called, I'm sure I know all the Reno people know about it. Yeah, that's what it's called, actually. That's what it's called. That's actually what it's called, believe it or not. No, I'm kidding. It's called Playfield 76. Okay. Yes, it is in downtown Reno. Not sure how many pinball machines it's going to have yet. but all I know, all I'm going to say is that there is a new barcade to come. Not that many. There is a new barcade coming to Reno. So go and support it. It is called play field 76, 69, dude. I don't know why they don't play 86, but you know, all right. So, well, the Carl Weathers's getting better. So maybe we'll have to load up the minivan. I just had a bunch of work done on the minivan. So the, you know, the suspension stuff, so it's got new shocks, stress, really comfortable. Got the, the suspension done. and the balancing and all that. Anyway. Let's move some pins in it. Let's move some pins. Well, I gotta move some pins. I gotta make a phone call tomorrow about a... What game is this? It's not a big buck hunter. No, it's a Sammy Deer Hunter. Sammy Deer Hunter. You go around, you hunt the son of Sam. Sammy Deer Hunter. That's a classic. If you don't hit him quick enough, a dog yells at you. I mean, people don't get that joke. I'm sorry. You shot just over the top. Then here's the bad TV show where they did Davey and Goliath. Oh, I love those. With Davey telling him, kill the sinners. That was great. I thought God said not to kill. That's something the heretic would say. And looking up on YouTube, it's freaking hilarious. You will kill the sinners now. yeah you're getting uh the the thing that dan mentioned to me and yeah and then and then i gotta pick up a hot tip and i'm talking about your hot tip i picked up uh sammy's sammy's hot tip sammy's hot tip no sammy's deer hunt george's hot tip george's hot tip thank you george which i gotta call george it's like for his hot tip i just i've had so much going since I got back to work. Yep. Been busy. So, yeah, and I want to give my shout because I'm giving a shout. I give a shout out to Mo Practical Steve who just got his second COVID shot. Good for you, man. And, now you're under Bill Gates control. I got my second one. So, Dan got his second one? No, first one. First one. Second one next week. Oh, okay. Second one's next week. Dan and I are going to go hang out and just be miserable. We're only quasi immune. Okay. Not like bulletproof. I'm going to give a shout-out and keep a good thought. All my pinhead bros out there, keep a good thought for my boss's lovely wife, Nikki Stahl, who's having a little medical issue. She seems to be doing better. Thank God for that. And my boss and good friend, Corey Stahl, who's just, dude, man, he's a rock and roll. I mean, you throw anything at this man, and he just swings at it, you know, and connects, and they're just the best people in the world. So shout-out to them. shout out to all the pinheads and all the people who are still grinding through the zombie apocalypse I thought you were going to say listening to us hey you'd be surprised man you could call that grinding through the zombie apocalypse listen stuff's starting to open up so if you can get out don't be afraid man you know fear is the real killer alright it ain't the rona it ain't you know fear is the killer wear your mask don't be dumb there you go There you go. The world is still here. Go live your life. Call us up. We'll go play pinball with you. And that roadblock in front of the Capitol, you can get right through. You can get right through that. No problem. Just climb that fence. It's just a suggestion. Find your local location. Find a friend who's cool, who's had their shot or whatever, and go play some pinball. And enjoy life. Go buy a kayak. Summer's coming. Buy a bicycle. Get in shape. None of that sounds like pinball. It doesn't. But there's other things besides pinball. go get a deer come there's not other things besides pinball don't listen to this man go travel go see the world buy color DMDs buy color DMDs go see the world and play pinballs in other states and meet new people and have adventures see the world as you're going to pick up other pinball machines from other states road trip and road trip to other states and pick up pinballs that's good too and color DMDs quit doing other things besides pinball don't listen to this man listen to this man I am your overlord go pick up a deer hunting USA in Wyoming that's the 5G talking go pick up a Sammy's Beer hunting USA in Wyoming. Thank you for all, uh, all you listeners out there and continue to support us in the show. And thank you to all the wonderful people who have been making great content. Some of you decided to pack it in for a bit and dude, I understand a lot more to life than just talking about pinball in the interwebs. Anyway, this has been episode 37 in a row. In a row. Get back here. Of the spinners, like pinball podcast. And, uh, I'm going to go ahead and hit, I can't see without my glasses. I'm going to go ahead and hit Mark Scoff's written The Spinners Lit pinball theme music. And let's take us out, guys. Play pinball. Keep America strong. Keep America strong. And my theme song is not working. Or maybe, oh, it's because I don't have my headphones plugged in. Wow. Oh, wow. Oh, man. It's no wonder why you died in Top Gun. The production quality of this show goes up every single week. It's not working. They made a bunch of modifications to the show. Yeah, that's it, folks. That's our show. We'll listen to the theme song next month, and we are out. Play pinball. Keep America strong. Strong. And love each other. _(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_ --- *Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 1462884e-98fb-432b-ae75-912c12fa5912*