# #109 Night Rider - The Classic Pinball Podcast

**Source:** The Classic Pinball Podcast  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2023-10-31  
**Duration:** 115m 33s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/george272/episodes/109-Night-Rider---The-Classic-Pinball-Podcast-e2a0enh

---

## Analysis

George and Dave discuss their Bally Knight Rider machines—a classic electromechanical-to-solid-state bridge game from 1976-77. Dave details extensive restoration work including a CPR playfield swap, new components, custom mods (flashing knocker, LED work), and installation of Scott Home's improved ROM software that enhances the game's simplicity with better scoring mechanics and track mode. George shares moving logistics, discusses pinball ball care (avoiding Evaporust and toilet bowl cleaner), and both reflect on restoration philosophy and show preferences.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Knight Rider was manufactured in both electromechanical and solid-state versions, with 4,155 EM units made in November 1976 and 7,000 SS units in February 1977. — _Dave, citing manufacturing data during game discussion_
- [HIGH] Knight Rider was Bally's bridge game from EM to solid state, explaining why the original track mode is simple due to early solid-state programming limitations. — _Dave, explaining game design philosophy_
- [HIGH] Scott Home's ROM software improves Knight Rider by increasing max bonus from 15,000 to 19,000, making drop target hits worth 500 points (vs. 50) after reset, and displaying highest score on final ball. — _Dave, describing custom ROM features_
- [HIGH] Dave spent 60-100 hours on the Knight Rider restoration, including playfield swap, buffing all metal components, rebuilding pop-bumpers/flippers/kickers, electronics work, and chime unit rebuild. — _Dave, detailing restoration scope_
- [HIGH] Evaporust pitted and destroyed pinballs when left soaking for extended periods (1.5 weeks), turning shiny Titan balls black and unsuitable for use. — _Dave, warning against Evaporust on pinballs_
- [MEDIUM] Zep Acid Toilet Bowl Cleaner can arrest and reverse alkaline corrosion on circuit boards by neutralizing pH (alkaline corrosion ~8 pH vs. cleaner ~2 pH). — _Dave, explaining circuit board repair chemistry_
- [HIGH] George relocated from New Hampshire to Virginia, moving 12 pinball games in 4 hours with help from Jack, then hiring professional movers to unload everything from the U-Haul in 2 hours. — _George, discussing relocation logistics_
- [HIGH] Moving pinball games long distances causes physical damage (toppling, bruising) due to road potholes and truck bouncing, requiring careful transport planning. — _George and Dave, discussing travel experience_
- [HIGH] Dave owns 70 games, mostly late 70s and early 80s Bally, Stern, Gottlieb, and Williams titles, with many games in the restoration queue awaiting work. — _Dave, in email reply to listener Shannon_
- [HIGH] Greg Mike designed Knight Rider with art by Paul Farris; the solid-state version was the first Bally production machine to use the AS2518-17 first-generation MPU. — _Dave, citing manufacturing data_

### Notable Quotes

> "It's a fuel injection suicide machine. It's a rocker, it's a roller, it's a Knight Rider."
> — **George**, early in episode
> _Iconic Knight Rider theme song reference; sets playful tone for the episode_

> "Nothing beats a real set of knockers, you know, than going along with it."
> — **Dave**, during mod discussion
> _Humorous comment about keeping original flasher hardware for the back glass knocker_

> "The evaporust ate the frickin' balls."
> — **Dave**, during PSA segment
> _Dramatic conclusion to cautionary tale about chemical damage to pinballs_

> "Games do not like to travel in a U-Haul 500 miles."
> — **George**, relocation discussion
> _Key insight into practical challenges of moving pinball collections_

> "With this software, you get, when you get the bank of targets down, like say you get the right targets down, all five of them, when they pop back up, instead of 50 points each, they're now worth 500 points each."
> — **Dave**, ROM software explanation
> _Concrete example of how custom software improves game depth and scoring_

> "It's the way the customer had it originally, so I'm just going to leave it this way... because it's pretty much it's an EM, you know so."
> — **Dave**, game settings discussion
> _Demonstrates restoration philosophy: respecting original configuration choices_

> "I am the Knight Rider. I'm a fuel injected suicide machine."
> — **Knight Rider machine**, during gameplay
> _Custom sound mod Dave installed; demonstrates personalization of restoration_

> "You know, on a regular ROM set, it's hard to break 100,000 on this game."
> — **Dave**, software impact discussion
> _Illustrates gap between factory and enhanced ROM in terms of game accessibility and fun_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| George | person | Co-host of Classic Pinball Podcast; recently relocated from New Hampshire to Virginia with 12 pinball machines; owns a Knight Rider machine acquired from Todd Tucky for $100 |
| Dave | person | Co-host of Classic Pinball Podcast; completed extensive 60-100 hour restoration of Bally Knight Rider with CPR playfield; owns 70 games mostly from late 70s/early 80s; specialist in restoration work |
| Scott Home | person | ROM programmer who created improved software for Knight Rider, enhancing bonus mechanics, drop target scoring, and track mode functionality |
| Greg Mike | person | Designer of Bally Knight Rider (1976-77) |
| Paul Farris | person | Artist for Bally Knight Rider |
| Todd Tucky | person | Sold George a moldy Knight Rider machine for $100; condition improved dramatically with basic cleaning |
| Shannon Bousick | person | Podcast listener who submitted email question about what games George and Dave would like to see at shows; expressed appreciation for show's off-topic banter |
| Jack | person | George's friend who assisted with loading 12 games into U-Haul in 4 hours and transport; encountered pothole causing game to tip |
| Chris Hutchins | person | High-end restoration specialist (High-End Pins) whose restoration method differs from Dave's; uses quick disconnects on flipper assemblies for field serviceability |
| Keith Christensen | person | Associated with Houston Arcade and Pinball Expo; George recorded interview with him but will not attend this year's expo due to move |
| Bally | company | Classic pinball manufacturer; produced Knight Rider in both EM and solid-state versions (1976-77); represents bridge between electromechanical and early solid-state eras |
| CPR (Circuitboard Restoration) | company | Pinball restoration/supply company; produced replacement playfield for Knight Rider that Dave installed in his restoration |
| Pinball Resource | company | Aftermarket supplier selling brand new white spinner assemblies (beefier than originals, requiring hole widening) |
| Titan | company | Manufacturer of high-end shiny pinballs that were damaged by Evaporust exposure in Dave's shop |
| High-End Pins | company | Restoration business operated by Chris Hutchins |
| Bally Knight Rider | game | Electromechanical and solid-state pinball (1976-77); subject of detailed episode discussion; bridge game between EM and SS eras; designed by Greg Mike, art by Paul Farris |
| Classic Pinball Podcast | organization | Podcast series hosted by George and Dave; Episode #109 focuses on Knight Rider restoration and gameplay; known for off-topic banter alongside pinball discussion |
| Pintastic | event | Pinball show referenced in listener email; discussed in recent podcast episodes |
| Houston Arcade and Pinball Expo | event | Major pinball/arcade event; George originally planned to attend but cancelled due to relocation |
| Marco | person | Supplier of new stickers for Knight Rider restoration |
| Gottlieb Countdown | game | Listed in Dave's restoration queue of desired games to own; one of several classic titles Dave wants to restore |
| Maltese | venue | Brewery in Fredericksburg where George recorded content for future podcast episode |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Bally Knight Rider restoration and technical details, Custom ROM software enhancement (Scott Home), Pinball game transportation and relocation logistics, Restoration philosophy and methodology
- **Secondary:** Chemical care and maintenance of pinball components, LED and mechanical modifications in restoration, Classic pinball show culture and collector preferences
- **Mentioned:** Electromechanical to solid-state transition in pinball design

### Sentiment

**Positive** (0.82) — Episode reflects pride in restoration work, enthusiasm for the Knight Rider game, and playful camaraderie between hosts. Balanced by practical challenges (moving logistics, chemical mishaps) discussed in humorous tone. No significant conflict or criticism of other parties; Dave's comparison to Chris Hutchins' method is respectful ('to each his own').

### Signals

- **[restoration_signal]** Dave performs comprehensive playfield restoration including CPR replacement playfield, metal buffing to mirror finish, all-new pop-bumper/flipper/kicker parts, drop target rebuilds, board repairs, MPU replacement, and chime unit restoration. (confidence: high) — Dave's detailed breakdown of 60-100 hour restoration scope and specific components replaced
- **[product_concern]** Evaporust causes significant pitting and blackening of pinballs when left soaking for extended periods (1.5+ weeks), destroying $50+ worth of high-end Titan balls; Zep Acid Toilet Bowl Cleaner also poses risk if container leaks onto balls. (confidence: high) — Dave's detailed PSA recounting exact damage and consequences; experiential evidence from shop incident
- **[operational_signal]** Dave maintains substantial restoration queue with 60-100 hour typical project timelines; prioritizes work based on customer needs and available capacity; works on multiple games in rotation. (confidence: high) — Dave discussing Knight Rider being queued for 3+ years while other work took priority; mention of 70 games in collection with many in restoration queue
- **[design_philosophy]** Dave's restoration approach prioritizes maintaining original specifications and components where possible, avoiding unnecessary modifications unless repair is required; contrasts with service-oriented quick-disconnect approach used by some restorers. (confidence: high) — Dave's discussion of working with original rails, resisting new wood replacements, and his critique of quick-disconnects for ease of field service
- **[code_update]** Scott Home created improved ROM software for Knight Rider that enhances bonus progression (15k→19k max), increases drop target value multiplier (50→500 points post-reset), adds track mode, implements smarter scoring to prevent point loss, and displays high score on final ball. (confidence: high) — Dave's detailed explanation of software improvements and their gameplay impact; confirmation that software 'makes this game a lot better'
- **[community_signal]** Dave expresses preference for owning mint original-condition games and notes that show games rarely match the condition of his personal collection, causing distraction during play; indicates collector community values condition highly. (confidence: medium) — Dave's reply to Shannon noting he owns 'mint copies' of most titles and gets 'distracted' by inferior show conditions
- **[venue_signal]** Pinball show games are frequently criticized for poor condition relative to collector standards; listeners questioned what games George and Dave actually want to play at shows. (confidence: medium) — Shannon's reference to games being 'poo-pooed' at Pintastic show preview; Dave's response explaining condition gaps
- **[supply_chain_signal]** Generic white spinner assemblies available from Pinball Resource but require modification (hole widening) as modern versions are beefier than originals; new stickers available from aftermarket suppliers (Marco); rail restoration available from Florida-based vendor. (confidence: high) — Dave's discussion of spinner sourcing, adaptation required, and alternative rail suppliers; notes he prefers original restoration over new wood
- **[manufacturing_signal]** Bally Knight Rider produced in substantial quantities: 4,155 EM units (Nov 1976) and 7,000 SS units (Feb 1977), indicating mainstream commercial manufacturing during transitional period. (confidence: high) — Manufacturing data cited by Dave from official sources
- **[historical_signal]** Knight Rider represents Bally's bridge game between electromechanical and solid-state eras; original software reflects early solid-state programming limitations with simple track mode; demonstrates learning curve in early SS design philosophy. (confidence: high) — Dave's explanation: 'It's the bridge game... they just are starting out with solid state programming and memory'
- **[restoration_signal]** Dave improvised repair for damaged bonus hole solenoid mechanism by stacking Gottlieb System 80 end-of-stroke switch actuator on top of original Bally mechanism to achieve proper ball detection without wearing out original parts. (confidence: high) — Dave's detailed description of MacGyvering solution to non-functional bonus hole mechanism
- **[content_signal]** Classic Pinball Podcast maintains relationships with industry figures (Keith Christensen/Houston Arcade and Pinball Expo) for guest interviews and cross-promotion; episode recordings conducted remotely via Zoom due to host relocation. (confidence: medium) — George's mention of recording with Keith Christensen; note that this Knight Rider episode conducted via Zoom rather than in-person due to geographic separation

---

## Transcript

I'm so tired of crying but I'm out on the road again, I'm on the road again. I ain't got no woman just to call my special friend. Coming to you from high atop Rattlesnake Mountain in Virginia, this is the Classic Pinball Podcast. My name is George, his name is Dave. Hello. Hello George. Another location, another podcast. Seems like a bouncing ball across the East Coast. This, I gotta, I gotta do some house planning before I get going. Number one, I've got a couple of recordings that I did in the last month, don't ask me when. I went to a brewery called Maltese down in Fredericksburg. I have a quick blurb on that, we'll include that at some point in time. And I did a recording with Keith Christensen from the Houston Arcade and Pinball Expo. That's happening next Next month, unfortunately, my plans have changed. I'm not going this year. Just way too much stuff going on. As you can imagine, with the move, I know everybody's sick of hearing it, but I'm actually in my home. George, you moved? I didn't know you moved. I thought you were still in New Hampshire. Yeah. Well, I was. I was in New Hampshire next week, but we'll talk about that in a little bit. Let's get right to it because we've been remiss our last handful of shows have been about tournaments and pinball shows and we've kind of gotten away from the essence of the show which is pinball. So today, maybe not Bally's best but one Dave owns and one I own. We're gonna do a recording on Knight Rider. How's that? Yes, the Knight Rider. It's a fuel injection suicide machine. It's a rocker, it's a roller, it's a Knight Rider. I don't know about that, but... Grant knows that. I happen to like it. People have heard me talk about the game I acquired. I'll wait. Dave, let's just jump right into it. You've been restoring a Knight Rider. I'm looking at it right now. Now, actually, we're doing a Zoom call, and Dave has put the game on video for me so I can watch him play. So it's a little bit different than we normally do. I'd normally be there with him playing the game, making comments. But today, I'm 500 miles away. All right, well, I mean, to start with the Knight Rider, so I've had this game for, oh, I think over three years now. Three years in the restoration queue, a guy from, I believe it's Ohio, somewhere out Midwest somewhere, he shipped it up to me to restore for him. Actually, this was around the same time that Jaws, the dog, was going after my leg in upstate New York that time, that episode. Remember that one? Yeah, we have a Jaws episode. I don't know what number it is, don't make me go look right now, but we do have a Jaws episode. That was the timing when I was talking to this person about having him ship the game to me and I was really busy at that point with you know fielding calls and going all over the place and uh but around that time when the game was shipped to me and you know I was this is the this is the old play field so this this play field here this record of Hesperus here that's what was in the game that doesn't look so bad oh okay okay yeah okay well actually my My game looks a little bit better than that and probably time to interject that the game I bought was from Todd Tucky for a hundred bucks covered in mold. Nobody went near it. I took a little spit and a piece of paper towel and lo and behold the game looks pretty good. Doesn't look as good as what I think I'm about to see in about two seconds. So that's that and here's when Jujutsu Kaisen took the other cookies out of the oven. Oh my, oh wow. Wow, that pops. Yeah, that's a lot better. CPR Playfield. And I put the special Scott Home ROM software in here too. That's why you have the, notice how the feature lights there, the track mode is different. I don't know if you can tell. But yours doesn't do that. Remember, I haven't had my game set up in months and we did have a phone call the other day and I said, well, I'll try. And that never happened. I'm actually all moved in. Wow. Nice. We'll come to that in a little bit. Okay. So tell us about the game. Tell us what you did. I think at last count I got, I don't know, between 60 and 100 hours into this. And I think originally I was just going to try to work with this play field that he had. And then CPR came out with this and said, hey, would you like me to get this? And he says, yes, please. So I did. And then I still was put back burning because other things were ahead of him. And finally I got a chance to really kick this off this summer in earnest and do this playfield swap for starters. And I take everything that comes off the old playfield and then I buff every piece of metal to a mirror shot in my buffer and then all new pop-upper parts, rebuild all those, all new flipper parts, new kicker parts, new drop targets, yada. And after all that's done, populate all that, I went after the boards in the back. There's a bunch of issues back there too, of course with connectors and put a new Weebly MPU in there and rebuilt the chime unit. So the chimes sing lovely now and the game really plays great. This game was, I believe, it's Bally's bridge game from EM to solid state. They made this game in EM, electromechanical and solid state. And that's why the originally track mode isn't really that hot. It's just very, very simple because they just are starting out with solid state programming and memory and that kind of stuff. So that's... Do you want me to give the stats on this thing? Sure. That you asked me to bring up? Sure. Data Manufactured November of 1976. Oh, I've got the electromechanical one up. Oh, yeah, good. Okay, well... We'll talk about that first then, sorry. Okay. Uh, 4, 155 units. Didn't realize they made that many EMs of that. I think that's a bridge game. That's why they made most of the- so how many of these did- Stahl Estate, another 4, 000? Greg Mike, the designer, Art by Paul Farris. Knight Rider was produced in EM and SS versions. See Bally 1977 Knight Rider, I'll do that in a second. Uh, that's pretty much it. Let me see what it says for, uh, The other one, if it comes up. And lo and behold, it does. Data manufacturer, February 1977. So you're right, that's pretty close. 7, 000 units. Not a lot, but plenty. Same design in our team. And the first Bally production machine to use an AS2518-17. First generation MPU. There you go. Okay. So I was right. It's the, it's the bridge game. This was the game is the first, this is, this is there. Yep. That's up. Um, the other things I did to this game is it had one spinner that was correct. You don't have some flunky William spinner that was junk on there and I could have used the original spinner and then buy another one. I'm a fan, you know, from one of the resellers, but it's like, ah, let's go with brand new spinners. So Pinball Resource sells these brand new spinners, but all white. But they're a little bit, the arms are a little bit thicker than the original. They're beefier and they don't fit into the original holes. So you gotta, you gotta, you know, wind up these holes a little bit so it'll mount. But I said, ah, I think it's worth it. So I did that and I also got some new stickers from Marco to put on there. So those look beautiful spinners now, the way they are supposed to be. I don't know if I can show you that here, the Mr. Spinner. Well, first I'm surprised that you can get spinners for that game, even though you have to widen the holes for the brackets, but that's not a big deal. Yeah, well, they're, well, these are white spinners, just pure white. They're generic white. No, I understand, but I'm saying that the fact that you can buy them, I didn't realize that he even had them. Yeah, they're great. I bought, I bought a bunch of them. I'm a fan of the game. I've played a couple of sets of them just for other games too. And I didn't realize at first that I said, hey, these things are too wide. And I went back and read his literature. It's like, oh, you know, they're beefier, they're wider, you know, be advised you have to widen out the holes. So I did all that. That came out great. I put, you know, silicone rubber all the way around. I did incandescent lights everywhere except the back glass. I put warm, common LEDs, warm white. Okay, I'm wondering if you did the mod that I've done to my game on the back glass? Yes, we did the flashing boob right there. Oh, and no flashing butt? No, I didn't do flashing butt. I could do that, I suppose, really, to get the double effecta, the die-fecta. I've got the double, I've got the B&B. And I got, you know, the flashing, you know, the police lights there, those are flashing. I have that as well. And those are LED flashers too. But I wanted to keep the boob as a real 455 flasher because, you know, nothing beats a real set of knockers than, you know, than going along with it. You mean the knocker that's usually in the body? Right. We have a second set, so to speak? Yes, we have a lot of knockers in this game. Okay. What else with this game? So, buffed all the metal like, oh, the rails, the side rails. So, I'm looking at those and they look great. Yeah, thanks. Did you do them or somebody else? I did them. So, what I do is I just take the originals and I fill in any defects in them with that two-part kind of clay epoxy, quick wood. It dries very hard when it's done. Then I sand all that down and find a really close match of paint and paint them up and And spray paint them up and they come out great, they come out. I rather do that than get the... you can get oak ones, I think, from a guy in Florida these days. Yeah, he's the one that's doing it now. Did you buy anything from him? I haven't yet because I haven't had any set of wood that's going to really... it doesn't take that much time to do these. And the holes are already there. They're not going to have to redrill them, none of that stuff. So it matches up nice. So it's a lot easier in a way just to do that. I'd rather work with the original stuff I can than go with... I found when I used the oak wood from the guy that did them before, I think Reese Rails did them, I found the ball behave differently. The ball hit it when it was going out. It just seemed to go kind of dead for some reason. It just didn't seem right compared to the original. Maybe it's just in my mind, but I don't know. The other thing that's weird with this game is the hole at the top there, advanced bonus hole, double light bonus hole, the very top of the saucer. Someone, they, what do they call it, they got soldered, welded. They welded two little arms, little ears that hold the ball in place and so it hits the, it's a little armature there, hits the lead switch, there's a little tag there. And they did it in such a way that they kind of bent it, I tried to bend it all back and hammer it out straight and it was better but I couldn't get it exactly right and I was like, oh, it's probably good now. So I threw the ball in there, it will never hit that switch. I tried to bend the switch up, it still would not hit it, so I had the MacGyver's things a little bit. So what I did is I grabbed a plastic actuator from a Gottlieb end of stroke switch, you know, from any kind of System 1 or System 80, 80B, and I took that and I put that right on top of what Bally had, kind of stacked it up there, so now I built it up high, and now it's perfect. So the ball was in there, it hits that, great. And now it works perfect and it won't wear out. So... You didn't have an extra mech? No, they don't, you can't find those mechs. They don't have any. Oh, I got a handful of them. You do? I think. Oh, that's right. You scored a whole bunch back then. Well, if I do, do not ask me where they are. If you saw my basement, you would understand why I just said that. All right. Well, down the road, I might have to, I don't know, make a deal with you on one or two of those or at least one. There's going to be lots of deals, trust me. Okay. Games do not like to travel in a U-Haul 500 miles. Have you, do you know for a fact so far or when you recently- No, but I'm smart enough to know that, you know, let's put it this way. You know, the road systems in this country are okay. But there are some potholes where, you know, they just come upon you and you have no time to react. And when you have a 20 foot long U-Haul, they tend to bounce. Oh yeah, that's right. Bang, bang. Sure. So you didn't ask the right question. So when you were taking the games out of the U-Haul, did you notice any things amiss? Yeah, I did. There were a couple of bumps and bruises. Overall, not bad. I'm going to be a bit of a drag, but again, until you start putting them together and figuring out where everything is, it's kind of hard to know whether things are going to work as they did when they left New Hampshire. So you saw some physical bruising and so forth? Well, my buddy Jack only took it a couple of miles from the place I had him stored to the airport to pick me up. I had a rental car and one of the games was already topped over. He said, yeah, I went around this corner and there's this big pothole. And I said, okay. So we, you know, before we even left, we opened up the back again and, you know, corrected it. Believe it or not, when we got to New Jersey to his house, nothing had moved, which is good. So I'm crossing my fingers that everything's okay. But I think, you know, you know, as well as I do, moving these things is not a So, uh, you know, that is not something that you want to do on a regular basis. Yeah, and I know I keep talking about moving, but like you said, I look around here and it's like, yeah, we're gonna have to hire some young muscle, or muscles, to move all my games. Yeah, Jack and I, my buddy Jack, you know who he is, but people have heard us on the We got it out of the front control, the storage and into the U-Haul in four hours, 12 games. So we did real well. But it's, trust me, it is not a lot of fun getting here. I thought I was going to do it. And I hired two guys, they moved everything out of the U-Haul in two hours. Plus, not just the games, all my parts. And they're like, all those boxes? I go, yeah, all those boxes. I'm like, okay, but you know, professional movers, it's worth it. Yeah, oh, it's worth it. You're gonna pay, but it's worth it. Yeah, I did pay, but I'm not unhappy. And you saved your back, so that's helpful. Well, yeah, my back, my legs, my arms, everything. It's a lot easier to direct traffic than it is to move, you know, 300 pound games. I should give a PSA. Go ahead. So, public service announcement. If you have some, never soak your balls in evapourust. I would not soak my balls in evapourust. Not those balls, George, pinballs. Oh, oh, oh. So, yeah. That would hurt. I'm a vaporust, a little container, and with a bunch of my other parts and this and that, I just go on site and do a service call and I think, was it a vaporust? I think it was even worse than a vaporust. No, you know what? It was worse than a vaporust, sorry. PSA number two. That's number one. Don't do that. Number two, don't soak your balls in Zep Acid Toilet Bowl Cleaner. What? Whoa, whoa, one more time. What's the name of it? It's Zep Acid Toilet Bowl Cleaner. Now what that's supposed to be used for, besides toilet bowls, is it's really good for stopping alkaline corrosion or arresting it and reversing it, because alkaline corrosion on a circuit The keyboard is a pH of, I don't know, I know if it's, whatever, it's one way up the, let's say it's an eight, you know, and this toilet bowl cleaner is like a two, and they meet in the middle at like, you know, six or seven, so they get neutralized. Years ago you'd use vinegar to do that, but vinegar was only a couple points on the end, on the other edge of the neutral spectrum, so it didn't really do as well, but this stuff works great. What happened to your balls? Well, I bring the stuff on site in case I'm working on someone's machine that has a little bit of battery damage and I can arrest it there and fix and blah. So the container had a small container it over time whatever it leaked out. I had a bunch of like these really high-end shiny balls from Titan and I thought they were sealed up, but they weren't and I saw I opened the container like hey everything smells minty fresh in here. Oh, no. So, the balls are all that, they're all getting kind of rusty, you know, it's like, ugh. And then other stuff, so I, I, I cleared everything else out, dried everything else out, and then I had, I had like all these, I think I had about $50 worth of balls that, mostly they're kind of rusty, so I said, you know, I'm just going to put them in a vapor rust. So I put them in a vapor rust for like a day, and then I got busy, it's like, oh, I'll get to that and rinse them off some other day and buff them out. And then that day turned into a week. And now we're trying to look at them, and all of a sudden those shiny balls are now black. They're black balls now. And then it's like, well, I'll leave them a little while longer. So finally I had a day today, I think it was a week and a half now, I took, I rinsed them all out, the evapour rust, instead of being a nice clean color, was all black. So there was some serious chemistry going on with this whole thing. So much so that it pitted all the balls, all the balls were pitted, they were all like destroyed. The stuff that evaporates ate the frickin' balls. So now it's like... You know there's a joke there, but I'm not going to say it. Oh there is. Actually, I'm going to show you it. Hold on one second. Well, the dust off their balls. Not here. No, no. Instead... Look at that. It looks like something that you'd put into an antique gun. Yeah, it looks like a musket ball. Like a muzzleloader. Yeah. Maybe I could sell it on eBay and say that I found this in, uh, in Concord. Well, they weren't, they were right. Just throw it in the ground and then, you know, have a YouTube channel. Oh, look what I found! Look what I found! Yeah. Pretty wacky. You could do that around here, Dave. Virginia is full of history, just like up in Massachusetts, so. Okay. Yeah, maybe I should sprinkle some balls around my neighborhood. I'll send you a whole bunch. I got a whole bag of useless stuff now. You have a bag of balls? Yeah. Hey, what are you up to? Want to play a game? Yes. Let's play a game. Okay. So, what are we playing? A bag of balls. Bag of balls. A bag of useless balls. Are we done with the balls, strokes? I think so. I think we've done all we can with that. Okay. So, for LEDs in this game, I decided for the double bonus, the orange, I mean, not orange, the green lights, the green inserts. The regular incandescent just didn't look that great. So, I actually did something. I usually, I don't do a lot of it, but I put a green LED in the double bonus. It looks nice. You know, and when you do that, you have to put a resistor, a, I think it's called a load loading resistor, because it has to latch the transistor on. If you don't do that, the LED would just like blink, you know, frantically blinking, blinking and annoyingly. So I did that to both of them, they latch on and latch off like they're supposed to. So, but I wanted everything else incandescent because it all looks fine that way. So you started with Scott doing a rework of the software. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Tell the audience what the difference is between, I mean this is not a complicated game. Yeah, this is a very... I like it because it's a target game. I also like it because it's got two spinners. It's very simple. There's not a lot to it. And people think, oh, you know, it's an easy game. I don't find it that easy, but again, remember who you're talking to. You say. It's a very simple game. I mean, if it didn't have this software in it, you're better off getting like a Mata Hari or Bobby or power play because that's in the same realm of play, but but it's better executed in this game. But because this game, you know, out of the out of the factory, you didn't have a nice track mode like it has here. You only when you get a drop target down to work 50 points each. I mean, basically, this game could basically just be a 5-digit game. It's very, on a regular ROM set, it's hard to break 100, 000 on this game. I agree. You know, I think maybe the EM only had, maybe the EM was maybe only get 100, 000 points maybe. I don't know what the EM, how much the scoring with that was, but I bet you it was because it's hard to get over 100. On this, on this one, you max the bonus out with the original software and that's it. Just Keep whacking at targets and going up the top and you're kind of done. Hit the spinner worth 100 points, you know. With this software, new and improved software, you get, when you get the bank of targets down, like say you get the right targets down, all five of them, when they pop back up, instead of 50 points each, they're now worth 500 points each. Same thing with the left side drop targets, those five. When you max out the bonus, all the bonus lights come on. You know, instead of just like one at a time, you know, just like 1, 000, 2, 000, 3, 000, when you get the max bonus, and the max bonus is more than usual, I think it's 19, 000 is the max bonus versus like 10 or 15 or whatever this was for the factory. But it makes sense. 15. Yeah, 15. So, then it goes to 19. It'll, all the bonus lights turn on and that's when you can go in the top saucer and collect the bonus. And then it resets it down to zero so you can rinse, repeat. Oh, that's cool. I know you brought this over to my home. That's a long time ago, Dave, whenever that was. I know the software's been floating around for a while. But I forgot about that. That's a really cool feature. It really makes this game a lot... it just makes this game worth owning with the software. You know, it's a lot better game. Especially worth putting a CPR playfield in the game. Yeah, this came out really well. I spent a good amount of time on it. And it plays great. I'm trying to think of any challenges I had with it. I didn't have, you know, just, you know, typical hack work underneath and typical, you know, you know, some wrong coils and some broken brackets and stuff, you know, that kind of thing. But nothing, nothing too bad that I haven't seen before. It plays really well. Well, I said the reason why I probably didn't get to setting mine up and you were like, you did what? The octo rectifier. Oh, yes. When I had time, I took a lousy rectifier board and soldered lines for each piece of the rectifier board and put molexes on the end and turned it into the octo rectifier. So we'll see if that works. If not, I've got, you know, plenty of other equipment to redo the game, but we'll see. You know, all those similar things, but I don't really agree with it. But Tweet's his own, everybody does their own restoration method is Chris Hutchins, high-end pins. I've been watching his videos a lot. Guy knows, he knows a lot of stuff. He's been around for a while. He's a good restoration guy. But what he'll do is he'll do the same thing with all the flipper assemblies and stuff. He'll actually put quick disconnects and all that stuff when he's shopping, when he's restoring it. And his theory is that, well, if something goes wrong out in the field, he can just send the customer a whole new thing and just plug it in, plug and play. Well, not really, because the customer still has to take an Allen wrench and whatever and undo the flipper, take it out, put that back in. Now you align the flipper just right and make sure you have enough play in there. There's all these little fine points that someone has to know what they're doing. So someone has to know what they're doing with that aspect. They should also, I don't know, know how to start or two, I would think, but maybe not. I've done it. You've reprimanded me, but you know, like you said, to each his own. I mean, I didn't do it on high end games, but I believe I did it on, I know I did it on Knight Rider because I bought a secondary play field. So I have extra target banks and extra flippers and at one point in time I had a target bank go bad. I just removed the whole target bank, put it on the bench, put the new one in and it worked. Would I do it with a centaur? No. Would I do it? I don't think I did it with my skateboard. But I've done it with that. I think I did it with Bobby Orr. You know, they're players games and that's how I learned to solder and how to crimp and do things. I wouldn't do it on, you know, a restoration like you've done. You know, keep it as original as possible. Yeah, yep, I agree. And that's what I did, you know, and this guy should have been a problem for a good long time. You know, the caveat being it is a 40 plus year old game, anything can happen, but, you know, let's say I just lessen the chances. As is tradition, folks, we are going to play a game of Knight Rider. Unfortunately, it's going to be a one player game. So Dave, take us through the game. Alright, so I did a special mod in here. When I press the start button, it does a cool sound clip. Watch this. I am the Night Ride. I'm a fuel injected suicide machine. A little garbled but not bad There you go Dave's got the ball going, flipping up, hitting target on the left side. Getting it back up top. Boy, the game plays nice and fast, doesn't it? It does. It's pretty, pretty darn smooth. Oh, and also you don't get ripped off. You get every single point you're supposed to get. Oh, so if you hit two targets, you're not just getting one score, you're getting both? You're getting both, like you're supposed to. And why is that? Because Scott made it so that it's smarter. They really wanted you to get the EM feel, I guess, back then and rob you of points. You go, no, no, no, no. They learned after this not to do that. It's like, I want all the points I earned, you know, not this EM situation. So... So, let's see if I can get that spinner shot. Nope. A little too... Okay, don't shake it so much. The camera's shaking. Okay. Wait, my knee hit the camera. I got a little exuberant. All right, that's... There we go. Okay, there he goes. There we go. Spinner shot. Got it on the right flipper, got it up top, got it in the hole. How many points you got? I can't see. I got 10, 000... I got 20, 000 points so far. I got... Okay. And that's the left side through the spinner into the hole again or the saucer and drains out the left. I get this on five balls a game. Oh you got it on five balls? Yeah, that's the way the customer had it originally, so I'm just going to leave it that way. It's the way I have mine. Oh yeah? Because it's pretty much it's an EM, you know so. Yeah, you need the extra balls. We're on ball four right now. There we go. Double bonus. Okay. So let's start getting some targets. All right. Okay. So he's missed the saucer up top. He's got ... How the hell did you get ... Oh, you son of a ... Bucket. Okay, so last ball. Again, at the right. Oh, the other thing this thing, this software does is when you go into ball five or last ball, it show, it displays the highest score to date for a couple seconds and like a stern does. So, it tells you what your highest score to date, what you're going for in. That's kind of cool. That's a little stern holdover. Okay, got it in the saucer again. Still hasn't hit all the targets down on one side or the other. Yeah, I need to do that. Oh, we got some other things to talk about, so. Awesome. Okay, so Dave has gaffed the game. How many points you got? 90, 000. Well, not bad. Not bad. Yeah, not bad for not getting any of the real points on those drop targets. Okay, we don't need to continue with more games. Okay, all right. Let's, uh, I got a couple things I want to talk about. Sure. And I'm sure you do as well. I've got a lot of leftovers from who knows when, but I don't think we talked about this, and if we did, please stop me. Do you remember getting an email from a gentleman named Shannon? Sounds familiar. Of course it does. So, Shannon Bosick. Okay. He sends an email to you, which you sent to me. It says, hello guys. It was hard for me to find the appropriate email to write the show through my pod catcher, so apologize to send here. Yeah, grammar needs a little work. Okay. Love the show and the off topic banter. Thank you. Oh, I remember this now. Yeah, this guy was cool. Okay. The 10 spa adventures, et cetera. Keep up the good work. Question. After listening to your recent Pintastic preview, that was two episodes ago, many listed games at the show were poo-pooed, which is funny. Curious guys, what games beyond your own collections do you actually enjoy playing? Obviously you are busy with work. I'm just curious what games you would like to see play at a show. Thanks guys and hope the move went well, George. Yes, it did Shannon, thank you. So I'm going to read Dave's reply. Dave's reply is, hello, Shannon. Glad to have you on board. Glad you like our unique style of show. We like to throw in some wacky off topic stuff once in a while when so inspired like cooking tips, lifestyle, and general musings. Today's five ventures provide some good material for listeners to live vicariously through the eyes of a pinball restoration entrepreneur. Oh, look at you. And for what games I personally would like to see, well I pretty much have all the titles I want. But if pressed, I'd like to see Game Plan Andromeda, 4x4, what is that? That's an Atari. Okay. Oh, okay. That's rare, isn't it? Kind of rare, yeah. Williams, Algar, Alien Poker, Blackout. As all of these I don't own are in my Resto Q waiting restoration. Alien Poker and Blackout. I own 70 games, mostly late 70s and early 80s Bally, Stern, and a few Gottlieb and Williams. So again, I own mint copies of these titles, so when going to a show, it's rare any of these are in the shape mine are in. I am spoiled by this so much so that when I play show games it distracts me that I want to fix the glaring issues with the games I'm playing. It takes me out of the fun playing experience. Now wait a second, I got something to say about this. Sure. How many games did you actually play at the last show? Hmm. Um, well, I'm guessing you can count them on one hand. Well, well, let me think. Play them to, for work, the working part? No, it's the working part. No, no, no, no, I'm saying you were there. Because I was working. I told everybody what I played, and sorry, I'm trying to think of, uh, of Dave, uh, the game we played that we liked, the, uh, help me, with the, uh, the wizard game. That was wizard, but it's, uh, it's the rare thing they made. We both like that. It's an abracadabra is what it is. Yeah. Or a team one. Do you care to comment on any of this? Um, yeah, I played... You kind of summed it up pretty well. Yeah, I mean, basically all the games I played were the ones that actually won the best in play contest. Or runners up, you know. The ones that I didn't really play in it was this kind of doggy and torn up and not really playing that well. If I did, I kind of looked at it and it wasn't that great looking. It looked like they didn't really give a crap and just want to get in free. I didn't really bother, you know, so it had to be this tall to ride this ride kind of thing for me. So, I think that I even go into, I don't know if I even went to the X-Roll Lounge, you know, which is, I had all access past X-Roll Lounge. I even, people are going to kill me. You didn't go in? I didn't, couldn't even get in there. You didn't even go in? It's like, eh. Oh, I got in there. Oh, you got in, no, I think I went in there a little bit. But it's like, you know, I, I have access to those games anyway. Cause when I go to these high end customers, they have all this nice stuff. And I restore it all and I get to play my restored version of their super duper Guns and Roses or whatever, you know, whatever they got going on. I just played Elvira, House of Horrors, and I just worked in that guy's game recently down the street. I like that game, but I've said that before. Yeah, it's not a bad little game. It's not bad for a new rep. Well, it's got all the clips in it, and, you know, she's campy. I mean, it's a decent game. It's a lot of money. And I think I saw something, again, I've been kind of out of the loop of, you know, Pintastic and all that crap, or Pinside, sorry, when I say Pintastic, Pinside. There's the bloody red edition or something that I just read? Yes, no, okay, I don't pay attention. Don't pay attention. You don't care. And while we're at it, we might as well throw the other two in. Do you really care about the Bowie game and the Elton John game? No, no, I will, not really, but I was actually pleasantly surprised when I saw someone do a review of the labyrinth, or basically they did a review of the The Advertisement for labyrinth and That guy, you know he's talking about it It made you say, you know, I think I want to give this game a try It looks kind of cool different things popping out and it kind of reminds me of the Hobbit Jersey Jack the Hobbit a little bit the way it does certain things like that So I'd give I'd give it a go I think it's gonna be kind of a snoozer because it's like, you know, not David Bowie's best effort and it's kind of It's a little weird kind of a cult kind of game I'm going to go with the game, maybe. As for the Elton John, very good on the advertising. The production value of advertising that game, way better than Stern did. When Stern did there, did Stern or Spooky did it? Who was the one, I think it was Labyrinth. No, they just had one girl playing the game on that one. And it was like the kind of girl that would stay in her basement and look on the computer all day and not really get out and see any guys at all or anybody. Unlike, what's his name, from China, who advertised what game? He had the really hot looking babe playing the game? Not that one. No, China. Yeah, sorry. The guy who made Thunderbirds. That guy. Oh, okay. I don't know. I don't remember what game it was. It doesn't matter. They're all, to me, they're all kind of jumbled together. Yeah, yeah, Thunder Turrets are not that good. What else did they do that's supposed to be better? They did Labyrinth? Who did Lab... No, Labyrinth is... No, isn't Labyrinth the company from Texas? That's, that's supposed to be... I think it's Spooky and they changed their name to... No, no, no, no. No? What's Barrels of Fun? Barrels of Fun did what game? Yeah, they're from, they're from Texas. They're going to be, if you listen, if you listen to the interview I did with Keith, he basically pre-announced it an hour before, because I talked to him on the day of the announcement. He's like, well, I guess I could say it because it's not going to be out. You're not going to have this out for a while. I said, yeah. And he said, you know, Labyrinth is, you know, coming out. I'm like, okay, great. The one thing I did see with Labyrinth, I I thought it was cool with the Jim Henson puppets on the topper. Did you see that? No. That actually looked pretty good. But that's not the game. That's not the game. Well, I'm saying it's, you know, it's not playing the pinball. It's just a topper. I mean, you know, I don't get real excited about toppers, but that looked pretty good. So you're saying the Barrels of Fun, the only one they've made so far, their brand new game is coming out. They're brand new. I think that game is their first game. That's their first game. I don't know why. People don't come to us for this stuff because we don't pay attention. I know we don't have any notes. Exactly. So I have another email. I think we're fake pinball news. That's what we are. Nobody comes to us for the news. Trust me. Nobody. Anyway, I have another email and this is from our good friend in Australia, Grant. The title is Pin Blood-ty-tastic. Now, before I read the email, I just have to say, I think people are kind of done with us talking about tournaments and pinball shows, so I promise that we will do another review next month, and we'll do another review of the game in December. We have to kind of get back on track. But anyway, so here's the email. Hi fellas. I gotta start by saying wow. What a bloody ripa. That was one killer episode. I like the divided sections as it allows you to stop and come back to it at a later point. So well done George. Very well put together. The first section had me in the zone. At one point I actually felt like I was in the garage with a few mates having a few beers and talking about life and pinball. Really good banter. Geez, Eric doesn't hold back with promoting himself, does he? No, not much, no. And his sidekick there, the supporter, oh my god, it was like a commercial for him. You know, he's lucky I'm benevolent, let's just say that. A real character for sure. The discussion with Brian was good, he came across very well, he did. Brian's more serious, we're a bunch of jokers. Um, the discussion escalated as the beers flowed, yep, and Doc's one-liners began to decline. Well, yeah, but he kept going. You've done a good job keeping it all together, George. I'm still not sure what an IPA is. I had to tell him what an IPA was. I thought he knew. Anyway. Yeah, he didn't know. No, he didn't. At a guess, I'd say independent brewing. Nope. Well, I gave him the tutorial. Anyway. I think you Doc had Maureen keeping them in line in the background. Well, yeah, I'm wondering what happened later on in the night. I was laughing with my grapefruits off, no, I was laughing my grapefruits off when you both started talking about me. We are owned by China, Doc. Start swimming and get over here. George says to Janice, let's send them in the game, and Doc says give them the machine. Lovely and kind gestures from great people, but if we did eventually do something like I would ensure every single cost expense and time was covered to do that. I was thinking of getting a piano instead. Yeah, I did that to my wife again the other day. Stay tuned to the end of my email for my bloody horror story. I actually learned a lot about tournament play through all the discussions like the extra ball plunge, point scoring, and even cheating as it would refer to, especially on Centaur. Like father like son. Yep. Very informative discussion with Eric. He knows his stuff. The duration was sensational and this email could go on forever. Now for my F-show story. I bid on Flash Gordon twice and actually won the bidding as shown below. Oh, I remember this. Did you hear this? Oh yeah, I remember this. At this point, I was in the shed cracking a beer and doing the moonwalk and doing some ridiculous dance even I'm embarrassed about. From there, I paid about PayPal $3, 500 as instructed to by eBay. Bloody great. I'm done. Not quite. Then comes the email from the seller. I've changed my mind and I don't want to sell it. Oh, bad. I went from moonwalk to dragging my feet. Then the fight with the Midsommar started. After giving him stick... What does that mean? After giving him stick? Uh, probably giving him a rash of crap. Okay. Giving him a hard time. I'm thinking like a hickory stick, but okay. Yeah. eBay messages, he went quiet, then I started feeling sick, I could get help from anyone, only bot responses from eBay and PayPal. It was then I unloaded on eBay bot calling it every name you could think of, and finally I got someone's attention and they called me. That's wild. I would never expect that. I ended getting my money back after a couple days, a very bad experience that has tarnished I know I should probably have not paid, but I was excited and made a bad choice. eBay has canceled his account for breaching their policy. Anyway, I'll finish on a positive and say thank you to all for making me feel like I'm part of something special. It really means a lot to me. George is almost in the new house and preparing to move the lovely girls back into their new resting place and getting familiar with his old friends. Have a fantastic weekend everyone and get some sun. As George mentioned in another email, spring is here and summer around the corner. All the best wishes. Regards, Grant, the Australian correspondent." He is. I thought that was a great email. That is a great email. But there's a lesson there. I didn't read it just, you know, I love Grant, but you know, buyer beware. eBay? Bad. You want to meet somebody face to face and you want to put that cash on the glass. Yes, you do. You do not want to do anything like that over, you know, over the internet. And that was a great email, great resolution with Grant. The other one... He's lucky. Here's an email I got from John Jolly, our other, our kid cod. No, this isn't the one with the, when we made the reference of the retarded friend. For this matter on Speaker We're oversimplification if put this all one move be the over on nave Dear Dr. Dave, Alas, my household is bereft of our one true love, pinball. Like a man in the desert with no supplies, food nor water, such is the extent of my pinball career. Not only an optical illusion playing games with my head as I walk through the hot, steep, dry sand dunes of my life. If only one kind of generous man, smarter than anyone at the game we love, could save us from ourselves. A real true lasting American heroes type of person like yourself and the guy who shocked bin Laden, Elvis and John Wayne. Well, meet on Elvis. He died on the shitter. He died on the shitter, a tired old fool of a drug addict who didn't love his preteen wife for as long and much as he loved himself. My boys and I have had have gnawed down all our fingernails off our hands in anticipation that we could once again achieve I am a disgrace. I have failed my family in an attempt to fix a machine that was not even broken in the first place. He's the best. He goes on, I was only trying to make it faster and better in the pursuit of true happiness. If I was born in China, I would have ended what's left of my meager life by the sword. I like how he gets that wrong. It's supposed to be Japan, but whatever. Keep going. He's on a roll. Keep going. John Popadiuk, Radio with Let's Armiga Life by the sword. The only thing broken now is my wife's heart, for she is married to a true failure. Perhaps you would find it in your heart during these times of holiday spirit to schedule an appearance at my house by the end of winter before my children graduate from third grade and go to Harvard. You don't have to have him on. He is way too funny. Fare thee well, Doc, and be happy, my friend. Let your belly be full, your heartbeat content, and your household warm for the darkest of winter to come. P.S. Great podcasting, endlessly amusing. Mahalo, John. He's awesome. I'm sorry I didn't get to meet him. I will. I'm going to be seeing him. I have to meet him. He's too funny. I'm going to be seeing him recording with him this Friday. Okay. So I'll have him on. So we'll get to hear him live. I look forward to that. Oh, by the way, he loves IPAs, and he'll probably, he'll have several, I'm sure. Well, he likes that grapefruit crap. Uh, I guess. I mean, he might have just been saying, I don't know, I don't think I even have any of that crap. I think I threw it all out, so. Well, I did as well. What's up, Doug? What's cooking? What's up, Doug? Oh, you're looking for bugs, funny, fun things. What's up doc? Well, I'll tell you what's up doc. Let's go back in the wayback machine of a couple weeks ago where we worked on several games. One of them was down the Cape, down in Falmouth, worked on a Bally Hocus Pocus. And it's an interesting game because the game is in really nice shape. It just needed some love. And come to find out, as we're talking to the guy working on the game, he's actually a professional magician. No! Yeah! Can he perform? No, but he told me about, he brought out all of the closet, this like rare murals from like the early 1900s of these magicians. He has David Copperfield stuff. He knows all these guys. He knows Penn and Teller. And I said, hey, do you guys like talk shop when you guys go out to eat? He's like, no, no, no. We talk about baseball. We don't even talk shop at all. Don't you guys share trade secrets or, he's like, no, we hold on. We don't tell anybody secrets. Tell me my secrets for you hold on it's like what about that weird guy that that magician that was the uh oh the masked magician yeah he was showing all how all the tricks were done he was yeah and he said yeah he's not really loved by any of us he we know who he is you know um so we were going on so it was interesting and i guess uh after the past three years of madness his little magician thing is his thing was you couldn't do any of that stuff because no one was going out no concerts no nothing So, his wife, who's a principal of a school, got him into theater with the kids in school. So, he's basically like a theater instructor or director or whatever. So, teaching them how timing and how to perform. Yeah, showmanship, performing. So, he got to do that instead. So, now, so I guess that's what he's doing to this day. So, he's not really doing the magician thing as much. He's doing this gig. So that was an interesting conversation there. And that's a good one. And I actually like the Hocus Pocus. It's a simple looking game. I have one. I haven't done anything with it yet, but I'd love to get that set up. It's a two player ballet. I think 75 has three spinners on it. And, uh, it's, it's, I can visualize the back glass. I mean, people are familiar with that. Yeah. And it's, uh, I think it would look really good with the other. I got a bow and arrow. I have the blackjack and the hocus pocus. Those three Bally EMs would look great together. Those are like really nice players. So that's going to be down the road at some point. One side venture on speaking of bow and arrow. I found this out by I don't know how it came up in my YouTube feed. But did you know that all the all the chime games that came into Germany back in the day had to be shipped to them without chimes? They were silent games. They had no chimes. Because the shopkeepers wanted quiet pinball machines. They didn't want to have noisy games in their shops, I guess. What was the name of that game again? I'm looking it up. Bow and Arrow. No, no, the magician game. Hocus Pocus. Hocus Pocus, thank you. Also, another little tidbit, some pinball history. The dark early years for pinball, the early 80s, there were 200, 000, let's see, there were, okay, so in the heyday of pinball, let's say the 70s, in the 70s, there were 200, 000 games sold between all manufacturers between 78, in 1978, 200, 000 games were sold in 1978. Now, I got home and at home, I got to mainly fian in the spacewalk. The only thing I did actually, to try and finally work out what my job is, is to tell Siti Mel copy out stream early week play at bee bluethe carriersalright now UX baltron I played that game up in New Hampshire Pinball Collective or whatever, that New Hampshire place. Okay, you're right. I do remember that. Yep. I wasn't even going to play it until Eric was playing it. He was like, oh, you got to play this game. It's like, okay. It's like, oh, wow, this game actually is a fun game. So that was cool. So that was the Hocus Pocus. Then while I was down the Cape, I actually did another guy's house in Brewster. This guy had, uh, he owns a business down there, um, and he's got a nice, uh, game room in his basement with a, with a high end, uh, 90s DMDs. So, he had a Circus Voltaire, he had a Junkyard, um, Theater Magic. That's the game I really like. Yep. You actually can get the game pretty cheap. That's not really, it's in the, uh, Red Headed Stepchild section of the, of the shop. Championship Pub, and... what's the name of the other game? That's it, right? Theatre of Magic, Circus Voltaire, Junkyard, Championship Pub... Is there one more? Some good games. Both by the door. That is the one by the door. Junkyard's by the door. Oh. Yeah, I think that's it. So he did some day spying? Yeah, he did some day spying. So he did some day... basically, he cost-treated on Theatre of Magic and needed a lot of help. I'm sorry, Medieval Madness. That's the other one he had, Medieval Madness. So, we did a little bit on each one. It was like a two day day spa. Hit all the highlight reels, spent most of the time on Theater Magic, but hit the other ones pretty much just to get them going. This guy kind of knows a little bit how to clean stuff and he was actually helping us work while we were doing this stuff. So he kind of was class participation, you know, which was fine. So that was cool Did that I actually going to go down and see him again and do more work on his theater of magic He wants to do even more work on it so so a tiger saw mod to make the saw spin I gonna put some new auto adjust any sensors in the game that I got from my my buddy Vic Victor Tan he did some good board work he makes a nice boards see after that oh I know we came home we worked on Monopoly selfie here about an hour selfie here and this This Monopoly came from Hasbro and Hasbro makes Monopoly. From the company. Yeah. So here's, so in Rhode Island, so when, you know, it was originally Parker Brothers, Hasbro bought out Parker Brothers, so Hasbro sold the, you know, rights to make the game for Stern to make Monopoly back I think in 2003, 2004, I think, somewhere around there. Yeah, it's an early Stern. Early Stern. And they gave all the Hasbro stores, I mean all the Hasbro manufacturing plants, I think like several games, several Monopoly games. So I think they had about six of them in Downward Island where the main manufacturing is. So I said over time, the guy I'm talking to, I guess he's, I think he's a manager down there or worked down there. He's some high end guy down there. He said that they just stopped working, and then after a while he saw them, they were getting thrown out. He goes, whoa, whoa, don't throw, oh, we already threw out three of them, so don't throw out more. Oh, no, really? Yeah, he tossed them. He just tossed them. So, he said, no, I'll take those. So, he took three of them, he put one in his house and one to his brother-in-law, another one went to another family friend, and so I basically, so it cost him nothing, so he's willing to put some money in, so I basically... Well, if you get it for free, I mean, please. Oh yeah, we... Not my favorite game. No, when I was done with it, when we were done with it, after like eight hours there, he was like, wow, this thing looks awesome. It's like, yeah, now it plays great, it's all brand new, all new rubber, you're all good to go. All clear, we put clear rubber on it, we LED'd it out, and really made a nice game out of it. Um, it was all, it was all just trashed, but it came out really nice, it really put some life into it. After that, oh, after that, Aiden picked up the New England Rebels. No, no, not him again. He picked up the captain. The captain's back home and haven't heard anything. No news is good news, so that's out of here. And then... Oh, okay, I'm thinking it's coming the other way. No, no, no, no, no. It was here... It went back to Nantucket. It went back. I got more calls in Nantucket and Mata's Vineyard now. People want me to go over there. Well, let's talk about that, because we talked about this the other day. I made the suggestion to Dave that he should publish I'll Come to Your Area. If you get enough people in a certain part of the, I'll say the East Coast, I won't make it the whole country, maybe Dave will come visit you. So, you know, if you've got an issue and you want Dave to come do a restoration, call all your friends that you know who own pinballs in your general area, And maybe Dave will come to a service week. Yeah, because that's what we kind of do anyway. I basically lump a bunch of things that are far away, like an hour and a half away, two hours away. I'll save a bunch of them in that area and we'll do a workcation. We'll go up there, we'll get either a bed and breakfast or a hotel and spend at least several days up there and do a bunch of work and get paid to do some work and have some fun up there. A little workcation. So we're doing a lot of that. Down the Cape we're doing a lot of that, up in New Hampshire. I'm actually just, I did see the Stern Indiana Jones up in New Hampshire and also in Adam's family as part of our workcation up in Exeter, up that way. And Indiana Jones, they both came out great. The Indiana Jones, that guy was really very appreciative of giving a nice review after it was all said and done. And I guess he wants to, he wanted some advice on buying another game and he wants to buy Banker Winsco, Jason Mgs, earrings, fin. fcking my medicine. rj cash rj Right now in November, November they're doing a build and the premium is going to be ready for December delivery. He's going to get it in December. He wants me to go up there and set an unbox it set up for him and and take all that I told him about the crappy cheapo Black Stern rubber they put on there and the cheap balls he put in there. He's like, Oh, yeah, have at it. Spend all day and put all clear rubber on it. So I thought you were gonna say have at it and spend all you need to. Well, yeah, pretty much. Yeah, that's pretty. Yeah. So he's, he's, he's, he's seeing what, what I can do with the game. So he wants me to do the same thing with this game. So yeah. Okay. That sounds like fun. Oh yeah. And the hotel, I should tell you about the hotel. No, no, no, no. You're not going into the hotel thing. A little bit. Just a little bit. Another PSA. Okay. So if you have a Hilton or Hampton Inn's or owned by, Hampton Inn's owned by Hilton, just be advised they use microfiber sheets. microfiber is plastic pretty much polyester not cotton so we went up there and you know the long day gone to bed saying why I feel hot in these sheets and I realize like this feels weird what does it think what's the deal that yeah do you guys have any cotton sheets oh no no because of because of cooties the past couple years we it's a lot safer to have plastic so we want to plus the hilt to me this is a little plastic say well I'm Thumbs down your plastic and I want cotton sheets. These suck. These are cheap and they suck. Bring back cotton. And so I basically let them know in no uncertain terms and they actually, the main office actually has emailed me several times. I haven't got back to them yet. They gave me like 20, 000 Hilton points, Hilton artist points. They're a big deal. I can't use these. They don't like your fricking hotel because you use stupid sheets. Change your policy. Can I see you and raise you? I think it's eco-friendly. It's green. I said plastic isn't green, dude. Go ahead. Raise me. What do you got? Okay, so I went to New Hampshire last week to retrieve the games. Went up on Sunday with my friend Jack, picked him up in New Jersey. We stayed at a Marriott courtyard and we registered, got in, and they said, you know, complimentary breakfast tomorrow morning. Okay, great. So, tomorrow morning comes on, Monday morning, 630, we're down there, we're ready to roll. We don't have a cook. I'm like, okay. Well, in the Marriott Courtyard, they have a Starbucks. I said, okay, yeah, normally there's coffee, I'll have a coffee. That'll be $5. Oh, I go, it's gotta be. I went off. I went over to the manager that was sitting there and I said, listen, I said, I know this isn't you, but I want you to send a message to your management. She had this whole thing. Well, you know, this is the way I go. I don't care. I go, you folks are nickel and diving me to death. But here is the crazy thing. They charged me $5 the night before for a parking spot. Oh, that's nice. New Hampshire, a $5 parking spot. Wow. So listen up there, Marriott. And Hilton. Nickel and dining. I like going there. They have nice sheets. The beds were good. But this nickel and dining BS is got to stop. I will say that Hilton Hampton did have free breakfast and it was okay. They were raving about it like, oh, it's a second coming kind of thing. They didn't have coffee, Dave. Yeah, they had coffee. This is the only time we were at a hotel and they didn't have comp coffee. This place had coffee all day long, as much coffee as you want, to pour it down your throat. Right. So anyway, I was fit to be tied. I said, you know what, I'm not going to say anything. I'm just going to throw it over the wall and give it to Janice, because Janice stays at Marriott's all the time, and they are not going to want the wrath of her. I kind of warmed up, you know, I was kind of the starter pitcher. Right. And then the reliever came in. And he will throw fastballs. I will say right... Who cares? Who cares about the points? The points are worth... You know, who cares? I don't... Yeah, I don't care. So I'm going to get back and say, no, the points are nothing. I'd like a free... Half price would be good. Buy one, get one free. That would be kind of nice. Stay tuned, folks, for the bonus segment. I do a quick take on Maltese Brewing in Fredericksburg, Virginia. Believe it or not, Dave, Modern Sterns at 50 cents a play. Wow. That's pretty good. I was told by a couple of firemen they weren't there, the owners weren't there, I wanted to do an interview, but I'll go back. I mean, beer was decent, 50 cents a play, they had all the, you'll hear the piece, they had everything. It was great. Also, I did an interview with Keith Christensen, which I mentioned at the beginning of the podcast. He's the founder of the Houston Arcade and Pinball Show that's coming up, I believe, in a little over a week when you hear this. And just want to say to everyone out there, stay lit and tilted. You can contact Dave and I at theclassictinballpodcast1 at gmail.com. You can make a request. You can make a comment. You can do just about anything. Dave, I'll give you the last word. All right. Well, plenty more restorations to go here and more coming in by the day, especially coming up to the Christmas time rush. But, uh, been a blast again, George, doing this with you. I'd love if we both could carve out some time to do this. And, uh, I wanted to say everybody, uh, enjoy the upcoming holiday season. And, uh, you can reach me at pinballdoctor.com. That's P-I-N-B-A-L-L-D-O-C-T-O-R dot com. And you can reach me at, uh, dave at pinballdoctor.com. And we do have, uh, games in the restoration queue. Probably we'll have games for sale for Christmas, I believe. Might even have a World Cup Soccer, home use only, that I'm going to make really super sweet. That'll probably be available if I can have anything to say about it. Might even have another Gorgar. So stay tuned on that one. For anyone, everybody stay blessed out there, and I would say drive fast and take chances. Oh geez. Okay, that's another wrap. Balls Feature. Well, we're on the road again in Fredericksburg, Virginia, playing at a new, to me anyway, brewery called Maltese, owned by firefighters. What a great place. Gonna go through the machines that are here. Got a black pyramid, Foo Fighters and Avengers. Only, you only live twice James Bond, you can hear in the background, along with a black knight. Mando, Galactic Tag Force, an Iron Maiden, Deadpool, Scared, Stiff, and Venom. Believe it or not, most of these games are a quarter. That's right, you heard me right, one quarter. So I'm gonna play a little bit of James Bond and I'll get back to you after I'm done. I have a recurring guest, Keith Christensen. He was episode 12 and he is the person who brings the Houston Arcade and Pinball Expo live from Houston, Texas. Welcome Keith. Hey, how you doing? I'm doing terrific, Keith. I appreciate you taking the time out of your busy day to talk a little bit about the expo that's coming up in, I guess, 28 days. Yeah, oh my god, don't even remind me. Well, I just did. So, why don't you tell me what's going on pre-show, and we'll get into a little bit about the show. I was a guest of yours, believe it or not, four years ago, October 23rd, 2019, episode 12. That was a lot of fun. I really enjoy your show and my wife and I are going to be driving across the country to come visit you next month. Oh, excellent. That is awesome. I love it. Many, many years ago, me and my buddy Callan, you know, we were having parties and get-togethers at our houses and we decided, hey, let's, uh, I was like, you know, I did sound over this place called Fitzgerald's, um, in Houston back in the nineties. Let's, uh, see if we can put a show together, throw, you know, throw a great, you know, fun party. And, uh, he was like, okay, yeah. And so we brought all of our games to a little club at Fitzgerald's in Houston and set it all up and had a bunch of people came out and, you know, had to slam all load everything in the morning, do the show, load everything, you know, out the next day. And then that was it. Did that for a couple of years, nearly killed us. And then I was like, well, hey, I'm gonna find a hotel. And so I found a hotel and we got a hotel. Oh, great. Well, wow. Welcome. Mark O' It's definitely a very unique show. I've done other podcasts with other shows. And the thing that I like about this show is it's not just pinball. You certainly have video games as well. You do a lot of console stuff. But the musical entertainment is great. You have your band. We'll talk about that in a couple of minutes. Marko, I'm guessing, is going to be there again this year. They do a terrific job in bringing all the latest and greatest games. If you're looking to play pinball, I never waited more than a minute to play anything at this show. And it is a busy show. You draw a lot of people from the greater Houston area and beyond. This is true. Now this year, Marko is not coming. Oh no! But the local distributor, Joysticks Amusements, will be bringing all the pins. So we'll have... Do you have a heads up on some of the newer games that they might... Oh yeah, we'll have Venom there, we'll have the Foo Fighters, we'll have all the up-to-date Stern stuff for sure. Well, I'm going to throw in a few more Mission flagships. Because it's all, you know, at the end of the day. So that's why Joysticks has kind of taken over the torch. But we will definitely, we'll have Sterns there. Do you think you'll have any of the latest Jersey Jack games or any of the other vendors that are out there? American Pinball, Chicago Pinball, etc.? We'll definitely have the latest... Godfather? Yeah, we'll have some, yeah, because he'll also bring a few Jersey Jacks to the show as well, because he's a distributor for them as well. Not quite sure American Pinball. Keep texting them, I mean email them every year. They used to send us swag and some stuff to give out, but I don't know. They're, you know, when Joe was working over there, it was a lot easier for me to talk to him and stuff, so I don't know. There's going to be... Multimorphic will be there with their Weird Al and... was it Total Resistance? Scott Danesi's creation. They'll be showing that off. And then we'll also have the... some mystery thing happening. Some mystery thing happening from them? Not from them, from another company, pinball company. Okay, now you've piqued my curiosity. So are we looking at potentially breaking news that there might be a new pinball company coming to the market? I think you've probably seen a lot of explanation points if you've been perusing Facebook and social media. This doesn't have anything to do with the flipper stickers, does it? Slippers. There is a sticker that has shown up at multiple shows and gatherings. It's a flipper with a pinball. Oh, a flipper with a pinball, yeah. And it makes an explanation about what that is. It makes an explanation point. Is that what you're talking about? It's a pinball with a flipper pointing down. I'm not one to go out on social media, so that's news to me. That's great. So good. I'm going to look forward to it. And there should be... Dave, you haven't seen the trailer yet? I haven't seen anything. I think somebody sent it to me recently. I'm going to give a shout out to my good friend in Australia, Grant. He seems to be our news media expert and sends me texts and emails saying, hey, have you seen the following? But my audience knows, you don't know. I'm in the middle of moving. Actually, I'm day two in my new home. Last you spoke to me, I lived in New Hampshire. I am now a resident of Virginia. Oh, congratulations. So we moved into a brand new home yesterday. As we speak, I've got a tree crew outside taking some trees down because I have a pool being put in next month. Oh, excellent. I love my pool. I'm going to love mine. I'm looking forward to it. So there's a lot of stuff going on here in Virginia. Okay. Well, to get you up to speed, there is a trailer out there for a company called Barrels of Fire. I'm going to show you that trailer. It's a trailer that I'm going to show you right now. And it's There's Fun Pinball and they're putting out the Labyrinth Pinball. I did happen to see a photo. This is, now I'm not familiar with the movie, but I believe David Bowie was in that movie. Is that correct? Yes, sir. Okay. So I have seen that. I haven't seen the trailer. I haven't seen the pinball. I guess I'm going to have to do some homework and folks just to bring you up to speed this will be part of probably several segments again from last month I'm kind of trying to push things in and out to get a podcast out in the month of October and so I'll talk to my podcast partner Dr. Dave and we'll we'll talk about that game. Yeah, no, that, it's, from what I've seen, it looks fairly awesome, so. Well, I think you should tell the audience a little bit about your collection. And I know you're going to be busy as could be, you know, in the days leading up to the show. You did extend an invitation to me. You probably don't remember that you have a large barn or garage of some sort with how many pinball machines? Oh, so, yeah, so I kind of started collecting in 96 and kind of grew the collection, finding what, you know, deals I can out there throughout the years. I've been here for about years and I've gone up to 106 pinballs. How many of those are actually coming to the show? We will be bringing about 43 of those. So let my audience know what are some of the... 104 games. What are some of the rare titles that we might not see at other shows? So I have my collection of two areas. One area is I built a house basically, two story house by my pool. It's like a pool house with outdoor kitchen and then we have 43 pinballs set up there. And that's more of the kind of modern stuff. I got like Pirates of Jersey Jack, Pirates of the Caribbean, L.E.E. I got the new James Bond, which is a great pin. I love that game. Yeah, everybody was just gave it so much, you know, stink when it first came out. I was like, man, Gumbiz is genius. We're gonna, it's gonna rock. I have all the faith and and it is it's just doing great. So, you know, I got the latest spooky Scooby-Doo, which it plays kind of, you know, slow and groovy, but I kind of like it. I love that game. Yeah, I'm not a big fan, but hey. Yeah, no, no, no. Everybody has their favorite. To each their own. I mean, to me, it's a bit of nostalgia. It's a beautiful game. I think it plays the way it should. I like it, you know, because everything can't be a Stern, you know, everything can't be a Godzilla, right? That's true. And I like to have variety, so there you go. Let's see, what am I bringing? Well, we are a classic pinball podcast, so, you know, stick to some of the maybe classic titles that you might be bringing. See, I'm a big DMD collector. I am five away from completing all the Bally Williams DMDs from the 90s. Oh, wow. I didn't know that. Yes, the last ones I need are Dirty Harry, Congo, NBA Fast Break. Once I get NBA Fast Break or Congo, I'll have all the WPC 95s. The original ones, not the remakes. Jackbot. Oh, Bywater. So, do you want to put a shout out to our audience and say, hey, if you've got a collector quality game? Yeah, no. Well, hey, I'll take something that needs a little work too, you know what I'm saying? Because I'm not a super rich guy, so I'm not looking for, you know, I'm looking for something I can get and we could dig into and make it nice, you know what I'm saying? Absolutely. We're doing something a little untraditional too, audience. I tried to connect with Keith via Spotify for Podcasters and we kept getting dropped out for whatever reason. We're all about firsts here. We stretch the envelope wide. It's all about solutions. Yeah, that's it. You're in the communications business. Yeah, I have a data center and we do hosted voice over IP. I take that approach with the show too. It's all about solutions. But, uh, and I mean, you, you know, you get there, you think you have everything planned out, nothing ever goes the way you think it's gonna go. And so you're constantly creating solutions to, you know, fix the sound problem, fix a problem with this vendor, do, you know, it's just all kind of trying to make, you know, win-win solutions for everybody. Real stressful up until it opens and then everything's just like okay all right let's go. Well that's a good segue. Let's put the pitch in there for a few minutes. The show is coming in November. The dates are Friday the 10th, Saturday the 11th, and Sunday November 12th. It's being held at the Marriott Westchase, is that correct? Yes, sir. Great hotel. Great layout. A lot of great people. There's food nearby. Rooms are really nice. I think it's a great venue for a pinball event. We just did a couple of shows in Massachusetts and they went to a new hotel, much better hotel than the last. The last hotel they were in in Sturbridge, Massachusetts, I would call the Roach Motel. They've definitely upped their game, but your hotel is even better than that. I mean, it's a beautiful Marriott. Yeah, we've worked with them now since I think our first show there was 2007. 17. So, and we've had plenty of roach hotels, you know, on the way up. So, It's tough. I mean, you try to explain to people who aren't into pinball, you know, what your audience is. And your audience is certainly a little bit different than the audience I just experienced. Um, but you have a big vendor area, lots of stuff to buy. I don't remember. I remember you. And I remember, help me, the guy who plays the Atari console. Atari man. Yeah. He was great. But I don't remember who else you had in 2019. I don't think it was the heart twins. No, no heart twins are, heart twins kind of come every other year. They really like the show and then they play in the speaker room and then they're out to meet and greet you know you know their fans and what not. Excuse me, for our audience, explain who the Harp Twins are because they're pretty unique. So yeah the Harp Twins they are they are you know twins that are harpists and they started doing you know videos on you know YouTube and whatnot and they started doing covers of Iron Maiden and ACDC and just all this stuff but with harps And they're both just gorgeous, beautiful young ladies and very, very funny. And at the time, Iron Maiden came out and I came across them. I was like, God, what if they came and played, you know, this is Iron Maiden just came out. That'd be kind of fun. And I reached out to him and lo and behold, I said, yeah, sure. We'll come on down. And they came down and we had a, had a great show and, uh, they've been coming back kind of, kind of like every other year, you know, you know, is your band going to play as well? Yeah, we'll be playing Saturday night during the Radio Cult. Radio Cult comes from Atlanta and they come, they do some originals and covers and then actually members of the audience kind of come up and jam with them. Last year we had Lance and Catherine from Last Starfire came up and played a few songs I'm going to be doing a lot of things with them, which was fun. And then Tim Kittsrow and some other pinball folk got up there and jammed out with them. And I'm hoping John Boer gets up there. Last year he missed it, but hopefully he'll get up there and do some jamming with them. But anyway, during their set, we'll come up and kind of jam with them. We'll do about four songs. The band's called Loaded Popcorn. I think they were the band that I saw. Radio Cult? It was either them or Loaded Popcorn. I don't know, maybe both. Yeah, Loaded Popcorn is my band. Okay, okay. Well, I definitely saw them, obviously. Yeah, yeah. And we have songs about, you know, about pinball and, you know, being, you know, kind of a gay collector. You're a great front man. Oh, thank you. You're a great frontman. So I didn't realize John Borg, he's one of your guest speakers I guess, I didn't realize he was a musical talent as well. Yeah, he plays guitar and then Jerry Thompson, who does all the audio engineering, I mean audio stuff for Stern now, you know a lot of games, he did Godzilla and a whole list of games, he's going to be here. And he's actually was lived in Houston, was a DJ and he's a drummer. So I fully expect him to get up there and jam with Radio Call on Saturday night as well. So you're hearing a really, really unique show. The show we just went to, again, I keep referencing, they had a Foo Fighters cover band and they had this band, forgive me, I don't remember the name, but they're a horn band, 15 piece, that did all kinds of arcade and pinball. Steven Pryor is also a former co-host and co-user of the Well, he's a DJ. Yeah, he'll be DJing Friday night. Either he'll be DJing Friday night or using his modular synth system. He has a little portable modular synth where he can program up, you know, a lot of the sounds like he did in Total Nuclear Annihilation and, you know, whatever, his music. And then he'll kind of get like a electronic kind of dance beat going and stuff and start Playing with it and doing different groovy electronic stuff. So he'll either be doing that or he'll be DJing on Friday night. Let's talk about midnight on Saturday night. I don't remember what you call it, but I certainly remember what I... The Yacht Rock Disco. That was... Keith? Yes. That was the most fun and the people just go nuts. I haven't, well, I haven't found it yet. We've got, it's like Christmas here at my house. There's lots of boxes, but I have one of your gnomes. You got one of the gnomes? Did you get a captain's hat? And I also have one of the lightsabers. Oh, excellent. So those are around my pinball machine. They're just like, what are those things? And you know, go through the story of the Houston Expo. It's great. Awesome, awesome, awesome. Yeah, so that's what, I mean, so during the day, You know, it's kind of a quiet time. We'll have a little music going, but not real loud. And then night we start, you know, cranking the bands and, you know, we have a, uh, you know, a great thing on Saturday night where it's the yacht rock disco. We do a big, you know, uh, nine hot, alcoholic champagne toast. And, um, we, uh, hand out hat captain's hats and lays, and we start playing the best of yacht rock. I'm going to have to find you before you start throwing them out and get my captains at. Yeah, do you got to complete my collection. Come get me. And so we do that on Saturday night. And then we're kind of skipping around. So I'm going to I'll just give you an overview of the whole entertainment deal. So, Friday we have a guy coming out from New Orleans and he does some electronic, like Friday night is like an electronic night. So he does some electronic modular synth stuff, you know, to music, you know, of the, you know, arcade and pinball. And then, you know, Scott will be doing his set. And then we'll be doing this guy called JG and the robots where he dress up as it looks just like you like a robot from T2 or something and he goes and does all these EDM kind of dance stuff. And it's incredible show. And then Atari Matt's gonna play with his 2600 where he makes his own kind of punk rock We'll be playing, you know, new wave and pop and kind of underground dance stuff on Friday night. And then Saturday we'll have a local DJ Chris Lowe is going to play and then a band out of New Orleans called Consortium of Genius and they basically dress up they're like mad scientists and a great fun band they have their own originals and covers they do and then we have Radio Duran Duran which is a Duran Duran cover band which is the best I've ever experience in my life and they're going to be doing a an hour and a half set of just duran duran stuff if you like duran duran and then that's when radio cult comes after them and that's they do their set and then we kind of do up you know people from the audience come and play and then we at midnight we do the yacht rock disco and that just goes till whenever and so the game room is all open while this is going on and people are playing and so we don't We don't really have a hard show. It says on the website 2 a.m., but we typically will go to 3 or 4 o'clock in the morning. People are playing the pinballs and we're jamming. It's just a great time. Folks, if you haven't figured out by now, this is a spectacular pinball party. This is not just come and play pinball and go off into the sunset. This is an actual party. It is unlike anything I've ever seen. And it's the reason I'm traveling a couple thousand miles to get out there in November. I wouldn't do it for any other show probably. This is, I'd like it to be a yearly thing. We'll see. You know, something got in the way the last couple of years. I know you've been open, but it's, you know, it's been tough for me to do that. But I, Keith is a great host. He has one of the most spectacular shows that I've ever seen. The one note, I have to talk about this before I forget about it. The one notable thing that happened in 2019, and I think it's been forgotten, is you had a game that was brand new. And I think they only made five. Oh, yeah, this is this is sometimes controversial, controversial, but Raza, retro atomic, die Zombie Adventureland. I had the opportunity to play it. You can go back and listen to, I think, episode 12 or 13. I talk, I give a review. I didn't think it was the greatest game in the world, but I'm wondering who has those five games. Do you have any idea? Do you have one? No, no, no. I wish. I mean, it was kind of cool, unique game. Definitely needed a lot more, you know, code work and whatnot. But yeah, that was Deeproot. They were out of San Antonio. And, um, turned out that, you know, he got hired a bunch of pinball designers, got all into pinball and it turned out he was a, I guess I had a investor pyramid scheme going on. Yeah, he had the Ponzi thing going. Yeah, Ponzi scheme. And then, um, you know, the house of cards fell down finally, and then they auctioned all that stuff off. And some of the, I remember reading in Pinside that some of the people who, you know, pre-bought some of these games ended up, they auctioned off some of the IP and stuff like that and they got some money back. So rumor has it there's some guy out there who owns some of the IP or some of the stuff and they may or may not be remaking it. Um, and a few collectors got actual machines. I don't know. Maybe it'll poke its, poke its head up at some point, but, um. Well, hey, I'm, uh, I'm ruffling the trees right now. Maybe something will shake loose. One thing I don't want to forget as well about your party atmosphere is you also do a whole cosplay thing. Yes. Yeah, we have a whole cosplay contest. We started that 2015 and it's great. We have, we'll pull in a couple of our guests, which one of them is Cindy Morgan. She was in Tron and in Caddyshack. I don't know if you remember her. Also in Fountainfront. I'm not familiar with her. Well, somebody out there will be familiar with her, but she'll be there and we'll get them to come and judge. And then everybody just kind of lines up and the audience comes and hangs out by the sound booth and people come and do their cosplay stances and whatnot and then we judge them, they win a trophy and it's all good time. I have a picture from 2019 with the dude. Do you remember him? Oh yeah! He looks exactly like the dude. That's my buddy Sammy. He's from Lake Charles. Yeah, he was looking good. Is he going to be there again? He'll be there again, but I don't know. Maybe he'll be... I'll see if I can drop him a line and say, hey, you got some fans of the dude. I know you're not involved in this. I know it's Space City who does the tournament. And unfortunately, folks, I did want to play in the tournament, but gassed. I didn't realize the sign up with all the things going on in my world. I didn't realize the sign up was in early September. So I'm on the waiting list. I'm not sure I'm going to be able to play, but they do a terrific I mean, my wife was so addicted to that tournament when we were there. And she's she never played any of my pinball. Yeah, Space City guys, they are, I just, they've built a pinball tournament empire. I mean, they have several monthly tournaments that are going on throughout the city and they may, I have a second location at my office where I've built a second arcade because I I'm going to have so many pinballs and arcades. And called Gandalf's. And hopefully they'll be doing a tournament over there as well. Well, they've got a week's worth of tournaments leading up to... Yeah, so the tournament at Gandalf's was actually considered the kickoff for the Space City Open at Houston Arcade Expo. So, season, and so now, everything's kind of leading up to the show, the big tournament there, and so they'll have some stuff going up to that, and then, like you said, that week before, a lot of people fly in early or drive in early, they stay the whole week here in Houston, and they play all these little smaller tournaments kind of leading up to the big one. The one place I remember is Einstein's Pub. Yep, yep, that's a great place. It seems like they're having one there. They're starting those tournaments. I went out and looked. They start the tournaments on Sunday night. So it sounds like Whopper Towns for all week for all those people who are, you know, into heavy tournament play. I looked at the list. Who's the person whose name escapes me? Who's the person who's responsible for Space City? So Phil, Phil, that's it. Yeah, Phil, Phil, yeah, he started it. Then now they have a whole council, you know, of elders, pinball tournament elders that run it, you know, the droneys, David, Mark Gammon, a whole bunch of people that that are kind of filling in and helping, you know, spread the gospel. So Well, I hope some of those people hear this broadcast. I'd really, really, really would like to play in the tournament. Uh, even though I'm not very good, you can take my $60 and, uh, I'll make the deposit, but I'd like to be in the tournament. So if somebody does hear it from space city, you know, maybe you can inch me up the list a little bit. I, I'm not in, I'm a, I'm a collector and I'm, you know, in a, a fun player. I haven't really delved into the tournament action, although it's definitely fun. It's definitely fun. Which... Yeah, it's a lot of fun. I've met a lot of really great people. Everybody made you feel like home. People looked at me and said, the last time when I was living in New Hampshire, they asked, you came all the way from New Hampshire to come to this show? I said, I did. Oh, we got people coming from Mexico City. I met this dude who I'm friends with Facebook now, came from Sweden. I think he's coming again. So, you know, it's definitely a rock and roll pinball show. Back, I mean, I don't know, 15 years ago or so, people were like, you know, it was us and really the Dallas show kind of going and people were complaining. They're, you know, like, oh, it's just too loud and there's a band and da, you know, and just getting up. Our solution was to bring more bands in. So, you know, if you don't, you know, and we do provide ear plugs, you know, so we're all about hearing safety and make sure everybody takes care of their hearing, but also we're all about having a good time and not being so stiff. If you're into partying, if you're into pinball, if you're into music and, you know, maybe If you like to partake in a drink or two, this is definitely the show to attend. That's our mission statement. How do we make the show more fun? So that's our mission statement in our corporate documents. So folks, if you're hearing this, this will probably be out in a couple of weeks. If you're looking to strap on the fun bag, this is the show to attend. Keith, did I miss anything? I think we went through everything. Yeah, so today at noon there's going to be an announcement, so I guess I can say it now because we're so close, but that Labyrinth Pinball from Barrels of Fun is going to be at the Houston show. Terrific. I look forward to that. Yeah, and that's a local Houston company making these pinballs. And actually Phil... Oh, I didn't realize that. Yeah, and Phil has actually worked on the rule set. So he's actually, you know, designing his, you know, his first pinball. So pretty exciting stuff. Will they have a seminar or some kind of announcement at the show? Will they do something along those lines? Well, I mean, I don't think it'll be an announcement for the show, but they will definitely have a seminar. We'll have games to play. They'll have swag and stuff like that. So 18 minutes or so. They're gonna announce it today. So, but you know, your podcast will come, you know, a little bit after that, but I just, you know, wanted to let everybody know. Another new machine. Well, all my podcasting brethren will be all over that. We try to concentrate more on classic machines, but we do talk about all the latest in there, so maybe not in depth like everybody else, but we give it some time. My favorite stuff is the stuff I grew up with. I have distinct memories of playing flash when I was at the 7-11, back in the early 80s and stuff and just playing all these different high speed growing up and all the video games and my local arcades and just so many memories and it's so weird how when you play them and you kind of reconnect in a way. And it's, it's, it's really cool. And that's all the time. It takes you back in time. I'm a little bit older than you are. So I'm a little pre that, you know, mid 70s up until the early 80s. My collection, I have a dozen or 13, I think, classic value machines. Oh, nice. So I'm gonna go. Actually, in two days, I'm headed back to New Hampshire to retrieve all those games Steve Haynes, and bring them to Virginia. And one thing I want to say to the audience, folks, so if you don't have a big truck, trucking game 500 miles is not an inexpensive endeavor. Yeah, yeah. It's not. I mean, I had to rent a car, I had to get a hotel room, I had to rent a one way 20 foot, you know, truck. Well, I'd go, I had a truck, but I had to go rent a big trailer, and then next thing You know, I'm driving hundreds of miles to West Texas and it was a hundred six degrees in the warehouse and I brought my two boys with me and we were here breaking down these old, you know, Xenon and Dark Knight, Black Knight, Teed Off and Bone Busters, which is actually kind of a kind of a unique Gottlieb title. I'm bringing that to the show this year. You know, breaking all this stuff down and loading it up. And at the end, you know, my kids were boys were like, Oh, that was kind of fun. You know, because I hadn't been on a warehouse raid in a while. I would just I love it, you know. So anyway, yeah, they think they seem to be fewer and far between, because I think a lot of that happened probably 10 or more years ago, there was a run on that you don't hear I'm not sure if you've heard of them that often, but when they do happen, you know, it's like Christmas. It's like, okay, what am I going to get this year? Yeah, no, I love it when collectors, you know, get out there and find stuff. I love watching it. It's, you know, warehouse porn for me, you know, see all the stuff that they find. But you know, there's a lot of flippers that were in that pocket there. That's all they did. They went around and just scored, taking anything they can and just flipping it for years. It kind of takes the joy out of it. But then again, they may have saved some stuff too because people were ready to throw some of this stuff away. We hear the stories all the time. We've had them time and time again in our podcast. I'm going to give you the last word. If I've forgotten something or if you want to pitch again, have at it. Uh, come on guys, come on down to the Houston show and let's have a good time and uh come get your captain's hat and play pinball with your your friends and family and make new friends and just you know let's expand the hobby and and be inclusive and and uh peace love and pinball, Right? So, there you go. So, I'm gonna pitch and say, my wife works for a large computer company in your area. I don't want to identify who they are, but you probably do know who they are. And her management team thought it was interesting that I collected and they want to come to the show. They are not pinball people. So I'm going to bring a handful of people in that have never experienced the Houston show. They didn't even know it existed. Believe it or not, they didn't even know it existed. I know. I know all the efforts. It's like yesterday I'm driving across town dropping flyers off, you know, you know, trying to promote stuff and you know, then also I'm kind of practicing my DJ moves because I'm DJing Friday night and you know, Saturday night. So you know, You know, and then people are like, what's a, no, I don't know. And then just some people don't even know what a pinball is. And next thing you know, they get in there, they'll see an Atari or something that they love. And oh, we're gonna have some killer vintage computers, which is gonna be, one group out of Dallas, I kinda helped them put on their vintage computer show. I kinda gave them some, you know, just consulted with them. And they're bringing down a Soviet era PC, which I'm excited to check out because I've never, I've never seen any of that old technology there. So when I see you out in Houston, remind me to tell you about the 80s when I worked for a certain computer company. Oh, I love hearing all these stories. I have a feeling some of my boxes ended up behind the iron curtain. Oh wow, that's really cool. Yeah, I love all the stories about Tandy and stuff like that. But, but in saying all that, I think people come, they're like, oh, I'm a console guy, let's go look at the old consoles, and then they play a pinball, and then they get sucked into pinball. Or the pinball guys go in there and they go, oh man, really? Oh yeah, Apple IIe, I used to love that. I think the gaming community cross-pollinates and that's part of what we like to do at this show is, you know, kind of spread the gospel that way, for sure. I want to thank you. This went a little bit longer than I would have thought, but it was a great conversation. Yes, sir. I could talk all day. Just keep going now. Downloaded av mejor receptor Not only Linux, but Singles Who Won't cholesterol-saving in collaboration with Windows India. We giving away DJ3370 first game, World Champion. Link W The Toe Cutter in Knight Rider. Toe sucker, the toe sucker? Yeah, the toe... no, the toe sucker. Not the toe cutter. That's a different movie, George. That's a whole other movie. Oh, that was the toe sucker. That's a different movie, I think. It's... Okay. Get him! Go to random! Get him right here to the passenger door. Get the hell out of there. He's gonna scare the hell... Go to random! What? Ah, uh, I got what I wanted! The Toe Sucker! Oh, it's tough! It's tough! What the hell is that? I hate to say that, George. I hate to say that! I hate to say that, George. Hey fellas, you okay? The gun is picked up. The gun is, are you okay? Charlie? Do you see me, cold cutter? Do you see me, man? Keep going. We're okay. Wee! Why do we put up with it, George? Why do we go on year after year and treat it like robots? Because we are not robots. We are cogs. Only small cogs in a very large machine. They feed raw material here, and somewhere down the line, money pours up. Of course, I've never seen any of it, but I do have it on good old phone. This joker's not only stupid, he's a moron. Besides... I heard that. Thanks for the compliment. Dave! Who? Dave! Dave Beasley! Yeah, Dave! Dave! Right! Who do you call when you want your pinball machine restored? Dr. Dave! George, you don't know what you're saying! You're under their control! Hasta la vista, baby.

_(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v4)_

---

*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 1b410d80-7d34-4dfd-94f5-5a78063a9761*