# PNP 668- Pokemon Top 5 Rad 1 Bad+ WTF BTTF!?

**Source:** Poor Man's Pinball Podcast  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2026-02-14  
**Duration:** 56m 37s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://poormanspinballpodcast.libsyn.com/pnp-668-pokemon-top-5-rad-1-bad-wtf-bttf

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## Analysis

Orbital Albert (Orby) celebrates Pokemon Pinball's official reveal, ranking his top five favorite aspects: artwork/packaging, comprehensive asset roster, dual designer collaboration (Jack Danger + George Gomez), and more. He discusses his recent job transition, Patreon challenges due to tariffs, and plans for 'Free February' content releases. The episode concludes with teasing a 'Back to the Future' discussion and a promised 'Stern rant.'

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Pokemon Pinball features artwork identical to original TV show, suggesting that's what Stern licensed — _Orby discussing artwork licensing: 'I think this is all OG TV stuff. So this is the artwork looks identical to the TV show. That must be what they have the licensing for.'_
- [HIGH] Jack Danger designed the playfield layout/toys and George Gomez designed the architecture for Pokemon Pinball — _Orby references the co-designer pairing: 'the fact that George Gomez could come in there' alongside Jack Danger, highlighting this is unprecedented in modern Stern history_
- [HIGH] Orby's Patreon peaked at $192 CAD (~$140 USD) four months ago, now down to $140 CAD (~$100 USD) — _Direct statement: 'I was able to get my patreon up to like at one point this is like four months ago when it peaked 192... I'm way down to like $140 a month now'_
- [HIGH] Tariffs have made it impossible to ship Patreon tier-2 gifts to US patrons due to $35-40 additional costs — _Orby explains tariff impact: 'I haven't been able to send out my American tier twos anything because I would lose an extra or even worse, they would have to pay an extra $35 or $40'_
- [HIGH] Pokemon Pinball playfield includes ~30 distinct Pokemon characters and covers Gen 1 (151 Pokemon) — _Orby's detailed observation: 'I was trying to count there's at least 30 Pokemon on there... they got like 90 to 95' of favorite Pokemon when surveying 100 people_
- [MEDIUM] Orby expects 10% of Pokemon Pinballs to end up in Japan and 5% throughout China based on IP popularity — _Prediction: 'I'd be shocked. I'd be shocked if 10% of them don't end up in Japan, 5% of them in all the way throughout China where Pokemon is just, you know, going lights out'_
- [HIGH] Angry Alpaca coffee company is taking a hiatus from regular market sales due to tariff pressure — _Orby on his side business: 'My wife and I are on a little bit of a hiatus with Angry Alpaca... it's been very, very, very tough with the tariffs to make any sales'_
- [HIGH] Orby typically receives 420-500 listens per episode on Pinball Nerds Podcast — _Direct statement: 'I get between 420 and 500 listens on most shows'_

### Notable Quotes

> "I love me some new pinball day. It is delicious. Finger licking, thumb tumping, yummy. I'm going to have some new pinball day for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert, baby."
> — **Orbital Albert (Orby)**, Early in episode
> _Sets enthusiastic tone for Pokemon Pinball discussion_

> "I think they actually listened with that [artwork simplification]. But I do like the artwork that is there on the cab."
> — **Orbital Albert (Orby)**, Artwork segment
> _Acknowledges Stern may have responded to community feedback about busy artwork_

> "The only thing more powerful than hate is love."
> — **Orbital Albert (Orby)**, Mid-episode tangent
> _Philosophical aside before returning to Pokemon discussion_

> "You can't make Pokemon manly. They're just cute. They're just cute little fun pieces of artwork."
> — **Orbital Albert (Orby)**, Assets discussion
> _Defends aesthetic legitimacy of cute character design in pinball_

> "If you took Steve Ritchie and put Pat Lawlor together... people would lose their fucking mind."
> — **Orbital Albert (Orby)**, Designer discussion
> _Contextualizes rarity of dual-designer collaboration; compares Jack Danger + George Gomez pairing to legendary designer combinations_

> "I'd love to sit down and have a just a fun chat with you. I won't call it an interview. I am not a journalist. I'm not an interviewer."
> — **Orbital Albert (Orby)**, Closing pitch to Jack Danger
> _Reflects Orby's self-awareness about podcast format and extends invitation to Pokemon co-designer_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Orbital Albert (Orby) | person | Host of Pinball Nerds Podcast (Poor Man's Pinball Network); pinball podcaster, coffee entrepreneur, stay-at-home dad starting new job; Patreon creator struggling with tariff impacts |
| Pokemon Pinball | product | Stern Pinball's officially announced Pokemon-themed game; subject of episode analysis; Pro/Premium/LE tiers |
| Jack Danger | person | Co-designer of Pokemon Pinball (playfield layout/toys); renowned Stern designer, live streamer, pinball personality; Orby invites for interview |
| George Gomez | person | Co-designer of Pokemon Pinball (architecture); mechanical/design-focused designer; legendary figure Orby has not met in person |
| Stern Pinball | company | Manufacturer of Pokemon Pinball; subject of criticism and praise regarding artwork, licensing, and design philosophy |
| Enzo | person | Australian pinball player/content creator (Gonzo's Flipperama); Patreon tier-2 subscriber planning livestream; mentioned as purchasing Pokemon Pinball |
| Angry Alpaca | company | Orby's white-label coffee/tea business with wife; currently on hiatus due to tariff impacts; historically generated $6-8k annually pre-tariff |
| Drop Target Danielle | person | Orby's wife of ~23 years; celebrates Valentine's Day while Orby starts new job; co-hosts some Patreon content |
| Pinball Nerds Podcast | organization | Hosted by Orby; part of Poor Man's Pinball Network; approaching episode 668; typical 420-500 listens per episode |
| Patreon (Pinball Nerds) | product | Subscription platform for Orby's podcast; peaked at $192 CAD, now $140 CAD; experiencing subscriber loss; free-tier content being offered in February |
| Poor Man's Pinball Network | organization | Podcast network founded by Orby; hosts multiple shows including Pinball Nerds; serves pinball enthusiast community |
| Kaneda | person | Community member who criticized a Stern marketing decision; Orby previously responded on Patreon |
| Kerry Hardy | person | Pinball content creator; appeared on behind-paywall episode with Orby for year-end review; mentioned as having content with limited listens |
| Todd Tucky | person | Pinball content creator; featured on behind-paywall patreon episodes; episodes being considered for Free February release |
| Glenn the Skateboarder | person | Pinball community figure; featured on behind-paywall content with limited visibility |
| Joe Chervino | person | Pinball community member; purchased Angry Alpaca tea; featured on patreon content |
| Hayden | person | Orby's 19-year-old son; featured on patreon content about 2025 pinball year; loves Pikachu |
| Orby Jr. | person | Orby's son (17 years old); nearly grown; playing in basketball tournament during recording |
| Pat Lawlor | person | Legendary pinball designer; referenced as design standard for mechanical innovation/stop-and-go mastery |
| Steve Ritchie | person | Legendary pinball designer; referenced as design standard for flow and playability |
| Roger Sharp | person | Pinball figure interviewed by Orby; episode received ~500 listens (above typical average) |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Pokemon Pinball official reveal and design breakdown, Artwork/packaging quality and licensing constraints (Gen 1 TV show assets), Dual designer collaboration (Jack Danger + George Gomez) rarity, Tariff impact on small business (Angry Alpaca) and Patreon operations, Orby's career transition and Patreon sustainability challenges
- **Secondary:** Pinball character asset comprehensiveness (30+ Pokemon from Gen 1), Free February content strategy for subscriber growth
- **Mentioned:** Geographic Pokemon demand projections (Japan 10%, China 5%)

### Sentiment

**Positive** (0.78) — Orby expresses strong enthusiasm for Pokemon Pinball's design and assets, praising artwork, playfield, and designer pairing. Tempered by frustration about personal financial challenges (tariffs, Patreon decline, job search), which he addresses candidly but moves past. Maintains optimistic tone about future (new job, Free February strategy) despite current difficulties. Brief negative aside about punk rock bar incidents, but contextualized as non-political tangent.

### Signals

- **[business_signal]** Tariffs significantly impacting small pinball-adjacent businesses; Angry Alpaca sales dropped from $6-8k/year to near-zero; shipping costs up $35-40 per US parcel (confidence: high) — Orby: 'it's been significantly, significantly less than that in the last year... almost zero... with it only being $100 US... I haven't been able to send out my American tier twos... they would have to pay an extra $35 or $40'
- **[community_signal]** Free February strategy: releasing premium Patreon content publicly for 24-48 hours to boost subscriber awareness and growth (confidence: high) — Orby: 'I am planning on releasing the Stern rant by the end of the month... for 24 to 48 hours... then just delete them from there'
- **[competitive_signal]** Pokemon Pinball expected to achieve exceptional international penetration, particularly Japan and China, due to IP ubiquity (confidence: medium) — Orby prediction: 'I'd be shocked if 10% of them don't end up in Japan, 5% of them in all the way throughout China where Pokemon is just, you know, going lights out'
- **[design_philosophy]** Stern appears to have responded to community feedback about overly busy artwork by simplifying visual palette on Pokemon (confidence: medium) — Orby: 'people for years have been saying, Stern, your artwork's too busy... I think they actually listened with that'
- **[licensing_signal]** Pokemon Pinball licensed artwork is sourced from original Gen 1 TV show, not contemporary Pokemon TCG or modern game art styles (confidence: high) — Orby: 'I think this is all OG TV stuff... That must be what they have the licensing for'
- **[market_signal]** Pinball Nerds Podcast audience declining; historically achieved 600-1000 listens per episode in early era, now 420-500 typical; podcast monetization challenges evident (confidence: high) — Orby: 'couple hundred shows ago back around 400 to 500 i did average six seven sometimes 800 people... now i'm very happy... i get between 420 and 500 listens on most shows'
- **[community_signal]** George Gomez joining Jack Danger as co-designer on Pokemon represents unprecedented dual-legendary pairing in modern Stern era (confidence: high) — Orby: 'if you took Steve Ritchie and put Pat Lawlor together... people would lose their fucking mind... This is so cool that you put these two incredible pinball designers together'
- **[announcement]** Official Pokemon Pinball video reveal released by Stern ~57 minutes before episode recording (noon EST), confirming design across Pro/Premium/LE tiers (confidence: high) — Orby: 'in just a one-minute video released less than an hour ago, released 57 minutes ago at noon Eastern Standard Time, we all got to see it. And I was pleasantly surprised.'
- **[product_strategy]** Pokemon Pinball playfield features balanced asset density with ~30+ visible Pokemon characters spanning Gen 1, avoiding excessive insert clutter (confidence: high) — Orby: 'the playfield is exactly as busy as it needs to be... seems to be more simplistic... kids are gonna love it'
- **[product_strategy]** Pokemon Pinball backglass differentiation: Premium backglass rated 9/10, LE backglass 8-8.5/10 (Master Ball feature), Pro backglass criticized for excessive red (confidence: high) — Orby detailed ratings: 'Premium Backglass is like a 9... LE Backglass does have a Master Ball... The LE maybe the LE Backglass is even an 8.5... I don't like all the red on the Pro Cab'
- **[rumor_hype]** Orby teases upcoming 'Stern rant' to be released during Free February; suggests existing criticism of Stern decision-making not yet public (confidence: medium) — Orby: 'the cherry on top, the cherry on top is that I am planning on releasing the Stern rant by the end of the month'

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## Transcript

 All get around, he's on the rebound, hear the sound of our buddy, oh lordy, it's Orby, pinball now to rejoice, he's tugging pinball, craft beer and coffee, mixed with syrup and honey, he wants to laugh with his family in a random tangent, stories of his boys, he's on the poor man's pod network, we're gonna get more listeners, for the Pinball Nerds Podcast. Coming to you from beautiful River Hibbert, Nova Scotia. Welcome back, Pinball Nerds, to episode 668 of your fifth favorite pinball podcast. My name's Orbital Albert, and on today's episode, I'm going to be counting down the top five rad, And one, I hate to say it, but one very disappointing bad. But I'm going to save that for later. We're going to be primarily positive on Pokemon Day. First of all, I love me some new pinball day. It is delicious. Finger licking, thumb tumping, yummy. I'm going to have some new pinball day for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and dessert, baby. That's right. But let's just get into it, okay? First of all, I wanted to thank all of you. I got a lot of listens on the last show. Really excited about that. I have been waiting and waiting and waiting. Blame Stern. Stern, are you listening? No, I'm just kidding. I don't think it's Stern. I think it probably has to do with licensing. But I've been waiting for about five days patiently to come talk to you guys about Pokemon. Because I didn't want to use the grainy potato camera pictures we were getting. Some of them were rumored. Some of them were AI. The last few pictures we got were real, but I wanted to see the video. I wanted to see the mechs moving. I wanted to see the shots and where the path layouts went. And I'll be honest, with those few pictures, I just can't really visualize what was happening. And in just a one-minute video released less than an hour ago, released 57 minutes ago at noon Eastern Standard Time, we all got to see it. And I was pleasantly surprised. I mean, the one thing, there was one mech that I was like, wow, that looks better than I even thought possible. The artwork was very jarring when I first saw it because I did think like, well, why is half the cab kind of empty? And then on the flip side of that, people for years have been saying, Stern, your artwork's too busy. It's too colorful. It's rainbow puke. There's too much going on. And so I think they actually listened with that. but I do like the artwork that is there on the cab. I've got to just get into this. First of all, everybody, I want to apologize for being gone for a while. I already explained why. Also, I was in the process of getting a new job, so I made the deal with y'all. You've been warned. I said last fall when I started Patreon, if I can get it to just $200 Canadian a month, that I wouldn't have to go out and get a part-time job somewhere. Unfortunately, due to multiple reasons, life happens type stuff between issues with our vehicle, plumbing electrical in the house when you move into a hundred year old house stuff's gonna break right not quite a hundred but i think uh really close really close to 100 actually might be like 101 as of this year so anyways i was able to get my patreon up to like at one point this is like four months ago when it peaked 192 that's right i was less than just two tier one members off of hitting that $200. And I was never able to do it. And honestly, other than Rachel Risto in December, I have not got a new patron all the way since November of last year. Maybe Alex L joined at the very, very end of November, the start of December. So I've gone December, January, we're halfway through February. Happy Valentine's Day, by the way, that's tomorrow. Oh boy, I better make a card for Drop Target Danielle. That'll be easier said than done though, celebrating a fun Valentine's Day because I have to go introduce myself at my new job tomorrow. And after that, we are heading to Moncton and we're going to go for a nice dinner date together on Valentine's Day. It's so awesome for Danielle and I. I don't remember how many years we've been together. Is that bad? I probably should figure that out before I make the card today. But I think like 23 years, maybe we're in our Michael Jordan year. Maybe I'll have to get her a Jordan rookie. No, I can't afford that. I'll just get her a reprint or a replica. But speaking of cards, and let's get back to Pokemon, okay? So I did want to tell all of you that basically about my new job, I'm not ready to talk about it quite yet. Let me at least get through the training and such and make sure it's a great fit for me. But it pays slightly more than minimum wage and it's slightly more than part-time hours. It's kind of halfway between like that 15 hours a week and 35 hours a week for full-time. From what I understand, it's going to fluctuate for the first few months while I'm doing training. It's probably going to be a little bit more than that. So while I'm working near full-time hours, plus being a stay-at-home dad of only, you know, of a 17-year-old kid who's almost grown up, I get to go watch in a basketball tournament tonight in town. So go Raiders. Little Orby Jr., you got this. But I'm absolutely stoked and excited to start my new job. However, I did just want to be open and honest with you guys. I'm way down to like $140 a month now, which is honestly less than like $100 USD a month. So with it only being $100 US, I love all my patrons. Shout out to every one of you, all 21 of you or 20 of you. I just had another patron leave a couple days ago. And to the person who left, it's totally cool. I'm never going to judge you for leaving. Everyone has their own bills. And honestly, because of the Trump tariffs, I haven't been able to send out my American tier twos anything because I would lose an extra or even worse, they would have to pay an extra $35 or $40 from what I understand. Even for a gift package below $50, which is crazy. Um, I was able to send out Enzo, of course, his first package. Enzo's probably coming out. Enzo's one of my only two tiers left. He might be my only two tier left, uh, but, uh, I'm going to get to send him some nice collectibles soon. My wife and I are on a little bit of a hiatus with Angry Alpaca where we, well, we figure out if we're going to get new distributors or new coffee roasters for our, uh, white collar or blue. What's it called when you do, uh, you know, when basically you do the labels and, uh, essentially work on, you know, many of the parts yourself, white label, I believe it's called white labeling. So we might look for a new white label coffee roasters. But for this year, we're probably not going to be going back to the regular market that we used to do. And that is completely okay, because onward and upward. And honestly, it's been very, very, very tough with the tariffs to make any sales. I went from averaging from 2021 all the way till 2023 or 2024, maybe about halfway through 2020, whenever the heck all that stuff started happening and it ramping up, we were averaging probably $6,000 to $8,000 of coffee and tea sales. Not profit, but $6,000 to $8,000 a year just from the Pinball Podcast. And then so it's been significantly, significantly less than that in the last year. Let's just say almost zero, almost zero. I think I had one Canadian from Toronto. Joe Chervino ordered some tea perhaps maybe for him and his whoever else, right? So anyways, shout out to Joe Chervino. know let's just get into it you guys have heard me ramble on too much i want to start by saying that i tried to separate these in the top five rad by i attempted to rank them so the number one thing you're going to hear uh i tried to rank them but you know it's really really really hard to do number one the artwork i was really really really hoping that the le artwork would they would do something like uh happened in with the mina lima uh stuff with the harry potter ce i was hoping the Stern LEs would use a more contemporary, a more like modern Pokemon artist. There's a lot of incredible Japanese Pokemon artists. I'm not going to try to pronounce any of their names, but they've been doing just incredible, incredible artwork on, you know, many of the modern, they're called art rares or illustration rares, depending art rares in Japanese, illustration rares in English. And these cards, some of them are honestly like art pieces that you would hang in there. They don't look as, I guess, childlike as the OG TV stuff has. And I think that this is all OG TV stuff. So this is the artwork looks identical to the TV show. That must be what they have the licensing for. So I think with the licensing they had, they did as good as they could. And I will say this. I don't love the pro black back glass. Not really sure why. Just not vibing with it. It's OK. Like, it's fine. And I think it will do well at attracting people in an arcade. So as far as that goes, it's going to do its job. But I personally love, and here's where the number one rat is, I love the premium back glass. And overall, just the look, just the art, not just the artwork, but like everything to do with how the LE looks. I think the LE, they knocked it out of the park. And perhaps my favorite part of this, and this is in all three pins, is the play field. the playfield is exactly as busy as it needs to be it's got you know it seems to not be overly busy like with millions of inserts like we've seen more recently it seems to be more simplistic kids are gonna love it you've got the Snorlax there which especially my sons growing up they absolutely loved they said who cares about like well my oldest son Hayden loves Pikachu me myself I'm a massive magic carp and Gyarados Gyarados is what the magic carp turns into Japanese culture they love koi fish and the magic carp is like kind of well it's it's more of a carp as you might a magical carp as you you might imagine but they absolutely love koi fish and they also love like mythical dragons and serpents and sea creatures and that's exactly what Gyarados is. It's a water type. And I think part of the reason why I love Gyarados so much, you had to actually, this is nerding out, this is a little sidebar, Pokemon Go sidebar here. But I actually loved in Pokemon Go, the fact that it was so hard to get Gyarados. You had to walk with your Magic Carp for 300 kilometers. Unless it was like a special event or something and you were getting double, then you only had to walk 150 kilometers. But I legitimately had to walk with this dumb little Pokemon, this silly little cute Magikarp. And I also love koi fish and I like that whole, the Japanese side of like, I love everything, you know, having to do with Japan and how they live and their food. And I don't F with sake. I don't do any of that. And I'm not a sushi guy because I'm allergic to, you know, shellfish and crustaceans. Actually, crustaceans might be fine, but I don't know if I want to have any crustaceans. They sound kind of crusty. but the the play field is exactly what it needs to be you've got every character there you would expect from 151 151 is like the first generation of pokemon um the only i think the two that were missing was a couple of the eeveelutions so for those of you and they might be outside of the 151 so i could be wrong i did see flareon but for those of you who don't know uh eeveelutions are Eevee, which is like, like, you know, one of the most sought after Pokemon. It's all of its evolutions are called Eeveelutions. So we start with the three simple ones, which one of the three is on there. They have Flareon, but I did not see the other two. I didn't see Sylveon, which is my favorite. I didn't see Espeon, which is the fan favorite. That one, I remember in Pokemon Go, it had to be nighttime when you evolved it. Anyways, let's stop talking about Pokemon Go. But wow, the Playfield art, the Premium Backglass, and the overall LE packages, from an art perspective, knocked it out of the park. If I had to give numbers, I like rating things out of 10. I'd say the LE Backglass to me is like an 8. The Premium Backglass is like a 9. The LE Backglass does have a Master Ball on it. And if you're crazy into playing Pokemon on Nintendo or watching the TV show or playing Pokemon Go, a Master Ball basically guarantees that you catch your Pokemon. So, for instance, if you're not a very powerful trainer and you try to catch, like, I don't know, Charizard, or you try to catch, like, a really powerful Riachu, which is an evolution of Pikachu, you won't be able to catch it. the chances of you actually catching your pokeball are so very low because pokeballs are like considered like the lowest form of a ball which i don't know if you had to think of it like a gun you've got the crappiest like nine millimeter or something as opposed to like a big giant like semi-automatic or automatic uh bazooka you know what i mean like a master ball is a bazooka like game over you're catching that pokemon and then in between you have a great ball but let's not go down that route. The point is, I do really, maybe the LE Backglass is even an 8.5. Is it mirrored? If it were mirrored and I could see it up close, maybe it is almost as good. But to me personally, just because of how much I love Magikarp and how much I love Gyarados and just, I like the, I don't know, I just, just something about the premium really, really, really speaks to me. I don't like all the red on the Pro Cab, but we'll, let's, let's talk more about what I don't like later and finish talking about what I do like so number one on my list for most rad is the art packages because the playfield's incredible the back glass on two out of the three are just you know awesome like so so cute so fun so I don't want to say predictable they are predictable like when you saw the CE from Harry Potter no one was predicting that we thought it be way more movie centric and copy and paste nobody but nobody I a the only thing that I into maybe slightly more than Harry Potter at this point in my life is Pokemon And my 19-year-old, like, punk rock, you know – I won't say skinhead. I was not a skinhead. Unfortunately, some of the punk rock bars that I went to had some of those rude dudes back in the day. But thankfully, the group of dudes that I hung out with were, like, the good punk rocker dudes who just had the Mohawks and, like, thought those guys were – Basically, let's just say this, and I'm going to move on from any type of political speech here. The only thing more powerful than hate is love. So there you go. But let's move on from that. Number two on the list. Okay, number two on the list is assets. I heard Meowth. Now, I believe the actor, rest in peace, who played Meowth has passed a couple years ago. So they obviously just took it direct capture, which is perfectly fine. And if the only thing that they have from Meowth, I don't want all the custom calls from Meowth anyways. If they only have a couple non-custom ones from the TV show or if they got someone like the new Meowth voice actor or someone else, I couldn't tell the difference. So good on them. Of course, you heard Pikachu say the only thing Pikachu says. Actually, I think later on he says, Pikachu. But like in the first three seasons of the TV show, he just says, Pika Pika. I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe he starts saying it before then. but uh so there you go like i don't know if i would call that custom call outs since he only says pika pika you know is that cut i don't know if that's custom he only says one word and adds a chew when you say ah chew would you say like you said a word or did you sneeze i don't know all right i'm going a little off topic here but uh mewtwo is on there you absolutely knew mewtwo mewtwo is a huge massive fan favorite you absolutely needed to um you know like like i said personally, Gyarados is, especially in Japan, and I can see this pinball machine more so than any other pinball machine ever. I'd be shocked. I'd be shocked if 10% of them don't end up in Japan, 5% of them in all the way throughout China where Pokemon is just, you know, going lights out. You know, in Europe, it's going to be popular. In Australia, it's going to be popular. Oh, and shout out to Enzo there. I had the pleasure of chatting with Enzo briefly this morning and was just talking back and forth. I believe he is getting himself a Pokemon. I don't know which one, but make sure you go over there and follow Gonzo's Flipperama. He did let me know that he may be doing a live stream soon. I did kind of bust his Pokeballs about the fact that I was like, hey, dude, I used to love, you know, joining your live streams and shooting the shots, and I hadn't seen him for a while. So make sure you go follow Gonzo's Flipperama because Enzo has let me know that he's planning on doing a live stream sometime soon, sometime soon. So that would be great to see a little bit from Enzo because I don't think I've hopped in the live stream since Eric Meunier was there with Harry Potter. Harry Potter. Okay, so going back to the assets, it's like if they didn't get Pikachu or they didn't get Charizard or they didn't get two custom voice actors, Giovanni sounded good. I don't know if it sounded perfect. I'd have to go back and listen. Giovanni's kind of like the main bad guy. So if this was Inspector Gadget, he's Dr. Claw, Dr. Claw. Go, go, Gadget arms uh i don't think that i think stern's too big to do go-go gadget arms but may i could see inspector gadget maybe getting a barrels of fun american pinball type release spooky it's not really scary enough there's there's nothing scary about penny is it penny the girl anyways i've gone off topic here but let's even go back further so to just explain it a bit better for those in the back not listening basically if you had smurfs gargamel would be giovanni he's kind of the jerk There is the two, like, people underneath him from the two-team – why can't I remember them? I can see their faces. I have multiples of their card. I can't remember their names. But I kind of found them annoying. I really – James and Jesse. Jesse – how would I forget Jesse James? I'm literally, like, the fifth related ancestor of the Jesse James, the gunfighter, the man single-handedly responsible for using a gun to kill the most number of people. That's not how you want to introduce yourself. hi my name's orbital albert i'm a pinball podcaster slash a direct descendant of the most notorious cowboy of all time giddy up i guess there was that other guy billy the kid is either billy the kid or jesse james uh billy the kid had a cooler name i'll tell you that see if it was like jesse the kid jesse the james ventura all right so the assets are all there we only saw one or two video clips on the lcd but it looks like they've got all the or as many assets as is needed no one's going to be complaining like king kong like oh they didn't get the real king kong footage no they got all of the assets they that they could possibly need i heard call outs at least two to three two i've heard three different types of call outs but the one was pikachu the one was just meow with as the balloon came down i believe yeah i mean now it kind of bugs me too so i'm glad my mouth is only hopefully i'm hoping my mouth is limited in speech it doesn't have like isn't the main seems like Giovanni's the main guy like yelling at you and then a couple of the other Pokemon say some stuff but it would have been cool to see Ash are we missing Ash I don't know like I didn't hear any call outs from Ash that would have been I think that would have been like most preferable and and I could have missed it believe me I watched it about three times very quickly wrote notes down some notes took Luna Tuna Elowen Agar and Draco Franchi for a quick walk put them down to bed and just came in here and started to record so I like to watch it as many times as possible. I was working on some other work stuff, so I was a little bit late to the game, but I like to, in the first hour or so, have out all my thoughts on paper. So assets, assets, assets. Think about, I know no one brags about how good assets are. I'm probably the only person who will talk about how good the Pokemon assets are, but think about how many people complained when Arnold wasn't in Predator, right? Everyone's like, oh, I'd buy Predator. Yeah, the shots look okay. yeah the toys look all right yeah it's you know it shoots okay it's a little floaty but it shoots okay but the biggest issue there's no Arnold well they not only got Arnold they got everybody they got the whole graduating class of Pokemon of 151 like I was trying to count there's at least 30 Pokemon on there like I would say you covered if you were to if you were to ask a hundred people like what's your favorite Pokemon they probably got like 90 to 95 the odd person is going to be like oh i love giraffe a rag or i love steelix or you know what i mean but 99 of people are going to say either not maybe 99 95 are going to say eevee new to charizard pikachu then the other two uh starters so squirtle balbazor that's pretty much magic carp and gerdos you know what i mean and they have all of those so they they not only have them but they look identical to how a lot of people who grew up with Pokemon. I was not one of them. I was like a skateboarding, snowboarding hooligan who just, you know, I'm a little bit too old for it, but as my sons got more and more into it, that got me into it. Had I not had kids, I'd probably be here sitting here making fun of Pokemon and being like, oh, it's so lame. Grown men are going to be in there like pulling back a Pokeball shooting a pinball going, Pika, Pika. Well, you don't have to say it like that. You can be like, I love Charizard. He burns my, and just, you know, all right, you can't make Pokemon manly. They're just cute. They're just cute little fun pieces of artwork. It's no different than when you see, you know, a lot of like, I, to me, like Mario Kart is one of the cutest video games out there besides Pokemon. You know what I mean? Like you've got like Toad, who's really cute, and you've got Mario and Luigi and Princess, and they're just fun little, everything in those games is meant to make you think like, oh, that's kind of cute, or that's kind of fun, or that's, I mean, look at Jigglypuff. Who couldn't love Jigglypuff? He's jiggly, and he's a puff. Who doesn't want to go for a puff? I know I sure do. All right, so let's get through this. All right, number three on the list. Two designers. I also haven't heard anyone else bragging about this. Think of all the advantages of two designers. Like imagine if you took the stop and go and the mechanical know-how of a designer like Pat Lawler and then you took the flow of Steve Ritchie. And if you took Steve Ritchie and put Pat Lawler together and you took all the positives of Pat Lawler and all the positives of Steve Ritchie and you put it together, people would lose their fucking mind. They would be like, wow, I can't believe it. This is so cool that you put these two incredible pinball designers together. And especially if you said, and also they're both going to sign the LEs. Like I highly doubt we'll ever see this. I could be doing a, I could be like, welcome back pinball nerds episode 1947 uh today we're going to be talking about pokemon pinball i know it was 20 years ago but still to this day there's never been a jack danger george gomez you know like if if elwynn and gomez were together that might be the only thing that would be more talked about than this right so if you take if you take the fact that jack danger is already renowned and be loved as a designer and a live streamer and just like a pinball personality content creator right and then you take the fact that george gomez is known as a dude who got into this more from a mechanical and engineering standpoint as like a toy designer and or a design standpoint maybe not engineering sorry george sorry my homie gomi uh i've never got to talk to george that would have been really cool that would be cool if someday i get to do that who knows i'd like to meet him in person first, honestly, before even having him on the show. If he'd ever come, I don't know. Me and my little tiny LE audience, that's what I call you guys. I get between 420 and 500 listens on most shows. So now this month, I'm going to make it free February, by the way. I've got a couple more shows that I was somewhat upset. Like my wife and I dropped Target Danielle, record a show. Instead of doing WTF happened in the last month for Behind the Paywall, we did WTF happened in the last year and on the WTF happened in the last year we did like an extended version of our monthly show and I was so upset because I went looked at it now listen more than half my patrons listen to it uh so at the time I don't know there was 25 or 26 so more than half the patrons listen to it which I'm even shocked by that because you know like I get you're gonna join someone's patreon but you're not gonna listen to every show and if you didn't get the email confirmation of it at the right time it feels old and stale yada yada yada I get it but my point is i think that a lot of people have never joined my patreon because they don't know how cool the content behind the paywall is so what i'm gonna do because i already during the last day of last month and the first day of this month released uh you know another basically my my retort to kaneda from six or seven months ago as he asked for me to release it so i did re-release it i released that for 24 48 hours 36 hours something like that it got an astounding number of listens. Usually it would take my podcast like a week to get that many listens. So I thought, hey, I've got all this awesome content that I put behind the paywall. Why don't I start this new thing where I do February free month and I release five free podcasts, my favorite five free podcasts from the last year? Well, good news, everybody. You don't have to join my Patreon to hear that epic podcast with Kerry Hardy and I talking about our year end review and wishing people happy holidays um i think the second half of todd tucky's on there i know enzo's on there chat with my son hayden like and that's the other thing too enzo's such a rad dude and spent all this time with me to talk about like how we thought 2025 went as a pinball year and that's only got like a dozen or so listens to it and again i don't expect all my patrons to go back and 100 and listen to it so that's totally fine but i mean it's just not fair to Enzo or Cary Hardy or Glenn the Skateboarder or Todd Tuckey or Joe Cervino or Hayden Agar or anyone else I'm thinking that was behind the paywall that their episodes never got listened to. So during the first two weeks while I'm doing 40, 50, maybe 60 hours a week starting a new job, what I'm going to do is just from time to time for a very, very short period, as short as 24 to 48 hours, release these podcasts and then just delete them from there and they can stay behind the paywall for anyone who doesn't see them. But I'm just going to think of this. This was a recommendation I heard from a YouTube channel talking about how to get more patrons. And they said for one month only, if you have a main channel that you release stuff on, release some of your best content from the last year. I'm not going to be releasing all of it, but I will say this, the cherry on top, the cherry on top is that I am planning on releasing the Stern rant by the end of the month. So just make sure the second that you see a Pinball Nerds podcast come up on your thing, make sure you download it make sure you save it make sure you start listening don't be waiting three or four days because you might miss out on free february and that's a thank you to each and every one of you not just the patreons but all of you that have listened to all my shows over the years uh i'll be honest a couple hundred shows ago back around 400 to 500 i did average six seven sometimes 800 people um a couple really good interviews that i did when i first started out uh did get over a thousand listens i don't get anywhere near that now now i'm very happy like I had Roger Sharp on and it got much closer to 500 than 400. So that was awesome. So I just want to make sure that if I make really good content or, okay, not let's be honest, not really good content. If I make decent content that I want to release it and thank you all the pinball nerds, you're not going to get it as relevant as it would have been a couple months ago, but you're going to get it and just watch the titles. I'm going to make sure either in the, the subject title or in the topic to write replay Plus watch the numbers We on episode six six eight So if episode 662 come out or episode 615 or i don you know wouldn be that long ago but if you see a totally different number and we're going backwards we're going back in time oh yeah i was supposed to talk about back to the future let's save that to the end i'm going to write btftt back to the future here and we'll save that for the end if we have time all right so number three or sorry i was talking about number three on the list two designers so the fact that George Gomez could come in there because I'll be honest maybe Jack Danger Jack was probably told I if I had to guess and I have not asked him about this but I'd love to get Jack on now especially that Pokemon's out so Jack if you're listening I'd love to sit down and have a just a fun chat with you I won't call it an interview I am not a journalist I'm not an interviewer you know I've had the pleasure of meeting Jack a couple times it was all met a long long long time ago back when he was just a dead you know just a dead flip streamer but i would love to and i have got to interview him before or have a chat with him that i recorded and i'd love to get to do that again so jack if you're listening hit me up i don't expect to be able to be get your first interview but sometime soon as the smoke settles i would love to chat all things pokemon and just kind of what you're doing now it's turn uh so that would be great but to have two designers so to have jack danger start it and then have george gomez complete it or finish it and if like i was saying if i had to guess george gomez probably said to jack like hey this has got to be a more approachable design this is meant for kids most kids aren't going to look other places to find a third or fourth flipper like scale this back make the shots very wide very shootable don't have any really really really difficult shots If I had to guess now, this, of course, it hadn't happened yet, but you don't want anything like the, I was almost going to say the Stargate, but the new Star Wars, the shot that everyone's having a problem with. You don't want anything really tight like Houdini for a machine that you want not only adults to enjoy, but also kids, right? Because we can all agree there's going to be tons of adults that buy this and like kids never get to play it. It's just like in some adult's basement. But then at the same time, if this is out on location, this more so than Toy Story 4, this Pokemon as a theme will draw in more kids, teenagers, and young adults than any theme that's ever been made in pinball. Mark my words. You can write down today's date, okay? Usually the 13th, we think of it as not being lucky. Today is lucky. Today is February the 13th. You are lucky because you are witnessing a unicorn event in pinball. This is the day where I think, personally, I don't know if we can say Stern's back on top again, okay? But I'm going to say Stern just put another notch in their belt towards getting back to, did Stern get its groove back yet? Did you get your groove back, Stern? We don't know. Hopefully. but having two designers on this two designers is always better than one from a collectability standpoint it's better from getting the apron signed it's better from making sure from a code stance and rules and just thoughtfulness from a mech standpoint right so imagine if they told you you were going to get a keith elliwin and a steve ritchie collab or a george gomez and a pat lawler collab okay maybe that one less sought after but pat's i think pat semi-retired but you know where I'm coming from like wow I just that is so cool the fact that like both of these dudes that I love many of their designs I don't love all of George's designs but I would say because I love how flowy Jack's designs are and mech forward they are and because of the fact that George is really good at like I wouldn't say his are necessarily back forward so sometimes I think George's shots like aren't as flowy but they always i don't know like i love deadpool and i can barely even tell you what i love about it right i mean the katana shot arguably is is more of like a jack danger thought if you come to think of it there is no shots on here that anyone's going to have any issues with so and i never thought of this so i started recording but a big negative might be the fact that it is almost a little bit too easy am i right or am i right all right number four on the list is FOMO's back baby that's right so like for a long time it's not as fun covering pinball being a pinball podcaster if you will or a content creator it's not as fun for me personally when there's no FOMO when everyone's just like Debbie Downering or like you know the sound you hear when Eeyore's in Winnie the Pooh and it goes wait maybe that's Debbie Downer from SNL anyways probably doing it wrong but you don't want to be an eeyore you don't want to be a debbie downer you don't want to be a negative nancy all the time but when stern machine after stern machine people are just complaining oh i don't like the artwork i don't like the price it's not you know when people are just complaining constantly release after release it just it kind of tears you down never mind imagine what it does to the people actually working at stern or one of these other factories but for me as a content creator i have to be like oh again i have to go like try not to mention how much money people are going to lose and the fact that it isn't very collectible anything that loses that much money is never collectible right so even though whether you like the idea that you could scalp this or not whether you're anti-scalping pro-scalping it doesn't really matter you as a pinball nerd listening to my show you got excited when winchester sold out that fast because we as a group of pinball nerds had not seen that for years and then we saw it happen to beetlejuice and we had not seen that happen with spooky ever and now we're seeing it happen to pokemon pokemon ellies were sold out days and days and days before excuse me they were sold out days and days and days before the launch was even official and i can tell you right now uh i was in canada's chat this morning a shout out to chris We're at least somewhat friendly or being back to being regular frenemies where hopefully we can be kind, although call each other out if we have to. And I'm hoping we're at that kind but critical stage again. Hoping. Fingers crossed. But Chris said something really important. He said, guys, I think this could be 20K within a couple of weeks. I really do. Maybe even sooner. Maybe you didn't say a couple weeks. Maybe you said by the weekend. He said, I think it could be 18K. And I immediately wrote in chat. No, I think 20. I really don't. I don't think we're going to see hundreds of them sell at 20K. I think we're going to see three to five. And, Don, don't get mad at me. Geez, I'm trying to keep this beef chill, keep this beef chill over here. I need a refrigerator for all this beef, baby. But, Don, Don might actually be one of these types or a Don-type person who can easily afford to spend a couple grand more and just got on the Pokemon train a little bit late. You got on John Wick early but not. pokemon the biggest ip in the world what is john wick like the 14 000th biggest ip come on don anyways don you know he's going through a move maybe he doesn't have a tons of extra spending cash i have no clue don situation i'm not gonna bug him about it but i did tell don and everybody who would listen that i think this is the one pinball machine you should buy and i told don even like probably a week ago buy 10 new in box dude you're one of the few people i've seen how big his new house is okay he's one of the few people who actually has room to store 10 new in boxes in his house now any profits that you would make off selling these pokemon le's in the future would be lost due to warehousing costs especially the fact that it has to be temperature regulated right you don't want these things going down to minus 40 like it is here today right so this is if you are someone this was the unicorn event the one time in the last decade i've been covering pinball when I was like whoa if I dropped target Danielle and I had just sold the farm and I had made I don't know like I had an extra 100k I still wouldn't be able to afford like 10 but I probably would have bought five and I probably would have sold the first one within a week or two of when they dropped to that one or two people that didn't get it I would have sold another one three to six months out when it had its second resurgence I probably would have sold one two to three years from now when I think they'll double in price and I would have diamond hands that last fifth new in box until like 2035 or 2040 when Pokemon has well in 2020 in 2036 Pokemon will have their 40th anniversary year and so when that happens depending on if Stern releases another Pokemon pin if Stern doesn't I believe Jack Danger and Jack Danger and George Gomez were saying that this would be the only model. I really thought for sure there was going to be a Costco model coming, but anyways, oh well, I can't afford the Costco model either, so it doesn't really matter to me. But my point is, if you had bought five of these, you most likely, and I could be completely wrong. I'm willing to say I could be wrong. I highly doubt I am, but more so than with more confidence that I've ever, and I don't want people, don't go use a credit card don't borrow money from friends and family but if you can sell off one or two pinball machines or a car or you can easily liquidate another collectible i would buy at least one of these and put it somewhere dry out of sun and keep it new in box because new in box pokemon collectors pay five times that's correct five often five times for a sealed product than an open product and maybe even more once you open a product right depending on on how far you go back so it is true like a year from now a new inbox one might only go for 3 000 more 5 000 more 7 000 more but eventually as more and more of those le's are opened i'd say like you know two three four years into this even if you're someone like my buddy rudy from alpha investments on youtube also known is a pokey tuber he's also a magic tuber but if he really bought 15 or 20 like i think he did or even 25 i know him probably once every year or two when the prices surge he'll most likely sell off one or two and if you are like this man and you have the room to hold this this would be the one game like i would be shocked if people like canada don't have three to five i just would I just would. I would be shocked if quite a few pinball content creators out there, after seeing all the smoke over the last few weeks with Pokemon, didn't at least buy two. Didn't at least get two LEs, one to open up and play with, because it's still going to hold its value very, very, very well if it's been opened. but more so than any pinball machine ever, more so than Supreme, and think how much money people made on Supreme, more so than any pinball machine ever before in the past, this machine has the opportunity to make money. And I personally, for one, as someone who covers pinball, am so happy that FOMO's back. Guys, I have the worst frog ever in my throat. All right, number five on the list is, this is the one I'm the most stoked about, let's go, three moving custom mechs that are not flat plastics, that are like custom sculpted, okay, probably the least fun of them all, mini top three list here, least fun of them all is the Pokeball, which shakes, and again, for people who haven't played a lot of Pokemon, basically when you try to capture a Pokemon, depending on which Pokemon you're using to catch it, which ball you used, yada yada yada, whether or not you put a spin on it if you put a spin on the ball ironically because we're talking about pinball but we're talking about pokemon go as well if you put a spin on the ball there's a slightly higher chance that the pokemon stays in there so when you first try to capture it it will shake and if it shakes once you're happy because then it doesn't come out and then it shakes twice it doesn't come out you're really happy but if it shakes a third time and the pokemon doesn't come out you've officially captured it so it looks to me like they've implemented in that in the game really well just above that left ramp. The mech that I'm second most excited about, some people will disagree with me, is the Pikachu. Now, thankfully, the Pikachu, unlike Grogu, does actually move. Okay, his head just moves a little. I'm not sure if he follows the ball. It kind of looked like that in the video, if you go watch it. Are you like me, and did you watch that video like five, six, seven times in a row? I didn't mean to do the six, seven meme. I really didn't, but like, maybe I watched it eight, nine, ten times. I don't know. I slowed it right down to a quarter and watched it um I turned off the volume because I love that song I started to get sick of that song anyways I'm just I'm so excited oh the number one mech by the way the number one mech by far is the Meowth that comes which is funny because I always say how about Meow you like that Meowth but the Meowth comes down right about Meow after you uh hit those targets and stuff and it basically uh i wasn't sure how the mech was gonna look but wow so it's like dangling down is like the basket of the hot air balloon and when you hit it it moves around just like you would imagine if you hit like well it kind of looks like a tilt bob there and i've said this before and i got made fun of and people joked with me about it for years and i still think it's good advice but for for a short period of time pinball tournaments had a camera on the tilt bob and they would watch the tilt bob and see how much the tilt bob moved so that you would know oh stop nudging it about to tilt so then i said that kind of cheating that kind of lame don do that you can do that at home definitely don do in a tournament but what you can do at home even easier is is just take a bobblehead not a Funko Pop because their heads don move around It got to be a legit bobblehead okay And put it on your topper, and you'll be able to tell if you tilt, oh, wow, look how much the bobblehead's head was moving. But if you don't tilt, and you can get away with how much of a nudge you can get away with. So I've said that forever. Well, now you have, like, it looks to me like you have a built-in tilt guide, kind of. So when the Meowth is down and you've actually got access to that bash toy that is the basket, that's going to actually tell you how much you're nudging and moving the machine. And depending on how tight the tilt is, it might actually show you when you're getting close to tilting and be like, whoa, whoa, whoa. And just kind of a visual memory to like, so I didn't even think of that. That's another cool thing about it. But just overall, the mech goes up and down. The bottom part of it moves. There's also like a magnet up there that screws around with the ball. the only part of that mech or I guess near the mech I don't like is where it says battle they're not drop down targets come on at least on the premium le put drop downs there like at least and I don't even see any drop down targets I just see way too many stand-ups and stand-ups again are kind of like and I don't want to be that negative Nancy but they're kind of like wow I don't know just like you've never seen to me those that those six shots up there by the meow within the hot air balloon are like the main mech in the game the pivotal point it's where your eyes are looking that's when it's the most important for them to be drop downs but anyways i digress now the one bad the one bad i don't think it is those big empty parts especially on the pro where it's just you don't see a lot on half the cab they should have put the part you don't see a lot on the back because you're much more likely to see the front in an arcade. But anyways, the one bad thing for me, and this I was shocked by, not so much with Gomez, but especially with Jack Danger. And again, we don't know where in the design process who took over for whom. But the one bad thing, and you guys know this, I'm not a huge fan of two flipper pins. I think that you can only get a certain number of ball paths. You don't get left to right ball motion. In this particular case, it's okay. Like, it is a bad. me personally I would love you don't want to start adding extra flippers at the alley or anything like that but like I would have loved if it was at least a three flipper game and there was more one or two side to side shots that's just me personally so to me that's the worst thing about this and hey if the worst thing about this is something that doesn't even bug you that bad then you have a w on your hands this pinball machine is a winner so so excited I'm excited for Stern. I'm excited for the pinball community. And something I wrote down here I really wanted to talk about is just how many new players are going to be coming into this. And this is, again, this is going to be, people are going to point to this and say, wow, that like, if you look at the, because then I think all other collectibles, these pinball collectors who get into this, they aren't just going to stop. They're also just like you and me that they don't just like Pokemon. They also like Star Wars, and they also like Metallica, or they also like The Walking Dead, right? Or they love The Simpsons. Like, they're not just like, oh, I only like Pokemon. I don't watch any TV shows but Pokemon. The only video game I play is Pokemon. Of course not. So I think we're actually going to see not even just the Stern LEs, but the JJPCEs, and even maybe some of the back catalog of barrels of fun and spooky and all the other pinball manufacturers. So you've heard the term a rising tide floats all boats. And in this particular case, when we saw a whole bunch of new pinball players come in for Harry Potter, they all of a sudden didn't, they got caught by the bug just like us. They didn't just buy Harry Potter and keep it in the corner. I've seen a lot of new people who have said their first new pinball machine was Harry Potter and now they've gone on to buy two more three more five more build out a whole arcade start playing tournaments so in that same way this will bring in so many new players and by the way if you're a location oh my god you might if you're a big location you might want to get a pro and a premium one for each side of the arcade or you might want to get like you probably want to get an LE for your house and never let anyone play it. Don't put an LE on location. This LE will be worth too much, especially if you have documented home use only. But I am just stoked because this is the TSN turning point. Wait, you guys don't have that in the States. This is the ESPN turning point, okay? And for the Aussies, it's basically dodgeball when they decided to get wrenches thrown at them, okay? That's when Rip Torn came in and was in the wheelchair, started throwing, if you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge anything. All right, I've gone off topic. I'm so, so, so stoked to see all the new people coming in. I would like to talk to Mike and Stephanie from Punk Rock Pinball. I had wanted to get them on for my Christmas episode and ran out of time, and I know that they're big Pokemon people. I believe that Mike was saying that he, there of course from uh the punk rock bimbo podcast mike was saying that he got the number of guard chomp so mike if i were you i would look for a psa 10 cynthia's guard chomp which is my favorite guard chomp but is there an altar guard chomp if there is maybe look for that but if i were you dude i'd grab a psa 10 cynthia's guard chomp it's probably around 100 american or like 130 140 canadian even a psa 9 if you had to but ideally grab a 10 and man have that in your apron like every single person who got a number corresponding to the le you should try to buy a cool psa graded card of that card and have it on your apron or have it somewhere on your pinball machine part of your topper or part of the back like somewhere on it i mean it's cooler if it's in the apron i think especially if you can find a spot for it and if you can't fit a psa graded one you can just put it in a top loader and have it protected in there but i think it looks cooler if you have a gem mint version like a psa 10 one in a hundred of this card that looks awesome in there. So, all right, pinball nerds, I'm losing my freaking voice. I'm exhausted. I have my first day at a new job tomorrow. So I'm going to let you all know, I do want to talk really quickly about Back to the Future. I'm sad. I'm afraid. Okay. Melvin has left with his DPX. Okay. He's left with his DPX and got home. And now it's just, they're just Dutch. They're no longer, they're no longer getting deeply, they're not, they're no longer DPX. They're just Dutch. You know what I'm saying? So we don't even know. Even the people in the know don't know if Melvin left with BTF, with Back to the Future, B-T-T-T-T-T-T-T-F. We don't know. We don't know where it's going. But I was worried before about Back to the Future. Now I'm really, really worried. Remember, I warned everyone about Alice. I said you don't want to get Alice, A, because it's a dead theme. Nobody, nobody, but nobody cares about Alice anymore. Alice hasn't been relevant or cool since maybe the mid-'70s. Do you know what I mean? It just hasn't. I've seen people walking around with like, oh, yeah, I love the toadstool. Let's go smoking mushroom or grasshopper or like nobody. I go to Comic-Cons all the time. I've never even seen anyone dressed up like the Mad Hatter or Alice. You know what I mean? So they're just not very prevalent in society. The machine didn't look fun to shoot. I couldn't stand the trailer park trash artwork. The topper was like the coolest part of it, but then you didn't get the topper. They weren't going to be built very fast. They're not going to be very mechanically sound. They're going to have tons of issues, most likely, in Minecraft, just to protect myself. I've never actually played one. This is just what I've heard. So to me personally, I was never going to buy an Alice, and I don't know if I'll ever get a Dutch pinball machine in my life because it's just too sketchy. It's just too risky. Nine times out of ten, I say play before you pay. Ninety-nine times out of 100 on the show, I've said play before you pay. in this one circumstance I would have bought an Ellie if I could have afforded it without it so I went against my own rules but I would never ever ever pay for something from Dutch or another I'm sorry to say it's semi-sketch pinball distro or company until I knew for absolutely sure that they were not ever going to go out of business or they weren't going to take 10 years to ship it I would just in that case I would just wait to be at a show or wait till someone in my country had that machine and go play it and if I loved it then pay for it right but in this this is a very rare time when I'm Orby's going to give you the old buy buy buy I would say if you haven't got yourself on the list for the LEs it's too late to buy buy buy but I did tell everyone who would listen leading up to this including you pinball nerds that the LE had the best chance of making money even though I didn't know for sure until I heard it was sold out I didn't know but I will say this if you're thinking about buying a pro or premium just wait stern is so good at this in probably three to maybe seven days you're going to get to play the pros on location maybe within a couple days the pros on location and in chicago because they've been waiting so freaking long on the licensing over the last week that they probably made four or five six hundred pros by now ready to go right and so wait to play a pro or a premium if you haven't got in on at this point and then just buy it for yourself and enjoy it and love it and that's okay maybe two three years down the road i'm wrong and maybe those inflated prices of 20 to 25k for an le drop down to like 15 or or less who knows if we go to a world economic collapse or some type of hopefully that doesn't happen but believe me the world's been getting a little crazy lately so if something like that happens and we see a giant recession which isn't unheard of then these prices would come right back down and then you could probably just trade in whatever pinball machines you had at the time to grab one of these and get yourself an le as well but a rare bye bye bye bye bye bye bye oh i gotta sneeze for morby so until next time pinball nerds thank you so much for listening i hope you had a wonderful day and don't can i just ask this from the pinball content creation don't cool guy pokemon either your nieces or your nephews or your kids or your neighbor or your co-workers or someone loves pokemon you can go make fun of guys who like hot wheels which are little tiny cars you can go make fun of guys who like uh or men women collectors who love uh like whatever scooby dooby doo who doesn't want to go in the van and have fun with shaggy zoinks am i right you can make fun of people who like harry potter like oh it's little kids with sticks and wands in their hands going hocus pocus or you can stop being a cool guy and admit that we're all into pinball because we're nostalgic for themes that we associate with being fun and being and and being you know a little bit outlandish and a little bit obscure and interesting and you can't just have you can't just keep making rambo and keep making like these super manly games not that there is a rambo so i don't know what the hell i'm talking about but this is yes a game that primarily would speak to i would say for the most part walking through an arcade on average yes kids under 20 years old or like even even like 18 right but you have every demographic much like harry potter that loves pokemon and when the pokemon collecting world hears and i'm just i'm just warning you guys when the pokemon world hears and really truly figures out when one or two of the top 10 largest poketubers hears about this pinball in the le and by the way stern if you're listening get one or two pros into the top poketubers hands i'm talking poky rev okay or poke rev um unlisted leaf uh even alpha investments Rudy over there like when he's already big into pinball so he might be your best guy so anyways when the pin when it I don't think the average pinball pug I don't think the average um person who's into Pokemon has any clue this pinball machine's out there but when news travels it travels fast and I'm telling you I wouldn't even be shocked if I see a couple of these bad boys sell new in box for up to 25k in the next few months as people figure it out there will be those collectors who for a collector who spends 30 to 40 thousand dollars on one sealed box of pokemon they're not going to mind for a little tiny sealed box with 30 packs in it or 36 packs depending on when it came out you can pay 30 40 50 grand a buddy of mine bought a box actually shout out listens to the show uh local dude bought a box in prince edward island for 500 cash like i don't know a decade or so ago it's now up to 14 000 he could put it on ebay and would probably get 15 and a half grand right now even after paying his fees he'd probably walk away with 13 and a half so it's crazy like it is it is a large portion of the people that listen to it are in it for the collectability as well as the fact that they're cute and they look cool and pokemon goes fun and playing the game's okay. I don't really love the game. TGC Pocket took off, which is like the automated version of the game just for your phone. So, overall, don't cool guy this. Don't be the guy that makes fun and says, oh, Pokemon's for, like, nerds. Well, it kind of is. It kind of is. And hey, I'm a Pokemon nerd, so it all fits. Until next time, Pitbull nerds, I'm sure I'm going to miss you for a while, but I will put up some replayed episodes. And, you know, if I get a live stream in the next week and I want to come back and record a short episode, I will. Just don't expect it. I'm just tempering your expectations. All right, Pimble Nerds, I love you. I'm absolutely in love with you. And until next time, remember to eat, sleep, and breathe. Jigglypuff. Gotta catch them all.

_(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 216c8ecd-7288-4db5-b31d-1a34d6c60236*