# A day of Pinball Adventures & I take Barry to his new home!

**Source:** Pinball Shenanigans  
**Type:** video  
**Published:** 2025-12-18  
**Duration:** 47m 43s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V9wNtxO8TzQ

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## Analysis

Mike Dus (Pinball Shenanigans) documents a day of pinball activities: delivering a cat named Barry to Rob Noel's home/arcade, picking up an Alaska EM bottom board from Kevin's Grazley Garage for restoration, acquiring a 1976 Grand Prix, and playing various machines including Rescue 911 and Star Trek: The Next Generation at Rob's collection. The video features casual gameplay, restoration project updates, and community interactions.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Mike is the only registered owner on Pinside of an Alaska four-player EM from Interflip — _Direct statement by Mike Dus about his Alaska machine ownership_
- [HIGH] Rob Noel specializes in EM bottom board restoration work — _Kevin suggested Rob for the Alaska bottom board work; Rob confirms 'this is what I do mainly with EMs'_
- [HIGH] The Alaska bottom board is approximately 100 lbs and has extensive internal components — _Mike Dus describes the bottom board during pickup and examination_
- [HIGH] Rescue 911 is a Gottlieb System 3 game with a helicopter mechanism that travels down the playfield — _Rob and Mike discuss and play the machine; Rob confirms it's System 3_
- [HIGH] The 1976 Grand Prix was acquired from a Facebook Marketplace listing and has a 9.9 condition back glass — _Rob describes the acquisition and Mike examines the glass condition_

### Notable Quotes

> "You hit the kitty jackpot. I'm Mike Dus and this is Pinball Shenanigans."
> — **Mike Dus**, Opening
> _Series intro and setup for Barry the cat's relocation story_

> "I know what it should look like when it's working properly... I know when it's in this position, that switch should be open. That should be closed."
> — **Rob Noel**, Bottom board inspection segment
> _Demonstrates Rob's EM restoration expertise and troubleshooting methodology_

> "This guy is going to be some work... That coil looks fried."
> — **Rob Noel**, Bottom board assessment
> _Indicates the extent of restoration work needed on the Alaska machine_

> "I don't know why I agreed to do this. I'm like you. I generally don't work for other people."
> — **Rob Noel**, Bottom board work discussion
> _Reveals Rob's independent work preference and hesitation about the Alaska project_

> "It's the first time somebody sent me something that I bought."
> — **Rob Noel**, Grand Prix acquisition
> _Indicates how Rob typically sources machines and this acquisition was exceptional_

> "I'm never guilty of that... I'm not—it wasn't anyone I know, but there are people I know that aren't as careful around as I would like."
> — **Rob Noel**, Star Trek machine leg damage discussion
> _Community member awareness of machine care standards and equipment handling_

> "Captain Picard has touched this game."
> — **Rob Noel**, Star Trek backglass signatures discussion
> _The Star Trek Next Gen backglass has been signed by all cast members at conventions_

> "This is one of the early DMD games that I ever owned... And between the two of us, it took us 4 hours to LED the whole machine. Eight man hours."
> — **Mike Dus**, Star Trek gameplay segment
> _Personal history with the Star Trek machine from earlier in his collection_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Mike Dus | person | Host of Pinball Shenanigans YouTube channel; pinball collector and content creator |
| Barry | other | Cat being rehomed from Jamie to Rob Noel's house; becomes Rob's sixth cat |
| Rob Noel | person | Pinball collector and EM specialist who operates an arcade with extensive machine collection; owns horses and multiple cats |
| Kevin | person | Owner of Grazley Garage pinball restoration workshop; provides cabinet refurbishment services |
| Grazley Garage | organization | Pinball machine restoration and arcade workshop owned by Kevin |
| John Test | person | Pinball enthusiast from Sarnia; picked up Stars machine from Kevin; provided replacement machine legs |
| Panthera | game | Pinball machine that Mike Dus previously owned, sold to Dan Shadock, later repurchased after Shadock sold it again |
| Alaska | game | Four-player EM pinball machine from Interflip; Mike is only registered Pinside owner; undergoing restoration with Kevin and Rob |
| Evil Conval | game | Pinball machine at Grazley Garage undergoing restoration; having new posts installed |
| Gammatron | game | Pinball machine that Mike is modifying with speech board and Cyber Knot apron cards |
| $6,000 Man | game | Vintage pinball machine at Grazley Garage that Brian came to pick up; machine name refers to its original price point |
| Rescue 911 | game | Gottlieb System 3 pinball machine at Rob Noel's arcade; features helicopter mechanism; listed for CAD$4,100 |
| Grand Prix | game | 1976 pinball machine recently acquired by Rob Noel; 9.9 condition backglass; features double spinner action |
| Star Trek: The Next Generation | game | DMD pinball machine at Rob Noel's arcade with backglass signed by all cast members; previously owned by Mike Dus |
| Dan Shadock | person | Previous owner of Mike's Panthera; had boards serviced by Brent Butler |
| Brent Butler | person | Provided board servicing for machines; involved in restoration work |
| Jamie | person | Friend who was rehoming Barry the cat to Rob Noel; expressed gratitude to Rob for taking Barry |
| Vince Bracka | person | Friend of Rob Noel who informed him about the Grand Prix machine for sale |
| Dave Flinton | person | Previous owner of Star Trek Next Gen machine; sourced it from operator combo deal |
| Color DMD | product | LCD color DMD replacement for Star Trek Next Gen; product by Greg Ben |

### Topics

- **Primary:** EM pinball restoration and technical repair, Pinball collector acquisitions and marketplace finds, Community collaboration on restoration projects
- **Secondary:** Vintage pinball game mechanics and gameplay, Aftermarket upgrades and modifications (LED, Color DMD, speaker boards), Gottlieb System 3 design and mechanical innovation
- **Mentioned:** Pinball community socializing and arcade hospitality

### Sentiment

**Positive** (0.82) — Upbeat, enthusiastic tone throughout. Mike and Rob enjoy collaborative work, machine acquisition, and gameplay. Humor and camaraderie evident. Minor frustrations with helicopter mechanism timing on Rescue 911 and some concern about Alaska bottom board complexity, but framed as expected challenges rather than problems.

### Signals

- **[business_signal]** Rescue 911 listed for sale at CAD$4,100 on Rob's arcade collection, indicating active secondary market pricing for Gottlieb System 3 games (confidence: high) — Rob states: 'it is listed currently for uh $4,100 Canadian. And it's got custom apron cards and a fresh shop job'
- **[event_signal]** Rob Noel hosted a large community event at his property with 60 people, multiple bands (all-country and rockabilly), demonstrating his role as a significant community hub (confidence: high) — Rob describes: 'I had a big party here last Saturday, like 60 people. We had an all-country band and we had a rockabilly band. It was like a big ass event.'
- **[community_signal]** John Test providing surplus machine parts (legs, feet) to community members without compensation, indicating healthy parts ecosystem and material sharing (confidence: high) — Rob praises John Test: 'And that's what thank you John Test legs on that. That's perfect... So, again, thank you, John. Not for him, I wouldn't be able to make up this whole swap. Perfect.'
- **[design_philosophy]** Gottlieb System 3 era games (Rescue 911, Gladiators) praised for unique playfield layouts and mechanical innovation; Rob notes 'they were not afraid to experiment in this era' (confidence: medium) — Rob on System 3 design: 'They were not afraid to experiment in this era. And all these Gottlieb System 3 games look like in today's market, they're like limited edition models because they're packed with all kinds of stuff.'
- **[market_signal]** Marketplace finds remain active channel for vintage machine acquisition; recent finds included 1976 Grand Prix and previously Mike's Panthera reappearing (confidence: medium) — Rob acquired Grand Prix from Facebook Marketplace; Mike recovered his old Panthera through marketplace listings
- **[personnel_signal]** Kevin at Grazley Garage is providing cabinet refurbishment and repair services to community members including Mike Dus, demonstrating established restoration workshop operation (confidence: high) — Kevin refurbished Evil Conval, created brackets for Gammatron, and is refurbishing the Alaska cabinet; established business operations visible in workshop footage
- **[product_strategy]** Star Trek Next Gen undergoing modern upgrades including Color DMD replacement and potential lane guide extenders to address outlane difficulty (confidence: medium) — Discussion of Color DMD installation and mention of lane guide extenders as optional upgrade to reduce outlane drains
- **[technology_signal]** LED retrofitting of classic machines remains common practice; Mike recalls 4-hour LED conversion of Star Trek Next Gen requiring disassembly of substantial components (confidence: medium) — Mike describes earlier LED conversion: 'between the two of us, it took us 4 hours to LED the whole machine. Eight man hours'

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## Transcript

Good morning, Barry. Guess what? You're going to your new home today. You hit the kitty jackpot. I'm Mike Dus and this [music] is Pinball Shenanigans. Another day, another pinball adventure. So, today it's a big day for Barry. We found him a new home and it is uh our uh buddy Rob Noel. He has a bunch of cats already and also he has a bunch of pinball machines. And we're going to go hang out, bring Barry over there, check out some new machines that he's got, and uh record some of the shenanigans in the process. So, first things first, I got to go to um Kevin's because I'm also going to bring Rob a bit of a project. So, if you've watched previous videos, you know that I'm going to be working on an Alaska four player EM from Interflip. Very rare game. I'm the only registered owner on Pinside of that game. So, Kevin is going to refurbish the cabinet. I now have the playfield at home. And Rob Noel is uh more of an EM guy than uh myself. And Kevin suggested that why don't I ask Rob if he'll do the bottom board cuz the bottom board has like a million things on it. Weighs 100 lb. And Rob, that's his kind of jam. So, I'm going to bring the bottom board to him and he's going to be a part of the whole Alaska restoration tag team and I imagine Cory will be part of it at some point because uh he'll be able to do all the finetuning if I can't figure it out. But it is definitely an Alask. No, that's not a good one. Got to come up with a name for that. It's definitely a basket case though. If you have any suggestions what we could call this project, let me know. So, we've got a piece of pinball glass for Kevin because there's so much going on today. Really, John Test is going to Kevin's today to pick up his stars that Kevin just restored. And you'll see that in a video. I've got like 10 freaking videos in the bank. I'll get to them eventually. So John's coming from Sarnia to Kevin's to pick up his stars and a machine popped up on marketplace yesterday. A couple people sent me links including Kevin. Turned out to be my old Pantherra that I had for a couple years and I wasn't getting around to it. So I sold it to Dan Shadock. He fixed it up. He sold it to someone. Now the machine is uh not working. That someone wants to just get rid of it. And that's where I come in. So, I ended up buying my old Pantherra back. New and improved though because the boards have been serviced by Brent Casey Butler. Dan has probably uh Oh, there's John Trust right there. He's picking up the machine as we speak. So, I got to get this. I'll be right back. Okay, that was kind of bad news. Um, John can't get the Pantherra out of the basement without help. Of course, we just assumed the owner was going to be able to help, but I guess they got a bad back. They can't help. And there's a bit of like a spiral portion of the staircase and John cannot do it by himself. So, Panther is not going to happen. Uh, not today. Anyway, if we can figure something else out um later, then we will. So, I got to stop at the uh pet store. I got to stop at the post office, ship this circuit board, then head over to Kevin's and grab that bottom board. Okay, I'm at the Grazley garage. Kevin's out walking the dogs. But the garage is open up for me. Let's go snoop around. Oh, you got to pull off your trick after all. You didn't frighten me, though. Surprisingly, I
had a giant stupid smile on my face the whole time. How could you be scared of that?
That is very creepy.
I'm too adorable.
Got a bottom board. I'm taking this with me.
Yes,
that's going to Rob Noel. He's going to service that. And what else is happening over here? I see uh the Alaska head is moved, but we haven't drilled out a lock yet. We'll uh we'll have to do that at some point.
See the condition of the uh score reels and stuff.
Yeah.
About to get cleaned out.
Oh, yeah. There was a mouse nest in here.
Oh, an old lock. What do you think all this is?
Original um like envelope or just random
envelope
mouse nesting materials.
Most likely random mouse nesting.
Imagine your dad's been making a little bit of progress on the
evil conval. Look at that. That is pretty. All new posts, some new and all ultrasonically cleaned.
Yes.
But yeah, this playfield is beautiful. And so is your smile, young lad. All right, I'm going to get my bottom board and get the hell out of here. Oh, wait. Hold on. But wait, there's more. Check this out.
It's a snowblower.
That is a beauty. John Deere, I'm gonna have to give your mom a shout out for uh laminating these Cyber Knot apron cards for me. And it looks like your dad has made me some brackets for my speech board.
Let's see. Do they fit?
Let's give it a test here.
Hey.
Yeah. Look at that. Beautiful. All right. I can mount my speech board on Gamatron now. Can install my Cyber Knot apron cards. So, this is all coming with me. Everybody is in their snow coats today.
Mabel and Maynard are all cute and adorable. Look at you guys. Oh, hello. All right. Look who showed up here. It's Brian. He came to pick up his $6 man.
$6,000.
This is the $6,000 man cuz this is better.
You already tilted off, man. stick back. Oh, it's on wheels.
Oh, yeah. That's true. Watch out for the wheels.
Oh, what the
It's still still swinging. Okay, here we go. It's going to be a epic ball three here. But yeah, Brian's laying his eyes on the machine live for the first time.
His first flip. Yeah. Where did you get this piece of [ __ ] anyway?
Oh, it's this guy from London.
What's that?
Guy from London.
Oh, a guy from London. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I might know him. It was a $6. [laughter] I sold it to you as a $6 man. You tweaked it up to a $6,000 man and Kevin made it a $6 billion man.
Well, hopefully when it's off wheels, you'll be able to play it a little better. All right, Brian's got a hold of it now. Blowing up the game. 135,000. Still got a ball or two left and he's not tilting every 3 seconds now. So, what do you think, dude? Uh, slightly improved.
Doesn't tilt.
Or does it? [laughter]
Okay, glass is dropped off. Bottom board is picked up. Brian is stoked with his $6 million man. And uh Oh, yeah. So, the uh the kind of like faded gross yellow posts on Evil Conval were in fact just placeholders. They're not staying there. Don't worry. Kevin ran out of new posts and uh they are on order. So, just thought I'd clarify that. Um so, time to grab a coffee for Jamie and go home and grab Barry. Quick little shout out to Jess for laminating my apron cards. And uh thank you Kevin for even cutting them out for me. That is uh awesome. Oh, we got him in there.
He walked in on his own.
Wow. All right, Barry, it's time to go to your new home.
All right, Barry and I are on the way. How you doing, buddy? Huh? He's been a little bit meowy so far, but this looks pretty chill overall.
Hello. Okay, I just had to make a little random pit stop upon Rob's request to get some horse medication. We're here. We're at your new home. Check it out. Oh, let me just set this like this. been squawky at times and chill at times, but uh he hasn't been like freaking out in the cage. He's been pretty much just lying down the whole time. We're almost here, buddy. This is your new home. You hit the kitty jackpot. All right, buddy. It's time. Barry's excited. He hit the kitty jackpot. I told him.
Yeah, he's going to be a house cat.
We only have five.
Only have five cats.
It's not It's not enough.
Barry is going to be lucky number six.
Well, we discussed it. And you know, once you once you three plus, you're already in the crazy zone.
Yeah, true.
So, a bit like couch pillows. What's another pillow?
What's another litter box? Another pound of poo and pee every day.
Like, compared to horses, it's nothing. Are you just like cleaning litter all day long? I mean,
come on, bud.
Just with Barry, I felt like, and two cats, I was cleaning pee and poo all day long.
All right. Do you want to carry him and show him around?
Come on, Barry.
That's your new buddy, Rob. Hi, Christine.
Good.
That was so dark.
Yeah, that beautiful What do you call it? A marmalade orange.
Jamie uh says, "Thank you guys very, very much for taking on Barry." She's very happy. All right. So, this is his zone for now.
This is going to be his zone.
Oh, that's pretty nice little zone. Liver box already set.
It's actually the perfect environment. They can meet through this door.
Oh, yeah.
With no eye contact.
And he will eat there and they will eat on the other side.
And that's how you introduce cats.
Okay, here it is, Barry. Big moment. Your new home. Oh, there's a cat right [laughter] there. We're freaky.
Oh,
she's a little freaked out.
We thought everyone was out.
Oops. You got too many cats to keep track of. Here you go, Barry. Are you hungry?
Barry, you're awfully courageous and you're freaking everybody out. What are you doing over there?
That is a big fall.
There's that scene in the movie Saturday Night Fever where they pretend to jump off the bridge or fall.
Oh my god. [screaming] Dig it.
We saw him jump over and I didn't realize the ledge were there. Well, in short order, Barry has made himself at home, right, buddy? Okay, we are back at Rob Noel's arcade here, which always has lots of fun stuff and new stuff every time I'm here. Hey, including Rescue 911.
This is one of the best games ever made
in the history of pinball.
I was thinking of just collecting them and having nothing but Rescue 91.
Oh, we could have a Rescue 911 tournament.
That's right. Just forget Medieval Madness and Circus Volter. Let's just cover it in Rescue 91.
Yeah, Got Lee System 3. It's the best.
The [laughter] best.
We'll have to uh give this game a bit of a play here. It does have a really cool when working uh helicopter mech here that travels down the playfield on that big arm.
It is
all the way what? Down to here I think it goes.
It picks up the ball and then it's supposed to hold the ball all the way and you drop it way up there, but it's been falling off here.
Oh, okay. But it's a pretty beefy mech that uh Gotle designed. They were not afraid to experiment in this era. And all these Gotle System 3 games look like in today's market, they're like limited edition models cuz they're packed with all kinds of stuff. Now, I don't know. Rescue 911 fits that same bill, but there's some cool like molded plastics here. We got some fires burning, some houses burning. Oh, is it going to happen? Here it goes.
He doesn't always make it when he's cold.
See if he makes it. Hurry up. He's going a bit slow. Hurry. Hurry, hurry. It's going to sink
the propeller. Oh, hurry up. You didn't rescue.
You guys are fired. You defeated the whole purpose. You let that ball burn in the flames.
Come on, give me the ball.
Did you check to see how many of these were made out of curiosity? Okay.
To know how many I could possibly own.
You How many are left? You want them all? I want them all.
I'll pull it up and maybe uh add a photo right here.
When the game's cold.
Yeah.
It It takes It doesn't make it. As you play a bit, he gets warmed up.
Okay.
Apparently, the oil in the
Come on, baby. Come on, baby. Oh,
the oil in the helicopter's motor needs to warm up.
Oh, I see. Okay. It's a little cooler in the uh the games room here. We don't got to crank. Oh, nice save. Oh,
save to a drain. Save to a drain.
I had one of these many years ago and uh I enjoyed it while I had it.
Do it again.
Oh, sweet. Fall safe.
Sometimes I try not to shoot the helicopter cuz I'm just like, okay, I want to see something else happen.
You don't want to wait for it.
Like this.
The novelty wore out wears off after, you know, a thousand times.
It's also got this cool captive ball zone right there.
Where'd he go? Where'd he go?
Oh, yeah. There's like locks all over the place.
Oh, I know.
It's a lock zone up there.
Down the middle. Right out of here, it goes dang spitting on this side. Oh, really? Frustrating. Come on. I should have put a little
Come on. You can do it. It's getting Oh, we're getting closer. We're getting closer. Maybe next one. I'm going to come on this side. Show the uh other side of the playfield here. It's a very unique layout. That's what I love about these Gotle System 3es. Like
I've had a few here lately cuz we're selling off some games with Jeff Waters. So we had what was it? Gladiators.
Oh yeah, Gladiators. Another unique layout.
That's right.
It's a [music] really cool game. It's at Fork River currently. Get to play it there.
Oh, there was some fun animations going on there. Is that it? Oh, sweet. A little bit more.
Come on, helicopter.
Oh, and then the uh locked. Siren's going off up top
denoting that the helicopter is coming to the rescue. Or is it?
GO.
OH, next one's got to be it. The next one.
Two ball multiball.
Whoops.
OH.
OH, that was luck.
Okay, here we go.
The helicopter. No,
he's done this before. I think
you uh
you called him to rescue before I even got home. So, uh you confused him. So let the let the ball search just kick him out here.
I did this once and never cut it never cut in.
There he goes.
Oh man, you were not ready for that. Now he comes to the rescue down the middle. I want my money back.
Oh [ __ ] Well, there you go. That's a rescue 911.
Now look at this.
The greatest game in the history.
What is this? Is that like an old Ego?
Like what did they Like? I swear it's inspired by Ego. Yeah, they should have a Ego logo on that.
And what's this green ball of cougars? Uh
I don't even know what it's supposed to be.
Is it uh
is it a cave?
What's that like? Um the little decal there.
I think it's from mining. It's an avalanche, but
Oh, is it a mine? You're going in.
I think it's a mine, but it looks like See, there's little mine cars on the on the target down there.
Oh, yeah. Okay.
But the green just looks like a big booger.
There's different modes, and one of the one of the rescues is a lady in labor. Oh, I remember that.
Pop bumper caps are kind of unique. They're just flat.
Yeah,
you got a hospital emergency room back there.
And that's where the hospital
and that's where you're supposed to drop the ball. It's on the other side of of the helicopter, which is always temporarily working.
It's got some fun art, you know. We got here
in the history of pinball.
Yeah. Hey, and it's for sale, so you can have this if you would like. It is listed currently for uh $4,100 Canadian. And it's got custom apron cards and a fresh shop job. It looks like new rubbers. I do like the uh the clear balls in the captive ball zone there. So, it like reflects the LEDs underneath it or incandescent or whatever they are. All right. Is this going to be the one?
Oh, that was so close. Close.
The next one's going to do it for sure.
We got to see one rescue. We got to see one rescue.
You got a lock available.
Here we go. Look how fast.
Calling 911.
He's on a hurry. Yes, he's going to do it.
He's got this one.
Hey, finally he rescued the ball. Oh, and then he just pooped it out the back there. Didn't make it all the way, but got him out of the the burning ego house at least. [music] There we go.
The ego house. That's right.
So, what do you think of this bottom board? Have a look. Tell me what you think. You've done many of these before.
Yeah. This is what I do mainly with EMS. Uh people wrestle with the game with their head and the cabinet stretching their back. I like to take it out, put it on a bench, figure out what's wrong with anything. I don't even know what half the stuff does. All [laughter] but I know what it should look like when it's working properly.
Yeah. Which switch should be open? What switch should be closed?
Doesn't matter what this relay does. I know when it's in this position, that switch should be open. That should be closed. When you switch it, Oh, actually that's that's
Look at that one. Yeah. Open. Close. That one's not working right. See that? That's closed no matter what. So, right there, we found a problem.
Right. That's closed in both positions. Whatever position it should be in. If it's closed now, it should be open. If it's open now, it should be closed. So, you just go through and you clean every single switch and make sure they're doing what they think. Same thing with this. I'm going to clean every one of these switches.
Every one of these switches. And as you turn it, they go from open to close. Open to close.
Can you turn it manually?
Yeah.
Okay.
Stepper motor. Same thing.
Oh, I think that one's a
Oh my god. This is Oh my god.
Oh, what did you sign up for?
This will be taken to pieces.
Ooh. Wa. That's worse than I thought.
This is not a tighten up the springs and [laughter] and and
you know,
clean it. That's a disassemble completely. Put it in whatever different devices to clean stuff. That coil looks fried. You didn't realize what you were signing up for here. You know, actually, like for the most part, this stuff is seemingly okayish, but it's dirty.
This guy is going to be some work.
We're missing a couple clips. I don't know what these clips look like, but there's a couple of these relays that are loose.
I have some of those.
Yeah.
So, but again, no doubt. I've already found one switch that isn't working. Sometimes it doesn't matter. Other times with these games, you know, there's usually like three switches somewhere in this thing that if they're not working, the entire thing won't work.
Yeah.
Just like one little stupid switch. And then uh
but this is this is our problem.
Yeah, that's uh major. What is that? That is the uh conidor de mondas.
Mondas,
the control of the money. No. Yeah, maybe coin.
Coin. Um
whatchamacallit relay or not relay? Stepper.
Your credit unit.
Could be the credit unit. But anyway, this is uh in the right hands. So
I don't know why I agreed to do this. I'm like you. I generally don't work for other people. Yeah,
cuz I'm I'm way too slow and I don't want to be responsible.
Throw in some tunes, grab a chair, and have fun with switches. So, you got some new toys?
Here we go. I found this the other day. A friend of mine, Vince Bracka, I had a big party here last Saturday, like 60 people.
Oh, wow.
We had an all country band and we had a rockabilly band. It was like a big ass event.
You weren't part of it.
I didn't play. I I my initially I was supposed to play but people in my own band canceled
and I was kind of glad because
uh hosting a party and playing at a party is sometimes stressful.
Double duty.
Sometimes it's just nice just to host. We realized I could play but I'm going to hire a host.
Hey, there you go.
Instead of hiring a band for a party, hire a host and then you can play. So, uh Vince Vince Bracka sent me a message and he said he saw this for sale and it seemed like a good deal. 45 minutes listed and I get a lot of people sending me stuff, you know, just like, "Oh, I know Rob likes pinball machines. Here's one for sale."
And they just send you this guy.
It's a $4,000 Gorgar or something like that.
Exactly. But this is the first time somebody sent me something
that I bought.
Look at that.
It was nearby, too.
This is uh what 1976 Grand Prix.
A popular game, actually. The back glass is like a 9.9.
Grand Prix is a great game. It's uh in a lot of tournaments. I love the double spinner action. Your score reels look to be
Look at this glass.
Oh wow.
Yeah,
that is one dot down here somewhere. It's a 9.9.
That's just dust there.
It's dust. It's really stunning.
Oh, maybe that's the dot.
There you go.
Yep. 9.9.
9.9.
It's a beauty. And then uh got the body here. And the idea is that we're going to set this up today.
We're going to set this up
and see if it works.
Did they claim that it was working? Was it assembled when you picked it up?
There was a video of it working. I didn't actually watch the video.
I just said the guy, "I'll take it." Yeah. I I told him I was a nononsense buyer. He had a ton of interest.
Oh, yeah. I bet at the price that it was listed.
Yeah. I'll just like, "I'll take it."
Y.
He's like, "You want to see it working?" I'm like, "No,
you're missing one insert. Did you realize that?" Oh, is it? Oh, perfect.
Yeah. It's It fell and
Oh, that's nice. So you can just crazy glue that and
That's right.
be back in.
Yeah. So the plate feels not as good as the back glass, but it's not bad.
Need a soft job. I think he told me one of the kickouts wasn't working or something, but I don't care.
Dirty switch or something.
That's right. And it has
got a lock bar for it.
I do.
Okay.
There. [snorts] It's having trouble locking. So the the coin door gets stuck open, but that's just
It had really crappy legs on it.
And uh John Tes, thank you John Ses.
Shout out.
He gave me a set of legs. Oh, did he?
Just out of the blue. He's like, "I don't need these." I'm like, "All right, great. Thanks."
And that's what these guys are.
So, no. So, when I bought uh this,
this is the other thing we're going to talk about. This is the new one. This is the new shiny.
I love this game, too. Oh,
there's some history behind this, too. We'll talk about
So, so this came with kind of scratched up legs cuz someone who didn't take adequate care when working around a pinball machine. Hey, like I'm not
I'm never guilty of that. It
wasn't you. It wasn't anyone I know, but there are people I know that aren't as careful around as I would like. Uh-huh.
Uh, they scratched the legs up.
Okay.
Uh, and they were on Star Trek.
Oh, these were the Star Trek legs. Okay. Oh, yeah.
You know, use your wrench correctly. Let's just That's pretty hacked up.
Just hacked up. It was brutal. But John Sher legs.
These are the John Cher legs.
That's perfect. And then you
This came with holy cact legs.
Yeah.
Bent feet and everything.
Is this what you need the feet for that I brought?
Yeah. So, I will put these on this and John Shares legs on that. That's perfect.
Throw the other ones out. They're so bad.
Here's the feet.
Yeah. Where are they? Let's see these legs. We got Oh, you got some uh art blades for NextG as well.
How's this for a lousy leg?
Let's see. Don't bump it into your new uh car here. This is another marketplace find here.
I I come visit at night. [laughter]
My new job. It's my new Jaguar.
Yeah. Yeah. Do careful. Don't rub dust into it. You never
fingerprints.
Yeah. Dry dust is terrible.
Oh, okay.
You never touch a car with dry.
Oh, look at this bent foot.
Oh, yeah. That's a
rusty leg. I mean, just look at this.
Oh, and different mismatching.
Different mismatch. Just like this one's bent. See the middle of that one?
Oh, jeez. Yeah, that's definitely a garbage.
Yeah. So, again, thank you, John. Not for him, I wouldn't be able to make up this whole swapoo.
Perfect. Oh, tell me about um what's going on with the back glass on this thing as well.
Back glass. I
I'm going to turn it off cuz you can see it better.
Oh, okay.
The previous owner,
two previous owner, two owners ago, he took this translator around to endless trade shows and managed to get every single one of them to sign it at Star Trek conventions.
That's pretty cool.
Cuz they don't all go to the same convention, right? You might get two of them or even one or none. But yeah, he's got signatures for all
literally every single one of them.
Isn't that cool?
That is
Captain Bquard has touched this game.
Huh. Wow. That's amazing.
Isn't that nice?
So cool. And uh this came from Dave Flinton.
Dave Flinton picked it up.
Yeah.
It's missing scorecards.
Oh, well that's a easy fix. I gave you a link to uh
color DMD.
Greg Ben's Oh, yes. The LCD color DMD. That's nice.
It's a tough game. It's it's it can be really mean to you sometimes.
Yeah, it's uh there there are like lane guide extenders that you can buy to make the outlanes a little more forgiving. It does kind of feel a little bit like cheating, but that might be something right up your alley.
Yes, I like cheating.
Yeah, you like taking the tilt bob off, setting it to 10 balls, and brags about his billions of points in his you got it exactly down. Oops.
This is one of the early DMD games that I ever owned.
Look at that.
And I remember uh Ray and I had it in the living room and we
we LED it with a kit. And between the two of us, it took us 4 hours to LED the whole machine. Eight man hours
because, you know, you're right. There's two of you.
One of the first games I think I may have ever led. And the game is a beast and you have to disassemble a lot of stuff to get out everything. And then Julie ended up with it. I sold it to her.
She said she misses hers.
She had hers for a long time. She's a well her nickname is Jane Way. So she was a big Star Trek fan. This is a perfect game for her. And then uh I don't know where it went from there. Did Dave have this uh long or
never has anything.
I was going to that. Yeah. Yeah. I was going to say that
that's not how he
As I was asking that question, I already kind of knew the answer. I'm trying to get that right orbit. I guess it's gone out now. Need to relight that bad boy.
Okay, start a mission. Rescue. Hey, don't call in the rescue 911 helicopter. We know how that's going to go.
So, you can just loop up that middle. Oh, warp. Not quite.
Warp is fun. You got the spinner lit.
Yeah, the what is it called? The pard peard. What's it picard combo? I think it is.
I don't know. Peard maneuver. That's
I missed my shot. I lost my ball. I call it a misbe. It's a rough anagram of missed your shot, lost your ball.
Oh yeah.
So that that was that was This game this game really punishes you. You missed your shot, you lose your ball. [music]
It's not very forgiving.
I love the the tunes in this game. It's got the a nostalgic vibe for me since I had this game. Maybe
actually I bought this. It was my first combo deal off an old operator.
Missed my shot. Lost my wall.
Yep. Maybe
Misby.
Misby.
We bought the three of us tag team together and we bought the Star Trek Next Generation, [music] a White Water, and a Lethal Weapon 3.
Lethal Weapon 3.
Yeah. And it was the first like, you know, multi-de. There was We split it up three ways. I think James Collins got one, Jeff Menen got the other, and I got uh the next gen.
You got the next gen?
I got the next gen. I was going to get the white water, but then me and James Colin like swapped or [music] something.
Okay.
And I think the the whole threeack was like eight grand or something.
Battle simulation.
Oh, okay. Do you know the the sequence? Cuz
I know Julie could like just go Oh, wait. Sorry. I was thinking video mode. Never mind.
I love launching these cannons.
Ah, get in there.
Nail it. Don't misbe it. A little later. Boom. There we go. Okay, now launch this cannon.
You're trying to hit that same target with the cannon.
Here we go. Here we go. Here we go. Neutral zone. Boom. Oh no. Fail.
Fail.
Do you still have 4 seconds left? Maybe get one more uh shot out of it.
Oh, not
kickback is lit. You're safe. Neutral zone adds balls. Another multiball.
I made some adjustments last night. Is it a multiball?
Two balls in play. Yep. Now three balls in play. I like how the balls teleport into existence and then disappear into the out hole.
They should come back.
Uh,
no. That was like man that was like a jungle lord. Wow.
Ball save.
My story. Multiball.
Now you saw that coming. There is one post here. See that right in there?
Uhhuh.
I can adjust that a little farther forward.
Yeah. I'll send you a link to the uh lane guide extenders. You will probably appreciate those.
I'm such a heavy-handed player, which is why I take the tilts out of games.
I bang the game around pointlessly.
But yeah, that when I first bought the Circus Voltater off array, the these two posts were so far forward. Oh, the game was just
I think I set them that far apart back in the league days to make sure it didn't play forever.
You knew Sean Russell was coming. I had to do something to shut him down
and they I made him too I made them way too. So I put them all the other way and the game was way too easy. So I I found
I found the sweet spot.
I'm just banging around here. I need to hit something.
Try and hit the right orbit. Get that or start lock is lit
or start a mode. Wormhole.
Worm's tough. That's the left. It's like Doctor Who. You can only shoot it that way. Oh, I see. Yeah, the uh side ramp is the wormhole.
Similar to the Doctor Who shot.
Who designed this game again? Is this I was going to say, is it Steve Ritchie?
Oh, come on. You know, if you can survive this mode, which is over pretty much now, you're only two modes away from getting to the uh the final frontier. It's
actually a good game.
Have you been to the final frontier yet?
No.
You just be play two more modes and you're there.
But I don't know how to light the mode. Is it automatically lit?
I don't know. I think it's that guy up right that guy.
Yeah. Okay. So, the start mission light bulb is up. That's That's what's going on there.
Yeah, I do have a lot lit, don't I?
Yeah, just survive this and then one more mode and then you're going
sometimes I remember on the magic I would just hold the ball and let it time out.
I'd be tempted to do that cuz you're so close.
So, I'm going to lose the ball just banging around here.
Yeah. See if you can get a hold of it. But will it let you time it out is the question. Sometimes they force you to
They'll let you time it out for like 5 seconds and then the timer will stop. Maybe that would have started the mode, but I think I got
You still got 17 seconds to survive here. [music] So,
longest 17 seconds of my life.
Are you Are you attempting to trap up or you're just playing it out?
That's I'm not that sophisticated a player. Like, how would I
Okay, we got to be close to the end.
Super Pops. Should be close to the end of this mode here. 3 seconds. Okay, now go. No. Oh,
that's always the way, isn't it? That's always the way, man.
And I don't have the buy in thing.
One more mode. Oh, you don't?
I have it turned off.
[ __ ]
I found it annoying.
Good school,
by the way. Nice uh purchase. Great game. And
away.
Yeah, blew it. Okay, Rob kicked my ass fair and square on this game. And
shut up. Now we're moving on.
Shout out or shut up?
Oh, I shout out.
Okay,
shut up. That's what I say.
Crushed him like he thought he is. He wanted a rematch. I thought, "Okay, well then will we do a best two out of three?" But no need.
No, you got me two games back to back
definitively.
So, I'm going to try and take out my aggression on Grand Prix. We're going to set this up now and see if it works. And hopefully it does so I can kick Rob's ass. All right, we got the head on the body.
I got my head.
He's got it.
He's going to brush some uh headers here with his little wire brush. It's good practice to do that
when they're apart. Now is the time. Usually you get this cloud of crap coming off it.
Totally. You remove it and get to inhale some good stuff.
Throw in a ball. Plug it in and see what happens. Our ball's going to be getting stuck in this insert. So, if we can find that
Oh, yeah. It should be in there. I saw it.
Oh, I bet it's under uh one of these back arches. So, we'll go digging for that. Oh, I see it right here. right there. So, we'll just pop that in and uh won't worry about gluing it just yet. We're plugged in. I think I hear the transformer humming. Score wheel reset
stuck on tilt. So, maybe the tilt bob is literally stuck. Yeah, it's just uh
wedged.
Easy fix. Don't worry, I'll be taking it out anyway.
Oh, yeah. That's how he rolls. Hey,
we put pop the uh insert back in. And uh we're live. It works. Look at that. Plug and play.
Plug and play. Ooh, that's
Watch out for the suicide lanes there.
Yeah, there's that horrible sound of a Williams chime box. I'll take got leave any day. I love the spinner sound effects.
Well, it sounds like uh
some guy with pots and pans in his truck. Remember those guys?
It's combination of the uh the chimes and the uh electromechanical sound of the uh the score wheels just clicking and clacking.
That's a nice sound. I love that.
The box I just I just hate the Williams box. I got to shut the door. I'll clean that up. I know how to make those better.
Oh, okay. put in new grommets and
yeah, just tighten it up and get new grommets. It's that it's that metal on metal.
Well, looks like you got yourself a winner here. We can do pretty much anything. I'm sure there's going to be some dialing in and whatnot.
Thank you, Biz Bracka.
Shout out to Biz.
Let's see if it moves along. Ball one.
Here's a big bonus. Bonus collect. We're collecting our bonus. That's counting down. That's good. The stepper's working,
right?
And now she'll go click ball two. Look at that ball.
Wait, wait, wait. Drop target C and A did not
But they're not supposed to reset.
They are supposed to Oh, they are supposed to reset. Yeah.
Between balls.
It's It's
unless there's some sort of setting that I'm not aware of.
I've never known of an EM that understands when you're playing single player. That's why I prefer wedge heads.
Yeah,
cuz you
cuz I just played this in a tournament at Maple Pinball. The best place to play pinball in Ontario. Oh, there's the uh saucer. No, that that
that's just uh
maybe a little bit of a dirty switch.
The pops aren't aren't uh making any sound either.
Oh, okay. They're not uh chiming.
I mean, we expected that there would be some fine tuning, of course. Oh, yeah.
But the fact that it is playable, it flips, it scores
is a great great drop.
And for the price you paid, I mean,
there it is. And reset. This goes
could be a setting preserve
the drop targets between balls. Maybe it was not set like that at the tournament.
It would reset between every ball.
Well, as as EM do.
That's why that's why uh you know Elorado is such a better game than than Target Alpha.
Oh, cuz it preserves
Yeah. status. It's really rare to get all those balls down in one ball, which you you know, you've got
all the Yeah, there's a lot of drop targets on that.
Yeah. Yeah. You got five balls to do it with Elorado.
To me, multiplayer EM should be like this where you've got spinners and you're just blasting away, getting as many points as possible, not working your way through a specific program.
Same player shoots again. Let's see if that works.
Got an extra ball.
Oh, you got a free game. I think I just heard the knocker going off.
207,000. That's a good score.
The knocker sounded like a gun going off.
It did.
I'm going to let I'm going to let this drain and see what happens.
All right. What's the rule? Like if the light is lit on the right, that's the bonus you're going to collect. If the light is left on the lit on the left, that's the bonus you're going to collect. So, you want it to be lit on the side that has the biggest bonus [snorts] when you drain. But
I think there's another issue. We're still on ball two.
Okay. So, the ball count unit needs a little bit of tweakage.
Yeah, it tried. It tried.
I think that is this guy right here. Let's uh
Oh, wait. There we go. Did that do anything?
No. Try again.
That
What about this? What about this? Hold on.
Nothing.
It's not coming back out. Is that gummy or is that me? Oh, there we go. How about that? Did that do anything?
Still says two. Well, this is the unit. So, that is not the unit. That's the mini stepper. This is our uh credit unit. But try this one more time.
Zero.
Oh, yeah. Did that do anything?
No. Weird, eh?
Well, you'll have to work your magic on that. But, uh, all in all, I'd say that is a success. I was Okay, the thing I was messing with in the backbox was actually the player count unit. So, that was advancing the players.
The one you can reach right here is the bonus unit. That'll see there's
So, that will advance these guys here. That's
Anyone want a quick lesson on stepper motors?
This big guy right here. Yeah, sure.
Score wheel is essentially a stepper motor. It steps up, it steps up, it steps up, just goes around and around. Simplest stepper units. Now, there is a a player unit. It'll count 1 2 3 4 reset. 1 2 3 4 reset.
Then you get a bonus stepper which will be up to 10 or whatever and then it has to count down. So, you got step up, step down.
So, there'll be two solenoids on that versus one kind of thing. So, step up, step down, uh, step up, reset, which also takes two because of the reset,
the clock spring, and then there's just step non-stop. So, sort of three that I can think of,
three types of stepper units.
Well, let's see if we can find the uh ball count stepper unit and advance that. It's going to be one of these guys here probably. And it'll say on the bottom board probably still player two. So, let's try and advance that other guy.
What's it say right there? says coin unit. So that's probably not it. Oh, wait. There it is. That just moved us to player one. So
there you go. So there's there's our there's our problem. This guy is
this guy is
the ball in play. Now we're at player. Keep doing that. Reset the whole thing. Okay. Now go. You're stuck in game over right now. You got to get back. Um maybe we got to start a game and then you can advance through the players.
Yeah. Here we go. So, player one,
that's right.
Hit it. Player two, player three, player four, player five,
ball five.
And Oh, yeah. Ball five. Sorry.
Game over.
And game over. And all the lights work. So, that's a bonus, too.
So, this stuff is actually working. And there's my reset.
It just needs to be worked in a little bit.
Well, no. So, it it's working. It's not getting the message to work.
Oh, so it's further down the line. It's a relay. Maybe something on there.
You can hear it trying.
Oh, yeah.
Right. Right. And you can it's activated here.
Look at all these steppers. Oh my god. This thing is just packed.
Let's see what happens.
Wonder why it's so heavy.
There you go. We're in game play now. And if I put a
What's happening?
Let's get some points. Let's get some points. There we go. Now we're going to drain by hitting this switch here.
It didn't go. There you go.
It went a bit. That got us to two. point.
Drain the bowl.
See what happens now. And it's a little bit gummy maybe or
It seemed to go there,
but it went there.
Yep.
Needed to be worked in a little bit.
You see, you have to have some points. We're getting
all four.
Some things just like to be moved around.
Yeah.
Seems to be taking two shots. It does kind of seem like that
either way,
but
we're getting close.
I'd say that that shouldn't be too difficult of a fix all in all.
That's right.
Ah, I blew it.
He blew it. No, you did. It's a good
The high the grand champion score is 1 billion. And I thought the ball save was going to save me. I thought there was a second of forgiveness, but apparently there isn't. [music]
I got
12 million off.
I got a billion when I went to play this to pick it up and I thought he's going to do it for sure. He had extra ball and his extra ball was like zero
zero garbage.
That was fun though.
That was fun.
Well, another day, another pinball adventure. Lots of fun. Barry's getting comfortable in his new home. I'm going to miss the little guy. He's been a good little helper, but I can always uh come back and visit him anytime at Robin Christine's place. It is a beautiful sunset drive on the way home. So, uh, we'll see you all on the next one.
Well, the shenanigans aren't quite over. I ended up going the very next day to Sarnia to meet JC at the Panther location so that uh, we could haul it out of that basement there. So, I took a little bit of footage. That's my journey there. It was lovely. But eventually, the skies did clear up and it wasn't so bad after all. So, uh, check out the action. So yeah, five stairs or so and then a landing 90° turn another few stairs Ah, and there it is. Condition of the machine isn't so bad overall, but I just wonder what happened to this poor pop bumper cap. What happens if we turn this thing on? That's uh Oh, is it even plugged in? We had to fight with the uh back glass. Did not want to come off, but thankfully we got it off. Otherwise, I didn't bring no drill to drill it out. The lock that is out of curiosity, what happens when we turn this thing on? It's not apparently working.
Oh, lights.
Okay, we got lights.
You're adding You're adding credits.
Oh, credits are being added
right there.
Okay,
game doesn't want to start, but displays are working. Got LEDs. little D.
Yeah, you know, it's a good foundation. I'm sure we can uh get this thing going.
Oh, look. Look.
Oh, we're in game play.
Game has actually started. No B. Oh, no solenoids.
That's We have no solenoids. So, maybe that fuse is blown or something.
All right, we'll pack this thing up. Uh, I'm not sure what, but m, we're smelling that good old We just blew up something. Electronic smell. Uh-oh. All right, we got the head off. That was uh not too bad after all. Getting this body, super massive body out these stairs. That'll be the challenge. But good thing JC is here to help me out. A little twist and a spin and a shimmy. And uh it's a little tight, but we're making it happen.
All right, that's officially a wrap. Thanks for watching.

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 31dfd1d9-f5ad-46b4-b711-a42a6a8973a1*