# The Super Awesome Pinball Show

**Source:** The Super Awesome Pinball Show  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2020-06-16  
**Duration:** 149m 19s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://superawesomepinballshow.libsyn.com/the-super-awesome-pinball-show-2

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## Analysis

Episode 10 of The Super Awesome Pinball Show features hosts Christopher Franchi, Ed Vanderveen, and Dr. Pin Christian Line discussing recent pinball activities, machine maintenance, and industry news. Key topics include Franchi's Data East Batman restoration with rubber replacements, a new unreleased mod product exclusive to Cointaker, machine repairs at Vanderveen's arcade, Jersey Jack Wonka Wi-Fi updates, and upcoming Stern Heavy Metal pinball teaser. The episode includes personal anecdotes about bird rescue, arcade visits in Florida, and Data East patch collecting.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Christopher Franchi developed a new pinball product that will be exclusive through Cointaker, which is a mod for the outside of games (not inside), theme-related, and not a topper — _Franchi announces unreleased mod product; 'it's a mod for the outside of your game, not the inside. And it is not a pin gulp. It's not anything like that. It's theme-related, and it will go on the outside.'_
- [HIGH] Jersey Jack Wonka has received a new code update via Wi-Fi that can be downloaded directly to machines — _Vanderveen states: 'Downloaded the new Jersey Jack Wonka update over Wi-Fi, which was very cool. They've continued to tweak that process. So the guys in the beta program are all downloading the Wi-Fi updates now'_
- [MEDIUM] Stern Deadpool toppers are becoming difficult to find and Stern is not currently producing more — _Vanderveen notes: 'they're getting hard to find. CERN's not making any more. I don't know if they're going to make any more, but I went to look at it and I placed two orders with two different companies online and they both got refunded.'_
- [HIGH] Stern Heavy Metal pinball will be revealed/streamed this Saturday (the 15th) — _Discussion of Heavy Metal release: 'apparently we're going to find out on, what, the 15th? Is that it? That's right, yeah. This weekend, this Saturday, I think, they're going to reveal the game and stream it.'_
- [MEDIUM] Heavy Metal pinball appears to be heavily based on/similar to Star Wars pinball design — _Franchi: 'It looks very much like Star Wars, without the Death Star on the left ramp. From this quick little video, this 12-second video, with Jack Dinker playing it'_

### Notable Quotes

> "It's probably the only one I'll ever get, so I'm going to get a glass case and laser beams."
> — **Christopher Franchi**, ~0:04:30
> _Franchi references his Twippy Award trophy, joking about its significance as possibly his only industry award_

> "I'm only a dick to the people that I hate, which is pretty much mostly everyone. But the people I love, I cherish."
> — **Christopher Franchi**, ~0:08:00
> _Franchi's humorous comment about his personality and how he treats close friends, in response to gratitude for a gift package_

> "when you're 270 pounds and 6'4", you jump off the trampoline into the foam pit, it's not so easy to get out of that damn thing."
> — **Ed Vanderveen**, ~0:18:30
> _Humorous anecdote about Vanderveen's experience at an arcade trampoline park in Florida_

> "I get up, I make breakfast, I do laundry. I'm such a lucky guy. My wife is so awesome. I just get to be a trophy husband."
> — **Ed Vanderveen**, ~0:27:00
> _Vanderveen describing his current life situation in Florida, celebrating 13 years of marriage_

> "It looks very much like Star Wars, without the Death Star on the left ramp."
> — **Christopher Franchi**, ~0:32:00
> _Franchi's first impression of Heavy Metal pinball from the teaser video, suggesting mechanical/layout similarities to Star Wars_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Christopher Franchi | person | Pinball artist, co-host of The Super Awesome Pinball Show, Twippy Award winner, recently developed new unreleased mod product |
| Ed Vanderveen | person | Texas Pinball Festival founder/organizer, co-host of The Super Awesome Pinball Show, located in Texas, currently in Florida |
| Dr. Pin (Christian Line) | person | Co-host of The Super Awesome Pinball Show, operates arcade with multiple machines including T2 and Ripley's |
| Zombie Yeti (Jeremy Packer) | person | Pinball artist, subject of upcoming two-part interview on the show |
| Stern Pinball | company | Major pinball manufacturer, releasing Heavy Metal pinball with upcoming Saturday reveal, producing Deadpool toppers |
| Jersey Jack Pinball | company | Pinball manufacturer, released Wonka game with new Wi-Fi code update download capability |
| The Super Awesome Pinball Show | event/podcast | Pinball podcast, Season 1 Episode 10, sponsored by Chicago Gaming Company, Cointaker, and Back Alley Creations |
| Chicago Gaming Company | company | Pinball remake manufacturer, show sponsor, known for Medieval Madness and Monster Bash remakes |
| Cointaker | company | Pinball parts/accessories distributor, show sponsor, will exclusively distribute Franchi's new mod product |
| Heavy Metal | game | Upcoming Stern pinball title, teaser video released, reveal stream scheduled for Saturday the 15th, designed by Jack Danger |
| Star Wars (pinball) | game | Previous Stern release that Heavy Metal is compared to in design; reportedly similar layout |
| Wonka (Jersey Jack) | game | Jersey Jack Pinball title that received new Wi-Fi code update, with beta testers downloading updates |
| Data East Batman | game | Classic pinball machine owned by Franchi, recently received rubber kit replacement with yellow and blue colors |
| Deadpool | game | Stern pinball machine, toppers are now hard to find and no longer being manufactured by Stern |
| T2 (Terminator 2) | game | Pinball machine in Dr. Pin's arcade, recently serviced for ball trough firing issues and fuse replacement |
| Ripley's | game | Stern machine in Dr. Pin's arcade, had opto-switch issue with idle head continuously firing |
| Jack Danger | person | Pinball designer/streamer, shown playing Heavy Metal in teaser video, subject of industry commentary about player expressions |
| Arcade Zone | company | Entertainment arcade in Boca Raton area owned/operated by Matt Scupp, features trampoline park and redemption games |
| Matt Scupp | person | High-end pinball collector with Batman 66 Super LE, Black Knight LE, Jurassic Park LE; financial investor in Arcade Zone |
| Twippy Awards | event | Industry awards with multiple categories, Franchi won award for art, larger trophies given to game-related awards |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Machine restoration and maintenance, New product announcement (unreleased mod), Heavy Metal pinball teaser and upcoming reveal, Jersey Jack Wonka Wi-Fi code updates
- **Secondary:** Pinball parts availability and scarcity (Deadpool toppers), Data East patch collecting, Personal/lifestyle anecdotes

### Sentiment

**Positive** (0.72) — Generally upbeat and enthusiastic tone throughout. Hosts discuss exciting updates and personal wins (trophy, gifts, machine repairs). Some negative moments (dead bird, Deadpool topper scarcity, outdated software) but overshadowed by positive energy. Casual, friendly banter between hosts creates warm atmosphere.

### Signals

- **[business_signal]** Jersey Jack Pinball continuing to refine Wi-Fi update infrastructure post-Wonka release, suggesting potential expansion of update capabilities for future titles including Guns N' Roses (confidence: medium) — Vanderveen speculation: 'I can't wait to see what they do for Guns N' Roses and how they further kind of elaborate on that Wi-Fi system'
- **[community_signal]** Show hosts actively distributing gifts and merchandise to community members; gift-giving culture fostering goodwill within pinball community (confidence: medium) — Vanderveen detailed Franchi's Christmas package contents (merchandise, gifts for family) and reciprocal gift-giving between hosts
- **[design_philosophy]** Heavy Metal pinball appears to leverage Star Wars pinball design foundation with modifications; teaser video shows Jack Danger demonstrating enthusiastic play expression (confidence: medium) — Franchi observation: 'It looks very much like Star Wars, without the Death Star on the left ramp... with Jack Dinker playing it, looking really excited to play it'
- **[event_signal]** Stern Heavy Metal pinball official reveal/stream scheduled for Saturday (specific date referenced as 'the 15th') (confidence: high) — Discussion of release timing: 'apparently we're going to find out on, what, the 15th? Is that it? That's right, yeah. This weekend, this Saturday, I think, they're going to reveal the game and stream it.'
- **[market_signal]** Stern Deadpool pinball toppers becoming scarce; Stern appears to have ceased production with multiple retailers unable to restock (confidence: high) — Vanderveen: 'they're getting hard to find. CERN's not making any more... I placed two orders with two different companies online and they both got refunded. They said... CERN doesn't have any.'
- **[community_signal]** Zombie Yeti (Jeremy Packer) scheduled for two-part interview on The Super Awesome Pinball Show, indicating continued media presence and community engagement (confidence: high) — Show announcement: 'We've got a super special first part of two-part interview with awesome artist, zombie yeti, Jeremy Packer.'
- **[announcement]** Christopher Franchi announces a new unreleased pinball mod product exclusive to Cointaker; described as theme-related external modification, not a topper (confidence: high) — Franchi states: 'I developed a new pinball product, which you guys will be finding out about... it's a mod for the outside of your game, not the inside. And it is not a pin gulp. It's not anything like that. It's theme-related, and it will go on the outside.'
- **[product_concern]** Widespread rubber degradation issues on vintage machines (Data East Batman) requiring complete replacement kits; rubbers becoming brittle and gummy with age (confidence: medium) — Franchi describes Batman rubber condition: 'some of them were just like... thin as paper, and they were gummy-like and weird. The rest was all dry and hard, but just right around where it touches the post, they were like sticky'
- **[technology_signal]** Software update concerns raised regarding unintended high score resets and driver conflicts; potential risk for pinball code updates following consumer device update patterns (confidence: medium) — Dr. Pin expresses concern: 'I hope they don't update like my cell phone does. You wake up the next morning and, oh, you've got a new code update and all your high scores have been reset.'
- **[technology_signal]** Jersey Jack Pinball implementing Wi-Fi code update delivery system, allowing beta testers to download updates directly to machines rather than manual installation (confidence: high) — Vanderveen: 'Downloaded the new Jersey Jack Wonka update over Wi-Fi, which was very cool. They've continued to tweak that process. So the guys in the beta program are all downloading the Wi-Fi updates now'

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## Transcript

 TOKYO propagandainos and original a train and a good Here's to the therapy packers on the show today. Therapy packers on the show today. Therapy packers on the show today. Tune in to the Loser Kid Small Players Podcast. Special Wham! I don't know, I'm drunk. The plastic. The following is an ad-hoc radio production. And now, ladies and gentlemen, time for the show. Now, kick your feet up, grab a cold one, and get ready for... The Super Awesome Pinball Show! That's right, it's time for everybody's favorite pinball show! With your hosts, pinball artist Christopher Franchi, Texas Pinball Festival's Ed Vanderbeek, and Dr. Pin himself, Christian Jim Weisz! Sponsored by Chicago Gaming Company, the home of your favorite top-quality pinball remakes like Medieval Madness, Monster Bash, and more. Visit chicagogaming.com. And by Cointaker, distributors of new in-box pinball machines, mods, accessories, and crunchy pinball wear. That's cointaker.com. Also by backalleycreations.com, creators of the most badass pinball mods, flat pearl pinballs, and the easiest five playfield support bracket set. That's backalleycreations.com. Last call for refreshments. Go right this segment to get something good to eat and drink to enjoy now or during the rest of the show. Hello, Pinball Rockstars, and welcome to Season 1, Episode 10 of the Super Awesome Pinball Show. This week we're going to be talking about heavy metal pinball, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Raymond Davidson, $600 toppers, and more. We're going to be going over our past few weeks in pinball. We've got a new feature where you can ask professional pinball peeps anything you want. And we've got a super special first part of two-part interview with awesome artist, zombie yeti, Jeremy Packer (Zombie Yeti). All that and more on the Super Awesome Pinball Show. Recently voted the number one pinball podcast in the world by an independent survey. That's right, Ed. And Ed, why don't you introduce everybody? I'm Ed Van Der Veen. I'm here with my co-host and brothers, Dr. Pin Christian Line and pinball superstar artist, Christopher Feranchi, Twippy Award winning artist, Christopher Feranchi. How are you guys doing? We're great, man. We are great. I'm doing awesome because I finally got my trophy. I'm officially... Yeah, you did. Yeah, you did. And it's... Dude, it's like big. I saw it. Thank you very much. Your trophy. You're talking about your trophy. It's bigger than the other. The TPF trophy is like just the same one as last year. I feel kind of insignificant now that I've seen that monstrosity. Thank you very much. Well, it's... Thanks, Jeff. I'm pretty sure... Yes, thank you, Jeff. I'm pretty sure this is the first year that he has made a conscious choice to make the industry awards. Like, so for the game, you know, best game, best code, best art, et cetera, gets a slightly more glorious trophy than, like, best podcast, best tournament, you know, stuff like that. You know, awards that would go to people who don't actually make pinball games. Because there were no difference in the trophies the years prior to that. But I noticed that myself. I'm just playing. It's well-deserved. It's well-deserved, and it looks awesome. It's probably the only one I'll ever get, so I'm going to get a glass case and laser beams. I bet you get another one. Thank you, Stern, for sitting that over, by the way. That was kind. Oh, that was not. Oh, see, I thought maybe you went over and picked it up, but I guess you don't. It's not like you actually live next door or anything. No, I'm in Michigan. Right. I keep thinking you're in right there. No. So you guys want to roll into it? Let's do it. All right. Well, hey, let's go ahead and jump into it. Our last few weeks in pinball. Our last few weeks in pinball. Thank you. Christopher Franchi, what have you been doing these last few weeks since our last episode? Lots of stuff. Well, number one, I got my trophy, you know, so my trophy. I'm excited about that. Two things, really. I got a big box of fun stuff from Cointaker. I got a bunch of rubbers. Ayo. Thanks, Chris at Cointaker. Ooh, rubbers. Yeah, I knew, like, the rubbers on my Data East Batman were so old. How old were they? Started a game, shot the ball up, it bounced around, it comes down, hits the left swing, and the left swing didn't snap. It just broke and fell off. It was like that hard piece of gum that you can pull out of the package. Yeah, you know, like those sugar wafer cookies. It just kind of cracked and fell. Yeah, and so I started pulling those off when the rubbers came in. Oh, my God. Some of them were just like where they're wrapped around a post. They were like thin as paper, and they were gummy-like and weird. The rest was all dry and hard, but just right around where it touches the post, they were like sticky and like caulk. A Boston accent. But I put yellow rubbers. Yeah, yeah. I put yellow rubbers on Batman, and it looks awesome. I got blue rubbers for the flippers because they're yellow flippers. So, because there's blue, I know that Batman's not the blue and yellow and gray Batman, but there's a lot of blue in the game. And I also put blue LEDs in, so I decided to go with blue rubbers on the flipper, and it looks fantastic. The yellow looks great. There's some rubbers I haven't gotten to yet because they're just like, damn, you got to pull the ramp off and pull all these plastics off and all this shit. Like, there's one that's just buried with, like, three layers of crap on top of it. It's going to take me all day just to replace that one rubber. So I did that, got a bunch of mods for Munsters, the staircase gargoyle things, whatever you call those, the banister gargoyle things. And the drain that goes in the back, the sewer pipe drain with the warning sign on it and the green sludge coming out. I got new ever so that I got purple for Munster. So that's looking good. I saw the pictures of your daddy's Batman you posted online. And it looks and you even said that it looks it always looks better in person. But what you posted looks pretty freaking awesome. Yeah, you're going to want to. You're going to want. I'm digging it. Yeah. Yeah, I'll try and get more accurate pictures. It's just like the color wasn't saturated enough. It didn't look as intense as it does in person. It looks really good. And other than that, I developed a new pinball product, which you guys will be finding out about. Well, you guys will find out about it after the show, but listeners will be finding out. In the coming weeks, it's going to be an exclusive item through Cointaker. And I will say this, it's a mod for the outside of your game, not the inside. And it is not a pin gulp. It's not anything like that. It's theme-related, and it will go on the outside. That's all I'm going to say for now. Oh, good for you! But you have my attention. Yeah, exactly. It's clearly not a topper because I think you would say that. So I'm curious to see where this could go. Yeah, you know, what's weird is that it just popped into my head. I wasn't sitting down like with a notepad going, now let's see, what can I, you know, I was just sitting there at my desk and I was staring across the room and I got three pinball machines there And it just hit me like, ooh, I got an idea. So I called up Chris, and he liked the idea. So we're going to work up some examples and reveal more about that later on. But other than that, I have one, well, it's nice, but it's also sad, but it's also not pinball-related story in my past couple weeks. We had a mama bird build a nest on our deck, and the little babies kept falling out. Actually, Barlow called my attention to it because that's his deck. He goes out there and hangs out. And he went out there and he saw a baby bird just laying on the deck, like face down. And he was sniffing it. And then he started barking and looking at me. And I looked over. I'm like, oh, shit, that's a bird. So I went over and picked it up. And when I picked it up, it was moving. So I'm like, well, it's okay. You know, because it's so light. It was literally light as a feather. It's so light. It didn't probably do much damage, if anything. You know, when they're babies like that, their bones are like cartilage. They're like real flexible. And anyway, birdie was okay. Put him back up. And then either that one or another one fell the next day again. And this one was really alert when I picked it up. He was just like, hey, whoa. And he grabbed onto my fingers with his claws, like, you know, got a good grip. And he was tweeting and stuff. And I put him up in the nest. And I thought, all right, I got to do something about this. You can't have these birds, you know, hitting the deck, you know, all day long. You know, they're not going to survive. So I slid a chair underneath it. And I went and bought a dog bed that has the little sides around it. And sat the dog bed on top of the chair right underneath the nest. And sure enough, very next day, another one of them fell, but landed in the dog bed safely. A couple feet down. He saved it. Saved the day. I'm delightful, aren't I? Put him back up in there. But today we woke up and we found one in the dog bed dead. No. I don't know if it died, because I think Mama cleans house, and if it died in the nest, she would have kind of like tossed it overboard. that's the one that mama bird said you're gonna fall out of the bird nest twice so clearly we can't have that kind of sloppiness around here so you're out of here third time's a charm get out have you seen the mother bird come back because i've heard rumors that when when you touch the baby no okay she's been back she's been feeding them um except for the one you touch and she talks i mean maybe that's the guy who didn't get the worm oh quit making fun of poor dead I let it sit there for a while so she could mourn the loss of her baby, and then I went out there to put it in a bag and throw it in the trash, and I had to knock flies off of it. Proper burial. It sure doesn't take long for the fucking flies to come around. Ooh, it's with these fuckers. So anyway, yeah, so it's been bittersweet. I'm glad I saved some of them, and I know that it works, but we did have one casualty, hopefully. Honestly, I don't think there was enough room. I think there was four babies in there, and it wasn't a real. They started getting big, and I think it was cramped for room. That was a sweet and morbid story all at the same time, man. Yeah, yeah. Nature is a fickle bitch. I know. It's not as bad as I saw a video on Facebook of a French bulldog who, thanks to the neglect of the shitbag owner, had lost the sight in one eye, and when the dog was rescued, they had to take the one eye out. And the other eye was so bad because of dryness and the scratched corny and all that, they had to take the other eye out too and and i didn't see that coming no pun intended um in this video because i don't like watching that stuff you know it it just kills me you know it just crushes my heart and i thought this was going to be this like feel-good story and all that you know the dog's got the you know the one eye but you know he thrives and you know everything got healed and you know and next thing i know i see this on this video you know these like stitch marks and like both eyes are just gone and i just i know i'm sitting at my desk and i'm just bawling And when I shut the video off, I'm like, I can't take this shit. I'm getting all watery right now thinking about it. Let's talk about fucking pinball. Now that you've made all of our listeners sad, and most of them have turned off, and just sent our last few listeners over to Dr. Pin here. That was a pretty disturbing story. But, yeah, man, you've got a very soft spot for animals, and that was very good of you to try and protect the baby birds. On my end, it's been a busy life at work anyways because we're ramping up. But at home, I did some maintenance on my machines too. We did some T2 stuff. I guess the ball trough in T2 in my machine was just not firing right. And I guess, I don't know if you guys know the name of the lever that kind of pushes the balls up into the shooter lane. But whatever that is, it was a little bit loose and it wasn't lining up with the ball. So I had to call in the big guns. Because I know how to do a couple of things, but I don't really know how to fix stuff like that, the mechanical stuff. So I called my boy Jim from JT Amusements, and he came over and helped replace that part, which I guess just was old from wear, and there was just no saving it. And then also replaced a fuse in T2. And then my Ripley's, the idle head and Ripley's, it just continued to fire all the time, no matter what you did. And it's an opto-switch. Like that idle head. Yeah. Have you had this tissue? Have you heard of it? Because apparently it's relatively common. No, I've never even heard of that before. Okay. It sounds awful, though. Yeah, it sounds really bad. Yeah, but I don't know anything about optos. But apparently, what happens with these old sterns is that as they age, the resistance through some of the circuitry increases, and the voltage that's going to the opto switches decreases. So when you're starting to use voltage in the machine, it can dim the opto switch enough that the machine actually thinks that the opto was triggered because it breaks that connection between the two sides. Fancy talk. Fancy talk. And so he came over and increased the voltage in the machine, and that was fixed. So that was cool. So a couple of good fixes in the arcade down here. Downloaded the new Jersey Jack Wonka update over Wi-Fi, which was very cool. They've continued to tweak that process. So the guys in the beta program are all downloading the Wi-Fi updates now, and it's awesome. I can't wait to see what they do for Guns N' Roses and how they further kind of elaborate on that Wi-Fi system and what they do. And I wonder if that's part of this innovation that they have. It's got to be. Yeah, right? I mean, Ken Cromwell had said that the Wi-Fi is not necessarily the innovation, but I wonder if it's a piece of it in terms of what you can download, if you can play, if you can get a high score list and that sort of thing. So I'm excited to see Guns N' Roses and what that brings. I hope they don't update like my cell phone does. You wake up the next morning and, oh, you've got a new code update and all your high scores have been reset. And God damn it! it's just been wiped back to ground zero you're like son of a bitch yeah i like the way it was damn it that happens all the time with my phone that happened on my computer the other day i set up my new computer at home yeah it updated and the problem though was that all of a sudden my cintiq which is it's like a monitor you draw on just didn't work anymore like it just blew out the driver and so i had to go back and restore the old version i'm like thanks for an update that ruined my shit, asshole. And it wasn't even hooked up to the internet yet. It's like, how did it update without being hooked up to the internet? Like, it just reconfigured for no reason. Sneaky Windows bastards. Damn you, Bill Gates, with your coronavirus cures and your other shit. Your philanthropy. Damn you. Damn you and your hairstyle. Well, yeah, so, and the last thing on the list I have to bring up was that I finally received, now, we talked about how, you know, a lot of our prize winners, it takes a little while to get their stuff. I finally received my Christmas present from Mr. Christopher Franchi, and I have to talk about it because, man, this was fucking epic. Dude, you know how to hook a guy up, and the whole family, actually, because, Jesus, the swag in this box was off the hook. You had a pinball notebook that was emblazoned with the Saps logo. You had a pinball pint glass, Batman 66 Season 1 DVD, a super awesome pinball shirt for Sarah. The pin kids got Cold Stone Creamery gift cards, some shirts, and tons of candy, a Batmobile, Hot Wheels. Dude, you went above and beyond. So thank you so much for that. I just wanted to call that out on air because it was so cool. You're welcome. I just wanted to call that out on air because I don't think you're a dick. I'm only a dick to the people that I hate, which is pretty much mostly everyone. But the people I love. Short list. Yes. People I love, I cherish. You're welcome, man. Thank you. Thank you. Did you get your Christmas present? Did you get that too? I haven't been home. You know, what was funny is I knew we were going to do this episode, and I sat down and I was thinking, well, man, what have I really been doing? Because right after our last – Yeah, well, there's been a lot of that. No, it's not. Hey, I'm drunk. Right after we recorded our last episode, I was in Texas, and it was really on the heels of, you know, TPF kind of shutting down. And I, you know, after we got all, I got all the flex tape holes put on, you know, what is TPF? And I kind of felt like, okay, well, now we can just kind of let it sit. Kim and I just jumped in the RV and we rolled on to Florida to our little casa here. So I've been spending a lot of time on the beach. You know something? Hey, I'm drunk. Drinking and visiting people. And I got to thinking, well, what have I actually done pinball related? And I'm surprised at how much I actually have done since I've been here. And one of the first things we did was we bounced over to Boca Raton. And Kim and I have some friends, Matt and Stephanie Scupp, that live in Boca Raton. And Matt is a high-end collector, and we spent a couple days with them. And Matt is one of these collectors that, you know, he's got an amazing collection. He's got a Batman 66 Super LE, and he's got the LE Black Knight and the LE Jurassic Park. And he's just got this amazing collection. So we got to spend some time playing all these games that I've got a Batman 66 Premium, but not the Super LE. Not that the play is any different, but just the fact that it's a pretty cool thing to play with. So we spent the weekend with them. And Matt, he is a part owner in a business called Arcade Zone. And I don't know if it's actually in Boca Raton or the neighboring city. But since coronavirus is here or everything is shut down, Matt and I went over to this Arcade Zone. It's more of a trampoline-type arcade. but they've got the huge Jurassic Park driving games, and they have all the big redemption. It's just a huge arcade. There's raw thrill stuff. Right, all the raw thrill stuff, and it's got rock climbing, and I didn't do any rock climbing. But I sent you all the video. I did do the handsome. Oh, my God, it was awesome. So Pat and I go, and it's just us in this giant place. He turns everything on, and you talk about a kid in a candy shop, so I'm running around just playing all these games, and I get up on the trampoline. And I got to tell you, when you jump on this trampoline into the foam pit, there's a foam pit that you jump into. I can see when you're a 40-pound kid, you can jump into the foam pit, and it's fairly easy to get out of. You're so fucking fucking right. But when you're 270 pounds and 6'4", you jump off the trampoline into the foam pit, it's not so easy to get out of that damn thing. I mean, it was almost, you know, I got out, but, you know, you're trying to be cool and, you know, you're trying to basically just roll over everything and get out of the foam pit. And so, yeah, it was pretty comical getting out of that thing. But we had a good time, you know, goofing around. And then the last thing I was going to mention about Matt and Steph, since, you know, we're all fans of the animals, their pora, and I'm going to pronounce this wrong, a vizsla, is a bird dog. Her name was Bella. And we got to visit with her. And after we left, we found out that Bella passed away. She had been sick. And so we got that. So Matt and Stephanie, you know, we're so sorry to hear that. And our hearts go out to you. Bella was a sweet girl, and we're going to miss her dearly. Yeah. And let me ask you about the arcade he has, right? Because you said he was a big collector. So he had a lot of high-end pinball machines in his basement. But in his arcade, when you sent us the video, it looked like it was all kind of, you know, like Frenchy said. It was Rothwell stuff, redemption games, that sort of thing. Does he have any pinball machines there? No, and I think as far as Matt goes, I think Matt is just a financial investor in that business. He doesn't actually have a whole lot to do with the running of it. He's just friends with the guy that runs it, and he has keys to the business. And I don't really know the business aspect of how he's involved in stuff. I didn't really ask. I just knew he had keys, and it was open for me to go jump around in the phone pit. I don't know why they didn't have pinball machines. I'm just curious. I don't know how to answer that. so yeah i mean i know i know it's much more business savvy to have the redemption games but i'd be curious to see if if you did have pins and stuff and it looked like it was one of those places where it's you know the party rooms and the kids have the birthday parties and all that kind of stuff so i don't know maybe pinball is just not something the age bracket i i really don't know so another thing that we that kim and i did was kind of interesting we went to a place called john's passover in st petersburg and it's kind of a touristy they have a lot of shops and and Tiki Bar. I've been there. Yeah. There's a condo right across the street from there. The place with the red rails? Yes. I have no idea if that's accurate or not. Yeah, it is. I can't remember the name of it now. Seaside? Yeah, sure. Yeah, that's all I got. I can't believe you remember that, Chris. Right across the street, like right at the foot of the bridge where that restaurant is, they have that really cool band that played the Jamaican kind of music and shit. I used to go over there every night. Yeah. Yeah, it's a cool place right there. It's like a strip mall right on the bay. That is correct. That is accurate. But there is an arcade that had just opened because we were there after June. And Kim and I, we just kind of poked our heads in there, and there was nobody in there. And it was a brand-new Stern Star Trek Pro. I mean, it was brand-new. I think we were the first ones to play it because it still had some of the packing stickers. Like, they didn't peel it all off, and it still had all the factory high scores. It's got the old tagger on it, so you never even played it. so we played that for a little bit and Tim put a high score up on that so that was kind of fun of course uh while I've been in Florida uh my friends and I talked about my Elvira being restored by Kevin and Jessica back in Texas and they've been sending me all kinds of pictures I'm all excited to go and see that they're doing a fantastic job they just did the play field swap on it and I ordered a Deadpool topper for our Deadpool so and I think I got the last one on the planet because when I was at Matt's, while I was there, his Deadpool topper arrived in the mail and we put it on his Deadpool. And I was thinking, he was like, man, you know, they're getting hard to find. CERN's not making any more. I don't know if they're going to make any more, but I went to look at it and I placed two orders with two different companies online and they both got refunded. They said, oh, well, you know, we don't actually have that. We were just going to have a drop ship from CERN, but CERN doesn't have any. So finally I found one. Hemi had one, Hemispheres, pinball or I think that's right. He had one, so he hooked me up with one. So I just got my Deadpool topper. Anytime you need a topper, if you run out of options, let me know because I know a guy or a gal who can make a pretty mean topper and we can send it your way. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I got that. This is pin 101 exclusive. Yeah. Or hey, call those guys that sponsor the show, Coinshaker at Coinshaker.com. Bang! That's right. So probably the most exciting thing, though, that occurred while I was in this. I shit you not, this all happened while I was laying on the beach. No, it's not for hate. I'm drunk. Fuck it. So I've talked about my Dad East pinball patch collection in the past on prior episodes. I've got all the, with the exception of a few. Well, I've acquired three that I was missing. So I found a hook, torpedo alley, and ninja turtles, the Daddy's patches for that. So now I'm only missing one. I'm missing one patch. I bet you don't. Mad Magazine, man. No, I have that one. Oh, that's right. That's right. Secret Service. The very first one. Secret Service. So if anybody listening has a Secret Service Data East design team patch, my green is good. You know, hook a brother up. Do me a favor. I'll give you a free art print if you rake him over the coals and charge a fortune. No, at this point, I'd probably pay it. So if you've got one. And, you know, surprisingly, it's the only design team patch that doesn't actually say Dead East on it. I mean, I know what it looks like, so don't try to scam me. So I know what it's supposed to look like. Look how bootleg this is. So don't try to scam me. It's an annual Secret Service patch. I assume you've done this, but have you eBayed and Googled? Yes, I've been on it. And it's not out there? Yeah. Okay. Well, I just haven't found it yet, so. And then, of course, you mentioned, you know, I did our son, JD, he's in Warren. They're back home in Texas taking care of the house and the dogs. But JD, he called me and told me that I get. You got a package from Christopher Franci? Franci? And I said, Franco? Yeah, Franco. And I said, okay, yeah. He goes, you want me to open it? And I said, no, I'm pretty sure I know what that is. So, yes, I also received my Christmas present, but I'm not there. I have no idea what's in it. It's a good thing you didn't let him open it. Stack of more. Yeah, I'm going to be... Just a box of dicks. What's going on? I know. Well, I know what you got now, so if mine's not at least that good, I'm going to be fucking pissed. well actually in the process of telling everyone what christian got he gave away a couple little things you got uh sorry spoiler alert so anyway that's been my last few weeks in pinball cool stupid there right i mean what'd you guys do for your birthday any pinball i did have a birthday i'm i don't remember i was pumped right so yeah and so for those that don't know yeah so kim has a new job that she can work from anywhere as long as she's got her wi-fi so we bounced to florida And I am such a lucky fucker that it's unbelievable. So Tuesday through Friday, Kim sits on the couch in the living room, and she does her IT stuff. And I wake up and decide, well, am I going to go to the beach today? Am I going to go to the cigar lounge? Am I going to, you know, I'll pick a couple of, yeah, I'll pick a couple of, I might do, you know, I actually threw out some grass. Oh, I planted a couple of coconut trees in my front yard the other day. So that's my life now. I get up, I make breakfast, I do laundry. I'm such a lucky guy. My wife is so awesome. I just get to be a trophy husband. And I'm telling you, I'm living the dream. It's incredible. How long have you guys been married? 13 years tomorrow, as a matter of fact. Tomorrow's our anniversary. Oh, happy anniversary. Happy anniversary. Happy anniversary. Happy anniversary. All right. Well, it's time for Pinball in the News. All right. From now on, Pinball in the News with your super awesome eyewitness news crew. All right, first up we've got Heavy Metal. Stern released a new video. It's sort of a teaser video, actually. It doesn't show a whole lot of the game. It shows a little bit. It is sort of a refurbished Star Wars, if you will. Star Wars the pin, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And it looks pretty cool. I don't know. The artwork, you know, something... Yeah, you know what? I should never review artwork, because whenever I do, people just say, I'm a dick because I didn't draw it. And, you know, some of the stuff that is, you know, good, it's obviously like, you know, stock artwork from Heavy Metal. And there's nothing wrong with that. It's just that the play field looks a little uninspired to me. But it doesn't matter. Well, honestly, I'd forgotten all about this game until they released this video. And I guess a lot of people did. I guess COVID hit right when they were getting ready to release this game. I thought that a lot of the distributors were allowed to sell just a few and then it was going to be sold to the magazine. Do we know if that's still the case? or is it now available again through the distributors, or do you have to go through the magazine to get one? Yeah, apparently we're going to find out on, what, the 15th? Is that it? That's right, yeah. This weekend, this Saturday, I think, they're going to reveal the game and stream it. Well, maybe if I would read things, I would have known that. I rely on you guys for this kind of stuff. Yeah, I mean, the game looks cool. It looks very much like Star Wars, without the Death Star on the left ramp. From this quick little video, this 12-second video, with Jack Dinker playing it, looking really excited to play it, which is good. I know that people have been called out for not being happy while they've been playing the pinball machine, so Jack has changed that. Oh, and he who shall not be mentioned has already taken credit for Jack looking so smart. Oh, has he really? Yeah, he put a side-by-side up on this page, and he said, before Kaneda said something about the expression on the player's face, and after. and it's like, you know, sourpuss action scowl by Zach and then a super happy Jack. Well, hey, I love these kind of projects because if a special heavy metal machine is made and marketed specifically to a group of people and that's what gets them into pinball, then fantastic. Well, not only that, but what if you're into pinball and you love heavy metal and then, like, you know, something like this comes along? Yeah. Well, that's Ed, though, right? I mean, you are that guy. I am that guy. I love the movie and, you know, of course, I haven't seen one in person yet and I'm going to spend some time watching the video, but it's hard to go backwards when you're in the hobby and you've seen, you know, we're on LCD screens now, so it's hard to go back to a DMD-type display, just talking about that alone. So it's going to be a hard sell for me because even though I love that theme, as a pinball enthusiast, I'm not going to go backwards and spend the same money as I can get Ninja Turtles for. Or more, though, right? Right, exactly. Exactly, and like I said, though, I don't think this game, even though I know there's a lot of pinball enthusiasts that love the theme, we're not the target audience. It's the non-pinball, heavy metal fans, followers. That's who the target audience is. Well, yeah, it's interesting. I just noticed that because I was trying to find the video and I went to Stern and I couldn't find it. I couldn't find it. Now that I'm looking at it, it's actually on Incendium Online's Facebook page, not Stern's. And also, to correct you, Christian, it's not Sunday. It's Monday. Oh, it's Saturday. No, it says look for teasers this weekend, and then the whole thing drops on Monday. That's what it says on the description of the video. Yeah, it's interesting to me that a niche game like this that's being targeted to a very small, well, shit, I don't know if Heavy Metal is a big group of people who love it or not, but they're being targeted to this pin, and yet they're not putting an LCD screen in, they're not putting a lot of toys or mechs. It's kind of like the pared-down version of the game. Right. And they're putting a hefty price tag on it. And that's surprising because even the pin Star Wars has a little LCD screen in it. I mean, doesn't it? Yes. In the play field? No, no. And the display where your LCD screen would go on the backbox. Yes, it does. It does. It's smaller than the main screen. Oh, right. So, I mean, even that's got a little LCD screen on it. And on the heavy metal, they're going back to the straight top matrix. Shots. Antiques Roadshow. Maybe that's part of the design. I mean, they did that with Supreme, too, right? Oh, no, Supreme had a video screen. I don't know. Yeah. I have to go look at my Supreme. Hold on a second. That's right. Let me look at my $20,000 Supreme. You're right. When I say I want to look at my Supreme, it's a whole different thing. Yeah. All right, so moving on from heavy metal. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I'm going to go ahead and say that we just need to let everyone wait because we have Zombie Yeti on, and we do a lot of Ninja Turtle talk with him. So I think we could probably just glaze over that one. Yeah, for sure. What a great machine, though. I think they revealed it really well. I like the screens they did were awesome, and the machine just looks like a hell of a lot of fun to play. So I can't wait to play it. Well, now I especially want one after our interview. I mean, I was really kind of like, eh, you know. But after talking to Zombie Yeti, I'm like, oh, shit, I'm going to have to go get me a Ninja Turtles now. I love that. Yeah. So, yeah, I think as soon as we all get a chance to play it, I don't think any of us really want to do one of those half-assed, well, you know, the artwork was really cool, but I don't know. I haven't played it in a year. Why bother? You know how many new Sterns, every time I've ever bought a new Stern pinball machine, do you know how many of them I actually played before I bought it? How many? One. Deadpool. Really? No shit. And it wasn't even me. It was my wife. She played, you know, we didn't buy Deadpool, and then she played it, and we bought one, and it's her favorite game. but my Elvira, Monsters, Batman, I don't see. Yes, I mean, just based on the theme alone. So there's something to be said for that. And these are games you've kept, which is impressive. Like you don't sell these. Well, there's other ones I haven't kept. Like I bought Game of Thrones, I haven't seen, and I no longer have that. And there have been some games that I've bought and then sold, not necessarily because I didn't like them, but like everybody else, sometimes I have to sell something to buy something or just to make room or just cash flow. But I'm guilty of buying them side unseen with the exception of Deadpool. So I don't know where we're going with that. There was a point to all that. You idiot! I don't know. I was just talking about how we'll reserve our comments until we can play. Oh, there you go. So, yeah, we'll do that. So next up, Raymond Davidson joins Stern as a game programmer. If any of you don't know, Raymond Davidson is a tournament pinball player. Currently ranked? Yes. number one in the world, my friend. Number one in the world. He is an awesome dude, and Stern had a really good track record of picking up guys who have been heavily involved in the competitive pinball world and really know their stuff when it comes to rules and pinball in general. Well, there's the whole movement, too. I mean, with Stern picking up Al Wynn, and then you've got Tim Sexton. Stern. Somebody else picked up somebody recently. Bowen Caron. Spooky picked up Bowen. And then Eric Bripke. Erica, the Cactus Canyon Continuum, that's a great, he's a great dude. Yeah, so it's cool that the people that are involved in playing pinball are getting involved in the manufacturing of it. So that's a very cool movement, because who knows better, you know? Right, and it's a risk that's paid off, right? I mean, it's not even a risk, but it's a strategy that's paid off, because Elwin obviously has blown up, and guys like Scott Danesi, who was relatively new and fresh, has done great things. and Eric Minier at Jersey Jack. So I hope the trend continues of hiring people who are new with new ideas, both from a design standpoint and a code standpoint. Absolutely. So congratulations, Raymond. And next up, Jurassic Park Toppergate. Toppergate. Yes, Toppergate. Oh, boy. All right, so this is the most expensive topper that CERN has ever made, right? Pretty sure. And do you think it brings the value? No. it okay i mean there's a new mode which is cool but well that's horseshit if it was standard for them to sell updates you know like the video game world does then okay but to take a it's basically an update a code update and bury it and bundle it with a topper yeah and then say all right six hundred dollars please for every doesn't seem like the black knight one was like hundred dollars cheaper some shit and the thing moved like this is just plexiglass with lights now granted when i saw the video of it where it lit up, it does light up nice, but it is still plexiglass and light bulbs. You know, $600, you know, just no. I think they're testing the market to see what they can get away with. Well, they always are. I mean, you know, the chunk of couch for $12,000 Elvira thing, you know, they're always, you know, I mean, any company would, you know, try that stuff. But, you know, you have to expect a lash back from the people who can see through that or people who just don't appreciate it or whatever. I just think that's price gouging. Yeah, I mean, if people would care about a mode like that, or the hardcore pinball enthusiasts, no one is going to care about a mode if they're just buying their first pinball machine. So if you're going to do that, and you're targeting the pinball enthusiast, to put out a price tag that is that high seems surprising to me. But it depends on how many they're making, right? If a collector is going to get it, and they only want to sell 100, then maybe there are that many rich dudes that want this. But the point I'm trying to make is that the code should be part of the game. The standard now is that you get free updates. So it's almost like saying, hey, buy this topper and we'll give you the legs for free. You know, well, alright, yeah, $600 topper, and I'm going to get the legs for my pin motion when I can't, you know, play without it. That's what, I mean, it's kind of a far-fetched comparison, but the same idea to me. Taking something that you normally get for free and you know how people are when they bust through a code they're they're going to want more and they're going to know just the knowing that that little chunk of code exists is going to eat at them and they're going to be like ah fuck it and then they're going to buy it unless somebody smart figures out how to pull it off of that topper and give it away on the black market i'm not saying you should do that but you think there'd be a dot like some sort of usb dongle or something you could plug in to make that work but what do i know yeah i mean you know everything electronic still baffles me how people do some other shit that they do. So it's my opinion. Yeah, let's hear it. Part of the group. Well, I was letting you guys get it out of your system because my, my, my view on it is very much different than yours. Stern is a for profit company. And so I don't have a problem with Stern selling anything they want and charging anything they want to And me as a consumer can either purchase it or not I understand the frustrations some people feel they have by saying well I don get this extra piece of code Well I pretty sure that before you even bought your Jurassic Park pinball machine you didn even know that that was a thing And you still bought your game. You still got what you paid for. And a brand new Jurassic Park pinball machine, be it a Pro, Premium, or LE, is not a cheap toy. It is a very expensive toy. An extra $600, you know, that sucks. But if you want it, buy it. If you don't, then don't buy it. And you make a great point. It's not price gouging. CERN is not selling eggs and milk and gasoline. They're selling toys. It's not price gouging. They're a for-profit company, and they have bills to pay. And I feel that way for every company in America that's not selling gas, food, essentials. If you're selling toys, you can charge whatever you want to. I want to buy a Ferrari. I can't afford one. I'll drive a $2,005 pickup truck. It's kind of like buying a base model Camaro and then getting pissed off at Chevrolet because the Z28 or they released some aftermarket thing from the dealership that you can buy for an extra satellite system or something, and you get all pissed off because it's way expensive. I'm sorry, and I give Stern credit for at least trying to, and of course, I'm getting tired of the word innovation. Everybody, you know, that's the new hot word in pinball right now is innovation. Pinnovation. Yeah, pinnovation. I understand in the video game world that's a standard thing that if you buy a game and you keep throwing money at it to buy more Candy Crush lives or whatever it is you're buying that's how it works and Stern is trying to break into that market per se and it's just kind of hard because most of the people that can afford these games well see that sounds bad it's not most people can afford them because I know there's most what's our age bracket? people in their 40s and higher are mostly the people buying new pinball machines We don't play those video games. Those are 20- and 30-year-olds that are used to spending money on the video games, and they're not necessarily the pinball buyers. Does that make any sense at all? There's a lot of overlap, but, yeah, I understand what you're saying. So, yeah, so me, I don't play the video games. So, yeah, I don't buy extra levels and extra things like that. So I get it. I understand that they're dangling this little carrot, and they're like, well, if you want this, you have to pay for it. And I'm sorry, that's, you know, your point is... It's not like you bought the machine knowing that that was out there already. Absolutely. Well taken. I feel like the only thing that I'm frustrated about maybe is that, and I am not a marketer, so they clearly know better than I do when it comes to marketing decisions, but it just seems like from scale, like if you're looking at the scale of all the pinball people out there who have a Jurassic Park, who would want this hopper, and the amount of money they spend to create this thing, which it doesn't seem like it's an exorbitant amount of money. Why would they not want to sell by volume, by selling this thing for maybe $400, which is still a lot of money, and I'm sure the profit is there. I don't know the reasons. I don't know their math, or you're right. I don't know the marketing ideas. Have they put a limit on how many they're going to build? Have they said they're only going to build X number of top-notch? They have not. Now, if they did that, then maybe I could see it, because people have phone. own. They want to get the thing that they think is going to sell out. And I'll say this, the only thing that I disagree with this kind of marketing, and I'm going to, again, equate it to the auto industry, and Stern does it too with their pro, premium, and LEs. When Stern comes out, before anybody buys a game, they usually put out their little matrix and they say, this is a pro, this is what you get with your pro. This is a premium, this is what you get with the premium, and this is the LE, this is what you get with your LE. If they're going to do this kind of thing like they did with Stranger Things with the UV lighting in the kit and all that, and they're going to do this with the topper, I do think they should make that as part of their matrix. If they know they're going to do that from the beginning, when they do their little matrix, they can have their pro, premium, and LE, and then at the bottom, they can have their a la carte thing so people know ahead of time. They can say, hey, we're going to have a topper that includes extra modes that you will be able to purchase, and this is how much it's going to be, and this is the thing. this whole area and they can they can list those a la carte options out on their matrix so people know going in you know that might change their decision to buy or not buy or at least they won't be so butthurt going you know when they when they go buy something and they find out yeah well shit i you know now i gotta spend next year they know it going in especially with the le right the le spending so much money you want to get the entire package exactly yeah you said that in the past that if it's something that's out there made for a game, whatever it is, it should come on the LE. Yes. I mean, yeah, if you're buying the LE, I mean, I'm not going to go buy the Super Corvette Anniversary Edition and expect to get steel wheels on it. It should come with everything. And I'm okay with certain charging for that. If they need to charge whatever they want to charge, if it gets to a point where I'm outpriced, then I'm outpriced. I'm out. But if I can afford it and I want it, my green is good. Oh, yes. Yeah. I mean, that's just the way it is. And so I guarantee you there's – how many L.E. – Jurassic Park L.E.s did they make? I don't know. 700? You know, whatever that number is, they're going to sell that many toppers because the L.E. buyers are like – and I'm not made of money, but they're just like – and I don't have a Jurassic Park L.E. But, you know, I can tell you that a lot of the L.E. buyers are just to have it, to make it complete. They're going to, you know, they're going to shell out 600 bucks to get that. The L.E. buyers and I know have all said that they're buying it. So your point is valid. So, you know, okay. Well, that's all I got to say about that. In the interest of time, we have to move on because we have a lengthy interview with Zombie Yeti. So next up on here, Chris, I'm going to let you take this because I honestly don't know what the hell this headline means. And you typed it, so take it away. All right. So Sarah was on the Pinball Network a few weeks ago on a podcast called Off the Record. And it was a really good podcast, so I encourage you to go back and listen to it. but it had Kate Martin, Stephanie Guida, Moda Harney, and my wife, Mrs. Pinn, on there talking about women's perspectives on things in the hobby. It was a really good show, but one of the items that made my ears kind of perk up was that one of the people on there, Kate Martin, had mentioned that Keith's next two games were going to be the same artist. They were kind of talking about how art gets picked for pinball machines, and they were saying that the designer of the game usually decides who is going to do the art package on that game, And she said, yeah, well, I'm not really sure I should say this, but Keith's next two games are the same artist because he really likes working with this person. She didn't say who it was, but it's cool information to know because once we find out who the artist is on Keith's next game, we'll know who is doing the one to follow. So I thought that was interesting enough. And I haven't heard anyone talk about that. So we should talk about that. Very deductive investigative work there. Yes, yes, that's what I do. But there were no additional hard facts that you uncovered, so you just wasted everybody's time and got them all excited for nothing. Dude, this is what rumors are, right? They've got to hype you. They don't come with facts all the time. They just hype you up. And I will say that the three of us know who it is, but we obviously can't talk about that. Hell, yeah. That goes for a lot of things. That's right. Okay, so there's that. Moving on. Next up, I heard through the grapevine that, well, we've all heard that Mr. Butch Peel, formerly of JJP, is now working for Chicago Gaming. And I heard that Mr. Franchi has something to do with that. Is that true, Mr. Franchi, that you helped facilitate an interview between Mr. Butch Peel and Chicago Gaming? That I did. Good job. And, well, I'm going to have to say, I do have to share credit for this one or give an assist to Mr. Kaneda. Apparently, Kaneda is a big fan of Butch. I know who he is. I know he's a nice guy. I've heard a lot about him. I've never met him. But, you know, Kaneda talked a pretty big game, and he was pretty upset when Butch got let go at Jersey Jack. And based on what I know and based on what I heard, I thought, well, you know, if I can help this guy, you know, I definitely will. I mean, it was bad timing. It was right around COVID. You know, everybody's worried about money and about their jobs and all that. So, you know, I recently joined forces with Chicago Gaming Company, and I know that they have a few spots that they're looking to fill. And I thought he would be a perfect fit. So, basically, I just reached out to Kaneda, and I asked for Butch's contact. And I forwarded that to Doug Duva and Ryan White at Chicago Gaming with a, I don't want to say a half-assed, but sort of a, you know, I'll say yes for like, yeah, this might be a good pickup for you. I couldn't say, this is a fantastic, but you've got to do this because I don't know him that well. But I knew enough about him to know that it was worth a shot to let them find out, to, you know, put it on their plate, let them sort it out. So I gave them his contact information, and I said, you know, why don't you check this out? You know, he may be a great asset for you guys, and you could use him, so check it out. And they did, and they gave him the job. That's great. And you have to know Butch, right? I mean, he's such a huge force at Jersey Jack. At least, you know, he was. Oh, I do. I talk to him all the time, and he's a big fan of TPF, and he's very gracious every time he comes, and he's a great guy to talk to. In fact, I was just fixing to tell Francie I was going to be a little offended. He's like, well, why didn't you ask me for Butch's information? So I'm looking at my phone right now, and I don't fucking have it. So good call not asking me for it. I figured you would be drunk on the beach anyway. I have his email address, but I don't have his phone number. That's all I have. That's all I have. He gave me his email address. This guy is like a, you know, he was a fixture there. And every time that they did, I've been to a couple of shows where Jersey Jack has done seminars, and he's always one of the guys front and center who's answering questions, very knowledgeable about all of the games. So I think that CGC has done very well. I heard a lot of stories about him bending over backwards, like on weekends, you know, getting in touch with people like minutes after they'd sent in emails with, you know, problems with their game or whatever. Sure. Questions. And he was just like, you know, Johnny on the spot every time. So, you know, who doesn't respect a work ethic like that? So it's definitely something I had, you know, really no trouble in passing on. I mean, that's all I did. You know, I don't deserve a medal or anything other than just, you know, it was good that they needed him and it worked out. Otherwise, I would have just passed on information to them and they would have been like, yeah, Mutt's great, but we have no position to fill, so whatever. So the stars just kind of aligned, and I'm just happy to help and definitely to get somebody off the unemployment list at a bad time. Yay. Slow clap. Good job. Yeah, well, let's move on, though. Congratulations, Butch. Welcome aboard. Right. All right, so the next thing is Multimorphic. It's been a little while since they've released this press release, but we haven't talked about it, so I thought it was relevant. they revealed connected gameplay and online head-to-head matches for their P3 system. And I thought that was really cool because this is the first time that any company has actually done it, even though every company has talked about it and some are trying to get there. They have set up a system where you can play head-to-head with other people who have the P3 system online. And they are also going to license this software to other companies who might want to use it. There's really no reason at this point for anyone not to have it because it's taken forever to get there. It's exciting. We're finally seeing them do this. And Cosmic Heart Racing, I know you guys have played that. It's going to be a really cool feature on that system. I have not. Oh, you haven't? I've not played this game at all, any of the versions or nothing, and I want to. Oh, you'd love it. It's like Mario Kart in pinball form. I've never played Mario Kart. I'm not a video game guy. Am I a video game player? I haven't played video games since, like, fucking Pong. I love this technology. I love the idea that if I own a game and you own the same game in your home, you and I can have, and I'm assuming this is correct, you and I can play a two-player game without physically being at the same machine. Absolutely correct. That's fucking awesome. It's so cool. There's so many different ways you can go with this. Like the guy Nicholas Baldridge from Coin Op Carnival and his podcast, he's making an adventure game for P3. So you can group up with a buddy and, you know, you can be a, you know, a mage and he can be a knight or whatever. And you're going off in this adventure game in the pinball machine and you can save your progress as you go. So it's opening up new avenues for pinball that I think are really cool. So I'm looking forward to that. And one of the concerns about online play that a lot of people have said is that they're worried that people are going to rig their game, right? So if you're playing me and I have the glass off and I'm just hitting the targets with my fingers, obviously that's not fair. But his system is set up in a way that you can. Yeah, exactly. But, you know, if you don't trust the guy you're playing with, you need to move the drum. I mean, if that is like, well, that fucker cheated. It's like, well, oh, my God. Well, you might as well throw the technology away because that's pretty much it, buddy. Well, if you're playing a tournament, I can see the concern, but if I'm just playing with my buddy, whatever. If you want to have an online leaderboard where you're looking at people all across the country, and you can somehow set up for that potential rigging, which they have done. So he said that basically they've identified and they've integrated machine setup checks so they can follow behavior and gameplay logic used for detecting and reacting to players trying to gain an unfair advantage. So I don't know what that means per se. It's troll proof. There it is, man. All right, so moving on, Hot Wheels is shipping this month, and some info is starting to come out on that. American Pinball is streaming Hot Wheels this Saturday with Jack Danger. Did that already come and go? Yeah, by the time this podcast went out, it already happened. Wah, wah. American Pinball just released a deep dive into all the rules, so we're finally getting the info dump that we've all wanted on Hot Wheels to see what the game is all about. I talked to Jack about it, and obviously Jack's going to, Well, it sounds shady to say he's going to be more truthful when you're on the phone with me, but you know what I'm saying. Right. The salesmanship is off, and we're just honestly talking back and forth and all of that. And he's actually really excited about it. He really thinks it's going to be a good game, and he's excited to play it. I'm excited about it. I could agree, too. I'm excited about it. Yeah, I don't see the, you know, some people just looked at pictures and went, eh. And I don't know. I think it's got potential. I'm definitely going to be tuning into the stream on Saturday and checking this thing out. From what we've heard from the rules and Jeff's breakdown of the gameplay, it sounds like a really fun game. It's coded well by Googler, and Balser has done a good job with the layout. It's not as fully loaded as some of the other games they've had, but I think the fun factor is going to be there, and that's really what matters, right? Yeah, and they came out and they said, like, look, it's a lower-cost game. has less in it. It's not like they're trying to pull a fast one, you know, like not put anything in there in charge of the same price. So, you know, unfortunately, I think their idea was to build this game for route and that might become a thing of the past. So it's unfortunate. Maybe, you know, maybe they want to revisit that and take a look and go, hey, how can we juice this up and come out with a deluxe model, you know, a couple months down the road or something, maybe. But, you know, can't hurt. I was at the store the other day and I was walking past the toy aisle and there was the Hot Wheels section and I actually stopped And just without really, you know, I don't have a Hot Wheels, but I'm looking at all the different stuff going, yeah, I could see me putting this somewhere, and, you know, that looks like a cool toy. And I'm checking out all the stuff going, well, this could be used in a pinball machine. So, you know, the custom mods are just endless with that title. Yeah. Well, they've got it for 89 cents. You can get the mod. They were talking about how the cars that are mounted in there are on this, like, clip system where you can pull them out and put whatever Hot Wheels car you want in there, you know. That's neat. customize it to the way you want. I actually just donated to the Project Pinball charity for the Hot Wheels raffle. I'm looking forward to that. There's only 200 entries and they're going to give away a Hot Wheels machine. How many did you buy? I just bought one. So I'm hoping that I win. It only takes one to win. 70 bucks, man. That's a lot of cash. It's in the COVID era, brother. We're all not flush at this point. Yeah, save me your money because I might need to borrow some. but my kids would be over the moon that is one of their dream themes so I hope this pin does well do they like their Hot Wheels Batmobiles? oh my god fuck yeah and if I do win that game you know that Batmobile is going in it's the first mod that gets put in nice alright and then we've got what's an eminent reveal of GNR any minute now any minute any moment So Guns N' Roses has been teased forever. But just recently, Ken Cromwell, we have to assume, has been posting on Facebook these little cryptic teasers about innovation and that things are coming from Jersey Jack Pinball. So do you guys think that Guns N' Roses will be revealed soon? And do you think, well, are you excited for this theme? I'm definitely excited. I don't think it's going to be soon. I think it will be later. I don't think like October later, but I think later. I don't know. But here's a more important question. Look, everybody was wondering, like, is Flash going to come out to help reveal this game? And the problem was, no, he's on tour. He's not on tour, COVID. So is Flash going to be a part of the reveal of this game? Still the same issue, unless it's a private video or online type thing. Well, yes, I think he will be. Yes, I think he'll be involved in the marketing. Oh, absolutely. He was involved in the development. Yeah, he's actually credited, like I saw the card, the apron card, and he's actually credited as a co-designer. All right, awesome. Have you seen the game? Dude, if you saw the apron card, then you saw the play field, right? You motherfucker. No, no. Kaneda posted a segment of the game. Oh, that's right. Damn it. I saw it on there. It saved the picture. I don't think he took it down. I still have it. I'm curious. Yeah, I'm really curious to see what it looks like. I know Eric is going to throw some innovative stuff onto the playfield, and he's been working on this game nonstop for a while. Well, somebody else has seen it, like physically seen it, and said it's going to crush everything. Wow, really? Yeah. What could do that? That's some word right there. Is it like a hologram on the playfield? Is it like some fucking amazing mech? What is it that is going to be so amazing in pinball that it just destroys everything else? Because that was a Deep Root promise, right? and we haven't seen that yet. Well, you know what's funny is if you're like, I was just watching a tutorial, not a tutorial, but just like a go, you know, Todd Tucky, whatever you want to call that, when he sits there and rolls a ball around on the play field and tells you about a game, Black Rose. Is that the pirate game? Yeah, I love that game. I have that game. Yeah, and they got this cool like little spinny disc like right in front of the, right between the slings and the door opens up and there's a cannon in there and all that shit. And I'm like, you know, if somebody came out with that now, people would go, whoa, you know, but this is something that was out like 15, 20 years ago. So, you know, when it comes to innovations, I think if you just got close to the shit that was out in like the 2000s, you're on the right track. You know, you're bringing it back. We're advancing pinball to where it was 20 years ago. Yeah, you're painfully right about that. All right. That's it for this week. That was fucking... Ed, did you follow Steve? You talked too much truth there. You talked way too much truth there, and it killed the mood. Actually, I was trying to pull a fast one. I was searching my phone for the Data East Guns and Roses, and I was going to do a little clip of the play field and text it to you all and go, well, here's the picture, and wait to see how long it took you to figure it out. As soon as you see the GNR ramps, you're going to know. Well, I wasn't going to do a play field. I was just going to cut out a little portion of it. Oh, a little nugget? Yeah, a little nugget and send it to you. I've recently played it, though, so I probably would have noticed. I mean, the artwork's going to be a dead giveaway. The artwork on the old one is shit. Yeah, at least on the play field. All right, that's it for the news for this week, and now we have a brand new segment. Check this out. Here's where you, the regular people, get a chance to ask the professional pinball people. That's right. If you couldn't figure it out from the catchy little jingle, you, the listener, gets to ask professional pinball people whatever the fuck you want. And this is our very first segment, and it's a very special person. Christian? Yeah, for the inaugural segment, it's someone very special to me, my very own wife, the beautiful and totally badass, Mrs. Pinn. Take it away. Hi, it's Mrs. Pinn. I'm here to ask a very important question to my pal, JB. That would be John Bork. First of all, I wanted to say congratulations, Mr. JB, on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. It's fucking amazing. I love it. I love the colors. I love the art. I haven't seen it in person yet, but I can't wait to fucking flip this shit. It's going to be amazing. My question for you, and this is a very important question. You know, no pressure, but the whole world is listening, and I will definitely be judging you on your answer. So, I would like to know, who is your favorite Ninja Turtle? Hello, Mrs. Pym. This is John Borg. I hope you enjoy the Turtles game when you finally get to play it. My favorite turtle is... All of them! actually when I play the game my favorite turtle is Leonardo but my favorite turtle character I would have to say is Michelangelo because he's rambunctious and fun and he's a party dude I would also say that my favorite character of the whole series is Krang because Krang is just literally awesome alright thanks John Borg and thanks Mrs. Pin for our first inaugural Ask a Professional Pinball Peep if you have any questions that you'd like to ask any of the people out there in the pinball world. Franchi and Ed both have some pretty sweet connections and can try and reach out for you. Just send us a message on Facebook, and we'll try and get your questions answered. That's right. And now we are going to take our commercial break and be right back with Mr. Jeremy Packer (Zombie Yeti), Zombie Eddie himself. Yeah. Stick around. We'll be right back. Guess what? I got a fever. And the only prescription is to go super awesome pinball. show this show is sponsored by coin taker distributor of brand new full-size authentic stern pinball chicago games raw thrills arcade games and much more also a full line of dramatic pinball models led flipper kits speaker lights custom laser led toppers playfield protectors valley williams and much more. Get the latest releases and glam out your game room with Cointaker. Everything at your fingertips at Cointaker.com. Get your game on. Now here's a game that works like a game. Pop-up pinball. The first thing you slip until you pop up all six. Pop-up pinball. Pop-up pinball from Child Guidance. You work the flippers and guide the ball to pop up the crazy characters. Every time you do, the bell goes off. When you get all six, you win. It takes some skill, but when you will, Pop-up pinball. Pop-up pinball, complete with six pop-up figures and three balls, by child guidance. Hey, this is Dennis Nordman, and you're listening to the semi-awesome... Todd, not semi-awesome, super-awesome. What? Super-awesome? Yep. Are you sure? Because I listen to it, and it's not that good. Yes, I'm sure. Would you just say super? Okay. Hey, this is Dennis Nordman, and you're listening to the super-awesome pinball show. Perfect, alright, that'll work Okay, okay, fork over my 20 bucks now Yeah, yeah, it's coming God, you pinball guys Now, back to our program Well, it's about frickin' time I am the God of Hellfire And I bring you The Super Awesome Pinball Show It's a cool show I don't know if you know this or not, but I took a moratorium from Handball Podcast. You know, and I actually, no, I refused to be on them for the last two years, three years, something like that. Because the last time I was asked on podcast was after Iron Maiden release. And I got hit up by like three or four different people. And when somebody says, hey, do you want to come talk about Iron Maiden? I say, yeah, sure. And then I find out after I do one of the shows that apparently I'm not supposed to talk to more than one show for release schedule or some shit like that. Like some unwritten rule that was never told to me. So then Kaneda, and I think it was Martin, head to head, like start talking and saying I'm an egomaniac. And I'm like, you fucking asshole. Like I said, I don't ever need to go on a podcast again. And by the way, the only reason I'm on your podcast is because, I don't know if you know this or not, but when you buy a Jurassic Park topper, it unlocks my ability to go on a concert. That is hilarious. In a world where pinball art was just Photoshop garbage, one man rose to make a difference. Zombie Yeti Zombie Yeti We'd like to welcome to the show Jeremy Packer (Zombie Yeti), a.k.a. Zombie Yeti. He's a multiple Twippy Award-winning pinball artist and started out making pinball with some incredible art packages at the now-defunct Zidware and finally landing at Stern, where he's worked on Ghostbusters, Iron Maiden, Deadpool, and now Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. What kind of fucking long-winded intro is this? Fuck yeah, this is great. Outside of pinball, Jeremy has done art for a lot of companies and bands, and we're really happy to have him on the show. Welcome, Jeremy. Hey! Hello. Welcome, sir. Hi. uh so just to clear the air i actually uh only agreed to do this podcast so that i could ask uh christopher franchi why we are no longer facebook friends which as we all know is the measure of a man that's the most insulting thing you can do right now and the extent of our social skills apparently too well you know that that's a funny story i'm glad you asked because when i found out that that's why you wanted to do the show, I then felt pretty stupid about the past couple of years because I'll tell you, this is what happened. Anybody who knows me or who's been friends with me on Facebook and whatnot knows that about two years ago, I had a pinball breakdown and purged anybody pinball related off my Facebook list. And I don't even remember why, but one of the many tantrums that I've had in this industry, and Jeremy, you were one of them. You were not singled out at that point. It didn't seem so, by the way. Yeah, as weeks went by and I kind of cooled down, I started pulling people back. During that time, I was told, now I had released some artwork for Chicago Expo. Now, the story behind the Chicago Expo, unfortunately I have to give away personal details, but whatever. I was paid two nights hotel to do the artwork for the Chicago Expo last year. So anybody can figure that's about $300. Now, for $300. Oh, no, it's actually not. They get those rooms for like $50 a night. There you go. Yeah, so it's, you know, buck and a quarter, whatever. I'm not going to give my all to a job for that amount of money, so I'm going to cut corners where I can. So what I had done is I figured out I was going to do sort of a counterpart to what I had done for Pentastic and then do a sort of a retro-looking male version of a, you know, sort of a superhero, rocketeer-esque, vintage-looking superhero. This guy was more of a spaceman, though, and less of a rocketeer. But, you know, rather than sit there, you know, I was like doodling around with sketches and all that. You know, screw this. I'm just going to find a pose that I like. And I had gone on to Google, and I think I searched Superman because Superman flies and this guy flies. And I found this piece of art by Alex Ross that was a very rocketeer kind of looking pose. Superman had both of his hands down, which he usually doesn't. Somebody always puts like his fist on his chest and the other arm is extended forward. This was like, you know, chest out, both arms down. I'm like, wow, that's a great pose. I'm going to borrow that. So I did. And then shortly after that art was revealed, that art, the original Alex Ross, and I made no bones about where I got the post from and all that. I told the story. You know, like I said, you know, getting like two, three hundred bucks for it. I'm not going to bust my ass. So right when that came out, this piece of art went circulating around Pinside and all of that of the original Alex Ross art, my artwork, and then these notes that I'm just a tracer. And word came through me that that was you, Jeremy, that put that out. now okay that's so well okay that's interesting the reason why i feel stupid is because right when you said i'd love to do your podcast if i could find out why a friend she doesn't talk to me anymore i realized that wasn't true or you wouldn't have said that you would have known that you know you had did this shitty thing and that's probably why he's talking to me so now i feel like a dick because we haven't talked for two years no no no no no no well well first off uh yeah don't And actually, to go back in time to the pinball purge, I actually totally get that. And I got to that point after I did Deadpool, Iron Maiden, and Primus back-to-back. And it was, for me, and I'm sure for you as well, you put so much time and you put so much energy into these projects. And I don't think people realize how much time is actually involved. in what we do. And by the way, I'm not, listen, I'm not trying to discredit the other portions of, of, you know, design, mechanical engineering and everything else, but we're a little more out there and we get a little bit more of the, the upfront, you know, blowback out of the gate. And when you're completely exhausted and you start getting that blowback, it kind of beats you down. And I've been there and I actually make a conscious effort now to not be there. And you know how I do I avoid Pinside as much as possible. Having said that, when I have a release, I do go there, and I am curious to see how people hate. That happens to me, too. I've sworn off Pinside like two years ago. But, you know, like when, what was the last time it came out? Munsters. Munsters came out. I had to go and peek, and then I'm just like, God damn it, you know. Oh, yeah, no, there's always the vocal cue. And listen, so when it comes to, and not to segue into, you know, out of our conversation here, which, by the way, no, it will. I don't, like, I totally get it. Like, I hear stuff all the time. I was at, I think it was at Expo that I was told by someone, they're like, hey, do you want to go, I think it was maybe even to go see a movie or something. I can't even remember. A movie? I can't remember. It was a movie. And they're like, yeah, yeah, no, ask Franchi. and when he heard you were coming, he said he wasn't being good or something. And I took it with a grain of salt. I took it with a grain of salt. Like, listen, like, whatever, you know. It's like, but, again, we're cool. Don't even worry about it. Yeah, yeah. I don't recall that. But that's what I'm getting at. Like, it's like you extrapolate information, and people kind of like to go, you know, this or that. And, Ed, are you still with us here? Mm-hmm. Okay. Sorry, I was taking a drink. I just want to make sure everyone's paying attention because this is a little freckle story. I don't know if you guys noticed, but in pinball, the kids like the drama, apparently. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And if there isn't any, they create it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, yeah, no, I... Yeah, whatever. I'll step back and... I always remind people that I know everybody that pays attention to podcasts, they think that there's this big drama type hobby that we have here. Really, it's not. I mean, I'm telling you the majority of people are not into all that. They just listen to some podcasts for the entertainment of it all, but they're really not into the drama. You're right. No, I think you're right, too. I think you're right, too. I think the people that are into drama have a louder voice, though. So in that case, this comment goes to that vocal minority. I personally, and I don't know how you are, Chris, but can I call you Chris? You may. Call me Zombie Franchi. Chris is very much an introvert. He doesn't really say much. Right. I get that. I totally get that. No, for me, every project I work on, I work on like it's my last project. Like, this is probably going to be it. This is the one that people are going to go, eh, this guy's done. We don't like it. And in particular, Turtles was probably the most divisive project I've chosen personally. And I think even it's turned to a point because I was approached about some other projects and I turned them down for Turtles and I was like, why? But it's because it was something that really I knew I could add something to it. I knew I could do something, you know, as opposed to, well, for instance, Stranger Things. I'm not going to do anything fun with that Stranger Things has to be you know, all the recognizable characters, and let's be honest the next season could totally suck, and then nobody's going to like that game anyway, that's that will be right there, the next season sucks and that's going to be what does it in hey, I'm trying to help to your point though, Turtles is a timeless theme, right, that people are going to always be into, to a point I've said since you know, since day one, like I said, this is the closest thing to Ghostbusters in my mind, based on my age, you know, Turtles and Ghostbusters released within like three years of each other. I mean, you're talking like, what, 84 and 87? I mean, for me, I was still in, you know, elementary school or whatever. I mean, like, that's like, I guess, going into middle school at that point. But what? So, for me, it was really important and not to go, like, super serious and deeper and all that. But I, at the time, had experience from Maiden until the point that I started this, because I took a break as well. I had gotten to the age where, you know, family members that had been a part of my life since I was born getting to the age and they were, you know, people were getting sick, people were getting cancer, people were dying. And so I had a really like dark period leading up to and actually overlapping with Turtles. So it was really kind of a more important project for me personally than what it really deserved to be or should have been. And I only say that because coming out of it, I expected everyone to hate my decision to pay more respect than interject my own voice into it because I thought that was the right thing to do. Yeah, I mean, for you guys who are at the absolute pinnacle of the art world. That was a fun little run there, wasn't it? Should I do that again? but it's not over. Oh, shit, we're not recording. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to go seriously. I just stopped recording because it got boring. Oh, boy. Seriously, this is good, man. I mean, it's cool to know where your headspace is because a lot of people want to know that stuff. You know, what were you thinking about when you were doing a certain art package and, you know, what your influences were and that sort of thing. So do you feel like Turtles kind of, because of the loss that you had at that time, Do you feel like it was the nostalgia factor kind of bringing you back to your childhood? You're thinking about that stuff around that time that made you go that route? Or was it something else? Yeah, no, it definitely was. It definitely was. And it was one of those things where I wanted to focus on what I remembered about that time period And what I remembered about that time period whether it because of my age or whether it because of reality my perspective of that time period and what I remembered about that time period whether it because of my age or whether it because of reality my perspective of that time period was I didn have a care in the world It was just fun. The one distinction of this version of the Turtles versus every version that's come since is these guys were just having fun. There was nothing serious about this at all. In fact, the most serious, and it wasn't even that serious, This edition was obviously, despite the original comic, was the movies that came sort of during the period of these cartoons. But even at that, these cartoons remained the same. They were all lighthearted. These guys were goofy and they were having fun. And, you know, it was that point in my life where I still did not know what difficulty was. I was just having fun and not a care in the world. Is that part of the reason why you decided to go with that art package? Because the Turtles have had a lot of iterations over the years, and, you know, from very dark comic books to, you know, super cartoony now in Nickelodeon. But that was probably the most fun version of the Turtles, the 87 version. Were you involved in that decision? Well, you know, so Jody is obviously, he's the licensing guy. Jody and I are friends. We talk, and he knew I was a big fan. But having said that, it's not like I have any sway over this. What happened was, it's my understanding anyway, Nickelodeon actually came to Stern. They literally physically came and presented this license to them, which actually happens quite a bit, believe it or not. Companies come and brands come and they present to Stern. And what happened was, after that meeting, I got a text from Dwight Sullivan. and Dwight obviously, I'm assuming, talked with Jody or just knows how immature I am and said, hey, you know, we just got pitched the 87 Turtles, you know, what do you think about that? Would you be interested? And I'm like, well, yes, absolutely. Let's talk. Let me know if this will go forward. And so it sort of started from there. And then it was one of those things where as we talked more and more about the idea of it, it became way more, you know, like, yeah, this is a really good idea. everybody was excited everybody totally got it whether and john board by the way had never really been familiarized with this version of the turtles like he knew about them but at the same time you know he hadn't really you know he didn't watch cartoons at that time so right and he so he dove in and obviously chris you've worked with with john before you know when he gets into something he gets into it and and uh you know he was really really excited he loved the tone he loved the energy of it. And so, you know, it just sort of took off from there. And then, for my part, the other distinction of this version of the turtles was the fact that it was the softest visually as well. When I say that, I mean like curvilinear forms versus angular forms, which is, if you watch every iteration that followed, has been more angular to the point where the ones now, like, there's literally like, you know, they have like, you know, A few of them have like hexagonal and trapezoidal heads and things like that. And so I knew that that was going against what I like to do, and I knew that was going to be a challenge, but I also knew that it was the right way to go. And so I was uncomfortable throughout wondering if I made the right decisions because it was uncomfortable for me to kind of force myself to go out of my comfort zone, obviously. I'm 51, so I was already in high school when the Ninja Turtles came out. I liked watching some of the Ninja Turtle cartoons, but it wasn't really something that I gravitated to because I was already in high school and into cars and girls and things like that. So Ninja Turtles came after I'd already kind of grown up. But for those of you that haven't seen the toys that made us, there's a whole episode on Ninja Turtles that when I watched that, it gave me a really good appreciation of the Ninja Turtles and the whole progression. and you talk about, you know, well, I'm doing the 87 Ninja Turtles and what that means. And if you watch that show, it kind of goes through all the different changes that the Ninja Turtles made over the years. So I do think you made the right call with the art style for the Stern Ninja Turtles game. I was actually surprised, too, about the art style, right? Because they, you know, they've done a few different versions of Turtles since the 87 version. So why, I wonder why they went back to that and presented that version versus a newer one. Do you have any insight on that? I have some theories. I don't have great insight, but I have some theories that nostalgia is never a bad thing. In particular, when you look at the age of people like myself now and, say, the age of the children that people like myself might have. By the way, I'm only 24, and I'm 43. I will be 44 on the 24th of this month. and it's one of those things where I think there's just sort of these things that line up. I think the original iteration of the cartoon Turtles is what really, I mean, it's what set the path. It's what made them blow up. The comic book was, let's be honest, back then comic books weren't cool still, right? Like that was not a huge market. Not that it's ever, you know, been gigantic. No, listen. I beg to differ because I was into comic books at that time when the Turtles came out. So was I. Nerd alert! Nerd alert! Yeah, we're all nerds. What I'm getting at is comic books were not mainstream. They weren't broad back then. Like, you and I have grown up, thankfully. We're driving the car now. So it's one of those things where I think there's a lot of love and respect, and the age is kind of right from a marketing standpoint to go back to the 87 Turtles. Yeah, that's exactly right. Well, in pinball, nostalgia is king. And the benefit you get from doing that is you include, like, for example, if you did the Big Mac container-shaped turtle head of now, you'll get the kids of now who are familiar with that. But if you go old, you get all of the guys who grew up with that, plus the kids who still know that it's Ninja Turtles. It may not be the one that's on Nickelodeon right now, but it's still Ninja Turtles. So you get the best of both worlds. Yeah, I mean, that's my thing. And for me, I mean, like the first thing I thought of was the first time I walked up to the Konami arcade, four-player arcade machine of the Turtles. And, you know, I was a big gamer as much as anything else, even back in those days. And I said, man, this has got to feel like, you know, the first time I walked up and saw this Konami arcade. Like, you've got to walk up to it and go, holy crap. and push your friends out of the way and go, okay, I'm down to tell them or whoever. That was my hope anyway. Thankfully, after having some meetings, talking with Dwight, John, and we all decided on, okay, you have to be able to pick your character and you have to be able to have co-op because that's what these guys are about. They're a family. They work together. And Dwight started throwing out ideas. John started throwing out ideas. Ellie started throwing out ideas. I threw out some ideas, and I don't think, you know, anybody ever really said, no, that's bad. Because we all kind of had the same wavelength in that regard, and I think it comes through in the finished product. And before I forget, because this is always overlooked, and by the way, you guys need to have some of Chuck Ernst's team on here, if you haven't already. Joshua Joshua Clay handled all of the, he sort of oversaw all the LCD work and everything in that regard and those guys are sort of and Chris you can speak to this, they're sort of the unsung heroes, they don't really they don't get the Christopher Franchi Zombie Eddie exposure but they put in way way way too much time on everything that they do and they have a huge team of guys working on it and gals working on it too so I just wanted to throw that out there because it's always forget and nobody ever brings them up. Everyone has known about pinball artists for years and years and the .matrix display has just relatively recently in the pinball timeline gone away and now these guys are the new blood and doing the new art media, which is cool and should get more screen time, I guess. I think Ghostbusters was the last D&D that Stern did. I could be wrong, but I think other than I guess some of the home games, but I think it was the last one, and I actually cursed that. I said, God, now we're going to be in trouble. Because, especially if you're dealing with film, then it's got to be Christopher Franchi. There's no reason you can't have disparate, you know, like, hand-drawn, like, you know, versions of characters and then these movie clips, right? You can't do that. I mean, maybe you can, but I'm just saying. You can do whatever you want. But, you know, before we get balls deep into Ninja Turtles, we should go back and sort of go back in time and get up to where we are now and then move forward with the Turtles. Just edit it. Well, no, no, no. It's fine. It's fine. A little current update and then let's go back and then bring it back forward. It's a technique. It's a technique. Can you use sound effects here? Like the kind of wavy sound effects? Oh, my God. Yeah, the flashback harp sound. Yeah. And now it's 1920, and we're going to talk about Jeremy Packer (Zombie Yeti)'s past. Oh, my. All right. All right. I like it. So growing up, your dad was a big pinball fan, and you guys had the roller coaster pinball machine in your basement. Was that your first exposure to pinball, and is that what got you interested in pinball, and did you continue to stay interested? Well, actually, my first exposure was not there. My first exposure was at the bowling, you know, and my dad was on a bowling league. And Wednesday nights, my sister and I, I think my mom, she worked, she was actually, you remember back when, like, they had these, like, telephone operator type things where they had to, like, plug things in and be on? My mom did that, like, switchboard at the hospital. And so she would work evenings sometimes, and that was the night she did it. And so my dad would do this bowling league, and my sister and I would go, and we'd get to, like, stay up until, like, you know, 10 at night. And keep in mind, I'm, like, in second grade, third grade, something like that. And what we found out, because, well, I blame my sister. I'm pretty good, but she, you know, she's a little bit of a troublemaker sometimes. And she found out that the pinball machine, the little pinball machine they had, you could actually, there was a switch on the bottom of it that you could toggle it off and then back on and you would automatically get one ball skip. So when we ran out of quarters, she would basically keep doing that. She'd look around and then give it a little switch and then be like, okay, it's your turn. And so basically that was the beginning of my infatuation. And I was always interested in mechanical things. I mean, I was always taking things apart. You know, I was one of those kind of kids. and so it was one of those things where when my dad finally was able to obtain one through you know sort of strange circumstance yeah it was like the greatest thing in the world I mean did he buy this pinball machine from Jimmy Hoffa or something like what the hell was this strange circumstance no no no so we were walking one day and our dog was actually this dog came out of nowhere I already screwed up my joke this dog comes out of nowhere and this guy hits it, and I start crying, but I was actually laughing, but he thought I was crying, so he's like, hey, listen, I feel really bad about this. I got this pinball machine. Do you want it? I'm sorry. That's completely, that's a lie. This is completely untrue. It's very elaborate. Wow, that was working hard. No, that's based on a true story. Someday I'll tell you. Anyway, kids are bad. But, no, I believe it was someone he had been doing a remodel job for, and they didn't want it or they were giving it away for basically $100. It was something, you know, like very, like, oh, I can't pass this up. And where we are from and where we live, the fact that that existed is kind of strange because, you know, we're out in the middle of nowhere. There aren't a lot of, or at least back then there weren't a lot of pinball people. Now maybe there are. But, yeah, so it was not something that was expected. It was a surprise, and it actually worked for quite some time. Fortunately, I had an uncle who was a TV repairman. He was like an electrical guy. Relaxed, all right? My old man is a television repairman. He's got the ultimate set of tools. So he would come, and actually, if we ever had any issues, he'd come and I'd sit there over his shoulder, and he'd kind of show me what to do in fun times. I was pretty young. What were the games that you gravitated to and that you remember from your childhood, if any? Well, so I'm going to jump ahead out of my childhood. but actually the biggest influence on me when it comes to was I go to college, my college age, was Attack for Mars. Actually, the arcade down on OSU campus, this is back when OSU campus was nothing but bars. They actually went in, I think it was like my senior year, they went in and actually some conglomerate of people came in and cleared out. There were absolutely no bars on Ohio State campus, and they wonder why there's so many house parties and cars overturned when games get lost. Anyway, back then they actually had bars, and they also had arcades, and it was a fun time. It was socially less worries back then, probably. Not that it was natural, but I guess it is, over 20 years. So after childhood, obviously, what came next? You went to college, and then you went not for illustration, though, right? It was for something else. Film and animation, is that right? Yeah, well, actually I started off as a fine arts major, but yeah, eventually I wanted to actually work. And so they started up a time-based media studies, which was film and animation, and I decided that, you know, that was right up my alley. I never took an illustration class, and by the way, they also had comic book classes that were taught by real, you know, comics artists from the DC world and Marvel world, I never took any, partially because, number one, that's really what I wanted to do. But I always thought if I tried it and I failed that I would be miserable the rest of my life. And I don't know, I was never a very, and I still am not, but I was never a very confident individual in my ability or in anything. And so it's one of those things where I said, okay, I'm going to try to gain as much knowledge everywhere else. And one of the things I really enjoyed was film and animation. and so I thought, yeah, I can fail at this and then I can also do something else and what happened was I met my wife we were friends throughout college I didn't actually date a lot which I know is terrible in college but it was a very hard curriculum and I was distracted easily like if you missed a class where I went, if you missed a class three times in a semester, you failed it that's not college I was told that college is like you don't go to classes, but that's not the way it works. And so if anything prepared me for pinball, it was the fact that the workload was ridiculous and it was impossible. So you had to figure out how to make it look like you were getting it all done with the right amount of effort. And so, yeah, that also drove me to tremendous anxiety by the time I graduated, but whatever. That's why I tell kids, don't go to school. I'm serious about that, by the way, too. I didn't go. So at what point did you transition into the pinball world? I mean, how did you land your first pinball art package job? So, okay, I'll make this really quick because it's really boring, and I don't like to go into it too much. But so when I graduated from college, my wife and I decided to, you know, get married and make it a great girl and all that good stuff. She wasn't my wife then. I shouldn't call her. Anyway, so I decided to take a job that summer that I graduated. I went and applied at a toy company called Resource Toys, which I don't know if anyone remembers, but they dealt with video game toys. Obviously, as a big gamer, that was a huge draw. I'm like, oh, they're right here in town. It was actually started by someone who went to the same college I did, alumni, and there were a lot of people that worked there. And I'm like, oh, I want to go work there. I like toys. It would be fun. And, you know, I go there. And needless to say, they're like, oh, well, you know, we kind of want to sell stuff online. And, you know, you seem like you're kind of a nerd. Do you know, like, you know, HTML and all that sort of crap? And I'm like, yes, I do. Now, I didn't, but I was a very quick learner. And I did know some coding language, basic, and some other stuff. enough and I was very good with computers and I'm like I can figure this out so within a weekend I went through a book and then within I faked it and then within I don't know probably six months you know the team that we had had sort of started putting stuff together and they decided to spin it off into its own company dot com world introduce millions of dollars and you know leverage it to other small to mid sized companies because at that time nobody really everyone was afraid to sell online and no one knew how to do it and so we said hey just give us some of your product we'll market it we'll give you a website we'll handle the sales customer service you name it blah blah it was actually a really interesting business model um and and then uh and it worked one of our first clients actually was you remember uh arrow bed when they used to have those terrible infomercials yes yeah That was us. That was us. Anyway. And so, I used to have a lot of Aerobats. Anyway, we would see fun at work. But, yeah, so from there, what happened was tragic, and people who were greedy took lots of money and left everyone literally a month before Christmas. And, boy, I don't want to go into it. So it was fun. And from there I decided I want to work in the non-for-profit space because corporations are evil and people are greedy and I want to help people. And then I was creating content management. This was before WordPress existed. Custom content management for, you know, non-profit organizations so that they could communicate and handle their dues and all of their members. And what happened was we found out. I don't know if you guys know this or not. Are you guys part of any nonprofits? I'm not. This is my career. Hey, Rim Shop. It turns out they're ten times worse than for-profits because what they do is try to get the most amount of money, and instead of making a profit, they give it to each other. It's pretty stupid. And listen, I'm sure there's some good ones out there. Don't get me wrong. But I've seen enough to be cynical enough to think better than that. But anyway, yeah, and so that went on for a while until I said, you know what, this is ridiculous. I started having some health problems. What came out of that, my wife and I, we had just had our first daughter. We had just bought our first house, and, you know, the other company had collapsed, and it was very stressful, and I started having some health issues as a result. And I said, you know what, there's nothing keeping us here. And I had some family that was having some more serious health issues than me, and my grandfather had a aortic aneurysm, and they gave him like a 5% chance of survival. And there was a, it's a long story, but needless to say, he said, you know what, let's see about, you know, going back and move back. and I actually was working with my parents with their business, you know, building countertops and cabinets and installing and all kinds of stuff. And I said, you know what, I'm just going to take a break from this other world. And what happened was an old friend from high school who had a local .com business. He was like, I heard you got some skills here. Would you want to come and do some work? And I said, eh, maybe a little bit here and there. I'll, you know, do a little bit. And yes, eventually I became creative director there. But I was, at that point, I had had enough. It was kind of mind-numbing. And I had an old friend from seventh grade reach out to me, a guy by the name of Joshua Smith. He goes by Hydro74, if you look him up online. And he was someone who now is a very successful designer and illustrator. And he was just reaching out, I think, to tell me how successful he was. But he was, honestly, he was, you know, he reached out and gave me this nice little story and talked about how I sort of encouraged him to get into that work because he always, you know, so in seventh grade, he'd steal my sketchbooks all the time, my notebooks, all my drawings, and then, like, you know, look through them, and I hated that. I didn't want people to see whatever I did. But he was always inspired by it, and so he said he'd always look for me, And, you know, every time he went to a comic book store, he's like, oh, I'm looking, I'm going to see your work here. And I, you know, I haven't seen it and, you know, what's going on. And I just sort of told him where I was. And he's like, well, so do you enjoy what you're doing? And I said, not really. And he's like, well, you know, why don't you start drawing stuff? And I hadn't picked up a pencil in probably 10 years. And he actually hired me to do something for him. And I ended up doing it and going, holy crap. Now that I've had all of this life experience and this experience in the professional world outside of this, I'm no longer this 13-year-old aimlessly drawing. I actually have purpose to my work, and I have a more analytical eye. I'm not saying I was terrible before, but for some reason, everything just clicked. He started posting some of my stuff online. I started creating sort of an identity online. And I never wanted to use my name, by the way, because, again, Jeremy Packer (Zombie Yeti) is too many syllables. It's not interesting. And so I thought I could be a total, you know, jackass and go by a pseudonym, and then I could just be fun. And, you know, because by nature, I'm a very boring guy. And what happened was people responded, and companies out there started asking me to do things. And little by little, I got more work, I got more work. And so I had a portfolio out there. I still had a day job as a creative director at a software company. I put a portfolio out on a small portfolio site. And all I can imagine, John Papadiuk searched for zombie illustrators, and he looked within the vicinity, you know, close range of his location in Chicago. And that's all I can figure out because he messaged me and wondered if I would be interested in talking about a project. And at that time, you know, I had like three pieces in my portfolio, but one of them was to this day still considered fairly iconic in different spaces, which was the zombie woodpecker. It's a zombie with a woodpecker on his head. And I did, you know, it's like he's blue with yellow eyes, things like that. At that time when I did that, that kind of trend and all that kind of stuff, I guess it wasn't really there. So it stood out, I don't know, got his attention, and we talked. And he actually invited me up to meet after, you know, I did an initial sketch. And it was basically, he was hiring me to do the Ben Peck zombie adventure learning game, which eventually became what is now known as Raza, because whatever reason Ben left the project, I honestly, I don't know a lot. I was kept in the dark on all of that stuff. That's fine. And so that's sort of how it started. And by the way, I just want to say right now, I've had, you know, a little bit of animosity over the years hearing you hear about that whole era and stuff. I actually thank John. And I want to thank John. John, if you're out there listening to this, and you're probably not. Do you ever feel like no one's listening to you? I do want to thank you because, and this is going to sound like, you know, a backhanded compliment. But by working with you, I was able to streamline my workflow and create a workflow that could account for literally the largest amount of change-ups known to man at any given time. So, like, you know, I do everything as a giant illustration. Like, I don't create elements and then put them together. Like, my playfields are giant illustrations, which is dumb, I think. but at the same time it's sort of why they look the way they do and whether that's good or bad i don't know but with him i learned how to prepare for changes and i'm talking no matter how solidified i've had things no matter how much i would be able to be prepared for the worst at any given time now that sounds bad sounds like a uh you know again a backhanded compliment it's Not that. I actually, in hindsight, am very glad for it because it makes some of the changes that come at the 11th hour on certain projects seem like a cake. Yeah. It makes sense. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it's obviously, you know, some of the hardest stuff that you go through changes you, you know, and in this case it was for the better. But you also, when you were there, you created some of the most iconic pinball art that's really ever been done with Magic Girl and Raza and Alice in Wonderland and all the stuff that we've seen from you that came out of that gig, even though it never materialized into anything really. That was dumb luck. I was still finding my way and trying to figure out my approach as an illustrator, like who I was, what I was. I kind of looked at it like sort of this side closet gig. Like, everything else I was doing was, like, for the music industry, and a lot of it was a little darker. And by the way, that's why people who follow me in social spaces, like, I have this huge divide amongst people who hate everything I do that's not really dark. And then people who hate everything that's dark, but only like the pin, right? I mean, so that's my own problem. But I only kind of bring it up because at the time when I was working on that stuff for John, I was trying to do the best work I could possibly do for him. But it was almost like this dual identity thing where, like, you know, everything else I was doing was different. Now, when I was working with him, again, I still had a day job. It really wasn't until I think probably 2014, 2015, somewhere around there, that I was able to walk away from my day job and sort of, you know, be my own boss, which I'm not good at, I found. Chris, are you good at it? I'm not really good. I'm fucking awful at it. And I better get real good at it real fast because up until three months ago, I had a day job, and now I don't. Oh, are you serious? I did not know. Oh, yeah. I worked for Zynga, which is a game for your phone and shit. I worked for them up until February, end of February. Was that a choice or was that COVID-related? I can't remember. No, I left. It's a long story, but basically you change teams as you finish projects. And on the last team I was on, I just couldn't click with them, didn't like them, wanted out. They agreed, so we just parted ways. And I actually got a new job a couple weeks later, and then COVID hit, and that got yanked away. I was fortunate that Turtles was in the 11th hour during the whole COVID thing, and I actually was on another project that started in January. So I was very fortunate. Nothing really changed for me for the most part. Now, I was expecting it to every week that went on. I'm like, one of these weeks it's going to be like, okay, we're going to go ahead and furlough you for a little bit and, you know, move along. And fortunately, timing worked out, and I'm thankful for that. How did that work, Jeremy? So you had finished Turtles. When we had talked in November, you had told me that you were in, like, crunch time for a project, and I assumed that that was Turtles. It was. Technically, I don't know how much I want to say. So what happened was there was another project that the licensor had requested me for, and I wanted to do it, but it needed to start in, like, July, and there was no way that was going to happen. And so I talked with, you know, I looked at the schedule. I talked with George Gomez, and I talked with Danielle, who's project management. She's the one everybody loves because she has all the dates. She has the worst job because she has to tell people they're behind. Oh, gotcha. She's the whip cracker. Yeah, she is. And so I said, I took a look at it and I said, listen, if we can push these things out, you know, six weeks, eight weeks, whatever. I said, I can actually start. And then, you know, I could, by the time this is all done, blah, blah, blah. And they're like, nah, it can't happen. Anyway, so they tried to get somebody else in there. The licensor wanted nothing to do with anyone. They kept saying no, no, no. And then finally, it got close enough that over the holidays, George Jonas and I had a conversation. George was like, you know, really, you think you could do this? I'd really like you, you know, if you could do this because I don't seem to be happy with anyone. And I said, okay, I can. I said, I'll try to get everything done as far as I can, and then I can start in January. I can start sketches, whatever. And so just because it didn't start but was supposed to start in July and didn't start until January, they pretended like it still started in July. So I'm literally, like, finishing that up now, I might. But the important thing is that I forgot to leave, because I kind of left this out. My daughter, Paley Packer, she is, she's going to be 20 in July. She actually missed out on a window to start college because her senior year, she had a tennis ball-sized tumor removed from an ovary. She had a terrible, terrible year. And, by the way, they literally told us that it was cancerous. I mean, it was like the worst thing in the world. It turned out to be the most bizarre, rare, it's called a fibro-thetoma. So it basically has a hard outer shell. And so that's why all the scans were saying this is bad. But it actually, it turned out it was okay. but she had probably almost a year of testing for them to even find it and realize what was going on. It was growing that whole time and then finally it gets big enough and they're like, oh yeah, we got it. Anyway, long story short, I discouraged her. I tried to make her feel good about not being able to start college right out of her senior year and I discouraged her from going the next year and said, listen, she's a very talented artist. I said, I will intern you. I will try to pass on whatever information but you're going to do things your way, you're not going to do things my way, but I'm going to try to help you kind of prepare for the real world. Because I look at it now like, again, college all it did was teach me how to deal with workload and not so much technique. That was all sort of self-taught. And so it's one of those things where, long story short, I got her involved and actually on Turtles, she actually inked and colored one piece, a large piece I might add, that is going to go on top of the machine. And I'm laughing. It's a joke. It's not true. It's not true. I'm on pin side right now. I'm joking. I'm joking. I'm joking. You had mentioned that she was working on that project with you when we talked. And then, I mean, you didn't obviously give me details, but that's, did she work on turtles itself? Yeah. So I had her experiment. And again, throughout the process, I would take her with me pre-COVID. She would actually go to meetings with me at CERN on the project. and I wanted to take her through the whole thing because I wanted her to see, you know, like, are you sure you want this career? So I had her do a lot of early on I would have her sort of do some sketches and concepts for different things. You know, some stuff, you know, we'd kind of meet together on it and be like, what do you think about this? What do you think about that? And so, you know, we have, obviously, she's learning, she's growing. We have different sensibilities. But there's a few things that, you know, and actually some little things and some big things that she had an impact on in regards to even just ideas on the project, which is really cool to me. I'm excited about it, and I'm happy that I could share that experience with her. And the topper, I'm told, everyone said it looked like I did it. And I'm like, well, son of a bitch, I guess I'm out of work. I did very tight pencils and I instructed her and directed her very carefully so she's nothing without music does she have a zombie snowflake? no right now she kind of has she's on Instagram she's doodle s'mores believe it or not polar opposite of me dude what an awesome story that not only is she healthy and she's not dealing with a health issue now but that she helped you with this project and you guys got to do it together. That's really cool. That is cool. Yeah, no, it's awesome. I couldn't have asked for a better outcome. Everything just sort of, you know, obviously I'm not going to bore you with enough details. I'm not going to bore you with all the details, but everything worked out. And so she was able to help me as we moved on. And actually she's done a few elements and things on the current project as well, which is cool. So, I mean, at what point is she going to be hired by Stern? I mean, it sounds like it's inevitable at this point. Well, I don't know. You know, like, listen, I, you know, I would not want to throw her off that bridge. No, no, no. And I don't mean that in a bad way. I'm just saying, and Chris, I think you can vouch for me. Again, the amount of work, and this brings me to something interesting, too. Like, I've got a lot of illustrator friends, you know, in different worlds that are like, oh, man, I would love to do pinball and this, that, and the other. And who wouldn't, right? But I don't know that anyone has any idea what they're in for when they get to it. And that's, again, why I was thanking John Papadiuk for the time, because he prepared me for the worst, which makes everything seem to be a sound bill. That's why we love Kaneda, Jeremy, because he says, hey, Stern, just go on DeviantArt and grab any old artist. There's plenty out there, and they can all do the job. I've actually talked and explained the time frame. So let me explain one thing, and I think, Chris, you can probably speak to this as well. When you are a freelancer, when you are living sort of project to project, the perfect scenario is you have a retainer with a handful of trusty clients. So you know you're going to get money, right? Well, that's not really the case for most freelancers. And so what happens is you are only as valuable as your availability. Anyone out there who has, by the way, in the pinball community, asked me to do a logo or a T-shirt knows my availability is awful, and I apologize. But is that next question off my list? Sorry. No, well, that's, yeah, I could go into detail there. I feel terrible. But anyway, when you start working on one of these projects, you are probably going to have, and Chris, tell me if I'm wrong, and the way I do things in particular, I'm going to have to have at least seven solid months where I'm just working on this project for sure. I can't I'm talking evenings, I'm talking weekends, that's just the way it is and that as a freelancer if that happens and you don't have something lined up after that you've lost all those people you had before because they found someone else who was available so it's not a great position to be in. As a matter of fact that's why I was going to walk away from pinball after Iron Maiden was because I like I can deal with this And it was so stressed out I just like you know what I can But you know I had a great conversation with George Gomez who talked me off the ledge sort of. And then I talked with Greg and he slowly pulled the gun away from my head. And eventually, you know, I'm like, OK, I've got to shit or get off the pot. either I'm going to go ahead and do this or I'm not going to do it. And I decided I think I'm actually pretty good when I work on these projects. I think I'm not saying the projects are good. I'm not saying that I'm great. I'm saying that I think I do some of my best work in a larger scale like this than, you know, like when I do gig posters and stuff, those are like, I mean, those are bite-sized meals. And I love them. I absolutely love them. But it's a different beast altogether. This puts a lot more of my brain to work. What we do is problem solve, the creative problem solve, right? Problem is you've got a lot of space to fill, and you've got to make it look cool. And so I like that, and I enjoy it. I don't know that it's for everyone. Listen, there are some insanely talented artists who are way better than me that I would love to see do pinball. But I can tell you right now when I talk to a lot of these people, they're like what seven months eight months like no way like I can't do that like I have I have other things to do it's interesting to me though that you say that it's it that's a stress for you because I would think as an artist at Stern knowing that as soon as you're done with one gig you're going to get another having a steady stream of work would be a good thing but you're saying that this the stress of getting other gig offers and not being able to do those is not awesome for you. I didn't realize that. I get to turn down cool stuff. And by the way, I'm risking my entire career every time. And I get further away from the people that I worked with outside of Stern. You know, that for me, like, because I only work with people I can have like a real respect and human interaction and relationship with. Like, I'm not the type of guy who will take on a project just because it's a cool project. Like, I've got to be able to be understood and understand what's expected. And that's, again, that comes from I used to work in construction, things like that. Like I'm used to getting handshakes and stuff like that, which is whatever. So yeah, it's hard to be a freelance. I mean, Chris will tell you, it's not easy. And so every time you make a decision and you're putting something to the side, you have to question, did I make the right decision? And keep in mind, I'm a contract worker. I'm freelance with CERN. I'm not a part concern. I don't, you know, they've been nice enough to say, listen, we've got this coming up if you want to do it. But listen, this could be, you know, there's going to come a point in time again where like, you know, when I'm done with a project, you're going to have a bunch of licenses that aren't for me. And I'm not going to just take one to take one to get paid. I got to do something that I believe in and can do. I mean, so. That's interesting because you have people who I guess come to you with these IPs and they say, hey, would you do this? I guess that the game designer gets to choose who the artist is, is what I understand it's turned. So are people knocking on your door frequently and saying, hey, we'd like you for this gig? Or are you going and looking at the IP list and saying, that's the one I want to do? Well, obviously, in conversation, like there's times where I've had conversations with, you know, say like Greg, and you know, Greg's like, oh, yeah, we got this coming up. And, and if something jumps out, I'll be like, oh, I would love to do that. I don't know that I've ever been available in those cases, because usually he's talking about stuff that's going to be in overlap. But, no, Steve Ritchie has asked me to be a part of his projects quite a few times. I think, actually, I could be remembering, but I think we actually had a conversation at Star Wars way back when, when I was maybe still on, you know, I can't even remember now. I think it was early Deadpool days before Deadpool got scrapped and renamed. Well, it's a shame you didn't work that out. No, you know what? Listen, I was approached about doing the comic book version of it. I turned it down. One of the things I turned it down for, for Turtles, was because I don't think that, and by the way, I think Randy Martinez did a stellar job, and he did great. I don't think it's something that I can add to. I don't think it's anything that I can. I've been fortunate. The projects that I choose, I've been fortunate enough to get buy-in from the licensor, and I'll do sort of rough preliminaries to get that buy-in so that they trust me and so that they are on board with the direction we'll go. And that's not always easy. I've been fortunate that it's worked so far every time. It's not always going to be that. I mean, it's not. I know that. And so, like in the case of Nickelodeon with Turtles, they were so happy that they actually reached out to me directly last October, November, and I'm now on their payroll, so to speak. Wow. That's cool. Congratulations. Yeah, that's great. I mean, who knows if I'll do something. But at the same time, it's a validation piece. And I go, well, that's awesome. And my kids actually, it's something my kids can respond to. And I go, we're familiar with that brand. Is that just turtle related or is that just like a movie? Just turtle related as far as I know. At least the people that I'm dealing with. It's just turtle. We did kind of ask the zombie yeti a question on our Facebook page. And Brian Costner, and I'm sure you've never been asked this question before. How did you get the name zombie yeti? When did you first go by the name Zombie Eddie, and is it true that your wife gave you that name because of your incredibly large, I mean, I'm sorry, because of how you walked? Partially correct. It was somewhat given to me by my wife, but it had more to do with the fact that as I was trying to build an illustration career, I was working my day job and then coming home and doing illustration at night. And anyone who knows me knows, again, I tell you, it's boring. I'm not a night owl. I'm a morning person. I love daylight. I was literally a zombie because of my lack of sleep because I was staying up so late. And then there was, I remember one gig I did, I pulled an all-nighter. And I got to be honest with you, the pay wasn't that great. The opportunity wasn't that great. But if I commit to something, I'm going to do it. And I went to my day job the next day. I come home, thankfully, it was a Friday. And to recover, it took me like, I don't know, you never recover from lack of sleep, do you? I mean, for you youngsters out there, after you turn 40, an all-nighter really hurts. I'll tell you, after a 24-hour call shift, man, I am struggling. And only like five years ago, I wasn't that way. I could just bounce back. But now, not so much. I would like to be an inspiration for the older generation. Eight hours a day and I'm done. I sleep 16 and I'm up eight. In those eight hours, he's drinking. I still run construction schedule I'm up 6am and moving so like I get up at like 5.30 you know I sit down and have coffee which by the way I only drink one cup of coffee a day and it's only because I'm told that's what adults are supposed to do I don't even like it I don't even enjoy it I'm up at 6am too but I just take a piss and go back to bed because I can't hold it any longer Oh, yeah, that's another thing as you go. Do you want me to tell you the story about the last time I went to the doctor? Yes, we do. I'm making it quick and painful. That's what he said to me. Oh, yeah, yeah, you've reached that age, right? The bend over and cough kind of thing. So my grandfather had prostate cancer. And so this doctor that I'm going to now, my grandfather, my father, he's ready to retire, I should add, too. And I think he kind of thinks I'm cute. Anyway, so I had blood work done because I have some medications and stuff that I take, and they keep an eye on my liver, all that good stuff, right, which is normal. And so I had just gone in the day before for the blood work. I was coming for the checkup this day, the day after. He goes, well, you know, I see here that your dad's had prostate surgery and your grandfather had the prostate cancer. you're at the age where perhaps we should maybe look into that you know we can do that with blood work nowadays and i go you can yeah we just take blood out of your asshole no he goes he goes do you want me to do that and i'm like absolutely yes if you can do it with blood that sounds great i'm better safe than sorry i always say right uh he took my biggest fear i don't know if you guys have this fear my biggest fear in life is dying and so i'm like go for it and he goes ahead and he goes out of the room, he comes back in, and he walks over and he starts putting a glove on and he goes, ah, I guess the blood work, I guess it's too late for that. So, here, come over here. Oh, no. You were too far in at that point. Well, no, he was. But no, I'm not going to go into details, but I will just say, I came home and my wife was like, you're white as a ghost. And I go, you have no idea. and it took me days to recover from that. I don't even know how to describe it, but I was not prepared is what I'm getting at. The good news is this. If you're worried about that, is that prostate cancer is something that you usually die with and not from. It's a very indolent, slow process. That's fantastic. That makes you so much better. No, you honestly wouldn't. It's very, very rare to see someone actually die from prostate cancer. Oh, that's great. That is good to know. I've got a few other issues I'd like to know I'll hit you up with any health questions just shoot me a text Do you dare to call me a jacker? That's just a train So let's move on So you did wear what was awesome for you obviously but you did create some really great stuff there and I know that now that you've been at CERN you've made some really amazing art packages people are very excited about what you've done with Ghostbusters, I Am, Deadpool, Primus So you have said in the past that you put a ton of pressure on yourself to make each game better than your last one. So in general, how long does this usually take you to do an art package for a game? Let me clarify. When I say make it better, I also include make it different than the last one. So I actually do. I only throw that out there because I think sometimes I hurt myself by forcing the different parts. And other people can probably say whether that's true or not. I don't know. I just know that sometimes, for instance, on Turtles, I'll just give you an example, because Deadpool was so dark. And when I say dark, I mean the play field itself because of, you know, Deadpool as a character has, you know, he's got dark elements on him and we have a giant Deadpool in the center. And, you know, a lot of the character stuff there was it printed very dark. It became very dark for me. I went out of my way to leave a lot of light and a lot of space in what I call sort of the middle, the throat of the play field on Turtles. Okay, so I'll just throw that out there as an example. Stupid little things like that that I say, okay, I'm going to try to respond to this critique that I've given myself and make a new one of it, and let's see if it works. And if nobody says it doesn't, then we move on. And so I started Turtles officially in March of 2019. I was unofficially done by the week of Christmas, I guess. So, yeah, I mean, you know, do the math. But, yeah, it's an investment of time. And I try to pad in enough time to be able to experiment because I have this really, and by the way, 90% of my problem is like mental. It's like OCD. I don't know what it is. And Chris, you might be the same way. But every time I come up with a solution or an answer, whenever I do a sketch or a concept for a back glass, I will literally set it aside, move on to the next thing, and then I will come back to it and I'll find at least one, if not a handful of things that I go, I think I can push that a little further. And I'll go ahead and like, whether it's, you know, an angle on something. As a matter of fact, I'll give you a great example. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Look at the back glasses. The pro was the first sketch I ever did. Pro back glass. It was the first sketch I ever did for the project. And I created that grouping of turtles, and I liked it. Nice grouping. But I always felt like it was too flat. It was too static. And so by the time I got to what is now the premium, which at that time I didn't know if it was the premium or the LE in my mind, when I got to that one, I said, you know what? I've got to push these angles. I've got to get something that's just a little more interesting. There's more space involved because I felt like I had it so cramped on the first. That was talking me out of the pro. No, listen, actually, here's the thing, though. Because I forced myself to do that, it doesn't mean I always make the best decisions because I still think the pro is the strongest. But I think the premium is the most dynamic. And then the LE is like there's just so much there. I couldn't really push things too far because it's already going to be a hard read by putting that much information into it. And listen, I don't know if you heard this or not, but I've been accused a few times of cramping things and overpopulating things. And so I'll be darned if I'm going to feed Pinside. No, listen, I'll own that. I don't care. You guys are paying good money for these things. I'm going to cram them. I find that it seems always to be true no matter what happens, if we just knock off like three back glasses or if you come back and you change a third one to something different. I don't know how you do your work or whatever, but however the order happens, I always seem to find that my first design is always the best. Do you feel the same with your work? Most of the time, yes, and I'll tell you why. because there's only ever, as an artist, there's only ever one great idea that strikes you when you're forced to do three. Meaning, you always have a favorite. You always have best, better, and okay, or whatever. You know what I mean? And that doesn't mean that they're not all great, but it means that in your head, it's impossible to equate them at the same level. And so I'm with you on that, where I think the first version of almost everything that I've done is probably considered the favorite in a lot of ways. And by the way, it's not always the pro. But many times it is, because I kind of try to deal with the pro as this has got to be the one that is going to appeal to the broadest base. And then I look at the premium and the LE as like, these are the diehards. so I need to give them something that's a little more, you know, like winky. You know, like for instance, on the premium on this one, my proudest crowning achievement and why I should walk away from pinball after turtles is I've got the Palabunga is meme on the side cabinet in a newspaper clipping. And I never thought Nickelodeon would allow that through. And they did. And as a huge memer with kids who are huge memers and whatever, I thought, hey, that's instant viral marketing. As a matter of fact, I'm going to drop that on Reddit somewhere. That's cool. Anyway. Yeah, so, sure. I agree with you, man, wholeheartedly. It's impossible to love them all, and usually your first idea is the one you've digested on the pulse. Yeah. I've graduated to that when I deal with my clients on different things. I'll always say, like, I'd give you three sketches, but I don't see the point because the first one's going to be the one you pick. Well, for you guys both, I mean, for Chris and Jeremy, do you think that you would prefer to do just one art package and get all of it into one and do it the best you can? Or do you like the creative outlet of doing different versions of one game? I'll let Chris go first, but I do have an answer. I think I'd rather do three because it's more money. Money, money, money. That is a factor. That is a factor. So there's that. No, because it's fun to try different things. It gives you the ability because nothing's locked down. You don't say, all right, I'm drawing the pro. You just do a backlash. You just do a cabinet design. You know, I kind of sort all that stuff out. Whether I want to design something that ties in, you know, to the backlash or not, you know, I just usually kind of tend to look at what I've done and either I'll say, okay, well, I got a good idea for, you know, a cabinet for this one. or I'll say this goes great with this. So it's fun to know that if you come up with five ideas and three of them are really cool, that they're still going to get used. You're not throwing it in the trash, a lot of cool work and a lot of good ideas because you can only narrow it down to one. So for that reason, I think I enjoy doing more than one. Listen, I enjoy it. Don't get me wrong. But I do, I think when I approached Ghostbusters, I may have had, and this is not going to work for every case, but I may have had the best approach to three back glass trans light that I've done yet, in that we knew that we were going to have problems getting responses from the actors and the estates for the human characters. So we kind of said, well, let's see if we can just kind of get that done once, and then we'll move on. So I came up with this idea from the start of the main grouping and then vignetting around it and changing those elements. Nice grouping. The only reason why I say that I think that's actually good and I would love to be able to get away with it again is because I was able to put more time into that central grouping. Like when it comes to the actual craft of it, I was able to put more time into it because I wasn't going to, you know, that's like, what, at least a good, you know, two, almost, not quite two thirds of the space is that central area. And then the rest is changed out, you know, depending on which version it is. For me, I like to be able to really flesh out an idea. And so I enjoyed the ability to focus the energy in one spot there and then sort of elaborate on the other stuff. Again, not every license is going to allow for that. The Turtles would have been one that could have, but at the same time, it wouldn't have fit. And let's be honest, with the Turtles, and I made myself miserable on it, you know, these are not humans. There are a lot of characters here. And I will say this, I'm not a comic book artist. I'm really not. I would love to be. And actually, one of these days, I do have a really strange graphic novel that I've been simmering on since I was in high school that I would love to actually do something with. I don't know if that will ever happen because I have to make money. But who knows? Who knows? But I always say that because, you know, maybe it's in me, and I just, as long as I keep thinking I don't have it, I'll keep trying harder. I don't know. But creating compositions from scratch with tons of characters, and when I say tons, I mean more than a handful, that's a challenge. It's definitely a challenge, and I don't know how well I pull it off all the time, but I try really hard, and hopefully that comes across at least. Absolutely. I mean, would you guys ever think that it would be a good idea to get a license that maybe you just do one version of it and then another artist do another version so that the pro premium and LE are all done by different artists? Or do you feel very territorial about that license because you're involved in it and you just want to do all three of them? I've been an advocate for the first. I've talked to a few people publicly about how cool it would be to do different art packages by different people. Yeah, I talked about it long ago as well. I think it would be interesting. Here's the interesting part of it, but here's why it will never happen. The interesting part of it is you then have different versions that appeal to different people, right, based on the art style. Here's why it will never happen is because the different versions of the game are meant to not be equal. Meaning in a perfect space, you know, you would have three games that are somewhat equal, and then you just get to pick based on the art package. Instead, the differentiator needs to be the mechanical or the addition, whatever it is, so you kind of can't get away with that. That's the argument that I've sort of heard it, and I actually agree with to a point. I go, okay, that makes sense. Having said that, I think one of these days it's got to happen. I mean, it probably will. Hey, guys. Hey, it's Jeff Pules here, and I was just wondering if I could add a few things here. I was just thinking about a couple of comments, maybe a few questions. I was wondering... Fucking Teolas. Goddamn Canadians. Anyway. Well, so let me bring this one up. What about the fact that you've got artists now doing, you know, their own versions of backglasses out there? Right. You know, like sort of these reimaginings and stuff like that. All I ask is this. Wait until I'm dead. Anyway. Yeah. I respect that. Until I'm dead. No, I don't. I've not seen one for a game that I've done yet, and I pray that I don't because I'm just going to, like, you know, go on Facebook and go, hey, fucker, what the hell is wrong with mine? That's the reason you guys say that. Yeah. You would take that personally. No, I would. Listen, I really wouldn't. It just, honestly, I'm saying that sort of tongue-in-cheek joking, but at the same time, you go, you know, I put so much effort into this. The fact that somebody thinks they have to reinvent it means that I didn't please them. Well, see, that's why you do what I do, Jeremy, and you do back glasses for games that never happened. Like I just did one for Jaws a couple months ago. I saw it. I saw it. It was beautiful. Thank you. Yeah, I don't think it will ever happen. I know it hasn't happened yet. So that way you're not stepping on anybody. You're just kind of doing your own thing. Who thinks you could make a game without the license that involves the shark and it's going to be just as hot as if it were actually Jaws. But that's the thing. Yeah. Well, yeah, because I know things are different. Like, I have seen action figures. Like, they're coming out with an action figure of Captain Quinn and Brody. Apparently Richard Richard Dreyfuss will not sign off on anything. But the thing with Jaws is for pinball has always been all you get is the name Jaws and the shark. And I always thought, like, well, why don't you just do a fucking shark week? You know, if all you're going to do is a shark. And what's a shark? Sharks is just a fucking silver tube. Like, how many different ways can you draw a shark to have a whole, just a shark-themed game that doesn't have other people and different things in it? You know, I just, I thought about it. Like, if I had designed a Jaws game and I could only use the shark, how lame would that be? Like, okay, he's turning right. He's turning left. He's going straight up. He's eating people. He's eating this person. He's eating that person. Yeah, you got to, you basically, the entire play field is a beachfront with lots of swimmers trying to escape and get back to land. Right? I mean, like, yeah, I'm with you on that. How many pinball people can we sneak into that beach scene? Well, I was going to transition to, frankly, stepping on stuff, and I wanted to ask about the Twippy Award that was stepped on that was your Twippy. And apparently you were in on this joke, but we've never heard your side of the story. We heard Chris explain how this all went down, But did you know that your Twippy was going to get stomped at the 2018 Twippy Awards? Well, so, okay, so I have to, full disclosure here. When this was all going on, remember I told you about after Iron Maiden, there was a lot of personal crisis going on? Yeah. I was literally, I think, Chris, we had some back and forth, and I honestly can't remember it, so I'm not really good at the timing of it. But I know that every time that we were sort of messaging back and forth, I was usually at the hospital, and I know that you were like, you know, I've got this plan, I've got this, that, and then you said something about, at one point you said something about you can't, this is, by the way, my memory of it, that you were getting a duplicate Twippy or something like that from Jeff. So I know it's in the message because I went back to it, that you were going to, like, destroy it. But at the time, I'm going back and forth. So I literally had surprise when it happened. um, and I have to go back in the messages because I'm like, okay, I knew he was going to do something here. Like, you know, like, and I, you know, cause I told you, I've got to go up there and say, accept it, you know, do what you want. And, and, but I honestly, because of the, the fact that I was never, for one thing, I was never relaxed and in one good space, I was always skimming messages when I would get them and I would be like distracted by someone coming by this, that, and the other. And so it was honestly, for me, it was just as much of a surprise for anyone to a point. I knew you were going to do something, but I didn't know what. And then the worst part about it is I never got my Twippy. Oh, no. I was going to ask you. I mean, that's one of my questions. So many Twippies that day. Where did these Twippies go? I think it's in someone's office. I really don't care. As a matter of fact, just for clarification. The one I stomped was blank. It didn't say anything. You know, he just got a bear trophies that I could break. Oh, nice. Do you know about Jeff and I's connection? Jeff's dad was a teacher at my high school. Jeff has a question for you I'd like to pass on. Jeff would like to know how Mrs. Arnold taught you how to draw so well when he can only draw stick figures. Okay, that's a fantastic question. And it also, unfortunately, has had a lasting effect on me as a human being. I was despised by my art teacher. She hated me. So she didn't teach me anything. The only thing she taught me was that she was a bitch. I can now see the peak of your power. Well, I'm only beginning to tap into mine. I can say that. That sounds terrible. But let me just tell you what happened. So what happened was we started off on the wrong foot. I was a little bit of a, my senior year, I was voted class clown. Now, I think they wanted to give me, like, you know, best looking, but they felt bad for this other kid who was very good looking. So they gave me class class. You know, I was like a jokester. I was, you know, always kind of cracking wise, as they say. And she did not like that because I could get the class's attention much quicker than she could. And when it came to the projects, whenever there was an open-ended project, that I would do something that interested me, like I would do something that was maybe more comic style, maybe something a little darker, I remember. And just to give you the full spectrum here, my senior year, everyone who was in art classes, senior year, had to put up a wall. It was essentially a senior show for art. They had to put up a wall. And she was the type of person who said, you have to fill out this form. there has to be a name for all of your pieces. And I'm like, that's the most pretentious thing in the world. Like I'm, you know, to this day, by the way, I take art very seriously, but I am not in any way, shape, or form do I think that my art is going to change the world or should. I'm here to entertain. And so I subtitled every, I gave me these ridiculous names, and I subtitled every one of them in parentheses, apply for help. my parents were called in by the guidance because they went up and my parents they laughed their heads off because obviously they knew me and obviously they knew this was a joke and how I felt about the whole thing but that's how my art teacher never understood me she didn't get that she really wanted me to be in trouble a lot of times because she didn't felt like I respected her in hindsight I probably didn't and I probably did act like a total ass. So, you know, now as an adult, I can look back on it and go, well, she probably had her reasons, and I probably gave them to her. But at the same time, for me, it was crushing. She actually threatened to call when I got my senior year, when I got accepted to some colleges, I got scholarships. She threatened to call every one of them and tell them I didn't deserve the scholarship. Wow. Just that personal, you know. Well, we here at the Super Awesome Pinball Show would like to provide you with the time that you need to apologize to Ms. Arnold publicly, whether she's six feet under or six feet over. I'm not sure she deserves it. She had my sympathy. Mrs. Arnold. No, hold on, hold on. Mrs. Arnold. Mrs. Arnold. I apologize for you not understanding my humor. All right. So Daniel Donald from Facebook. He wants to know if you have any pinball dream themes. And I know that in previous interviews that you've done, you said that Primus was a dream theme for you, and that was before you actually did the machine. So how was it working on Primus, being that you really wanted to do that game? And then are there any other dream themes out there for you? Well, first off, yeah, Primus was both fantastic and awful at the same time, mainly because to do it, I had to agree to a ridiculous schedule, which was going to start and overlap the tail end of Iron Maiden, and I was going to have around five weeks to do the entire thing. Now, I was working. I got my buddy Zoltron involved, who's a friend of the band, and, you know, he's worked with them forever. And, you know, we sort of tossed ideas around, But when it came to actually putting pen to screen and actually, you know, doing the color and making all the decisions and being familiar with pinball in general, that was all me. So it was grueling, to say the least. I'm beyond proud of the results. But having said that, in my mind, you know, I could see someday a much larger machine, a more unique machine that you could dive even further into. For what we did and for what's there, I'm beyond proud of it. And the fact that it exists is insane. And the fact that it's so divisive almost makes me even happier. But again, that's, you know, I've got that streak ending. So having said that, dream themes, I've got a lot of them. A lot of them scare me, though, because I feel like if I touch them and didn't do anything but the best, that I would have to, you know, clean my head in shame and walk away and find some other space to play in. But, you know, obviously I'm a big fan of a lot of, you know, the 80s and 90s. I personally think, for me, a Keith Ellin diehard game would be pretty sweet. I'm a big fan of, obviously, Bill and Ted. Did you see the trailer for the new one? Yes. It looks like it's following the path of the second, which was batshit crazy and absolutely my favorite film. I love Alex Winter. when he did Liquid Television. It was Idiot Box, which was on right before Liquid Television. I absolutely love that stuff. I look at it now, and it's so over-the-top obnoxious. But having said that, it was creative and bizarre, and those things appealed to me. So, you know, there's that. But listen, I'm not going to tell you the top of my list because I fear if I do, someone will snag it up. But then they're going to ask you to do the art for it. Yeah, but what if it's not Stern? then I'm going to get screwed. That's true. So Chris, let me ask you this. Would you or could you ever work with Cern again? Fuck yeah. I'm answering that for you. Wrong Chris. I'm answering that for you, dude. Well, no, I was actually, no, I was asking you because I think I can get you a job. Nice. There's always a number. Do you want me to answer your question now? Yeah, fucking answer it. I'm serious. Will Franchi work for Stern again? Will Dr. Bid stop fanboying out on Zombie Yeti? Will Ed stop drinking long enough to ask a question? Tune in next time on As the Yeti Turns. All right, that's the interview with Mr. Jeremy Packard, Zombie Yeti. Thank you so much, Jeremy, for joining us. That was awesome. What do you think, guys? Damn, that guy can talk. He can talk. But, man, he's such a good dude. And you're a good dude. You learned a lot. I'm making it sound like a wrap-up, you know, but that's not it. This is just the first half of the interview. We're going to have the second half on the next episode, which will be coming out shortly, probably within the next week, week and a half. And sorry to leave you on that. That's a hanger. Yeah, that scary, scary cliffhanger. But you'll find out the answer to that on the next episode. Lots more good stuff to come. And we've got a new contest coming up on the next episode. you're going to find out how you can win yourself a $100 gift card to BackAlleyCreations.com. Get yourself some mods for your pinball or whatever. Matt over there makes some kick-ass shit. Love these guys. Yeah. If you want to go there right now and check out what you could possibly buy with your card that you could possibly win, go do it, BackAlleyCreations.com. And other than that, we did talk about another contest. We teased a sort of a game show sort of a thing. And honestly, we just all got so busy that we just haven't had time to kind of put it together yet. It's coming, but just wait. Coming this summer. Let's do a podcast near you. When we do it, we will do it right. It'll be a lot of fun. Yeah, we don't want to slap it together and all that because we really want it to be sort of an event sort of a thing. So we're postponing that for just a bit. But thanks to Matt for coming in with the gift card to give away. He is one of our sponsors. So thank you, Matt. And other than that, we will see you guys in another week with the second half of the Zombie 80 interview. Just as exciting as the first half. So, on behalf of myself, Christian, and Ed, we'll see you next week. Bye-bye. See ya. See ya. If you'd like to drop us a line or ask a question, we can be reached at superawesomepinball at gmail.com. Questions or comments may be read on the air. The original content of this podcast is a copyright 2020 ASAT Radio Productions. The commentary and opinions shared on this show by the cast and the guests do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the sponsor, Chicago Gaming Company. Their sponsorship and endorsement of this show only serves to add to their continuing support of the pinball community. Spanish ladies. It's the bathroom. It's the bathroom. Okay, bye-bye now. Bye-bye. Bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Okay, bye-bye for now. Bye. Later, dears. Goodbye, goodbye, good friends, goodbye. Is this bit over or do I say it's over? Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Good day, sir. Get the fuck out of here. I gotta go. I'll see you later. Okay, okay, show's over. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Hasta la vista, baby. Hey, your fucking chalupa sucks, dude. Well, that's the end of that.

_(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 38905a46-171b-4532-9505-26ee3077a42d*