# The Super Awesome Pinball Show - Ep. 34 Jersey Jack **Source:** The Super Awesome Pinball Show **Type:** podcast_episode **Published:** 2022-07-17 **Duration:** 138m 33s **Beat:** Pinball **URL:** https://superawesomepinballshow.libsyn.com/the-super-awesome-pinball-show-ep-34-jersey-jack --- ## Analysis The Super Awesome Pinball Show hosts Christopher Franchi, Christian Line, and Jeff Parsons discuss Jersey Jack Pinball's Toy Story 4 release with company namesake Jack Ranieri, plus news on Insider Connector leaderboards, Deep Root Pinball asset liquidation, and various community updates. Franchi hints at an unannounced licensed pinball project under NDA while discussing his artwork and design contributions across the industry. ### Key Claims - [MEDIUM] Toy Story 4 from Jersey Jack Pinball sold out extremely quickly, with only 100 games initially available but 900 sent to distributors — _Christopher Franchi discussing Toy Story 4 allocation and distribution; notes that Cointaker (major distributor) received fair allotment despite initial concerns_ - [MEDIUM] Stern released only two games in the year so far (Rush being the first, with one more in fourth quarter pipeline) — _Christopher Franchi discussing Stern's 2024 release schedule; mentions two franchise games coming out in fourth quarter_ - [MEDIUM] Deep Root Pinball's assets may be available for acquisition, including completed rule sets for Food Truck, Gladiator, and other titles previously in development — _Franchi reports David Fix's interest in purchasing Deep Root IP; notes Fix had completed comprehensive rule sets for multiple unfinished games_ - [HIGH] Christopher Franchi has an unannounced pinball license under NDA and did artwork for it; the company he suggested it to successfully acquired the license — _Franchi explicitly states: 'I suggested to a company that they go after a particular license. I did some artwork for it. They went after it, and they got it.' Notes both he and Jeff Parsons have NDAs with the company_ - [HIGH] Insider Connector now includes global leaderboard functionality allowing home and location players to compare scores across the world, with home scores marked with asterisk to indicate unverified status — _Discussion of Stern's Insider Connector expansion; references conversation with George Gomez about leaderboard verification system_ ### Notable Quotes > "We always know like months and years, in this case, years ahead of time." > — **Christian Line**, early segment > _Reflects community's running joke about Jersey Jack's secrecy and industry leaks about upcoming games_ > "I can't tell you what it is, but I can just say that I'm really excited. It's pinball news for me because I'm very excited about it." > — **Christopher Franchi**, mid-episode > _Hints at unannounced licensed pinball project under NDA; generates speculation about upcoming game_ > "They went after it, and they got it. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And I'm so excited about this thing, and I can't say anything about it." > — **Christopher Franchi**, mid-episode > _Confirms Franchi's direct involvement in securing an unannounced pinball license; suggests significant industry role in licensing negotiations_ > "I'm in the process of learning how this stuff happens. You don't know what sort of hornet's nest you just whacked. Everybody you know is going to call you." > — **Jeff Parsons**, mid-episode > _Acknowledges the pressures and attention that come with inside knowledge of unannounced projects in tight-knit pinball community_ > "Disney's got them all... They own Star Wars, too. Yeah, Star Wars, Marvel, Pirates of the Caribbean, which they make two of... Disney owns the world now." > — **Christian Line / Christopher Franchi**, late segment > _Reflects on Disney's dominant position in pinball licensing; part of broader discussion about concentration of IP in major entertainment conglomerates_ ### Entities | Name | Type | Context | |------|------|---------| | Jersey Jack Pinball | company | Premium boutique pinball manufacturer; guest Jack Ranieri (company namesake) discusses Toy Story 4 release; known for secretive development process | | Christopher Franchi | person | Co-host of Super Awesome Pinball Show; pinball artist and designer; has artwork contracts with multiple manufacturers; hints at unannounced licensed project under NDA | | Toy Story 4 | game | Jersey Jack Pinball's new release; sold out rapidly with limited initial allocation (100 units) but 900 sent to distributors; features Disney IP and art assets | | Deep Root Pinball | company | Failed pinball manufacturer; assets potentially being liquidated; David Fix interested in acquiring unfinished game IP including Food Truck, Gladiator | | David Fix | person | Management figure at American Pinball; recently interviewed; interested in acquiring Deep Root Pinball IP; previous guest on show | | Jack Ranieri | person | Founder/namesake of Jersey Jack Pinball; main guest for episode discussing Toy Story 4; known for giving strong interviews | | Christian Line | person | Co-host of Super Awesome Pinball Show; pinball enthusiast with custom machine projects; connected to local pinball community in Pennsylvania area | | Jeff Parsons | person | Co-host of Super Awesome Pinball Show; also holds NDA with unannounced pinball project; previously kept Rick and Morty project confidential | | American Pinball | company | Boutique pinball manufacturer; David Fix involved in management; actively developing new titles; busy production pipeline in third/fourth quarter | | Stern Pinball | company | Major manufacturer; released Rush; expanding Insider Connector with global leaderboards; announced fourth quarter game releases | | Insider Connector | product | Stern Pinball's networked leaderboard system; enables home and location players to compare scores globally; implements verification system marking home scores with asterisk | | Steve Bowen | person | American Pinball designer; appears in 'Two Minute Celebrity Pinball Review' segment; provides thoughts on Toy Story 4 | | George Gomez | person | Stern Pinball designer/executive; discussed Insider Connector leaderboard verification system in prior conversation with show hosts | | Eric Stone | person | Won IFPA 17 World Championship; recognized for visibility contribution to pinball industry | | Joe Lemire | person | Competitive pinball player; placed sixth at IFPA 17 World Championship; known for technical flipper skill; previous co-host of show with Jeff Parsons | ### Topics - **Primary:** Jersey Jack Pinball Toy Story 4 release and allocation, Unannounced licensed pinball project under NDA (Christopher Franchi involvement), Stern Insider Connector leaderboard expansion and verification system - **Secondary:** Deep Root Pinball asset liquidation and potential acquisition by American Pinball, Disney's dominant position in pinball IP licensing, Competitive pinball tournament results (IFPA 17), Stern Pinball's 2024 release schedule and production capacity - **Mentioned:** Community gossip and interpersonal dynamics within pinball industry ### Sentiment **Positive** (0.72) — Hosts express genuine enthusiasm about Toy Story 4, Insider Connector features, and industry activity. Tone is friendly and community-focused. Brief negative sentiment regarding Deep Root Pinball scandal (Franchi: 'makes me want to barf'). Overall optimistic about pinball industry trajectory and upcoming releases. ### Signals - **[business_signal]** Deep Root Pinball assets potentially being liquidated; American Pinball's David Fix expressed interest in acquiring unfinished game IP including completed rule sets (confidence: medium) — Franchi reports two-hour off-air conversation with David Fix about Deep Root IP acquisition; notes bankruptcy filing details and asset disposition questions - **[community_signal]** Easter egg discovered in Godzilla pinball referencing Keith Elwin's prominent leg muscles; Joe Caravino documented finding on social media (confidence: high) — Discussion of newspaper Easter egg in Godzilla game; comparison to Eric Meunier's notable calf muscles; reflects designer tribute pattern in pinball art - **[event_signal]** IFPA 17 World Championship results; Eric Stone won championship; Joe Lemire placed sixth (confidence: high) — Discussion of tournament results; Lemire noted as exceptionally skilled player with 10+ year track record - **[design_philosophy]** Toy Story 4 features primarily Disney-created art assets rather than original pinball artist work; hosts attribute this to Disney IP control over aesthetic (confidence: medium) — Franchi: 'Everything but the characters is drawn by Yossi. Everything else is assets from Disney. And that's most likely Disney's call.' - **[leak_detection]** Christopher Franchi reveals unannounced pinball license under NDA; confirms he and Jeff Parsons have inside knowledge of unrevealed project (confidence: high) — Direct quote: 'I suggested to a company that they go after a particular license. I did some artwork for it. They went after it, and they got it.' Both hosts acknowledge NDA constraints - **[market_signal]** Toy Story 4 initial allocation of 100 units sold out rapidly; 900 units distributed to major distributors including Cointaker (confidence: medium) — Franchi notes rapid sellout; discusses distribution allocation concerns with Cointaker representative - **[community_signal]** Christopher Franchi actively contributing artwork and design direction to multiple pinball projects across different manufacturers (confidence: high) — Franchi mentions licensing suggestion, artwork creation, and fourth quarter game pipeline involvement with unrevealed details - **[announcement]** Jersey Jack Pinball officially announces Toy Story 4 release; features Disney IP with art assets from Disney rather than original pinball artist work (confidence: high) — Toy Story 4 discussed as main interview topic; hosts note rapid sellout and distribution details - **[manufacturing_signal]** Stern Pinball's 2024 release schedule shows only two games released so far with two more in fourth quarter pipeline (confidence: medium) — Franchi discusses Stern's limited output compared to multi-game release years; notes focus on quality over quantity - **[rumor_hype]** Deep Root Pinball potentially being revived or having assets acquired; Facebook post from Deadflip hinting at 'coming soon' with decoded message sparked speculation (confidence: low) — Franchi notes cryptic Facebook post turned out to be word search promotion; broader discussion of potential Deep Root IP acquisition remains speculative - **[technology_signal]** Stern Insider Connector expanding to include global leaderboard functionality with verification system distinguishing home vs location scores (confidence: high) — Detailed discussion of leaderboard system; reference to George Gomez confirmation of verification mechanics with asterisk notation for home scores - **[licensing_signal]** Disney now holds dominant position in pinball IP licensing; owns Star Wars, Marvel, Pirates of the Caribbean, and now Toy Story across multiple manufacturers (confidence: high) — Extended discussion of Disney IP concentration in pinball; hosts estimate ~40 Disney-licensed games exist across industry --- ## Transcript Today we are looking at famous singers who cannot sing. You've got a friend in me. You've got a friend in me. When the road looks rough ahead. Shut up! The following feature has been rated R. It is intended for mature audiences and parental discretion is advised. And now for our feature presentation. Ladies and gentlemen, please join me in welcoming Christopher Franchi. Christian Lyne, and Jeff Parsons of the greatest pinball podcast in the entire world, the Super Awesome Pinball Show. Well, goddamn if my name doesn't sound better with an English accent. Thanks again to Marc Silk for that sexy intro. Happy summer, everybody, and welcome to another Pinball Tournament sense-free episode of the Super Awesome Pinball Show. This time around, we've got Jersey Jack's own Jack Guarnari, talking about their new release, Toy Story 4, his current status with the company, and a whole lot more. So stick around, or I'll fart on your pillowcase. Hello again, everybody, and welcome to the Super Awesome Pinball Show. So excited to have David Fix on last week, and Ryan McQuaid. Great to see what these guys are doing. Looking forward to what's coming up next, and looking forward to talking with these guys again. Yeah, buddy. Christian Line. and of course the amazing Christopher Franchi you never get anything in front of your Mr. Doctor Man Doctor's all I need that's the boss he paid a lot of money for that title right I was just going to say I'll show you my check and why I don't care yeah it was it was good to have to have Ryan and David on last week I watched Sonic 2 really shortly after we recorded and I was kind of reminded again what a strong license that was for pinball so I can't wait to see that game it's incredible Spinball, for God's sake. I still am really curious to know who got the license. He said Stern didn't get it, so we'll find out, I guess, in the next couple of years. Yeah, it's cool to have David on. It's funny because I talk to him like every day, several times. So having him on the show is like second nature to me. I think your phone even rang while we started recording this. Yeah, it was probably him. Hey, what's going on? Wanted to bump something off you. Take that hat off. That fucking hat. Fucking hat. How many times have I told you? Don't let that fucking happen. Anyway, yeah, later on in the news, we're going to have a little extra segment that we are going to discuss. A conversation we had with David off the air that he gave us permission to discuss. So stick around for the news to find out what's going on with that. Speaking of news, the most exciting news this week was Toy Story from J.J.P., which has been rumored for what sounds like a few decades now. As always, the best kept secret in pinball. We always know like months and years, in this case, years ahead of time. And who do we have on the show, Christian? Well, on this episode, we get a chance to talk to the man himself, the company's namesake, Jersey Jack, or Jack Guarnieri. He always gives a great interview, and, man, there's a lot to talk about with him today. So let's find out what he's been up to and all the details behind Jersey Jack's Toy Story 4. Oh, I forgot. We also have an extra special bonus in today's episode. We have Mr. Steve Bound of American Pinball coming on to tell us his thoughts on Toy Story 4 in our new segment called the Two Minute Celebrity Pinball Review. Steve is awesome. Loved him for years, and can't wait to see him again. I'm excited to hear what he has to say about Toy Story. This is the first time I've gotten to talk to someone who's played it. So let's see what he says. Nice. But before that, boys, it's summertime. What have you all been up to? Well, you know, if you're going to be in the middle of summer, why go outside and play when you can stay inside and play pinball? That's the way I look at it. Oh, is it summer? I didn't realize that. Yeah, yeah. Vitamin D? Who needs that? For me, I don't need to jump in here and take it, but I'm going to run with this. I played Valhalla and played a lot of Valhalla. There's a guy down at one of our New Robert Englunds Pinball League locations in his home. He's a big American pinball fan, and he's had, I think, every game. He got his Valhalla in, and I really, really love this game. And it surprised me that I love this game. About the only thing I don't like about it, and Jim, who owns this, kind of agreed, the call-offs are a little repetitive. They come a lot. It's like Jeff Keolis is the voice behind the call-offs in this, by the way, if you didn't know this. They couldn't afford a full batch of call-offs because it's expensive. and he does a great job of it you wouldn't really even know it was him unless somebody told you then you can kind of hear it you'd hear the call over a little bit more repetitively than you wanted to you'd hear him saying one more shot to war on land or two invites in charge he's doing it one shot to war on land it's well done I gotta give you that but it's just like okay I know because you said that five seconds ago it's just one of those things And Jim actually reached out to both David Fix and one of the programmers there to let them know, give them some feedback, and they're going to make some changes, which I think is amazing. I got right to the source of the people, and they're going to work on it, which I think was great. But it's a fun game. It kind of feels Williams Valley era kind of games, like the 90s, but I like that. That's kind of my thing. Jules is coming over at the end of this month with his wife to stay the night, so we are going to call you. War on land! I was just going to ask him to call us. Reach us to war on land! This is the King of Valhalla. Give me a piece of the Super Oats and Pinball Show. I need to get a bumper from him. And then the other thing I've got going on is we're bringing back our tournament we've had here in Maine. Here comes tournament talk. Now it's time for some tournament talk. bringing back our tournament that you call pin mania which is actually a precursor believe it or not to pinberg this was something that started with i think bow and karen's had some uh doing with this along with john reuter hosted his house for years and it is very similar to pinberg this sort of thing ain't my bag baby and uh we're gonna get 80 players to play six rounds of match play and we're just glad it's back after two years having been postponed because of covid it was an annual thing. It's been going on since 2009. Josh Sharpe won the second one of these back in 2010. That was in a time when pinball did not have so many tournaments. Just his little tournament here in Maine, they came up for it. Both the Sharp brothers and they walked away with it. One of them walked away with it. So I'm just very excited about this. It's going to be at Arcadia in Portland, which is, if you ever get to Maine, check it out. It's fantastic. Hey, you guys, I'm making some Jiffy Pop. You want some? Of course. Every single time. At least I warned you. I gave you a heads up. Guess what's coming. When I used to listen to the Head to Head Pinball Podcast, Ryan hated tournaments, right? When they started that podcast, they weren't into it at all. He just wasn't talking about tournament talk at all. Marty loved it. I'm thinking, Jeff, if we keep hammering at Franchi, he's going to be on that IFBA leaderboard here in the next couple of years. No, we're going to get Ryan in on a show to stunt double for me while I go make a grilled cheese or something. That works, though. That works, though. So, Christian, what have you been up to? While the wife's away, the doctor will play. That's true. I have had a week of bachelorhood, which has been pretty amazing. 11th, 12th, and 13th, and 14th, I was intoxicated. I drank all of those days. I was drunk. I'm drunk right now. I hung out with a couple of people, a couple of pinball buddies of mine, one of which was a buddy who's an anesthesiologist, but he's also the ref of the Hershey Bears ice hockey team, and a huge pinhead like myself. So he made a custom Hershey Bears pinball machine, And I've talked about that on the show a few times. But he's buddies with the head coach of the team. And they swung by for some pinball the other day. So it was a great example of how pinball kind of brings everyone together that wouldn't normally hang out. And I had the coach of the Hershey Bears ice hockey team in my basement playing some games. And I texted Franchi a picture. And I was like, hey, check this out. And he returned two pictures of him as a hockey player. I mean, one of them was you had to be, what, 13? No, I was big for it. I was probably like 11 or 10. Okay. And the little one, yeah. And then the other one, you look like you were in the NHL. This was a legit, like, buff, jacked franchise. Not a guy you want to meet in a... Good old days. I think I was, how old am I now? I was probably about 45 in that picture. Wow. That's about 10 years ago. That's cool. So you played, you said you played hockey for, like, 20 years? Up to high school, 30 years. Up to high school. And then beer leagues straight after that. It was all just beer leagues, playing with my buddies. Well, because you only play, you know, beer league you play once a week. So there's no practices, no bullshit. You know, I got time for that and a family and working and all that. So I look forward to it every week. Anyway, we're talking about. So wait, wait, wait. So Mrs. Finn is gone and the kids gone too? They're gone. They're gone. Just you in the house? I have been so busy. Honestly, I haven't really been able to enjoy it. Yeah. Let's get to the TMZ portion of the show. I might have heard from Mr. Chris Marquette from Cointaker that some drunken phone calls were made late at night. This is true, but it was after a night of doing... Jaws? Well, yeah, but also reviewing anesthesia literature with my buddies. We have to do every month or every three months to get our credits for the year. Jesus, Franchi, you don't like tournament talk? Imagine that. Exactly. You talk about the stuff that actually literally puts you to sleep. So anyway, while we do this, in order to make it at all tolerable, of course we're drinking, right? So we're drinking whiskey and we're going over anesthesia stuff. I talked to Marquette when I rolled home at like 1130 at night after a few drinks. Talked to some pinball and he's getting Toy Story in soon. And so I'm going to come up there and play it. So I can't wait for that. He was worried that he wouldn't get his allotment or whatever and that people were going to get shorted. And I said, well, did you? And he goes, no. And I go, well, how many did you get? And he goes, I got enough. They never tell you numbers, man. They are so good at being confidential. Yeah. But, yeah, you guys heard that they sold out so fast with that game, but apparently it was only 100 games. Like 900 went to the distributors, so they sent a ton of those games out. So I'm sure he'll get a fair allotment, considering they're the biggest distributor in the country. Yep, definitely. But enough about that guy. All right. Yeah, Frenchy, what have you been up to, man? Batman Room. And finally, did I tell the story on this show about the cabinets, my nightmare with the cabinets? I don't think so. No. Okay, well, we'll just roll. I did tell the story about the Mexican pizza, and it's similar to that. I know. I wanted these particular cabinets from Ikea, and they're sold out. So they said, do you want us to email you when they're back in stock? And I said, yes. So I get an email. They're back in stock. Ooh. I go to the website, sold out. I'm like, by the time I got the email and went to the website, they were all gone again. That happened three times. Wow. I'm like, I'm never going to get this room done. and then one day I was up at like six in the morning and my email goes boom and I look and it says there you know like whoa and so I went right to the website and I bought five of them and I just paid for deliveries like 69 bucks but why not because these days it's a good truck of gas to get there I gotta put all these huge boxes in my truck and all that I'm like I'll pay the 69 bucks got the cabinets put them all together put them in the room and I'm starting to take all the stuff out of the boxes and put them in the shelves oh man and I just ordered a batman rug to put in the center of the room nice i just probably have stuff that you don't even remember having i do i pulled stuff out of the box and went oh shit what is this i don't remember having this but yeah and it's so much and i got doubles triples quadruples on stuff i got a whole closet full of backup so somebody comes over and goes oh there's some little kid comes in and crinkles something well why don't you take that home asshole i mean no kid and i go to the closet grab another one i'm gonna tell my kids to wreck your house when they come over so they can get When you go into the Batman room, just start spraying like a dog. Just pee on it. I'm telling you, in about a week and a half, I'm going to get a recliner chair, and I'm just going to go in that room and lean back and – I hope you edit that out. It's going to be all great until you interrupt that one. Oh, man. You've got a bleeper for this, right? I was just going to say, I'll put a little bleep in there. I'll just leave enough so that you get the – Oh, yeah. People will know exactly what you said. it's glorious but um uh and then i got a sprinkler i got this little pool sprinkler for barlow and uh we've been waiting for the Carl Weathers to get warm because i don't want to get all wet and it's like you know 60 out it was you know the Carl Weathers right here's been funky lately but it's like this little round ring pool you don't fill up with air you fill it with water and there's these little holes that make these little jet sprinkles that go up and come down and by the time the Carl Weathers got nice it went from 60 to 90 and i went outside so like i'm gonna hook up a sprinkler and cool i obviously I'm going to have to sit there with him. And I walked outside and went, nope, right back in the house. It was like walking into an oven. Oh, my God. I couldn't breathe. I was standing up there. I'm like, I'm going in. So I can't wait to fire up the sprinkler. But other than that, I wouldn't know. Do you know how I know it's summer? My air conditioning bill. Oh, yeah. Because I just stay in the house. All my blinds are closed. You know, unless they go out to the porch to get the mail or packages or whatever. Other than that, I don't even know what time of day it is. I fall asleep on the couch and gotten up and it's been kind of like dark blue outside. and I go, all right, is it 5 in the morning or is it 7 at night? I really don't know. And I have to look at my phone. So it's been pretty crazy. Your house is like an amusement park, man, because that's where you spend your time. Well, because I hate people. So I stay here. It works out real nice. I hate people. I've been very busy with pinball. I have a tidbit that's really no information at all. But I can say that I suggest. Is this an exclusive? For as much as you want to take from it. I suggested to a company that they go after a particular license. I did some artwork for it. They went after it, and they got it. Oh, yeah. Yeah. And I'm so excited about this thing, and I can't say anything about it. Well, let's see. What does it feel like? Well, he's already got Batman out there. Hmm. Hmm. Yeah. I don't know. It's a generic theme called cum-covered lazy boy. When did this podcast become like? No. No. No. In-house forum segment. Well, I can't tell you what it is, but I can just say that I'm really excited. It's pinball news for me because I'm very excited about it. And I can say that the – no, I'm not going to say that because that will give it away. Well, what we can say, though, Jeff Parsons, as I air fist bump you, is that you and I both have an NDA with this particular company, so we know what it is, which is freaking awesome. I'm kind of in the process of learning how this stuff happens. You don't know what sort of hornet's nest you just whacked. Everybody you know is going to call you. Listen, I know all about patient confidentiality. I am a freaking vault, so I'm not going to tell anyone. I'm not worried about you leaking it. I'm worried about you going, quit fucking calling. You know, hands all jammed up with shit. Yeah, I get that, and people know that. I'm not going to say anything. They might think they have a chance with you guys, so you're in for it now. Listen, Jeff kept the Rick and Morty thing secret forever, and I know that's not the only thing you've known about, so I think Jeff's a pretty safe bet here. Yeah, so that's about it. I don't have any other pinball news. I've been working. The jobs I've been working on seem to be on schedule, so it looks like third quarter there's going to be two franchise games coming out. Correction, fourth quarter. Yeah. Awesome, man. You've waited for four years. How long has it been since, what was the last one, Beatles? Beatles, I think. Is it Beatles or Monsters? I don't remember which one was. Beatles. Because I was working on both of those kind of at the same time. Yeah. And how long ago was that? Three years? Yeah, sounds about right. It's been a long time. I've played all three of those games in this past week. Monsters, Eagles, and Batman. Now, we've only had one. We've had two games come out this year. What was Stern's first game? Well, Rush. That's it, man. They're only doing two this year. Well, yeah, but I mean, for art packages, I'm thinking Twiggy-wise. Gotcha. Rush. Jersey Jack. It didn't go over very well. Jersey Jets, the play field, everything but the characters is drawn by Yossi. Everything else is assets from Disney. And that's most likely Disney's call. So that's not going to win an art award. Is it that they just want their artists that always do this? It's just consistently. It's control, you know. So that's it so far. So I just got to pray Zombie Eddie doesn't come out with something. And I might have a really good shot. Halloween and Ultraman were last year? Yeah, those were last year. Toy Story, does this make Disney now the most used license in pinball at this point? I mean, think about it. Go all the way back to Pirates of the Caribbean way back. I don't know. Stern's going Marvel, Matt. Yeah, that is true. I think Star Wars and Mandalorian, all the properties that they own now. I think Disney's got them all. Christian's right. Disney owns Marvel. Yeah. So, yeah. They've got an arcade over there. All their own games. I've got to go look through the IPDB and just count how many games have come out that are Disney-owned properties. I guarantee it's got to be close to 40. They own Star Wars, too. Yeah, Star Wars, Marvel, Pirates of the Caribbean, which they make two of. What else is out there? Disney owns the world now. Anything Star Wars, Marvel, or what else? I don't know. It's all them, right? Any pop culture stuff is pretty much Disney at this point. So I'm thinking I got a pretty good shot. Yeah. That's all I'm saying. That's it. If we can just keep Zombie Eddie out of the picture. That's how I won with the Munsters, is he did not come out with a game that year. So, hooray for me. Okay, anyway, let's move on to the news, boys. And now, in the news, with your super awesome eyewitness news crew. Don't fucking just read news off the internet, you fat piece of shit. Let's start off with something we haven't talked about. And this is kind of, it's old news, but it leads into new news. Not too long ago, and I hate talking about Deep Root. It kind of makes me want to barf even to talk about anything. But Deadflip posted something on Facebook the other day. And if you went to the page, there was a series of numbers that if you decoded with some random thing, it said check back soon for something interesting. And it kind of like it built up this like rumor mill of people saying that Deep Root might be coming back. And of course, it turned out to be something stupid. It was a word search on the website that popped up later. Who knows who did this, who hacked the site? But there is additional Deep Root news that we wanted to talk about a little bit, and I'm going to toss that nugget to Franchi. That's right. We talked to David Fix after our interview for quite a while, actually. How long were we on with him after we finished the interview? Two hours. I had to finally say, look, I've got to go to bed. Dude, I don't know how you did it because you woke up at like 2 the next morning, and I think we were interviewing them and just chatting with them until what, like 1 in the morning or something insane. I had a terrible radio show the next day. That's all I can say. But there were a lot of really interesting things we talked about. Yeah, and one of the things we talked about was David Fix's interest in buying the Nordman and Ausler games that were being developed at Deep Root, including Food Truck and Gladiator and some other games, all of which I don't recall. And maybe even more beyond that, I guess Norris had a good game going there as well, Jon Norris. So I don't know if that was included. I don't recall. But that's interesting. Super interesting. And part of the really interesting stuff and why it's such a cool idea for them to go after these licenses is that he had done complete rule sets for those games. So he had been working really hard on Raza. Obviously, that's the one we all knew he was doing. But he was behind the scenes working on huge, expansive code sets for these games. So if they get these properties, then they've already got that in the bag. Who owns the property now? Do we know? That's a good question. I don't know if the courts do or how that's being handled. I don't think the courts, I don't think anybody can take that stuff away unless he loses a lawsuit or something. He's being charged criminally. So it has nothing to do with the assets. But if the people, if there's some kind of class action lawsuit for all the people that gave money against him, then those assets would then be liquidated to pay off those people. I don't know where that's going. Haven't they already auctioned off a ton of their stuff? They did, but I don't know. They couldn't have had time to litigate some sort of a class action lawsuit. Could they have? I don't know, man. I don't know. I haven't been following Deep Root ever since it just ended. I'm like, okay, bye-bye. Thank you. Good riddance. Because if something happens to you, you get busted doing something, you're not in court the next day. I mean, you're probably in there for an arraignment or something. But as far as the proper court case with the jury and all that stuff, that takes time. They've got to schedule that. I feel like it would be super illegal to sell off the assets in a company like that unless there's some arrangement where that money goes into a pot that will eventually go one way or the other, depending on the outcome of the trial, right? You can't just, like, default on a business and then sell all your stuff before you get litigated. Yes, yes. So I don't know how that worked. That's interesting because I forgot about that and how that fits into the scheme of things. Should have asked them that. Let's have things on a hin. Anyway, though, if they do get that, I mean, that's six titles that they've now acquired, whether or not they're going to use the same DS behind the licenses. is... With the stuff that I'm working on there and the stuff that I know that they have in the pipeline that other people are working on and stuff, I don't know whether they're going to have time or people to work on all this stuff. Oh, that's cool, man. That means that AP is busy making games. Yep. Oh, they're definitely busy over there. Half the time I can't get a hold of people. I'm looking at... I just googled this and I'm looking at their filing for bankruptcy and it said that at the initial filing this was in, what, January said did not identify their largest creditor. So whoever it is unless this has been announced now, at this point, they didn't know. They didn't say anything. It would be the people of pinball as a whole. Yeah, I guess so. Who knows? But question for fix sometime. Yeah, so that's pretty exciting. They'll call you in 10 minutes. You'll be able to get that. What else is going on in the news? Do you guys know designing Goonies for Deep Root? I don't. I wonder if Goonies was one of the Alcer designs. That would put some hope in that realm that we might see Goonies pinball machine. I knew nothing about what they were doing because, remember, I'm a flake. I'm too flaky. Right, right. Dude, you're so lucky you flaked. Oh, God. Huge. I didn't flake, though. Like I said, we were on the phone, and he's like, all right, well, we'll fly you out. We'll talk to these people. Let me hang up and call some people, and I'll call you back with a date. A month and a half later, he calls up, and I'm already on some other jobs. I'm like, I can't work for you now. I'm busy. But, you know, call me in the future if you've got something going on. No, no, no. You're too flaky. Oh, my God. All right. Okay. I hope you like it. I mean, well, moving on. So one of the other really cool things that we didn't talk about that I just want to give a quick shout out to our boy, Joe Lemire. Jeff, your previous co-host. Yeah, hold up. Hold up. What? Oh, OK. for getting six in the world. Not necessarily on the IFPA rankings, but at the IFPA 17 tournament of the world's best. He placed sixth. This is why I don't like playing with him. No, Joe is just, he, ever since I met him, which was, man, 10 years ago, he just had a knack for this. And he just kills it. And he's getting better and better all the time. And he just, he does things that I don't even realize you can do with flippers. That sounds kind of dirty. Well, congrats, Joe, and also congrats to Eric Stone, who won the whole thing. His visibility is fantastic for pinball in general, I think. It's a meteorology term. Oh, exactly. Anyway, a really quick thing that I wanted to talk about was there was a Keith Elwin Easter egg found in Godzilla that I had never seen before. This was in, I don't know how you even get to it, but at some point when you're playing the game, there's a newspaper that pops up and it says one bigger calves and then it's got a picture of Keith Elwin next to a picture of Keith's monster calf muscles and Joe Caravino from Pinball Degenerates posted that up on the on the web and I thought it was hilarious and it made me think of Eric Meunier and the picture that I sent you guys earlier in the show with what is it with these epic pinball designers and their giant freaking calves like I have a picture of Eric's calves I don't know I I think I got it from Ryan C. It's freaky looking. You know what his leg looks like? The best way I can think to describe it is you took the padding out of a hockey helmet and just stuffed it into his skin, like two, one on each side, so they kind of met a C met up in the middle on the back of his leg. That's what it looks like. It's crazy. It's got like a hard edge, like a 90-degree angle. Like, what the hell? We've got to get permission from Eric to post this on our Facebook because it is really something you have to see to appreciate. But I think the secret to being an amazing pinball designer is you've just got to work the legs. You've got to get your calves in shape. There it is. And the secret to being a good pinball artist is sit on your ass and get fat. So there's that. Why is it fat? Sit on my butt for a living. What do you want? If I was a marathon runner for a living, I would have a completely different physique. The other thing that made news is Stern announced that they're expanding some new features with Insider Connector, including leaderboards, which is the big thing. Insider Connector! Apparently now you can have leaderboards at your location, at your home even, and you can actually connect those with everybody across the world that is playing the same game to see how you're doing compared to other people. I mean, of course, we all know that you've got high score things on high score initials and that sort of stuff on games. But that's been that way for years. But now you can actually see a complete list. A lot of places will be able to set it up where they've got a screen that you can see live results with other people across the world or within the location you're at. And it's kind of cool. takes the whole competitive thing to a new level where you're not competing directly, but you can compare yourself to maybe even some of the best players in the world. I think it's awesome. I think this is exactly where Insider Connected should go, and I can just see it getting better and better from here. I'm taking the glass off my games. That's the first thing everyone thinks, right? When there's a leaderboard and you can't keep tabs on people, what's to prevent you from taking the glass off and just hitting a switch 10 million times? Well, when we talked to Gomez, didn't he say that scores that get reported to the insider connector know if you were at home or if you were at a location? So if you're at home, it'll give it to you, but it'll say, hey, this might, there's a little asterisk almost next to it saying, this was done in someone's home. Take it for what it's worth. Not only are you a cheat, you're a gutless cheat as well. You know, maybe they took it in the glass, maybe they didn't. Right, it's not verified. Obviously, if it's in a location, 95% chance that, yeah, that's legit, the glass was on the whole time. Yeah, unless the owner decides to pull it off and just jack the score. Did you say jack the score? Yes, I said jack the score, and of course that's right where you went. Well, it's very cool to see them rule out new features of Insider Connected. I mean, they're relatively consistent with their code updates these days, so I think we'll see something similar with Insider Connected, and hopefully they'll keep putting out regular cool features. The only drawback I found is some places don't want to activate it for whatever reason, like Arcadia where I play. They only have one. They've got Godzilla, but it is not turned on, not connected. and some people don't, I don't know, but some people have this thing about, I don't really want my game connected. It's up to them, but I kind of wish they all were connected. Maybe they don't want to drag on their internet servers. Could very well be. Could very well be. So is it special feature time? Oh, yeah, we have a special feature. All right, so that does it for the news, and now it's time for our brand new special feature. It's called the Two Minute Celebrity Pinball Review. And now it's time for another two-minute review. Today's special pinball reviewer is Steven Bowden, reviewing Jersey Jack's Toy Story 4. For our inaugural episode, we've got American Pinball's one and only, Mr. Steve Bow-Bow-Bowden. How you doing, Steve? All right, how are you? We're doing good, we're doing good. Pleased to join you all. It's good to see you all. Steve, I can't wait until you're on our show officially to talk about your next game, or whatever it is that you're doing. We know you're doing great things over at AP, and can't wait to hear more about them. Yeah, can't wait to tell you guys all about them and get those critiques and, you know, good, bad, ugly, and indifferent, whatever. I'll be ready for it. I know you all will. It's funny you say critique, since that's what you're here for. Right, exactly. So we understand that last night you played Toy Story 4 from JJP. Yes, I had that privilege. Yes. So that's what you're here for. We are going to put you on the clock. You've got two minutes to tell us what you think about Toy Story 4 from Jersey Gag Pinball. On your mark, get set, go. Overall, I liked what I played. It was a very fun time. The play field is very beautiful without being overbearing. I, who do not pay attention to art very much and take pretty much into the shots, notice that. So take that for what you will. There's a large mini screen. That is very helpful with instructions. Like Guns N' Roses, I was using that to help me with how to complete modes and features in the game. I was using that screen more than the big main screen. There's an upper mini-loop for the mini-slippers. Quick and easy, but it can be dangerous if you end up in the pop-bumpers of death or you miss the ball on the way around. You've got to pay attention every time you hit that loop. There's a nice way that when you finish each mode, it gives you a character you can collect. that each one has powers to help you through the main multiball called Carnival Multiball. You can really have a nice build and have a real strong multiball, depending on who you get and what powers they bring in. You know, there's powers like, you know, add a ball or restart multiball, things like a boost jackpot. So many different powers you can have there. It's not no good gophers. I've seen those comparisons. I did not feel like I was playing no good gophers at all. Yes, there is a wheel in the play field, but it's used quite differently. It's basically like in Gophers, the thing you got in the wheel was what you got immediately, and that was it. In this game, whatever you have on the wheel, you keep until you change it. It's a very well-done, I like the way that subtle difference is there. Where we were, which, by the way, was Interium in Schoenberg, Illinois, Pam would visit if you happen to be local. The flipper and slingshot power was a little low, but I'm sure that was just that game. I mean, you know, we were hitting the ramp. It was a little bit low on that, and the screenshot power was low there. But, I mean, I just saw a score posted by a certain state champion who had $70 million on it and looped the game twice. So I'm sure, you know, that's not a problem. So I'm sure it's just that one we were playing. For comparison, my high score yesterday was about $70 million, and I enjoyed myself. Oh, I'm sorry. Time's up. And thanks for playing 2-Minute Pinball Celebrity Review. So Steve, the real question is, you went with David Fix, you went with Dennis Nordman, Ryan McQuaid, I think was there as well. So who won? Who got the high score? I think I had the high score of that particular cadre there. All right. I had about seven. Unless Ryan came in afterward and destroyed it afterward. I didn't see. But, you know, we started playing Pac-Man Battle Royale. there were mirrors involved but yeah that's 7 million I definitely learned a lot on that game it took me like game one to learn some things and then I did the whole don't look at the instruction card because I want the game to teach me and it was doing a good job teaching me even a million on a Jersey Jack game so unless the scoring has changed dramatically 7 million is an epic score 7 million is okay, you know. Like 7 million, you're getting things done. Top score on that game was Andy Bagwell had 14 on it until that was probably getting through the first lap maybe of the game, maybe getting close to that. So the score makes a little bit more sense than other games that you play like 11 years and you have like two points versus the same person plays for like five minutes and they have like all the points in the world, you don't know what happened. Are you more of a Jersey Jack scoring guy or an Attack from Mars, like you get $2 billion for just blowing out the machine? No, I'll take what I can get as long as it's nice. No, if you're going to give me Johnny Mnemonic, then just make sure it's scaled all the way up. You know, that's okay. Like, I don't care that Wizard of Oz is so low scoring. It's just that, okay, you're not giving yourself room on the low end for the lack of zeros or whatever. You're giving yourself room for BS stuff where you hit a switch and it scores for having D or whatever, you don't have any room for it. So that could be a problem. But it's fine on Toy Story because, you know, you've got your tens and hundreds for your spinners and stuff. That all happens. And it has its super X and it has its double. But it's not super powerful. One of the multiballs might be. I mean, I did it, and then I got, like, two million in, like, a minute. And then I turned around to Joe, and I was like, was that bad? You know? You're not going to change that, are you? Like, he's not going to change it for me. I was just messing with him. But, you know, he's like, no, we're keeping it. You know, you did this thing because of this and this, and you did it because you did this first. I'm like, oh, okay, that makes sense. Cool. I loving hearing you say that the game taught you what to do Because I think that is so important in design of pinball right now because they are getting so deep You need to know what you need to shoot for and why you shooting for it And that sounds like what it's doing. Which is what that mini screen is not so mini. It's huge, but it's not really in the way. It's at a point where it's a big old screen, but it's not really in the way. It's okay. It also helps to have Joe Katz right behind you to bounce ideas off of. I didn't want to say anything. Don't spoil the first experience. You know, yeah. What am I going for? Why am I going for it? Why am I going for the lock on the left side, right? Because there were some points in there. There's definitely some potential point imbalance on there, but it's only because apparently I did it well the first time, but I didn't do it as well the second time. You know, it's timing issues and hurry-ups in there, which could mean the difference between $2 million and $500,000. so there's some points in there yeah he's like the pinball version of one of those guys on the beach with a metal detector there's some points in there I can find it somewhere I know it it was super cool to see that the whole American pinball crew was hanging out with the whole Jersey Jack crew were there other guys there like with Stern we had Danger he counts that's right we were there That was nice. It was a happening. It was a hangout. And so, yeah, that game is, I'm going to like it more and more as I play it. And I'm just hoping it doesn't become, like, boring when you loop it. I mean, because you can loop the game. Because you're supposed to loop the game twice to really beat it. You're supposed to, like, get to the carnival multiball twice in order to get to the fireworks part, which I didn't get to. So I'm like, okay, I had a decent game, but I didn't get, I got the carnival ones. Oh, you did? I got the carnival ones. All right. So, but it just becomes like, it's not a long time to get to Carnival. It's what you do before you get in there. It's like, because you can start Carnival with as little as three characters, I think. Okay. But you can keep going for it. Like, keep going for it. Keep bringing more characters in it. So, your Carnival multiball becomes serious. You know, I have two books, and I have an automatic restart, and I have this, and that, you know. You can bring more characters in if you want before you start your first Carnival. So, or you just blast right through and get three. It's like you have to complete a mode to light a crime of a lock And then three of those It's your multiball Were you getting Wonka vibes from this? Like the kid multiball where you gotta bring in the kids And then there's also some other stuff There was enough Because from Wonka And Toy Story right I wanted to like find a way For my game to last as long as possible So I'm like find a multiball Where is it? I just want to find it If I can have more than one ball to play for my game It's like not four seconds And there's a false light here too ball that you get kind of by luck that's up in the scoop right or in this saucer there's like a there's like a side saucer beside the uh bumpers up top and if it goes in there a number of times you can start buzz light years quick multiball so that's the one you'll get by accident and then there's the lock on the left which is a very not an easy shot but you know make a ball that's on the left for your road trip multiball that's that's there so i'm just trying to find the multiball so I could last. So I could have the game teach me more. Yeah. Do you have to drop the stand-up target there or the drop target to get the ball locked and the left shot for the road trip multiball? There is something that bounces it back out. I think it's a stand-up, right? Because I didn't really see. All I know is I shot it in there and it came back out with authority. And then I shot it in there three times and started. Okay. And then you got to get it back in there as fast as you can with a hurry up. And then put this other jackpot out in the place where you want to get so you can boost up the value of getting back in there. You know, you don't just want to go in there. You want to get them going there. But, yeah, it was fun. I'll be there probably this weekend. Me and Terry, I'm giving them some money. That's funny. All right. All right. It was fun. I feel it's going to grow on me pretty quickly. I mean, yeah, it doesn't hurt that it's Toy Story. You get that. You got the free movie. Well, the voice, but you don't have to get the music or whatever. You got the angle, dude. Right. At least you have the music. You don't have the voice. But if you have that and you have some characters there, you have to smack a Gabby Gabby head in the face. Oh, is that weird? Is that weird to do? I mean, apparently she's bad in the movie. She is. She looks so innocent, right? Apparently she's bad in the movie. So I'm like, okay, cool, get her because she's bad. I don't know. Why am I hitting this little girl in the face with a pinball? I don't like this. Apparently she's bad in the movie or something. She's like a snobby, she's like a Ruka, so, you know. Okay. Yeah. Well, get her. Daddy, I want a new Paloompa. Get her. Not much Wonka vibes, you know, because Wonka, I'm like, okay, let me start one kid in a kid multiball, and then let me keep Johnson it up to the other multi-balls. Yes. And just build that, like on Pirates, let me start one multiball, and then use that to start all the other multi-balls. That's not this. Okay. I saw the tickets versus the chocolate bars when you hit the ramps. There's a lot of similarities, at least on the surface. It's used differently. Because the tickets, you use the tickets to buy a ride, which sounds familiar from a game I was doing. Oh, no. That's a similar idea. That just gave me a vibe. I'm like, yeah, that is a good idea to do that. But you buy a ride, but it's not like you're selecting to buy an option. You play a game, and that costs you tickets, but you get points for the tickets you spend. So it's all positive, you know? That's cool. It's all positive, though. So I know you weren't on here to be interviewed, but I just have to ask you, because I didn't ask David Fix last week, but what are you up to? Are you just focusing on rules? I am stretched. Rules, code, marketing, sales, community outreach, organization. I don't know. Like, that's the work. Stop. You know? Like, I'm going to deal with code when I leave here, and then when I come back, I'm probably going to have to deal with sales over here. And then a little bit of shipping, but, you know, a little bit of that. Not much, but a little bit of that. The thing I told Fix is that I'm half pregnant now, and there are any different areas. That's right. You know, so I understood that. So I was like, yeah. Well, it's just very not boring. Is this the four of us and everybody who's listening, what do you think of David Fix? I do have a question for you. We are going to talk about David's interest in purchasing the Nordman and Ousler games that were being developed at Deep Root. My question for you is, do you think those are worth going after? I'm biased because I wrote rules for them. So, yeah, I mean, I'm biased. I mean, that's not, I'm going to say yes, I have entire rule sets written on them. How many games did you actually end up writing full rule sets for? Double digits. I don't know. Holy cow, Steve. Well, it was definitely the six that Barry worked on. So those games are all done, including artwork and everything? Like, they're good as long as people... No, no, no. No, no, no. But he wrote the rule sets. I mean, that's huge. That's a big step. So, like, as I had game number one, the zombie game, right? and that was being proven and changed and okay, whatever. Then we had the food game, which was written out, okay, working on that. Then things are being updated and score balanced and whatever and tested. And then it went next, next, next, and next. You know, so it was a lot. I have a resume of rules that stuck. So, you know, if I could ever show people, here's what I wrote. What do you all think? Come on, Chris, build my portfolio. Some of it's convoluted and some of it's straight up and some of it's simple and some of it's complicated. Just to see what people thought of it. It's all just sort of like, is it caught up in legal stuff or is it just that you might use it down the road? I'm no lawyer. You don't want to risk it. I got you. I don't know what that means. I don't know what that means. I mean, you know, I know it's, you know, whether it belongs to them or whatever, or whoever buys the intellectual property and other words like that that I don't know. But it won't keep you from using similar rules in the future on different titles, right? Well, those are concepts. So, I mean, I don't know how much you can take control of a concept. I mean, rule of three is rule of three wherever you go. It's not like something you can control. I invented super jackpot. Yeah, you can't control that. You can't really control shot progression. The weight of the crease or don't or whatever. That's not a thing. So what's your choice? Of the Nordman-Ozler games, what's your top pick? I have two that are coming to my mind. One is Dennis' Machine Age, and the other is Barry's Gladiator because it was Space Cadet. Oh, yeah, yeah. But then there was Jon Norris' I Don't Know. I didn't even have Jon Norris' game, which was going to be good, too. But, yeah, every teenage and things I wanted to do with that. And I was like, man, I hope this isn't too complicated. I don't think so. I think we'll be able to teach the player these things, and it's not going to be too ridiculous. Yeah. And with Space Cadet, I wanted you to play Space Cadet. If you knew how to play Space Cadet, you'd do better. But it wasn't Space Cadet. That's cool. But you knew how to play Space Cadet. But I kind of hope there's like one day I could be like, hey, everybody, here's what I wrote. Here they are. Yeah. And then, okay, let's go through and see what everybody likes and doesn't and whatever. I'm not a veteran in this area. I'm just me. If I just want to do things and see what people think. I don't know about controlling assets and intellectual property. You don't want to use this in another game. Well, you better control it. You might do better if you held it back. No, I want it for you to see it. Obviously, you're designing rules to a layout. How much do you think you can take a concept from a rule that you made for a specific layout and translate it to another game that may not have the same layout? Well, it depends on what's available for the shots and what inserts you have or you can get in there. Because you have to make sure you have the inserts that support the rule and what kind of insert you have in there also. So if it's a blank insert versus a written insert, if you have a written insert that handcuffs you there, that might be a thing. but if you have a blank insert then you might have a game like Star Trek where everybody says, oh, all the modes are the same when they're not. They're not the same. It's just that the insert is lit up. It's just that the insert is lit up. These particular times for this reason it's just they didn't want to handcuff themselves. So, you know, you leave it blank so that you can reuse it with multiple colors and things instead of having one insert. Like, no, this is the Ballyway of nothing. Every insert must have something on it because everything must be clear. Which I understand. Which I appreciate. But there are other ways to teach the player. Especially now that you have big LCD displays and all that good stuff. Right. But make sure you're, I mean, yeah, big LCD displays, but also in ways in how you do, because it can be overstimulating. When I'm sitting down, I don't look at the big screen. I look at the little screen. You don't count the patches that you have? No. It tells me what to do. It's awesome. Thanks for joining the show, buddy. It's great, yeah. Take it easy, man. All right. Have a great one. See you, bro. Bye, gentlemen. Coming up next, our exclusive interview with Jack Guarnieri of Jersey Jack Pinball that magically I will not be here for. Oh. Well, thanks. Thanks so much. That's unfortunate. Stick around, everyone. The Super Awesome Pinball Show. This is the one that started it all. It's the original. That's why everyone tried to copy it. Brought to you by Cointaker in lovely Sunbury, Pennsylvania. And yeah, a word from our sponsor. Saturday, Saturday, Saturday! The super awesome pinball show tailgate party. Saturday, September 24th at 10 a.m. Free admission, free play-offs, and food and drinks. And special guests. Plus a special new pinball sneak preview from American Pinball. On the coin table grounds at 1437 State Route 61, Sunbury, Pennsylvania. The Super Awesome Pinball Dough Tailgate Party. Saturday, September 24th at 10 a.m. Don't miss it. Just imagine your first chance in America to play Pinball Brothers' clean pinball machine. Free air conditioning and free parking. Must have reservations to get in. Okay, so anyway. and I'm trying to think of the best way to put this. Hey, this is Zombie Eddie, and you're listening to the Super Awesome Pinball Show podcast. Now, back to our program. During our interview segment of the show, please keep the following in mind. While we encourage our guests to speak their mind, their opinions, particularly on other pinball companies, may not necessarily reflect the feelings of the cast of the Super Awesome Pinball Show. Thank you. Jack Guarnieri founded the Jersey Jack Pinball Company in 2011 after a number of years as a game distributor. Eleven years later, JJP is bigger than ever and is known for making the highest-end product on the market with some of the best licenses like Wizard of Oz and Guns N' Roses. Jack joins us fresh off the reveal of their seventh game, Toy Story 4, to answer our burning questions about the machine, deep dive into the inner workings of JJP, and to bring us up to speed on what he's been up to since we last talked. Welcome to the show, Jack. Thank you. Thank you both. I thought we were going to talk about gardening, but okay, I guess we'll talk about it. That's Twig, This Week in Gardening. That's a different podcast. Oh, I won my Twiggy Award. That's how I won my Twiggy Award, Gardening. I got six Twiggies. You know, my mind's spinning. It's a super awesome gardening show. So, hmm. Gardening with the Pinball Stars. This is Stern Pinball's John Borg, and today I'm going to tell you how to grow prize-winning, plump, juicy, red, vine-ripened tomatoes right in your very own backyard. So stay tuned. Well, first of all, Jack, a huge congratulations on the launch of Toy Story 4 on Tuesday. I'm sure it's been a wild few days. How are you feeling? I'm great. I'm doing great. The team is doing great. A lot of people are really busy writing orders, and Jen's been shipping games out with the team, and I think we've got about 300 games out there. There's games on location. It's a beautiful thing to see all over the place. It's great. Wonderful. I couldn't ask for it to happen any better, really. Are you tired? No, no, no. This is very energizing. It never tires me. The other day, it was 4.20 a.m., 4.25 a.m., and I was talking to one of my distributors, and he was not in Europe. but he was in Pennsylvania. Whoa, Marquette. He was up busy writing orders. Yeah, he was up busy writing orders. That's great. 300 games on location at this point? Well, I don't know on location. That's what, around that number is what shipped. Okay. I see a lot of games popping up on social media all over the place. I know games went around the world, so they're starting to pop up. So it's really cool seeing people. You know, you really can't judge a book by its cover, right? You've got to play it. You got to get into it. You got to play with other people. You got to have fun with it and see what it is, you know. So to me, it was really important to get games out on location, not just, you know, in people's basements. But a lot of people in the basements, they have a lot of friends over, too. A lot of people are getting their hands on the game, which is great. Only a few days into launch. Yeah, that was impressive. I don't believe we saw your famous cartwheel yet, is there a moratorium on cartwheels? You know, I was going to I was going to spin the phone around and I was going to say stationary. that's the old man's cartwheel. I had a customer when I did a cartwheel, I think, for Dialed In or one of the last, maybe it was Willy Wonka. I have a customer who's an orthopedic surgeon, and he called me up and he said, listen, I think you're going to break your neck one day, and pinball in the world needs you, so stop doing that half-assed cartwheel. Oh, smart man. Break a wrist and you're out of commission, you know? Yeah. Jack, we saw a teaser trailer on Monday, and then Tuesday it was all out media salt. The order banks opened up. It took under three minutes, we read, to sell through all of your CE allotment, and combined with LE sales, JCP cleared over $30 million in one day, which is an insane number. Is it pretty much all high fives and chest bumps over there right now? It is, for the most part. You know, there's a lot of hard work that goes into this. It's been years in the making, and we have a lot of work to do, but it's very satisfying to know that you're working on something and the people respond in such a way. Friends of mine who are in the other side of the amusement industry selling games that really only go commercially, a lot of them really called me up and took notice. They texted me and congratulated me. That's awesome. GNR is an incredible band and license, and it took 27 minutes to sell out of all of those CEs. So Toy Story sold out 10 times faster. We read that you had like 100 CEs that were sold directly through JJP. Was the same number sold for GNR? I think that was a little bit, I think there was a, I'm trying to think about it. You know, I don't really remember. It was probably a little bit less because there were only 500 CEs on Guns N' Roses. Okay. Wow, so that's even more impressive. You know, I'm going to guess now, which is not where I like to be a lot of times, you know, I really don't think that 20% of the games were on our site. We skew to try to push more games to distribution, and you have worldwide customers. And you want to try to be fair to everybody. You really do. It's hard. You know, it's like concert tickets, how they sell out and everything like that. But it was a great response. We're really humbled, and we're really blessed and appreciative that so many people love what we do. Whoa. Christian, it's Jeff. Oh, Jeff, what are you doing? Just one question from somewhere where I'm not with you guys. I want to know, I hear world records were set by Jersey Jacks with the release of Toy Story 4. Can you tell us more about that? I'm really not dead. Well, I think that we sold more new product in one day than ever was sold before in the entire amusement industry for a new product introduction in a day. And that's any game, any arcade game or, you know, space. Any arcade game, any, you know, I'm going to say commercial game. You know, who knows if it's a home console game, if they, you know, some kind of crazy thing came out and sold, whatever. But a lot of industry, a lot of industry people called me and remarked about that, that have been in the industry actually longer than me. And they said, Jack, it's just amazing what the company's been able to do and how you're building pinball player base. You know, I really started at Wizard of Oz. People criticized me for why do you want to do Wizard of Oz? You know, I don't like the theme, blah, blah, blah. But it brought in a lot of women. It brought in a lot of young people. And every game we do brings another segment to the player base. And I hope I answered that question. Yeah, no, you did. You definitely did. Now we have to send Jeff back to his crystal ball. Get the hell out of here, Jeff. All right. Well, Jack, JCP knows how to launch a game better than anyone, in my opinion. You have a teaser image on Monday, and the following day, it's a complete media blowout. News sites have articles. Straight Down the Middle did a great gameplay video and interview with the developers. We got a number of emails from distributors and JCP directly, not to mention that the pictures are all over Facebook. It's a media blowout. One of the things that is really unique to JJP is the really well-done TV commercial quality video to showcase the game. Who's involved in that, and can you tell us what it's like getting that together? We're fortunate to have a lot of the resources that have come to the company and have helped support the company. They're customers. So it's not just customers that actually purchase games. It's customers that we have had the fortunate ability to integrate into the workings of the company, And there's a gentleman down in South Carolina who, you know, has a professional business and doing video production. And we talked about it a few years ago, and he's done several videos for us going back to Hobbit. And it was an amazing process. Any company that has a license worth anything is going to be somewhat protective of it, and they want to know how you're going to roll things out and how you're going to do it. This was certainly no exception. Throughout the whole process, the professional attitude, the professional actions of what we did in counter with Disney, Pixar and their people, their contributions. It was amazing. I mean, there were literally daily meetings and some meetings took place several times a day. The collaboration was great. And I think the result, you know, it's we're very proud of the result speaks for itself. True. We definitely want to pick your brain about JJP and everything happening there, but I'm sure that a lot of our listeners are here for the scoop on Toy Story, so we're going to hit you with a few questions about that if you're up for it. And a number of news outlets have done deep dives on the game, so we're not going to go too deeply into the gameplay and features and that sort of thing, but we do have a few questions that we haven't really seen answered or people haven't touched on yet. So let's start with the history of the game. It feels like there have been rumors that JJP Toy Story was coming since Woz came out. and I'm exaggerating, but I've been hearing them for probably four to five years. And the mystery behind the development of this game has been a really big burning question for a lot of people. Can you give us the details on how long the game has been in development and kind of the timeline leading up to the release of the game? Well, I started working on this license in 2014, which is insane to say, and it's 2022. You know, I have infinite patience. When you start a company like this, you really have to have a lot of patience. You have to have something of a vision where you want to go and what you want to do. So in 2014, I began working on acquiring the license, and we got the license. I had Toy Story 1, 2, and 3. I did not have Toy Story 4. Toy Story 4 did not exist yet, so I didn't even have it in the license. But we weren't working on it yet at that time. When Pat got into it after Dialed In, Dialed In took probably a little longer than I expected. I'll just get into that quickly. When you don't have a license, you have this blank piece of paper, and you kind of walk around the forest wondering which way the way in and the way out is. When you have a license, you really have more of a roadmap. You have a story. You have your characters. You have your bad guys, your good guys. You can really work around it. And as time went on and Dialed In was coming to release, right after Dialed In, Pat jumped into Toy Story. Then he jumped out of Toy Story and he jumped into Willy Wonka. Why did that happen? Willy Wonka. You know, it was just the licensing thing because I had the license for a little bit longer with Disney than I did for Warner Brothers. And the Willy Wonka license presented itself to me. There were a number of other people trying to get it, and I beat them all for the baseball bat. So I got Willy Wonka, and I said, okay, let's do Willy Wonka, and we'll do Toy Story a little later. Because, you know, this is all kind of ancient history. Disney pushed the Toy Story 4 movie ahead by about a year and a half at the time. So I said, wow. I didn't really tease Pat, but I said to Pat, hey, you know, Disney heard you're designing Toy Story. They moved the movie up a year and a half. They moved it back. They moved it back a year and a half. He really didn't laugh at that when I said that to him. I think he forgot that, luckily, because he gave me a big hug a few days ago. Anyway, moving right along. So we got into Willy Wonka. We did Willy Wonka. And then when Pat was done with Willy Wonka, he jumped into Toy Story. And, you know, Toy Story 4 was happening. And the people at Disney wanted us to focus on Toy Story 4. So it was kind of a funny thing where I had one, two, and three, and I didn't have four. And we would have added assets to four to whatever we made of one, two, and three. And then as the train of time moves on and none of us can control, you know, at some of these companies, and Disney's no different, you know, characters and people in the company change. And they move about. They move up. They move to different positions. So sometimes you deal with different people that have different ideas for product development and what they want you to see it focused on. And we talked about Toy Story 4, which, you know, my grandson, little Gary, he's three. His favorite movie of all the Toy Stories is four. I didn't know why, but as I watched it more and more with him, I personally got to like it a lot more. I mean, yes, it was a bigger, I'd like to bash Sid, you know, a little bit more. But Gabby Gabby and the way the whole game developed with the carnival theme and tickets, we thought about our industry side of things a lot of games today are ticket related. There were a lot of things we were able to create. Joe Katz and the team, JP and Pat and John Moussey, everybody involved with the game really did an amazing job. So we embraced it. We got behind it and we made something great. That's awesome. On Toy Story 4, one of the things I was happy about, we had the best video assets on Toy Story 4. The quality of the video was better. You know, we did Wizard of Oz, and it was a 70-year-old game. And JP did the best thing he could do. But the video animations in the game were amazing. We added Tim Allen. We added Jim Hanks. We added Annie Annie Potts. You know, so I was just really thrilled as I saw it develop, you know, the creativity of everything on the game, what it was going to be. Absolutely. I thought that too, in the sense that four is going to have the highest fidelity assets, which work, you know, obviously the best with the pinball machine, with the big screen that you have and to show movie clips and that sort of thing. But when you went back to Disney and Pixar, when they were ready to kind of renegotiate the license or discuss it again, did you ever bring to them the possibility of doing all four movies in one game? Or was it always that they just wanted you to focus on four? You know, the license has one, two, three and four that exists. So it was never that I lost one, two, three, you know. But you have to pick and choose what you want to do. I mean, certain actors in the series died. You know, it's going to be hard to get Don Rickles to do real speech and, you know, some of the other people that are no longer around. I think it's a great representation of what it is. You know, the arc of the characters is finalized in Toy Story 4. It's not like there's going to be another two or three movies. you know I think I learned something with The Hobbit and Wizard of Oz so Wizard of Oz you know I had a lot of characters that was 70 years old the witch was going to be the witch and that was it with The Hobbit I licensed this amazing franchise and it was going to be two movies and I was okay and you know it wasn't developed yet so you don't know what you don't know and then they broke it into three movies and they spread it out more and we didn't get the assets You know, we didn't know what Snoud looked like. They gave me this thing that looked like a rat, a wet rat, and we put it on the game. Yeah, I mean, we put it on the game and we rolled it out at Pinball Expo. The assets came out when the movie came out because they're not going to share a multi-billion dollar franchise with me. And then we saw what Snoud looked like and we had to go back to the drawing board. It took another year and more than a million dollars just to redo the game. So I said, you know, it would be nice to work on something that we actually know what it is before I get out. Yeah. Because that probably put a lot of toy companies out of business that were trying to make Hobbit toys for Christmas, and they didn't know what they were going to make because nobody would tell them what Snag looked like. I know it sounds kind of silly now, but at the time it was like the end of the world kind of thing. So this license to me is, personally, it's the best license I could give to Pat Lawler, I think, in his whole career. I think he really enjoyed this game. He loves primary colors. He loves carnival. He loves that kind of thing. He loves creating a game that's easy to understand and hard to master, just like a lot of carnival games are. Good luck with balloon darts and knocking over the milk cans and all that kind of stuff. That's what the game is. It's a celebration of Toy Story and carnival games. and it's just a family fun game. You could tell in that straight down the middle video, especially towards the end when he was talking about how proud he was and how happy he was about giving Pixar this game that he feels like really represents the brand and he feels like he truly did justice to it. And that was really special that he felt that strongly about that. Pat should be really proud because the people at Disney Pixar love the game. They love how it came out. They were involved with it. We were in weekly meetings for what seemed like a number of years about different things in the game and how we would do things and how we would portray things and what characters would be used and where characters would be placed. So it was very active, and they're very proud of the way the game turned out. Well, there's a rumor that Lawler's design for Wonka was originally meant for Toy Story. Is there any truth to that? No, no. I think the confusion was because we had the license for it, but it was more important to move on Willy Wonka than it was Toy Story because the movie was pushed back a year and a half, and the license for Willy Wonka was a little bit more pressing that we get that game done first. So when he originally started on it, he was working on a game that he thought was going to be modeled after Toy Story 1, 2, and 3. And with Toy Story 4, obviously the game is very much carnival-focused. You've got the Duke Caboon ramp and the carnival, everything in there. So how did it evolve then from when he was doing it for Toy Story 1, 2, 3 to where it is now? Well, he might have been doing it in his mind, but he wasn't doing it for real. Oh, I see. He knew we had the license for 1, 2, and 3, and you could think about it, but there was no pen to paper, let me cut wood and chop trees down in the forest, and let's do this and that. It never got that far. Got it. So he was working on Battle Day. It's not like there was a Toy Story game somewhere and somebody, you know, shelved it or turned it into. I love hearing some of these rumors, too, customers that I'm friends with for so many years, like text me all kinds of wacky things. And I'd love to tell them what's going on, but I'm certainly not going to tell them anything that's going to go on. But it's funny to hear these things, you know. Jack, we know in the vault somewhere there's a Toy Story 1, 2, and 3 Whitewood, and I want to see it. That's all I'm saying. Yeah, so, you know, this is one of very few pinball machines, Jack, that's based on an animated movie. And the first Pixar license in pinball, really, that I think of. So, you know, for me as a dad who's always trying to get my kids more into pinball, Toy Story kind of seems like a theme that couldn't be a better entry point. And J.J.P. has never really had a license that spoke directly to a younger demographic like this. So was that the idea when you secured the license that you wanted to branch out into that spectrum? Yes. You know, my son was five years old. Jack was five years older. and I remember standing at Disney watching the Toy Story Parade, and I remember the excitement that people had. And now as people have gotten older and they've grown up, and now they're parents and they have children and grandparents and all these kind of things, what this game has done already, I believe, probably, I'm going to guess, I don't know the right number, but I would think 20% to 30% of the people that buy this game, when all is said and done, will be brand-new pinball people. There'll be people that come and find out there's a Toy Story game, and the game basically sells itself. I always loved years ago as a distributor having a game that I don't really, I'm kind of lazy. I don't want to work too hard selling. I got to twist somebody's arm. Yeah, you really ought to make that shot, and then you'll like that game a lot. This is the kind of game you look at it, you point at it. Somebody throws their credit card on the table and said, take my money, you know, really. And that's what the game is. And, you know, listen, I don't know anything. I'm going to say this. What do I know? It's my opinion. The customer's always right, but I've got to tell you something. Money in and of itself is very cold, and it does nothing. It has no value. What people want to create today, they want to create experiences. They want to create memories. When I sold games years ago, I could never get games back out of people's basements because people would say to me, oh, you know, little Johnny's grandpa bought him that game, or we played that game at a birthday party, and it's part of the family, and nobody's taken it. So this is not buying a product, believe it or not. This is not $15,000 or $12,000 buying a product. This is life experience. This is bringing families together. This is grandpa playing something with the grandkids. This is making memories. This is priceless. You can't put a dollar amount. Yeah, we have to put a dollar amount because it didn't cost a fortune to build, but we have to put a dollar amount But the value that people get that buy these games Listen probably nobody in the world has sold more pinball machines to the home market than me You can ask Doug Duber that question. Let him give you the answer, okay? Don't ask me. It's a whole life experience. You're not taking the thing with you. That's what it's about. It's about creating fun. You know, my cousins have a saying. We're not here for a long time. We're here for a good time. That's what the game provides. That's what the game provides. It's fun. From watching the gameplay, it looks like you've got a ton of assets from movie clips and voice actor lines from the movie, and of course the classic songs and music. What licensing restraints did you have for this game, if any? Well, we really didn't have a lot. You know, I do all the licensing. I'm proud of that, but, you know, it's kind of a triple, double, quadruple edge, or whatever you want to say. It's fun when everything's done, but during the process, sometimes it's not fun because, you know, with different things, you have to negotiate the best that you could possibly get. And I don't want to give the team, I don't want to give them a property where there's no assets. I mean, I don't think everybody knows that there's a secret. You know, I wanted to do a game, and I chased it for about two years. When I found out that all I was going to get was a movie poster, I abandoned ship. And because I wanted it, another pinball company jumped on top of it. I think I know which one that is. We both know what you're talking about. I don't know if you want to disclose that, though. Can you tell us what it is? I can't just take a movie poster. So what I need is we need rich assets in video. We need to be able to engage actors from the movie to do custom speech. We need to be able to get all the art assets for an amazing artist such as John Yousi to do a game like this. And really, all the different things that we're known for, all the different elements, the programmers with the rules, you know, it's amazing. The job Joe Katz did and the whole team coming up with rules, coming up with light shows, coming up with all the sounds. I mean, it's just, you know, I used to say we don't put the kitchen sink in the games. We put the whole plumbing department in there. And we really do. I mean, it's a lot. It's a big production. Let's talk about that briefly because what's in this game, there's a ton in it. So it looks like fun. You've got all the characters from the movie. You've got a bash toy that comes out of the play field. You've got a Duke Caboom stunt ramp that launches the ball through the air. spinning carnival wheel, big video screen with show clips and game info and a fully working virtual pinball machine. And then you've got two spinners, a saucer, scoops, so on and so forth. So you've obviously had a chance to get a lot of time in on this game, and Chris and I have yet to play it. What are your favorite features that you think really make Toy Story fun? I like making it a kaboom shot. Yes, I can-a-dive! You know, I'm a Brooklyn pinball player, which means I shake the crap out of anything I play. And if anybody plays with me in the tournament and they want me on their team, they know I'm going to tilt and I'm going to break the game. Maybe I'm even going to kick the coin door. Who knows what's going to happen, you know, with this style. But, you know, I just like getting through all the scenes. I like trying to rescue Forky. The two-kaboom shot, you know, I always like something like that. I mean, yeah, I like bashing the crap out of Gabby Gabby's who's that playing in that. So there's a little bit of everything that I like. You know, it's not, some games have like one thing on them. You know, you had a game where you had to bash the safe all the time, or you had to bash, you know, a ball rod, or you had to bash like one kind of thing to get past. You know, I think this game is pretty well set up for a beginner player. I think it's challenging for an accomplished player. and I think it's like a carnival game. It's easy to understand and it's going to be a little bit harder to master. So I have to imagine that one of the coolest parts of working on a licensed property is that you often get people involved in that license to help you with the game. Slash is a perfect example of that with GNR. You've got amazing talent in this game with Tim Allen, Annie Annie Potts, Jim Hanks helping out with call-outs. Did you get to spend any time with them at the factory or did they not come in or how did that work? I didn't spend time with them, but Joe Katz did. He got to sit next to Tim Allen when he was doing all the call-outs and everything. So it's a fun thing. We try to spread things around in the company. I'm not a hog when it comes to doing things like that. We like everybody to share in the fun and the experience of it and making the game and creating it. Everybody shares in the experience, and it creates a better product because everybody feels ownership of what they're working on. Jack, one of the features of the game that was mentioned, but we didn't really get more details about, is that Annie Annie Potts does exclusive call-outs for the CE. Can you tell us a little bit more about the difference between her call-outs in the LE versus the CE? I'm not that well-versed on the difference. I know with Wonka, we did have Farouk Assault do call-outs in the CE and not in the LE. But in this case, we did use Annie Annie Potts in the LE and used more of her call-outs in the CE. so players with both games will get Annie Annie Potts. She's great. I didn't know that Veruca did custom stuff for the CE. I had no idea. See, that's why you get me on a show and I spill my guts. Yeah, that's cool. Super awesome. I had a conversation with her at Pintastic and she said that she would happily have signed off to give you guys full rights at no charge to include her song, I Want the World. So if you ever want to follow up and do an update, You can always hit her up and say, hey, we want to make good on that because she really wanted her song in that game. Is that hers to give away? Well, I guess it's hers from the extent of, oh, we have to pay her because she sang it. You still probably have to pay Warner Brothers. But anyway, on a side note to that, at that Pentastic, I did win the Willy Wonka Translight signed by everybody. So, Jack, let's touch on Code briefly. So Pat had mentioned in the Straight Down the Middle video that he was trying to make this game accessible to kids as well as the hardcore enthusiasts. And I own the game, and there are still some features I haven't seen in GNR. But it sounds like progression will be easier in Toy Story 4 as compared to other Jersey Jack titles. Joe Katz released an update for Wonka that made progression a little easier as well in that game. So is making each game more accessible a strategy for JJP now moving forward for all the titles, or is this just title-specific? You know, I don't know if you'd call it a strategy or a conscious decision, but, you know, more and more people are coming into pinball through Jersey Jack pinball, and we don't want them to be frustrated. We want them to have fun, walk up to the game, know what to do pretty quickly, and be able to play the game. You know, I think Pat said something like, you know, it would be a shame if we created something where only, you know, one player out of 100 or one player out of 1,000 will get to see it. That would be kind of a waste. And, you know, I agree with that. You know, there are a number of games that are set up to frustrate in a way or to keep you playing or keep you entertained. But if you get too frustrated and you're not going to put more money in the game on a location, I think that's a fail, not a win. Should we get into the more controversial questions now? So, Jack, I put some asterisks by these questions. So there are four questions in a row. They're all potentially controversial questions. So if there's any question that you feel like is too controversial or too out there that you don't want to answer, then we'll just delete it. All right. What size underwear do you wear? Oh, yeah. Oh, my God! Let's talk about some tech mechanics and other features of the game. You've still got the standard shaker motor. Eric's amazingly designed hot rails and an insane amount of LEDs, like 300 for the LED and 450 plus for the CE. There are some rumors that the flippers were going to be modified for this game. Have there been any modifications to the flipper mechs for Toy Story? Not so much to the mechanisms, but to the electronics of the flippers. Correct. Oh, tell us more about that. What does that mean? That means you've got to play the game and find out. Oh, my. Inquiring minds want to know. You just told me that you might ask me something that I don't want to answer, and I just want to see if I can push that button. Okay, fair enough. Fair enough. So are you pushing it just for fun, or do you actually have an answer? I think you're just pushing it for fun. Okay, next question. Okay. All right, so Jack, can we talk about playfields? Before I ask the question, can I talk about playfields? Next question. All right, here we go. Talk about them all you want. All right, so Jack, have there been any changes in the playfields that Jersey Jack is making for Toy Story since Guns N' Roses? I think people have noticed that artwork is missing from certain places on the play field. Okay. Like in trap lines and things like that. Utilizing them more, yeah. I think people have noticed that, yeah. Okay. For those of you who may not be aware, a trap line is that fat black line you see around artwork when it stops right before it gets to a post or something like that. So JJP is apparently using those more often now so that those parts don't directly hit the artwork, which is a smart move. Good. We did that on Hobbit and we did that on Wizard of Oz. That was kind of a standard thing that we did. So in a Toy Story game, you have to have toys. And there are a number of the characters from the movie in the play field or on the play field, I should say. So were those sculpts for the game provided by Disney? Did you outsource your play field toys to a company like Back Alley Creations or were those kind of store-bought toys? There were some things that Disney directed us to use, and there were some things that we created, and I think it worked out pretty well. Okay. Pinball is an interesting thing, right? So sometimes you're the bug, and sometimes you're the windshield. You know, you have to sometimes be able to play the cards that lay on the table and make a winning hand out of it. And when people direct you to use certain things, you need to use certain things. That was my question. That's what we did. Because that's what people want to know, is how much of this decision-making process was Jersey Jack versus Disney saying, hey, here are the toys for the game. I think it was 50-50. Nobody shoved anything down our throat and forced us to do anything. I mean, the process was very, very friendly, very positive. We wanted to make the greatest product we possibly could make. And the people at Disney Pixar wanted to see the license represented in the best light in the best way and have the greatest game created. and I still stand by my opinion of the game, my personal opinion. I love the game. Well, there are two things that I think a lot of people don't consider, especially with the toys in a pinball game. One is production cost, and two is approvals. Now, if you have the option to buy toys that are already approved and already created, all the machine tooling is done, why wouldn't you do that rather than just say, Well, we offer a slightly different pose in our toys. It only makes physical sense to buy the toys that are already there because they're good to go. And you save a ton of money, which, of course, that would be passed on to the customer. And you're supporting Disney's license. Well, it's not just money, believe it or not. Things have to be a certain size, a scale, approval. There's a timeline to make something and then get it approved. I can tell you a story with Gabby Gabby. It went on for a long time because we had to get all the colors right, the palette, the eyes. If you look at her eyes, look really close at her blue eyes. I'm not going to tell you what you're going to see, but the paint is amazing on that. And that was something they wanted us to do. So if you look at her eyes, you'll actually see the amazing level of detail that some things that you wouldn't think are a big deal become a big deal to somebody who wants to see their intellectual property represented and done the right way. Can I take a guess? We're all about that. Can I take a guess? Go ahead. Because I've not seen it. I've not seen it up that close, but I'm going to guess in her eyes, you see the reflection of the pinball play field. No, there's got to be something that Pixar did. I mean, their movies are known for such insane levels of detail. John Lasseter's face is in there. I mean, you know, so now you guys got to go look in Gabby Gabby's eyes and see what you see when you look at her blue eyes. The level of detail is really kind of crazy when you get into it. You know, it's not just, you know, take this bag of stuff and just throw it all over the place. There's a lot of energy and time and effort that goes into these things where logos are placed, where characters are placed in relation to other characters. is there's so much that it could be like a 30-second thumbnail, a year's worth of doing something, and you just released it, and you could just have like a Vulcan mind meld, and everybody understood that, the heads would explode like an alien. That's what it would be. We've had so many guests on this show from different companies, and I always ask the question about licensing because it's really fascinating to me. But what I've gathered from talking to people is that this stuff that you would think is not important is really, really important to the licensors. And it just puts the brakes on a lot of stuff. So I can't imagine, you know, how many hoops you have to jump through to get an entire game based off of someone's IP completed. We all know the story about Stern's R2D2 topper. I mean, that took years to come out after the game came out. I'm not familiar with that company. You know, what are you... But you do a damn good impression of Gary Stern. Yeah, I mean, it just took them a really long time to get it out because there were so many hurdles they had to get over. And I just can't imagine what an entire machine... Well, you know, it's how you do it and your reputation of what you've done before. Certain companies give you more if they believe that you need it and you're going to use it the right way. And that's what it is. I mean, if you're just going to cut and paste and use a style guide, it's real easy. I mean, that's the beauty of a license to some people. They just, they don't go put their own spin on it. I mean, when we did Pirates, we did hand-drawn artwork. You know, everybody knows what Johnny Depp looks like, but he could look, and you know, nobody can speak to this better than Christopher Franchi. I mean, he's an amazing artist. So, you know, you can put your own take on something and still, it looks like Johnny Depp. Or you can just use something from a style guide and take a shortcut and save money. And, of course, it's going to be approved because it's fair pre-approved artwork, right? So if you're making a lunchbox or a t-shirt, that's great. But in pinball, we're trying to put a little bit of a different thumbprint on it. Okay, so I'm glad you mentioned artwork because you had John Yowsey on this game. Now, he is a legend, of course, in the pinball world. He's done so many games. I think his style, his style of realism came in at a time that was very innovative. innovative and he was on this game but it seems to me as an artist i believe that all the cabinet artwork was assets from disney and he was only able to really do the playfield now how badly did that crush him being and like a super realistic artist so i'm sure would have loved it nailed that cabinet john yowsey didn't complain to me at all i think he was thrilled i think he did an amazing job on both models yeah it's fantastic playfield yeah you know an amazing collaboration again between Pat and John, you know, that continues. It's just iconic, epic, all those big words, super awesome. I liked how we had all of the characters well represented on the side, and that was on both sides of the cabinet for this L-E-N-S-E-E. It looked really, really good. I love both artwork packages. Sometimes you see a couple of different model games, you know, whether it's whatever it is, the high end, the middle, the low, whatever you want to call it and you look at one artwork package and you say you know i want this model game with that my with that version artwork and it's kind of difficult but i think i think on both of them you know i want to have both games no really i don't think people i don't think people should buy one game i think they should buy both of them i mean who wants a half-assed collection you got to go all in damn it that's right well we have customers that bought both Wow. Damn. Well, when you've got more than one house, maybe you need one model of one house and one model of the other house. All right. That's Living Large. That's Champagne Wishes and Caviar Dreams right there. See, I want to be on one of those. Champagne Wishes and Caviar Dreams come too. So that's the end, Jack, of our controversial questions. So we're moving on. Thank you for answering those. That was well played. So, Jack, I love a good topper, and this one looks great. You've got Duke Caboom flying over a number of fireworks that are made up of fiber optic LED cables. Is this a topper that is tied into the GI of the game and integrated into the gameplay anyway? Yes, yes. How does that work? I'm not going to tell you because you're going to see how it's going to work. That's going to be revealed. Okay. If he answers, you have to play the game one more time. I'm not going to say you have to play the game. You know what's funny? I don't want to be evasive, but there was a kid that asked me a question many years ago Wizard of Oz. He was wondering what was going to be in the crystal ball. And a little kid asked at a pinball show, and I didn't want to lie to the little kid, and I said, it's going to light up. There's going to be some kind of light in there. And everybody went, ooh. And you know, nobody knew until we went to IAAPA in 2012 with eight games that there was a little tiny video monitor in the crystal ball. Nobody knew that. And it was a surprise. I always like to leave something that's a surprise. And I know you guys, the podcast and the pinball world, God bless you guys and girls, because somebody cares about what we do. And we have new pinball machines now coming out from many different manufacturers, which is wonderful. But you can't tell everybody everything all the time. You've got to have a little, yeah, you're paying a lot of money, but, you know, you've got to be somewhat surprised sometimes with some things, aren't you? I totally get that. I mean, I feel like our job as a podcast is to get behind the scenes of these industry people and the companies themselves and learn a little bit more about them. But I certainly don't want to spoil any magic from the games because these are games that people are paying a lot of money for and they want to experience. I'm going to throw out a guess because I know that Jack had mentioned that after you get to the wizard mode, you get to a mode called fireworks or something. And I know that there are fireworks tied into the topper. So that's going to be a pretty amazing integration if that mode is tied to the topper. I'm looking forward to seeing that. Good. You'll be disappointed. All right. Well, Jack, Scorebit is a lot of fun to compare scores with your friends, and it's integrated seamlessly into your games. Are there any updates to the online features with Toy Story 4, and are we going to have any achievements ready to go day one with the game? Yes, there will be, and there'll be more about that as well. And I think as that gets built out and Jay and his team at Scorebit, I love what they're doing. What we do is free. We're not charging anything. We're not building any revenue model out of that. And I think the achievements, it's really cool. It's really cool. You know, competition in person is great. I always wondered myself, you know, could somebody just take the glass off and play the game? You know, it's a pinball machine. You know, how do I know where the game is and all that stuff? But, you know, there's thousands of people involved playing, and it's great. It's cool. I've found that the scoreboard integration in Wonka and GNR has been a lot of fun. It's like a new reason to play and try and achieve certain things. That's great. I had a customer who always would call me up. You know, everybody knows my phone number. And a guy would call me up and say, he's from Audemars, Oklahoma. I'm going to say Johnny Norman, but I didn't mention his name. And he called me up with his beautiful Audemars Oklahoma accent, which I love since I have a Brooklyn accent. And he would say, Jack, could you send me a thumb drive so I can update my Wizard of Oz game? And, you know, now I hear from Johnny, but not as often because all his Jersey Jack games are all Wi-Fi. Yeah. And he's all up to date with everything, you know. So I didn't have to make a thumb drive and send him a thumb drive. And then I got 30 thumb drives. I sent them over the years. I didn't get one back. you know what johnny called me johnny actually called me the other day and he said i know you're going to pentastic make sure you got me some double extra large shirts okay i'm telling you in advance okay last time gabe charged me good money for johnny's shirts you know okay throw johnny a couple of free shirts okay and don't throw a tipping will you please throw johnny a bone i mean i i know jack that you you every year at pentastic in your suite at the hotel you have a barbecue blowout from the barbecue place down the street. He trucked in all of his barbecue food. And I ran into Eric last year, and I said, Eric, where have you been, man? We got a place from GNR. And he said, I am so full. I just stuffed my face in jacks to eat. Apparently it's a party. To stuff Eric is, Eric can eat, like, double his weight. You want to put clothes on that boy. You don't want to see them. I can tell you that. That's within his calves. It's all ribs and stuff down there. That's exactly what it is. It just goes right down his calves. Have you seen the picture, Jack, of Eric's calves? It is truly impressive. Apparently he has. I laughed so hard because last time, Joe Russo was telling a story about somebody, and I laughed so hard I spit my water bottle all over his face, and everybody went crazy. it was a lot of fun we were laughing about that that is a great show probably the first show in the US where you know we'll have Toy Story games so that's great Mike from Automated will have a big presence there and Gabe does a great job I don't know how I got him to promote the show but he'll be happy he does I promote it all the time because I love Pentastic I think Gabe is awesome it's a family run show they always have great guests seminars etc etc It's a lot of fun, and he always gets me on Saturday night. We have the seminar, and I buy everybody pizza. It seems like I'm feeding everybody over there all the time. They don't eat the whole year until I get there. Then they all eat. I don't know what the heck that's about, but it is a lot of fun. We appreciate it. I've been to that a few times, had some pizza, so thank you for that. Did Todd Tucky leave any for anyone else? No. Todd. Todd. Todd. Todd comes out on Thursday night. You know, everybody sleeps at Mike the Donut's house. So last year, I think Todd brought so many people that Mike wound up sleeping on the floor. So this year, I think Mike told Todd, listen, I got rooms for all you guys. Let me do Mike. Listen, I got room for all you guys down the street. I got your hotel rooms. So this way, I don't have to sleep on the floor again. It's worth the cost. It's worth it. Yeah, I get it. He did tell Todd, Jack has his room, though, but we got you guys both. That's awesome. Well, hopefully I'll see you guys out there. It's such a great family. Pinball people are the best people in the world. We have disagreements about different things. Some people like the color red. Some people like the color blue. Some people like the color orange. But we can all agree we all love pinball, and it binds us together. It brings us together. The community, when somebody's in trouble, everybody runs to help the person that's in trouble. And, you know, it's just been a great growing community. It's been so much fun. So many really good friends that are together for so many years that just share a lot of fun times together. That's awesome. That is so true. I mean, it really is. The shows are fun because of all of the, you know, all the events and the tournaments and everything like that. but they're really special because of the people you get to see when you go down. They're all characters. They are. They are all characters. At pinball sales, we used to say they're all nuts, but they're on nuts. You know, I mean, you know, everybody is unique, and you respect everybody, and you have a good time, and everybody gets along, and it's really wonderful. It really is. It's just a lot of fun. And, you know, we all missed each other during COVID. So when the show started happening again, you know, it was like, you know, you meet the family that you didn't see for a couple of years. It was even better, you know. I was at Expo, you know, I guess it's last November now or last October now. And, you know, somebody said to me, you know, even the jerky people are nice at this show. They've had a chance to put it in perspective, right? I mean, they realized that, hey, they really like to see these people, and they don't have to be such jerks. Yeah, I think that's true. I think everybody really appreciated each other, so that was nice. Yeah. Well, I want to ask you about the models of the game. So for this game, you have 5,000 LEs and 1,000 CE games, but you guys opted not to do the SE model for Toy Story 4. Why did you choose to go with that approach? You know, the standard game probably of all the games we've done is the rarest game we've ever built. I mean, in Guns N' Roses, maybe there's less than 200 standards. And, you know, all the games, the least amount of games are always standard. The idea of the standard originally in my mind was to try and have a lower price point entry to help the amusement operators put a game on location. But when you have guys that have locations buying CEs and LEs and they're not buying SEs, you've got to look at each other and say, listen, we're hardly selling any of these. Why are we not going to put all that effort into this model if nobody's buying it? So really, the model did away with itself because people weren't buying it. And it wasn't about price because it was lower price. I think I could be wrong, but I usually remember numbers. I think I'm dialed in. I think the price point of a standard game was like $6,500 or $6,000. And people want the DLE and they wanted the CE. So it's not so much about the money. You know, people want the higher end, the higher end full feature game or they like the artwork package better or, you know, locations want to brag that they have a CE in the location. They don't have, you know, a standard or whatever. So that's what he's saying. So it's in response to the customer base. That makes sense. Yeah, prices have changed over the years. Toy Story 4 retails for $12K for an LE and $15,000 for a CE. When Woz was released in 2013, it retailed for around $7K, a little bit under that. You've been in the industry making games for a long time, but you were a distributor and sold games for a long time before that. So let's talk about the state of pinball pricing. Do you still have to pinch yourself seeing what games are selling for these days? Not really. You know, you said it pretty well in that question, right? So the game that was Wizard of Oz, which was priced at, you know, originally $6,500, then it went to $7,000, and then $7,500 as, you know, the game progressed to give people, you know, the ability to still come into the game. I guess $7,500 in 2011 money is probably about $9,500 in today's money, although short gas price in 2011 was about $1. $1.30 a gallon, and today it's $6 a gallon, so it's hard to compare what money's worth. So that's why I say money is a cold thing, and it kind of has a worth, but the thing thing has a different worth. So back in 2001 at Pinball Sales, when I was importing games from Europe, I would buy an Addams Family for $600. We would probably put $600 into it and sell it for $1,800, and we would high-five and go have a steak dinner. um the eighteen hundred dollar adams family in 2001 uh if a customer would call me today and try to sell that to me that customer wants from me fifteen or eighteen thousand dollars otherwise they're going to go try to sell it for 20 or 25 on ebay so um here's what's happened right so having sold thousands of games to people in their home over those years and i was stone's biggest distributor for many many years they really didn't even understand what the internet was and what the home customer was, and it's famously known what I was told how I would fail about selling games to the home, nobody in the home wants a game. You know, those games that I sold years ago, let's say if I sold you a Fishtails for, you know, $2,500, that's a $6,000 or $7,000 game today. If I sold you a Lord of the Rings game for $3,800, that's an $8,000 or $9,000 game today, right? So you take all of these collections, what they're worth and how much they appreciate it, And the value of those collections, you know, a lot of people when a new game comes out, there are people that don't have room. So they'll look at their collection and they'll say, you know, I'm going to sell this game or that game and I'm going to have some money and I'm going to make money. So the prices of what they're selling has been inflated or it went up in value, let's say, if you don't want to use the word inflated. And that money stays as pinball money. You know, the fellas and the girls that have games, they didn't buy those pinball machines when they were new for four grand with their last four grand, but they didn't do that. So they're in pretty good shape right now. They have games that went up in value, and they know all the new games from all new companies, just like all new cars and everything else. You know, everything's gone up. Well, their collections have gone up. They didn't really feel it that much. It's the people that don't have any games that might want to get into it, and they know what things cost, and they feel that there's value buying a brand new Jersey Jack game at $12,000 for a limited edition game. It's Toy Stereo. There's value at $15,000 buying the game. They're not worried about the money because the $15,000 is not changing their life. It's not going to make them or break them. They're going to have what I said before. They're going to have something that creates an experience with their family and keeps them together. And they have fun with it. And they're going to have it for a lot of years. And, you know, past performance is no guarantee for future, as they say, with financial instruments. But, you know, if history has shown us anything, even in their great recession of 2008, you know, I thought for a little while. I said, wow, people are going to call me. They're going to be selling their games back. I'm going to be getting a lot of games back. Nobody sold their games. Nobody sold their games. People get divorced. I never get a call about buying a game. Somebody somehow figures out how to keep the game. They get rid of their wife or they get rid of their husband. A woman called me and said, man, I'm moving. I got rid of my husband. He was no good, blah, blah, blah. But I said, what did you do with your games? Oh, no, the game's saved. Your guys are going to move them to my new house. Like, okay. I mean, that's got to be just like battling over who gets the kids. I mean, when you have a huge pinball collection, I mean, obviously, it's just a thing. But, you know, they're very important to people. And I can imagine that being a point of contention when you're splitting up. Yeah, so, I mean, you know, look, the value, I don't know. You know, who knows? I mean, I guess they work it out. You know, we sold a lot of rolls to jukebox years ago. There was a world to distributor. We never got one of those back either. You know, people always kept them somehow. But, you know, you're talking about value and things going up in price. People today, I think because of COVID also, it taught a lot of people that life is too short. that there is things more important than money sometimes for those that are fortunate. And really, everybody's understood that things have gone up in price. I mean, Tesla even raised their price. If materials go up, labor goes up, people have to raise the price or they're going to be out of business. And we don't want to make a fortune. We want to stay in business. We want to be profitable. But, you know, this is an expensive business to be in. And the demand of the customer is higher and higher. You know, the higher demand meets a higher price. And, you know, nobody's forced to buy any product at all that they want. It's simple economics, right? It's supply and demand. But what I always wonder, because everyone always talks about this on Pinside and on Facebook and every other, you know, pinball community, is when is the bubble going to burst? Now, you've been in pinball forever, and the price of pinball machines has constantly been going up. do you ever see a point in time where the pinball prices will go back so you know people will say to me you're not gonna get the right answer from jack because he's jersey jack and he's trying to sell games and blah blah i sell games by not selling games you know the games really sell themselves so you don't need me to sell a game all right um and i put that in quotes really we make a great product i do not see a bubble i do not see a bubble bursting it's a lot different now than before because before I started Jersey Jack Pinball when you had one company that was basically a monopoly things were in trouble because a monopoly does not make an auction you can't have an auction on one person bidding it's not interesting it's not exciting people don't want to buy something that's dying from the last company in the world that's making a product that's like a boogie whip or something like that who wants that oh wait a minute now some jerky guy started a company. He'll never succeed. He'll never go the game. He'll never sell the thousand games. I guess he sold a thousand games. He took all that money. What's he going to do with the money? He's going to go out of business. He's not going to go out of it. He's going to have money. He's going to have games. Is the game going to be any good? I can tell you what. I knew that Wizard of Oz had to be spectacular because I knew that the first 50 or 100 people that got it if they thought the game was no good the other 900 waiting for the game would want their money back So I made sure that game was again great And that's what we do in every game we build. So Bubble, I would say to you, different companies have different formulas for what they do. There are games out there that are priced maybe more than they should be priced. There are games out there priced maybe less than they should be priced. Consumers aren't stupid. Pinball people aren't stupid. They're going to figure out what they want to buy. They're going to figure out what appreciates. They're going to figure out what they want to play, what they want to sell. But the key thing is what I want to touch on, what you started saying before, it's the point of demand. There are thousands and thousands of new people discovering pinball for the first time. We are building the base of pinball. And what I said years ago to people, when I sold a lot of those games to people's basements, I was quoted in Replay Magazine maybe 15 years ago saying, well, the kids that grow up playing pinball in the basement, when they grow up and they have disposable income, they're going to go out and they're going to want pinball machines for their homes and for their kids to play in their homes. And guess what? That's what's happened. A lot of it's happened. It's kind of funny to say that, but it's happened. Grassroots grew a lot of the player base. And yes, the social media has helped. pinball shows years ago when I went to pinball shows they were just long-haired freaks and geeks who were all there there were no girls there were no women there if there was one woman there 50 guys were chasing the one girl around today there's families there's wonderful wonderful shows with wonderful wonderful people there yeah there's still some of the people that you know maybe uh should shower more often but what can I say I was just waiting for a chance to say yeah They're still crop dusting, but... You know, look, if it was a clock collecting show or a stamp collecting show or a camera club, it would be all the same cross-section. Just the names and faces would be different. But the big prop tutorial answer, I'm going to tell you, Chris and Chris, there is no bubble. It's not going to burst because you have more demand than supply. And unless you inverted that, then you would have a problem. But people want what we're building. They may not want what everybody's building, but they certainly want what we're building. So what this all boils down to is, folks, if you got $12,000, money can buy you happiness with a JJP pinball machine. I'm always impressed that you guys continue to make games that you're never going to get to a point where you have a game where people don't want to get it in two minutes and 50 seconds. I mean, there's such a furious demand out there for new product. and when product launches from you guys, I mean, it's always spectacular. There's always a lot of hype. It's humbling hearing that, and it's very nice, and we're very blessed, but we don't take that for granted. You know, we're as good as the game that we're making right now. The next game's got to be really great, and the next game's got to be really great. You know, people now, they're getting more picky with what they're buying. You can see it. You can read about it, and you can see people, they're getting offline. When they have a deposit on something, they're willing to lose their deposit if they don't feel comfortable about the game they're buying. So you can tell that people are getting picky. They don't want to buy just a good game. They want to buy a great game. And when I started the company, the whole idea was we were saying the tagline was, Wizard of Oz is going to be the greatest game ever built until we build our next game. And we're not trying to make previous games look bad. We're trying to innovate. We're trying to load these games up with new technology, do new things that haven't been done before, go to themes that have never been thought of before and never been done before and really push the envelope and build pinball community bigger and bigger and the player base bigger and bigger. If you have a Toy Story game on location, that's the smartest game you can buy because I can tell you, even among all the redemption games, among everything, there's no Toy Story anything in an arcade. There's no Toy Story anything, okay? This is the only Toy Story, this is the first time Toy Story has been done in the entire amusement industry. Think about that. The franchise started in 1995. Nobody else got a license in Toy Story, and nobody else could get the license in Toy Story. Nobody else bothered with that. Nobody thought that was a good license. Really, I must be some kind of genius, which I don't think I am. But, I mean, you've got to look forward, and you've got to keep giving your customers what they don't even know they want yet. That's what you have to do. That's a great answer. You know, Toy Story has been in video games, but it's never been in amusement games, like you said. I mean, that's definitely a new avenue for it. And to have a pinball machine completely exclusive to that is pretty awesome. Jack, there are a lot of customers eagerly awaiting their Toy Story games. How many have already been made before the game announcement, and how quickly are you getting those out? Ellie's now in Seas by Autumn? Yeah, I mean, LE's shipped right now, so we're only a few days in, and I think probably close to 300 games are shipped worldwide so far. You know, we're probably building at a good clip, you know, two assembly lines, and then we're going to integrate CE games and continue to build LE games. So CE games will start to get integrated in autumn, you know, probably as soon as everything comes together. So stay tuned on that. Those are always fluid things based on parts, but we have a great team of people that procure parts and manage our vendor partners. It's a process to make anything today, whether you have three parts that you're trying to put together or 3,000 parts you're trying to put together. How are parts for you guys? I mean, we've talked to a few different companies, and they've all said that getting parts is a real problem for them. It's been difficult with COVID and limitations. Are you guys dealing with that? Well, look, we pay our vendors very well in a very timely way, and they love doing business with us. So that's a big advantage, being able to take advantage of their cash position to be able to buy whatever we need to buy, whatever we need to buy it. So that's put us in a great driver's seat position with vendors. So supply chain, being what it is, you know, a lot of things have gone up in price, obviously. You don't need an economics lesson. For me, you could pull up to the gas pump and you got your economics lesson. So, you know, everything moves by truck, everything moves by ship, everything moves by plane. That's all fossil fuels, which have gone up dramatically. The price of labor has gone up. Everything's gone up. you know, it's been a challenge for anybody, whether they're making a pizza or they're making a pinball machine. So, you know, we're managing it. We're doing, I think we're doing very well, and I'm very proud of all the people in the company. We have an amazing team of people. That's awesome. I'm glad that you guys aren't feeling that too much. I mean, I know that's been a struggle for a lot of people, so if you guys are handling that well, that's great. I want to go into Guns N' Roses a little bit because I know that was a big hit for JJP, and just talk a little bit about how GNR did for the company overall and then how close did GNR come to selling out of all the LE allotments? Pretty close. Pretty close because we're pushing up against over 4,000 games right now. So we have some stock of games and not much. Some of our distributors have games. Personally, I think we could have just kept building that game. what I didn't want to do was and I touched on this I think I touched on it at the Texas Spinball Festival I was asked the question of you know are you going to release more than one game a year and how come you don't do this and how come you don't do that you know I learned from the beginning I don't want to announce something that we can't deliver relatively quickly or immediately right so you know the companies that announce something and then they don't deliver on all the orders and then they announce another game and they don't deliver on the orders and then they announce another game and they don't deliver any orders. I guess the thought process is, oh, we're freezing all these people's pockets and we're getting all these orders, we're sucking up all the money in the industry and they're not going to buy games from anybody else. Well, to those people that sit in those rooms and think that, I could tell you that $30 million worth of sales in an afternoon just proved you wrong, okay? There's always room. It's never a bad time to sell a great game, okay? So, you know, I didn't want to have our customers waiting literally years for a game they ordered. What fun is that? You know, I mean, if there was a lane on the road where I could pay an extra hundred bucks a week to drive, you know, fast. Oh, God, I'm here. I would probably do that. So I want my toys sooner. And I know, you know, it's disappointing that people have to wait. And I know, like, the collector edition game, people say, well, that's like a first class ticket. and I should get my game first because I get on the plane first and all that. Well, guess what? Pinball machine is not a plane ticket, okay? We want to get your game to be 100% right. We want all our games to be 100% right. We want all our games to be fun. We want them all to work. We want to be able to service all of them. We want to make sure everything goes together the right way and that you don't have problems. Or if you do, they're very tiny problems. They can be resolved quickly. And the CE, you know, because it has more features, Your point is that it takes longer to make sure that they're all working well before you ship them out. No, I don't think that's what I'm saying. If I said that, I don't mean that. Because, look, if you bought an LE, you deserve to have a perfect game just as a CE. It is no difference to me. Whatever you buy from us, it should be perfect and it should work and everything like that. It doesn't mean, you know, we're going to be extra careful because you have a CE. We're going to be extra careful because you're buying anything. I think this time around it has to do with getting certain parts and the ordering process and what was going to be put on the line and what you're going to do. In some cases, maybe in the future, I wouldn't rule out, I never say never, I wouldn't rule out that we build CE games first. You never know. We might build CE games first and we might have CEs and LEs at the same time. We're trying to get better as we go along. We're trying to constantly and continuously improve. So it could happen that way too. as we go along. Just briefly, Jack, Guns N' Roses, you guys worked really closely with the band. I mean, is this an evergreen title for you? Is this ever something you're going to have to re-up in the future, like a Yellow Brick Road, Woz, or is this something you can always make? You know, I don't know that we can always make it because there are so many games in the pipeline right now, and I'd like to build new games as well. You know, there are people that ask us, I'm surprised they didn't ask me, you know, are you going to build Pirates again? Are you going to build Wizard of Oz again? Are you going to build... You can't believe it, but people call every day looking for Hobbit games. I mean, we could probably rerun several titles. Will we? I don't know. And that's the honest answer, because we have a lot of things in the pipeline coming for the future. So, if you're looking forward, the windshield's a lot bigger than the rearview mirror. And, you know, there's other opportunities coming our way, and we want to take advantage of those other opportunities too. As your portfolio expands, are you guys ever considering doing a vault per se, like going back and just focusing on one title from your past that you could... I think if I had our sales people call our distributors and say, hey, how many Wizard of Oz games do you want? Hey, how many Pirates of the Caribbean games do you want? The number would be a shocking number. Years ago when I was the stern distributor, And I'd call Jolly and I'd say, listen, I want more Simpsons. What do you have to do? And Jolly would say, well, you got to get at least 250 games. And I said, okay, I'll take 250 games. And then he'd call every other distributor and they'd come up with 400 or 500 games and there'd be a run. And there was another run of Simpsons and there was another run of Lord of the Rings and there was another run of Pirates of the Caribbean. I was the guy that started the run. So, you know, I'm sure we have distributors now that are big players that, you know, if they got a phone call and they were asked one of those questions, they might say a number, like I said, you know, to Jolly back in the day. But again, you have to manage parts, you have to manage people, you have to manage timelines, you have to manage licenses, logistics, space, on and on and on. a broken record from Jack. You know, it's not a lunchbox or a t-shirt. And then, you know, if you went back and built something that you sold years ago, if you want to take Wizard of Oz as an example, you know, the Yellow Brick Road game that we sold in the $12,000 range, I see them on Facebook and other places, you know, in the 15, 16, and I see Emerald City Limited Edition games that we sold in the $7,000 or $8,000 range going for more than double that. So I would say if you go back and build something that you built before many years ago, the cost is going to be different because, you know, you're not building as many per se or parts prices change. So maybe some vendors don't even exist. You have to resource parts and things like that. So it's a challenge. You know, it's a challenge. I understand. I mean, Pirates is selling for $30,000 online. So, I mean, if you... Over 60 grand in Australia. And a play with money right now is about 68 cents to the dollar. So those blokes, the girls and boys in Australia, you know, they really love the pinball machines. Yeah. I think Amber Heard wants one of those Pirates of the Caribbean games. Jesus. No, not so much. No. No. Jack, you know, there's been a lot of rumors or speculation or whatever, you know, the company's had new owners and the company's moved from Jersey to Chicago. And there's been like speculation that your involvement has been diminished. But I have to say, for the first two thirds of this interview, it's obvious that you are still deep into this company. As far as JJP is concerned, what is a day like for Jack Guarnieri and Jersey Jack Pinball? Well, you know, look, we decided that we were going to put the factory in one place where everybody was. Years ago, a bunch of people wanted to move from Chicago to New Jersey. I didn't want to uproot everybody. Probably better that everybody's in one place. You know, as soon as we moved, COVID decided that everybody wouldn't be in one place. So, again, there was a challenge for a year or two to get everybody back in one place. um you know i'm still an owner of the company my name is still in the company i'm still very involved in everything the company does um you know i i'm at the front end of things so that what the next license is and the next license is and the next license is and the next license is these are all things that i've worked on and i've uh dug up and and negotiated and made happen yeah those people that helped me certainly and uh the abbess family you know leonard and and jane were customers of mine since about 2000, 2001. God bless them that they came into the company because, you know, like when Forrest Gump got that letter in the mailbox with the Apple logo on it and there was one less thing for him to worry about, well, there was one less thing for Jack to worry about, okay? And, you know, with that came a lot of expertise. It came a team of financial people. It came a team of support people. It was really great. It was really great. I think we're in a really great position. I think we're still a family business, but more than one family, two families. And I think there's a lot of respect and admiration and love between the parties. You know, I get to do, I basically get to do what I want to do that benefits the company first. You know, so it's, yeah, it is going to trade shows, shaking hands, kissing babies, taking pictures, signing autographs, all that tough stuff. But my day, you know, I'm involved with Game America's designing. I'm involved with a lot of phone and video meetings of what he's doing. I'm involved with what Steve is doing. I'm involved with what Mark Seiden is doing. I actively work to recruit people to come into the company, talent. I look at products sometimes, and sometimes I don't give my opinion right away until it's asked for, because sometimes just a look at my face when I'm looking at something might say it all. You know, if I see something that could be changed or could be better, I'm certainly going to say it. And it's fun for me. It wasn't as much fun, you know, during COVID because all the shows were shut down and it was a challenging time. And, you know, we kind of had to hunker down and do things a little bit differently. Couldn't let people in the factory. you know what I most enjoyed about having the factory in Jersey was you know seeing the customers pick up their games and being with them and now what happens when some local distributors sell the game somewhere where I might want to drive on a Saturday or a Friday or a weekday and I know there's a delivery you know I'll pull up to the person's house with a box of donuts I'll surprise them I'll go in there and I'll take pictures with them and sign their game and play games with them and talk to them and I might even be opening a different game of theirs and fixing it for them. I fixed somebody's old electromechanical Jubilee, I think, the last time. It was probably somewhere. Guy said to me, Jersey Jack, you know anybody who can fix this game? What's wrong? The score gets stuck. Yeah, okay. Give me the keys. Let me get in there. I'm like, oh, my God. People take a picture of me. I'm like, please don't post that because I don't want to go to the houses, fix the game. I'm already married to somebody. I don't want to be married to a kid. Give me the money. No, you can't give me money because you get the taillight warranty. What does that mean? Well, that means when you see the taillights out of your driveway, the warranty's over. You know, it's fine. And then I say, come back anytime you want, Jack. We'll have a movie. You know, okay, whatever. Jack, I've got to ask you. I love that. I mean, I love that. I love that. I've got to ask you, in the list of names that you gave as far as people that you deal with on a daily basis, one name is left off of that list, and that's Pat Lawler. And a lot of people speculate that Toy Story was his swan song and that he's now going to leave the company. What is the status with Pat? You know, it's up to Pat to decide what he wants to do. Nobody pushed him out of the company. Nobody told him not to make another game. Right now, I think he's taking a little break, and he'll decide what he wants to do. That'll be his decision to make. You know, so I thought you were going to talk about my daughter, Jen, because during this interview, she tried calling me twice. and she's involved in production and she's involved in shipping and she's involved in marketing and all kinds of cool stuff. And suspicious road trips? Oh, my gosh. She's something. I tell you, the team there, Michael Fox and, you know, Ken Cromwell and all the different people in that building that really make all the things happen. It's just a great team. Cromwell. Yeah, we wanted to ask you about that, Jack, because you have been bringing on amazing talent. I mean, Ken Cromwell was obviously a huge pickup, not only because he knows everything about pinball, but because he's so well-spoken. He's a perfect guy for marketing. And then recently you've been bringing in talent for game design with Mark Seiden and the legendary Steve Ritchie. So we also just heard that Crystal Gemnick is coming in to work as well, and you're just getting amazing people to join the company. So from an outsider's perspective, that kind of seems like you're trying to expand, both with production and with frequency of game releases and that sort of thing. What can you tell us about JJP's plans for that? Okay, so just take one break, one second, and then we'll tell Joanne something. Joanne, would you call Jen and just tell her I'm on the podcast? These guys are still being a crap at me. You know, so let me tell you something. When I started the company, right, when I started the company, I was fortunate that some people believed in me and they believed in my vision. You know, they were probably very concerned that, I don't know, I'm going to leave a job. I'm going to work for this guy. He's been in the business a while, but he never made a pinball machine. And it was risky. And, you know, God bless people like Keith P. Johnson, who came to the company from a job and put his heart and soul into the company. And, you know, Keith was one of the rocks, literally, that the company was built on. And then I was fortunate to get other people to come into the company as we went along, you know. And they believed in what we were doing, and they had fun, and they made great products. Nobody told them, you know, the word no. Unfortunately, it was not my vocabulary a lot. I let people take their creativity and put it into the game because I felt you get a better product. Would it take longer? Would it cost more? Yes, yes. But you get a better product. So I didn't want to frustrate them. You know, I think that's one of the main reasons why Steve Ritchie came to the company, because he still had deep in his soul the desire to make spectacular games, and maybe he felt that his best chance of making those kind of games would be with Jersey Jack pinball and with the world. So, you know, the door is always open to very talented, capable people that want to make something great. And, you know, again, it kind of sounds cliche, but I never say never. So we're trying to develop new designers and new people in the industry as things go along, because obviously everybody's getting older, younger, and as young as they are at heart, you need more people with different ideas and new ideas to continue to pinball. pinball. So Jack, like we said, you've got a great crew there and I think you're continuing to bring in certain people like game designers, like Mark and Steve, as you mentioned. It's been almost two years since Guns N' Roses released and now we've got Toy Story 4. All manufacturers have gone through a tough few years, so there's been delays for everybody. But how long do you think you're going to see between game releases now from an ideal perspective? Are you trying to get two games a year? Are you just seeing how well a game sells and then just stick with that, like you had mentioned earlier? Or do you have something more structured? So I'd like to see the next game released within the next nine months. That's what I'd like to see. And, you know, you can't really say, well, you know, we have two or three games in development, and let's see how this one does. And then all of a sudden, if it does great, or let's say it doesn't do great, I don't want games that don't do great. You know, what are you going to do then? You're going to push a button and magically all these parts are going to appear. You know, when I was doing Wizard of Oz, it was not uncommon to have lead times for certain parts to be 14 weeks. It's not uncommon to have lead times for certain parts to be 40 weeks, 35 weeks. Okay. You better plan well in advance what you're doing and you better get enough of what it is that you need to do it with. You know, a lot of manufacturing companies have advantages. You know, if we were making a washing machine, we make the greatest washing machine ever made and we could fire all the mechanical engineers and all the designers and everybody else and just build the heck out of the washing machine you know but that's not what we do you know i don't know what the percentage is offhand but i would think there's a big percentage of difference between our game and parts maybe it's 40 maybe it's 50 between models you know other companies maybe the difference is 10 or 12 or 15 you know you take uh there's a moen David Fawcett commercial where a lady takes the David Fawcett, a mowing David Fawcett, and she goes to an architect and says, build me a house around that. Other companies, they might look at their inventory and they say, hey, we have a lot of inline drop targets and spinning discs, so make sure you use them in your next game because we've got to get rid of them. So we don't do that. We leave it to the designer. And Pat Lawler, I said it when he came into the company, you don't hire Michelangelo and tell him how to paint the Sistine Chapel. You really don't. You don't. I mean, not that I never told Pat my opinion and he didn't listen to me. You know, he respects me. I have a lot of street credit and he wouldn't have come into the company. He wasn't looking just to make a paycheck. He was looking to make great games and he did. So you have to have the freedom to do it, but you still have to, you know, when my financial people listen to this podcast, they're going to say, well, there's a timeline, there's a budget. Yes, it's a business. There is a timeline. There's a budget. There's some flexibility. But, you know, you've got to keep that assembly line running, right? So, you know, you've had other guests on the show that have told you how important it is to keep the assembly line running. And if they don't make this game, they'll go back and make another game. They'll pull parts. They don't know this. They don't know that. Not exactly the same with us. I mean, I think we're a little bit different. But, you know, obviously you want to keep people employed and you want to keep games coming out. And you want to keep our customers happy. So you want to keep building games. All right. Well, one last question before we let you go, Jack. And this is a question that everybody always wants to know. Everybody's always curious about this, and everybody's always surprised to hear the answer. Can you give us any idea how many licenses you have in your portfolio right now waiting to be developed at Jersey Jack? Okay, I've got to think about that. It's probably more than 10. Wow. Wow. How many years out do you think it will take to get all of those games made? Well, we're going faster than we did before. and I wouldn't be surprised if we hired another designer. Okay. Wouldn't surprise me. And shortening up, tightening up development time is important, and you still need to get a high-quality, amazing game out of that development time. So, you know, I have to look at a lot of different things. When I look at licenses, probably your last or after last question, It's got to be something that's multinational, multigenerational, and everybody loves it. Boy, girl, man, woman, everybody. No one on the planet, whoever uses whatever bathroom, loves the pinball machine. You know, so it's got to be that. I get people all the time. I mean, you know, if you want an out-of-school story, you know, the band called me for like three years and wanted me to make a game. You know, I'm not a fan. God bless them. I think they're great. I think the game is great and everything like that. They sold 40 million albums. You know, Guns N' Roses, Flash of a Friend, 100 million albums plus. Which one am I going to do? Am I going to do that one or do the other one? So, you know, a lot of opportunities come our way. Not all of them are pinball worthy. Not for us. Maybe other people can make something out of it and make a game out of it and have success and make a great game and make money on it. But I look at it a lot different way. And that's based on the experience I have. And we talk about it as a team and as a group. It's not just my decision, but sometimes I'll push something and I'll get a look and somebody will say, you know, no, no. And it'll go. I mean, Guns N' Roses was, look, some people didn't think it was a great idea to do Guns N' Roses. There was a Guns N' Roses game already that was a pretty good game. It had a broken G ramp and a broken R ramp. And they're out there. There's games. But to make it in the 21st century, it's a different game. I wanted to do Pirates of the Caribbean. in. I sold a lot of them first go around. Different kind of game. You know, so Hobbit, I wanted to do Hobbit because I love Lord of the Rings. We're able to negotiate the assets and an amazing amount of assets in that game. I mean, it's just amazing the content that's in there. It's about five pinball machines working stuff in that game. You know, and so licenses are important. Now, if I have ten licenses, it's possible that not all ten will become games. It's possible. Possible, you know, possible. I mean, we've talked to other heads of companies, and they've told us that at a certain point they get a lot of requests. You know, bands will call them and say, hey, we'd love a pinball machine. We saw X-Band has a machine, and we love it. You want to make a Perry Como pinball machine? But I guess my point, Jack, is that you have got to be getting hammered by people coming to you saying, hey, we've got this license. We want you to make it because we know you make these games that are over the top and they're amazing. And they're, you know, we saw what you did for Guns N' Roses. We want that, too. I mean, how often do you get those calls? Will you want any of the calls that I run? Tell me the truth. I just know that this has got to happen for you because I know how amazing and the wow factor that JJP games have. So I can't imagine a license out there that doesn't want to be associated with that kind of machine. New from Jersey Jack, the Engelbert Humperty Pinball Machine. Well, you know, that's how you get a license. Like, sorry, sorry. That's how you get, really, sorry. That's how you get Willy Wonka. You know, you prove to the licensor, to the licensor, most of them, it's not all about money either. You know, they want to understand what the category is, what the product is. This is something that it's really this living, breathing, big item. It's, again, not the T-shirt, not the lunchbox, not the salt and pepper shaker on the shelf. It's something that's going to get a lot of publicity. You know, you're going to see Disney Pixar get behind this. I mean, Josh Cooley's a pinball guy. That's why there's a pinball machine in Toy Story 4. Who's Josh Cooley? He's a friend and a customer and the director of Toy Story 4. Mark Nielsen, friend, customer, pinball guy, producer of Toy Story 4. Why is there a Tiki Party pinball machine in Toy Story 4? Because they're pinball guys and they put it in the movie, okay? You know, speaking of licensing, I have to ask, me and Christian have been playing this sort of process of elimination game. Is one of your licenses Sonic Spinball? Wow, that's correct. That's correct. We're trying, we're trying, I forgot who got it. So we talked to David Fix. I saw a picture with two really old looking guys and a licensing show standing next to Sonic. I thought those two old guys got it. He told us that Stern did not get Sonic. He was told that. Was that Stern? I didn't realize. Isn't that nice that Sonic visited the old man's home? What is that blue thing? Get me out of here. Obviously, you're not going to tell us either way. Well, on advice of counsel, I respectfully decline to answer the question on the grounds that my answer may tend to incriminate me. Jack, a couple of questions back, you said something that really stuck with me. you said that you do things a different way. And I think that that's what Jersey Jack Pinball is all about, and that's why it's successful. And it was your dream to come up with something unique, and that's what you did. And you brought a new brand of pinball to pinball with something that could be better. And I think everybody in pinball is always going to owe you a great debt for that. Congratulations on the success of the company and on the success of Toy Story 4. and thanks very much for joining us today. Thank you both. And I got to tell you, between Leonard and Brad Abbott, they brought the company to a different level. So it's a team effort. You know, they were customers when I had the vision. They believed in the vision and they jumped in. We're all, you know, all the way, all the way. And, you know, the things that we make, the games that we make, the experiences that we create, the fun that we create for a lot of people around the world, the world does need more fun, needs more smiles. So we're really proud to make the products we make and have the customer base we have. Very humble, very appreciative of everybody, and very thankful. And thank you guys, too. I appreciate all your kind words. Thanks, Jack. Well said, Jack. Thanks for joining us. Oh, I'm sorry. We love you, too, man. Thank you, guys. I appreciate it again. Special thanks to our good friend Jack Winaria of Jersey Jack Pinball for taking time away from his weekend and probably eating a cold dinner to sit down and talk to us. Also, special thanks to Steven Bowden of American Pinball for his critique of Toy Story 4. And, of course, thanks to my partners, Christian Lyne and Jeff Parsons, for being the best podcast buddies around. Christian, stay at Pebbles Home with a family buddy. We'll see you soon. Well, you asked for it and we gave it to you. If you check out silverballswag.com, you will see new t-shirt designs available for your consumption at cost. If you'd like to email us, you can do so at superawesomepinball at gmail.com. Don't forget to make the reservations for the super awesome tailgate party at the Coin Taker. You can get that information on our Facebook page. You can't get in without reservations, folks. It's going to be a good time. So we'll see you on the next one, but in the meantime, we'll leave you with something a little special. Take care, folks, and thanks for your support. The contents of this show is copyright 2022 Asshat Radio Productions. Thank you. You've got a friend in me You've got a friend in me When the road looks Rubberhead And you're miles and miles From your nice warm bed You just remember What your old pal said Boy, you've got a friend in me Yeah, you got a friend in me Ha ha ha! Is that a cool yet? That guy sucks. He can't sing for shit. _(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_ --- *Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 6f87abc7-c385-41e1-9810-eaab1b30ac32*