# Indiana Tommy, Raider of the Lost Art **Source:** This Flippin' Podcast **Type:** podcast_episode **Published:** 2024-10-02 **Duration:** 79m 15s **Beat:** Pinball **URL:** https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/thisflippinpodcast/episodes/Indiana-Tommy--Raider-of-the-Lost-Art-e2p4e9q --- ## Analysis Tommy Skinner recounts discovering what appears to be the only known prototype of Stern's Big Game pinball machine in a Chicago garage, featuring a unique plastic-layered playfield with altered artwork, a Meteor cabinet head, and mysterious European import history. The episode opens with discussion of hurricane relief and charity tournaments in the pinball community. ### Key Claims - [HIGH] The Internet Pinball Database states Stern was prototyping Big Game with both traditional and new plastic playfield models in early 1980, and no plastic playfield has been documented until now. — _Tommy Skinner, citing the IPDB article from Amusement Review (Jan-Feb 1980, page 6)_ - [HIGH] The discovered machine features a plexiglass-layered playfield (quarter-inch thick) over thinner plywood, preserving artwork perfectly, a technique used by some early 1980s pinball companies. — _Tommy Skinner, describing physical examination of the machine and comparison to Dragon and Electra examples_ - [HIGH] The prototype Big Game uses a full Meteor cabinet head with Meteor-labeled wiring harnesses and six-digit displays rather than seven-digit production displays. — _Tommy Skinner, based on direct inspection and ROM verification_ - [HIGH] The prototype playfield has different artwork than production Big Game, featuring water and animals (including an elephant head instead of tiger head) and different color screens, possibly due to cost-cutting or material limitations. — _Tommy Skinner describing visual differences and community speculation about artistic choices_ - [MEDIUM] A Schneider Import (Hamburg) sticker on the apron suggests the machine was in Germany at some point, though it's unclear if it was built there or sent for a European show. — _Tommy Skinner, noting the import company sticker and speculating about European connections_ - [HIGH] The machine was serviced by Mike Romer (Amusement Game Service), whose business card was found inside, indicating local Chicago maintenance history. — _Tommy Skinner, finding business card and community identification of the servicer_ - [MEDIUM] IFPA changed charity tournament rules requiring one-month advance scheduling, reducing the number of impromptu charity tournaments compared to earlier 'Whopper' point rules. — _Taylor Maurice, discussing IFPA policy changes and their impact on charity event frequency_ - [MEDIUM] The prototype's playfield design includes unique hanging ball guides mounted to posts rather than direct playfield mounting, possibly to accommodate the plastic layer. — _Tommy Skinner, analyzing design differences and speculating about plastic-related constraints_ ### Notable Quotes > "holy shit, I think this might be the prototype" > — **Tommy Skinner**, ~18:30 > _Tommy's moment of realization when connecting the unusual playfield artwork to the IPDB reference about undocumented plastic playfield prototypes_ > "he called me back within one minute and he said i have almost 40 messages what is this thing" > — **Tommy Skinner (relaying seller Jason's reaction)**, ~24:00 > _Demonstrates the rapid community interest once the machine was revealed in collector groups_ > "this is the prototype of their wide body cab i mean like this is like harry williams was working on this game holy shit" > — **Tommy Skinner**, ~32:00 > _Emotional acknowledgment of the machine's historical significance and designer provenance_ > "I'm absolutely a collector, but I'm not collecting this, like shoving it in my basement and not letting anyone else see it. I want to put this out. I want people to play it." > — **Tommy Skinner (to seller Jason)**, ~68:00 > _Articulates Tommy's philosophy of stewardship and community access for rare machines_ > "to me, it's a piece of history. Like, being the prototype, I imagine Harry Williams touched that machine at some point in time." > — **Tommy Skinner**, ~71:00 > _Reflects the historical reverence and emotional connection collectors have to early prototype machines_ > "You're restoring a big game prototype. Yeah, you're right. I see the value and the correctness in what you're saying." > — **Tommy Skinner**, ~52:00 > _Tommy's acceptance of Taylor's argument to preserve the machine in its original Meteor cabinet configuration_ > "it's not like you're you're not restoring a big game. You're restoring a big game prototype." > — **Taylor Maurice**, ~50:00 > _Core argument for preservation philosophy: treating the prototype as a historically distinct artifact_ ### Entities | Name | Type | Context | |------|------|---------| | Tommy Skinner | person | Co-host of This Flippin' Podcast, pinball collector and enthusiast, discoverer of the Big Game prototype | | Taylor Maurice | person | Co-host of This Flippin' Podcast, offers perspective on restoration philosophy and charity initiatives | | Jason | person | Seller of the Big Game prototype machine, Chicago fireman who initially listed it for $25, agreed to hold it for Tommy | | Dane | person | Tommy's friend from Michigan who discovered the original Facebook Marketplace listing and alerted Tommy | | Doug Watson | person | Credited artist on Big Game prototype alongside Jerry Simkus; known for work on Swords of Fury, Attack from Mars, Dragon Fist, Shadow, Terminator, and other titles | | Jerry Simkus | person | Co-credited artist on Big Game prototype; deceased according to Tommy's research | | Harry Williams | person | Historical pinball designer; Tommy speculates he may have worked on or been involved with the Big Game prototype | | Mike Romer | person | Operated Amusement Game Service in Chicago; business card found inside prototype, recognized by community as someone who serviced the machine | | John Dozier | person | Representative for Inner Orbit Pinball, operator from Springfield Missouri with multiple locations including 84 Arcade, enlisted to repair the prototype | | Lyman Sheets | person | Pinball community member honored through Papa World Championships charity event benefiting mental health charity | | Big Game | game | Classic Stern pinball machine; Tommy discovered what appears to be the only known prototype with plastic-layered playfield and unique artwork | | Stern Electronics | company | Early 1980s pinball manufacturer; context of Big Game production and prototype development | | Fantastic Pinball | company | Canadian playfield reproduction company; Tommy offered to have them scan the prototype playfield for reproduction capability | | Inner Orbit Pinball | company | Pinball operator company based in Springfield Missouri, part owner of 84 Arcade; John Dozier is representative | | Schneider Import | company | Hamburg-based import company; sticker found on prototype apron suggesting European connection | | Meteor | game | Stern pinball machine used as base cabinet for Big Game prototype; shares interchangeable backglass size with other Stern machines | | Dragon Fist | game | Stern Electronics machine owned by Tommy with paint-over artwork discovered via infrared camera; discussed as parallel example of production shortcuts | | Catacomb | game | Stern game being sold by John Dozier to someone in Indianapolis | | Cheetah | game | Early production Stern machine owned by Tommy with blue cabinet; one of fewer than 100 produced; planning to display alongside Big Game prototype | | Attack from Mars | game | Game with backglass artwork by Doug Watson | | IFPA | organization | International Flipper Pinball Association; changed charity tournament rules from immediate 'Whopper' points to one-month advance scheduling | | Papa World Championships | event | Recent charitable pinball tournament in Chicago that raised funds for mental health charity in honor of Lyman Sheets | | Pinball at the Zoo | event | Upcoming event Tommy plans to bring the Big Game prototype to for public play and display | | Internet Pinball Database | organization | Reference source for pinball machine specifications and history; very slow at updates according to hosts; Tommy submitted photos of prototype | ### Topics - **Primary:** Prototype discovery and authentication, Pinball machine rarity and collecting, Big Game playfield design and history, Restoration philosophy for rare machines - **Secondary:** Charity tournaments and community giving, Pinball manufacturing decisions in early 1980s, European pinball market history - **Mentioned:** Playfield preservation techniques ### Sentiment **Positive** (0.82) — Strong positive sentiment around the discovery and its historical significance. Enthusiasm tempered by respectful discussion of restoration ethics and preservation philosophy. Genuine emotion about community helping in hurricane relief balanced with lighter tone during main pinball discussion. ### Signals - **[collector_signal]** Discovery of what appears to be the only known Big Game plastic-playfield prototype, confirming documented historical reference in IPDB and changing the known population of rare machines (confidence: high) — Tommy's research of IPDB showing Amusement Review reference to undocumented plastic playfield models, physical inspection confirming plastic layer, unique artwork and construction details - **[historical_signal]** Evidence of early 1980s Stern experimental approach to playfield preservation using plexiglass layers, and reuse of existing cabinet heads and electronics for prototyping (confidence: high) — Meteor head, Meteor wiring harnesses, thinner plywood construction, comparative analysis with Dragon Fist paint-over evidence - **[restoration_signal]** Discussion of whether to restore prototype to production Big Game specs vs. preserve original Meteor cabinet configuration; decision made to maintain original state (confidence: high) — Extended discussion between Tommy and Taylor about restoration approach; Tommy's final decision to keep Meteor head and white cabinet but add Meteor backglass and potentially seven-digit conversion - **[machine_intel]** Big Game prototype has documented European connection (Schneider Import Hamburg sticker) and Chicago service history (Mike Romer business card), suggesting international movement at some point (confidence: medium) — Sticker placement under glass on apron; business card identification by community members; speculation about European show or manufacture possibility - **[community_signal]** Prototype discovery triggered rapid community response with ~40 inquiries within hours of reposting on Facebook; community forums (Pinside classic Stern group, big game group) facilitated research and identification (confidence: high) — Jason's report of 40 messages; machine appearing in Stern Electronics Club and Big Game Club on Pinside within hours - **[product_concern]** Prototype arrived with damaged Meteor backglass due to seller's improper breakdown technique; rectifier board requires professional repair work (confidence: high) — Tommy noting backglass breakage; plan to have John Dozier repair rectifier board in Springfield; scheduled completion December/January - **[design_innovation]** Big Game prototype used quarter-inch plexiglass layer over thinner plywood playfield to preserve artwork; featured hanging ball guides mounted to posts rather than direct playfield mounting, possibly to accommodate plastic layer (confidence: medium) — Physical inspection showing plexiglass layer; comparison to Dragon, Electra, and other early-80s machines using similar techniques; analysis of ball guide design as adaptation to plastic construction - **[artwork_analysis]** Prototype artwork differs significantly from production Big Game: features water/waterfall theme instead of jungle foliage, elephant head instead of tiger head, more screen-printed colors, mountain imagery above pop bumpers (confidence: high) — Tommy's detailed comparison of playfield imagery; observation that artwork matches style but uses different subject matter; community member noting additional screen-printed colors in prototype - **[industry_signal]** IFPA shifted from immediate 'Whopper' point awards for charity tournaments to one-month advance scheduling requirement; hosts attribute decrease in charity events to this policy change (confidence: medium) — Taylor Maurice's discussion of rule change rationale and community impact; acknowledgment that previous system was abused for Whopper points rather than genuine charitable intent - **[content_signal]** Tommy extensively documenting prototype discovery and research on Pinside forums and working with content creators to preserve historical record and photos (confidence: high) — Tommy posting photos and story to Pinside Big Game Club and Stern Electronics Club; attempting outreach to Doug Watson through podcast intermediary; offering playfield scanning to Fantastic Pinball - **[operational_signal]** Tommy planning to put Big Game prototype into regular play at venues (Pinball at the Zoo, state finals hosting) rather than private collection, emphasizing community access and historical preservation (confidence: high) — Tommy's explicit statement to Jason about not hoarding in basement; plan to have prototype operational for state finals in January; intent to display alongside other rare machines like blue Cheetah --- ## Transcript The episode you are about to hear contains explicit words. The opinions within are those of the hosts and in no way imply that anyone listening to this podcast agrees with anything we say. Please send complaints to thisflippinpodcast at gmail.com Welcome everybody to the second episode of 2024 and we're coming back to you like less than two weeks later. You're listening to this flippin podcast with your hosts Tommy Skinner and Taylor Maurice. It is the last day of September, September 30th, 2024. This should make its way to your headphones and your podcast listening service in the near future. I am really ready for fall weather and all the things that the fall season brings. Taylor, how are you doing, man? I'm good, man. It's good to talk to you again. I feel like we just talked because we did. I'm good I'm with you on the fall weather yeah this will come out soon I guess I just want to mention really quick obviously like in the southeastern United States there's been devastated flooding in like especially the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee like it's really heartbreaking to me like I've spent a lot of time in that area like when I was a little bit younger I used to go rock climbing outside, and when I did, it was the southeastern United States has sandstone, and it's because of the water, because of the amount of rain, like it's carved out in such a way that it makes for incredible climbing. But so I've spent a lot of time in Boone. My family's vacation in Asheville for years. Always go down to the River Arts District to like there's a barbecue place down there called 12 Bones that we will just go and like devour dozens of ribs. But that like it's been devastated. Like it's really it's really tragic. I'm I'm like I'm trying to figure out like what the best thing to do as far as like trying to help out. Because I know like when, you know, when the hurricane hit Houston years ago, like pre-COVID, like I know a lot of people did like charity tournaments and stuff like that. I'm thinking about doing a charity tournament to raise money to just just because I feel like it's like in this hobby, like we're very privileged to have the things that we have and that our hobby is about playing a game and having fun. so I think it's like it's nice when the community can help because we have this powerful tool of entertainment like in our basements or on location so I think I'm going to try to do a charity tournament I've done pins for kids I used to do that for years so I think I'm going to try to do something to help the people of that area I'll probably like target my donations to Asheville just because I spent a lot of summers down there. But so, yeah, if you can like, you know, I don't know. I don't know like do – you know, I think the IFPA used to allow like whoppers. They didn't have like the month delay. So if something happened, like you could set up a charity tournament pretty quick and it was always like whoppers were a draw. But because they changed it to where you had to like schedule a month out, I feel like a lot of charity tournaments. I don't feel like I see as many. I could be totally wrong. I know. I know, Tommy, you do a lot of charitable stuff, but I'm just saying like, hey, if people think about it and like if you can send a donation, like send 10 bucks or whatever, like it all adds up. And, you know, it's easy to Google, like find out what the good organizations are in whatever area. But a lot of states were affected. I have family in Florida that were flooded. You know, I it's they're going to be able to like my sister. My sister lives in Anna Maria Island, which is an area that just was like completely devastated. And this is where I've been going to this place since 1972 when I was born. So I have like a long history with that area as well. And like I talked to my sister the night the storm was hitting and she's like, I've got water in my house. It's just it's just terrible. I don't you know, it's like I feel like I feel like I always feel like there's something more that we can do to help people. And so I don't know. I'm just throwing it out there just because it's on my mind. And I feel like I know people do charity tournaments. It's like pretty easy way to raise money, like hold a tournament on a Friday or Saturday night. Have your friends come over. Everybody pay like 10 bucks and like have fun and raise 120 bucks to go to a charity. But just something to think about. But that's all. I just wanted to mention that. So, yeah. And I have been really busy and barely paid attention to anything going on in the world at this point in time. Yeah. So thank you, because this was informative for me, too. I didn't know there was a hurricane only because another podcast I listen to also did. But I think it's a great idea. We've talked about this in the past. When we can take a hobby of something that we enjoy and help with a good cause for it, it's really a no-brainer. And I support you in doing that. I think it's a great idea. My plate is currently full with other life activities. But we're still planning on our December Sleep and Heavenly Beasts 12-hour stream that we've done. This will be our fifth year in a row. So, yeah, man, I'm all for using our hobby for good, which I think, by and large, our hobby does a great job of. I do, yeah. There used to be those special charity events you could put on and get – they used to have like an automatic point value to them for Whopper points, and then that sort of got abused. So they went away, which is both frustrating and sad because it shows you that some people weren't really doing much for the charity. They were just kind of trying to get Whopper points, and that wasn't the point. So I understand why the FPA did that as well. But I don't know, something worth putting back on the table, finding a modified way to do that, maybe perhaps in the future for them to continue. I do know that they had the Papa World Championships just this past month up in Chicago. And they used that as an event to raise money for a mental health charity in honor of Lyman Sheets. And they did an amazing job. So, you know, it's still there. It's still being done. a very cool way to honor a person who contributed a ton to this hobby and industry and keep his memory living on. So yeah, man, I think that's a great idea. So yeah, so lighter topics, pinball. Let's do pinball, man. Do we want to start with the story of me tracking down something rare or my experience stopping by Chicago last week at, I think it was Interium, and checking out Jersey Jack's newest game, Avatar. Let's hear the story because this continues from our last episode. That's true. We mentioned it at the end. I mean, we could do it like TV where it was mentioned, but now we won't actually talk about it until the last five minutes. It's like cliffhanger. No, let's hear it. Let's hear the story. If you don't remember from last episode, Tommy was like, oh, yeah, have I told you about the big game? It was a prototype, right? Yeah, I believe. The jury has come back pretty convinced this is the prototype. I actually have pulled up a couple different tabs on the Internet here to help me tell the tale because as I look at this now, it was five months ago. And I'm old and I've been hit in the head more than once, so my memory is not the strongest. But recalling how it went, essentially I got a message relatively early back in the day, about five months ago, from my buddy Dane up in Michigan, who knows that I love classic sterns and ballets and I really love rare stuff like prototypes and whatnot. And he sent me a picture from a Facebook ad from Marketplace that was, it just said like, pinball machine. I tried to find the ad, but it's been deleted. Pinball machine, $25, doesn't work, need out of garage today. And it was in the Chicago area. And he was like, dude, what do you think this is? And it's clearly a big game play field and layout. but the cabinet's just white with a doorbell on the front um the back glass is actually a meteor which yes classic stern back glasses are interchangeable for size but meteor's got a unique display layout so you know it wouldn't fit in the same space as a big game back glass and the playfield artwork is drastically different it is essentially got a bunch of water on it a bunch of blue and there's no tiger head between the flippers instead there's an elephant head and there's some other changed animals uh across the playfield so i mean as anyone who collects pinball machines, a $25 pinball machine, you know it's just a race to who can get it. Me, being a giant nerd, I have spent more hours than I would care to admit just clicking around the internet pinball database and reading the profiles on machines. I've done this with big game, essentially any game I've ever owned. I've probably read that page 10 times at least. Anything that's rare or low production, I've done a lot of reading on. I just think those games are unique, and I think it's important to be, like, I largely still consider myself a collector above anything else in my pinball world. And I love shows like American Pickers and Storage Wars where they're finding these things. And a huge part of what appeals to me is these people are very intelligent or at least very well educated on certain categories of items, whatever it is they're interested in and collecting and purchasing. And you've got to know it's something special when you see it in the wild. So that's kind of how I look at the pinball stuff, right? and I remember seeing, and I pulled it up to double-check the verbiage of this, but it says on the Internet Pinball Database under the Big Game Pinball Machine description, according to an article in Amusement Review, which came out in January-February of 1980, on page six, Stern was, quote, prototyping models with both the traditional and a new plastic playfield. We have not seen the plastic playfield for this game, if any, exist. and I remembered reading that when I saw this picture and I was just kind of like, holy shit, I think this might be the prototype. So I tried to message the original seller, no reply. I tried going the honest route and being like, hey, I think this is something different. I'd like to tell you more about it. Just got nothing. It was kind of like, oh, crap, well, that's cool. I would have liked to have gotten some more pictures for the Internet Pinball database or just so people could figure out what exactly this is. And I'm nerding out. It's pictures of it got posted to the Facebook Stern group. Not Facebook, I'm sorry. The Pennside Classic Stern Collectors group. So everyone's kind of talking about it, and it's in the big game group. And lo and behold, like six hours later, it pops back up on Facebook again. And this time it's listed for $675. It's listed as broken. It's just reusing the photos from the other ad. And it says, like, would make an excellent virtual pin because it's a wide body. And I messaged the guy. Luckily, I saw it, I think, within four minutes of him posting it. And I said, hey, I think I know what you have here. I'm willing to pay you more than what you have it listed for. But I want to tell you what it is first. And here's my phone number if you want to talk. The seller's name was Jason. he called me back within one minute and he said i have almost 40 messages what is this thing and uh i basically went through what i just talked about was like hey man this is a game called big game in working condition you know it's anywhere from two to three thousand dollars depending on the the physical condition of the machine but there's this little sentence on the internet about there being a prototype with a plastic play field i don't recognize the artwork on this game. Could you tell me if that play field is plastic or not? Like, I think this might be the prototype. And I was like, that can impact the value. But again, it all comes down to it working. And he was like, he was like, I don't know much about pinball. He's an arcade guy. He's looking at it. He's like, it might be plastic. I can't really tell. And I was like, well, if you can open the coin door, look at the edge, you should be able to see if it's, you know, wood or plastic there. And he was willing to go and do that for me. And he was like yeah there is wood and then it's got a layer of plastic on top of it and if you've ever played like uh dragon from inner flip yeah um valleys electra there was a time in the early 80s where these companies were making a wooden play field like a traditional game but then they're putting roughly a quarter inch piece of plexiglass on top of it and essentially that preserves your artwork perfectly which is exactly what this big game is now as i found out so i tell jason what it is i tell him what I can pay. I can tell him when I can get up to it because it was still three plus hours away. It's in like the north suburbs of Chicago. He basically says I was the only person who even offered him any information beyond telling him just here's more money and he would hold it for me for two days. So I made some switches with my schedule and found a way to get up there and the bad news was he didn't seem to fully know how to break down a pinball machine and they broke the meteor back glass that was in it uh which sucked because it was a really nice back glass and i was like cool i can put that in my meteor yeah it has no back glass um the play field is a thinner plywood it's only about three or four layers maybe five they're usually they're eight and this one's five maybe and then it's got about a quarter inch uh piece of plexiglass on top so the artwork is perfect um there is no back glass and i start kind of exploring this the cabinet never had artwork on it it's not like it was painted over it's clearly like there's a couple dings you can see there's no other paint besides the white so it's just a white it's just a white cabinet just like it's just a white cabinet okay yep and makes sense when you think about this would have been their first wide body so it's just a completely prototype it's like it wasn't this is the prototype of their wide body cap i mean like this is like harry williams was working on this game holy shit dude like this exact machine yes right so the head the head is actually a meteor head it's a full meteor head all the wiring harnesses in the game are labeled they're all meteor wire harnesses. Whoa. Right. Yeah. So all of those labels. Um, and it's just been in some dude's garage for all these years in Chicago. There were a couple of interesting stickers. So there was a business card inside and I posted that to Penn side. It was for someone who does or did, you know, in-home repairs for machines in the area people knew who he was so we were like all right so someone's clearly seen this machine um we took the roms and we checked them out the roms were exactly the same as the production big game rom so somebody at some point upgraded the roms most likely uh the displays are only six digit not seven digit because it was running in a meteor head uh everything else physically about the game you know is stern it's all stern parts it's all it all looks original it still has the tombstone style drop targets uh it was not working at all rectifier board like most of them looked pretty beat up after 40 years you know uh i posted it uh because fantastic pinball out of canada has been remaking big game play fields so they've already got like the cnc stuff and i did offer that we could strip this down, have them scan it, and they can do the prototypes if people want. Big Game has two artists that are credited. Pull their names up. Jerry Simkus and Doug Watson. If I remember correctly, I tried looking up Jerry, and Jerry was no longer with us, I believe. And then Doug is quite famous for several pinball packages. Swords of Fury, Attack from Mars, Dragon Fist, Gottlieb, James Bond, Terminator. He's done all sorts of stuff. The Shadow. I tried to get a hold of him. Got no reply. Found him on LinkedIn. Found him on Facebook. Had another podcast who's interviewed him reach out, tried to get a hold of him. No replies. Because I was just hoping to get some more story. Yeah, and I get it. It's like, dude, I don't want to talk to a random weird pinball guy from the internet. But did you mention that you had the prototype big game? Oh, I sent pictures with it. I was like, hey, I just found this. I'm wondering if you remember any history on this art package, because I'm really curious to know, because it's so drastically different from production. The art, not the layout, the layout looks identical if there was a different back glass, because Doug Watson, Doug Watson, doesn't he typically do back glasses? Because you have, like, I think on AFM, like, he did the back glass, but I think it was a different artist on the play field. See, it's quite possible. I mean, that's kind of what I was wondering when there was a team of two. If somebody was doing the play field, someone's doing the plastics and the back glass. It didn't really specify. But my point is I was trying to get more information on it. Haven't been able to do that. I do have someone who's going to cut me a big game light board so I can at least put in a reproduction big game back glass. And since this one, I would have just kept it meteor had I had that back glass. Yeah. But since I don't, I'm going to convert the back glass to big game. I'm going to leave the paint of the meteor head on the game. I'm going to leave the lower body white. I don't really want to change anything on it. Yeah. I think it's kind of cool to keep it how it is or was, however you want to look at that. Did you were you able to go did you reach back to the original seller that had posted on Facebook Oh yeah And messages he a fireman in Chicago and no replies for anything Because I really curious like as to I mean it would have existed How he got it? Well, no, but it would have, he wouldn't have changed the cabinet. So it was like being prototyped in a Meteor cabinet with a Meteor back glass. Don't you think? Yeah, the head is at 100%. I'm positive this is how it was in the factory. And that makes sense because if you look at my Dragon Fist, again, keep in mind, Stern Electronics of the early 80s is not Stern Pinball today where they are the biggest, the most dominant company in the industry. Stern Electronics is like limping along trying to survive. So my Dragon Fist, and it was weird how I discovered this once. I think I've told this story, but I never noticed it. To me, it's just the boring plain blue with the word Stern on the side. dragon fist artwork right because i don't think they were paying artists at that point to do cabinets well i had a camera in my living room that had night mode and i was checking my camera one night to check on the dogs and it goes by my pinball machine and i see the little silhouettes that are on the side of a catacomb cabinet on the side of this pinball machine and i'm like what the hell and the infrared essentially picked up the other paint layer and i was like oh wow and then once i knew that i looked really close but that's what was happening it's like oh we're switching production we already painted this cabinet fuck it just paint over it like we're not going to sand it we're not going to build a new cabinet we got to use what we have yeah right and this one this one has nothing i tried looking at it with the camera to check i could see some dents and dings where it's just clearly white and then wood but yeah they had to build a lower cabinet because they had not had those before but the heads are always the same so they were like fuck it just we made 14 000 meteors so grab a head so with i mean don't you feel like it should be because it is if you restore it to or not if if you restore it to being a prototype it should still stay in a meteor cabinet yep that's why i don't want to change anything but i mean but why not put a meteor backlash i mean if you can find the original backlash i i don't know yeah if i can find it i mean i'll sell you i'll sell you my meteor backlash you got a shitty one you're gonna buy a new one because that's i so that's the funny thing is i actually i had two extra meteor back glasses and i sold them at the charity auction last year so i could reach out part of it is i also want to convert it to seven digit scoring like big game should be dude you can do that i mean i have my good i guess sure i could convert it to seven and leave it in the meteor you know you might be you're right i should still do seven digit but leave it in the meteor i mean i totally i totally understand what you're saying but like it's not like you're you're not restoring a big game. You're restoring a big game prototype. Yeah, you're right. I see the value and the correctness in what you're saying. I think it would be cool if you get an image, if you find out that Doug Watson did a back glass and there is another, if there is a prototype image of a different back glass, like that would be cool to display with it and have it. But that's definitely Like that's a, you know, I mean, that's a piece of history. And so for it to like the fact that it was built in a meteor cabinet, like, hey, this is what we have here. You know, you've convinced me. All right. You are correct. I just need to track down a meteor back glass. If you were at the charity auction last year and you purchased one of the two meteor back glasses I had. Please reach out to Tom. Yeah, please reach out. I will re-donate the money this year and buy it back from you. But if nothing, I can buy reproduction. Yeah, there's a ton of Meteor ones out there. Yeah, you can get a Meteor back glass. I mean, but, man, that is – that's wild. So the rectifier board, do you think, is the reason? Have you gotten it working? Have you had time to dig into it? I have not had time to do anything. Yeah. I had my friend John Dozier, who represents Inner Orbit Pinball. Inner Orbit. Out of Inner Orbit. They have a really cool shirt available for sale. But he operates out of Springfield, Missouri. He's got multiple locations. This is all he does. He's part owner of the 84 Arcade out there. He came to visit to pick up, or he was selling a game to someone in Indianapolis, Catacomb, actually. And I said, hey, dude, I really want to get this game working by the state finals in January because I'm hosting it. Can you take this and get it working for me and shop it out? I'll pay you. And he took it back with him to Springfield about three weeks ago, I think now. And that's his next up project when he finishes the game he's currently working on. Dude, that's awesome. So ideally, I should be scooping it up sometime in December is the rough plan. December or early January. And that'll save him time, too, of not having to rebuild a light board for the big game back class if we just keep it Meteor. So it's the way to go all around. save time keep it original but yes i'm looking forward to having that back uh what's really interesting about that is i have i'll have that and i also happen to have one of the early production cheetahs with the blue cabinet oh yeah so my plan is to have those side by side on location supposedly there was less than 100 of those and this is as far as we know the only big game prototype that's been discovered. To add more to the mystery, on the apron, there is a sticker. Let me pull my picture back up so I don't forget. You couldn't see it. You could see there was a sticker on the apron in the ad, but you couldn't really tell what it was because, you know, people put stickers on aprons all the time. And I'm sorry, I'm scrolling through the photos trying to find where I posted a close-up shot of it. Anyway Oh there it is Schneider Import It appears that this game Or at least the apron But I assume the game Was in Germany at some point Because that's where this import company was from When I started to think about that That made sense Because a lot of the European companies Were the ones that were producing those playfields That had the plastic on it So So I don't know if this was built in Germany and then sent to the U.S. as a prototype or if it was built here, sent to Europe for a show or something and then came back here. It's kind of uncertain. That's the only sticker of any sort of import that's on it. And it's on the apron. Like it's under the glass. Yes. It's under the glass. It's directly on the apron right in the middle, like smack dab where the ball drain's at. Schneider Import, Hamburg. Hamburg. Not Hamburg. Hamburg. Hamburg. The business card that was inside of it was amusement game service, sales service and satisfaction from Mike Romer, which people recognized who that was. They were like, oh, Mike's had his hands on this thing. And it just kind of, I can't imagine like if that was my job going into someone's house, seeing that and then just being like, well, I'll just work on it and not ask any more questions. But yeah, I guess there is a telephone number for this Schneider import. Oh, did you have to call them? I should maybe try. Yeah, maybe it's worth calling. Who knows if they have records from 40 plus years ago. But it's just interesting trying to kind of, I used to love unsolved mysteries growing up, right? So it's this like mystery from 40 years ago. This is like we have a reoccurring segment. Like next time I talk to you, next time I talk to you, you're like, I talk to the Germans. You have to learn German. You learn German. Do you know German? I don't. I took four years of French and I speak almost zero. One year of Japanese and I speak zero. And four and a half years of Spanish and I can read Spanish pretty well. That's pretty good. Maybe you can find a German that can speak Spanish. That could be helpful. Well, they have to be able to write it. But yeah, one way or another, I look forward to having this. And that was part of what I told Jason, who I bought it from, was like, I'm absolutely a collector, but I'm not collecting this, like shoving it in my basement and not letting anyone else see it. I want to put this out. I want people to play it. I really want to take it to Pinball at the Zoo this year. Yeah, dude, that's awesome. To me, it's just cool that it exists. And I can't remember. I think I sent the pictures to the person who runs the Internet Pinball Database. Yeah. I've heard they're very slow about updating. Yes, very, very slow. But I tried to take a lot of photos because I wanted this preserved. Like, to me, it's a piece of history. Like, being the prototype, I imagine Harry Williams touched that machine at some point in time. Yeah. And that's just really, really cool to me. People stood around that play field looking at it, like making decisions. Yeah, this was in the factory, and they were – and it also – have you owned a big game? No. Okay, so I've owned three regular big games in this one. One of the ones I owned was just literally a parts machine. It had no boards. It had no displays. It was missing a bunch of stuff. I bought it for the Drop Target mechs essentially. um anyway that one i i kept the play field took it apart kept all the parts for doing scratch builds and there's a really interesting part on there where the way some of the ball guides were designed on big game yeah i have not seen done on any other machine instead of going directly into the play field, they actually mount to posts. Specifically, if you were to look at the flipper area, you have your slingshot and on the back right side, well, so on the right slingshot, it's on the back right side of it. And on the left slingshot, it's on the back left side of it. There's a wire guide that mounts to both of the posts there and it hangs down between them. Oh, yeah. And that kind of didn't make sense to me. Yeah. And so you think about the idea that if you have this play field that has plastic on it, it's way harder to put a post directly into it. So you create hanging ball guides. And I think that's what ended up going into the production on big game. And then, again, being kind of, you know, historically historical preservationist minded. I'm also curious of what Stern's reasoning was for not going with this one. Somebody pointed out that the play field on this one has either two or three more screen printed colors. Yeah. So that could have been a cost cutting measure. Yeah. Or the plastic itself, although it would have preserved the game longer, could have been more expensive. And I don't think pinball companies particularly cared how long your play field lasted because these were built to last. I've always heard the number of five to seven years was what they estimated back then. So why did they care if you were putting on plastic to preserve it? We know they gave out Mylar for some games, you know, so they were trying to protect it somewhat. But Mylar is a lot cheaper than quarter inch plexiglass that had to be CNC to match a play field. So the artwork on the prototype is different, but it matches the style, right? Yes. Some of it's the same. Okay. Like there's just different just looking at it. So especially if you look at the original, it's all like jungle foliage and there's a bunch of green. Right. And it's mostly big cats. When you look at this one up top around the pop bumpers. And by the way, guys, these photos are all in the big game club on Pennside. Big game club. The safari has started and a lot of them are posted also in the Stern Electronics Club. but up top, instead of there being like a jungle scene, there's actually like a mountain with waterfalls that starts right above the pop bumpers. And then you kind of see the water flowing all down through the play field into almost like a watering hole. I'm looking at it right now. Okay. Yeah. So in the middle you get an elephant head where there's the famous tiger head. Right. And then you get a chimpanzee and an alligator feature just above that. the colors of the snakes through some of the outer orbits um are different than what's on the production game yeah it's it's just very different but it makes sense in my mind if you're doing an entire jungle kind of like uh i picture almost jungle book versus if you're doing like a big cat hunting game i mean i guess any of these things could be hunted for the word big game but I don't know. That is so cool. Dude. It's just, it's very different. It's so cool. Obviously, the layout is the same. Yeah. Yeah, that's how I felt. And I was very excited to go get it. The snakes are yellow and red on my version, and I'm trying to scroll back up. Oh, there's only one snake. So they only kept the yellowest snake. The art in the prototype is printed on the plywood, and then it just has a plastic layer over top of it. Correct, which is why it looks so good. So it's almost like a big plastic protector. Yep. I'd say it's almost a quarter-inch thick. I didn't get out my ruler and measure, but it's like what they were doing on the new Fathoms from Haggis before they stole everyone's money and went out of business. That is so cool, man. Yeah. So that's what I think they meant by plastic play field was in that article is essentially they had a plastic layer on top that protected the play field. I'd be really curious to know if there was any of these made without the plastic where they printed it on a traditional thickness wood play field. Again, I'm just I'm curious. I wish I could know some more. I sent it to a few people at Stern that I know who work there and asked them to talk to Gary and let me know if he remembered anything or had any info. Yeah. I didn't hear anything back there. But regardless, it's just a really cool piece of pinball history to me. On top of that, it's a game I thoroughly enjoy. So that also made me excited. and at some point I plan to have this along with my early production slash prototype cheetah and my super rare dragon fist all lined up together for people to come and enjoy that's so cool man like I'm trying to look at these side by side the whole time I was just like super stressed that this dude was going to sell the game out from under me and I couldn't even be mad at him because like I know you're not as deep into the classic sterns the way I am, but like people pay up for some of these. And I was like, someone's going to offer this dude like five grand and he's going to take it. And I can't even be mad at him because that's a lot of money. Um, so like, I understand it, but I think as they were pointing out, obviously there's the blue color, uh, on this prototype and then there is the yellow. and I think that those and maybe even the red are not on the production. Yeah, so blue, yellow, and red were removed. So you lose three screen and print colors, which I imagine saves a ton of time in producing the play field itself. Yeah. In addition to cost. And Stern, I know, was very cost conscious. So I don't doubt that that factored into it. Yeah, I'm really curious as to why it's so different. Yeah. It was funny because a couple people right away were chiming in. We're like, oh, that's just somebody's hand-painted work or someone did a crappy overlay. And even from, like, if you look at the very first photo that's posted to Pinside, it's post 2471 from five months ago, it looks like. when it's just like the low-res Facebook photo. I mean, looking at that, I can tell that's not a hand-painted play field. And if it is, it's done by somebody who's an incredibly talented artist. Yeah, that's wild, dude. Yeah, there's no way that's hand-painted. To me, it's very weird to put that much effort into redoing the artwork on a machine. I know, I want to know what was it. They just maybe – I mean somebody, whoever the art director was, just didn't like the blue or, you know, I don't know. Or maybe it was just the – you know, I'm not good at counting colors, but – I really like the waves. The waves are really cool, though. Oh, yeah. Those remind me of, like, Japanese artwork. Yeah. I don't know if that's the vibe you get, but that's what I get. Yeah. Can you hear my dog barking? Yeah, I can. Leo. Leo. Ignore the dog, everybody. That's Tommy's dog. I think he can hear me talking, so he's getting worked up. Are you excited about the prototype? He is. It was funny because I had recently reconnected with a friend from college, and we hadn't really talked in 15 years. and you're trying to be like, well, I do this pinball thing now that consumes most of my life and in the week or two that we were talking, I discovered this and I just nerded out about it to her. And she was like, I don't know if I've ever seen you so excited to talk about something. And I tried to explain to her, I was like, essentially, I feel like I'm Indiana Jones right now. It was like, I'm going to potentially discover this relic that is this significant piece of history that people didn't like had heard existed, but nobody has seen it. And I was like, that to me is just really cool. Because like I said, this guy literally posted would make a great virtual pin. Well, like what if some virtual pinball enthusiasts saw that and was like, sweet, pulls this play field out and just throws it in the trash. Like that could, that literally could have happened. And he said it himself. He was like, I picked it up because I knew how cheap it was. He's like, I was going to make a virtual pin. And then I got it back to my shop and looked at how many projects I have sitting around here. And I was like, I decided that I should just make a couple bucks on it. So, like, that could have happened. Thank God for flippers. Yeah, happy to pay him. Good for him on getting that deal first, you know. I mean, he had to get over there quick to get the $20 or $25 pin as it was originally listed. But, yes, I will keep people posted on this and updated when it is working and complete. um i trust john with absolutely uh anything of mine to do the work on he does a great job maintaining his machines and i just absolutely don't have time especially with getting the head coaching job out at western i think we mentioned that last episode but if not i got the head coaching job Yeah And our season kicks up like full time in November But we already going two three days a week here right now And next week we've got our youth kids club that starts for three days a week for two weeks with 100 plus little kids in our elementary school. So, like, I'm just not going to have time to get to it. Yeah. And he can. And I want to play this thing. Yeah, that's awesome, man. So I want to be a live again. So that is the tale. Oh, there is a picture of that ball guide I was telling you about, by the way. I can see it. Like if you look at IMDB or IMDB, if you look at IPDB, yeah, you can see on either one of these. What is it? I'm looking at Pinside, but post 2496, and it's about like seven or eight photos down. I took a picture directly looking at that. But those are on like your typical wooden ones too, and I always thought that was such a weird ball guide design. And now, to me, it makes more sense because it was going into plastic. Yeah. No, totally. But there's posts that are going through the plastic, like your star posts, your slingshots. They are, yeah, because with that, your plastic and wood thickness together is the same, right? And you can see if you look at the picture that posted. Oh, I got you. This is like the – you're talking about the posts like you would hammer in, right? Yes. Like your wire ball guide. Not like a brushed steel ball guide. No. Okay. So yes and no. There are some of those that are different too. If you look, the in-lane guides, they flow. They actually are attached to the side rails. The side rails. Where if I had some Reese rails, that's where they would attach at. Well, that wouldn't be original then. No, no. I don't want to change this one. I still have a set sitting here. I have a set sitting here for Cheetah from you still. Yeah, you do. Eventually they'll go into that game. Holding up your Tron. Tommy's in his collector room with all his action figures. That's right. Thank you for using the proper terminology. I really appreciate not calling them my dolls. I collect vinyl figures, like here's one. I got into those a little bit. You can't see them on camera, but thanks to you, I got a couple of those. yeah so i have i'm actually trying to figure out in my game room i want to figure out a display system to where you because i keep mine in the um they have like these bag hangers so it's like you know i'm talking about so it's basically like a cardboard thing that's like stapled so you have like a paper card and then the bag it's a yeah but so i wanted i want to display them where they're basically hanging like something's they're hanging from their bag hanger i don't know i'm i'm working it out i have no doubt that you will figure it out i'm close i'm close i just need to get some um i need to get a couple pieces of wood and then i think i can get something together but i need i want to do it to where it doesn't nail into the wall so i'm going to try some velcro and tension situation so there there you go i'm i'm working um well that's that's that's incredible dude i i can't wait to see it um hopefully play it i would love that i will definitely once we get it you know all situated i'll definitely plan to stream that because yeah i think there should be video preservation of it too that's really the coolest thing i think that's come about and obviously i see it like in our hobby but it's for for anything the ease of high quality video recordings to share like it's really cool i you can't see it even on camera but so like there's a tv on the ground behind me and behind that i i got this a random facebook marketplace earlier in the year it is um essentially like uh what the hockey games but checks hockey bubble hockey right right so like you know how they have like smaller kid versions of those that are like tabletop yeah i had one of those as a kid yes so um in the early 90s the wwf released one of those and all the hockey players are the wrestlers like hulk hogan and Macho Man Randy Savage. Yeah. But it was so big and expensive, it sold really poorly, and there's almost no information about it out there. It was not a hit item. It was expensive, and it was big. So stores didn't want to stock it because it took up so much shelf space, and parents didn't want to buy it because it was real expensive. And I randomly found one on Facebook like 30 minutes from here, and I picked it up, and some guy out there has reproduced the stickers. But if you look up online, you can find almost no video of it. There's one, like, 30-second commercial featuring Mean Gene Okerlund from the early 90s. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it just kind of disappeared. But the sculpts on it and everything are, like, they're really well done. It's really cool. That's crazy. But that, again, I wouldn't have been able to find anything had not, like, this one guy bought one new in box that he was willing to open up and show all this video footage of, which is how the decals got reproduced. Oh, that's cool. Things like that. So, yes, I see it, especially for our pinball hobby where we can save rare things like this and get concrete video proof of their existence out there to people and share it that way in addition to putting them out in public. So going along with that, like I think – so you know there's a lot of pinball museums. Like people call themselves pinball museums. That's a tax loophole I think, right? But yeah. But I mean I really think it's unfortunate. Like I collect original art, like pinball art. So I have a bunch of work by John Chad. I have stuff by Johnny Crap. I have stuff by Ryan Claytor. I mean I have – it's like I don't know what that's – I don't know if that's fan art. I mean it's stuff that's been published. It's stuff that's been used for t-shirts. I've got stuff, Brian Holderman drawings that he's done for Stern t-shirts. and like I have this stuff and I'd love to like show it you know but it's kind of like what's what's the venue for that like I don't you know and and doing so I like I think it's worthy of having an art opening like having it up in a gallery to be displayed so people can see it and I think something like well you know what we should talk about this but that would actually be really cool. Like think about once you get these prototypes, like once you get the big game prototype, like put it in a gallery, like have it as a part of a show, like with other ephemera of pinball, pinball hobby, like it's definitely worth, I mean, you see that with skateboarding now, like skateboarding is definitely like gotten to the point where a lot of the retro boards and stuff like that are now artwork. Um, there's a really good, um, there's a really good documentary right now it's called skate face and it might not be that new but i think it's called skate face and it's all about the history of skateboard art and so it follows it all from like the first graphics to like the dog town days where it was like the first graphics for specific riders where it wasn't company logo but it follows it on and on and i i used to i used to skate i collect skateboards But I love skateboard art. But so seeing like that happen with skateboarding where it's almost become like Mark Gonzalez is a fine artist. People like that are like showing stuff in galleries. Like that would be pretty cool to see with pinball stuff at this point. Like put a couple games – put a couple cool like rare or newer games, but really like showing off the artwork. It's not even a game that's there to be played, but it's more a celebration of the art, whether that be like actual production work or prototype stuff or fan art. Because I think a lot of the fan art, that's kind of what I'm not. I mean, it's tough to say fan art because these are professional artists, but it's still like it's not necessarily industry art. You know what I mean? I do know what you mean. And it just you saying this reminded me of something. I'm trying to pull it up so I got a random pin side message a couple years ago from someone in a suburb of Indianapolis and they needed help fixing a Black Knight 2000 it was truly home use only he was kind of a long time pinball insider he bought it straight off the factory line as an anniversary gift for him and his wife and he's written several books He gave me copies of his books for fixing his game And he had a ton of Original pinball artwork For sale Oh man, oh really? And it's a lot of like Bally stuff, he had a lot of Dave Christensen stuff Yeah I feel like I probably I would have to find the book He had a bunch of it on eBay And it's not showing up under pinball right now Which has me a little concerned because he was not doing super well health-wise at the time. So I was hoping his listings were still on here, and they're not showing up. So I'll have to take a look at that book and get his name. But he showed off a bunch of his original artwork to me. He did have it priced very high, which I understand why. But these were original paintings, right? Were these the paintings that were used for back glasses? Yes. I remember that. I remember seeing those and they were, they were like, they were out of my, out of my league. Um, but they were the original, like they were the original paintings that were then produced, which are incredible. yeah it's again it's history like i was just really excited to see it he kept insisting on paying me and i was like i've replaced an end of stroke switch and rewired it man like it's not a big deal thank you for sharing what you had with me um it was really cool i i'll try to find that guy's info and reach out he came he ended up coming like two years later to my location with his wife one night and i met him down there uh so as he had explained it to me at the previous time he didn't think he would be around that long. So it was cool to get to see him a couple years later. But now I've got some concerns not seeing, because those ads would pop up for me a lot of times when I was just looking up pinball stuff on eBay. But anyway, I'm with you. I think, to me, pinball is one of the, like, I don't have the art brain, mind, or eye that you have. I hope you recognize about that stuff. Like, your creativity is really cool, and I admire it. It's just not the way my brain works. but I do have a great appreciation of art in general. And when I see pinball art to me, it's so much cooler than many other art forms where they're just created for appreciation because the artwork in pinball is functional. It so often tells a story that a player kind of has to figure out all while doing like this physical activity with a little silver ball. And it just makes it different, you know? that's part of the reason you can kind of see over my shoulder there's the tron i've got a couple play fields leaned up against it too like i just think play field artwork is like bag glasses are really cool cabinet artworks neat but the play field itself to me is just so special because it's such this functional piece of art oh it's communicating to somebody how to play a complicated machine yeah and the fact that you know not as much nowadays and obviously we go to great lengths great lengths to protect them but for a large part of the history of pinball like artists were creating this thing that they knew this silver ball was going to destroy over time yeah and i don't know what that says or what that is but they still put so much care and effort into it even though they knew it was going to be most likely beat up and damaged by this metal ball I just find like some sort of beauty in that. I think, yeah, I, yeah, yeah, there's, yeah, there, yeah, it's, it's, I think, I don't know. It's interesting because you do have, you know, it's like, I, I go back to like the early nineties when I started really playing a lot, like on location. Cause that's when I was in college, which was a great time to be in college when, you know, an Adams family just got opened at your local arcade, like walking through campus and, um, discovering these games as they were being made, like, uh, Indiana Jones. Um, I still remember like that showing up at our local, our, um, our college had like a cafeteria area in this basement of a building called the commons. And they had a little arcade in there. I just mentioned it to somebody because they had remembered, I can't remember what the game they had, but like, I remember T2 and Indiana Jones, but, um, so John Yowsey, I may be pronouncing that wrong, like, but he was the artist that I would just like, I loved his work because Adam's family was my favorite game. It was my, my first game. And, you know, I just think the simplicity of like medieval madness and games like that. Like, I just think I just, I loved it. I love the graphic nature of it. I think that's one of the things that I really like about like the people that I collect, I really like the graphic nature of the way that they draw. Like Johnny Crap, obviously, like, I think he's a really interesting artist, because he's, he can do so many different techniques. Like, I think, if you look at what he did with the Labyrinth Playfield, and then you look at what he did with Jurassic Park, or what he does, like, like, this is a person who does um, ban merch for suicidal tendencies and, uh, or insane, insane graffiti. Like his, his skill level, like his mastery of like so many different art techniques is incredible. Like I, I'm a shitty drawer. I can't, I can't draw, but I, I mean, I would consider myself a conceptual artist. Like I do think that I can come up with ideas. I really love design. I think that if I called myself anything, it would just be a designer. Um, like seeing the stuff that that guy has done is just incredible. But I love, I mean, like if you go and you look back at some of the other artists, like John Yowsey, like he was doing work for, um, like he was doing commercial work. So he was doing like the scrubbing bubbles, you know, the, like the bathroom cleaner. I do. I remember zombie Yeti using that to draw an episode album cover art for us way back in the day and it was spectacular. But that's the thing. Like, I, yeah, it's just like the, yeah, it's just, I don't know the artwork. Um, but then going to what you were saying about the idea of like, these weren't made to be permanent. Like they were made to be put out there on location and to exist for maybe five years before something else was put out there. Um, yeah, I don't know. It's, it's, it's cool. But I, I would love to see, like, I don't know. I don't, I don't, I don't really know of it happening, but it seems like it's time for like a big art show about pinball art. I think it'd be very easy to do. Like in a gallery, in a museum, like up for a month so people can come in and appreciate it. Not like – I mean like it would be cool to do something at like Expo or something like that, but it's a little bit different when you're displaying it in like a hotel room, you know, or like a suite that's set up with... It's... Yeah. There's the... So there's different views on that. There's like, it's a, I don't know, whatever you call it. There's so much video out there now, but there's a story from a few years ago. World round violinist plays at this concert. Tickets are hundreds of dollars. The next day he goes and plays in the subway. He only gets a couple dollars of tips while he's playing there. It's the same music, it's the same artist, but you have to be somewhere where you're appreciated, where people know what they're seeing. So that could be part of the problem with pinball art. Like if we heard someone discovers the archives of Valley Williams, Stern, and Data East, and they're showing all this original prototype artwork, and it's going to be displayed at Pinball Expo, the majority of the people who are at Pinball Expo are really going to appreciate that and know how special it is and what they're seeing. If you stick it in another art museum, somebody might look at it and be like, it's not Van Gogh it's not Picasso why the fuck am I looking at this that's where I go back to what you're seeing with skateboard art now where the graphic style of skateboards and the graphic style of pinball is very similar oh yeah I can see that I have a few skateboards and I'm not I had a fucking Ninja Turtle skateboard as a kid that I sucked at never got super into skate culture but i have three skateboards just sitting to my left because they have really cool artwork on them and i want to hang them up but i think the thing i think the thing with pinball is i think that pinball is popular enough now that more people are caring about the history and the context that the games that we're playing now exist in so i think that it's giving more it gives more weight to that that like it elevates the things that came before now like yeah the historical preservation is more important i think that's i think that's what's happening with skateboards is that people are like man i this is a mark gonzalez deck i skated this when i was a kid it's like well think about the people who um grew up playing eight ball deluxe or something like that like i don't i don't know i i i don't know maybe there's just not enough maybe it's not enough people did it i don't know it seems like a lot of people have played pinball I would think that more people play pinball than skateboard. Oh, I don't know. I don't know either. That's tough, man. Like in the 80s, I want to say yes, for sure. But don't you – but pinball culture has completely changed, right? Like look at the operators you have now. Like you have a lot of like hobby operators. Oh, 100 percent. The people who are into pinball, it's not just a bunch of old white dudes. You know what I mean? Like it's not like – It's largely a bunch of old white dudes. But it is changing. I mean it's changing to where I think that people are coming at it like there's an appreciation for pinball outside of it just being something that's there to make money. Because I think that that's the relationship between a lot of the people that would have held on to this type of stuff. They were operators, and they didn't care so much if it wasn't making them money. Yeah, that's the story of when we got – Think of all the – Go ahead. I'm sorry. Think of all the games that are now being restored. The amount of rails I have made for people because they were restoring big games. I've done numerous big games. I've done dozens of sets of Fathom. Centaurs. Fathoms. I mean like – And I'm sure all of the Stern scratch builds, Quicksilver, Stargazer. Oh, yes. You crank those out. Yeah, but I mean like when I first started making rails, it was like, oh, they would kind of dribble in. And then all of a sudden there just an explosion because people really care about these classics that when I got into the hobby like I was able to pick up most of my like early sterns for like under 500 bucks Yeah Yeah. There was always a meteor on either Craigslist or Facebook marketplace at any time for under 500 bucks. Anywhere in the country, you could find a meteor for under 500 bucks. And now people are, now people are putting thousands of dollars into their meteors to make them play like new. I don't know. I just think that there's a different type of appreciation for pinball. And I think that the, there's enough art, especially, I think a lot about like the fan art and stuff like that, or, or artists like zombie Yeti, um, contemporary pinball designers. I think that culturally, like if you look at what they're doing outside of pinball with like, like rock posters and stuff like that. I don't know. I just think that there's – Well, it's like you said, who was it? Somebody you mentioned earlier in this episode was doing commercial artwork back then even and still doing play fields on the side too. So I think that's part of the artist story. Art is typically underappreciated during artists' lifetimes, and they have to pursue these different avenues of revenue to be able to create, right? And that's part of it. They want to make money. I overall to me pinball is still just the most unique art form because it encompasses so much because largely what we're discussing is like the art that goes on the playfield cabinet back glass but there's this physical art to the layout creation there's the audio art we talked about a little bit last episode David Thiel I think is just the the absolute master of creating this audio package that could be that could be part of the exhibition you do it oh you do like you have these like areas where you walk and you just get pumped in like different like soundtracks that's i'm looking it up right now somebody has a website that has a bunch of pinball soundtracks on it there was two vinyl albums released in the last year oh yeah the jack the yeah that feature music from pinball machines um i know this pinball soundtrack website exists. I don't remember what it's called. I had to create a membership, but I specifically did it so I could download the soundtrack to Mystery Castle from Alvin G. I love the music in that game. To me, that's the best background music of a pinball machine ever. Not like sound package, but I just love the music from that game. If you think about video games, like classic Atari games, that artwork is celebrated like art Oh, yeah, very much so. Yeah, it's just like if – there's a Facebook group called Pin Spotting, right, where it's like people – if you see a pinball machine in media like movies or TV or something like that, you take a still shot and you post it to the Facebook group. Like I like art that has pinball in it, like not necessarily like for a pinball machine but just like there's a pinball machine in the art. You know what I mean? Yeah. it's very much a part of americana i do love so i'm in that group as well i love when people post them like oh this show this episode this minute is when it shows up i also love when they put them in movies and they i'm assuming it has to do with paying licensing rights they change like the back glass artwork and stuff and you're trying to figure out what it is from a distance i always love that there's a movie that came out within the last like probably two years now called the werewolves within it's a horror comedy and essentially a small small uh reclusive town gets invaded by werewolf and they're trying to figure it out but there's this lodge and you can clearly see some machines in the back and they changed the fishtails back glass but you still have like the fishtails topper on it i'm like oh that's an easy one yeah that and then the whirlwind i think still had the topper on it too or something like that it was like two games that had toppers that made them super identifiable even though they were only in the background and they had Their mom class is altered. But yeah, I enjoy that challenge. There's a galaxy that's going around. It's got it. So it's like some prop shop has it because it's all because you can. So like like if you're filming a movie like you can just go and rent like pinball machines. And so there's some prop shop and they have a galaxy and it's been in a bunch of movies because it's the same back glass. It's not a galaxy. I wonder if – I probably think that they probably broke the back glass at some point, and so they just made one. Yeah, with something like Galaxy, that would make sense because nobody cares about that game. Well, the other thing is like if you have glass in something, that's going to be reflective. Like that can be an issue when you're setting up for a shot. So they may have taken something that's not as reflective. So that could be the other thing. That makes sense too. Yeah. It's interesting. I still remember, again, a couple of years ago, a horror-esque movie with Nick Cage, Willie's Wonderland. They completely redid a Gottlieb Devil's Dare, and the play field was completely hand-painted for the movie to match the theme of the movie set in a knock-off Chuck E. Cheese. That's Willie's Wonderland. Yeah. They repainted the whole play field. Whoever ended up doing it shared their creation of it. Somebody just posted that they bought the machine recently. Oh, really? That's so funny. Yeah. That was kind of a neat one to see how they had – the process they had gone about to redo a Devil's Stare into this children's amusement restaurant theme. I still – because I used to do film and TV production, and so I have friends who, if they are working a job, will send me a picture of a pinball machine on set. So it's like, oh, okay, cool. Thanks for saying that. It just means they're thinking about you, man. that's a that's those little things like that i talked i saw something recently about like how that's like the modern love language is friends sending each other other little bits and pieces of photos or memes yeah yeah that's cool i love it just telling you hey man like i saw this and it made me think of you so here you go oh yeah no i always i yeah i get i do it's so funny though because you do get the people who's like you really never talk to them and then it's like they drop you like a Facebook message and it's like, Oh yeah, I was at this antique store and I saw this Pachinko. Like, are you into this? And it's like, no, but thank you. Um, I don't know. It's usually something like that. Yeah. I've, I've befriended quite a few people in the wrestling action figure community in this one group. And like, I'm known as the pinball guy in that group. And that's happened a few times. Like that's what I got was like, a little handheld electronic game like from the early 90s that was a pinball machine he's like oh would you be into this i was like that is really cool that's not my thing though i was like i'm gonna i'm gonna buy it because i think it's cool and then it's gonna sit in a shelf and not get used see that's the kind of stuff i like oh yeah you'd have been all about it i'll see if i can find it i don't know he was at like a flea market or something so i'm sure it's not there now but there's those nice things man when people associate you with that stuff and And I don't know. It's obviously it's – you don't meet a ton of people who are like, oh, yeah, my main hobby is everything pinball. Yeah. Play it. Collect it. Restore it. Buy, sell, trade. There is a guy on Instagram who goes by VHS Crypt, and he just – he posts toys. But he gets a lot of like wrestling figures just as a heads up. a lot i there's a chance i already follow there's and that's one of the things i've gotten into that in the last couple years mostly with modern stuff because the older stuff's expensive and i didn't have a ton of those as a kid i had the ninja turtles i've gotten into getting those again but it's it's just cool that as i've i've gotten into that there's these cool histories on rare figures that whatever the wrestler ended up getting released to a different company so they have these prototypes, but then they never released it. And someone has the prototype. And I mean, they sell for big money, like stuff that sounds crazy to me. And then I talk about what I pay for pinball machines. And they're like, yeah, you're crazy. We're all crazy with whatever it is that we're into or we collect. But if it's, it's part of that is if it brings you some form of joy and happiness, like it's not crazy. It's, it's human nature. Like we want to do something that brings us joy. So yeah, whatever it costs, it's worth it. Joy is joy is an endorphin. It's a chemical. There's chemicals in your brain that are going, I like this. And so you try to recreate that as many times as you can, and then you end up with a wall of toys behind you like Tommy has. Or a wall of pinball machines like I have. Yeah. I mean, it's like, yeah, it's a collector life, man. I'm sitting. You can't see it because obviously you're looking at me through my camera here. But just to my right, I have a 13-inch TV VCR combo I recently scored. stack of VHS tapes. People are like, why do you want to watch VHS? I worked at a blockbuster, man. I rented these things to people all the time. I spent a lot of hours of my life watching movies and talking about movies. I get this weird nostalgia feel watching the lower quality, grainy VHS on this old-ass TV than I do clicking through Netflix. I enjoy it. Physical media is just different. Oh, yeah. it's just it's it's cool i have a space balls copy that's still wrapped in the plastic my favorite movie ever i found that in a big batch of stuff i bought was like this is this is my high for the week i'm good now i don't even have to look at facebook for pinball machines right now i mean i think i think that that's one of the things like pinball for me why i'm more drawn to it is just because it's a there's a physical object it's not like i mean i played video games and i grew up in the golden age of video games. I had an Atari 2600. I had a like original home pong. But pinball is just like, because it's a physical, it's like a physical thing. Like you're really controlling something, you know, like it's almost like a physical media. It's like, you can't recreate it. I'm sorry, but you can't recreate it on the screen. Like the virtual pinball machines and it's not the same. It's not. Yeah. I will, whenever somebody asks me about what I think about virtual pinball or how I compare them, if you've only got room for one or if you're just getting into the hobby and you want to try out a bunch of things, it has its place. I'm glad it exists. It's not for me because I don't give a shit what they taught me in physics class 20-something years ago. just every once in a while somehow that little silver ball inside of a real pinball machine defies all the fucking laws of physics yeah and it bounces some way that it shouldn't it rolls some way that it shouldn't it comes back into play and you can't recreate that in the video game the ball is going to follow a coded path yes no matter what yes every time it comes out of the left orbit it's gonna like hit your flipper the same like you can trap up like i i had attack attack from mars or medieval madness on my ipad like back when that shit first came out yeah i remember i was hitting the orbit and it was like hit the right orbit it would just come down and like trap hit the right orbit trap and it was just like oh no this is not right and it's it's so it's so funny one of the good players that comes to our tournaments a couple weeks ago i've got a future spa it plays really well on my location i've i've really come to love that game and he plays he has a pretty good game but he's like oh man i can't believe how nice that's playing since you shopped it out and i was like dude i haven't touched that game i was like that like i don't know if it's because the room's five degrees cooler today the rubbers are a little bit stiffer so it's bouncing different yeah but i was like he's like he didn't play like that last time you rebuilt the flippers i was like i haven't touched the machine man like i haven't cleaned the play field it's just some little variable that changes the environment of that machine that day makes it play a little differently you know and that's you can't recreate that with the virtual machines um i don't know man it's so cheesy and stupid pinball is just beautiful man like the existence of it like we took all this brain power of mankind and we were like should He's trying to cure cancer. It's like, I got an idea for another layout. And they're like, let's fucking do that instead, man. Let's make another new game. Yeah. And now it's like, I got some sound ideas. Now pinball machines cost the same as a car. You know, it's like. Yeah, but here's the thing. A car also costs insurance and gas and oil changes. Like, it's going to. Pinball machines, you clean it, you switch out some rubbers, occasionally replace the coil stops. You're probably going to be okay. It's still a lot of money for just something. I mean, I'm just saying, like, the allure of it makes people do crazy things, like spend car money on a pinball machine. 100%. I mean, yeah, this is all crazy. But would you rather have 20 cars or 20 pinball machines? Oh, I mean, I have one car. I have 11 pinball machines. That's exactly my point. Like, as long as my car is getting me from point A to B, why do I need to worry about the money for another car? Yeah, I thought I would downgrade my car to get another game. I just have not. I don't have room. I don't want it anymore. I have the perfect amount for my game room. Okay, for your game room. That's the correct way. To say you don't want it anymore, I was like, that's a lie. Well, look. Yes, for your space, that makes sense. Look, we've been talking for over an hour. Yeah, we crushed it. I think next time we can come back to that because I'm getting ready to host my league, and maybe we could talk a little bit about home ownership or whatever, something like that. I don't know. I'd be into talking about mods and shit like that. That might be a little off topic for us. We don't usually get into that. Do you mod your games? I mod them a little bit. I've made mods I'm not a big modder You made a gameplay improvement for Ghostbusters Well I made a mod I made a Godzilla mod I still haven't installed that It's still sitting in the box I think it's been sitting there for 2-3 years now I think you sent that to me I think that was sent to me when I lived at the old house It's there though I saw it looking for a part the other week I opened this and was like hey there's that Godzilla But yeah So the big game story is amazing. It's so cool. If anybody can reach out and get in touch with Doug Watson and ask him about the artwork on it, that's super cool. Feel free to reach out to us if he needs pictures. Like I said, I tried emailing his LinkedIn and his Facebook. I stopped pretty good. But, yeah, I would love to solve a little bit more of that mystery. and once it is up and running, like I said, I plan on it for it to be a pinball at the zoo for sure and it'll most likely be on location at North End Pub. Well, Tommy, it was good to talk to you. People of Southeast U.S., Florida, Tennessee, Virginia, North Carolina, thinking about you and, yeah, I've tried to figure out something that I can do to help. and Tommy it was good to talk to you and I guess we'll have to record another episode yeah apparently we got stuff to talk about man well it was good to talk to you Tommy until next time sounds good later punk ain't no religious cult punk means thinking for yourself You ain't hardcore when you spike your hair. When a jock still lives in there. Nazi punks, Nazi punks, Nazi punks, fuck off. Nazi punks, Nazi punks, Nazi punks, fuck off. Nazi punks, Nazi punks, Nazi punks, fuck off. If you came to fact, get out of here. You ain't no better than the bouncers. We ain't trying to be the police. When you eat the cops, it ain't anarchy. Nazi punks, Nazi punks, Nazi punks, fuck off. Nazi punks, Nazi punks, Nazi punks, fuck off. Nazi punks, Nazi punks, Nazi punks, fuck off. Ten guys jump on, what a man You fight each other, the police state wins Stab our back when you trash our halls And go trash a bank if you got balls You still think swastikas are cool, the real Nazis run your schools Coaches, businessmen, and cops in a real fourth-rate could be the first thing stopping Nazi puns, Nazi puns, Nazi puns, fuck off Nazi puns, Nazi puns, Nazi puns, fuck off Nazi puns, Nazi puns, Nazi puns, fuck off We're the first to go, first to go, first to go, first to go, first to go Unless you think _(Acquisition: groq_whisper)_ --- *Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: 876df2b6-af33-4187-b63e-7b3c0b53c2ff*