# #43 The 12 Days of Pinball - The Classic Pinball Podcast

**Source:** The Classic Pinball Podcast  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2020-12-23  
**Duration:** 75m 19s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/george272/episodes/43-The-12-Days-of-Pinball---The-Classic-Pinball-Podcast-eo13rc

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## Analysis

George and Dave host a casual year-end retrospective episode titled '12 Days of Pinball,' discussing aftermarket board replacements (Stern soundboard VSU-2, HomePin transformer), pinball industry folklore (Lucky Leo's arcade in Seaside Heights), and a mix of tangential pop culture observations. They share personal collecting stories, speculation about Keith Elwin's upcoming game with a novel flipper mechanism, and commentary on the newly revealed Led Zeppelin pinball machine, while also touching on specific classic machines and their market values at auction.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] The VSU-2 Stern soundboard replacement is designed for games like Flight 2000, Catacomb, Freefall, Lightning, Split Second, Orbiter One, and Gametron, addressing a common issue where the original speech chip is hard to find and worth ~$100. — _Dave providing technical details about the board; cited from Slam Tilt Podcast collaboration with Gladstone._
- [HIGH] A Cheetah (Stern) sold at Captain's Auction for $4,300 before a 15% buyer's premium, totaling approximately $5,000. — _George asking Dave to estimate auction price; Dave recalls the specific sale from 'a couple of weeks ago.'_
- [HIGH] Dave previously sold a mint condition Cheetah for $7,200-$7,500. — _Dave's personal collection sales history._
- [HIGH] Lucky Leo's arcade in Seaside Heights, New Jersey opened in 1955 but was shut down in 1956 after the state discovered it was operating gambling devices without legislative knowledge. — _George providing historical research about Leo Whalen's arcade._
- [MEDIUM] Keith Elwin's upcoming game will feature 'a flipper with a twist,' possibly a fourth flipper or a novel flipper variant based on his preference for Skateball. — _George referencing Elwin's comment on the Loser Kid Podcast; speculation by hosts about the mechanism._
- [HIGH] The HomePin Transformer and Rectifier board is expensive and described as 'looking very Chinese' despite filling a market void. — _George showing Dave the product pricing; Dave's reaction and commentary._
- [LOW] A Centaur machine was reportedly being converted into a working cocktail table by an unknown collector. — _George citing unverified information from the Poor Man Pinball Podcast; George explicitly states he could not validate this claim._
- [MEDIUM] Stern's early solid-state games (like Trident) suffer from poor soundboards that sound like 'a cash register' and could benefit from a future soundboard redesign similar to the VSU-2. — _Dave's opinion based on personal experience with the games and hints from the Slam Tilt Podcast discussion about future Gladstone products._

### Notable Quotes

> "They were saying that that particular chip, if you could find one, was worth about $100. Exactly. So the premise behind this was to re-engineer this board and put it out in a favorable price point, which I think they've done."
> — **Dave**, ~7:00
> _Explains the value proposition and market need for the VSU-2 soundboard replacement._

> "I am so sick of listening to people talk about this every other podcast has to weigh in and give their you know opinion of the game all they all they have is seen it they haven't played it and it just drives me nuts."
> — **Dave**, ~19:00
> _Strong negative sentiment toward saturation coverage of Led Zeppelin pinball before release._

> "Just show the car, give a couple of features, and then stop talking and let everybody just look at the car in amazement."
> — **George**, ~21:00
> _Critical feedback on Stern's Led Zeppelin Facebook reveal event strategy._

> "I think his name is Rob out in Chicago. And I said, yeah, I'm ready to part with it because, I don't know, it just didn't do as much for me as it used to. I think I actually like big game better these days than Cheetah."
> — **Dave**, ~30:00
> _Personal anecdote about selling a collectible and changing preferences._

> "Someone needs to re-engineer a soundboard for those early stirring games so they don't sound like a cash register, you know, to kind of either put chimes in it somehow, even with chimes would be better like stars or a stingray."
> — **Dave**, ~38:00
> _Identifies a market opportunity for aftermarket soundboard development._

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| George | person | Co-host of The Classic Pinball Podcast, podcast producer, collector, interviewed David Scarpa about arcade history. |
| Dave | person | Co-host of The Classic Pinball Podcast, pinball collector, game restorer, technical expert on boards and mechanics. |
| Bruce Nightingale | person | Co-host of Slam Tilt Podcast, collaborated with Gladstone on VSU-2 soundboard development. |
| Gladstone | person | Designer/manufacturer of the VSU-2 Stern soundboard replacement, runs Gladstone.com. |
| Keith Elwin | person | Pinball designer, favorite game is Skateball, designing upcoming game with novel flipper mechanism. |
| Leo Whalen | person | Owner of Lucky Leo's arcade in Seaside Heights, New Jersey (opened 1955), passed away within weeks of podcast recording; known to George from personal visits. |
| David Scarpa | person | Author (used alias David Scorpio), subject of George's arcade interview, sent George his autobiography about family arcade disputes. |
| Tim Sexton | person | Rule set programmer for Led Zeppelin pinball, participated in Facebook reveal livestream. |
| Jack Danger | person | Participated in Led Zeppelin pinball Facebook reveal livestream. |
| Chuck Webster | person | Pulled Led Zeppelin pinball reveal from Facebook feed and shared it since Stern could not use Twitch due to copyright restrictions. |
| Stern Pinball | company | Major pinball manufacturer; recently released Led Zeppelin game; subject of VSU-2 soundboard fix discussion. |
| Slam Tilt Podcast | organization | Pinball podcast hosted by Bruce Nightingale and Ron; featured detailed technical discussion of VSU-2 soundboard. |
| The Classic Pinball Podcast | organization | Host podcast; dedicated to pinball history, collecting, and industry news with small but dedicated audience. |
| Lucky Leo's Arcade | venue | Historic arcade in Seaside Heights, New Jersey, opened 1955, owned by Leo Whalen, later run by sons Steve and Tommy. |
| Captain's Auction | organization | Auction house in Anaheim, California specializing in pinball machine sales. |
| London Pinball | person | Collector based in Canada with YouTube channel; helped Dave obtain prototype ROMs for Cheetah machine. |
| Led Zeppelin (Stern) | game | Recently released Stern pinball machine; heavily covered in industry podcasts; subject of Facebook reveal event; compared unfavorably by Dave to Guns N' Roses. |
| Guns N' Roses (pinball) | game | Referenced as more visually exciting alternative to Led Zeppelin; comparison is running joke in community. |
| Skateball | game | Favorite game of Keith Elwin; has four flippers; influences Elwin's design philosophy for upcoming game. |
| Cheetah (Stern) | game | Early Stern solid state machine; exists in prototype and production versions with different ROM sets; auction price discussed; Dave owned two examples. |
| Trident (Stern) | game | Early solid state Stern game; George hunting for example; Dave notes home ROM improvements made it 'a game changer.' |
| Hot Hand | game | Pinball machine with card game mechanics; George looking to acquire; features crappy soundboard but acceptable sounds. |
| Eight Ball Deluxe | game | Classic pinball game; George found home use example listed for $9,000 in Marion, Massachusetts. |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Aftermarket soundboard replacements (VSU-2), Pinball machine collecting and values, Led Zeppelin pinball machine reaction and market reception
- **Secondary:** Pinball industry history and folklore, Classic Stern solid-state sound design limitations, Keith Elwin's upcoming game design with novel flipper mechanics, Homebrew ROM modifications for classic games
- **Mentioned:** Community podcast saturation on major releases

### Sentiment

**Mixed** (0.35) — Generally positive nostalgia and appreciation for community figures (Leo Whalen, David Scarpa) and aftermarket innovations (soundboards), tempered by frustration with Led Zeppelin hype saturation, overpricing of niche aftermarket boards (HomePin), and limited access to new releases due to pandemic.

### Signals

- **[technology_signal]** VSU-2 soundboard by Gladstone successfully addresses common speech chip failures in 6-7 classic Stern games; pricing at $125 considered reasonable for the market. (confidence: high) — Dave confirms the product solves real problem, cites speech chip rarity and cost, notes pricing is 'a deal' and 'in line' with aftermarket ecosystem.
- **[technology_signal]** HomePin Transformer and Rectifier board filling market void but considered overpriced; rectifier-only alternatives available at $59. (confidence: high) — George and Dave discuss pricing skepticism; Dave notes cheaper rectifier-only option exists; acknowledges filling void for users unwilling to modify.
- **[design_philosophy]** Keith Elwin hints at 'flipper with a twist' for upcoming game; likely either fourth flipper or motion-based variant drawing from Skateball design. (confidence: medium) — George references Elwin's Loser Kid Podcast comment; hosts speculate on mechanism (180° rotation, half-zipper motion) but lack confirmation.
- **[product_concern]** Stern's Led Zeppelin Facebook reveal strategy criticized for over-explanation drowning out game audio and playfield visibility. (confidence: high) — George provides direct critical feedback on live feed; suggests reveal should 'show the car' before explaining features; compares unfavorably to car show format.
- **[sentiment_shift]** Community saturation on Led Zeppelin coverage before release; Dave frustrated by every podcast weighing in without playing the machine. (confidence: high) — Dave: 'I am so sick of listening to people talk about this...all they have is seen it they haven't played it and it just drives me nuts.'
- **[collector_signal]** Cheetah (Stern) auction result: $4,300 pre-premium, ~$5,000 post-15% buyer's premium; Dave historically sold mint example for $7,200-$7,500. (confidence: high) — Dave provides specific pricing data from personal sales and recent auction observation.
- **[historical_signal]** Lucky Leo's arcade in Seaside Heights operated 1955-1956 under legal ambiguity; state shut down gambling device operation after discovering unlegislated boardwalk devices. (confidence: high) — George provides specific dates and regulatory context; cross-referenced against known arcade history.
- **[community_signal]** Slam Tilt Podcast and Bruce Nightingale collaboration on VSU-2 soundboard development; hints of future product roadmap in early-Stern soundboard solutions. (confidence: medium) — George cites Slam Tilt coverage; Dave reads 'vibe' from Gladstone representative about future opportunities in early-Stern sound design.
- **[market_signal]** Aftermarket soundboard and transformer solutions addressing gaps left by original manufacturers; market sized at ~10,000 units across supported classic games. (confidence: medium) — George and Dave estimate serviceable audience for VSU-2 at 10,000 units across Flight 2000, Catacomb, Freefall, Lightning, etc.; Dave confirms purchase intent for spares.
- **[venue_signal]** George reports year without attending shows; backlog accumulating on unreleased/unplayed games; expects longer delays ahead. (confidence: high) — George: 'Here we are in December. It's almost a year. We'll talk about this in the year in review, but a year since I've been to a show. I'm getting behind on games.'
- **[regulatory_signal]** Stern unable to broadcast Led Zeppelin reveal on Twitch due to music copyright restrictions; forced to use Facebook instead. (confidence: high) — George thanks Chuck Webster for pulling Facebook feed; notes 'not allowed to play copyright music on twitch which is just awful.'

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## Transcript

 🎵 Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the Classic Pinball Podcast My name is George and I'm joined by my co-host Dave Hello Dave Hello, this is Lenny Lenny, get off the phone, it's for me Hello, George. How we doing? Oh, you're too funny. I want to thank everyone for joining us today. It's time for our final podcast of 2020. So let's get started. Time for some pinball. Dave, today I have 12 items for discussion, and I'm going to call this episode the 12 days of pinball. I'm going to read you a list from what I'm calling the sheet and I'd like you to pick one okay? okay here we go Lucky Leo Kangaroo Do the Twist Future Proof Stern Sandboard Beyond Playland Led Zeppelin Centaur Captain's Auction Connectors on Mechs or Mech Connector Cabinet The Year in Review You can't pick that one. Alright, well I'm going to go with the most intriguing one to me is the Stern Soundboard. Let's go with that one. Okay, the first day of Christmas my co-host picked for me I'm not going to do the song. I'm going to keep referring to Christmas. So everybody calm down. I like where you're going. So this is from one of your favorite podcasts, one you listen to regularly, the Slam Tilt Podcast. And Bruce Nightingale helped, I guess, collaborate with, is it Glodstone? The person who came up with the Stern soundboard. I listen to that podcast regularly I do but I'm not aware of I do the reason that this intrigued me this is on their latest podcast and I always give credit where credit is due they occupied the first 20 minutes of their most recent podcast talking about this in great detail if you're into the technical aspects of it, to me it was a lot of things I could not understand and probably would not understand, but I found it interesting because obviously you collect these games and we've talked about them, but I'm not sure we've talked about any of the ones that are on that list. So can we go through the list of games? I guess this soundboard is used for, and then you can ask me some questions. How's that? So So why don't you go through the games that this product, and you can name the product as well. All right. It is the VSU-2, I believe. And it goes in games like Flight 2000, Catacomb. What's the other game? Freefall. Freefall, yes. Lightning. That's correct, Lightning. Good, George. I've got it in front of me. I'm going up top of my head. Okay. I'm sorry. I thought you had it open. I have it open. Split second and the infamous Orbiter One. Orbiter One, yes. Shoot, pinball. And a game I want to come back to. I'm sorry. I'm stepping on you. A game I want to come back to, Gamitron. So first off, you own some of these games. I know you've sold some of these games off, correct? Yes, I've owned pretty much all of those except for Orbiter One and Split Second. you owned a gametron oh sorry i had a gametron playfield and not only gametron no i played one but i've not owned one that's true okay okay so you have questions i'll see if i can answer any of them all right let's see uh who makes the board uh a gentleman by whose last name and i'm sorry i I don't know your first name. Glad Gladstone. So the name of the company is or the place you can find this information is on Gladstone dot com. I guess that this person bought a game from Bruce Nightingale. I you tell me, is this soundboard something that goes wonky on a regular basis? Yes. A lot of Stern games have a problem with the board. and then a lot of people have trouble fixing the board. I think there's some components on it or a speech chip that's no longer available, hard to find. They were saying that that particular chip, if you could find one, was worth about $100. Exactly. So the premise behind this was to re-engineer this board and put it out in a favorable price point, which I think they've done. So given all these games, and, you know, I didn't do my homework here, how many total games do you think there are between the six or seven different titles? Maybe 10,000 games? A little more, maybe? Yeah. I'm just trying to think of how big the serviceable audience is for this particular board, but that's a big number. Yeah, I'd say at most 10,000. I'd probably a little less than that. But, yeah. Over time, you know, games get destroyed, et cetera. Right. It sounds like there's a real need for this. Would this be something that you would go out and buy? Yeah, I'd definitely go out and buy. I like to have a spare because I have games that work now. I had a catacomb years ago that I could never get the speech working on. And no matter what, even changing out a working speech board, and that worked another game and this wouldn't work in this game. So I don't know, maybe this speech board could fix it. But, yeah, the Stern speech, the way they did it, just, I don't know, it was problematic. And if it didn't work, it's a real pain in the neck to try to get it to come back. Versus the Bally stuff, they had a better way of doing it. Well, I want to make sure that, you know, with our audience, that I bring stuff like this. They might not listen to the other podcasts. just to point people in the direction so that they can buy components that might make their games better. Unless you have another question, I want to kind of move to another replacement item that I sent you and get your feedback on that. Sure. I sent Dave a picture of the Home Pin Transformer and Rectifier board. Did you happen to notice how much that cost? I did not see how much it cost. Let's see here. Wow. Whoa. Now I do. Yowza. Yeah, that's what I said. That's a little pricey. And I hate to say it, but it looks very Chinese. It does. I don't get the price. I don't get where they're going with that. But if you can't buy one new, they're filling a market void, I guess. I mean, there's enough games out there. We know the whole story that, you know, Transformers don't usually fail. Obviously, the Rectifier does. But you can go buy that Rectifier board for, I think I saw it for $59 at one of the vendors. I don't remember who carried it, but it doesn't matter. You know, that's reasonable. That's in price line with everything else that's out there. Yeah. So anyway, so I bring that to everybody's attention, too. You can go out and find it. Just put, you know, HomePin distributors in the U.S., and you'll find out who it is, and there'll be a picture there. But I found that interesting. Anything else you want to talk about with this particular board? I mean, it looks well built, but, I mean, I just can't believe they can't just use a transformer from, I don't know, even a WPC or whatever, and somehow modify it. You know, with a lot of the brainiac electrical engineers out there, we figure out a way to take what's available and kind of modify to use for the Valley Stern stuff. Right, but if you're the average homeowner and doesn't know what they're doing, take one out, put one in, replacement part. It makes sense. It's expensive, but it makes sense. Yeah, if you had to. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, that's really what it comes down to. It's just like the speech board we just talked about. If you have a game that doesn't work, you're grateful. You'd pay double the price, but if the person made it reasonable, you're probably going to have one in your arsenal just in case you need it or one of your customers needs it. Definitely. How much is that speech board anyway? $125. That's a deal. That's a good price point. So that's what we're in line for. Well, that's why I brought it up today. I want to make sure that people in the hobby, if they didn't see it or didn't hear about it through us, even though we have a small audience, we have a dedicated audience, and you should know about that product. So let me get into the other 11 items that I have on the sheet. And you'll hear about the sheet as we move forward in other podcasts because I'm starting to develop notes for these programs because my brain is not tight enough to remember everything. So we have number one on the list. I just want to pay homage to a gentleman from Seaside Heights, New Jersey, that passed within the last couple of weeks, a gentleman by the name of Leo Whalen. He owned one of the biggest arcades in Seaside Heights on the boardwalk. It was built when I was a teenager. It's still run by his sons, Steve and Tommy. I found one piece of information that I thought was very interesting about New Jersey. seaside heights allowed gambling devices on the boardwalk without the knowledge of the state legislature so this gentleman opened up his arcade in 1955 ran it for the whole summer and then in 1956 they stormed in and shut them down and when i say games of chance you know the prize wheels that they have down in New Jersey. I guess the state wanted their cut of the action and closed them down for the rest of 1956. So I thought that was a bit of folklore that should probably come out into the open. And I put a lot of quarters of the machines in that particular arcade. So, sorry, I don't know, you probably have never been there, you've probably never seen it, but if you haven't, folks, and you're from other parts of the world, it's out in the Google machine. Just put in Lucky Leo's and you'll see some great pictures of that particular arcade. I'm going to shift gears. No pinball on this one. Kangaroo. Now, our listeners in Australia have probably heard this multiple times, but a kangaroo attacked a woman in Australia because she was wearing Sarah Jessica Parker perfume. Hmm. Was that the one that had, no, wait, that's someone else, that had a candle that smelled, I don't know. You probably can't say. Is it the question, what the heck does this perfume smell like? Does it smell like a fertile kangaroo? That's what I'm thinking I'm thinking Gwyneth Paltrow made a candle that smelled like you know, something, something private on her No, come on I don't know how much it sold, but I don't want that So a little eau de fifi? Yeah You guys are screwy. Come on, baby. Let's do the twist. Do the twist. This is about Keith Elwin. I think we talked about this in one of our other podcasts, where his favorite game is skateball. Did we talk about this? yes yes yes yes Lenny okay okay Lenny so so do the twist do the twist is a comment he made on the loser kid podcast talking about the third flipper on his games and I immediately thought of him in his favorite game, Skateball. You know, you've got four flippers. So he's telling the podcasters that his new game is going to have a flipper with a twist. I'm wondering would that be like a fourth flipper, like in Skateball? Or would the flipper do something like I thought a Monopoly and Hot hand, but those aren't really, I guess they're technically a flipper, but not really. I'm a pusher. So I'm going to, I'm putting you on the spot as I always do. What do you think the flipper with a twist is? I mean, what other variant could you have for a flipper? Maybe the flipper pushes down instead of up. It's oriented 180. Or 90. How about a flipper that moves? Kind of like a half-zipper flipper? Okay, yeah, that's a good one. That's a good oldie to bring that back. But just one, not two. Yeah, but I don't know how you can implement that. I'm just thinking out loud. I thought it was kind of weird because if you look at his three games that he's put out, they're all three flipper games. two with the extra flipper on the right like in Skateball and then one on the upper left. So I'm thinking, okay, it's either four flippers or the flipper does something we've never seen before. But it's interesting. I just bring it up because Skateball is his favorite game and I've been playing the hell out of my Skateball. I love that game. I like Skateball, but it's kind of like it's a poor man's fathom kind of. I don't know. Well, call me the poor man Fathom because I don't own a Fathom. I have to play yours. See, yeah, I have my Fathom up, and it's like bringing the skateboard. It's a pretty game, but I don't know. It's a game that I don't – it's not my go-to, what I need to bring up next to play. Here we go, number five. The term future-proof. I was watching the YouTube Marco YouTube channel with Emoto and Ryan and they do repairs and he kept referring to the work he was doing on boards as future proof in lieu of bulletproof and I said this is right in Dave's wheelhouse so let me ask you Dave what do you think of that term future proof um interesting term um not many things are future proof right and not everything's bulletproof either so i guess it works it's just i don't know if it'll become part of the pinball lexicon but they were trying to to push it and it's like whatever bulletproof works for me everybody knows what you're talking about you talk about future proof it's like what are you going to Protect me from the future? You know what? It sounds like an advertisement from the 70s. No, I was going to take it in a different direction, but I'm going to leave it at that. I mean, you must have seen advertisers from the 70s in a magazine. It has, like, the Chevy Vega, and you get to say future-proof on it. You know what I mean? You get to see that, and it's like, you know, guys. What do you mean future-proof? What, don't buy this so you protect yourself from disappointment in the future of that car? That car was a dog. No, I know. It means like this is the style of the future going forward. The Chevy Vega, the all new space age, you know, future proof car. Everyone's going to want one. It's going to be a classic. Oh, God. Woof, woof, woof. Okay, we're moving on. We're moving on. We're moving on. Okay. Number seven, David Scarpa. Sorry, I got to get on the soapbox. But one day I'm sitting at home and I get this envelope. I look and it from David Scarpa And for those of you who don remember and I know you don Dave that was the person I interviewed for the arcade that I grew up with in New Jersey. He sent me the book that I found him. I found him through his book. He used an alias called David Scorpio, I think was the non-diplom. I had no idea what a life this guy led. He, from a young age, was promised the family arcade. And long story short, he got robbed by his sister and brother. They left this guy nothing. And it's a sad story. I picked it up and I looked at the first couple of chapters And I said to myself, I'm just going to read a couple of chapters. I couldn't put the thing down. It was reading like one of those Hallmark Channel movies where, you know, somebody gets screwed or killed or whatever. I felt so bad for this guy, but it was a it was a great read and you can't find the book anywhere. and he sent me one. I was really, really surprised and happy. So I wanted to give him a Christmas shout out and say thank you, David. It was a great read. So if you want to borrow it, I don't know if you're a reader, but it was a good read. It was interesting. Yeah, I like, Maureen and I, we're fans of biographies and that kind of thing. Not really much in the fiction thing. I like to watch some science fiction kind of stuff, but to read it, not so much. I like to read biographies and stories of people's lives, that kind of thing. It's very interesting. Ready for number eight? Sure. We're going to make this short. Have you, well, unless you've been under a rock, you know that they released the new Led Zeppelin machine, right? Yes, I do. so do you like rock and roll days how about a little led zeppelin i am so sick of listening to people talk about this every other podcast has to weigh in and give their you know opinion of the game all they all they have is seen it they haven't played it and it just drives me nuts. I just add it to my list of yet another game I haven't played in 2020. You say? I'd say seen it. I don't think it looks that great, honestly, from what I've seen. It doesn't really make me want to go out and buy it, you know, versus like the Guns N' Roses looks a little more exciting. Ding, ding, ding. Take a drink. Every time we do the comparison of those two games, you've got to pick up the bottle and take a swig. Gotcha. It's going to be done until the day is old. I've heard it so many times. Well, if you compare it to, it's like, stop. They're two different games. They're two different companies. They're two different ways of approaching it. I'm going to give a shout out to Chuck. I'm going to give a shout out to Chuck Webster. I'll let you jump back in. Chuck, they put this thing out on Facebook to reveal it last Friday. but not on not on twitch and chuck was nice enough to pull for the feed and put it out i watched for about 10 minutes and i was like that's enough not allowed to play copyright music on twitch which is just awful that's the whole game yeah you know uh just locking down everything these days. Just add it to the list, I guess. But they put it up, and I'm going to give some constructive feedback here. You had Jack Danger and others, Tim Sexton, the one who did the rule set and programming, doing the live feed. But they kept jabbering over the music, and Tim was trying to tell you every single facet of the game. It was like, just shut up. I want to hear the game and I want to watch it play. You can do this another time. Just let everybody kind of soak it in. They kind of jumped ahead two steps, which if you're going to do a reveal, it's like a car. Show the car, give a couple of features, and then stop talking and let everybody just look at the car in amazement. You know who's jumping up and raising their hand? They want to comment on this. They have an opinion on the looks up in game. Lenny, go ahead. What do you think? Well, you know, with the world finances the way they are, I know we're not allowed to spend as much as what we were. How is this going to work? Well, you plug it in, Lenny, and you hit the flippers and you shoot the ball. I mean, I don't know, George. I've got to go ahead and go sit down again, Lenny. That was it. That's all you get. Are you sure that Lenny is not friends with Ozzy? That's Lemmy from Motorhead. Oh, it's Lemmy. It's not Lemmy? No, it's Lenny. But he sounds like Lemmy. It could be Lemmy. It could be Ozzy. We felt bad for the guy. We broke him out of a Como nursing home. He was on death row. We felt bad. We brought him home. He's upstairs in the spare bedroom. Poor guy. Okay. Well, you're being a good man at Christmas. Thank you for that. No, that's what we do here. Okay. Do you have anything else that you want to say about Led Zeppelin other than your one comment of it doesn't look that great? My friend PJ and his brother Stu, they're really thinking about buying one. They haven't bought a new game forever to add to their collection because Stu's son is a big – he's a musician in a band. He loves Led Zeppelin, so they're thinking of buying it for like a family pin. They're strongly considering it, and especially since if it has some resale value down the road, they play it for a while and say, okay, they're done with it. They get their money back on it. So they're considering the game, and if that happens, you and I will get to play it. Perfect. Buy it, PJ. Stu, go buy it. There you go. Because I have no other chance of playing this thing for probably who knows how long. It makes me upset. Here we are in December. It's almost a year. We'll talk about this in the year in review, but a year since I've been to a show. I'm getting behind on games, and I'm not liking it. I think it's going to be a lot longer. Yeah, let's not go there. Everybody listens to ES all the time. They don't need to listen to it now. So here, here's one that will make your hair stand up. I think we're at number nine. number nine uh someone took a perfectly good example of centaur and butchered it up to make a cocktail table out of it working what yes i couldn't find it i heard this i gotta give again props i think i heard this on the poor man pinball podcast they were talking about this guy and They're going to interview him. But the long and short of it is he took a perfectly good game, and they said it was a nice example of the game. He basically is turning it into a working cocktail table. So what's that game, The Entertainer, with Roy Clark? Yeah, Roy Clark. I'm like, oh, what are you doing? And you can't even put a beer on it because things can't be level or the ball won't move. So what are you going to do? put your drink on the cocktail table and it's going to go flying down into your lap? Well, if he's smart and does it, he would basically have the internal play field be angled and the top glass would be level. It would be more of a very 3D effect-ish, but it would have to be up kind of high so you don't hit your knees on the thing underneath. It sounds like a lot of work for really taking a great pinball down. I mean, do it to a Dolly Parton or something. He was doing it to a – again, I couldn't validate it, So, you know, nobody come after me. That's I heard it. I gave the props. We'll move forward. OK, so we're we're we're getting towards the end of the list. So Captain's Auction, not so plentiful in what we collect. Those are the people that are out in Anaheim, California. We've done this a couple of times. I have two games I want to play by you. Then I want to talk about the game I sent to you, the two games I sent to you. So we're going to start with you. Do you own a cheetah? Stern cheetah? I own two cheetahs. One was like home use only mint with a brand new, or not brand new, new old stock clear-coated play field I put into it that I found years ago. That was a sweet example, and I let that go. I sold it for good money a couple years back to the guy who actually owns the Chicago show, the expo. I sold it to him. not Mike Pacek, the other person? No, the other person. Yeah, I don't know his name. I'm sorry. Big time collector. So, yeah, so he's got it now. But, yeah, I even put, because that game, when I played it back in the day, I guess I played the prototype at Funny Games Arcade. It had, like, awesome sounds to it. It sounded sort of like Quicksilver and maybe a little bit of Flight 2000 mixed in, and it just sounded really good. And when I got my original one, or both of them, the sound wasn't quite right. It sounded kind of wimpy. It didn't really have a, I don't know, it just didn't hit me. And I realized that there's two versions of the game. The prototype has blue and blue, yellow, black, I think, on the cabinet. And the regular version has green, yellow, black, sort of like a jungle. I don't know why they were doing blue in the first place, but not many games are made like that. But anybody who has that prototype has the prototype ROMs. So I found that out doing research years ago. I found the guy who had the prototype ROMs, London Pinball, nice guy in Canada, and a big starting collector, has his own YouTube channel too. And I said, hey, can you copy those ROMs on a file and send those to me? So he did, and I burned them and put them in my game, and it sounded great, just like it was when it first came out and loved the game. But then after a while, you know, someone really wanted it. Like, you know, I think his name is Rob. I think the guy's name is Rob out in Chicago. And I said, yeah, I'm ready to part with it because, I don't know, it just didn't do as much for me as it used to. I think I actually like big game better these days than Cheetah. So I still have my big game. Well, put your pricing hat on. How much do you think? It looked like a good example of it. It didn't look roached out or anything. Back glass looked okay. How much do you think that went for at auction? Well, I know I sold a minty, minty one for, I think, $7,200 or $7,500. So this one at auction, you don't see them come around that often. So I would say, so you say it's an okay example? Yeah, it looked fine, and I believe it played. Again, yeah. It was a couple of weeks ago. I don't remember all the details. $3,500. You're a little short. $4,300, but you have to remember the 15% buyer premium. So that pushes it up another, what, $600? Right. So you've got a $5,000 cheetah. That's strong money. That's strong money for just something you've got to shop out and still do some work on it to make it. Yeah, it's not like you're buying it from a collector. So here's another one. the only other game that I thought worthy of the show, a Trident, which I've been looking for, but there's always something wrong with the game, and people want crazy money. It's crazy money. Trident is early solid state Stern. I kind of liked it. I never had the game. I kind of liked the game, even though it has the crappy soundboard in it. and when Scott made the home ROMs for it, it was a game changer, way better game with the modifications he did. So, yeah, worth owning with the new ROM set, with the home ROM, you know, fun game. And I don't know if someone's done it yet, but someone needs to re-engineer a soundboard for those early stirring games so they don't sound like a cash register, you know, to kind of either put chimes in it somehow, even with chimes would be better like stars or a stingray it's it's funny that it's funny that you say that because in that uh slam tilt uh podcast with the the person who developed that soundboard we talked about earlier this came up so the the person wasn't playing their hand but i have a feeling we might see that soundboard in the future i kind of got that vibe from the guy You're saying a soundboard that's better than that or the same thing? Unclear. They were kind of being elusive, but I think they see it as an opportunity. How's that? And trust me, I'm guessing from what you're telling me, if there was a soundboard that sounded better, you would probably buy it. Yeah, basically, if they made a soundboard for that, that was generation two. like for the games like Quicksilver and the rest of them from that generation, and they could backwards compatible it to the early Stern stuff, it would be great. It would be a game changer. People could actually take sound files from the Quicksilvers and the Flight 2000s and so forth and throw them all in there and kind of code it differently. So that's all doable if someone knows what you're doing. That would be a great game changer. Well, I mean, Bruce Nightingale is a big, big Stern guy. So it sounds like he's got some influence over this person. So maybe you'll see it at some point in time. You know, well, you know, they only brought this one, you know, product out. So give them some time, you know, first one down first before you move into something else. So what do you think of that eight ball deluxe I sent you for nine thousand dollars? I didn't get to really look at the picture. I saw the one little Photoshop snapshot. I didn't get to go look at the ad, but I did kind of see it. And from the description, it looked, you know, homeless only, you know, kind of thing. And I didn't know that it has been gone through at all. I just kind of found it. Here it is. And here's the price. I only brought it to your attention because it was in our backyard down in, you know, southern Massachusetts. That's the only reason I thought you might even know who that person is. I have no idea. Oh, I didn't see the town. What town is it? Marion, Mass? I'm trying to think who's the person I bought my Kings of Steel I remember the wife's name Penny but I don't remember his name yeah yeah yeah I know they used to hang out all the time at Mike Engel's place I believe that's where I met him well actually I had met them after I had bought the pin from them but that's a long time ago a long time ago. Those were the good old days. They had garage pinball parties and outside you're smoking some wacky tobacco, having an adult beverage and outside playing some pinball and having a great day of it. Yeah, that was some good stuff. I guess it's at least 15 years ago. I saw that and then I sent you, even though it's at the Canadian border, that hot hand. what did you think of that? Did you take a look at it? I looked at it and it looks nice PJ actually if you want a hot dog I'm glad you brought it up go ahead, continue I think he has two of them I think and he'd probably sell one he'd probably sell you one reasonable if you wanted one the next time you speak with him and he's looking to raise money for that beautiful Led Zeppelin game, tell him I can get him there a little bit quicker. Okay. Yeah, all right. I mean, how come you want the game? I'm just looking for something different, something to work on, play with. I just, you know, even though I have a dozen games, I'm just looking for something to do. even though the sound card in that game is the crappy one, that's the sounds they used on that one. Aren't bad. I remember the sounds from that game. It's not, um, not horrible. I don't own a card. I don't own a card game. So look to me like this would be something that would keep my interest. The other game I'm looking, the other card game I'm looking for would be, um, yeah, with all the wild colors on it and the King in the back. Sorry, folks. anyway anyway my friend jack's got a new old stock play field and you know i could make a really nice one it's got a he's got a really nice back glass but he's you know he's the one who the game went through the great flood of uh you know 2012 in new jersey you know the super storm sandy so he's like hey you know if you can find a game you got all the components to make a really nice game and I've been hunting for one but even people want a lot of the blackjack sorry blackjack blackjack right yeah yeah not a yeah I had a chance to get one of those a beater at the Fantastic Show a couple years ago And I was going to trade my, you know, my Supersonic, which was all gone through. But, you know, not the prettiest thing in the world, but good for a garage game. But it was totally working nice. For a not-so-looking-nice blackjack that sort of worked, I thought it would be a good trade straight up. But the guy that thinks that, it's like, well, I'm not going to beg for the game because I don't need it that bad. I don't care. Right. And, you know, people are even selling beaters. There was a guy near where I used to live in western New Jersey. He had two of them, but they were both really barbecued. $400 for one, and I forget what the other one was, maybe $600. But I just looked at it and said, you're buying a Roach game for $600. Probably the boards are crap. It just seemed overpriced for what it was. But again, we're in the new world. It seems like everything is more expensive in the pinball hobby. There are no so-called bargains anymore. Although I did hear one this week. Guy on the inside bought a skateboard for $100. wow right i would buy a sight unseen for 100 bucks i still i still beat him i still beat him on my skate my second skateball i beat him on that price all right but you it's not you didn't buy it in 2020 uh no well but 2019 i think i bought okay then you did real good yeah i did real good. Okay. Home use only for the cost of gas. So, not bad. People are hating on you right now. Including me. Oh, and working. Working, by the way, just to rub that in a little bit. Thank you for that. Merry Christmas. Thank you. Okay, we're down to our last three. What do you think when you do a swap or you have to repair flippers or a target bank, do you take the entire mech out and put Molex connectors on it or do you not? Heck no. No way. Nope. Uh-uh. Yeah, see? Nope. See, I do. I have and I have lots of games with it and I don't it's just so much easier to take it out and repair it on the bench than to do it under the game. But see, you've got one method of doing it, but the easier method to do it is you take the whole play field, flip it upside down in the game, and there you go. The table is yours. I've tried it, and I don't know. I can't get over that. And here's the thing. Some people, you know, I've learned this from another tech out in the field there. I don't like the way he did it because he kind of did it very aggressively kind of slammed it down and kind of wasn't very careful with the artwork on the apron and other things so I took that into consideration so when I turn it upside down I don't want anything resting on the plastics, anything resting on the apron so I make sure that I bring it out enough so that anything that's being touched is something that can stand being touched and not going to be deformed or scratched when I do it I don't trust myself, that's why I don't do it that way but you've told me it several times i just find it's easier i just clip crimp and go forward and i don't have any problems people are like oh you know you're compromising and you know if you do it right you're not compromising anything in my well you're but to each his own you're adding you're adding more failure points connectors over time will could fail i like to i don't know i like to go i i have enough to do you know i've got time on my hands you've heard it a couple of times i'm just looking for something to do and uh well we'll get there i mean at some point in time i gotta believe things will loosen up and people will start selling machines but for the most part i i'm still not finding especially with what we collect few and far between there's a lot of other stuff and stuff that i would never collect or buy but people are people are out there selling games they are people keep knocking down my door to buy games you know and uh yeah i basically i'm telling them at this point they're at least two to six months out i have like five i'm five restorations deep and i got you know um so i'm given the expectations of it. It could be a year, but they still say, okay, what do we need for a deposit? There's still game to get a nice restored game. I'm not giving away either. I'm charging what I need to charge because these days I'm offering without a net. It's all me. This is what I do full time. I need to make bank, but I provide a good product for what I charge. I'm working more harder than I ever did. I'm working, I don't know, 60, 70 hours a week at this these days. And that kind of is the reason why we're not doing this as frequently because obviously Christmas time you've been really busy putting games together and getting people together for the holidays. I'm busier than Santa's elves. This is a good segue, and we're down to the last two. I don't remember where I heard this, and again, I couldn't find it out on the internet, but there's a person in California that is doing cabinet building for old Bali and Stern games. I don't know of anybody here on the East Coast. There used to be Doug. I can't remember Doug's last name. Doug Hughes. Doug Hughes. Right. He used to build them. I don't know if he still is. and I know the person has the capability although he didn't seem really jazzed to go and do it that person we met in our first or second episode he was doing restorations for the arcade that I think has since closed I can't remember his name you can go look it up folks on our fantastic episode where we interviewed all the winners of of all the different categories. But this person was building them for $800 plus shipping. I didn't think that was crazy money for a brand new cabinet, if it's done well. I was going to say $1,000 anyway. Right. Well, to get it across, that's why I said I think the person's in California, unfortunate. But they're few and far between. I mean, if you're doing a high-end restoration, why not start right from scratch and have a brand new, nice, solid cabinet to work with. I mean, it would be real nice to have. Yeah, I'll tell you, you can tell the solid cabinets, and it must be what it is because some of my valley games, that when that knocker goes thwack against the side of the cabinet, it's a real loud knock, and they all have the same coil in them, the same, everything else is the same. So the only thing that really stands out is if the cabinet is, like, totally solid and glued up and nothing's moving at all, then you get a real solid punch versus a little cat in a mic give a little bit and get a weaker knock but uh like games like my xenon i mean that thing knocks you can hear that you know loudly and i love that i love a good solid crack on the wood like that when you win a game but before we get to the year in review i'd like to ask you about what you're working on you were talking about being five deep with games what's uh what are you working on right now and i think I have a question about one of the games. Okay. So right now I am working on a Gorgar. I've had several months and that's almost done. Maureen did a wonderful touch-ups to the play field after I magic racered over big time. That came out great, putting a play field protector on it. And it's coming up real nice. So I was waiting for some boards to come in for that. They just came in this past week, so I'm going to put them in. And that will be good to go. So it's a Gorgar, an Indian and Jones. Actually, let me back up a little bit. I'm going to, if I can quickly change this a little bit, to games that have came in and games that have left and games that I'm going to be going out with, you know, restoring and leaving. So a lot of games have come in this year. A lot of games have left. Like basically Circus Voltaire came in. Indiana Jones came in. I bought both of those. Eight Ball Champ, a couple Fire Powers, a Fireball 2, which I never thought I really wanted, but I have that now. So that's a nice Class of 81. I have a story for that, but go ahead. I'll come back to it. A Minty Paragon that's mint except for the play field is junk, but I scored a CPR play field for it, so that's going to be a nice restoration. They're going to sell that Paragon off a nice minty one that's going to be going eventually. I got a Gottlieb Kingpin Wedgehead. That's gorgeous. I got a Black Knight that came in, home use only, that I bought. I bought all these games. What else did I buy? I bought a bunch of other stuff. A Star Trek Next Gen. I was going to say, I said I could volunteer. So you've just got inventory. Inventory. Oh, yeah. I've got about 20 deep of Restoration Queue inventory. So what's left is a high-speed left this year. An 8-ball champ, I just took a deposit on that. That's going to be going. I have my second 8-ball champ that I took in. I bought that one. That's going to go. I have a high-speed left 8-ball champ. There's the other one there. Oh, yeah, that's right. A centaur came in for restoration. I'm going to be doing that one. And right now, I'm trying to, this Indiana Jones, I had no idea. It was one of the first super complex WPC games they made when they first started using a crap load of Optos. And I thought it was all good to go. Spent about, I don't know, 60 hours on it. And, you know, everything's working great. Then I started to play test, play test, play test. because I want this thing to fail on me, not fail on the customer, and it goes there, so I'm going to playtest the crap out of it. And playtested it, and then all of a sudden it started shooting out two balls at a shooter lane. It started doing some weird multiball thing, and it's like, okay, let's see what's going on here. I took out the OptoBoard, reflowed, didn't help, changed out the LM339s. It got worse, and I even – I just was going – I was going backwards. I'm still going backwards. Now I can't even get multiball now, so now it's like, you know what? I'm just going to put that in the back room for now and move on. I've got to think about that one. That's going to take a little more. I looked online to Pinside. A lot of people have had problems with Indiana Jones. It's a problem child. It can be. So I've got to iron out a bunch of little gremlins in that one. But it's a gorgeous homies-only game, but it's got some gremlins in it. I've got to figure out. So you're replacing the Opto board with, is there a certain manufacturer that makes that? Yeah, so I just ordered another Opto board for it. Usually I change out the chips on these boards, and I've done it before, and it comes back, and it's great. The 339s are prone to fail. They're basically, I think they're Opto comparators, I think they call them, and basically it's an interface from the Opto itself, goes to the board, the board translates it to a signal that the CPU can see, and then it says, okay, switch closed, switch open, blah, blah, blah. So I tested manually with a jumper wire at the CPU and everything says, yep, the CPU says, yeah, I can see all these switches you're trying to manually do. I even went to the connector on the actual opto board back to the CPU. Those wires are all continuity. Those are all good. And I even unplugged other opto boards to see if they're causing a problem. I did all this troubleshooting and it's like I'm banging my head against it. It was like 10 o'clock and I was like, you know what? I'm done. It's time for bed. I just can't go anymore. It sounds like somebody's going to get a game that's really gone through. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I don't want any surprise for people. I want things to be dialed in and nice, you know, and I've had a good record on it, too. It's like, because I go through and, you know, it's like a palm of some wine. I will sell no wine before it's time kind of thing. I don't want problems. I want things to be good. I have a question about Indiana Jones. I am not very familiar with this game, And the Indiana Jones you're talking about is the Williams version, right? From what, 1980, 1990 something? 93, the more desirable Indiana Jones is this one. So my question is, does the game have a crypt on it? A crypt? No. So you're standing in a crypt looking at a lock chest. What do you do? Pull the mirror out of it. It has an idle that moves around. It has a rope bridge that moves around, a little play field, but no crypt. I thought in the movie that they went to some crypt to get the – Yeah, they did. No, they have lots of – they did, I think, two, three movies. I think they did three movies in this. I think they incorporated three movies, right? Because weren't there three? Maybe two movies. You remember who you're talking to here. Oh, that's right. Yeah. You're a news guy. I'm a movie guy. I was trying to think when I probably watched it when it came out or when it went to cable or whatever. The first one. Beyond that, I have no idea. And I don't even remember that. It wasn't one of my favorites, so I don't even remember it. It's two movies. So this is two movies because they don't have the Crystal Skull in this one. I think the Stern one has Crystal Skull included because that was later on. These incorporate the first two movies they did. I thought Crystal Skull was a vodka. Isn't that Dan? It is. Isn't that Dan Aykroyd's vodka with the, never mind. The Skull, that's actually a really good smooth vodka, that thing. I had some of those, like a skull, and it's got, you know. I think it's, isn't it called Crystal Skull Vodka or something like that? It might be, but I think this Crystal Skull, this one is more like a quote-unquote alien head that has, that you stare at, and you don't stare at, and something happened. It was bizarre. It was a bizarre third movie, not really the best stuff. The first two – actually, the first one's the best one anyway, just like pretty much any other movie. The first one's usually the best, and then they kind of lose track of where they're supposed to go. I won't ever see it, so it really doesn't matter. That concludes our movie review. Last item is the year in review. I'm going to go through a bunch of different things and comment, if you will, as we go through them. Oh, before I forget, you had mentioned Fireball 2. Fireball 2, yes. My friend Jack, again, in New Jersey, has a new old stock play field for that game. Those were surprisingly around a couple years ago. There were a bunch of those circulating for whatever reason. He's had it forever. When I say forever, at least 10 or 15, could be 20 years. He bought it a long, long time ago. So he's like, what do you think? I go, I have no idea. It's what the market will bear. I go, I know what a new one costs, and I know you can't buy that one. So it's probably somewhere in that range. So I didn't want to forget that. Anyway, let's go to the year in review. So we started 2020. You and I both did interviews with Eric Stone. Have you spoken to Eric recently? He has fallen off the planet. I don't know what Eric's up to. I think he's having pinball withdrawals, pinball tournament withdrawals. He must be. So we started with that in January. I did my Ace Goge interview with Shane. Yes. Yeah, the Korean barbecue all you can eat. You and I did two episodes with Tommy Skinner. We did Fathom and Lady Death. Then we got into February and March and we started, we did the game room setup for PJ. We had the tournament at your house. Trying to think what else we did. I think that was pretty much March and that's when the fun began and we went into hibernation. And we only ended up doing one show or one podcast for the next couple of months. We did actually our number one podcast, Harlem, in April. We did Paragon in May, another strong podcast. Flash Gordon in June. And then we did all your summer adventures in July and part of August. And then we did our reunion show where we finally sat together for the first time in five months. And if you folks haven't figured out in this podcast, we are, again, remote due to the great governor of Massachusetts, but we'll leave that alone. Then we did a couple more games and free play arcade. We did High Speed, Nitro Grand Shaker, Black Knight, Playboy, and our last one, Circus Voltaire. any of those stick out any of your favorites memorable moments comments in general they they all good they all gold every one of them okay okay um yeah i can really think of anything that really sticks out i thought you know we do a variety of different kinds of shows i do want to get back to doing a couple of pinball games in the new year. So after the first, we'll start recording again. Hopefully, maybe we'll do hot-dogging. You had mentioned that one. Yeah, I brought up hot-dogging up there. I took down Paragon. It's been up there forever. I brought up hot-dogging to my palatial estate game room there with all the nice lights and so forth. And, yeah, Hot Dog, it's a good game. When I say it's an excellent game, Valley's best, no. But it's a great little – great wide body that they made. And it's the season. It's winter. It's skiing. It goes well. So that's why I brought it up for – it just fits right now. So the time to have it up is now. That's on the short list. I certainly want to get you up here. We've got – I'm running out of games to do, but we've never done skateball. we tried to do Embryon I kind of cut that up and used a little bit of it for a show but we really when we did record it, it wasn't that great so I scrapped it but I'd like to do that game again other than that it's what comes through your business and I'm sure we'll have opportunities to do a lot of different games in the upcoming year we're certainly not going to be doing any shows anytime soon Oh, you get plenty of games, plenty of restorations coming up I'm doing another Black Knight I'm doing right now I got a beautiful centaur that came up from New Jersey We've already done centaur We've already done Black Knight We're not going to be doing that again Oh, we did centaur? I forgot we did centaur We did centaur at your place, baby? Yeah, long time ago Long time ago Okay. Okay. But this guy, he wants me to go nuts on it. He wants to make a Cadillac. Basically, he wants it to be the crown jewel of my restoration thing. He wants it to be super-duper. No problem. Speed is the question of money. How fast do you want to go? No problem. I can do that. But, yeah, it's going to be gorgeous once I'm done with it. I might even do a Cadillac repaint on it, depending. That's going to come out real nice. I've got a seafair playfield to put in it for him. He drove eight hours from New Jersey to bring me the game. He must have been in South Jersey somewhere. He was. And actually, I met him at JR's years ago. Years ago. Huh. You know? And he talked to one of the guys that was at JR's years ago, and he said, well, because he had a restoration guy in New Jersey that was going to do it, but he retired or something, and then he said, where am I going to get this thing done? I can't, you know, who am I going to? But so the guy who we knew from JR, I say, what about Dave? He does that. It's like, oh, yeah. So, yeah, so he brought it to me. So that's going to be good. Yeah, I got the Gorgar. I got Indiana Jones. I got the Centaur to do. I have an 8-ball champ I got to do. I have a – Any takers on Circus Voltaire? Almost, but no. No, that's all right. I don't mind holding on to it. I like the game. I don't mind keeping it. It's fine, you know. So I'd say out of the two games, I like Circus Voltaire better than Indiana Jones. You know, Indiana Jones is fine, but you know what's really bad about Indiana Jones? And I remember reading about this years ago when it was kind of, you know, talked about on Pantside. Well, it was in Vogue more, but it's still in Vogue, but it was really sort of even fresher like 10 years ago or whatever. Willie, the Willie girl in there, her name is Willie. she's got blonde hair and she's a pain in the neck and she always says, I hate the water and I hate you. All the time it's always saying hate, hate, hate. It's like, you know, bad idea, guys. You should have put her because you have to go through her to get to the rest of the characters. So almost I think it's like she's first. You should have put Marion first because Marion comes on and says, Indiana Jones, you know, I knew it would be you or something like that. It's a lot more loving and a lot more feminine in the way to go. And this one here about the hate thing, it's just not as good. So they should have put the hate thing last or second to last. But you have to go through her all the time and hear the word hate a couple times. It's kind of grating. I have no idea of those characters. And, again, I have never played the game. So until we have a show, and that leads me, I think, to our last topic, unless you have something more to add as far as machines go. I do. I've been playing this game a lot lately for something different. Sound familiar? I'm just going to guess because I think it's that tank game. Yes. Yes, it is. It is Battlezone. Battlezone. 1980s best, I think. It's a high def before high def was around. It's a black and white XY graphics with a green screen, a green gel, and an orange gel at the top to kind of make it a little bit of color. Right. But very sharp graphics in it. Very cool little game. And I've been actually playing this game every night for a break. It's like, okay, I've worked all day. I've worked for eight or ten hours. I'm going to have a beer and I'm going to go battle some tanks and crank up 80s music. So I crank up some 80s music, have a beer, and it's freaking phenomenal. It's great. It's a great break from – I love pinball, but to put a nice video from the same time frame with pinball, it works out well. It's great to have the balance of both. You get a little bit of bit, a little bit of pinball. It's kind of fun to mix and match. Next time I'm in your home, I'll have to play it. It's been 40 years or whatever. We talked about this, I know, at some point in time. I didn't remember it at first when you showed me the graphics. And I'm like, oh, yeah, I put quarters into that. I love tank games. So, yeah, that'd be a lot of fun to play that. In fact, it was fun when I was years ago, I was playing when he was flipping over Jeremy. we'd play it together and it's only a one player game but we played it like this you get five lives you can earn you can earn two more lives we get higher scores so i would play until i lose a life and he'd jump in he'd play so we'd play cooperative you know right i'd play till i lost you know so back and forth back and forth but it was great it's a lot of fun so let's talk about cooperative of play. I mentioned shows. Who's going to be the first show we see in 2021? We're going to go to Allentown? Are we going to go to Pentastic? Or are we going to have to wait all the way until Chicago Gaming Expo? Well, it all depends who is the bravest governor. Oh, certainly not yours. Certainly not yours. Not mine. Mine is a scaredy cat. It's too bad I don't have a show in South Dakota. I'd go to that one. It's not exactly around the corner, but Pennsylvania doesn't seem to be much better. New York doesn't. No, it's not. And then you've got Illinois, but that's almost close to 10 months from now. So that could be a possibility. Does Beetlejuice run that state? I'm thinking of Michigan. Beetlejuice. Stop. Oh, God, you're going to get us in trouble. Stop. Stop. It's showtime. I'm getting nutty for Christmas. Because I ain't been nutty for 10. Oh, we have fun. You know what? No one's having more fun than us, George. That's the thing. And, you know, I heard this comment, and again, I took offense to it. I don't know why I do. Somebody on one of the podcasts said, well, if they're not talking about you, you're not doing the right thing. And I said to myself, I don't know about that. Right. I know we're an acquired taste. we certainly aren't doing a led zeppelin or avengers or uh guns and roses you know we'll talk about it because i'm you know i'm always interested in playing pinball i i just because i don't own them doesn't mean i won't play them and like them but i'm getting so far behind now on playing games that we need a show this is getting old and it's been old for a while we do need a show like a show to go to you know what I really I like all the shows I mean all the shows I've been to Pacific Pinball Expo of course Fantastic been to Fantastic of course several times and Allentown I just got a soft spot for Allentown I just like the like the hometown feel of it the swap meet thing of it It's this kind of – it feels like it's just kind of put together in the farmer's market. And also it's a way to – you're really getting away from here. You're traveling. You're away in a different state and it's a different environment versus, like, having a show right around the corner. You feel like you're not really getting away from things. You're kind of close by. I'd rather, like, get away and go somewhere. I agree. I agree. But, you know, those are only, you know, five, six months away, Dave. be interesting to see it'll be interesting to see have you had any meetings on Pentastic or is that kind of until the first week not at all well I'm sure it'll happen sometime in the new year and we'll keep people apprised that's all I got today I hope everybody enjoys our programming today a little bit different but believe it or not A lot of people liked the last one, but I think it was because of the name. When we did this format, it was called Xenon TV. I think curiosity got the best of people. So do you remember what you said and why I called it Xenon TV? I don't remember why I called it Xenon TV. I think it's because you were doing your Boston Chronicle or one of the interviews, and you told me that you were going to have Xenon as part of, you know, the conversation. Oh, yes. And I said, yeah, right. Because of the graphics and because of the oohs and the aahs, I said that's not exactly the most family-friendly game to put on television. Right. And I think a lot of people, that's the reference. So with this, with the 12 Days of Pinball, kind of corny and hokey, I couldn't come up with anything else. Maybe I will before we put this together. But I want to wish you and Maureen, you know, Merry Christmas. Yeah, you and Janice as well. It's been a fun year. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all the people who listen to us. For those who like us, even for those who tolerate us, you know, Merry Christmas to you. and we'll be back sometime in January with our latest podcast episode. Look forward to doing that with you, Dave. Do you have any parting thoughts? Yeah. I heard, George, you and Janice are going to try some knuckle-hucking while you're up there skiing. Some knuckle-huck? What? Knuckle-huck. I've got to try it myself. I've got to strap a snowboard on and do knuckle-huck. You never heard of that? I have no idea what you're talking about. It's on X Games with these frigging young whippersnappers. They're 18 years old, and they're frigging doing crazy crap, and they basically go on this ski slope thing, and they're kind of just barely making it over. They're out of control, and they take their knuckles and upside down, drag them against the snow of the hill, and then do a trick and land. It's called knuckle huck. Are you talking the free when they go down the slope and do that? Are you talking the half pipe? No, down the slope and do it. They go down the slope and do this thing. Yeah. Look it up. No, I don't remember the exact name. No, I love watching that stuff. That's some great entertainment. I don't know if they're going to have X Games this winter or not. And if they do, well, it's in Colorado. Maybe they will. I've been watching for the past I'm watching old reruns like from a year or two ago I watch these guys and it's like I love it It's like I keep looking to Maureen It's like I'm going to try that this year She goes yeah sure you are We'll take you down in a body bag I'm kidding I need to have a rubber bones Or a 15 year rubber bone body here Not a 50 plus body to do that But I don't know Maybe I'll put a bunch of pillows around me and try it Let's see what happens Let's put it this way We both own hot dogging And if you look at the essence of that game, it's the whole freestyle hotdogging rage that was taking place in the 70s. And for those of you who are older, like myself and Dave, I don't know if you know who this person is. I had the opportunity to ski with Wayne Wong. He was a freestyle skier back in the 70s. and I asked him the very question. I said, compare what you did back in the 70s to what they're doing today. And this was two or three years ago. He said, it's night and day. You can't even relate to the two things. They're totally different. But he said, I have a great appreciation for what those guys can do. It's incredible how they train to do that. so you think they're doing crazy stuff now or crazy stuff back then? It's not even a comparison to compared to today. Today's athletes are incredibly talented. They were very talented back in the seventies because nobody had ever seen it before, but the evolution of, you know, 50 years, they've come a long way. It's a, you know, the equipment, everything is, you know, is high tech. So you can do it. I'm not so sure you'd be able to do it with the equipment from the 70s. And I think there's a little more of that fearless thing going on with some of these kids going out there. They have multiple lives. It's like, oh, I can just do this and crash, and I'm just going to bounce right back. It's like they don't fear it. They just kind of do it. You know, they don't give a crap. Well, I want to wish everybody a Merry Christmas, a Happy Hanukkah, and a Happy New Year. And just remember to be thankful for what you got. Some people don't have a lot out there and are struggling. And if you're doing pretty well, consider yourself blessed and very fortunate. In the fireplace is the Yule log Beneath the mistletoe, F-E-J-E-G-N-O-B The rhymes that you hear are the rhymes of Jack Like each and every year we bust Christmas carols Dave! Who? Dave! D-A-V-E Yeah, Dave! Dave! Right. So anyone out there that wants to explore getting their games worked on, getting their games restored, or buying a restored game from me, you can check out my website at pinballdoctor.com That's pinball doctor all spelled out. Or you can reach me at Dave at pinball doctor.com. Or you can reach me at Dr. Dave's pinball at Gmail. And that's a D R D A V E S pinball at Gmail. Dave D A V E. Oh, you know But you don't know Where from It hurts to talk It hurts to talk And I can't even breathe I need drugs I need drugs Something to choose from I don't know Should I go to the doctor Or stay right here And watch the tube Like a fool I feel down, down, down The fences and walls

_(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: a0bcf744-3d32-4e0d-84a4-ec7db9568553*