# Episode 59 - ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY SHOW!

**Source:** Special When Lit  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2019-07-01  
**Duration:** 55m 6s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://specialwhenlitpinballpodcast.com/episode-59-one-year-anniversary-show

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## Analysis

Special When Lit Pinball Podcast celebrates its one-year anniversary (59 episodes, 60+ hours of content) with hosts Ken Cromwell and Bill Webb, featuring reflections on notable guests including Dwight Sullivan (Stern lead programmer), Steve Ritchie, Jack Danger, and others. The episode covers sponsor evolution (Two Brothers Artisan Brewing to LureMods), introduction of manufacturer correspondents, and personal anecdotes from Texas Pinball Festival including Dwight Sullivan's unexpected participation in shots and Stall Ball gameplay.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Special When Lit Pinball Podcast launched July 1st, 2018 with three initial episodes — _Ken Cromwell and Bill Webb opening remarks_
- [HIGH] The podcast has produced 59 episodes with over 60 hours of uploaded content in one year — _Anniversary show introduction_
- [HIGH] Dwight Sullivan was the third episode guest and is the most frequently returning guest (appeared 4 times total) — _Ken and Bill discussing guest history; Dwight confirms episode 3 appearance_
- [HIGH] The holiday show (Episode 30) featured approximately 40-50 guests on a single episode — _Ken Cromwell discussing Episode 30_
- [HIGH] Two Brothers Artisan Brewing (Pinball Pale Ale) was the initial sponsor but relationship ended due to inventory accumulation issues — _Ken and Bill discussing sponsorship evolution and beer storage logistics_
- [HIGH] LureMods.com is the current sponsor supporting the Drain It or Save It segment — _Bill Webb introducing Robin Kim and LureMods sponsorship_
- [HIGH] Dennis Kreisell is Dwight Sullivan's favorite podcaster in the pinball space — _Dwight explicitly stating 'Dennis is probably my favorite podcaster'_
- [HIGH] Dwight Sullivan did not typically drink alcohol but consumed Fireball shots with Jeff Teolis at Texas Pinball Festival — _Detailed discussion of Dwight's uncharacteristic behavior at TPF with Jeff Teolis_

### Notable Quotes

> "I was thinking that, you know, I love you guys and you're having fun, but I don't know if you're going to go anywhere."
> — **Dwight Sullivan**, ~12:30
> _Dwight's initial skepticism about the podcast's viability, later contrasted with its success_

> "you know, we got you guys. You guys have proved over the last year that you didn't need me, that you were, you know, a force to be reckoned with."
> — **Dwight Sullivan**, ~14:00
> _Recognition of Special When Lit's growth and independence_

> "It's like a meeting all your heroes doing this. Yeah, you know, I mean, that's been, you know, the crazy part. Oh, we're gonna meet this guy and then you, you know, you shake hands and of course you're nervous and 15 minutes later it's like oh, they're just human beings, cool."
> — **Bill Webb**, ~25:00
> _Reflection on the surreal experience of interviewing industry legends_

> "His stock's rising in the podcast world. We're not going to be the only guys reaching out to him, so Chuck's on his way."
> — **Bill Webb**, ~31:00
> _Prediction about Chuck Ernst's increased visibility in pinball media_

> "Dennis is probably my favorite podcaster."
> — **Dwight Sullivan**, ~50:30
> _High praise for Dennis Kreisell/Eclectic Gamers, noted as the reason Dwight didn't vote for Special When Lit at the Twippies_

> "Jeff, you know, you've heard Jeff. His voice is silky and smooth, and he's a great guy, and I'm just kind of in love with him."
> — **Dwight Sullivan**, ~65:00
> _Dwight's affection for Jeff Teolis, explaining his unusual participation in shots at TPF_

> "I crashed that stream. He did. He slammed some shots with Teolis, played some Stall Ball, went ahead and then crashed Oktoberfest, the American Pinball stream, with Martin from Head to Head and Jeff Teolis."
> — **Ken Cromwell**, ~72:00
> _Summary of Dwight's unexpected antics at Texas Pinball Festival while intoxicated_

> "Congratulations on making it an entire year in the ever-exciting and highly profitable realm of pinball podcasting."
> — **Dennis Kreisell**, ~76:00
> _Opening of Dennis's roast, using sarcasm about pinball podcasting profitability_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Ken Cromwell | person | Co-host of Special When Lit Pinball Podcast; previously worked in PR/marketing at Jersey Jack Pinball; now co-owner of Flippin' Out Pinball |
| Bill Webb | person | Co-host of Special When Lit Pinball Podcast alongside Ken Cromwell |
| Dwight Sullivan | person | Lead programmer at Stern Pinball; first interview guest (Episode 3) and most frequent returning guest to Special When Lit; involved in game design discussions |
| Special When Lit Pinball Podcast | organization | Pinball-focused podcast launched July 1, 2018; reached 59 episodes and 60+ hours of content in first year; based in St. Charles, Illinois |
| Stern Pinball | company | Major pinball manufacturer; multiple employees featured on podcast including Dwight Sullivan, Steve Ritchie, Gary Stern, George Gomez, Greg Freres, Stephen Martin, Jerry Thompson |
| Steve Ritchie | person | Legendary pinball designer at Stern Pinball; guest on Special When Lit; known for classic games T2, Getaway |
| Jack Danger | person | Notable pinball figure/designer; guest on Special When Lit; one of Ken's missed episodes due to family emergency |
| Jerry Thompson | person | Lead sound engineer at Stern Pinball; frequent contributor to Special When Lit providing voiceover work, Industry Buzz openings/closings; close friend of Dwight Sullivan |
| Dennis Kreisell | person | Co-host of Eclectic Gamers Podcast and This Week in Pinball; Dwight's favorite pinball podcaster; met at Texas Pinball Festival; provided roast for anniversary show |
| Brian Eddy | person | Programmer hired at Stern Pinball; former roommate of Dwight Sullivan; guest on Special When Lit; had been somewhat absent from public visibility before podcast appearance |
| Two Brothers Artisan Brewing | company | Maker of Pinball Pale Ale; initial sponsor of Special When Lit; relationship ended due to inventory accumulation and distribution limitations |
| LureMods | company | Current sponsor of Special When Lit (via Robin Kim); specializes in pinball machine lighted mods; sponsoring Drain It or Save It segment |
| Texas Pinball Festival | event | Major pinball event where Ken, Bill, and Dwight met multiple podcast peers; featured Twippies awards show |
| Jeff Teolis | person | Pinball community figure; met Dwight at Texas Pinball Festival; gave Dwight Fireball shots; involved in Stall Ball gameplay and Oktoberfest stream |
| Martin Robbins | person | Co-host of Head to Head Pinball Podcast; met Dwight at Texas Pinball Festival; participated in Oktoberfest stream |
| Mrs. Pin and Dr. Pin | person | Podcast hosts; met Ken and Bill at Texas Pinball Festival; provided roast for anniversary show; advised Dwight on hangover prevention |
| Jason Fowler | person | Co-host of Slap Save Pinball Podcast with wife Cindy; started podcasting 1-2 months after Special When Lit; met at Texas Pinball Festival; provided roast for anniversary |
| Mark Silk | person | Professional UK voiceover actor; contributed openings/closings to Special When Lit; has done comic relief and special content; aspires to work professionally in pinball |
| Chuck Ernst | person | Recently featured guest on Special When Lit; worked 17 years on Mortal Kombat; known for personality and storytelling; stock rising in podcast world |
| Josh Kugler | person | Game creator/designer; Dwight argued with him on Oktoberfest stream about game scoring format; became friends after disagreement |
| John Borg | person | Lead game designer; guest on Special When Lit; participated in Munsters and Willy Wonka panel discussions |
| Pat Lawler | person | Lead designer for Jersey Jack Pinball's Willy Wonka; guest on Special When Lit panel discussion |
| Jersey Jack Pinball | company | Pinball manufacturer; featured Willy Wonka with panel discussion on Special When Lit; Jack Guarneri is founder |
| Chris Clourse | person | Pinball community figure; present at Texas Pinball Festival during Twippies and Oktoberfest stream events |
| Rachel West | person | Award-winning voiceover actor; provided opening voiceover for Special When Lit Pinball Podcast |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Podcast growth and milestone celebration, Notable guest retrospective and industry relationships, Sponsorship evolution and business partnerships, Texas Pinball Festival experiences and community networking
- **Secondary:** Pinball game design and development (panel discussions), Twippies awards and This Week in Pinball programming, Correspondent network covering manufacturers, Personality dynamics and interpersonal relationships in pinball community

### Sentiment

**Positive** (0.92) — Celebration-focused episode with genuine gratitude toward guests, sponsors, and community. Nostalgic and appreciative tone throughout. Humor and friendly ribbing included but not detracting from positive sentiment. Only minor tension in the sarcastic roasts at the end, which are meant to be affectionate.

### Signals

- **[content_signal]** Special When Lit reaches one-year anniversary with 59 episodes and 60+ hours of content; significant growth from uncertain start (confidence: high) — Ken and Bill opening remarks about July 1, 2018 launch and current episode count
- **[community_signal]** Multiple pinball podcasts operating simultaneously (Special When Lit, Eclectic Gamers, This Week in Pinball, Head to Head, Slap Save, others); vibrant creator community (confidence: high) — Guest list including Dennis Kreisell, Jason Fowler, and references to many other podcast hosts
- **[industry_signal]** Stern Pinball actively engages with independent podcast media; executives and designers participate in interviews (confidence: high) — Multiple Stern employees appearing as guests; Dwight Sullivan's prominent recurring role
- **[personnel_signal]** Brian Eddy visibility increased through podcast appearance after period of relative absence; Chuck Ernst gaining momentum in media presence (confidence: medium) — Bill mentioning Brian had 'disappeared' and was previously unseen; discussion of Chuck Ernst's rising stock in podcast world
- **[event_signal]** Texas Pinball Festival serves as major networking hub for pinball media creators and community; Twippies awards show professionally executed and archived (confidence: high) — Multiple references to TPF as networking venue; Twippies described as professionally done and archived for viewing
- **[sentiment_shift]** Dwight Sullivan initially skeptical of podcast viability but now advocates for format; demonstrates growing acceptance of independent media in pinball (confidence: high) — Dwight's opening statement of doubt contrasted with his later praise; admission he now looks forward to correspondent segments
- **[business_signal]** Product-based sponsorship (beer) proved unsustainable due to inventory and distribution constraints; shift to service-based sponsor (LureMods mods) appears more viable (confidence: high) — Detailed discussion of Two Brothers accumulation issues and mutual decision to part ways; transition to LureMods sponsorship
- **[content_signal]** Manufacturer correspondent segments (Spooky, Multimorphic, Jersey Jack) initially received skeptical response but evolved into highly anticipated content; became favorite for some listeners (confidence: high) — Bill discussing skepticism that evolved into love for the format; Dwight confirming he looks forward to it weekly from his desk at Stern
- **[community_signal]** Close friendships forming within pinball media and design community; casual hangouts, mutual respect, and collaboration becoming normalized (confidence: high) — Multiple references to personal friendships, drinks together, office relationships (Dwight and Jerry Thompson sharing office); bromance narrative with Jeff Teolis
- **[gameplay_signal]** Stall Ball format (rotating single machine multiplayer with buy-in) introduced and favorably received at Texas Pinball Festival; participatory venue gaming gaining interest (confidence: medium) — Dwight's detailed explanation of Stall Ball mechanics and positive experience at TPF with Jeff Teolis
- **[talent_signal]** Professional voiceover talent (Mark Silk) showing interest in pinball industry and willing to contribute; potential talent recruitment avenue for manufacturers (confidence: medium) — Bill and Dwight discussing Mark Silk's passion for pinball and desire to work professionally on games; Dwight expressing interest in collaboration
- **[content_signal]** Round-table design panel discussions (Munsters, Willy Wonka) described as potentially first-in-pinball-podcasting format; gaining traction and positive reception (confidence: medium) — Ken introducing panel discussions as 'exclusive content that may be a first in pinball podcasting history'; feedback on episode quality

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## Transcript

 One year ago on July 1st, 2018, two pinball enthusiasts uploaded three podcasts to the web. It became known as the Special When Lit Pinball Podcast. To add a little bit of credibility, we reached out to Two Brothers Artisan Brewing, makers of Pinball Pale Ale, to help sponsor the show. The Special When Lit Pinball Podcast is sponsored by Two Brothers Artisan Brewing, makers of Pinball Pale Ale. We reached out to award-winning voiceover actor Rachel West for some help with the opening. Coming at you out of St. Charles, Illinois, the special When Lit Pinball Podcast starts now. And then by adding some license-free opening music, we had what we thought was the opening to our first show. Coming at you out of St. Charles, Illinois, the special When Lit Pinball Podcast starts now. Thanks for hitting that start button. Here are your hosts, Ken Cromwell and Bill Webb. 365 days later, 59 episodes later, over 60 hours of uploaded content is available to listen. The Special When Lit Pinball Podcast is stronger now than it's ever been. And we want to take the next hour and thank our listeners, thank the supporters, thank our sponsors, thank our guests, and thank the pinball manufacturers for making pinball what it is. So sit back and relax and join us in this celebration of the year anniversary of the special When Lit Pinball Podcast. Coming at you out of St. Charles, Illinois, the special When Lit Pinball Podcast starts now. Hey, what's going on, Pinball Land? And welcome to episode number 59, the one-year anniversary slash birthday of Special Win Lit's Pinball Podcast. As always, with me today is Bill Webb. What's going on, Bill? Just crazy to think about. A year has gone by since we started this. It's nuts. I'm trying to figure out if it feels like it's longer than a year or shorter than a year, but there's definitely some time there. Absolutely. You think back, and it was quick, and then you think back to the work, and it was like, wow, that was a long year. But it was a good year. It's been a fun journey, and to my left and to Bill's right is one of the guys that helped us kick this podcast off, and that is from Stern Pinball, lead programmer Dwight Sullivan. Dwight, welcome back to the show. Hello, Pinball Land. Yes. I'm glad to be here. It's a party here. A year later. A year later. It doesn't feel like a year. It doesn't? It does not. It feels like it was just a few months ago. Let me, in all honesty, because when we first reached out to you, you were episode number three, So you helped us kind of get on the map with an interview with our podcast. Three? Yeah, well, we had interviewers. Number one was getting to know us. Number two was our first covering the news. Number three was our first interview. And then you were actually gracious enough to allow us to do that. When you left that day, what were you thinking that Ken and Bill were doing with this podcast? I was thinking that, you know, I love you guys and you're having fun, but I don't know if you're going to go anywhere. I agree. You know, pinball's hard, and podcasting is hard, right? It is. It is. It's much harder than it looks. It's harder than it looks, but it's all in good fun, and I don't know. We're still sticking around. So I'll start to show off with saying thanks, Dwight, because without getting that first interview with you, I honestly don't know if we get to 59 episodes and get that first year under our belts. I think you and I were surprised when we hit 20, in all honesty. We're like, how far is this going to go? We'll see. Right, right. And, you know, we got you guys. You guys have proved over the last year that you didn't need me, that you were, you know, a force to be reckoned with. And you've come a long way. You've evolved. And the show is awesome today. Well, thank you for the kind words. I don't know about reckoned with, but let's do this. Let's do this if you don't mind. I mean, this is not going to be a news update show today. We're just going to kind of briefly cover our history and get excited about moving forward. Let's take a second and let's just reflect on some of the guests that have come on the show. Mr. Dwight Sullivan. Dwight, welcome to the show. What's going on, buddy? And his name is Terry Deswart, the owner of Pinball Life in Huntley. Welcome to the studio. What's up, Terry? Legendary pinball designer Steve Ritchie from Stern Pinball. Steve, welcome to the show. Mr. Scott Denisey, the creator of Total Nuclear Annihilation. Scott, thanks for coming on the show. We feature Nirmal Vasani, who's the lead sales and marketing strategist for American Pinball in Streamwood, Illinois. Nirmal, welcome to the show. And his name is Mr. Todd Tuckey, and he's the owner of TNT Amusements. Guys, it's Jack Danger. Jack, what's up, man? Special One Lit Pinball Podcast welcomes Roger Sharp to the show. It is legendary programmer and pinball designer Brian Eddy. Mr. Zachary Menezak, welcome to Special One Lit. And we're going to introduce the one and only Steven Bowden. What's up, Steve? With Mr. Greg Freres and Mr. Stephen Martin of Stern. Special One Lit Pinball Podcast welcomes Mr. Chuck Ernst to the show. Chuck, thanks for coming in, man. Welcome. We're about to bring you some exclusive content that may be a first in pinball podcasting history. Now joining us to discuss the ideas, creation, and the evolution of this pinball machine is lead game designer John Borg, lead programmer Dwight Sullivan, renowned artist Christopher Franchi, and lead sound engineer Jerry Thompson. And today with us for the making of Willy Wonka, we have the lead designer Pat Lawler, lead programmer Joe Katz, we've got the lead artist John Yousi, and brand new to pinball, lead sound engineer, and that's Vikas Deo. All right, and joining us now on the back half of the panel discussion for the making of Willy Wonka, we've got Jersey Jack founder Jack Guarnieri on the line. So over the years, over the year, you've accumulated quite a few files. But if we look back at that holiday show, the holiday show is episode number 30. And I wanted to cite that show because that show had 40, 50 guests on it. And I'm not going to read them all, but in no particular order. I mean, we had the guys from Buffalo Pinball on. We had Christopher Franchi, David Thiel, Dirty Donnie, Dennis and Tony from Eclectic Gamers, Ed Ed Robertson, Eric Minier, Eric Wurtenberger, who's Chuck Wurtenberger. He does some beta testing for you, right, or no? Chuck does. Eric does beta testing for me all the time. Chuck Wurtenberger. Yeah, Eric, my fault. We had Jerry Sellenberg from Multimorphic, Jack Danger, Jeff Patterson from This Week in Pinball, Jeff Teolas from Pinball Profile, Jerry Thompson. He's a sound engineer over at Stern. John Borg, Jonathan Martin, our buddies from overseas, Josh Kugler. We had Chris Calouris, Kaneda's pinball podcast, Miss Pin and Dr. Pin, Nirmal Vasani, he was on that show. As we keep going, Roger Sharp, Ryan and Marty from Head to Head Pinball Podcast, Scott Denisey, Slamtail Podcast guys, Stern, Gary Stern and George Gomez were on the show, Steve Ritchie, Steven Bowden, Tanya Kleiss, Terry Deswart, Todd Tuckey, Zach and Greg from Straight Down the Middle, Zombie Eddie. So all these guys literally were on one show, and it was episode number 30. So if you haven't listened to it, it's a great listen, and it was fun to do. Now, Dwight, when we think about that, you were on that show. I was. And, Bill, you were mentioning earlier Dwight's our most celebrated guest on Special Winlet. Oh, yeah, he's been on, well, we had the original show, episode number three. We had the holiday show, if we're going in order, followed by the Munsters panel. Yep. Right. I think that was probably in the 33, 34 episode range. They're all cataloged. And then today. So that's four times. Dwight, you're our most celebrated guest in Special Unlit. It's been a big honor. It is. And a great friend. We have a prize, and the Chinese pearls are absolutely free. Chinese pearls? I can't take home the Black Knight here? That's your gift. Yeah, the Black Knight Ali. You can if you want to contact our distributor at Flippin' Up Him Up. We'll get you a good price on it, though. Zach's a friend of mine. Would he give me a good deal? You know what? I don't know that he's allowed to do that per Stern Agreement, but I think you could reach out to him. Maybe get an employee discount. Not sure how that works. He could probably give me his cost. You didn't hear any of that here on Special Oil. I have no idea. Are there any other guests other than Dwight because Dwight's been here so frequently and we love him? Any other guests that stand out to you, Bill, when we've been doing this show for 59 episodes? The whole thing has just been like a ride. You know, just a crazy, crazy ride. Starting off with Dwight, you know, doing that episode, the first one. And then kind of going in order with Steve Ritchie, you know, talking about past pinball stuff, T2, Getaway. It was cool having Steve on because Steve's not one that really does a lot of podcasts. In fact, I had only, I think, made it, I might have heard one other interview from him, an audio interview before we had him on. And I'm sure he's done others. Oh, yeah. But it was an honor and a privilege to have him on the show and then to be able to do that at Stern. That was fun. um john borg awesome guy great guy Brian Eddy i mean honestly just you know i'm gonna cut it short otherwise i'm gonna read the whole list of names but it's kind of like a uh meeting all your heroes doing this yeah you know i mean that's been you know the crazy part oh we're gonna meet this guy and then you you know you shake hands and of course you're nervous and 15 minutes later it's like oh they're just human beings cool Brian Eddy was great because brian at the time we we kind of had a man he was kind of disappeared i mean we knew that he was hired at stern I had never met or spoken to Brian, so that was interesting. He had brought his girlfriend, Jenny, here. That was a fun time. That was one of my favorite episodes that you did. Oh, great. Because Brian and I used to be good friends back in the day, and we kind of grew apart. So you guys talked about things I didn't know, so that was great. I think you mentioned you guys were roommates at some point. We were. We were roommates. I love it. I would love to have been a fly on the wall in that bachelor pad, right? The Todd Tuckey interview was fun. Todd. Which Todd's doing better now, so good to see you out of the hospital. He just did the remote Skype for Pentastic, so good to see you on his feet. Just want to send a little love that way. Sorry to detract. No, you're not. That's what we're talking about. Great having Jack Danger. He had come in the studio, and ironically, that was the only show that you ever missed, and it was because you had a last-minute emergency on your way to record that podcast with Jack. Yeah, yeah. I only missed it because I was at the emergency room with my daughter. So, but yeah, I mean, honestly, it's just this whole ride and meeting all these people has just been so crazy, you know, to think about, you know, the last year, all the names that we've met and, you know, shaking hands with, especially our fellow podcaster friends and just the whole gamut of everybody that we've met. And it's just all inspiring, you know, to think about when I turn my head and think back. Just recently having Chuck Ernst on the show. Yes. What a personality that guy is. and we've got so much feedback on that interview with Chuck. His stock's rising in the podcast world. We're not going to be the only guys reaching out to him, so Chuck's on his way. I mean, Chuck has stories upon stories. Dwight, you probably know better than we do with Chuck Ernst. I've heard lots of Chuck's stories. They're all awesome. They're all funny. He tells them well. Yeah. Yeah, he's a good dude. Great guy. 17 years making Mortal Kombat. Yeah. Like, after 10 years, you're like, the designers come in and they go, can we change that orange? You know, like, you've got to get out of there. You have to stop making Mortal Kombat at some point. We talked a little bit about Mortal Kombat on that interview. And now we can't do everything ourselves, right? So one of our favorite guys in pinball is lead sound engineer at Stern, Jerry Thompson. Yes. And Jerry has really helped us out with a lot of voiceover work. We have a lot of stuff in the can with Jerry that we're yet to release. But like our industry buzz segment, all that stuff is Jerry. Getting the news from around the industry in this week's Industry Buzz. Jerry did a great opening and closing for our Munsters panel discussion. Coming to you from Chicago, Illinois, the home of Stern Pinball, the special windlit pinball podcast welcomes you to the making of Munsters Pinball, a roundtable discussion featuring John Borg, Dwight Sullivan, Christopher Franchi, and Jerry Thompson. Hey, that's me. Now, here are your hosts, Ken Cromwell and Bill Webb. So Jerry's always been one to reach out and lend us a helping hand, and we really appreciate that. And Jerry, again, a very good friend of yours, Dwight. He is. He's a good friend of mine. Every time he comes to town, he shares my office, so we're constantly making jokes and farting in the office. I remember when we were at Portillo's and we were all eating lunch and Jerry was telling me how you guys share listening to each other's music selections in that office, I think. I think he's stuck listening to my music selections. It's like I'm the driver, right? So I get control of the radio and he's just stuck with it. I'll say another guy that really has helped us out tremendously is professional voice actor Marc Silk from the UK. Hey, Mark is somebody that I'm really hoping gets involved in pinball on a professional level. I mean, he's very celebrated and he's very studious. And what's the word I'm looking for here? He's very respected in his industry. Very. And, I mean, he's done a lot of comic relief on our show. He's helped us out with a lot of openings and closings. Welcome to a world of pure imagination. The special when lit pinball podcast welcomes you to the making of Jersey Jack pinball's latest release, Willy Wonka Pinball. Join us for a roundtable discussion with lead designer Pat Lawler, lead programmer Joe Katz, lead artist John Yowsey and lead sound engineer Vikas Deo. And now please welcome your favorite pinball oompa Ken Cromwell and Bill Webb For episode 50 he did a happy birthday song to us which you know go back to episode 51 if you want to hear it You know what Let let play that right now All right Hey, Ken Cromwell and Bill Webb, this one's for you. Happy birthday special when lit. I heard that it's your 50th. Hey, it looks like you're a hit. Your show is great It's not a pile of bad Keep the show going longer Let's play some Willy Wonka Happy 50th to you Happy birthday, Special and Lit Yeah! So that, I mean, that was great. And actually, it's suiting now because it is our birthday. It's our one-year birthday versus our 50-episode birthday. So, I mean, that's actually pretty cool. Well, he's at the bar now because now when we hit 100 episodes, I'm expecting another song from him. Actually, he's got a little surprise for you later in the show that I'm going to play, Bill. Okay. All right. Uh-oh. You know what? So Jerry and I have discussed Mark Stoke, and we would love to reach out to him at some point for some future game and have him work on voiceover. It would be incredible. And I know he's such a passionate pinball guy, and he's very professional. And I've had conversations with him, and to just kind of hear his theory on dissecting a sound package and how he would implement some things differently fascinates me, because it's now things that he's pointed out that I can't not notice. And I like that, because it expands your horizon. So it'd be exciting, Dwight, if you guys get on the same page and get him in there with you. Collaborate on something. It would be really fun. Love to have that come to fruition. You know, it's been his dream, dude. I haven't talked to him in a while, but, you know, definitely got to reach out to Mark. Yeah. Thinking about you, Mark. Now, at one point, we had two brothers, Artisan Brewing. They were the makers, and they are the makers of Pinball Pale Ale, so they started sponsoring the show. And it was an interesting sponsorship because we talked about their product, and they supplied us with beer. And there's nothing better than podcasting with a little bit of beer for Ken Cromwell. And we're talking cases upon cases of beer. Right. Now, I realized about it. That's just tonight. No, well, I realized that we had to switch sponsors at some point because 25, 30 episodes in to Pinball Pale Ale and recording. Well, I want everybody at home to imagine this. So literally, Ken had all these, you know, every time we got a certain amount of cases, you know, they'd stack up in the living room or his front entryway. So literally, I think like 30 or 40 episodes in, dude, you had like a castle made out of two brothers right in the living room. It was a big castle. Oh, man, it was crazy. So just think of a castle stacked up with two brothers pinball beer. You know, and it was unfortunate because we couldn't get the beer out to those that weren't close to us. So, like, I mean, we're not beer distributors, so we can't sell it. You certainly can't ship it. So unless we had somebody in studio that we can hand stuff off at or if we could go on location and pass it out, we started accumulating a stockpile of beer, which you wouldn't think is a bad thing normally, but it can become a problem. Yeah. Well, and it's inventory, and then it's the fact that as much as I like Pinball Pale Ale, I'm not motivated to drink it for a little while. Well, we enjoy the casual beverage, but we're not alcoholics either. So, I mean, that's also part of the problem. Alcoholism didn't really hit until we went to Pinball Expo in 2018, in which case we had the infamous Steve Beattie warm bucket of chicken incident. Followed up by TPF. You know, I ate some of that chicken. I never got sick. So you did have some of that chicken. Okay, and Dwight wasn't drinking. So it wasn't the alcohol that killed any sort of bacteria if Dwight didn't get sick. potentially, he wasn't sick from the chicken. It was sick from potentially having some alcohol that night. Absolutely. Too much, yeah. Wow. That myth has now been... So the bucket of chicken is a myth. Disproven. No, no, no. Being sick from the said bucket of chicken has been disproven. Right. How much chicken did you have? Do you remember? I had one wing. Oh, okay. Well, maybe... Is that white meat or dark meat? I actually remember that now because you and I were talking. Yeah. And you were eating the wing and sitting on the bed. Yeah, I remember that now. That was a good time. All right. So you survived. I survived. But you have been feeling a little bit under the Carl Weathers lately. Well, that's from allergies. Maybe it's a delayed onset of the chicken. I don't think so. No? That was like over a year. I'm sure. An extreme offset. Okay. Well, then at one point, ourselves and two brothers, we just kind of came to a mutual decision that as fun as it was for the ride that we were on, it made sense that maybe we parted ways for sponsorship for a while because we literally couldn't keep up with drinking all the beer. We couldn't really distribute it. and two brothers had already kind of segmented and reached their target market on the beers, and we were happy to help, and they were happy to help us. So we bring in our new sponsor to the show, and that is Robin Kim at LureMods.com, and they've been sponsoring the Drain It or Save It segment, and they are great people. Oh, yeah, yeah. The first time I actually met them was at Expo, and great people, great products, you know, definitely happy to be having a partnership with them. Yeah. So definitely, guys, if you're looking for products for your pinball machine lighted mods, Check LearMods out, please. So then as we continue to kind of add to the show and try to make things interesting for the listeners, we had the idea of bringing in correspondents to the show. And the correspondents would report on a manufacturer on a weekly basis and give us a 60- to 90-second clip on what's going on in the news at each manufacturer. So Dr. John from Australia, he went ahead and he agreed to cover Spooky Pinball. We had Ryan Claytor, who's been covering Multimorphic. and then just added to the show, Steve Haberman is covering Jersey Jack Pinball, Bill. Pretty fun having those guys on board. Oh, absolutely. I was curious to see how that was going to pan out in the long run, and I think it's been really well received. It's great. Oh, do you like that? I love it. So I listen to you guys every week, of course, and when you added the correspondence, I didn't know anything about it, and I'm like, eh, you know, we'll see how this goes. But now I look forward to it every single time. I want to hear. it's because I sit at my desk at Stern and I don't know what's going on at Spooky. I don't know what's going on anywhere else. And so I love hearing about it. I'm glad to hear that you like that. We've actually had a lot of people that have reached out and said when we first rolled it out, they were skeptical. But as we're evolving it now and we're kind of getting it polished, it's for some people their favorite part of the show, what they look forward to. Besides the ending. We don't have to do any of the work for it. Besides the ending, they look forward to that. Then it's back to us, right? Yeah. Oh, good times. So we've made a lot of friends along the way, fellow podcasters, people that work in pinball, pinball enthusiasts, pinball fans, people that just generally appreciate pinball. One of our favorite guys that we recently had the opportunity to meet, and that was at Texas Pinball Festival, is Dennis Creasel. What a nice guy. And so knowledgeable. I mean, honestly, he's got his Ph.D. in pinball, or Ph.D. I mean, just crazy amount of knowledge. Yeah, as much as I love you guys, and I think you've come a long way and you're awesome, Dennis is probably my favorite podcaster Yeah, no, that's absolutely fair Well, we know why we didn't win last year then Or weren't nominated at the Twivies Because Dwight gave his vote to Dennis That was the one that would have put us over the top That would have been it Some other people we met at Texas Pinball Festival Again, in the podcasting world Miss Pin and Dr. Pin Awesome people And I was so happy to finally get a chance Because we had exchanged a lot of messages And to be able to sit down with those guys And have some drinks and just talk pinball was super fun. Did you get a chance to talk to them too, Dwight? I did. Briefly, I didn't just sort of introduce myself, and we talked for a couple seconds. And then Dr. Penn, I'd had a couple drinks when I normally don't drink, and Dr. Penn gave me some great advice on how to drink water and not get a hangover. Is that what you do? Hopefully it works. It sounds so simple. Well, I don't know. I mean, I drank the water. I didn't get a hangover. I was good, but I'd only had a couple shots. That was the fireball shots with Jeff Teolis, right? It was. That was the fireball shots with Jeff Teolas. I don't drink and somehow... I was jealous. Somehow Jeff... Walk us through that, Dwight. How does that happen? Because full disclosure here, we've known Dwight for a while, and the few times that I've asked him to partake in alcohol, he's simply politely refused, and I respect it. And then we go to Texas Pinball Festival, and he's wearing the lampshade on his head doing some shots with Jeff Teolas. With fireball shots. So how does that happen, Dwight? Well, Jeff, you know, you've heard Jeff. His voice is silky and smooth, and he's a great guy, and I'm just kind of in love with him. So he said, here, have a shot. And I couldn't say no. There is no, but seriously, there is a bromance going on with me and him, or at least there was. Okay. I haven't heard from him in a long time. I'm kind of hurt. It's a long-distance relationship. It is. It is. But, you know, he said, here, come have a shot. And I just, you know, I just said, okay. One led to two, two led to four. Right. Well, no, I think it was a total of maybe three. I lost track, but maybe three, maybe four. Where did you wake up and did you have any missing time? I woke up. I was never that drunk. Just making sure. We were wondering if we were going to be driving to the airport. You might be passed out outside of TPF Convention Center or something. But you were being good. You can hold your liquor. Sure. You hold three shots well. How about that? I didn't vomit or anything. I was good. You didn't go stream another company's pinball machine or anything? Oh, I did. No, I didn't. I did. So Jeff, that's the second thing he told me to do. So Jeff gave me these shots, and then we went and played this really cool game called Stahlball. It's a type of game. We played actually on Star Trek or Star Wars. I was drunk. I don't know. And so then Stahlball is a lot of fun. It's a line of people get in play, and you try to put the ball in a hole, and then you get out and get back in line again. It's like hot potatoes. Have you ever played Stahlball? No. No, I've never done that. It's a really cool format for pinball, and everyone puts in a dollar, so there's like 10, 15, 20 people playing, and it's just one long line of people. And you play, and the objective is to put the ball somewhere where it's held without draining, and then while the ball is held, you stop playing and you go get the back of the line, and the next guy has to play. Okay. And if you – so it's whoever – if you drain or if you commit some other kind of foul, you're out, and the last person standing is the guy who wins all the money. Okay. That sounds actually pretty fun. Sounds like a good time. Yeah. It is a good time. So he taught me that. We played that. And then the next thing I know, I'm streaming Oktoberfest with Martin C. From head to head? Martin from head to head. Right, right. Okay. Which was also cool because I had never really met Martin. I'd talked to him before. I'd been on a show. But actually meeting Martin was a lot of fun. And so I was glad to do that. We also met Martin for the first time at TPF. And it was briefly, I think, towards after the Twippies. I think we caught him outside. Yeah, outside. Yeah, super nice guy. Canada. Yeah, Chris Clurce was there that night, Twippy Night. If you get a chance to go to the Texas Pinball Festival, if you've never gone, do it one time. And if you're at Texas Pinball Festival, definitely check out the Twippies, and that's the This Week in Pinball annual People's Choice Awards for their games and programming. I mean, you name it in pinball, there's a category for it, new mods, homebrews, everything. And especially when it wants to go back and watch the Twippies from TPF this year, you can go back and re-watch it. Yeah, those are archived. It was really professionally done. It was good. Absolutely. They killed it. Coogler showed up, right? And so now I'm on the stream live arguing with Coogler about his game and whether or not he should have a zero at the end of his scores. Oh, that's a pet peeve of yours. Yeah, it is. I think he's an idiot for not having a zero at the end of his scores. And I told him so. But then the next morning we're having breakfast and we're good. We're friends. Okay, so. But I'm sure you had a stern head on while you were streaming that game. Did I? Maybe. I doubt it. Dude, he always has a stern head. He was just coming off of Twippies. I don't think you wore a stern hat at the Twippies, did you? I had. Oh, maybe not. I had my jacket on. You did. I probably did not have. You had your sport coat, your jeans. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So we're raiding the Oktoberfest stream with your stern gear. I was, I crashed that s***. He did. He slammed some shots with Teolis, played some stall ball, went ahead and then crashed Oktoberfest, the American pinball stream, with Martin from Head to Head and Jeff Teolis. and then told Kugler that his scoring methods on his game sucks. And I can always fall back on the fact that I was drunk. I was going to say, this is why Dwight doesn't drink. Yeah, you've got a crutch there. I like it. Another person that I loved talking to at Texas Pinball Festival was Jason Fowler and his wife Cindy from Slap Save Pinball Podcast. Jason, super nice guy. Somebody that started podcasting, I want to say, a month or two after we started. And it was fun because I feel like we've kind of come up a little bit together. We've got a couple months on him, so it'll be fun to hear him celebrate his year. That'll be coming up pretty soon. Yeah, him and his wife are awesome people. I just want to reiterate that. That was just a great trip just to even build that friendship. The reason that I specifically – because we met so many awesome people at Texas Pinball Festival. The reason that I specified Dennis Creasel, Ms. Pin and Dr. Pin, and Jason Fowler is because they offered a roast on our behalf to celebrate our one year, and I want to go ahead and play them for you now. So first up, we have Dennis from Eclectic Gamers Podcast and co-host of This Week in Pinball. Oh, geez. Bill and Ken, Dennis Creasel from Eclectic Gamers Podcast here. Congratulations on making it an entire year in the ever-exciting and highly profitable realm of pinball podcasting. I'm sure you are both being showered with praise from all the corners of the world discussing your in-depth interviews compelling guests and Comprehensive discussion segments but I got to confess that I do have an issue with your show the episode titles Holy moly What are you guys thinking with those Let look at a few shall we Episode 49 Cinnamon Hands Only please Look I agree this is a great heading for your local Cinnabon to use in a help-wanted classified ad. I won't deny that. But I'm not sure that's what's supposed to make me think of in regards to pinball. Diner? Oktoberfest? An upcoming Spice Girls theme? Or how about episode 10, Special Winlicious? Wow. So compelling. What? Is he clapping? I think so. I sure wish I named episode after a pack of bubble gum. Did you all chew on a lot of that content that day or something? How about episode 40, Eat, Sleep, Bet, Pinball? This title is awesome because nothing dredges up the dark underbelly of pinball's origin story quite like the links to gambling, except maybe links to the mob. So you could have taken it further, but instead you just chose to write it right up to that tacky edge, and I respect you for that. Nice job, fellas. Thank you. Or finally, how about episode 51? Are you a pinball pirate, flipper, or scallywag? That's you, Bill. You know who never played pinball? Pirates. You know who never knew about skill shots? Scallywags. This title is so confusing and awful, I think it would only become popular if you were both to come out and say you would never run the title again. Who knows? It might even spur some additional downloads on that secondhand market. But seriously, Bill and Ken, you both have been an incredible asset in this interesting, confounding, compelling, and entertaining hobby we all share. Your podcast hit the ground running, has not let up, and has quickly risen to the top of many lists. May your next year be as engaging and worthwhile as the last. That's awesome of Dennis. For him to take the time and do that, I totally appreciate it. And a lot of people ask about how we come up with our titles, because I think some podcasts will title their show first, and then they will record a show. And what we end up doing is we record the show, and then we come up with the title afterwards, because a lot of times what we want to do on the show doesn't really lay itself out or present itself. And we'll come with notes, and we'll transition differently in the show. So, I mean, even if we came up, it would get changed anyway. Thank you, Dennis, for that. I am surprised, though, dude. He did not pull the banana and the tailpipe episode in that mix. I think he's a Beverly Hills Top fan, so that's okay. The Cinnamon Hands only title was in reference of Bill having a cinnamon-smelling expensive soap in his game room. And to be able to get a waft of the cinnamon hands by somebody, you know that they're clean and they're not going to the bathroom and using your pinball machine. Exactly. It's almost a test. That was that. Yeah, so you know their hands are clean and they're not just griming up your pinball machine. Right, exactly. So next, we've got a little roast from Jason Fowler of the Slap Save Pinball Podcast. Uh-oh. Hi, guys. This is Jason Fowler with the Slap Save Pinball Podcast. Matt couldn't be here. He told me he was dealing with some important family matters, and I actually found out he's mowing the lawn. So I don't know if that shows where this ranks with him. But the word is on the mean streets of pinball that Special One Lit is celebrating the one-year anniversary of the show. Now, to me, celebrating one year of a podcast is kind of like getting a youth bowling league trophy for the lowest score. But who am I to judge? Oh, my God. But since we're on the topic of judging, they seem more excited about this than the anniversaries with their wives. And ironically, the podcast and the time they spend on it probably keeps them from any sort of actual female interaction, including their wives. Special and Lit does a lot of interviews. So many of you I know have started to kind of question their selection process. I will tell you a little podcast or insight. The word has it on the next show, they're going to be interviewing the corpse of a janitor that cleaned the toilets at Godley back in the 60s. It's an exclusive. Oh. Jason. Ken is a guy who basically started a public access show in Special When Lit, who has a weird sense of humor, is obsessive compulsive, and has an uncanny attention to detail, and he lives in a sleepy Chicago suburb. Actually, you know, come to think of it, that kind of sounds a lot like the profile of a serial killer. That or Wayne's World, one of the two. Swing! Now, Bill, he's the Vanna White of Special One Lit, only not as good looking and with less talent. He's pretty good looking. He also chain smokes like Dennis Leary and sounds like him after a bender. Bill, if you didn't know, did a high-end restore on a beautiful whirlwind. And it's so nice that Ken has asked him to be a sponsor on their own show. Ken has never been to Milwaukee, a city that is 92 miles from where he lives. His probation officer won't approve it, but despite that, Special and Lit is granting him a potential interview for the show to try to bribe him into letting him go. Nice. In all seriousness, congrats, guys. No one in pinball podcasting does it better than you guys. You know I love you. It was fun ripping you a little bit here, but it was tough to come up with him. Best of luck. Keep doing what you're doing. Take care. Thanks, Jason. Thanks, Jason. That was good stuff, man. It's funny, man. And we were only about 20 minutes from Aurora, Illinois, where that Wayne's World was actually filmed. FYI. That's true. That's true. I like it. He's very calm and collected. He definitely has that radio podcast voice. Yeah. Do you listen to Slap Save? I do. I do. I love Jason. Me too. Jason is a great guy. It was great meeting him a couple weeks ago at work. Oh, that's right. Yeah, because he came in for the Stern tour that you gave us. The awesome Dwight tour. The awesome Dwight tours. It's the best tour. It's a 25-cent tour. Yeah, no, it's huge. It's just you've got to book it in advance. That's the problem. You can't just walk up and be like, I want the Dwight tour. No. No. It's like trying to get on Bozo Circus in a day. Yeah. It's a three-year wait. At least. But Slapslaves has come a long way, too. They're evolving and getting great. I think all these shows that have been out are all evolving and becoming better every single year, and it's really made for interesting listening. These next two, Dr. Penn and Miss Penn, I mean, they've been podcasting for a while and they offered a whole different element to podcasting when they had first gone on. So let's hear from them real quick. Dr. Penn, what are we doing? Babe, we were asked to roast the special and lit guys and we've been putting it off and just procrastinating. So we got to record this. I mean, did you bring me coffee? What time is it right now? It's 1115 at night. I just got home. Let's just do this. Okay. Okay. So who are we roasting? It's the guys. The guys. The special and lit guys. I have no idea who you're talking about. It's the guys with the podcast. The pinball podcast. Oh, like Zach and Greg? No, no, no, no. Different dudes. You don't know these guys? We hung out with them at TPF. No. You mean Jason Fowler? No. Listen, you want to do that doppelganger game where I remind you based on what they kind of look like? Yeah, yeah. You got to do something because nothing is ringing a bell right now. All right. Let's start with the big dudes. So there's one really tall guy. He's kind of like a Herman Munster-y guy, like lurch from the Addams Family, except just imagine him with a giant burrito. Burrito Bill! Yeah, yeah, yeah, Bill Webb. There you go, Bill. You 100% totally know who you're talking about. Okay, the big dude, yeah. Yeah, that's one half of the team, all right? Then the other guy, he's kind of like, just think of like a Dr. Phil screaming, screw you, screw you, over and over again. Like this older Elijah Wood looking dude who's really into beer and sports. Does he have an identical twin? No, no, that's the other guy. Bill has an identical twin? No, this guy's Ken Cromwell. Does that ring a bell? Yes. Oh, yep. But I swear Ken has an identical twin. No, that's just the guy, this random dude that hangs out with him. Remember that band, the Mighty Mighty Boss Jones from back in the day? There was one guy in that band who was literally hired only to just dance on stage. He had no purpose other than just being there to dance. That's awesome. He just kind of sits there and looks pretty. Yeah, yeah, that's like this other guy. He's the guy who loves chicken, isn't he? He's the fried chicken guy. He just sits around. Instead of dancing, he eats fried chicken and beer. I love how they threw Steve in. I can't follow you, so we're going to roast these guys. Yeah, it's Steve, Ken, and Bill. Yeah, yeah, I totally, I got you. We hung out with these guys at TPF. Big drinkers, right? Yeah, yeah, like fish. Like fish. Okay, I totally know who you're talking about now. Yeah, no, you know what I do have to say about them, though? Things are kind of coming back to me now as I'm waking up here. Aren't these the guys who get, like, all the major celebrities on their podcast? No, that's Head to Head. Thank you. That's Head to Head, he said. That's Head to Head. You're right. But, like, don't they once in a while get somebody who's, like, really kind of pinball famous? I guess. They had that guy from Stern. They really are very good drinkers. And, you know, they're, like, mediocre pinball players. Yeah, those guys are great. We don't really have much to say about them other than keep up the super work, dudes. We love you guys. Great podcast. Keep it up. F***ing best clip ever. Peace. The sign-off, right? Yeah, that's awesome. That's good times. It's all good fun. We appreciate it very much. Well, we've got to leave a janitor that's deceased that's coming on. Of course. Yeah, that's perfect. Thank you, Mrs. Penn and Dr. Penn. That was great. Thanks, guys. Thanks, Sarah and Christian. We reached out to a few people that we thought would be able to nail this in good spirits and it worked out well. So thanks, guys. one of the favorite segments of the show as we're gonna get ready to kind of close this off has been uh bill's corner and bill's corner started out as an idea to kind of document some of the things that you've been working on over the years and lately it's been uh whirlwind for about three quarters of our episodes and that finally came to an end and uh but i i think it's important to recognize that segment because for a lot of people it was one part of the show that they they really, really looked forward to. Yeah, you know what? I think it just really came to be because we started talking about what I was doing with the game, and then you kind of named it with the Bill's Corner Whirlwind Project. And for people that really like that segment, we are going to have more episodes. It won't be Whirlwind, but we're going to have more content to talk about as we've got a couple of games rolling in. Now, there's a listener of the show that you've been helping out with some different modifications, and he actually provided us with an audio clip actually directed towards you. If you don't mind, we'll play that now. Okay. Happy birthday, Special One Lit. This is Mr. Modification. Thank you for all your support over the past 12 months, and especially thank you to you, Bill Webb, for your great ideas. I wanted to take you through a mod live right now. Bill sent me this on a great way to make some beautiful improvements to my favorite game, Thunderbirds Pinball. What a beautiful machine. So we check the backbox is in place with just a little, oh, that's all good. And then Bill suggests a beautiful translight modification. It's really simple. You just take the thing, and then you just take, oh, that is better. Thanks, Bill. As a shortcut to working on the play field, let's just back off here. Goggles on, and we, ow, that is useful. Okay, now we just hold it here and tip out anything you don't like from the play field. That's fine. take on anything you don't like. And there's a little sound upgrade too with the... Shocker going off, huh? Okay, careful with that DMD. That's gone. I'm down. Oh, legs are loose. I'm fine. Okay, I think that's enough. Who'd have thought Thunderbird's pinball couldn't get any better? Well, thanks for the tips, Bill. I think you'll all agree this is going to play a lot nicer now. You know what? Let's just take this thing and put it out of its misery for good. Thanks again for your advice, Bill. You too, Ken. And happy birthday, Special Inlet. I'll see you soon for more modifications. Hey, and make sure you play some pinball, right? Ha ha ha ha! Oh, snap. That had to be Mark. I don't know. It's somebody you've been helping out on the show, I guess. They are offering to kind of potentially give us some live modifications on a semi-regular basis. And what's better than one Thunderbirds pinball machine? No. Two. Oh, two. Well, they cut it in half, dude. Oh, there you go. You know. Yeah. I said the wrong answer there. You've got to be afraid that it might start multiplying. Multiplying, right. Two becomes four. It becomes eight. It could come back to kill you. I like it. Craziness. Like the broom, right, in the Mickey Mouse thing? Or like Chucky Doll. Where do we see this show going, Bill? So we've got a year in the can. We've not missed a week, right? So since we started July 1st, 2018, we've uploaded at least one show every seven days. Yep. And where do you want this show to go over the next 12 months? Well, I think we're going to start off by doing it every other week. I'm kidding. Oh, I was like, wow, that's news to me. Just freed up some time. Ken was running to the bottle. He was like, where's my two brothers pinball pal? Absolutely. Celebrate. No, but you know what? Honestly, I think we'll still continue to keep doing what we're doing. Try to keep it more organic because I think people have really responded well, you know, where we just kind of shoot from the hip. Keep trying to bring just great content and keep it real. What's your goal with this show? I mean, where do you want to go? World domination. Is that it? World domination, yeah. World domination. I'm expecting this to get me the presidency. Okay. Yeah. Gotcha. Vote for Bill. No, I'm kidding. I just jagging you No I understand No but honestly just try to keep on doing what we been doing I think you and I really try to keep everything real with what we doing and not try to sugarcoat or whatever I mean, we're not going to say something sucks in a certain way, but, I mean, we'll just simply disclose our displeasure and try to. It's just not. Dwight might not agree on one instance, but that's okay. Well, and I want to ask Dwight because, I mean, I value your opinion, and when we started the show, there were a lot of questions that I had asked you, and you offered a lot of opinions, and then we got into kind of the sound aspect. Jerry and yourself offered some excellent advice getting going. What is it that you like, and it doesn't necessarily have to be our show, when you listen to a podcast, Dwight, like what are you looking to get out of it? Great question. So I like to learn two things. I like to learn news that I might not know, and I like it when the two of you or Jason Fowler and somebody or Dennis and Zach dive deep into one topic that's kind of interesting. So I've seen you guys do it a handful of times and those are some of my favorite episodes of yours. And of course, Dennis and those guys do it all the time too and that's what I like about podcasters is when I'm learning the news, something I don't know, something that comes from your correspondence guys or from Jeff through Zach. That's awesome. Those are the things I like. Sure. It's nice, too, because I think before we started podcasting, I don't know that you were a podcast listener in general, right? I knew nothing about podcasts. I learned the whole world because of you guys. And now I listen to five or six podcasts every week, and it's your fault. I like that we're all working together for the most part. I mean, it's easy to kind of follow up a story with another show or respectfully. work away from a topic that somebody else is working hard on, and I do like to be able to do that. I see our show getting better over the next 12 months, and that is with continuing to add the correspondence and really have a fine-tuned machine that's able to really report on what's going on up to the minute every time that we're able to release an episode. Well, in everything that we've done, we really have kind of taken it in steps and make sure that we didn't do something too crazy, too fast, and watch the whole thing implode. Yeah. The whole thing has just been incredible. I mean, from listenership, you know, watching that go, to the feedback from people. You know, I mean, one of the greatest stories that, you know, one of the most impactful stories recently was Rob talking about, you know, listening to our episodes while he was going to the hospital to see his daughter because she was in the NICU. And, you know, that really cut home, especially with my wife being pregnant. So, you know, it really has an impact when you get the feedback from people saying how your stories have affected their life. It's always good, and we receive a lot of feedback and congratulatory emails in regards to the one-year show. Unfortunately, we can't read them all today, but what I'd like to do is maybe touch on those on Episode 60, which will be Season 2 of Special When Lit, which will launch a week from today. How funny is that? Season 2. Season 2 of Special When Lit. Dun, dun, dun. Yeah. who do we add? Who gets killed off? This is the finale. So something crazy has to happen. Oh, s***, I'm going to die. I know. No! It's like Game of Thrones. Dwight's one of the main characters, and then he just gets killed at the end of the season. You can't kill me or you'll never see a Ghostbusters release. We'll never see a code update for Ghostbusters if he dies. Our climatic moment was when Todd went to the hospital, but he pulled through. That's my idea of our climatic moment for the podcast. Well, I agree. That is awesome, but I think we have to end with given out some prizes and the prizes that we have available today we made it as easy as possible for anybody to be able to to enter to get a free prize i want to thank everybody that contributed these prizes and we're going to go through the list here in a second and uh it's just the easiest way for us to say thanks and we we like to say thank you and be able to offer something when we can and we couldn't do any of this without people that have helped support the show all right so Let's give away some prizes, guys. This is how this is going to work. We have 555 people that liked our Facebook page. Holy crap. As of today. Yeah, as of today. That's outstanding. We also have 26 people that wrote into the show explaining that they were not on Facebook, but they would like to be entered into the contest. What I essentially did is I added those numbers on to the 555 plus 26. We used the randomizer for numbers, random numbers, and eight numbers were drawn. And we went ahead and we just essentially went through all of our Facebook like lists plus the 26 additional requests. And we assigned a number from the first person to like the page to the last person to like the page to the first person that emailed us and the last person that emailed us to get on the list. And these are the eight names that are drawn. Now, disclaimer here, and I apologize, but if there's a prize that's won internationally here, because I don't know where anybody lives. I didn't look up anybody's profiles. the choice will be you're able to claim the prize but we're going to ask you to pay for the shipping uh shipping overseas unfortunately is not in the podcast budget for us right now not at the moment but if they're coming to expo you could maybe hand it off absolutely if you're coming to a pinball show or you know somebody else in the states we'll figure that out though so the first prize is going to be the special one late pinball podcast t-shirt we uh had had contracted brian Holderman, artist to do our Tiki Girl design. It's been a popular shirt. And the winner of that is Mr. Chuck Sherman. So Chuck, if you're listening, email us at SpecialWhenLitPinballPodcast. Actually, do this. Message us on Facebook so that we know it's you. Unless you were one of the people that emailed us, then let us know. We'll get a shirt out to you. The second prize, and it's from Deep Root Pinball. A pair of Deep Root shirts. You'll be able to pick your prize, and those will be shipping directly from Deep Root. And the winner of that dual pack of Deep Root shirts, Ryan Finn, F-I-N-N, Ryan Finn, congratulations. You are the winner of some Deep Root swag. Very awesome. Now, this third prize pack is pretty interesting because it comes from Spooky Pinball. So we appreciate the generosity. It's a beverage pack. So you have two thermal cups. You've got a bunch of beverage koozies, which kind of keep your cans and everything warm. So it's some cool swag. and you've got these little circular stands that you can adhere to different objects and it props them up. It's kind of cool. So it's like a swag bag of spooky pinball. And that's going to go out to Mr. Carl Hoffman. Carl with a C. Hoffman. Thanks for listening to the show. Message us so that we can get that swag bag out to you. The fourth prize, and this comes from Robin Kim at Lermods.com. They are a sponsor of our Drain It or Save It segment. It's a $50 gift card to any manufactured Lermods.com product. So if they build it, you can spend this gift card over there and load up the cart and grab whatever you want. And that's going to go out to Dana Reeves. So, Dana, congratulations on your Lermods.com $50 gift card. You guys are excited, right? Yeah. This is good times. This is a pretty cool prize pack. It's from American Pinball. And there's going to be two things that you're going to be getting. The first, you're going to be getting some autographed pop bumper caps that are on Oktoberfest. Very cool. which is pretty cool and those are like the little bumper cars that you see in the play field secondly you're going to receive a glass october fest stein and it's autographed by Joe Balcer and by josh kugler and i confirmed it's one of only two steins that are in existence with those autographs so those are going to be going out to you and the winner of that prize pack is mr ironically robert stein so robert stein wins the stein and it only happens on special win a pinball podcast so that's pretty cool i appreciate it the next prize pack is a pretty cool uh prize pack and that is uh scott from pin stadium uh scott's a great guy we've we've got along with scott he's done a lot of help with the streams and he's always supported the show sponsored quite a few uh times we've given stuff away well he said you know what cannon bill let me give away a set of pin stadiums to one of your lucky winners so we said you know what scott Thank you so much. And the winner of that prize pack is Ken Cromwell. No, ironically. I don't know how that worked out. No, but Scott, thank you so much. For those of you, go to pinstadium.com, check out the products. They're constantly evolving. The winner of that prize pack is Mr. Wes Bentley. So, Wes, you win a set of pin stadiums. Give us a call or give us a contact. We'll get you in touch with Scott so we can get those out to you. So very, very cool. the next prize pack we have here is an autographed christopher franchi signed trans lights can you guess what the game is for superman close well yeah you're not far off um you're close i i know what it was but i'm i'm excited for the person to win this and jealous and then why don't you why don't you tell us who it is so the winner of this prize will uh be getting a signed translate a game that is not in in existence, but there's a Translite for it. Joyce Cromwell. Joyce Cromwell. Ken's wife won. No, no. But excited for the winner of this prize. Right. So the Beetlejuice Translite signed by Christopher Franchi is going to go to Ben Williams. Ben, you win the Christopher Franchi signed Beetlejuice Translite. Contact us, and we're going to get you in touch with Chris, and he's going to direct ship that to you, because he knows if it comes here, it's not going to be leaving the house. No. The next prize pack, and I think this is a really cool prize pack, is from Jersey Jack Pinball. Now, for those of you that might not have had the opportunity to go to Pintastic this past weekend, where they had a very limited signing event with a poster promoting Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, signatures by Jack Canary, Pat Lawler, the team, and the actors that played in the movie, the kids. So this is a limited run. You cannot get this. And I asked Jack, I'm like, that's a pretty cool prize pack. How can I buy it? And he's like, dude, you can't even buy it. He's like, but we're going to give one to the Special Only Pinball Podcast. And I'm excited to give that out to Mr. Trevor Gursky. So Trevor Gursky, G-U-R-S-K-I. Contact us so that we can get that out to you. And then we're going to go to the grand prize. So here it is, the grand prize. And it's offered from Stern Pinball. And it's a Munsters Translite. Premium. The Munsters Premium Translight. Oh, is it black and white? It is. Get out of here. Very cool. I didn't know that. It's very cool. Okay. Well, it gets even cooler, though. Right. Because you've got the designer and you've got the lead programmer that have signed this. So you've got John Borg and Dwight Sullivan that have signed this Translight for the grand prize. And Dwight, would you please do the honor of letting us know. But let's do like a drum roller. And the grand prize winner is Brian Naley. Ryan Nelly. Yeah. Good job, man. I'll tell you what. All these prizes are grand. They are. All of them are awesome. I got to say, I mean, thank you guys so much. Everybody that's contributed to it. Yeah. I mean, because we had a lot of the manufacturers. They're always working with us, and we appreciate it because we like to work with them, too. And people that just reached out. Yeah. They heard about the giveaway. They're like, hey, we'd love to give stuff away. So to those people, we want to extend thanks as well. That's pretty cool. The black and white Translight. I was expecting like the pro. I know the LE Translight wasn't coming. No. Because that would be a backlash. Correct. All right. So, cool. Thank you, Dwight. Thank you. Oh, it was nothing for me. It was easy. Well, you still had to sign it. Right. Well, I signed it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was good. It was cool. So, again, Dwight, thanks for coming back in the studio for the fourth time, and we hope to have you on regularly as your schedule allows throughout the year. Anything interesting going on at Stern that you wanted to talk about? No. No. That you can talk about. Nothing I can talk about. All right. I wanted to clarify that. At the beginning of this year, right, I said lots of great things are coming from Stern, and that's still happening. Like, you know, you've seen a couple games, and you're going to see a couple more that are pretty awesome. I can't wait to see how they close out the year because we're halfway through, and I imagine we'll see another two, maybe three games, and it's exciting. I can't wait to see it. Bill, it's been a pleasure doing this for the last year with you, man, for a couple of guys. Quite a ride, man. Out of Chicagoland area that were pinball enthusiasts that decided they'd throw their hat in the podcast ring with putting up three episodes on July 1st, 2018. I think we're doing okay for ourselves. Absolutely. So, you know, honestly, Ken, it's been a pleasure. Dude, thank you very much for all the editing and all the hard work you put in. Everybody, please give Ken. Ken is the glue that holds us together. Thank you. I mean, that's just, you know, everybody should be emailing Ken. Thanks. Well, and let's pre-thank Bill because in season two, Bill's agreed to do all the editing, and I will be coming to his house for the podcast. Absolutely. Every single thing will be edited, which means everything will be unedited. But, you know, whatever. Bill's organic approach to podcasting. Air quotes. All good. It's good times, man. I think we need to wrap this up. But, you know what? It's been a great year. I have to say, everybody, enjoy your Fourth of July weekend, and thank you for being loyal listeners and keep coming back week after week and watching this thing grow. Yeah, we love it. We love corresponding. Everybody that gets in contact with us, We'd love to correspond back, and at some point we'd like to be able to sit down and play some pinball with each and every one of you. For Dwight Sullivan and Bill Webb, I am Ken Cromwell. Everybody have a good morning, good afternoon, good evening. And don't forget to take some time out of your day and play some pinball. So long, everybody. Season 2 next week.

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