# #33 Jaws?

**Source:** The Classic Pinball Podcast  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2020-07-13  
**Duration:** 57m 37s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/george272/episodes/33-Jaws-eghi7u

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## Analysis

George and Dave discuss their Fourth of July trip to New York, including delivering an 8-Ball Deluxe, a full restoration of Fishtales (with detailed repair work on the casting reel mechanism), and meeting a friendly bulldog named Jaws. They touch on recent pinball news including rumors of a Jaws pinball machine from a major manufacturer, mention Dave's recent acquisitions (Black Knight, Ice Fever, Circus Voltaire), and discuss seeing Stern Split Second and Hot Hand machines. George promotes his website pinballdoctor.com and mentions picking up a Gorgar on the way home.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] 8-Ball Deluxe had a production run of approximately 20,000 units, making it one of the highest production games Williams made, second only to Eight Ball. — _George discussing the 8-Ball Deluxe delivery, based on historical pinball manufacturing data_
- [MEDIUM] There is a rumor that one of the big manufacturers is going to come out with a Jaws pinball machine. — _George mentions this as speculation, noting the timing coincides with Fourth of July and Jaws the movie_
- [HIGH] Fishtales has a known issue where the casting reel pulley (rubber ring) wears out over time, and arcade operators often jury-rig solutions with rubber bands. — _Dave's detailed description of the Fishtales repair work in Northville, based on hands-on experience_
- [HIGH] Stern Split Second's software was never finished during a period when Stern was falling apart, resulting in missing call-outs and silence during gameplay. — _George's commentary on the condition of Split Second machines he observed_
- [MEDIUM] Titletown Pinball was forced to change its name (now called Sector 84) after the Green Bay Packers claimed trademark rights to 'Titletown'. — _George's speculation about the name change, not verified during the conversation_
- [HIGH] Dave acquired a Black Knight in home-use-only condition with a chromed lockdown bar. — _Dave confirming his recent acquisitions_
- [HIGH] Dave spent significant time (multiple nights) restoring Circus Voltaire with a full Titan rubber kit, LED upgrades, and color LED display. — _Dave describing his Circus Voltaire restoration work_
- [LOW] A Twitch streamer named Cary Hardy was banned from a manufacturer's Facebook page for saying something negative about somebody. — _George mentioning this as hearsay about pinball community drama_
- [HIGH] The drive from Poughkeepsie to Northville is approximately 3.5 hours. — _Dave describing the delivery trip timeline_
- [HIGH] Dave and George drove approximately 1,000 miles in the Cadillac SUV during the New York trip. — _George mentioning total mileage from the trip_

### Notable Quotes

> "I make them mad. I make them mad."
> — **Fonz character from Happy Days episode**, ~10:00
> _Referenced from a classic TV show clip where Fonz plays pinball; used as a humorous segue into discussion of pinball gameplay_

> "So there's a way out of this. I took that thing out. I used my soldering iron, and I made my own little flat spot in the soldering iron with a big tip."
> — **Dave**, ~35:00
> _Demonstrates Dave's MacGyver-style field repair approach to solving wear issues on Fishtales machines_

> "You got to figure, it's a lake, and who's Jaws, right? Well, Jaws would be this little bulldog that weighs 50 pounds, all muscle, and very super friendly."
> — **Dave**, ~42:00
> _Introduces the bulldog 'Jaws' that becomes the episode's namesake and provides context for Jaws pinball machine rumors_

> "Because we're going to break the rules, and we're going to do a show on that game. It's not quite a classic, it's not 25 years or older, but it's close and like you said it's a rare game."
> — **George**, ~58:00
> _Indicates the show will deviate from its classic-only format to cover Circus Voltaire in a future episode_

> "The boom and the whole sky was fireworks. Were they mortars? Mortars, yeah, mortars."
> — **George and Dave**, ~49:00
> _Describes Fourth of July fireworks experience, adding personal travel narrative to the episode_

> "It's pinballdoctor.com, all spelled out. Pinballdoctor.com."
> — **Dave**, ~60:00
> _Dave promotes his website for the first time on the podcast, a notable milestone mentioned by George_

> "Software wasn't finished. So there's call-outs in the game that aren't there because they didn't do them, so you have silence during the call-out."
> — **George**, ~67:00
> _Explains a critical technical flaw in Stern Split Second that affects gameplay experience_

> "This thing is so freaking sweet, home use only. It's worth me dumping some time and money into."
> — **Dave**, ~56:00
> _Indicates Dave's commitment to restoring Circus Voltaire despite initial intent to flip it quickly_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| George | person | Co-host of Classic Pinball Podcast, collector and enthusiast |
| Dave | person | Co-host of Classic Pinball Podcast, professional pinball technician and operator |
| Maureen | person | Assists Dave with Fishtales restoration in Northville; plays banjo |
| Jaws | person | A friendly 50-pound bulldog in Northville that repeatedly mounted guests' legs during repair work |
| Cabinet Reef | company | Restoration company that restored one of Dave's 8-Ball Deluxe machines to high standard |
| Stern Pinball | company | Major pinball manufacturer; Split Second and other recent games discussed |
| Williams | company | Classic pinball manufacturer; made 8-Ball Deluxe and other games mentioned |
| Data East | company | Manufacturer of classic pinball machines including games mentioned in context |
| Green Bay Packers | organization | NFL team that allegedly claimed trademark rights to 'Titletown,' forcing name change |
| Cary Hardy | person | Twitch streamer reportedly banned from a manufacturer's Facebook page for negative comments |
| Pinside | organization | Online pinball forum where community discussions occur |
| Classic Pinball Podcast | organization | The podcast being discussed; celebrating 1-year anniversary |
| Flashback Retro Arcade Bar | venue | New arcade and bar location on Main Street in Hyannis, Massachusetts |
| Tugboats | venue | Restaurant at Hyannis Harbor where George dined during Cape Cod trip |
| pinballdoctor.com | product | Dave's website featuring videos, pictures, and games for sale |
| 8-Ball Deluxe | game | Classic Williams pinball machine; Dave delivered one south of Poughkeepsie; ~20k units produced |
| Fishtales | game | Game in Northville that Dave spent 8 hours restoring, including casting reel repair work |
| Black Knight | game | Classic pinball machine recently acquired by Dave in home-use-only condition |
| Ice Fever | game | Recently acquired by Dave; picked up as-is, Dave improved its playability |
| Circus Voltaire | game | Rare game acquired by Dave; received extensive restoration including Titan rubber kit and LED upgrades |
| Stern Split Second | game | Rare Stern game with unfinished software; missing call-outs during gameplay |
| Hot Hand | game | Pinball machine observed on Twitch; tournament-playable according to George |
| Gorgar | game | Classic pinball machine in Western Massachusetts that Dave planned to pick up on return trip |
| Titletown Pinball | venue | Wisconsin arcade with 90 games near Milwaukee; renamed to Sector 84 after trademark dispute |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Fourth of July trip to New York, Fishtales restoration and repair techniques, Jaws pinball machine rumors, Dave's recent game acquisitions
- **Secondary:** Stern Split Second software issues, Pinball arcade venue updates, Pinball community drama and moderation
- **Mentioned:** Podcast anniversary and website promotion

### Sentiment

**Neutral** (0)

### Signals

- **[rumor_hype]** Unconfirmed rumor that a major pinball manufacturer is developing a Jaws-themed machine; speculation tied to Fourth of July timing and the classic film (confidence: low) — George states 'there's rumor that one of the big manufacturers is going to come out with a Jaws pinball machine' and notes it's 'a kid's machine' but provides no source for the rumor
- **[restoration_signal]** Dave employs MacGyver-style field repairs on Fishtales casting reel mechanism, including soldering iron modification to create custom flat spots and incorporating leaf springs into plastic gears (confidence: high) — Detailed description of soldering iron technique used to fabricate replacement parts and reinforce plastic gears with metal inserts to fix known wear issue
- **[design_innovation]** Novel temporary repair solution for Fishtales casting reel using rubber band/ring substitutes, later followed by metal reinforcement approach (confidence: high) — Dave describes discovering arcade operators jury-rigging rubber bands and developing more durable metal flat-spot solutions for common Fishtales failures
- **[product_concern]** Fishtales has a documented pattern where the casting reel pulley gear (plastic with flat spot) wears out, losing its indexing capability and requiring replacement or repair (confidence: high) — Dave identifies this as a 'known issue' with the game and plans to stock spare parts for future Fishtales servicing work
- **[product_concern]** Stern Split Second has unfinished software from the era when Stern was in financial distress, resulting in missing call-outs and silence during gameplay segments (confidence: high) — George confirms 'software wasn't finished' and describes the presence of call-out gaps where audio should exist
- **[collector_signal]** Dave is actively acquiring and restoring multiple classic games (Black Knight, Ice Fever, Circus Voltaire, Gorgar) for resale or personal collection, with selective restoration depth based on condition and intended use (confidence: high) — George asks Dave about recent acquisitions and Dave confirms multiple buys; Dave discusses restoration approach varying by game (home-use-only gets full treatment, others get partial work)
- **[venue_signal]** New arcade venue 'Flashback Retro Arcade Bar' recently opened on Main Street in Hyannis, Massachusetts, indicating continued arcade/bar market growth in New England (confidence: medium) — George notes the venue as recently opened and promotes it despite not visiting due to indoor masking policies
- **[community_signal]** Twitch streamer Cary Hardy was banned from a pinball manufacturer's Facebook page, triggering broader discussion about free speech and content moderation in pinball community (confidence: low) — George mentions the incident as hearsay about drama, but details are vague and unconfirmed; characterizes it as part of ongoing 'pinball drama'
- **[content_signal]** Classic Pinball Podcast reaches 1-year anniversary and establishes website promotion strategy (pinballdoctor.com) for first time, marking shift toward audience engagement (confidence: high) — George celebrates anniversary at episode open; discusses decision to promote Dave's website as overdue marketing step
- **[business_signal]** Titletown Pinball in Wisconsin was forced to rebrand as Sector 84 (or similar) due to trademark claim by Green Bay Packers, indicating potential IP licensing tension in arcade industry (confidence: medium) — George speculates about Green Bay Packers owning 'Titletown' trademark; notes the venue was well-regarded with 90 games in pristine condition prior to name change
- **[gameplay_signal]** Hot Hand pinball game has tournament-level appeal despite George's earlier dismissal, suggesting depth and competitive playability in tournament format (confidence: medium) — George observes Hot Hand on Twitch via Pinball Golf broadcast and reconsiders it as tournament-worthy, contrasting his earlier skepticism
- **[operational_signal]** Fishtales casting reel mechanism requires specialized knowledge and spare parts inventory for proper field maintenance; many arcade operators resort to jury-rigging due to parts unavailability (confidence: high) — Dave identifies the common workaround of rubber bands used by arcade operators lacking proper replacement parts and commits to stocking spare gears

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## Transcript

 Welcome to the first episode of the series of the most popular and most popular games of the world. The first episode of the most popular games of the world. The first episode of the Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the Classic Pinball Podcast. My name is George and I'm joined today by Dave. Hello Dave. Hello there George. Dave, I was going to start this show, well, first of all, happy anniversary. Well, thank you. It's been a great anniversary. we've been together what I think what are we doing this podcast for at least 10 or 15 years now oh wait a minute it's a year yeah a lot of fanfare anyway I was going to start the show with a reference to Stranger Things but the more I thought about it since I've never seen the show I've played the game I was going to do an inverted show where we start with the end and end up with the beginning but it got crickets when I pitched it to you, so we're not going to do that. So we're going to do like every other podcast has done in the last week, even though ours will probably be one of the last out. How was your trip to New York over the Fourth of July weekend? Very eventful. Lots of stuff. So I'll give you – I wrote down a bunch of talking points just to kind of – A lot of things went on. So first up, for that week, it's like a vacation week, I'm going to go to New York. So my car was having a couple issues, and the park finally came in on the Monday, and we were going to take off to New York on Wednesday. Like a four- or five-day adventure out there. So the guy said, well, bring it down and get a rental, and we're going to have it for a couple days anyway, or keep the rental for a week or whatever. but uh so yeah we're heading out i'll go ahead so all right brought the car down and right before i did that i said i'm going to call around to to hertz say i'm looking to get uh you know a nice suv comfy gonna haul gonna haul some stuff so and uh the hertz guy said oh no no fourth of july week no that stuff's all gone no you gotta we got a kia and a hyundai sonata and i said no no no i I need comfort. I'm driving for many miles, probably 1,000 miles in this thing. I need some comfort. Well, good luck because I don't think any Hertz is going to have any of that stuff. It's like, okay, well, that's all someone has to tell me to do is it can't be done, and that's a challenge to me, so I'm going to get it done. So I called my local Hertz guy, a smaller guy, and he said, oh, yeah, we got some big SUVs here. Yeah, come on down and take a look at them. so rent in the park a lot and i saw a vision of beauty i saw this beautiful cadillac suv uh xt5 400 and i said hmm is that one of the owners of the place or is that a rental and uh i would decide to say hey is that available oh it just came in yeah it's like okay well ear marked that for me i'm gonna go check it out went in the car looked around didn't smell like cigarette smoke and 16,000 miles on it. And sat in it. It's like, ah, this is going to be great for a nice cruiser. Comfortable and nice, nice ride. So I said, okay, that's mine. Put me down for that. Let's, let's, let's write this one up. So, uh, got in that and didn't know how powerful this thing was, but I just hit the gas a little bit. I tripped the wheels going on the parking lot. I almost peeled out. So I'm going to, I'm going to interrupt and kind of move this along a little bit. So you like the SUV. We've got to talk some pinball. We're going to lose everybody. Okay. So your first leg was to south of Poughkeepsie somewhere? Well, yeah. Yeah, going south of Poughkeepsie. Right near Poughkeepsie we had a guy contacting me. he saw my YouTube that I had for my 8-ball I've had two of them so the one on YouTube was one from a couple years ago which had a CPR and I think Cabinet Reef has really done to the nines real nice resto and that was sold, he said do I have another one well yes I do, I have my original one I've had forever, one of the first games I ever bought and I'm willing to part with it I'm kind of done with it, I have so many games now That's one of the weaklings. We're going to get to your other games. This particular gentleman or person liked the game that you delivered, I'm guessing. Oh, he did. He loved it. He was jonesing for it. It's the only game he ever wanted. He grew up playing it in laundromats in a bowling alley or something. He hasn't played any other game since. It's the only game he wants ever. it was like his grail and it's all he wants do you know on the top of your head how many of those they made i know they made a lot yeah it's one of the most highest production games they made right around 20k the only one that beat it is adam okay you're gonna you're gonna laugh at this and i don't know why it came up on my uh recording on my cable box but i recorded an episode of Happy Days with Fonzie playing a pinball. I'll put it in after this. It's actually pretty funny. He's playing Nippet. Right. There is a game and I'll reveal it in the next episode because I don't have it in front of me. In the clip I'm going to pick, I'm going to play they replace Nippet with another game. Oh. Yeah. I didn't know that either. I have no idea why it was recorded. I must have wanted to record something else on the channel, and it recorded that, but it's actually pretty topical for what we're talking about right now. Hey, Fonz. Hey, Fonz. Hey, a new machine. All right, clear the field. Don't play this machine, Fonz. You'll only get mad. Come here. Pinball machines do not make me mad. I make them mad. Right, Fonz? Get out of here. Good luck with it, Fonz. I gotta go. I'll see you later. Oh, yeah? Hold it. The Fonz is about to play a new machine. Who walks out? Nobody, Fonz. Nobody. Now, would you let me get down to business and get off the machine? You delivered that. Is there anything, you know, everything went well? No issues? It went well, yeah. It was beautiful. It went the whole drive. Um, and, um, it just until like three and a half hours drive to his place. And just when we got there, it just started, just started thunderstorming. And like, just, we were five minutes away and it started downpouring cats and dogs. It's like, oh, come on, really? So we're, and then about maybe just before pulling in his driveway, it just let up. So it was like one big cloud burst and it was over. Thank God. And, uh, got it out of there, brought it in his place, set it up. And, uh, it was all good to go. I think, was it, Maureen, was it all good to go? Did anything happen in travel with the eight ball, right? Was it all good to go or what? It was good. Okay, yeah, it was good. So you left Poughkeepsie and you drove north of Albany to Northville. And I love the comment from Maureen. You jinxed us, the banjo player. Yes. she was here she was here in banjos in the night at first we're a little bit freaked out it's like what did we get ourselves into up here what is you know we're not sure this area it seemed a little sketchy but then you know but as we acclimated and started talking people around there because it looks like it could easily become seedy and a problem area but it really was we walked at night with it with no fear around there just different houses but it just looked the whole area is like historic older all the houses are over 100 years old they're very decorative but you know some are a lot of disrepair like there was a real boom town years ago and now it's not that you know that's not uncommon for new york state they're you know for whatever reason so everybody wants to know We called it Rampy Ramster because you didn't know what game it was. What game did you repair? Oh, the game I repaired up in that lake house there, that is Fishtails. Oh, that makes all the sense in the world. Did it have Billy Bass on top? Billy Bass on top, but Billy Bass was not bassing. He was not doing his whole flapping and singing or whatever he does. I heard from another podcast that a lot of people disconnect that thing because it comes on way too often. Oh, maybe it was. I never even looked into it, really, because there was so much bigger fish to fry. Hold on. Okay. Oh, boy. You're getting real desperate. I'm here all week. So, with some guys like us who had a fishtails and you did a day spa on it, How good and or bad was it? Well, he said there were two issues he was looking to. I told him it's going to be a whole day spa thing. And typically, a lot of customers don't really know what's wrong with doing a nice day spa service. They don't get how long it takes them to do it right. So he said, oh, there's only two things that need done and maybe a little cleaning up. So I went there. It's like, yeah, okay. I fixed those two things pretty much in the first hour. It's like, but you need a lot more done of this and that. So boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. So eight hours later. Oh my, oh my. So that was long. Oh yeah. Wow. yep so uh so yeah so i found a bunch of stuff it just never was really worked on right you know so i just fixed a lot of stuff on it we basically tore the plate to the part shopped it out uh maureen was helping me of course you know taking things apart and cleaning stuff and rebuilding assemblies and oh yeah i had the macgyver apart yeah that's another thing too so so the uh the casting reel there the one that you have multiball the ball you shoot the ball this area here and it goes over and it gets in this little casting this little fishing reel thing to lock balls well what happens is there's a known issue with this game that that um there's like a little a pulley like a rubber ring pulley that's supposed to have a motor on it supposed to turn it for the next ball well as the thing gets loaded with balls it gets heavier and it can't turn it if the ring is old so what happens over the years when some other people work on it or it's in an arcade and they don't have the part, they'll put whatever they have, rubber band, whatever have you, and it works kind of a dozen. This thing wasn't working right. It was stuttering. It wasn't working right. So from the last time I worked on fishtails, maybe about a year ago, I was in a gym like that, and I used a rubber ring, and it worked for me. I was like, you know, I really need the real part. So I ordered a couple of these for the future when I see a fishtail next time and want to have this stuff on me. So I had three of these on me, and I put it in there. It worked great. but then it worked great but it didn't work great because there's this gear on there that has a flat spot well this thing was so worn out that the flat spot was gone so it was relying upon a rod inside of a circle now to turn and it wasn't really so the gears were like completely worn off worn off yeah the internal with the flat spot is supposed to like turn it there's a flat spot inside the gear for it to turn it and it's a plastic gear, of course, and the plastic thing, the flash plug got rounded out. So now that I put the proper rubber ring on there that's nice and tight, well, now it's so tight that now it doesn't want to turn at all. Now it was worse than when the jury rig thing was loose. Because when it was loose, it could grab it a little bit. Now that it's tight, it just, you know, it acts as a pulley. It binds in. Yeah, now it doesn't. Now it's like now it's not happy at all. So it's like, okay. And it's like, well, I don't have that on me. So I said, Maureen, write that down. I need to have that in my parts stash too. I need a couple of those because that's going to go bad on all the fish shells I see. I know I'll see more of those too. So I said, well, there's a way out of this. So I took that thing out. I used my soldering iron, and I made my own little flat spot in the soldering iron with a big tip. Oh, look at you, MacGyver. Now I get it. Oh, yeah. And then, again, I took some more, and I kind of molded it, and then I put it on there, and it was on pretty good. I said, no, I need better. You know what? I need like a metal flat spot to incorporate into the plastic. So I took a thick leaf swing and tucked it into where the flat spot I made with the soldering iron, the plastic, and I kind of heeded the blade into that to incorporate it into the plastic gear I just made. So now the flat spot on the I want to call it a sprocket whatever it is Now the two mating surfaces now are flat spot flat spot both metal Now it turns no problem Now it nice and strong now So now it worked like a top. It works fantastic now. Sounds like a good fix. No need for a new gear. Yeah, it was a great little meatball surgery fix, yes. Okay, so anything else with fishtails? I know from there you went to your friends down in Woodstock, But I want to come back to that In a little bit Okay Yeah we got to Come back there's more stuff happening in Northville with the fish sales And other stuff I want to end Northville and then I want to go in a different direction For a few minutes Okay So let me look at my notes Yeah oh yeah yeah Okay that's true and Marina's reminding me So, while working on that eight-hour day spa, we met Jaws. So, you got to figure, it's a lake, and who's Jaws, right? The obvious question, who's Jaws? Well, Jaws would be this little bulldog that weighs 50 pounds, all muscle, and very super friendly, which is usually good. until he's a little too friendly, especially when he likes your leg and likes to pump your leg while you're trying to work on the game. Constantly. Or me. Or Maureen's leg. Or anything in general. Okay, I got the name of our episode. It's Jaws. Jaws. And you know why, right? There's speculation. Oh, you know what? Because actually, it's the time of Jaws, the movie, 4th of July. Jaws. I watched. Never mind. Well, it's perfect. But there's rumor that one of the big manufacturers is going to come out with a Jaws pinball machine. Oh, even better. This is even better. It's a kid's machine. So, yeah. Oh, yeah. This is. See, that's why I love freeform. Okay. So, anything else? It works best. Jaws is great. So is there anything else other than your leg hurting after you got done? He kept saying, Jaws, no, get over here. And Jaws would leave, and then he'd come right back around and kind of nuzzle against your leg and start again. And then you have to freaking shake him off. It's like it was hard to keep my concentration. Oh, and no AC, by the way. And this was like 90-something degrees humid. No AC on a 100-year-old's house. Today was pretty. It was 99 degrees around here in here. I'm trying an experiment. I'm down in the basement in my office trying to record to see if it sounds any different. Sounds good on my side. You sound good, too, but that it's all how it comes out in the end. So we'll see. So is that it with Northville? No more. No more story. uh one more story uh went to this awesome little restaurant they just opened up restaurants up there a week before um so that was interesting going to the bar nice bar but the thing that was interesting is the guy behind the bar was a spitting image of jimmy fallon and i said to the guy after a beer or two i said you know i'm getting a jimmy fallon vibe it's like you know everybody says that so i got a picture with the guy um we stay later into the night because everybody you know they were all masked up of course um patrons didn't have to but of course people worked there but as we started going through it and as i basically said i really you know i'm not really down with that at all i don't really care and the staff the staff started coming to the bar regular patrons were leaving we stayed at the bar now the mass started coming down they're all chilling out he started giving free shots we started yucking up with the whole crowd there. So free drinks, free pouring, all kinds of good stuff. No one had any kind of, no one, there's no social distancing and no masking. It was just like, you're such a, you're such a homer. Anyway, that segues into what I did for the 4th of July. And I kept this from you because I knew it would be a good segment. I happened to go to Cape Cod. I stayed with my friends Jim and Sue the cleanest people in the universe that's what I hear they are that's just a fact anyway they let me out on Saturday twice I went to a place down on the Hyannis Harbor called Tugboats I've been there yeah did you get the steamers no we i don't know my friend just ordered all kinds of crap off the menu we ate like a smorgasbord i had fish tacos i had onion rings i don't know souvlaki because the guy's greek who owns it um yeah no i i didn't you know what it's funny i didn't the fish tacos i think was the only thing i ate that was out of the sea anyway so that was a great place but on saturday night we went to downtown hyannis and we ate at a restaurant outdoors there both times outdoors but like you said everybody all but to make sure that this is pinball centric for all you people who live in massachusetts there is now another arcade and bar on main street unfortunately i did not go because it was indoors and the people and my wife were not exactly down with that but to give it a plug just because flashback retro arcade bar on main street in hyannis so no parade wow that's awesome no parade which is bummer no fireworks but i do have a firework story as well we got i do two later but mine's kind of minor but we got home on saturday night and it was dark and in the distance i hear which sounded like they were going at it in lexington again um it was just loud and it was not your run-of-the-mill fireworks so my friends i said to him where do you think this is coming from and on the north side of cape cod sandy neck you can drive out there with your vehicle. He said, they must be having a fun time out there, and I want to do that. They must all just line up on the beach and bring their baskets of stuff and just go nuts because it went on. It went on and went on for at least an hour. Is that Chatham or where is that? No, that's at the elbow, so at the beginning of the Cape. sandwich i think okay sandwich sandy neck beach anyway so i didn't get to play any pinball i didn't get to shoot off any fireworks i didn't get to go to a parade but i did get to go out to eat it was a little strange but afterwards not too bad so go ahead yeah the weird thing is the story now's the time to insert it all right firework story so this is when we're down after fishtails now we're all down with the pinball work now we're heading to heading to heading to Karen country but before we hit Karen country in Woodstock, New York we went to Kingston see our friends of 30 years and went on their boat in the Hudson River oh cool went swimming boating what's that say again going on the Hudson in a boat yeah oh yeah hudson boat awesome fourth of july uh chilling doing uh yeah getting in the water there was great very refreshing uh i can see why this why they say oh you should have a life preserver on because once that tide turns oh you're you're going out you want swimming back to the boat and so so the tide started turning it's like i started floating away from the boat and i grabbed onto the line there's a rope line they put out there and you're pulling yourself back in kind of like you're playing tug-of-war. You know? So that sounds like a lot of fun. Oh, a lot of fun. I got so tired of that I had a good sleep after that one. Did you like fireworks or you saw fireworks? No, we went to the next day. Oh, that night. Nappy time. Then at night went to their daughter's house. Our goddaughter. Scott married. Kid, blah, blah, blah. but had a nice house, and they have redneck neighbors behind them who had one of those Bobcats and some other stuff and a trailer and a four-wheeler and a bunch of stuff they're hauling out in the backyard. Way in the backyard, we see him in the dusk out with tiki torches, and they say, what's going on? So Alex is the guy, Goddard's husband, and he starts playing all this kind of patriotic music. He starts playing, and I said, hey, you got any Skinner? I want to have some confederate stuff here let's do some cool confederate stuff for the rednecks over there so I started yelling out I yelled out Skinner and they went yeah so we put in some Skinner I am America America they love that too these fireworks are like the real professional real deal when he shot them up they're like boom the whole sky above them the firework. It's the report or the boom afterwards. Oh, yeah, the whole thing. The boom and the whole sky was fireworks. Were they mortars? Mortars, yeah, mortars. Yeah, this guy had some kick-ass stuff. I don't know where he got them from, but yeah, he... I don't know, either Pennsylvania, I think. I think he got them in Pennsylvania. I think so. But they weren't the wimpy ones. I think all you can get in New York is the You know, the fountain one. Light a fountain with some sparks coming out. Like, who cares? You know, I want some real deal. You're not even allowed to have them. You would never have thought that in a million years on Fourth of July. Yeah, you know, well, this is where we started our country, but this is where we're going to end it too, I guess. Not with a bang, but a whimper. I'm just telling you, it was loud and it was long. Let's talk about recent news. news. I'll go with the things you don't care about. I'm sure you don't care about Hot Wheels and you don't care about Teenage Ninja Mutant Turtles or whatever they're called. Could I guess about those? I care because normally we'd be going to a show and I'd be able to play them and then say something about them even though we do a classic broadcast. At least I could comment on them. Now you can't even comment on them. What are you guys doing? She's giving me more pointers of different things I didn't talk about. She's giving me more talking points as I go. She's kind of reminding me. Well, we're at half an hour. I don't know how many more talking points you're going to have, but we'll keep going. Here we go. Well, you can always cut these things up into other – Yeah, I can always cut them up. Of course I can. Yeah. Easy for you to say. So basically you don't care about either one of those games, which is fine. I know you know about Kaneda. We kind of talked about that. You think conspiracy, don't you? No, no, no, no, no. I've seen other people do think it. Actually, it's funny. I'm watching people on Pinside that usually are the type that make fun of conspiracies, and these are the same guys that are calling this a conspiracy. It's funny to watch. I thought at first it was, but now I don't. I don't think it is. I think it's a real deal. I don't think it's coming back. I think he's done. Yeah. But he's not the only one. There are others, and I don't know. You ever watch this guy, Cary Hardy? He's got a Twitch channel. I don't know. A lot of people reference him. I think I've watched him once. He doesn't do anything for me. but I guess he got banned for saying something bad about somebody. Whatever. I don't know. On Pinside? No, one of the manufacturers on a Facebook page or I don't know. Drama. You know, pinball drama. Yeah. Well, you know, free speech is supposed to be guaranteed of unpopular speech, but I guess we forgot about that stuff. Yeah, that's the interview I've been pitched. But anyway. we're celebrating Independence Day and Independence Week but we're not at the same time now we're going to get really deep in pinball I'm going to ask you about three machines and if I missed one please interject which one I missed I think you've acquired the following a Black Knight, an Ice Fever, and a Circus Voltaire Did I miss any? Recent acquirers, you're saying? Recent acquirers? Well, we haven't recorded in a month, so. Right. Okay. One was getting close the Black Knight but you had not yet picked it up Yeah Black Knight I got that Homey solely sweet gorgeous shape even has a chromed lockdown bar That nice Ice Fever very nice shape Picked that up. Picked it up as build. It's not really working, but it actually was working, and I made it work even better. I'm kind of selling it as is, kind of not restored, but you know me, kind of OCD. As soon as I set it up and I put it up for sale, I just can't help but working on it because I can't stand letting something go that's not working well. So I just put some free labor into that. Your OCD kicked in like it always does. I know you can't wait that long. I can't, you know. But I'm not going to give the thing away either. I'm not giving it away. It's like, no, this is a decent working game now, so you're going to pay. You're not going to pay like a minty restored game, but you're still not going to pay like it's a piece of crap and a barn either. So, you know, I want to get through it. I think the best one out of the lot in my eyes is that Circus Voltaire. I've been doing some homework on that, and I do like Black Knight, but that looks like a pretty cool game. That's a very cool game. In fact, I was going to flip it kind of quick, but then I set it up, and it's like, you know, this thing is so freaking sweet, home use only. It's worth me dumping some time and money into. So I spent a couple nights on it, just tweaking things a little bit. I already did a whole Titan rubber kit on it, cleaned it, and then I said, well, it'd be really nice to put a color LED in it, full color LED, put that in there, LED display. You've done enough of a tease. You know why? Why? Because we're going to break the rules, and we're going to do a show on that game. Yeah, why not? It's worthy. it's a rare game why not no but we break the rules it's not quite a classic it's not 25 years or older but it's close and like you said it's a rare game and you got one so we're going to take the opportunity sometime in the future don't know when but it brings me to something we've never done before well maybe we have you've kind of done it on pin side but i don't know if we've ever done it on a podcast. Do you want to give your internet address for people to go see the games and see your website and everything else? That's a darn good idea. I don't know why I didn't think of that before. It only took us a year and it was all... That's kind of my next segment. I'll talk about that in a minute. I listen to a lot of cool podcasts and a lot of cool YouTube stuff. not pinball stuff really, but other stuff I'm really into. And they're always like Win Schilling at the end of the stuff. Oh, check us out on blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, all the time. And I never quite dawned on me to do it on our podcast. It's like, I don't know. I'm good anyway. I don't really need to add any extra stuff. But, you know, but why not? You know, why not put it out there a little bit? So, yeah, it's pinballdoctor.com, all spelled out. Pinballdoctor.com. Okay, good. Well, you know, you've got videos and pictures, you've got all kinds of stuff out there. So that leads me into, we're going to come back to Voltaire. We're not going to talk about the games. I'll update what I saw of some games because I'm good for that. You know, Serp and the Net. I saw two Stern games that I would like, but again, what did one of the podcasts say? I wish it was closer. don't you hear that all the time i wish it was closer yeah i wish you were close but you know what i thought you're wondering closer i wish yeah you wonder yeah but is is that all that's like you know is that real you know it's more like whatever but it's an excuse seriously on both of these i wish they were because one was and we've talked about this game once before after I went to InDisc. Stern Split Second. It looked like a pretty decent game. The back glass might have been a little suspect, but not bad. For $1,000 and $10.50. I thought that was cheap. Yeah, so you know, for that game... It's a rare game. It's a rare type of game. I don't know, again... The reason, the problem with that game, the software was never finished. It was made during when Stern was falling apart. Software wasn't finished. So there's call-outs in the game that aren't there because they didn't do them, so you have silence during the call-out. We know somebody, and maybe someday he'll get there. Yeah, you know, that's true. That would be a game to do, and that you could put your own mark on. That's true. Good point. I'm surprised he hasn't done it already. Well, that's one. And then I saw, and, man, I'm going to start hitting him again. I watched a pin golf on Twitch and one of the games was Hot Hand. And I know you're not a big fan of it. Remember I saw one a while back. But that is a cool game. I like it. If that was in a tournament somewhere, I would definitely enjoy playing that in a tournament format. That would be kind of fun to play. So that was, it used to be called Titletown Pinball pinball in somewhere near Milwaukee. And I think the Green Bay Packers came at him and said, eh, not allowed to call yourself that. So now they're called like Sector 84 or some, I don't know. Always though, Miss Titletown. Great place, 90 games, pristine condition. What's wrong with Titletown? I think it's a registered trademark by the Green Bay Packers football team. Oh, because they own the title. Somebody must own the rights to that name. I don't know who it is. I didn't look it up. It doesn't matter. Trust me, it's a brand. You probably have to pay to use that phrase. I have two more games to tell you about when you're ready so on the way home from this huge New York trip we put on about a thousand miles in the caddy by the way on the way home I've had so many people call me about different games blah blah blah so this one there's a Gorgar. He's out in Western Massachusetts. And I have an empty Cadillac now with, you know, a bunch of parts and whatever. But I have room for a game because I had a room on the way out. I have room on the way back. So I called the guy and said, hey, we're coming back from New York. And if you want, I can pick up your Gorgar and work on it. Oh, that'd be great because I want to spend a couple months anyway. I'm going to be doing a game room. I'm going to do a whole basement refurb and blah, blah, blah. And I can use the game to get out of here anyway. How long has the game gone? he wants it gone he wants it all done up nice you know he's you know willing to throw some money at it to make it nice and it's perfect timing it's like great so i went over there and then here's the kicker oh boy hold on this is great timing now we have mr street sweeper coming back here i love this guy my favorite keep going dude keep going good he's gonna make the round there you go keep going all right here he goes all right he's gone um sorry where was i so Gorgar. So he said, come on by. Come on by. No problem. So it's like, we're a half hour away. We're in Lee. We'll be there a half hour. So he's in Westfield. So he said, oh yeah, so I'm the house. You'll see it's only the state trooper car in the driveway. State trooper car? Okay. He's a state cop. You know? It's like, okay. So go in. Go there. It was weird, though. It's like, pulling up next to the state trooper's car it's like you just get this feeling it's like am i okay am i gonna am i doing something illegal or whatever am i gonna be all right you know so well from years ago you know my misspent youth doing you know right yeah whatever lighting off illegal fireworks i get it yeah yeah whatever you know kinds of you know things all kinds of fun and frivolity all kinds of fun. Fun is sometimes illegal fun, but it's still fun nonetheless. So, nice young guy, you know, brand new kid, blah, blah, blah. And he told me about the game. He owned it with his father and this and that. And he said that I guess the people that had it before, they had to get rid of it because their children ran out of the room when they saw the Gorgar in the back. They got scared. They had nightmares. Yeah, that's not a real family-friendly game unless it's Satan. It's like Satan on the back, of course. I said, kids are very perceptive. They're fresh from source, so they know good and evil. And they see that, they go, that's not good. So I said, when I get it back to you, why don't you put a giant big happy face over the Gorgar head? Maybe it'll make it better. So we loaded it up, got it out of there. And I didn't have a two-wheeler with me. we had to bring it out of a bulkhead, but I said, okay, we can do it. We can, we can carry this thing and carry it out. I took the play field out and I, and I, we, so play field out. We just empty cabinet out, head out and play field out later and put it all together, put the car. Now it's back here. That's welcome. Welcome to my world. Yes. I know it well. Take it out in pieces unless you want a hernia. Yeah, see, this is the beauty, another beautiful thing about the classic game. Classic games you can take apart to make it so easy that you and your wife can get the game out of any problem, any area, because it's a light box instead of like a heavy thing. A ramp game with the head you fold down to a 350-pound monster, it's a backbreaker. You know, so many people, older people that have ramp games, they get like back problems, sciatica, whatever, from moving these things around. and I can see why unless you buy one of those what are they called? Escalera? Escalera. Yeah, you know, but if you get one of those you need to get a van. Zach Manny? Zach, I don't know who's that. The guy who has a podcast and sells them. Okay. So you need a van because John Davis said you should get one of those, Dr. Davis. I know, I'm just going to hire. I know two young guys. They're 20 years old. they're built like you know brick s houses they can help me i'll throw them a couple little bit of dough and they help me move all this heavy equipment the light stuff maureen i can handle but the heavy stuff no i need to bring the big guns yeah actually they're maureen's landscapers i hire the landscapers to move pinball machines it's fantastic i pay them up painters guys who have big arms perfect and we know them through pj my friend pj we know him yep so so the last game on the list, the most recent acquire is an Indiana Jones I just picked up. Oh, look at you. Because I am all about ramp games. You know me. I love the ramp. You are becoming... I'm going to have to think about that. I want to think of a good one. But you are kind of becoming Dr. Dave's Pinball Warehouse. Yeah, I am. That actually might be the right name. It might be. Well, anybody that's followed us has heard this before and seen the pictures, so there's no mystery there. Yeah, I mean, I thought I had more before, but I actually had to take down, I had like two games in Chime Central recently. I had a Flight 2000 and I had my Kingpin that I bought from Maine recently and I restored that up, the old Kingpin Gottlieb 73. Beautiful shape, home use only. and I had to take them both down to make room to pack all these games in there to store them to have more room for the Indiana Jones and whatever else was coming in. So this guy called me. He sounded kind of rough and tumble. His wife, his new wife for a couple of years, they owned this game forever for 20 years or so. He said it's in gorgeous shape, but this guy's not a pinball guy. I was like, well, I need some pictures. He gave me some faraway pictures of it. I looked at it. It's like, well, okay, it looks pretty good. But I couldn't really tell. It's like, well, it might have battery damage. It might have this. It booted up, but it had factory-setting restore, which means the batteries are dead. Are they leaky? I don't know. So I offered him kind of a low price for it because I really don't have room for it. I said, I need to buy this right because I don't really know what I'm dealing with. So we worked out a price that was agreeable to both of us. But he sounded very, you know, He was very rough and tumble, very gruff kind of guy, you know, so I didn't know what to expect. So I took the road trip downtown Rhode Island and met my two movers were down there. And the beautiful, beautiful place he had, like nice, you know, sculptured gardens and grounds and nice house. And he said, no, I'm done with this house. we're moving to a beautiful house in Arizona, which is on the border of Mexico, like about, what, 10 miles away. And it's a gorgeous house, but it looks like it's all cement on the outside. It looks like nothing. On the inside, he's showing a picture. The inside is gorgeous. But anyway, so as we're down there, he's like, I can just tell he's kind of nervous and whatever, and it's like, if I'm going to pay him or not, or if I'm going to do what I say. Oh, yeah, it's like, you know, I'm looking at the game and say, oh, yeah, here, here, count this. And he counted up and said, oh, okay, we're good. So here's where it got kind of weird. So as I'm packing it up and so forth, and my guys were moving it out of there, and it was a real B getting it up out of a bulkhead Indiana Jones one of the heaviest games they made And these two guys are having a problem They strong They were probably lifting up those stairs on my two getting it out of the bulkhead. And I had to help him push at the end. I was talking to him for a while. I was like, hey, can you help? Sure, I'll help. Push it up there. We finally got it out. The guy had to take a, this 20-year-old had to take a break. He was like panting hard. I was like, no, take a break, dude. You know, so later on, so the guy told me, the owner, he said, oh, yeah, no, I used to work at the prison down here. You know, he's an ex-Marine. I think he's 60 years old. He's bald, but he's got, like, he's got guns on him. He's all, you know, beefed up and so forth. Definitely can handle himself, you know. And it looks like if I gave him a problem, he was ready to handle me, you know, if I was going to be a problem. so what was the issue so what happened well the issue was so one of the guys i was with uh is a gun enthusiast okay one of my mover guys he's all about you know he goes to shooting ranges knows all the guns fishing guns he's uh he says did you see what the guy was packing i go what he's talking about he said he was open carrying he was open carrying like a 44 magnum or something on his side i didn't notice it at all but he was ready to freaking go if i was going to get a problem yeah i have no idea that'll make somebody nervous yeah i didn't see it at all i didn't even see it you know yeah if you're not if you're not looking oh and so i kind of knew that he was like you know ready for anything because when i shook his hand at the end and oh by the way again another person with no mask no nothing he said came right at me and shook my hands like oh cool cool guy shake hand not worry about anything at all great my kind of guy and i and I shook his hand again at the end, but I had one of these tools in my hand to, um, it was like a sharp tool. And I, and I shook his hand with that tool in hand. It's all, I'm sorry. I stabbed you. He's like, no, not the first time I've been stabbed. No worries. He's, he's, he works in a prison. He's been stabbed before. Okay. Well, we're going to end, we're going to end on that. For the past several years, I've been getting some great emails from customers, potential customers, and just those expressing love of pinball and what it's meant to them over the years. So it's going to be a mail segment called Dear Dr. Dave. Dear Dr. Dave, Seven years ago, I moved in with my dad, who was 88 and living with Alzheimer's. His three Pimmel machines weren't my first priority, but I'm slowly getting caught up with projects, and I'm ready to tackle this one. All three were working in the mid-80s and 90s. They'd been inside a no-humidity, even-temp room, but it's been a few years. We loved them as kids, and if circumstances were different, I'd keep them and see if I could get someone to get them working again for us. My niece and nephew would have a blast, but I can't afford a refurbish. and I really probably need to sell them. I don't want them to deteriorate, and frankly, money is in short supply around here at the moment. Or, should I keep them for my 7-year-old nephew who drools over them and claims he is destined to be an electrical engineer? I'd have a long wait. So, how would be the best way to advertise and sell them? Do you know anyone reputable in the Los Angeles area? Maybe even northern LA? I have no idea how to evaluate condition or price, so will need to rely on someone for a fair offer. I'll need to dust them off and take some pics, but from what I see online, they are a 1978 Atari Superman, an 82 Bally Mr. and Mrs. Pacman, and an 84 William Space Shuttle. I appreciate any advice you can give. Might take less of your time if you were to call, just reaching out especially to you because your video really grabbed me. All the best, even if you don't have time to respond, Nancy. So, I'm going to reach out to Nancy later today and have a nice chat with her and hear some history of the games and it should be a good conversation. I did send a quick email back to her, and I heard that she said back to me as well. I'll be giving her a call as well later today but she wrote back it's so great to hear back from you Dr. Dave thank you the sounds made me so happy of that Superman pinball machine I felt like a kid listening to that I think I'll show it to my dad and see if it responds see if it rings the bell with him looking forward to talking with you Nancy so these are just one of the many emails I get really heartwarming stuff and makes this restoration gig I have really worth it. Okay, so this is the first leg of our tour. And now Nancy gave the Dear Dr. Dave letter, a very nice letter she sent me. And I said, well, listen, I can't talk to you at length now because I'm busy. I'm always busy doing something with pinball or whatever, and I have very little time to talk on the phone at length. and said, listen, I'm going to be on the road for many hours coming up soon. In about a couple of days, can I call you then? She said, oh, yeah, sure, whatever you want at your convenience. It would be great if you could give me a call. So I called her. I had a three-and-a-half-hour trip ahead of me. I called her up. She goes, oh, I'm so glad to talk to you. This is great. And I talked with her for like an hour and a half. And she was wonderful. I mean, she's in L.A., California. She is a – what is she, Maureen? she's a uh what does she do hold on i got it written down somewhere here hey hey easy girl hey man i got it written down i got it my little notes here oh she oh she is a music okay so nancy is a music director at caltech uh and she does a lot of uh and she sings and she's a choir director so we started talking and talking and talking about pinball and talking about um all kinds of stuff and i was telling her giving her pinball advice about the game she has about selling them and she wanted to know about um you know who she can hook up with to to sell the games and so i said well you know if i was closer i'd help you but so i gave her you know some insight about pin side and going on there to do some research and asking for local people there that can they I can either restore her games or she can sell them directly on Pinside as they sit and, you know, what they're worth and so forth. I gave her an idea of what they're worth. I kind of gave her a good ballpark range for each one of her games. And then we started talking and I don't know how it came to conversation, but it's like, yeah, you know, because I could tell she was into choir and into her church stuff. And I said, well, me too. And I said, you know, I wouldn't mind doing like some kind of pinball Bible study sometimes. Oh, that'd be great. Let's do that sometime. I have two nieces and nephews that would love that. Oh, you do? Yeah, yeah, you do it. Do it. Let me know. So it's like, all right. So she goes, we'll be all yours. And I want to be on it, too. We'll be all your students. It's like, okay. So it was very, I don't know, it was cool and weird at the same time. It just seemed that, I don't know, she just seemed, we gelled nicely together. We were on the same page on a lot of stuff. And she was in L.A. You figure California, L.A., you figure it's way left of center, but she wasn't. She was the other way. She was a little right of center. So I sent you a picture of a game I remember as a kid called Crook's Saloon. Do you remember the picture I sent you? I saw the picture, but I don't remember that. I remember other games that kind of liked that, but not that one. That particular game was made by a company out of California, good segue, called Dale Engineering in 1957. It was a dime game. And the cool thing about that game was, you're going to like this, it's got a six-pound solenoid for the gun. Yeah. It mimics a machine gun. so the barrel goes in and out and vibrates the whole gun mechanism it acts just like a tommy gun it is so cool that would never fly today and i love it because but the other cool thing about it is it had the analog dial for the score which i thought was very, very period specific. And then they had two different versions of the game. A six window and a ten window. And they must have had some kind of solenoid that popped the crook into the window. And then however the gun neck worked, you'd shoot that guy and he'd then retract back into the window and somebody would pop up in another window. I used to love that game. It was a timed game and you got What did it say? 250 shots in 30 seconds. You know who could find that game? I bet you it's PJ's brother, Stu. He likes working on that stuff. He loves that stuff. If you ever want one, he could get it for you. Yeah, if he had a lot of stacks. You're going to die when I tell you how much this game. All right, let me take a guess. I want to stab at it. I'm going to say, let's see, if I shoot for the stars, I'm going to say $10,000, but it can't be $10,000. So I'm going to say $5,000. Yeah, you're right in the middle. $3,000 to $6,000 at auction. I don't know what it went for, but I can tell you point blank, I only remember the one place I played it when I was a kid in New Jersey at my local arcade at the Jersey Shore. How many did they make? Don't know. Couldn't find. There's not a lot of information on the game, just some really cool pictures. but I remember I tried to describe this game to you before and I just couldn't do it because I didn't have that much of a recall on it but after seeing the picture I remember that game very very very well I love playing that game I know it's not pinball but I couldn't pass it I saw the picture somebody was fishing for one on pin side or on facebook marketplace and I kept saying to myself, wow, I hope you'll find one. I don't know how many there would be. That's a classic. That'd be a cool game to have. I'd play that. That'd be great. Oh, if you had a really nice game room and you had something different like that, I mean, that's totally different than other gun games that are all in a cabinet. This thing, it had that weird pipe in between where the gun was and an extension rod from where you would shoot. It was It was just a really cool game Well I remember as a kid Playing Rocky Point Park in Rhode Island They had a great game room in there And you played rollercoaster and so forth But the game room was great I remember the gun games they had there It would be like a movie screen And I think Either a regular holstered Six shooter or a rifle I forget And you'd bring it up and it said When the eyes flash on the screen, shoot You know, so you do a whole little scene of a movie, and the guy, the gunslinger, would be looking right at you, and he's about to draw, and his eyes would flash really quick, and that's when you would, like, bring your gun up and shoot him, because he's about to draw on you. I don't remember that game. That would be a cool one. That was probably from, I'm going to say, you know, mid-'70s somewhere. Oh, you know When you've got it But you don't know Where it's from It hurts to talk It hurts to talk And I can't even breathe Finding drugs In the drugs So many to choose from I don't know To go to the doctor Or stay right here And watch the tube I feel down, down, down I feel down, down, down

_(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: e9f61ad9-3b6e-4296-bcc3-7694677c5ab9*