# 032 - Vermont, Duluth, Chicago: PRPA Events Everywhere | Plus Star Wars vs. Harry Potter

**Source:** Punk Rock Pinball Podcast  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2026-01-26  
**Duration:** 38m 11s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://share.transistor.fm/s/2f8ba373

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## Analysis

Punk Rock Pinball hosts discuss upcoming PRPA tournaments across multiple states (Vermont, Minnesota, Ohio, Illinois), announce an April event featuring the band Off With Their Heads at their HQ with pinball tournament and live show, share their enthusiasm for Star Wars Fall of the Empire pinball over Harry Potter, and update leaderboard standings where Cat Davis and Joe Sharp tie for first place.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Star Wars Fall of the Empire is superior to Harry Potter as a pinball game in terms of code, modes, and player engagement — _Stephanie and Mike play Fall of the Empire extensively and directly compare it to Harry Potter, praising the integration of movie clips, C-3PO callouts, and Andrew Wilkening's code work_
- [HIGH] Cat Davis has played in 19 of 40 PRPA tournaments and is tied for first place with Joe Sharp at 248 points — _Stephanie reads directly from PRPA leaderboard data during the episode_
- [HIGH] Spooky Pinball is working on Planet of the Apes pinball — _Stephanie mentions 'we all know Spooky's working on Planet of the Apes' in context of Corey Grimm's AI joke post_
- [MEDIUM] Pokemon Pinball will likely be revealed at Pinball at the Zoo or Pinball at the Beach — _Mike and Stephanie speculate on when Pokemon will be announced, comparing to previous years' reveal patterns_
- [HIGH] Off With Their Heads band event ticket sales are limited to 20 tickets at $50 each, including show entry and t-shirt — _Mike states ticket details explicitly during event discussion_

### Notable Quotes

> "Cat Davis, you are a fucking maniac"
> — **Stephanie**, ~mid-episode
> _Reaction to Cat Davis's tournament participation rate (19 of 40 events), highlighting dedication to PRPA circuit_

> "it's a thousand times better than harry potter it's not even close it's not even close harry potter is not even close to this game"
> — **Stephanie**, near end
> _Direct comparison of Fall of the Empire vs Harry Potter game quality, praising code and mode design_

> "go get bent"
> — **Mike**, near end

> "we all know Spooky's working on Planet of the Apes"
> — **Stephanie**, mid-episode
> _Confirms Spooky's unreleased Planet of the Apes project as known industry information_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Punk Rock Pinball Association (PRPA) | organization | Tournament organizing body hosting competitive pinball events across multiple states with leaderboard-tracked points system |
| Cat Davis | person | Top PRPA competitor tied for first place with 248 points after playing in 19 of 40 tournaments |
| Joe Sharp | person | PRPA player ID #2, tied for first place with 248 points after 11 tournaments |
| Shelly Sharp | person | PRPA competitor in third place, played in 13 tournaments |
| Kevin Johnson | person | PRPA player in sixth place who recently defeated host on Fall of the Empire (700M vs 100M score) |
| Stephanie | person | Co-host of Punk Rock Pinball Podcast, PRPA tournament player (12 events), number 4 ranked |
| Mike | person | Co-host of Punk Rock Pinball Podcast, PRPA organizer and tournament player |
| Marshall | person | Co-host of Punk Rock Pinball Podcast (appears briefly at episode end) |
| Spooky Pinball | company | Pinball manufacturer in development of Planet of the Apes pinball game |
| Off With Their Heads | organization | Punk rock band scheduled to perform at Punk Rock Pinball HQ on April 18 with embedded pinball tournament; singer Ryan Young creates PRPA merchandise |
| Star Wars Fall of the Empire | product | Stern pinball game recently added to PRPA HQ, praised by hosts for code quality and player engagement |
| Harry Potter Pinball | product | Jersey Jack Pinball game criticized by hosts as inferior to Fall of the Empire in code, modes, and clarity |
| Pinball Co-op | organization | Venue in South Burlington, Vermont hosting first PRPA tournament in Vermont on January 25 |
| Rob Burke | person | Owner of Past Times Arcade in Girard, Ohio; organizes Pinball Expo in Chicago area in fall |
| Planet of the Apes | product | Unreleased Spooky Pinball game in development, subject of AI-generated joke post by Corey Grimm that received 27,000 reach |
| Andrew Wilkening | person | Code programmer on Star Wars Fall of the Empire alongside Raymond Davidson |
| Raymond Davidson | person | Code programmer credited with strong work on Star Wars Fall of the Empire |
| Corey Grimm | person | Community member from Galesburg who posted AI-generated Planet of the Apes pinball joke that reached 27,000 people |
| Pinball at the Zoo | event | Annual pinball tournament April 16-18 where Pokemon pinball might be revealed; hosts considering attending |
| Bells and Chimes | organization | Women's pinball league with Madison/Middleton event scheduled |

### Topics

- **Primary:** PRPA Tournament Expansion, Star Wars Fall of the Empire vs Harry Potter Game Comparison, Off With Their Heads April Event
- **Secondary:** Pokemon Pinball Speculation and Anticipation, Spooky Pinball Planet of the Apes Development, Punk Rock Pinball Podcast Infrastructure and Streaming, PRPA Leaderboard Updates
- **Mentioned:** Community Content and AI-Generated Jokes

### Sentiment

**Positive** (0.78) — Hosts are enthusiastic about PRPA tournament growth and Fall of the Empire game quality. Brief somber moment discussing Minneapolis political situation, but overall tone returns to upbeat discussion of events and games. Strong positive sentiment about band collaboration and pinball community.

### Signals

- **[event_signal]** PRPA tournaments rapidly expanding across multiple states (Vermont, Minnesota, Ohio, Illinois) with regular weekly events at PRPA HQ (confidence: high) — Hosts list upcoming tournaments: Vermont Pinball Co-op (1/25), Minnesota Blacklist Brewing (1/29), Ohio Past Times Arcade (1/29), Illinois venues (1/29), Chicago Pin Golf (1/30)
- **[sentiment_shift]** Strong community support for Pokemon Pinball reveal, with hosts preparing merchandise (hat) and discussing potential dual-edition variants (confidence: medium) — Hosts mention Pokemon hat purchase and anticipation for reveal; speculation about Pikachu/Charizard editions; hosts excited about potential to purchase multiple editions
- **[competitive_signal]** Cat Davis leads PRPA circuit by event participation (19 of 40 tournaments) despite tied points with Joe Sharp, suggesting participation metrics matter in competitive standings (confidence: high) — Stephanie notes 'if the tiebreaker is the number of events. So really, I feel like Cat should be in first place. If we're doing a national championship today, Cat's the top seed'
- **[design_philosophy]** Fall of the Empire's success attributed to code quality, mode design, and integrated narrative (C-3PO callouts, movie clips) rather than playfield layout alone (confidence: high) — Hosts emphasize 'what makes a pinball game' is execution/audio/clips, not layout; 'the layout shoots nice but it's a good layout it is not a great layout' but everything else elevates it
- **[event_signal]** Punk Rock Pinball HQ preparing streaming infrastructure with Rodecaster Pro mixer, webcams, and edited studio space to launch live podcast and pinball tournament streaming (confidence: medium) — Hosts discuss setting up 'little lav mics', hanging Stern banners as backdrop, acquiring LED lighting, and having CJ build a 'stream team' for pinball tournament coverage
- **[leak_detection]** Corey Grimm's AI-generated Planet of the Apes pinball joke post received 27,000 reach, with community confusion about whether it was real leak vs satire (confidence: high) — Post reached 27,000 people, 63 comments, many thought it was real announcement; Stephanie confirms 'we all know Spooky's working on Planet of the Apes' making it clearly satirical to insiders
- **[community_signal]** Off With Their Heads (punk band) collaborating with PRPA on April 18 event combining live show, merchandise, and pinball tournament (confidence: high) — Band members will play in 2v2v2 pinball tournament brackets against PRPA members; lead singer Ryan Young already creates official PRPA merchandise
- **[sentiment_shift]** Star Wars Fall of the Empire receiving strong community reception and changing host opinions despite initial pinfluencer criticism (confidence: high) — Stephanie states 'it reinforces why I chose it as the best pinball machine of 2025' and 'everyone at the Punk Rock Pinball HQ is loving the Fall of the Empire'; guests unprompted praise code and engagement
- **[rumor_hype]** Pokemon Pinball expected reveal at Pinball at the Zoo (April 16-18) or Pinball at the Beach, continuing pattern of major event announcements (confidence: medium) — Mike states 'I think it's going to be at Pinball at the Zoo, where they revealed Kong last year' and 'or Pinball at the Beach, maybe'
- **[licensing_signal]** Star Wars Fall of the Empire successfully integrates movie footage clips and John Williams music, creating strong theme immersion (confidence: high) — Hosts praise 'the clips are great' and note 'The Jaws layout is superior, but the way the game sucks you in with the clips and the modes and the audio and the whole package it's andrew wilkening okay and raymond davidson crushed it'

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## Transcript

 Hello. Hi. How are you doing? I'm good. It's so weird. I sit here and I feel like I'm not in the camera shot, but I know I am. Yeah. Yeah. Marshall's back with his chair. He's just moaning. He's moaning about it. He just has dinner. It's cold here. Here we are, another episode. I don't even know what the number is. I think it's maybe number 32, the Punk Rock Pinball Podcast number 32. Okay. Okay. I'm Stephanie. I'm Mike. This is Marshall. We're the hosts of the show. Marshall is leaving. Okay, he'll come back. He'll come back. He just gave stink eye to us. He gave us a dirty look. He's sensitive. He's not feeling it. He's not feeling it. It's okay. He'll come back. Yeah. He'll come back or we'll just have this empty chair. Only time will tell. We'll see. So what are we going to talk about today? Well, Kevin. we have a lot of events coming up punk rock pinball association tournaments being played there were some yesterday i can't even remember all where but people haven't entered the results yet so i don't know but what's today this is the 25th this episode is going to come out on the 26th but just happening right now today actually probably happened already today it was like a Nooner, the Bows and Chimes Madison up in Middleton, Wisconsin, had an event. That's cool. A PRPA event. Tomorrow is the first ever Punk Rock Pinball Association tournament in Vermont. VT? Yeah. South Burlington VT. Classic flip frenzy at the Pinball Co-op. That is tomorrow. 1-881 Wilson Road, number three, the Pinball Co-op, South Burlington, Vermont. So if you're in Vermont or near there, you can go get some proper points. Mm-hmm. Uh-huh. Mm-hmm. Get those propers. Later this week, we've got our league at the HQ on Thursday. Yep. I think it's the fourth one. Oh, and then on the 29th, there's also Galesburg, Illinois at Artisan Ales. That's cool. In Galesburg. You can get some propers out there. Go see Luke. The same day. Thursday's a big day. You got our weekly league here. Wednesday is also Bells and Chimes. Wednesday's Bells and Chimes out here. Why is that not on this? Shelly. Shelly. I got no bells and chimes on my upcoming punk rock pinball events list. What the hell, Shelly? She's busy. I know. Also on Thursday in Crete, Illinois, Evil Horse Brewing Monthly Tournament in Crete, Illinois. That's at 6.15 p.m. Get out there. Get your propers. Also Thursday the 29th, Balls at Blacklist in Duluth, Minnesota. Whoa. Is that the first Minnesota one or maybe the second one? That's on 206 East Superior Street, Blacklist Brewing Company in Duluth, Minnesota. I feel bad for what's going on in Minnesota right now. Totally. And it's a tough day to make this episode. Yeah, yes. To be quite frank. I don't want to make a political episode, but I don't support what the government is doing in Minneapolis, Minnesota. At all. At all. So do with that what you will, but... I don't even know what to do. I'm not into it. I don't even know what to do. I don't think anybody knows what to do. And everyone's feed is filled with stuff. So I don't feel like we have anything new to contribute to that. Nope. That is going to, I don't know, be earth-shattering in any way. It is absolutely heartbreaking. Yeah, it's just heartbreaking, soul-crushing, depressing, just to see what's happening and transpiring in Minneapolis. I don't know what you do to stop it. I don't support what's happening there. No. And if you need to not listen to the podcast because of that, I don't care. No. If you support what's happening there... So maybe you need to look externally a little bit, have some compassion for your fellow human beings, some empathy and compassion. I think we all could benefit from that right now. Everybody. But I don't want to get all deep in politics on the Punk Rock Pinball podcast, but we don't support what Ice is doing, and it's really just sickening to kind of watch it all go down. So I think that's why we're both in having like a funk and really just didn't want to hit record on this. I think that's why Marshall left. But let this serve as a little distraction from your day. Yeah. It just feels weird to promote pinball right now. But I guess maybe what better time than to play pinball than now? because I don't know what I can really do here from Bloomington, Illinois, other than probably donate to some causes that might help, and we'll do that. But, yeah. So, yeah, this episode's weird. Yeah, sorry. Just because of what's going on in the country where we just weren't in the mood. But we're doing it because you can't miss a week. Oh, and still, again, I interrupted because I felt for Duluth, Minnesota. And I hope you all have fun at the Punk Rock Pinball Tournament there. Totally. Also on the 29th, Girard, Ohio. They have a weekly league starting up. Steel Valley Pinball League is hosting that. That's at Past Times Arcade in Girard, Ohio, 7 p.m. and they have a women's league and an open league happening. So a huge day on the 29th. That's pretty awesome. For the association. And that's Rob Burke. It's his place. He's the one who puts on Expo in the Chicago area every fall. So that's pretty cool. Yeah. And then rounding out the month of January on the 30th, Punk Rock Pin Golf in Chicago at Logan Arcade. That's cool. Cheryl's doing that, isn't she? Cheryl Barrow's doing that. The Punk Rock Pin Golf. That sounds fun. We need to host a pin golf event at HQ. We have to reach out to Cheryl and get some of her rules. Yeah, she does it, I think, like objective based. I like that. I have a good idea on most of the games what the objectives could be. I know, but it'd be interesting to see like what other people are doing. Yeah, I would love to see Cheryl's list of like what games they were, what the objectives were. we really need to do an HQ tournament like that. I think we're going to do one a Freaky Friday. Whatever month our league ends. We're going to do maybe a Price is Right one there. Yeah, March or April. And then we have a really cool thing coming up later on in April where we're bringing down the band off at their heads. including their singer who is a voice of a generation ryan young voice of a generation also merch maker of a generation he prints all the punk rock pinball merch anxious and angry.com anxious and angry.com get your off of their heads merch get your punk rock pinball merch so off of their heads are coming down they're going to play a show at Meltdown Creative Works. Cool. Which is just a quarter mile from the HQ there. Cool. I've never been there. Me neither. So that'll be our first time there. Cool. And they're coming down earlier in the day up with their heads and toys that kill in a band called Panel, I'm not super familiar with. And you can play against them in a pinball tournament. It's so fun. I don't know how many tickets are left. There were only a handful. We were only selling 20 And the ticket is 50 bucks but that also gets you into the show And a shirt So you get a ticket to the rock show You get a t that might be a collab of like Off With Our Heads and Punk Rock Pinball We don't even know what the shirt's going to be yet. Really? Ryan is, I've left that to Ryan to decide. Cool. So you're going to get a ticket to the show. You're going to get a t-shirt. you're going to get to play in a pinball tournament at our HQ against Val for their heads and Toys that Kill members and me I'll be in it and me and Steffi and Shelly and Shelly and maybe I think Ryan wanted to do some kind of like before the proper tournament where you earn propers doing a little kind of like 2v2v2 band contest. I love it. And so I think if we're doing that, then Ruben needs to come down. And be your partner. And we'll have Smoking Pops versus Off With Their Heads versus Toys That Kill versus Panel. Bracket style? And we'll smoke them. Hell yeah. Although I think somebody in the Panel band is like a big pinballer. So maybe Panel's going to take the band tournament. Okay, that's super fun. And that's on the, that's 4-18. That's a Saturday, I believe. So, John, and the dopamines, if you want to bring out another dopamine, you could have dopamines versus smoking pop stars off of their heads versus Toys That Kill versus panel if the dopamines want to roll out. Because he was just here, stayed at our house, played Arb Sharm last week. We get the dopamines in on this. Oh, my God, that's so fun. Or if you're watching and you're in, like, a punk band, maybe Deanna's home. At that time, maybe she wants to bring Kyle down and get a little two-person sincere engineer team. We could do this. We could do this. Yeah. We should figure out the live streaming. We've got to figure out the live streaming. I heard CJ's working on that. CJ is, yeah. He's going to put together a stream team. A stream team? I love it. I was also thinking, so it's at Punk Rock Pinball on Twitch, one word. I need to get the link so I can start putting it in the descriptions. Yeah. A couple people off the last video followed us on Twitch. Thank you. Even though we have yet to... Twitch? Twitch. We were Twitch-less. I mean, we have a Twitch. We haven't Twitched it out yet. No, we haven't Twitched it out. We haven't Twitched anything out. We'll Twitch. We'll be Twitchers. I was also thinking we could... What if we just did like a podcast type thing live on there? That'd be cool. Where you could come in and just chat with us. That's really super fun. Yeah? Yeah, I like that. Yeah. Let's figure that out. That's kind of why we have a little mixing editing room downstairs. That's why you wanted the banners? Which is currently a mess. Yeah, it's a mess. It's my fault. No. We cleared out the basement and put a bunch of stuff in there. It's not your fault. So it's like a mess in there, but we'll clean that out. And it's just got like an unfinished wall, but would be the backdrop. So we have a bunch of Stern pinball banners. So we'll hang those up and that would look nice as the background. That's cool. We've got some webcams. Yeah. So I think I'm going to need, I think we might need that Rodecaster Pro thing. Is that why you wanted to hang the banners? Partially. Or is it because we got interviewed yesterday? Did you want it hanging during our interview? No, the interview wasn't for video. I know. I just thought you wanted it to look cool. No, I just wanted to make that room feel more inviting. Okay. We can do that. Let's do that after this. We'll do that after this. We'll make that room a little nicer. It's really tiny, so it's not going to take long to clean it up. I just crammed. There's like a bunch of guitars and like kind of microphones and mic cables sitting all over the place. But we'll clear that out. Yeah. The room is like the size of a large walk-in closet. Yeah, it's a small room, but it'd be a nice little room, but easy to light it up for a little live podcast. I meant to bring those lights from the club today when we were there. Oh, yeah. Shit. Oh, those little LED ones? Yeah. Well, we can always run over there real quick and get them if we feel like it. Yeah, or a different day. It's fine. And then for our talking microphones, I don't know if it might be easier if we did like little lav mics. You're really stepping this thing up. I don't know. You got ideas. Why not? I guess why not. Fuck it. Or you can get the nice little stands that sit on a desk for that one. I saw some like young girls who had this same microphone. And they were like, I don't know, like in their 20s. And it was some YouTube channel. And they didn't have a stand. They just held it. it was the weirdest thing ever have you seen people do this that's not a handheld mic no this one is i know but they were holding this one and it had like like no long stick on it but they were just like holding it from this little bracket thing and like they each had one and they were it was the weirdest thing yeah so that the mic stuff is talking into is a sure sm7b we're not sponsored we should be we should be because i'd like to have another one of those but i don't want to buy one And this is like a Shure something else. It's like fancy, like KSM something. It's fancy looking. It's shiny, silver. Well, we have a shit ton of microphones downstairs. There's a shit ton of mics, but I want another one like yours that you're talking into because then you don't need this pop filter. If you're listening on Spotify or Apple, thank you very much. And you can't see anything that we're talking about. but Steffi's mic is like a nice black mic, and it doesn't require a pop filter because it's got a foam thing over it. Yeah, it's nice. It's like the podcaster microphone. Oh, it is? Yeah. It has been forever. I like it on female vocals for rock music. So when I had my band, and when Amanda would come and sing, that would be the mic. This is Amanda's mic? And I think that's the one I had Phoebe sing into on the session with Josh and Phoebe that we need to still edit. You'll see Phoebe singing into that mic on those videos. Singing like an angel. She's a great singer. Incredible. Incredible. Really, truly. But yeah, like a little live stream podcast. We think about that. All right. I love it. And we could do that in the meantime while CJ tries to figure out what we're going to do for the pinball streaming. Yeah. Right. So that's, oh, I should also review the, there's been some movement on the Punk Rock Pinball Association leaderboard. Oh, really? We have a tie for first place. Two number ones? Two number ones. One is Joe Sharp. Joe Sharp. Punk Rock Pinball ID number two. Whoa. He's got a special number. He's got 248 points. He's played in 11 events. He's tied in first place with Cat Davis. Cat Davis. Hot damn. And so far, I know there are a few tournaments that need to be entered still. So there have been 40 Punk Rock Pinball Association tournaments, and Cat Davis has played in 19 of the 40. Oh, my God. Cat Davis, you are a fucking maniac. Which is why she's tied with Joe for the lead. Shelly Sharp is third. That's awesome. So the Sharps are just dominating the top three there. But technically, I feel like if the tiebreaker is the, it should be the number of events. So really, I feel like Cat should be in first place. If we're doing a national championship today, Cat's the top seed. I mean, she's grinding. She's grinding. She's grinding like a proper whore. She wants a t-shirt, by the way. Her meaning P-R-O-P-R. Mm-hmm. Or meaning grind in for those points. Marshall never came back. He was all ready for it. He was ready. He was up here. So we just have an empty red chair on the video. There's supposed to be a dog here. He never did come back. Guess who's number four? Who? I'm number four. You are? I'm number four. How many events have you played in? I've played in 12. Wow. Shelly's played in 13. Joe's played in 11. Mark McColpin is in third. He's a Kansas City guy. Jeff Davis in third. Also a Kansas City guy. Our guy, Kevin Johnson, he's in sixth place, tied in sixth. Nice job, Kevin. All right, KJ. Oh, and I do have to say, last episode, I says, you know what Kevin can't do? he can't beat me for a dollar. Yeah. Well, he did. On what? Star Wars Fall of the Empire Really And he crushed me It was like i had around about 100 million and he had around about 700 million oh my gosh he stomped you he stomped me but that was one day and then the league our league was a few days later and i was in matched up against him in the league so he says do you want to play for a dollar on the last two of the i won the first game on the black knight so we go over to funhouse i'm like yeah i'll play for a dollar i smoked him on funhouse one is dollar okay we carried that over to firepower smoked him on firepower one is dollar so i think it was a fluke kevin i mean that's a hell of a game the 700 million yeah yeah but i mean it's he's like one and six now or something. He's got work to do. He's got work to do. He doesn't like to lose. And he called me a smartass. He did? He's like, you smartass. He also said he was going to drink every time his name was said on the podcast and he didn't. But he also said it's hard to drink at work. Yeah, probably it's hard to drink at work. We won't say where he works since he's admitted to listening. Yeah, we won't say that. to the podcast at work. We've got some stuff for sale at his auction. Yeah, we do. Coming up. Some old sports cards. Mm-hmm. Did you take our plates over there? Yeah. Yeah. Got some Fiesta wear. Some Fiesta wears going up for auction. Yeah. Yeah. Nice. Why not? Uh-huh. I want to just switch it up. We're using our fine china every day now. It's weird. It's super weird to eat pasta or sardines on it. I don't care. Or if I'm just fixing like a sandwich. It's great. Like a sandwich and chips on this china. Yeah, it's awesome. I figure we might as well use it. Yeah. And then if we don't like it, we'll get rid of it. We'll auction it off. Just like we're doing with the Fiesta Ware. Yeah, and then get something else. That stuff was great. It just got a little scuffed out. Yeah, it was kind of scuffed out. We should just get some new Fiesta Ware. We could. I mean, it's a pinball show. It's not a Fiesta Ware show. You know what, Mike? It's a lifestyle show. It's a lifestyle show, and this is... We're having a day. We stopped by a big sports card trading card show today. Yeah, at Illinois State University's Bone Center. The Bone Student Center. I bought a couple of Pokemon. I bought a Pokemon hat. Yep. Stuffed out of a Pokemon hat. It's real cute. but you didn't want to wear it until Pokemon Pinball was revealed. No. No one can see it until then. I really thought we would have seen that by now. I think it's going to be at Pinball at the Zoo, where they revealed Kong last year. Yeah, but we already knew about Kong. Kong was announced. Not at this point. I think, wasn't it? No, D&D was still having its moment. Oh, it was D&D time. Mm-hmm. Okay. That's like the next big moment. It's the next big moment. I think, or Pinball at the Beach, maybe. Yeah, it's one of those. I want to go to the Pinball at the Zoo. Pinball at the Zoo? Yeah. Maybe we can. We should. Is that tournament sold out? I don't know. Can we get in the tournament? Does that tournament sell out? I have no idea. I don't know if Matt Stacks watches this all the time. He won. I think he won it last year. Last year? Lily won the Classics last year there, didn't she? She won something. Yeah. And I think Matt won the main. I think you might be right. A couple of punk rock pinballers winning pinball at the zoo. Hell yeah. It would be fun to go. We should. Okay. And then we can go to Olga's and I can get one of those weird gyro sandwiches. When is it? It's on the calendar. Can I look it up? Yeah, I think it's in... I don't know. I don't know when it is. It is April 16th to 18th. I think we see Pokemon before that. Well, I hope so. Like we're not. Oh, it's. Well, we've got Off With Their Heads coming here on the 18th. Is that a Saturday? That's a Saturday. All right. Well, that's more fun. We'll have to skip Pinball at the Zoo. Okay. This year. That's okay. Yeah. I think the Off With Their Heads gimmick is going to be super fun. Yeah. And the show is fun. They're just – I enjoy their live show. It's a fun band. If you want to see Off With Their Heads playing music live in front of a camera, you can do that right on this channel, some of our biggest videos. If you click on our videos and sort it by like most popular, they're up there in like the top five. Yeah, they're like 10 years old too. Yeah. So there'll be a little bit different lineup of dudes other than Ryan. It was three houses ago. That was our Westmont house. Yeah, where it all began. So hopefully there'll be time that day to squeeze in, make Ryan sing a song. I'm not counting on it because it's going to be a busy day. Maybe you can do it on Sunday. I think they have another show somewhere else. I don't think they do. Oh, maybe not. So maybe we can have him stay over and do it. I'd like some newer Off With Their Heads music session videos. I think would be great. But other than that... I also just want to mention a shout out to Corey Grimm. Oh, yeah. Who, if you're not in the Facebook group, Corey, who's our friend from Galesburg, he did a post in the Punk Rock Pinball Facebook group this week where he posted a Planet of the Apes AI-generated pinball machine. And the post was really funny because he said something like, breaking news, this image is leaked about the Planet of the Apes pinball machine. Trying to find it. It was like a pretty big post for us on that page. A lot of people saw it, and a lot of people commented, didn't understand the joke which was made it even better he says breaking news development has begun on planet of the apes pinball with early design concepts non-progress a leak of preliminary materials has surfaced online offering a first glimpse into ideas that are still very much a work in progress and it's like a real like obviously ai thing and people kind of lost it on this. It got 27,000 reach on the post. And typically we have an anti-stance on AI for most things. Like if you're making something to sell. Yeah, like if you're making a t-shirt. If you're making a t-shirt with a design. Or a poster. A flyer for a show. I see lots of restaurants now doing like you know get these pancakes for $4.99 and it's a crazy AI thing. Yeah. I don't like AI for any of that or if you're making actually making a pinball machine. Yeah don't. But this was a joke because Corey listens to the podcast and he pays attention and he knows that Spooky's working on Planet of the Apes. We all know Spooky's working on Planet of the Apes. so he had a little fun and made a and i think in this use case it has like kind of okay yeah because it's it's a joke because it's a joke and you're not trying to sell it he's not trying to sell some people i think are confused and thought like he's maybe is with some company that's making this i mean oh my lord and they're like oh it's a garbage it's a joke well yeah it It is AI garbage. But yeah, 27,000 reach had 63 comments. It actually doesn't look that bad. Kind of the artwork, if you went in that direction, is not bad. No, that's what I'm saying. But based on there, and there were a lot of people that are like, yeah, sign me up for it. So I think that is a winning pinball theme. Well, that's why Spooky's working on it. Mm-hmm. and if spooky somehow if our sources are wrong and they're not working on it maybe stern should swoop in there and steal it i mean i think there's a demand hot property it's a hot property planet of the ape spinball yeah it's a hot hot deal yes and i think most people seem to lean towards the the old uh the old films i mean that would be great the original films I feel like you can almost just do both I mean you'd have to do two whole sets of code with different assets and everything but I'd like both yeah me too I'd like both I can't wait to see it what if her Pokemon they did something like that where there was like a Pikachu edition in a Charizard edition something like that With different rules Maybe all the same rules, but maybe a totally different art package. That'd be cool. You know? It's possible. Totally different art package and maybe totally different starter Pokemon. If you get your choice of starter Pokemon, which I suspect you probably will, and what if each one had a different version of that that'd be cool then we're getting two oh god you get one for the home one for the hq no yeah no no that's insane different that's insane well you need one over there and you need one here maybe greg will go have these on me with me for one for the hq maybe he will does he like pokemon he likes pinball yeah he does if it's a great game yeah that's true it's a great game or maybe kevin maybe kevin johnson will go 50 50 yeah he only has one and we'll buy one for the hq to put in there kev what do you say like if the pros he's excited about pokemon he is yeah i like that especially if there's two different editions well we don't know we don't know maybe there's also an evie edition who knows maybe there's a chizard maybe there's just a chizard because you could do a charizard one and a pikachu one some people would buy both that's crazy which we maybe would no because we have two places to put them i yeah but no but somebody will go half on the other you know what we'll cross that bridge when we need to i'll sell some mechs for stappin cards all right oh my god oh my lord the only other thing going on is we we got that the fall of the empire i love it recently at the hq the fall of the empire pro yeah we just went to the club this afternoon i wanted to go because it's garbage day and i wanted to grab the garbage to put out or tomorrow's garbage day. And I really just wanted to play it. And I think I played like, I don't know, eight games on it. It's so fun. It's very much fun. Like I like playing that one a lot. A lot. Yeah. Yeah. It reinforces why I chose it as the best pinball machine of 2025. I think I might add it as number two. I can't remember. and we got a lot of shit i got a lot of shit for not having harry potter in there and having star wars and not harry potter but i stand behind it now especially now after playing it a lot more is that what's the other guy because we always give raymond all the credit but the john borg no the other guy that did the code with them because that's what really makes it great. And the movie clips are great. The clips, I think MXB had a big hand in picking out the clips. That one I feel like is such a nice integration, like Jaws. It's great like Jaws. Yeah. The Jaws layout is superior, but the way the game sucks you in with the clips and the modes and the audio and the whole package it's andrew Andrew Wilkening okay and raymond davidson crushed it on this game they did and from a code perspective and like what shots trigger what kind of things to happen and building like intensity and like knowing what you're shooting for it's a thousand times better than harry potter it's not even close it's not even close harry potter is not even close to this game you're fired up in terms of just playing like playing it and getting engaged in the modes in the music and what's actually happening yeah it's very immersive super immersive and like the things that you need to hit are distinctly lit and c-3po is telling you what to do yeah and like it's easy to just get in there and start knowing what you're trying to do whereas like potter with along with most other jersey jacks it's like what the hell am i even doing you know what you sound like huh a shell i don't care that game like the the fall of the empire so far is like my second favorite pinball i'm just teasing it is great and today was the first day that i've like really played it where no one's there and i can hear it and we need to put one of these little volume knobs on it because i just want to crank it yeah right uh-huh um yeah we should order some of the like i think there's a couple games oh wait we've got one there i think it's different that one has a spike two cabinet so you can Oh, okay, good. And we do have one at the HQ. I don't know where I put it. One of these? I took it out of the X-Men. Oh, you did? Mm-hmm. Oh, that was smart. Yeah, I like having these volume control things. Yeah. It's a great accessory. So good. Yeah, because sometimes you just want to crank it up. I don't know if you can hear it. And then sometimes you want to lower it down. You don't have to open the coin door to do that. No, you can just do it right here. Yeah. Oh, here's the dog. Oh, Marshall, you're back. He's showing up for the end of the episode. It's time now it's time for you to talk about your weekend pinball. Yeah. What do you think, dog? He's going to lay down here as we're about to finish. Yeah. He had a really big week. He got a new dog food. And he was a real good boy this week. That's all. That's Marshall's update. As always, he was a very good boy. He's always a good boy. We had this empty chair the whole time, and now he comes because we're just about to wrap it up. As we're talking about Fall of the Empire, and everyone at the Punk Rock Pinball HQ is loving the Fall of the Empire. Yeah. Like, everyone's having fun on that game. It's getting played a ton. Mm-hmm. And people even that, like, aren't Star Wars people are liking it. You're not a big Star Wars person. No. it's just a fantastic game it's dynamite it's one of those where like the initial reaction from certain like pinfluencers where they're like oh this sucks and that thing sucks and that sucks and it's a fan layout and it's like go get bent yeah because the layout is important but like it's a good layout it is not a great layout it's good it's a fan layout above average but what makes it is like everything else that happens while you play that's what makes a pinball game and like the layout shoots nice the layout shoots nice but like the John Williams music awesome just gets you and it gets you in the right headspace. It really does. Yeah, and you're right. The C-3PO call-outs are super cool. I really hadn't heard those until today. Yeah, it's very fun, because today we just popped over real quick, so it's just you and I there, and it's really fun when you can play a new game, and it's just you and the game. Yeah. Yeah. It was cool. Yeah, it was fun. Yeah, we were just there for a little bit, and then I drove my car through a big snowdrift like a 14-year-old boy like four times. It was fun. It was so fun. Because the snow had been plowed. I don't know how tall the thing, probably five foot high. Maybe. Five or six feet high. Yeah, it just plowed right through it. I gunned it. Yeah. Like that was fun. You swung around and did it again. Mm-hmm. I had to test out my new snow tires. They worked good. It worked great. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And that's us for the week. That's us. We got a league this week. I got a Bells and Chimes before that on Wednesday. Marshall's still working on his manifesto. Yeah. That's all we got. Yeah. Okay. Well, thank you for listening. I know this episode was a little weird, especially at the start, but it's a weird time. Yeah. So what are you going to do? We're doing our best. We're not going to skip a week, so we're just going to push through. Yeah, we won't skip a week. No. Just going to push through. You got to do it. Keep on pushing. Keep on flipping. Yeah. All right. Toodaloo. Bye.

_(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: f3ef5051-1706-4347-a7b4-fe224cc6b923*