# The Super Awesome Pinball Show - S1 E13

**Source:** The Super Awesome Pinball Show  
**Type:** podcast_episode  
**Published:** 2020-08-09  
**Duration:** 126m 47s  
**Beat:** Pinball

**URL:** https://superawesomepinballshow.libsyn.com/the-super-awesome-pinball-show-s1-e13

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## Analysis

Episode 13 of The Super Awesome Pinball Show features Christopher Franchi and Dr. Christian Line interviewing collector Joe Fox about his extensive pinball collection (27 active machines, 200+ owned over 4 years). The conversation covers collecting philosophy, game reliability, the balance between ownership and maintenance, difficulty modes in pinball, and recent personal pinball activities including a gift of a custom coin door.

### Key Claims

- [HIGH] Joe Fox has owned over 200 pinball machines in approximately 4 years — _Joe directly states 'I've had over 200 in and out of here at some point in the last four or four and a half years'_
- [MEDIUM] Classic Bally machines from late 70s/early 80s are the most reliable and easiest to repair — _Joe's assessment based on personal experience: 'I'd probably have to say your classic ballets, your late 70s, early 80s ballets...they're not with all these ramps and tabitrails and diverters'_
- [HIGH] Hot Wheels pinball surprised Joe with its quality despite initial skepticism — _Joe states 'I had zero expectations...I am really blown away on how fun it actually is'_
- [HIGH] Joe holds games for an average of 4-6 months before rotating them out — _Joe directly states 'I would say on average probably four to six months for the ones that end up rotating out'_
- [MEDIUM] Recent Stern code updates (Ghostbusters 'Are You a God' mode, Jurassic Park mini wizard mode, TMNT) provide accessibility for non-expert players — _Joe discusses recent code innovations by Dwight and Elwin to make games more accessible_

### Notable Quotes

> "The good thing about pinball is no matter how much it costs, it has a resale value that is relatively close to what you pay for it...So pinball is, yeah, I will tell you I lose on almost every game I buy, but the losses are minimal and they can be controlled, and you're having fun during that time."
> — **Joe Fox**, ~42:00
> _Core justification for collector's purchasing philosophy and high turnover rate_

> "If everything plays long and everything plays too easy, then it gets boring. So you've got to have a mix of, you know, Captain Fantastics along with, you know, Medieval Madness that can play long and Monster Bash."
> — **Joe Fox**, ~56:00
> _Articulates collector's strategy for maintaining engagement with diverse collection_

> "I mean, I played it for like two days straight and I'm like, I got to put this thing up for sale. [about Roadshow]"
> — **Joe Fox**, ~48:00
> _Illustrates rapid decision-making and low tolerance for games that don't engage him_

> "It's 90% enjoyment, 10% repair slash mod...When I had 42 games down here, it literally was almost a nightmare."
> — **Joe Fox**, ~31:00
> _Reveals the scaling challenges of extremely large collections_

> "You've got to learn to appreciate that point of view because I know for a fact that I tried. I really, really wanted to like Houdini and I played it and you know how brutal that is."
> — **Christian**, ~52:00
> _Host acknowledges difference in approach to difficulty vs. Joe's appreciation for varied challenges_

### Entities

| Name | Type | Context |
|------|------|---------|
| Joe Fox | person | Primary guest; hardcore pinball collector with 27 active machines, has owned 200+ total; 4-year tenure in hobby; local tournament organizer in Delaware (First Eight Flippers) |
| Christopher Franchi | person | Co-host of The Super Awesome Pinball Show; Stern pinball artist; collector of Batman memorabilia (specifically Hot Wheels Batmobiles) |
| Dr. Christian Line | person | Co-host of The Super Awesome Pinball Show; has wife Sarah and two daughters; located in Pennsylvania |
| The Super Awesome Pinball Show | media | Podcast featuring Christopher Franchi and Dr. Christian Line; episode 13; sponsored by Chicago Gaming Company, Cointaker.com, BackAlleyCreations.com |
| Hot Wheels | game | Stern pinball machine; Joe acquired despite initial skepticism; modified with Velcro Hot Wheels car swaps (multiple Batmobiles) |
| Houdini | game | Stern pinball; known for brutality; Joe borrowed from another collector for extended evaluation; features Master Magician mode with reversed flippers |
| Oktoberfest | game | Stern pinball; features steep left corkscrew ramp; flipper power insufficient initially, later coded to increase power |
| Roadshow | game | Game Joe rejected immediately after 2 days due to voices; couldn't tolerate despite liking Funhouse theme |
| Twilight Zone | game | High-ranked game on community lists; Joe dislikes despite respecting its status; will not own one |
| Captain Fantastic | game | Data East machine; brutal difficulty; Christian initially disliked; Joe appreciates for balance in collection; subject of extended on-air joke about difficulty |
| Circus Voltaire | game | Referenced as example of brutally difficult game with deep code that players may never fully experience |
| Chicago Gaming Company | company | Sponsor of show; produces pinball remakes including Monster Bash and Medieval Madness |
| Cointaker.com | company | Sponsor of show; distributor of new/boxed pinball machines, mods, accessories, LEDs |
| BackAlleyCreations.com | company | Sponsor of show; makes pinball mods, Black Furrow Pinballs, EasySlide Playfield Support System |
| Dwight | person | Stern pinball programmer; designed Ghostbusters 'Are You a God' mode and TMNT code updates |
| Elwin | person | Stern pinball designer; designed Jurassic Park mini wizard mode |
| Rodney | person | Mutual friend of hosts; customizes Stern machines with 10-ball settings for practice/exploration |
| First Eight Flippers | organization | Local Delaware pinball tournament league; organized by Joe; hosts 4-6 tournaments yearly with up to 50 participants |
| Pembroke | event | Tournament location Joe participates in |
| Texas Pinball Festival | event | Tournament location Joe participates in; venue where Christian played Houdini intensively |

### Topics

- **Primary:** Pinball collecting philosophy and economics, Game reliability and maintenance across eras, Difficulty and accessibility in pinball (practice modes, unlimited balls, easy modes), Individual game preferences and subjective enjoyment
- **Secondary:** Recent Stern code updates and rule enhancements, Collection management and maintenance at scale, Custom modifications and collector hobbies (Hot Wheels cars, coin doors)
- **Mentioned:** Competitive pinball tournament participation

### Sentiment

**Positive** (0.78) — Hosts express enthusiasm about Joe as a guest and his collection. Discussion is friendly and collaborative despite occasional disagreement about game preferences. Some negative comments about specific games (Captain Fantastic, Roadshow, Twilight Zone) but framed as personal taste rather than design criticism. Banter is good-natured throughout.

### Signals

- **[community_signal]** Recent Stern code updates (Ghostbusters 'Are You a God', TMNT, Jurassic Park mini wizard modes) viewed positively for accessibility; community debate exists on earned vs. practice difficulty (confidence: medium) — Hosts discuss recent code innovations favorably as 'good idea' for non-expert players; mention disagreement with purists over accessibility modes
- **[design_philosophy]** Collector values game diversity including both high-difficulty and long-play machines; single difficulty profile creates boredom in large collection contexts (confidence: medium) — Joe emphasizes needing 'mix of Captain Fantastics along with Medieval Madness that can play long' to avoid collection fatigue
- **[market_signal]** High resale value retention in pinball market enables collector business model; collectors accept 'minimal losses' on machines with quick turnover (4-6 months average) (confidence: high) — Joe states pinball has 'resale value that is relatively close to what you pay for it' vs. home improvements, justifying high-volume purchasing
- **[product_concern]** Stern Spike machines require complex repairs involving ramps, rail diverters, servo motors, making them harder to diagnose than simpler vintage machines; parts availability easier for classics (confidence: high) — Joe notes modern games are 'not with all these ramps and tabitrails and diverters and servo motors' and therefore 'more difficult to work on and try to diagnose'
- **[product_concern]** Oktoberfest featured design flaw (left ramp too steep for flipper power); issue resolved through code update increasing flipper power when ramp in specific position (confidence: medium) — Joe notes 'left ramp was so steep and the flipper power wasn't enough' and Stern later 'coded it to where when the ramp was in the position...they upped the flipper power'
- **[licensing_signal]** Hot Wheels Batman license leveraged repeatedly by toy manufacturer; Hot Wheels Batmobiles remain in continuous production with annual variations (confidence: medium) — Joe notes Hot Wheels 'has kept Batmobiles in business for the past 10 years' with annual package variations; Christopher has 97% of showcase filled with Hot Wheels Batmobiles

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## Transcript

 Thank you. been doing over the past weekend, week, day, hour, whatever. You shut the fuck up. I will kick you in the nuts so hard, your dentist will have to work around them at your next cleaning. Moving on. My episodes are not going to be overly long. I don't plan on having an episode that goes on for an hour or even two or even three. Shut up! Oh my God, I don't care! I'm not going to have segments. I'm not going to have things to fill time to make this a certain length of an episode. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Hey, kids. It's time to use the F word. Fuck you, fuck you, and shut up. How do you like that? Big face. Hey, something burning? Oh, wait. It's you because you just got burned. A special whim. I know I'm drunk. Time for another Pinball Profile. The following is an ad-hoc radio production. It's the Super Blast-a-Lost Pinball Show. We are your favorite hosts, pinball artist Christopher Franchi and Dr. Penancell Christian Lime. Also a rotating gallery of bonus co-hosts to spice things up. The Super Awesome Pinball Show is sponsored by Chicago Gaming Company, home of your favorite top quality pinball remakes like Monster Bash, Medieval Madness, and more. Visit Chicago-Gaming.com and by Cointaker.com, distributors of new in-box pinball machines, mods, accessories, LEDs, and much more. That's Cointaker.com. Also by BackAlleyCreations.com, makers of the most amazing pinball mods, Black Furrow Pinballs, and the EasySlide Playfield Support System. That's BackAlleyCreations.com. And now, ladies and gentlemen, time for a jump. And that concludes our long, irritating musical intro. Hey all you pinball rock stars out there, welcome to the Super Awesome Pinball Show, episode number 13. We've got a great show for you lined up today. We've got the latest pinball news, including Zombie Yeti being upset with rubbers, Dirty Donnie's new art package, another multi-morphic innovation, and much more. Also, our crazy pinball shit that we've been up to lately, and our latest special guest. And at the end of all of that, our super awesome pinball game show featuring some cool pinball people and some very special guests. So stick around for that. Well, like I said, it's episode number 13. Do you think our special guest is going to give us any trouble? I don't know, man. I certainly love the special guest. He is awesome. But we have already had some bad luck with episode 13, which we'll go into in a second. But before we introduce our next guest, I want to talk a little bit about our last show. We had some awesome feedback from that George Gomez interview. I think it went really, really well. You know, people were saying that Ms. Finn, Sarah, did a really phenomenal job, and I fully agree. And I just wanted to tease an upcoming interview where she was specifically requested to be involved. So she will be back on in the next couple of episodes to talk. But we have an amazing co-host this episode. He's a really good friend of mine, and he's also someone who came to mind instantly when we were making a list of people who we thought would be really good guests for the show. I want to introduce to everyone Joe Fox. Joe, how's it going, man? Good, Christian. Good, Chris. How are you guys doing? We're great, man. Hey, Joey. What are you doing with that gun in your hand? I'm just glad that the 313 text messages I sent to Beyond finally got through. That's right. Hey, listen, man. Persistence is key. I'll back Christian up. After his wife, you were the second person that he mentioned. Absolutely. I've got to work on getting to number one eventually. It's going to take a lot, man. It's going to take a lot. Tell us about yourself, Joe. What's your story, man? For people who may not know you, I know you've been on a lot of different podcasts, but I know you're really heavily into the hobby. So give us some background on who you are and what you're all about. Basically, I'm just a, I guess I would say a collector, probably 80% collector, and now probably 20% tournament player. If I was to parse up my involvement in the hobby, started four years ago. These are the background stories that nobody really cares about. But started four years ago, ended up with just kind of just grabbing on with both hands and running. 27 games I currently own now in my basement. I've had as many as 42 at one time. I've owned over 200 in that short amount of time. Started tournaments probably three years ago, local ones first, and then ended up gravitating up to places like Pembroke or Texas Pinball Festival, the Wizards Tournament, things like that. I have a big hand in the First Eight Flippers, which is a local tournament scene in Delaware. I host, you know, four to six tournaments a year at my house and have as many as 50 people. Not so much now these days, but 50 people coming and going, playing tournaments here and a couple of different places in Delaware. Just kind of all around super happy to be involved in this hobby and meet people like you guys. It's awesome, man. We've been wanting to have a collector, like a hardcore collector on the show for a while, just to pick your brain a little bit about what that involves. And, you know, you've got a lot of psychiatric visits. A lot of money, a lot of, yeah. About how many games do you have, Joe? I have 27 now, currently. All right, well, don't run down the list, but just give us some highlights. And maybe your newest acquisitions. The newest one would be Hot Wheels and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Those are the two newest. And, you know, pretty much every Stern title has come out over the last four years, even longer than that. I've pretty much had every Stern title at this point. I've started to now gravitate and mix my collection up a lot of the classic Sterns, classic Valleys, and mix with the newer stuff. So, I mean, as I look at it now, I have a Stars, a Meteor, a Lightning, Flight 2000, Mystic. That's what I'm staring at right now as I'm talking. Paragon. But, you know, Jurassic Park and Batman 66, Beatles. I mean, you pretty much name it of Stern. I could easily do a list of what I haven't had of a Stern and what I have. where every game in the collection is spotless, and it's got every mod you can imagine and all the cool add-ons and stuff. But you also have a lot of turnover in your collection. So what's the average time? Because every time I go there, you've got a different lineup. So how long would you say you normally hold on to a game? I would say on average probably four to six months for the ones that end up rotating out. I mean, I do have my core group of, you know, bolted to the floor, to use a great pinball cliche. But, you know, for the most part, everything can come and go and I'll find it again or trade it to somebody local and I'll be able to get it back again. So, yeah, like I said earlier, I've had over 200 in and out of here at some point in the last four or four and a half years. Man, oh, man. Now, I don't know if you were just sucking up or what, but you did send me some pictures. Do you want to tell the listeners how you modded out your Hot Wheels game? Oh, yeah. I started searching Amazon for just, you know, different Hot Wheels to change out so they can easily come in and out with the 3M Velcro tabs on the bottom. So the first one that came up was a Batmobile, the classic one, you know, from Batman 66 type of idea. And then I clicked on that, and of course, it's, you know, people who saw this also like this. And then I didn't realize there were so many variations from different either movies or from different comic book parts of the different Batmobiles. I mean, of course, you remember the one with Michael Keaton, Batman, and that was different than the one that was in Batman 66. But then there's like Justice League, this one. I mean, I sent you the pictures. I have five different Batmobiles in my Hot Wheels as of right now. And there's two more, I think, sitting in the coin box that would be switched out at some point. You know what's funny, Chris, is that I had a package all ready to go for you that I was going to send to you, and I sent it today, actually. In there, there's a bunch of shit. But one of the things that I threw in there were a couple of those Batmobile cars because I had seen them, you know, when I was in the toy aisle with my kids. And I'm like, oh, my God, French, he probably doesn't have these. You have freaking everything. So I sent you two of them. They're coming your way. But I didn't realize there was like eight of them. So you may have six more to collect. Yeah. Well, what I collect as far as like leaving the package and all that is the TV show stuff. That's like pretty much it. But I do have other Batman stuff around the house and that stuff I'll open and put out. So, yeah, if there's like some big series of Batmobiles, you know, chances are I won't buy them. But if it's a gift, on the other hand, it will go up on my desk or whatever. So I'm safe. But, you know, the TV show stuff, honestly, I think the Batmobile has kept Hot Wheels in business for the past 10 years because you can't imagine. I should post a picture of just how many Hot Wheels Batmobiles I have of different colors, different sizes. You know, I have an entire showcase, which is eight feet wide by three feet tall by two feet deep. And it's nothing but Batmobiles, which I would say 97% are Hot Wheels. And they're still making them. Every year, they could just change the package a little bit, put some flames on it, do whatever. You know, it's just they're milking that license for everything that's worth it. One of the two that I sent you was the Batman 66 car, so you'll have that new one. Joe, how was it to put those on? Was it relatively easy? It was a breeze. I mean, you put a little piece of the 3M loop, whatever they call it. It's not Velcro because Velcro is made out of, like, real material. It's a plastic, hard Velcro, and you just stick it right on. I mean, it's literally just 10 seconds, if even. Easy. Good job with them to be able to switch that stuff out. How is Hot Wheels? Because you're the only person I know who I've talked to recently who's actually played it. Surprisingly impressive. I had zero expectations. I poo-pooed it when they announced it. When I saw different VODs on it, I was like, okay, whatever. I am really blown away on how fun it actually is. And all the comments I had made, not in the public, but to myself, were just kind of like, oh, forget this. I have zero interest. People would text me, are you getting Hot Wheels? I'd say no. And then I don't know if it was COVID or who knows what it was. It just struck me one day to say, you know what, I'll take it. And I got it, and I can't be happier. Fortunately, I bought Houdini, and I bought Oktoberfest, and I was not necessarily happy overall with them. They have really cool shots. They have really cool features. They really do pack their games. They just didn't have lasting power for me. But Hot Wheels really, really is impressing me so far. I'm trying to understand the mentality of a crazy collector such as yourself. Crazy was the right word. You poo-pooed it. You had no interest in it, yet you went out and bought one. It's a knee-jerk thing for you, right? You have to have it. If there's a new game, it must be yours. Here's the mentality I have, okay? And I argue with my wife about this all the time. The good thing about pinball is no matter how much it costs, it has a resale value that is relatively close to what you pay for it. As opposed to home additions or carpeting or painting, they have no resale value. You paint your house, okay, great, you love it, but you're not getting anything else for it. You can't sell it down the line and say, hey, here, take my paint. Here, take my new floor coverings. So pinball is, yeah, I will tell you I lose on almost every game I buy, but the losses are minimal and they can be controlled, and you're having fun during that time. So is it really a loss? If I went to an arcade and I played the game for a week and I spent $342.25 in the game, does that equate to the same having fun at your own home? But one could argue, Joe, that you're planning on having fun with something that you poo-pooed. If you thought it was going to suck, how can you justify saying, well, I get to have fun with it for three months and then I'm going to sell it. If you thought it was going to suck, you wouldn't be having fun. Because at the end of the day, even at the end of the day, every pinball machine is fun. Yeah, that's true. No, that's not true. That's not true. Captain Fantastic is a piece of fucking shit. there's no fun in that whatsoever or the only fun i'm going to get out of that is selling it even there there's another market chris because joe might buy it because he buys everything i gotta take pictures of it and it's halfway between a half wall and another pinball machine so i'm gonna have to like move furniture to drag it out and take a picture of it so yeah haven't done that yet well my biggest concern with the collection the size of yours joe is that you're inevitably going to deal with a ton of repair a ton of you know maintenance on those machines and the more that you have, as awesome as that is in theory, you would think it would also be a bit of a headache. So how much of your time is divided between playing and enjoying the games and then maintaining them and fixing them? I think at this point, I would say it's 90% enjoyment, 10% repair slash mod. It had gotten a lot higher at some point. When I had 42 games down here, it literally was almost a nightmare. Number one, I'm too OCD. If I have a game that's not working, my entire life now needs to be dedicated to fixing that gain and getting it back to work. You know, if I know I have something downstairs that's not working, I want to figure out exactly when and as soon as I can get down there to fix it. I've gotten a lot better at doing my own fixes over the last four years, from day one of not even knowing how to take the glass off to obviously now, you know, soldering in, you know, new transistors and new diodes and doing flipper rebuilds and all the stuff that comes along with it and changing out light boards and, you know, just kind of gone from A to Z. I still have a lot to learn or still need help with some things, but there's a lot of local guys that can help and aid and YouTube and Google. If I see something, I can pretty much figure out how to go after it. That's cool, man. We talked to Ed Ed Robertson. He said that's kind of how he learned how to fix games is just to dive in and own a bunch of machines and not want to pay someone to fix it, so you just have to figure it out yourself. Yeah, where there's not enough guys. The most local repairman that's actually a repairman is an hour and a half away. He can't get here on the drop of a hat. He's got to schedule you three weeks out. So you can learn to do it yourself. Before we get into our weeks and pinballing, I've got a quick announcement to make. If any of you guys hear any racket in the background, I'm going through a little bit of tough love with Barlow. He has not eaten in two days because he has to have healthy food, and he does not want his healthy food. So he's over here whining and begging and scratching at me and all that. I don't know why you guys were talking if the microphone picked any of that up, But something tells me that the next hour or so that we're talking, I'm going to be dealing with this guy because he is not happy about his food situation. Poor guy. Poor Barlow. Yeah, poor little guy. Also collecting an enormous amount of gains. My wife is the dog collector, so we have five labs so I can feel your pain. And they're all huge. And my youngest daughter was terrified of dogs the first time we visited at Joe's house. So it was basically walking into a freaking nightmare for her with, like, these giant dogs running around the house. But I think it might have been, you know, therapeutic to kind of get her over that fear a little bit. Grab a saddle, you know, hop on. We shipped her right down the basement and had her hang out there to stay away from them. Yes. We didn't torture her. She quickly got down there. But one last question about owning a huge collection. So you've owned a ton of games from multiple different decades and multiple manufacturers. What have you found to be the most reliable games of all of those different eras and manufacturers? And what are your top three of all time that you've had in your collection, if you can even answer that? Yeah, that's probably going to be the harder answer. It depends on what week it is. But most reliable, I'd probably have to say your classic ballets, your late 70s, early 80s ballets. I mean, first of all, they're super easy for the most part to work on because they're minimal. You know, they're not with all these ramps and tabitrails and diverters and, you know, servo motors and all the stuff that obviously now is what makes it cool. But it also makes it difficult to work on and try to diagnose. So your simpler single level gains certainly do become the most easy to work on and therefore more reliable. And with the fact that pretty much all the parts are still readily available makes it super easy as well. So, you know, even if a board goes bad, you know, a lot of guys will go, oh, we've got to send it out and I'll wait three months for it to come back. I don't have the patience for that. I just go buy a new Alltech or a new, you know, Rotten Dog or a new Weebly board and throw it in there and three days later I'm ready to go. So I would think that that area, you know, even if you include the classic sterns, like that classic, you know, 79, 80 to 84 type of stuff seems to be the easiest to work on and the more reliable. Once you fix something, it usually is good to go. And if your top three are, you know, that's too hard of a question, give me your bottom three. See, this is harsh because, you know, they're not necessarily bad games. They're just not good for me. Roadshow? Okay. Couldn't last here a week. Was it the creepy heads? No, it was just the whole, yeah, no, because I love Funhaus. So it's not the creepy heads. It's just the voices and I couldn't tell you exactly what it is. It just had no staying power. I mean, I played it for like two days straight and I'm like, I got to put this thing up for sale. What else? Roadshow, Twilight Zone. I know it's like a thing that sits on top for everybody on their list, but I cannot tolerate that game. I'll play it if it's at somebody's house, but no way. I've never owned one, and I do not want to own one. And the last one, yeah, I don't really have too many that I hate. Have you tried a Captain Fantastic? I have. I told you this the other day. I actually like Captain Fantastic a lot. Wait, what? It is a brutal game. But, you know, if everything was easy, then, you know, you'd get bored with it. Like, there's a lot of games out there that are easy, and you kind of get, oh, okay, it's easy. Like, you know, you just don't want to play it. So I need some brutal, you know. When you have a larger collection, if everything plays long and everything plays too easy, then it gets boring. So you've got to have a mix of, you know, Captain Fantastics along with, you know, Medieval Madness that can play long and Monster Bash. I need to learn to appreciate that point of view because I know for a fact that I tried. I really, really wanted to like Houdini and I played it and you know how brutal that is. And I just threw my hands up and said, fuck this thing and walked away. And I haven't played it since. You know, what's funny is Joe had the same experience and I had talked on my wife's podcast about how I was really interested in the theme and I thought it was a cool game. So Joe actually, Joe is one of the most generous guys in pinball. And that is one of the reasons why I love the guy. But he also went out of his freaking way. He drove that machine that was in his collection to my house and set it up for me and let me borrow it for a couple of months totally free i learned to appreciate it a little bit more when it was in my house and it was something i didn't want to necessarily own after that couple of months of time of really sinking time into it but once you dial in that really tight catapult shot and you learn a little bit more about the rules it becomes a much better game i just really liked the ambiance of that game and the art i did like the art package i thought the steampunk vibe was cool yeah and i still do but yeah man it is a freaking brutal game. It's just fun to look at, you know. I really dig that old, you know, sideshow kind of feel, you know, like the Hall of Circus Freaks and all that kind of crap, you know. You know, it's a Ripley to Believe or Not type of thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, it's just, you know, to me, it's very visually appealing because of all of that, but man, it was just so, like, I think I was there with my daughter. We were at Texas Pinball Festival. We played two games back-to-back and it was like, you know, house balls and just like, wicked drains, like, right off the bat. I don't think I was on that game for more than 30 seconds total. I'm like, fuck this thing. And I was so bummed out, too, because I was, like, thinking about getting one, you know, just from what I've seen. And after I played it, I wanted no part of it. So I think I have to quit trying to make it so easy on myself. Like, let's just play the game, you know. I'm going to put a lump of Joshua Clay in the two outlanes. The hardest shot in the game, I think we all probably would agree since we've all played it, is the shot to get to the funnest part of the game, which is watching that ball shoot across into the box. But that was also the tightest shot in the game, so the best reactionary part of the game was the least seen because it was the hardest to get to. And it's almost like the next game was Oktoberfest, and one of the coolest features of that game was that corkscrew habitrail that went, you know, and getting it up to that ramp, which was freaking impossible to do. The one on the left? Yeah, the left ramp was so steep, and the flipper power wasn't enough. Yes. I had that game right when they made that change where they coded it to where when the ramp was in the position where you have to hit it up there, they upped the flipper power. And I still couldn't get it to be consistent to get it up that ramp. Let me ask you guys this, because I was playing video games today. I was playing Pinball FX3, which has a lot of the old Williams tables. And one of the things that they have on that video game, which I think is really cool, is the ability to go into a practice mode, which basically gives you unlimited balls and you can play for an hour and pretty much progress through the game as you can. And it was really cool because one of the things that I think, it's a plus or a minus, I want to kind of pick your brains about this, having a game with a really deep code or having a game like, you know, Circus Voltaire, for instance, that maybe you never got through very far to because, you know, it's so brutal. Would you guys like to have a mode in real physical pinball machines where you can have unlimited balls? and it's just like a practice thing and you can play as far as you want in the game as possible. Now, some people would immediately throw their hands up and say, hell no, you have to earn it. You've got to get to the wizard modes by yourself. You're taking the fun out of pinball. And, you know, once you do that, you're never going to want to play it again. But I do think for some people who know that they're not good enough to ever get through a deep game, that they would like that. You know, even if it's a setting that you would turn on at home where you can just play forever. What do you guys think? I think it'd be too tempting, number one. And number two, you can get there if you take the glass off. Yeah, but this avoids that. You don't have to cheat and take the glass off. Think about it. Unlimited balls on Captain Fantastic. You need them. You need them. But it should be a five-ball game anyway. The problem is I don't know how to change it to a five-ball. I know it's something in the backbox. You need to move over one of the Jones plugs to another spot. You take pride in being an insufferable no-it-all. Yeah. What do I think? Five balls of humility. I agree. So, Christian, we have a mutual friend, Rodney, who when he gets games, he puts a lot of them on 10-ball settings because Stern will allow you, I think, to go from one ball to 10 balls so that he can do exactly that. He can see a little bit more. He can see some of the modes that we may not see because we're not Keith Elwin or we're not Raymond Davidson. So he kind of does that. He told me about that a couple months ago. I have everything set up here because I have the tournaments here. I have everything set up like tournament games. no extra balls, short ball savers, you know, stuff like that. And I started recently changing it because I'm not seeing the game because I'm not that good of a player. Right. So I'm not seeing stuff. So I put extra balls back on. I mean, I didn't go to the extreme of putting it on 10 balls or even 5 balls, but I started putting extra balls on so that I could see more of the game, and it actually made pinball more fun because you can feel like you've gotten somewhere. And for a guy who, when you get rid of a game, right, if you're playing Elvira, for instance, and then you want to sell it and make room for something else, before you get rid of it, wouldn't it be cool to, you know, set it on a mode where you can just basically play through the game because you know that you're not going to keep it around. It's not, you know, tempting you to try to get better at it. The recent code things that Cern have done, like that Dwight did with first with Ghostbusters when he revamped that code with the Are You a God mode, and then Elwynn did in Jurassic Park the mini wizard mode, and then Dwight did it again with Turtles just recently, is a good idea. You know, the purists will say, oh, no, you've got to earn it, But that's, you know, listen, this isn't one rule book and everyone follows the same thing. If you want to go, even if Chris joked and said, take the glass off. If you want to take the glass, I've done it. I wanted to see certain things that I know I'll never get to see. So I took glass off and I pushed switches and I wanted to see, you know, what the, you know, getting to superhero was on Spider-Man or whatever that was. There's nothing wrong with it. You're not going to see it in normal life. And it's fun. And at the same time, it can teach you rules of the game because you can progress to another level. What's this do? What's this do? What's this do? Totally agree. I mean, video games have easy, super easy mode for people who just want to play through the story, and then they've got, you know, ridiculously hard mode for the people who want to earn, you know, the ending of that game and feel like they've done everything they possibly can. So there's different strokes. You put it in the easy settings. Oh, my God, yeah. And it was still brutal. Yes. It was still brutal, but you were able to see more because it only took one shot to get the X as opposed to three or four. Correct, yeah. And some of those modes are really cool, like the Master Magician mode where your flippers are reversed and you've got a million balls coming at you. Reverse edge-verted. Yes. What game are you talking about with that? Houdini. Houdini. Okay. You should do a mode where the flippers stay up instead of down, and when you hit the button, they go down instead of up like normal, and it hits right and right hits left. I've never even got to that. I know how the drain works. You fucking moron! Are you guys starting to see a pattern here with Captain Fantastic? Yes. Our email is going to be filled next week with just like, why don't you go to a therapist? Get over it. Work it out. That's right. I know. I think we're definitely going to get blasted for talking about cheating to wizard modes, but hey, it is what it is. It's your game. You pay for it. That's right. Like I said, there's not one rule book that everyone has to follow. Well, you guys want to talk about our last two weeks in pinball? Our last two weeks in pinball. Game time. Christian, why don't you tell us what you did for your last two weeks in pinball? I had a pretty fun last couple of weeks. Joe Fox actually came out and hung out when my... Why don't you guys get a room? That's right. Listen, I mean, the guy's my friend, so he's coming on the show, and we're going to talk about him coming out to my place. I'm starting to feel like I live in Siberia. Everybody's having fun, hanging out with each other. I'm like, I got nothing over here. Oh, man, come visit us. We've got a guest room. Yeah. Well, Joe came out. He wanted to come and give us something, which he wouldn't really tell us what it was initially, and weeks went by. We weren't seeing anyone. We weren't having anyone in our house. And eventually, you know, as our numbers got a little bit better out in Pennsylvania, we said, Joe, come on over. Let's hang out. Eventually, after so much knocking, you finally let him in. That's right. That's right. And, yes, so Sarah and the girls were out of town, and Joe came over, and we played some pinball and went out and got a beer or two. But he brought me a freaking epic gift. Joe, do you want to tell them what it was? No, you can tell them. All right. All right, so you brought me an awesome coin door, which was powder-coated. So, Chris, you've seen the LE Tac from Mars from Chicago Gaming, which is a freaking beautiful machine. But the coin door on the front, it's all pimped out in green armor around the game, but the coin door is black. So what Joe did is he matched the coin door powder coat to what the trim of the cabinet armor was, and it just enhances the game so much more, man. It looks so nice. He had replaced all the coin doors on your own games, right? You have all of them, the remakes. I have all the remakes, yep. So he had done that for each of his machines, and he brought one over to mine and flipped out the Coindor and was able to pretty quickly put the new one on. So thank you very much, Joe, for that. That was freaking awesome, and I really appreciate it. So that was a good time. We had a good time hanging out. Boy, I need to move closer, if anything, just for the gifts. I know. Absolutely. I told you, man. You get nothing! I will powder coat that Captain Fantastic Coindor in a minute. You have to put the fire out first. So something else that was cool out of that visit is that Joe has never really been into gin and tonics. And so I've got a pretty good collection here. And when he came over, I gave him a bottle of one of my favorite gins. And he went home and, you know, he's like, ah, you know, I'm not sure. I wanted to try gin, but I wasn't really sure if I'd love it. And he went home and got some tonic. And I would say, Joe, you are officially hooked at this point. You're like starting a collection of different gins. You're sending Martin Robbins, who is another gin enthusiast, pictures of your gin collection. So are you officially a gin guy now? You sounded drunk or something on the radio. I'll say it's still in the honeymoon phase, but yes. So, yeah, for whatever reason, well, I'm not going to go on a long dissertation, but, yeah, I am definitely, that bottle is well gone that you gave me. My second bottle is almost gone. So I ordered some different ones that were kind of like hard to find that you guys recommended to me. So I am definitely trying to get club entry. Let's put it that way. That's awesome, man. Welcome to the gym club. So the other exciting thing that happened over the last two weeks is a little over a year ago, I was talking to one of my partners in my group who's also really into pinball. And he plays in the local league. He's one of the – he's going to a lot of the pinball shows in the area. but he's also a referee for the Hershey Bears hockey team, and he's an ice hockey fanatic. He has three pinball games in his basement, and they're all hockey teams. He's got Bobby Orr's power play, ice fever, Olympic hockey, so you can see the trend. But if you live locally to me and you're into hockey, the Bears are kind of like a religion, and my partner is super into it. He's written a book about the Bears. He's actually made a movie about the Bears, so he's about as into that sports team as you can possibly get. So I mentioned to him that he should make a pinball machine based on the Bears. and that there are people out there who will take old games and they'll actually convert them to whatever theme you want. And he immediately was totally into that, and he was like, people can do that? I didn't know that was a thing. But I did some research and found a guy named Brian Soares from Game Room Pinball in Massachusetts, and he's done a lot of sports-themed pins in the past and has done some beautiful stuff. And I hooked him up with another buddy of mine who's on the show later, Joel DeGuzman, who's done a lot of pinball art in the past, mostly logos like Amy Pin for American Pinball and that sort of thing, but he's always wanted to do a complete art package. Long story short, the game is finally done. It looks phenomenal. I'll post some pictures on our Facebook page. But why this relates to me is that even cooler than that is I was involved in a small way in making this happen, and Joel put Sarah, my wife, our daughters, and myself all in the back glass of the game. So we're in the stands. Sarah's got a coffee in her hand, and I've got a drink, and my girls are cheering for the Hershey Bears. So that was really cool, and I finally achieved in some small way my goal of being on a pinball machine, And that was a highlight, for sure, my last few weeks. Well, God damn it. If everything good doesn't happen to you. I got a corridor. I'm on the back glass. Hello. I'm in pinball heaven over here. How are you doing? I'm fat. My dog won't eat. Yeah. My dog is pissed off. I'm pissed off. My kitchen is dirty. Son of a bitch. I know good stuff has happened to you, Chris. Whether you'll talk about it or not, I don't know. We'll talk about it right now. Tell us what you're about to. As I discussed before in my Munsters, I stripped one of the screws on the lower playfield lens, and Mr. Borgi was kind enough to send me the whole assembly, like the lens and the frame that the lens goes in and everything. I'm like, oh, dude, I just, like, he thought I stripped the threading on the frame that holds the lens. And I'm like, no, I just stripped, like, you know, where you put the Allen wrench in. He's like, oh, you probably didn't need all that shit then. I'm like, yeah, but I'll figure a way to put it in. On the other hand, my parents just moved back to town from California after living there for 13 years, and they borrowed my bag of tools and I can't do shit with it. So it's like just laying on the game, game's out of commission, and I can't fix it until I get my tools back. And I went over there the other day. I'm like, can I have my tools back? And they borrowed them to put handles on all the cupboards And as I saying it I look up at the cupboards and there no handles on them And there this giant pile of handles and bags like on the counter I like I guess I can have my tools back it not about that well that cool though that they back in town right I mean uh how they've been they've been away for a long time and uh you and Presley are both local to the area so did they move from Michigan initially yeah yeah we all live here they moved out there 13 years ago because basically my mom's whole family you know her brother and sister and all their kids and everything are all out there. So they moved out there, yeah, 13 years ago. And I don't know why they came back. My mom claims it was to be with me, but I don't believe that. I mean, not that I'm like a bad kid and she doesn't like me, but, you know, if that's the case, why did she leave? You know? Well, they just took 13 years to realize how much they missed you, man. They want to come back and hang with you and Presley. That's pretty sad, isn't it? The next time I break up with a girlfriend, I'm going to say, you know, in 13 years, you're going to be begging me to take you back. And you know what? Fuck you. You can't say that to your mom. Because after 12 years, I'm not waiting anymore. That's right. So, Chris, here's a heads up on that lens replacement. I took it off one time to clean it, which is probably what you took it off for, and trying to get those, you know, because that can really affect the ball path when it's coming back down if you don't have everything exactly level or if one screw is hanging up a little higher than the next one and it's not flush. So it took me like a week to get it back to where it was not affecting the ball path. that was still in there, wasn't loose, so a little heads up, it's not going to be just tighten down that screw and put the glass back. Yeah, no, I know, I know. Actually, I screwed it up because I took it out. I removed it from the underside to clean it, which is what Mr. Borg told me to do. He said, don't buck with that lens. Just take the lower play field off. But, yeah, the ball was, it just happened that the ball down the left side was catching the groove where the lens met the play field, and I had to try and adjust it. And I just put my Allen wrench in, and I twisted it, and it went thump. And I'm like, oh, no. You can tell when it strips because you feel it. It's like starting to rotate, starting to rotate, and then it just slips. And then the more that happens, the more you strip it. Yeah, and then it just got worse and worse. I'm like, God damn it. And so I had the head of the screw up high enough that I could probably grab it with pliers. But then I was imagining that if I tried to unscrew that with the pliers, but I would be getting these circular scratches from the pliers on the lens as I twisted the screw around. So I didn't know what to do. So I don't know. Whatever. You're right. You're right. You do wish you lived locally. We could all just help out or have Joshua Clay come over and take a look at you. Maybe I can solder, you know, an Allen wrench to it. I did go out and buy new high-quality Allen wrenches, you know, so I got that going. Let's see. I ordered a Data East Batman Color DMD from the Color DMD guys. Cool. It has not arrived yet, but I will talk about that when it arrives. And, let's see, continuing work on the new title for CGC. Awesome. Just kind of like diving into that. But, Mr. French, you got a phone call from, we'll just say, another big manufacturer who reached out for a quote on some artwork for a future game. And that's great. Valley's coming back. You are kind of spreading your wings here with different companies, man. I mean, you work for CERN, and who knows what other companies. Obviously, CGC is on the list, but it's cool that you can now freelance a little bit more because when you were with Stern, did you feel like there was a little bit of an expectation that you really shouldn't or couldn't work for other companies when you were there? Well, yeah, like when Dirty Donnie did that and he got shit canned, it was like, oh, okay. I see how that works. Yikes. Yeah, but no one else that I've been dealing with now has said that there's any restrictions. I don't think I would go along with that because, you know, when I was working for Stern, I had a full-time job as well as doing stuff for Stern. Right now, I'm just all freelance. So if I could do two games in one year while still holding down a full-time job, I can easily do three games a year not having the full-time job. So, you know, and no one's going to, you know, Chicago Gaming or nobody's going to come to me and say, we've got three games for you for this year, you know. How do you think about that? So being able to do that, having that ability is very cool. And it gives me a lot of opportunities. It puts me in a position where, you know, I can go, well, you know, that doesn't sound like any fun to me. Rather than, you know, whatever it is, I'll do it. You know, I get to kind of pick and choose. It's just a good position to be in, you know. But it's cool. I'm looking forward to seeing how that works out. Are you excited about the, I mean, obviously without saying what it is, does it seem like a. . . No, you can say it. It's okay. Does it sound like a theme that you're really into and that you're excited to do? Oh, yeah. Yeah, definitely. Cool. Yeah, it's something very, very different. It's a license, but it's very different, and it's right up my alley for the style. A lot of people want me to give them the stern style, which I do a lot of different stuff, but ever since I came into the pinball scene with that realistic look, that's what people want. So until I get an opportunity to do something different, them offering me this, it fits perfectly with that style, which I'm more than happy to do. Work is work, and I certainly do it. And you do it well? Yeah, I mean, I think any aspects of art I enjoy doing, whether it's this style, that style, whatever, I tend to like to be a chameleon and, you know, sort of mimic any sort of style. I really don't have a style, actually, you know, of my own. I never bothered to develop one because I wasn't interested in that. I figured, you know, if I did, if I had a very particular look, then people can come to me for that. But if I didn't and I could do really any kind of look, people could come to me for anything. That would be, you know, more desirable as a hire. so that's the path I kind of followed because I knew, you know, I'm not in it for the pride you know, like as far as like a fine artist who's like, you know, I've got this emotion that I need to convey in this painting and I, you know, I do it for a living and I'm a commercial artist, I'm not a fine artist such as like, you know, later on in our show in the game show we have Rachel Best who used to work for Marco and she's an amazing painter but she doesn't paint you know, like superheroes and stuff for pinball machines, she does her own thing and it's amazing, you need to check her out Yeah, she's really good. Yeah. But, you know, what I do is more commercial. So, I mean, I take pride in my work as far as doing the best I can, but it's not personal. You know, it's a commercial thing. You had mentioned before that you were trying to kind of mix it up a little bit with your next CDC title and maybe not do the same kind of artwork that you've always done. Do you feel like it's going to be very different? It's not going to be very different. It's going to be a little different. I can't really explain how. I mean, I could if I was allowed. Did you know Stern kept you in a box, Chris, when you worked for them, that you had to do something specifically a certain way? And now CGC or these other companies will let you be more of Chris? We never really had a discussion about it when I was at Stern. They sought me out because they needed help with Batman. And they found my Batman art online, and that's why they got a hold of me. So that's what they were expecting from me. And once I did that, the next title I did was Guardians, and their attitude was, you know, oh, this is perfect for what you do. You know, just do the same thing you did for Batman. So we never really talked about it. You know, I never really said, like, hey, can I, you know, kind of spread my wings a bit? They were happy with that look, and I was happy with, you know, giving it to them. So that's just what we did. That's just how that ended up. But when you go to different places, you know, even so, you have to kind of fight that going to CGC. I'm sure they expected the same thing. Like, oh, well, we've seen your work and we're happy to have that. Well, that may not be what I want to give you. Especially because the title could be different. It could command something completely different. Yeah, exactly. I kind of actually had those talks with people that approached me as far as what I can do, what I have to offer, and that it's not just the Batman look or whatever, the Munsters look. It's something different than that. And that's not to say that Stern was against that. We just, like I said, we never had that discussion. That's just what they knew I could do. So when the next game came along, we're like, you know, Christopher Franchi's got to do that one. That's perfect for his style. And that's just the way it worked out. But, again, I was happy to do it. So, anyway, that's been my two weeks in pinball. Well, let's see what Joe has been up to. Joe, what have your last two weeks entailed? Well, the highlight, obviously, you already covered, which was coming out to hang out with you and play pinball and have lunch and install your coin door. But you covered that. I think the biggest thing that happened in the last two weeks was, listen, at the end of the day, these games are pinball. They're mechanical machines, and sometimes things break. Sometimes things even come out of the factory broken. People like to bitch and complain about, you know, this company's quality control and this company's quality control. And, you know, do I get aggravated if a game comes and there's already things that are issues? Sure. But at the end of the day, I'm glad that they're still making pinball machines, right? So if I've got to deal with a little bit of headaches here and there, so be it. And one of the most notorious ones has been over the last couple weeks is that the new game from Stern Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the LEs that were coming out, the pros didn't have this issue because the LE has a little bit more feature, which is the big thing was the turtle van diverter. So the game starts off, you put the game together, you load all the balls in there, three of them kick into the turtle van. And they go up the ramp, they shoot around, the diverter opens, it loads them in the van, closes off, and you're ready to go. Well, a lot of people were finding that when they set their game up, the ball would come up the ramp and either just spin back around, come all the way full circle and never go in the diverter. And people were discovering the reason why is because the diverter wasn't even assembled correctly or had already fallen apart. So essentially, it was a screw and a nut that were holding a link in place that would open and close that diverter with a coil. And either A, from the factory, they weren't screwed in all the way, or B, the screw is short. So maybe it was during transit, it got jumped around or whatever. So bottom line is a lot of people are having those problems. So Stern sent out a service bulletin to basically show you the easiest way to disassemble the least amount of parts you needed to do to get to this part to either A, put it back together if yours was apart, or B, as a security, take it apart even if yours was together, which mine was, thank God, but to basically get it to the point where you then took it apart so that you could loctite that screw and make sure that it didn't happen, that if yours was maybe on the brink of happening, that it wouldn't happen. So a couple people had that problem right off the bat, and they had to have either pinball attacks or do it themselves and try to find the best way, and it's in a really, really tough spot. So, you know, before the service bulletin came out, people were talking about it took them three hours, four hours to get this thing back together. I waited and figured that, you know, they'd come out with some solution or some recommendation, which they did, which was a 16-page service bulletin that step-by-step showed you how, in what order to take what pieces apart, break it down, re-secure that part, and then put it back together. So it ended up taking me about an hour and a half, hour and 45 minutes total to get it together. And all I did was re-secure mine, Loctite that screw so that it won't come out. That seems like a lot of work, man. I mean, you know what you're doing. So for the average show, that would take a while, right? So do you feel like this was something that they missed in the factory or may have just been a little bit loose and come out in transport? Because the reason I ask you that is Borg is known to playtest every single LE before it leaves the factory. And there were pictures of him, like, touting that on a certain website. So you would think he'd pick up on this if it was something that was just not assembled at all ever? There was two guys that I know personally. The game doesn't function when this can't happen. So the first was right out of the box. He called me right away. He's like, hey, did you have this problem? And he showed me a video, and the ball just kept shooting up the ramp full circle. because it's trying to load the van because the van needs to have the ball staged and then five stay in the trough. And if the balls can't stage, then the game won't even start because it knows that the balls have to be in the van. The other one was one that came apart after initial, like maybe the first 10 games, and then he started saying, hey, I can't get the van to load, and we figured out the issue. Do I think? Who knows? I have to think that since the video and the notes were saying that Borg tested every LE before it got boxed up is that they probably were not 100% secured in production. And, you know, sure, it lasts for a game or two or three. And then the addition of shipping it and bouncing around in the truck and going to a distributor and then him shipping it to wherever it's got to go, you know, adds all that wear and tear already. It's probably that way. I don't think that Borg would have, because he would have never been able to start the game if balls can't load into the turtle van. So I'd have to say it happened after the fact. Now, whether the production line forgot to lock tight screws or whether they forgot to screw them all the way in, whether the screw should be a little bit longer, I'm sure it won't happen on the premiums. We know that because the pros don't have that feature. Therefore, there was no problem with those. The premium will have that feature, and I'm sure they've already addressed it because that's the good thing with these companies is when they find out something. I always want the first game because I'm so anxious I want to get it, but part of me is okay with waiting sometimes because I want to see the bugs ironed out and then know that I'm not going to get game number one that's going to have all these issues. So, yeah, I don't think the premiums are going to have that issue. They're going to address it in the factory, and that will all be tied up and done with, so people with the premiums will be lucky. The other issue I had was Sunday morning, Top Whales had a new update, and I updated it, and I went to go play it, and I had no power at all. I had no flippers. I wouldn't shoot the ball into the shooter lane. So it was Sunday morning. I started messaging on the forum on Pinside, And I instantly got, you know, responses from Josh Kugler and from Dave Jeff Brenner, who's their service manager, and Joe Schober. You know, try this, try this, try this, try this. And we ultimately came down to, by the afternoon on a Sunday, that the 48-volt power supply had basically gone bad. You know, it wasn't that long. Obviously, out of the box, it was only 40 or 50 games. But, you know, things happen. So Dave emailed me on Monday, got all my contact information, shipped me out a new power supply. I was here Wednesday. I replaced it right away, and boom, right back into action. So stuff happens, and that's okay, and they addressed it right away. And on a Sunday afternoon, I've gotten a diagnosis and had the part out on Monday, and Wednesday I'm back in business. I mean, everybody knows that pinball machines are complex, and there's a lot of things that could potentially go wrong. You've got a steel ball hitting into every component of that machine. But as long as companies will give you the service that you just described, that's okay, right? I mean, this is something that we, as pinball, you know, hobbyists, we know that it's going to happen. And as long as you're not falling on deaf ears when you contact these companies and they do right by you, then that's all you can really ask for. Yeah, I couldn't. I mean, aside from them driving out from, you know, Illinois to come and put it in themselves. I mean, what else can you ask for to have Sunday, you know, morning, afternoon responses from these guys and then just take care of it. And, you know, it was an easy fix. You know, it took me probably 20 minutes. Not all stories have such happy endings because we never got our swag from those. Do you really want that T-shirt? The guy sounded like he was going to send me like a treasure trove of goodies, but I never got a single thing. He asked for all of our addresses. American Football, if you're listening, Cranchy really wants a shirt. If you could hook him up, he's going to be a very happy guy. Well, I don't think they asked for our sizes for shirts. Oh, true. We were just going to get a box of stuff, but we got a box of dust. We got nothing. Anyway, cool. Okay, I guess we should get on with the Pinball in the News. Take it away, pre-recorded intro. And now, Pinball in the News, with your super awesome eyewitness news crew. This week in Pinball creates a new video series and podcast recapping the news for the month. It's, um, well, I went and saw it. You know, I'm a big fan of Jeff, and I love what he does, and I love him as a person and all that. It was just sort of an animated girl just standing on the side and her mouth was moving. you would see images of, you know, the stuff they're talking about. If there's a video clip associated with it, they play it. And this woman who is involved with the animation piece, Casey. Yeah, I think Casey is the character. It may also be the name of the main animator, but she's apparently a videographer in her day job. So she's animated this Week in Pinball mascot, and they have the, you know, whatever they're talking about, the recap of the month, they've got, you know, images and stuff. So it's more than just the static website, which I think is cool. I mean, everyone digests their news a little bit differently. Some people are podcast only. Some people like the website. And then if you're a YouTuber and that's kind of your thing, then now you have a recap for the month. So you don't, you know, if you're not psycho about pinball like we are and look at it every week. Maybe we need to have her on the show so you can tell her story about it. Yeah. How she came to do this. Great. I didn't realize it was a YouTube thing. I heard it was on the Twip podcast that came into my podcatcher, so I listened to it. But I didn't realize it was a YouTube thing until reading this article today. But I guess you're hearing the same sounds regardless of just the difference of seeing the animation. And then, Christian, you said seeing little clips of whatever they were talking about. Yeah, photos and whatnot. Yeah, obviously Jeff's not going to pull the curtain back and explain what's going on with that. But that's our job. So maybe we should reach out to her and have her tell us the story of how she got involved and what exactly she does. So check that out. It's sort of a visual podcast. It's not like a streaming thing or anything that's really super visual. It's just a step up from a basic podcast. Like Chris said, it's got the images to match up with some of the stories and whatnot. But, hey, it's new. Yeah. What I like about Jeff Patterson is that he has this website that's obviously like the premier source for news in pinball, right? And he has the Twipdy Awards, which are the number one award show for pinball. but he continually tries new stuff. It's not like he just kind of does the same stuff over and over again that's been really successful. I don't know how he has as much time as he does to continue to try to push the envelope. He's done the podcast thing in the past, and now has this KC character who's going to read off the news, and hopefully if KC actually does the heavy lifting of making this video every month, then it won't be as much of a hardship for him to maintain it. Yeah. Yeah. I should have brought this up in my two weeks in pinball. I was at Target, and I discovered, you know, you can buy those containers that, like, you put your cereal in it, and it's just basically a clear square with a lift-top lid. They have a container like that for spaghetti, for the long, straight noodles. Dude, I can't wait to see how this relates at all to what we're talking about. This is awesome. I recognized the shape. I instantly thought of this. I bought it. I went home, flipped it upside down. and my Twippy fits right in there, so it's like a display case. It's like it was made for it. It's just as tall. There's no clearance on the top. There's no clearance around the base other than maybe an eighth of an inch all the way around. It was like made to be a Twippy display case. It's amazing. Solid. So you just need to spray paint that with a little gold flash and then put it on top. Yeah, send it to Sarah. Let's see what she can do. Oh, yeah, she'll pick it up. And then send it back to you. It's like sending something to Matt at the Back Alley Creations to be pimped out. So the next thing on the news list is not so awesome. Pinball locations all over the country at this point are struggling because of COVID and the decreased traffic, either because people aren't going out or they're just not allowed to open. And there's been a few closures of some pretty major locations in the pinball world. Relatively close to Joe and I are Modern Pinball in New York City, which has been an arcade staple out there in the city. one of a couple of big name locations. And then Mystic Pinball up in New Robert Englunds, which is also a huge place for both people to go play pinball and also tournaments. I know Joe Lemire has hosted a bunch of different tournaments there. So I just wanted to, we've said this before, and I know other podcasts have harped on this, but if you can go out and you can support these local arcades and these local businesses in any way, gift cards, T-shirts, whatever you can do to help them out. Donations? Yeah, donations. I mean, to see these places slowly close one after another, It's just, as pinball fans, it's really crushing. And there's some people that are kind of on the bubble. I know Sunshine is safe for now, but Jack Bar in New York City is really struggling. They've tried to raise some money in different ways. I know, Chris, you were involved in a fundraiser for them and donated some stuff for them. It sucks because these are the guys or the gals that are bringing this stuff back to the mainstream. And they're buying these games and they're putting them on location for people to play. I mean, up until, you know, Joe Lemire's recent acquisition of all these games, he didn't have any. So these are the places where he could go and play and practice and do whatever. And if those places disappear again, you know, it does say a lot for the potential longevity of the hobby. I mean, home collections can only take it so far, and people don't get to see them or play them or realize that pinball's back. These are those staple places, and it does suck that this pandemic is just crushing so many different industries. And this one's close to our hearts. Well, you know, a lot of people have saved a lot of money by not going to all the expos that didn't happen this year. I would say, you know, it's very easy. You know, if 100 people donated $5 to one of these places, that's $500. And that's a big help to those people where you're just coughing up $5. I mean, anybody can afford $5. You know, you don't have to, like, be a hero and jump in there and say, I'm going to, you know, I'm giving you $500 of my own money. You know, it doesn't matter. Every little bit helps. They'll appreciate anything they can get. So don't sit back and think if you can't donate $100, you shouldn't donate at all. Just give anything because it all adds up. $5 is nothing to you. That's like, you know, from Darnit, I don't go to McDonald's for lunch today. I'll make a sandwich. But if 100 people did that, you know, that saves a location. So, you know, take some of the money that you saved and didn't travel with to the pinball shows and maybe kick a little over to your favorite venue to help them out. Yeah, we really don't want to get through this pandemic only to realize that there's no place to go play location pinball anymore. so do what you can do. Well, yeah, because if there's no locations and there's less people routing games or there's less people buying games, it could hurt the industry. So think about it that way. If you want your hobby to thrive and stay alive, you need to help these people as much as you do buying games and whatnot. So Zombie Yeti this week on Facebook or was it maybe the end of last week came up with a question for all those and basically I'll read it word for word. It says, The most addictive aspect in being part of creating pinball is that after sleepless months laboring away, you can finally sit back and watch how effortlessly your labor is overshadowed by rubber colors. I guess basically referring to the fact of everyone, as soon as they get their games, you know, changing, you know, all the standard black or white rubbers to, you know, color match, screw around with the colors, which I guess in his mind can influence the art package. I personally really change rubbers from standard stock stuff. I will do it on older games when they come in and they're dirty or whatever, and I usually change them to just like translucent Titan rubbers. Chris, you as obviously a great pinball artist, have you ever thought of screwing around with your work? I can tell you I'm an artist just like Jeremy is, and I can't wait to do that shit. I've changed everything. I've modded out my games. I've got action figures stuck in there. I've got vehicles stuck in there. I've changed the colors of the rubbers. It's like framing a piece of art. The right frame can really enhance what you have in a good way, Not in a way where it's going to take away from what you have, but it's going to add to it. So I have taken no offense. You should see my Guardians game. I've got all kinds of crap in there. I've got the vehicle. I've got a Milano. Yeah, the Milano. I've got a figure of the bad guy. I've got a figure of Star-Lord. I've got these vines. This goes beyond mods, though. I think when you replace every rubber in a game, especially if you're replacing a black rubber with a very vibrant color like an orange or a purple or something, that really does affect the aesthetic of the game. I mean, it makes the game look different. Do you feel like it detracts from your art, or do you encourage people to do that? It depends on who you are. It's like, you know, I'm an artist, so it's not like I'm a pinball fan who's contradicting what he says. I am what he is, and we have two different views. I don't look at my games and go, wow, I've detracted from my art. I just think, you know, what I do is an extension of that, And it's sort of like if you only had $5 to make a $10 drawing and someone gave you that extra $5, go in there and make it what you wanted it to be. And I think we can all understand that modern pinball is a little scaled back and a little less. Like I said a couple shows before, we're striving for new pinball greatness to reach what we had in the mid-'90s. Because we've gone backwards. And so, yeah, I'm all for it. You know, that doesn't mean that I don't appreciate his point of view, if that's how he feels, but I don't feel that way. Let's be honest. We know that Jeremy is also a guy who loves to crack jokes, right? So who knows if he really feels strongly about this or if he just wants to put his zinger out there. Yeah, you know, I've read this three times while listening to Chris at the same time. I'm thinking, is this just a big joke? Like, is this just the next little meme to throw out there? And it's more of a humor thing. He uses his humor to get his points across, too, though. True. Yeah. So, you know, he packages up an emotion or a feeling with a punchline. So it's hard to say. Let's have him back on and we'll talk about it. People have sent me pictures of their games that I've done art for, and, you know, they show me their little things that they put in there and all that. And I enjoy it. I think it's part of the fun, you know. If you're creative, then the sky's the limit. You know, if you've got a knack for doing that stuff, you can just pull that glass off and go to town. I think it's fun. Listen, at the end of the day, it's your game. personalize it how you want. But, you know, I think the key thing is, is doing it with taste. You know, some people don't have a flair for design and for color and they just pick something and throw it in there. And it could look like some kind of circus world or horseshit if they don't know what they're doing. So I get, you know, Jeremy's point based on that. Like if you just didn't have taste, you know, yeah, that's unfortunate. And it could, you know, it could just give the overall package of thumbs down. Like this, this looks like crap. You know, if you don't have a flair for that ask somebody's advice or look around and see what other people have done that that uh you know that looks good don't just go in there and go you know i think i'll get green and purple and orange and you know i haven't done that i've stuck with solid colors all right we beat that with a dead horse what do you think about moving to the next in flames the swedish metal band links up with stern and dirty donnie have you guys ever heard of in flames in the past It's the artwork for their album, which they're re-releasing. And I guess the reason why Stern is somehow involved is that they have a song. It's called Pinball Map, which apparently is one of the more popular songs. So that's how they loosely got associated with pinball. And they reached out to Stern and got Dirty Donnie, I guess, to do their album cover for this new album release. Have you ever heard of this band? And did you watch the video that was associated with this, with the Pinball Map song? No, not at all. I've never heard of Inflame. When I saw this article, I went, who? Not in a bad way, because I can't know everybody of everything, but it's definitely probably not a mainstream thing, so it's cool that they're coming into our little world here and starting in Dirty Donnie got involved. Their artwork looks great. Yeah, I guess the album is called Clayman, and it looks very cool. The album has got like a video game slash pinball feel to it. I watched the video that they linked to this. It was this guy walking through this castle, and there was some pinball imagery in there, but it had like an Alice Cooper Nightmare Castle meets heavy metal, like very futuristic sci-fi vibe to it. It was really weird, very trippy. But hey man, whatever gets pinball out there in the mainstream is a good thing in my mind. Can you see Donnie's work out there again? Next up, Multimorphic does it again with a new one-handed play on their P3 pinball platform. Three buttons on each side so that you can control the entire game with just one hand. Ah, hang on. Now I gotta shut the door from Barlow. Hold on. Come on. Can't you just give me an hour? We'll lay down. Yeah, this is a pretty cool feature because it allows you, like, let's say you've got a dog that's bothering you. And he wants food. Well, hey, you can feed your dog while you play with one hand. There you go. Now, this is a pretty cool innovation. that I like that this company is not just sitting still and putting out games, but they're also working on the main game. And innovations, right? Like trying new shit that has never been done before. I think that's really cool. Regardless of how successful it is or how much people actually use these things, I think just trying new stuff is something that we need more of in pinball. Yeah, definitely. Everyone always asks for innovations. Well, I don't know if you want to call it a bummer. I don't have this game. So all of these cool things he's coming out with, I can't enjoy because I don't have the game. And I'm not really, you know, with the COVID and all that, I'm not in a position to drop $20,000 to buy the whole setup and all of that. But lucky for the people who do have it. Christian, do you know anything about this as far as is this something that you can, if you've already bought the game, the platform, that you can update? Or do you have to get a new version of it? No, I think this all comes, it's a physical three-button system on the side of the cabinet. So I think it comes just standard with the game. I don't know if it came included when it first came out, but it's something that is there now. There's other things that they're working on that they had alluded to, like a save-restore feature on some of their games. So as you play the game, if you're done playing and you want to come back to the game later, you can save your progress. I think that is phenomenally cool, even though most pinball games don't last that long. If you are having an epic game and you have to go to work or you have to, you know, go to bed or whatever, saving your progress and coming back to it later would be really cool. Well, I always need that feature on Captain Man. We'll just get all those jokes out in this episode, and we'll just put it to bed. Yeah, the cabinet for Multimorphic is three buttons on each side. It was always standard from the beginning, as far as I can remember, with Jerry's platform. So he's just coding in the ability to make some either flipper code or change the setting to where it says, you know, left hand, right hand, whatever. If you remember, Josh Coogler did this with Oktoberfest at one point. Right. It's coded in that one mode, you know, which was supposed to be like, hey, you're drinking beer in your left hand, so you can play pinball with your right and with control both. Because there was a two-flipper button on the right-hand side that controlled the magnets. You could use that to control each flipper. So very similar to that. Joe, how do you not have a multi-morphic? You've got every other game out there. So for me, I hate to say this because I know Jerry spent a ton of time, and I'm not sure if he's going in or out, but it's just not pinball. It's not, you know, yes, there's a ball. Yes, there's mechs. but to me it's just not real hardcore pinball so to me to spend that kind of money on something that i don't think would last here although i do that all the time anyway but i will tell you with with the release of heist that i've seen it has me more intrigued than i ever have been totally agree i'm with you on that he needs to get and that's been said before i'm not saying anything new he needs to get some kind of license to really suck people in to paying more attention to it you You know, Lexi Lightspeeds and Heists and Rocks and Barnyard and, you know, they're all great ideas. They're all, you know, implemented very well, but it's just not going to grab the mainstream attention. You know that why Stern always has been on the top of the mountain because they get the best themes You know even if it not your theme there always is going to be one So I think Jerry will really if he can figure out a licensing thing I really think that pushes him over the top and starts to put that in front of people's faces a lot more. Yeah, no, I agree. I think that it's a really cool concept for people who want to see a marriage of video games and pinball. And with all the innovations he's making, he's really obviously trying to push forward with lots of stuff that people have wanted for a long time but just haven't had. So I think that eventually people are going to see the value in this system, even though I don't own one. I've played one maybe once. I do think that continually pushing for new and better stuff in pinball should eventually pay off for him. And as you said, if he gets a big license, maybe that's what will kind of tip the scales in his favor. But Heist looks awesome. I would love to play that game. And I know, Chris, you've never even played the system, so it's hard to really comment. Yeah, my comment is I want to play it. Yeah, for sure. You know, I just want to see what it's all about. And definitely with this new heist is definitely something I'm interested in. And speaking of innovations, Christian, we got great feedback on our innovation segment that we did, as well as the George Gomez interview. Like, I think that's been our epic, you know, episode of all episodes. But when we did the bit about the innovations, somebody sent you something. So the feedback from this segment was so epic for a couple of reasons. One, one of the things that I talked about is the ability to keep a flipper held up if you want to take the glass off or you want to take a bathroom break or just leave the pinball machine and not worry about your ball draining. Make a new drink. Yeah, exactly. Go make a new drink. So Ian Ian Harrower was the first one to reach out. He's GammaGoat on Twitch. He streams and he's a big pinhead. He let us know that P3 actually has this ability and basically you have to open the coin door. But if you have the flipper up and you open the coin door, it keeps your flipper held up, which is very cool if you own the system. Obviously, it wouldn't work on location, but you don't really see many P3s on location anyway. So it is built into that system. But then even cooler than that, someone legitimately made one of the things we asked for, which was a pinball press clip-on. It was basically exactly what we wanted, a way to hold up the flipper mechanically so that you could just walk away. A guy named Joe Zenkis messaged us on Facebook, and he said, basically, I heard you wanted this, and so I whipped one up. The guy 3D printed a really cool bracket that essentially— Yeah, it's like an armature with like a slip to go underneath the lock bar. That's exactly right, yeah. So you slip, you slide it under the lock bar, and then you plug in a piece on the side. It works on the left or the right, and it basically keeps the button pressed in. He had heard of our podcast. He had whipped this thing up in a 3D printer and sent it to me before we even recorded this show. So I got it like three days ago. So, Joe, thank you so much for going above and beyond. I just shipped him a package today of a bunch of super awesome pinball show swag and a shirt just to say thanks for going the extra mile. But he's done a few other things, like he's made an automatic leg leveler that will basically sense the angle of your play field and modify it to keep it at a certain angle. He's made a mod for Wonka, a glass elevator mod that actually he 3D printed, and it spins in the background. So this guy is pretty impressive in terms of his innovations and his inventions. So a pinball company should look this guy up and see what he can do for them because he's done a lot of really cool stuff. So, Joe, thank you for making that awesome bracket for us, and I hope you put it on the market and actually get some sales. I'm at the wrong end of this show. I don't understand why people send you shit and you're getting all kinds of stuff. I'm getting dick over here. What the hell, man? He sent me two, so I can send one to you. Because it is cool enough that you have to actually see it. I tried it out as soon as I got it, and it works. It works perfectly. This is all I want. I want him to manufacture this so that you can buy it at Expos. But it has to be called the Super Awesome Flipper Holder. And I'll send him my logo so that he can use the Super Awesome from our logo and then just put the words Flipper Holder underneath it. Well, what's funny is that he's actually a logo guy as well. So when he sent it to me, he had already created a logo for it. It says Flipper Break, and the P's in Flipper are coffee cups with a little theme coming out of it. But he can definitely throw a super awesome pinball logo on top of that, I would guess. If he's going to manufacture this and make the cash off our idea, he can at least use it. Give us some credit. Sort of blend it. Yeah, yeah. Come on, dude. You don't send me one. You make your own logo. I'm getting cut out of everything. I'm sure he will hook you up. And if not, I will send you one of my two. He actually, when I was talking to him, he mentioned his innovation idea, and I thought it was freaking hilarious. So have you guys walked into a grocery store or an area where you have to get your temperature checked, and they have these little monitor screens where it's got a camera on it, and you walk up to it, and it basically can read your temperature via the camera? I've seen them, but I've not had to do that. Well, he was saying that they should set these up in all the Jersey Jack pinball machines, and if you walk up to the machine and you've got a fever, then the machine just doesn't turn on. it's like a way to make sure the tournaments stay completely covid free i thought it was a great idea you get shot with the uh wonka vision then the machine just goes boom it powers down nice hey okay can you think of anything any innovations to uh to bring to the table so first i'm going to give you a quick editorial the word innovation and pinball to me is like chris's dislike of satisfying. I can't stand everyone always talking about innovations. It just drives me crazy. Satisfying innovation. That's a little different now. It's like a double negative. So to me, I understand the concept. I understand people want to continuously see upgrades, but if we look at the progression of pinball, there have been so many and everyone just keeps wanting more. Nobody can ever be satisfied with what we have. It was very satisfying. With that being said, if I had some enhancements that I would like to see be made. That stuff leveling thing you were talking about with, with Joe, is that the one that sat like on the apron underneath the apron and then would just kind of give you the degrees that your play field was at? No. So it's, it's actually a device that you put underneath each leg and then you can dial in with the degrees that you want to have in there. And then we'll obviously check to make sure that that's accurate and you can do it on the fly. You just plug it in and it will, it will change automatically. It's very cool. So my notes here have written self-level legs, and I didn't know anything about that. That has been one of my thought processes for a couple of years. They put the bubble levels in there, and that's great, and it helps you out. But everyone's floors are different, and if you have them in your garage, your garage is pitched left to right or right to left, crawling under every game and lifting them up and listening to your Pinguy app telling you that it's still 0.20 degrees left is too low is to have that kind of thing. So I haven't seen that, but that's a great idea. And if it could be really mainstream, that would be freaking awesome for me. Because when we talk about maintenance on games, that's the number one thing that I can never feel like I can get right. The other thing is, again, what you talked about with Jerry doing with multi-market is like a pause button. My wife calls or the dog's got to get let out or whatever it is. The ball can drain. I don't need it to hold the flipper up for three hours. But I don't lose that ball necessarily at the ball count. And I can come right back and everything's lit the way that it was. And it's in the shooter lane ready for me to start over again. And then the other thing is the Wi-Fi stuff. And I don't need it for playing people across the world, because to me that's just for fun, and for me it's not that important, but at least for the updates that you can just flip a game on and the code's updated when they come out with a new code. You think your pinball games will become like your cell phone if that happens, where you turn on your pinball game and it says an update is ready to download. You're like, ah, fuck it. You know, and you hit skip so you can just play a game. I bet you yes. I think that that is definitely something that may happen. is that you'll get a little alert on your screen that says there is an update waiting. You know, do you want to install it? If they work it like iPhone does, an update is waiting. And if you don't update it, your game doesn't quite work like it used to. Yeah. There was a way for them to put out, you know, two or three different, like literally have Lyman Sheets code Batman three different ways to literally have it like three different games. Because, you know, a lot of times with games, they get boring and they get drab. And then they come out with a massive update, and it's almost like a completely different game. Like what Dwight did with Game of Thrones and with Ghostbusters, that would be a cool thing to have in the future. If you told Lyman Sheets he's got to code a game three times, he'd probably jump off the roof. It'd take eight years. We've kind of been fishing for that with the Munsters, though. It's like having Dwight go back and do a deeper rule set and then maintaining the version that's there so you can kind of toggle between the two. If you've got kids playing and you want a simple game, leave it the way it is, but for all the big pinball players and all that who poo-poo it because the rule set's too simple, you know, have something deeper. So, yeah, I'm all for that. I think that would be a great idea. We have one of the coolest segments I think that we've ever done. Like, we've done interviews that have been really good, but we've never done a segment as kind of the highlight of a show. And I think this game show that we put together that's coming up next is going to be really, really fun to listen to. We had a great time doing it and some really awesome guests. So stay tuned for that. We'll be right back. Guess what? I got a fever. And the only prescription is the super awesome pinball show. Oh, yeah! Super. Yeah. 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Here we go. Well, hey there, pinheads. This is international pinball sensation Jack Danger. When I'm not polishing my numerous streaming awards, I'm listening to the Super Awesome Pinball Show. Well, actually, I have it running in the bathroom, but it's on, you know, to help boost their numbers. Flippers and buzz up for my pals here at the Super Awesome Pinball Show, and let my dudes know that you appreciate the work that they put in, and I don't know, shoot them a sexy message or two on the Facebooks. Okay. Now, back to our program. Well, it's about frickin' time. I am the God of Hellfire, and I bring you... The Super Awesome Pinball Show. It's the coolest show. Today, four pinball people from around the globe will challenge each other and battle for pinball supremacy. Who can survive three different rounds of trivia and make it to the top? And who will be crowned Master of Pinball Knowledge? Right here on The Super Awesome Pinball Game Show. We wanted to do this game show since the show started. We wanted to wait for the right concept and for the right contestants. So we finally were able to pull this all together, and we want to welcome to the show our awesome contestants, which we will introduce right now. So the first person on deck is Laura Fraley. She's an all-around pinball rock star, co-owner and creator of the Richmond Pinball Collective, and helps out her local Bells and Chimes League. She's recently hosted the Corn Copia Selfie League Tournament, so that pinheads could get some competitive pinballing over the last few months. And she's helped a lot of fun, so welcome to the show, Mrs. Laura Fraley. Hi. How are you doing? Thank you. No, we're great. How have you been? How's the collective been through all of this? Pretty good. We were closed for about three months, and then we decided to do sort of a soft reopening with very limited people by appointment only. So that's going okay right now. I don't know. It's sad times. You've got to do what you've got to do, and even slightly open is better than fully closed. I guess. That's true. Next up is Rachel Best. If you've been to a pinball show, there's a good chance you run into Rachel. She was formerly the marketing director of Marple Specialties, which places her at several expos in the past. She's also the owner and operator of the Electric Bat Arcade in Tempe, Arizona, and a board member of the Classic Game Preservation Society. Is that all true? All of that is true. Awesome. Classic Game Preservation Society is the nonprofit that runs ZapCon. So I'm a co-founder of ZapCon. Cool. So how has your arcade been faring through this pandemic? Well, maybe you guys have seen the news that Arizona frequently wins the news as far as pandemic news. So we've been shut down most of since March. We were open just a little bit, then got shut down again. And we're looking to start doing small tournaments and limited entry again starting this next week. We also have a second location up in Flagstaff, Arizona that was scheduled to open just before that shut down. So we've got another location just waiting for quarantine to be over. Is this the first time you guys have done tournaments and competitive pinball in your bar since the quarantine? Oh, since the quarantine? Yes. So this one is just going to be 10 people at a time, multiple time slot. Very cool. All right. Well, next up is Mr. Joel DeGuzman. Joel is an artist. He's also a big fan of all things pinball. He's done a lot of design and poster work for the Pintastic Show in New Robert Englunds, as well as logos for Mrs. Pin, the Final Round Pinball Podcast, James Rees Rails, Color DMD, pinball tournaments, and most recently the logo Amy Pin for the American Pinball Company. Welcome to the show, man. Hey, thanks. Glad to be here. It's good to have you. You've been hard at work lately on a homebrew for the Hershey Bears hockey team for one of my position partners, so that's been taking up a lot of your time, and that's almost done, right? I think, barring any edits to the back glass, which was the final piece, it should be finished. So I'm just waiting to hear back on that. And Brian Soares, who's here in Massachusetts, he runs Game Room Pinball, and he does all the printing and building and, you know, mechanical work and all the machines. So he actually makes it a real tangible game after I've made all the artwork. So, yeah, so I've spent quarantine finishing up that thing. I think I started it in November. It was a really long time ago. So, you know, I can also say that it takes forever to do the art on a pinball machine. And so nothing but props and respect to Frenchies. Nice. Don't know how you do it. Neither do I. And our final contestant is Mr. Joe Fox. Joe is a pinhead of the highest order with more than 30 games in his basement at any given time. He's a big part of the First State Flippers Pinball League in Delaware and one of the nicest guys you'll meet. He's also the co-host for this episode, as you know. Please welcome Joe Fox. Hey, guys. How are you? Welcome, Joe. We're excited to have you on the show. And a bonus perk, you know, being the co-host of this episode gave you an automatic shoe into the game show. Lucky me. Go down in flames. All right, well, let's get to the game. So Chris and I have created a fun game show for you guys that is going to run through three rounds of games that you may be familiar with, but every aspect is going to be tied into pinball in some way. And one person will be eliminated after each of the first two rounds until only two of you remain for the super awesome finals and a chance at our grand prize, which is kick ass. You guys are going to really like this. But even if you go out on the first two rounds, you're going to go home with some good stuff. So let's move on to the very first game, and that is the super awesome Price is Right. Are you guys ready to take part in some pricing games? Absolutely. Yes. All right, so here are the rules. Each round, there's going to be a pinball-related item up for bid. We're going to have each of you take turns making the first bid, telling us what you think the item is worth. Your bid has to be different than any previous bid, and the person with the bid that's closest to the actual retail price without going over will win 1,000 points per question. The two players with the highest score at the end of four product rounds and a showcase showdown round will move on to the next round. Are you guys all on board? Yep. I'm ready. Got it. All right, so we're going to have Mr. Christopher Franchi tell you all about the first item up for bid. That's right. Our first product on the super awesome prices, right, is a Supreme pinball machine. The lifestyle brand Supreme released this rare gem in 2018. Supreme full-size arcade quality stern pinball machine made exclusively for Supreme. The Supreme pinball machine comes with two flippers, slingshots, a three-pop bumper array. The Supreme pinball machine is finished in white with the iconic red Supreme color with the Supreme logo. All right, guys, so as of 7-26, when I searched this on eBay, there were two of these machines listed. You are bidding on the pin that was listed at the highest of the two prices. And obviously, guys, for the entire game, no Googling allowed. Or eBaying. Okay, so because, Joe, you are our co-host for this episode, we are going to give you the luxury of going first on this round. What is your bid? $80,000. All right. Joe Fox says $80,000. Laura Fraley, you are on deck. What is your bid? Now, remember, this is closest without going over. Wow. I was not expecting Joe to say something like that. It's not anywhere close. Oh, boy. That changes things a little bit. I'm going to go with $26,000. All right. Joel DeGuzman, what is your bid? I'll go with $30,000. $30,000. All right. Rachel Best, you are coming up in the end. And so far, you have got 26K from Laura. You've got 36K from Joel and 80K from Joe Fox. I'm going to say 31,000. All right, 31,000. That was a tricky move, and it paid off because the actual retail price is $45,000. Rachel Best takes home 1,000 points for round one. All right, she takes an early lead. All right, we're moving on to the next product. Take it away, Mr. Franchi. Item number two, Four Pinball Machines, artwork by renowned artist Wayne Thiebaud. This 1962 painting has been said to be the most important work by the artist in private hands and will be auctioned off this month. Four Pinball Machines is an oil painting on canvas and is 68 inches by 72 inches. The artist's world auction record, currently held by Encased Cakes from 2011, sold on the eve of Wayne's 99th birthday for $8.5 million at Sotheby's. So that gives you an idea of what price range you're looking for. You're bidding on the low-end range that this artwork is expected to sell for. So there's an auction listing range of prices. You're looking for the lowest of those two of the range. Okay, up first, Mrs. Laura Fraley. You get to kick it off. What do you think four pinball machines is worth? Oh, boy. That's not... Oh, gosh. This is so hard. I did see this. I did read about this, and I completely forgot. It went in one ear and out the other. So I'm going to go with, yikes, $199 million. All right. $199 million for Mrs. Laura Fraley. Mr. Joel DeGuzman, what do you have for us? The auction you just said before, did you say $8.5 million? Is that what you're saying? That was for the previous record for his previous work. I'm going to go with $4 million. $4 million. There's a big spread there. We've got Bush. Oh, hell, pie. Rachel, what's your bid? So, T-Bo was one of my favorite artists in college, and I also saw this pop up and kind of went in one ear and out the other. I if his this is supposed to set a new record I'm going to say need an answer 17 million okay 17 million for Rachel Joe you get to bring in the last bid what do you think my friend your range now is trying to guess on how much coils cost or flipper bats or something like this it's too easy you take that win in a second Rachel and Laura I remember seeing this article too and right out of my head where we were uh i'm gonna go with 19.2 million well the last two guesses were all ridiculously close let's put it that way i know i messed up it wasn't 199 million joe your take your bid was just over rachel you were just under so the bid the answer was 18 million. Rachel is the ringer. A super awesome pinball show edition with 2,000 points at this point. Going into item number three. We have two more items before the showcase, so hopefully you guys will start to get some points on the board. What's our next item up for bid, Chris? Alright, item number three up for the Price is Right is Austin Powers Pinball Machine 3D printed toilet seat sold by Pinball Life. This item is described as a direct replacement of the often broken, faded and worn-out toilet seat, just like Christians at home. Used in the Austin Powers pinball machine, this item is 3D printed out of 100% PETG to withstand continuous ball shots. That's actually what it says on the website. There's nothing like a good toilet seat that withstands continuous ball shots. So, first up on bids, Joel, what do you say? I'm going to say $25. All right, Joel, $25. Next up, Rachel. That continuous ball shot, that's worth some money. So I'm going to up that a little bit and push it to $32. All right. All right. Joe? I'll say $34.95. And Laura, what do you say the value is of this fine, fine, continuous ball shot toilet seat? I really don't think it's that high. I'm going to go with $19.98. Laura, if you had taken the classic Price is Right move of going $1, you would have taken this home. Yes. Go ahead, Chris. And all of you have overbid. Sorry, no points awarded on this particular egg. It was $6.95. Wow. Wow. That's a good deal. Yes, it is. Product number four. Chris, why don't you read that one off as well? Item number four on the Super Awesome Price is Right, the Back Alley Creations Closed Alien Egg Pop Bumper Cap. Described as the original eggs that were made for the alien pinball machine. These are made from a clear resin with a black wash over them. First up for bids, Rachel. I am going to say $19. All right, Joe. $60. Laura, what do you say this fine, fine alien bumper cap is? $1. Nice, Laura. And Joel, don't say 50 cents. Don't say that. Never mind. I'm going to go with $15. The correct answer, at $19, again, Rachel Betts. So you are killing it. The actual retail price is $25. So $19 would be the closest without going over. All right, guys, we are moving on to the Showcase Showdown. Now, unfortunately, the only one with points on the board is Rachel at 3,000 points. So how we're going to play this out is that whoever are the top three that are closest to the actual retail price of the showcase are going to be going with Rachel to the next round. All right, so we're going to have one person eliminated after this one. So this is going to be a big one because it's anyone's game at this point. So we're going to move on to the showcase showdown, and let's tell you guys the rules for this round. So you're each going to be bidding on a showcase that will include seven fabulous pinball items with all prices based on the manufacturer's suggested retail price or the MSRP. The person who comes closest to the actual retail price of all items will win 2,000 points. If you also come within $500 of the actual retail price, you're going to win 5,000 points and secure your spot in the finals. So I'm going to bring in my Rod Roddy and have him read off the Showcase Showdown to you four. That's right, Christian. Price is Right was Bob Barker and Johnny Olsen, wasn't it? No, it was Rod Roddy. with his white suit. Well, it was Johnny Olsen before that, but I'm old. Oh, really? You're not that much older than I am. I'm 53. Oh. Oh. Would you like to help me pick out caskets? That should be a compliment. I thought we were close for an age. I don't know how old you are, so that doesn't... 40. Okay. Do I really look... No, you look 60 all day long. It's fine. Okay. COVID have you down, this showcase is filled with fabulous products and experiences that will help you beat the pandemic blues. Turn that frown upside down after pimping out your pinball machines with a number of great mods from Cointaker Pinball, including an Attack from Mars Eat at Eddie's building. This Martian-attacked building includes glowing light in the windows and easily installs over top of your buck with no permanent changes. That's not all, though. You'll also be installing your brand-new Aerosmith shooter plate. Your pin isn't just another toy in the attic. Install this beautiful, custom-designed Aerosmith laser-etched pinball shooter plate from Chilt Graphics. After installing your mod, you'll want to rest and relax with a good book like Michael Shalhoub's The Pinball Compendium 1982 to present. This item includes over 900 color photos and stories about all of the pinball companies making games between 1982 and 2011. But you won't be reading the book in your living room. you'll be relaxing on your all-expenses-paid trip to the fabulous TPF 2021 from March 26th to the 28th. Your trip will include a round-trip airfare for you and a guest on American Airlines to Frisco, Texas, and a three-night stay at the Embassy Suites, as well as four weekend passes for you and three friends to enjoy all that TPF has to offer. When you get home, you can tell your friends all about the good times that you had while you played your brand-new-in-box Monster Bash Classic Edition from Chicago Gaming Company and Coin Shaker Pinball. All of this can be yours if the super awesome price is right. All right, guys, there is the complete breakdown of what you're bidding on. So you guys have just heard the showcase, and I know that there's a lot to calculate here, but we're going to go to Joe Fox for his opening bid on the Showcase Showdown. What do you have for us, Joe? All right, I'm going to go with $8,200. All right, $8,200 from Mr. Joe Fox. Moving over to Laura. Laura, what do you think? I've got $77.88. Okay, $77.88 is Laura Fraley's bid. Joel de Guzman. $10,160. $10,160 from Mr. de Guzman. All right, Rachel Bass, you're going to close things out. What do you think? Man, that makes it tricky because I had it just a little bit under Joel's, but for safe math, I'm going to say, we'll just say $8,300. $8,300. Okay. Yeah. Okay, so we have Mr. Joe Fox at $8,200. We have Laura Fraley at $77.88. We have Joel DeGuzman at $10,160 and Rachel Bess at $8,300. The actual retail price of the entire Showcase Showdown was $7,925, making Laura Fraley the winner of the Showcase Showdown. Good job, Laura. Okay, so we know Rachel is moving on. We know that Laura is moving on. So we have, it comes down between Joel and Mr. Joe Fox, neither of which at any point is on the board going into the showcase showdown. And both went over. So we can either do a random pricing game, or we can say the closest to the actual retail price of the showcase moves on, which would be Joe Fox at $8,200. What do you think, Chris? Well, I mean, we should have had this figured out ahead of time. Now, if I say, yeah, let's do that, then Joel's going to be like, what a dick. I'm going to come up with a random item, and then you guys have to tell me what the price of that is. So your item up for bid as the tiebreaker here is the Canon Mod for ACDC on the Pinball Life website, which is described as, turn your stock butyrate Canon into a realistic-looking Canon. This is the non-LED version of this Canon, molded and painted by Matt Reister of Back Alley Creations. All right, let's go to Joel DeGuzman for his opening bid. what do you think a Canon mod for ACDC on the Pinball Life website is worth? I'll go with $100. $100. Okay, moving over to Mr. Joe Fox. I'm going to try to be strategic here and go with $1. That was the right move, my friend. It was $79.95. So Joe Fox is going to move on. Joel, we're sorry, but even though we loved having you, man, you didn't make it through to the next round. We hope you had fun anyway, and we have an awesome prize for you for coming on and hanging out with us. Franchi, what has Joel won? Joel, you won my ball-bashing toilet seat. No, just kidding. You won a fabulous exclusive, one of 25, Superman the Movie 1979 Translates with artwork by me and an assorted art print pack also from me. I am absolutely thrilled to have that. Thank you. Yeah, man, not to be shabby. Joel, thank you so much, man. Thanks for coming on. No problem. That's going to go up with my Guardian stern print signed by you, buddy. Nice, nice, nice. Well, thanks for playing. We were happy to have you, man. Thank you, guys. It was really fun. All right, buddy. I'll talk to you soon. See you, Joel. See you, Joel. See you. Bye. All right. Good job, guys. Okay, so we're going to move on to the next round. If you thought all that random pinball knowledge you knew would never get you anywhere in life, it's time to prove you wrong. Get ready to play in our celebrity question pack, Super Awesome Pinball Show Jeopardy! Round. Okay, here's the rules of the Super Awesome Pinball Jeopardy! Show. There are five categories on our board with two questions in each. Questions can be worth either 500 or 1,000 points. When a question is read, the first contestant to raise their hand gets to answer. Don't forget, this is Jeopardy, so answers must be in the form of a question, or we will allow someone else to steal your answer. Correct answers will get the designated points and choice of the next category and point value question. For the sake of easy math, wrong answers will not be penalized. The two contestants with the most points, when all questions have been answered, move on to the finals. Let's take a look at our categories, Christian. All right, guys. So here they are. Pinball history for 500 or 1,000, call outs, pinball podcasts, famous pinheads, and game rules. Laura, because you won the last round from a point total standpoint, we're going to let you choose first. So name your category and your value of your question. We'll do famous pinheads for 1,000. All right, Famous Pinheads for 1,000 is an audio question by our good friend Macho from the Macho Pinball Podcast. Here we go. Famous Pinheads for 1 points This 14 World Tag Team WWE wrestler received a fully customized pinball machine from his wife called the Expedition of Gold Yeah! All right. Who is Matt Hardy? Oh, good one. Okay, yes, that is correct. You win. You are correct, sir. All right, Joe, that means you get to take control of the board and let us know what you want for the next category and price value. Uh, let's go with call outs for a thousand. All right, Joe, your 1,000 point question is, these two call outs are from a well-known pinball game. Here we go. I'm going to need a bath after this. Shut up and let them fly. Anyone? I don't know, but I'm guessing, what is Sopranos? Fortunately, that is the wrong answer. Anyone else want to take a shot? Mr. Joe Fox? I'll guess two and say, what is Junkyard? Yes, you took it. Joe, clean it up. 1,000 points for Joe. All right, Joe, you are sitting at 2,000 points. Pinball podcast for 1,000. All right, everyone's going for the big money questions. That is an audio question read by the beautiful and awesome Mrs. Penn. So let me play that for you now. Hello, contestants. It's Mrs. Penn. I'm here with your 1,000-point question about pinball podcasts. I've highlighted a lot of amazing women on my podcast as wombs, WOMPS. Women of motherfucking pinball. This badass woman was my very first WOMP. No lost points for wrong answers, guys, if you want to take a guess. What's our time limit on these, Chris? Should have been five seconds. All right. Okay, here is your answer. The answer? Who is Stephanie Guida, the pinball princess? Okay, we still have seven questions left on our game board. Joe, where are you going to take us next? Let's go to Game Rules for 1,000. Game Rules for 1,000 is... All right, Joe, this 1,000-point question is the series of steps needed to be done in order to achieve a super skill shot in Jersey Jack Pinball's Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. I'll take a guess. Okay. Yeah, fire it off. Isn't it hold the left flipper button and plunge it into this saucer? Close. Anyone else? Okay, Rachel. What is hold the left flipper button and plunge it into the stuff? Same answer. That's what I think. Same answer, same response. Oddly enough, you're also incorrect. I was going for grammar, man. You lose. Good day to you. I forget to say what it is. All right, Chris, why don't you give us the answer. The correct answer is, what is, hold in the left flipper, soft plunge to the upper flipper, center ramp shot to the left flipper, then to the TV saucer. All right, guys. Joe, keep them coming, my friend. What is next? Call outs for 500. Okay, call outs for 500 is an audio question by a former co-host of Head to Head Pinball and present host or co-host of the Jesse J's Pinball Adventure, Mr. Ryan C. and here is his audio question. A lot of pinball machine call-outs end up on the cutting room floor. This machine had a number of unused call-outs, including this one. Poke his eyes out! Yeah, get him! Mr. Joe Fox. What is medieval madness? That is correct, Joe. 500 points to Joe. So, Joe, you are sitting at 2,500 points. No one else is on the board. Let's get someone else up there. So our next question, Joe, what is it going to be? Uh, pinball history for a thousand. That is an audio question read by the head of the IFPA, Mr. Josh Sharpe. My father, Roger Sharp, saved pinball by calling his shot at a city council meeting meant to determine if pinball was a game of skill or not. The game he used was Gottlieb's Bank Shot, but he was initially planning on using another game. This game was the name of his first choice. I remember that. I just don't remember what it was. Anyone? Bueller. All right. The correct answer to that question was Gottlieb's El Dorado. Okay, here we go. Joe, you're still in control of the board. What do you think? What's the next question? Pinball podcast for 500. All right. Your 500-point question is, this pinball podcast is named after an event that will end the game for you and any other players with you. What is flametail? That is correct, Joe Fox. 500 points. We have famous pinheads for 500 or pinball history for 500 left on the board. What's it going to be, Joe? Famous pinheads for 500. This is an audio question read by our former Super Awesome co-host, Ed Vanderveen. Let's take it away to Ed. Hey, everybody. This is Ed Vanderveen. I'm back, baby, for this one trivia game show question. Here we go. I once assisted this famous Canadian songstress in acquiring a classic Stern Quicksilver pinball machine. Laura, take a guess. I was going to guess. Who was Alanis Morissette? Rachel passed. Well, shit. That's what I was going to guess. You keep stealing answers. Any other singer quotes? Do you want to take another shot, Rachel, before we pass it to Joe? Three seconds. It's a lady? Yes, ma'am. three seconds again alright Mr. Joe Fox alright I'm not even sure that she's Canadian but who is Celine Dion the correct answer was who is Sarah McLachlan I didn't know she was Canadian I didn't either alright guys we only have one more question so what that means guys is that if either Laura or Rachel get this question right they are moving on to the final round Joe, you are already guaranteed to make it into the finals. So we are going to take it to our very last question, which is game rules for 500 points. And that is an audio question by Mr. Dwight Sullivan. Hi, my name is Dwight Sullivan. On my new game, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, selecting this turtle at the start of the game will give you the perk of starting Turtle Power Multiball by hitting the right ramp once. All right, Laura, what's it going to be? I've played it, and I did know this, and I'm trying to remember the turtle. And I, what is Donatello? Oh, you are right, Laura. Yes! Sweet, and out at the end. Oh, and I think Rachel knew the answer, too, because she had her hand up as well. I did. That couldn't have gotten any closer than that. That means the two people moving on to the next round are Laura Fraley and Joe Fox. We're sorry, Rachel, you were awesome, but you're taking home a fantastic prize. It was great having you. We hope you had fun. Franchi, tell her what she's won. That's right, Rachel. You are taking home our former co-host, Ed Van Der Veen. Just kidding. You are taking home one of my fabulous limited edition Jaws Translites and an art print pack from myself to you on behalf of the Super Awesome Pinball Show. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for coming. Have a great time, guys. That's awesome, Rachel. Thank you for joining us. All righty. Bye-bye. See you. All right. Well, we have our co-host, and we have the amazing Laura Fraley, who told me before we started recording that there was no way she was going to make it to the finals. I'm glad that you proved yourself wrong. I squeaked it out. That's right. We are moving on to round three. You guys have made it to the best round yet. All right, the finals of the Super Awesome Game Show, we are bringing in some huge names in the pinball world to help you out. But before we tell you who they are, for the sake of randomness, we are going to allow the contestant with the highest point total in the last round to choose from a celebrity. Celebrity A or Celebrity B. Now, that's going to be you, Joe. So I just want you to randomly choose which celebrity you would like to take into the last and final round of the Super Awesome Game Show. A or B? Let's go with B. Okay. Celebrity A, who is going to be Laura Fraley's teammate. Please welcome to the show the nicest guy in pinball, who also happens to currently be the 17th best player in the world, the head of Fun with Bonus Pinball website, and a rule set designer extraordinaire at Deep Root Pinball, Mr. Steven Bowden. Welcome. Oh, yay! Thank you for having me. I'm glad to be here. Celebrity B, who is going to be with Joe Fox. Our second celebrity. Been involved in pinball for over 30 years now and has designed a long list of games, including many that are considered the greatest of all time. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is his latest. It's really damn fun. And almost as cool as his sweet BMX tricks and personal friend of mine. It's Mr. John Boer. Welcome, John. Thank you very much. Pleasure to be here. But I've never met you before. I don't believe it. I've definitely heard about you. And I'm definitely a fan. So, yes, very good to meet you as well. Thank you. Guys, we have two amazing pinball personalities here with us as well. You've got Joe Fox. He's a big-time pinball collector and all-around good dude. And you have Laura Fraley, who is the owner of the Richmond Pinball Collective, an amazing pinhead and head of her Belt and Chimes League. And this is the finals of the show, which whoever wins this round will win the grand prize. So you guys are going to help them on their way. You ready to play? Should we tell them what the grand prize is now? Sure. You want to spill the beans? No, we don't want to know. Oh, okay. Okay, all right. Okay, so round three of the game show is the Super Awesome Pinball Family Feud. We've been called a pinball family in the past, so we're going to put that to the test here. Here are the rules. So each contestant and their celebrity guest will have two rounds of Family Feud-style questions posed to them. Thanks to Jeff Patterson and the This Week in Pinball website, we've compiled a large number of survey questions that were once discussed on their site. You will alternate guessing the answers that were the most popular within different pinball categories. Each category has ten answers with point values ranging from 100 points for the tenth most common answer to 1,000 points for the number one most common answer. Three wrong answers will result in the end of the round. At the end of four total rounds, we will move on to a fast money round. All right. Are you guys ready to play? Let's play. Let's do it. Joe and John are going to be the first ones up on deck. So Laura and Steve and you guys are going to hang out for the next round, and we're going to kick this off with one question to Joe and John Borg. So as an X-layer of difficulty, guys, please keep in mind that all of these survey questions were done in 2018, So any machines made after that would not be included in the answers to these questions. Okay, so round one, this is Joe Fox and John Borg. You have three incorrect answers, and then we're going to move on to the next round. So the top ten dream pinball themes, as voted on by TWiP in May 2018. One of these games, just to make it fair, has already been made. So these are the top ten dream pinball themes in 2018. We're going to let Joe Fox kick it off with the first guess. Harry Potter. Harry Potter was the number one answer for 1,000 points. Wow. All right, John Borg, you are up next. Beavis and Butthead. Beavis and Butthead is not on the list. That is your first X. Oh, what? But it damn should be. What? Get it on how to on the phone. What? That's right. All right, Joe Fox, you're on deck. What do you got? Did you say one of these has been made since 2018? One of those has already been made. Yep. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. That is your second X, unfortunately. All right, John Borg, you've got a chance. There are nine more answers left. You've got one more strike before we move on to the next round. Three Stooges. The Three Stooges is unfortunately your final X. But you did get the number one answer for 1,000 points, so that puts you guys well on the board. The other answers were in order of second to tenth. Fooneys was number two, Back to the Future. The Matrix, Rick and Morty was the game that had already been made. Blues Brothers, Masters of the Universe, Beetlejuice, Blade Runner, and Jaws. Wow. All right, guys. Round one for contestant two and celebrity guest two. That is Laura Fraley and Steven Bowden. Category is top ten pinball designers as of June 2018. And you get to start, Laura. Seabrookie. Seabrookie is number two for 900 points. Steven. John Borg. Come on, let's go. John Borg is highly underrated at number four. What? Okay. But we'll take it. He's on the board, 700 points. Laura. Keith Elwin. Elwin is on the board at number 10 for 100 points. All right. Barry Osler. Barry Osler. Barry Osler is on the board at number nine for 200 points. We're going to go with George Gomez. Mr. George Gomez parks at number 6 for 500 points. J-Pop. J-Pop is on the board at number 7 for 400 points. They're wiping a cup down. Why would you say number 1? Scott Danesi. Right, okay. Scott Danesi is on the list at number 8 for 300 points. Dennis Nordman. Dennis Nordman is at number 5 for 600 points. How many do we have left? You have two left. You've got an eight of the ten. Oh, Pat Lawler. Pat Lawler's at number one for 1,000 points. I know my designer. Let's go Jon Norris. Jon Norris is not on the board for your first deck. Who's left? Oh, boy. Who is left? Someone from American Pet Ball? I'm sorry. I don't have anything. Lori, do you want to pass? Yeah, I'm going to pass. Okay, that's an answer. That's a second X. Joe Balcer. Joe Balcer is your third X. The one that you did not have was number three for 800 points, Brian Eddy. Okay. That's right, Brian. Oh, man. You did very well. You got 4,700 points for that round. He's been hidden so long, we forgot about him. It's the pressure. It's the pressure. All right, guys, we're moving into round two, and these questions are going to be a little bit tougher. We gave you some softballs to kick it off. So round two, we're going back to Joe and John Borg for this question. What are the top ten smoothest shooting slash flowiest, if that's even a word, pinball machines of all times? This was from November of 2018. So what are the top ten smoothest shooting, flowiest pinball machines of all time? Joe, since you kicked it off for us last time, we're going to move to John to start things off for us in round two. Can we get satisfying in there somewhere, too? Satisfying shots. Most satisfying. I'm going to go with a Pat Waller game, Whirlwind. Whirlwind, unfortunately, is not on the list. That's your first X. That is a very fast-shooting, flowing game, though. Well, if we're talking about flow, even though John's here, we'd have to go with Steve Ritchie, I would think, first. So we'll go with Getaway, High Speed 2. That is the number 10 answer for 100 points. Good job, guys. All right, John, back to you. Terminator 2. That is a great guess. Unfortunately, not on the board either. No way. Who's voting on this? Who do you think? All of the Twitter readers. Okay, Joe, take it away, my friend. Let's say Tron. Tron, also a great guess. Not on the list for your three X's, guys. Okay, so your other answers were, number one, Stern, Star Trek. Two, Theater of Magic. Three, Demoman. Four, Dialed In. Five, Whitewater. Six, ACDC. Seven is Johnny Mnemonic. Eight, Star Trek The Next Gen. Nine is Attack from Mars. And you guys got Getaway High Speed 2. So you have got 100 points for that round. All right, guys, let's go to round two. I guess nobody thought any of your designs were flowy, huh? None of them are. Ironman's pretty flowy. Yeah. I was thinking about that. I mean, I can make the rant. All right. Our next category is the top ten pins with magnet action. Again, as of July 2018. Take it away, Laura and Steven. Steven, you get to go first. Okay. I will go with Theater of Magic. Oh, poof. Okay. And you are correct at number five for 600 points. The Shadow. Also correct at number two for 900 points. World Cup Soccer, even though everybody forgets to use it. That's your first strike. Makes sense. That's what I forgot. What I forgot. Nobody ever likes it, but how about this? Metallica. Metallica. Metallica. Oh, that is your second X. Oh, really? Non-board friendly. Twilight Zone. The mobile power of Twilight Zone is at number seven for 400 points. Adam's Family. Adam's Family is at number three for 800 points. Okay. Let's see what else. What else? What else? I can think of a couple. Unfortunately, you can't steal, John. How about Black Knight? Last night was correct at number 8 for 300 points. When was the survey again? 2018? July 2018. I'm blanking a little bit. Oh, man. I'm just blanking. Oh, come on, Laura. Think of something. Top 10 pins with magnet action. Oh, I know. God, I'm just going through all the 10-ball machines in my head. Need an answer. Who puts a lot of magnets on their games? I don't know. John, I'm trying to help out the other team. I'm already looking for it. I know, we're getting killed, too. Yeah, no, okay, let's go through this. Oh, freak. Nothing, man. I already made a third strike. Okay. I'm sorry, Steve. You guys got 50,000 points on that one. You're doing really well. There's no reason to be bummed out. All right, so listen, we still have plenty of game left to make up some ground, guys. So we are going into the fast money round as our final segment. And here's how that's going to work. So the contestants and their celebrity guests will have one minute to come up with what they think are the five of the top ten most common answers to a survey question. You may talk about your answers, but all five official answers have to be stated before the end of one minute. Answers won't be marked as right or wrong until the end of the round. Joe Fox and John Board are going to kick things off with their fast money. And you guys, as we said, you have 60 seconds to name five of the top ten. So give me your five best answers to this question, and let me know when you have an official answer, because you guys can talk back and forth about whatever games you want. Okay, these are the top ten bash toys in pinball as voted on by TWiP in 2018. Hit the timer. So, John, I think one of yours has got to be right at the top, which is Sparky from Metallica. Okay, I like that one. Are we giving you the official answers, Christian? Yep. Just say official when you're ready. All right, so official would be Sparky. Yeah, well, that one will stick. How about the Well Walker from Walking Dead? 30 seconds. Well Walker. So that's an official answer, Christian. Okay. Another one of yours, Groot from Guardians. I like that one too. 15 seconds. Christian is official answer. Okay. Two more guys. Iron Monger from Iron Man. We're seeing a trend here. It's finally going to board. Five seconds. That would be an official answer. Five seconds. Go ahead guys, one more. What was that John? Star Trek. That is it. Okay, alright so guys, you did pretty well on that one. Sparky is the number two answer for 900 points You've got You said Well Walker That is the number three answer for 800 points Groot from Guardians Who's not on the list Iron Monger From Iron Man That was worth 500 points And the last one was Star Trek That is also not on the list So you guys have a total of 2200 points for that round Who are the other ones? Okay, the rest of them. Number one was Rudy from Funhaus. Number four was the Castle Medieval Madness. Five was the Ringmaster from Circus Voltaire. Six was Ironmonger. What you got? Seven was the Bell from ACDC. Eight was Frankenstein from Monster Bash. Nine was Balrog from Lord of the Rings. And ten was the Boxer in Championship Pub. All right, Chris. You want to hit the fast money for the next one? All right, the fast money round for Laura and Steven. Again, we're going to be taking the top ten answers as surveyed. Surveyed. You have 60 seconds. 100 people surveyed. Your top 10 answers on the board. Top 10 wizard modes in pinball. Go. Okay, so Moth is a Rock. Okay, so what else we got? We got Moth is a Rock. We got, okay, Moth is a Rock is one, right? So we're going to submit that one. I don't know a ton about wizard modes because I never get there. I trust you. This is November 2018. Okay. Moth is a Rock final, right? Right. Okay. Okay, Star Trek's Final Frontier from Star Trek Next Generation. That'll start. Let's see. 30 seconds. The Genie Battle from TaylorMadeNight. Okay, keep going, Steve. The End of the Line from Metallica. That's good, that's good. That's good, that's four. And one more, just... Top ten. I'll put it in portals from Tron just out of respect for just out of respect I'll put that one there because I'm just not running through them all alright I have no help there I don't need to run through them all I'm like pirates I'm like world cup final I'm like all how does that even count does demolition matter like those are moans I'm with Laura. I wouldn't have gotten any of them anyway because I don't get their reading. Sorry. It is that pressure, though. You know, it's like, yeah, now I have to rattle off about 30 of them. Okay. You got approximately zero answers correct. Or zero points. Sorry, guys. That was a really hard one. No, one of the top ten. Starting with number one, Twilight Zone, Lost in the Zone. then Lord of the Rings Balinor, Circus Voltaire, Joint in the Circus, Evil Madness, Battle for the Kingdom, The Walking Dead Horde, Spider-Man Superhero, Johnny Mnemonic Power Down, Lord of the Rings Destroy the Ring, The Shadow Final Battle, and Dialed In Armageddon. Wow, all right, guys. Wow, that qualifies? I mean, it's not a risk. It's a powerful list of lists of modes. Lord of the Rings must have mode. Okay. Travel mode. Let's look at your final totals, guys. Okay, so John Borg and Joe Fox. Point total for Team 1. Round 1, you got 1,000 points. Round 2, you got 100 points. In your Fast Money round, you did well to pick up the slack there for 2,200 points. That's a grand total of 3,300 points for Team 1. All right, so let's look at the point total for Team 2. So unfortunately, in the Fast Money, you got zero points. For round one, however, you did everything you needed to do with 4,700 points. And round two, 3,000. So Laura Fraley and Steven Bowden took the game to ground. And you are the official winner, Laura, of the super awesome game show, Awesome Job. I wanted to have it. I didn't think you could do it. We wanted to see. That's for $10,000. chris do you want to tell her what she's won miss fraley you have won compliments of chicago gaming company your very own foosball coffee table oh my god it is so cool i don't know what it is but it sounds amazing you know what foosball is right yeah no it's a coffee it's like a foosball table without legs but it's got like the cup holders and and you've got the score things and everything, so you just like either sit on the couch or chairs or pull up a couple of footstools and play foosball. Man, this is so exciting. Thank you guys to our celebrity guests for helping out today. Thank you to Joe Fox for playing as well. You made it all the way to the finals and crushed it out. You are also leaving with some awesome swag. Chris, why don't you tell them what he's won? Well, Joe makes it tricky because Joe has several pieces of my work already, so I'm just going to say, Joe, we have a fabulous prize pack awaiting you once I can talk to you off the air and we can figure out what you don't have and what you might like. Thanks to Sean Borg and thanks to Steven Bowden for joining us. You guys were a huge help, and it was good to have you on. We definitely want to have you back in an official capacity to talk about your past, present, and future in pinball. But for now, the game show is at an end, so thank you guys so much. Awesome. Thank you. Thank you so much for having us. I don't even know what I have coming to me, but I'm so excited. Yeah, this was so much fun. and, um, alright, yeah, awesome. Thank you. Thank you, Steve. Alright, guys. This was a ton of fun. Thanks, everybody. It was a blast. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining us. Thank you. Thank you, Don and Steve, very much. Nice to meet you all. Likewise. Okay, Steve, good to see you again, buddy. Bye. See you guys. See you. Well, there you have it, the super awesome pinball game show. That was a whole lot of fun. Joe, I know you didn't win, but in a way you won because you were on our show for the full show. And you made it very far. Yeah. Really far. Did you have a good time on the game show and on the podcast? Yeah, it was absolutely a blast. The game show was really fun. Kudos to Lar for taking it home. I was right there, but couldn't close the deal. And as far as talking to you guys, there's nothing better than just hanging out and talking and shooting the shit. Well, there's one thing better, and that's receiving prizes in the mail, but we'll talk about that later. That's true. So I appreciate you guys having me, and hopefully we can do this again in the future. Joe, it's been awesome having you, man. You're a great friend. You did a great job on the show, and, yeah, we'd love to have you back. Now I've got to move to Michigan, so I've got to hang out with Franchi a little bit. He doesn't get so upset, so jelly. Yeah, I think we'll get some new pajamas. Sleepover. All right, so I want to congratulate, we want to congratulate Laura Fraley on her win on the big game show. Very cool. We also want to thank Joe for taking part, and Rachel Best, and Joel DeGuzman as well, for being good sports and playing along. And I also have to thank John Borg, Steven Bowden, Macho Pinball, Ryan C., Mrs. Pin, Dwight Sullivan, Josh Sharpe, and our former very own Ed Vanderveen for contributing to make that such a fun time. We had a great time, and we want to thank most definitely Chicago-Gaming.com for supplying us with that kick-ass foosball coffee table. That was our grand prize. So everybody be looking for your prizes in the mail soon. And there's some really exciting stuff coming up. Pinball news has been in a bit of a drought lately, but don't despair. The floodgates are about to open. Lots of news coming up in the next month or two, and every show is great, but our next three shows are going to be pretty epic in terms of who we have lined up. So make sure to tune in, and don't forget about our super awesome pinball show song contest. We have gotten some really freaking awesome contributions. Francie and I have been laughing our ass off at these. You guys have been super creative, and we can't thank you enough for contributing. If you have any inkling that you want to get in on this, you still have until the next episode to do it, because we haven't really sat down to really judge these, and we want to make sure we have a good number of entries. So we have about three or four now. If you guys have any desire to do it, make a song, send it in, and we will put that on air, and you could win some really great prizes. As a matter of fact, it's a $100 gift card to Back Alley Creations to mod out your pinball games. Also, silverballswag.com. That's where you can get your official super awesome pinball show gear, merchandise, T-shirts, and coffee mugs. That's all we do. We try not to whore ourselves out with tote bags and other shit. And we're not even going to get in the hat game because loser kids, you know, you just can't win. Yeah, they've got a monopoly on that. If you can't win, why play the game? So that's going to do it for this week. Episode 13 in the bag. Again, thanks, Joe, for joining us. And we will see you guys in a few weeks. Until then, bye-bye. See you later. Take care. If you'd like to drop us a line or ask a question, we can be reached at superawesomepinball at gmail.com. Questions or comments may be read on the air. The original content of this podcast is copyright 2020 Asshat Radio Productions. The commentary and opinions shared by the cast and guests do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the sponsors. Coin Taker, Chicago Gaming Company, and Back Valley Creations. Their sponsorships of this show only serve to add to their continuing support of the pinball community. Cause we're gonna be legendary! Gonna get there faster! We're gonna be legendary! It's about to be legendary! Okay, okay, show's over. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Hey, your fucking chalupa sucks, kid! Kids, don't try this at home. I'm a trained professional. All right, Joe, your 1,000-point question is, these two call are... Fuck. These two call are... I said the same thing wrong the same way twice. These two call are... What the fuck? Call art. Something wrong with this word. I can't say it. These two call outs are well known... Fuck. I quit. Take over. These two call-outs are from a well-known pinball game. You continue to talk like you're talking right now, and you'll be history on this program, I guarantee it. Hey, everybody, this is Ed Van Der Veen. I will remember you. Will you remember me? You there, stop laughing. laughing is a symptom caused by blowing pot are you not entertained are you not entertained is this not why you are here so satisfying

_(Acquisition: groq_whisper, Enrichment: v3)_

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*Exported from Journalist Tool on 2026-04-13 | Item ID: febaed92-1018-4cc8-811f-b9f92521b72e*