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The Super Awesome Pinball Show S1-E3

The Super Awesome Pinball Show·podcast_episode·1h 56m·analyzed·Jan 2, 2020
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.033

TL;DR

Super Awesome Pinball Show S1-E3: Holiday recap and Rick and Morty pinball design insights with Scott Denise.

Summary

Episode 3 of The Super Awesome Pinball Show features hosts Christopher Franchi, Ed Vanderbeek, and Christian Lyne discussing holiday activities, pinball projects, and hosting surprise guest Scott Denise from Pinball Life/Spooky Pinball. Major topics include Ed's Data East Batman playfield restoration challenges, Christmas gifts, and an extended interview with Scott about Rick and Morty pinball's design philosophy, particularly the unconventional left-side pop bumper placement and the Magna Save feature.

Key Claims

  • Christopher Franchi hasn't updated any of his pinball games in over a year

    high confidence · Franchi states his Guardians pinball hasn't been updated 'in a year and a half' and realizes he hasn't updated any games in a year; cites frustration with previous USB update failure

  • Scott Denise's primary job is as an engineer at Pinball Life, not full-time game design at Spooky Pinball

    high confidence · Scott explicitly states 'My 40 hours a week is Pinball Life' and that he consults with Spooky, saying he makes more impact on the community through parts engineering than game design

  • Rick and Morty pinball features a pop bumper on the left side where a slingshot normally appears

    high confidence · Scott discusses at length the pop bumper design choice: 'pop bumper on the left side there where the slingshot should be' and initially gave it '20% chance of making it into production' before testing proved it fun

  • The Magna Save in Rick and Morty was included as a 'loss leader' feature Scott expected would be removed due to cost

    high confidence · Scott states 'The Magna Save was meant to be removed' and 'I put it in there so that it would be removed' as a cost reduction target, but it ended up being fun and was kept

  • All playtesters who played Rick and Morty whitewood said the pop bumper design was awesome

    high confidence · Scott reports '100% of the people that played the Whitewood said it was really fun' and mentions specific trusted testers like Yancey praising the design

Notable Quotes

  • “I just keep on thinking like what could my guardians be like you know if it was as cool as everyone else says it is because I don't have you know that thing hasn't been updated in a year and a half”

    Christopher Franchi @ ~8:00 — Highlights community concern about code update lag and impact on home game quality; Franchi admits to not keeping his collection current

  • “I'm making more of an impact on the pinball community doing what I do in my 40 hour a week workday than I do building games, believe it or not.”

    Scott Denise @ ~22:30 — Reveals Scott's primary focus is parts engineering at Pinball Life rather than full-time game design; emphasizes value of reproduction parts for vintage game restoration

  • “I gave it a 20% chance of making it into production... I flipped it, and then I said, that's fucking awesome. I give it an 80% chance now”

    Scott Denise @ ~28:00 — Describes confidence shift in pop bumper design after whitewood playtest; shows iterative design process and willingness to take unconventional risks

  • “A sling can shoot in many ways, but a pop bumper, you would think that just the degree of difference would send it a whole different direction.”

    Scott Denise @ ~30:00 — Technical insight into pop bumper vs slingshot ball routing differences; shows deliberate design choice to create unique playfield dynamics

  • “The actual sellout in my mind was actually just due to the theme being great and Spooky being a good pinball company. And then people were excited about the fact that I made another game, which did factor into it a little bit.”

    Scott Denise @ ~26:00 — Scott attributes Rick and Morty quick sellout primarily to theme and company reputation rather than designer name; addresses sophomore jinx concerns

  • “It's shooting up the play field. It's shooting back at me. It's shooting across the thing. Every direction it's shooting. It's crazy.”

    Scott Denise @ ~29:00 — Describes the unpredictability and fun factor of the pop bumper mechanic during initial whitewood playtest

Entities

Christopher FranchipersonEd VanderbeekpersonChristian LynepersonScott DenisepersonRick and MortygameTotal Nuclear AnnihilationgameData East Batman

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Pinball Life's parts engineering operations driven by demand for reproduction components for tired vintage Williams games that no longer have parts available

    medium · Scott describes re-engineering parts 'if you buy an old Williams game' and making compatible but improved reproductions that 'go out to people to fix these games that are just very tired'

  • ?

    community_signal: Whitewood playtest feedback from respected community members (including Yancey) validated Rick and Morty's unconventional pop bumper design as 'awesome'

    high · Scott reports '100% of the people that played the Whitewood said it was really fun' and that trusted tester Yancey said he should 'absolutely 100% keep it in'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Scott Denise deliberately places pop bumper in unconventional left-side location (replacing slingshot) as intentional risk-taking to push design boundaries

    high · Scott states he 'like doing weird things' and put pop bumper 'in the ultimate danger zone' initially giving it '20% chance' but testing proved it '100% awesome'

  • $

    market_signal: Rick and Morty quick sellout attributed primarily to theme strength and Spooky's reputation rather than designer name alone, though Scott Denise's previous success was factor

    high · Scott states sellout 'was actually just due to the theme being great and Spooky being a good pinball company' with designer reputation as secondary factor

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Scott Denise's primary role is parts engineering at Pinball Life rather than full-time game design; he actively consults with Spooky on titles rather than designing exclusively

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.351

0:00
Think about the art. I'm at a B+. I know I'm drunk. The following is an ad-hoc radio production. And now, ladies and gentlemen, time for the show. Sit down, kick your feet up, grab a cold one, get ready for...
0:36
The Super Awesome Pinball Show! That's right, it's time for everybody's favorite pinball show! With your host, pinball artist Christopher Franchi! Texas Pinball Festival's Ed Vanderbeek! And Dr. Pin himself, Christian Lyne. Sponsored by Chicago Gaming Company, makers of Medieval Madness, Monster Bash, and Attack on Mars remakes. Chicago-gaming.com And by CoinChecker.com, distributors of great pinball machines, mods, accessories, and branchy pinball wear. Yes, yes, we're the ones who make all the extra money. That's the bloody Ruth.
1:17
Hello, pinball people, and welcome to episode three of the super awesome pinball show. Happy holidays and all of that shit. Ed, how are you doing? I'm doing great. I'm really excited about today's episode. You, Christian? Oh, super excited. It's going to be a good one, guys. It is going to be a good one. We have a jam-packed lineup. Who wants to do this? Ed, do you want to take your shot at the rundown of what we've got on the show today? The rundown. All right. Well, today's episode will, of course, feature Days of Our Pinball Lives, where we talk about what we've all done the past couple of weeks. We're going to have pinball in the news. We've got a very special surprise guest interview. We'll have the up-and-coming popular art lessons with Franchi. And we'll have some info about our Munsters contest and upcoming Pen Pets charity contest. And then at the end of the show, I'll give my shameless update for 2PF 2020. Sounds great. Sounds awesome. All right, well, let's get the show rolling. Okay, so you guys want to know what we've done since the last episode? Well, we're going to tell you right about now.
2:16
game
Spooky Pinballcompany
Pinball Lifecompany
Chicago Gaming Companycompany
Kevinperson
Jessicaperson
Panther Pinballperson
Charlie Emeryperson
Mrs. Pins Pinball Podcastorganization
Texas Pinball Festival (TPF)event
Stray Matterperson
Super Awesome Pinball Showorganization

high · Scott explicitly states '40 hours a week is Pinball Life' and 'I'm making more of an impact on the pinball community doing what I do... than I do building games'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Data East Batman playfield purchased from eBay seller 'Stray Matter' was defective NOS sample/test unit missing ~50-60 post holes, requiring drilling template recovery process

    high · Ed discovered playfield had inserts but 'no post holes with the T-nuts... like 50 or 60 holes missing'; seller offered partial refund; Ed plans to use worn playfield as drilling template

  • ?

    product_strategy: Magna Save feature in Rick and Morty was included as intentional 'loss leader' design element Scott expected would be removed for cost, but proved fun and was retained

    high · Scott explicitly states 'The Magna Save was meant to be removed' and he included it strategically as a cost-cutting target, but it 'accidentally turned out to be fun'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Code update process for home pinball games remains friction-heavy; Franchi reports failed USB update experience discouraging him from maintaining current game versions

    high · Franchi hasn't updated games in 1-1.5 years; cites previous failed USB update ('didn't work') that required download, unzip, file transfer steps; hosts agree WiFi auto-update needed

    • Like suns through the hourglass, All right, days of our pinball lives. You know, to tell you the truth, again, with the holidays, I haven't done a whole lot in pinball except clear off my pinball machines. My pinball machines worked as gift tables, so everything that I had bought for people I had sectioned off and, like, on the Batman pinball machine is all the stuff from my daughter. And on the Guardians pinball machine is all the rest of the stuff from my daughter. on the Munsters. It's all the stuff for Barlow and the stuff for the people from work and this and that. So I'd crap all over my pinball machines. I've not been able to play pinball for three or four weeks. And finally got all that crap off and I actually spent the last half of Christmas Day by myself playing pinball because my daughter left to go to her boyfriend's family's house. That's not a bad way to spend Christmas, though. No, no, no. I've been doing that for a while. It sucks. It takes some getting used to. You've got to let your kids go and be fair and do the other side of the family. So, you know, I mean, I spent Christmas Eve with her. We went to a friend's house. They had a big Christmas party every year on Christmas Eve. So I was with her there, and then she came over, I don't know, about 11 o'clock in the morning and stuck around until about 3. So we had some lunch and opened up presents and stuff, and then I rocked the pinball games in the evening and had a good time but realized that my code is, I don't think I've updated a single game in a year. that's why we need that wifi internet automatic update thing to kick in soon yeah yeah yeah because that sucks I just keep on thinking like what could my guardians be like you know if it was as cool as everyone else says it is because I don't have you know that thing hasn't been updated in a year and a half so it's nowhere near where it's supposed to be update your games Chris it's a USB stick it's not hard well the last time I tried it didn't work and it kind of soured me on the whole process I'm just like man it took forever to download and then I had to unzip it, and then put it on the damn Bob thing, get it home, plug it in, and nothing happens. Do it once or twice, man, and you'll have it. It's really not that bad. I've updated it before, but last time it didn't work, and it just kind of made me dread doing it again. What do you have, a flip phone? I bet you sell a flip phone, don't you? No, no. I have an iPhone 8 Plus and an iPhone 10. Ooh. Two phones. It's one a burner? Fancy. It's one's a burner phone. Yeah, I make all my calls the pin side on that one. No, it's one's a work for Zynga. Ah, gotcha. Oh, yeah, work phone. So going back to Christmas, man, what did you get for Christmas that's pinball-related? Anything? That's pinball-related. I got some really cool gifts for you guys that are pinball-related. Oh, yeah. I'm going to say it marries probably two of your favorite things. Not mine personally because I'm not a big drinker, but it marries beer and pinball. Oh, hell yeah. Can't wait. That's an awesome gift. That's all I'm going to say. So you guys do have stuff coming. I was waiting on these particular things to come in, and they finally came in. So stuff's going out. But let's see. Pinball. What did I get pinball related? You got a pinball ornament that said the Super Bowl. Oh, okay. Yeah, that's right. From the pin family, Kristen and Sarah, I got a very cool glass ornament with our show logo on it and then a bunch of square pins with the logo on it and a bunch of cool stickers, high gloss, high fashion stickers. Yes. But, yeah, like, you know. You got some airfare to Texas in March for you and your daughter. Yeah, yeah. We got the tickets from Ed for the guest appearance. It's a good thing you're paying the airfare because it's going to cost me a shit ton to ship all this crap out. I've never shipped stuff out to a show before, but I'm going to ship my big backdrop out there and a bunch of stuff. Which is awesome for those of you that have never seen it before. where it's an incredible backdrop. Have you seen the new one? Yes, I saw it at Expo. Oh, that's right. Yeah, no, that's the new one, the Wonder Woman one. Yeah, and Elvira on the side. Yeah, I kind of took the old one and just kind of updated it. Actually, I couldn't find the file for the old one, so I looked at pictures of it and sort of rebuilt it, and then I added a bunch of new stuff. So it's now fully updated. But, yeah, so I'm going to ship all that stuff out there.
    6:32
    But, yeah, that's about it. My family doesn't quite, they would have no idea what to get me. They probably don't know that, like, mods exist and stuff like that. So, you know, they just avoid pinball altogether. Anything that's like a toy, something that's fun, they avoid because they're like, I'm going to buy it for you and you already have it. And if you don't have it, you don't want it. So they're absolutely right. You know, if there's something out there that I want, I go out and I buy it. So there's nothing laying around that, you know, I have to send them ideas and hold off on things. You know, like, it's funny. My daughter's like, what do you want for Christmas? I was like, I don't know. And so I actually sent her one thing. I said, I want this thing here. And it was a little toy figure of Linda Blair from The Exorcist laying on her bed. And it was the one thing I didn't get. Oh, no. I'm like, why did I bother? Like, see, now I have to go out and buy it myself. And then you're like, you just bought it yourself. Well, yeah, you didn't buy it for me. But Christmas was fun. I just love this time of year, you know. It sounds weird, but when it gets dark out at, like, 5 o'clock, you know, and then, like, you have several hours of just looking at, like, glowing Christmas lights on people's houses and stuff like that. There's just nothing like that. You know, that's really why I don't want to move out of Michigan because, you know, if I moved to California, I would lose that and I would really miss it every year. So what about you guys? Ed, what was your week in pinball like? So something that I've been working on, and I've got to tell a little bit of a back story that I won't take up a lot of time, So several years ago, my daughter, and she still is, she's very much a Batman fan. I know you're a Batman fan, but Lauren, she's very much a Batman fan. So I kind of decided that I wanted to get the 1989 Data East Batman pinball machine. I have that. I know you have that. So I have one now, too. And a couple years ago, my buddy Barry and my buddy Rusty and I, we took a road trip out to Florida. I found one out there, and I purchased it, and we brought it back to Texas. And my buddy Kevin and another friend of mine, Jessica, they've been restoring it for me. So they've redone the cabinet and they've powder-coated the side rails and they've been working on this game and it is absolutely gorgeous. And in the meantime, another friend of mine, he goes by Panther Pinball, he's figured out a way to reprint the play field. So you can take your, this is something that John Greatwitch and some other people have done. They'll actually reprint the play field. So I sand my playfield down, and he reprints it, and Kevin clears it, and they're putting this game back together. Well, I don't know, a week and a half ago, I see an NOS Data East Batman playfield on eBay, and I bought it. I was like, oh, my God, if you've never seen the Data East Batman playfield, they're all roached. Most of them are roached. I don't know. How good is yours, Chris? How good is yours?
    9:16
    The playfield. 80%. It's decent. It's not bad. So whatever that self-coked clear that Data East first used when they did, like, Batman and Phantom of the Opera, and there's a few titles that it was just terrible, and the play fields are all completely worn. Now, I know a lot of that has to do with the games being played so much, but the games are bad. The people that have seen them, the artwork is missing. In fact, remember the one at Freeplay Florida? I mean, it was just the artwork was all gone. It was just bare wood on the whole bottom half of the play field. So I see this NOS Data East Fatman play field on eBay, and it's rather expensive. But I go ahead and I pull the trigger, and I call Kevin. I said, hey, you know, I just bought this NOS play field. Can we do another swap? Because they had already been working on doing the play field swap on my reprinted play field. He said, sure, we can do that. So I get the play field in the mail, and it's gorgeous. It's drop-dead gorgeous, and I take a bunch of pictures of it, and I send them to Kevin, and Jessica's looking at them and she's like, man, that's a gorgeous play field and Kevin's looking at it and he goes, why are there no post holes in that play field? Son of a bitch. This is like, I don't know if it was a sample or a test, but it has the inserts, but there's no post holes with the T-nuts. There's like 50 or 60 holes missing from the play field because that each had the, you know, the post didn't just screw into the top of the play field. They actually had a hole drilled completely through it with a T-nut on the backside and, you know, the little flat bumpers. And so now I'm just completely just pissed.
    10:45
    What do you do, man? Is this something that you're going to try and fix? Or are you just going to throw your hands up? Well, we've talked about it. So, you know, I did send a message to the eBay buyer, and we talked about it. He refunded a good chunk of my money because he was like, no, I'm sorry, because I told him that I would. So, Kevin, I talked about it. So what we're going to do is, because what they did back then, and they still do it now, is they have a template that goes on top, and they'll drill holes, you know, for those kind of things, after they've been printed even. So I'm going to take, I have another Batman play field that's worn out, but, you know, it's still, it is pretty roached. So, but we're going to use that as a template, I think, and we're going to lay it on top of the NOS play field and then, you know, to mark our holes for the post. And I don't know, we're going to give it a shot. Hopefully it turns out beautiful and we don't just completely destroy it. Anyway, that's been my last two weeks in pinball. I'm trying to get this Batman done. But, yeah, that playfield story just, when he saw that, I started laughing and then I started crying. That's a lot of work.
    11:45
    That is a lot of work. Well, Ed, now I'm confused because you said that I'd want to hear this story because there was something good in it for me. Are you trying to tell me that your pain in this thing not being drilled out is good for me? I said it was going to be good for you. Well, this was right after you had told him that you were really upset with him and that he was a jerk for getting such an awesome play field. Well, no, that just means being an asshole. I mean, to find out that this thing is... Oh, no, because... Oh, no, I know what it was. It's because my play field that's... Because my reprinted play field that my friend Richard did with Panther Pinball, it looks really good. I mean, it looks really good. It just wasn't, you know, me being the OCD purist, when I saw this NOS play field, I thought, well, I would rather have that. So the play field that's currently in my game, it's a gorgeous play field, and it's been cleared, and it's, you know. And so in my head when I was telling you that, I thought, well, if your play field is Roach, then maybe I can send you my play field that's been reprinted, and if it's better than what you've got, it's better than what you've got. Now, I just have to ask, do you know the name of the person who sold this to you? Is it the guy from Broken Token Podcast?
    12:55
    No. Because there was a guy that had a game, and then he had a new old stock play field, but he would not break them up. He was selling them as a package. I remember that for sale a while ago, and I wish I had bought that package just so I could get my hands on that play field. But, no, this was an eBay name. It's Stray Matter. He's out of Chicago, and for those of you that are eBay savvy, you can go search that at East Batman Play Field and click on Completed Options, and you'll see it. You'll see your non-drilled-out play field. Yeah, you'll see that. And even then, though, of course, at the time I'm looking at it, of course, I'm not looking at it, you know, as a guy that's going to install it. I'm just going, ooh, an NOS play field. But as soon as Kevin said there's no post holes, and I, of course, you know, it takes the sunshine rays away from my eyes, and I'm like, oh, son of a bitch, there's no post holes in this play field. Yeah. You heard in the back of your head that Price is right.
    13:53
    Ed, you're such a dumbass. How the hell did you not see that? So anyway, but it's all good. Like I said, the seller did, you know, we came to an agreement, and he made it right. So we're going to try to drill these holes. We'll see how it comes out. But that's my two weeks in pinball. And thank you very much, Kristen, you and your wife, for the lovely, super awesome pinball Christmas ornaments. Oh, you guys are more than welcome. It was great. And as far as my Christmas, I got a very nice electric cordless screwdriver. that I've been wanting. You know, I'm a barbarian. I've been using like a drill.
    14:29
    So, of course, my screws would always go in, you know, way farther than they were supposed to. But now I've got a very nice cordless electric drill. I've got some clothes. Actually, all the pinball stuff. I'm kind of like Franchi. I just buy what I want. And sometimes I give it to the wife and she'll just wrap it. Anyway. Maybe I'll do that next year with my daughter. Yeah, I'd buy my own Christmas presents. It works. I always get what I want every time. That's the thing in life in general, right? I mean, you tend to buy what you want, and when people ask me what I want for Christmas, it's so hard for me to give them an answer because everything I want I usually just buy, right?
    15:03
    Well, that on top of not wanting your kid to spend any money on you, it's like perfect. I'm going to just dump it off here. Don't give me any money. Just wrap this up and give it to me.
    15:11
    Christian, what about you? So my week, my two weeks since the last recording was pretty much just all Christmas, man, all encompassing. We have Christmas at both sides of the family, and then we do our own nuclear thing. So it's been a lot of traveling and a lot of rapping and so on and so forth. So not a ton of pinball. We missed out on the Elvira launch party that was local to us, which was a bummer because we had a lot of stuff going on. But pinball-related stuff, you know, I got a lot of gifts for Christmas that were somehow linked to pinball because everyone knows I'm so into it. I got some pretty cool ornaments. Of course, I got my Oompa Loompa figure for Wonka. I've got an elf playing a pinball machine and some like pop bumper ornaments that were cool. Some Brad Albright ornaments as well. So our tree is going to be like 50% pinball after the next few years go by. I got a boom for the Yeti microphone for podcasting. And boom goes the dynamite. Yeah, Jeff Teolis turned us on to this really cool iPhone microphone that you kind of just insert into the lightning connector for your iPhone. So I gave that to Sarah just because with her podcast, Mrs. Pins Pinball Podcast, she does a lot of, you know, phone recording. And so now she's got kind of a high-end-ish, not cheap, microphone attachment that hooks in and, you know, can double as like a Yeti on the go. So that's pretty cool. Would you like to take a moment and maybe properly plug your wife's podcast? Oh, yeah, sure. So, yeah, of course, if you haven't heard my wife's podcast, definitely check it out. It's the Mrs. Pins Pinball Podcast. I am completely biased, but it's one of the best pinball podcasts out there, so definitely check that out. And she's the queen. She is a Picasso of cuss words. That's right. She is. Nobody swears like she does, and it's just so perfect. Sometimes I just laugh because of a well-placed cuss word. It just kind of rolls off the tongue with her, and it's always used in a good way that is funny. So, yeah, definitely don't listen when the kids are around. There are episodes where your kids are around, so she's not swearing. But for the most part, don't risk it. But it's a very entertaining show. That's true. Yeah, so the two other things that I got that were pretty cool is Python Angelo's estate just put a bunch of artwork up on eBay.
    17:25
    Vaginas? Oh, hell, pie. Yeah, no, fortunately this was tame. But it was very, very cool. It was a concept piece that he did. It was very futuristic kind of fantasy type stuff, but it's a robot riding on top of this rhino. It's also a robot. It's very hard to describe, but it's really cool. The colors are awesome, and it's going to go right up in the man cave. Got that. And then the big gift that you'll be happy to know was a trip to TPF. So Sarah has lined it up, and we are going to head down there this year. We've got our plane tickets and our hotel room set, and believe it or not, we're not bringing the kids this year. So it's going to be a really, really fun trip, and we're extremely excited about that. So if that was my only gift, I'd be incredibly happy. I knew about that gift a long before you. I know, man. You were in the loop, both of you guys, I think. I was cool as a cucumber. It was so hard for me not to give it up. I was leaking it on pit such because I'm a big blabber. I know. I didn't even tell Francie because I knew that shit would get out. No, I appreciate you helping her out with the reservations and all that stuff. That was very solid, and looking forward to hanging out with you guys. Cool. So that was pretty much it. That was my week, my two weeks in pinball. Excellent. So what I've been up to lately is pretty interesting, actually. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Who the hell is this? Scott, you guys.
    18:45
    Scott Denisey. Dude, I've been here the whole time. Yes. Dude, welcome to the show. I'm so glad to have you on. Well, thanks a lot, guys. How did you get on? Well, I thought you guys knew I was here. This is kind of awkward. Okay, well, I just, you know, I got on through the meeting invite that was circling around.
    19:09
    Okay, well, I mean, I guess I could go and tell you what I think you want to say. No, no, no, you can stay, man, you can stay. I mean, all right. Just kind of jump in and roll with it. So we're talking about our last two weeks in pinball, so why don't you tell us about yours? All right, well, you know, I've been real busy these past couple weeks, actually. We are, in all seriousness, we're putting together just verifying final BOM lists and making sure that the quality is good of all the parts coming in for the Rick and Morty pinball machine. I've been going up to Spooky randomly, just playing the game, making sure everything's good. I'm actually going to be heading up there tomorrow, seeing what's going on there. And, yeah, it's a lot of fun. It's been a super, super busy time for me, but it's worth it. We appreciate you taking your time out to join us today, talk to us a little bit. So, obviously, the Scott Denise, who has been involved in Total Nuclear Annihilation, and Rick and Morty now, most recently. But, dude, you do a lot. You're a man of many hats. So you work primarily at Pinball Life, right? That's your primary gig. Yeah, so my 40 hours a week is Pinball Life. So I do a ton of stuff over there. I'm just kind of the technical person over there. So the major part of my job is just doing the engineering, doing the engineering drawings, designing new parts, handling the manufacturer QA process of those parts and stuff. But, you know, normal stuff like that that engineers do. I also do, like, random stuff like, you know, IT things for Pinball Life, you know, working with the website and just helping out wherever I can, which is a lot of fun. That's cool. And not many people know that that is your primary gig and not the Spooky thing. Absolutely. And you love that job. I mean, I've talked to you about that in the past, that you really enjoy that, and you just consult with Spooky on games. Do you think that that will ever change, that you'll ever leave, you know, to focus more on pinball full time? No, I don't think so. That's just, it's not really what I'm interested in. I really do like what I'm doing. I'm making more of an impact on the pinball community doing what I do in my 40 hour a week workday than I do building games, believe it or not. So if you need a part for your game that doesn't exist anymore, like let's say you buy an old Williams game or something, those reproduction parts that Pinball Life sells are things that I re-engineer to, we make them like, you know, we make them compatible, but slightly different. and we do little upgrades to them to make certain things stronger that do break over time. So we do a lot of research on that. It's a lot of fun because I get to make these parts, and these parts then get made in bulk, and then they go out to people to fix these games that are just very tired. So to me, that's way more rewarding, as weird as that sounds. I love both, don't get me wrong, but that's what I really do enjoy. That's really cool, man. So Scott, Rick and Morty is your second game, and I'm curious if you were fearful at all of a sophomore jinx, And if so, did it extend all the way up to the release date and the quick sellout, or did it drop off earlier? Were you just confident as hell that it was going to be an awesome game? Oh, no, man. I've been freaked out about it because I know, like, it's a lot of pressure for, like, building games for Spooky because you do have to build a game that, you know, is fun, right, sells well for them so that they can, you know, keep in business, right? You know, all sorts of other little things like that that there's a ton of pressure on. I think the thing that was bothering me the most is that I like to take a lot of chances in designing stuff because I have the opportunity to actually do that. And I, as you guys have seen, the Rick and Morty game has a pop bumper on the left side there where the slingshot should be. And I did not know how well that was going to go over at all. And it just, it worried me slightly. So that was like the big thing. And then there's a bunch of other shots in the game that I purposely moved around so they're outside of the comfort zone of where you normally shoot. And that's just very strange. And I think right now I'm feeling more confident, and it's not because of the sellout. It's because of what people said about the layout. The actual sellout in my mind was actually just due to the theme being great and Spooky being a good pinball company. And then people were excited about the fact that I made another game, which did factor into it a little bit. But mostly, though, I'm going with that theme is what people really were clamoring over. No, I think that was a big part of it. But you know that the Scott Denise's second game had a lot to do with it too, man. You know, TNA obviously has a huge cult following and people are crazy about that game. So they were excited to see what you had to do next. But going back to the pop-up on the left, was that something that Charlie was squeamish at all about? Or did he pretty much give you complete free reign to do whatever you wanted with this design? Well, that's the funny thing, actually, is that Charlie didn't actually see anything of the game until we had it in Whitewood format. And he, so at first he's like, really?
    23:54
    Well, the whole story behind the pop bumper thing, though, is that, you know, I like doing weird things, right? And I really wanted to put a pop bumper like Andromeda has down low where it's dangerous. Even more dangerous than where it is in TNA. This is like the ultimate danger zone for a pop bumper. So I decided, I put it in the CAD file when I was drawing it up and just kind of like laughed to myself. And I'm like, there's like, you know, I gave it a 20% chance of making it into production. You know, just, but I'm like, you know, if I don't do it now, I'm never going to try it. I'm never going to know, you know, what it felt like. Right. So I did that. I cut a white wood. I put it together. I played it. And immediately I was like, holy shit, this thing is super fun. I'm like, it's shooting up the play field. It's shooting back at me. It's shooting across the thing. Every direction it's shooting. It's crazy. Man, that is hot. Oh, yeah. A sling can shoot in many ways, but a pop bumper, you would think that just the degree of difference would send it a whole different direction. Yeah, a sling is not going to shoot it down the middle of your flippers. A sling is also not going to shoot it up at the playfield and make shots for you, which is a very super crazy thing that I did not expect. Is there any way, I mean, I know with a sling you really can't, but is there any way to try and guide it with a bumper there? I mean, there's only so much nudging you can do with a bumper.
    25:18
    Well, I mean, when you hit the sling and try to get it to go a certain place off of the sling. Right, right. With the popover, it's like there's such a broad range of angles that it can fire off at. It's basically like you just need to deal with whatever it wants to do. Nice. So it's a lot of fun. So I gave it a 20% chance. I flipped it, and then I said, that's fucking awesome. I give it an 80% chance now of making it into production, right, which is pretty high. And I'm like, all right, I'm real confident. And the only hesitation I was having, that extra 20%, was I didn't know how well received it was going to be by people. So people love Italian bottoms, as I've been told many times because I am Italian. So the fact that that is there really could psychologically mess with people and get people to say, I don't think I'm going to buy that game. It's just too weird, right? You know, or it's too mean or it's too something, right? They'll make up some kind of excuse for it. But, you know, I had people come in who I respect greatly, who will not blow smoke up my ass, and they played it and said that it was, like, awesome and I should absolutely 100% keep it in. And it was 100% of the people that played the Whitewood said it was really fun. That was very cool. Yeah, it's super weird. And I said to people, like, when they walk in, like, I've got some friends that are really, really brutal. Like, my buddy Yancey, I don't know if you know him or not, but he is, he will tell me 100% if something is wrong. Like, and, like, not, it's like, you can just say to Yancey, like, don't even tell me if anything's good. Just tell me what needs to be fixed because, like, now is the time, right? So he, like, played it and he just, he loved it. So he has, like, just no issue with that. So when you were doing Rick and Morty, was there anything that you designed for Rick and Morty that because of cost or, you know, that just it wasn't allowed, then you're going to save it for maybe another game or anything like that? No, actually. Weird as that sounds. I actually put something in the game that I thought that I put in there so that it would be removed. And then it accidentally turned out to be fun. So we left that in. What was that? The Magna Save was meant to be removed. because I put it in there as a, what's the term for when you put something into a pinball machine that you're like, ha-ha, I'm going to take that out when they complain about the BOM being too high? Oh, interesting. So you try to play the game a little bit, I don't know, like a loss leader or something. Well, you got to. Yeah, there's some kind of, yeah, we've got to make a name for that. Who's most likely to take something out? Just call it a Gary Stern. Oh, Jesus.
    27:51
    Oh, boy. We can't afford to take it out. You know, well, the thing is, though, it's not just Gary. It's everybody doing that. That always happens, like, no matter what. It's just, in this particular case, like, it was just too fun to remove. And where we had the extra buttons drilled in, like, to see, like, where Stern put the button on Black Knight was a little hard because it just takes a little more time to get to, and people aren't quite used to that, I think. I think people are now getting used to how to use that. But this button on Rick and Morty is, like, right next to the flipper button in the spot where Black Knight, like, the original Black Knight had its button. But the problem was I programmed the MagnaSave the way I like to see MagnaSaves programmed, which is a time-based MagnaSave. So it's however long you hold the button down for is how much energy it drains out of it. So it's got like a life, like it's got a battery, right? And if you just flick the button, that battery lasts a lot longer than if you were just to press and hold it. So you have to, from what I gather, you have to build up the anti-gravity, you know, magnet power by hitting the flugelprank, right? Yep, that's correct. The captain ball and then you can just see basically as you tap that button you're going to turn it on for brief periods of Time so how do you see that being used in the game? Is it primarily to save your ball from draining is it to try and guide it in a certain path? I mean what the it actually just to save you from draining out the right side Yeah so it really cool though because that MagnaSave when you flick the button you can actually flick the ball from that danger zone where you near the outline there You can actually flick it back into play up and over the right slingshot. Oh, that's cool. Yeah, it's super neat. Battery power, it lasts a long time. So were you a fan of Rick and Morty before you got this theme, and did you know that it was Rick and Morty when you started designing the game? I did. And I have been a fan since season one. So it's something that Charlie was like, well, I can get you this theme if you want to make another game. And I said, oh, god damn it.
    29:48
    Fine. So did he have to kind of pull you back in kicking and screaming? Were you one and outs? Or were you always thinking? I blow that out of proportion. But I do like designing games, and I do like building them. I will tell people as I'm in the build process that, screw this, I'm not doing another game, this freaking sucks. Sure. But it's just me being dramatic. Most of the time I'll, like, and no one believes me anymore anyway, so it doesn't even matter. But, yeah, it's a fun thing for me. I wasn't too hard to get back in the game there. So now that you've done two, are you, now is it kind of like, are you greased up and ready for number three, or are you ready for a hiatus? I'm not done with number two yet, and I do need a vacation, So as soon as this is done, well, not done, but as soon as it's to a point where I can breathe for a moment, I'm going to take a little time and relax a little bit and actually play some pinball. Yeah, you know, normal stuff. So leading up to this game. At this point, Ed and I have realized Christian has hijacked the interview, and we're discussing going out for a cheeseburger. You know, Sarah and I used to kind of text you and try and get some info from you, and you had this big story about Haunted House Party and you had a backstory behind it and everyone knows you like to kind of joke around and throw out some false info every once in a while. And you had told me that in some of your previous seminars you had given out some hints as to what your actual theme was. Can you talk now about what that was and what hints you had kind of dropped as to the Rick and Morty theme? Okay, so as awful as this sounds, I have no clue what I've said in those seminars. I get crazy in those seminars and I say nutso stuff, and I never said anything that was too obvious, but I probably made a Rick and Morty joke about, you know, something stupid, some quote from the show. I do it with South Park, too, all the time, just in my normal speaking, like day-to-day language. I've been trying not to do Rick and Morty quotes, though, for the past two years, so I've taken that kind of out of my vocabulary a little bit. How about Sarah Rose? Her hairstyle at Pinberg, was that a Rick and Morty reference? No, it was an accident. That was an Antoinette Johnson special, and it was so cool. But now I saw someone on Pintot actually pull that photo up and say, oh, look, Scott's trolling us with that hairstyle. That was definitely a clue. Oh, no, it totally wasn't a clue. It was an accident. Like, I saw as soon as the – so Sarah's like, hey, I'm getting my hair done.
    32:13
    I'm like, great, awesome, go do that, have fun. She did that. She came back, and I'm like, holy shit. I really love my hair.
    32:22
    It was so good. Hilton was looking at me. He goes, hey, it's a clue to your next game. I'm like, Hilton, you shut the hell up. Shut the fuck up. I'm like, he goes, what, what, is it, is it? I'm like, no, it's not, but just shut the hell up anyway. Yeah, he touched on it. That's cool. Yeah, it's super funny. But, yeah, until later, like, she was like, oh, whoops, I didn't even realize. Like, she didn't know that, and neither did Antoinette. So, super funny, though. Sorry to cut in on your interview, Christian. Yeah, go ahead. I'm sorry. I paused because I don't want to ask everything. I got a long list. Yeah. It states in the features list that you did additional music and you did a remix of the theme. So I'm kind of curious, is there a Beatgate mix of the Rick and Morty theme? Ooh, not yet, but that's a really good idea. Yeah. So the music, though, is pretty nutso because I have written a majority of the music for the game, actually, which I don't think people are expecting. No, because the features list doesn't really say that you do most of it. It says in some additional music by Scott. Additional music. Yeah, because there is music in there that's licensed from the theme and stuff that they made and stuff that was in the shows. But the majority of the music is actually stuff that I created. Some of it will sound like stuff that you go, oh, yeah, Scott totally made that. Some of it's going to be more disguised and sound a little bit more like what it's trying to get across. So I'm actually very, very proud of what's in there right now. And I'm still continuing to work on it more and more. and I'm still like, you know, I see myself in like six months still working on stuff and adding more things to the game because I can't help myself. How many tracks are on there that you made? Right now, I'm not sure, but it's more than eight for sure. Wow. Are you going to do a vinyl? No, I'm not. I should though. So check this out. So the songs that I wrote where I remixed anything from Cartoon Network, I don't own the rights to that. so I won't be able to do anything with that music anyway. So that's like off the table, right? But the stuff that I created from scratch, I could potentially use and make whole actual songs out of and release an album. I'm not saying I will, but I could. So everything's up in the air. We'll see what happens in the future, but right now I just need to focus on getting the game loops done. So you hear it first. Scott and me can release a full album. You're on the super awesome pinball show. I love it. It's called Scott and EC Live in Detroit. And you have done live shows, man. You've done DJ gigs. So music is your other passion, really, right? I have. I've done more than just DJ gigs, too. I've also done something called live PAs as well, where you bring out synthesizers and drum machines, and you just make music on the fly. that's another thing which is kind of fun to do it's very difficult it takes it's it can be repetitive if it's you know if you're not careful but that's a lot of fun the dj stuff's a lot of fun you know actually yeah so the houston show that was like the first pinball show i did a live gig at it might be the first dj gig ever at a pinball show i would think but you know you had I don't think so. No, it was an expo. Oh, cool. Stern had some guy in there for their L.Y.R. party. Nice. Yeah, I mean, there were people dancing and rocking out. It was cool. Well, me being an artist, I have to ask, is the art on the game, was that all supplied by Adult Swim? Was it created by the Rick and Morty staff, or did you have somebody come in and just kind of mimic the style or assemble assets? How was the art package created? The art package was created by a guy named Josh Friedkiss. He is the main guy who does all the Rick and Morty art for all their licensed products. So he's an actual, they wouldn't let us use any other artist. It was just like, they're like, nope, here's our artist. Here's your thing. Go ahead. He's super talented. I mean, he actually was listening when we were talking about like, oh, the shot lines have to be like this on a playfield. You know, because like working with somebody who has never done a playfield before, it's like, it's very hard to describe to them what a playfield should look like. And it's not their fault. It's just they've never done it. Yeah, I've gotten in arguments with people before where they think, like, you know, why are there only so many pinball artists? Anybody who can draw good can do it. I'm like, no, you don't understand. It's not just being able to draw. You know, you have to know how to put this stuff together in the proper way. Yeah, everything kind of has to go away from the shots. Like, it needs to, like, you know, it needs to be. It's just so weird, and I'm an awful, awful art director, like, terrible. I did the art direction for the TNA machine, which turned out amazing, but it was all because Matt Andrews just stepped in and just said, I'm not listening to you. Yeah, and he's like, no, okay, we're doing this. He's like, I got it. He's like, we're good.
    37:14
    That's cool. Yeah, I thought it had a very consistent theme with their merchandising or whatever, so I kind of assumed that, but I just wasn't sure. I wanted to see what the deal was. Yeah, that guy was very talented, and he was very easy to work with, too. There was really not much we had to change besides the positioning of the Pickle Rick under the flipper there.
    37:35
    So they said that's not going to make it to the actual production games. Charlie was saying that that's going to be somewhere hidden. No, Charlie said it was going to be changed as to where it was located. And Charlie even posted a picture on Facebook of the production playfields that are in-house right now. and you can see that Pickle Rick has been moved. Now, how much stuff like that, the hidden stuff, did you put in there? Are there a lot of Easter eggs and little things to find in the code and then the cabinet arts and that sort of thing? So in the art, the Easter eggs in the art are not pinball Easter eggs. They're actually things from the show that have not been released yet. Oh, cool. Which is super neat because we got the art done. It was done before Season 4 started, and there was a lot of stuff on the game. Are you guys caught up on Season 4 at all? No, not yet. No? I don't know. Okay, so I don't want to spoil too much of it, but there's stuff all over the artwork that is from there. We're like, what is this thing? What's that thing? None of this makes sense. What are death crystals? What is that? Like, you know, it's just... So, like, as the season progresses, more and more of the stuff on the game makes sense. That's really cool, because a lot of the stuff, when you get a theme and it's, you know, it's from seasons that are earlier than, you know, like Stranger Things, for instance, it's not season three at all. It's all just one and two, whereas you've got some stuff from future seasons that's not even released that's very neat. Yeah, it's kind of crazy. I was like, wow, you guys are really far ahead then. Now that you're more or less finished with that game, I'm sure you have a good handle on your own capabilities and your limitations, et cetera. On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you grade yourself on TNA and Rick and Morty? Oh, how I did on those? Yeah, what would you give yourself? Well, the thing about TNA, so I've got a story about TNA. I'm going to derail just for a second, and then I'm going to get back to that. TNA was a game that I built for myself originally, right? So it was just everything I wanted to see in a game, I made it exactly the way I wanted to see it and exactly the way I wanted it to be. And that includes the actual art and everything, and the music and all that stuff, and the layout, all that. So I went on Pinside and I gave TNA a rating of 10, right? The gameplay, 10. The sound, 10. The art, 10. Everything, all the way across the board. And yeah, it gets flagged and taken down. was this before it was made or was this after no this was after after it was made i was like you know i'm the only person on earth that should be able to give it all tens and not get flagged that's right right like oh pin side i mean it's so hilarious okay so you got a 10 out of 10 on tna what do you get yeah i would give my i would absolutely give myself a 10 out of 10 on there not because i think it's the best game on earth but it's exactly what i wanted in the game now Rick and Morty is interesting because I wanted to make a game that appealed to more people than what TNA did because this theme appeals to so many people. It appeals to people that don't like old-school games. It appeals to people that do like old-school games. It appeals to, like, everybody, kids and everything, right? I mean, like 18-year-olds and up. You're not doing a self-serving job either. Now you're creating a game for Spooky. So it's not the best of what you want. It's the best of what you think everyone wants. Exactly. But I was able to sneak in all sorts of cool stuff that I wanted into this thing that I think other people will like. For instance, the shots that aren't in the proper places, right? So the right flipper shots are not where normal right flipper shots are, but the left flipper shots are, right? There's a ramp on the right there that's in the exact spot that a ramp should be on the flipper, right? But the right side, not so much. And the upper flipper, absolutely not. Paper Flipper's got three main shots on it, and the two most important shots are extremely high on the Flipper and extremely low on the Flipper. Well, the super secret skill shot is at the very tip, right? Just the tip! Well, I don't know. Not the super secret, but the super skill shot. The super skill shot is complicated, and as soon as you start playing it, you'll see. Okay. It's not just one shot. Got it. You'll see. It's super cool. But right now, though, so if you get, if you picture the play field, if you guys are looking at a picture or just can remember sort of what it looks like, there's a stand-up target, a highly reinforced stand-up target in the sweet spot of that upper flipper that's just right between the two shots, right? So there's an inner loop on the top that goes around and feeds the upper flipper again. Yes. And then there's that low shot that goes around in front of the left ramp and up into the garage. Now, if you don't make a decision when that ball comes to that upper flipper and you just flail at it, it's going to hit the stand-up target, right? which is really unsatisfying because you didn't make a decision, so I'm technically punishing you. So it's really crazy. So you have to actually think, like, do I want to go for an interloop or do I want to try and hit the garage or what do I want to do here because time's running out. Like, you only have a few milliseconds to think about it. So it's a lot of know-how. We were laughing just then. Yeah, I know. On our last show, we buried the word satisfying as a word that should just go away from pinball. But I'm more than welcome unsatisfied. You're going to let that one fly? No, I'm happy with that one. I like that one. Just bleep it out. Actually, we're getting really, really good at bleeping audio, if you know what I mean.
    42:46
    The audio in this game is absolutely 100% offensive. Oh, I love it. So how hard have you had to work to make the kids mode, or is that something that's coming later? The kids mode is not coming later. The kids mode is right out of the gate, full functionality, man. Nice. There's no audio for the kids mode. There is. It just cuts off. It just cuts the volume off completely.
    43:08
    So we've got a new family mode system in place that Eric and Bowen came up with. And basically what it is is every single audio callout in the game has a clean and an uncensored version. At a minimum, it has two samples for every call, right? So it's got a clean and a dirty version. Sometimes they have like, you know, four clean ones and seven dirty ones, right? It doesn't really matter, but they're just buckets, right, for each audio call. And what happens is you go into service menu and you set a value on your family mode from how much swearing do you want? Do you want 0% or do you want 100% or do you want anything in between? so it allows so then it all that's doing is it's telling it which buck get to pull from at which random value or which percentage right so if you set it for 50 50 of the time it's going to give you the the standard call outs which aren't dirty and the second time it's going to say yeah it's going to make jack off jokes and talk about you know fucking morty and just stupid shit like that fucking goddamn morty you know tell me rick calls morty a cocksucker at least once he doesn't call a cocksucker that I've heard yet, but there's so much damn audio, I haven't gone through it all yet. Nice. So Justin, I mean, Justin Rowland did the custom call-outs for the game. Did he, it sounds like he did a ton of them then, if there are multiple different options for each call-out. Yeah, he did a ton, and I don't think yet that he's done. Wow. There's still more to go. Yeah, he did a lot. So we wrote a script, right? And we gave the script over, and instead of Justin just reading the script, which he did, in between each line, he would just like freestyle stuff. So he'd be like, so it'd be like, hey, shoot the mystery hole, you know, or whatever. And, you know, and all of a sudden Justin would be like, Morty, shoot the fucking mystery hole, you piece of shit. You know, like he's just like singing all sorts of weird stuff. Like, Morty, I'm really disappointed in you for not being able to shoot that mystery hole. And we're like, we didn't even write that stuff on there. And he's just like, just going crazy, like freestyling and stuff. It's great. That sounds so good. Well, who better to have a handle on the character than him? Oh, yeah. Absolutely. Yeah, it's super fun. But, yeah, so there's tons of audio. The family mode, though, is that new system. I think what's really cool about the family mode, though, is that family mode system is if you really aren't super keen on the swearing, you can set that really, really low, and it's just going to be like, you know, that 1% of the time. Everything's going to be clean, but, like, 1% of the time it's going to say something completely messed up. And I think that's really funny. Yeah, that is good. Keep your kids on their toes. Yeah, exactly, yeah. I was talking to somebody about this, and they were like, really, that system sounds great. I'm like, yeah, set it on like 1% sometime. And then he goes, oh, no, because that 1% is when my kid's going to come downstairs and it's going to drop an F-bomb and have to explain to him for two weeks and why the pinball machine was swearing. I thought it was cool. I don't give a fuck what you think, Jerry. Absolutely. All right. Well, let's shoot into the future now. And now that you're wrapping up, basically, Rick and Morty, and you're still working on it, Is the next game from Spooky going to be something from Charlie? Because he has talked about wanting to sort of give up the reins. Are you going to be working on the next game, or what's going on? I have the best and worst answer for you. Are you ready for this? Sure. Yeah, you're right. I hope you guys are sitting down. I have no freaking idea. And you want to know why? Because I don't have to worry about that stuff. And I feel like I've completely taken myself out of, like, worrying about what's coming next and stuff like that, because I just have no clue what's going on. I know that I don't have to do another game right now, so that's pretty nice. I am just doing contracting work for Spooky, so I'm not in charge of their, or I don't really have a lot of visibility into their daily operations and stuff like that. Well, I have something to pitch. You have to bring this to Charlie, or I could bring it to him. Either way. Well, I can do it, but it'll probably be really messed up. If we both do it, maybe a better chance. I want to come out with the super awesome limited edition one-of-one Rick and Morty Franchi Pinball Machine, where you guys give me like 500 bucks, and I take one of your typical games and soup it up with cool junk, and then you sell it for some premium price, and it's basically sold as a one-of-one.
    47:15
    Like, what kind of junk? Like, are you talking like a bunch of plumbuses? Like, how many plumbuses? Like, head dispensers and whatever. No, I'm talking like, we need plumbuses. Like, how many?
    47:27
    At least 49. Okay, perfect. All right, I'm going to pitch him. I'm going to go pitch him the 49 Columbus version I'll be there tomorrow the super awesome limited edition one of one I think you get a premium price for it if Charlie even thought about doing something like that he would sell it for charity he wouldn't even do it for money I'm cool with that I think animals get an unfair shake everyone's always giving money to people I think we need to start giving more to animals if we could do animal charity that'd be cool they should make pinball machines for animals where's the I think Project Pinball could actually expand their stuff into animal shelters. I'm going to go ahead and say I love animals, but that idea right there is stupid. I'd love to see it. I'd love to see it, even though it probably wouldn't work in Crash and Burn. I'd love to see what you come up with. Well, what you do is you take a pinball machine and you buy it and you put it in the crates with the dogs. And you can not put legs on it so they can actually play it. And you put it in there on free play. I don't know what the problem is. Here's what you do. You take the glass off, and you put, like, a tennis ball inside the pinball machine and let them whack that around, and that's how they get their points. Hey, that's a good idea. See? All right, we're thinking. I think we got the next thing here. Yeah, puppy pinball. So, Scott, you were really supportive of TNA. You had, like, co-op mode, and you had, you know, reactor challenges and that sort of stuff. Do you see any of that coming to play in Rick and Morty in the future? As for just expandable content and stuff that we're planning on in the future, we are planning on releasing time release code updates with this thing so as new things happen in the season we're going to be releasing new little chunks every once in a while and stuff like that so we're going to be around to support it. Eric is an amazing programmer Bowen is an awesome rules designer so we're going to keep going with this thing until I don't even know when but they're not going to give up on it I'm also not going to give up on it because that's not how I roll but Yeah, it should be great, actually. You know, the time-release stuff I'm really excited about, actually, because as new seasons come online and we're able to get stuff from Cartoon Network, we'll be able to put it in the machine. And Eric has built the framework so that it's a lot easier to implement that stuff. That's really neat. Has it ever been done before in a pinball machine, kind of keeping up with the shows? I'm sure it has. It's not going to be like a keep-up-with-the-show thing, but it's going to be like, hey, if something really significant happens and, like, this whole cult following happens around freaking space snakes or something. The next Pickle Rick? Yeah, exactly. The next Pickle Rick happens. Well, obviously that has to be put into the machine because otherwise you end up with something like South Park where it's just kind of locked into the first season, you know? Right. That's neat. Well, since we're talking to Scott, I just want to give a shout-out to Christopher at the Spooky Tech Support thing. I was having a problem with my TNA recently, and I jumped on there and emailed the Spooky Tech Support, and Christopher answered me immediately, and I had my game back up and running within 10 minutes. So good job, Christopher. Spooky tech support. I appreciate that. I was going to call you personally, Scott, but I was like, he's probably fucking busy. He's not going to want to hear about it. That's fine. I got you on the thing so I can actually mute my phone if you want me to call him. I appreciate your mention. So, Scott, do people just think that you know how to fix everything on a spooky game? Like, do they call you for stuff you have absolutely no involvement in to help, you know, troubleshoot? They absolutely do, 100%. But that's okay. No, that's not okay. So sometimes, I'm telling you right now, if you own a Scott Denise game, do the tech support first. Yeah, I'll tell them that. I will tell them to do that. Yeah, I will tell them to do that. But if it's something like on TNA, like I've had tons of people call me and just, not call me, but like email me. And email is no big deal because I can ignore email for a while until I have time. But if someone's like, hey, quick question, you know, whatever. If it's something I can't answer in, like, two minutes, I just tell them to go to Spooky Service. And if you've got a problem with my artwork on any game, go to Pinside. That's right. Yeah, exactly. Well, everyone does, really. Well, I'm curious, though, if that happens in other companies as well. I mean, do you think people call Steve Ritchie up and be like, hey, my game, my, you know, my little guy stopped working on my Swords of Rage. Can you, like, help me fix it? I'm thinking, yes. I'm thinking if you're involved in pinball, people are just going to expect that you know how to fix it all. Yeah, it's interesting. I think everybody would try to, you know, at least if you caught them on the spot, you know, they're going to try to answer you. That's why I don't mind the email because then it's just, you know, I can let it sit there for a little bit until I get some time, you know, then be like, okay, well, contact Chris. Do you guys have any high-yield stuff that you want to ask him? I don't want to keep him forever. I've got like 75 other questions, but they're all, you know, they're all digital things like, you know, light show questions and stuff that may not be interesting. Well, then don't ask. Yeah, I don't want to keep you on forever.
    52:10
    Oh, it's okay. I can chat for a little bit. I don't care. Okay, we're going to go into Pinball News now. Scott, you want to stick around and hang with us and talk about this stuff? Absolutely. Let's do it. Nice. All right. And now, Pinball in the News with your super awesome eyewitness news crew.
    52:26
    All right, Pinball in the News. Story number one, Rick and Morty spell out. Oh, yeah. And that's a little backup to that. Numbergate. Ooh, ooh.
    52:37
    Numbergate thing. That's funny. Numbergate. Yeah, so we obviously talked about, you know, the sellout and everything going great, but apparently there was a little bit of fallout because of the way the numbers were handed out. I think some people don't understand what they're working with here. You know, it's a mom-and-pop company, and there's going to be growth. I'm pretty sure, looking back at the history of Spooky, they're not used to sellouts in four hours. Yeah, that's the first time I think that's happened. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, there's going to be growing pains. You know, mistakes are going to be made and whatnot, and that's not to say that any mistake was necessarily made in this case, but, you know, how do you best describe what happened and how to fix it? I don't really think it was a mistake. It was their plan all along, right? I mean, my understanding is that they wanted to kind of space out the numbers so that everyone had an equal shot at getting a low number, and it wasn't, you know, no one was, you know, they weren't playing favorites with people who just were able to call in quicker than someone else. Yeah. Well, there was a problem with the first 100 games. Like, apparently nobody was told that the first 100 games were going to, like, you know, people that adults swim and the licensing people and the creators and, you know, so on and so forth. And that's actually Charlie admitted that that's something that probably should have been disclosed up front. But I think these are all things that are just learning lessons for next time. Yeah, absolutely. And I think also I'm wondering if some people with low numbers are just not sharing that they have low numbers. Well, the people that are trying to sell them are.
    54:06
    Well, I'm going to say that I've seen a lot of pinball releases, and I know that with Stern, they go through this big distributor network. Like Ellie's, for example, they'll give so many distributors, they'll get so many games. But I've never seen a pinball machine title sell out that fast. Have you all? Well, the thing is, with Stern, you never really know how quickly they sell out. I mean, you know that the Ellie's are sold, but a lot of times that means the distributor has them. I think in this case, they actually sold through to the actual consumer in four hours. Right, but even with Stern, though, they'll give, like, you know, my local distributor fund, they'll get, you know, seven or 12 Elviras, and it still takes them more than, usually more than four hours to sell their 12 even. So, I mean, if you know where they are, I've never seen, like, all the titles gone, there are no more left within four hours. Yeah, I mean, the hype for this game was off the charts. And unlike anything I've ever seen in my, you know, two years of actually keeping track of this stuff. Scott, I mean, did you guys know how intense the demand for this was going to be, or were you guys just as surprised as everyone else? Well, we knew it was probably going to be pretty demanding, but no one really knew for sure. We were taking bets on what was, like, how many would sell in the first 24 hours, and a lot of people were guessing, like, you know, 500-ish or whatever. I actually threw down that I thought that all of them would sell in 24 hours. Just, you know, I wasn't actually being funny that time. Like, you know, I was actually serious because Rick and Morty fans are absolutely crazy. And they buy all sorts of crazy stuff. And I figured it would just get out there and somehow, you know, obviously sell. And I didn't think at all it was going to be four hours. That's just crazy. I mean, you guys had to have some idea of how much interest there was based on the number of fan club memberships, right? Because you had to be a fan club member. Well, the fan club memberships didn't roll in right away, right? So it wasn't like an immediate thing. People were just buying the fan club memberships and then just getting the game, you know? Got it. So it was, yeah, it was pretty nuts when they heard, like, oh, you have to be a fan club member for the two-week head start. And it's like, well, okay, well, let me just buy the fan club thing. It's $45 or whatever. You know, done, you know? Did it sell out through the Fang Club, or did it extend beyond that? I mean, was everybody that got one, were they a Fang Club member? Yes. So that's totally insane. And I hope I'm saying yes correctly here because there's a two-week. Yeah, it was never actually open to the public, the general public. Like the distributors who sold those games, they had to be Fang Club members to sell those games. So when you're promoting your Fang Club, you can't say first crack anymore. You have to say only crack. yeah it's so weird yeah like but that's so unfortunate though too because charlie was trying to somehow like appease people that have been really good to spooky right so it's you know he made this fan club as kind of a thing to help support spooky and get some free stuff in the mail not free but you pay 45 bucks you get like a shirt or a poster or something in the mail and uh you get little perks like two weeks head notice or head start notice on game purchases so So it's like they were trying to be good about it, and it just got out of control. Because now they have, what they used to do is if you bought an AMH, right, there was 150 people that got first crack at buying a Rob Zombie, right? And then if you bought a Rob Zombie, which is 300 games, there's now 150 plus 300 games. Now you have all these new people, some overlap, obviously, but not a ton. So who knows how many of those people moved on, right? And then if you bought, you know, the Domino's and Jetsons and a TNA, Now all of those people who I have no idea how many there are But obviously it's probably way more than 750 Now all those people get a shot And it's like, you know, it's kind of You know, it got out of control And it just wasn't really fair anymore So he was just trying something new And seeing if it worked Well, the problem is now I think That there's no backpedaling And I don't see, unless Spooky opens up This giant place and hires You know, 75 more people You're not going to be able to put out more than 500 games a year, which is what you're up to now or around. So that means when the next title comes out, you've already got over 750 people in the fan club. You could possibly have another sellout without it extending out to the public. It's a good problem to have for Charlie. I mean this is what matters Yeah exactly Absolutely it is It very strange I don know how he going to handle that but time will tell Scott do you know how many with the ratio was of Bloodsucker versus the standard cabinet Because I know you had to be a fan club member just to buy it. What I was told on that is that it's a significant, and like all in capital letters, a significant amount of Bloodsucker editions were sold compared to the standards. So the standard's the LE now? The standard is going to be a rare machine for sure. Cool. Okay, and then also Stranger Things dropped, literally, all at one time. You had the video, you had photos, you had the Matrix, you had games out on location, you had games at distributors ready to purchase, all on the 23rd, so that you could actually get a game in your house for Christmas. An impressive feat. I don't know that it was necessary. I don't understand the point of why would you do that? Why would you go through all of that effort? But impressive nonetheless. What did you guys think of the game itself? I do like Stranger Things as a show when they announce Stranger Things, and I'm going to go back to what you said. I actually was very impressed with Stern because the minute they announced it, within 24 hours, I'm looking and seeing pictures of people, you know, with their Stranger Things boxes, and they're going on location, and I think that's one of those things that a lot of people complain about, well, you know, I bought a game and I have to wait for it. Well, I think Stern did a great job of actually starting to ship them the minute they announced it, so, you know, kudos to Stern. Now, Stranger Things as a license for me, personally, I do enjoy the show, but when they announce that game, it's just not a game that's going to be for me. The pictures that I've seen, it looks like a nice, stern game. I mean, I haven't studied the photos, because if it's a title that I'm interested in, of course, like everybody else, I'm going to go straight to the website and look at the Matrix and compare the LEs to the premiums or the pros, and I just haven't done that. You have an attack from Mars, right? You have an attack from Mars? I did have an attack from Mars. I had an original Attack from Mars. I sold it because I may have heard that the remakes were coming, so I sold it like six weeks before they announced the remakes. But, no, I don't have an Attack from Mars. If you played that and you're good with that, well, then you're done. You don't need a Stranger Things. Oh, is that the... I'm trying to say it's very similar. Zing, zing, zing. Well, I mean, it's an updated Attack from Mars layout for sure. But, I mean, a lot of games are like that. And Medieval Madness and Attack from Mars have like the exact same layout, and they're different games when you play them. So you could say that Stranger Things might play a little differently. You might not even notice that layout because it's been done a bunch of times, but it's definitely an updated Attack from Mars. Yeah, I don't like that when people say that, though, because it's not. I mean, it may, you know, because all pinball machines, they all have two flippers, and most of them have two slingshots, and they're going to have some pop bumpers, and everyone says, well, it's got ramps. But the rules are different, the artwork's different, the whole experience is going to be different than Attack from Mars. Right. so I don't buy into that you know it's just like this up game there's those people who play pinball with blinders on they don't care about the thing they don't have to buy it then I haven't seen a whole lot of it as far as my comments about what was the point of dropping everything at one time is that I think the game suffers for it because it's like 60% done there is some value in getting the hype going and getting people excited about it And people did get excited about Stranger Things when the rumors came out, and we talked about that. But it didn't take long from rumor to shipping games. I think that's it. But when you get a game and it's like 60% done, it's like Batman 66 all over again. Everybody hated that game for a year and a half until the code came around. So to set yourself up for the same fall was, I don't know if that was a good idea. That's all I'm saying. Christian? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it seems like it's relatively fleshed out in terms of there's a ton of modes in there. You just look at the inserts on the play field, and you can see there's a bazillion inserts all mode-related, which, you know, you can say what you want about the design aesthetics of that, but I think from someone who might own the game, that's exciting that there's that many modes in the game, and it could potentially, you know, last you for a long time and stay fresh. I like the layout, man. I really like the shots of Attack from Mars. So, you know, say it's a copy if you want, but I think that that makes a good playing game. So I'm not necessarily turned off by that. I think the projector system is freaking awesome. It's by far the coolest feature of the game, and we haven't seen that stream yet. So that's the big wild card for me. I mean, does it work as well as I want it to work? It seems like it kind of projects onto the ramps and the spinners and that center kind of drive-in movie theater screen and the drops below it. and I just think the possibilities of that tech are really cool and super expensive. Isn't that the only feature in the game? I mean, there's the drop-down thing and the Demi-Gorgon bash toy, and then there's the magnet ball lock up on the top of the left ramp that kind of sucks the ball to the wall, and that's pretty cool. But yeah, I mean, the big defining feature of this game by far is that projector system that we haven't really seen streamed yet. So that's the wild card for me, man. I love the theme. I think the layout is cool. I think the tech has really awesome possibilities, I just want to see it and I want to play it before I kind of pass judgment on whether it's an owner or not. But, you know, I definitely got a very cool Stranger Things vibe. You know, I think they did a really good job with the, you know, it's kind of a darker play field. The call-out sounded good. I like the LCD display and the graphics associated with it. I definitely got the Stranger Things feel from it. So that's a plus. It's really just, I think, the projection system that's the wild card for me. I'm liking this game. Right. You know what's really impressive, actually, about this game, and what Stern did on that release? I'm sorry, I'm going back to that release schedule thing again. What's really impressive to me is that they were able to build all these machines, because I know how long it takes to build machines. It's like, wow, they've had that on the line for weeks before that, and not one worker or employee or anything, nothing, zero. Otherwise, we would have seen it, you know? Do you know why? Why is that? Because according to some dickhead on Pinside, I don't work there anymore. There's no more leaks. Well, I will say that there were leaks, and I did see pictures of this before it actually went live. It's just they didn't make it out there because I think they were contained. It didn't get to me. And by me, I mean it wasn't on Pinside. It's being contained. Okay, well, you know, if I don't give my two cents worth on the artwork, everyone's going to go, why didn't Franchi give us two cents worth on the artwork?
    64:55
    So I'm going to do that. I'll start this by saying I do like art packages. There have been art packages that I like. I just went down a list with somebody, and we talked about some on a podcast. Martin. Yes, yes, yes, on Head to Head. I talked about things I like. So, no, I'm not just going to, like, if I didn't do it, it's shit. That's not where I'm coming from here. I do not like the artwork. I think it's oversaturated. I think it's all purple and pink. There's too much, you know. To put it in pin-side terms, it looks like a Pez factory exploded. but I think personally I'm not going to say 100% because I haven't seen it close enough but I have worked with Photoshop well enough to know that there are filters you can use that make your artwork look like a watercolor painting and it looks to me like it's just photos that were filtered with a watercolor filter and then blended together I'm not saying there wasn't any artwork involved at all but it looks like all the characters and everything are all just straight photo assets that were run through a watercolor filter to some extent, which is a shame because it's a good property and it would have been nice to see some really... The way it was done, it doesn't look dynamic to me. The artwork doesn't leap off the surface. It looks very flat. Do we know who did it and what they were restricted to as far as you talked about the sneak of things? Netflix probably gave them the folder or whatever, and then they tell them what they can and can't do. And ultimately, they approved it at the end, so clearly they're happy with it. Oh, well, that doesn't make it good or bad. That just means that they're fine with it. It was done by, I forget the guy's last name. His name was Bob, and he worked on the original Star Wars art packages for the most recent Stern, the ones that everybody hated before they went to the comic art ones. He was part of the team that did the Star Wars art. I think his name is Bob Stevlik is what I... Stevlik, yeah, yeah. From an unprofessional artist's eye, you know, I like the cabinet. I think the cabinet looks good. I like how they've laid it all out. But the play field does look a little muddled. The colors are so bright that it's hard to make out some of the features of the game, not to mention that, you know, that there's so many inserts there that there's a lot to look at. And it's tough to focus on any one thing. I just think there's a lot going on. Yeah, but we'll leave it at that because, you know, anything I say beyond that is going to be like, oh, he appreciates everything, whatever. All right, so moving on. Ed brought this to my attention. A guy named Nathan Nicholson on YouTube asks us if we need another pinball award show. No. And do we need a different format? And do we need a different sort of committee and a different voting process? I agree. I think it's a stupid question. And what made it the stupid question was the fact that he didn't explain why he was asking this. Right. He just said, do we need another award? Well, tell me why you think we do or why you're asking the question. And, you know, maybe that will help me to consider this in a different way. But, you know, I think that for the Twippies being what they are, I mean, it's super impressive that it went from a live stream on YouTube one year to a full-blown award show the very next year. Yeah, I don't see why bring anything else into it. There's already an amazing award show out there. I mean, you can improve on the Twiffies, I'm sure, in some ways, but I don't really see any reason why you wouldn't want anything else. And it's voted by the people. You know, I think he wants, like he was suggesting, some, like, you know, committee of, you know, insiders. You know, you're going to get biased no matter how you do it. It has to be some sort of people's choice award. It has to be. You can't have 20 people in a room decide who's going to win because somebody's tied to this company, somebody's tied to that, somebody's friends with this person. And it's too small of a community to be able to, you know, just put a handful of people in a room and tell them to pick which one's the best. It has to remain a people's choice sort of thing. So, you know, what Jeff has done in assembling the people that he has and going over all these things, you have to remember that everybody involved in this is volunteering. You know, every time they have a three-hour phone conversation about how they're going to handle something, that's people's time that they're donating. And not only that, but putting the whole show together and all that. I don't think you could ask for a better show. You know, there's some people out there that are just like, you know, ah, Twippy, whatever. I don't care if I win. I don't care if I lose. It doesn't matter. Me, personally, I'd love to win because it's an award show. You know, it's credit for the stuff that you do. And the way they present that show is as professional as you can be with a budget of $0 and a bunch of volunteers that are just helping you out. So I don't think the question even needs to be asked. Yeah, so wait, Chris, fill me in for a second. Are they doing voting by committee? No. Do they do that, are they? No. They have a committee that decides, like, what games are eligible and what isn't, what, you know, what new, they come out with new awards this year, you know, and that basically, you know, everything has to be handled. I don't understand how they do it, but somehow the committee oversees the voting to make sure that it's fair. What that means, I don't know. What do they do? Yeah. Apparently that's part of their job. I think they try and make sure that people aren't duplicating votes and that there's only one set of votes per email address and that sort of thing. And then beyond that, the committee helps decide what categories are going to be new and the same this year, and they help to figure out what games are eligible, as you said. There have been a few games that they've said, even though they've come out this year, they haven't necessarily shipped, so they don't meet the criteria, that sort of thing. What's interesting, though, is I brought this up. I said this before. I don't remember where I was saying this, but I was talking to someone who was like, hey, so do you think you're going to win a Twippy for your next game? And I'm like, oh, absolutely not. Like, 100% I'm not. And they're like, well, that doesn't make any sense. What do you mean? I'm like, well, it's just, like, I'm going to make a game for Spooky who is going to release only, you know, a maximum of 500 games that year, right? So that's how many they build, right? So that's how many are actually in existence. Stern makes way more games, like, significantly, like, more games than Spooky does, And that's what people are seeing. You know, that's what's in your face. So it's like smaller companies like American Pinball, Spooky, all of them are really at a disadvantage because of that whole just size thing, which is not a big deal, but it is what it is. By the time you get through the 100 machines that are promised to other people, how far does that project you out into where games are actually going to be built that are going in people's basements and in bars? So that whole time period, you know, it's just a disadvantage. But to your point, Scott, I mean, the exposure is, I think, the most important factor because you have people who are pinball enthusiasts who are voting on this stuff, and you're much less likely to vote for a game you've never played for, even if it's awesome and everyone says it's awesome, which is why, you know, even Jersey Jack that's come out with some really incredible games probably won't win best game of the year because CERNs are way more prevalent. Yep, exactly. Yeah. Damn it. Well, and you and I talked about this, Chris, when we were actually talking about this particular topic, and I don't know the best way to do it. I do think that Jeff and Greg and Zach have done an amazing job with the Twippies, and it is a celebration of pinball. And when they brought it to TPF for 2019, everybody was very leery and nervous about how it was going to go off, and it went off really well. As far as voting goes, some good points are brought up. If a lot of the topics or a lot of the categories, it's just a popularity contest and who can bring in the most votes for that particular thing. You know, the whole Jack Danger, I wasn't going to bring it up, but the whole when he was joking about doing a podcast and asking people to vote for him. And it kind of ruffled a few feathers with some of the other podcasters because their arguments are valid. If Jack Danger has a reach of fans and an audience that's, I don't know, 10,000, 50,000, how many viewers does he have or how many people watch his streams, and he can reach that audience and say, hey, I want you to go to this Twippy website and I want you to vote for me for best podcast, well, of course, he's going to win. There's no arguing. I mean, he just will because his reach is so far. So that's where I think the argument comes in that maybe they do need to explore the idea of having a, you know, the committee can have, you know, set up applications or something to select, I don't know, 50, 100 people that actually make the decisions. It's just like the pinball shows. I mean, you know, I know Texas won last year, but, you know, has everybody gone to every single pinball show that's voting? So, no, their people are just going to vote for the shows that they're familiar with and that they've been to. If they've never been to Texas, they're not going to vote for it. If they've never been to Expo, they're not going to vote for that. So I'm not saying how do you make it fair. There may not be a way. I think what we got, we should be thankful for what's been done so far, and it's a great show, and I think it's getting the word out there. It's getting bigger and bigger every year. But I do think they need to at least have a discussion about how do they make the voting more fair.
    73:57
    That's what the committee does, though, Ed. I mean, I think Jeff had spoken up on that thread, and he had said, you know, we only will allow you to be part of the nominations if you have put out something this year. And I guess Jack hadn't done that. So he wasn't really eligible anyway. So he does. In 2020, he puts out two podcasts that are humorous and, you know, kind of half serious, half not, you know. And then he just tells people to vote for him, and he slams it by, you know, by 20,000 votes. Right. But when you've got guys like us that are slaving away on podcasts. I'll tell you who wasn't nervous at the Twippies last year. Mr. Scott Denisey. I was backstage with him. He was cool as a cucumber. Cool as a cucumber. That guy, you cannot ruffle his feathers, man. Sarah and I were up there, palms sweaty, all nervous. But Scott went up right before we did. And he was like coaching us through it. He was like, guys, just relax.
    74:52
    Everyone's cool out there. It's going to be great. and he was not a bead of sweat on his brow. So I'm impressed by that, Scott. I also love public speaking, so it's just something that comes natural to me, I guess, or because of my old career back before pinball, I did a bunch of public speaking and training courses and all sorts of stuff like that where I've had to talk in front of people that are pretty intimidating. But yeah, really, though, the Twippy Awards, though, you guys were so nervous and I'm like, you know what? I'll tell you what. I'll go up there, and if I screw it up, then everyone will be laughing at me, and you can come up after me, and it's fine. Like, it's all good. Such a good dude, man. Such a good dude. No, it did help. I mean, you were a calming force, you know, before we went up. So thank you for that. And then I went up there and stomped on a trophy. Heck, yeah. That was super fun. Scott, did you get it? I know this has been talked about a million times. So at first, like, when I saw that, because I went back out in the audience to, like, watch the rest of it, and when I saw you run up there and stomp the trophy, I was like, oh, this is super funny. I'm like, look at Mike's face. I'm like, he's really into this. Like, I didn't know he was such a good actor. Like, he's so good at that. And then, like, it was only later on that someone told me that, like, Mike didn't know what was going on. I know it's been talked about a million times, but, like, I was like, oh, poor Mike. I don't know your take. Yeah, well, Mike wasn't supposed to go up there. But when they announced it, he just walked up there, and I'm just like, oh. And so I wasn't going to go. And then Christian and his wife are pushing me and my daughter is pushing me. And they're like, you know, get up there, get up there. So, you know, I already had it all planned out how I was going to do it, what I was going to say. And then I just slowly crept up on him the whole time thinking, like, how am I going to start this now? You know, like with him giving this long speech, I can't then give the speech I was going to give before I stomped the trophy. I had to make it short and sweet. And so it was really strange. But, yeah, I think it would have obviously come off as a joke if Mike wasn't there or if he was in on it. But his face made everybody there think that I was just an asshole. And I stomped somebody's trophy because I was pissed off. Yeah, it's super funny. And then after it was all done, I'm like, oh, man, that trophy looked like a real thing. I'm like, I hope it didn't, like, stab through his shoe or something.
    77:10
    Immediately I'm starting to think of, like, the engineering behind the trophy, like what's inside of it. I didn't think anything of it and when the top piece went flying thank God it went flying horizontal across the front of the stage and not out into the audience because that thing had some steam on it Jack Danger actually picked it up and had it around his neck like a medallion for the rest of the night that's super funny that's not collectible well to me I don't know man I guess it's just because I know you already and so that just seems like a funny thing that would happen, like that you guys would throw together. Yeah, it was super funny. Take a commercial break now, boys. So let's see. I'm going to do this in the style of Chuck Beres from The Gong Show. We'll be back with more stuff right after this. We'll be right back.
    78:05
    Guess what? I got a fever. And he only puts bits in the Super Awesome Pinball Show. Oh, yeah!
    78:21
    Super! Yeah! This show is sponsored by Cointaker, distributor of brand new, full-size, authentic Stern Pinball, Chicago game, raw thrills, arcade games, and much more. Also, a full line of dramatic pinball mods, LED flipper kits, speaker lights, custom laser LED toppers, playfield protectors, Valley Williams parts, pinball apparel, and much more. Get the latest releases and glam out your game room with Cointaker. Everything at your fingertips at Cointaker.com.
    78:53
    Get your game on. You know, I've been around these machines all my life. Well, this year, there's one that's bigger than all the others. Kingpin 2 electronic pinball with fast flippers, bonus bumpers, computer scoring, and electronic lights and sounds to play like the big machines.
    79:16
    It even has an electronic tilt. Kingpin 2, all the pinball you can handle from Castle Toys. Hey, everybody. This is John Borg, and you're listening to the Knuckleheads on the super awesome, mega, fantastic, best ever pinball show. Rock on.
    79:42
    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.
    79:53
    It's a cool show. All right, we're back, and now we are all going to take a look at what we hope to get out of pinball in the next year, 2020. By the way, I haven't said it yet this whole episode, but Happy New Year, because this does air in the new year. So happy 2020 to everybody. And we're going to take a few minutes to talk about what each of us hope to get out of the hobby in the next year. And I guess that means from manufacturers what we hope to see from games that are coming up. Scott, you want to kick us off? Yeah, absolutely. So for 2020, I know it's going to be like a huge year, a ton of stuff happening. There's tons of games coming out, a lot of people speculating on some other new games coming out. It's just going to be so fun for 2020. But the thing that I am looking forward to most for 2020 and cannot wait to see are the rumored Outlane spinners that are going to be debuting. I can't wait for that. I can't either. I'm so excited. Ever since I came up with that idea and Jack Danger stole it. I just can't stop thinking about them.
    81:02
    Well, you've got to put them in. I mean, it's a no-brainer for your next game. Absolutely. Obviously, you'll get the credit. So when you say outlaying spinner, is that copyright Denisey Productions? No, no, not copyright. It's, you know, I just kind of thought of it first. That's all. Patent pending? Yeah. No, that's fine. Yeah, but nobody would take that from you just because you've talked about it so much. Yeah, nobody would have the balls to be that rude. You know, take that outlaying spinner. You know, it's fine. I just want to see it happen in 2020, and I think there's potential for that happening. Is there a Pinball Hall of Shame nominee in here somewhere?
    81:39
    We're not doing that this episode. So for 2020, for me personally, it's less about the manufacturers. Of course, I want all the manufacturers to prosper. But for me, I'm sure most people know that I retired this year from my full-time job. and that's because ed is older than fuck he was actually the bus boy at the last supper so for 2020 what i am looking forward to more than anything is after tpf because between january and tpf that's pretty much all i do but i am going to try to hit more pinball shows and and visit there's a lot of great pinball shows out there and i hope everybody supports their local show but i truly do but right now the only shows i ever do are tpf i do houston because it's here in Texas and it's easy for me to get to. And I do Chicago Expo because my father lives in Chicago and I get to go visit my dad and then I go to Expo. But now that I don't have a full-time job, I'm pretty much just a trophy husband. I'm going to try to make it to all the different shows. I want to go to Pentastic. I want to go to some of the ones in California. I want to go to Southern Fried. I want to go, there's a lot of pinball shows I want to go to. Oh, I also do go to Free Play Florida because Kim and I have a little place there. But other than that, yeah, I'm really looking forward to hitting some of these other shows. Everyone always invites me, and I really appreciate that, but for 2020, it's going to be the Ed Van Der Veen pinball show tour. I think Teolas has a trademark on that. That's right.
    83:03
    He's a nice guy. He'll let it go. All right, Christian, what about you? So this year for me, the big one is TPF 2020. I've got to go and check it out. I just got a, as we talked about earlier, Sarah bought me some tickets to TPF for Christmas, so I'm Super excited about that. Can't wait to go down and mingle with you gentlemen and check out the Twippies and just hang out for that. Get tickets for Pinberg. It's high on my list. Sarah and I have that on the calendar, and we're going to have our mobile command center down in the basement trying to get tickets for that because I think that sold out in about five seconds last year. G.I. Joe headquarters. That's right. And then just continue the super awesome pinball show with you guys. Those are my 2020 highlights. All right. Well, I'm going to be the only person who's actually going to answer this correctly.
    83:51
    Come on. I talked about the outlaying spinners. That's correct. Well, yeah, that's true. That's true. Scott was kind of there. But what I'm hoping for in 2020 is that we can get the...
    84:04
    Burn, dude. Dad, you are a fucker, you know that? I have a job. Thank you very much. I'm kidding, I'm kidding. No, I'm hoping, I hate to use that term world under glass, but I think I see more and more of the toys going away, and I like toys. One of my favorite play fields is Twilight Zone, and I like all that three-dimensional junk in there. And I'm not talking about a ramp or a wire form or anything like that. I'm talking about stuff, not just a thing on a spring or whatever, but just, you know, all of it. Just populate the play field with things that bring you into that world. And they used to do such a good job with it, and it just seems like, you know, every year goes by, pull another toy out, pull another toy out, pull another toy out. Put the toys back in. That's what I want out of 2020 is more toys on the damn play field. I think what you're asking for, though, is what a lot of the modding companies provide. And I'm with you. I mean, I like toys and playing on my games too, but myself personally, I kind of enjoy doing them up the way I want to. That's why I'm not an LE buyer. I usually get a premium. If we're talking about Star, I'll get a premium, but then I'll go out and buy my own toys, and I'll bling up the game the way that I want to. I get what you're saying, Ed, but I think to Franchi's point, you kind of want that to come standard. I mean, games used to come like that, and it would be cool to kind of go back to those days where you get more on the play field than you used to, and you don't have to go out and actually buy it yourself, even though that is a fun part of the hobby. Fair enough. And some people consider, like, buying a mod and putting it in there to be, like, you know, taking the purity out of your game. It's not an officially licensed piece. You know, it's like making things out of popsicle sticks and sticking them in there. It's like, you know, you want the stuff in your game to be something that came with the game. And I'm not saying I'm like that or everybody's like that. I'm saying there are people out there like that where they want the game to be the game. They don't want any outside stuff to, like, sort of taint it. So I said taint. I don't care about those opinions. Yeah, hold on. I've got action figures and crap. I've got all kinds of junk in my games. So what's your take on modding, and have you seen many people mod up TNA? Yeah, actually. So I love the mod style of stuff just because people think of things maybe that I didn't, or maybe that I didn't have time to put in a game. Like for TNA, I didn't have time to make little target decal stickers and stuff for the game. And so immediately some guy came out and just made some awesome decals for it and looked really good in the game, and that's great. And that kind of helps people in these little tiny businesses survive a little bit. It's kind of nice. There's been a ton of talk already on the Rick and Morty thing of what people are going to mod. For me, I know Chris is not going to be happy with me, but I didn't put a lot of toys in the game because I didn't really think about it much. I know, I know. I wanted the mechanics of the game and what the pinball actually does to get the most attention. So, like, the toy stuff was kind of an afterthought that I just left to have Spooky help me with. So they're like, okay, we're going to put the portal gun here. You know, we kind of knew where stuff was going, but, you know, it wasn't something that I was like, hey, let's just throw a ton of stuff in here because I know the mod people are going to come up with some really cool ideas. And basically people are going to be ripping stuff out of the game and replacing it with modded stuff, like in Tron, right, the arcade machine. Like that arcade machine was ripped out of most of them and put that like really cool like Tron cabinet that plays you know Right But you do have some good stuff on there though You got the Rick and Morty and the UFO You got the garage with the basketball hoop up there And then like the Denise kind of timer in between the flippers and you got the That's not really a toy, though. It's not, but it's a feature that stands out. Yeah. There are some weird features in the game, for sure. But, like, when I think of toys, though, I think of things like the ship that's up there that, you know, is a, it is a ship on a spring. Is that ship the paladon lamp with just the top pulled off and a spring put on? Because it looks exactly like this lamp. I'm not sure. It is an off-the-shelf part that they had modified because it does have one of my controllable RGB lights in it, and they also modified the headlights so that we can control them individually. So all the light shows and stuff that I'm working on actually flow up through that toy as well. And they are modifying it and doing stuff with it. And let's see, there's the death crystals that are on the left side, which is, they serve two purposes. They serve one, or three purposes, actually, which sounds kind of strange, but I'm a very utilitarian person. But it keeps air balls from going out the left out lane, number one. Number two, they're death crystals and they're cool looking. And number three, it's a really, really bright flasher underneath there that we put right there, and it's blinding people. So it needs to be covered with something that will illuminate. So those are its three purposes. My favorite purpose is number two. The number two, yeah. They're death crystals, and they're cool. And they're cool, and they look cool. Those are in production. It's pretty cool, too, because they 3D printed the prototype ones, but they're going to be casting it out of this cool material, so it's going to look really neat. Awesome. Yeah, but that is mostly what's in there, but the house itself, I don't know if I would qualify that as a toy, but the ball does enter and exit the house through like... It's like a toy. It goes through the front door, it goes through the side door, it goes in the garage. The garage has a lighting fixture on the inside of it we can make rotational patterns with, with the lights itself, and that's all RGB as well, so we can fully control that through light shows. There's some things that people haven't seen yet, like where there's additional flashers underneath the portal itself, which wasn't actually active in any of the videos, but that lights up that whole portal from underneath and it's really bright. It's awesome. I know we've talked about this, Rick and Morty and the play field and stuff, but it just reminded me, when you go into the garage, that's where the portal is, right? And it's supposed to teleport from there back to kind of the scoop that kind of shoots the ball out into the left end lane? Correct. Are those stage balls so that it happens instantaneously or is it going to actually travel? There's always a stage ball in there. So no matter what multiball we're running, we're always keeping track and making sure one staged ball stays in there at all times. That's neat. Is it going to lock it down there? It rockets. Yeah, it does. You just have to, you know, you have to make sure you get your coil settings right. And there's also, you can take off. So sometimes it comes down a little bit slow because it'll bounce off the rubber that's there. But if you take off the little rubber on that post, it's just like it's all metal all the way to the flipper. It's pretty great. Is it going to drain? I mean, is that a learning curve? It's not that fast. Yeah, it's not going to be like, it's not brutal fast. I don't want to be like unfair. Remember, it's like you want the game to be difficult, but not like unfair feeling. And to me, that's a little bit unfair. Just like if Pop Bumper were to slam a ball down the middle of the flippers, that feels unfair to me. Which is why there's a new feature in that game called the slam save is what we're calling it. It's when the Pop Bumper slams the ball right down the middle. you get one of those per ball and it's totally independent of the standard ball save and then do you do you do that based on the timing between the popper firing and the ball in the trough you just correct okay yeah well if you want to experience what it's like to be completely unfair across the board play yourself a game of captain fantastic because no matter how you shoot the ball from the middle of the field down it hits something and goes down the middle or out an outline. Like, every single trajectory, I don't understand how this works. If I hit this, oh, down the outline over there. If I hit that over here, like, the whole thing is set up to drain with one thimble shot and a ricochet.
    92:04
    I bought that thing because it was, like, my jam when I was a kid. You know, I just remember it from playing it in hockey rinks when I was a kid all the time. Ever since I bought that thing and set it up in my house, I want to push it out the window. I hate that motherfucking game so bad. That's back in the day when they wanted you to drain, man. They wanted you to put a recorder in the machine. Unbelievable. Just un-fucking-believable. Coming back. Yes, yes. Now, if it had, like, a kick-in sound system and a sweet soundtrack, would you play it more? Captain Fantastic? A kick-in Elton John soundtrack? Yeah, Elton John playing Pinball Wizard? No, I'm talking, like, techno. I'm talking, like, just a kick-in sound system with some kick-in techno, and you're playing... Like, would it make you play that more? Okay, let's pause now for a Denise-y audio treat.
    92:50
    Dude, I went back and listened to some of those songs today just because it's such a good album. And I had to play like the second half of the album because I never hear those songs when I play because I never get that far. And the last three songs are so fucking good, man. It's just like how would you describe your music type? Is it electronic? Is it synth? Is it like trance? Well, what's interesting about it is that I used to produce and perform a lot of techno music, which was like, hey, it's between 135 beats per minute and 145 beats per minute, and that's it. And it's got certain characteristics, and that's it. That's techno.
    93:34
    This music that I created here, I didn't limit myself to any genre. I didn't limit myself to beats per minute. I didn't do any sort of stereotypical stuff to it. So this didn't really fit into a genre that exists now that DJs use at all. The closest that I can come up with is like hard synth wave. There's like a synth wave thing that started in like 2012 that it's sort of similar to. But basically I was trying to capture certain aesthetics of the 80s and 70s style analog synthesizers that they used. And I was using a lot of emulation to make that album. So, you know, I just, I don't know, it's just a weird, I don't know what it is. It's unique. Which I think is why. Maybe it's like really slow techno, but like synth-wavy, but it's too hard for synth-wave. I don't know. Right. Can I just say that I'm calling man-crush right now. Christian has managed to turn every segment of this show into an extended Scott Benisi interview. Yeah, that's a good point, man. How often do you get Scott motherfucking Benisi on your show? You've got to take advantage of that. Of course I've got a man crush on Scott. He's awesome. Oh, that's awesome. I will fully admit it.
    94:45
    All right. All right, Christian. You can cash the check now, Christian. Nice, nice. All right, we've got to go to art lessons with me. Guess what I'm going to teach you guys this time around? You're going to actually find out what to design. Not how to design it, but what to design. What makes a good back glass? What makes good cabinet art? What makes good play field art? So we're not going to talk about what kind of paint I use or anything like that. We're going to talk about what you should do. So let's roll with that right now, and we'll be right back.
    95:12
    Welcome to another episode of How Do You Do That? Pinball Art with Christopher Franchi, and that would be me. And this is a little segment where I teach you how to do pinball art if you're an artist. And if you want to know these subtle nuances of how to apply your craft to a pinball design successfully, then this episode is for you. And this whole series is for you. And damn it, this podcast is for you. So last episode, we discussed how to draw characters. And one of the key things that was discussed was the fact that each character is drawn individually and then scanned and masked out and used as an individual piece. Sort of like a color form. If you remember color forms when you were a kid, you had these little plastic characters and you had a background and you could stick them on and you could peel them off. You could rearrange it and make a different scene. It was actually a pretty boring toy. But, you know, you could peel them off and rearrange them and make a different, you know, sort of comic book scene each time. And that's the benefit of drawing your characters individually, is that you can take them and move them around to do what you want. It's a good way to get started on an art package without really knowing what you're planning on doing yet. And sometimes the artwork dictates what you're going to do. Sometimes you take a look at what you have, and you take a look at the choices that you've made in the characters and the settings and the vehicles and whatever it is that you drew. And you sort of piece something together in your head, taking a look at what you have and what works best. Now, what's really neat about having these pieces of art all individualized is that, let's say you have a big baddie, like Darth Vader. Okay, so Darth Vader's your main bad guy. What you can do is you can make him very large. You can put him in the background. But as the artwork comes down into the main area, you fade it out. And you can do that simply in Photoshop with a mask, where you just put a gradient and he fades into the background. And then you can turn the opacity down on that layer so that the artwork is not showing 100%, but maybe it's ghosted back to like 65%. So it's much more ethereal. It gives him a different sort of a presence, almost ghost-like or mythic-like. And then you have all your main heroes in full color, like right below him in heroic poses, full blazing color, full brightness, full opacity. So that's really why I do my art the way I do, is because it just opens up a world of possibilities, and you can really kind of sit there and play with it. If you don't know what you want to do and you don't have a little sketch in mind for what you plan to do for a layout, you can just take your artwork and you can just slide it around. Let's make this bigger. Let's make this smaller. Let's fade this into the background. Let's make this into the foreground. You can do all sorts of things with it, and it's really key that you do it that way. For example, a lot of times, to cut costs or to save time, you reuse images in different areas. You might have the same drawing of Batman on the back glass that you do on the front of the cabinet. or in the playfield somewhere. So in order to have that flexibility to where you don't have him and Robin running side by side and Robin's arm is sort of cutting in front of Batman's arm, and then when you just want to use Batman, you've got to fake in that area because you took Robin out and now there's a big hole in Batman's arm. If you draw them separate and then marry them in Photoshop, you can always take things out and move them around and you always have a complete figure. So I can't stress that enough that it's so important to draw these things individually. It just gives you so much more flexibility. And, you know, a lot of times your art director will come to you and say, Hey, we need to put this here. Or, you know, right where you have this car, that's where the logo's going to go. For the pinball company. And you're like, oh, fantastic. You know, what am I supposed to do now? Well, if you do it all separate, you just move it. Very easy. A lot of the backgrounds, depending on what they are, a lot of the backgrounds for a back glass I would create in Photoshop. Unless it's something that needs to be rendered out of, it's like a city or whatever, I'll certainly draw that and scan it in just like it's a character. But you can do a lot of neat things in Photoshop if you play around with the different features in there and get a lot of very dynamic looks. Don't take away from your characters, which is very important. The people who own those IPs really want to push those characters, and if you take the focus off of them by doing something very flamboyant in the background, you're just doing yourself a disservice, and a disservice to the property. So just like moving in things like a logo, like your main logo for your IP, that's the same thing. It's basically a cutout. It's already been masked for you by the people who provide it. And sometimes you can do things to it. Sometimes you can't. Maybe you want to make it look like it's made of chrome or something like that. A lot of times those are neat ideas, but you'll find that when you turn it in, you get slapped on the wrist and they say, no, no, no, you can't do that. Or taking parts of a logo out, removing them, such as the case with 66 Batman. There was a sort of a, you know, there's the classic Batman logo, which is the bat shape with the words in it. Then there was sort of a pile, sort of a thing around that, Sunburst. And then I said classic TV series below that. And I removed all of it and just had the bat with the words Batman. And that's all we used. But there was a change in Regiment Cat, Warner Brothers. And when we did the Catwoman edition, they wanted all of that left intact. So that sort of changed things up and we had to sort of rethink things when we did the layout. So you can certainly try different things, but don't get your heart set on anything. Because if you do something too crazy, they could just reel you back in and, you know, You're just going to use the logo as is. But as far as doing a good back glass design, my advice is think of the back glass as your movie poster. This is your one central main image. This is what you want to bring everybody into the game with. You want to have all the characters. You want to have anything that's memorable. If it's an event or a certain scenic thing or a vehicle or whatever, you want to have that in there. You want to have the logo in there. You want it to look dynamic. Like I said, basically this is your movie poster. You are selling the game with this one single image. Everything else, inside of a cabinet, you can have a lot of fun with that. You can be loose with it. You know, you saw some spaceships flying through, sheet metal, something, whatever. But the back glass is your selling image, so you need to keep that in mind when you're doing your layout, is that this is the key thing. Don't leave characters out and say, well, I'm going to put them on the side of the back box. Don't do that. Put everything you've got into that one image. Make it look like your movie poster, like you're going to sell everybody in the bar at playing this game with this one single image. So that's going to wrap up this episode of How Do You Do That? Pinball Art with Christopher Franchi. That is me. And we will be back next episode with more neat things to teach you so that you can be a cool, successful, popular with the ladies pinball artist just like me.
    101:34
    All right, kids, I hope you learned something there because I'm giving you guys nuggets here. Pretty much I'm letting you take my job. Here, do what I say and then I don't have to do it anymore. and then you can have my job and make millions of dollars and buy stuff for your dog. Oops, I hit the microphone. At least dozens of dollars. A quarter of a hundred dollars. Dozens of tens of dollars. Okay, so now that you guys get all my secret golden nuggets about how I do what I do, we want to remind you guys about the Munsters contest that we're running right now. All you have to do is send us a picture of you with your or a Munsters pinball machine. It can be yours if you have it. If you don't and you're out at an arcade, do that. We've already got some really cool pictures. We actually got one of the people dressed up as the Munsters in front of a Munsters pinball machine. Some very cool pictures that we've had. And we're giving away our grand prize is an autographed picture of Eddie Munster, Butch Patrick, and a really cool limited to 700 Munsters soundtrack on purple vinyl, which is really sweet. Scott, sound good? That sounds awesome. Seems like something that you would dig. Can we go ahead and say that we're going to go ahead and announce the winner in Episode 4? By Episode 4, we'll have picked somebody for that prize. Yeah, we can do this. So you've got to get your pictures in now. We're going to have one winner that gets the photo and the album, and then we're going to have a runner-up winner that gets a signed photo. So that's that. Get your pictures in. Send them in to our Facebook page. That's where we want them. And don't send them as a private message, even though it'll count if you do, but we prefer you just put it right on the page so everybody can see it. And if our page isn't set up like that, now that I'm thinking, I wonder if it is set up like that. It is. We'll fix it so it is set up that way. So get your pictures in on that. The next thing is a little bit more information on the Pin Pets 2020 Shelter Drive, and that is where we're trying to raise stuff, not money, but stuff for all the lovely pets out there. We want you to go to your local shelter and drop off just a care package, whether it's a stack of blankets, food, toys, anything like that. Take a picture of yourself while you're at the shelter, either with your stuff or giving them your stuff or, you know, with your favorite dog or whatever. That's all it takes to enter. Unfortunately, I can't tell you what yet you're going to win, but we are getting prizes from Cointaker and we're getting prizes from Chicago Gaming Company. And let me tell you something about Chicago Gaming Company. They don't have garbage to give out. They have play fields and prototype toys and things like that. So it's going to be something cool. We don't know what yet. We're going to find out between now and next episode, so we're going to extend this contest out probably to episode five, but it's going to be something cool. You don't have to wait to find out to get your pictures in. Just send your pictures in, and you're in the running. So we'll get more details on that for the next show. And that brings us up to our shameless plug section of the show. Just another shameless plug for Texas Pinball Festival by Ed. Thank you very much, Christopher Feranchi. TPF 2020, it's coming up. If you did not get your discounted weekend pass, the prices did go up a little bit on January 1st. However, they are still cheaper than what you're going to pay at the door. So you can still get weekend passes and save some money. Also, you exhibitors, this is your show, so please get your games registered. If you're not sure what you're going to bring, make your best guess. We can always change the titles later. Did everybody see the Ed Bucks on Facebook?
    104:58
    Yeah. Yeah, that was nice. I like that. You know, Facebook wouldn't let me promote that because it had too much writing on the picture. I'm like, it's a $20 bill. And Facebook is so difficult to deal with when you're trying to do advertising. But anyway, exhibitors, you are the most important part of the show. I can't have a show without you. We can't have a show without you. So get your games registered. I got a whole list of vendors that I'm fixing to sign up. I kind of took some time off for the holidays. But since he's here with us, we already announced him. Mr. Scott Denise is coming to the 2020 Texas Pinball Festival. All right. Yes, I cannot wait. It is a great show. It's a cool show. It's the best.
    105:36
    It's the best. So, Scott, are you going to be giving a talk, or is there anything? This is not the Christian Shameless Plug. I want to hear about this. I was getting to it. Oh, okay.
    105:47
    DJ said, DJ said. Calm down, calm down. So, Scott, one of the biggest things people are asking me is if there's going to be a Rick and Morty at TPF. And really, I don't know. With all 750 of them sold, usually what happens is that if somebody that bought one works out a deal with Charlie and if Charlie can put it in their booth, then they'll bring it to the show and that person might save on some shipping or something like that. But do you know, is there going to be a sample Rick and Morty or do you know if Spooky plans on bringing one at least to TPF for people to check out? I'm unsure, but it's highly likely that Charlie will just bring one. I don't see TPF happening without one there, though. That would be ridiculous if that didn't happen. So, yeah, it'll probably happen. And Charlie's most likely going to bring a sample or one of the shop games or something like that. Excellent. Good. So I can tell people that most chances are good that there'll be a Rick and Morty. I know there's going to be an Alice Cooper. My wife Kim's Alice Cooper. We bought an Alice Cooper from Spooky, and I made that deal. They're going to bring it to the show for me, so I'm going to save some shipping, and they're going to get to keep it in their booth all weekend for people to play. That's awesome. So the second question is, and I'm going to go ahead and I'm going to be the Debbie Downer right now. People ask about you doing a DJ set. TPF is not really, I'm not really set up for music or live music or anything like that. We used to play music years and years and years ago. And I'm telling you, people would complain about the noise and they couldn't hear the games. And so we cut out the music and the show has just grown so much. It's just one more thing that I just can't deal with. It's probably not a good idea either. There's music that I would perform. It'd be some TNA stuff, which people are familiar with, but most of it would just be annoying to everybody. So most people don't actually like electronic music, which is unfortunate. I mean, okay, though. But you've got your, I mean, your demographic is right there, a bunch of old 50-year-old dudes. Yeah, you know, I'm actually really surprised people like the TNA music as much as they did.
    107:48
    I was like, I'm kind of taken aback by that. I'm like, really? Probably because they've never heard it before. Right. Like completely new. Like, wow, this is cool. Crazy. So anyway, TPF 2020, it's going to be awesome, and I'm super excited about you coming. Yeah, thank you. I'm very excited about going down there. I'll probably do a presentation as well, I believe. I don't have anything prepared yet, but I will. I haven't even started working on the schedule yet, so yeah, I'm sure. But I always give every manufacturer the opportunity if they want to do some kind of presentations. If they've got something they want to talk about, they'll do one. Some, if they're not ready, or some don't. Some prefer just to talk to people in their booth or in their area. So, yeah, if you've got something, we'll make it work. We'll figure it out. And I would like very much to be able to come out halfway through your seminar and stomp on a portal gun. Yeah, that'd be great, actually. I actually want a presentation on Haunted House Party and what that can be all about. Oh, that is actually going to be the title of the presentation. It's going to be Scott Dinesi Talks Haunted House Party. Oh, that would be amazing. Should I just straight up? Yeah, Haunted House Party and Outland Spinners.
    108:53
    That's it. Haunted House Party and Outland Spinners by Scott Denise. So the saddest part about that whole Haunted House Party thing is, is I could talk for an hour on Haunted House Party. I know, you have. Like, Sarah asked you about it, and you gave her the whole spiel. You had the whole thing planned out. Yeah, and I keep adding to it every time someone talks to me about it, and it keeps changing. Why not just do it then? I could, but people are going to be really confused. Hey, you heard it here first. Scott Denisey is going to do a haunted house party. The country of earth on the super awesome pinball show. Yes, right after Cosmic Chaos gets finished.
    109:27
    Okay, so that's going to wrap up the show. Scott, it was a super pleasure having you. I'm so glad you took the time to join us for the show. Yeah, you guys, thank you so much for having me on. It was fun. I love just kind of shooting the shit with you guys. You know, it's great. And if you ever want me back on, hit me up and we'll make it happen. You heard it here. episode number four Scott Benici will be back that's okay already? geez I thought I was a little bit more boring than that you were so good we're having you back next week we'll see you in March Rush okay we will see you guys in I don't know another two weeks or so with the next episode so happy new year to everybody drive safe have a good time and we'll see you then happy new year the commentary and opinions shared by the cast and guests do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the sponsors Chicago Gaming Company and Cointaker. Their sponsorships of this show only serve to add to their continuing support of the pinball community. Cause we're gonna be better We're gonna get better What we're doing here ain't just scary It's about to be legendary Well, I'm adieu to you fair Spanish ladies. It's the bathroom. The bathroom. Okay, bye-bye now. Bye-bye. Bye. Bye-bye. Later, dears. Goodbye, goodbye, good friends, goodbye. Is the vid over? I know I say it's over!
    111:06
    Bye, bye, bye! Good day, sir! Get the fuck out of here! Oh, I gotta go. I'll see you later. Wait a- Okay, okay, show's over. Bye-bye. Hasta la vista, baby. Hey, you fucking chalupa suck!
    111:24
    Art lessons with Frenchie, he's a big fat guy that tries pinball. Okay. Okay, well, that was through the porthole with Scott Denisey. The porthole? Porthole?
    111:37
    Damn it. All right, let's try that again. Okay, well, that was through the porthole. Fuck! Yeah, use that one. Use that one. That's a good one to go on the outtakes.
    111:49
    Secret bonus content. Scott, are you comfortable talking about Stranger Things? Did you guys see the display, though? Did you guys look at that at all? Yes, dude. But I haven't seen, I mean, I've seen the teaser, but I haven't seen the actual game in action because they didn't stream it. Yeah, they did. They did. They streamed the pro, but not the... No, no, look at the display. Like I'm talking about the LCD. Oh, got you. Yes. What's wrong with it? I was not impressed. Nothing's wrong with it, but you guys will laugh when you watch it and realize that I asked you to go look at it. Okay. It's just a funny thing. There's a lot of... I can tell you right now I'm not going to go look at it. Okay, so I'll just tell you then. It's super funny because there's a whole bunch of, like, really 80s-style TNA stuff in there. Yes. Scott, dude, I thought that exact thing. Like, when you have 11, 11 comes up, and I was like, dude, that's a TNA background right there. Yeah, it is. Yes. That is hilarious that you bring that up because I thought exactly that, but I had forgotten about it. It's pretty great. So I'm going to take that as a compliment. Yes, yes. I mean, your artwork was a play on some of the 80s-style art, too. So, like, I see the connection. But, I mean, a pinball machine having that on it, that's a little bit too close to the, you know, to the vest for... The TNA artwork, so the TNA artwork's funny because, and you guys can put this in the show if you want, but the TNA artwork is, it's that whole new retro wave stuff. It's actually not, like, what the 80s looked like, you know, by any means at all, but it's what people are nostalgic for from, like, what they think the 80s did look like. I lived through it. I know. I can tell you this. I can tell you this. The TNA style of the 80s, which is, you know, you've got the magenta grid going off into the background. Sometimes they have the little mountains in the background and all that. That was strictly shit that you always saw on videos, like at the beginning of some cheesy horror film, you know, distributed by, you know, whatever, you know, Tin Mountain, you know, distribution. And it was like the neon letters with the grid going back and forth. That was very much delegated to, like, video sort of stuff. It's not like the kind of crap you wore on a T-shirt and stuff like that. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, so that's where that comes from. Yeah, and a lot of people don't understand that. It's just there's different types of 80s nostalgia. There's the Stranger Things 80s nostalgia, which is very close to what it actually was. And trust me, I have kid photos to prove that this neon crap didn't exist. How old are you, Scott? I am 37. You're a baby still. My goodness. I was born in 82, so I do have a slight remembrance of the later years of the 80s. I have a lot of pictures that show a lot of brown and ugly couches. Brown? Yes. That's the early 80s. That was before the transition, before Wham!
    114:47
    No, I mean, we had an ugly couch in our house and brown carpeting. You know. You didn't have avocado carpeting with orange specks in it? No, but that would have been awesome. That was more 70s. My parents had that stuff. Yeah, I lived through all that, the 70s, 80s. I'm 53, so. Oh, perfect. So you get to see the real deal. So you know what I did then with the TNA artwork. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yep, I sure do. And I also know that all these hippies that think the 70s were awesome, it was not. It was the lowest cultural point in frigging decades. I love the 80s I graduated in 1987 so I lived it to the fullest I mean I absolutely love the 80s I love my TNA I love that part of Stranger Things it's that nostalgic we talked about this before it's kind of like watching Goonies it's just very nostalgic you love your mullet I had an awesome mullet I could see you rocking a mullet head I could see that for sure you can see the picture of him sitting on his Camaro or Trans Am That's right. With his mom jeans, acid wash mom jeans on. Oh, yeah. It's so good. Please tell me that picture exists. Oh, it does. It does. Oh, my gosh. Will someone send that to me? Absolutely.
    115:57
    That's out there on the Internet, Ed. You can't take it back, man. Don't plan on it. There's all kinds of pictures on my Facebook page. He said he was proud of his mullet. Yeah, I'm proud of my mullet. I'm going to grow it back. I'm thinking I'm going to grow it back now. Yeah. 2020. I almost got a mullet going on. I've got to get my hair done. You know, I have a really bad, my hair is really grown out right now, too. This might be a perfect time to actually do that. I think you could rock a mullet, man. I could see that. Well, I do have a Fiero, so. The Fieros were cool. They were cool to some people. They were cool. I could not fit in a Fiero. It was way too tall. No way, dude. The Fiero has so much room, it's crazy. You would be so surprised. It's like one of those cars, like, you know, you'd, like, kick it under the door to keep the door from shutting, you know, in the summertime. All the cool kids would take their Fieros and they'd put body kits on them and they made them look like Ferraris. Yeah, well, they're all broken now and they're all junk. Exactly.
    116:52
    That's all, folks.