Thanks for tuning in to the Loser Kid Pinball Podcast. We are on episode 23. With me, as always, my co-captain, Scott Larson. Hey, Scott, how have you been doing, my good sir? You know, it's been pretty busy, actually. I worked a lot last week. A lot of people had vacations, so I spent a lot of time at work. And now I am trying to recover, but I'm also going on a work trip tomorrow. So that's very nice of your coworkers. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's it is what it is. You know, my business is open 24 seven. So you always have to have coverage. Yep. So well, no, but you told me you were telling me this the last time. It's the end of the year. So everyone's deductibles have pretty much been met. So everyone it's a free for all for like surgeries and stuff. So yeah, a little bit. It's everybody's trying to to get in. I understand it. I really get it from the patient standpoint. It just makes our job very busy this time of year. Yeah. What about you? Anything new going on in Josh's life? We had Thanksgiving. It was delightful. We hosted it at my house or our farmhouse. I call it my house, but anyhow. And right before it was time to cut the turkey, we're still waiting for people to show up. And so you know what I decided to do? So my attitude is, hey, we're starting at 3 o'clock, cutting it and starting at 3 o'clock. See, I guess I'm a little more generous than that. I decided, hey, I'm going to start a round of it. I'm a cold-hearted guy. Cold-hearted. I'm like, we're going to start a round of Attack from Mars. Oh, I see. So I started. And my wife comes down. She's like, everyone's now here. We've got to get this going. I'm like, I am just – I'm two seconds away from Rule the Universe. I've never been this close before. Please, just give me just two minutes. And? I ended up obtaining it. I was like, holy crap. Everyone standing there kind of watched me, and it was pretty intense having an audience. I was able to finally rule the universe. Did they let a sparkler in your honor? They did not, but I got some pretty gnarly high fives. I was pretty proud of myself. All right. All right. So what's your next goal? I want to get back to it again. That was awesome. Just rule the universe. I thought it was kind of like – I don't know if you ever played World Cup soccer. I'm trying to think. I'm trying to think of a – a lot of the wizard modes are pretty much just like a multiball with endless shooting. Yeah. Which that's this case, but you actually have to obtain like two billion points to actually rule the universe. And you don't have an unlimited ball save. It gives you a pretty generous one, but it's – like spoiler alerts. I hope no one out there is upset that I'm talking about this. You can fast forward 30 minutes if you don't want to hear about this. Yeah, exactly. But I didn't realize that you had to get so many points. So it was really stressful when I was down to one ball trying not to dream and get those last couple hundred million points. And I was able to pull it off. It was pretty awesome. I'm addicted. I'm ready to do it again. Okay. Well, and that's the defining characteristic of a game, right, is when you get to that thing or that whatever, then you want to do it again. So absolutely. Yeah, and it was awesome. And then shortly thereafter, wait, the week before that, I don't know why my timeline's messed up, but I was on head-to-head. Oh, okay. Tell me about it. So Martin randomly, we were talking and a couple days before the show and he tells me, hey, by the way, Joe isn't going to be here. I need someone to fill in. Will you just jump on with me? I was like, sure. When do you want to do it? And he's like, tomorrow. And it was Friday. So we were on Wednesday because he had asked me right before we started recording with Teolis. And I was like, sure. And then, yeah, we recorded with Teolis and then I went on there with him. It was a blast. So, yeah, no, he's always fun to record with. That's the that's the main challenge with head to head right now with Joe being a highly ranked tournament player. He's going to be occupied most weekends going to these competitions. And so it is a little challenging to have a sustained podcast when you are recording on the weekends. Obviously, the competition is Joe's. It's his main focus. So I totally support him and going in and competing in these tournaments. But yeah, it does make it a little more challenging to continue to have a weekly format. Oh, yeah. And it was fun. It was, I don't know. It's kind of like being on our show. It's laid back. You chit chat. I'm going to tell you behind the scenes really quick about head to head. Martin is fantastic with his notes. Like, I don't know if you remember this, Scott, when we were on in March, but his notes are immaculate. He sends you like a page or two pages of notes and they're all like, I don't know, bullet point. Like they make ours look crummy. Well, well, he does a lot of research and he actually types up an agenda. And so, yes, it's it's a lot more organized. We have a little more free flow approach to our podcast. But yeah, and Marty is hilarious. I wish I had his laugh. I wish I had his enthusiasm because it is very contagious. And so when you're with him, it certainly is a lot of fun. So, yeah, I'm glad you had that chance. Well, the nice part is, too, is it just highlights the stuff. It's not necessarily in-depth. It's just like, you know, here's the headline, and then it's off the cuff from there. But still, it's amazing how much stuff. Well, he puts a lot of planning into it. Oh, yeah. And, man, I don't know how he does it every week. It is very impressive. I take my hat off to those guys that do the weekly. It's just insane. Like, look at, you know, This Week in Pinball and the stuff they do. And granted, I mean, Jeff Patterson feeds a lot to the podcast, but still, there's a lot that goes into that podcast. And, I mean, even look at our friends over at Poor Man's Podcast or Poor Man's Pinball Podcast. They do it twice a week. They do, like, their regular show in the middle of the week, and then they do an F it Friday, and they just – it's crazy. And I – it blows my mind. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Well, it really shows how even though this is Amateur Hour, we're all doing this for fun, and very few of us are really making any money off this. It really shows that there's a lot of effort behind the scenes even to maintain something as fun as a podcast that we do. And there are people who do it even more. I mean, you look at Special When Lit and all the stuff they do. and uh every single pot i'm i can't name all the podcasts out there because there's so many of them but really people take it seriously and they put a lot of time and effort into something that's basically a side hobby a side hobby from their normal hobby which is pinball yep well and you know i was listening to the pinball uh the pinball profile today with jeff teolis and he had Lauren Gray on who does the Backbox Pinball Podcast. And just like her, man, her podcast oozes passion. And the reason she did it is because she wanted to hear more female competitors and female influences in the hobby. And that is great to me. I love when people shine different lights in the hobby because there is a ton of people in this hobby that deserve to get a light shine on them. Yeah. I love that. The nice thing about The way that these podcasts are organically growing is that there is always a risk in broadening the spectrum and increasing the diversity that in order to raise someone's voice, people tend to decrease or silence a majority voice or other ones to make room. The good news is there doesn't seem to be a limit to how many seats are at the table. And so we don't have to pull seats. at the table away in order to make room. The bottom line is the table is big enough for everybody. And so I love that there's all these different people who are coming to the table and really speaking out and showing the diversity in pinball because that, again, I've said it many times before, that's what drew me to pinball is that it's this egalitarian, everybody is welcome, and we all have a common interest regardless of our diverse backgrounds. totally agree totally agree and like i said there's a lot of unsung heroes in this hobby that definitely need some praises you know i know a lot of people aren't doing this to get praise but it's it's nice when people put a lot of effort in and you give them a slap on the back every once you know what i'm saying so there's a lot of people have earned it but well cool i guess that pretty much wraps up my last week in your last week unless or last two weeks unless you got anything else for me no i think it's ready to sign off tune into us next week yeah our 10 minute podcast now all right what do you want to talk about first well let's move on to some news let's talk about what just got released we're recording wednesday evening and there were some news released just a couple of hours ago um you want you want to talk about this you know go ahead I want you to explore this and let's talk about it together. I found out because someone announced it. I was watching the Dead Flip stream and someone announced, hey, Spooky Pinball just announced Rick and Morty is their next game. And I'm like, that can't be right. Like, what? And so I went on to Twitter and I looked it up. And sure enough, Spooky has announced that Rick and Morty is our next game with a trailer teaser attached to the tweet. A couple things really quick. I thought it was very interesting that they released it like 10 minutes before closing. I guess I don't know if they're taking pre-orders right now, but they did mention in the video there's going to be 750 of them. But I thought I thought it was interesting. like, why don't you do it at the beginning of the day? But hey, it's their company. They can do what they want. And we've been hearing Rick and Morty for a while. I don't fully get the theme. I honestly tried to watch it last night again. And I guess I'm just not like the family guy, American dad, Rick and Morty kind of guy. Like it just means too much. I don't know. What are your thoughts, Scott? You know, it works really well with what Spooky is trying to do. I'm going to lump in a little bit of Adult Swim, or excuse me, Rick and Morty with all the Adult Swim shows. So if you look at all of them, they're all these niche shows. And in many ways, they're making fun of the cartoons that we grew up with. And so if you look at the cartoons like Johnny Quest or Scooby-Doo or all these type of cartoons, if you look at the Adult Swim content, okay, now the cartoons have grown up a little bit. They've grown up. They have certainly a more PG-13 type humor. There's certainly a lot of stuff that would be considered on the blue side. but they are if you look at them all together they all have something to offer and they're all quite funny one of the adult swim shows that i've seen a lot of is called uh venture brothers which is basically a a uh take on johnny quest which i thought was amazing growing up but you watch it now and you find it hilarious i've never been a huge family guy fan just because it seems that The humor is just a little too on the edge for me. But when I watch it, I certainly appreciate the density of jokes, how many jokes they're doing, and how they set them up. And there's a lot of really funny stuff in there. So I totally understand why this would work well for pinball, and I think it is a perfect option for a small company like Spooky to take on. And also, if you have the Rick and Morty, it's a little bit more of a scientist, so you can go with the spooky vibe. And it certainly is a license that can't have been that expensive. But there's enough fans out there that I think it will make actually a great option for it. It's along the lines of Simpsons and Futurama. Well, and I look at it this way. Honestly, I think it is a brilliant move for Spooky. I think 750 units, I guarantee by the end of tomorrow – well, I can't guarantee. I apologize. I would be shocked if by the end of the weekend that they weren't all sold out. People have been begging for this theme. This is – like I said, I watched it. I might need to give it just a little bit more. Like I said, I've only watched the first episode a couple times. and I think, man, I need to give a little bit more of a chance, but people love the show. I think it's one of those games, honestly, if it goes into your home and your friends come over and they see Rick and Morty, that's the first one they go to. Now, I agree that there's been a lot of talk about this. Do you think that there's 750 talk about this? Like people who are willing to put their money down for 750 of them. I really it's a pretty niche title. And in pinball, we have talked at length that theme really does sell. And if you look at let's just assume that there's 10,000 pinball machines made in a year and really Stern has 80, 85 percent of those pins. Do you really think that close to 10 percent of the market is going to want a Rick and Morty? I think so. I think there's people that have been salivating for this theme. It's one of those ones. I think, first off, a lot of people, if it doesn't sell out quickly, it's because they want to see the play filled. I guess I can't write it off just yet as a solid win, but I think the theme goes a long way with this title. And if it's Scott Danesi's next game, which, I mean, what are we, like 95% for sure this is it? Because why would you announce something before Scott Danesi's game that would come out after Scott Danesi's game? Then if it's got Scott Danesi's charm mixed with this theme, I think it's a no-brainer. I think 750 units if priced right go out the door with no problem Okay I think it will be I think it will still take about three weeks to really sell out Still, three weeks is impressive in my opinion. It is. It is. I don't think it's going to be a fly-off-the-shelf situation. The bottom line is this is a niche title. Yes, it's a theme. It's a known entity, but it's a little bit like Primus, where there are some really hardcore fans out there. And beyond that, are you going to get more? Admittedly, I was surprised that Iron Maiden sold as well as it did. I'm an Iron Maiden fan. I plan on having an Iron Maiden pin at some point in my house, maybe when my kids are a little older. But I was a little surprised. Now, Keith made an amazing game, an amazing shooter, and an amazing rule set, and so that certainly helped sell the game. But on theme alone, I don't know how much I'm jumping in on theme alone because there are some themes that I have liked the theme, but the flow of the game or just the interaction of the game, I decided I wasn't much of a fan of. so uh i was uh well i grew up with star wars and i was planning on i everybody said that it was going to be a star wars pin coming out and i was planning on uh getting in on it i actually had a down payment on an le and when it came out and i i saw the the the playing of it and the flow of the game i thought you know maybe this just isn't the way i would envision a star wars uh pin now that's not saying it's a bad pin what it's saying is that it didn't connect with me on a theme that i liked and so i would say the same thing with a rick and morty theme that it still uh theme is good because it obviously starts entering you into that storyline but you still have to like the way the game flows now his first game was great but uh you know let's let's check out and see what this next game is going to be well and i i apologize i cannot remember the podcast that was talking about this but there was and maybe it was jack danger but they were talking about how people have already been in there to play scott denisi's game they're loving it there's new mechs in there that haven't necessarily been utilized this way before or seen this way um there's a lot of innovation in it so and and granted you know people can say what they want until we see the product. This is what we have to go off of. But I think there's a lot of content. Like I said, I've watched one episode of Rick and Morty. I can tell you there's a Pickle Rick. There's the Meeseeks, the blue guys, that there's a ton of them that for some odd reason, Rick wants Szechuan sauce. He wants McDonald's to bring it back. I mean, I've never seen the show in its entirety or past one episode, and I can name a handful of moments from that show. and that's just me you know i'm saying like i just there's a lot of memes there's a lot of love for this this title i guess it depends where it lands age-wise um a lot of people i know that love rick and morty are younger age like um mid-20s uh late 20s i don't know what your your demographic is i would assume it's more of uh the people in their 40s um when you're selling pinball machines So, well, when you're selling them, yes, but when you're playing them on location, you probably do want you probably do want those things that are more relevant. I'm I'm 45, but I guarantee that me looking at the Grammy nominations, I have no clue who any of these artists are. And that's just saying that I have locked into that demographic of the 45-year-old who buys 80s nostalgia themes. And if you want to broaden that beyond me, then you're probably going to want to try some of these other themes. How many 20-something-year-olds are going to be interested in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? True. Maybe. Maybe not. But it's the same thing as Ghostbusters. maybe i ghostbusters really um that was one of those major movies of the 80s that we grew up on we saw it when we were you know teenagers or or younger and you're gonna have to do the same thing to not let the the 40 year old demographic demographic of pinball just die yeah no i agree yeah I just from a standpoint right now looking from the outside in I think Spooky has a win on their hands regardless I don't see them having a hard time selling these units that's just me I really think there's a high demand it's Rick and Morty and me is kind of in the same realm as Archer I think it's that same kind of humor and there's a lot of demand for Archer like I think people when they got their hands on the Archer layout when Keith was taking a round to the pinball shows. That's what kind of sold Iron Maiden. And so, I don't know, man. I think it's a win. I think it's a home run, regardless. It certainly is not a miss. There are some themes when people announce and you say, why? Why would you do that theme? When they announce rumored themes, some of them I think, yeah, I could totally see that. Others I think, why would you ever consider that? I totally see why they're doing this one. and it certainly has a lot of potential. Well, and honestly, we're going to have to see what 2020 holds. But if you were to take theme Rick and Morty up against the other games that were released this year, so Martin and I did this on head-to-head. I know you're not a huge Rick and Morty fan, nor am I, but Rick and Morty versus Munsters. What do you think wins there? I think it's different demographics. I don't see anybody really under 50 buying a Munsters. True. I remember the Munsters, but they were already in syndicated reruns when I was a kid. Okay. So when I saw Munsters, I thought, okay, I think Munsters is a fun shooting game. And if they end up doing a rule set that channels Iron Man, I think Munsters could have that second renaissance. But yeah, I'm in the donut hole of this one. I'm not really in the Munsters or the Rick and Morty demographic. You're like, I'll take the Jurassic Park instead. Well, okay. Yeah, exactly. And that is my wheelhouse. that's uh you know early 90s so here's my thing i like i said i'm a huge fan of rick and morty i could see the humor being there i can see it being made like a simpsons pinball party it could be really really fun that aspect um i i guess it all comes down to layout and whatnot yeah but what other were you comparing what other were you were you comparing all the different pins Yeah. I don't want to side-rail you. Go ahead. No, you're fine. You're fine. So I think Rick and Morty for me would win over Munsters. It would win over Black Knight. It would win over a Star Wars vault and the Star Wars The Home pin. Okay. But, I mean, until we see it, I can't really. It's Scott Danesi. Like, the dude's, it's his sophomore attempt. So I want him to knock it out of the park. Like, Keith did it. Scott Danesi, he did it or he he's up next to bat. And I can't wait to see what Eric has to like. I'm rooting for these guys because I want these guys the better their product is, the better it is for the hobby. And it pushes pinball forward. And I hope the best for all of them. It also depends on how they integrate the theme, because just the theme alone is it is great to get you in the door. my friend had the LE Star Wars and he sold it after a while because the quotes were repetitive and so there wasn't the variation of call outs and so every time he felt that there were parts of the movie that he loved but that were so repetitive by the call outs he decided to sell the game because he didn't want to get sick of those parts of the movie that he loved Yeah. So now I also understand Star Wars has three movies. That's it. That's all the quotes you get. Rick and Morty, you have an endless array of them. And if you get the voice actor to actually do the call outs like they did on Simpsons Pinball Party, then you can avoid those things. There's also a risk of having that clip, you know, the video run montage that, you know, Guardians of the Galaxy suffered a little bit from. Munster suffered a lot. How many times are you going to watch Grandpa walk over to the library book? So having that video asset, you need to find a creative way of still mixing it up. With Jurassic Park, that's one thing that's really great about the way they did it, is that you're in the Jurassic Park world, but you're not just watching clip after clip. Yep. Well, and that's one other thing you bring up that I think is awesome. I'm hoping this is – after watching the teaser trailer, they had the voices of Rick and Morty bantering back and forth on the video. And it was custom because they're talking about they're getting their own pinball machine. Yeah. And so I'm – And that's so great. If you can actually get that, that is so great because that's one of the major things that makes Simpsons Pinball Party great. There are still call-outs that I hear in that game that I've never heard. I don't know about you, man, but I am excited, ecstatic that I picked this Texas Pinball Festival go-to. We've now got Rick and Morty. American Pinball just said game number three is going to be at TPF. We got Deep Root with at least – At least one game. Raza, yeah. And Stern's got to have one game out before then. So we could potentially see four new games for March, maybe even five. Okay. Well, I'm excited, too, because I'm going on as well. I'm not necessarily holding my breath because last Texas Pinball Festival was, I would say, a little bit of a letdown because we had a lot of potential releases to the end of getting pushed back. But certainly, the way it's looking right now, I'm buying my ticket. Yep. I've already bought mine. I've bought my flights. I've bought my, uh, my TPF tickets. They did a black Friday sale and do I'm yeah, they had like a 20 bucks off or something like that. It was, it was cool. So, but I got my weekend pass. I'm, I'm good to go. I'm, I'm stoked. So, all right. Did you get us some press passes? Uh, not yet. No fail. So I talked to Robert about that and, um, I guess they're going to explain the requirements in, uh, January. I think it was. so i i not requirements like they're going to put it out there for people that do want to go but uh you'll have to meet a certain criteria i think sure so um yeah so speaking of that limited edition star wars that your friend had that he got rid of yeah what do you think of all this hubbub about the star wars topper that finally released two years later after this game came out Yeah, you know, I feel bad for Stern. I truly do, because this is a casualty of working with a major license. It took so long to get this thing out that how many games have we had since Star Wars? and Steve Ritchie has already released another game that has a better topper with Black Knight and so yeah it seems when you buy a game typically you want to buy all the cool stuff at once but Star Wars is how many releases back? It's four releases back or five releases back and now you have this topper that I don't know. I don't get it. It feels a little bit like the Ghostbusters topper, where I'm sure it's cool, and I'm sure it integrates, and I'm sure it tells things, but it's not really a topper that I would be that interested in, and considering the price is a little high. So if you're really into Star Wars, and you're really into the toppers. I don't know. I would have been interested in something a little different. I appreciate that they did R2-D2. I just wish he did a little bit more than have a light show and just spun a little bit. And that seems a little steep for $750. What do you think? If you had a Star Wars pin, would you buy this? if I had a Star Wars pin, honestly, I don't know. I mean, that price tag is pretty steep. You could buy almost a meteor for that price. I mean, I just, here's the thing that bothers me. And it has nothing to do with the price because I don't own a Star Wars. I don't look to own a Star Wars. It's that word, limited edition. I feel like the Princess Bride, you keep saying that word and I don't think you know what that word means. do you really think they're going to sell they would sell 750 of these anyway because i i actually don't i don't think they've only got 500 they've only got 500 okay well i don't even think they'll sell 500 at that price it just seems a little steep and that it's we've moved on we we've moved on like the pinball attention window is so narrow that okay yes they were able to resurrect some interest in the pin by having that retro comic book art package. So I can understand, okay, so they jazzed it up, they did a new art package, and they also have this topper that you could get. Maybe they'll sell all 500, and I really hope they do. I hope that it's a success. it seems that the timing, again, through no fault of their own, we all know that this was a hang-up with the licensor, then I just don see them making that many of them I agree with you but I also think it a different situation in yes it just a topper but we not talking like Beatles prices I'm not talking like a Beatles topper. But my point being is I don't see this having a rough time selling if we're selling the Ghostbusters topper and the Kiss topper for a ridiculous amount of money. I don't see this one being an issue per se. I think the issue is when you have the Beatles that only had a limited number of 1964 altogether. but the price was so high on them people just couldn't just people looking from the outside in couldn't justify the price for what's on the play field and it's a good game there's nothing wrong with that it's a great game but are you gonna I would say that most people would look at that game and feel rightly or wrongly they will feel that it's about a $5,800 game as opposed to $7,800 game and they feel that it's a pro-type game for a premium price. Now, whether or not that's justified, I'm not sure. We all know drop targets are expensive, and they are full of those in that game, and you are paying a premium price for the license. So just like a car, if you're willing to have the total package of the redesigned play field, which is superior to Sea Witch, and having that art package and having the theme integration, then sure, it's worth that, but you are paying a premium for it, just like Star Wars. Yep. Well, in the case of Beatles, this is what I was going to say is distributors still have these. I know a couple of distributors you could call right now and buy a Beatles. And if there's only 1,964 of these bad boys, then the price isn't justifying the pin, in my opinion. Stern knows how to do this a lot better than I do. They've been doing this a lot longer. But I feel like looking from the outside in, I've said that three or four times already, but it feels like we're trying to probe the market and see where we can kind of rest prices at. The last couple of years have been crazy between Supreme, which flew out the door, and no one thought it was going to sell any of them. Okay. Now, I don't think that's true. I think that people didn't think that pinball players would buy Supreme. Correct. Sorry, let me rephrase that. Yeah, but Supreme is a brand, and so they sold the name. And with Beatles, this is one of those where you are completely right, trying to find that where's the market, because if you're selling something for $500 and you're making $100 on it, And well, okay, so if you sold it for $450 and you sold more of them, so what's your profit on each pin versus the total amount you're selling? Is that going to make up for what you do? Look at how many thousands of Metallica pins they made. and the profit margin they i'm i guarantee they made way more on metallica than they did on beetles even though they probably were making more per machine on beetles but just looked at the volume of metallicas that moved out the door you're going to make a whole lot more money on metallica and i think that um i'm not sure if there were cost constraints because going through So Kapow, if it was more of a vanity project where we're doing a limited amount and so maybe we can get more because of the limited nature of it, I wish there were more of them out there. But I agree with you. I think the market analysis was priced a little high for Beatles. Well, and this goes back to my point. Do you think that they had such a hit with Supreme? They're like, well, Supreme flew out the door. if we do a Beatles, everyone knows the Beatles. They love the Beatles. We won't have any issue selling this many. I just don't know. Maybe. Yeah, Joe Kamikow has been in the market for so long, then you're not going to hit a home run every time. Yeah. And you're always going to try. I would say Beatles is probably a double. It's a great game, and it's a great theme, and I find it very fun. I would love to have a Beatles downstairs. But I also, when I look at the price, I think, well, would I rather have Beatles or would I rather have something else? All righty, man. I think we've exhausted that one. I know that the Topper discussion has been quite on fire on Pinside and on all the other podcasts too. But I don't know. I felt like we had a little different take on it. Yeah, now I like the, I really do like the topper and the licensed mods and these ways, car companies have been doing this for years. Do you want the standard car or do you want the car with the purple foil on it or do you want the blinged out tires? And so if there's any way of capturing some of the market, because we know all these mods have been going on anyway, so why not get some actually licensed mods? Now, as we know, though, the challenge when you have a topper from Star Wars, well, Lucasfilm is going to get their cut. And so that's going to be limited. You know, a lot of those toppers out there really are a project, you know, they're homebrew. and so they're not paying the licensing fee whether or not they should you know they probably should but they're not paying it and so every cool topper out there that is not sold through official avenues add 200 to that because i guarantee i have a nice simpsons pinball party topper downstairs that probably would have been 200 more if um you know fox got their cut of the simpsons license yeah I just want to fire these off really quick Franchi congratulations along with Ed Van Der Veen and Dr. Pin for you guys' first episode of the Super Awesome Pinball Show they want us to know it's not a podcast, it is a show and the quality of the shine through, it is impressive I wonder how much they're going to be churning those out, if it's going to be a once a week thing, I didn't catch that I'm only halfway through the episode guys I do apologize, but it was really good good quality congratulations to Steven Bowden that was awesome on Slam Tilt every time they come back I'm just excited to hear one of their episodes I'm glad to hear that they're doing great and it was awesome to have Steven Bowden on there talking about the projects over at Deep Root with Raza and whatnot and very good let's fire off this last thing but I'm going to turn it over to Scott for this one so this is a melancholy happy trails to Gene Cunningham. If you have not read the write-up on the manufacturing of the Big Bang Bar, you really need to go look at it. It's a fascinating piece. It's a journalist who actually got interested in the manufacturing of Big Bang Bar after Capcom decided not to do it. And so it's the entire story of Gene buying Capcom, trying to resurrect this project pin that was never produced. And the interesting thing about it is that at the end of his project, he actually went into debt to make these machines. And he got them out to all these people who bought the machines, which is totally different than a lot of the people who got burned by other pre-order type models that we've seen in the last five years. This was one that he actually went through, and he lost money on every single pin that he shipped out the door, and it really affected his business. It's a fascinating story. I highly recommend looking at it. And it just gives a behind the scenes. Now, there certainly the write up was warts and all, and it talked about him as a man and his his the positive things about him and possibly the challenges of him and his interactions with people. But I totally recommend looking at it because, hey, you should know about it. And I guarantee that Planetary Pinball is looking at making these things with Chicago Gaming Company and remaking Big Bang Bar. So it's just a fascinating period of pinball that you should be well aware of. I went back and reread the article. I'm going to link it in the show notes. It's called When Pigs Flew, the story of Gene Cunningham and Big Bang Bar, if I remember correctly. I know it starts out When Pigs Flew. fantastic article um and it's it's interesting the depth this journalist went through because he couldn't get a hold of gene cunningham via email via phone anything like that so he ended up flying out to chicago and driving two hours north to get a hold of him on the hopes that he could even just run into the guy um fantastic read it really is good and i would dare say this is one of the reasons we saw a resurgence of pinball um when this was all going down it was in the mid 2000s um this is when pinball was kind of at its low period we weren't training out the fantastic games that we have nowadays um and so gene proved that you could make a game that not necessarily he proved that you could make a game and still make the price tag be up around the $6,000 range and people would want to buy it and at that time pinball machines were selling for $3,000 at the door so a lot of people thought he was crazy for even suggesting to buy a pin for double what it was worth but they all sold and he followed through and it's an awesome story He did. He also ran into the challenge of being a boutique company and that one of the reasons why Stern can price their machines at the price they have is because it's a volume business. And so they may not make as much per game, but they're selling a lot of games. It's the Walmart model. It's the Amazon model. And whether or not you agree with it, they basically make their money in volume. and that was the challenge with him. It's pretty hard to make all that money back in the volume as Big Bang Bar. It's sad to see you go, Gene. I really think you left a lasting impression on the hobby, even if people don't realize it or not. Moving on, let's talk some Twippies. It is Twippy season. The pre-voting has begun. We have asked that if you are going to put people in categories, that you put us in your favorite podcast of the year and a rookie of the year. I really stress rookie of the year because I feel like we have a better chance at this than we do favorite podcast. Well, yes. That's where if we have any shot, I would say rookie of the year. Hey, if you love us and you want us to vote for the favorite podcast, we will take the vote. But absolutely. And if not, seriously, please go and submit whatever your passion is and certainly find out. Is it possible that Kaneda makes a three-time Twippy of Podcast of the Year? It's basically a popularity contest. So whoever you like and whoever you love and obviously whoever has the best hats, vote for them. Exactly. Well, and here's the thing, too. So I don't know if you're watching Deadflip tonight, but he's been joking he should be in every category for the pinball stuff. like the topper one like he took a picture of himself on top of his break shot last okay i i i saw that picture and i was wondering what the context was so yeah so he wants to be on every category well i guess jeff our friend jeff patterson over at this week in pinball reached out to danger and said hey buddy um you're getting so many votes in all the categories we we kind of like need to to back off for a second it's pretty funny but yes absolutely yeah so it's pretty funny So I can honestly see this happening with a couple different celebrities in the hobby that could get a lot of votes. Well, it's a popularity. It's the People's Choice Award. So there are obviously some mega there's pinball celebrities, pinball personalities that bring a lot of eyeballs to pinball. And I guarantee they're going to get the majority of majority of the votes. So, you know, so what? it's fun. So go ahead, have fun. It's not like they're making any money on it. It will be a fun show and it'll be fun to see who people vote for. And hey, if you throw some votes our way, we appreciate it. Really appreciate it. So we're excited. I'm kind of at that point of, even if we just get nominated, I'll be pretty pleased as punch. I really don't expect to walk away with a twippy and i know some people say hey it's just it's it's really nothing but in the hobby it's really cool to yeah it will it'd be cool to be recognized you know yeah so um i wish the best of luck to the other people that are in all the other categories um i know that uh there there's a lot of people asking for votes and it's just pre-voting so we want to get in those categories and then we'll talk after the first of the year. Exactly. But, uh, yeah, I'm pretty excited. Um, it's just, it's just weird. A year ago, uh, I was stoked for head to head and for special one lit and all those other guys and never even had a dream of being even considered for a Twippy. And now here we are a year later, and we're in the talks of even just getting on the ballot, where a year ago, no one even knew who we were. Well, a year ago, we didn't have a pinball podcast. Exactly. It's all it takes, guys. There you go. If you want to get involved somehow, there's some on here that you could do, like your favorite IFPA players. Yeah, exactly. There plenty of ways that you can get on this ballot If you want a Twippy don let anyone stop you So Josh we have one other thing that we are looking into It is a winter very strong here in Utah. And we know that the awesome Loser Kid Pinball podcast hats are not all Carl Weathers options. And so, Josh, what do we have for our awesome fans this wintertime? So you got to give a little background. So Keith – All right. Okay, okay. So the background is – so Keith had mentioned about – he posted something, and I responded back, and someone mentioned, hey, you guys just like Keith because of the hat. And he said, well, we're taking a break from the hat because it's more of a summer hat. And so he said – I said, well, yeah, I get it. It's a little cold here in Utah too. And so he mentioned, he said, you need Loser Kid beanies. And so I said, challenge accepted. We are making Loser Kid beanies. We're going to have a few different options. We're going to have a few of the hipster cool ones that are close to the head. But we are doing a small run of limited edition. And we truly mean limited edition in the true sense of the word. Old school stripes and pom-pom. You know it, man. And I think we're just going to run of these. We're not going to limit them. So if someone wants on this train, jump on the train. But we're going to do it for a short amount of time because I don't see a reason for us to do beanies for a really long time. Okay. It's not a limited edition. It's a small run. It's a batch run. A small run of the new – they're the stripes and the pom-poms. It's a limited edition in the JJP limited edition manner. Exactly. Perfect. We're limiting these to 10,000. We will not make more than 10,000. And they're not going to be number. Exactly. Sorry. Until we decide we want to do them in blue. Right. And then we'll do another 10,000. Yeah, exactly. Oh, okay. I don't think they appreciate that. Okay. Hey, hey. It's all kidding, all in love, right? Hey, but yeah. We're just going to make these. You know, we're just having fun with these. So if you're interested in a hat or a beanie or a beanie with a pom-pom, shoot Josh an email, and we'll certainly get some sent out to you. Well, we'll have the samples in next week, if I remember correctly. I think they came in – the hats came in today. They're going to get them stitched. They should have them either by the end of the week or the beginning of next. As soon as we have them, we'll take some pictures. We'll put them up on the site on Facebook and Pinside and in our Instagram. And if you want to get hold of us on them, it's the usual Loser Kid Pinball Podcast at gmail.com or just through Facebook. And we'll probably do them for a month or two. We'll probably even do them up to TPF. And so that way we can bring hats and beanies with us if you don't want to pay the shipping cost, especially if you live in Canada or Australia or outside the States and you're coming to TPF. this would be a fantastic time. Please let us know if you want a hat because I want to get you guys one. I want to have enough for everyone that wants one down in TPF. Yeah. And really, we, we really make nothing on the hats. So we're just doing this for fun. And we think that we, I do love every time I see pictures and I'm able to pick out a loser kid hat. So this is a lot of fun for us. So we, we hope you guys are having fun with it too. We should totally make like a wall of, of loser kid hat fame. fame because I think I've got a lot of the pictures. You know what? Yes, you should do that because there's no chance I'm ever going to find time to do that. So, so awesome. And then one last thing. So did you listen to head to head? Uh, when I was on last week? Yeah, I did. So at the, so at the end we talked about, you know, we teamed up with Brad Hunter of lit frames and he's taking the $5 off. on top of the RE suite deal he has going on. But Brad also, I tease this on head-to-head, he wants to do a giveaway with us. And so Scott and Brad and I have been trying to figure out how to do this giveaway. I think we've landed on this. Should we tell them first what it is? I think you should. Well, okay. So yeah, actually, okay. I will preface this. I bought the limited edition, it's not Translate. It's a back glass on plastic. How would you call that? Anyway, so I have that, and I have it framed in one of Brad's frames, and it is really cool because you can hit it on color cycle, and it actually cycles through all the colors. And shockingly, different things jump out on it. I did not expect this. I thought it was going to be a little more of just a static frame, but with that color show, it is dynamic, and I love the Monster Bash Translite that I have. It really is amazing, and so I love what he did. I actually went and I bought some from Brad, and I have three different options now, so I can actually show different Translites. So what does he have for this special giveaway, Josh? So for this special giveaway, he did give us a truly limited edition product. He's not giving us one of his frames because that's what Martin was guessing last week. He's giving us a signed Christopher Franchi Superman 78 Translite. There's only 25 of these bad boys out there. And so he's doing it as a holiday thing. He thinks we should all get in the holiday spirit. and he wants someone to have a fantastic Christmas. So for the next two weeks, we're going to put up a post that will have the Superman Translight on the post. It'll say probably like, you can win me, something like that. We'll hammer out those details. But what we want you to do is to like the post, share the post, and to like our page. And we'll do that also on Facegram, or Facegram. Facegram and Instaface. And the Twitter page. And the Twippies. Yep. So we're going to do it on Facebook and on Instagram. And you can do it on both. Every time you click a like, every time you share, you get an entry into the giveaway. And so I know someone out there wants this. It's amazing. Like I said, we'll put a picture up of it. It's hard to see the signature because when they're lit up, I guess it's hard to see the signature. But we'll put a few posts up. So each post that you like and share will be an entry. You can't. It's impossible to multiple like the same post. So that's why we will do multiple posts. But absolutely get the word out. We want to make sure everybody knows about these lit frames. Everybody knows about the options. And Josh and I aren't getting anything from this. We just want to promote awesome products in pinball. And this is a product that has blown my mind. So I'm excited to get it out there. Yep. And I'd like to get one for myself too. I need to hit up the missus and say, hey, you know what I want for Christmas is one of these lit frames. Good idea. You know it. And so, yeah, we'll do that. And then if you're not on Facebook, if you're on Instagram, hit us up. We'll put you in for the drawing as well. and then in two weeks when we do our next recording we will we'll spin the will and we'll give out a superman translate um i think this is for uh america only but uh we can probably work with brad if you're in canada if you're in australia or whatnot um i am pretty for sure brad's gonna be at tpf we can probably bring it with us there or if you're willing to pay for shipping. I mean, there's only 25 of these. I doubt we're going to hold back on, if you want to take care of shipping, we will make sure you get it. Yeah, sounds awesome. Woo woo. Cool. Well, I think that pretty much wraps it up for everything we wanted to talk about. Yeah. I'm looking forward to the end of the year, the end of the year wrap up. And do you have any bold predictions for the next end of the year? Josh, do you have any bold predictions for the next month? For the next month, Stranger Things gets revealed, Brian Eddy's the person doing it, and it rivals Jurassic Park for the year. Okay. My bold prediction is actually that they will not release it, because I think Jurassic Park is selling so well that they are going to delay their release until they start winding down their production on Jurassic Park. You know, I could see it going either way. One quick thing before we leave. I want to, I didn't talk to Scott about this, so he's, he's finding out right now. Yeah. I would like to showcase, uh, some of the stories in the hobby. There's some wonderful, cool stories out there. Uh, if you want to send us in one of your stories, we will read it out on air. Uh, we'll probably call it story time or something like that. Um, but I would like to do a segment where we talk about the stories like, and to preface this, the reason I'm bringing this up, we've kind of talked about with this with Jeff Teolis, but I was at that tournament, uh, And it's been a month already, but I was sitting there and you don't see cactus canyons every day. And I had to ask the owner, where did you get a cactus canyon? Because he's been in it so long. He got it during the time that pinball machines were kind of fading away. And the gentleman's name is Artie. Artie said, well, it's a really interesting story. I've made friends with plenty of people in the hobby and I got a call one day and he said, I heard you want a cactus Canyon. Do you still want one? And Artie's like, yeah. So he's like, well, come down to the place. Here's the address and we'll go take a look at it and see if you still want it. And he's like, Oh, I'll want it. And so they got down there and he's like, there was still like smolder smoke coming off the building. And so they walked in through the front door and the whole place was pitch black. And the gentleman points to the corner and he says, there you go. And he says, there I go. What? And he's like, your pinball machine. It's right over there. And come to find out they had had a boiler fire inside this, uh, this bar, if I remember correctly, and black building smoke had covered the pinball machine. And so he's sitting there debating, is this really worth my time? Because at this point in time, parts were not being made. And so he's like, well, crap. well i guess he he took off the back glass thought the circuit boards were fried they were they were melted in the back glass he's like well i can still you know there's other games i can rob circuit boards that's not a big deal he's like if the play field is messed up then i'm not even not even going to touch it that's how that's how covered in black smoke this thing was you couldn't even see through the glass to see the play field so he took off the glass kind of rubbed some of the soot off and inserts were perfect and the play field was unscathed besides the scrubbing he would need to do and so he said i'll take it he didn't tell me how much but he packed it up that moment got it home and he said it took a lot of scrubbing you'd be shocked how caked on soot can get and how much elbow grease it takes to get off of a pinball machine but it was really cool to be playing. It wasn't, that wasn't the exact cactus Canyon because we were at his friend Jeff's house, but it was really cool to know that someone with that much love and care in this hobby wanted to take a pinball machine that was near dead and bring it back to life. And so that's what we're looking for. Like we're looking for, and it doesn't have to be stories like that. It could be just really cool pinball stories. It could be, you know, heart, heart jerkers, tear, where are they called? Tear jerkers. Um, just anything that you want to share that you feel like, Hey, this story really needs to be heard. We want to, we want to put it out there. So what are your thoughts? What do you think? That's a cool thing, Scott. I think it's really cool. Um, I, I will say I'm going to give a shout out to, uh, Tony Murphy. He, uh, he posted something that said he was, while he was traveling, he was just looking for a tournament to play in. And he ended up finding one in the suburbs and Roger Sharp was there. So again, just really cool stories like that, that we want to hear about because those are the fun things in pinball. Well, no, it was funny. Someone reached out to me. They're like, have you ever ran into a pinball machine at a yard sale? And I said, no, but I've ran into one at a desert industries. So that's a thrift store. It's like Goodwill. Yeah. Yeah, it's like Goodwill. So outside of Utah, there's Goodwills. Inside Utah, they're called Desert Industries or DI for short is what we call them. Yeah, I ran to a big game, Stern big game for $125. He's like, you've got to tell me the story. I'm like, dude, it's not that intense. I ran to one. It was already sold. The guy was coming back to pick it up. I begged the people just to sell it to me and I take it now. Oh, you're cold, man. That's cold. Dude, you leave it. You leave the bounty. You leave it open to other people. Man, you're cold, man. No, he hadn't paid the money. Oh, okay. All right. All right. All right. He would agree that he'd come back with the money and a vehicle to move the pinball machine. I got money right here, dude. I'll take it. All right. Well, keep your eyes peeled out for those thrift store fines and go and put a down payment on Rick and Morty, and we will see you in two weeks. Anything else, Josh? yeah if you want to get a hold of us like always contact us at loser kid pinball podcast at gmail.com through facebook at our loser kid pinball podcast page we're also on instagram and we're on any podcatcher wherever your podcatchers are sold and heck if you're sitting and you're just cooking dinner and you want to listen to our sweet sweet voices as you're trying to make some dinner you can even ask the left say hey put on that loser kid pinball podcast and she'll do it for you. So. Sounds good. Sorry. Yeah, that's it for me, dude. All right. Sounds good. Well, you guys have a great two weeks. We'll see you in two weeks. All right. See you in two weeks. Bye.