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The Super Awesome Pinball Show S1 E5

The Super Awesome Pinball Show·podcast_episode·2h 23m·analyzed·Mar 3, 2020
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.035

TL;DR

Super Awesome Pinball Show discusses dream themes and recent pinball activities with emphasis on licensing challenges.

Summary

The Super Awesome Pinball Show hosts Christopher Franchi, Ed Vanderby, and Christian Weiss discuss their recent pinball activities, announce a new segment featuring top four dream pinball themes, and cover industry news including Jersey Jack Pinball's move to Elk Grove and Stern's Heavy Metal announcement. The episode includes recognition of the Pinball Players Podcast, discussion of tournament dynamics like Pinberg ticket sales, and extended conversation about desired licensing properties for future pinball machines.

Key Claims

  • Jersey Jack Pinball is moving to Elk Grove, Illinois, the home of Stern Pinball

    medium confidence · Announced as upcoming news segment topic; appears to be unconfirmed rumor presented as fact

  • Stern has announced Heavy Metal as an upcoming pinball theme

    high confidence · Ed Vanderby states 'Stern just announced it, the heavy metal' in context of discussing dream themes

  • Pinberg tournament tickets sell out in five seconds or less every single year

    high confidence · Dr. Pin describes personal experience acquiring Pinberg tickets and confirms 1,000 total tickets available

  • F5 refresh at exactly noon provides optimal chance to purchase Pinberg tickets

    medium confidence · Dr. Pin cites advice from IT department personnel; credited as general community tip

  • Jaws action figures licensing situation has recently changed, enabling potential for Jaws pinball

    medium confidence · Christopher Franchi reports discovery at Toy Fair; notes Roy Scheider and Robert Shaw likenesses are now available through action figure licensing

  • A major pinball industry insider rejected Rocky Horror Picture Show as a pinball theme

    medium confidence · Ed Vanderby references conversation with unnamed 'big pinball insider person' who declined the theme concept

  • Batman 66 pinball has a Joker lap added by Lyman specifically to burn players via left lane

    medium confidence · Christopher Franchi describes gameplay experience and credits Lyman Sheets for rule design decision

  • 90% of Texas Pinball Festival attendees (8,000-10,000 people) would not recognize prominent pinball podcasters/personalities

    medium confidence · Ed Vanderby estimates based on Texas Pinball Festival attendance demographics and conversational reference to Jeff Patterson

Notable Quotes

  • “The pinball podcaster world is a little subset of the pinball community, just like the tournament player, people that love tournaments. They're just a little subset.”

    Ed Vanderby @ ~10:30 — Key commentary on relative scale and influence of podcast community vs. broader pinball enthusiast base; addresses tension between perceived importance of media personalities and actual community reach

  • “These things sell out in five seconds or less every single year. So we got all our stuff together. We had two laptop computers and our desktop computer.”

    Dr. Pin @ ~15:45 — Illustrates competitive intensity and scarcity of high-demand tournament tickets; demonstrates scale of effort required by dedicated participants

  • “I just decided in the past couple weeks that I hate EMs. Why not?”

    Christopher Franchi @ ~22:15 — Comedic but reveals frustration with electromechanical machine maintenance challenges vs. modern solid-state reliability

  • “I decided that I fucking love that game. It's a great game. The Batman 66 is just, it's just amazing and Lyman just fucking kills me.”

    Christopher Franchi @ ~24:00 — Positive endorsement of Batman 66 pinball and acknowledgment of Lyman Sheets' rule design quality

  • “Saturday Night Live Pinball... It's got decades of material. It's one theme, but it has multiple different genres within that theme, and it's a pinball machine that could have a ton of humor, which I think is something that's lacking from a lot of machines.”

    Christian Weiss @ ~35:20 — Articulates design philosophy preference for humor and variety in themes; credits Jeff Teolis podcast discussion as inspiration

  • “The licensing, it's a licensing nightmare.”

    Ed Vanderby @ ~38:30 — Identifies fundamental barrier to SNL pinball licensing actors/actresses across decades of material

  • “Battlestar Galactica. I was a big fan of Battlestar Galactica when I was a kid... it's got its own big following, and I just kind of think that that could have some fun things in it.”

Entities

Christopher FranchipersonEd VanderbypersonChristian WeisspersonLyman SheetspersonBear Naked LadiespersonJeff ParsonspersonJeff Teolisperson

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: The Super Awesome Pinball Show introducing new 'Super Awesome Top Four' segment format to differentiate from standard top-five/top-three discussions

    high · Hosts explicitly discuss format choice as deliberate differentiation; extended discussion of dream pinball themes as first segment using new format

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Recognition that podcast community represents small subset of broader pinball enthusiast base; tension between media personality prominence and actual population reach

    high · Ed Vanderby estimates 90% of Texas Pinball Festival 8,000-10,000 attendees would not recognize podcast personalities; notes podcast world is 'little subset' like tournament players

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Pinberg tournament represents extreme scarcity and competitive ticketing; sophisticated pre-planned strategies required

    high · Dr. Pin describes multi-device ticket acquisition strategy, 5-second sellout pattern, black screen of death bug, and IT-optimized F5 refresh timing at noon

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Humor and variety in theme design strongly valued; Attack from Mars and Medieval Madness cited as exemplars due to one-liners and replayability

    high · Christian Weiss explicitly states humor is 'lacking from a lot of machines' and identifies SNL as ideal theme due to decades of comedic material and multi-genre potential

  • ?

    event_signal: Texas Pinball Festival 2020 scheduled for March with significant vendor recruitment and production planning underway

    high · Ed Vanderby reports ongoing vendor/exhibitor signups, last T-shirt order pending, and multiple hosts producing TPF-specific swag (stickers, buttons, shirts, Mardi Gras cups)

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.430

0:00
It's Bear Naked Ladies. Well, hello, folks. Ed Robertson here from Bear Naked Ladies. If you can hear my voice, it's because you're listening to the super awesome pinball show, and you do so at your own peril. You see, I know the people that make this show. They are rap scallions, scallywags, ne'er-do-wells. So continue listening, but don't say I didn't warn you.
0:30
Tune in to the Loser Kid Pinball Players Podcast I know I'm drunk The Splats The following is an AdHat Radio Production And now, ladies and gentlemen Time for the show Sit down Kick your feet up, grab a cold one, and get ready for...
1:09
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 Vanderby! And Dr. Pin himself, Christian Weiss! Sponsored by Chicago Gaming Company, the home of your favorite top-quality pinball remakes like Medieval Madness, Monster Bash, and more. Visit ChicagoGaming.com. And by Cointaker, distributors of new in-box pinball machines, mods, accessories, and frangy pinball wear. That's Cointaker.com. Also by BackAlleyCreations.com, creators of the most badass pinball mods, black pearl pinballs, and the easy slide playfield support bracket set. That's BackAlleyCreations.com. I like Frangie. I like Frangie. I like Frangie. He's a great guy. How do you like that? Thanks.
1:58
Guys, I want to play something for you. Listen to this. The Super Awesome Pinball Show with Christopher Franchi. Love this show. Audio drops all over the place, but I love it. We just don't know who it is. And I like Franchi. He's a great guy. By the way, all three of these guys on the Super Awesome Pinball Show do a fantastic job, especially with the interviews. They ask great questions. That was Mr. Jeff Parsons from the Pinball Players Podcast, loving the Super Awesome Pinball Show. What do you think of that? Well, we love ourselves some Jeff Parsons in the Pinball Players Podcast. He's amazing, too. And Joe. And Joe Lemire. Yep, love those guys. So thanks for the kudos. Yeah, we're getting a lot, actually. Those guys are.

Ed Vanderby @ ~30:15 — Dream theme discussion; represents IP with existing fan base but unclear modern licensing status

  • “If you liked the first one, you should watch the second one. It was really, really good. We didn't think it would be, and we started the DVDs, and we just powered through all of them. It was great.”

    Dr. Pin @ ~31:50 — Personal entertainment recommendation; context for Battlestar Galactica discussion

    • Jeff Patterson
    person
    Texas Pinball Festivalevent
    Pinbergevent
    Stern Pinballcompany
    Jersey Jack Pinballcompany
    Chicago Gaming Companycompany
    Cointakercompany
    Back Alley Creationscompany
    Marco Specialtiescompany
    Pinball Lifecompany
    The Super Awesome Pinball Showproduct
    Jawsgame
    Batman Forevergame
    Batman 66game
    Captain Fantasticgame
    Heavy Metalproduct
  • ?

    licensing_signal: Jaws licensing situation recently changed enabling action figure production; potential pathway to pinball adaptation now open

    medium · Christopher Franchi discovered at Toy Fair that Roy Scheider and Robert Shaw likenesses licensed for action figures; infers similar licensing now possible for pinball; notes Richard Dreyfuss (Hooper actor) remains unavailable

  • ?

    community_signal: Christopher Franchi produced custom Jaws translights for Texas Pinball Festival, indicating continued engagement with game artwork and design

    high · Franchi created two translight variants: 10 on 3/16" plexiglass 'Super LE' and 75 standard Stern-type; spent weeks tweaking colors and production

  • ?

    announcement: Stern Pinball announced Heavy Metal as upcoming pinball theme

    high · Ed Vanderby states 'Stern just announced it, the heavy metal' in context of discussing dream themes that became reality

  • ?

    product_concern: Operator-era field repairs on location machines involved extensive improvisation and mismatched components; Batman Forever restoration reveals zip-tied coils, wrong coil replacements, spliced wires

    high · Ed Vanderby performing full restoration of Batman Forever; describes need for 'Pinball Hacks' documentation website to capture widespread operator repair patterns

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Jersey Jack Pinball reportedly moving to Elk Grove, Illinois (home of Stern Pinball)

    low · Presented as upcoming episode topic without clear source confirmation; unusually significant claim to be unconfirmed

    • 2:37
    That is still under the impression that we're the only podcast in existence. No, you need to listen to them, Ed. They're hilarious. Okay. Not necessarily hilarious. Jeff Parsons has had this podcast for a while, and he does, you know, top five lists and talks about playing the game, the competitive side of pinball. When he covers news and things like that, it's always awesome, and it's well-produced as well. Ed's so on top of his podcast game that when I say something about another podcast, his usual response is, well, no one listens to them anyway, so it doesn't matter.
    3:10
    So here's the thing, and I say this lovely, and I'm not trying to be a jerk, but I look at things from the perspective of the amount of people that come to the Texas Pinball Festival because that's where I truly get the most of my pinball people interaction and just leading up to it. And I got so many irons in the fire, and I'm always getting emails. So the pinball podcaster world is a little subset of the pinball community, just like the tournament player, people that love tournaments. They're just a little subset. So in the grand scheme of things, and I don't mean this to offend people, but I was talking to Jeff Patterson the other day about this, and I said, you know, if we stood at the door as the 8,000 to 10,000 people came rolling through the doors at TPF, and I said, Do you know who Jeff Keeles is? Do you know who even Christopher Franchi or Ed Vandervan? Do you know who any of these people are? They're going to say, you know, a small percentage of them are going to know who we are. But the overwhelming 90% of the people at the Texas Pinball Festival, they just have no idea. There's no question that's true. I mean, people who listen to pinball podcasts at Baseline are hardcore pinheads. Sure, and that's great. And I'm very happy and proud of our little podcasts that we're doing and stuff. But even I myself, I just don't listen to podcasts unless maybe I'm going on a trip somewhere. but then I'm going to listen to Gilbert Godfrey or somebody like that. I can listen to a pinball podcast. And so I don't know who a lot of these people are now. I do know who Jeff Teal is because I met him, and he's a great guy. And I've met some of the other people that do do the podcast. But, yeah, just being a whole new school. Because they all call you for free passes. Yeah, that's true, too. Yeah, that's true. I recognize a lot of the names. Yeah. Well, listen, you're missing out. You need to listen to that show. And I'll introduce you to Jeff Parsons this year. Okay. Hello, Legion of the Silver Ball, and welcome to another action-packed episode of the Super Awesome Pinball Show, Season 1, Episode 5. Boys, number 5 is my favorite number, so I'm hoping this is an awesome show, and it usually is. So why should this one be any different? How are you guys doing? I'm doing great. 5 is also one of my favorite numbers. That was the number on the Mach 5 from Speed Racer. I love the number 5. Yes, I'm also doing great. Number 5 isn't special to me, but because it's special to you guys, this is going to be a good episode. Right on. Well, here's why it's going to be a good episode. Coming up on this week's show, you guys are going to find out how you can win tickets and a hotel to the Texas Pinball Festival free of charge. But you must have a credit card for incidentals. And in an unprecedented move, Jersey Jack picks up stakes and moves Jersey Jack Pinball to where else but Elk Grove, Illinois, the home of Stern Pinball. And on this episode of our past few weeks in pinball, because I know I've got a lot to talk about, we are going to discuss our top four dream teams. Why top four? Because everyone does a top five or a top three, and damn it, we're going to be different. We're going to talk about pinball on the news. We've got an interview with the Australian himself, Damien Sledgehammer-Harton from Haggis Pinball. Stop. Stop it. And we're going to have the first interview with your hosts for the 2020 Twippy Awards, as well as Mr. Twippy himself, Jeff Patterson. We're going to have an update on Barlow's Pinpet Shelter Drive, as well as another shameless plug for... I mean an update from Ed on the Texas Pinball Festival for March 2020. Yes, we do. And since it's been a while since we've had an episode and the show's closing in so quickly, I've got a ton of stuff to talk about. Nice. Well, we're going to save the TPF stuff for the end, but we're going to talk about our stuff now.
    6:33
    Our last few weeks of pinball. Daytime. All right, Ed, your weeks in pinball, what have you been up to? Well, as the clock ticks away, clearly I've been working on mostly TPF stuff, still signing up vendors and exhibitors and answering questions, and I'm about ready to order our last T-shirt order for the show. But I'll talk mostly about TPF stuff towards the end. The other thing I've been doing, and I think I was just starting this, but I've been working on a Batman Forever pinball machine to go with my Data East Batman at the show. and I'm telling you, I'm doing like almost a full-on restore. The cabinet, the play field, I've torn the play field down to just bare wood and I've got it mostly reassembled now. The interesting thing, and I messaged you all during the week about pinball hacks and if there's not one already, someone needs to start something like the pinball hacks of Walmart where people can just post pictures of some of the crazy hacks that they find because this Batman Forever has had some of the craziest hacks on the backside of it to make it work. Things like coils are just zip-tied in place. They don't have coil stops to crazy wires spliced in and running around the play field. And the game worked, surprisingly, and you could tell it was an operated game its whole life. And when games are on location, a lot of times the operators, they just do whatever they can to make the game work. So they probably band it out. Yeah, a lot of the coils were the wrong coils. I mean, I'm telling you, half the coils on the play field were the wrong coils for whatever that mechanism was. It's just whenever that coil burned up or the operator needed to replace it, he would just stick whatever he had in that spot as long as it fit. Let's not give anybody else the idea. We're going to start up our website soon, and when we do that, we'll have a little offshoot on there called Pinball Hacks, and people can post pictures. I took some, too, and maybe we'll start it here. After the show, I'll post a little gallery or something on our Facebook page and dump a bunch of pictures in there and people can join in. But it's been really interesting working on this Sega game. You know, Pinball Life has been a blessing. They've had so many parts that I've needed. So has Marco Specialties. I've spent more money. I think I've spent more money on parts with Marco Specialties and Pinball Life than I did buying the game in the first place. Just putting it back together. But, yeah, that's pretty much been my last, what has it been, two, three weeks, four weeks? About three, yeah. And then, of course, as much time as I'm spending, Kim is in her new home office, you know, working away on floor plans and registrations. And, you know, she's working her ass off, too. So from here on out, it's going to be crunch time between now and TPF. It's pretty much going to consume everything. Tell her I want to be right in the middle of the whole floor with a spotlight. The spotlight should go on top of me. Yeah, we can do that. I'm not going to, but we can do that. We could, but we're not. So, Dr. Penn. Doctor, doctor, give me the news. What have you been doing? All right, so I did a couple more, a couple fixes on my machines as well. I had not anything near to what you're doing, but my IJ gun stopped working in my pinball adventure, so I had to go in there and solder a wire back to the gun, which is a pretty quick fix. My spinner on my stars was a little bit wonky. The spinner piece kind of was pushing out towards the front of the machine instead of laying completely vertical, and that was a bit of a pain in the butt to fix. I don't know if there's a really easy way to fix that, But I've bent a couple of things and probably messed up a little bit too much.
    9:57
    I know it's working. It's not quite Ron Hallett-level spinners, but it does the job. The left spinner, you can rip it. It goes like crazy. The right spinner turns a couple of times, so I need to tweak it. But that was my fix for the week, and then I cleaned and waxed all my machines. The big thing that happened this week, and I don't know if you guys were involved in this at all. I don't think so because you're not really competitive players. But the Pinberg sale was this week. So on Saturday, yesterday, actually, we got up and we had to try to get tickets for Pinnberg, which there are a thousand tickets to this thing. Biggest tournament in the world. And it's a ton of fun. We did it for the first time, the actual tournament last year and loved it. But man, you wake up the morning of the ticket sales and it's like Christmas morning in a bad way where you just have that, like, you know, those butterflies in your stomach and you're nervous you're not going to actually get in. These things sell out in five seconds or less every single year. So we got all our stuff together. We had two laptop computers and our desktop computer. And you pretty much have to just sit there and hit refresh on the screen until about noon. And when noon hits, that's when the tickets go live. And you just have to get lucky that that one time you hit refresh, you're going to get the option to buy tickets. And then when you see that, you have to click the number of tickets you want and then put them in your cart very rapidly. Otherwise, you're out. And fortunately, we had a few people that were on a conference call. we're all able to jump in and get them. So it was a huge relief. We got tickets. We're going this year. We're totally stoked. But it all paid off in the end, all the stress, all the worry. We had our girls out on the couch. We gave them food, and we turned on a movie, and we said under penalty of losing dessert tonight, you cannot bug us for the next 10 minutes.
    11:38
    But, yeah, we were able to get Jeff Parsons. We spoke about him earlier. We were able to hook him up with some tickets and a few other good friends. So we were very happy about that. Did you get the black screen of death? No, I don't know what that was. You would put that in the notes. I wasn't sure what you were referencing there. Apparently with buying Pindberg tickets, when you kept on hitting refresh, some people were getting a black screen of death in there somewhere randomly. But a lot of people have said the trick to getting a ticket is to wait until 12.15, and then for some reason, like if you put tickets in a cart, it waits 15 minutes for you to complete your order, and if you fuck something up, they go back. They're available again. but a lot of people got their tickets at 12.15 when everyone else had already given up. Yeah, so if you put them in and you ultimately don't set it all up in 15 minutes, they just go back to the general public. But if you put more tickets than you want into your cart and then you release them, which I think happens at about 15 minutes, those are accessible as well. So if you don't get in at noon exactly, you can always get a second chance. And a buddy of mine is a pretty high-up guy in a company that has a big IT department, So he actually went to the IT department to ask them what he could do to improve his chances. And their tips, and I'm going to give this out to the community, was that you need to hit F5 right at noon. So the webpage actually refreshes right when you hit F5. And you don't want to try and do it early. You want to do it right at noon, and that's your best shot at getting tickets. I don't know how that all works, but all of this information will be real handy in a year. That's right. I'm hoping everyone forgets that because I'm going to use that next year. There you go.
    13:14
    Mr. Faranchi, what have you been doing? Oh, man. The past couple of weeks have been jawsified. I've just been working on jaws, getting the – there's two different translights that I'm doing for TPF. One's just, you know, your basic, typical stern-type translight, and the other one is on a 316th plexiglass. And it's a lot – it looks just like a back glass, though it's not glass. It's Plexiglas, but, yeah, it's a lot mighty sharper. But there's only going to be 10 of those. So that's the Super LE. Nice. Jaws, Translight, and then there's going to be 75 of the basic model. But we've been just tweaking colors and different things to get everything dialed in, and that's where it is right now. So everything is being produced. So that's off my back. And then I also decided in the past couple weeks that I hate EMs. Why not? Son of a bitch. Well, you know, I had the star rollover problem with my Captain Fantastic, and I finally got that fixed with those little files, little things, roared in. God, you know, I'll never get his freaking name right. Is it Rodden? Rodden. God damn it. Sorry, Rodden. Anyway, he suggested these files and they worked perfectly. I went right in there and got it all. And now the fucking flipper. There's two flippers on the left side and one on the right on Captain Fantastic and the upper one on the left. I shoot it and it just stays up. And then if I smack the button, it'll kind of wiggle back down. But it's just, I don't know what's wrong with it. I'm not savvy with a lot of this stuff. If I can't look at it and go, oh, the spring's not attached or whatever, if it just looks normal, then I have no clue. So I've got to call my professional Clay Harrell to come out and fix it for me. So it's just, what a nightmare. You know, with all the new games and they never have a problem with it at all, this thing has just been driving me frigging nuts. But let's see, other than that, this weekend I fired up my entire fleet of pinball machines for the first time in a long time. Usually I'll just turn one on and play it and then shut it back off. but I just turned them all on. This was yesterday and I played all of them and the last one that I played was Batman and I kept playing it and I decided that I fucking love that game. It's a great game. The Batman 66 is just, it's just amazing and Lyman just fucking kills me because like, I had the ball go down the left lane and he just added a Joker lap in there like just to burn you. It's so perfect. But anyway, so that and I've been busy also putting together swag. Super awesome pinball show swag for TPF. nice what do you have what kind of what kind of swag we're talking well we've got stickers and we've got buttons and we're going to have some shirts and we're going to have i think i'm i talked to ed about this earlier i think i'm going to get some party cups these like plastic cups they're called mardi gras cups and they're like a 17 16 ounce 17 ounce 20 ounce somewhere around there uh plastic cup and you can print on it so i'm just like well hell everyone's going to have beers and shit. Like, I've been to TPF. It's, you know, the party show. So, I figured, let's, you know, knock off a couple hundred party cups and pass them out. So, we're going to have that. So, you're going to want to come and see us because we're going to have... I know I have a lot of this shit at my table and you know, you guys, whatever, I'll just give you a handful of crap and you go pass it out or whatever. So, flag us down and get some free shit. And that's been about it for my weeks in pinball. Nice. Very familiar with the Mardi Gras Cup. I went to school in Tulane in New Orleans, and so we used to catch those all the time. We had our U-Haul truck on the side of the parade route with, you know, 10 kegs on either side and, you know, prime real estate for catching bees and cups. So we'd go throw them out from Franchi's booth Mardi Gras style. There you go. Yeah. Ooh, maybe we should get some beads too. There you go. Who knows? And now it's time for our new segment, the super awesome top four, and we're kicking it off this week with our favorite top four dream themes. All right, boys, you ready to discuss some dream themes? Let's do it. I've got mine ready. Ed, why don't you go first? We're going to start with number four, and we'll go all the way around, and then we'll go to three and go all the way around, right up to number one. So I'll tell you that obviously this gets talked about a lot. Everybody talks about what they think would make a great theme for a pinball machine, and so everybody has their favorites. I don't know if I would call these dream themes for me, but I think they're themes that I think would do well. One of them was actually, Stern just announced it, the heavy metal. I've always thought that heavy metal would make a great theme. Not the magazine. Of course, a lot of people have never seen the movie. I love the heavy metal movie with the Sammy Hagar soundtrack. I always thought that that would make an awesome theme for a pinball. But since that one's already been, since heavy metal's already been announced, I've got four other ones. a theme I think would do well. And it kind of is Star Wars-y, but what about Battlestar Galactica? I was a big fan of Battlestar Galactica when I was a kid. I know that's kind of a Star Wars knockoff type of show, but it's got its own big following, and I just kind of think that that could have some fun things in it. Bears beats Battlestar Galactica. Have you seen both versions, the most recent and the older one? No, I just, of course, I'm a kid of the 70s, so I just remember the original Battlestar Galactica. And I do know they made a reboot, or was it a continuation? I don't even know. It was a reboot, and, man, it was good. If you liked the first one, you should watch the second one. It was really, really good. We didn't think it would be, and we started the DVDs, and we just powered through all of them. It was great. But there's no Martin Landau in the second one. Boo. I know. Who's the puppy? I heard a puppy. That's Winnie. She just got up. Winnie the puppy. Yep, she's the bassin' hound. I like that. I think that would be good. No, don't go to the next one. We're going one at a time. We're going around. Okay. I mean, you kind of screwed up because you didn't put them in order, so that kind of doesn't have the big payoff, but mine and Christian's will. Okay. I'll try and make it up. Y'all are better prepared than I was. This is your bit, Ed. Come on. This is your bit. Anyway, okay, Christian, you're next. All right, let's see here. Number four on my list, I have a theme that was not initially mine. This was a dream theme that every single podcast has had this discussion, and I think this discussion was on Jeff Teolis' podcast at some point. He had brought up Saturday Night Live Pinball, and I thought that was a really freaking great idea because it's got decades of material. It's one theme, but it has multiple different genres within that theme, and it's a pinball machine that could have a ton of humor, which I think is something that's lacking from a lot of machines. You know, Attack from Mars, Medieval Madness are two of the best because they're funny. There's a lot of one-liners in there, and they don't get tired, and I think SNL would have a ton of material to draw from there. So that's my number four. That is a dream theme because the problem with that is if you didn't just do a particular cast, getting the rights to all of those actors and actresses over the years would cost a megaton. Exactly. Definitely a dream theme. The licensing, it's a licensing nightmare. Yeah. Well, my number four, and this has only recently been added because I discovered this weekend, actually, that the licensing situation for this particular property has changed. And I will say that this weekend is Toy Fair in New York. That's when they debut all the new toys and stuff, and I'm always hovering over these action figure websites because I love this shit. And lo and behold, somebody's making Jaws action figures. So apparently now, at least they're making Brody and Quint. So Roy Scheider and Robert Shaw are available for the license. I don't know. I can't see why they wouldn't have done Hooper because it's only one more. Well, let's see how the first two go, and then we'll sell the third one. He must not be – I heard he was difficult to deal with. So Hooper doesn't count, but we can just turn him sideways and put his hair in his face or something. And especially because I just did this trans light, so I'm back into it now. So I want to do a Jaws theme. Let me ask you this, Chris. This is a little bit of a side conversation, so you can edit this out if you want. But why would an actor license their likeness for an action figure, but not for a pinball machine that could potentially be making a ton of money? I would think a run of pinball machines would make more money than action figures would. Well, that's just it. Basically, this is something that has now just come to light. I don't think the situation is where you can do action figures, but you can't do pinball. I think the pinball option would be open now because this is a new development. But like I said, there's no Hooper. So, yeah, and I heard he was, I forget, Richard Dreyfuss. I heard he was a real prick. I've never met him, but I don't know. Wants to distance himself from it. Like, who would, well, like, if you were a part of Jaws, would you want to be like, I don't want people thinking about me and Jaws anymore? Fuck no. I'd wear that on my sleeve. I'd have fucking Jaws underwear walking around. Yeah, I was in Jaws. R.K. Ed, what's your number three? Or it's like another one at random. I put the last three kind of in order. So my next one, I had to cross one off the list because one of our guests, when we were talking to him about it through that theme out there. So what do you all think about the Rocky Horror Picture Show? I love it. Yeah, I like that too. Love it, love it, love it. Damn it. You know, I would have put that on my list. I forgot about that one. I talked about it with somebody else. Well, let me say this. I talked about it with a big pinball insider person. And I said, hey, I got an idea for a theme. and I said, Rocky Horror Picture Show, and I'm not even going to say what their response was, but it was basically no, and I think maybe the Frankenfurter character scared them a little bit. It would be, you're not going to end up in any Chuck E. Cheese's with that game, so it would definitely be an adult. There's no pinball in Chuck E. Cheese anyway. Well, you know what I mean.
    22:53
    Families aren't going to buy it. That's going to be one of those titles that it's going to have a very niche marketing type group. And I think it could be done. I mean, you know, depending on the elements that you put in it, especially with the music. I mean, I think the music and the time warp and that kind of stuff, it could be a fun game. If you handled it like Spooky is with Rick and Morty, you just limited the number, you didn't do some big stern blowout of 8 billion games, and you just kept it to a low number, I think it'd be fine. I could see that being like a Primus run, where you just do a very limited focus run. All right, Christian? All right, my number three. Let's see. I'm going to have this split because I couldn't decide on my third choice. It's going to either be The Legend of Zelda, because I think that would be a hugely popular game. I know, it's NewsFest. I know, but kids, we want to get kids into pinball, man, and this is the best way to do it. Do they still play Zelda? Because Zelda's been around for a billion years. My daughter loves Zelda. That's my point, man. It's been around for years in multiple different iterations, pins, and I think it would be really popular with adults and with kids. And then my kind of equal theme for this would be Princess Bride, the pin. Now, that's also probably a groaner, but I do think that has a huge following, and the call-outs would be great, and I think you could do a ton with the World Under Glass. So I think that would be a fun pin, too.
    24:19
    That's one of our favorite movies is Princess Bride. There you go. It has a lot of great one-liners, you know, the whole inconceivable, and my name is Hugo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to die.
    24:31
    So yeah, I think you could get a ton of people. You could do it. Sure. Okay, so Angie, what's your number three? Funko pop the pin. Here it comes. All right. My number three, love this movie. Loved it as a comic book prior to it being a movie. It's a great period property. It's fun. It's family. It's the Rocketeer. Oh, I love that movie. Yeah, it was a great comic book. One of my favorite artists two Dave Stevens unfortunately died of something horrible like pancreatic cancer or something way too young, but he was amazing. And I just love that character. I love that time, like that 1930s, you know, the Bulldog Cafe. I could see that little toy, you know, being a, the Bulldog Cafe being a toy in the game. And you got the plane, the Rocketeer guy, then you got the plane racing. There's so many different things. The Nazis and the big goofy-looking bad guy. There's so much fun stuff. And there's even more in the comic books. I think they make a fantastic pinball machine. Did the comic book come out first or did the movie come out first? The comic book was out for probably 20 years before they made a movie. So that was an older title. Because I remember the movie and then I remember Marvel or one of the comics, they kind of came out with a series pretty much after the movie did because it was now popular again.
    25:47
    I'm sorry. It was always Dark Horse. Dark Horse Comics made it. 20 years is maybe too long. I think it started in the mid-80s, right? Right around there. And, yeah, that movie was like mid-90s, wasn't it? Or maybe a little bit later, so I don't know. But, yeah, I think that would be a fantastic game. I've seen the movie. I liked it. I haven't thought about it since, though, so I'd have to re-watch it to kind of see the potential for it. Anything with speed always seems to be able to work, if you imagine the ball is a plane, or the ball is the Rocketeer himself or whatever. I'm kind of surprised they haven't rebooted that movie.
    26:26
    They're talking about it. Actually, there's a kids cartoon now. It's a female. It's a little girl. I don't know if it's called the Rocketeer or something kind of a play off of that word. I don't remember now. It might be just the Rocketeer or something added to it. But I think it's a Disney... Because Disney owns it. They bought it to make the movie. Disney owns everything. Yeah, so they own it. They have a little cartoon. I saw it on Netflix, but something. I don't know. Whatever. Moving on. All right. My number two. So my number two is a theme that was originally, I know it was a book. I know it was very popular back in the 80s when I was in high school. Everybody seemed to be reading this book. And they did make it into a movie. And, of course, I'm not a reader. I didn't read a lot of books. But I did see the movie. So Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Yeah, that's a good one. I thought it would be a good theme to a pinball machine. It can have all the little aspects of it. I thought it was a funny movie, and I thought that would make a good theme for a pinball machine. I think you're right. I actually think that there's a homebrew that somebody did of that, although I might be making that up, but I'm pretty sure I've seen a homebrew of that. Inconceivable. I wish there was. I didn't see that movie. I didn't read the book. I do know that it has a big following, but other than that, I really can't say much. I would say that I probably agree, I think, because of the amount of the following and what little I do know about it that would work. Sure. Christian? All right, my next two are going to be pretty obvious choices, but these are my personal. You don't have another A and B, do you? No, I don't, but it's going to be probably the two most requested themes out there. So my number two is Goonies. I've got to go with it, even though Cam and Cal shot me down on the last episode. It's got so much freaking potential. So it would be a licensing headache, but it would be such a great pin. Universally loved theme, fantastic one-liners. Fratellis are great villains. Booby traps as mechs. You can have a giant skull with ball locks, CSI style. Chunk on a spring doing the truffle shuffling. You need so many different opportunities for greatness in this pin. And I could talk about this one forever. Oh, my God, that's hilarious. Could you do the gold coins coming out like a safe cracker? Yeah, there you go. That's a great idea. Goody grass. I got to hear, hey, you guys in there somewhere. There's so much good stuff in that. Yeah. All right, my number two. I actually, I talked, I can't say to who, but I talked to a big pinball designer about this because we were talking dream teams, and I only spit one out, and it was this one. And he thought it was an amazing idea. And he started going. He started riffing, and I was riffing, and we're going back and forth. And, like, at the end of the day, it was like, this game has to be made. Now, open up your minds. Oh, boy. Let me say this. Let me say this first. This property is multigenerational. Kids know it that are five years old, and adults know it who are 75 years old. I know what you're going to say. Monsters, too. Monsters. Monster cereal. Yep. Monster cereal. And the thing that the pinball designer liked most about it was that it was completely open. Like you kind of have this sort of a spooky theme, but there's no history. There's characters, but they have nothing behind them other than they just pitch serials. So you could make up whatever you wanted. And it's such a great opportunity to work with something familiar, but also be creative at the same time. And I love those characters. I grew up with those characters, so I just think it would be a fantastic game. Now, I've heard you say this in other podcasts, Chris. So tell me what you think would go into a game like that. Like what do you see under the glass on the plate field? Well, I see a lot of Rue Goldberg kind of stuff, like the Pee Wee Herman breakfast machine, but different themes, because you've got a Dracula theme, so you've got graveyards and castles, stuff like that. You've got a Frankenstein theme, so you've got the electric equipment and the laboratory downstairs and chemicals and all that kind of business. Booberry is just a ghost, so like whatever, but he was kind of the one that just bounced back and forth off of Frankenberry and Count Chocula anyway. And then if you wanted, you could do rule updates with like Brute Brute and Yummy Mummy.
    30:42
    Well, there was a werewolf one too, wasn't there? That's for Brute. Yeah, that's for Brute. Okay. And I do think that would be a fun theme. You would have to detach it from the thought that it's a cereal. And if you could almost like, so I'm thinking like Hotel Transylvania for some reason, but if you actually could take those characters and give them their own world that wasn't about cereal, I think that could make a good theme or a good kid show or a good, you know, whatever. Yeah, that's exactly what I mean. And that's what the pinball designer meant was that it's just wide open. You know, you kind of have a bit of a ballpark to play in, but, you know, you can do whatever you want from there. So, yeah, I think it would be fantastic. All right. All right, number one. You ready for my number one? It's a good one. This is a theme that Sega, I'm sorry, not Sega, but Data East was going to do, and they did make. I know what it is. Yeah, we know what it is. It's not Mad Magazine. No, it's not. That's not what you're going for. I know that's what it's a King Kong. Oh, nice. I think King Kong would be a great pinball machine. And especially if you just look at the artwork on the Data East game in the pinball database website, it's gorgeous. I mean, King Kong is one of those things that it's in the public domain right now. Now, you couldn't use, like, the movie properties, but just the character in and of itself, King Kong, it's in the public domain. So you could make a new pinball machine as long as you didn't use any of the artwork or movie clips from even the 1936 movie or, you know, the 76 movie or the current one. If you had all brand-new original artwork and you had, you know, new video or new, you know, you could do it. And there's a lot of elements that can be done in that game. Godzilla gets a ton of love, right? Everyone's talking about Godzilla as a theme, but King Kong is out there in the public eye as well, and I think has a lot of people who love that theme. And King Kong totally kicked Godzilla's ass in the movie. That's right. Are you guys aware that the next Godzilla movie is Godzilla vs. King Kong? Oh, no shit. Cool. It is, yeah. So, yeah, I mean, show King Kong some love. He had a prototype game, but he never actually made it to full production. And if it's out in the public domain, that's freaking awesome. I mean, that's just... If Stern were smart, they'd make their Godzilla machine, then they'd make a Kong machine, and then they would be able to talk to each other with the Internet connectivity. You put them next to each other, and you have battles. Dude. Now, that would be kind of cool. That's a good idea. That's a really good idea. A Kong machine versus a Godzilla machine. That would be neat. You're welcome, Stern. Don't say that again. That's right.
    33:14
    All right, Tristan. All right. So here's the big one. Obviously, I think most people know that this is coming, but Harry Potter. You've got to do a Harry Potter machine, and it's been asked for for years. I know, groan, groan. No, no, no. It's fine. It would be a huge thing. It's just that I should have prefaced this with minus the obvious choices.
    33:34
    Yeah, correct. Well, you asked for Dream Theme, so this is definitely my dream pinball machine. Willy Wonka would have been on this list, but I got that one, and hopefully at some point we'll get Harry Potter. I just think there's too much stuff, though, for one game. I think you'd have to do his theories. Yeah. I'll admit that my daughters were very much into Harry Potter when those movies came out, and I took them to see every single one of them, and I did enjoy them. I'm not a big Harry Potter fan, but the movies and the characters, you're right. Everything they could do with the magic and the possibilities are in list with the Harry Potter thing. Definitely. All right, and my number one, Barlow.
    34:10
    Barlow the Pin. No, not Barlow. That would be awesome, but just for me. No, again, watch and say again. If it's not obvious by now, my list was very selfish. It wasn't like, I think these would sell a million. They're just stuff that I think would be fun and I'd like to have. And my top choice is Betty Page. I can see you going for that one. Betty Page. It would be another retro, like a 50s, even more 50s and more clean, I think, than like the Beatles type artwork. But in the same vein, because I would, of course, when I think of my dream teams, I don't think someone else is going to make them. I'm thinking I'm going to do the art. So, you know, I would definitely do like an old electromagnetic style, you know, play field where there's like, you know, portions of wood showing through the art and stuff like that. Very simple design, very classic. Line drawings on the play field instead of like this full color stuff that we have now. You know, much more old style. But I love Betty Page, and I think she'd make a great pen. And the great thing about Betty Page is that it's not like, you know, someone who wouldn't be familiar with her would think like, oh, it's an old pinup, you know, it's easy man stuff. There's probably more women out there that idolize Betty Page than men. So it's very cross-gender, you know, I think. And I think she might be, you know, she might be a little bit of a symbol, kind of like Cher is, to some of the different communities. So all in all, I just think it appeals to everybody more than you would think, and I think it would make a great pin. Cool, man. I don't really have a comment on that. I just trying to envision on a MediPage machine what kind of toys or you know what would it be It kind of like the Mad Magazine thing So you know Mad Magazine what is a Mad Magazine pinball And, you know, Joe Kamikawa brought up that point. So what would a Betty Page pinball machine? There's no doubt that the art could be fantastic, but beyond that, what would it do? Well, you'd have to come up with something, you know, like whether you wanted to do like sort of a diner, you know, thing. Something retro, a diner, a burlesque club sort of a thing maybe. I don't know that it has to. If you just stuck with Betty and you didn't have a lot of the toys that you did on the play field were just like little figures of her in different scenarios because she did a lot of stuff like that, like Halloween photos and Christmas photos and stuff like that. So if you just had sort of thematic areas, I don't know. You're kind of talking me out of it now. you could definitely re-theme an older game and just have, you know, you don't necessarily need toys and mechs and stuff like that, as long as the game is thank you Christian, let's bring it back to where I was simple make it an EM god damn it, yeah, I was going to say UV a simple game where you just got a big splash picture of her up the middle with her name real big and then like little Betty heads or something like, you know, around the outside and that's really it, you know, you don't You don't go overboard with different areas and different departments and different themes and stuff like that. It's just Betty Page. I like it. All right. Wow. Okay. There you go. There's the top four from each of us. That's 12. That's 12 titles that we've given the answers to all these manufacturers. So I'm sure we'll see all of these titles in the near future. I asked my family what their dream themes were. So my oldest daughter said Harry Potter Jumanji, which I think would be cool, and just a generic candy store game. And then my wife said Wonder Woman and Harry Potter were hers. And then my youngest said any Nintendo property would be good. And then Sonic the Hedgehog. We had just seen the movie, so I think she's got that kind of fresh in her mind. Speaking of Wonder Woman, did you see the re-themed Wonder Woman at Chicago Expo? Did you not go to Chicago Expo? No, we didn't go to Expo. Oh, okay. We know Julie Dorsers, who owns that game. She actually created that. Yeah, it was really well done. It's unbelievable. It's such a cool game. It flips really well. I got a chance to play it at Allentown last year. And my wife actually made a trophy, which Julie won, that had Wonder Woman on it. And she put that now as her topper for the game. So it's pretty cool. That's it for the top four. And now it's time for Pinball in the News. And now, Pinball in the News, with your super awesome eyewitness news crew.
    38:32
    Rick and Morty crushing it. Film at 11. Discussion now. Games are stripping out. And they did a streaming. They did a live streaming. Did you guys see that? I watched it. I saw a little bit of it, yep. I turned in for just a little while. But it's hard for me to watch the streams because, you know, the screen's so small and it's hard for me to track the ball. But, yes. Are you trying to watch it on a phone? No. Well, I'm not watching it on my big, you know, maybe that's what I should do is watch it on my big, giant TV. That might help. Yeah, that would definitely help. What were your thoughts, Chris? Did you like it? Did you think it was a game you'd want to play? Yeah, I know. Yeah, I thought it was really fun. Like, again, I'm not a big deep rules guy, and that's not to say that the rules aren't deep. I just wasn't paying that much attention to that part. But, you know, the clips and the call-outs and all that stuff, and just the game itself looked really fun. Yeah, I'm really anxious to play it. I don't know if I'll get a chance because they're only bringing one to TPF. But hopefully, you know what, the after-hours thing, we'll probably be able to weasel in on that. There you go. Yeah, I thought it looked cool. Well, and the best thing about, I don't know if you guys picked this up when you were there, but I was talking to the guys when they were doing the stream, and I don't know if it was Jack Danger or somebody else there, somebody said my name, and Charlie goes, oh, Franchi, is he here? We love Franchi. I got to talk to him about something. Ooh. You know what that means. So have you heard from him? Have you reached him? No. I sent him a text and gave him my phone number, but I've been pretty busy over the weekend. Right. because I've got some shitty news, but we'll leave that out of here. Yeah, so I thought that was cool. You know, I'm waiting for something to go wrong because the rollout was perfect. The way you introduced the game was perfect. The stream is going well. It's not like crap's breaking down while they're trying to play the game and all that. There's like, it's like knock on wood. Nothing can go wrong. It's just like the foolproof release. No, I'm really happy for them. I mean, everyone with Spooky and affiliated with Spooky is just a good person. And so everyone's rooting for them, and they've put out a great product, and they've been very generous with the topper that they've put out. I mean, everything is good PR for them. And I really haven't heard much criticism, even after the stream, outside of maybe the gameplay's a little bit fast. It's going to be a little bit brutal. And with the pop bumper there, you can get some pretty nasty drains. But, you know, that's how the pinball was made to be played by Scott. And I can't wait to flip it. It just looks like a really fun game. Yeah. Well, it's kind of drain-proof too, isn't it? Because it's like if the pop bumper reacts and then it goes into the drain crop, like within a certain amount of time, it kicks the ball back out. That's right. It's apparently a really short time period. So it's got to be like a direct drain from the pop bumper. But, yes, it gives you the ball back. And then someone was saying that the upper flipper is a little bit tricky to hit the shot into the garage. You know, there's some criticism there, but apparently Scott said that you can hit it into the garage from the right orbit, I believe, as well. So there's a way to get to that section of the game, even if you can't hit it from the right upper flipper. Outside of that, I haven't heard a single, you know, complaint about it. It just seems like it's a win all around. Yeah, the time that I watched it, I didn't hear anything about that shot on the stream. I did the first time they streamed it, but on this most recent time when Scott was able to set it up properly, I didn't hear as much talk about that, so maybe that's been resolved. Cool. When I first saw Spooky, you announced this theme. I hadn't watched Rick and Morty. I'd seen a couple episodes, but I really hadn't watched it a whole lot. So now, since they've announced this, I've gone and watched several episodes. And one of my favorite things, and Christian, you talked about the humor in pinball machines, like Attack from Mars and Medieval Madness, but I love the humor in Elvira. I think the humor in Rick and Morty just really adds to the enjoyment of playing it, or it will, when I eventually get to play it. I'm hoping that it's got some really funny call-outs and there's a lot of fun stuff going on. I'm guaranteed to have that. Do you have this in order, Ed? I know you get a lot of games. No, I missed. This is the first. I have bought every spooky pinball machine since America's Most Haunted, except for this one, partly because I didn't really. I knew at the last minute, I guess I could have jumped on your list, But it wasn't a theme that at the time I was interested in. I really hadn't watched the show that much. I had seen a couple episodes, and I was like, ah, you know, it's another, and I'm trying to think of another show that equates to it, but there's really not one American Dad or Family Guy or something like that. Yeah, Family Guy. Yeah, sure. But it just wasn't a thing that I just thought, well, I've got to jump on that. Plus, I just bought an Elvira and an Alice Cooper. So Alice Cooper is coming to TPF, so I was a little strapped for cash at the moment, so I didn't take the plunge on the Rick and Morty. Well, you didn't have a whole lot of time to decide, man. I mean, you're either in on it or you got it right away. No, I did not get a Rick and Morty. Moving on. In an unprecedented move, Jersey Jack picks up stakes and moves Jersey Jack Pinball to where else but Elk Grove, Illinois, the home of Stern Pinball. I know. When I saw this, I don't think anybody saw this coming. I knew nothing about it. So I immediately, I'm sure just like everybody else, started texting anybody that they knew in the business and asking questions. And, of course, the first thing a lot of people speculated was that maybe CERN bought JJP, and I can assure you that that did not happen.
    43:55
    Can you share, without sharing the name, the information that you received from a certain insider? First thing I did was I texted Jack, and Jack didn't respond because I'm sure his phone was absolutely blowing up. He probably got a thousand text messages. But I did text someone at Stern, and I just asked them, did Stern buy Jersey Jack? And they replied no. They just said no, Stern did not buy Jersey Jack. But as far as Jersey Jack moving to the Chicagoland area, I'm going to say that it was probably just a coincidence. They just happened to find good real estate in Elk Grove. Isn't it weird, though? I mean, how big is Elk Grove to have both Stern and Jersey Jack being in that area? If you've ever driven to the Stern Factory Tour, it is nothing but warehouses. It is like a whole, it's just a giant warehouse after warehouse after warehouse. I mean, so. Yeah, it's like the whole city is an industrial park. But, I mean, it makes sense because you've got, you know, all the, their team is there or in the area, from what I understand. A lot of the parts are made there. Chicago is pinball, so. Right. And it's not a crazy move. Yeah, they have a big facility there now, right? Is the bulk of their pinball machine creation there, or is it more of the creative studios there? I mean, do you understand? The design studio was already there, but they're manufactured in Jersey. Gotcha. Of course, the big joke now is, are they going to continue to be Jersey Jack Pinball? And I think they will. I don't think that's going to mean anything. They can still be Jersey Jack Pinball. That's fine. Elk Grove Jack doesn't really have the same ringtone. Chicago. Of course, someone threw out the Illinois Pinball, but that was already taken and not available. The biggest bummer for me is that I live two hours away from their facility, and I've never actually gotten a tour out there. So whose fault is that? I know. It's mine. But did they say when this was actually going to happen, when they were going to start moving things over? I don't know. Yeah, I didn't see that in the press release, but I would have loved that. Maybe now I'll have to hammer out the Stern tour and the Jersey Jack tour that next time I'm in Chicago. Well, you know, that's going to come. That's one of those things that when all of these manufacturers get their new facilities up and running, you know, American Pinball's got a new facility, Chicago Gaming. Now, they're still working out of the cabinet company. So, you know, I've been there. They're not really set up for tours. I don't know if that's something they ever plan on doing. I don't recommend the tours in Chicago. Right. Because it goes on forever. Like, I needed a wheelchair to get back to the office. A giant, giant facility. But that's because so much of it is the cabinet part of the factory. but Chicago Expo they can figure it out I mean my goodness they could have you know days of manufacturer touring if they wanted to it needs to be a party bus but they're so far away in San Antonio it's a five hour drive so I can't there's not really a way to do that there definitely needs to be a party bus where they have you know absolutely there's a DD who just trucks you around to different pinball developers and you know you have some beverages and have a good time yeah I hope it works out for them alright so that's that moving on and next up on our list And this is very sad for me. The Monsters owners are giving up on new code, and games are popping up for sale as low as $4,800.
    47:08
    Where did you see a Monster? You can go on Pinside. I just saw it today, tonight on Pinside. Two of them, two of them. So I have a Monsters, and I still enjoy my Monsters. Of course, I've said many times I'm not a tournament-type player, and I'm not a big rules guy. I enjoy the way it flips as it is. I do think, though, because Monsters is not, what's the code number right now? They're not up to, are they past 1.0? Is that 1.1? I think so. I think they're at least coming up. I'm sure they'll release another one at some point. Who knows? I don't know what's going on at CERN. But I remember, I always think of things like Game of Thrones, and when Game of Thrones first came out, it suffered from the same thing. It was, oh, my gosh, the code's bad. People were dumping their Games of Thrones as fast as they could. And, well, now you look at it, and people are looking to buy Game of Thrones because it's been polished and they finished the code, or it's more finished, and now they're looking at it. And I think monsters will come back to that at some point. I do think that people will start to realize what a great game it is, and eventually you're going to start seeing want-to-buy posts, and people are going to start hanging on to their monsters. Well, I think the problem is that Dwight has been on a few podcasts, and he's basically come out and said, you get what you get. That's it. we're not revisiting it. And I know it's not his call, but when he says that, it still kind of cements it in people's minds that, like, if I don't like it now, I'm never going to like it because it's not changing. This is a little different. That's right. Because Monsters, I guess, according to Dwight and Stern, is not meant to be a super, super deep game. I mean, they coded it the way they wanted to code it, which was a game that was approachable by everybody, that you could get through pretty easily. And it seems like that was intentional. and they've never at any point said that they're going to change that and make it a much deeper game. Yeah, but what's wrong with having it the way it is and then making a harder code, and then you've got your choice whether you want to upload it or not. If you just keep it the way it is and you're in a Chuck E. Cheese or whatever, you've got a family friend in the game, you just leave it. But somebody who owns the game and who's a pinball collector and wants something more difficult, they have the option to upload a more challenging game. Are people saying what they want to see in the game and what's missing and what they think should be done to it? What I've heard is that it's too easy. Like on the first ball, you can get to a ball or a super jackpot. Some people were saying they didn't feel it was handled as well as Batman was as far as the clips and how immersive the game is in the property, the license. I felt that that could have been done better. Those are the two things I heard, but I think mostly if it was a deeper game, people would be happy. They wouldn't be as concerned about not having 8,000 clips like Batman does. But, yeah, that's what I'm hearing. Chris, you're obviously biased because you're heavily involved in the game, but you're not a deep game guy. Like, you're not heavily focused on the rules. So is the game all that for you? Like, is this a game that you feel like you'll keep in your collection, regardless of the fact that you did the art? Like, if you had this game, is it fun enough to bolt it to the floor? Yeah, for me it is. Yeah. Do you have the monsters? Yeah, I do. I've got an LE. Oh. I don't want to say that like such a dick. Yeah, I've got an LE. Today is my birthday, and my father said I can have anything I want.
    50:39
    I could have just said, yes, that wasn't good enough. Yeah, I got the top of the line, man. That is.
    50:44
    Yeah, and I like it. You know, I'm not that guy who's like, wait, I don't know if I stack this and I hold on to that and I don't do it. I don't know how to do that crap. So I just smack the ball around and try and do what the game tells me to do. And if I'm on my second ball and I get like a multi-ball, you know, someone else might think, well, that's too soon. I'm like, that's awesome, you know. It's not too soon for me. So, yeah, I love it. Yeah, my daughter loves it. and it's just, you know, other than that, it's a fun game. You know, the design of it, you know, Borg did a great job and made a very, you know, fun shooting game, so I have no complaints whatsoever. Yeah, I totally agree. It's a fun shooting game. Yeah, I would say to you people out there, snap it up for $4,800.
    51:26
    Honestly, I think that game is a lot of fun. It's a fun shooting game, but I think if you're good enough at pinball that you can get to the wizard mode, and there isn't much after that, you know, I feel like a lot of people who play these games and own them in their homes, once they hit the wizard mode and they've seen everything there is to see, they tend to lose a little interest in that game. And it's very easy to do that with monsters. It's like beating the big boss on a video game. Once you've beaten the game, there's nothing left. You're just repeating yourself. Yeah, I get that. But I'm not that guy, so I'm fine with it. Moving on to such a controversial topic. Stern announced their Stranger Things UV kit for an extra $280. Yeah, everybody's, most people are pissed. I mean, this game is just getting taken to the schoolyard for every other reason, whether that's fair or not. It is. It's one of Stern's most maligned games, basically. And this certainly didn't help bringing this out. It's a neat idea, but I just think it should have maybe been something that was offered up in the, you know, the premium in the LE or something like that at the same cost to bring it out later. When you have a game that's already in trouble, and then you say, oh, by the way, we've got this other feature, but you have to pay for it, that's almost like an extra slap on the face. I don't know. I don't have a problem with Stern making mods. I mean, they're a for-profit company, and I certainly want them to make a profit. Now, I do think that mod absolutely should have been included with LE. As a previous LE buyer, I think that everything in the kitchen sink needs to be thrown into LE if the manufacturer is going to offer that kind of stuff. It should always be included. Ellie should always have a shaker motor, should always have all the options, all the bells and whistles. It's kind of like going to the car dealer and the difference between the 50th anniversary, all bells and whistles Corvette, or just buying a Chevy, whatever. So on the premiums and the pros, if it's an extra, I don't really care if it was included or not. I think Stern should be allowed to make some money on that. I think maybe the people would have been less upset if they had told people about it up front. when they first released that little sheet that shows all the differences and said, hey, guess what? Your play fields, they're all going to have this special UV ink on them, and this is an option that you can get later. But I don't want to sign up for trying to make extra money, but I do think the LE should have absolutely had that kit installed in the first place. I think that's what the sting was, was the fact that it was in your game. They were saying, there's something in there, but you can't play with it unless you buy this kit. Here's a cool topper for $500, and if you want it, you can buy it and screw it on. There's something planted in your game, and they're saying you can't have it unless you give us more money. That's how it came off to a lot of people, and that's why people kind of soured on it. Dennis Creasle made an awesome point, and I was thinking the second I saw this, is that in the video game world, you have this stuff where people get really upset when downloadable content or extra content for a video game is included on the disc when you buy it initially, and then three months later you can pay another $20 and unlock that. And you feel like, you know what, this is something that was already on the disc. Why am I paying extra for it? If you're going to make this additional stuff later and add it to the game, then I guess I get paying more money, but if it comes with the product, I don't really understand that. And this clearly was meant to happen because all of the UV ink is hidden in the game. So from my standpoint, if you look at the mod itself and you just are trying to evaluate and rate the mod, I think it's a really cool mod. I would definitely want that on my machine. But then you pepper in the stuff that kind of makes you not feel great about that, which is it was already meant to have this piece and they didn't tell you about it up front. The LE buyers don't get it. And it's an expensive mod. It just kind of leaves a little bit of a bad taste in your mouth. But from a strictly is it cool or is it not, it's really cool. I like the mod itself. But what's interesting, though, is that people are talking about, like, oh, you put this lid on and it reveals all this new artwork. No, unless I'm blind, it doesn't reveal anything new. What it's doing is it's activating the white base on the artwork is UV. So where color is printed over top of it, it doesn't react. But where the white still shows through, that reacts. So when you turn it on, it just makes all those bright areas glow. I've looked at the pictures with the UV on. There's no new artwork in there. There's nothing that reveals itself that you didn't see before the light was on. It just makes those parts glow. That's all. They just react differently to the light. There's nothing hidden in there. But it is cool. I do like the idea of, you know, things like that. Too bad Dirty Donnie wasn't still around, you know, with his, you know, that sort of style of artwork that he does. You could make a blacklight poster kind of, you know, play field thing. That would be cool. Well, I'm sure Stranger Things owners can rest assured that while it may not be, it's kind of like toppers. You know, Stern has their toppers, and then people make other toppers. I'm confident, if it hasn't already been done, that some company will make a... Penn Stadium did it. Well, there you go. See, there you go. They don't make the plastics. That's the only issue. I mean, I'm sure someone could do that, but the plastics kind of come with it. Well, that's the extra devious part, though, is that they didn't put the plastics in there, because if they did, you could just buy, you know, your own UV light. They held back on the plastics so that you had to replace them, with the kit. So, yeah. But I don't fall short for, you know, for the pros and the premiums. I do think the LE should have had that included. And they should have told everybody up front, hey, your pinball machine will have this. Because I can use the argument with a shaker. I can buy a premium or a pro, and my pinball machine comes coated, wired, ready to go for a shaker motor. All you got to do is buy one and slap it in. Right. You know, but that's an extra cost. That's true. Yeah, that's a good point. All right, so next on our list, Stern has also released a new kit. A boutique game, I guess. Boutique game. Boutique, right? Because it's... Yeah. Isn't that named after who makes the company? Or who makes the company? It's a limited... Yeah, loaded on reskin of the Star Wars home pin for the Heavy Metal magazine. Did you guys know that I have a connection to Heavy Metal magazine? Oh, no. Well, actually, yes. Because we talked about this earlier, and you sent us a little picture of what you had done, which was very cool. Yeah. I hate it. Actually, I look at it now, and I go, oh, God, I could have done it so much better. What an opportunity. and I felt like I blew it, even though they loved it. I did a cover, a book cover, for a compilation of artwork and stories, which was a U.S. release, and it was called Reload, Heavy Metal Reload. It was fun. I'm on the cover, too. Yeah, explain what you're doing in that cover because it's really nice. Everybody who was pissed off at me about the Pentastic art would love this art because it's this chick, like super tough chick, just shot me in the head. And it takes place in a bathroom, so she's standing there like blowing the barrel of a gun, and looking all tough and hot and all that. And then I'm laying on the ground with my head up against a dirty urinal with a bullet hole in my head.
    58:27
    There's all these hidden little things in there. There's like a flyer for my old band. There's a Batman symbol on the bathroom wall. Yeah, there's a Batman symbol. There's like my former best friend and his wife. Their initials are in there on a little heart. And then some people ask me to put some junk in there. I don't even know what it is. I want to ask you about former best friend, but I'm afraid that would be opening a can of worms or something. I think you're right. We were friends ever since high school for a long time, and we're very much the same. We're both artists. We both collect toys. But we were also both very nonpolitical, and I still am. But he got very political, and his Facebook page just turned into this, like, you know, ranting about all of this and that, you know, left and right and blah, blah, blah. I couldn't even connect with him anymore. So everything just kind of crumbled apart over two years. And it's sad, but, you know, people change. You know, it happens. Never talk politics or religion, man. I know. That's the rule. But that's what happened. But getting back on track to heavy metal, you said it was a reskinned Star Wars, the pin. And I think it's only the play field that is from the pin because it's in a full-size cabinet. And it has a dot matrix, you know, or what used to be the Stern dot matrix display. And even the Star Wars, the pin, I think has a little LCD screen in it. Have you guys seen the play field? I mean, we know what it looks like, obviously, but have you seen the artwork? No, I haven't. That's the first Stern flyer I've ever seen where the play field is blurred out. Right. So my knee jerk on this is, you know, I don't think this, even though it's a theme that I know a lot of pinball collectors would love to have, I don't think the hard intent was for the pinball collector. I think they did this for Heavy Metal Magazine with a direct target audience of Heavy Metal Magazine readers, CEOs or whatever. I mean, it's a different market is what they're shooting for, almost like that supreme market. And it was something they could do, make it easy, make it simple for that audience to play and not be super complicated. And that's really the audience that they're looking for. just like the pin itself is, is not intended for. Even though, you know what, it's actually a pretty fun little game, the Star Wars pin I played at an expo. But that's not what us, the pinball collector community, is not the target audience for that game. So I know people are going to, you know, tear it up and be upset or whatever, but that is not, yeah, that's not a game that was meant for the pinball collector community. And I like it. I like the idea of the possibilities. You know, when things like this happen, I always think about, like, Heavy Metal is a very respected magazine. It's an art magazine, so maybe coming from me it sounds strange, but I don't really connect with it much as far as a theme that I want a pinball game of. But the fact that it happened and the fact that Primus has happened and things like this just make it kind of exciting to think all these different games that Stern would be willing to reskin into something else and make a fun theme that ordinarily, because of the development costs, it wouldn't be able to be made. They can put something out there for some sort of niche thing. You know, it's exciting, actually. Well, and it falls into the difference between, I don't think, just like Primus, I don't think heavy metal was a theme Stern went after. I think somebody from heavy metal came to them and said, hey, we would really like to have our own pinball machine, just like Primus came to Stern and said, hey, we would really like to have our own pinball machine. Yeah, you're right. It says, right at the top of the flyer, the publisher, you know, I forget it, whatever some of them present. So, yeah, it's obviously something like that. And what's exciting about that even more so, I forgot to even mention this, is that pinball is picking up that kind of steam where these people are coming around and sniffing around and saying, hey, pinball is kind of cool. Like, you know, can you make one for our magazine? You know, the more that happens, you know, that just means that, you know, the hobby is expanding and not due to any new stupid pinball podcast. But just because it's getting out there, you see it in the news. You know, the Bells and Chimes leagues get a lot of press, you know, because people, you know, for some reason aren't aware that women play pinball too. So they see that and they do spots about that. And like the news, I forget his name, is a weatherman. Eric Stone? Eric Stone. Yeah. Sorry, Eric. Yeah, so he's like a weatherman. So he's like, it's the weatherman who plays pinball, you know. All this kind of stuff is just getting it out there more and more. And when people like this come around and want to do this, it's just exciting to think, you know, what are the possibilities? Who's going to come out next? And is it going to be something that I want? So I have to be honest. I didn't even know what heavy metal was. I thought this was a pin that was strictly based around heavy metal music. So this is a dream theme of yours. Do you want to talk a little bit about what it is, like what heavy metal is in general? Well, I never read the magazine. I only remember the movie that I watched many times. And it's a very sexualized, you know, naked people and violence. And it has heavy metal music throughout it. And Sammy Hagar.
    63:40
    Of course, I'm trying to remember the movie. But there's some awesome scenes. And if you haven't seen it, it's a rocking.
    63:48
    It's almost about a little sphere that is a little cube in the Avengers. It's kind of like a tesseract, but it's a little sphere, and it gives people powers. It's about this journey of this little sphere that goes and how it affects these different people's lives throughout space and time and history and all that. It's very well done, and I just remember it vividly. Maybe it's because of my age when it came out. I was just a younger teenager, so it really left an impact on me. It would be a thing that I would be interested in. I never really read the magazine. Yeah, the magazine history goes back to the 70s, and the reason why the subject matter is what it is is because it started in Europe, and it was called Metal Hurlant, which is basically, I think, French for heavy metal. And they had all these European artists that were, like, breaking ground with really cool comic art that was, like, super realistic and, you know, not like the stuff we were reading. Especially back in the 70s, you know, real basic-looking, you know, comic books like they are today. It was the original graphic novel. Yeah, well, the graphic novels were compilations of stuff from the magazine. It was basically an adult comic, but it wasn't anything in particular. They had some reoccurring things, like there was a character called Rank Xerox and some other things that, you know, so you might get like five bits of stories in each magazine, and some of them continued on, some of them were just like, you know, maybe an eight-page story. But it was all very artsy and very, you know, groundbreaking. And then they brought the magazine to America, and they translated all the text and kind of started over and reprinted a lot of the earlier stories in English. And they called it heavy metal, you know, et cetera, et cetera. That was the history of the magazine. And then they made an animated movie, which really had nothing to do with the magazine other than utilizing some of the talents of the artists that were in the magazine. They put a totally unique story together and whatnot, and I'm pretty sure that the pinball machine has nothing to do with the movie. I think it's magazine-based. Yeah, no. Yeah, you can tell by looking at the artwork just from the flyer that it has nothing to do with the movie. So because I knew nothing about this, I went on Wikipedia, and I wrote down a couple of cool facts that I got from that article. So Kevin Eastman, the co-creator of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, took over the publication of the magazine in 1992, which I thought was cool. Franchise in our dialogue. You mean the guy who owns Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles had a custom pinball machine made for him by Stern? Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Why does that sound familiar? Hmm. A ton of artists that have worked on this, including H.R. Giger, who did the alien stuff. And then there were two, there were actually two movies that were made, one in 1981 and one in 2000. And then there was a Netflix show just recently in 2019 called Love, Death, and Robots. that was kind of a heavy metal reimagining. And I saw a little bit of that. It was cool. And then what I thought was really interesting was at the end of the article, and this almost seems like someone just wrote this in and completely made up random stuff, but it says, In 2017, upstart pinball company Pinheads LLC hinted that they had secured the rights to use the heavy metal license in a physical pinball table. The table itself would be designed through a collaboration between Pinheads, the pinball artist Zombie Yeti, and legendary pinball designer Pat Lawler. Seems like a really weird mix considering they all work for different companies. But it was in the article, so unless someone's trolling. Yeah, it sounds like fake news. Okay, so that wraps up Heavy Metal. And lastly on our list, Jason Fowler and the Slap Save Pinball Podcast are no more. Well, he never announced the end of his show when he announced that he was going to make the move over to the pinball network but now that he's he's not doing the pinball network he's also taking his show down he i've heard that he's sold like half of his games he's he's just tired of it he posted something on his page and you know i suggest you all read it and then if you do all read it then maybe you'll think twice about some of the spouting off that you do i mean everybody's got an opinion and all that but uh there's there's a lot of cattiness in this hobby and it's a shame when it scares off good people. And Jason is a really solid dude, and he's a really good person. And I know that his podcast was one of the few that I look forward to, and I'm really sad that it's gone. So we're going to miss you, Jason, and we hope you come back. I met Jason for the first time at TPF last year, I think. And he's just the kind of guy you like before you're officially introduced. I met him. He was a super humble, interesting dude. Anyone would love to grab a beer with and talk pinball. And he brought a lot of great content to the hobby. I hope he takes some time off and just cuts out the drama, finds his passion for the hobby again, and hopefully he'll be back. He's coming to TPF this year still. He's got tickets, so he's coming. Right. Because I sent him an email afterwards asking if he was still planning to come to the show, and he said he was. So those of you that know him will still get a chance to see him and buy him a beer. You know, it is sad that people get discouraged and stuff, and, you know, the Internet can be a nasty place. You've got to have some thick skin, but it is hard when people you think are your friends or, Or, well, you know, people that enjoy the same hobby that you're in and, you know, people can be ugly. And, you know, I know it's easy to say you just got to have thick skin and roll through it. But, you know, it can be hurtful. And I don't think he'll be gone forever. I think everybody takes a step back every once in a while. I think that's a healthy thing to do when it starts to get to you. You just quit going to those websites, those discussion websites that get you down and take a step back and he'll be back. Yeah, the good news is his page is still there. So it's not like he took it down and, you know, it's just gone. It's still there, so it's very easy for him to come back. So hopefully he will. And now, the Tasmanian Devil of Pinball.
    69:51
    All right, joining us now, all the way from Australia, is Damien Harton with Haggis Pinball. Damien, how are you doing? Welcome, Damien. Thank you. I'm doing very well. How is everybody else? Great. Super swell. We're super off. Yeah. So we're just going to roll right into this. So how are things going with the Celts right now? Yeah, good. Crazy. Crazy, crazy, dizzy. Pinball seems to go from either slightly crazy to completely crazy, so at least it's consistent. But, yeah, we're all stops out getting everything ready so that we can make our way to Texas in about four weeks, I think, maybe four and a half weeks. We're all super excited about that. You know, your Playfield video is very popular right now. That seems to be the one everyone's talking about. I know you've kind of been on the podcast circuit a little bit, so we're going to try to not get so much into that. But I do have some questions for you that you may have already discussed, but I don't know that you have or not. You've been in the pinball for how long? Not very long. It will be just under 18 months. I sort of officially said I was starting the company in September of 2018. Right, but did you collect your pinball before that or play, or did you just buy one and say, you know what, I'm going to start a company? Pretty much. I mean, I played as a teenager, you know, after school, as I think lots of people did growing up in the 80s. So I obviously knew about them and enjoyed them and, you know, always had them in the back of my mind. So that wasn't something that I was coming into completely cold. But no, I didn't have an existing collection and I hadn't sort of maintained the hobby over those years It was just which is really a bit of a you know, how hard can it be? So what was the trigger like what what what pushed you into saying I want to make my own game I It funny It one of those things I sort of pinball was a game that I remembered playing in the 80s And you know over the years especially at that time the thought of having an arcade game at home, what I thought was just, you know, impossible, foreign, too much, and they didn't exist in the home environment. So over the years, as things like man caves and she sheds and having these sorts of collectibles became a real thing, I always had in the back of my mind, I want to get a pinball one day, and if I ever get one, I want to get a pin bot because that's what I remember. And not knowing at the time that they did actually sell a lot of them, I never saw pin bots for sale. And so it was just out of coincidence that something came up on one of my social media feeds of an auction house that was auctioning pinball machines and they had a pin bot there. And I didn't need much more encouragement than to say, I'm buying it, I'm going to buy it, I don't care what conditions it's in. I didn't know anything about it. It was cheap or what I thought was cheap for a pinball machine. It was cheap in hindsight as well. And, yeah, I got at home thinking, well, you know, I love tinkering. I love exploring and understanding things. I love a challenge. So I'll get it home. It'll probably need a restoration, and I will get all my claws into that and go through that process. And that sort of is what started it all. Well, that brings up a good question. What did you do prior to this that, you know, gave you the skill set to take this on?
    72:52
    It's a good question. I don't know. I mean, my background is IT. So I started in software development and have spent, you know, basically my whole working life in that space. So in various different companies and various different industries. But it's always been about IT and software development and problem solving and this sort of, I guess, creative aspect, which is something I probably never really appreciated until I started looking back on it now. All about having a challenge or having a problem that there was no existing solution for and needing to come up with something. So that was either an industry I was drawn to just because of my personality or it's something that developed as a byproduct of that industry. But yeah, I think the only skill set it probably gave me with respect to what I'm doing now is just that enjoyment of having a challenge and trying to work out how to resolve something where there isn't a solution or at least not a solution that's obvious to me that I can just potentially buy off the shelf and replace. Right, right. And now you designed the game itself, right? Kelts was your playfield design? It is. Yeah, it is. Now, do you have any influences or like, you know, who's your favorite pinball designer? Was anything like that an encouragement to what you did or did you just start from scratch and say you're going to do your own thing? Correct. Well, I mean, when I started, I literally started from basically ground zero. So I had no idea. I had no really understanding or appreciation who Steve Ritchie or Pat Lawler were at all. I mean, you know, I knew Adam's family and I knew The Getaway, but I did not even have an understanding of who the designers were or who the artists were or anything of that. So, no, it's sort of been a, I mean, I look at it as almost a blessing, especially considering where I am. Because we are so far removed from the pinball community and really from the rest of the world, I suppose, not that that's such a challenge these days, but because there was nobody, say, locally that was manufacturing pinball cabinets or was making something in this space, you know, I looked at everything with fresh eyes. I didn't look at something going, well, that's how they've always made that cabinet or that's always how they've produced that particular part. I literally had to stand at it and go, okay, so I've got a pinball cabinet and that's what a cabinet looks like and, all right, let's just start at the start. I think that's amazing, especially from what you've done since last year at TPF when you put together the original whitewood kelts in just a couple of days. And I was telling Chris and Christian before you came on the story about how you literally showed up in Texas with three whitewoods cut from plywood and a couple of cases full of parts assemblies and stuff. And I set you up in a back room, and over the next couple of days, you built a pinball machine from scratch. I mean, the code was super basic, but it flipped, and you had a neat little seminar about it. And that kind of was the path that you went on. And we're talking 11 months later, and my goodness, look what you did just from March of 2019 to October when you were at Pinball Expo in Chicago. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, look, I think it helps to have a little bit of a stubborn streak or a little bit of a, you know, I think once I start a challenge or I start something, it's very hard to push me off it. It would have to be some particularly difficult or particularly hard thing that made me sort of go, oh, it's too much, I won't do it. I relish getting my teeth into something and pinball was one of those things that just sort of, sometimes that works the opposite way. If something ends up too easily solved or it's a challenge that I manage to get past in a quick amount of time, I then get bored of it and I move on to something else. That pinball just sort of continually opens up in front of you because the further you look into it and the further you sort of explore it and try to understand it, it just keeps going and going and going and going. So it's a bit of a two-edged sword. But if you've got the mindset that I probably do have in that I can compartmentalise and just concentrate on that one task in front of me, resolve that and then keep moving forward, that's what happens all of a sudden. 18 months goes past and, you know, you've just sort of gone task by task by task. Now, how many people are in Haggis Pinball? Is it just you? It's just me full-time. So I've been sort of fortunate in the job and the business that I had before I started. They said they had given me time that I was able to actually step across and start working on it full-time. I probably have the equivalent of probably four people working, and that's probably across six to eight people that spend a certain amount of time. So I have a good friend, Greg, that's been doing code and rules, as Ed said, just prior to TPS last year. He was what helped get it flipping. I've had an artist come on board. I've had an artist out of the UK, Sam Greenwood. I've had a local artist, Casey Dean, come on board. I've had another local guy, Scott, who has, Scott Seisman, who has done all of the sort of visual side of things, as in actually turn the artwork into a product that we can actually put on a pinball machine and put on a play field. and then of course there's my long-suffering wife and everybody else's long-suffering partners and wives. So yeah, there has been a lot of people involved but it's just me sort of at the moment 10 or 12 hours in the factory every day. You brought up your wife Georgia and how does she feel about that? And I ask that because my wife Kim, she's very much into pinball. She loves it. She's a better player than I am. She helps, well, she runs the Texas Pinball Festival. I'm just the one everyone talks to. Christian's wife, Mrs. Pin, she's got her own podcast. She's very much into pinball. I'm afraid she's not married, but his daughter, she likes pinball. So what did Georgia think about all this? If you're so new to the pinball world and you said, hey, I'm going to buy a pinball machine, and then just right after that you're like, I'm going to start a pinball company. Well, yeah, I mean, Georgia and I have been together for about 20 years. Yeah, just a little bit over 20 years. And don't ask me how long we've been married because I'll get that wrong, but maybe 16 years or something. She knows me well enough. So she would have expected nothing less from me than to have gone, hey, this sounds like a good idea, and then all of a sudden that's all consuming. So I think she knew very well as we started down this path what it would end up with. But, I mean, we had various points along the way and various little milestones, and TPF was one of them where it was sort of like, well, let's see if we can get a whitewood. Because when we started, it was six months from when I first thought, well, let's try to do this and we'll get to TPF in six months. So that's the sort of small chunk that you can bite off. And the idea was get to Texas, and then when we get back from Texas, then we can reassess and work out, you know, is this going to work? Do we think it still has legs? And I guess, fortunately, people didn't come up to me and tell me, Kelts completely sucks off the back of TPF. It seemed to get received really, really well, and people seemed to enjoy it, and they really liked the journey that we'd gone down already to that point. So, yeah, we came back and we reassessed and went, all right, well, okay, let's take the next step. So, yeah, she's been along for the whole ride and fully aware of, I guess, what I can get up to. So that's our own fault. That's awesome. And you're bringing the whole family this time to the TPF. Yeah, little Ed, Ed Jr. is coming as well. We had sort of contemplated bringing him last year, but he had only just turned three and we just sort of thought that might be a little bit tough and not having been to TPF and not knowing what to expect, we didn't sort of have that point of reference to make the decision. But we do this time around and, of course, he's a year older, so, yeah, he'll come along now as well. Wait a minute. Hold on a second. Your name is Damien. Your wife's name is Georgia? Yes. How is your son's name? Ed Jr.? Ed Woods. Well, it's just my reference to, I think I said Ed Van Van.
    80:15
    Apparently, our co-host Ed has had a long, long history of making love to lonely pinball wives. We weren't aware. Nice.
    80:24
    All right, we'll cut that out. I did not meet them until last year or so. I have never met Georgia or Damien prior to TPF last year. I think the most impressive thing you've told us so far is that you're going to take your three-year-old son on a 22-hour plane ride. That is insane. You guys are braver men than we are. Yeah, look, as I said, you can't go anywhere from Australia and it's not a massive plane ride. So it's like, you know, it takes you five hours to get out of the country. You know, you get an eucalyptus. Yeah, that's right. So did we cover how many games you were bringing with you, Ed? Because I don't know if I got it. Well, that was going to lead to the next question. You know, as you know, I know it's coming up on us, and everybody's scrambling. So, you know, how are you feeling? Are we going to make a deadline? Are you going to – everything's going to track? Or coronavirus hasn't, like, delayed any parts supply? No, it has actually impacted some things, but not with relation to this necessarily, more other things. but no, no, we're still on track. The plan is we've got three machines to bring. Two of them we have already pre-sold, thank you very much, which will be on the floor as well. So we'll have three machines plus Ed's got the prototype, prototype 01 that we brought to Chicago. That needs to be a playfield. I need to bring a playfield with me as well. I mean, this is a cabinet right now. You took the cabin, you took the playfield with you. I know, yeah. Playfields have the cabinet. It's had a bit of a run. It's here right in front of me actually. and I'm still looking at it and doing some little design tweaks. So that will come back. And it also has the Whitewood from last year. So, yeah, we'll end up with five machines there, actually. Nice. You're going to need a bigger space is what you're saying.
    82:08
    No, I'm kidding. I've already got it. We've already got it taken care of. So, Damian, we're all really excited to play it. I saw the Whitewood last year, but I didn't actually get a chance to flip it. You know, when I was there at the show, everyone was kind of talking about Haggis and how it was this very exciting new company, and people were comparing it to the spooky pinball of Australia. That's a pretty big statement. I mean, how do you feel about that? And having the Charlie Emery just deciding to start a pinball company and dropping everything and being successful with Spooky, do you see yourself on that trajectory?
    82:42
    Is that kind of the endgame, or are you hopeful that you're just going to sell a couple of pinball machines and maybe move on to the next project? Oh, no, absolutely. I mean, I take that as a huge compliment, actually, because I think what Charlie and the family have done and what Spooky have done is commendable, no question. And, yeah, absolutely, I'm very happy and proud to be compared to him in that regard. So, no, that is my plan as well. You know, sometimes I can get a little bit too demanding of myself, and I can look at it and go, gee, it's taken me 18 months to get here, I wanted to do it in 12 at maximum. So I can be a bit critical of how long it's taken me to get here. So it doesn't end. The idea is obviously once we do all of the last final design tweaks that I needed to in order to rather stamp it as the production models that we'll be bringing to Texas, then that's it. That then means that they're all productionised. We should hopefully then now just be manufacturing those machines. I'm going to run a show special for TPF and then NGC that I'll talk about a bit later. But get those out of the way and get started on to pinball number two. So, yeah, that's the plan is just keep pushing, keep going, and keep growing. Is that a truckload of parts backing up to your place? Yeah.
    83:55
    I don't know what's going on, but, yeah, it'd be typical. So we were talking earlier in the show about our dream themes, and I was wondering if you'd follow suit like Spooky does in your next game or maybe the one after that would be a license theme. If money was no object, what would you go after? What would you love to do? That's a very good question. I mean, yes, the next theme will definitely be a licensed theme. I recognize more now than ever, especially more than when I did when I started this, just how important that is. So we will definitely be going after a licensed theme. What would be a dream theme? Oh, I mean, there's lots that I love. You know, The Fifth Element is a movie that's in my top three of all time. So, you know, I would love to do a Fifth Element film. I'd love to do a Matrix pin as well. I mean, there is a lot of pinball machines that I would love. but yeah I have to start having those conversations and start understanding how realistic that is for sure but to be completely honest I mean I just don't know that I've even had the time to really stop and scratch myself to think too much down that path other than I know that's where we need to move to so I think again once we get back from Texas we'll once again reassess then we'll try to understand what the next 12 months means and then try to put everything in place to make sure that happens Do you have a theme in mind? I mean you're going to keep it a secret but when you say your next game is definitely going to be licensed, do you already have something in mind or you just know that that's where you've got to go with it? No, we've got a short list of about five. We've got a short list of five that we'll probably start conversations around and see where that goes. I mean, we whiteboarded, we probably whiteboarded 20 potential themes and we narrowed that down to five. And that even was not taking into consideration one particular market segment. So there's probably even more that we could explore, but we have started down that path. And no, I won't tell you what they are. no well no we don't need another Godzilla that's right well you know Spooky made that mistake with you know making it known how badly they wanted to do Godzilla and you see what happened there V545 I smell the licensing desires of a puny pinball company so I'm opening that regard I'm not that tied to a thing that it would be that or nothing for sure I'm going to have t-shirts at TPF that have the milk carton with the missing Godzilla. If you found him, please return the spooky. Yeah.
    86:14
    All right, so tell us about your journey to Texas. And you've got a show special coming. And tell us, this is your opportunity to tell us all about the website and your video series and what people need to do to learn more about Haggis. And if they're interested in the Celts, what do they need to do? Sure. Yes, so for anybody that's just new to Haggis, we have been doing a bit of a video series right from day one, actually, from when I started this whole journey. so there's got to be 50-odd videos on the YouTube site. It's been a little bit slow of late as I've been getting closer to the current deadline, but you can find out a lot about us there via YouTube or Facebook or Instagram. For Texas, we're going to both TPF and we are going to MGC because it's the very next weekend, so it makes sense while we're over there. So we will be running a show special. This is an exclusive for you guys because I do need to do an announcement for this if I get a chance to get behind the camera again shortly. we will be offering a fully optioned kelp so kelp we have just the one model effectively and then you get the ability to be able to add on a trim kit and a toy kit and also there's an option to be able to put your name in the game so when you play kelps you start by selecting one of four clans to compete as and we can have one of those clans as your name so that's your name in the artwork as well as in the LCD and call outs and your own tartan and your own coat of arms So we're offering that fully optioned model for US$6,250,
    87:40
    and it includes free shipping. So all while... That's a good deal right there, just shipping from Australia. It can cost a tonne. Correct. I mean, in actuality, it probably ends up being a saving of about US$1,500. Thank you. Yeah, so anybody that puts a deposit down between now and the end of MGC will get that deal. And we are also limiting the production of couch to 200 games only worldwide. So if somebody's interested in getting one, there's probably a really good opportunity to jump in and lock one away because we're all very keen to move on to pin number two. So there you go. I think one of the coolest things about this game that I've heard is the level of personalization that you can do. That's very unique. I mean, and I don't know if manufacturers like Stern could potentially do something like that because they produce on such a large scale. Is that something that you're going to try and do moving forward, making these personal touches on these machines? Oh, absolutely. I mean, one of the benefits of being small is that ability to, I guess, move quickly and you've only got to look at what we've done with the play field because even that came about, well, the turnaround on that was pretty quick from when we made the decision to actually go down that path. I think we had a working solution inside of about six weeks. So, yeah, definitely something I want to do and the more customisability and the more options that we can give to people I think will be good because then, yeah, you're absolutely right. It gives people the option to personalize it exactly the way they want it and effectively be buying a one-of-one pinball machine, arguably. That's cool. That's awesome. And for those that don't know, your seminar at the Texas Pinball Festival is going to be Saturday at 2 o'clock. And then promptly after that, 3 o'clock, you'll meet us all in the parking lot with Damien and Robert Mueller from Deeper's First Sledge Hall. That's right. That would be so good.
    89:28
    Yeah. Yeah, I need to do a follow-up. we'll be doing a follow-up video on that just to go through some of how we manufacture those clay fields and respond to a few questions that have popped up um as as ed mentioned it has been somewhat popular and generated a lot of commentary and a lot of interest which is great and it's exactly what we hoped it would do so yeah one thing i found interesting maybe you can clear this up is that you know some people were saying like oh if it's gonna you know a plastic surface that the ball is going to slide around and i'm like thinking well the ball's sliding around on a clear coat on wood now like i don't see the difference do you notice any sort of different action on the ball no and it's look it's one of those things too that you know if you're so conscious of it it's almost like you start trying to read into things that you know oh it definitely feels different because you're almost convincing yourself that it is because it is a different surface but no you're right i mean and and what i guess is going to be a little bit difficult and it's just the easiest things for people to play it people i suppose compare it to the only other things that they're aware of at the moment, which are things like, you know, playfield protectors and hard tops and whatnot. Whereas ours is actually different because we manufactured, I made it so that it was effectively a single playfield, not a playfield that then you put something on top of, if you sort of understand what I mean. So you end up with still a standard thickness. Correct. There's still a standard thickness playfield. It's still assembled in the same way with the same mechs. So the reality is that it should be effectively the same. And like you said, it's more akin to what you play on these days with the automotive clear coat that's put on playfields. It's actually more akin to acrylic than it ever would be to wood. I haven't played on wood playfields for a very, very long time. It's always been some form of cover, be that when they started with wax to various polyurethanes to clear coats and diamond coats and mylar and everything in between. So there's always been something that's been put down to separate you from the wood because the wood wears too quickly. Right. So, Damien, when you start to create these production games, which it sounds like you're pretty close to doing, what do you think your capability is going to be in terms of production numbers over time? Yeah, very good question. I mean, what I've tried to do and I guess what I have done is I've made sure that the process that I've created as I go through this is scalable and repeatable. So, you know, in an ideal world, I understand exactly how many orders we have and I can just scale to manage that accordingly in the way that everything's been sort of costed and figured out and worked out. It's just a matter of size of the facility to be able to accommodate as such. So look, early on, I think I'll just take it by speed. I know myself just individually, if I had all the bits and pieces and the components, I could probably produce two to three machines a week. If all the bits, if it was just a matter of me basically having to assemble all the components together, but it'll really just be a case of managing that according to the demand. I certainly want to try and produce and move on them quickly. so in my mind I'd want to be able to produce a minimum of 10 a week to start with but I'd want to be able to comfortably scale that up to 40 or 50 a week which would logically come into play when we probably moved on to the next pinball machine which hopefully generated enough of that upfront interest that we got 500 or 1,000 sold straight away. Are you working out of a small studio or do you have an official office space to make all this stuff? No, no, I've got a factory warehouse space. It is, don't ask me how to translate it to square footies, but it's about 250 square metres. So I suppose in the grand scheme of things, it's probably fairly small, but it's well set up in that it's, yeah, I feel comfortable in its ability to be able to support and produce pinball machines quite comfortably. Thanks so much for joining us, Damien. We had a great time. Hope you did too. I did. Thank you all very much. Come on down to TPF because there's going to be three, maybe four, maybe five games, but there's only going to be one Rick and Morty. So there you have it. All right. We'll have a drink when we get down to TPF. Yes, the old TPF for sure. Right on. All right. Take it easy, man. Thank you. Take it easy. We'll talk soon. Bye. All right. Thanks, guys. See you. All right. Thanks, Damien. And next up, we're going to find out who is going to win the Barlow's Pin Pals Shelter Contest. We'll be right back.
    93:34
    Guess what? I got a fever. and the only position in the super awesome pinball show oh yeah super this show is sponsored by coin taker distributor of brand new full size authentic stern pinball chicago gaming 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.
    94:22
    Get your game on. Now here's the game that works like a scene. Pop-up pinball. That's a release to do your pop-up ball things. Pop-up pinball. Pop-up pinball from Child Guidance. You work the flippers and guide the ball to pop up the crazy characters. Every time you do, the bell goes off. When you get all six, you win. Take some skill, but when you will, pop up pinball.
    94:47
    Pop-up pinball, complete with six pop-up figures and three balls, by Child Guidance. Hey, this is Dennis Norman, and you're listening to the semi-awesome... Uh, not semi-awesome, super-awesome. What? Super-awesome? Yep. Are you sure? Because I listen to them. It's not that good. Yes, I'm sure. Would you just say super? Okay. Hey, this is Dennis Nordman, and you're listening to the Super Awesome Pinball Show. Perfect. All right, that'll work. Okay, okay. Fork over my 20 bucks now. Yeah, yeah, it's coming. God, you pinball guys. 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.
    95:32
    It's a good show! And now for the second half of our exciting interview two-pack for this week. Christian, who do we have on the line? Tonight we are very lucky to have the one and the only creator of This Week in Pinball, the website, as well as the Twippy Awards, Mr. Jeff Patterson. Welcome to the show, Jeff. Thank you. I don't know if very lucky is necessarily, but I like the introduction. and I appreciate that. Trust me, it's very lucky because none of us are wearing clothes. Oh, boy. Okay.
    96:08
    All right, well, let me start this off by saying it's obvious, you know, what you do with the Twippy Awards. It's a Herculean effort, man, to get together every year. So thank you for all of the work you do to create the Twippy Awards and make it, you know, such a special event for everybody. And I know that being recognized means a lot, you know, to the games and game creators, the techs and content creators in the hobby. So thank you for what you do. Yeah, I appreciate it. It definitely isn't me. There's a huge team effort that goes into putting on, especially the Twippies each year. The committee puts a ton of hours in, the hosts put a ton of hours in. I know the new hosts that we're going to talk to in a little bit will probably mention that I've already been talking to them a ton and bugging them a ton. Ed's obviously been a huge help with everything. Thank you, Ed. You're welcome. There's been a lot of rumor and speculation on who might take the reins. You know, I'd suggest to Jeff when we get chatted that you might change the format a little bit and have some presenters run the show instead of having actual hosts. But I think the people you found are pretty awesome, and they're going to do an amazing job. Do you want to talk a little bit about how we got to this point? Because I know that Zach and Greg have hosted for the last two years and left this year kind of under fairly vague circumstances. Can you elaborate a little bit on what happened with those guys? Yeah, great question.
    97:23
    And here's your uncomfortable answer. no I know I know that this has been uh it's been kind of confusing and a lot of things have been said on different podcasts and forums it's been it's definitely been a weird start to 2020 with obviously a lot of changes with podcast ending and in the pinball network were you aware that the pinball network going to happen or were you invited to be part of that no I was not no on both accounts there but but really as far as the twippies goes that didn't really have anything to do with the the twippies those were twippies were going to be full steam ahead and it's kind of a long story to not get into here but basically Zach and Greg and myself we couldn't come to an agreement on some things which made it necessary for us to part ways and I definitely still wanted Zach and Greg the host and they still wanted the host too it's we all still wanted to work together we just couldn't get on the same page with a few things and I do understand it from their side um I think they understand it from my side so there's no hard feelings or anything like that But we're keeping things private. We don't want to create unnecessary drama, and, you know, that doesn't do anybody any good. And it's really not, like, that exciting anyway or interesting anyway. So that makes sense. Yeah, hugely appreciative of everything that they've done with the Twinties, of course. Zach and Greg did a fantastic job with the show. It's going to be cool, though, to see what you guys do to mix it up and make it your own. And we're really looking forward to seeing what you guys come up with for this year. Yeah, they'll definitely be missed, but the show must go on. So before we bring the co-hosts into the interview, I wanted to ask you just a couple of generic, twippy questions. So were you surprised when you first got in? Were you kind of surprised about the state of the pinball media at that point? I mean, there was fun with Bonus. There was pinball news once a month. There was a few podcasts, but no centralized news source with, like, frequent updates, interviews, et cetera. And you've kind of become the de facto CNN of pinball. You know, and is that surreal to you? and when you look back on things, what do you think about how far you've come in all this time? So for me, like when I started Twit, it was basically because there were podcasts I wanted to listen to, and obviously Pinsight is just a wealth of information. You just have to weed through some stuff there. And Twitch streamers, and I really just wanted, like I just want a short article every Monday that's like, check this stuff out, what's going on in pinball. And I know that Fun with Bonus has been doing this for a long time, Steve Bowden, pinball news. Martin is a legend. He's been, you know, doing that for 20 plus years, traveling all over the world reporting on pinball, which is just insane. But as far as the like CNN question, I did. So funny story, my first phone call that I had with Robert Mueller of Deep Root, I had contacted him because when it came out that Jay Hop was going to be there and I was like, hey, he's not the most popular dude right now in pinball. And so I had messaged him and he asked me to call him. So I was picking his brain and pestering him because nobody knew anything about Deep Root at that point, and I had wanted to write something up. So we had a good talk, and near the end of it, he said something about that Twiff is like the CNN of pinball. And I'm standing in my garage, and literally I'm in flip-flops and, like, a Pearl Jam t-shirt that I bought at Goodwill and drinking a Bud Light, and I was like, uh, okay. That sounds good, I guess. I was like, hell yeah, it is. yeah that's this is what i'm what i am but no i do i mean i think i take the information in that stuff take the website seriously obviously but uh i don't know i think to a degree everybody in the pinball media is probably taking things a little too seriously lately to be honest so yeah i mean but it's it's really nice to have you in the space now and have everything consolidated especially as podcasters to have all the news summarized and uh there really wasn't anything like Twip before you came about. I appreciate it. It's definitely adding to my enjoyment of the hobby. So I love pinball. Anybody that does any pinball media stuff, they do it because first they love the hobby. So I'm no different there. So you had your website, and then that website over time got bigger and bigger and bigger, and then eventually the Twippy Awards were born from that. And I know that that must take an insurmountable amount of work every year. Can you give people an idea of how the award show kind of evolves from the planning stages to production every year? Yeah, so that's a good question. That's kind of a hard question to answer just because I know it's going into the, what, third year, but it's still changing a lot from year to year. But basically I start with when we start the Twippy season, I guess, reach out to the committee members and make sure that the Twippy committee members get them, see who's going to be on the Twippy committee that year and set up a call with them. And from there, we'll go through all the notes and everything that we learned from the previous year and any changes that we want to make to make it better for this year. And then from there, it's just a ton of people working together to make this all come together in time for TPF. I know we work. Will Odding, he works on kind of the back end for the TWIPI voting and the verification, the votes and things like that. So he works real hard on it. Richard and the AV guys at TPF and all the other volunteers, years. We just, it's a total team effort from there. So. Right. Well, how hard is it every year? I mean, how much do you struggle coming up with which games are eligible and what kind of criteria do you use to decide those things? So for the games themselves, it's pretty straightforward. The big question is, is always on the remakes. So we basically look at, you know, for example, Medieval Madness this year, we look at what has significantly changed from the original machine. So this year, the MMR, the light show, and the display were pretty significantly altered. Obviously, the layout and the rules and the toys and call-outs were not significantly altered. So those, I guess, would have been eligible for the 1997 Twippies. But if the committee, we discussed that as a committee, and if we don't have a unanimous thing, then we'll put it up to a vote, and the committee will vote on what game-specific categories it should be eligible for. Honestly, the write-in categories are the game-specific ones are not that difficult. To me, anyway, they're pretty straightforward, although we have had votes every year on the committee. But the write-in categories are the real pain to figure out the most fair and consistent criteria. And we do have, we've got a bunch of notes that we learned from this year so that next year we're going to make that a little more transparent, I guess, on the eligibility for that and a little bit more straightforward. Well, I mean, everyone has a really strong opinion about which categories should and should not have been included this year. So how do you determine, you know, how to do that? Is it a group vote similar to the, you know, the games that are eligible and the categories that they're eligible for? And then how do you deal with that criticism? I mean, is that something that hits you hard, or is it something that you just kind of say, we're doing our best, you know? Yeah, no, the criticism is probably what's helped the show the most, to be honest. And obviously not all of it. I mean, there's some of it where, you know, somebody posts that this is the dumbest category ever, and we're all dumber for having voted for this. But the constructive criticism is really what's helped make the show better each year, and we welcome that. I have a thing on my phone that is just notes, Twippy notes for next year. It's already packed for next year's Twippy Awards on changes we need to make. Like, you know, this year do we have too many categories? Probably. I think we probably have pushed the limit on how many categories that we can have without making the show too long. Are there any categories that were introduced this year or last year that you already foresee next year being taken away due to criticism? No, not often, because I will say this. For people that come out and say, oh, well, you know, best league is the terrible category. Well, to some people, best league is the most important category. And it's kind of like that with a lot of the categories where people will say, well, this category is like nobody cares about it. But the people that have spent hundreds of hours in the last year building a league or building, you know, a homebrew machine, those people care deeply about that stuff. So as far as what may be a throwaway category for somebody is like the best category for somebody else. So it's going to be a tough decision. We're just going to have to kind of discuss it as a committee and decide on which ones. Because honestly, we've already got like five more categories that people want for next year, but you just can't get into the weeds too far on everything. So next year we're not going to see an award for the most odd drunken debauchery witnessed in a pinball convention bathroom. Oh, gee.
    106:15
    I think poor man's may have wrapped that up probably. There you go. Yes. How many trophies are you going to have in reserve in case Franchi goes on a stomping spree is really what I would know.
    106:26
    So the story on that trophy was that the first year we did the Twippy Awards, and honestly it's like my favorite thing that Twip does in the whole year and it is like trying to get everything together it's a lot to take on but like watching the show back it's something to be really proud of and after the first year I thought I should have got a trophy for myself just to like have in the game room just Twipy just like a little souvenir for me and so the second year which was last year I decided okay I'm going to go ahead and order a trophy so I ordered a trophy just like as a souvenir for myself and that's when Franchi approached me and it was like, hey, I got this idea. I could pretend to be mad and, like, do you have an extra trophy? And I was like, I do. Yes. So that was your personal souvenir trophy? I did not know this, and I feel like a total dick now. No. I think this year I'm definitely going to order a souvenir one and then maybe an extra one that just says just in case slash Francie Award I like it Also I want to apologize for the 50th time to Mike Vinacore for him not knowing about that I don't know how that fell through the cracks, but I owe him a beer or two at TTF this year. I think he's still holding a grudge on me.
    107:48
    Even though I went up to him like three times after the show, and I'm like, dude, I'm really, really sorry. Like, none of us even thought to let you win on this. No, I don't know how that, that was our mistake. Well, you have an excuse. You had a show to run. I had no excuse. I should have at some point, especially when he kept on coming up, you know, for all these awards, I should have won. You know, I should shoot over to where he's sitting, you know, before I go up there and this happens. So, you know, I didn't even think about it myself. Yeah, no. We'll know for next time he's self-atrophy. Right, right. Yeah. Well, it did make it much more interesting. It was, yeah. Because, I mean, if he was in on it, I don't know that he would have sold it as much. That's what made people kind of scratch their head. It was like, was that real? Wait, what just happened? Yeah. This year, one of the things we want to do, too, is to have somebody in the chat, the Twitch chat, so the people that are watching at home, if one of those what-the-hell moments happens, then somebody can say, hey, this is what happened. Because I know last time people were like, what was that? You have to pick someone really good for that spot. I have somebody in mind. Red Kid. Hey.
    108:58
    So just to kind of talk a little bit about some of the questions that people have brought up on forums. So there's been some discussion online about unintended consequences of the Twippy Awards. And what I mean by that is, like, everyone who is a podcaster or a mod creator who are, you know, possibly eligible for an award, many of them are just doing this stuff for fun. and if they get nominated, that's great. But if they don't, they might get discouraged. And, you know, now their impact has been quantified to an extent. So do you think about that at all when choosing categories? I know that's a really tough thing. You can't think about all, you know, all people all the time. But, you know, how much does that impact your choices when you make these picks? Yeah, I've definitely thought a lot about that and I'm sure overthought a lot about that stuff. To go back when I first, like, created the awards and started that voting that first year, I was seriously considering should we have favorite podcast and favorite YouTube show and favorite streamer because my biggest concern was that people would get discouraged, which is like the exact opposite of what I want the Twippies to be about. So in the end, decided to include them for a number of reasons. One was because it is an award show, so there are going to be winners and losers. But also in order to help hype the show, if those people are eligible for an award, they will talk about it on their podcast or their platform more also. But I know I used to drive Zach and Greg nuts about how concerned I was with possibly discouraging people, especially the free content creators. And if you go back to that first year when Zach and Greg were going through, they'd get to the podcast category, and they actually read through every write-in vote that had more than one vote. Nice. And that was me, like, insisting on it because even if somebody didn't finish in the top three, I wanted them to at least be able to, like, hear their name on the show or hear their platform on the show. And, like, for me personally, I'll say, well, I don't care about winning an award. I do TWIP because, like I said, it increases my enjoyment of the hobby, which is true. But if I wasn't in the top three or the top ten of TWIPPY voting, I would care. And that's just human nature. Like you said, it's kind of quantifying it to a degree. Right. And I talked to Jason Fowler so much about Slapsave not being in the drop-down this year that, I mean, he finally just said, hey, this is bothering you a lot more than it's bothering me. So stop saying that I got robbed. Yeah. But it's an award show, so that kind of stuff is kind of impossible to avoid. Well, I think that he got a lot of people saying the same thing, which, you know, even though he wasn't on the list, I think that that must have made him feel good that there were so many people out there that were truly, you know, shocked that he didn't make the list because his show was so good. Yeah. Also, I collected gamers. I was surprised that they weren't in the top ten. I mean, there are a lot of good podcasts. And like every podcast, there are, even if you're not in the top ten, there are people out there that your podcast is their favorite podcast. Right. Reflected Gamers, Left Save, all those there are people that that's their favorite podcast even if they're not in the drop down for the Twippy so. Yeah that's a good point. Well there's been a lot of rumor and speculation on who might take the reins of the Twippy Awards and we have the two new hosts of the show and I think they both have the enthusiasm and love for all things pinball that's needed to be a really good host and so Jeff do you want to formally introduce the two new hosts of the Twippy Awards? Yes Oh shit This is a catastrophe.
    112:23
    Yes, I would. The new host for the show. I'm very excited. We've been talking for way too many hours, I think they would say. Kerry Hardy and Emoto Corny. All right.
    112:36
    What's going on, guys? Going to have some serious applause plugged in there for that. So, Kerry and Emoto, welcome. We're really excited to see what you guys bring to the show. Do you guys want to take turns telling people about yourself if they don't necessarily know what you guys do in pinball? And just give us a quick bio. Emoto, you want to go first? Yeah, sure.
    112:56
    Hey, guys. I'm Emoto Arcade, and I create video content for pinball and arcades. I've been playing pinball for about five, six years now, and that includes going to shows and taking photos and videos and sharing them with people and just trying to hype it up and get more people to come out and play because it's fun. I fell in love with this community and a lot of awesome people, and I'm excited to present awards for everyone. And I'm nervous, but it's going to be awesome. I mean, we're coming behind, you know, Zach and Greg. That's a hard thing to follow. Yeah, I mean, people know that you guys are both coming in last minute. You'll hopefully give them some leeway and slack if things don't go perfectly, although I'm sure they will. And, you know, they're excited. I'm sure they're excited like we are to see how you guys mix it up. Yeah, but these weren't, Carrie and Emoto, they weren't knee jerks. Just picks. I mean, I know Jeff spent a lot of time, you know, we had a lot of discussions and back and forth. And so, Emoto and Carrie, they were, we interviewed them, we talked to them. And I say we, Jeff mainly. I was only part of a couple conversations. But they weren't just, you know, picked out of a hat. They were recruited. That's a good word. You're just going to rub it in because I didn't have a chance. Yeah, to Kerry. Kerry, tell us about yourself. Yeah, I'm still here.
    114:19
    All right, thanks for joining us. So what's up, guys? Yeah, this is Kerry Hardy. I create video content via YouTube, everything pinball. So when it comes to your restorations, to news, rumors, whatever, anything pinball, that's what I do. But my primary passion is, of course, the restoration portion of it, though. That's cool, man. I first learned about you a couple years ago. I watched the video on how to clean and wax my machines, and you had some tire shine or something for your World Cup soccer. Yeah. I've been using it ever since, so I highly recommend his channel. It's great. I looked today. You've got like 150,000 views and over 1,000 subscribers, and you've got some awesome videos on there, diagnosing issues and product reviews, play field swaps, all that good stuff. Yeah. I'm currently doing the getaway restoration. That should be all wrapped up and done. right before TPA, and then everyone should be able to see and play that game at the show. Oh, that's awesome. Nice. Congrats. Carrie also owns the most impeccable Last Action Hero game I've ever seen in my life. Oh, yeah, you should bring that, too. They'll probably be side by side. We'll see how the show is set up this year, but that's the plan, at least. I know a guy. We can probably get him up close and front.
    115:32
    I get there early so I can get up front there. So you guys, the show is like one of the highlights, if not the highlight, of TPA for a lot of people, and we can't wait to see what you guys have. I mean, with new hosts, are we looking at a new take on the Twippies? Are you guys going to try and stick with a similar, you know, format to yours fast or mix it up? You can still wear a tuxedo. I'm definitely going to wear a suit. Most definitely. From what we've discussed so far, there will definitely be changes in comparison to the previous couple of years, mainly, of course, the hosts, but also just the format a little bit of, like, you know, what we're wearing. We're not going to do it as formal. we're going to kind of go with a different type of style and theme but just primarily we're just going to be celebrating everything pinball very cool so a little more sexual content yeah i might from what i was told the podium is going to be large so it may cover my legs so i was like good i don't have to shave my legs so i mean what are what are your goals for the twippies this year i mean what are you guys most excited about and obviously what what are you most nervous about all that good stuff well for me i'm really excited that i can just have the opportunity to present the awesomeness in pinball you know when jeff hit me up i was kind of the nervousness came like me you're picking me to do this to do this deed you know it's such an honor everyone's so cool and they're doing great things with pinball like my host being carrie who he can restore all these machines and is an awesome video content creator too which is you know my passion and profession like i super respect that and i respect so many of y'all in the community that i'm just excited to be on there and hand out awards to some of the many deserving people yeah and a lot of that is you know the same for me ditto i could say that we can go full-blown ghost here and be like ditto but i'm not gonna do that we're connected that's what we're gonna do jeff we need to talk but get the clay portion up there so we can reenact the whole ghost thing. I'll get off my Marco soapbox. But for real, like, people's awesome. Our community's awesome, you know? Like, let's celebrate it together for one night all together. Yeah, but it wasn't just ditto. I mean, Jeff, I think you were selected first. Jeff came to you first, and you accepted. And when we were looking for a co-host, again, I say we, Jeff. No, it's me. It's me. I mean. Well, you're right. You and I did talk a lot just via Facebook Messenger and stuff, but when a second host was being sought after, one of the requirements was that whoever was selected, I wanted, or Jeff wanted, or we wanted, you, Emoto, and the other person to at least have a conversation and make sure you all could bounce off each other and jive and make a good team. So when Carrie was suggested, that was one of the requirements, that we wanted you all to have a conversation, and I guess you did, and it went well. Yep, it's been a long time coming, but the Hardy and Harney show is on its way. Oh, I like that. The Hardy and Harney show.
    118:29
    You guys both, I mean, you both have backgrounds in creating video content. That's kind of your thing. So are you going to be doing some of the video segments at the awards? We've shot around a couple of ideas on what we could do for the show, little bits here and there. As far as, like, exactly what we're doing, nothing's concrete just yet. Okay. It's a secret. All right. You just have to come and find out. so you work with marco are they going to be helping out to plan and set up the show at all yes absolutely marco is a huge sponsor in the twippies this year and not just because i'm hosting but because they have been sponsoring the twippies in past years and they're really excited about it but we plan to bring even more to the table as far as helping with lighting and display as well as you know the videos that play and just overall support to make the show go as movie as possible. So we're excited about that. As well as having an awesome Stranger Things booth. Nice. Well, I'm still campaigning for a giant Trippie logo sign up on the stage because that has to be there. We're coming to an agreement and we're almost there. A compromise. Well, don't let Ed in on it because he'll want the big XS Pinball Festival logo up there. Oh, he'll still get what he wants. Oh, it's already been discussed and they'll tell you I was pretty stubborn about it so I already know it's coming. Stupid Ed. It'll be good. You'll be happy, Franchi. Just you wait. All right. He's retired now, so he's got plenty of time to focus on this, on what he wants. That's right.
    119:53
    You got to kind of bully your way in on the setup. He's overstepping his bounds as promoter of TPP. I'm going to run this flippy show now. No. No, we love you. I can't tell you. It's good. How many times? Jeff will tell you. I've told him a million times. This is your show. In fact, the more I'm involved, the less it takes away from my other stuff. So other than just, you know, quick Facebook Messenger messages, you know, questions and stuff, I'm really not involved at all. Yeah, we joke with Ed, but Ed, you've been, like, such a huge help with this. And same with Marco and the other sponsors of the show. It's been, yeah, truly appreciated. You guys are helping make the show great, so. Aw. That's cool. Aw. And I don't think I said it on there, so. No, you didn't. Aw, from the heart. It was from the heart. So, Modo and Kerry, you guys have, you've had a steep learning curve. I'm sure, but you weren't involved necessarily in the very early planning stages. So let's say you could go back and you could help make a decision of what categories were included this year. If you could add a Twisty category. I know it's a tough question, but if you could add a Twisty category. No, Emoto is like dying to show off here, I think. Okay. Don't know me. So what would you add and who would you give it to? Let's take it to the next level. So what new category would you add and who would win that in your mind? Favorite pinball dog. There you go. Yeah. Wookie? Oh, yeah. No. Oh. I can't vote for my own son. Okay. So who would you vote for, Farlo? I don't know. It's hard. She's going to vote for Rob Anthony's dog. I know. There's so many good dogs. Cash. Let's go with Cash. Yeah. I don't think Bob Museum's dog. He's a golden retriever that hangs out at the museum and gives you hugs. Very cool. That's cool. All right, Carrie. Let's take it away. But there's a lot of choices. That drop-down menu would be huge. For what we've discussed so far, we have a folder that we basically are throwing everything ideas-wise into. So we've got the list of all the presenters as well as the categories. And we're already like, this is almost too many categories. I was like, this is a lot. That's a lot of categories. This is a little ridiculous, actually. That's a lot of e-comedy videos. Edit. That's the way I was looking at it, too. I was looking at it from an Edison point of view. I'm like, that's a lot. That's a lot to take on right there. So I don't know about adding anymore. Right.
    122:17
    That's a pinball t-shirt. That's a good one. And for me, some of the awards that I think about are the ones that are at the end of TPF in general. So that's two different kinds of categories and two different types of spectrums. You know, you have just basically what's going on at Texas, and then you have trippies, which is all pinball all over the world. I wonder if it will ever get to the point where, like, how they do the Grammys and whatnot, where you have that night before where they give away the lower echelon awards, but they're not televised. You know, that's where you get your best T-shirt and stuff like that, you know. We've actually had some discussions about that. I haven't with Samoto and Carrie, with the committee and stuff past. We kind of discussed, because we don't want the show to feel like a draggy on. So we've discussed a few things down that road, nothing concrete yet, but we'll see. For this year, it's obviously set in stone, but we'll maybe look at some different options for next year. How about that? My joke becomes a reality. No, it really is. It's on, man. Yes, it is. It's impressive. Because there are obviously categories that are bigger than others and things like that. So it's on the table. Nice. So outside of the Twippy Awards, what are you guys most looking forward to about TPF?
    123:36
    For me, honestly, I get so amped up just seeing the people that I only get to see essentially this time of the year. And so it's one of those things where this is the only weekend that I'm going to get to meet up with a lot of people that are living maybe just a couple of states away, but this is the only time I see them that I've become friends with through TPF. So that's where our connection is, is TPF. And so every year at this point in time, it's like, all right, it's that time of year. It's almost like an anniversary as well as celebration for what we are passionate about. Yeah, for sure. So cliche and so true. It is so true. I love wandering the hallways late at night and seeing all the people that are still out. Like Steve Ritchie will be out at 3 a.m. when everyone's starting to go to bed. And you just have the most awesome conversations with people you don't normally get to see. and sit outside with Steve Ritchie for a few hours and talk about life, you know? Or see the guys from Poor Man's Pinball Podcast pissing in the planters.
    124:35
    I've seen some very departure stuff there, too. If they're not pissing in planters, they're throwing up in urinals.
    124:44
    I'm also excited. I've been having a lot of fun working with Marco because I'm not really, I'm doing video content, but I'm also helping them with their show circuit. and part of that is designing booth layouts and, you know, there's a new stern release or a new type of game theme that we are displaying, then I've been having fun, like, building truss designs and trying to make it more of a theme. And, you know, to do that for work, that's, you know, I have a dream job right now. I just get to build cool pinball displays for everyone to play in. What theme would this be that you're building around the stern release? For, no, for Texas, we would be doing Stranger Things, because this is the first time we're showing it at a show, is Texas for us. So is this going to be themed? Are we going to see some Christmas lights maybe in this, or a life-size demogorgon or something? You know, I'm trying to look for a life-size demogorgon. Do I have any volunteers? You're going to need a life-size rubber band to go around it. Oh, my God, I love it. I love that. That's awesome. Well, since we're talking about Stranger Things, and I was going to talk about this at the end, but you want a TPF exclusive directly related to that? Heck, yes. Yes, yes. I normally do the TPF shameless plug at the end, which we'll still do, and I'll announce it, but I just got the email yesterday that Brian Eddy is coming to Texas Pinball Festival. Very cool. I love that. That's awesome. I don't know if he's going to like me or not.
    126:20
    After your video? Yeah. He did ask, who is, he did ask, who is Cary Hardy? No, he didn't, he didn't. But, you know, so we're excited about that. So, yeah, Mike Vinegar sent an email. Oh, okay. Mike Vinegar. Mike Vinegar sent an email.
    126:40
    Vinegar. Mike Vinegar strokes. Sorry, Mike. Mike Vinegar sent an email saying that Brian Eddy was going to join him, and they were going to do a seminar on Stranger Things. And this is going to be on Saturday at 5 p.m., I think is the time. We'll have the schedule finalized, but I'll go back over all this at the end. But since you were talking about the Stranger Things booth and all that, I figured I'd throw that in there. Do you know when you're going to announce that, Ed? Hopefully this week. In TPF world, in my world, TPF is like barreling down. But, you know, it's still a month away for everybody else. It's not really, you know, they're just going to show up. So when I email them and I say, hey, you know, I know you have badges printed and things are happening and they're very slow to respond or they don't know or they're, you know, I'll hit you back next week. But I think I've got pretty much everybody nailed down. And so I'm thinking probably Monday or Tuesday we're going to publish the seminar. All right, because I'd love for him to present at the Twippies. So I'll reach out. I'll ask him about that. I messaged a couple of guys from Stern that ended up they're not going this year. So that'd be a good one. Did you see his behind-the-scenes video that they just posted on the same site? I saw it without sound. I haven't seen it with sound yet. That's on Playfield, and it just goes through the line with him. He was having such a good time showing that off. It's a nice still-good video. That's cool. So speaking of Mike Venecourt, are you guys going to get him a little bit more up front this year? Because Jurassic Park might win a couple of awards. Give him a cheer on the stage. He put in some miles. Get right there up front, big guy. You got your running shoes on, right? You're going to get a step in today. I really want him to do, I want him to present an award, but people will get sick of him if he's up there too much, right? This guy again? Do you guys have anything else you want to talk about? I do. I have one other thing. I didn't say um. You said Adam. You said uh. Oh, did I? Go away. No, when you mention things that I'm looking forward to at the Twippies, or at TPF other than the Twippies. I did want to mention I'm looking forward to seeing the Silver Ball Swag booths down there. Oh.
    128:50
    That's a plug. Can we still get our order in? Like, is it too late? Oh, my gosh. It's like a month and a half too late. Sorry. I forgot to get back with you on that. Well, Jeff, I'm wearing... We may be able to get... We can get like a bulk. We did the bulk order, but we can get like a couple just to have on display there that we can hang up, and then you can say, my wife just texted me, by the way, and said, can you keep it down a little bit? I'm like, yes.
    129:20
    Did she actually say, can you keep it down? By the way, you guys didn't hear this, Moto and Carrie, but when I got on the phone, the first thing that Frankie said to me was, can you take the clothespin off your nose? I apologize for my co-host. his views of the other members of this show you should hear the other content that we've got recorded exactly we edit the show a lot before it airs maybe the very last one we ever do will be called the super awesome raunchy pinball show and we'll just put in all the stuff you guys paint a picture of me as if Python Angelo had painted it and it was just a big dick trying to loosen up everybody so that we all have a good time when we do this that's all gotcha insulting the man i love jeff jeff is the stunt double for the dad on family ties oh my god see that's weird because usually people say i look like a combination of ryan reynolds brad pitt and johnny daft combined i don't get that i don't get that at all I'm starting to think about it it's in my head I'm like wait a minute I think Franchise I gotta look this up I'm like is that Robin Thicke's dad from the time that was a different show that was Growing Pain yeah I could remember his name I only know the yeah that was Growing Pain Mrs. Fintalk I don't like any of this Matthew McConaughey remember she liked him oh yeah kinda got that laid back attitude go ahead and look it up it's already there So am I right or what? When you put it in my head, I was like, holy shit, that is him. Oh, my God. Throw that beard out. You got this.
    131:11
    Y'all want to hear my idea for a Twippy Award, a new category? You don't have to put this in, but because we talked about it. No, I think what would be interesting is if you had a write-in category for dream theme and you had people write in what they're, you know, if they could have any license theme or anything that they wanted, and then you take those top five or ten or whatever, and you have people vote on them. And I bet manufacturers would pay attention to that. I also feel like you already know what's going to be in there, right? The top three are going to be at least Harry Potter is going to be one. Jaws, Goonies. Everybody, everybody. King Kong is going to be top of the list. No, no. Back to the future right there, though. How many times people say that the Twippies are rigged or something like that? And if we did that one and Harry Potter didn't finish number one, I think I would rig it. Yes. Thank you. We did Harry Potter number one. Yes, we do. Well, thank you, guys. We took up enough of your time tonight. Can't wait for the show, and we're all going to be there. It's going to be a great show. We're definitely excited for it. Yeah, we're excited, definitely. All right. Thanks for coming. We'll catch up with you guys later. Thanks, guys. Bye. Thanks, guys. See you. All right, thanks to Jeff Patterson, Emoto Harney, and Kerry Hardy for joining us. The stars at night are big and bright. We can go all the way. And now it's that time of the show again, everybody's favorite time where Ed brags about his goddamn pinball.
    132:38
    What the fuck? Well, thank you, Mr. Franchi. For those that listened to the last show, I think the last announcement I made was Jonathan Doofson and Martin Ayoub. But since then, there has been a ton happening because as the show gets closer, everybody, you know, all their plans come together. Jerry Thompson from Stern Pinball, the sound designer, he's coming to the show. He's awesome. We've announced the swap meet. For those that don't know, we have a giant swap meet on Saturday during the show. So if you're interested in that, you have to get up early. I know that's hard after everyone's up so late on Friday. But if you drag yourself out there, you're going to find some good stuff. We announced Damien, of course. We interviewed him from Haggis Pinball. They're coming with Kelts, and so we're very excited about that. But I think the biggest announcement that we made since the last show was our raffle game. And for those that don't know, our charity is the National Video Game Museum this year in Frisco, Texas, which they are offering, if you come to the Texas Pinball Festival on Saturday, they're offering a free shuttle to the National Video Game Museum all day, and you get in for half price. So I think admission is like, it's normally $12. You get in for $6 if you've got your wristband on. I highly recommend checking it out. But our raffle is going to benefit the National Video Game Museum, and Jersey Jack Pinball hooked us up with a Willy Wonka. So we're going to be giving away a Willy Wonka standard edition pinball machine. I'm winning that. For 2020. I hope you do. You heard it here first. I'm winning that. That won't look rigged at all, right, if you win the pinball machine? I know how to rig it. How do you say that? Is it fair? I mean, it's fair because it's not actually rigged, but it's a way to win. It's funny. That's one of the reasons why everyone says, well, why do I have to be present to win? And that's actually the number one reason is because I don't want anyone thinking there's any shenanigans going on. Everybody's there watching. I usually pick a kid out of the audience that comes up on stage and sticks their arm in and pulls the ticket out, and everybody can see, and it's all right there, so there's no shenanigans. That's the worst idea, though, because when you've got the guy who bought 50 tickets and thought for sure he'd win, and he does, and he goes up to that kid and goes, thanks, kid, and then the kid cries. and, you know, you need somebody tough that's used to getting beat up. But then, of course, I announced during the interview with Kerry and Emoto that Brian Eddy from Stern Pinball is coming to the show. This will be his first time to the Texas Pinball Festival. Well, he just recently got back into the game, right? I mean, this is really, really cool because he probably hasn't been to many conventions since he got back into Stern. For those that don't know, I can't imagine anybody not knowing, but he's also the designer for Medieval Madness and Attack from Mars. and I think you said The Shadow. There's some others. But, yeah, we're really excited about him coming. It'll be his first trip to Texas, and he'll be doing a seminar on Saturday. And I've also posted information about the volunteer schedule. So if you want to volunteer, I've got some good incentives for you. But all this stuff can be found at TexasPenball.com. We post all of our updates and news and stuff there. So go to TexasPenball.com. And that is my shameless plug for this episode. All right, next up, we're going to find out who is going to win the Barlow's Pin Pals Shelter Contest.
    135:46
    So many of you guys made donations to shelters, and we appreciate it all. That's what it was all about, and we really got a better turnout on this than we expected, so we're really grateful for that, and all the little puppies and kitties are thankful, too. And here's what we're going to do. We are going to announce on our Facebook page, coming up Tuesday, March 10th, On our Facebook page, we're going to announce who wins the Monster Bash Playfield, the Jaws Translight, and the Voodoo Glass for your pinball machine. Fabulous prize package, and that's when you're going to find out. So tune into our Facebook page on Tuesday, March 10th, to find out who the winner is. Winner, winner, chicken dinner. Yes. And now for our new contest. We are the two chickens of paradise. We're going to pack you back to Disneyland. So you say you want to go to Texas Pinball Festival, but you don't have tickets and you don't have a hotel. Well, we're going to give you that, a hotel and tickets to the 2020 Texas Pinball Festival. Christian, tell our listeners how they can win this fabulous prize package. That's right. So we've got an incredible room at the Drury Hotel, which is very, very close to the convention center. And we also have a pair of passes to the Texas Pinball Festival for the weekend. If you already have passes, we're going to hook you up with some TPF swag, including T-shirts instead. All you have to do is on our Facebook page, you're going to see a post shortly about the contest, and you just have to comment below the post. Let us know why you deserve the tickets, and we'll randomly choose from anyone who's commented below. Any videos or any pictures are a plus, but don't necessarily improve the odds. Also, you guys need to know that for the hotel, you are going to need a credit card that can be dinged for, I think it's $100. You don't actually pay it, but they hold onto it for incidentals. We cannot cover that for you. That has to be all on you. We don't want any rock stars burning the place down, being on the hook for that. We do want that to happen. We just don't want to have to pay for it. That would be a good story. Yeah, and the Drury Inn is a nice hotel. It's right down the street from the main event. I mean, every hotel in the area is sold out. So if you don't have a room, this is a great opportunity. I believe this is for Friday night and Saturday night. It's just two nights, and it's right down the street. If you already have your TPF tickets, I'm going to hook you up with some T-shirts and some other cool stuff. And if you don't have tickets, I'm going to hook you up with a couple of passes to the show. And that's it. We're excited to see you guys there. And as a late added bonus prize, a signed photo from the entire crew of the Super Awesome Pinball Show. Oh, God. I'm sorry. No, that was a joke. That was a prank you made. I know. How about a signed TPF poster? How about a signed Franchi TPF poster? That is going to be a collector's piece. Got to get everybody to sign that, everybody who's there. All right, now it's that magical time where we wrap up the show. Magical because you sat here for two hours. and that's about as much as you can take sitting around with us i wanted to let you guys know that the next show you thought this show was delayed the next show is probably going to be a good five weeks out because it's going to be right after tpf we're going to do a wrap-up show but we're all really busy prior to that so savor this show like it was a jolly rancher in your mouth and we'll be back after tpf for another fabulous episode but anyway uh christian since you're so good at it why don't you tell the people how they can get in touch with us all right you can reach us at superawesomepinball at gmail.com or just hit us up on our Facebook page. That's right. You guys are definitely going to want to tune in to the next episode because we're going to have some amazing interviews with all the people that are there. We've got inside connections. So be sure to tune in for that. Another Twippy-nominated episode of the Super Awesome Pinball Show. So until then, drive safe or fly safe to Texas. We will see you guys there. On behalf of me and my two co-hosts, Christian and Ed, take it easy and we'll see you on the next show. Goodbye, everybody. See you at TPS. Adios. This is Tony the Porn Creep. Mmm. Stick around till the end for more super awesome bloopers. You know what butthole tastes like a penny? The commentary and opinions shared by the cast and guests do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the sponsors, Cointaker, Chicago Gaming Company, and Back Alley Creations. Their sponsorships of this show only serve to add to their continuing support of the pinball community. Because we're going to be legends Come and get their attention What we're doing here ain't just Baby, it's about to be Christmas time Farewell and adieu To you fierce, funny ladies It's the backflip Okay, bye-bye now Bye-bye Bye Bye-bye Goodbye Later, Dears Goodbye, goodbye, good friends, goodbye. Is this over? I know I say it's over! Bye, bye, bye! Bye! Good day, sir! Get the fuck out of here! I gotta go. I'll see you later. Wait a- Okay, okay, sure, bye-bye. Bye-bye. Hasta la vista, baby. Hey, you fucking chalupa suck!
    140:50
    Now, as usual, we like to get right to the bloopers, and we have some great ones tonight. Air this, the moto, until your teaser video is out. Oh, yeah. It'll be, by the time you finish editing all of this, it'll be ready. All the ums. Dan, it's me and Chris. Meet me. Chris, do we have more ums? Say more ums. I did. I did that for you, a lot of. I did that to buy some time. Seriously, we're going out Saturday. Is that going to meet with your schedule, the moto? Yeah. That's for tomorrow. Yeah, that's, I was thinking Sunday, but. You can do that. I mean, we don't want to put this out before you guys announce, so. Crack the whip. Yeah. Nobody does Saturday podcasts. Exactly. Exactly, Jeff. But they're terrible because say that somebody runs a website where they release the news on Monday, then suddenly Saturday release means that I've got to work Sunday to get. Our show is not about being timely. It's about being stupid. If you release it on Monday, then it can go on the This Week in Pinball Monday. And that's why we don't go Monday because we don't give out free stuff. No. Jeff wants to use our stuff. He's got to pay, yo. That's right.
    141:55
    It doesn't kind of suck, though. I have to admit, like, when you get an exclusive and, like, you know, someone like Joe Kamenko comes on and he drops all these nuggets and then Jeff just turns around and goes, here's a reason why you don't have to listen to that shit podcast because I got it all right here for you. No. Dude, I put a few highlights in and then I write, like, an entire paragraph on. If you want to hear about all this other crazy crap that Joe talked about. Translation, what Jeff is actually saying here is he will provide the hot fudge, whipped cream, sprinkles, and cherry while we provide the ice cream. You need to listen to the podcast. I highly recommend it. But first, take your pants off.
    142:33
    Like, you give them the money shot, and you're like, well, if you want to stay on the foreplay, go over here to this. This is where it's at. Like, no, that's not how.
    142:43
    Is this, what is it, Sebastian? I thought this was super awesome. This is super awesome. We're going to edit all the bad Jeff bashing out. No, it's all good. Leave it in. So, Jeff, in the future, would you consider doing a This Week in Pinball centerfold?
    143:00
    Francie would be the first one. Yeah, it's actually in the works. Are you not entertained?
    143:11
    Is this not why you are here?