it's time for another pinball profile i'm your host jeff tillis you can find everything on pinballprofile.com we're on facebook we're on twitter and instagram at pinball profile emails pinball profile at gmail.com i always look forward to seeing this man he recently celebrated a big milestone birthday happy 50th to coy Brian Morris hi coy how are you fine i'm doing just just fine it's always good to see you and it's here at expo in chicago i think actually the last time i saw you was at an old expo the old place of course and we were playing jetsons i don't know if you remember it but you really i remember jetsons you gave me a lesson on how to play that and you have a great knowledge of all pinball so as all these new companies are here and the new machines How long does it take you to learn these new machines, Coy? I would say quite a bit longer than it used to because they're quite a bit more complex now. A lot of the games, a lot of cool stuff in it. And it takes a while to learn what you can do in all these games. But it's a lot of fun, though. Definitely a lot of fun. You're right. The learning curve is certainly more than it was in the 70s, the 80s, and the 90s. And I bring that up because we mentioned you're 50, but you growing up in New York, I think you told me it was around 12 years old when you first fell in love with pinball. Yep, 8-ball deluxe, first game. Yep, that was the first game I ever played. Such a fun game, even still to this day. Isn't it amazing that it holds up so long? One of my favorite classics. Absolutely. I think, in my opinion, it's the best one-ball classic. I would have difficulty naming 10 others, so I think you're right there. But I mentioned New York, and you, I'm actually quite jealous and envious that you got to play at the famous Broadway arcade, Steve Epstein's wonderful place. So tell me what that was like playing there in the day. It was pretty amazing to get to play a lot of new stuff that was there, got to play all the new pins, and got to see a lot of great players playing. That's something you mentioned there, because it was a test location, correct? That's right. All the new games that came out of the factory, that's Williams and all the other manufacturers at the time, they had Steve Epstein test the game to see how it would do on location. I like that. I mean, now we see code updates, and it's easier, obviously, with Wi-Fi and a stick to do that. But it was something when you had these locations. I think, actually, just recently American Pinball did that with 10, not so much for a test location, but just kind of as a launch. But I like the test location idea. Do you think they'll ever go back to that? Because it's funny, we see games that come out and they have the code updates, but when they are shown in a tournament and players will blow up a game or find an exploit, oh that might have been prevented had it been at a test location Yeah that quite possible you know but it is a good idea to see how well all kinds of players play the game to see if a good player can find an exploit that can be fixed, but if it's something that's difficult, you know, that the average player wouldn't be able to get to very much, that could be found out also. It had to be exciting, and again, we're talking before the internet, when Broadway Arcade would get some of these brand new games there had to be so much excitement and oh I want to get my hands on that do you remember those days yep yeah I remember playing quite a few new games like uh I would say like Adam's Family, Theater of Magic, Attack from Mars all the good stuff there and just imagine I don't think people younger might understand just the revolution when a game like Adam's or Twilight Zone came out just whoa we've never seen anything like that and I can imagine that thing just ate up quarters of people dying to play that. Yep. I would say Twilight Zone is a good example. I would say when I first saw people play it, and I saw people make the camera shot, and I heard the sound, I said, oh, that's, I said, okay, I've got to be able to do that sometime. I said that basically that sound effect made me really want to play the game, and then I fell in love with it. Not to mention the Powerball, the magnet. Yep, yep, that's, yeah, that's, Powerball is something that had never, never had been done before in the game. as far as I'm aware. Yeah, for sure. Of course, that's when mode base was really important. You know, before we mentioned 8-Ball Deluxe, but that was not really modes. I mean, you knew what you could do. You could either go left orbit, you could certainly try to get the rack and the 2X, 3X, and all those stand-ups, but it's different when you had modes like Adam's family, like Twilight Zone. What was it like for that big change? You know, okay, it's not just about hitting shots, it's about thinking. you get to do more stuff in the game and you can actually plan out your shots. You know, you say, okay, I have to do this and this and this to get more points. You know, at least you have more of an objective to go for. Another thing about New York, the original championships were there, Papa and World Championships. So you were a part of that. I think you started at the third one. Papa 3 was my very first one. I've been to all the Papas since then. I hope they come back, but what was it like back in the day? I know I remember hearing Roger Starp tell me stories about, you know, Ellen would have to do pen and paper and try to keep the queuing up and all that kind of fun stuff. Things that we take for granted right now because we have Never Drains, we have Match Play software, but it was pen and paper back then. Yep. You know, basically everything had to be done by hand because I guess maybe there were calculators that were used or something to add up all the stuff, but everything basically had to be done by hand back in the early 90s. I mean, there's some kind of charm to that kind of connection with the community back then, because certainly everybody knew everyone. And I don know what it was like as far as people traveling to come to New York for the big events or was it all pretty much New York based I guess a lot of people were from the New York area but there were people from all over who came who traveled people from California people from you know say Texas or you know other parts of the U.S. or even other parts of the world came to play. Since it was like a world championship, people from all over came. But people who live in the New York area had, I would say they had an advantage because, you know, it didn't cost them that much to attend, you know. That's true. Yeah, and we all know how expensive hotels are in New York. But again, that experience of maybe the machines themselves or certainly the surroundings and, again, knowing the players, it's a little overwhelming. Now, I travel a lot for pinball, and the first time you go to a place you've never been before, it's like, whoa, okay, you've got to get your bearings a little bit. You're probably in a hotel and you're sleep-deprived. That's the one thing about tournaments that I always forget, and it's been two years. So just, oh yeah, you've got to remember to sleep. You've got to remember to eat. Yep. Yeah, you can't forget to do it because otherwise if you don't sleep and if you don't eat, you're probably not going to perform as well as you otherwise could have. See, now that's when, if you're playing in New York, you've got that home advantage. So you know the spots. You maybe can pack a lunch or you've got a fridge nearby. It's a little different when you're on the road, but it's still fun. And I know you've come here to Expo. What did you like about the new location here? I think it's a pretty good location. is a pretty decent size, you know, for the show. When you come to something like Expo, where there's so many different things, there's the vendors, there's the new releases, there's the seminars, is there something particular you look forward to, or is it all of it? All of it. I like to take part in all of it. What were some of your favorite things this past weekend? I would say seeing the homebrew stuff, for one thing, that was interesting to see, and seeing all the new games like Cactus Canyon and Godzilla, and seeing all the seminars, the Stern seminars on Saturday. That was interesting. Yeah. I saw you and I together for Dwight Sullivan's trivia contest, his kind of feud without the family thing, which he's been doing for four years with Corey. That was a lot of fun. It was. Some of the questions out there were, name a pinball machine with four pop bumpers. And we could name a few, but it was tough to come up with them all. Yes, it's Star Wars Trilogy, and I'm surprised that wasn't up there because that's a game that I think that people would know that has four pop bumpers. The number one answer was Kiss, and it didn't matter whether it was the Valley or the Stern. I guessed, and I was wrong. I couldn't believe it. I guessed Xenon. Clearly four pop bumpers in that almost T formation didn't even make the list. Come on. Well, that's what some games that you think would make it, just, I guess, based on what people answered in the survey that Dwight did. But I think Xenon was an honorable mention, I think. Yeah, should have made the top four. They had Adams family in there. I have to look at the play field. Adams certainly has five bumpers. Five, not four. That's right. Come on, trivia. Anyway it was a lot of fun and Dwight said he was going to do it next year So it kind of a good way to wrap things up As far as tournaments and the different play because you been playing for such a long time Coy tell me some of the formats you like some maybe you dislike and where has pinball gone as far as format changes? I would say back when I started playing, it was basically group play only. It would be head-to-head or group play. So group play like in groups of three or four, or you play like in qualifying, you would play like the popper style. You basically play five games by yourself, try to get a good ticket, And if you qualified, then you would play in groups of four to try to advance. Move on to the playoffs. So that's something. If you've ever played in tournaments, a lot of them are pump and dumps. A lot of them are group plays or three strikes tournaments, things like that. But what you're talking about, that ticket format. I've played a lot of pinball, not as much as you. That is the hardest one to make the playoffs because you have to be good on every game. Yeah, you have to be consistent across your entire ticket. If you have like three or four bad games, that's not going to get you anywhere. where you have to have a solid score across all the games. Or maybe you might get away with a zero if you have a number one somewhere else. Yeah, that's true. What you're talking about is if there are a lot of people competing and they're putting up a lot of scores, and on that ticket you have a really low score, that might bleed down to where you get no points for it. Exactly, yeah. The top person would get 100 and then maybe 95 for second and so on down the list. But if you're outside of the top, say 85 or 100, yeah, you get zero on that ticket. Right. Like C-Ray, for example, in the classics, if you didn't have a score, say, above 25,000, you weren't getting any points for it. And that was a very tough game to play because of the way it was set up. Tough game, the flippers were... The flippers sucked, and then a lot of certain things didn't work. But somehow people were able to get 50,000, 60,000 on the game, and that was enough for a good score. But if you got even 40,000, that was a solid score in the game. So, Coy, a lot of people have seen you at events, the New York area, Pinball Expo and other tournaments throughout the years. But for those that don't travel, they've also seen you on that old movie, Special Unlit. What was it like when that came out and you were a big part of that? It was pretty fun. It was interesting to be in a movie. Yeah, no kidding. Yeah, it was the first time I've actually ever been in a movie. Yep. I mean, you were a legend before the movie, but that just took you to a whole new level. And, of course, people probably came up to you and said, hey. Yep. A lot of people did that ever since the movie came out. Well, I appreciate you spending time with me. I wish it was a little longer, but maybe we'll do this again. And, Coy, thanks very much for talking to me today. And it's good to see you again, buddy. Same here. Okay, thanks, Coy. This has been your Pinball Profile. You can find everything on pinballprofile.com. We're on Facebook. You can find us on Twitter and Instagram. Email us pinballprofile at gmail.com. I'm Jeff Teelis.