hello everybody and welcome back to another episode of the wedgehead pinball podcast the best pinball podcast right if you say so i love doing these intros because that means it's an alex episode and alan has to plug the coffee account well i'm doing fantastic water boy because I love plugging our coffee account. Normally, you get to do all of it. So if you're unaware, we have a coffee page, which is ko-fi.com slash Wedget Podcast. Link is in the show notes. And that is the way to support us. You appreciate this show that we do for you each and every week. And you want to give some support, a couple bucks, throw it our way. You can do that on our coffee page. And what's really cool is we use that money to go on various pinball trips to play pinball at rad spots around the country. If you know the show, you know we are crazy for location pinball, and we'd love to see more of it. Anything you want to do, donate to the show. We will use it to go and travel and play pinball on location. And as a special thank you, you will get to join our Discord server, our private Discord server, and chat with us about the show, other fans of the show. We talk about news, rumors, all that kind of stuff we don't touch on on the show. And it's also a great way to chat with us directly. We're very active in our Discord. Like I said in the last episode, I always feel bad because I want to always respond to everyone how they reach up. But I've got three different emails for the business and for the show. You're prioritizing Discord responses. Yes. And I have the Instagram. We have some Facebook that I can't ever get access. There's lots of ways. If you've tried to reach out before and I haven't responded, I'm sorry. But we are in the Discord. And I am at the bar pretty much all the time. So those are the ways to contact me if you want a response. But we are talking about something very serious this week for episode, what, 99? Pinball is a game defined by innovation. From the introduction of the player-controlled flipper in Harry Mab's 1947 title Humpty Dumpty to the clever implementation of internet-connected gameplay in Stern's recent Dungeons & Dragons, innovation is at the heart of what makes pinball so captivating to us. And as players, we can't wait to see what game manufacturers will think to put in games next. But one innovation truly, literally stands above the rest. And it's impossible to overstate the importance of its place in pinball. This marriage of art and technology has had such a profound impact on the hobby that we felt the need to devote an entire episode to it. Welcome to episode 99 of the Wedgehead Pinball Podcast. Much ado about toppers. Look, we felt we need to devote an entire episode to it. Alex was adamant that we do an entire episode about toppers. The people have been clamoring for it, and it's finally here. It's Topper Talk, the topper episode. So basically what all other pinball podcasts talk about on every episode, right, is when's the topper, how much is it going to cost, it costs too much. But we're starting way before that. We're starting with the question, what is a topper? So some people listening, I know my mom's probably like, what's a topper? It's a thing that sits on top of a pinball machine's backbox or head. Why they aren't called pinball hats, nobody knows. Topper sounds fucking stupid, whereas a pinball hat sounds cool, dude. I would buy a hat for Godzilla. I'm not buying a topper. Topper is something that goes on a cake. A hat goes on your head. Pinball machines have heads. Why aren't they called hats? Nobody can answer that. The next question about toppers, so that's what it is, is why do games need them, right, Alan? Well, they don't, but they started as a cheap way to basically include some optional advertising for operators, for brands or features or whatever the manufacturer wanted to kind of throw up onto a little thing on top of the game. Later, in the modern era, the biggest argument for toppers is that they make a game stand out in a lineup. That's why you see people cite them, like operators or whatever, manufacturers, designers, being like, oh, yeah, you put a topper on a game. It's really going to catch people's eye in that lineup. But the thing about standing out, the real question here is if every game needs a topper, then which one's going to stand out? It loses its effect. If the biggest functional purpose of a topper is making a game stand out and every game has one, nothing's standing out. They just all have shit on top of them now. there's too much fucking shit on me dude too much shit on these games dude okay so that's the the what and why but we're gonna we're going this episode it's it's the topper episode everyone's been asking for episode 99 and we got to start with the history everyone's been asking everybody's been asking for it you mean a couple people in the discord egging you on i don't think anyone even was egging me i just wanted to do it you were having a good time though yeah so the history of toppers. Toppers started as flat, static pieces of plastic. I don't even know what those original, maybe pieces of tin. I don't know what the ones are that come on Gottliebs. I've never actually got to handle one in person. But the thing about the static toppers, those don't really count to me. Those are essentially marquees, like what you would see on top of a video game cabinet, and they're just something printed that's screwed onto the top of a pinball machine. Gottlieb is the classic example of those kind of like static marquees back in the day. They might not be the first. It's really actually surprisingly hard to identify what is the first pinball topper. But those are the ones that you really those are the early ones that you might still actually see around. It's more fun to compete. Yeah, yeah. They'll say it's more fun to compete. Or famously in the early 80s when they were pushing the one dollar coin and giving you like five plays for a one dollar coin or whatever. the Susan B. Anthony years. You can go back and listen to one of our very good episodes about those years with our friend Ty Palmer. They would put toppers on games advertising like, use your SBA coins here, which is kind of interesting. And that was really what they were. I guess those are those are bally's, not goleems. But that was really the purpose of those games was just trying to it was a place or those toppers was just advertising. Yeah, it was really just advertising some feature trying to convince you to put more money into say no to drugs yeah do they have saved i don't know but they put them on the displays of video games so i could be a cool time i could see it i could see it you know where there's some marquee that's not a bad idea okay but then fast forwarding a little bit into the more modern uh the solid state era the 19 you mid-80s here, and the game that saved pinball, often quoted as such anyway, was Barry Owsler's Space Shuttle. This game very famously features a big molded plastic toy space shuttle under the glass, and it's the first time there was like a molded plastic toy in pinball. It caught people's eyes, it made the game, you know, an overnight sensation, right? And it was a success. It was a game the pinball was in a really bad spot in 1984 or whatever this was 85 can't remember the exact year it's not important 84 84 yeah it's in a bad spot they put out this game with its molded plastic space shuttle it sold well enough that they were able to keep making pinball machines it was like okay this is this is good and everyone's like oh yeah it's because of the molded toy and they started putting molded toys in all their games following this but something that people might not realize and why we're including it in this episode is that it actually came with a cute little static plastic topper that said hot new pinball and it sold 7 000 units was it a result of the topper or the plastic toy it's hard to say it's hard to say it's hard to say that's all we can that's all that can be said about it the first but again i don't consider plastic marquees as true toppers. But those are your favorite toppers. That's, save that for the favorite topper section of the talk. The interactive toppers, which are things that go on top of a pinball machine and do something related to the pinball's code. That is kind of what I see as a true topper. And I think many people in the modern era would define a topper as such. So it'd be like, if we were talking about toppers as pinball hats, It'd be like the hat with the propeller that spins around on top. Yeah, which is a very cool hat. I own one of those. Yeah, there's a famous picture of you in one of those really cool propeller hats. Yeah, if you go back to what was this, like a roller coaster type. No, it's not. That's the episode. It's a picture of me as one of the previews wearing a little propeller hat. But yes, yes, exactly. It would be like if toppers started as like baseball caps that were serving some kind of functional purpose, like advertising a baseball team. and then suddenly they started adding propellers and flashing lights and beer holders and shit and you're like that's a topper yeah the game we get to thank for that incredible innovation like almost everything in modern pinball who invented this it was invented by mr Steve Ritchie go listen to go listen to episode two if you want to hear more about steve and how he invented pinball or about 80 of our episodes he comes up all the time because he legitimately jokes aside was incredibly impactful to what became modern pinball and part of that was putting a topper an interactive light on his 1986 title a little game you might have heard of called high speed sold 17 000 units insane insane a lot more than 7 000 units and that's because the light on top spun around when you did shit and everybody lost their fucking minds dude and there's no toy space shuttle on the playfield there's no there's no molded plastic in there all that's all i'm saying like people are always like this is the game that's a big innovation everything and you're like i think it might have been the hot pinball action topper on space shuttle that saved pinball and nobody's talking about it because they're not ready to face that truth but 1986 no one can deny the effect that having one flashing light on top of high speed had i genuinely genuinely think that thing was a big reason the game was successful because if you were in an arcade and that kicked on you had to be like what the hell is that what's going on over there it was a novel idea at the time it's used to great effect it was a success it's badass it's cool it's cool as hell this is a good example of a topper this is a good topper that's why it's also not optional it's always just on there right it's like integrated i can't remember i mean you could pull it off pull it off yeah but yeah it's it's integrated into the game so yep it was part of the game that's also something we need to talk about is that these like these early toppers came with the games it's part of the game's package it's like a whole thing and that's why they're integrated their core to the gameplay another game that came out that you might have heard of later in 1986 pinbot which sold 12 000 units a lot more than barry's game space shuttle two years ago this was pinbots also Barry Oursler and pinbot also famously features an interactive lit topper it looks like a light bar on top of a cop car right it's basically the width of the backbox with like a light on each side yeah also integrated into gameplay massively popular game that spawned a sequel and then a treacle toppers were a big fucking deal players are taking note operators are taking note of their earnings and everybody's taking note as evident by even a little company called uh Bally Midway with their title strange science later in 1986 which has an absolute banger of a topper with the big molded plastic and a neon light embedded in it that like flashes you know it's like the lightning bolt because you're throwing the switches on like the Strange Science is a weird, weird game. How many units do they sell Strange Science? I didn't put it in the show notes because I looked it up. It's not super high. It's probably high for Bally Midway. It was like 2,800 or something. Okay. Which is horrible. It's not like 500. Companies today would kill to sell 2,800. That's true. Keep that in mind. It's all relative. Put some respect on Strange Science. But it is a good topper. And at this point, you really did start seeing toppers kind of like pop up on random shit when it's like, oh, we need to like we need to move units. We got to get a cool topper on this thing. There's a huge topper on lights, camera action, a Gottlieb game in 89. Oh, yeah. They're trying because like any time it's funny, it's like the companies when they start struggling, they're like, fuck, what can we what can we do? Like spice this up a little bit. And toppers become the go to. And that perhaps is something that you might see like in the modern era as well, which we'll get into the modern era. We're not quite there yet, though. We're leaving the 80s, coming into the golden era of pinball, the introduction of the, you know, DMD games in the 90s. And at this point, toppers are ubiquitous on successful and iconic games. No one can It like the iconic games of the 90s Not every game in the 90s has a topper but a lot of the ones that people remember well do including games like Adam Family and Fishtails and Whitewater and Others And Others. Like Teed Off. Teed Off. My favorite topper. The little beanie baby just kind of bouncing around over there. It's so good, dude. If no good gophers had the teed-off topper, it probably would have sold more than Adam's family. Dude, it's a banger. It's a banger of a topper, the teed-off topper. And also, Getaway reuses the kind of lamp from the first high-speed game. Yeah, well, we should have. We kind of, like, skipped ahead a little bit. But I really liked that Steve Ritchie's follow-up to Getaway was F-14 Tomcat. And he basically just, like, cranked high-speed up to 11. And he put three toppers on there. He also put flashers just aimed at the player's eyeballs and shit. That game is an insane light show for the time. But, yeah, it has three oscillating, like, siren lights on top of the game instead of one. It's pretty cool. Yeah, because you're not in a cop car. You're in a fighter jet. Yeah, it's more intense. They always have, you know, fighter jets are known for their, like, lights and sirens, right? Yeah, dude. It's awesome. It's good. FFXIV is a pretty good game. Interesting game to not have any ramps but have a ton of habit trails. Yeah, that's true. Very weird. It's just weird. I always think about that. I'm like, that's weird. It's really, really, because that game's full of metal, but there's not a ramp on it. Anyway, getting back to the 90s, they really, really did become a big part of these iconic games art packages. But I want to know that Bally Williams showed restraint and they didn't just throw them on everything. Every single game, yeah. They used them on games where it made thematic sense or where it really worked well. And they, again, came with the games, which allowed them to integrate the toppers really well into the art packages. Adam's family, you know, it features iconic, the family portrait in front of the mansion in the topper itself makes up the clouds that flash with lightning and the top of the building. And it says Adam's family up on the topper and whitewater similarly doesn't have the name of the games. Very confusing for some people. They can't wrap their head around. Apparently, it's very confusing for some, even though the whole cabinet just says whitewater across it. And then the topper says whitewater across it. And what would people do if they didn't even, like, if we lived in a world where you couldn't just read the name of it, but who knows? People get confused by that, and they use it as an excuse to swap hack job alternate trans lights into their white waters. We're removing one of the best trans lights of all time to put in some garbage, like, cranked up Zorro fucking freak trans light because it has the name on it. Dude, the hack, Whitewater alternate translate should be a fucking crime. It's offensive to me. It's offensive to me. It's my favorite game. The great artist John Yowsey, I think, did an awesome job on the overall art package. And then you go and you slap that piece of shit into it. Frustrating, man. Very frustrating. No accounting for taste. But again, maybe because a lot of the original toppers. The original toppers are gone. Fragile. And they seem to have broken and been lost to the sands of time. And they're worth good money now. And so now maybe it's, you know, kind of one of those things where these people are like, well, I don't know the name of the game. I got to get the alternate translate because that all got me a topper. We don't know. We don't know what it was. We have no idea what this game is. Bally Williams is using the great effect. Some of their most successful games of all time feature toppers prominently. and even the smaller manufacturers of the time were taking note like you mentioned with teed off which was a strong seller for them yes teed off was actually a strong seller and a fun game and an awesome topper yeah you always laugh when i say it but i'm like that's funny it makes me look at the game and i go hell yeah that's awesome they put a stuffed animal gopher in there there's a little stuffy back there in a little acrylic case and he's just sitting there and it's awesome it is good but even data east with you know fucking head penny pincher himself gary stern knew the effects of toppers and they budgeted an extra you know buck 50 per game to throw some static marquees on some of their biggest sellers including teenage mutant ninja turtles and simpsons dude nobody knows the value of flat printed plastics quite like gary stern The guy has made a whole career at being like, this doesn't need to be molded. This could be this could be flat plastics. Dude, it really when it comes to toppers, it's like you get a lot of bang for your buck with a flat plastic topper. Yep. Like it helped. The topper on the Simpsons is fucking great. Yes. Bart Simpson. Yeah. Just saying play pinball, man, or whatever it says. It's good. It's like genuinely. Again, later, we'll get into our favorite toppers. but that is a very good example of just a static topper to me yeah and that's basically the history of toppers in a commercial pinball sense they basically sold shit tons of units they were a massive success and they weren't on everything those are kind of the takeaways right yeah we're gonna ignore the fact that like terminator 2 didn't have a topper and uh sold a shitload of units or Twilight Zone or Star Trek The Next Generation. Well, that's a fluke. That's a fluke. Clearly. Yeah. So, you know, somehow overcoming the odds. Yeah. Well, the little scrappy game that could fuse. They were expecting toppers on Richie games. So they just assumed it was coming and they bought those other Richie games by mistake. Oh, yeah. And then they're like, oh, shit. OK, we had to throw one back on to get away or whatever. and then they they lulled them back into security they put out one good game getaway and then they tricked them into buying another game without a topper because at that point you know business wasn't so good they couldn't just throw toppers on everything dude no fear with a skull on top i have seen a picture of a no fear with a no fear hat sitting on it and i'm trying to think it's somewhere like it's on location that i've been because i was like oh shit they got a little hat up there which i'm always jealous of but if i it's hard for me Dude, the no-fear eyes, like the suspicious no-fear eyes on top. Cool, dude. It could be cool. There's potential there. But there is something to be said about homemade toppers versus third-party toppers, which are really only an invention in the modern era, and OEM toppers. To transition into toppers in the modern era, they're, first of all, no longer included at base pricing, generally speaking. The big exception to this would be like some boutiques offer them. Spooky. Spooky. Yeah, spooky will give you like a flat plastic topper. But spooky has realized they can give you a flat plastic topper and offer a $1,500 like molded topper and people will buy it in droves. It's crazy to me that people will be like, oh, my games already has a little topper that's interactive and lit up and stuff. But I need the big one. And they'll spend $1,500 on it. but stern does not give you a topper even on the le's the only exception to that i think is the bond 60th which was a twenty thousand dollar game and it came with a topper but the thirteen thousand dollar stern le's do not include the topper you have to buy the topper separately which is funny yep because you'd think that's what would come with the le's but it doesn't and that's because a lot of the time the toppers somehow aren't ready when the game ships not sometimes all the time all the time every time it's interesting how stern yeah well they're just focused on making games they're not making games but that's wrong because toppers can make or break games i like how we got 99 episodes in and then we just turned into a normal pinball podcast talking about toppers here it's stirred where's the topper stirred it's finally it's finally getting It's finally getting good, the podcast. We're finally hitting our stride. Finally figured it out. Okay, so toppers aren't included at base prices. There's exceptions with random boutiques. If you go buy a whatever, a $14,000 Alice's Adventure in Wonderland, it should come with a topper. It won't ship to you with a topper, but they'll give you one eventually. But most companies charge anywhere from $1,000 to $2,000 for their topper. Jeez. It's a lot of money. That's more money than a lot of pinball machines I've bought cost. all together yeah now none of the pinball machines i bought included toppers except for high speed which i bought for 1600 and did have a toppers you know you get your bang for your buck on that one but toppers have become their own thing they're worth more than a lot of cheap games they become like a huge topic that's what alan keeps joking about all these other podcasts like they get more attention than games because there's just more shit to talk about with toppers for some reason for people they've even got their own like resale market where toppers guys are paying over msrp for like rare out of production toppers it's insane you don't play the toppers they just sit there on top of the game but people think this is like i mean it's beanie baby shit dude it is beanie baby's shit it's beanie baby's logic for sure beanie baby shit in the cool way like teed off it's beanie baby shit in the inflated value way in like that yeah that's the princess diana bear with the with the pe beads it's crazy man it's crazy to me so guys love buying toppers in this hobby really can feel like it's more about collecting toppers than actually playing pinball if you're in the wrong facebook group yeah sit there they don't talk about how games play they don't talk about like tuning their game or like hey what do we think about this like what are you doing for your settings or anything like that it impacts the gameplay they sit there and talk about fucking toppers man toppers and powder coating and yeah we're adding it we'll talk about toppers today we'll do a powder coat episode episode 101 but it's it's crazy and toppers can and i'm not joking when i say this this is hard for you to probably believe because you live in the world of commercial pinball and people that play pinball but i live on the internet world and toppers can make or break a game's reputation not necessarily in the case of stern where people understand that the toppers will come later and they judge the game for its own merits but boutique companies seem to live or die based on their toppers the appearance of the toppers the build quality of the toppers the manufacturing time of the toppers it's fucking topper talk like long after the game has launched everyone the game launches everybody well they all like you know this is the most loaded game of all time it looks better than anything stern's ever made and then people start getting their games it always does they always they always look better than every stern right every boutique game that's ever come out looks better than every stern and then people start getting their games and the first 50 people that receive their games are allowed because they were in line first we grant them the privilege of forming the official opinion on the game and people repeat that opinion for the next three to four years yeah so the first 50 people get to decide if the game's good or not and then people basically quit talking about if the game's good or not they accept it for what it is which is probably the number three best game of all time because the first 50 people that bought it for ten thousand dollars decided it is and then the subject shifts to toppers and we talk about toppers for the next fucking six months because it takes a minimum of six months for these boutique companies to pump out some fucking molded plastic in like six leds i'm i'm baffled by it they can make a pinball machine just full of thousands of moving parts with you know pinball whizzing around to a fucking 50 miles an hour break and everything. That's easy for a pinball company to pump out on time. But they promise you like a topper and they're like, the cowboy's arm moves. And they can't do that. It's incapable. They can't, they give them four fucking years. They can't get the cowboy arm to quit falling off. It's insane, dude. And so that's where the discussion goes. It goes to toppers. And topper gates, which is what we call topper scandals, they're worth discussing because they really do, like they can shape people's opinions of a pinball company you would say as an operator you would say chicago pinball makes high quality products right the highest i think you're fucking wrong dude because you know what they can't do they can't build a topper they can't build cactus canyon topper that stays together they couldn't get the special edition the pulp fictions sent out for years because they couldn't figure out how to get two eight inch tall action figures to wiggle back and forth. It's bizarre. Again, I don't understand. Why do manufacturers love pinball toppers so much? If there's such a pain in the ass for them, it takes them years to even design these things. They can't successfully manufacture them despite their best efforts. Why do they love them so much? If it's a Herculean task to do this? Because they make fucking money compared to a pinball machine. They're so easy when you say it. like that right when you have someone on a couch like i am right now and you're like guys we can make two dolls dance back and forth and people will pay us two thousand dollars and you're like that's free money that's a free that's something that in my head it sounds like that would be about fifty dollars worth of materials and nineteen hundred and fifty dollars of profit whereas a pinball machine is about seven thousand dollars of materials and a thousand dollars of profit and so you're like oh these toppers are free money but they just they can't do it man it's crazy like Well you need the game but the topper sells the game The toppers do sell the games and the toppers also sell toppers toppers beget toppers toppers insist upon more toppers too we sell in a manufacturer when a manufacturer sells you one topper yeah the rest of your games look stupid they're effectively when they sell you one if they can give you one good topper they basically just sold you four other dog shit toppers if you have four other games in your line because you're gonna have one there you know the whole point of topper is going back to their original functional purpose to make them stand out in the lineup guys don't like that in their home people in their house they want all their games to look the same if they have one game it has bright yellow fucking magic school bus powder coat armor on it the game next to it better have fucking heinz ketchup red powder coat on it right yeah they all they want all their games to match they want every game to have the same color palette which is rainbow saturated every color heavy outline artwork women drawn a specific way men with angry eyebrows that's what we want our games to look like and they want them all if one has a topper they want a topper on all of them and they're mad as hell if they can't get that topper fast enough we're doing one short episode dude there are plenty of pinball shows out there that that do an episode that's like two hours long every two weeks about largely about toppers and use prices huh yeah this is like a little sample of that but you're you might be reading you as the listener might be reading through the lines and seeing why we don't do episodes like this often i don't know how we could i don't know how anybody does it no shade to anybody else i just don't know how they do it dutch pinballs the boutique manufacturer dutch pinball you probably are aware that they're making an alice's adventures in wonderland based off of the canceled John Papadiuk game you know as mentioned famously in our John Papadiuk the magic man episode you probably might not understand that it's actually being made by a subsidiary company called dpx which i think presumably could only stand for one thing dutch pinball extreme so they they created a super duper boutique like the boutique company has a boutique or subsidiary which is bizarre to me that they felt the need to brand it as something else and they're shipping these like whatever $13,000 Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and it includes topper at that price which props to them for including a topper at that point it appears to just be a static mold of a Cheshire Cat is that am I saying that right yeah Cheshire Cat yeah hanging over the top of the game which is not a bad topper on its own for some reason they've been unable to make that thing and they're now shipping the games to owners without the topper which is creating its own new topper gate where people are like when are we going to see this topper why don't I have my topper yet why do some of the games have toppers but mine don't and it's because they were trying to like rush the games out before tariffs hit dude this I am unaware of most of this stuff I really I'm not on Facebook I'm not on pin side like that I'm never on forums outside of our own discord so I I really don't follow this that closely I'm running a pinball bar dude I'm running actual games the difference in real life pinball players that I interact with and internet topper guys it's two circles that don't overlap it's very bizarre and i think that's why i was kind of like i wanted to do this episode because i think it's fun i think it's funny to kind of broach the subject to some of our listeners that only play on location and probably don't think twice about toppers and you're like oh no this is uh this is a whole thing like i really can't overstate that these boutique companies live and die by their toppers and this is a big part of I'm assuming home collectors that are maybe in a region where they either don't have location pinball around them or they make up excuses for why the locations around them are not worth going to. And so they play at home, but they don't really have maybe a lot of friends that are interested in pinball. So they go online to interact with other guys like them that have games in their houses. And then this is a big part of the hobby to them because Stern will release three new games a year. Every other company, maybe one. So there's not a lot to talk about. So when somebody doesn't deliver a topper, it's a big deal for them. Like, oh, we got some meat on these bones for the next six weeks. Exactly. And the toppers, like, trickle out. I mean, every game gets a topper. So it's like you spend people online. The discourse online focuses about 50% of their time talking about toppers, which is insane. It's insane. It's not a part of the – it's not a real part of the hobby to me. It's like – it's bizarre. It'd be like if you went onto a car forum and it'd be like if you went onto a car forum and like 50% of the discussion is on like the driving dynamics of like a new car that comes out. And then 50% of it is like, hey, I noticed that you can get these red valve cap covers. And if you did it on a car forum, people would be like, yeah, okay. And you'd be like, you guys want to talk about that for the next three months? And everyone's like, where the fuck? And like you come back in a week and everything's on fire because they haven't delivered the red valve caps on time. You'd be like, this doesn't. Would car companies struggle to then get the red valve caps manufactured and then sent out? Yeah. They'd build the whole car. They're like, I don't know about those valve covers, guys. We would. They're like shipping the customers cars. They'll be like, we'll get you your red valve caps later. And you're like, I don't know if they're good for it. Get on the form. I'm mad as hell. I paid $13,000. I don't have my valve caps yet. Yeah, man. It's just a bizarro thing. It's really interesting. I really do think there's a huge focus on the manufacturers by toppers, about toppers from the manufacturers. The big push, why we talk about them so much, because there's a lot of marketing that every game gets one they're a high margin item i think they use them to at stern to kind of like fill the line when things are slow it's like yeah we just kind of like start we shift over a line i know they have an accessory line just building toppers now do they build the toppers at their factory they build the toppers at the stern factory oh interesting do the other companies too probably not it's probably why they're falling behind that's probably why they're struggling because they probably don't have the resources that stern does right to get the mold but isn't stern usually typically pretty late with their toppers too they are and i think they don't show them when they announce the game they show them later they do a whole reveal for the accessory package when it comes out see i don't even follow this that closely i think that's i think from stern the delay because stern is trying to sell you the product additionally and so i think from them it is a conscious thing to delay it because it gives everybody a chance to buy their game and kind of let the the bank account recover for a second come up from air after you bought your $10,000, $13,000 LE, whatever. And then six months later, you're like, hey, I still like it. Like, this game's sick. I'm itching to buy something else. I don't have space in my basement for another game. They're like, hey, here's a $2,000 Robo Dave Grohl that turns its head. And everybody's like, boom, sold. $2,000, easy check. I just spent $13,000 on this thing. So, like, what's another two? And I think from Stern, it's a conscious choice to delay the toppers because they have the facilities. They have the ability. There's no fucking way. that stern that stern can't get a top route on time but the other guys i think their problem is that this toppers are they're treating the toppers like an afterthought i think they're kind of like they they show the game they're like if you buy the le you get this free topper and i think they're probably sitting there their their fucking heads are on fire because they're trying to get the code stable they're trying to figure out all the ball traps do all that kind of finalizing stuff and then they're like oh shit we're shipping games they're like we haven't stress tested the topper yet we haven't toppers are like failing qc and then they're like oh no and they don't have the resources to do it so i think it's an intentional thing from stern i think stern has probably lulled the other companies into a false sense of security they probably see stern making that topper money and they're like oh that's easy we can cash in on that it's one of those things like i'm sitting here again on a couch being like looks pretty easy to make two dolls dance why can't chicago do it but it obviously is more difficult than i'm saying Well, and I will say that even though I do laud Chicago's build quality and the games that they make very highly, I think they're super high quality. When they announce a game and when you actually get it, it's a long time. Like, it's a long time. That's true. But when you get it, it is good. It's good. The toppers for Cactus Canyon were not good. The little guy's hand kept falling off. Well, I mean, I don't, yeah. That's a problem. I don't care about toppers, I guess. Well, you care if you had one and the hand fell off. I assure you that. Well, if I spent $2,000 on a topper, the hand can't fall off. Of course. And my last question before we get into the objective part of this. This has all been objective, right? Yeah. I really want to say, I don't know who's designing these things, and I'm very curious. I'd love to. Yeah, that is interesting. If someone's listening to this and you're like, yeah, man, I would do the toppers, and it's hard as hell. Please let us know I would actually like to have a topper design because it's like does does fucking like Brian Eddy go like, oh, yeah, I'm going to design the topper for Venom now. Or is it like we have an intern? Because I think that's another thing. I have a feeling that Brian Eddy is like, yeah, I'm designing the topper for Venom. And I have a feeling that over at Chicago, they're like, yeah, we let the intern Chris make the dolls dance and they're not doing it right. Do you think Brian Eddy is doing it? I think it's got to be like a mechanical engineer. Doesn't it have to be like mechanical? I think, see, that's the thing. I bet Stern has like full, I bet they treat the toppers over there like a little game because the toppers probably have about as much markup in them as a Stern Pro. That's my theory. When you sell a $2,000 topper, it probably has almost as much markup, like as much like profit in it as a Stern Pro. So I think they take their shit seriously. The other companies are trying to do it as an afterthought. And I think that's why it's backfiring. All theory, all theory though. Interesting. So that's toppers, dude. That's everything you need to know about toppers. Here's everything you want to know about toppers, though, which is what are our favorites? Yeah. What do you like? So for all my hating on the static marquees, as I call them, I actually do like static marquees quite a bit, just like when they have a little piece of plastic up there because a they're cheap, like you can go buy a reproduction data East Simpsons topper and it costs you like twenty five dollars. And to me, that's what a topper should cost. I don't like third-party toppers because I want the art on them to match the rest of the game. Yeah. I have this whole thing, Alan, about respecting artists' intentions. Designers' intentions can fuck off. We'll put lightning flippers on whatever. Get that shit out of here. Designers care about. But artists I actually try to respect. Some people don't. Some people like taking gorgeous, iconic art and replacing it with dog shit because they just feel the need to do stuff like that. But I like OEM toppers. Like I like the original equipment manufacturing toppers, you know, from Stern, from Data East or whatever, because they fit with the game. They look appropriate. Yeah. But I like static toppers that are cheap. I don't like the third party ones where it's unlicensed art or anything. It just never quite looks right. So I really don't have I mean, my basement is very tall. I have two toppers. I have the one that came with Rick and Morty. And I have one that says tournament play on a secret game out in my garage that the listeners will hear about soon enough. Yes. And other than that, I'm not really a big topper guy, but I do like the marquees. I think they're a good opportunity to add some like humor or like try to sell a feature of the game, you know, like tournament play or, you know, Susan B. Anthony dollar acceptors. They're cheap, which is the biggest thing. And I feel like they serve the original purpose of a topper, which is just like a little more real estate. Yeah. So I'd say I'm a big fan of minimal toppers in general but i also really like now like loud annoying toppers and i would say my two favorites are probably fishtails which is the most annoying topper of all time see the flopping fish and whirlwind which is the most uh theme appropriate well integrated topper of all time yeah which is just a fan but it blows at you and your tornado chasers in the game tornado the storm kicks up in the game the fans kick on you feel it it's a 4d it's like going to a fucking movie theater with rumbling seats you've never experienced such technology it's it's cool i really do like the topper on uh whirlwind recycled for twister by sega i think that's a good one i'll leave it at that because you might want to list some others and we don't need repeats yeah and uh you know i think whitewater's my favorite and that's again it's kind of like a marquee but it's got a a curve stand has got a really cool foil print and they put set of lights little sequential lights sequential lights that do like a chase lighting and what it does is it creates an effect that makes the water look like those old lenticular like 70s things where it looks like the water's flowing they took the technology from like a beer sign and put it into a topper and it's the coolest shit of all time and it feels very era appropriate and it's almost like if we could get that now that would be dope for toppers that could be made for like a reasonable price yeah that's something i would actually be like i'd be like oh fuck i'm gonna go buy like i'd buy like a 500 whitewater style topper for my shit oh yeah i'm like because that's cool i like it's like it's animated it gets flashy it catches your eye but it's not like too much it's awesome um i also like the fishtail topper i think that's funny the one that's not on here but one that i've always liked is the taxi topper oh dude i should have taxi is one of my favorite overall i love the cabinet art i love the bell they put in it the taxi light that's a really good example of an early one that's like perfect perfect taxi's such a good overall package and just such a cool game that's like an all-time game for me yeah it's a great game and i love the taxi marquee it just makes sense because you're like yeah it's like if they made a dominoes game they should have a little dominoes marquee on top they did make a dominoes game it doesn't have one which is a shame but yeah missed opportunity maybe make another dominoes game and then the other one you know the one that stern made the only one that we bought at wedge that we have on our game is black knight sword of rage and it does have a little animatronic knight that moves his head back and forth and his eyes glow And he talks shit Yep. The whole time you're playing. And... Feather in his hat, you know, bouncing around. Dude, it's awesome. And it was cheap. Yeah, those were... It was like, I think, $500 when we bought it. Yeah. And that's the one, that's when Stern realized we can charge a lot more. Way more. As soon as those went out of production, people were buying them for like $2,000. Yep. And so they raised the MSRP to two grand. They're like, hey, we're going to do a worse version of that, and we're going to charge you $2,000 for it. And they probably sold enough. I think that's another thing that they can do with the toppers. They can swing the prices and play with them a lot. Like if you raise the price of a pinball machine $500, people lose their shit. Whereas a topper, it's like nobody needs a topper. It's a luxury good. Pinball is a commodity. Everybody needs it. Yeah, everyone needs it. a luxury good so people buy them as a luxury good with the same mindset where they kind of like it if they're expensive because they get a flex on their like poor buddy down the street who doesn't have the new topper on his foo fighters yeah you know you're like hey chump you like you don't even have the topper you may as well like throw that fucking game in the trash if you don't have the topper you may as well not be playing pinball and so i i really do think there's a game in like how high can we raise the price where it's like worth it like we always talk about it's like if the if the topper costs them 200 bucks to make if they can sell you know half of them at 2000 that's better than selling twice as many at a thousand so it's like it's always a game and they get to play with the prices in a way that they can't do on pinball machines yeah i guess that's true but yeah the sword of rage topper is the only that's the only like add-on one to me that i'm like that that seems worth it it's cool i like it there are other cool toppers there's like impressive ones but none of them really change the experience they don't feel additive they just feel like more shit yeah i don't know that topper actually stands out and it does make people want to play the game pinball machines are already tall and loud and grab your attention so it's like toppers it's to you know which should be called pinball hats are very much like a hat on a hat like this thing is already loud and tall and designed to grab my attention does it need something else on it to make it louder and taller and like grabbier of my attention like i don't think it functionally does so then it just becomes like a nitpicky thing of like well which ones do you think are cool which one you want to be like i want this game to look special or whatever i already talked about it but i will bring it up every chance i get on the show i love the teet off topper it just makes me laugh every time i see it every time i'm like that's awesome that's there every time we see a d-top topper i'm like that's awesome every game you're like every game every game should have that with a little stuffed animal on top which would be so good i found a great uh like king kong plushie that i sent to you in the discord and i was like i want to put this on kong dude just like straight up like in a little acrylic case watch the earnings i bet it would make a difference i bet it would get more plays especially if you like put a little spotlight on or something dude we've got to give a shout out to our buddy mitch and in boston we're talking about toppers talking about a guy that makes his own mitch goes and gets funko pops and then hot glues into the tops of his pinball machines every single game and it's awesome appreciate how he does it preemptively it's like before the game is even officially announced mitch is like oh yeah i've got every every kind of like king kong funko pop that was already made and like he's got the hot glue gun warmed up ready ready to go i love it dude we love you mitch and i love i really like when it's stuff like that i like when people put stuff that they made or they bought you like you like the homemade stuff i don't like the 3d printed garbage but i like when recycled like pop culture like i do kind of i'm like i appreciate it i don't like anything on top of my games so like you gotta like glue it you got it that's the thing you have to glue doing that you have to like screw it to the game or glue it on or you secure it because people a lot of the time will set shit on their games and then it'll just come crashing off which is funny i can't remember oh i'm blanking on the name of the streamer there's a couple that streamed all the time over covid they would always joke they're like every game needs a topper and so the the wife the um the woman of the couple would always just like the day they got a game would just go find whatever like appropriate shit was in the house and just kind of like stack it up there and they'd be streaming and they'd be playing it would like always fall down it was very entertaining part of the bit yeah it was part of the bit because it was just random shit it would be like oh toy car inevitably going to fall off like a hundred times i think if it's part of the bit it's all good i think thousands of dollars and then arguing with strangers online for months at a time about it that to me is not something i would do but yeah if that brings you joy go ahead i mean who am i to yuck your yum but well you should be ready to like not bring people joy because the next question is your least favorite all right if you twist my arm i'll tell you what i don't like it's episode 99 people always want us to rag on stuff and i won't rag on games but i would make an exception for toppers i decided so okay do you have any toppers that stand out to you as like particularly annoying or like annoying yes there's a godfather at a bar and uh it has like a little gangster who shoots like a tommy gun but he's not the gangster in the movie every time it goes off it goes it sounds like it sounds like a coil is rapid firing yeah and so every time i'm in there i'm like wait hold on yeah you're like something short something something's fucked up on this game and i realize it's a stupid topper so that that one sucks like i hate that one ones that make a lot of noise are annoying as fuck my favorite topper of all time i said was fishtails my least favorite topper of all time probably fishtails so i was just talking we were talking before we were on air about this in a bar near me put a fishtails in and i was playing it for the first time and it happened to be during like soccer world championship or something there was everybody in there watching this sporting event very seriously and i get into the fish finder or whatever where it starts like knock knock knock knock knock like just over and over firing the solenoid and the topper and every person in that fucking bar was like glaring at me and i'm just like i i'm not gonna stop because i you can't make me 50 cents and i deserve to be here just as much as you so i didn't stop megan was there and she was dying because she knows i'm very self-conscious but i feel like i gotta keep playing at this point so i wrote it out they're already mad that made me be like holy shit this time i was like maybe this one's a bit much but i still love it I love the bass on top of fishtails, and if I had it in my house, I would let it fire all day. It would drive Megan insane, but I love it. So that's one of the most annoying auditory. The one I would say is my particularly least favorite, and I feel confident saying this is because a lot of people, it's their absolute favorite of all time, and it really illustrates the differences of opinion in this hobby, and particularly the role of toppers in the modern pinball landscape. and that would be the optional topper for spooky's recent release evil dead it is the biggest topper of all time it's the full width of the backbox and like 18 inches tall it looks like it weighs about 150 pounds i don't know what it weighs if anyone's not seen it so the game comes the flat plastic what's uh what's his girlfriend's name do you know when evil dead can't remember the woman's name the character the zombie that woman in the in the movies but the game comes with a flat plastic version of that that's like linda yep i think so it comes with like a linda topper that's like layered plastic and i think it has like interactive leds and it looks pretty appropriate i like the i like the factory topper but then they sell a 1500 optional topper that is like a movie prop replica it's something you would see if you went to like um spirit halloween spirit halloween that's exactly what i was trying to go it's something you would see like that that you would like hide on your porch to like scare kids if you if you live in like a suburb house you know if you live in like a fucking rich suburb it's something you see on somebody's porch it's like a movie it's like a like trying to be like a movie prop it's a big rubber like animated woman that kind of like lurches at you from the top of the game and like jangles chains and the whole thing fucking moves and it's the kind of shit that would be genuinely embarrassing for me to have if i was gifted an evil dead with that thing it's fucking embarrassing it's not pinball related at all It's a massive movie prop style thing that you sit on top of your game. It's bulky. It ruins the outline. When you draw pinball, pinball machines are a piece of art. They're industrial art. They serve a purpose. They were built with that function in mind. Their shape is dictated by their function. They have clean lines. We've settled on a specific design. Everyone fucking hates the early American games because the backbox looks horrible, and they like the Stern games because they have a nice triangle-like shape to the backbox. There's a reason people like games that look a certain way. And then you go and set the most visually heavy thing of all time on top of the game, and it completely ruins the effect. It makes the whole thing look like it's on stilts. It's so lopsided and top-heavy, it just ruins what a pinball machine looks like. when you put that much visual weight, I don't mean literal weight. I don't know what it actually weighs, but the visual weight of that, it's heavy. It looks heavy. It's not good. It's not good. And it's not pinball, but people eat this shit up, dude. They're selling like they've, they sold 888 evil deads. And I, they, I can't remember how many they've sold like 700 of those toppers. Everybody's buying the fucking topper. And that's when I realized I'm in the different hobby than these people. That's when we realized we needed to do a topper, a topper episode, because I'm not in the hobby of toppers. I'm in the hobby of pinball. You're playing this stupid game? I'm playing the fucking game like a chump. These people are buying fucking movie prop replicas. They've probably got, you know, an eight foot tall Chewbacca figurine in their house. They've probably got fucking, you know, they're like, that's a replica of the shield from Game of Thrones that I put next to my Game of Thrones pinball machine. And if you're into that stuff, that's fine, but that's unrelated to your hobby in pinball. And I think it's insane that they've become so conflated. like we really think it's like oh like you gotta get the top if you have this game you gotta get the topper for the full experience nobody needs a topper on fucking anything even on whitewater you might be confused you might forget what game i don't know what game i'm playing that's the problem without the topper i don't know so and let's say the alternate translate you know and then it clears it right up yeah that really uh that really clears things up for me see what you're saying is that like a chump you're playing your games more than 300 times and then you're creating shooter lane where like an idiot instead of just buying a topper and then posting pictures of it on a forum yeah i should be posting that's the real hobby right the real hobby is posing for photos with your topper dude but that is my my least favorite and it encapsulates the side of pinball that I don't particularly enjoy, and that is the Evil Dead topper. Just that one specifically. I could use other examples, but that's the one I would be most embarrassed to have in my house. It's a sign of opulence in a way that I don't appreciate. Okay. It's like you like cars, and you like fast cars, but Lamborghinis are too ostentatious. No, I like them. It would be like- So you do like them. It'd be like if you got a Lamborghini and then you like strapped a bunch of stormtroopers to the top of it. And you're like, what's that do? And you're like, oh, it's because the car is white and I got a license plate that says stormtrooper. And so I put stormtrooper dolls on the car and you'd be like, yeah, but it looks fucking dumb. And you'd be like, yeah, but they cost ten thousand dollars. You must just be broke. And you're like, no, man, that's not it doesn't have anything to do with the car. I don't get the appeal. I think we had a good time on this episode. What a wild episode. Episode 99. The highs and lows, dude. I can't believe I let you write this episode and talk me into doing this episode. And if you thought this episode was hot, you know, wait till 100. 100 is going to be real spicy. We're probably going to have to put a warning on that one. I'm imagining that one's going to be one that don't let the kids around. Don't listen to this around sensitive ears. It's a dangerous topic we're covering for our 100th episode. We look forward to it very much. We have a controversial guest coming on. Very controversial guest. He has been convicted of crimes that he says he's innocent of, but we'll let you be the judge. That'll be episode 100. This week, we want you to go out and play some pinball on location. Touch some grass. Play some pinball. Yeah, don't fucking bother looking up. It doesn't matter. You don't need the topper, but go play a game that has a topper because some of them are good. And then play one without one and see if it changes your enjoyment. That's this week's challenge. Play one of each. Which one's more fun? The topper doesn't impact that. But until next time, until episode 100, this is Alan from the Wedgehead Pinball Podcast. Alex got a little spicy there at the end. This is an unusual episode. But if you think this is unusual, you will not believe next week's episode 100. We can't wait for you to hear it. Until next time, good luck. Don't suck. Thank you.