You're listening to Topcast, this old pinball is a online radio. For more information visit them anytime, www.barvin3m.com. Flash Topcast. Okay, welcome to another edition of Topcast. We have a very special Sunday night show tonight with somebody that's been involved in pinball on just a variety of levels, definitely since the 70s. But I have as my engineer tonight, Mr. Jim Shelberg of the Pin Game Journal, he's helping us out. He's also messing with the webcam which we are going to be using in full force tonight to illustrate some stuff because we have some good pictures to match the interview that we're doing tonight. So without too much ado. I'd like to introduce Roger Sharp. Say hello Roger. Hello Roger. I just want to make sure I can hear you. Hi, Joshua Clay. How are you doing? Say hello to Mr. Shelberg. And Jim Greetings as well. Hey Roger. What design Mr. Shelberg? You know. But anyways, so Roger, the thing that I always remember getting the first pinball book I ever bought was that picture of you in a Manhattan, New York courtroom in 1976 where pinball was illegal in New York City. And I see this picture of you playing a game that's actually set up in the courtroom with a bunch of people all kind of gathered around. And I've heard it said that like you would like pick out, you were trying to demonstrate that pinball was not a gambling tool at all, that it was an amusement device that required a great amount of skill and that you would like call out shots like you know, be proofed in the World Series. You know, I'm going to make this shot and then you make the shot. I'm going to make that shot and then you make the shot. And I guess they were just totally amazed. But now that's just what I've heard mostly from Mr. Shelberg. You know, he loves to recant that story. I'd like to hear this story from you and how this all happened, how you got there. I mean, you know, of all the people in the world, you know, how did you get into that courtroom and you know, give me the whole thing. Sure. I know you're probably sick of telling this story, aren't you? It's a matter of being in the right place at the right time. I had done or at least had been working on the pinball book up to that point in time. I've gotten somewhat familiar with many of the people in the industry and I've done an article in John M. Scorley where I had been at that time, the associate editor. And it also done a piece in the New York Times and from that the New York State Association reached out and contacted me to see if I would be involved or would want to get involved and help me then legalize pinball and throw out restrictions that have been in place at that point for 35 years. Now, how did, so you were doing, you were basically kind of a pinball author at this time? Well, I was, I guess, with a couple, with a magazine piece and the New York Times piece, yes. But truly, I mean, I, and I've kind of told this story as well. I did not grow up with pinball and I started playing when I went to college. So it wasn't a dip, this was something that I had intimate familiarity with. And based on my college experience, the mall became something that I thoroughly enjoyed. When I moved to New York City after I left school and I went to the University of Wisconsin, New York City did not have pinball machines. And being in the situation that I was at, which on the quarterly, I thought this would be a nice way to try to meet people in the industry and maybe I could buy them a shake. That was really the sole motivation of what got me going on my quest. And I think the part that surprised me was, and going out to do some research initially at the New York Public Library and not finding any pinball books, it was like, oh, okay, now where do I go? How do I start this process? I'm looking at this in 1974. And I remember going back to the other magazine saying that the piece that I wanted to do was going to take a little bit longer and he kind of offhandedly, certainly, said, well, you think so much about the ballwinds right above. And at the end of the journey of going out and being in publishers, getting an attorney, getting an agent, you know, eventually three years later having a pinball book. But, you know, starting totally from scratch, totally not knowing anything about the industry, really nothing about pinball is the fact that I played it in school, liked it, and thought it could be a tab again because there were no games around. So I think that, you know, the level of familiarity that I was garnering with people in the industry through, you know, a couple of trade shows that I had gone to up in that point in time and then the fact that, okay, except for Esquire magazine, which in 1972 had done a feature on pinball, there really hadn't been anything as consumer press and here, you know, here I come literally almost back to back. There's, you know, a nice color feature in John M.S. Cortling. And then in the arts and leisure section of the Summary of New York Times, which is fairly well read, was his other feature on pinball and suddenly I became, I guess, much more real to people that I had encountered, Alvin Goutley being one another's, who had some doubts and apprehensions just to whether or not I could really do a book or get a book off the ground because, you know, there were a bit of number of people that you've been talking about. You know, the late Dick Bouchalle had been working on a variety of different pinball tones for years and years and years and eventually came out before he passed away with a couple of volumes that were truly meticulously done. But I think that having had some credibility, if you will, from being printed in the publication meant, okay, here's somebody that kind of knows the business or at least he's learning that he's had a chance to meet with many of the people here who are Williams, Bill Gourge, Hook, John, Alvin Goutley, Sam Ginsburg, Sam Stern. I mean, what's going to go on in that? Now, as far as like, who was trying to legalize pinball in New York? Who was basically, you know, bringing this to the city council? I think that it was God, you know, I did a talk at Pymboxbone. I forgot names for some reason, somewhere I was able to unlock a couple of doors in my brain and I want to say Irving Holtzman and Ben Shakowski, the two principles of the New York State Association. What was their connection? They were the President and the Vice President, respectively, of this state association representing, you know, the industry, you know, the efforts of the industry at large, at least on a local level. You have a number and you still do, although maybe people are not as familiar with it. You still have a number of very strong state associations. They cannot trade shows. They do whatever lobbying may need to be done for different tax scenarios or if there are court cases where people are saying, you know, we don't want there to be arcades or what have you, you know, in our town. They'll go out and, you know, they'll fight to fight, hopefully. And in 1972, the New York State Association, because this is not something that had just been laying there without anybody ever attempting to change and alter what had happened when Mayor Fielrello LaGuardia was in power in New York City. 1972, I gathered it from what they had told me that they had mounted a campaign. That's Myerson was the Commissioner of Consumer Affairs for New York City and she was a opponent of, you know, opening up the doors and in the restrictions, effectively legalizing the operation of Pimball Machine. So it's amazing that these people really weren't, I mean, they didn't work for Valley, they didn't work for Williams, they didn't work for Gottlieb. So you didn't have any industry people pushing for this? Well, yeah, I know that Rufus King was an attorney who had represented Gottlieb and company back in 1956 before the Keith Offer Commission to, I guess, really put into fundamental ruling the difference between an Abusing Pimball Machine and a Bingo style Pimball Machine. Right, that had to do with Johnson Act, right? I'm sorry. Didn't have somebody do with the Johnson Act back in 1952 that they were arguing that? Possibly, I mean, they got me on for the time being and maybe I'll come back to me. I know that, I guess the best way to describe it is that the industry by and large, New York is a great city, don't get me wrong. But I don't think that it was something where they were going to either live or die, you know, the business back in the mid-70s was going along nicely and didn't really need New York others in the fact that you would like to be there. So I think that it was on everybody's radar of wanting to do it. It wasn't as if the, and I think it was the MAA was the Association in Dengdon-Asc, because I don't know if the letter stands for in the column, it was something different. There was enough to remember Irving Holtzman and Ben Shikowsky's names. Okay. But I think that effectively, they were on this quest to try to open it up for local operators, local distribution, obviously, they would benefit everybody. Now locally, and there would be an incremental benefit to a thing. We're just looking at net sales for a few pinball manufacturers that were there in business. So I think that, well, one of happening in 1972 was things did not happen and they continued. And Eugene Master Peary, who was, I think, a local con conspiment or councilman, made a proposal again. There was, Eleanor Guggenheim was the new commissioner of consumer affairs and she was behind it. But there had to be, you know, the court case to make it official going before the city council. Now what machines were actually in the courtroom for this? There were two. There was an Aldurado and then the bank shot. And who supplied the machines? I want to say that it was either run in or monday. Okay. So one of the distributors in New York was monday for Gottlieb. Right. So who was run-doll and also distributor or valley distributor? Running was a, I guess a distributor a little bit for everybody. Alzheimer was the Williams distributor. Okay. So I, I want to say that it was probably monday that provided the equipment. Did you, I didn't have choice in it. Oh, you didn't. Okay. So like, were you familiar with these games? Yeah. And you did you make every shot you called? Well, I did not call that many per se. Yeah, I don't come out brag a little. Let's hear it. Yeah, I'm making that one. That's Rob target's mind. Well, truthfully, I mean what I tried to do was incredible. And the flip were explained just the overall geometry and what the game rules were. And yes, if I hit this target that's going to spot the two in the 15. Because I'm trying to fill out my rack. If I go up to the top, I can collect a bonus because you have two kick-out holes on either side. And I'm trying to do this off of memory. Obviously, the five lanes up on top. And the key ingredients for them was, I think that I played a couple of balls, gave, I'd like to think a fairly good demonstration as to, you know, what the relative skill elements were. The fact that there was a rhyme and a reason is to why there were certain features on the play field. And then I remembered encountering some pitball machines, actually in Scocchio, I don't know, at a bowling alley. Were they taking the plungers off because that was seen as being something that made it a gambling device. And this is well before the wherever, the auto shooters. Now, what about how were the replays set on this game, or did that just never come up? It never came up because we knew that we were going as an edible. Oh, okay. So the game was set as an... The gameplay was seen as something of value and as such. Being something of value, it could be sold bartered. There could be a gambling element. But New York went in under the same kind of guidance that I had experienced in Wisconsin. Wisconsin was an edible state. Now, because you went to school or you grew up in Wisconsin, right? Well, I grew up in Chicago, but went to school in Madison. Okay. And growing up in Chicago admittedly meant that I had no access to Pemball because Pemball was illegal in Chicago until 76. So they Chicago followed New York when New York changed their Ryan Policky. Chicago followed, followed, as did. There was another case that I got involved with. I want to say, perfect for junior or some places. Another one in California. And you were involved in all these? Yeah. In some way, shape or form. Well, I testified in Ohio. The others, I think, that it was more just providing some background information and material to develop the chronology and history of the industry and providing, I get some background. Just based on the level of familiarity that I had attained in being able to sit down with everybody. Or mostly everybody who was still alive. Who kind of shaped the industry for day one? Now, how did you get your first job in Pemball? Wait, hold on a second. Is that Marvin? Roger, do you want to talk to Marvin, you go to? Sure. And Marvin, Marvin wants, I don't know when he gets up. Here's the phone number right here at Jim on the bottom of the page, so Marvin. Marvin, when he heard that you were going to be on this, he called me and said, I got to talk to Roger. And I'm like, okay, call me at 815 or something like that. And I'll usually, Marvin is like, he's going to be late to his own funeral. He's one of those guys. Understand. But here it is 815 and he called. I can't believe it. I can't believe it. Well, he's going to call back. But anyways, so when did you land your first job in the industry? Full time or? Yeah, well, whatever. I mean, I've been, obviously, I've been involved in the industry going back to the initial research that I had done. I had worked with some of the companies in the East Coast, helping them with various promotions. And one have you pay site home games being one. So local distributors, I had done some consulting or independent tasks for Bally and for others. But truthfully, the first time that I was gainfully employed was April 18, 1988 was first time I stepped through the door at Williams being the Zurecker of Marketing. Yeah, but what about that? Game design for Game Plan. Right. As an outsider. Still living in New York, still working. I think at that time, still at Jalman's quarterly events managing editor. So I had done a last. I had worked on Barra Coro with Williams. There were a couple of designs that I'd done at Gottlieb didn't ever saw the light of the day. At one time, I came close to working at Atari. Came close to working at Gottlieb. Came close to working at Williams at Valley. So, I mean, there were things that either just because of circumstance or one have you that never really, really did pan out. But at least I had the good fortune of being able to be somewhat involved as a person who was somewhat recognized as being a good player. And I'd come in and I'd give my input and offered suggestions or answer whatever questions that some of the designers had. I know that I worked on behalf of Bally for their super shooter pinball tournament and provided some play by play. I guess he's a local district that people may remember Gary Meyer before he was really starting out at the Playboy Tower in downtown Chicago. So, I mean, again, I had been on a periphery. I was writing as a contributing editor to play meter. I was writing for cash box. I was writing for replay. I was doing some writing for bending times for all the trades. I guess people tend to know me more for the 15 years that I was the contributing editor of the Playmator doing Critics Corner. Now, tell me about the game plan. You did sharpshooter and the cowboy on the sharpshooter glass is you that's without a question. Yes. Okay, now who are the two ladies? Two ladies. The lady on my right leg with her hand higher up my thigh is my wife Alan. Oh, come on. You don't have a better story than that. And the woman on my left leg with her hand a little bit lower down on my thigh. Is her sister? No, it's actually the wife of Lee Goldbots who was the president of the game plan. That was his wife now ex-wife Marilyn. Wow. So Lee is actually in the background. I want to stand there right side holding a shotgun. She's daughter that's in front of him. We'll go blind here girl and they're cat Mike Abrams who was his vice president partner. There's a guy sitting back with his legs up on a stool. And then I know to my very, very dear friend Steve Epstein in the very background is Z's cafe because he was growing up at the nickname of Z. He was now mo for some of his basketball college with a young fellow. All right, here's Marvin. Hold on a second. Hold on. Sure. Marvin? Yeah. You're on the air with Roger. Hello, much to Roger Sharp. Hi, Marvin. How are you? Good. Nice to see you. I mean, nice to talk to you and see all the nice things you're right about you. And you're one of the ICANN's pinball business. Well, thank you, sir. I think it's probably the nicest thing I think is that your son with a commentary column has been in the game. And their commentary column have an interest in what you create all these years. And I know fathers create nice things and then they just go away. But I think with your son's, I mean with their ability and what they do, I'm really happy for you. Well, thank you. I mean, truthfully, I never thought that what I have been able to achieve over the past 30 plus years would have been my, I guess either my destiny or my legacy in life. And I have no second thoughts about the way that it's gone and the fact that both Joshua and Zachary, I guess, have taken out of the mantle. It's really something special. I'm appreciative of the fact that they enjoy the industry and come to it with absolute passion and dedication and earnest belief. And not only would it just today, currently, but what the potentiality is for it to be in the future. And that's something that's great. Well, I'm sorry, but now I have to want to give Kudu to play because he's actually the solid. That was a website with all the information. But he never takes off a lot of the calls. I really get so many accolades, people calling it. Marvin, Marvin, Marvin. I think it's time for you to go now. Thanks for calling. You have a good night. Okay, Marvin? What are you uptight about? Marvin. All right. Both of you did a nice job and look for a Roger. I look forward to seeing you at the AMOE committee. You're there, Arthur. Absolutely. I look forward to it as well. You take care of my dear friend. All right. Take care. Bye. Still there, Roger? I still am. Yeah, Marvin, he just had to call. Well, a special guy. Yeah, he sure is. But I think that that's the part that intrigued me always about Timball was absolutely the machines on some levels, what is really getting to know the people and the personalities. And the characters, both, you know, past present, and I think that that's the part that somehow struck a responsive chord to me that went beyond it being just a book project. Let's face it, there have been a number of books that came out around the time of Michael Kalmers and at Fipponsky and Carrie McGowan. But yours is the one that's out of print. Did it really stay? Yours is the one that's out of print. And yours is the one that brings the big box on eBay. Yeah. Why was it never reprinted? It's a good question. I think that EP doesn't as a publisher had a nice run with it. They enjoyed it. But never felt the need to go back in print. I got all of the rights to everything. And, you know, kind of toyed around with it. But it was never the right opportunity to do it. There was a financial consideration just because of the nature of the book, the amount of color, the kind of paper stock, and so on. Yeah, it's all color. It's beautiful book. So I think that there were a couple of factors that came into play as to not doing it. And, truthfully, there was also the necessary passage of time to be able to really update it and do justice to it. I remember Nolan Bushnapp, and all the people, I'm familiar with the name, Nolan really kind of put video games on the map. But seeing Nolan after my book had been out, it's called Straight Shone Chicago. It walked down the aisle and there was no, what are you doing here? Your book is already done. And it was like, well, I'm still around. I'm still like the industry. Coming back to his kind of tipping was, so what are you going to do? A book on the history of video games? And I think, well, when there is a history, because I think it was about five or six years in from when, on, it hit the same level. Yeah, and Nolan was responsible for Pong. He was also responsible for what was its space. Oh, that other game in the Farmingless Cabinet, that's... Well, there was Space War. Yeah. There was obviously Missile Command. I mean, a whole slew of games that came up by... Right, right. They came up by Atari that really kind of gave rise to video games and more importantly, popularized the notion of coin-operated amusement equipment. You know, Pimball Benefit, despite most people. In hindsight, one of things, it wasn't that video was suddenly successful that Pimball fell into the, to the dark of this. If anything, what it provided was the opening of more family entertainment centers, more mall game rooms. Right. Why didn't it appeal to at least, you know, it wrote on maybe the coattails to some degree, but they were writing on each other's coattails. Yeah, absolutely. And there was cross-influencing as to, you know, how both adapted to whatever some of the better things. Now, how did you sell your designs to Game Plan and to Williams? You know, you sold the sharpshooter. And did you actually, I mean, doing that? Was it like, you know, like, you know, like Pat Lawler goes into his garage and he comes out with a white wood that plays and he has it off? Was that how you were doing it, too? No, better not. Okay. I was at a New York State trade show and encountered Ken Anderson with the time was at Game Plan and I've known Ken from his days at Chicago Coin. And he took me over to look at a cocktail table Pimball Machine that this company I'd never heard of was doing. And it was real cigarettes was the brand on it. And asked him what I thought. I mean, it was like, my guy can't do cigarettes. I mean, Pimball things are still somewhat, you know, tenuous in regard to people's acceptance of Pimball machines. There's a lot of stigma attached to it. And, but I like the concept of a cocktail table and I wound up eventually that later that night having dinner with Ken, with legal boss who was the president of Game Plan. And we kind of talked a little bit about what his intention was and he was somebody whose company was AES Technology. And AES Technology was, I guess, a technology company of sorts doing government contract work and Lee and his partner Mike saw an opportunity to come in to the Pimball Business. And what they saw was the opportunity because of all the video games that were coming out in different cabinet configurations and some sit downs for those of the member old Pac-Man games. You know, maybe stuck somewhere in the restaurant that you could get much broader distribution. And the next one that they were doing was going to be black velvet based on the alcohol. And this is great. And those are two things that you can't do. So you straight out? We got a good dinner. I went back to New York. They went back to Chicago Land Area. And I want to say that I probably had a trip because if there's a New York State show, it had to be in the spring. And probably that summer was when I made it back to Chicago for the Consumer Electronics Show and did a side trip out to meet with Lee. Just to talk, see how things are going. They want to meet and come by and show me the new factory and what happy that was in Alcro College. And we got to talking. And during my, I guess, my travails and putting my Pimball Book together and having been around all of the secret back rooms of design and development and having had the opportunity to play every game up to that point for the previous 20 years that it had been manufactured. And having had the chance to play not only throughout the United States but throughout Europe, I had a pretty good sense of the types of games that I enjoyed personally. And some of what those component parts of play field design appeal to me. And Lee and I were talking and his time at Wesley, he wanted to get into conventional full size Pimball Machine. And then he was actually doing it done with these two commercial efforts. And you know that I had any thoughts about it because they really didn't have designers per se when the big atoms was there. It came over from Chicago, became Chicago Coin. But I did not have any hardcore designers as we were taking them. I took out a little piece of paper and I did some circles and I did some squares and I held it up to them and I explained what this was. But my drawing was and I said that it would be too expensive. And he called Winham-A-Makannems and I gave Winham-A-Makannems literally, it had to be almost like an African size. And he said, in some of the numbers, he circles over here, this is like a lame thing over there. Here's this, the target bank, and one happier, and he looked back at Lee and probably would be too expensive. And I remember looking back at Lee and saying, I told you, I mean I know that. And Lee said something to me that nobody else had because truthfully I had talked about doing some designs potentially for any of the other companies. That's a way of just saying thank you for all the help that they provided me and having my book come together. And Lee asked me, dead on, looking straight in the face, would it be successful? And for the quarter of another second that it took me to answer, I said if I knew anything about them, well, yes, it would be. So that came with fear. Really? So now that was that was sharp shooter, right? That was sharp shooter. And sharp shooter effectively was done in a fashion that the main portion of the play field is, and I'm sure most people noticed, got Lee's free-fall slash sky jump to the target bank in the lane configuration. Right. The bottom, and it's a flop, the bottom, said the jet bumpers was from William Seton, down. The giant tank was really utilized the way that it might have been just based on the, the lives based on that particular play field design. But I like the idea of having jet bumpers down on the bottom like that to effectively act as extra flippers. So I took those two brochures, referenced them, made my other changes, which were the spinner lane and loop around the kick out hall. And said, here, this is it. And I want to say that maybe about two weeks later, I want to fly back out and win in. And Joe Joseph is also their very instrumental in making everything happen. I'll explain why in a moment. But they had the white wood up. And the white wood up was great because my top right portion of the play field didn't fit. And the spinner was overlapping the kick out hall, and the lane, and so on. And it was like, okay, well, this doesn't work, guys. So what are we going to do? And Joe, excuse themselves, came back, and basically they altered where I had the spinner originally. And he said, what about this? And I said, well, that's great. I mean, I love it. And Joe and I became very, very close. I mean, he's incredibly talented and gifted person. Very hard working. He's no longer with us. He did some marvelous games at Stern. He did some incredible things at Williams for the end of his career. But his thing was that they didn't know how I would respond to somebody encroaching with my design. And I think it's when they saw how I responded to it. The rest of the day said, say, when I was a lot of funnily. I did nine out of the next ten weekends. I flew back and forth between Chicago and New York, which is where I was living. And I remember coming back, I want to say it was either on Christmas or New Year's, where it stopped watching hand going into the factory to play and time out the game for all time as well as making notes as to the amount of multiplier I was getting and so on. Basically going through everything. Snapper was the guy on the programming portion of it. I drove George Millett crazy for the artwork. Because as I told him, I did not want the Dracula artwork for Harry Williams game. It's done and done. There's a lot of purples and things. I wanted to be as realistic as it possibly could be. In fact, if I had my way, it would have been blank and white because this is my own or homage to high new. And I wanted it to be one piece of artwork. Most people think that I'm the guy also being shot on the play field. I'm not. There's just been the showdown. I've done the shooting. The guy is falling and that's why the plastics on the play field have horses and things reared up all looking back up that way. It was a daunting challenge for George to try to bring the life. But again, having said that, that was the process. The process was literally, as I said, being in the right place at the right time, getting a great opportunity. We unveiled the game at the ATE Show in London. Basically had two or three that we had built up with Wendell praying that the chicken wire and gum would all hold and the sketch tape would hold for the games to really function correctly, which they did. And the rest of the day is history. They want to be in Coney Island that followed, which most people get me credit for designing now. In fact, I totally don't do it. I've given them three other designs. But I want to do this to be flop of sharp shooting. And did a couple more games for them. And in between there, I've gotten very close with Mike Stroll, who was the president at Williams. And we talked about my moving out to Chicago and coming on board there and also doing design work. And you know, Barack Coro was a game that was about three years in the making before came to Martin. Yeah, now let's talk about that particular game. Which one? That one, truthfully, that one was a full size Mylar Steve Kortack put together a care package for me, got me components parts on hand view so that I knew what kind of surface I was dealing with not only on top of the play field, but more importantly, what the assemblies were below so I could leave enough spacing for lights, leave enough spacing. So I didn't run into the same problem that I ran into sharp shooting. So that was actually my first full size Mylar that I'd ever done. So when you say a Mylar, do you mean like you were building this on? It was an actual full scale drawing. It's what the guys now do with AutoCamp. This was a full size drawing with everything in position. Everything correct. So they basically just transfer this to, you know, however they route them, you know, right to turn it into a white one. Gotcha. Gotcha. And you did this again. You were still in New York. I was still in New York. Yep. There was another one of those, you know, traveling back and forth, back and forth. Barry Asher was given a task of working on the buildup. At various points in time, Larry Demar was doing some programming for it before he switched over to work with Eugene on Defender. Got 20 Kramer Paul D'Salt at Sahaki and Mr. Watson was the fellow in charge of doing the artwork. I think it was one of his first projects that he had done for Williams. Now, you know, you so you divide you designed these games for Williams and in and and game plan did you actually make any money doing this? Or was this just fun and games at this? I mean, there was some money involved, but it really wasn't, you know, for the money so much as it was the opportunity to try to bring to life. My approach to game design, you know, it's one thing to be able to have some influence on a great committee or a Jim Catler game or Steve Ritchie game or a giant for dough game or made off sites that got me, you know, I mean across the board with all these people. It's another thing to be able to, you know, really kind of do it on your own and show that maybe you have an affinity for this. Maybe there's a gift that you have and really much more of a firm. You know, Chuck Schruer was the first game with a million white because as a player, I didn't like making it tilled out again at 998, 980 before you rolled up. And the 800 and some odd sounds and was still flashing as the high score. And there was a reluctance and resistance for people who were first game with seven digits plus the start was hearing Williams a big game. Because we talked about it a lot and was able to affect it. The type of parts that were available, the scoring displays that game plan had access to only allowed me to six digits. So even the million light on time, Darah Korra has a chance to do multi lane change TM so that I could take three lanes and have them function as six. Double lighting up on top and I also gave players the opportunity to play for either a three ball multiball or they could play for two ball. So I mean, so there were there were little touches again within God's the rudimentary beginnings of where things were with solid state and not having the same type of flexibility and familiarity. It's subsequent programmers had of saying, you know, what are the things that I was like and not just in the overall physics of the game. Not only in looking at sharpshooter specifically and maybe why it had and has been really kind of stood and test the time is that he was a thematic choreography of gunshot sounds for the drop targets galloping hoops, voices, hearts, feet up saying, you know, do that for the spinner, the dynamite explosion for the 50,000 point shot. I wanted something that was, you know, really as true as it could be to the same as opposed to just kind of being slapped on and not having any kind of relationship. And point of truth at least at the core of the original design was not that there was a relight we are underneath the play field in the center in the game. So original theme was Las Vegas. How did that change or why did they get changed? I'm sorry. Why did that get changed? I think that there was prevailing attitude that people didn't like Las Vegas as a theme. They liked the idea of gambling or what have you and I thought that it was someone innocent. My car would come out in 75 from ballet and was good. And the little relight we all think that thought was fun. We could have some fun with it. And the games that got lucky sevens and gambling as elements were fun. I just thought that Las Vegas is a backdrop was much more universal. It seems kind of hypocritical. I mean, you know, back in 70 Williams had gold rush that had like a slot machine. Oh yeah, no, I know. You know, I mean, that seems really odd. And I mean, a lot of it was due to and taking nothing away to do for a Steve Ritchie coin to turn more of Las Vegas. So we kind of got shunted into the corner. All right, nobody paid a lot of attention to it. It was a totally different experience in game plan. Game plan I was the only game in town for them at Williams. You had a design stamp. I mean, you had Steve Cordack that was still very, very active. You had Steve Ritchie. You had a number of different people who were pumping out game designs. And Barry Hassel. And you know, this guy on the outside and become somebody stepchild. So I mean, in that context, it wasn't the same experience where I could kind of guide it and know the things you're going my way. Some of the things got out of hand. And you know, Ronald Behold. I mean, I don't know if you're a core, but the integrity of the game design was still there in terms of the overall geometry. And what some of the game rules were that I wanted it to be. I wanted that type of multiball opportunity. I wanted to do a multi-lane change. So, you know, from that respect, it did work out. Although, again, when I saw the artwork for the first time walking into the fan tree, Steve Cordack took me down to the middle of the production line. And I was looking at the distance and I was like, oh, and it's just, you know, striking face with like fish coming out of her head. And it's like, what the hell? Do you know how I couldn't even pronounce Barry Barr? Yeah, I know how you feel. What is it? And I work, look, because Steve had his big smile on his face as we kept them walking closer to him. My game, what did you do to it? Oh, my God. But, you know, it worked out. I think that my biggest regret was Mike Strong not listening to me. Steve Ritchie had been working on Black Knight admittedly. And Pimbo was kind of going through one of his periods. And he adopted every game at the B.A. Double Level Playfield. And who taught that? Mike Strong. Oh, okay. And instead of following up, which is where it was supposed to be, following up Black Knight with Barry Korra, he came back with Junderlord. Great game. Don't get me wrong. I think Barry did a great job with it. But Valley was smart enough to say, okay, we're going to move away from, you know, what we've done with, I think Flash Gordon is like one of their first. And they came out with eight ball for months. And I still to the state believe, and again, maybe some of it is my own vanity. I think I'm balanced. The better playing game is Barry Korra compared to ball to lups. Eight ball to lups was incredibly successful because everybody was doing double level playfield. And your Valley came out with this. Very solid game. Straight forward. And I think that if Barry Korra had been able to go into that spot where it was being held back until 1982 in the summer, that maybe it would have gotten a better reception. Right. Right. It might have been thought out in a little bit better fashion, with more familiarity than kind of like falling into the abyss. So let's move up to 1988. You said you landed the job full time job in the city. Yeah, we're looking at it and we're not getting a call now. I put it on context and perspective. It wasn't as if I had been out of touch with either Williams or the rest of the industry. In fact, I had been talking with Williams the previous year for a couple of different projects. One was I wanted to launch a consumer magazine and do what I had been doing in the video games magazine. I had left GK years before then and potentially wanted to take me over the ownership of the original video games magazine. While starting up a couple of other magazines and doing some of the books, but I wanted to do a consumer kind of like coin up magazine. I said there was a marketplace for it. And with the video game magazine, I had given away conbalm machines taking away video games, arcade games, as part of a way just to kind of get leadership going. We had really good self-sipulation. It's great editorial. God amortizing it. What I wanted for the launch of this new magazine was to reach out to the various manufacturers to see if they would ship the games out with the premiere issue. And I felt that after that premiere issue, when people had a chance to see it, they would then want to subscribe. And I could get everything going. So that was one of the projects. The other projects was a game design idea along the whole. Another design that I was trying out to the third, that I was actually tied into my game design was the opportunity to provide two Williams the license for teenage mutant interterals. So when I wanted to get a phone call in March of 1988, it totally came out of the book. I thought that it was on the free gate. It was for the magazine or potentially it was for the license. And instead it was Marty Glazeman, Ken Fideson calling and asking me if I want to come on board as the director of marketing. Now the teenage ninja thing that didn't go to your company. So I guess I'm confused there. What happened there? Well I had gone to Toy Fair in 1987 and was just looking at seeing what's going to be hot a year from now. Back then Toy Fair were items and toys and merchandise and things that were yet to be released. So I wanted to make it into the marketplace. One property was a hoop frame Roger Rabbit, which I thought was got that inventive and everything that didn't exist. And today would ever go for it. The other was, I think it was a spillbook from Jim. I'm going to need you help on this one because I think it just escaped me. The former was in it and it was like with dragons and things. Oh shoot. It was a fantasy movie. Yeah, yeah, I know what you're talking about. Mr. Schelber guy has found as a memory like a steel trap. I understand that is mine. Sometimes my trap is shut down. And as if to go in since it is. No, no, no, it's just a silver one word title. And it's on the tip of my tongue but it's not there. Anyway. And I thought that that was going to be a little bit edgy. And then I wanted to encounter a teenage mutant ninja turtles, which I thought this is really delightful. This is really, you know, cookie. Yeah, couple of guys starting with, you know, black and white, little drawings and things and the mounting, you know, a major campaign to see if they can get her off the ground. I met with the company representing the property and said, would you guys be interested if I could get a symbol company to do something like sure. And I said, okay, and I said, you know, I don't think it would be a lot of money. Not knowing anything about licensing at that time. But I saw, all right, we kind of had a connection. I don't think a lot of people were paying too much attention to the back then. And they went. And that's what I went to Williams to say it. And by the way, I have access to I can get you teenage mutant ninja turtles. And of course, it was met with blank stairs because they heard it. Yeah, but this is going to be the next hot big thing. And you know, subsequently, a canami came out the video game. And they were sitting there with, you know, going, oh, this guy maybe he knows his stuff. They would hire him. Well, what's interesting is that I was truthfully hired not for licensing. I mean, I was hired to be marketing. I think that Mark Lasmen with the vice president of marketing and sales understood where his strength was and still is today. He's an incredibly good salesman. But, you know, one of his strong suits wasn't necessarily marketing and all the rest of that. And he really believed that I could come in and between the two of us would make one heck of a team. If you want one heck of a person covering all of the functionality of what could and should be existing in the game company, let alone any company. So, you know, I got the car on a Monday. Kind of said I needed some time, got a call on a Tuesday and talked a little bit more. And when I didn't get the car on Wednesday, that's when it really struck because I was kind of, I won't say ambivalent, but I was hesitant to really make the leap. And not having to call on Wednesday got to realize, you know, what I wanted. And fortunately, I learned my wife was learning to go on, and she knew I always wanted to come back to the Midwest. And Thursday, I wanted to call and say, okay, let's do it. And we kind of negotiated dollars a little bit differently than we had before, which had never been the second point to begin with, but it was fine. And I wound up, as I said, a couple of weeks later. So, what was your first license work with Williams? What was the first thing that you licensed? First thing I went after was bad man in 1988. But you didn't get that? No, I turned it down. Oh, you turned it down? Why? I had deep familiarity with what I'm even, had been able to accomplish a valley back in the mid to late 70s, early 80s, when they really kind of bust out with different license things. My belief was that there's really no budget to exist for the game companies to do outreach and get exposure and visibility and awareness in the consumer marketplace. But if I could get a business alliance with a licensing partner based on a film or got away knows what and ride their co-cails, that would be wonderful. We can really create something that there would be public awareness for. And again, kind of going through things a couple of years before the movie came out and actually before it was even cast, I had caught something somewhere about bad man kind of. And, one of the things that you should actually have already have to minute so that to meet with some company, you only find out that they were only going to be one of the companies producing some type of merchandise. And then we need to talk to Warner Brothers and one of searching things out, contacting Warner Brothers, telling them I had an interest and I also got cast with Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson. I made a very big issue about I want to be on the cereal boxes. I want to be on the toys. I want to be whatever. I want to be give away pinball machines. You want the pinball machines on the cereal boxes? Yep, yep, absolutely. And they didn't like that? No, they loved it. The problem was that there was a prohibition based on the contract with Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson that they were not going to do any kind of licensed merchandise. So if I wanted to feature them on the artwork and not use the cartoon characters or something else, I was fine as long as there wasn't any promotional things involved. So if you go back even to the first generation of toys, they're much more generic Batman and Joker characters than it was, the absolute likeness of these actors. Well, then how did they do that? Because they don't have Keaton on it. They were they've Keaton in fault. They were they were fun because for them, it wasn't mandatory as it was for me, my belief. I don't want to pay money and get nothing in return. Right. So for them, obviously it wasn't a deal breaker not having the opportunity to be involved in any kind of crossover promotions. They just did it the way the industry had done it for years previous. Right. We're going to give you money. You're going to give us some artwork. We're going to produce a good mall machine. Thank you. Take care so long. Have a good life. Right. Right. So the toughest part in going to the process was Neil Nacastro that that time, you know, the president of the company. What do you mean? What he was talking about? Mobile the work saying, yeah, we got it. No, no, no, no. Neil's comment was he did not believe in licenses. He didn't think we should do it. He said because truthfully. And I kind of started on this little quest just as a side thing. You know, look where it got Bally and you know, six months later we had acquired the amusement game division from Bally. We got Bally Midway and his belief was it didn't do them any good. They kind of basically gone belly up and we're taking the scraps. So it became much more arduous cast to say, you know what? I think we can do like a few licenses a year. It doesn't have to be every game. So let's be really selective and my approach again was and we're going to be able to multiply the visibility, the reach and the frequency of what we're doing by being involved in these types of programs. I just don't want to do it the way that Bally had done it before. So the first license that actually came into the marketplace was Elvira in 1989 and the party monsters. You know, all the licenses to get in the world, that wouldn't have been on the top of my list. I wouldn't even have thought of that one. Well, it was interesting. I wanted to get a phone call. I had gone to a licensing show by then and gotten somewhat familiar, at least on the periphery of some of the people that were involved in the business from the studio side and so on. And actually in, I guess it was 88 had begun conversation with Lucas, which eventually resulted in us doing Indiana Jones, but was talking to someone who represented, you know, Cassandra Peterson. Nice people. She's really into pinball. She was doing a lot of things back then. There's a movie coming and they were, you know, she's going to be on the tonight show will publicize and promote the pinball machine. She does not very farm every Halloween and will promote the pinball there. It was like, wow, this is cool. And more importantly, she'll come to the trade show and make a personal appearance. I like that a lot. I can generate some publicity that way. And that was actually the first license and it made perfect sense as a ballet game just based on their history of ample women that were featured in the artwork. Was she an expensive license? No. No, I mean, it's all relative. But I mean, I got to imagine that getting Indiana Jones was to cost a pile of money compared to getting no alvira. Actually not. No, why? I basically set up a Ryan Policky of parameters for all the licenses that were all within the same relative amount of dollars. Whether it was Indiana Jones or alvira or World Cup soccer or shadow or any of them. There really was not too much of a disparity in the dollar amounts. That was just the way that I wanted to approach things. They wanted to do pinball machines and I could deliver numbers anywhere from 10 to 15 or 20,000 units and get them visibility and coincidentally promote me, meaning the game and the industry and the company so that we were part of the fan club for Terminator 2. We were celebrities being there for the Gala Red Carpet. We were there for the same process for the premiere of the Hollywood premiere with the Cleak Life and the Red Carpet for Adam's family. It was the morning of with Pat Loller and Larry and John and myself all being with Janet Trinvine and the DJ. Anyway, on this radio show and being part of a one-off magazine in the Adams family that was going to be printed to about a quarter of a million people where we gave away a pinball machine. The same thing for T2 when we gave away a pinball machine. The kind of cross-promotions that I was able to do, whether it was being involved in Broadway Cares Equity Fights 8 where we provided pinball machines in New York City for Peter Townsend and others that were doing a benefit in the local rock radio station with celebrities paying the pinball machines and people doing pledges and so on. All of that was always part and parcel. We were on, I think it was 17 million juice boxes for high-sea with arch rivals and I want to say police force. We were involved with promotion and in fact one of the advertising and peeling things with El Viro was that she was a spokesperson that year for Coca-Cola and we were involved in a national promotion with them. So the things that I really believed in I was able to follow up on. And that was the part that was most gratifying because it provided us the impetus and began that process where we garnered a heck of a lot of publicity. We had TV crews in almost weekly doing interviews and footage at the plant talking to the designers and so on. Articles and features running in life magazines and Sony and Scott, you know, the list goes on and on. Newspapers from everywhere. That was one of my quests, one of my areas involved with. And that took a lot of pride in the fact that we kind of put pinball back on the map after it had been drawn up for a long period of time. We're going to take a little break from our interview with Roger Sharp of Williams-Balley Midway Licensing and Marketing Department and we'll be right back after these words. Hey George, I just had to call and tell you about this really great magazine I got. It's called the Ping-Gang Journal and it's the only magazine dedicated to a little pinball. It's got great articles and interviews with designers and everything. No George, I won't lend you my copy. Who knows where you'll take it to. You're going to have to go to Ping-Gang Journal.com and get your own subscription. But George, the guy says that each issue will give mail whenever he feels like it. What's the deal with that? All right George, I got to go. Got to call Elaine and tell her, I can't believe how good this magazine is. Okay, we're back with Roger Sharp of Williams-Balley Midway Licensing and Marketing Department.