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#73 Steve Ritchie F-Troop Flash+Firepower - The Classic Pinball Podcast

The Classic Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 8m·analyzed·Jan 25, 2022
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.029

TL;DR

Classic Pinball Podcast explores Steve Ritchie's Firepower and Flash with extensive restoration details and gameplay.

Summary

A detailed restoration and gameplay discussion of two classic Steve Ritchie-designed Williams pinball machines: Firepower (1980) and Flash (1978). The host George and restorer Dave showcase an extensively rebuilt Firepower with new plastics, backglass, LED upgrades, WPC flipper mechs, and custom displays, discussing its multiball mechanics, lane-change feature, and gameplay flow. The episode includes gameplay footage and transitions to Flash for a back-to-back comparison of both iconic early Ritchie titles.

Key Claims

  • Firepower was made in February 1980 with 17,400 units produced by Williams using System 6 hardware

    high confidence · George, citing the app/brochure at the beginning of the episode

  • Steve Ritchie designed Firepower with sound and software by Eugene Jarvis (nicknamed Cookie Jarvis)

    high confidence · George citing game documentation

  • Firepower was one of the first games to feature lane change as a trademarked mechanic

    medium confidence · Dave stating 'They trademarked that' in reference to lane change being advertised on Firepower

  • About 100-200 early Firepower units had drop targets but they were removed due to durability issues

    medium confidence · Dave noting 'they were so much right in your face you had to be destroying those drop targets all day'

  • Williams drop targets are inferior to Bally targets, which Dave calls 'bricks' and harder to sweep

    medium confidence · Dave's opinion comparing Williams and Bally target mechanics

  • The restored Firepower cost approximately 80 hours of labor and roughly $1,000+ in new boards alone

    medium confidence · Dave stating 'almost like 80 hours on this thing' and George noting '$1,000 worth of boards or more'

  • Flash was made in 1978 with 19,000 units produced and featured triple sound option capability

    high confidence · George reading brochure specs; Dave confirming production numbers

  • Flash came before Gorgar in the voice technology timeline and did not have voice capability

    high confidence · George and Dave discussing sound/voice evolution: 'Before Gorgar, no. Made a crap load of these, though. 19,000?'

Notable Quotes

  • “This is the nicest firepower I've done to date it plays really well”

    Dave @ ~7:30 — Establishes the quality tier of this particular restoration in Dave's experience

  • “I spent more time restoring these than playing them”

    Dave @ ~32:00 — Captures the time-intensive nature of professional pinball restoration work

  • “If I had this game I would put between five and ten games on this every night”

    George @ ~34:00 — Indicates strong appeal and replayability of Firepower despite George's poor initial play

  • “It has that flow going... It's one of my favorite classic Williams games”

    Dave @ ~22:00 — Professional affirms Ritchie's design quality and signature gameplay flow

  • “They made 17,000 of them, so. It was a hit. Still is a hit.”

    Dave @ ~27:00 — Contextualizes Firepower's cultural impact and enduring popularity in the community

  • “Ball, Saver, Shield, Exclusive, Lane Change. They trademarked that.”

    Dave @ ~19:00 — Documents Firepower's innovation with lane-change mechanic as a trademarked feature

  • “I took all that out and put in wpc mechs in from the 90s with really bold nice solid hit”

    Dave @ ~15:00 — Describes common upgrade path for classic Williams games to modernize flipper responsiveness

  • “Everybody who played Pinball back in the day has seen or played a Flash. They've seen or played a Firepower.”

    George @ ~64:00 — Emphasizes the cultural saturation and ubiquity of both Ritchie titles in arcades of the era

Entities

Steve RitchiepersonEugene JarvispersonDavepersonGeorgepersonFirepowergameFlashgameWilliams

Signals

  • ?

    design_innovation: Firepower introduced lane-change as a trademarked mechanical feature and multiball countdown mechanics with memory-based ball locking in saucers

    high · Dave: 'They trademarked that. Okay. So this game in Flash is 79, no lane change.' and multiball discussion around timestamp 13:00

  • ?

    restoration_signal: Modern restoration best practices include WPC flipper mech retrofits, LED display replacements (Weebly), custom backglass sourcing (Kuz/Planetary Pinball), new plastics (CPR), and selective LED 'seasoning' with incandescent bases

    high · Dave detailing 80 hours of work including 'took all that out and put in wpc mechs in from the 90s', new displays, smoke film application, LED color tuning

  • ?

    product_concern: Classic Williams games suffer from mysterious intermittent electrical gremlins; specific issue: light that should stay solid on was flickering, eventually self-resolved before delivery

    medium · Dave: 'I had a ghost in this firepower... one little light that was once in behavior. It was always on. It was just a minor thing... Come downstairs to turn the game on for George, and I'm looking at the lights that it's not working right... and guess what it's doing? It's actually working now by itself.'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Steve Ritchie's early 80s designs (Firepower) demonstrate cohesive gameplay flow with smooth shot progression and balanced challenge; both hosts praise his design signature

    high · Dave: 'It's one of my favorite classic Williams games... I'd say it's got the Steve Ritchie flow to it' and George: 'it seems like it's got the Steve Ritchie flow to it... It has that flow going'

  • ?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.205

0:30
Bringing the fall to be defeated To pulverize from just the dawn Firepower, petrified Firepower The direst cast make no exception We're forged by evil to compel Come rally round this land of freedom Our union's rights are gone to hell Firepower taking lives Firepower neutralize
1:29
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Classic Pinball Podcast. I'm here with my commander Dave. Hello Dave. Hello George. folks today we're embarking on yet another game in dave's basement today's game firepower i'm going to do the mea culpa right up front not a game that i've played i think ever which is probably pretty strange given they made 17,000 of these games what's the name of that game george what are we playing again so george would like to know about this firepower i just finished sure what do you want to say uh it's a williams firepower i just finished it that's it that's all we got folks good night well i've got the app open you can go do this on your own um we're talking about William System 6 game made in February of 1980, 17,400 units. It's designed by Steve Ritchie, sound and software by Eugene Jarvis.
3:04
You go. Very nice. Yeah, Eugene Jarvis, who is also known as, his nickname is Cookie, Cookie Jarvis, if you didn't know that. So that's, you know what the reference is, George? You told me this once before. I don't remember. Remember the cereal from the late 70s, early 80s? You're eating cookies. I think it's called Cookie Crisp. Well, the guy there is called Eugene Jarvis or Cookie Jarvis or something like that. Anyway, back to pinball. Oh, my God.
3:35
Okay, let me go. Well, we've been drinking. We have some dear George beer we've been drinking, so sorry. Yeah, from Flying Squirrel Brewery. Right here in local Waltham nearby. It's good. Thank you. You're welcome.
company
Randy Pfeifferperson
Constantino Mitchellperson
Janine Mitchellperson
Kuzperson
Planetary Pinballcompany
CPR Plasticscompany
Weeblycompany
The Classic Pinball Podcastorganization
Gorgargame
Flying Squirrel Brewerycompany
PJperson

manufacturing_signal: Both Firepower (17,400 units) and Flash (19,000 units) were massive production runs resulting in high arcade availability in the era; both remain common in collector/operator markets

high · George: 'They made 17,000 of them, so. It was a hit. Still is a hit.' and 'Everybody who played Pinball back in the day has seen or played a Flash. They've seen or played a Firepower.'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Flash (1978) predates voice technology in pinball; Gorgar followed as first voice game, establishing sound capability progression in early 80s

    high · George and Dave discussing voice timeline: 'Before Gorgar, no. Made a crap load of these, though.'

  • ?

    supply_chain_signal: New reproduction boards available for classic Williams games (MPU, driver, sound, power); Bally rectifier boards reported as sold out with long lead times

    medium · Dave: 'I had all new boards in here... You're able to buy all brand new boards for this? Yeah' and 'You can't even buy a Bally rectifier board from him. They're all sold out.'

  • ?

    collector_signal: High-end restorations command customer investment; example Firepower shows approximately $1,000+ in boards alone plus 80 hours labor, custom parts (backglass, displays, plastics), and selective LED/incandescent hybrid lighting

    high · George: 'you've got probably $1,000 worth of boards or more in this game. Yeah, no kidding.' and Dave itemizing restoration work throughout

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Firepower assessed as challenging, skill-based game requiring significant practice to develop consistent scoring; George's poor initial play typical of unfamiliar player learning curve

    medium · George after ball one: '180,000 to 7,000. Why is...' and later 'I'm awful. Awful.' Dave: 'It is a tough game.'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Firepower features center drop targets and challenging shot sequences; George struggles with center target timing ('Don't hit the center targets in this game'), indicating sophisticated but punishing design

    medium · George: 'Don't hit the center targets in this game... You have to. Yeah, I know. You just gotta hit it the right way.' Dave later: 'I've definitely got flow. You can steal my lock up there.'

  • ?

    historical_signal: Steve Ritchie designed both Flash (1978) and Firepower (1980), establishing him as major designer early in his career; hosts note significant technological gap between the two despite only 2-year span

    high · George: 'two games back-to-back, 78 and 80? Everybody who played Pinball back in the day has seen or played a Flash... They're too far apart technology-wise.'

    • 3:48
    First off, with this game. Yeah. It's got a cool back glass, and I really like the displays. Thank you. We're not going down the display road, guys.
    4:00
    Back off. Yeah, it's going to be fine. So tell us, how did you acquire the game? Give us the background like we always give, whether they like it or not. So this guy, about a year ago, he said he wanted me to do a firepower for him, because I guess he saw one of my firepower restorations, he said yeah sure i can do that but then he went he went and bought one that was okay shape he said here i want you to go crazy in this and he bought a whole bunch of parts and gave them to me and i bought some more stuff so basically this is the nicest firepower i've done to date it plays really well um we nice playfully anyway but we touched it up play for protector on it brand new cpr plastics brand new red uh lane guides brand new back glass from overseas with real mirroring on it. It will be buffed up. Oh, is this one of those from... I think it's Kuz.
    4:54
    Oh, he bought it? You didn't buy it? No, I bought it. Oh, okay. I bought it. He's basically giving me Carp Launch. So you bought this from Kuz? I bought the Backglass from Kuz. Yes. Yeah. Yep. And it's nice. The other one you can get is Planetary Pinball. I have one of those, too, as well. I'm going to put it in my game. I feel like I should want to take either one.
    5:14
    Cadmium was nice already. Morgan did some touch-up on it. A little bit of touch-up on the playfield, not much. a little bit of touch-up on the apron, and buffed all the metal. New coin door inserts, did warm LEDs, warm common LEDs everywhere.
    5:28
    Did some tasteful red and blue LEDs as well. A little bit in the inserts, kind of, kind of dabbling in that, but mostly all incandescent, because I don't, I want the incandescent look with a little bit of, a little bit of LED pepper, let's call it, some seasoning. And same thing, the back glass, put some colored LEDs back there with some warm whites. And new pop bumper caps, new drop target stickers, rebuild the flipper assembly. It's pretty much spent almost like 80 hours on this thing. Oh, and also for the crowning touch, the customer also wanted a piece of optically clear glass. So that's on here too. It's a sharp-looking game. I mean, he's going to be, I know it's a broken record, folks, but the customer's really going to like this game. It's a, again, I don't have a lot of familiarity with this game because I'm more Bally than Williams, but it's a sharp game. I'm looking forward to playing it. And here's the weird thing, George. You know, I think Firepower was talking to us because right now, remember I said to Firepower in a previous episode, Williams Classic Games, I've had shorts with them, weird problems. build quality isn't as good, you really have to do a lot of work to them to bring them up to the level of, you know, being solid again. And weird quirks and ghosts in the machine have been chasing down. Well, I had a ghost in this firepower. I told the customer about it, and he goes, oh, I don't care. You worked long enough enough. You know, it's fine. You know, and I say, well, I don't want to let it go unless, you know, there's one little light that was once in behavior. It was always on. It was just a minor thing. It was bugging me. It didn't bug him, but I said, well, give me a couple more days. I'll figure it out before I deliver it. I kind of want it 100% before I give it to you. So we come downstairs to turn the game on for George, and I'm looking at the lights that it's not working right. It's supposed to be solid on, and guess what it's doing? It's actually working now by itself. So I'm good luck. Yeah, you are. I hope it stays that way. Again, minor thing, but I got to hunt it down, whatever it is. So do you want me to use the brochure as a guide when we talk about the features of this game? because the one that I have is this whole multi-ball, multi-player thing that they're talking about. And I think I know what they're talking about, but I want to make sure. I think because you can, well, I didn't really, you can actually lock a ball. I think you can steal a lock. So let's start there. So you can ball lock this game. Now, does it ball lock in the saucer? Yes. Okay, so humor me. Wherever green light is. So I'm player one and you're player three. and I've got two balls locked, but player two comes in, he's not using my balls because the way that this is supposedly working is that it's unique to your game. So does it drain those balls out and give him a blank slate, and then when it comes back to me, it gives me the balls? That's a very good question, George. How does it do that? That's good. I played two-player, and what it does is say I was playing with PJ, doing some playtesting in this game, and he locked the ball, lower left, upper top, saucer, two locked, lost the ball, I was up. The balls were still there, but the green lights were not on anymore. So I think what might happen is I think – I bet you what happens is this. I bet you – So how do you – here's the question then. So how do you – well, I can read here. I'm going to say you get the one through six. Well, let me recite. Yeah, go ahead. Here we go. The multi-ball bonanza. Wipe out the alien by making six center targets. The victory lights one or two supercharged eject holes and has firepower report back enemy destroyed. Boy, that's a sentence. Make all six targets a second time and light the second or third eject hole. Then send the ball spinning into the flashing eject hole. It's locked up while firepower kicks a new ball into play. Lock up the second ball, get a third, lock up the third. All three balls are fired into play at the same time on the command. Fire one, two, three. God, what the hell does that mean? You'll see. Three ball multi-ball is what it means. Yeah, I guess, you know, this whole claim, there were multi-ball games before this one, yes? Yes. Right. This is because it has memory to go from. I guess you have to perform something in order to get it into that locked saucer. I'm guessing you just perform it and the ball's already in there. You do notice something on the back class where it says multiball, right? Yeah.
    10:02
    I don't know. We've got to play. I think that's a registered trademark. They couldn't use multiball in a different, I think, in Gottlieb. They had to use, I don't know, funkyball or some other name. Right. So you think Williams owns that trademark? They did for a while. Probably not anymore. Not anymore. Okay. So that was my one question. How the hell does that work? um you can move the lanes up top like you can on other games um the only thing that i read and correct me if i'm wrong did they experiment with drop targets on this game they did about maybe i'm going to say offhand 100 or 200 games maybe you got drop targets but what happened is the they were so much right in your face you had to be destroying those drop targets all day they're just being destroyed so now i don't know anything about williams drop targets are they better worse or the same i well my when i was a child and still i'd say the same thing today about these targets when i played a williams game back in the day i called them cardboard targets like a piece of cardboard you hit versus the bally's so you're not a big fan no you can't sweep them you know not like a stern you can sweep them bally you can almost sweep them but bally's are known for being uh bricks that's what i say bally bricks hit them and they don't go down Unless you can really fine-tune a belly. You can fine-tune that to bring it back to nice, but it takes a little bit of work. What else do we need to know about this game before I ask you to turn it on because I'm starting to lose interest? Okay. Well, it's a greater track mode. It's attracting the sense. Play me. Oh, yeah. All new boards in the back.
    11:38
    How many boards are in a Williams game? So you've got an MPU, you've got a driver, you've got sound, and you've got power. So this isn't an all-in-one pass. This is buy four boards. This is just like Valley Games. Yep. Okay. And I had all new boards in here. Again, with this classic Williams stuff. So you're able to buy all brand new boards for this? Yeah, I should actually. I'll show you. Okay. Let me take it. Okay. You at home can just imagine this. Imagine, if you will. Gar Exp 9980. Probably Exposition Expo Garage. Garage Expo. I don't know. Yeah, that's weird. I'll try it. Okay. it oh wow look at wow that's pretty it's a christmas tree isn't it back there you got a lot of money in that back box oh yeah certainly do in fact so is this one of the vendors that you talked about before pinball pcb no that's not one okay coho so what's the 36.1 this actually shows you uh that's your five volts wow dial dial it in boy that's old school oh yeah but it's hardcore you know put in there that's your that's your um coil voltage so as you're playing you can see it go from 36 these are 28 volt coils or 28 volt system fancy so it brings it down i found john day i'll tell you later about flash later next episode john day turned into a great fix on how to supercharge your flippers without actually having to put retrofit new so does that or give you the ability to change it no but a special upgrade in the capacitor on the old school board does i'm trying to figure out how to do it in this sport here i gotta research how to do it supercharge this one to get the flippers so what what did i do with this game too instead of the old clunky williams flippers you get from this time frame in the 70s and 80s i took all that out and put in wpc mechs in from the 90s with really bold nice solid hit is that something a lot of people do with these games yes okay that's a big upgrade okay the this wow look at all those thin display. So these displays are all new too? Oh, these are all new. These are all Weebly's. Weebly red displays. Man, those look great. Especially, see, they look good now, but when you put the black on them, and he only had orange available. I was like, well, you know what? The red looks good. The red looks awesome in this game. Oh, so it would look like a Bally game because that was the technology from back in the day.
    14:04
    Everything was... I don't remember a lot of red displays when we were... Oh, Game Plan. And Superman. you know, that's what I put smoke on the, smoke on the back of this. I put smoke film. See? Why? These are usually clear. Oh, okay. Because watch what it does to the numbers. Because now it makes it all. Takes them down a little bit? It makes it look like there's one display there. You don't really see individual blocks as much. Oh, it looks good. Especially when you turn it off,
    14:31
    you don't see anything. If you turn this game off over here. Right, you can see. You see, it's like, this is black. Yeah, no, that looks good. Yeah, it's nice. Okay. We spare no expense or effort here, folks. We spend time. You have customers who are, let's say, very generous with their money? Generous, and they pay for good stuff. So I'm going to give it to them.
    14:55
    Okay, so this has got a kicker, too, I guess, on the left-hand side. And everything up top, the lanes up top, give you the multiplier. So it's a straightforward game. I think it's either the first or one of the first was lane change. But they advertised lane change here on the game. They must have claimed the fame in there. Is he first or maybe not?
    15:13
    Ball, Saver, Shield, Exclusive, Lane Change. They trademarked that. Okay. So this game in Flash is 79, no lane change. Right. And they have four lanes like this one. This one is. So they just. I like it.
    15:29
    But Valley doesn't do it, really. Later on. Skateball. Okay. Right, but I wish it was in other games. so what game would it be so what other game would it be too easy yeah maybe that's why i like that this i felt like back in the day when williams did this lane change so you put a lot of money in this game you play this okay oh you're gonna like this game this is okay well did you ever play sarah's up at the arcade in pelham when she had this i'm being honest i really don't remember ever playing this game she had a real someone did but i wouldn't but you know me this thing I know everybody thinks it's a gag, but there's a lot of stuff I've never played before. That's why we're a good little team. This is the best firepower I've ever played. That's not just me saying that. Mr. Uninformed hasn't played a lot of stuff. You, who repairs everything and has seen most things.
    16:22
    I'll show you something else. Look next door over here. The original plastic set is like this. See that metal? It's like that. Right, like on Ember. Go over here. What does this one have?
    16:32
    Plastic. firepower that's a cpr special they put that in there so it makes it it just is up nice oh is it still metal underneath metal underneath you put it on top oh okay yeah it looks not i mean he's not going to be disappointed i don't think so i wouldn't be i'm ready to keep this thing talking about well let's play stop stop quit uh quit talking and start chalking i gonna have a drink now she had a drink too actually i have a drink I think we all good You want first or second George Show me Alright I will show you I know this is a bad decision but show me And it does something to it. That's player two. Here's player three.
    17:16
    Isn't that cool? That sound was in... Defender or something. No, Black Knight? Yeah, Black Knight. Yep. Here's player four.
    17:26
    That's Defender. Yeah, you need to record some of this for me. Okay. As you're unaware of this, we shall start again. So who sells, does Steve Young sell the bumper caps for this? Or somebody else? Good question, because the customer supplied a lot. The customer supplied the plastic set, the pump bumper. So you didn't have to do much hunting. He just gave you the box full of stuff and said, go at it. Yeah, he gave me the artsy stuff. I had the techno stuff. That was me. He sourced a lot of that. So let's go. Here we go. He doesn't matter. He saved his cycles. Oh, yeah, great.
    18:00
    and wait for it to go until you shoot the ball. All right, shoot the ball. Yeah, you have to definitely record all this for me.
    18:12
    There it goes. Okay, so I'm going to ask another question. Go ahead. Why aren't the bumper caps lit? They will be. You have to... Oh, so you have to light them. You have to light them. Oh, that's different. How do you light them, George? George, I forget.
    18:33
    Someone out there knows how to do it. Why do people even bother to listen? I'm really wondering why they listen to us. Hey, you know, I spend more time restoring these than playing them. Is it your boredom?
    18:46
    Ooh, enemy destroyed. It's like the thing said, George. See that? I heard it. I saw where you put the ball.
    18:56
    Okay, so now the bumpers. So I get another one. Only two. No, now two. Okay. So they're changing. Every time you have a switch hit, they're changing back and forth. Okay, so I like that.
    19:12
    We'll get in there. Yeah, I definitely do one of these for me. I have a nice one they make for me. It's got a good sound package so far. I mean, it's, you know, again, not that I'm any expert, but it seems like it's got the Steve Ritchie flow to it.
    19:34
    Would you say that? I'd say it's one of my favorite classic Williams games. It's a great game. Yeah, it has that flow going. They made 17,000 of them, so.
    19:45
    It was a hit. Still is a hit. Okay, so I need to get it up top. A little short. A little short on the... And that's done. Put it this way, George. So, after ball one, folks, why do I keep doing this? George, what happened? Where's George? 180,000 to 7,000. Why is... Nobody's ever surprised. They listen just because of you humiliating me every week. You know, obviously, I didn't fix this game good enough that display is way off. It's missing a couple digits on the front. No, that's my game at home. Oh, okay. Not this game.
    20:22
    Last episode. Last episode ever? No, last episode we talked about my display thing. They don't want to hear any more. They don't want to hear any more about displays. They want to see me display some accuracy and actually try to do something here. I just tried to do a drop catch and it spun right off my flipper. I let it go a little too early. Okay, come on. Okay. We got three lanes now. Now go back up in there. Give me fourth lane. There we go. Fourth lane. So what's that do for me? Nice. Multiplier. Oh, that's right. The multiplier.
    20:59
    That's good, too. Yeah, but it went out the drain. It's true. On the right. God, I'm awful. It's your first time playing this. It's your first time playing? Yeah, I'm better than that, though.
    21:15
    Hold on. But I'm not hating on it like I normally am. So, I like it. So far, I like it. Yeah, you might get a Williams. It might be your first one. No, that will never happen. But when you do your game, I'll play yours.
    21:33
    And again, down the left-hand side. So, that's the end of the game. Okay, we've got to play again. That was horrible. All right, here we go.
    21:44
    Okay, Dave won the first game, 210,063. That was a really poor showing. My high score so far, I haven't played much, is 536. Really? That's it? That's it. I've only played a couple times. I've probably played ten times. That's never surprising because everybody always hears that.
    22:01
    This plumber's actually fixing pipes. I've got to force myself to actually play tests. I want to play tests, but I almost feel guilty because it's so much fun to do. But it's like, you know what? It needs to get done. And if someone's going to do it, it might as well be me. As I've said before and I'll say again, I always love coming here because I always get to play something I've never played before.
    22:23
    And you get to hear me do poorly. And Dave has got six eyes. Does it have a hold on the bonus, and does the bonus reset after every game? I think it does reset.
    22:36
    So, A, you don't know if you can set thresholds. B, you don't know if it can stay for the next ball.
    22:47
    Because you haven't played it enough. I haven't played it enough. I'm still... Did he not give you a manual? I got my own manual. Okay.
    23:00
    Notice the holes, too. See the saucers? Oh, man! Boy, that came down quick for you. You know what it's called, George? It's called smooth flipper feed. No, that's called... There's no hop there. That's called poor gameplay. Notice the holes? Yeah, I like the color. So that's a color-changing LED? It's called a fire LED. It looks like fire. It's fire in the hole, fire power. See that? Three of them.
    23:23
    What kind of bulbs does this game take? This is 44s, 47s, that style. Okay. And that's a multi-filament or a multi-LED bulb? LED, yep. So it pulses and... Huh, where'd you... Look at the flash next door. Where did you get that? Look at the flash next door. Look at that hole, see what that one's doing. Oh, it's blue. No. And purple. It's changing. It's a color changer. It's different. Oh, I've got to get me some of these. Yeah, it's fun. You can do some fun stuff with it. Okay. George, we're going to embrace LEDs. No, George. No. Hooray. It ain't so. Hooray. No, I can't. I won't.
    24:02
    Oh, God. Get in there. Well, I see one thing you didn't do, and that might be customer choice. You didn't put clear rubbers on the slings. I didn't. I decided to keep that classic. I kept that white.
    24:20
    You know, it's part of it. Basically, it's like some... Okay. I need to... It's rubber. No, no, no. Oh, that was a nice... Oh!
    24:30
    Don't hit the center targets in this game. I know that's a big part of the game. But you have to. Yeah, I know. You just gotta hit it the right way.
    24:37
    I gotta get multi-tap here. I have not learned yet. This is ball three. I have nothing wrong with it. So this is a pretty tough game, though. It is a tough game. Sure.
    24:44
    Yeah, I'm sure. So I'm sure the tournament players of the world would probably not agree with that. Once you get going this game.
    24:57
    It's a sharp looking game. So you got the shield on on the left hand out lane. So that's basically a kicker. Right.
    25:06
    Okay, so that's a good thing. It's got a spinner. The spinner, you got that juiced, which is nice. I'm going to give this a strong B+. It's probably maybe an A, but it's a... I'm going to play this again. Right. Maybe not this one, but... Sweet. Okay, so Dave locked the ball in the saucer up top, which is nice. He's got 15,000 bonus, and he's going for the multiplier, and the right outline is not very, very nice.
    25:42
    What are you doing? Mid-game adjustment. Go ahead. Okay. Oh, this is the last ball. This is the last game. Yeah, ball three. Okay, so I got the multiplier, but I have no bonus.
    25:59
    Nice shot. So I got it back up top. It's only 100 points there, but it's still trying to get the multiplier. That's okay. I want to get the multiplier.
    26:08
    Okay, back up top again. and lane two. So I need... Nope. Okay. Still two lanes. Okay. In the... Oh, that doesn't hold. Like green. It has to be green. Okay. So this game definitely... This game definitely has flow. You can... Oh, it does. You can steal my lock up there. I think you just have to get the other orange... Two more orange ones. Four and five.
    26:35
    I'm late. Twice on that. I'm going to kind of shoot early. No. Ugh. Not bad. You were getting somewhere. Better, but still not good.
    26:48
    It has that one more game appeal, doesn't it? It has that one more game. Oh, if I had this game I try to play every night, I would put between five and ten games on this every night. Wow. Well, I'm not very good, remember? I've been playing Embryon. And, folks, I know I've been teasing that forever. We're definitely going to do that game this year. I have three of them. Two are for sale. And I have to thank Dave. Oh, so you have two for sale. Okay, so we'll hawk them when we do that. But I have to thank Dave because you repaired that soundboard. Man, the sound on that game is awesome. You did a really good thing for me. Thank you. Oh, I'm glad that worked out.
    27:36
    So you're going to do another good deed. Hey, when do I get off the hook of Georgia's delivery service?
    27:43
    Probably never. Never. It's like the episode we just did. I'm going to make an offer you can't refuse.
    27:55
    Oh, no comment. I get it. It's from, what's it called? The Sopranos, sort of. The other one. It's Gangsta Talk. Sucker.
    28:11
    Okay, here we go. Dave is rocking the game. Are you setting the pitch on this game as we play? Yeah. Are you saying that it's tilted to one side?
    28:24
    God, I wish you were at my house. I hate doing it by myself. I need you to come over again. There you go. Yeah, level up next time. Okay. I am done hitting those stupid targets.
    28:39
    Like that. Oh, my God. Why do I keep doing that? Yeah, I'm not liking the outlanes on this game, and I'm certainly not liking those targets. They definitely don't have that nice valley rubber at the end. It's this dead thing.
    29:02
    That's good. I backhand it too, maybe. I mean, the game is great looking. Isn't it pretty? With all the blues and reds? You did a really nice job. Thank you.
    29:11
    Like I said, he's going to put a load of games on this thing. He even said if I couldn't fix the weird problem, which I think I just did, it fixed by itself, but I might come back. He said, don't worry about it. I'll dayspot. You're going to F it up again because you're going to pull the glass off to do something else. Yeah, I hope not. Sorry. Oh, well. Well, you can tell us in the next episode.
    29:34
    Under this glass is not a board issue. Get in there. Well, geez, you've got probably $1,000 worth of boards or more in this game. Yeah, no kidding. Right? Yep. Got it.
    29:46
    But, hey, you're lucky that they make all the stuff for the game. But when you make 17,000 of them, I guess there's a need. Well, also, those boards go with all classic Williams. Well, you were talking about Barack earlier.
    30:02
    Barack Obama? No, Barack and I. Oh, Barack and I. I hate Barack. I'm not even going to laugh. Anyway, I've bought things from him. He doesn't really, but he's expanded his repertoire, as they say. But a lot of stuff, you know, as we said earlier, just, you know, a lot of shortages still on stuff, unfortunately.
    30:27
    I mean, you can't even buy a Bally rectifier board from him. They're all sold out. You can buy a blank. Oh, I should have had that. I mean, who wants to go through that hassle of accumulating, although I probably have most of the parts for one.
    30:41
    Well, we got $244,000 on ball two to $15,000 on ball two. You can do it, George. You can do it. Go get them.
    30:54
    Rubber Batman, and down the middle again. Get better, George. Get better. I am awful. Awful. Oh, every freaking time off there, I just... Oh, it's so annoying. So I'll revise my number. If I had this game, I'd have to probably play it 20 times a night. Because I'm so bad at it.
    31:18
    Just give me one ball. Just one. I'll tell you, that ball comes firing down that lane if you're not paying attention.
    31:28
    Like that. Okay, finally I got the shot. And I got the multiplier. Okay, so let's see if I can get some points here. So every time I hit those targets in the middle, is that giving me bonus?
    31:40
    Yes. Like that? Yep, bonus. Which I really don't want to do like that again. All you need is a six. No.
    31:49
    Is that six on the end there? Oh, so close. That's a tough shot, sir. Oh, no. Save. Pop-up reaction.
    31:59
    Put it back in at six right there. Don, I can take the shot right here. Okay, okay, okay, okay, multiplier, yeah, oh no! Oh, three times multiplier, oh! Oh, wrong flipper! Well, you were doing something good there. Double match, no double match. Better, but, okay, unless there's something else I think we're going to cut. cut it we're going to try something new in this episode this is a double episode of Steve Ritchie we've just entertained you with firepower. Now we're going to the 1978 game by Williams flash.
    33:07
    I'm here with Dave again in the basement, and he's going to tell us a little bit about what he's done with this game, whether he's acquired it, came from a customer, you know, the drill.
    33:20
    Well, George, when I first heard you say, we're going to do something a little different. I thought you were referring to, we're going to give out our preferred pronouns. No, I thought you were going to say you're actually going to play pinball a lot better than you usually play.
    33:35
    Ah. That too. Stop. Okay. Some of the background. I already told you that Steve Ritchie designed it.
    33:44
    Dave might know this person. Sound and software by Randy Pfeiffer. Never heard of him. And the arts by Constantino Mitchell and Janine Mitchell. I will say the Pfeiffer guy, he was known for playing in high school, Pfeiffer drum.
    34:03
    Why do you continue to try? Stop Stop Maybe they made it through No you probably told a dumb joke at the beginning of the other episode too those are dad jokes yeah yeah i gonna start coming with dad jokes and anyway so we're here in front of firepower firepower we're we're in front of that too but we're in front of flash yeah you probably figured out we're doing a double episode because both games are side by side and dave and i had the opportunity to do two shows so just because they're both start with f doesn't mean you give them an f i'd say i'll give you an f i'd give them an a and a b give me an f give me an f yeah what if i give an f no i guess i do i give two f yeah you do okay so i had the brochure in front of me and it says new thunder enlightening playfield whatever that means super flash front end programming that's an interesting thing four player yeah so what triple what is a triple sound option triple sound option means you can take the rudimentary uh so you can stack the sounds sounds and voice does this thing have voice no it has oh this doesn't have a voice no before voice is free voice firepower's voice gorgar's voice this one no right before Gorgar, no. Made a crap load of these, though. 19,000? Yeah, a lot of them. People love this game. Well, no wonder they love Steve Ritchie. I mean, two games back-to-back, 78 and 80? Everybody who played Pimpleback in the day has seen or played a Flash. They've seen or played a Firepower. There's so many of them out there. I'm going to ask, did Steve Ritchie make a game in between these two? I think he did, but what is it? I don't know offhand. I don't know either. We're looking up. They're too far apart technology-wise. So this game has already won me over. This one has? Yes. Really? Okay. What does it have that I like?
    36:01
    Drop targets, George. There you go. Are you saying you like it better than Firepower right now? No, that's a really fun game. There's no drop targets here. But that was a fun game. No, I would hate that game if it had drop targets in the middle. No, it would be worse. It's bad enough. It would be worse. But this has got drop targets. It's got one in the middle and one off on the left-hand side. it's got a third flipper which is cool it's got a couple it's got one saucer so you know it's kind of you can tell it's made by the same guy do you know that see the little blue arc in the middle i probably do not that says flash on it pretend it goes flash yes do you know where that's where the original flash lamp came from in pinball they call it replace the flash lamp number 906 it came from this game this game the first game with a flash bulb i i need to ask the question yeah was Is there a TV show and or a movie? No. There's all original stuff. But they were going to do a special version of this game for downtown Detroit and downtown San Francisco. It's called Flash, but actually it was a guy in a trench coat, and he would flash animation in the back glass. They decided it wasn't play-to-all and pure, so they stopped. Okay, turn the game on. Turn the game on. Make it stop!
    37:16
    You're done talking. Turn it off! what is that from I gave that to you I still have it but what is it from I think it's 8mm no it's with George C. Scott plays a father of a daughter who got into porn and he didn't know about it he went to a theater to see and all of a sudden he's seeing it to make sure it's true and he sees it's true and he's like turn it off it's the best scene you don't even see any of the stuff you don't see any smut, you just see his reaction I've actually seen that movie believe it or not and you know what movie I saw recently and I was thinking of you which one?
    37:59
    have you watched Godzilla versus King Kong Godzilla, no I have no hope, is that a new one or old one? you on your TV and sound system oh yeah I'm like oh this will be great This would be great on Dave's sound system. Yeah, there.
    38:18
    The plot's a little... It's based on the 50s stuff. Forget about the plot. If you want some mindless entertainment with monsters that are going at each other, sign me up. Sign me up. I'll give you a sample later when we go back upstairs. I can put it on real quick. But there's more to the story, and I don't want to ruin it. It's brand new. Is it brand new? No, it came on cable. 2019, I think. Okay, so it has good quality sound. Oh, no. the CGI they must I can't imagine how long that took to make that movie very well done you know me not much for current movies ok I got it back to Flash so on Flash the first shot you want to do is go it's a cross play field shot like Skateball is there a skill shot on this game No, this is the days before skill shot storage. We're talking like, you know, early classic. Well, there was no skill shot on the other game either. But you could at least... Should this game have a lane change on it? It should, but it does not. So where's your buddy Scott? It's pretty lane changed. Or does he not touch Williams games? No, he probably would. They add that. People can add that. I'm sure with software tweak, he could. Okay. So, a lot of people, and the way I got this game, this is not adjusted correctly. You shot the ball. So you actually bought this game? I bought this game. How long have you owned this game? four months or so. Oh, so this is a recent... Have you talked about this before? No. No, I bought this at the show.
    39:48
    Oh, you bought this at Pintastic? Yeah. How did that escape me? Because... I'm not paying attention. Whenever customers come up to you and say, hey, I want to get this game. If you ever find it, just buy it, and I want you to restore it. So I always had in mind, if a certain customer... So there was one for sale? Yeah. And his customer wanted a Flash. And I saw it was a good candidate. I definitely paid up for it. I paid a little too much for it in his condition. Right, but the guy wanted it, so what? He wanted it, so I don't care. So I'm just going to do my thing, add my thing to it all, and it's fine. The back house is pretty well flaked, but as you can see, I touched up a crapload on there, and it presents well. No, it's good. It presents well. Up by the Williams. That's the first. I touched that up. But there's a light there, that's why. Right, and I touched that up. I touched that up in the black. Good, now. I also put in the little lightnings. That's not usually there. I put those flashes and then lightning. I did that. That wasn't there. So that's a good add. I like that. Yeah. Yeah, and I can see in the red under his armpit yeah i don't know if that's it's not because that's flaked and that's flaked i put red led red led okay led so i did so okay so i had i did a little modification now could you go to coos or somebody else does somebody make this backless you could but i'm not saying you're going to i'm saying you could if you want this way the firepower guy had plenty of budget and he said go crazy so this one the flash guy said i want to try to keep it under a certain range if can, so he's a little more restrictive. But he can always later on, if he wants to upgrade, he can upgrade. I did a very good job on this. I didn't go crazy. That game went crazy. No, if I'm going to look at the two games, the firepower is stunning. This is a nice looking game, but that game just... You can tell. You can tell. There was no holes barred. It's like, give me just stacks, and it'll look really good. Exactly. I like stacks. Good job. I think I might start calling you that. He could. Stacks. So I put blue LEDs. See, that one had red LEDs at the top and the lanes. It says blue LEDs up there. No, and you were saying earlier you got the color changer lights in the saucers. Okay, so here's another game. And, again, everybody just chill out.
    41:51
    I like lit bumpers on games. So this is another game where... They'll light them up eventually. Right, but I like them a little all the time. You've got to do crap. I'd rather see them flash or turn colors. I would, too. do somersaults. Maybe they're worth more than lit. We should do our homework on that. So this game, okay, so now I'm paying closer attention because I'm in front of it. So this has, before skateball, this has got the across. Yeah, cross play field thing, like skateball. Okay. These guys were early. Okay. These were cutting, this guy was cutting it. Remember, I'm not always paying attention. I've got to talk and produce and think about what I'm doing. First came the background sound. Steve Richie insisted on background sound. He wanted this first. And I knew that was going to happen. Damn, what?
    42:34
    Okay. We're talking again, and we're... All right, could you notice the flippers, George? How the flippers feel versus that game? I'll let you know the next time, because I didn't really get to hit it. You didn't get to hit it? Okay.
    42:44
    You really rub it in. Yeah, I try. Everybody knows I suck, okay? They don't need you reinforcing it at every turn.
    42:53
    I'm just here to help. No, well, people have to start wondering. well, I'm off in the distance here, but people have to start wondering why in God's name Dave even does a podcast with me. What am I bringing to the table other than a voice and some production value? Production value.
    43:14
    Wow. Oh, it's brutal around here. My goal is to make it to 100 episodes, but you're not really helping right now.
    43:25
    Oh, I got one for you. Sure. and we're not allowed so our good friend Canada or as some people call him Canada you know he's not any longer doing free podcasts he charges now? Patreon man pay up George we can do that eventually everybody wants to hear us other than your mother well no I don't think my family does not listen unfortunately they're missing a lot of good stuff I've tried, but it's like, you know... That's a question. Hey, Graham.
    44:00
    Would you pay us five bucks a month to listen to our crap? If you give me a free shirt, he's saying. No. Hey, you know what? If you sign up, you get a shirt. You sign up for three months, and we give you a shirt. That's a good deal. Something like that. Yeah. Ooh, the spinner's tweaked. I've never done this role in this game. Of course, this is my first time really playtesting this game anyway. So I have that particular spinner in my spinner collection. It's an extra ball. Is that a Williams spinner? With the hand With the lightning bolt So I have one of those They made a craplo They made 19,000 of these things Somebody gave it to me Look at the guy's freaking fist there He's holding that Oh I get an extra ball Hold on a second Yeah this is great folks 365,000 to 19 Stop it This is my first time playtesting this game for real. It's all been done. I just finished it at midnight last night. And this brings me back to playing this game when I first started funding games back in 79. I'm having the same feel. It feels just like home.
    45:07
    Dave might give me the chance to play it eventually. I might. How do I have two extra balls? That's a little bizarre. So they weren't very innovative on the sound packages for these games, were they? We're barely over chimes at this point. I mean, these sounds all... Oh, that's a... Do you have another ball? Yeah, why do I have another extra ball? I'm not liking it. That's a little weird. What did you do? Oh, there we go. I stacked extra balls somehow. I don't know how I did that. Do you have a threshold set? Maybe that's what happened. Maybe the thresholds are giving me extra balls instead. I haven't... It's in George mode. I know, I know. It's George mode. This is the first time I've played it. You'll like this. I haven't done any game testing. That's why you're here, guinea pig. so I can make fun of you and show everybody how good I am. Right. Do you want me to continue? No, you're okay. You got it all.
    46:00
    God. Yeah, glutton for punishment, folks. That's me. I have another extra ball. How did I get that? Maybe I didn't set this game up right. I don't know. This is weird. All right, let's make an extra ball. That should be for extra balls, I think.
    46:16
    How am I still multiple? I have multiple. I still got all the four at the top. Yeah, what's going on here? I want to hit whatever you hit This game is a lot easier than that game, I'll tell you Well, you wouldn't know it by my game Wow, I think I'm going to get the high score on this puppy 488 on ball two Not bad for a puppy George, you inspire me, George You inspire me to do better So to speak Oh, I'm so mean to George I don't like that I can't change the lanes That's my only saving grace here so the flip how the flippers feel what do you think i think that i i didn't have a problem with either but this place pretty nice all right so these flippers no no no no no stop damn these flippers are original rebuilt flippers so you did the same thing no games didn't two different things that game has lower power that game being firepower firepower firepower has New 90s mechs. Correct. New 90s mechs, but still original power going to them. So it's tight, but still you've got to shoot a little early. So is this the thing you want to tell me that John D. told you to do? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that game plays tight, but the flippers have a little... You could use a couple more volts of power, and you can shoot later. You have to shoot early on that a little bit, because this game here, it has old flipper-style mechs that are rebuilt, but they're still kind of a little bit loosey-goosey compared to a WPC. But what we did is we juiced up the voltage to them. So instead of like, you know, 28 to 35, they're getting more like 40. And so John Day told me about a capacitor change out on the... So the cap lets... The cap is more like, it's like having a really big deep cycle battery in your car versus a little wimpy battery in your car. So instead of it being a quick flip, it's got more juice. More juice left in it. be more thrust and it can go longer. It can go longer, more thrust, more delta. Wouldn't we all like to have that? Exactly. We certainly would. Especially when you're thrusting.
    48:22
    Speaking of that, I should pull back this plunger. Don't get us in trouble. Okay, George.
    48:33
    I just don't want to edit, okay? Okay, gotcha. We're good on... No. We're subtle. It's subtle. It's very subtle. You have to read between the lines. We're still family friendly. In lieu of cursing, we use... Yeah. Innuendo. We're innuendo. That's all. We're pretty good with innuendo. It takes more talent with innuendo than just like cursing. Cursing is like, you know... Well, you always say, George, give me a clue. Because my innuendos sometimes tend to be a little bit more obscure than most. Well, sometimes I have to speak George. I say, George, I need your secret decoder ring. Because I'm not quite getting what the George is saying. I've been fairly succinct today I didn't make high score Why do I even play? It's 530 Oh 550 is the highest score to buy the flight 516 I made George made 10% of that 53,000 points One more time George how often do you play pinball? I told you Every night I try to play every night at least 5 games And George ask me how much I play pinball You play Nunn and you're much better than me. And everybody knows that. And they only listen because they know eventually that I'm going to get harpooned. It's just a matter of time.
    49:49
    Can't be good at everything. You can't. And I've demonstrated over the course of the last couple shows that I'm pretty inept. You've got to know your strengths. Everybody's got their strengths. So do you want to talk about toilets? Toilets, yes. Katy Perry. You see that Katy Perry thing? What do you think of that? What is that nightmare about? And, whoa, whoa, whoa. I've got to ask the question. Let me set it up for you. Kids and poop go together. Come on, George. Let me set it up. So Dave sends me an email, and it's got the link to a Katy Perry concert. I guess she's on location in Vegas for, you know, a stint.
    50:26
    And he's got it cued right to the point. And I only watched like 10 seconds of them. I'm like, okay, so she came out of a toilet. it and my comment was where's the poop you didn't watch enough i said george you did not watch enough did you said mr hanky said george you have not watched the video keep watching what comes out to poops first of all why were you even what where who told you to watch how how did i you're not Are you a closet Katy Perry fan? No, hell no. I would say. Russian Katy Perry? What the hell is that all about? No, I listen to a lot of eclectic YouTube channels that I get all kinds of cool stuff from. So somebody pointed you and said hey look at this Oh yeah Hey look at this And they did their thing with this Now I didn have the sound on because I don need the sound You don need it But why What going on Why Why? A big red toilet. Well, we've degenerated society so much so they're actually putting it in your face. This is how much we think of your kids. We're throwing a toilet as entertainment and poop coming out of it. But she's a kid. And some toilet paper rolls. No, she's got an older audience than kids. She's been around for a while. No, kids, I mean, like young in the head, like even the 20s and 30-year-olds, some of them are still. Okay, well, we don't have to worry about getting rid of that part of our audience, because we don't have... None of you. We don't have an audience. None of them. Our audience starts at 35. No, we have a couple 5 and 10-year-olds out there. The guy from, what's his name? He doesn't listen. And he's still listening. Yeah, the kid with the, not Superman, Space Riders. Yeah, that one. Is that the game? Yeah, that guy. Help me. Yeah, I think that's close enough. What's the... Warren. Woody. Warren's the one. but what was his name rob rob wargo no we don't know who the guy is whoever the kid is you think he still listens i heard rob wargo if you still listen it's great a fresh contact dave i'm sorry i forgot your name we're gonna play this again we should in fact sometime i have to play for you rob wargo great a fresh you'll like this this show it's a good cable show from back in the day okay someday anyway okay so george i'm drinking more beer because this is really getting i need more beer too so so did you you should actually compare what are we drinking by the way that is uh it's a lunch main lunch oh i had that the other day you know where i get that from trader joe's six bucks a bottle funny you bring that price point up day dave jim uh my friend on cape cod he said oh yeah I see that in the store. I said, I'm curious. How much?
    53:05
    $11.50 a bottle. One bottle? Wow. I get a deal. If you go to their, Janice has been a couple of times to buy me beer up in, where is it? Where L.L. Bean is. Portland? No, L.L. Bean. Wherever they are. Doesn't matter. Freeport. I know one that you can't get from here. Go ahead. Freeport, Maine. But if you go to the store where they make the beer, I think it's still $7 or $8 a thing. So they must buy a boatload of it. I don't want to get it on tap around here. It's like $11 for a tap for that stuff. I have it at my brother-in-law's place. I'll pitch him.
    53:42
    On tap or no? Yeah, on tap. Okay. $7 or $8. That's not bad. That's cheap. Well, that's at the Steakhouse at Buckley's Great Steaks in Merrimack, New Hampshire. If you haven't been and you live in the Massachusetts or New Hampshire area, definitely go. Get the cowboy steak. All right. How big is the cowboy steak and how much is it, George? $45 or $40? It went up. So it went from $40 to $45. Okay. And it's a 25 ounce. That's pretty good. It's more than a pound and a half. Oh, no. It's what I call slab-o-beef. Okay. I can deal with that. Get some mushrooms with that too? Oh no, it's all out of cart. I mean, come on. No, can I buy mushrooms with that? You can buy anything you want. Because I like a nice medley of like earthy mushrooms, you know, sauteed nice and then on top of this steak. Okay, okay, enough. Is your mouth watering yet?
    54:37
    Everybody is sitting here going, hey, stop talking. All right, quit staking and start stabbing. I'm going to make another comment. I said earlier we're down in the basement with Dave. Yes.
    54:51
    Your mind's in the gutter with me. No, no, no. That's wrong. The crap has grown. What's crap? Like the crap down here? Every time I turn around, there's more stuff. I know. And you're burying it. Grant's not going to like to hear this. Grant, pay attention.
    55:08
    You're burying that Rolling Stone. You better get that game going soon, because I see it buried behind about 19 other things.
    55:16
    Yeah, it's called like, I don't know. Or Hoarder? No, it's so many things, so many customers to do and so little time, George. That's why these Williams fans are killing me. Is that our Discovery Channel? Who does the hoarder show? Because I'm going to contact them and say, well, if you walked into his house, it would look like any normal home. You know, nice and clean, well kept. A real hoarder has old newspapers flying everywhere. I don't have that going on. I just have nice, pretty boxes of pinball balls. Well, you have a lot of expensive stuff. I can give you that. Oh, yeah. Okay, so. No, don't. For anybody selling a home in Londonderry, New Hampshire, or if you're a carpenter and want to build me a home or build me an addition, look me up because I'm in the market soon. We've got to make this happen. I need to expand.
    55:58
    I need to get my own exchange. Hold on. No, you need a lab. I need a lab. I do need something. You need a... What's the commercial I've been seeing on TV? General Steel. You can buy a 40 by 60 for $49,000. Yeah, the one thing they don't tell you is it comes in about 900 boxes, and you've got to put it together. Oh, well, that's not going to work out as well. Well, right, but it's 40 by 60. That's huge. I don't even know if that would satisfy you. No, I think any more. Oh, you game them. I mean, between down here and the storage unit.
    56:33
    They've heard it all before. What do you think of those flashing lightnings in the back of the back glass drawers that I put in there? I like the whole game, Dave.
    56:43
    This is a good game as well. And again, never play... I don't like that. I made it as best as a flash could be. I made it the best it could be. It's a nice game. He's going to be happy.
    56:58
    Flippers are good. I'm not very good. But once you play... I like the across the play field plunge because that's pretty unique. There aren't a lot of games that do that. You can actually tell with this game and the game Superman he made, It's very similar with the drop targets, the moving value on the drop targets. See the moving value there? He did a Superman, the same thing. He does what? Moving value on the drop targets. See, when you get the red one, it's worth lit targets for 3,000. You get the lit one. Superman is the same way. You get the lit targets worth more money. Okay. You either score 1,000 or 3,000.
    57:36
    I really would like to see the lane change function in this, though. That would be nice. It would be a lot easier. But you do get two or three times pretty easy in this game. It's pretty... You don't really need it. Let's go up there a couple times, it happens. One, two, three gives you two times. There you go, there's two times. Get the four, you get three times.
    57:54
    First game with background sound, too. Does it accelerate? It does, oh yeah. It builds up tension. So this is like Hot Dog. Or Meteor, all those games.
    58:06
    Okay, so I got the drop targets down. I will say, I'm not missing Hot Dog in that much. I'm glad, because I let that go. If I actually held on to that right now, I wonder if it would sell more in this market. I bet you it would. It's a rare game. Again, I'm a skier, so. For a nice hot dog, for a minty hot dog in George, what do you think? New play field, new clear-coated play field, all the bells and whistles in this market.
    58:32
    It's not a popular game, so that works against it. I don't know, four or five grand for a really nice game, given the marketplace? I mean, A, how often do you see them? You don't. What are Medusa's going for? Seven? No, I saw some crappy ones going for like three grand. Yeah, see. We talked about this. I sold mine too cheap. And he was bitching. I'm like, you buy this game. I had a guy bitching about a fathom I sold him for 800 bucks working, and he was bitching. But this was like, you know, about 10 years ago. Right, but I'm saying this was a couple of years ago, too. But even so, I said, you will be able to move this game along. You won't lose any money. You might not make any money. Right, but you're going to lose. Right, and you're not going to find, how often, again, we've talked about it. They don't come up often either. Well, we're going to do a show on it. So, you're up.
    59:18
    Yes, or me? No, that game is over. Oh, I'm not even paying attention. We keep talking. So, have you noticed, like, if you, you should actually flip this flipper in the ball, and then go to flipping that one. I want to see your, you should just do one. Okay. Do a couple flips, and then do a couple flips over here. I want you to see the difference between, it's two different things. this is actually put this way the firepower is an awesome transmission with a weak engine this is a strong engine and a weak transmission the flash so of course everything starts going my way now exactly of course well if you're doing well keep going with it they want to maybe there's no pressure on you right that's why i say well as i was having this conversation with my wife the other day and said you know it's one thing to just sit there and talk it's a whole other thing when You're trying to say, okay, what's the next thing I'm going to say? Right. Is everything recording correct? And it's just, you know, hey, in an ideal world, but, you know, that's never going to happen. It'd be nice to have a producer. Oh, yeah, exactly. They can take it all out. Then I wouldn't have to do shit. Right, just do your thing. Right. Okay, so why is that lit?
    60:24
    You get three bonuses in that feeder lane, the Italian bottom? Yep. Okay, so I played that. That plays really nice. So this one's on. So now check out that flipper. Hit a ball with that one.
    60:41
    Oh, yeah. Do you feel different? Slow and sluggy. Slow and sluggy, right? Oh, God. Why can't you do that with the other?
    60:48
    Why can't you make it like the other game? I'm sure if they had the originals in here, it would be probably even less powerful. Well, here's the thing. See, like I said, firepower, I gave it a great transmission and a weak engine. Right. Flash is a weak transmission and a powerful engine. Okay. You're going to have to speak into the mic and tell people that. Okay.
    61:09
    All right, so basically what I had going on here, the firepower is a strong transmission and a smaller engine. The flash has a big engine and a weak transmission. But out of those two, those combinations, George, you're saying you like the strong engine better. If you took the flash flippers and put it in firepower, oh, man. Okay, I could easily do that. that would be... You can tell. I said sluggish. That's not the right word. They're just... You can tell the difference. It's noticeable. And here's the thing. So now what I'm going to do... But they're both good. I mean, they both flip nice. Well, check out... This is going to be even... This is going to be better than... The firepower is going to be better than the flash, so I'm going to have a strong engine and a strong transmission if I do the mod in firepower. So that's going to be... You're going to really be able to nail... So do you have to take out all the mech out of that and put all new mechs in? No, no, no. No? I'm just going to change out either the power supply change out or a component of the power supply. Oh, because you got all the new boards and then you got to figure it out. Yeah, I got to figure it out. Okay, I'm on board with you. It took a little while, but yeah, I'm there. Anything else we need to talk about?
    62:14
    I like it. Which one do you like better? If you had to choose between games for longevity. And look, too.
    62:25
    Look, Firepower. but I like them both. I'm partial to Flash only because it reminds me of Skateball. But it's got the extra flip. It's like Valley came in and said, hmm, that's pretty good. Why don't we do the same thing but flip it around? Yeah, change it a little bit. They kind of changed it a little bit. There's differences. It is a little bit Skateball. But it's got that feed up top with the lanes. I think there's five lanes in Skateball versus four. You don't have the upper target, but instead you have a feed, a different feed. So that's kind of redundant. I don't know if that's so great, but okay.
    63:09
    But you got the extra flipper. The bank is in the same spot. There's a lot of similarities. The bank has moved down. So I like both.
    63:19
    A tough call. Both are, you expanded my pinball knowledge. I never, I don't know much about these, but now I do. I like them. We'll play them again. Somewhere. So the other ones I have that I'm going to be doing up is Alien Poker. You ever play that one?
    63:39
    Nope. I don't think so. That's my favorite one. No, is that the one? Aliens are playing poker. In Backglass. It's got the guys that kind of look like Attack from Mars. Yeah. Right? In the Backglass, yep. Okay. I know the game. I'm not sure I've ever played it. Fun game. I'd say... So these are going outbound. These are going outbound. So what's coming up? Well, you're going to start doing some house calls. Oh, house calls, definitely.
    64:07
    You're going to have two spots open down here. Yeah, so I'll tell you what I have to come in. Right now I have an Evil Knievel I'm going to be doing.
    64:16
    We've never done that game. A Knight Rider. We've never done that game. A Centaur 1? We've done that game. A Centaur 2?
    64:25
    I'm not going to comment on that one. An 8-Ball Deluxe? We need to do that game different than when we delivered the one. Okay. Remember we did the road trip game? Yes. And that was the 84 version. This is going to be the original 81 Most Desirable. Like you have upstairs. Yeah. Most Desirable. Well, whether we do... We should do your game, because your game is really nice. Oh, yeah. But we can do, yeah. Yeah. So we got some good things coming up. And what else we got? Quicksilver.
    64:57
    Nine Ball. Oh, which was the one I said that we had not done Nine Ball? What were the third days? That was the other one we had not done. I want to put... So we haven't done those two. We did Quicksilver, though. We did. Okay, we didn't do Sea Witch, though. Sea Witch is upstairs. No, Sea Witch we have not done. We should do that soon. Well, we got some time still. I mean, we keep cramming these games in, and it's... I'm going to start doing some mini episodes and try to do a couple of different things, and we'll see if people like it or not. I'm always experimenting. But unless you have something else to say, I'm going to say, that's another episode of the Classic Pinball Podcast. I'm here with Dave. I'm going to say, happy flipping, folks.
    65:39
    Merry flipping and a happy 2022. Dr. Dave signing off. We don't know when this is going to come out. All right, 2023. you know what I say after all the BS is over 2024 plus we're going to be totally fine that's what I know until then it's iffy but you know what it's all about crushing internally making it happen man that's all you got to do put on a happy face oh anyway George and turn off the news turn it off
    66:16
    Turn it off! and two HLH-proud, audio-quattro-quirk, 3,000 speakers, and you're drooling all over it, scumbag. Only $9.99? I must be some sort of Nian the fuck for not having gone down to Stereo's and stuff and got one already. I gotta fire up some money. God, I'm ahead of my head sometimes. If you've got your head up your ass about Stereo's, come to Stereo's and such, located at the Bergen Shopping Mall.
    67:16
    This darkness runs, I don't understand I've been lying to see the land People are saying the woman is dead She makes a man with the will of her hand The city's a place of stars, of stars A woman's brave to reach it higher We want fools, we call them liars All I need is love
    68:13
    Thank you.