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The Super Awesome Pinball Show - S1 EP14

The Super Awesome Pinball Show·podcast_episode·2h 40m·analyzed·Aug 28, 2020
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.031

TL;DR

Slam Tilt's Bruce discusses Silver Ball Saloon closure; hosts share pinball updates and industry support messaging.

Summary

Episode 14 of The Super Awesome Pinball Show features an interview with Bruce Nightingale (Slam Tilt Podcast co-host) discussing the closure of his bar, Silver Ball Saloon, due to COVID-19 pandemic impacts. The hosts discuss broader pinball industry news and community support for local venues, followed by personal updates including Christopher Franchi's visit to Cointaker's warehouse, his ColorDMD installation challenges on an 89 Batman machine, and Bruce's pinball rental business expansion.

Key Claims

  • Silver Ball Saloon required minimum $20,000 monthly gross revenue to cover operating costs

    high confidence · Bruce Nightingale detailed financial breakdown during interview about bar closure

  • Gaming revenue at Silver Ball Saloon was generating $3,000-$3,500 per month before closure

    high confidence · Bruce Nightingale stated during financial discussion of bar operations

  • Bruce currently has 26 pinball machines stored vertically in a two-car garage

    high confidence · Bruce stated during discussion of post-bar storage situation

  • Bruce had seven pinball machines out on rental at peak in June

    high confidence · Bruce discussed rental business numbers during bar closure interview

  • Silver Ball Saloon was in the black financially before COVID hit

    high confidence · Bruce stated 'six months before COVID, we were actually making money' and had been profitable for 2.5-3 years

  • Cointaker is described as 'apparently the biggest pinball distributor in the world'

    medium confidence · Christopher Franchi stated during Cointaker warehouse visit report

  • Cointaker is expanding operations to include laser tag section and birthday party services

    high confidence · Christopher Franchi reported during tour description of future plans

  • ColorDMD for 89 Batman came without printed directions, requiring online lookup

    high confidence · Christopher Franchi described installation experience frustration

  • Christopher Franchi's ColorDMD installation required chip transfer from old DMD that was not clearly documented in directions

    high confidence · Clay Harrell identified the missing step during phone support

Notable Quotes

  • “We are hemorrhaging. And we both looked at each other at the same time. We just said, I can't do this anymore.”

    Bruce Nightingale @ ~12:30 — Core moment of decision to close Silver Ball Saloon; emotional turning point in business closure story

  • “Our best night was actually our last night.”

    Bruce Nightingale @ ~15:00 — Poignant detail about the bar's final evening before closure

  • “This country is going to be a fucking ghost town with a Walmart every 10 miles.”

    Christopher Franchi @ ~22:15 — Expression of concern about small business closures and economic consolidation during pandemic

  • “Don't buy your food maybe one time at Walmart and make dinner at home. Maybe go out and support that place.”

    Bruce Nightingale @ ~23:45 — Direct call-to-action encouraging community support for local venues

  • “It was kind of like walking through Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory, but instead of chocolate, it was filled with cool pinball shit.”

    Christopher Franchi @ ~35:20 — Descriptive characterization of Cointaker warehouse experience

  • “If you don't make sense, we'll never get to the bottom of this.”

    Christopher Franchi @ ~70:30 — Expression of frustration with inadequate ColorDMD installation documentation

Entities

Bruce NightingalepersonChristopher FranchipersonChristian LinepersonSilver Ball SaloonorganizationCointakercompanyChris MarquettepersonMelissa MarquettepersonRonperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Cointaker expanding operations significantly during pandemic; adding laser tag, arcade environment, and birthday party services

    high · Christopher reported Cointaker doing well during pandemic ('selling pinball machines like hotcakes') while expanding facility offerings

  • ?

    business_signal: Silver Ball Saloon closure due to COVID-19 pandemic; represents loss of major regional pinball venue and community hub

    high · Bruce detailed closure decision made in August 2020 after three months forced closure and inability to operate profitably under COVID restrictions in New York

  • ?

    community_signal: Strong community support messaging encouraging patrons to visit local pinball venues and bars; hosts actively redirecting Silver Ball customers to other establishments

    high · Both Bruce and Christian emphasized importance of supporting local venues; Bruce stated they're directing patrons to other bars on specific nights

  • ?

    event_signal: Slam Tilt Podcast recording upcoming episode with special guest never previously featured; recording schedule increased due to Bruce's additional free time post-bar closure

    high · Bruce mentioned recording episode with mystery guest 'who has never been on before'; silver lining of bar closure enabling more podcast production

  • $

    market_signal: Pinball machine rental business expanding as secondary revenue model for former venue operators; contractual and liability frameworks being implemented

    medium · Bruce formalized rental contracts with liability clauses and damage responsibility terms; peaked at 7 machines out on rental in June

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.483

0:00
We're happy to have you with us and want you to enjoy every minute of your stay here. And while you relax and stretch, find something to please you. The erection's really not appropriate. The following is an AzHack Radio production. See you.
0:16
This is the AzHack Pinball Show. That's right, it's time for your favorite pinball show. With your favorite host, pinball artist, Christopher Branshee. and Dr. Penancelle Christian Lime.
0:40
Also, a rotating gallery of bonus co-hosts that spice things up. Talk about Chicago Gaming Company, the home of your favorite top-quality pinball remakes like Medieval Madness, Monster Bash, and more. Visit ChicagoGaming.com. And by Cointaker, distributors of new in-box pinball machines, mods, accessories, and crunchy pinball wear. That's Cointaker.com. Also by BackAlleyCreations.com, creators of the most badass pinball mods, black pearl pinballs, and the easiest five-light-field support rackets set. That's BackAlleyCreations.com.
1:18
Hello all you pinball rock stars out there. It's episode number 14 of the Super Awesome Pinball Show. and what a doozy we have this week. The pinball world is a swirl with news about new games coming out, particularly in September and possibly into October, so we'll have news for you on that. We've got the latest going on with Stern. We've got new news from Deep Root. We've got news from Jersey Jack Pinball. Have you seen the new Jaws homebrew? That's amazing. We've got other pinball news. We've got updates all coming up on episode number 14 of the Super Awesome Pinball Show. Christian, how are you doing, buddy? I'm doing fantastic. We have a great show lined up. We have a great interview today. with Greg Ferris, and we have a really awesome co-host. Do you want to tease who that is, Chris? Well, we do. So I did my homework. I've got some nice intro music I've selected, and here we go.
Clay Harrellperson
Zachperson
ColorDMDproduct
89 Batmangame
The Super Awesome Pinball Showorganization
Slam Tilt Podcastorganization
Quicksilvergame
Raymond Davidsonperson
Katperson
Sarahperson
Greg Ferrisperson
  • ?

    personnel_signal: Christopher Franchi actively working on secret T-shirt design project for one of 'the big five pinball companies'

    medium · Christopher mentioned completing art/design work for undisclosed major manufacturer; indicates ongoing professional design work beyond podcast hosting

  • ?

    product_strategy: ColorDMD documentation issues for Data East games; installation directions lacking critical information (chip transfer requirement not clearly documented)

    high · Christopher struggled with installation due to incomplete directions; Clay Harrell identified missing step about removing and transferring DMD chip from old unit

  • ?

    technology_signal: Aftermarket display upgrades (ColorDMD) becoming standard customization for vintage machines; requiring technical support infrastructure

    medium · Christopher's ColorDMD upgrade represents growing trend of modular display replacements; product lacks adequate documentation for non-technical users

    • 2:20
    No, no, no, no, no, no, no. All right. That's not original. All right, hang on. I got another one. How about this one?
    2:45
    No, that ain't doing it for me either. Man, I got one more. They always say a third time's the charm. How about this? Bruce, Bruce, Bruce, Bruce.
    2:57
    Bruce, Bruce, Bruce, Bruce. B-R-U-C-E. Bruce, Bruce, Bruce, Bruce, Bruce, Bruce, Bruce. Winner, winner, chicken dinner. We're going for it, boys. That's the one. Take some time and absorb it. B-R-U-C-E. Bruce.
    3:21
    Bruce, Bruce, Bruce. I feel the power rising through my fists. Welcome, boys. How we doing? Welcome, welcome. I'm so glad you're on the show, man. We've been dying to have you on. Welcome, Bruce Nightingale, co-host of the fabulous Slamtail Pinball Podcast, an amazing competitive player, all-around great dude, and really happy that you were able to join us today, man. Yes, and ex-owner of a bar. I didn't want to bring that up. I bring it right up. Because guess what? It's new. It's just my life. Don't worry. We're good. I know. We want to talk to you about that. So obviously, let's just cut to the chase. So, you know, the Silver Ball Saloon, a freaking icon in the pinball world, an amazing bar. You and Kat had kind of followed your passion, your dream to make this bar. And I have some of the best pinball machines I've ever seen, some of the rarest for sure. And just an all-around great place. Unfortunately, COVID and the pandemic happened, and it just was too much to run the bar when you had no business. So are you doing okay? Are you and Kat? We're doing fine. We're going to be probably in debt for a lot of years, unfortunately. You know, we're an LLC. You know, you have to put out a lot of money and pay a lot of money. But it was the perfect storm. Six months before COVID, we were actually making money. We were actually in the blacks. For a bar to be in the black two and a half years, three years, it's incredible. We had great customers. We had great people coming in. We had actually the perfect thing going on. We felt like we made past the hump. And then when COVID hit, you know, three months of not being open. But guess what? We still had bills. We still had electric, insurance, all this other stuff coming up. And all the money we made in the black, I was stocking away actually for winter. And we did get a PPP loan. And we blew it through that, you know, with the salaries for a month and a half, you know. And when we got our numbers in the beginning of August, I did the report from when we were open. We actually opened June 12th. And we didn't open inside until I think it was June 27th. So we're inside from June 27th to August 2nd. And me and Kat looked at the July and June numbers, and we said, we are hemorrhaging. And we both looked at each other at the same time. We just said, I can't do this anymore. She's like, I can't do this either. And our lease was coming up. Our re-signing was due at the end of this month in August. And we're like, it's just, I can't run a business with Cuomo, COVID, and have a promise of a three-year-more lease when I can't even make my own business model in the state of New York work, which was in the state of New York. I couldn't have gaming on. I couldn't have people coming in just to have a drink. They had to buy food with it. So just with two arms tied behind our back and not making money, me and Kat just looked at each other and said, we can't do this anymore. And we agreed together. That's a good thing. And we talked about it a lot more on Slamtail Podcast. But with everything that went on, it's actually a relief now. We had the upset stage. We had the, you know, we had a great – our best night was actually our last night. That's how funny, how stupid it is. And we had Raymond Davidson come out. He flew out from Chicago to come one night to the Silver Ball Saloon, which was incredible. And that's the kind of, you know, fun we had at the bar. You know, and you've been there, Christian, with you, of course. And we loved when you guys were there, and the girls had fun, too. And we've always wanted to have a good, fun family atmosphere. But the way me and Kathy look at it now is it wasn't our fault. So I'm not going to take it as a bad thing. But now I have a full garage full of Timberlands. And a lot more time. that you had. Yeah. But yeah, like, like you said, it was, it was such a great place. I was only there once. And I just, we walked away from that day thinking, man, this is one of the best, if not the best places to play pinball, just because it's a great, as you said, family environment. You had the best games. You had a huge upper row of, you know, just more, more games than you could count. And they were all good games in fantastic condition. Your food menu was phenomenal. Just the layout of the whole place was great. My kids loved the bowler machine down on the bottom floor. So it's going to be hugely missed. And this was a nightmare for a lot of people in pinball because we knew that the shoe was about to drop and we were going to start to probably lose some of the best pinball locations in the country. And yours was definitely up on the top of that list. So it's a big loss for everybody. I can't imagine how it is for you guys. But I know that from talking to you before we started recording, you guys have done okay from a mental standpoint. You're hanging in there. And I'm really happy to hear that because we were worried about you guys. What I'm going to tell everyone is please go out to your places that you have local pinball. If it's safe for you to go there or if you feel safe, go. Support the local pinball places. Please do. If you don't feel safe, if you don't feel comfortable, support them a different way. Buy merchandise. Buy gift cards. Do anything you can to keep them in business because guess what? If 20 or 30 people, maybe they'll get you through the next month because honestly for us, our slowest time was the summer. We hated the summer. Summers were the slowest. Winters, we rushed. Because there's nothing to do in Rochester except for, you know, snow and go inside and drink and that kind of stuff and have fun. But support the places. Don't think, oh, I'll go next month. Do it today. Go out, go to two or three of your local bars, local restaurants, local things that you want to keep around. Because in our area, the weekend we closed, five bars closed. Last week, four more closed. So it is really hurting for our area. And some areas aren't hurting as bad. Even if you're getting 50% of your occupancy, that most places are limiting, it's still only 50% of the money coming in. They still have 100% of the bills. This country is going to be a fucking ghost town with a Walmart every 10 miles. It is. I saw an article saying that Olive Garden and some other really big name chain restaurants that you would never think would be touched by any downturn in the economy are talking about bankruptcy. Yes. So I can't imagine how smaller businesses that are, you know, as you said, having their hands tied behind their back are going to make it through this. It's really tough. I don't, you know, think about it. This was our dream. This is other people's dreams. Try to support them, please. You know, guess what? Don't buy your food maybe one time at Walmart and make dinner at home. Maybe go out and support that place or take the food to go or something. Support your local places. Guess what? If you don't, you're not going to have them around. Honestly, right now, what we're doing for all of our patrons, We tell everyone on the Silver Ball page, hey, we're going to this bar now on Tuesdays. We're going to this bar on Thursdays. Come see us, hang out with us, and maybe we can keep these people in business. That's very cool. Yeah, I've seen you guys doing that. And all these places are taking precautions. It's not like you have to worry. You're not going to be elbow to elbow with people. You know, I've gone out to eat several times in the past month or so since things have opened back up, and I'm cootie free and have no problems. And don't get me wrong. COVID is very serious, a very, very big problem. So if you don't feel comfortable, do the other steps. Call the place. Say, hey, can I take the food to go? Can I buy some merch? Should I buy a gift card? Anything. That little bit might just keep that month a little bit better, and then they can keep on going. And then later on, when we get out of this whole thing, we'll have some places. Because the way we're headed right now, it's just going to be Walmart.
    10:25
    And you're going to be playing crane machines at the Walmart entrance. No, don't say it. Oh, great. Stuffed toys from 15 years ago. So where are you guys storing all of this stuff from the bar? Have you been able to get most of it in a new home? No, our new home is, we're like, we got 10 pounds of crap in a five pound box.
    10:49
    So I have a two car garage, luckily. And right now I have 26 pinball machines in my two car garage. Oh my God. How the hell do you do that? They're all vertical, except for two. I'm working on two right now for customers. So, you know, I'm trying to get some side business on the side. So I'm working for games. I'm renting out a couple. And then I have a storage bay. I have a 15 by 20 storage bay that is completely full also. Now you're renting machines now, right? Yes, I am. The most I had out rental was in June. I had seven out. Okay. So that helped a lot. It did help some of the bills because I'm going to go over some numbers and you can actually laugh along with it. The minimum number we had to have for the Silver Ball Saloon for one month, making gross numbers, was $20,000. Holy shit, Snack. Wow. So you look at it, rent, electric, insurance, salaries, big parts, you know, that kind of stuff. But with the gaming, the gaming was bringing at one point between $3,000 to $3,500 a month. Wow. So now imagine we're not getting the amount of people we're getting in, and my backup of $3,500 is gone. now you see how far behind you can fall behind the eight ball right with a business model not working and are you renting these games to anyone are you being you know selective i'm being selective but i'm expanding the selectivity a little bit and what i do is now i go to the person's house i actually take pictures inside their house where they're actually i have contracts written up and signed smart so we're doing a couple more things to keep it more safer for both sides because, you know, case, God forbid, it catches on fire. You've got to always think about that, too. Right, the legal implications of that. Exactly. Oh, wait, I didn't caught fire in your house? Who's responsibility is it? Oh, yeah. So you have a double-edged sword there, also. Just do it like all the car rental places do. It's not my fault. Not my fault, man. Yeah, hey, that scratch was on there before.
    12:44
    But honestly, get them a contract that just Because, you know, no matter what happens with this machine, it's not my fault. You know, I have a lawyer. Yep. It's actually written on there. And what I also have on the contract is if anything breaks, they pay for the part. I'll put it in. Because just like if you had a rental car and it damaged the door or anything, you have to pay for it unless you pay for the extra insurance, which I don't offer. So. You might be leaving money on the table, though, Bruce. Yeah, I know. It sounds strange. Yeah, look into how much it would cost and say, like, you know, just like the car rental places do. You can buy insurance if you want because they make a ton of cash off of that. Oh, they do. I mean, most of the time they don't break, but I know my one time I would need it and I'd be, Oh, there you go, sir. Thank you very much. Oh, God damn it. Did you fart? That was wet. Oh, yeah. Sorry.
    13:34
    Well, we're glad you guys are hanging in there. And obviously, if you ever decide to rebuild in the future, I know that the pinball community is going to be there to help you make it happen and support you. I agree. We're going to have to see if we can for something else going on. Not on a bar, nothing like that. A lot smaller scale. There's talk of people in Rochester doing something. Possibly we'll see what happens. It's only talking stage right now. And I'm not going to be the face of it. That's the good thing. I'm going to be the guy behind the scenes. Okay, should we get into our Weeks in Pinball then? Yeah, let's do it. Okay, cue the snappy theme.
    14:03
    Our Best New Weeks in Pinball. Game time. All right, Christian, you want to go first? All right. What have your past few weeks in pinball been like? Well, I had only one really big thing happen over the last few weeks. And, you know, we talked a few episodes ago, Chris, about how Chris and Melissa Marquette from CoinTaker had extended an offer for Sarah and I to go out and check out their Sunbury PA. I don't even know how to describe it, but it's basically their business center. Pinball warehouse. Yeah, the amusement fairhouse. There you go. Have you been there, Bruce? I have not, but I actually, here's the funny thing. I used to do pinball shows a lot. I actually met them at their first pinball show ever they did in Allentown. And we actually were talking because we were trying to make copies of our flyers, and they had to make copies at the same time. And that's where we met each other, and we talked, and we had a great time. And I've known them for almost over 10 years now.
    14:59
    They're just freaking awesome people. When I met them, I didn't know what to expect. I knew they were great people. They sponsor our show. But, you know, just talking to them, they're ridiculously nice. They're welcoming. They were having a barbecue last Saturday, So we decided to head out there and check it out just for the moment. And they had a huge meal of barbecue waiting for us. The girls had like a giant pile of tokens to play their pristine games in their showroom. Sarah had like an apple cider moonshine slushy that was basically the best thing she's ever had to drink in her life. And she was loving that. But, you know, once we ate, we went out into the tour. And holy crap, I mean, Cointaker is located in a huge building. Kind of looks like a giant warehouse on the outside. But on the inside, it's kind of a small town of interconnected rooms. Each of them are awesome. It was kind of like walking through Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory, but instead of chocolate, it was filled with cool pinball shit. Nice. And you walked into a big showroom. All the best games were there. Chris, you were very well represented with all the Stern Franchi titles. The cream of the clock!
    15:57
    Compartmentalized. Oh, my God. Well, they did. They had Beatles. They had Monsters. Over in the corner, I think they had a Guardians. So they had all your stuff there. But once you walk through that, you get to this warehouse. And in there, they basically had their toys. They had a boatload of motorcycles and motorbikes, a really nice Jeep that they were working on. But then beyond that was this enormous collection of arcade and pinball games and some of the rarest stuff I've ever seen. Like, I was able to flip a Magic Girl. It was gorgeous, and it was also as nonfunctional as everyone always has said it was.
    16:30
    Kind of like playing pinball with the power turned off. Yeah, right. Yeah. I mean, there were so many cool necks in there that you were like, oh, my God, I can't wait to see what this does. And literally, it's a box of nothing. Like, there's nothing that actually works in there. Oh, this sucks. I can't jack off to that.
    16:48
    But they had four or five Lebowskis. They have full throttle, one of which was new in box. So they've got some good stuff there. And even though they're saying that during the pandemic, they are selling pinball machines like hotcakes, they still had a really good supply there. So then we kind of walked into the other rooms. They had their parts and mods business with, you know, long rows of mods and LED lights and other cool pinball swag. Sarah was geeking out over the laser cutter where they cut all the toppers. I guess they purchased Laserifics, so they have a huge section. The toppers there are awesome, and a whole row of those. They had a massive printer where they can print banners directly onto, you know, promotional material for Stern and any other pinball company. So, you know, she loved all the crafty shit that was there, and she was really getting into that. You know, all in all, it was just a really great trip. So I can't thank the Marquette's enough. We left with a boatload of T-shirts and swag, and they're doing a lot of remodeling, so it's going to be even cooler there in the future. They're going to add a whole laser tag section and kind of an arcade environment, birthday parties, that sort of thing. So check them out if you're ever in the area. They're apparently the biggest pinball distributor in the world. So if you're ever looking for a new pinball machine, hit them up. Yeah, that was great. That was the best part of my last two weeks by far from a pinball standpoint.
    17:58
    That's marvelous. Nice. How about you, Bruce? Obviously, we know. We know. We talked a little bit about it. But have you done anything else in pinball that's been cool? Before this, this morning, me and Ron recorded another slam-tail podcast. So we got around a couple days.
    18:16
    Silver lining of you having more time, right? Maybe some more slam-tails. Yes, and we have a special guest on, which I won't say. We'll just let it surprise everyone. But it's somebody who has never been on before. Oh. Ah. Oh. Not even in the background. Oh, God. Uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh. Oh, little hint. Yes, little hint. Engelbert Humperdinck? Yes, I love Engelbert Humperdinck. He freaking rocks. Do you really? Yes. You know, Bode? What?
    18:48
    You know, Bode? Seriously. I grew up on him when we were younger. When my grandparents passed away, we were going through their basement, and they had all kinds of random crap down there. They used to entertain a lot, and they had a bar and a jukebox. They had all this crap in the basement that people back then didn't have. You know, they do now, but this was back in, like, the 50s, you know. So I'm going through this room, and I found an old Engelbert Humperdinck tour book from, like, 1973 or something. And I'm like, I don't know why, but I knew it was just going to get thrown out, so I took it, so I will be happy to send it to you. Wow, nice. Hey-o. No, we all grew up on it, you know that, and what else? Lawrence Welk. Yeah, it's like the bag of dicks. Oh, I'm sure. God. Oh, jeez. I'm dating myself, yes, very much. Yeah, I'm thinking like Terry Jacks, like, we had joy, we had fun, we had Jesus, we had a son. You go back to fucking Lawrence Welk. Oh, God. We watch it. It was on until 74. How scary is that? I was talking to a friend of mine about old-fashioned entertainment, and we were talking about Ted Lewis. Ray Lewis. Yeah, Ray Lewis. No, Ted Lewis. He was the guy who goes, is everybody happy? This guy is the most irritating piece of shit. I don't know how anybody found this guy entertaining. All right, now, first of all, old school entertainment. He was singing Me and My Shadow, and he had an African-American gentleman dancing, mirroring his moves behind him. Oh, Jesus.
    20:15
    That was the times, though. I know. You know, it was the 60s and 50s, you know, and 70s, you know, so. But this is how he sang the song, though. So the orchestra's playing, like, the normal tune, and he sings like this. Me and my show.
    20:34
    I'm just like, what the fuck? It's just like a... Dracula? Want to love your blood. Yeah, it was kind of like a Liberace. Dracula.
    20:45
    And all I could think of was, like, people found this entertaining. Like, this guy was a big deal back then. All he did was talk through his shit. Is everybody happy? Like, oh, my God. If you could get away with that these days, everybody would be a celebrity. What a loser. Fuck you, Ted Lewis. Fuck you. So you really feel it, Franchi. Yeah, really. Wow. Ted Lewis. I'm getting heated up. All right. So where are we? And I bought another pinball machine. Oh, that's like breathing for you, Everest. So are you going to tell us what it is or is this a surprise? No, it's just Fern Ali. Nice. Very good. Backglass is okay, but luckily with BG Restorations, you can always get a new Backglass redone, and it's really cheap and easy. I actually bought Ryan Sleaze silver on my show. We talk about how I imported a game back from Australia, and I actually got the Backglass this week from BG Restorations for a Quicksilver. Yeah, when did they print those Ali Backglasses? With cornflakes? Oh, it was terrible. I don't understand. Like everyone I've seen. They're terrible. They don't put up with the heat. It's the Reds. The reds were always the worst problem with all older sterns and even older ballys. Yeah. Even the cabs, the red on the cabinets would just leech out. Leech out so fast it wasn't even funny. You have a Quicksilver, don't you? Or was that Ron's? That was actually me and Ron owned half and half. Okay. And then he finally bought me out. Uh-huh. And now I have Ryan's Thief's Shitzilver. Now, was that the game that Ryan was always talking about having to go and rehab because it was in such bad shape? Oh, yes. Yes. Okay. It really is. It's silver. It is a shit silver. But eventually when I actually get more room and I now have free time, I will be taking it apart and doing a plate field swap in the cabinet. It will be done and go for the whole kit and caboodle. I'm so jealous of your skill set because you're the guy who can buy, you know, the beaters and then make it look freaking beautiful because you have the wherewithal to kind of put it back together again. I try to. I'm a mechanical and electrical engineer. Nice. Yeah, it was, yeah, skewels. And that's where I learned it. actually from the photo industry. I was actually repairing inkjet and photographic printers and phone company before that. So I was always into repair things. Cool, man. Well, you and Ron, I think you're the only podcast, really, that goes into the detail of the repairs.
    23:06
    And that's cool. I used to listen to Click and Clack on NPR, the car show. I know nothing about cars, but they knew so much. You could listen to them and have a lot of enjoyment just from hearing them geek out over the most minute details of a car. and I kind of see you and Ron as very similar in the sense that I never know what the hell you're talking about. But at least you know who Zach is. I was afraid he does not.
    23:32
    You know who Zach is. Yeah, we had a show where I talked about Zach A.J. and you were like, who the fuck is Zach A.J.? Who the fuck is Zach A.J.? And the sad thing is we had a show about it and I don't fucking remember. We still don't know. Zach A.J. He actually is very quiet, but he's very smart and he's very intelligent, but he's just very straightforward, and you would like that about him. Yes. He doesn't beat around the bush, that's for sure. I want to see some of that muck.
    24:00
    How old is Zach? He's 26 next week. So Zach is 26, but he knows, would you say, as much as you and Ron? Oh, he knows more. That's incredible. Because he knows he has the back of his hand, and in this day and age, younger people, honestly, anybody younger than 30, I can maybe count on my hand who knows he has. Right. And he knows them very well. You know, he'll get stumped once in a while, but he'll figure it out, and he can do it. He redoes code, and he can. He's got his own pinball machine. He's doing everything. He's actually a programmer by trade, so he programs. He does robotics. Yeah, that's cool. So he's fairly smart. And he went to RIT, so he graduated from RIT. He's got a noggin on his head. So now you know who Zach is. He's got a noggin on his noggin. He's like, well, I'm going to fucking forget about tomorrow. Yeah. I'll have him on the show next week and I'll still forget. That's right, man. Love it. I love Princey. I love his brother. I'm all old and stuff. I'm sorry.
    24:56
    Get off my lawn! We won't judge you, man. So what's your last two weeks been like? What have you been up to? Are you going to judge me now?
    25:06
    My last two weeks. Well, let's see. Well, I did an art thing. I did a bunch of art things. A bunch? But one of them was a secret T-shirt design for a secret T-shirt collection for one of the, let's just say, one of the big five pinball companies. That's all I'm going to say. Very cool. Wow, man, freaked out. Man.
    25:25
    So I got that out of the way, and that's very cool. It's very fun. Number two, got a color D&D for my 89 Batman, my Dead East Batman, which I was very excited about. Because, you know, Ed had teased us because he had seen it earlier because he's got connections. He's like, oh, look what I got here. What are you, dick? love you so of course i had to have one for mine and um i went and bought one and at first it was a nightmare here's the problem i open it up and it says directions go to blah blah blah blah blah you know i'm like ah they don't have any printed directions well my computer is stationary you know it's it's where it is it's mounted on my desk on this big arm i have a cintiq thing it's like a 24 inch wide huge screen mounted on this mechanical arm it does it's not going anywhere and my pinball machines across the room. So, in order to install this, I'm going back and forth, looking at the directions on the website, going back to my machine, coming back. Look, I'm a noob when it comes to a lot of this, you know, working on stuff. I've changed rubbers, and I've changed bulbs. I've even worked a little bit on flipper assemblies, but not much. And to read these directions, I was just like, what? You know, like, they talk like you know all of this stuff already. Like, the 5B cord on the blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, I don't, what? Look, what are you trying to say? If you don't make sense, we'll never get to the bottom of this.
    26:41
    And nothing's the same. Like, I tried to get a video tutorial on YouTube, and it was like, okay, here's the Data East Jurassic Park. Okay, perfect. It's the same company. It'll be the same screen. I open up the video. Nope, completely different. I'm like, well, that's not mine. So I looked at another one. That's not mine. Like, none of them looked like mine, so I had no help video-wise, and I definitely learned much better with video than trying to read fucking instructions. So I finally, I had to call my buddy Clay Harrell, who's a pinball tech legend. And he works on my machine. So I just called him up and I said, before you come over, let me explain what's going on. So he kind of walked me through it. Finally got it all set up. Didn't work. Like, he's like, okay, it should look like black and white now. And then you got to hit the button and hold it and it'll download the program. And I'm like, I got nothing. He's like, nothing. I'm like, I got nothing. He's like, send me a picture. So I sent him a picture. Talk magic.
    27:32
    The directions didn't tell you. Either that or I missed it, but I went over it again. Did that tell you to remove the Batman chip out of the old DMD and put it into the new one? It can't work without that. That's a pretty big step to miss in your directions. Again, I'm hoping it's not there. It should be there, but I hope it's not there or else I'm just giving them bad credit. I'm going to look right now.
    27:56
    We should know this. Feel free because this is a long story. So I replaced the chip. I put it in, and it works, and everything's fucked up. Look at that boy, you bastard!
    28:08
    Like, it's showing, like, three screens at the same time, like, print over print. Like, I can't read what that, what the hell is this? It looks like the Matrix, you know, like, just shit scrolling. So I emailed the guy. That's not a problem. There's no phone numbers involved with ColorDMD. It's all email, so it's, like, great. You know, I've got to wait for a response, but they're pretty good about it. I'll give them that. They responded right away. And it overguided you, which you needed, right? Yeah, that's how I left that part out. When I said it wasn't working, they sent me a new one. They overnighted me a new one, the board that snapped onto the back of the unit, the DMD unit. So I put that in, which, again, I didn't think I was going to be qualified for. I didn't realize you just have to pop these four little pointy snapper things and set the new one in and reconnect all the cords, which I did, and I got the same shit. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!
    28:57
    And he's like, oh, I was afraid of that. And I'm like, you were afraid of that. When I bought this, why didn't you tell me about the things you might be afraid of? Like, this might not work, but we'll take your $350. So he sent me a download for the firmware, a new one, and I downloaded that, and all of a sudden it worked. And then he said, he goes, wait, I forgot something. Like, I was just watching on a track mode, but everything was working. Apparently something in the gameplay wasn't just right, and he fixed that and sent me that, and now it works, and now I'm happy. I will say this, though. These guys are like tech wizards and they do an awesome job, but they need better instructions. They need an artist's touch because there are some, like what it pops up says free play in this ugly green. Like, did you look at the cabinet of any artwork on this game at all? What's this fucking green? Like some of the color choices are just not good and they don't look good together and all that. But it is so cool to see. It's like taking a, I don't know how to explain it. It's like taking an antique and making it modern. Like somehow you're taking this thing that just looks old school and suddenly it looks newer. It's almost like you feel like you've got a new game. Like, hey, yeah, it's in coverage. So Chris, as he was going through all these trials and tribulations, we were chatted a couple of times on the phone. And he's like, ah, this is bullshit. I'm not sure what I'm doing here. And I was like, listen, man, this mod is cool. And, you know, it will eventually pay off. It may be a little bit of a hassle to install. He's like, I just want to see how other people feel about Color DMD. So he threw on our Facebook page, he said, you know, what are your thoughts on ColorDMD to the general public? We've never had more feedback on anything we've ever posted on Facebook. And literally all of it was positive. Like, all of it. And, like, beyond positive. Like, this is the best mod ever. Kerry Hardy is, like, you know, telling us that it's the only mod you need for your machine. I don't believe in mods. I only believe in this mod. Yeah. So what's your experience, Bruce? I mean, for a guy who knows what he's doing, which is, you know, definitely you. It's not hard to install, but their instructions are, that's one complaint I have about them, their instructions are a little lacking. And the way I look at it is, you need to step everyone through process. Like, the first time you're ever opening up your game, that's how you have to actually have it labeled out as. Like, take this apart. Do this. Be careful when taking this piece off, the chip off. Do not bend it. You have to be that basic. When I used to make mods, that's the way to do it. Their product, honestly, is top notch. Like, if I have a problem, like I had one get corrupted about four years ago on my AFM, and it was the first generation. I actually emailed him. He goes, really? I'm like, yeah, I got this money. He goes, you have one of the first generation boards. I have to do something else for you. Hold on. 20 minutes later, I had an email with the new ROM set. It worked perfect. They are that good with their support. But I wish they would get a little bit better with their written instructions. It's tough, though. It's tough, right? Like, for instance, when I'm talking to a patient about anesthesia, And it's really hard for me to know what I need to say to really make it make sense because I'm used to the terms. But wait a second. Look at this. Make it as easy as possible. Exactly. So that they learn. That's the way it has to be. One thing I learned, as clever as I've wanted to be over the years in my job and what I do, sometimes I would just get feedback that says, look, you have to cater to idiots. You can't. Like, what you're doing is too clever. Like, you know, smart people and sharp people are going to get that, but the dumb people aren't. And then they're going to be like, oh, you've excluded. So that's what you have to do. Whether you're doing instructions or talking to somebody about heart surgery is act like you're talking to a complete moron. Like when we were talking, I felt that way a little bit when we were talking to Greg about the layers. And most people won't get that. But I did.
    32:36
    You know, when you said about the one color, I was like, oh, perfect. I was thinking the same thing. And Chris was actually saying what I was thinking. And I was like, oh, my God, it's so nice actually knowing somebody that actually knows artwork and knows the MYK and does this and does layering. Oh, my God, thank God.
    32:54
    It was. It was like, oh, my God, I love this. My overall impression is that it's a fine product, great service. You know, I mean, shit happens as far as the thing not working. I don't think I even needed the replacement board. I think it had to do with that firmware thing that he had taken care of because he had some other people that he was dealing with at the same time having the same problem. But, I mean, he was right there. Like, every email was answered just like that and all taken care of. They sent me a shipper to send them the old parts. I don't have to pay for that. So that was great. Yeah. So that's the end of that. Color D&D. Next up, somebody posted a picture of a Texas Pinball Festival calendar that they got for free. This like desktop thing. And I realized that all the dates were off by one day. This is the 2020 calendar that he had given out to people who bought swag bags and stuff. And it's the 2019 calendar. I still shit on Ed. No, I'm not shitting on Ed. It's his own portion of the mistake. And I know he didn't do it. So it's not his fault. But we were talking about my birthday. And I realized, oh, my birthday's coming up. It's September 18th. So I've decided what people always do, these things like, you know, oh, don't buy me a present for my birthday. Make a donation to this. So I decided I'm going to follow suit. That's a good idea. I want everyone to take up a collection and buy me a Creature from the Black Lagoon pinball.
    34:01
    Or a Big Lebowski, but preferably Creature from the Black Lagoon. And I'll tell you why. Because I decided to break my rule of not doing a back glass of something that was already created. and I did a Creature from the Black Lagoon backlash. Warning, this product will not be available to the general public. It's for personal use only. And it has nothing to do with Kevin O'Connor's artwork. I didn't feel like, oh, it needs a better one. I just wanted to do it because I fucking love Creature from the Black Lagoon. So I just did my own version of it. I'm not saying that mine's better than his. I'm just saying that's why I did it, because of my love for the character. So I broke my rule. But now I need a fucking game to put it in. I got one. Sorry, I got one. All right, well, you know, my birthday's, you know, coming up. Oh, great, yeah. Plenty of time to truck that thing over here. Exactly. I got a custom one, too. I actually have the naked girl on the artwork on the play field, and the feet, instead of the two people in the car, the girl has her feet up in the air. I don't want some porno pinball. It's great.
    34:59
    You just set this podcast back 30 years. That's right. That's a big joke, but that was just my segue into the Creature from the Black Lagoon Translight. It's a great game. Yeah, and I want the game. I've played it. I don't care about the Trudeau stigma bullshit, whatever. I don't care about that at all. No, it's a great game. Hey, Michael Jackson comes on. I mean, if it's a good Michael Jackson song, I don't shut it off. He's a pedophile. And the way I was told everyone with that is it wasn't just John Trudeau doing that. There was 50 to 60 people all involved with that game. So guess what? Enjoy for what it is. Everyone's collaboration. Right. That's exactly what it is. Yeah, and his back glass is pretty damn cool. You know, Kevin O'Connor's back glass is awesome. So, you know, it's not like you're trying to replace something that wasn't great to begin with. You're just putting your own spin on it. Yeah, and I will say, speaking of throwing our podcast back 30 years, I will say that my favorite part of that back class is where he drew the girl swimming in the water with her neck. It's a shot from underwater, so all you see is her boobs, like, casting these big shadows down her torso and her head's up above the water so you can't really see it. So it's kind of like just like saying, look, boobs. But that's how it was though in the 50s, though. It couldn't be risque, but they were being risque. And he recreated it perfectly. The whole theme of that game is a perfect, you know, it epitomizes the drive-in movie and that movie together. Yeah, that's true. So anyway, yeah. So everybody, if you could take up a collection, send the cash over to Bruce and then just bring that. Oh, wait, no, you've got the porno version. You don't want the porno version. Yeah, find someone else. Find someone else who's got one. I want a nice one. I don't want some ratty thing. It doesn't have to have powder coating, but anyway, joke's over. All right, so, Christian, you're going to replace your Captain Fantastic with that? Oh, yeah. I think so. That'll be gone. That'll be dumpster fire.
    36:48
    Yeah, so you did the creature stuff this week, but you also did a couple of other pieces of art that we didn't really see before the last couple of weeks, and that was your Halloween print, which is kind of a poster for the movie, which is really cool. And then you did a super awesome pinball poster, which is awesome. Where do you find time to do all this stuff? You put all this stuff out in two weeks. Well, because the both of them are utilizing old artwork, like the Halloween poster was a redo. I had originally done it and didn't like it, but I had all the illustrations of the characters already done and already scanned and already masked out and all of that. So I just wanted to do like Halloween, you know, because Halloween's coming up like that movie seems to be like popping up on my feed. I see like Michael Myers action figures and Michael Myers candy tins and all this stuff. And I'm like, you know, I never really was happy with that. So I went back and opened it up and I'm just like, you know, so I made it. to where I like it now, where it should have been in the first place. How long ago did you do it the first time? Oh, five years ago. Okay. Yeah, so I just basically dialed it in, made some changes, added some stuff, but it wasn't a lot of work. Same with the super awesome poster with the wizard. That's the wizard artwork from the poster I did for Chicago Expo. Okay. And I just threw our logo on it and added some stuff and just a little bit of changes. So it's easy to create new stuff when you've got most of the stuff in the can already. Right. I kind of shuffled things around. The one thing that was most impressive that I saw that had to do with your art in the last two weeks was nothing that you did. It was someone actually got a tattoo of the Barlow art that you did for your Salem's Lot poster on his arm. It's a freaking huge tattoo. It's like the whole arm. That's a friend of mine. I've never met him, but he's a Facebook friend. He's a fellow Creature from the Black Lagoon lover. And people who don't know Barlow, they're thinking my dog. He did not get a tattoo of my dog. My dog's named after this character. He's a vampire, very distinctive looking vampire from a movie from 79 and Toby Hooper who did Texas Chainsaw Massacre. And he's like a bald vampire with like bluish gray skin and like contacts in his eyes to make him like yellow and like just really a freaky looking creepy kind of Nosferatu looking. And so one of the things I always wanted to do was a poster for that movie. It was a made-for-TV movie. There was never a poster made. And it's one of my favorite movies of all time. So I did a poster for that about a year ago. And he loved it. He bought a copy. And he just surprised me one day and sent me a picture of the first stage where he had, you know, had a tattoo artist kind of reassemble it like they moved the hands down. You know, because, I mean, I'm doing this big poster. The vampire's hands are up in the air. like he's going boo, you know. So for tattoo purposes, that wouldn't work. So they brought the hands in and they put the house underneath them, the haunted house. And, yeah, that's really cool. It's really interesting to see. It's one thing to see your artwork printed on a poster hanging in somebody's basement, which is, you know, don't get me wrong, it's still very cool. I still get little tingles when I see that. But to see somebody dedicate their body to my artwork and have a whole arm, you know, with my heart on there is very cool. And the person doing it's a good job, doing a great job. So, yeah, that was pretty cool and flattering at the same time. So very awesome. So I've had a fantastic week. I mean it kind of crashing down on me at the end here because I got probably 25 art prints to wrap up and tube and ship out And God damn it I hate doing that It so easy to put an art print up and sell it you know and to go you know here the PayPal give me your address And when the PayPal goes through, I write the address on a little priority slip. But then the arduous task, because I don't have anywhere in my house to have like a three foot by eight foot table because I've got to wrap these prints up in craft paper. So rather than have a nice little stand for the craft paper and pull it across the table and cut it and put the print on it and roll it up. I've got to, like, wrap it and use scissors and, you know, cut downward until my scissor nubs hit the floor and pick the paper up and lay it on top of pinball machines. It's just a pain in the ass. But, you know, hey, you've got to do what you've got to do when you're trying to survive the coronas. This is true, my friend. Yeah, so I've had a great week in pinball. Well, it sounds like we've all had pretty good weeks. Yeah. And, God damn it, it's time for Pinball News. Let's do it. And now, in all in the news, with your super awesome eyewitness news crew.
    41:10
    Don't fucking just read news up here, you fat piece of shit. So, in the news, what are the new games coming out from all the manufacturers this month? Even Carlo knows. He's back trying to tell us. He's looking down the stairway and barking at nothing. So, we've heard rumors. The Stern? Yeah, Deep Root and Jersey Jack. So Stern, I don't know, man. There's been so many rumors out there. The first one was that it was going to be Queen, right? That was Kaneda's. And I'm pretty sure that is completely wrong. Of course. I get things right 30% of the time. Everyone loves me. What the mess?
    41:52
    Yeah. So then we heard some more reliable stuff from Jeff on this week in Pinball. that said it was a Marvel theme, but you can't go beyond that. That got pulled very fast. Very fast. I like Marvel. Marvel's good. Queen I like also, but I don't see Queen being it.
    42:10
    Now, if it was a Marvel game, what would you guys want that hasn't already been done? So there were some rumors that it was Black Widow or maybe Black Panther. Would you guys be into those? I wouldn't. Yeah. I would actually have to go comic book, and I have to go really weird. I have to go with, like, Secret Wars. Oh, yeah, that's cool. I'm an old geeky comic book guy, so Secret Wars would be great. You know what I'd love is a Spider-Man 67 animated cartoon pinball. Oh, there you go. Spider-Man, Spider-Man, just whatever Spider-Man is aware of. The old comic book, yeah, the old TV show. Yeah, the old Electro, remember Electro with that silly lightning man? Yep, oh yeah, definitely. That would be cool, too. That would be cool. I doubt that would happen, but I'd love... Like, because that one, what's the Spider-Man one that's out? That's not Gottlieb, is it? It is, isn't it? Yeah, it's Gottlieb. And there's the CERN. Yeah, the Gottlieb one. I love that one because of the artworks. Perfect. Just so awesome. So do that, but make it like, you know. The Dominion. Damn, damn. Yeah, think about it. Spider-Man versus Electro. I mean, if pinball's for these fucking Electro, you could have the thing just shut off and then you just hear his laugh. Yeah, that'd be cool. There's so many cool things you could do. But anyway, that's not going to happen. That's a pipe dream. Yeah. I got to say, if you're going to go back and you're going to do Marvel or you're going to do a superhero game again, you've got to do one of two things. You have to do something new. I know, obviously, that's not as fun as a Spider-Man or a Superman or a Hulk. It's already been done. But do a new character that hasn't really had their day yet. Kind of like... Captain Marvel. That would be great. Yeah, that would be fun. That would be fun. That's another great one. It's never been done, and you guys can correct me if I'm wrong here, but like a group of superheroes. I guess Avengers was done in the past. X-Men, too. X-Men, yeah, you're right. Shit, I'm wrong here. They made an X-Men game. The Avengers was done as a movie. Yeah, I like the X-Men better with the comic book. Yeah, I prefer the comic book stuff. I mean, it's artwork. It lends itself, you know, so much better. Killed It Was a Sound on Stern's X-Men. Oh, my God. Oh, yeah. But, like, look what they did with Ninja Turtles. You know, for example, you know, comic book version. You know, you call it what you want, comic book, cartoon, whatever. It's not the movie stuff, you know. And it's awesome. So that's my bet. That's what I would do. Yeah. Well, we'll see. When do you guys think this is going to be announced? I mean, when there's smoke, usually there's fire, right? I'm thinking October. They probably were planning on for Expo, which is now canceled. So it's probably going to be right around right in that area time slot to get people. And plus, they've already announced that November was going to be Batman, the limited run of Batman again. So I think they're just going to try to keep the lines going, keep moving. And they've got a lot of stuff on the lines, too. That's the great thing about it. Well, people quit wanting Batman, please. I want to do a vault art package for that and every time that they renew the license the vault gets pushed back I know, I can't help it but I like the artwork, I like the game you know what, you say you like the artwork but you don't know what I would do with that thing, that is my true love if you need a guinea pig come to Papa more so than Creature from the Black Lagoon the TV show Batman is my jam, it's my life it's my everything, if you peel my skin back you can watch reruns of the Batman show inside my body because that's what I made of.
    45:25
    You've been dropping some mega bomb hints on all the people that matter, the George Gomeses, the Greg Ferraris. You know, everyone knows that you are in on that game. But it can't happen until they stop making it. So quit wanting it. I know it's awesome, but quit wanting it. So Deep Root, what are we now? They've converged with Twip, you know. What are they going to release? Is it going to be the one that they had last year? What is it called? Retro Atomic Zombie Adventureland Raza. That's the one I think is going to be released. I think they've had a year to tweak it really well. I think that's going to be the first title they're going to put out and see if they make money on it. You think there's going to be more than that, though? Do you think they'll have more than one game? Oh, yeah. They have five designers. If they don't have another game within three to four months, or honestly three months, I expect three cornerstones from this company and many people they have hired there. All right, so let me say this. If you were at this Deep Root reveal, What is it that you would have to see to be wowed? After all of this time, what do you need them to show to really have it pay off, do you think?
    46:29
    Cost. Okay. Cost. That would actually be the only thing that would really wow me because we know Wi-Fi is coming from other companies. We already have head-to-head. It's going to be head-to-head eventually. So that's going to be the next thing. But what they really have to wow me with is cost. If they can get the cost back down like Mueller has said, I think everything falls in line. If they say it's the same price as everything else, I think a big disappointment is going to come down the line. Even though they can get the money possibly for it, he's always complained. That's his complaint for four years. Cost, cost, cost. What if it's the same cost, but there's significant advances in pinball, which is what they've said they're going to bring, right? The innovations, the newness. The hammering on the plate. The hammering, yes. So, you know, same price, but like a ton of things we've always wanted. I think that could be a win. No, it's not a win. They have to keep the cost down. If they don't have it below pro pricing, and don't forget, the pro keeps on going up $100, $200 every time it comes out lately. So if they still go with the, I think, $5,200, $5,300 and are the same quality as a pro at what they're doing, I think they got a home run. If they're right at the price, I think it's just a, okay, another company, let's see now what they're going to do. Yeah, I want to ride the deep dive, for sure. I want to see that and all the new innovations that they've got coming. I want to see another game or two, maybe. Some pinball improvements that they've been promising, I want to see those and how great they are. You know, what the deep root difference is. And then official prices and ship dates. Like, that's, I don't think that's too much to ask for. Nope. I can't wait to get hit Steve up for it, you know. Steve, ask him, like, hey, you know, now I can actually start plugging you for answers. That's right. He's going to be asked on every single podcast immediately after that reveal. Yes. Luckily, I've had him on before, so hopefully he'll remember and come on in with me. But, you know, you've been with us always, Steve. You were like our third guest. No promoting other shows. Okay, Chris.
    48:24
    Christian, don't we have that scheduled already as an exclusive? Yeah, we've got to pencil that in. I'm sorry. Oh, there's peppers.
    48:31
    All right. Well, let's move on to Jersey Jack. So what do you think, Chris? What's coming from Jersey Jack? Do we have any idea? I think we all know. Could I just add the thank you for not asking my opinion on Deep Root? Because you know what I want to say? Everybody lies on the Internet.
    48:46
    Erase, erase, erase, erase. Oh, no, no. I'm not saying please ask me. I'm saying thank you for not asking me. Oh, well, that's why I skipped this question.
    48:54
    Well, as far as games, you know, who knows? Of course, everyone's saying Guns N' Roses. I tend to think, it's just my opinion, but I tend to think that when you hear something for this long, Like, with Stern, you're like, queen, what's that been rumbling around for two weeks? You know, Black Widow, Black Panther, like two, three weeks? Like, when you've heard something for a year, you know, like you said, when there's smoke, there's probably fire. Right. You know, I would assume that's probably what it is, but who knows? But I will say this, though. Did you see the video of them in the factory? Yeah, on Twitter. That's an impressive-looking fucking factory, let me tell you. Like, that's very Stern-ish. I mean, that looks like they got some. It's actually almost William-ish. If you look back at the old Williams pictures, it looks a little bit like that. I think Pat Lawler really took Williams, you know, because he was back then, and now he's one of the head guys over there now. I think it looks more like Williams, which is great. That's not a bad thing. Well, I was talking about space. Like, it looks like they can crank some machines now. They're going to have two lines, which is great. And two full lines, not like in Jersey where they had a full line and a half line. That's what they called it. Yeah. Yeah, I've never seen pictures. The pictures that I've seen of Jersey was never anything like out in, you know, like some big spacious shop where you could see everything. It looked like they were a little more confined. Was it a little more confined? It was confined. It was. The weird thing about Jersey was, like, in compared to Stern factory, you know, where you had lines and then it would cut over and do a full line and cut back and go a full line again. In Jersey, in the Jersey one, it kind of zigzagged a little bit. Like, it would go down a line, cut across, like, 20, 30 feet, and then go up another line. And then it had a couple curves in it also, too. It was kind of weird because they were going around poles.
    50:40
    But it worked. It worked for them because they got machines out and everything like that. And as we all know, manufacturing is very hard. Right, yes. But I think GNR is going to be it, definitely. But the factory looks incredible, and hats off to them. Yeah, I wonder what's going on. I know they've been trolling. And when I say trolling, I don't mean the modern Internet version, but I mean more like the phishing sense where you kind of drag a hook to get people in there. I wonder if they've captured anybody from Stern, you know, or what's going on there. Because, like, aren't they in their backyard? Like, aren't they just like a field? Yeah, they're close. Yeah. And they're hiring. So it seems like if you want a job in pinball, Chicago is the place to be. It's always been that way, right? I mean, that's where all the center of business is. So you load it up the truck, get in the moves in Chicago. Illinois, that is.
    51:31
    Snowstorms. And pinball. Well, all of this just kind of leads into the fact that we don't know yet, but it's going to be a freaking awesome September, I'm hoping. I'm hoping we're going to hear from all these people. Let me give you guys a little snack, a little something to chew on. Don't be surprised if we hear something from our European friends in the next couple of months. Ah, yes. And I'm not talking about that guy that made that shit fucking Thunderbirds pinball machine either. Oh, come on. That game is... Oh, that's right. The only good news out of that is I quit.
    52:07
    I'm not making this crap anymore. I'm making bubblegum machines. The second game is going to be great with the Chinese zombies, right? I mean, where is that game? That kind of fell off the earth, too. I want to see that. I want to see if it's... It's got to be better, right? It has to be better. The follow-up on International Rescue. He's having nobody test it except for Chinese people. Nobody's going in because he doesn't want anybody to leak it, you know, so he's not asking anybody, so you kind of get limited with the same people. It's like going to 20, you know, like having your same 20 people. Hey, what do you think of this game? Oh, great. Yeah, go ahead.
    52:40
    As far as, like, the toys go, though, do they make cake decorations of Chinese zombies? Or is he going to make his own? They got to. They have to. There's got to be a holiday over there for that.
    52:51
    Well, it's not for us, right? So hopefully the people who are testing it in China love it. Yes. Moving on, we've got another item in the news that I thought was pretty cool. There was a 24-hour pinball stream on the other night, actually on Friday. And we're recording this on Sunday. So, Bruce, you've done a lot of pinball streaming. Your partner in crime, Ron, does it a lot. So have you ever heard of a 24-hour stream before? No, I have not, but I know who did it. I know them very well. They've been to the bar at a Castleman's. They're very nice people. They're great people, actually. And the son just said one day, I want to do a 24-hour worth of pinball. And the dad's like, okay, I'll support you, which he's always done. And they've actually, I don't think they've gone out of the house more than like four or five times except for food shopping. Wow. They've been really hunkered down. They're from Canada. And they've been hunkered down. And the whole family, the father actually has a humongous beard now. He looks like Grizzly Adams. Yes. Looks like Greg Ferrer's painting on the frontier pinball. Yes, exactly. Yes. Grizzly Adams, definitely. And they're nice people. And they did the 24 hours, and I hopped on for a couple times, just looked at them for a few minutes, and then hopped back off, you know, and watched 24 hours. But it's a very big accomplishment because keeping people occupied. Luckily, they have a lot of games. And great games, too. I mean, the collection there was great. And how old was this kid who was doing it? Because the parents were involved, but he was pretty much the guy on the screen for 24 hours. Carter, right? Yeah, 14 or 15, I think he is. Yeah, that sounds about right. That's kind of how he looked. And he was engaging with the chat the whole time. He was playing actually decent pinball the whole time. I was on call that night, so I would go up to do an epidural on labor and delivery, and I'd come back down to the call room, and I'd turn it back on and see how he was doing. Stick him a run. Stick him a run. That's right.
    54:36
    He did it the whole thing, and then I came home, and I slept for like six hours, and I got up and I checked again. He was still going. He had like an hour and a half left, so he must have made it. That was impressive. Are the husband and wife, do they happen to own a party store? I don't know. Doesn't it just sound like a party show named Castleman's? Yeah. They all play. When they came down for the last tournament at the bar, all of them signed up. So it was a big family affair. It was really cool. And I actually got my one game from them. I bought a RoboCop from them. That's cool. I don't see Stu McVicker doing a 24-hour stint. I'd love to challenge him for 24 hours. Yeah? That's true. I'd challenge him right now, Stu McVicker. Oh, snap. Exclusive. 24 hours. I'll come out and help you. I wish I knew about this stream. I had no clue. Yeah, they did it on the spur. They announced it like Friday morning. Well, I'm out of the scene anyway. Everybody assumes I know everything, and so nobody tells me shit.
    55:32
    And then you've got Christian globetrotting over the coin takers and the silver ball saloon and all these other places, and everyone's sending him gifts and shit. Chris, I told you anytime you want to come out, and I told the Marquettes, I said, the next time that I come out here, I'm going to bring Chris. I'm going to make sure he comes out. We're going to go have a good time at CoinTaker. Now, wait a second. I had a problem with you guys. You had this thing called a, what do you call it? Oh, we don't have this thing. It's called a sponsor. What the heck is that? Oh, snap.
    56:03
    People who provide our fabulous prizes. Oh, God. We're too raunchy and nasty. No, you've heard our podcast. We swear. What we do is we put a tag on at the end of the show, and this is true. It says that none of our sponsors necessarily agree with what we say or approve of our language. What they are doing is strictly supporting the pinball community by sponsoring our show. I have never had one even contact. What does that tell you?
    56:37
    We've always said, no, we'll never do a sponsor, you know, because we like being raunchy and raw. We get away with it. With the sponsors that chose us, we get away with it. And we don't take a dime. You know, they don't give us money. We said, you know, because what are they going to give you, like 75 bucks a show at best? So we split that up. Oh, cool. We've got $25. I'll take that. Please, please. I'll take that.
    57:01
    Every sponsor, I just said, look, just give us something to give away. We're just happy to have some prizes to give away to people. But, you know, speaking of sponsors, speaking of cash, brings us to our next news item. Ah, very nice. Guess who's rearing his ugly head again? Oh, Jesus. Are we talking about this? Teneda. Well, no, we wanted to talk about him because I thought, hang on, I thought it was funny as shit that he swore he was not going to sell his Rick and Morty and he hasn't had it in his bedroom more than two weeks and it's for sale. Of course he has. But the hypocrisy doesn't end there. No, never does. What else is new? Because, get this, he's come back and said that if he gets $500 donated to his Patreon account, he will come back. And I couldn't help but think, didn't he chew out Stern for saying you shouldn't charge for a pinball podcast? Thank you. I'm over it, man. He's a fool. Yeah, I mean, Stern comes out with a podcast. He's like, you've got to pay for it. You shouldn't have to pay for it. If you give me $500, I'll come back. What? That is what we call a bitch slap. A bitch slap for a bitch.
    58:11
    All righty then. And what about his, you know, I had to quit because of my job? If he could just come back because he gets $500, was there any ability to do that?
    58:20
    There's no explaining it, man. No, there's no common sense to him because he can't believe a word out of his mouth most of the time. Right. He loves the attention, so I try not to give it to him as much as I do. We don't mention his name at all. Right. We don't. He's just number one. He's the tool. Okay. So then let's move on to that sweet, sweet Jaws homebrew. Speaking of, I wish these people would contact me and go, hey, we need one of your fine trans lights that you made for Jaws for our homebrew, except I don't have the windows for the digital readout, so that would screw that up. Yeah, this is like a dream theme, right? What do you think? I mean, what do you think of the art package in general? and then... Well, the art, it's not... You know, I don't want to shit on it because it's not... It's a homebrew. Yeah, it's a guy that's making a machine and art is secondary to him. It's all photos and stuff and movie poster crap and stuff like that. You know, there's nothing... I don't recall seeing anything that was... Original. ...hand-drawn. Yeah, it's just photographs and then, like, whatever graphics he needed to fill out the play field. Yeah. But for what it is, I'm not going to judge it by artwork. I'm going to judge it by homebrew pinball machine. He took a machine and made it something else. Yep. You know, I think it's really cool. I actually do like the side arch. I was going to say the same thing. I actually, that's the best, that's the most iconic picture from Jaws. See, if I was going to do that, and like, let's say I was doing it for Spirited, and they said you have to use the movie poster somewhere, it would have been perfect for the back box, the side of the back. I agree. Because it's so upright, you know. Yes, it's going up. I mean, I look at the side of that cabinet and I picture the orca sinking, you know, and, you know, Roy Scheider. Joel is on there, yes.
    60:11
    He's coming towards him. He's barreling down on him and he's got the rifle. You know, some sort of wide, you know, panoramic scene like that. But I'm nitpicking. I'm not trying to shit on this at all. I'm not shitting at all either, I think. But it was a good side arc. I don't like the characters on the back box. I didn't like that as much, you know. Roy Steiner on one side, and I think it was the other guy. He looks like he's going, hey, I got some tacos over here. Come on over. Hey. He does look overly happy on that.
    60:40
    But I actually don't mind it. I thought it was a good, you know, good try. It's fun, and it's definitely a theme. Like, God, I wish I could do that, and I wish. You know, careful what you wish for. I would hate for Stern to say, hey, we'd love you to come back, and we want you to do Jaws, but you can't use any of the actors. I would not want to do it. You can't use jaws. He can't use jaws. Well, I was talking to somebody about it, and I said, like, what fun would that be? I mean, like, a shark is just like a gray tube. Like, if that's all you could draw, you might as well call it Shark Week. Yeah. You know? That would be fun. Yeah. I mean, Shark Week is fucking heat out. Shark Nate out. Nice. Yeah. Well, let me ask you this, Sophie. If you guys had a chance to, you know, make up your own homebrew, and you could put anything you want on the play field, so let's say Jersey Jack or whatever made this game, what would you throw in a Jaws play field? Would you have the shark as a bash toy? How would you incorporate that? You've got to shoot the ball into the shark's mouth because it's the air right?
    61:40
    You do the orca. You do it on the side and each hit you're breaking away part of the ship like your Jaws taking away part of the ship. I like that. There you go. That's good. I like that. Like a drop target. Like it's dropping down and actually exposing more to stuff and then you hit the target and behind it so you actually fired a gun. And the three bumper caps have to be the yellow barrels, of course. Oh, of course. Right. Got to have that. And on the side, you have, like, the sign saying, like, oh, you know, it's safe to come out here on, you know, no shark sightings or anything like that, you know. Yeah, it's a great time down at the beach. Come on down. Exactly.
    62:15
    Exactly. That kind of thing. You need to have that kind of humor in it also. But it does fall in the movie. But, you know, the overconfidence. Yeah. And the plunger has to be a fishing reel. Yep. And then the lenticular translight. Ooh, what would the motion be? The jaw is closing down, chomping down. Chomping down on Quint? Anything, anything, but it'd be great, you know, just showing that it's movement. Linticulone would be great. God, I miss that stuff, all the three-dimensional back glasses and things like that. I got in, see, it's just like the album cover shit. I got in at the wrong time, you know. I got in and did a CD package, three inches by three inches. Wow, that's impressive.
    62:53
    And then I get in a pinball when all those gimmicky back glasses are gone by the wayside. We missed that stuff. I mean, that was really cool, kitschy stuff, like the Circus Voltaire and all of the basketball shots and the Backglass and the Scared Stiff, Spinning Spider. What do you guys think is the coolest interactive Backglass? Oh, shit. Terminator 3. Oh, with the ball? Yeah, with the RPG. The ball and the gun and everything and the RPG? Yeah, that is cool. It really is interactive. I've not seen that one. I've never seen that one, so I don't know. I haven't seen a shit ton. I love Scared Stiff with the Spinning Spider. Yes, that's great. What's the one with the freaky star guy, the bald guy in the star field spinning in the background or some shit?
    63:32
    It's like a, what's it called? It's got a circle cut in the middle, and then there's like the guy's head's right in the center, and he's like kind of a bald, like alien-looking dude. I mean, kind of humanoid, but, you know, not as alien as like the goofy big bug-eyed aliens, but he just, he looks like he might be from a different planet. And then there's like stars in the background. Stargate? Oh, no. So our gate would be the circular, you know, like the gate itself, actually. Yeah, no, it wasn't that. It wasn't that. It was some generic, you know, theme. Another good one is lights, camera, action. You have the guy with the gun. You're trying to beat him with the gunshot, and the lights are above you that actually go different brightnesses until you actually, and they're like heat lamps. They're really cool. So there's a lot of different ones. What's the one where you shoot the ball up and there's like a little pachinko kind of thing in the back? Catacombs has one. There's actually Big Guns has another one. There's a couple others that have that. So even from the 60s, they had them in the 60s. Even the 60s had some good ones, like The Monkey, where you hit the bell, you know, and that kind of stuff. Yeah. Centigrade 37 have something around. And a gauge, where actually the more shots you hit, the gauge went up higher and higher. Right. Yeah, I remember that. I played that at White Rose. There's a lot of great different ones, and, you know, it's fun to see and enjoy. That's cool. I wish I were at White Rose. I know, right? So since we want to end on a good note, we have to get our sad note. Stern lost one of their very well-respected pinball techs. Chaz Siddiqui passed away. Well, now it's been, what, a week and a half or so? Yeah. Because we only record every two or three weeks or so. But anyway, very sad news. He's a very cool guy, very sharp. He helped out a lot of people, and he had a lot of friends and a lot of admirers in the business. And his family set up a GoFundMe page. I would assume that you search his name. Does anybody know what the GoFundMe page is? You have a link on your thing. So it actually is GoFundMeRemembering-Chas, C-H-A-S-S-I-D-D-I-Q-I. You go to that, and you've already raised $5,500. That's awesome. Awesome. Very good thing. Yeah. So definitely do that if you can. He will be missed. But to end on a good note, we have two birthdays to celebrate. Mr. Charlie Emery from Spooky Pinball himself Happy birthday Charlie And one of my favorite pinball people of all time Not that Charlie is, I love you Charlie You know that, he's my horror buddy But it goes without saying that my favorite buddy In pinball is Mr. John Borg Happy birthday John Well I'm not going to say what he turned Because we talked about it He doesn't act his age That's true Yeah and his weight, you know the bastard He weighs, oh what, 87 pounds is cruising around on BMXs all the time. He's two years older than me, and if I got on a BMX bike, it would probably fall apart and crush.
    66:26
    And if it didn't, I would pedal it about three times and then get off and fall on the lawn and catch my breath. And this guy's doing flips and shit, driving off a building. John seems like the kind of guy I'd want to hang out with. He just seems like he has a lot of fun in life. He's got his BMX stuff going on. He's got karaoke videos on his Facebook page. He plays guitar and, like, will post videos of that. He just seems like a fun dude. You know, one interesting thing about him that, well, let's just say very few people know, if any, he cares for turtles. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles? Well, yeah, that's the connection. But, no, he, like, rescues turtles and he sets up areas for them so that they can reproduce and all that without things coming in and snatching up the eggs. And, you know, he's raised a few turtles and stuff like that. So, yeah, he's very into taking care of turtles and stuff. He likes to go fishing. He's kind of an outdoor dude. But he's like the kind of guy that you could go into the garage and open up the door and just put two lawn chairs by the mouth of the garage, you know, turn on the hockey game on the radio or whatever there and just sit down and suck beers out of a cooler and talk about shit, you know, at three in the morning or whatever. He's definitely a very cool dude. Very down to earth. So anyway, happy birthday, John. I'd sing happy birthday to you, but we have enough podcasts with shady singing where people think it's actually good. You're welcome.
    67:42
    I wasn't talking about you. Oh, damn. You're the voice of an angel, Bruce. I said people who do singing who think it's actually good. Oh. Anyway, okay, so that does it for the pinball news. And up next, we have a special surprise. We did not tease this at the beginning of the show, but we are going to announce the winner of our super awesome pinball show song contest. We will find out who wins the $100 gift card to backalleycreations.com. So what we're going to do is we're going to play the songs now, and we're going to let our special guest, Bruce, pick the winner. We will play the songs, and then we're going to go into our interview with Mr. Greg Ferrer of Stern Pinball, and we will announce the winner at the back end of the show. So, Kristen, you want to introduce the first song? Yeah. Okay, so we had a lot of fun with this segment. We had some great submissions, and I'm excited for you guys to hear them. Thank you to everyone who put a song in. They were all great, and we're going to let Bruce decide who wins because Chris and I can't possibly pick a favorite here. So let's start it off with Tony Tran and his three daughters who sent in the first submission, and it's a trip. So check this one out. Super Awesome Pinball Show. It's the best podcast in pinball. They're the world's most awesome podcasters. We're really good. They're mediocre players who drink caffeine. Me from Canada will never be fat. These three fantastic candy health packs. Super awesome pinball show. More fun than any pinball thing. Better than bad cats. Fetchy to see Dr. Pin play smash green. Better than bad cats. That is cool but got to replace them. These dynamos have attitude. Super Awesome Pinball Show. It's the best podcast in pinball. Yes. I like that it's based off Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Yes.
    69:52
    That was special. I love the kids. Yes. You know he's got a couple little ones in there because they're trying to keep up with dad.
    70:01
    As a dad of two girls, this one made me really happy because anytime you can find something to do with your kids, it is fun and also has to do with pinball. That's a win. So thanks, guys, for putting some time into that one. Nice. All right, so the next entry is a special one. The most unique podcast out there, in my opinion, at this point, and I'm taking Macho into account, who is definitely up there. This is a podcast about as different from the pack as you can possibly get, and I freaking love it. Branch and I did a whole segment on this podcast a few episodes back, but unfortunately it got deleted with a bunch of other stuff we had done. But the gist is, it's a musical pinball podcast with puppets. So the Puppet Pals who make the show, Steve and Moppy, sent us this next entry. So sit back and relax and enjoy the musical stylings of some puppets. Well, hi there, Franchi and Dr. Pin. My name is Steve, and I'm with a show called the Puppet Pals Pinball Podcast with my pal Moppy. Say hey, Moppy. Mop-a-da-da. So when we heard you were having a song contest, we just had to give us a try. So here's our song for your song submission contest, and I really hope you like it. I hope you're just having such a swell day. All right. See you later.
    71:15
    You know where the piglets want to go. That's right. Super awesome pickle show. Frenchie and Dr. Peter Barlow is sure to win. Drop in my podcast. That's super awesome Pinball show Hooray Well, that was kind of fun What do you think, Bruce? I was talented He's always been talented Yes You're so talented, Steve On TPN, did you listen to Puppet Pals? I have listened to it And I've criticized it, too Right, well Like, what the F's going on here? I think that's the idea. Exactly. They said that episode two is coming, so if they've got some fans out there, which I am, stay tuned for that one. And we take shit for, like, taking three weeks. Damn. I know. No biggies. Must be nice. So the last song is from our good friends of the show, Laura and Clark Fraley. Laura was on our last episode and actually, spoiler alert, won the entire game show. How's that a spoiler? We already aired that show. Well, okay, all right.
    72:27
    And she and Clark have a really cool musical background. They were in a band together, and they've made some really cool songs in the past. So they created this gem for our show, and I think you're going to like it. It's awesome stuff. Check it out. It's a super awesome pinball show. And it's a super awesome pinball show. It's because they're Frenchie And Dr. Tim And if you still can't see Well, I'll say it again It's because they're super awesome And also And super awesome I just thought you should know It's because they're Frenchie And Dr. K Can get up off your asses And go to bed Super awesome Okay, so that felt like I was into Stranger Things again.
    73:42
    Here we go, guys. I talked to Laura about it, and I said, When you sing my name, first of all, it's really weird to hear somebody sing your name. Yeah. But when she sang my name, then they had, like, in the second chorus, she did, like, backing vocals that repeated my name. But then she goes, Dr. Penn. And then Christian gets, like, these cheerleaders going, Dr. Penn, Dr. Penn. Strangely, you're so easily made jealous by anything out there. No, I really sound like somebody in this room is jealous.
    74:17
    That's right. I like it. If you send me stuff in now, Franchi, you are going to hear about it. It goes for the song, too. The actual truth is I don't care.
    74:27
    No, I just thought it was funny because it works perfect. As they say, I see what you did there, but I just had to give her a little bit of shit. You just kind of mumbled my name, and then it's Dr. Pig, Dr. Pig. Listen, we go way, way back. Laura and I are buddies, so she gave me a little extra shout-out. That's all right. I think it just works. Yeah. I see exactly what she did. She wasn't trying to, like, play favoritism. Actually, what she said was, she goes, yeah, but you got three-pot harmony. He just got shouting. I'm like, well, so there's that. There you go, man. Yes! There you go. Excellent job by everybody. Really appreciate the entries and taking the time to do that. Boy, Bruce, you're going to have some thinking to do. You've got to pick a winner out of those. I'll pick a winner.
    75:06
    On their own merit, they're all good. Yes, they are. Stay tuned for after our Greg Ferris interview, and Bruce will drop the winner on all of us, and we'll find out who that is. When we get back from this commercial break, you're going to hear our interview with Greg Freris, which is really a lot of fun. I think you're going to like it. So stay tuned for that. We'll be right back.
    75:29
    As everyone knows, rainbows usually have a treasure at the end. Let's follow this one and see if we can find the Super Awesome Pinball Show! There's something curious about this broadcast. You know, it really is amazing.
    75:43
    This show is sponsored by Cointaker, distributor of brand new full-size authentic stern pinball, Chicago Game, Raw Thrills arcade games, and much more. Also, a full line of dramatic pinball mods, LED flipper kits, speaker lights, custom laser LED toppers, playfield protectors, Valley Williams parts, pinball apparel, and much more. Get the latest releases and glam out your game room with Cointaker. Everything at your fingertips at Cointaker.com.
    76:09
    Get your game on. Godzilla! You can pretend Godzilla turns a mighty castle into a pile of sand. Go join Godzilla! You control Godzilla's ugly tongue. You can make him stop, pound his tail, pretending he strikes it all in his way. You can launch Godzilla's claw for the final blow. We do! What will Godzilla do next? It's up to you. Godzilla with a claw that launches. Some assembly required from the Shogun Warrior Collection by Mattel. Hey, this is Dennis Hogan, and you're listening to the semi-awesome... But not semi-awesome, super awesome. What? Super awesome? Yep. Are you sure? Because I listen to them. It's not that good. Yes, I'm sure. Would you just say super? Okay. Hey, this is Dennis Nordman, and you're listening to the Super Awesome Pinball Show. Perfect. All right, that'll work. Okay, okay. Fork over my 20 bucks now. Yeah, yeah, it's coming. God, you pinball guys. F*** this. Who's back?
    77:13
    What's up, dog? We're back. Yum, yum. The Super Awesome Pinball Show. It's the coolest show. Greg Ferris has been working in pinball for over 40 years, with his artwork appearing on more than 20 pinball machines and video games. He started in 1978 in pinball and has worked with almost all of the big names in the industry, including Bally, Williams, Jersey Jack, and Stern, doing artwork for some big titles like Medieval Madness, Star Trek, The Next Generation, Wizard of Oz, and many others. He has started his own pinball brand in Whizbang Pinball, and since 2012, he has been the art director for Stern. So welcome to the show, Mr. Greg Ferrez. Hey. Nice. Thank you very much. Give him a applause. Hey. There we go. Welcome. Welcome, Greg. How are you? I'm good. How are you doing? I'm doing fine. We're going to start this off with a brand-new segment that we like to call Herrera's Rapid Fire.
    78:14
    So I guess it's going to live and end with this interview. What I'm going to do is I'm going to ask you a question, and you've got two seconds to come back with a name of an employee that works at Stern. Okay, you ready? Wow.
    78:28
    This could get me in big trouble, right? Well, it's up to you. You could probably plead the fifth on some of these, I would guess, knowing the franchise is going to fire off some stuff here. You could always answer any question with janitor, and that will get you off the hook.
    78:43
    Can I repeat names? Yeah, yeah. There can be more than one. Are you ready? Yeah, sure. All right, here we go. Most likely to avoid the tab on a CERN lunch outing.
    78:54
    Chris Frantz. Oh, and you're not an employee. That was awesome. You should just answer Frantz for each one of these. You want to really? You know, I don't know. That's a good question because I don't go out to lunch very often. Oh, well, then we're going to pass. Might be a bit unstable.
    79:16
    Gee, the janitor. There he is. All right. Number three, damn clever motherfucker. Oh, well, that would be George Gomez. Nice. Very nice. Number four, still at the shop working at 10 p.m. on Christmas Eve. Wow, that could be any one of the programmers. Okay. Number five, plays more pinball at the building than they do designing or building them. Wow, these are tough questions.
    79:44
    You kind of have to throw people under the bus to answer these, unfortunately. Zach Sharp. Bonus question. Most likely to be seen in the stern kitchen after hours in some kind of skin-tight stretchy suit with stuffing in the crotchal region. Well, Jack Danger, he's... There you go. That is the correct answer. That is the only answer.
    80:07
    We hope. And while we're doing quick questions, I have one question for you that's not a Stern employee answer. It's just a this or that question. We'll get it out of the way. Repediograph pen or Wacom pen? At this point Wacom Yeah Well I know a lot of you I heard an interview a recent interview with I believe it was Dave Christensen and he said he still does stuff with the old technical pens Like does everything old school still hand draws everything And I kind of miss it. I don't miss trying to get them damn things to work and having to pull them apart and bending the needle trying to get it back into the tip and all that. But I do kind of feel a little bit detached from, you know, the pen and ink days and all that. I kind of miss that. That was my thing. But anyway, okay. It is kind of mixed, but not to a huge degree. I prefer brushes to the rapidographs, but I did start with rapidographs. Greg, we have a co-host for this episode. I don't know if you're familiar with the Slam Tilt podcast, but Bruce Nightingale is a big-time pinhead. He's been in pinball for a long time, and he's one of the hosts of that show, and he's going to join us for the interview. Great. Hi, Greg. Hi, Bruce. How are you? All righty, sir. Back when you first started at Bally, I'm a big Bally nut. You said there was a different color. You actually helped make the coloring and the different patterns and stuff that you helped develop back in Bali. What was that about? I remember you talking about that in a past interview. You helped make a design change for Bali to make their streamlining their processes easier? Yeah, I think what you're talking about would be the fact that they never had an in-house darkroom. And when I came on board, I had darkroom experience. I have a minor in graphic arts, so I knew about halftoning and four-color process. And Paul Ferris hired me more for that reason than he did for my illustration skills. So I got the job, and I was splitting my time between illustration and work in the darkroom. And so we were able to keep a lot of the work for color layers on playfields because playfields were anywhere from 12 to 16 colors back then. I would get the artwork from Margaret Hilton or Kevin O'Connor, whoever it was. I would take it to the darkroom, make lithoprints of it, film positives, film negatives, and then send those out to the vendor. I'm not sure if that's what you're talking about. No, no, exactly. It's actually perfect because I actually came from the photographic industry, and I knew enlargers and lithoprints and how long they take to make. And, oh, my God, I know what your process is that you went through. you know I did it in the 90s and 2000s you're doing in the 70s which is even harder and more analog yeah exactly but uh yeah that's uh that's pretty much what I did when I first started and then um I got to be a full-time illustrator after that and you you've worked in uh you've worked at Bally and Williams and now Stern and you've worked on a ton of games but I kind of saw that when you look at the pin side list it really doesn't do justice for all the games you've really been involved with, especially because you've been doing pro and premium and LE versions at CERN, and that's kind of three different games in one. How many pinball titles do you think you've actually had a hand in over your career? You know, I've lost count. I'm definitely not the leader. I think John Yausey would be more of a modern day leader in that realm, or Kevin O'Connor. But, you know, as a manager and getting the games through the system, I touch every project to some degree. So I would say, I wouldn't even be able to count, you know, how many at this point, because, you know, even back at Bally, we had a little bit, we were a project artist and we had our own projects, but at times we would help somebody else get their project finished and work on something. So, you know, we all kind of pitch in and get it done. That's cool. There's been some games in the past that you've done more than just being involved in the artwork, like, for example, Medieval Madness and the Elvira titles, you helped create decisions on the theme and add some funnier details and call outs and even scripting on the text and all that. Is that something that you sought out to do or is it just something that you did out of necessity to fill a gap? Yeah, no, not necessity. It was more of, you know, I grew into the business. I always like to say, you know, I graduated from Bali High, but basically I just grew into the business. I started, you know, seeing how games get put together as far as thematic direction and stuff like that. So the first project where I was able to really have a say was working with Dennis Nordman on Party Animal. I did not do the artwork on that game, but I threw the idea at him, and he thought it was a good direction to go in. So, you know, that was my first chance at, like, actually coming up with, like, the team direction. And then, you know, even some of the toys and that kind of stuff. So it just kind of grew from there. Dennis and I built a relationship from then on. And I just, you know, kept building upon that to the point where I was writing the storyline for Dr. Dude and, you know, coming up with the character and what he looked like and everything. And even to this day, you know, Elvira, it's not just art that I'm doing. It's, you know, helping the team mold the game into what it is. And, you know, I enjoy writing, especially Elvira stuff. It's a natural for me. And so, you know, I spent a lot of time just getting the script finalized for that and overseeing the video work in Los Angeles last year for all the Elvira pieces in the game. So, you know, that's exciting for me because it gets me away from just doing artwork and I can kind of, you know, keep my hands in other realms too. So it makes the job more exciting, for sure. Not that I'm not excited by artwork, but it's just cool to be able to have an influence, so to speak. Yeah, you've even done voices, too. Medieval Madness, I was one of the trolls. Oh, you were the troll. I thought you were the joust announcer. Yeah, I'm that guy, too. Yeah, I'm both. Multitasking.
    86:20
    Was that the same thing, just something you wanted to do, or did someone say, hey, Greg, get over here? I don't know. Yeah, I've always wanted to do voiceover work. So it was, you know, fun to just go, hey, I'll try that. You know, they invited me and it worked. So after 10 years of working at Bally Williams and then you moved to the video division in Midway. First, you know, working on Smash TV and Cruisin' USA. Did you enjoy video games more or less or was it like a different artistic way to go about your things between pinball and video games? okay so I know it's a multi-tier question this is a little embarrassing because we're going to need some edits here because the MASH TV, nope what was the other one? Cruisin' USA well I mean I had a little bit as an art director I was overseeing some of the graphics for that game but really didn't have a hand in the design I kind of again oversaw Linda Deal working on like the Cruisin' USA logo design and stuff like that, working with Eugene Jarvis to make sure that he was on board with everything. I helped design the topper. There was a neon topper for Cruisin' USA, big giant neon sign that was a little uncomfortable. It wasn't a typical neon sign. It was a different technology of neon. And so I worked together with the company that designed or had a patent on that and then, you know, worked with John Yossi to create the front piece that worked together with the neon. So, you know, stuff like that. When I was still at Williams and doing video game stuff, I was kind of stepping in to help out, just help art direct and stuff like that. So it wasn't until like the 2000s when I actually worked in the home market video games. What did you do there? Because I tried to look up, you know, what you were involved with, but I couldn't find any PlayStation and Xbox games that you are listed as being involved in, but I couldn't find the titles. What have you worked on? I worked on, both with Brian Eddy, another game designer. First, he did PsyOps, the Mindgate Conspiracy. Yeah, I remember that. Then he also did John Woo's Stranglehold. That's cool. Were there doves in that game? That's kind of a thematic thing in all of his movies. He's got doves flying away in certain scenes. Definitely did. Oh, nice. there's a lot of pinball guys that have done video game work. Is that just by nature of them being in the same company that's doing video games, or do the skill sets kind of merge with what you need to be a video game designer or programmer in the pinball world? I'm going to guess you take my association. It's a little bit of that. You work together as a company to get the best product to the market, and even going back to when George designed his early Spy Hunter and all that stuff, I was part of the graphic art department that would have to create the headers and the marquees and the control panel artwork and the cabinet artwork. So, you know, you're just kind of all working together for the common goal. And, you know, it just kind of lends itself to, you know, working together to make it happen. So some of those guys, yeah, Steve Ritchie, for example, has done video game work, too, as a designer. So he's led a team of video game people as well. That's cool. If you talk to most people, they will say that their favorite Greg Ferris art package is Fathom. It seems to be a fan favorite. As far as grading yourself, do you feel the same, or what's your favorite project that you've worked on, or maybe the one that you felt came out the best? It's interesting. You know, it's always like your last one you feel is, at least in my opinion, the last one you worked on was the best one you've done so far. At least that's always the goal, is to make sure the next one is the best one you've done. I appreciate all the fan-favorite stuff that happens for Fathom. It is an unusual piece. It was Paul Ferris who was my art director at the time, and he pushed me hard to continue to do better than I previously did. And I appreciate that from him that he gave me that extra push to do as best I could on that project. When I look back on it, could I do it better now? Oh, yeah, probably. But I was 24 years old or 25 years old back then, you know. So I think I've acquired a couple chops since then. That raises an interesting follow up, though. I've done a few machines. I don't nearly have the legacy that you do. But I still notice that in my desire to do a generic title and I'm only, you know, from the outside looking in, wondering if the freedom of doing something like a fathom where you have nothing, you know, You're looking at a white drawing board and it's like, ready, go, do what you want.
    91:18
    Obviously, it's more expressive because you're digging deep to find something. Is it more enjoyable to do something like that rather than being given a license or something to develop yourself or to work with? Yeah, I would agree with that. It is more enjoyable. It's definitely more enjoyable because you are starting from scratch. You're not being given a style guide and say, here, make it look like this or whatever. Your creativity, you know, comes into play and, you know, you bounce things off of other members of the art department to continue to make it better. And it's just something that is much more enjoyable. When we worked on Dr. Dude, for instance, or even Party Zone, it's like freedom. It's complete freedom. And you can just, you know, go wild with ideas. And we did. And it was fun, you know, and I even on Whitewater, Whitewater is is a little more like mainstreamed without using a pun there. But, you know, the theme is not exactly like Party Zone or anything like that or Dr. Dude. It's like, OK, I know what Whitewater rafting is and here it is. And I started early on that project with Dennis, just ideating with him and coming up with, you know, different ideas for the game. And then I had to go on vacation and Yowsey took over and did a wonderful art package on it. So, yeah, when I look back to those those games that were from scratch, so to speak, much more fun. Just, you know, I guess you could say it's like a chef, you know, hey, come up with something new for the menu. And it's like, OK, you know, you have fun. And even Elvira, which to me, it's a license. But working with Cassandra, she is amazing to work with, and she allows quite a bit of freedom in the direction that we take. So that's like a hybrid, you know. You get the best of both worlds. You've got the license that everybody's familiar with, and then you've got the time to create a really unique piece. So I would say my preference would be, yeah, it's way more fun to work on a homegrown idea. That's cool. So I know we've all seen a couple of dips in pinball, of course. First, you know, you've been through a couple, of course, with Williams and then with Stern. But how was it back with Bally when you were just first starting and then you started the pinball market crash and the video game market crash in the early 80s? What was that like? I never heard your side from the early days. Yeah, good question. And, you know, I was so young and naive and everything was so new that the downturn of the pinball market wasn't like as apparent to me because I just figured, well, video games are coming on strong here. And, you know, we're just kind of losing some ground. We're losing sales. But inside, we're still plugging away and making games and coming up with new ideas, you know. So you just kind of keep your nose to the grindstone and damn the torpedoes type of thing. But it was more what you said about the mid-80s when pinball got merged with Bally Midway. So we were jumping between pinball and video games kind of simultaneously. But we could definitely see that the pinball market was shrinking. And then the video game market with the onslaught of, what were those games that had a disc in them? The Laserdisc? Dragon's Lair. Yes, Dragon's Lair. And you guys had Astron Belt for Midway Bally. Yeah, the original Brainiac. brainiac. Then we realized, wow, you know, they're just grasping at straws here trying to see what the next best thing is, you know. So by the time, like, we got around to 84, 85, that was when I really started to get nervous because, A, I was starting to raise a family at that point, and B, we weren't sure where Bally was going with things because they had become such a large corporation that everybody knows how that works. You know, the bigger the corporation, the faster they can slough off the not needed parts anymore. So I got really nervous at that point, but I hung in there and, you know, we started bringing pinball back slowly with Dan Langlois, the game designer, came on board and had some really interesting ideas with playfield layout and stuff. So the results were Strange Science that I worked on with him and Escape from the Lost World. So at a point where pinball was beginning to really wane, all of a sudden we kind of started coming out with some pretty interesting things. They might have been clunky at the time, but they were at least, we were trying something different. And that was exciting. That brought excitement back into it. And then in a very short amount of time, after Dennis worked on Blackwater 100 again, you know, he was competing with Langlois to come up with something really different and unique for the pinball market to bring people back to pinball. And so, you know, watching all that happen was exciting. Those were exciting times because I felt like there was a rise again. And on the other side of the fence, Steve Ritchie was putting out games like High Speed and Barry Austin did Spade Shuttle. And those games were, you know, well-received. So that's when, you know, I felt like, okay, maybe there's hope here. We should be able to, you know, see through this. And then Bally sold the company to Williams in 88, and the rest is history for that point. We want to get into your time at Stern, but kind of leading up to that, there were a few things we wanted to ask you about. So in 2009, you and Dennis Nordman formed Whizbang Pinball, and you made Wonally. Was that an attempt by you to kind of get back into pinball full-time, or was it more of a side project just to get your feet wet again in the industry? 2009 was interesting because I had lost my job at Midway at the end of 2008. And so I started freelancing. I started trying to figure out what to do next. And every place where I sent my resume, nobody was hiring at that point in time at all. So I figured, okay, it's time to freelance. So I started drumming up some business. I knew some people. I mean, I know people in the coin-op business. So I was able to hook up with different coin-op companies and get some freelance going. At that point, I had mentioned to Dennis at a show, hey, you know, there's a lot of people doing, like, custom games. Wouldn't it be cool to, like, for two industry guys to try a custom game and see what happens? So that started the ball rolling. we put together the LLC just to make everything real and started pushing for something different, something unique and what we ended up doing was looking backwards to move forward so to speak, so we really started studying electromechanical games and at this point I need to interject for Chris's sake that I too now own a Captain Fantastic what's your what's your take on it are you are you as much of a non-fan as chris is or do you enjoy it because of the work the studying that we did for wonnelly i have a much finer appreciation for electromagnetic names so my distaste for captain fantastic has nothing to do with the em i've always wanted one i love the the reels resetting when you push the start button and the chimes and all that. It's just, I can't imagine it's just mine. It's so brutal. No matter what you shoot, it goes down the middle or down the side or through the flippers. Like, you just can't. Like, I had a game today that was like 13,000 points. Nothing but garbage.
    99:00
    I'm pretty sure they have to guilt that on pinball. You know what I'm saying? That was a sick burn, man. Hey, something burning? Oh, wait. It's you because you just got burned.
    99:12
    Something's never changed. I thought absence made the heart grow fonder. What kind of shit is this? Greg, to follow up on your whiz-bang question, do you guys think you'll ever do anything else again? Is that something that you've done once and you're done? Once I got invited to jump on this third ship, I got so busy that it's just almost impossible to even think about trying to spin a plate outside of the company, let alone working for Stern, which I had plenty of plates to spin. So it's unlikely that we would do another one, but, you know, never say never, right? I mean, Dennis and I worked together on the Elvira project to a degree, but, you know, it's not a whiz-bang product per se. Well, Nelly's kind of a gift that keeps giving because, like, do you get a little kickback every time something like Primus gets down or whatever? Cancruster and, yeah. No, there could be something like that happening.
    100:14
    You win. I wonder if people have heard that. I'm not sure. When Gary comes in your office with a dozen cupcakes, you're like, God damn it, all right, what game is this one?
    100:32
    So after Whizbang, you're doing some work on the Wizard of Oz play field for Jersey Jack Pinball. You finally stepped back into full-time pinball in 2012 when you were hired at Stern. Can you give us some sort of an overview on what it means to be an art director at Stern, as opposed to more or less sort of like a designer, creator, production artist? It's nonstop, nonstop action. Like George said in his podcast, Stern has three cornerstone titles a year, and for the art department, that's times three, because there's three packages, pro, premium, and elite. So it is literally nonstop. When I first started, I hired Stephen Martin as a production art manager like six months after I was there because there was a need. I convinced George that, you know, we got to get another guy in here because there's just so much throughput. it. And then recently I hired Justin Freight, who is handling most of our marketing stuff, but he does some production work too for the games. So it's, you know, when I use the spinning plate thing from Ed Sullivan's show, you know, that's it.
    101:39
    That's how I feel it's turned. There are so many plates that are constantly spinning that we have to, you know, make sure they're not falling off the little pedestal. So you've got to keep those plates spinning. So can you tell us what it is to be the art director? Like what are your job responsibilities and kind of what do you have your hands in for people who don't really know what that means? I helped find the right people for the project. I found Chris for Batman. That was an amazing find. Oh, yeah. Here's the story on that. I don't know if I ever told this one, but I go on the Internet to look for a Batman artist. and I see this poster for the movie Batman 66, and I'm like, how old is this guy?
    102:25
    This guy did a poster for Batman 66, the movie. I said, he's got like in his 80s. Maybe I like it, but accept it because that's the way that it is. Well, Chris, he didn't sound like he was in his 80s. So, yeah, I helped find the talent, the new guys, whatever. I walk them through every step of the project. I make sure that the artwork is coming in on time and let them know when they have to have it done by. And I negotiate with the people that keep the schedules to see if we got a little more time on this or that piece of the project because we're going to need it. And it's just, you know, constantly working with the vendors, the printing vendors. So I'm always working with them. If there's a part that somebody goes, hey, we need something unique on this topper, you know, got any ideas? And, you know, based on everything I've done in my past or stuff that certain vendors show me, I'll come in and say, hey, we could do this on something. How could this be used, you know? So it's a combination of just making sure the artwork is getting done, it's getting done properly, that the game designer, the game team really likes what the artist is producing. and also working with every vendor, printing vendor, to make sure that they have what they need when they need it, working with purchasing so that they know when we're handing stuff off, when it's finished, when it's approved by the licensor. Oh, yeah, that's the other thing, licensing. There's plenty of work that gets put into that. A lot of ticks on the clock working with licensing and working with Jody Bankberg to make sure that we're getting the style guide information that we need or getting the parts delivered to the licensor for approval, making sure nobody's printing anything before it's approved. So it's an ongoing process of, you know, dealing with almost every personality, you know, at Stern to get things accomplished. How much of a diva was Chris Franchi to work with when he was there at Stern?
    104:36
    More of a babe in the woods, I think. yeah a little bit no he's not a diva he's just uh he just likes to talk hence he has a podcast now you had a show for that right internet radio yeah yeah it wasn't about pinball it was just uh it was like a morning show in the afternoon it was a morning show for slackers but to be fair to be fair to chris you know i know that as part of your job is to kind of crack the whip and get people to to get their art in i guess chris is pretty quick on the draw you know, no pun intended, to get his stuff in for you. And I know he was under a real time crunch for the Batman package. Is it always that way, or do you usually have to really hound artists to get things done? Yeah, Chris is an amazing... Back in the day, we used to call Kevin O'Connor the fastest brush in pinball. But I got to say, Chris has maybe eclipsed that, because he can turn things pretty quickly. And, you know, we're always grateful for that. It's not so much hounding. It's just making sure I'm always ahead of the curve so that the hounding doesn't need to happen. I hate being hounded myself. So it's better to work ahead of the curve and just stay focused so that we can negotiate when we need to for a little bit extra time when it's needed. So, but yeah, everybody that I've worked with so far does a great job and, you know, of keeping focused and making sure that we get things when we need them. Let's actually go off a little topic a little bit with this, because it's a continuation of actually Chris's question, which was, you know, when you're talking about, you know, dealing with the three cornerstones, don't forget you still have, as you'll probably state, all the games you're trying to get, and you have to make the artwork for, like, you know, like Chris has shown in the past, some of these games where you have to draw up something to make the proposal to these companies. So you're doing three cornerstones and you're doing maybe one or two remakes or that kind of stuff. What's the percentage of games that are being, like, you know, for proposals? How many do you see come through that are like, okay, can get this artist to make a proposal and don't come through? You know, I would say zero. Okay. Oh, wow. Yeah, because whatever comes through licensing and the executive side of the company, that's pretty much what we're going to work on. So I would say if we land a license, we're going forward with it, and we do. So, yeah, I would say pretty much zero. Like I actually, most of the people don't even know this part of me, but back in the early 2010s, actually from 1999 to 2010, I was working for a photographic company, and I actually had to sign an MDA because I was going to places that were actually printing Stern artwork. So I was actually seeing the artwork for Star Trek, Mustang, a couple others before anybody else did. You know, you're actually printing it and then sending it to you guys as samples and color proofs and everything like that before you actually would approve the. Now we know. Now we know how you knew all these things. I did.
    107:47
    But I know I wasn't a leak because I never tell because my job was more important. But I actually got to see like the, you know, the stuff like it was funny. I'd walk in and up on the wall in Chicago or other places in the country, I know I'm not going to say everything, but I would go out in the places and there's artwork. And I'm like laughing, like, oh, that's this place. Oh, I know where this is. And it was really nice seeing, you know, Mustang and that kind of stuff being produced before even being announced. And that's why, how many times do you go through rejections or approvals with the color and matching beforehand? Do you like, do you all sit around and go, okay.
    108:21
    R2-D2 chopper. but how many times do you actually go through it you know that's a great question but it's also difficult to answer i would say i would say game of thrones uh working with the game of thrones people was a little more challenging because they were adamant about keeping all of the actors uh likenesses giving them equal billing so to speak so we we did a bunch of layouts i actually did a couple of backlash layouts to start with just to get like the in-house people interested in a direction that we could take so yeah there were we do sketches and and do send them over the fence to the licensor and in the case of game of thrones a they pretty much wanted to stick with photographic uh assemblage rather than full-blown illustration we did the le uh more as full-blown illustration But the Pro and the Premium, they were more interested in Photoshop assemblage. And so we had done a couple of back glass sketches that were not that, and they weren't interested. Because, again, this equal billing thing came into play. And so when you kind of look at the Pro and Premium, you'll kind of see that on the cabinet side, on the back glass, and that kind of thing. So, and Star Wars, they're the biggest licensor out there. So, they're going to be very protective of their property. And so, you know, we work very closely with them to get exactly dialed in what we need. And they have very stringent milestones of what we need to submit and how we need to submit it. So, but, you know, it's Star Wars. So, it's a great license. That brings up an interesting question. When you talk to licensors about pinball, I should say, do you have that discussion with them where you're like, you need to understand the pinball buying community? They want artwork. You know, that's what they expect. That's part of the history of pinball. Do you have that conversation with them, or do you just try to get away with it, or do you just say, yes, sir, no, sir, yes, ma'am, no, ma'am? We always want it to be the best it can be for the product, but it will depend on the licensor of what their expectations are, so to speak. But we do a very good job of managing the expectations beforehand so that, you know, we understand if it's a pure style guide thing or if we're going to have some liberty to be able to do what we need to do or what we want to do, so to speak. So, you know, it really is dependent on the licensor and the freedom that they want to give the product to. Because so many of the licensors are so used to dealing with T-shirts or toys or, you know, some simpler thing than a product that has sound and speech and actor call-outs and likeness issues. And, you know, I mean, the list is endless of how many things Pinball incorporates into a license that maybe a licensor might not be used to. So we kind of go in early and create a meeting with like all the key people from our side and their side to have a conversation. And we also give them a glossary of terms, you know, so they understand what they're getting into. And it's a lot easier then to communicate moving forward. Right. Cool. Every episode, my wife gives me a question that she really wants me to ask. And so the question for this episode was, when we interviewed George Gomez, he told us that there were a few times that he had to step in and take over projects that weren't going well. As the art director, you kind of have your hands in all these different projects. What happens when something comes in that you think isn't awesome and you know that you could do a better job? Do you ever just take it over and do it yourself? Has that ever happened? Oh, I don't know. I don't think so, but probably. Batman was one where George came into your office and went, hmm. that goes without saying that that that was a project that obviously george was not happy with and he was kind of the lead on that project so when he said we got to do something i'm like okay and he goes find somebody and he walked out and yeah so obviously that that one was the pinnacle of of trying to do something other than what the way it was going i try to intervene early in case I think something isn't going right. But, you know, usually once the project artist gets synced up with the game designer and we all kind of talk, it kind of works itself out and we move it forward. At the point when George came in your office about that, were you comfortable with where it was going and he just wasn't digging it? Or were you starting to have second thoughts too? I always try to give whoever's working on whatever the benefit of the doubt. It's like, okay, if this is looking like this now, it's because we're at this stage. It's not finished yet. He's going to tweak it. He's going to make it better. I know he's going to make it better. And I try to keep that in the back of my mind. And then, you know, in the next phase, if it doesn't happen, you know, then I've got to step in and start to help bring it to a level that it needs to be. But seldom does that happen again, trying to work, you know, ahead of the curve. I mean, that's my, you know, mantra right now. But, you know, just to keep things from getting to that point because, you know, it gets rough. So I don't like rough waters. Let's put it that way. Just say janitor.
    113:51
    My wife actually had a follow-up question. She said, can you draw me looking totally amazing so that I can make some stickers and swag instead of looking like a mom of two kids that needs more coffee? Yep, you're the best.
    114:03
    Well, you have to explain that she has her own podcast. That's right, she does, and she's the queen of swag. She's got a ton of stickers and other things like that. Hey, you know, sure.
    114:14
    She'll be happy with a stick figure. Anything from Greg Ferris would be amazing, I'm sure. I have to say this because this little kid, his dad reached out to me. He's from California or Oregon. And his son is so into pinball, and he's like five or seven years old now. And he loves Dr. Dude. So his dad reached out, and he goes, hey, my son's birthday is coming up. He's a big Dr. Dude fan. In fact, he wants to be a doctor when he grows up. And I said, does he know that doctors aren't really like that?
    114:47
    He said, just do something real quick and just send it to him, and he'd be so ecstatic. So, you know, I drew a little picture of Dr. Dude and said, you know, he's awesome and all this kind of stuff. And it was so exciting for me to hear, like, a little kid, a 7-year-old, is still influenced by something that I did back in, like, 90, you know? And it's like, wow, just the lasting influence that pinball has, you know? It's just incredible. That is really cool. Yeah, after, I mean, you've been in the business for 42 years, and I've talked to several people. You know, obviously, if I talk to pinball people, it's about art. And I've talked to several people who current times say that you are their favorite pinball artist. And that includes everyone from now all the way back. So that's got to be a pretty good feeling. It is a good feeling. You know, my daughters labeled it the best because I'm famous in pinball. They said, Dad, you're not really famous. You know, you're fame-ish.
    115:46
    They brought me back down where I need to be. and that's what they, you know, that's good. I need it. I'm going to borrow that and make a T-shirt, and I'll send you one for stealing from your daughter.
    115:58
    Famous pinball artist. Fathom, you know, recently in a poll, Fathom was number four on the all-time favorite playfield art list out of everything that's been created. I think it was 2017 or 18, from that point all the way back. So, yeah, you're up there with, you know, number one was Ghostbusters, number two was Centaur, and number three was Metallica, and then followed under that with Warp Hound. I was happy. I was at number 10 with Guardians of the Galaxy. I'm like, yay, out of all time? That's damn impressive. So I bow to you, sir, being number four.
    116:33
    Very cool. You know, it's just amazing. You know, you spend some time around an industry. And like when I first started at Bally, I was like, you know, I'll do this for a while. maybe I'll, you know, get some illustration portfolio stuff going and maybe head over to Playboy and see if I can get some, you know, artwork in the magazine. And because that's, you know, everybody tried to get on album covers back then and Playboy magazine, what have you. And I just figured, wow, this is a great stepping stone. Well, I kind of stuck it out. And here I am, you know, this many years later, and I still can't believe, like when I was 40, I thought, Well, okay, by the time I'm 50, nobody's going to want the artwork of a 50-year-old pinball artist, you know. I think that all the time. 50 came and went, and I was like, well, I guess I can still do something. So I'm very grateful for the opportunity that I had. Kevin O'Connor got me in the business. Paul Ferris hired me. I worked alongside Dave Christensen, Margaret Hudson, and learned from all these people. That's why I do call it Valley High, you know, the graduating class of 81, you know, because it's like we were like a team. And it just feels like I hearken back to those days of listening to WXRT on the radio all day. You know, nobody had headphones on back then. And we just all enjoyed each other's company. We played off each other. We worked together to get stuff out the door. It was just a great, great camaraderie. And I've always told people that I never wanted to be in a fraternity in college. But pinball has become the best fraternity that anybody could ever ask for. And a lot of people who were with you back then are still working in the industry. Like Kevin O'Connor got you your first job and he's still with you at Stern. Is he your oldest pinball industry friend? Well, let me tell you about my best friend.
    118:33
    Probably, yeah, because I met him first. We worked together at an advertising company prior to going to Valley. And he went to Valley first. He was there for six months. And then he called me and said, hey, get a portfolio together because they're hiring. And so he gave me the clue to like, hey, you can jump, you know. It's time to move now. And I was really appreciative of that. And then the rest is history. But, yeah, you know. And we also were in a band together. I was going to ask you that. It was a rockabilly band, right? And my question for you was, who gets to do the album art when you guys put an album out?
    119:09
    We did put an album out. Oh, you did? A CD. And I did the artwork. So I just defaulted and did it. And I showed it to Kevin, and he was cool with everything. So, yeah, it worked out. We went in the studio, and that was a chore, to say the least, because I had no studio experience in my life. But I played drums in public since I was in sixth grade. So, you know, it goes back to like my parents would drive me to gigs and they were like paying gigs. And, you know, I'd get moving and, you know, I didn't think to give my dad gas money, you know.
    119:45
    You know, I've got a funny album cover story that I want to share with you because growing up, that was one of the things that I had always wanted to do, too. And I kind of set my goals like I want to do a movie poster. I want to do an album cover. Well, of course, back then, album covers were 12 inches by 12 inches, you know, nice, decent canvas size to work with there. unfortunately I didn't get to do one until there were CDs and this was before the vinyl resurgence so there was only a CD but unfortunately my album cover was for the band Warrant and this was past their cherry pie days like long past their cherry pie days more like a stale pumpkin pie days so I did this album cover and I was looking through a magazine Stuff Magazine which is like details you know it's like a men's gadgets and hairstyles and clothes and whatever, you know, just kind of a, more of a gadgety GQ sort of magazine. And I pop it open and there is my album cover art in this magazine And I like what the hell And I look at it and it says album cover of the month and i dropped the magazine and i called up a guy in the band that i was working with and i said our album cover is in stuff magazine this month and he like what and i'm like yeah it says album cover of the month he's like you're kidding so i'm gonna go up the store and buy one right now so he takes off i pick the magazine back up and i read it and it says you know blah blah blah album cover of the month you know and it mentions my name and it says, fantastic cover. Unfortunately, that's where the good part of this review ends.
    121:08
    And then it goes on to just crush this album so hard with the worst review ever. And I'm like, oh my God, I just told him and he's going to buy the magazine.
    121:19
    Greg, what games do you own right now? I own Elvira and the Pretty Monsters, which needs some work, which I've been putting off for quite a while. I own Scared Stiff. I own Lone Elite, Big Juicy Mounds, and someday I'll get an Elvira House of Horror so I can have the trio in possession. So I used to own quite a few games, but I ended up buying a boat. And so, you know, it was probably a mistake to sell my Medieval Madness when I did, but it was at the top of its market at the time. And I said, there's no way this game is ever going to cost more than it does right now, so I'm going to go for it. And I sold it, and I look back, and my kids always remind me, Dad, why? Hey, come on, you know? So they do give me that. We did have fun with the boat, but we're gone now, and so is my medieval madness. So a couple more questions about your time at Stern. So how many games would you say that you work on at any given time? What are you juggling? probably six or seven are in different stages of development, whether it's the one that's going to hit the line in a month from now or two weeks from now, whatever it is, then the one that follows that, and then the one that follows that. So there's the big three, of course, that are always kind of in the works, but we also have the home product that needs support. We have the corporate private label. Yeah, so between the three cornerstones, a possible studio game, and, you know, it could be up to six games at one time in different development stages. Wow. What are your responsibilities with a private label game, like someone like Primus? You know, I'm going to exclude, like, Supreme because that one's a little bit different, but something more involved like Primus. Do they come to you with artwork and then you have to go, you know, we've got to get this to fit? Did they start off with you directing them as to what you're going to require? Like, how does that work when you're working with outside people? It's a matter of templates. Jody Dankert kind of heads up that whole area. So he'll call me and say, hey, can you send the templates for the various styles of games to this guy? Because he's going to be looking at it for a private label game. So then, you know, those get sent out. And then there's usually a phone call with Jody and the licensor or whatever, you know, whatever you want to refer to that entity as to talk about, okay, you know, these are the issues with this style of game. This is what you got to focus on for this style of game. You know, the differences kind of thing and explain all that. So I will use Supreme as an example. We gave Supreme the templates and they came back with my daughter is kind of in the fashion industry. so she knows what a flat is. And literally, Supreme sent back a flat with the play field in the center, the back glass at the top, the two cabinet sides left and right, you know, the cabinet front down at the bottom. So it was like a fashion flat to go where, you know, what they thought the artwork should be. So that was unique. I had never seen that before. But it was an interesting way to present it to us, to get us to understand what their direction was going to be. whereas Primus, Primus wanted to work with Jeremy so we then, just like any other project we send Jeremy Packer, the zombie yeti for those of you that don't know his name we send Jeremy the package of templates for the game and then he just works to that and produces the artwork with them in mind he's working with them, the band and the band's people to get it dialed in to what they want And then once everybody's happy on their side, then it comes back to us, and we produce it for production printing. It goes through Steven, goes through Justin, whoever works on it at the time, and we get it out to the vendors and get it printed. Now, anybody who's listening to the show who doesn't know Jeremy Packer as Zombie Yeti, get out.
    125:27
    Shut it off. Don't come back. Don't listen to our show. Fuck you. Wow. Uh, Chris does the packages really fast, and he gets one at the time limit. Now, on an average, what is the average time you give an artist, the average turnaround you expect? Uh, you know, I've never really looked at that too much, but I would say a typical project is probably a good chunk of six to eight months of time, depending on the speed at which it's needed. But I would say somewhere in the neighborhood of six to eight months with some straggling pieces coming in to the eight to ten month period. But not quite a year, but depending on the project, they could be around for a year. They may not be working full time that whole time, but it's definitely the core brunt of the work is between a six and eight month period. And Jeremy is laughing right now if he's listening to this.
    126:28
    He goes, I've never seen that much time. Yeah, you're talking about the guy who had three weeks to do Batman. Yes. Well, I mean, back in the day when you were at Bally, they put games out so quickly. And my understanding was that they would do the entire game, and they designed it well beyond the Whitewood stage. when they came to you, which is basically a finished product. How much time did you have then to get everything together? It seems like it would be much less than six to eight months. Yeah, you know, that's a great question because it was so long ago, it's hard to recall. And the pace of the industry was different back then. But I would say that it was probably like five to six months to get one project done. But you've got to remember, we were working analog back then. We were painting. We were inking. And, you know, it was a different world back then. Digital, you know, everybody thinks, well, you can get it done in a day, right? Okay, sure, yeah, we can get it done. Well, you were only doing one art package too back then. Exactly.
    127:31
    And other certain projects had certain timelines. Flash Gordon, that was mainly Kevin O'Connor's work. You know, we had to turn that thing around fast. It had to be ready for the release of the movie. You know, it was a quick turnaround because licensing and marketing didn't get their hands on the license soon enough. So we had to turn it. So it was all hands on deck. And I recall looking back to the back glass. Kevin did the painting for the back glass, but all the separations for the surrounding framework of the back glass, Margaret, Kevin, and myself all hovered over one light table using ruby lift and exacto blades to all corners of, you know, the back glass. to get the back glass done that much faster. So it depended on what the need was and that kind of thing. So I remember John Yelsey flying out to the premiere of Adam's Family with his back glass painting in tow because he had to make some quick changes to some likenesses on the back glass. So sure, you get to go to a premiere, but you've got to do your work with it. Time limitations are one kind of limitation in pinball, but we've also heard a lot about money limitations. So, you know, the game designers tend to have a bill of materials they have to work within to make sure they can put as much into a game as they can. Does that translate at all in the art world? Are you under a fixed amount of money that you have to play with? And how difficult is that to kind of juggle? In this day and age, digital printing has made everything a little more equal. So as far as playfield printing, plastics, back glasses, it's all very standardized anyway. So we only put mirror on the LE back glass just to help differentiate it and give it a little bit of an extra, extra zhuzh, so to speak. Wait, what?
    129:22
    It's, you know, it's kind of, you know, the art part of it is more or less equal. You know, it's kind of a constant. Whereas if we do something unique like we did on Stranger Things, then that's a different animal. Then we've got to test. We've got to retest. We've got to make sure that image that's coming through in blacklight is going to work and that kind of thing. So, you know, those are unique situations where we really have to make sure that that's affordable and all that kind of stuff. But, yeah, artwork itself is pretty much a constant. Nice. Yeah, I was looking at a poll that was recently on This Week in Pinball that really kind of surprised me because, you know, just doing the podcast and being at the shows and talking to people, they put such an importance on artwork. But the results of this poll shocked the crap out of me, and I want to know what you think. Percentage-wise, where they ranked artwork was 6 out of 11, and the votes were 1.6%. Above that was gameplay at 49%, theme 23%, the one more game factor 13%, toys and gimmicks 7%, designer 1.9%, and then artwork 1.6%. And then below that was the rarity of the game, sound and music, light show, manufacturer, and displays and animation. Plays animation got 0.3%. Wow. But, yeah, I think... I'm sad now. I know, I know. I just don't feel that this is very accurate. I think when you're given a choice, like if you were to ask somebody, give me your top three favorite things on pinball, you'd get a different answer or different results than you would if you just said, give me your top thing in pinball. Of course everybody's going to say gameplay. If you said top three, art would be in there 100% of the time. Yeah, I think it would have. Yeah. So, hey, you know, I'm glad I can crush your spirits before we hang out. That's just bloody rude.
    131:13
    That's not my intention. I'm not sure where I was going with this. I just thought it was interesting to see those results. And I'm sure you feel the same way. That's why you said you felt crushed was that talking to people, you know that they put a lot more importance to that than. It's funny because, you know, living in a community where none of my neighbors really know anything about pinball. So when they find out what I do for a living, they're just like befuddled and they don't quite understand it. They're thinking that I'm painting on the playfield and that kind of thing. But, you know, I keep telling them, no, you got to come to the factory and see what this is about because it's an amazing combination of mechanical design, electronics design, artwork, you know, it's Everything, it's video, animation, everything is there. And until people come to the factory and see it for themselves and see how colorful and how beautiful the art packages are, that's why that number that's associated with that seems off to me. But maybe it was in context of spending your money, like, you know, what's going to get you to spend your money on this game? Maybe not in quarters, but, you know, to have your house. But no, I don't know. I've had a lot of people come to me and say, like, they bought the monsters just because of the art, you know. Right. That that was a thing that sold them on it. But you're right, though. We do kind of live in a bubble. My parents just moved back to Michigan from California, so I've been without them for 13 years. And so I went over to their house where they've just moved into to bring them a Michigan care package and all the things they remembered. One of the things I gave them was this little plastic miniature version of the Batman pinball machine where I had reduced all the artwork and put stickers all over it to sort of recreate, you know, an eight-inch tall little mini version of the Batman pinball machine. I said, I can't give you a real one. You wouldn't want a real one because my mom would say it would junk up her house. But I'll give you this because they like to collect my stuff. And they're looking at it, and they're like, what's this little square here? And I'm like, that's a video screen. And she's like, video screen? You said, this is pinball. Isn't it pinball? I'm like, yeah, but she goes, what do they put on the video screen? And I'm like telling them, you know, like, you know, the game code works and all. And she's like, what? You know, you're just so befuddled at this. You know, what pinball has turned into. She had no clue. The other interesting thing about artwork with pinball is that I found is that I've gone to a couple of shows throughout the years and have done seminars and what have you. And a couple of them, I got up there and I gave them a little piece of artwork from the game. And when I gave them a piece of the back glass, the people in the audience couldn't figure out what game it was from. But when I gave them a piece of the play field, bam, they got it right away, right away. And I was like, this is very interesting. I kind of realized they spend so much time looking at the play field while they're playing that they can simply see portions of the play field faster than a portion of the back glass. So I found that interesting. That's clever. You can turn your seminars into, like, research, you know, just by pulling things like that. To Chris's point, though, you were talking about his mom not knowing about the animations and the screen display. You've been through almost all the major shifts in display over the years. How is it working with the LCD inclusion, and does your department work on the animations as well? Do you oversee that piece of the game? Kirk Ernst heads up the entire group that does the animation work. We work in conjunction with him just to get him assets that are needed for animation work, if they need any, unless they're making their own 3D models and stuff. But he does an amazing job. And you talk about plate spinning. He's got like 90 more plate spinning than I do. So how they keep up is amazing. And licensure approvals on his end, because they're coming later in the project development compared to some of the printed artwork. So, yeah, Chuck and his crew do an amazing job. Working on Elvira House of Horrors was just a pleasure because, you know, I had never really worked directly with them until Elvira. And then it was working with all those people. I mean, I could name a couple, but they're all key players in getting every game to where it needs to be with animation. So they do an amazing job. They really, really have a lot on their plate all the time. Going back to Stranger Things with the UV process, was it like another layer when you were doing the setup aisles or anything like that with the UV? Yes, it was a separate layer, and it was no halftones. It was just line art, and it was silkscreen. So it was an unusual situation. It was very unique, and it took a bit of effort to where it was dialed in, and we were very happy with the result. How many failures were there before it actually worked? Quick, let me make some updates. It was more about just the process of how to get it to print properly and also work with the hard code and stuff like that. So it's just an iterative process that when you do something brand new that nobody's tried before, it's going to take some doing, you know. So just the iterations, not failures.
    136:27
    Now, because that ink is transparent, because, you know, you don't see it when the light is not on, does it require you to have white underneath it? Like, you can't print that on black and expect that light hit it and it really pop off, or does it really work that way?
    136:43
    I'm going to leave that open to interpretation. Spoiler alert. Great secret. There I go asking the question. Well, I was thinking the same thing. Actually, Chris, I was right behind you, like, wait a second. How is it working with this and this? Check out the big gray hole. This is where we insert the question of all questions, right? Rapid fire, quick response. You have three seconds. Next three Stern titles. Go.
    137:12
    So another area that the art department, I'm not sure how much you guys get involved in, is the mechs and the toys and the game itself. So those are usually beautiful. Are they overseen by you as well, or is that kind of outsourced to a third party or another department within Stern? We can have a bit of a play in it, but mostly it's outsourced to a third party for the 3D interpretation. We get involved when a licensor needs a specific PMS color applied to certain areas, and we do call-outs to make sure that the part gets painted properly, but mostly outsourced. Again, because I had such a huge role in Elvira, the house itself, I worked very closely with Tom Copera, the mechanical engineer, to get that house to print properly. It was distortion printing. Again, a lot of back and forth with the vendor and getting that dialed in. So in certain cases, you know, I'll get more involved on a toy where needed. But usually it's handled by a third-party developer, a sculptor, and then, you know, they hand that off. Chuck Ernst also jumps in a lot because he's got 3D skills and creates the early models, and then they get refined after that. So, yeah, a little bit of work on it, but mostly, you know, we're offloaded from that. Only more, we're just more involved with the color part of it. Moving into the future, do you plan on doing any more art packages or, you know, for Stern or maybe through, you know, another Whizbang project? I know you said earlier that you don't foresee having time to do that. Or let's say something like, you know, Primus comes in where Jeremy does that, where you could pick up a job and cut yourself. or do you just feel art directing is the gig and you don't have time for that anymore? Yeah, you know, again, I never say never. I'd love to work if the right project came along. I don't want to be, you know, at this point in my career, I don't think I want to be on a project that I'm not totally on board with or in love with. For me, Elvira is a labor of love. I did the first two. It made sense for me to do the final one. Oh, did I say final? Spoiler alert! We were going to ask you that question, so you might as well jump to it. Do you think there's a future for Elvira? You know, I think everything works well in threes, you know, the rule of thirds. So it was nerve-wracking to think, you know, just when it was just Dennis and I, is there another Elvira in us? Yes. Okay, we decided, yes, there is another Elvira game that we can create, you know. And then when we found out that Lyman wanted to be on board with a haunted house theme, And, oh, my God, it was like, okay, yeah, definitely another game. So that was key. So, you know, the stars aligned. Everything worked out. And I believe that, you know, the third Elvira is slightly better, if not greatly better, than Scared Stiff. And Scared Stiff was better than Elvira and the Party Monsters. So it was a nice natural progression. And going to a fourth one, yeah, I don't know. I feel like we pulled out all the stops. We've represented her in the best light we could. It is about her show and about what she did as a movie host. So, you know, going to a fourth one, I'm not sure about that. You say if something feels right, you know, that you would entertain it. What is right? What's your dream theme? What would you want to work on? Yeah, I'm not going there either.
    140:41
    Don't ask too many questions. Let me see if I can get this one out of you. So you, Lyman, and Eddie are all now at CERN. When are we going to see Medieval Madness 2? wow um i guess we'd be licensing it so technically it would be a license but but yeah who knows that would be fun huh that would be fun yeah well what do you see is the future of art i mean i know i know you've been through a lot of changes do you see anything in the future that could that could kind of push the medium forward i know that jersey jack just came out with the wizard the yellow brick road uh version of your playfield for wizard of oz and they had kind of that yellow sparkle on the Playfield, which was a cool new addition to the art, and you've done the UV light for Stranger Things. So do you see other areas within the art world that could be advanced on? We're always looking for new tricks to deal with the 2D printing techniques and stuff like that. You know, when we did Batman, the cabinet for the SLE was unique. We also applied that same technology to the signature edition for Elvira House of Horrors. So we're always working with vendors to figure out like what's new in printing techniques and what what can we do to advance things so yeah the future of it is wherever the technology brings us you know i mean digital technology has come so far so quickly that you know you just never know what the next best thing is for technologically speaking so um you know but as as far as accomplishing artwork i mean When I bought the Cintiq, I wasn't sure what to expect. And, oh, my God, it was an immediate, like, oh, this is what I've been waiting for. The Cintiq is a large, flat monitor that you actually draw on with a cordless pen. You're welcome. This is the bridge that takes me from where I was to where I am. So, you know, technology is waiting out there. We just kind of got to bump into it when it happens. Or seek it out, you know. Do you think anything like, you know, like I always marvel at things like the scared stiff back glass. Do you think we'll ever see a return to things like that where, you know, you're doing multiple layers or, you know, different effects? You know, some games, I forget the name of the game now, had that like sort of a secondary game up in the back glass, which, you know, maybe not so much that. Yeah, but like the scared stiff with the rotating spider and all that. And there's the one with the guy's face and the stars spinning around. I would love to put something like that together. Do you think that will ever happen again with the way machines are made now? You know, would people consider that something that's worth the effort? I would say, you know, from my own perspective of, yes, I would love for stuff like that to continue to happen into the future. But when it comes to running a business and all that good stuff that George talked about, it's like to add unique stuff like that is part of the bill of material, right? So that bill of material controls a lot of what happens on games. And if you put the money somewhere else other than the play field, well, then maybe the play field will suffer. And you don't want to do that because it's all about the gameplay. You want to make the gameplay as rich and immersive as you can. And then, you know, the rest of it kind of just supports its, you know, team support from there out. But, yeah, you know, I would love to be able to come up with something unique like that again. but it's a cost factor. Can you do it cost effectively? We joke around about how pinball technology, people these days are not striving to create a new future in pinball, but striving to get back to like the mid-90s, like where we already were but fell away from, as far as what's going on in the play field and like, you know, the ingenuity of all the different gadgets and toys and all that kind of stuff. You know, it's definitely got scaled down and now people are reaching forward again to try and get back to that. So the question would be, like, when you were back at, like, Bally, you know, back in the days when all the stuff you were creating, all these dimensional back classes and all that, were you guys just, like, running amok? Like, was there a bomb that you guys had to adhere to, or you just, like, make whatever you want? It didn't matter. Or was it just that that stuff was cheaper back then? I don't know. Maybe all three. There was some amok, but, you know, control of the muck. But we definitely had a lot of freedom, especially at Williams. Bally was one thing. Williams was a completely different situation. And there was really good camaraderie at Williams and also a lot of competition. So just within engineering itself, the teams were competitive with each other, but also supportive of each other. And it was a case of, hey, we want to make this and it's going to be really cool. And often it would be like, go for it, just do it. You know, so there was a lot more freedom and maybe the bill of material because what you said, parts were maybe cheaper back then. maybe we were buying more at one time. I don't know. You know, I don't know all the business end of it, but definitely it felt like we had a little more leverage to put something, you know, unique into the project and do it to its best degree possible, you know. We're still doing that today. Don't get me wrong. Every team is working, but it's in a frame right now. You know, it's in a framework that we've got to adhere to to make the business work properly. So it was different back then. It was just a different day, different dollar, you know? Any of your games that you said, I wish I had another month for, or you had regrets about, or you would like to have changed later on after seeing it produced, do you have any of those titles that you say, like, boy, if I had just one more week or one more month? I would say, I'm going to turn that into one of the projects that I had to get done the fastest. And that goes back to a mid-80s game of Dan Langlois, one of his first projects called Black Belt. I had one month to turn all parts of that game into printable artwork. And do I wish I would have had more time? Absolutely. It was probably the shortest turn I've ever done on any project. And in my opinion, it shows, you know, because I'm the guy that created it. You know, it's not up there in my top five games of what I think I did best, but definitely, you know, it was a rush project, and it's basically a sketch, you know. And plus you did two versions. You did a fusion version with the karate fight and then the black belt also. That was only the title change, so. It was a different version.
    147:14
    Yeah, and that was European. For some reason, we had to change it for the European market, so. Yeah, but I think all artists wish they had another week, another month, whatever it is, you know, there's always that. You never want to say you're done, you know, because there's always something. That's the trouble with looking at work from the past. Like you say, Fathom, I look at that backlist and I look at all the things that, you know, I should have done or that if I had time to finish this or that, you know, it's a natural part of the design process, I think. Yeah, I tell people all the time that, you know, If Stern would ever stop making Batman long enough for it to eventually become a vault, I would love to be able to redo that artwork because that was my dream theme, and that was my introduction to pinball. And as you well know, I had like three or four weeks to put that together, and I would have made a lot of different choices. When I look at it now, I'm just like, I'm proud of what I did, and it's special because it's my first one. But, man, I wish I could tackle that again and have the standard amount of time to work those things out. Who knows? Yeah. You got to stop. Well, it's got to quit being awesome. That's the problem. It's so awesome that you guys keep going back and renewing the license, and that pushes the vault back every time. You know, we did a Catwoman edition. We could do a Joker edition next. Who knows? Yeah. I just have one more question for you. I know you've done a lot of artwork for games that were funny games, and I love the humor that you've put into Medieval Madness and a lot of the Elvira games. There's a ton of Easter eggs that you put into the back glass and the artwork of these games. Do you have a favorite Easter egg from those games, and do you have an Easter egg that you put in there that no one has ever discovered? That's interesting. I think the most Easter eggs that I put into a game were Elvira and the Party Monsters, because that's when Dennis got in the motorcycle wreck and almost ended up six feet under. He was really banged up, spent three months in a hospital in traction. And so I think the most Easter eggs are in that game because there's broken bones everywhere. On the back glass, there's a barbecue, and it says, Nerdman's Broken Ribs.
    149:28
    Nice. So, yeah, I think that one won for most Easter eggs. Elvira Cassandra wanted her own Easter eggs in the back glass on that game, so she requested a few. But, you know, usually I do little shout-outs to my kids. Dr. Dude, I think one of the plastics says, hi, Lindsay, hi, Lauren, you know, that kind of thing. But, yeah, you know, I try to keep the Easter eggs in context with the team whenever possible. You had an interview with Pinball News that was excellent. But in that interview, you said that the faces in the stiff-o-meter in Elvira were your elementary school teachers. Is that true?
    150:06
    That might have been a joke. I thought so. Jeremy rubbing off on you? I think the reason why we had to split his interview into two shows is because you got the joke answer, then you got the real answer for every question.
    150:21
    With that said, that's a transition that you frequently use. I just awkwardly threw that in without a follow-up. All right, Greg, well, one more question. We've taken up enough of your time, and I don't know if you've got dinner waiting or not, but we'll squeak one more in. How do you see your future in pinball as far as Stern and what you've got going on there? We've had our third co-host retire on us, so he had to drop out because he was enjoying his retirement life too much. Is there going to be that unfortunate day coming soon where we are without Mr. Greg Ferris in pinball? By choice, I'm saying. That's the big question, isn't it? My wife and I talk often about what our next step is because I have reached a certain age. I'm a man of a certain age. But I'm having fun still. I enjoy what I do. I've enjoyed the past, the present, and I'm trying to figure out what that future is, you know. And it's one of those things where other friends and stuff are like, are you ever going to retire? And my answer is usually probably not, but I also don't want to just pass away at work either, you know. Yeah. Follow the lead of our former co-host. and retirement is getting in an inner tube with a big, fat, stanky cigar floating down the river. Apparently that's what you do. I really enjoy what I do. You know, someday, maybe, you know, when we figure this whole thing that we're in right now out, you know, because right now you can't travel anywhere safely, at least comfortably. You know, it's not fun to get on an airplane right now. So it's like, well, you know, let's continue to have fun at work then. So I've been to almost all of the shows for the past two years and there's a big hole in my life and not seeing all those people. Are you feeling the same way? It's interesting to think back to like, you know, how many people that you end up talking to, you know, at those shows. And it's and it's so great to hear everybody in person talk about things that, you know, are related to stuff that you've worked on. And, yeah, I do miss the fact that who knows when, you know, all that's going to go back to some sort of normal. But, yeah, I do miss interacting with the pinball community. But, you know, we'll see what happens next. Yeah, that was always my balance for things because, you know, you know as well as I do how much work goes into this stuff. And, you know, sometimes, you know, I mean, when I was doing Batman, I was pulling all-nighters. And when you're 50 years old, that's not fun. And I always thought that that was the balance of all the hard work is that you got to go to these shows and talk to all these people who talked about how important your artwork was to them and how they have like, you know, art prints and translates and stuff hanging up. And the paycheck helps. I mean, obviously you do things for a living, but I put a lot more than the paycheck's worth into what I do. And that's where the balance comes from is seeing those people always coming home on the plane with a good feeling for what I've done. And feeling that that time spent was worthwhile. So it is a shame. It's really been an eye-opener what happens when things get shut down. I've been blessed to have a career where you love what you do and do what you love, you know. And it's worked out really well. I know too many people that had a career where they couldn't wait for Friday and couldn't wait for, you know, the next Friday or whatever. And when it came to retirement, they couldn't wait to retire. You know, they were counting days down. And fortunately or unfortunately, however, you know, some people want to look at it, I'm not counting any days. I'm still enjoying what I do, and it still is fun. I mean, of course, there are days where it's maddening, too, but that's the name of the beast, you know. Blood, sweat, and tears. Very few artists have had the same power in the industry that you've had, Greg, and you've continued to maintain a really strong fan base throughout your career. So we're really looking forward to what you're bringing us next with Stern and any solo projects that you have coming up in the future. And thank you so much for spending some time with us and answering all of our questions. It was really a lot of fun. Good. I appreciate it, guys. Thanks a lot. Thanks, Greg. It's good talking to you again, buddy. Good talking to you. Take care. All right. See you later. Bye, man.
    154:37
    And there you have it. The art director from Stern, Mr. Greg Ferris, legends, master artist, favorite to many, and I don't want to say former friend of mine. We don't really talk much anymore because we don't work anymore, but I miss him. I love him. He's a great guy. So thanks very much, Greg, for spending two hours of your Sunday talking to us boneheads. Yeah, it was great. Really appreciate it. Really good interview. Yep. And now our fine guest, Bruce, is going to announce the winter. Winter is coming.
    155:04
    It's a Game of Thrones hit. It's a Game of Thrones vault. Now we're going to go to our super awesome pinball song contest winner, and the decision on who's going to win this is going to be made by our co-host, Mr. Bruce Nightingale. So, Bruce, take it away. We've got three options. You've got your Tony Tran and his three daughters. You have the Puppet Pals. And then you have Laura and Clark Fraley. Who's going to take home the $100 gift card, the Bachelor of Creation? It's really hard because Clark and Laura were the 80s hit. You know, I was really feeling the 80s. The Puppet Pals have the most polish. They get to do a great job, but they haven't put out a podcast in so long. You know, I just got to take them out of the equation because they put them on the thing. So, it has to go. The Tony Trans and Fraley. Yes. That was a surprise to me, actually. Yes, because the reason why is if you can get three girls in a room for more than five minutes singing on a recording, you are the winner by far. Oh, nice. All right. Well, Tony, congratulations, man. I'm glad that you got some time with your kids, and you also are taking home $100 for some cool swag from Back Alley Creation. So congratulations, and Bruce, thanks. I know that was not an easy decision to make. No, it was not. I'll make this decision right now. I'll say this. Puppet Palsong was awesome. And Laura and Clark's song, we're going to send them a loot box or something because I want to use that maybe on the closing of our show. Oh, nice. Just because it works in that sense. Puppet Pals was good. And I think maybe we'll send the Puppet Pals some swag too just for taking part. That way everybody gets something. Love it. So that's going to do it. Coming up, Doctor.
    156:35
    Yes. I was going to say Mr. Pin, but he didn't go to medical school for two and a half months to be called Mr. That's right. We've got a really, really cool show coming up. I know I say that every time, but in the next episode or two, depending on how many we do in the next few weeks, we're going to get an inside look at some stuff that's really exciting. So stay tuned for that. And I just want to say thank you again to Bruce Nightingale for spending his entire evening with us. You have been an awesome co-host. Thank you so much for coming on. And it's really good to talk to you, just at baseline. I hope that we get to hang out in the near future, man. Thank you. Let's play that theme one more time. Bruce, Bruce, Bruce, Bruce.
    157:15
    All right. Oh, yeah. Yes, yes, yes, yes. All right. Maybe a little bit more. Thank you. We are UC. Thank you for the audition, guys. I hope I get the job. Absolutely.
    157:27
    It was a good pleasure, man. Yeah, thanks for coming on, Bruce. It was a good time. Sorry about your place. You know what I'm most sorry about is that I never got the chance to go out there. Yeah, yeah. I was kicking went, and I didn't even get to go out there and autograph your machines. I can bring them to you.
    157:43
    No, I don't want your porno creatures. Yes, I know. Porno creature. No, I have a funny story to tell about signing machines. This local guy found out that I was local, and he's like, oh, you've got to come out to our arcade. You know, we'll charge you, and you play for free and all that. He goes, I've got a Munsters game, and I want you to sign it for me. And I'm sure I'd be happy to. And I've got friends that live right by me. It's kind of like a hall. It's like a 50-minute drive. But I've got friends that live right by me, so we kind of made a day out of it. And we went to the arcade, and he's like, I just found it right there on the glass. And I'm like, on the glass? On the glass? He's up on the backboard, or the back glass, on the glass. And I'm like, uh, don't usually sign on the glass. He's like, pull the trans light out. It's not that difficult. I said, if you don't know how I can do it for you, the guy owns a fucking arcade. Like, he doesn't want to pull a trans light out. He's like, no, no, no, I just, you know, I think it'll be fine on the glass. I'm like, you got to clean it. All right, whatever. Three weeks later, I get a phone call from this guy. can you come out and sign my game again? I'm like, what happened? He goes, it wiped off. I'm like, well, of course it fucking wiped off. Hopefully I didn't sign it on the glass. I mean, the old games, obviously, you couldn't do that with, but you'd think in a newer game you'd take the trans light out. Yeah, or, you know, sign the apron or something. I've done that a lot. Oh, yeah. So, anyway, that's going to do it for this week. Again, thanks, Greg Ferris, for joining us, and thanks, Bruce, for joining us. And, yeah, definitely tune in in the coming weeks. We've got some spectacular exclusive shows. coming up. Yeah, yeah. All right, guys. All right, have a great week. Thanks for joining us. Love you guys. Thanks for listening. Don't forget to go to silverballswag.com and buy our shirts if you like our show. You're not lying in our pockets. You're just supporting the show and looking damn cool doing it. So check that out and we'll see you guys on the next show. Adios. Bye, guys. Love you.
    159:36
    If you'd like to drop us a line or ask a question, we can be reached at superawesomepinball at gmail.com. Questions or comments may be read on the air. The original content of this podcast is copyright 2020 ASHA Radio Productions. The commentary and opinions shared by the cast and guests do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the sponsors, Cointaker, Chicago Gaming Company, and Back Valley Creations. Their sponsorships of this show only serve to add to their continuing support of the pinball community.
    160:06
    But what's going on in your ancient city? It's a problem we need to deal with. Okay, okay, show's over. Bye-bye. Hey, you fucking chalupa suckers!
    160:25
    Hey, everybody, this is Ed Van Der Veen. I will remember you. Will you remember me? You sounded drunk or something on the radio. Are you not entertained?
    160:42
    Are you not entertained? Is this not why you are here? So satisfying.