You're listening to TopCast, this old pinball's online radio. For more information, visit them anytime, www.marvin3m.com slash TopCast. Welcome to TopCast, a very special edition, a weekday interview edition, and we have a real special guest tonight on TopCast. Special guest, special guest, special guest, special guest. We have with us Gene Cunningham, who is well-known throughout the hobby for buying the Williams Valley pinball assets and also in his debut in the pinball manufacturing business with Big Bang Bar. We're going to talk to him a little bit about these endeavors and how things are going. So I'd like to introduce Gene Cunningham. When you bought up Williams in what, in 2000? And the rights to use everything. And then in 2003, we bought all the tooling and all the artwork and the remaining things. And then we also acquired the ballet name. So we can make machines under the ballet name if we want to. But let's back up a little bit. Sure. How did you first get into pinball? I mean, what was, you know, what were you thinking? Well, you mean when I first started collecting? Yeah, well, take a beating back step further than that. When did you first remember pinball, like, you know, in your life? I mean, when did you become interested in it? Oh, high school, junior high school. That's the 50s. And were you a good player? Mediocre. I played, but maybe the enthusiasm wasn't there at that time because then you didn't have all the electronics and everything. You just had the whistles and clunks and that kind of stuff, the bells. Some of the 50s machines weren't too great to play. As time went along and I got up into the 70s when I opened the skating rink and we had anywhere from three to six pinball machines in there at a time, Then I played them considerably more. And as they started to rotate them out of the skating rink to take somewhere else, I had them just refurbish them and bring them to my house. Well, you mean you were buying them as early as the 70s then? Huh? You were buying games as early as the 70s? Yeah, I started buying my first games in 73. Oh, okay. Okay, and now about how old were you then when you were doing this? 33. 33? Uh-huh. Okay. And, I mean, were you doing this because you wanted to operate the games or just because you wanted them in your home? No, I had the skating rink, and I still own the skating rink. And at that time, there wasn't any video games or anything. There was pool tables, jukeboxes, some mechanical games, and pinball. So the pinball was the better of the games that were available. And I became interested after I bought the first two or three, and then I started seeing the famous people on them, the TV shows, the movie themes, and then I started collecting. And then I got off on collecting ballet machines, and then I started collecting some of the rarer ones. I have quite a few rare machines. So when did you start with this ballet thing that you liked, the ballet machines? When did that become, like, your focus? As far as collecting the machines? Right. When I became interested in Dave Christensen, probably the 80s. So you said that you were largely interested in a lot of these machines because they had the tie-in, like the Captain Fantastic, the Wizard, that style of games. And then you kind of figured out that, hey, it's the same artist doing all this stuff. Right, and that's when I did the book. I worked on the book for years, and I started collecting all the details about the writing on the Mata Hari blade, different things like that. The hidden features of Dillinger's name and things like that in Old Chicago. Just all the little details. I started collecting pictures and flyers and all that and then I finally put the book together. In what year did you, I think, you started working on the book? Maybe eight or nine years ago. And I published it three years ago. And how successful was it? Sold over half of them. And how many did you have made? Oh, I won't tell you that. Because I'm working on, I've talked to some other artists along the way about doing some more. There's a lot of... You mean doing a different artist or the same book? No, no, another book. Another book. A lot of the artists do particular things. They have something on, a gimmick or something to create interest or just something off the wall somewhere. They'll hide things. Christensen was famous for hiding names on the head glasses, girlfriends' names, guys' names, that kind of stuff. Other operators, probably the one, and I don't really know the story on this, is Pat Lawler's red button. Nobody seems to know what that is. Even if there is a thing behind it, it might just be a gimmick. And he refuses to really talk about it. Maybe you could ask Pat sometime. I don't know the answer to that one. I've been told not to ask Pat about that. Who told you, Pat? Well, I was trying to set an interview up with him, and that was one of the first things. Look, they said, here's a list of things you cannot ask Pat, and one was the red button. Do not ask Pat about the red button. I didn't feel it was in my place to ask him why but maybe I'll ask him that I know I can't ask you about the red button but why can't I ask you about the red button? that may get me in a row I don't know the answer to that I don't know if anybody knows the answer to it other than maybe Yossi and John Krutsch or somebody like that right, right so can you say what other artists you were looking at for the books? oh, I've talked to Margaret Hudson Greg Freres Paul Faris he did different kinds of artwork well let me put it to you this way other than Christensen who is your second favorite artist I'd say that would be a toss up between Greg Freres and John Yosey ok interesting although Stan Percoma has done a lot on the ballet stuff. Not the ballet, on the Capcom. Right. His artwork is a little different. It's got the splashiness that Christensen had, and it's got the different detail. If you ever really look into like Big Bang Bar, the creatures and things that are on there and the story behind it. Let's see. We have another one to talk about. Yeah, because he was the artist for Big Bang Bar. Stan for Coma. Right, right. Okay, Greg Freres. He did the artwork for Phantom, Phantom, the water type Phantom. Right, the Batman. Okay, that's the only machine, as far as I know, that a murder is being committed on the head glass. Where the mermaids are grounding the diver. Right. I own the artwork for that. There was like ten or more different names they had picked for that. That drawing for the head glass, I've got three different variations of that. So maybe I've got an in to the different artists because I own all the artwork from all the machines from Valley Williams. I've got file cabinets full of it. and the things that they accepted and didn't accept. If you look in the back of my book, there's four or five pictures of headglasses that Christensen did and it was rejected, but yet the titles were used. Same thing with Capcom. There is some artwork floating around in there for different games that was not produced. Did you get the Capcom artwork too? Yes. Okay. Now, here's a good one. What is your favorite Bally back glass? Oh, boy. You know what mine is? Huh? Mine is Nitro Ground Shaker. You know, Nitro Ground Shaker is the one that Chris used to put his face and name on. I just love that glass. Every time I look at it. Did you ever look at the control tower where the girl's got her leg sticking out of it? Right. Those are the kind of things that hit him. I don't know if I really ever got a paper. I've got so many of them, I've got over 1,000 machines. And at one time I was up to 1,600. And then you had that big auction. Well, then I had that auction because I needed more warehouse space for the parts company. I'm using 40,000 square feet right now for the parts company. And we're using the majority of a 20,000 square foot building for the manufacturing setup. Now, of your 1,000 machines, did you just get these gradually over the years, or was there like a big buy where you got them? No, I gradually bought them. I went to auctions. I'd buy two or three. Once in a while, I'll tell you one. We bought a man's collection once. My wife and I drove a considerable distance to pick it up. We negotiated a deal. We brought part of it back, paid him some money. we went back the following week to pick the rest of it up about 60 machines and as we were loading up and we had the truck and trailer loaded and we were getting ready to leave we were going to leave town late in the afternoon I said well come on we'll go out to eat he said no I can't wait to see you guys leave and I said have we offended you or something and he said no it's $10,000 I just gave him $10,000 and $100 bills he said as soon as you people get out of the driveway I'm going to lay all this on the bed and get naked and roll around in it. And that is a true story. We work on one project at a time. Right now, our next engineers meeting and stuff is Wednesday night, and we're redeveloping the Capcom system so we can remake the boards and things. Now, that's what I was going to ask you. Now, with the Big Bang Bar project, did you exhaust the supply of, like, CPU and driver boards and power supplies? Yes. So if you're going to remake Kingpin, for example, what are you going to do? We're making new boards. We had an engineer's meeting on Sunday and Saturday, I'm sorry, Saturday in Chicago. And all of them and the programmers are coming down here Wednesday night. And we're going to sit around the swimming pool and have pizza and talk. Okay. And are they receptive to this? Sure. Why wouldn't they be? Like, when the expo, when, were you there when Gomez was making his speech? Yeah, I was there. I was in the room. Okay. Well, Fred and I were sitting right in the front booth, front table. And I said, Fred, I think I can do something about this. And I was due to go in for an operation for a hip replacement on Monday. So I went into the hospital. I come back home and I spend $1,000 on telephone calls the next month, talking, interviewing people and things. And I went to Williams, called them. Couldn't go up there because I couldn't travel. I said, I'm interested in buying the company. Well, you'll have to sign a confidentiality. So I signed a confidentiality thing. They sent me a stack of computer printout sheets, at least six inches tall. So I started going through them, and I'm finding out all the petty cash, who got paid this, who did this, everything. And I got back to them. I said, how much do you want for the company? well we'll have to do a due diligence and then you've got to make an offer I said no I just want to know what you want for the company and they said well we can't do it that way and I said well I'd like to do it while there's still the people around someone we're still working and someone was on call I said well no you can't do that you can't hire any of our employees for a year I said they're not your employees anymore you laid them off well that doesn't make any difference I said okay I got a million dollars on the table. Let me know if you want to sell it. What was their response? They got back to me and said, our board of directors decided they could take a bigger write-off. They got a $4.9 million write-off, more than what they already had. And I'm rounding off these figures. I'm still under a confidential thing. I can't say the exact figures. And so I said, okay, tell me what you want. well, okay, and we hum-hawed around, and we agreed on a little over $2 billion. So they were ready to do it. Set up our booth, rented two booths, set up the machines I'd made from Capcom, the pool employer, took three of them out there, set up some parts and other things, had all the announcements ready to make, the signs and everything, and I was buying all the patents, everything, lock, stock, and barrel. When I got the fax we stayed at one of the hotels. They faxed me all the contracts. My lawyer was in Bloomington. I was in Las Vegas. Their lawyer was in Chicago. And Oren Eddington, the vice president and senior lawyer, was in Venice, Italy. So we're faxing papers back and forth. And when it comes to sign, we had everything prearranged. And I got to looking and, true, they were selling me everything, but they wanted a worldwide exclusive use. on the patents, the trademarks and everything, for anything they wanted to use it for. And I said, no, I'm not going to do that. The money's in the bank. We'll wire transfer when you want it. It's not going to be that way. They said, well, we'll just drop it. Yeah, because that limits your use. I said, okay, you know where I'm at. So it went about four or five months. And pinball resource Steve called me and said, Gene, I'd like to get some American-made rubbers. And I said, well, I've got the rights to the moles and everything. We can do that. So we contacted the company that had them. And, well, we can't make them for you unless Williams okays it. I said, Williams is not in business. I own the parts business. Well, we can't do that. So we went to Williams, had a meeting with the controller, his senior vice president, and somebody else. And I said, we'd like to use them. If not, sell them to me. I didn't own the tooling at that time. I just had the rights to use it. we'll let you know. A couple of weeks later, they call me back and say, well, we decided not to sell it. So therefore, I couldn't use it. So I said, again, you people know where I am. So about four months after that, I got a call one Wednesday afternoon that said, Mr. Cunningham, we would like for you to come to Chicago on Friday afternoon. We wish to take you out to lunch. Complete turnaround. What happened? It took us an hour and 45 minutes to negotiate to buy the rest of the stuff. Man, unbelievable. I mean, what were they thinking? Who knows? Who knows? Then when it came time to buy the tooling, which I've been trying to buy, and the artwork and other stuff, they put it at the opening bid of a half million dollars. Was that a good price? Was that a good price or a high price well four of the eight of them thought it was a good price So I wasn supposed to talk about it Well, I didn't talk about it. I had people call. People were calling me. They said, how can they sell this stuff if you have a license to use it? I said, why don't you put the word exclusive in that? And it dawned on them. I still had three years to go on my contract. My exclusive contract just expired last October. That's when Wayne got involved, right? That's when Wayne got involved. Now, what's your relationship with Wayne? Arms length. Arms length. Arms length. Yeah. Well, that's the only way it can be. What did Wayne buy? Do you have any idea? Hey, you know what? I went through the stock information, and it's really vague. It's really vague on every level. It looks like they sold him some part of Bally for a million dollars over four or five years, I forget, where he has to make. They can't sell him Bally. I've got Bally. Well, they sold him some sort of rights. Rights. You used the Bally name, right? Right. And they let him finance it over four or five years at, you know, $200,000 or $250,000 a year. Mm-hmm. And that's about all I got out of the stock profile. Okay. There isn't much more there. He got the pinball name. okay yep he got the rights to use the valley name not the ownership the rights same thing I got he got the patents that I I I got the main patents I got the ball trough the the ramp for medieval madness I got everything for pin game 2000 and I got some pop-up I got 21 patents I think he's got the rest of them now did you get the good ones and he got the bad ones? I sort of said that, didn't I? He got the rights to make machines, which I have the rights to make machines. They slipped up and they gave him the rights to use all the Williams tooling. Well, they forgot that they'd sold me the Williams tooling. So there's been a big hassle about that, but we've got that all straightened out now. Did that work out to your benefit or his? or both? Mine mostly. You know what third-party rights mean? Yeah, sure. I'm not a lawyer, but... We've been buying... I bought most all the third-party rights up from the kids. You mean like the... Yeah, yeah. All those. The license themes, as it may be. Most people know it. I'm sorry? Most people would associate the third-party as a license theme. Uh-huh. You know, you're right. Like, there's a third party involved. Like, with Elvira, you have to get... Well, we got Elvira, and we got Scourge too. Right, you've got to get her involved in order to make the artwork. So you not only need the rights from... Well, Wayne just made some artwork for that. But he doesn't have the third party right to that. No. So the lawyer contacted him on that, and he had to ship it to us to destroy it. I'll bet that burned his ass. Yeah, I bet that... You think that would do it? Yeah, I didn't think that would feel so good. That'd be like swallowing a bottle of Red Hot sauce and trying to put it out with gasoline. Yeah, put it out with gasoline. You're right. Yeah, it just doesn't sound like it. That just made me think we went and seen the movie Wild Hogs last night. Yeah. And they burned her can up by throwing gasoline on it. That's a great movie if you all go see it. Okay, we're going to take a little break, and we'll be right back with Gene Cunningham from Illinois Pinball. Think you have what it takes to get out of TopCast? So do we. Truth is, we can't get enough of these personal promos. You know, Hi, this is Rick Swanson. This is Eric A. Hey, this is Flippy. Hey, this is Curb, and you're listening to... Hey, Pinheads, this is Mr. Hyden. So if you have a sensational desire to hear yourself plugging TopCast on the virtual radio, and we really hope you do, send the corn an email. and he'll give you instructions on how you can be on the next show. T-H-E-K-O-R-N at T-H-E-K-O-R-N dot net. The Corn at The Corn dot net. And we'll get you fixed up right away and probably on the next show. Okay, we're back and we're talking with Gene Cunningham of Illinois Pinball and his endeavors when he bought the Bally Williams pinball assets in 2000 and also his Big Bang Bower project and Kingpin projects. So with Wayne, I mean, can you work with the guy at all? Nope. Not at all? Well, he was one of our distributors. Now, when was that? Before he bought the company. Okay. See, I had a chance to buy that, too, and I turned it down. There wasn't nothing there for me. I had it all out already. Right, you had everything. because see they've since they sold Churchill Cabinet some of the video games to make they've sold White Rabbit rights to make a pinball machine supposedly they've sold some oriental guy named Mr. Woo rights to make machines pinball machines but nothing's ever come out of that Mr. Woo was involved along with ICE You know, Isis. Yeah, Isis out of Buffalo, and they were looking to buy the Pally Williams. Yep, they were. They were one of the four in the $5.5 million suit. Right. But apparently they got that and then bailed. Huh? Apparently they got somewhere with that deal and then just fell out of the race. Well, they found out I had an exclusive, yes. Right. And I went ahead and bought it. Now, who else? So you had Isis in the race. You had you in the race. Stern. Stern. So Stern was in the race at one point. Yeah. Okay. Now what would Stern do with that? Tooling, the rights, the artwork, that kind of stuff. The patents. The package. Yeah. Okay, so now Churchill, which is gone now. Churchill is gone, right? No, they're still around. They're making cabinets. They do. They make all Stern's cabinets. And do they make, you know, who made the cabinets for Big Bang Bar? Churchill. and Chicago Coin. It took them nine months to do it. Now, what happened to Tag? I bought Tag. You bought Tag. And that's your playfield company? No, my playfield company is L.A. Pinball. But, I mean, you're using Tag's equipment. No, it's my equipment. Okay, well, okay. Who was Tag's? Yes, I am. Okay, okay. And now, how's that going? Good. We're on our fifth play field. Okay, so what have you done? What have you done? You've done Kiss. You did Adam. We've done Kiss. We've done Adam's family. In coercion with the guys in Nova Scotia, we did Centaur. Right. We have done 8 Ball Deluxe. We've done Funhouse. This is the second running of Funhouse. And we're doing the second running of Kiss. And we're getting the plastics and stuff. So we've got the wood in already to do Creature from the Black Lagoon. But if we go ahead and do Kingpin, we'll probably be sidetracked for six months doing that because that will be 300 playfields or more. Now, when you did Big Bang Bar, did your company do that? No. Churchill did. Churchill. And did the Centaur play field. Uh-huh. How did that project work? We provided the artwork, the plastics, and the license. You're okay for them to make it. We then pre-sold them. They made them and delivered them to us, and we shipped them. And were you happy with the deal? Pretty much. It also worked out okay? Yes, we're going to do Zeon with them next. Okay. Now, I've heard that they might be working with Wayne, too. Does that concern you? It concerns me. If they are, they ain't going to be working with us. Okay. Just a vicious rumor. I certainly can't, I'm not speaking for anybody. All right, now let's talk about the Big Bang Bar Project. Okay. Now, how did you acquire the rights, or how did you acquire anything from Capcom for that matter? Capcom was in business in Chicago. They ceased operations. They moved their parts business and things to California. I heard in a roundabout way it was for sale. I knew Steve Blatspieler, the man that was managing the company. I made a deal with him, sent him a check, and went out and picked it up. And you got a lot of stuff, a little stuff? A lot of stuff. Leftovers or real goods? A little bit of everything. All their parts business. Roughly half a million dollars worth of inventory. how many complete board sets? 191 which by the way is the number of Big Bang Bars right? no we're we actually produced 173 then we've got the prototypes and things which brings it to 185 so you cut it pretty close cut it pretty close when we got four boards left over. When you pulled these board sets out, were they all working? They were all still in the boxes and everything. So they were. I bought them off of a man named Dennis O'Kerry who owned WITCO. Okay. Interesting. Now, what would ever make someone decide to manufacture a pinball machine? I mean, what were you thinking, man? with the Big Bang Bar project. Why? Why? That is really a good question. Too bad hindsight and foresight don't run together. I sat down and I figured I'd make the machine. I had a lot of interest in it. When I took the Big Bang Bar machine to Chicago at a dollar a play, there was 417 people played it. I donated that money to make a wish. When we took it to Texas, there was 176 people who played it one day at a dollar a piece and we'd do them at the Humane Society down there. So I got to sit down and I got to think and everybody said make the machine, make the machine. It's really easy for everybody to say that. It sure is. So we sent out this questionnaire of how many people and we had 100 people sign up and say they'd take one. No money commitment and just kept more coming in. Right. So I sat down and I figured out that I could make the machine for $4,500. break even. So that's what I charged everybody. Well, not realizing all the problems of people making things the wrong way, things that don't work, and all the rest of it. You were looking at it... I'm about $300,000 over. Right, you were looking at it in pure black and white terms. Right, as a break even. Right, and completely forgot that there's going to be lots of gray. Well, I tried to make improvements. Okay. The arrows, most of the arrows on Big Bang Bar don't work or didn't work. In the original model, you mean? Right. So I went to the original company. They submitted some. They still didn't. They broke easy. So I went to a company up in Indiana and asked them if they could re-engineer it. I said the 470 volts where you get tickled on if you put your finger on them. Could they make it on 12 volts? So we spent $15,000 for them to make a little black box that programmed it and used it off 12 volts. It worked fine, except the lights weren't always bright. Sometimes one would be dim, sometimes two would be dim, sometimes all three would be bright. So we scrapped that. Went back to the original. Now to go back to the original, I've got to make the whole boards plus the arrows. So it cost me like $50 a piece to make the boards. Probably more than that, probably $150 a piece to make the boards. And then $50 a set for the arrows. And you felt that this was a strong enough feature of the game that it warranted all this? Right. Well, then we made another improvement. We took the tube dancer. On the original one, the tube dancer was made out of colored silicone, and the legs sagged and drug on the bottom and stuff. So we made a new mold up, cast them. I went to a toy company and asked them how much they'd charge me to make 300 of them. They said $94,000. And I said, I think I'll find somebody else. So we found a model shop out there in Illinois. And it cost me about $50 by $60 a piece. But we also made them out of a bit of silicone. They handmade them one at a time. And they glow in the dark now. When you shut the lights off, the tube dancer glows. The black light, we experimented with making it stronger. we decided not to. We made our green tube. We have an option that will show after we deliver them of like a horseshoe blue, an orange, or a pink, or a circle that can go around the tube. If you've ever seen the picture of Scholz, the president of Capcom's original machine, it had the rings around it. Well, they're ball traps. So how we're going to handle that, I think we're going to go with a horseshoe where the ball would roll out. and that's going to be like an add-on that's going to be an add-on afterwards and we'll send a letter out to see how many people would like them we'll know how much the price is going to be and there'll be so much a set do you have an estimate of what you think it'll cost 50 bucks a set and you think that's a worthwhile feature well it really shows up in the blacklight yeah I bet it does well if you're going to be at either of the shows where we're going to be you can see what they look like right well yeah you're going to Texas You're going all around. Fred's even got some pictures of them on the Internet. Right. On the forum. Now, so of 170-odd machines, last summer you were actually kind of forced to deliver the European orders. Yes, I think that was a soldering thing. We delivered 12. Just 12? 12 was the whole European order? Uh-huh. And none to the U.K., but plenty to, what, Belgium and the Netherlands? Well, there's been three more since then, too. Oh, there has? Yeah. And now where did those three go? to Austria. Okay. Now, were they part, did they have to abide by the lead? We're not 100% sure on that. They had a broker out of Chicago that came and picked them up, and they're going to take care of getting them in. So? I don't believe this, but I'm going to tell you. They're going to ship them. They're going to ship them to Poland. They're going in as luxury items, and then they'll be delivered to your, to Austria. Yeah, talking about the long way, huh? It's a long way of doing it, but they say they can do it, so. I've got paid for them. They're picking them up at the truck. So, they're gone. Right. And those just went out? Mm-hmm. Now, of the 170-odd machines that, well, so you've got basically 160 machines that you own. About 165 or somewhere. Okay, so you had 165 that you owe people in North America. And Canada. And Australia. Right. Now, of that number, how many are completed? All of them. All of them. 100% done? No. Cabinets are done, side art's on, guts is in them, playfields are put together, they're still in the... We doing a little more thorough work on these we have a test unit made up we can set the complete play field up plug it in and let it play Then we hook it up put it in the machine and do the same thing Then we go through and make fine adjustments. One of the fine adjustments that we make is the aliens that spit the ball out from all the ball. They don't always spit the ball out. So we've played with this. We tried to make adjustments on them. We found out by thickening the paint up in the back of the mouth, just a couple of layers, it would make them work correctly. Now, did the original also have this problem, or just your version? I think the original did, too. We took one of the original aliens. As a matter of fact, we took the aliens off my machine that I have, the original machine, and we took them up to an artist in Wisconsin. And he had him cast, had a company cast him and cast him in white. Then he coats him and then he hand paints him. And if you ever get a chance to look at one of them, he does an excellent job. He sets and does them while you're watching TV. Jeez. That sounds like a retired guy's job. No, he's not retired. He's doing it. Drinking beer and painting aliens. Huh? He's painting aliens, right. Watching CSI, drinking beer and painting aliens. Mm-hmm. That's about it. Yeah. I bet. I bet. So, overall, you've got how many more to do the final testing on? You know, until you can say you're 100% done. Maybe 10. 10. Okay. Okay, so you've got 155 units sitting in the boxes just looking at them. They're just there. No, they're locked up. I once got a key in there in three different warehouses. Because that must be an incredible amount of room to house those things. Well, I own a lot of commercial buildings, and I have an 85,000-square-foot warehouse complex. You've got a place to put them. I've got a place to put them. Okay. And so you're just going to have sometime in April, trucking companies going to show up. Shooting for the second week in April. We're going to Texas. All the guys that work, I'm taking six people down there, the guys that have done this hand assembly, hand work, and everything, kind of as a trip, we're taking the two machines, but we're making it a week trip. We're taking two machines and possibly taking the kingpin, if everything fits into place, and taking it to Texas. And then we're going to spend a week driving down back and down there. Then we're going to come back and be ready to ship. Now, looking back on this, was it worth it? I mean, are you glad you did this project? Yes, it's a personal satisfaction of knowing I could do it and doing it, even though it cost me $300,000. My wife is not too happy about that, but she says, well, it's my money and it's something you wanted to do, so you've done it. How many machines are you holding back in your own personal inventory? How many are you keeping out of that 180 machines or whatever? One. Just one? Mm-hmm. But you're not, I mean, you don't have any that you could sell on the side to try and recoup against that 300K? No. We might make a couple extra without some parts or something. I haven't decided that yet. You know, there's people who have been selling their rights for $6,500, $7,000. and the highest we know of one of them has paid $8,000 for the rights to somebody else to buy their machine. Well, I would figure that would, you know, at this point in time, that's, you know, I would say, you know, a year or two ago, you know, you couldn't get that for the rights. But now that the project is nearly done, it's a no-brainer, you know. So how do you feel about people doing that? That's okay. You're okay with that? I've accomplished what I wanted to do. I've made the machine. I think I've made a better machine than anyone that's ever been made. And I don't mean that to be blowing my own whistle. We tried to make improvements and correct everything we could as we went along. It's just a great playing machine. Yeah, at Expo, you know, what, four months ago, I went and saw, you know, you had a facility that was doing some work with Cary Stare, and I actually went to that facility and talked to Cary, and I was pretty impressed. What facility was that? You know, I don't remember the name of it. It was a small, kind of like a wire shop. Uh-huh. Called BIT. Right. They went bankrupt. Right. Yeah, okay. And we lost an awful lot of parts. Did you? Really? Yes. That's why we're having to replace a lot of them. Well, I was impressed at the work that Lisa Carey was doing. It was Carey and another guy, and they were working hard. The Mexican guy or big, tall guy? Big, tall guy. With glasses? Yeah. That's for it. Yeah. That's Toge. That's Toge? Yeah. Okay. The other guy. The other guy. Now, what's the story? What's this other guy's story? I keep hearing this other guy thing. That's Tred. Okay, but I mean, is he like a partner? No, he's an employee. He's an employee, okay. So this whole product is yours and yours alone. Right. So basically we can either blame or thank you for this whole thing. I hope they thank me. Yeah, I think you're going to get thanked. I think you're going to get thanked. Well, we're taking two games, extras, out of the numbers that were made that nobody bought. So you got to sign up and get the numbers you wanted. Right. I got 133. We sold that one already. No, that's me. Anyway. It's okay. I'll take any number. Actually, when I signed up and sent my check in, I wrote down, I don't really care what number. Just give me one. So if you want to give me a different number. No, no. I'm teasing you. Anyway, we're taking a regular production machine and a prototype to Texas. And the opening bid is going to be $10,000 on the regular one and $12,000 on the prototype because we only have one more prototype for sale. What are you going to do with your original? I'm keeping it. Now, where did that come from? I bought it from a professor at DeKalb, Illinois. and his wife and him just had a pair of twins. And I found out that he had a machine and I contacted him and he wanted $25,000 for it. And then I said, well, I'll give you $10,000 and a new machine. And him and his wife talked about it, said they would take $20,000. And I said, well, I got it down a little. I'll give you $19,000, and he took it. So I wrote him a checkboard and loaded up the truck. Now, where did he get that from? The what? The money? No, no, no. I mean, where did he get the game from? From the guy in DeKalb, Illinois. Okay. He got the machine in San Diego, and as near as we know, this was the only machine that had been put on location. He bought it off of an arcade in San Diego. Yeah, so he bought it from a San Diego. Now, how did he find it? He's in Illinois, and he gets a machine out of San Diego. I mean, this has got to be something. No, it was in Illinois. This man bought it when he was in San Diego. Oh, when he was in San Diego. And brought it back to Illinois when he was in school out there or something. Gotcha. Okay. The man had a doctor's degree in psychology or something. History. History, I think. Did he know he was buying a unique machine, or it was just a pinball that he was playing, and he thought, gee, it's for sale, I'll buy it? Well, at that time when he bought it, yes. I imagine he paid $1,000 or something for it. He never told me, but I would imagine that. Right. Right. Okay, we're going to take a little break, and we'll be right back with Gene Cunningham from Illinois Pinball. This portion of TopCast is brought to you by Pin Game Journal, covering the world of pinball. Visit them online at www.pingamejournal.com. Hi, this is Rick Swanson. If you want to have an enhanced podcast listening experience and do as I do, listen to the show while physically inside a Gotlam Wedgehead machine. By doing so, you'll experience all the sights, sounds, and smells of pinball while listening to Norman Shaggy. Hey, who started the friggin' game? Hello out there. I'm in here. Please don't fire any coils. Shut the damn machine off. Okay, we're back and we're talking with Gene Cunningham of Illinois Pinball and his endeavors when he bought the Bally Williams pinball assets in 2000 and also his Big Bang Bower project and Kingpin projects. Okay, now the Kingpin. Now, I played both Kingpin and Big Bang Barabot. I played David Silver's versions of those when he was doing the traveling pinball art show. And I really liked the Kingpin. I thought that was... Well, you're going to be given the chance to buy one and have your same number to match your Big Bang. And? And if you order them within... I haven't even printed this yet. But if you order one within two weeks, when we send out the things, you get a $500 discount. Or just for Big Bang Buyers, we'll get the chance to buy a machine with the same number. What price are you going to shoot at? Seeing as I've got so much overrun, my machines now are probably $6,500. It's going to probably be $7,000. And Big Bang Buyers will get it for $6,500. They'll get a $5,000 discount. if they buy within two weeks. Now, given that if you put a Big Bang Bar and a Kingpin side by side, you've obviously played them both. There's only a couple of people who's got that. There's only five Kingpins. Right. But, I mean, if you were going to set those down next to each other and, you know... I like Big Bang Bar. You do. Okay, so that's your choice of the two. Mm-hmm. Now, does Kingpin, does it feel finished and polished? You know what I mean? What do you mean? Well, I mean, you know, that machine wasn't, you know, I mean, does the software feel like it was, you know, completed, or is it kind of like a Cactus Canyon type thing, you know, where it kind of has a slight rough edge to it? We don't know. We've talked to the programmer already, and where we'll go with that, I don't know. It's just like Wizard's Block. Now, I've got the only Wizard's Block there is, and I've got the patents and everything on it. and they keep saying it's not completed. It's a complete game. It's a very good playing game. It's complete. So maybe I'll make that decision after we get into Kingpin a little. We can always change some things. So you're saying that you're considering actually remaking or making Wizard blocks? No, I'm saying I could. I'm just saying I've got the only Wizard block that was made, plus I've got five playfields that they had set up in cabinets that they were making improvements on. Now, are the playfields all whitewoods, or are they actually screened? All of them are whitewoods, and the ones in my cabinet is whitewood, but I have the artwork. So they never actually got to the point where they were screening playfields? No, the OC has got the screens and stuff made. The artwork is made, but then they pulled the plug before they finished the side art and head glass. And you've obviously played the game. What do you think of it? Of Wizard's Block? Yeah. I like it. That's what I play. And it does feel finished to you? I'm not an expert. I suppose I'm probably as knowledgeable as anybody else is, but 5% of the players is probably not complete, or not polished, if you want to call it that. Right. But that same 5%, when they play pinball machines, they worry about what the score is. They worry about the procedure, the targets, and all that. 95% of those people who play pinball just want to beat the ball around. They just want to have fun. Have fun, right. Beat the ball around. Because when you're standing behind a pinball machine, you've got your hands on it. There's just you and the machine. You only hear the people around you. You're interested in the game, and you don't want to have to look around and all the rest of the stuff. And that's one of the advantages of the 2000 series where the ball travels through the picture, through the hologram, even though it's just reflection. Right. Python Anghelo come the closest to doing something on flipper football. It had the bigger dot matrix, and there was only like an inch and a half under it, and the ball would travel under it. But you didn't have to lift your eyes up to look at the dot matrix or in the old days to look at the reels or the light bulbs. Right, right. So they progressed along. It's too bad that they didn't go ahead with the Penn Game 2000. They produced 5,200 Revenge, 5,000 Star Wars. That's wrong. Not Star Wars. Or thereabouts. Yeah. I'm getting at something else. Of the 5,000, they made 1,700 of them with conversion kits. to convert 8-Ball, or not. Yeah, to convert the Revenge to... To convert Revenge up. Right. Well, Wizard's Block would have been the same way. And then Playboy. You know, there's a fourth machine in Playboy. Right, and you have that, too. I have that, too. Now, it is not complete. It's got the 12 months of the girls, but they're just shadowy figures. They're not perfected. But the game is playable. It is playable. I mean, when you play Playboy, I mean, is it fun or is it just like... No, it's not tweaked. It's there and it's operational. It's just not complete. It is maybe 30%. And the girls aren't sexy at all. Supposedly, Wizard's Block was only supposed to be 40% or 50%. Well, that's wrong. It's complete. It could still stand some tweaking. I'm not saying that isn't true. But you get all your scores. Everything works. Right. Now, Playboy, I mean, can you see the girls? I mean, are the girls, you know... Yeah, you can see the girls. And, you know, how sexy are they? They're nude. They are? Yeah. But they're shadowy. They're not... Are they shadowy? The faces and the color of the hair and stuff is not there yet. So were they shadowy because they were just not polished or because they were actually trying to hide something? No, no. They're just on there knowing that's what they were going to be in the different poses. And then the programmers would have polished it more. And, I mean, you've obviously played the Stern Playboy. What? You've played the Stern Playboy, you know, the one that came out a couple of three years ago. Yeah, the one with Kimberly Carnrid on it. Right. How do you feel about the Pinball 2000 version versus the Stern flavor? I'm sorry? How do you feel about the pinball 2000 version of Playboy versus what Stern did with it? Stern's was a lot better. Really? Well, yeah, it's got all the detail. The pin game 2000 one doesn't have the detail. It's just, I can say it's shadowy. The play is there, the scoring is there, that kind of stuff. But the girls are not finished to use a better word rather than polished Right okay There one ramp that goes under the play field that they don have connected You can lose the ball in the upper right corner Those are just things that need a little more work. As far as playing, you can play it. Now, that's one you would never bring to market, right? Nope. Just too far away. Too far from done. To show, you mean? I mean, you'd have to hire a lot of people to make that one work. know, to get it done. Yes, probably so. Right. Right, but you see wizard blocks as being marketable and sellable. Mm-hmm. Well, see, Williams was pricing, it was I think $5,200 or somewhere. but Williams had so much overhead and they were geared their break even point supposedly was 48,000 machines a year well their last year they only made like 12,000 13,000 machines and then a lot of them were still in the boxes they sold them off they sold the kits and everything off to people for little or nothing now you can't find one right people's got them, taking them apart for the parts and stuff. Now, on Kingpin, you said you have to remake the CPU boards, because you use almost nearly every board set for Big Bang Bar. A board set. Right. When you redo the board sets, are you going to use the lead-free solder and all that kind of stuff? Yes. Boy, if it was me, I would just say, forget those Europeans. We're selling them in North America. No. You hit on something a little while ago about that BIT, the company that started this. Well, they went broke, but the company now that's doing it makes boards and things for Motorola. So they're all set up with all that already. Yeah, they're already conformed to that. And they're a much bigger operation. They're the ones that's doing some of our wire harnesses and the assembly under the play field and some of the top assembly and then putting the wire harnesses on and checking them out in Chicago before they bring them to us. Now, when I went to BIT, Kerry was working there. And, you know, how did that work out with Kerry? You guys... Kerry was actually working for me. Right. But, I mean, you guys, you know, it seemed to be working well. You know, you guys are all good. I mean, you were happy with Kerry's work, and Kerry was happy working for you and all that. Well, then he took a job. He's now a hockey coach at... Wheaton's College. Same place as Paul Faris is. So he got his dream come true job. He did. Yeah, he did. Yeah. But then he got the other job, so. Right. Well, yeah, that's what I meant. I figured that, you know, just talking to Kerry, he seemed very much like a hockey guy. You know what I mean? Uh-huh. It seemed like something he really wanted to do. Well, he's a coach and he plays. Right. Yeah, I knew he played. I knew he played, yeah. I've heard the stories. So now, have you ever seen his collection? Has he got a nice collection? Hmm? Kerry. I've never seen his. Never been there. Okay. Well, I think he lost a lot of them. His basement flooded or something? Right. You know about that? No, I didn't hear about that. I haven't talked to him since then. I haven't talked to Kerry for seven, eight months somewhere. Yeah, because he's kind of disappeared off the scene. Well, it's because he's coaching and different things. Right. I don't really still even do anything in pinball. Yeah. So any other projects that you've got coming up? Anything else interesting? We're making more playfields. We're making more... Okay, when I bought all this tooling and everything from Williams, it was scattered around at all different places. We've been gathering it up, bringing it in, and sending it in this big warehouse. Yeah, the secret Williams... So I've got three of my... Huh? The secret Williams warehouses, as they're called, right? Well, they existed. Yeah, I hear. They existed. So you had to find them. I had to find them, you betcha. I'll tell you a couple of them. Maybe ten years ago, when the bus trips was going different places, the bus driver that was driving us got lost. And I remember we went down in an industrial district and went over railroad tracks and down and alongside a brick building. They opened the door for us and started getting out. Well, we got out, and the guy opened the door, and we walked in. And it's full of Williams stuff. Machines, parts, everything. And a supervisor said over there, Well, you guys are not supposed to be here. This isn't where you're going. So they rushed us out the door, and we left. Yeah, you're talking about the Expo bus tour, and they brought you to the wrong place. I never did find that warehouse. Now, I did find, when I bought the parts stuff, we hauled it back 330 pallets. And one of the guys called me and said, Gene, we got another four pallets of stuff over in this other warehouse for you to pick up. I said, well, send me a letter and notify me. So he did that. So I went up there on Thursday or Friday, and I said, I'm here to pick up the Williams parts. Here's my bill of sale and stuff. He said, well, this is all you get. There was a pallet sitting there, and it was about half full, the whole box was just miscellaneous stuff. And I said, I'm supposed to get four pallets. He said, well, this is all you're going to get. I said, something's not right. He said, well, this is a bonded warehouse, and you can't come in and look. I said, what do you mean by look? And he said, well, see those rows back over that other wall over there? That's all William's stuff. I said, I'll tell you what. Can I put my hands in my pocket and you can walk me back to the restaurant? We went back there and there was over 100 pallets in these pallet racks. Pallets of playfields. Anything you can imagine. Circus wheels. Everything you can imagine. 110 pallets roughly so I got a hold of Williams and told him what's going on he said well we don't know there's anything even out there and I said well I'm going to go back and see this guy and he said I went back and said well it's their stuff but you can't have it because they owe rent I said a big company like that owes you rent he said yeah they haven't paid rent on us for two years oh god I thought you were going to say that you showed up back there and the warehouse was gone. It disappeared. No, it wasn't gone. It was there. So, after negotiations, William Spade, and then they decided part of this stuff was video, which it was. So I had to take Kim, two workers, two trucks, and a semi up there in August. And they would only bring out one pallet at a time out into the parking lot. We had to sort it, verify the part numbers, put it on a pallet, put it in our truck, and they would take stuff that we didn't, if it was video or something, they'd take it and put it back. They'd bring us the next one. We got 55 pallets of stuff out of that. Wow. So another warehouse was out in Mungo. That's the name of the town, Mungo. It was a big 200,000 square foot building where they made airplanes and airplane parts during the Second World War. Now it's a dilapidated old warehouse. We went out there and went in, and here's this fenced-in area over in the corner by one of the docks, another 100 pallets of stuff. So I had to pay them extra for that. I think I had to pay them $5,000. Many more semi-truckloads of stuff come back. Overall, I ended up buying the video stuff, too. Oh, you did? I probably received 600 plus pallets of stuff from Williamson. And have you sold most of that stuff or do you still have it? Sold the video stuff. Right. And most of the parts were in our parts business. We've got over 1,000 items up on the Internet. Wow. And we're adding more all the time. Now, let's talk about the rubber company in Wisconsin. Levine, what was that their name? What was their name? Yeah, you know, ABC, basically. Huh? ABC Rubber in Wisconsin that Williams owned. No, they didn't own it. Okay, so what's the story with that? Well, it was just a company that they had their moles out there. I got about 75 rubber moles from there. But they were the people that you couldn't get to actually make the rubber for you, right? Right, but I ended up buying them, and they made some stuff for us, and we pulled all the moles out there here in Bloomington. So you ended up buying the company or just the mold? The mold. The mold from Williams. We got the soccer ball. Everybody was crying about, why don't you make the soccer ball? I said, I don't know if I even got the molds for it. So we looked around and looked around, and finally I found this little round mold with two handles on it. I opened it up, and lo and behold, it looked like a soccer ball. So I said, I know they didn't make these this way. Not one at a time. So we kept looking and kept looking. We found one that made six soccer balls at a time. So I took it to another rubber company and had 1,000 of them made. Then I couldn't get nobody to print on them. Like the black. Like the blocks, right. Yeah. Finally, after about three or four different companies, one tried to make a tin mask that you could spray it, and another one tried to make it where you would spray it and draw lines in between. Finally, I went to one. And he said, well, for $1,000, we can make you a jig that we can print that. I said, okay. I said, what if you can't do it? He said, well, if we can't do it, you don't owe us nothing. I said, that sounds like a hell of a deal. So he made the rotary mold, the rotary fixture. And they printed it for about $12 a piece. Wow. And have you sold a lot of them? Half of them. So it was worth doing? I mean, you got your money back. Yes, yes. Good. On making stuff, you have to figure 50%. It's nice if you can make something for a dime and sell it for a dollar, but that's just far between. Right. Most of the time you're looking at 50%. In other words, you have 50 cents that have to cost itself for a dollar. But then you've got your overhead, your travel time, your phone bill, your utilities and everything else. So maybe we make out 30%. So when Wayne got into the picture, did it make your life more complicated, or was it like, okay, now we've got to switch it into high gear type thing? No. We just keep going along like we are. So it didn't really change anything in your opinion? Nothing. He was a non-issue? Mm-hmm. Okay. I thought maybe you thought that, well, I can feel some competition breathing down my neck. We've got to step it up a gear. you know, but you're saying no? No. Just curious. Well, another way to look at that. For years I went along, I didn't care if people made other stuff. But now it's got to where everybody's trying to make stuff. So we do have a lawyer that said, now cease and desist. And have you had to send out a lot? No. Are people pretty receptive when you do? Yes. So you've never had to... The most recent one was Dwayne. You mean with the Elvira issue? Right. Right. Because he didn't have the third-party license. Correct. Correct. Now, why would he think he did have it? Or did he just not consider it? He didn't care. He didn't. He figured he could make them and sell them and be done with it. Well, I guess you... Well, I don't know what he's figuring. I don't know the man. I've never met him. and I've talked to him on the phone a couple of times. Kim talks to him, but that's not my part of the business. I do the making and the running around. Kim does the selling and negotiating and that stuff. Kim's your daughter, right? Uh-huh. Okay. So it's a family affair. Yeah. Well, we own four businesses. The family's involved in a lot of them. I think I've got seven or eight members of the family that work for me. All right, Gene, anything else you want to throw out there? No, unless you've got a question. I think we've pretty much covered all the bases. and I can't think of anything I've left out. I'm sure there's probably plenty I have that I'll probably remember. Are you going to go to Denver? You know what? I am really thinking about it. First off, I really like Colorado. I mean, it's where I want to move to. Well, it's not going to be real cold by the time the show comes. That's okay. I'm not into real cold. I've got plenty of real cold here in Detroit. Well, you know, the guys out in Denver are making a machine, too, or starting to. What do you mean? They had it up there at the expo called Cabin Fever. Oh, right, right, right. They're actually going to make that, huh? Well, they flew out here and spent a weekend with me, and we talked about parts and other things, and they are working on getting their act together. Okay. All right, Gene. If you think of anything else you want to know, give me a call. All right. Edit some of this stuff you put on there so it sounds right. Okay. Okay, and I'll see you in... Maybe in Colorado. Colorado. Yep. You know what? I may come up with Al and pick up my machine. Okay. You know, I'm really thinking about it. You're not that far away. It's almost starting to... You're in Massachusetts or somewhere, aren't you? No, I'm in Detroit. Detroit, okay. Not that far, you know. What did I think you were... Who's in Massachusetts? I don't know. Norm. Oh. Norm's in Massachusetts. Oh, okay. That's what you're thinking. You might want to do that, and you might not want to do that. If you pick them up in Illinois, you've got to pay tax. How much is tax versus shipping? Probably about even. Well, then I guess it doesn't matter, does it? No. Well, if you want your machine faster. I got one guy that paid extra. He wants me to box it up, air freight it. The day we ship them all the same day, he wants it air freighted. How far away does he live? How far away does he live? Yeah. Michigan, I think. That makes no sense. It would be one day difference. Well, that might mean a lot to somebody. I guess. And one day difference in about, what, $1,000. You know? Yeah, that's... No, he works for the airline. He says, I'm going to go cost $75. Oh, okay. Okie dokie. All right, Gene. Thank you very much for your time. Well, looking forward to seeing you. All right, man. You take care. I don't know. The Kalamazoo show is supposed to be bigger this year. You said he had 500 people last year. Are you going to go? Yeah, we're going there. Okay. I've never been to that show. It always seemed really small. Yeah, I didn't do a lot for $5,000, but that's not too bad either. Right. It's a nice weekend. People are very friendly. Interesting town. Really interesting town. Yeah. All right, Gene, you take care. Have a good night. Thank you. Bye-bye. All right, thank you. Bye. So thank you very much, Gene. We really appreciate you coming on the show. And that's another nighttime weekday edition of the podcast. And we'll see you next time.