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Episode 212 – Save The Ice Cream!!

Slam Tilt Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 3m·analyzed·Aug 15, 2023
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.033

TL;DR

American Pinball team discusses Galactic Tank Force development, design, and campy 50s sci-fi theme.

Summary

Slam Tilt Podcast episode 212 features an in-depth discussion with the American Pinball team about Galactic Tank Force's development, design philosophy, and creative process. The episode covers the game's origin story (inspired by 1950s space tin toys), the creative decisions behind the campy tone and ice cream theme, character design and actor casting, and technical challenges like airball issues that were addressed with a shield mechanism. The team emphasizes their intentional choice to make a family-friendly, humorous game rather than a military-focused title.

Key Claims

  • The tank cabinet design was inspired by 1950s space-themed tin toy tanks, chosen because they had flat surfaces easier to adapt to pinball than the initially considered rocket ship design.

    high confidence · Dennis Nordman explains his research into tin toy collections and decision-making process for cabinet design.

  • The ice cream theme was added by Jack Hager as a creative direction to make the game less violent and more humorous, contrasting with the initial military concept.

    high confidence · Dennis Nordman: 'Ice cream you can blame on Jack. Jack is the one that went off in that direction, which I thought was funny.'

  • Galactic Tank Force experienced airball issues in production that weren't present during the developers' testing phase, attributed to vendor materials.

    high confidence · Dennis Nordman: 'Nobody in the company saw any kind of air balls or anything while we were developing the game. I don't know why that happened.' Later fixed with a shield mechanism.

  • The game's deliberate use of 'flat' jokes and 'dad jokes' with overacting was intentional to create campiness that families could enjoy together.

    high confidence · Jack Hager: 'We intentionally wanted some of the lines to fall kind of flat or the jokes to be not that great... for them as dad jokes... so you could have a good time playing the game in your home with your kids or grandkids.'

  • Actor Carrie Hoskins-Rivas (Empress Anoya) is best known for playing Sonya in the Mortal Kombat series and worked with Jack Hager previously on NBA Jam.

    high confidence · Jack Hager details Carrie's background and their previous working relationship at Midway Games.

  • The cabinet's limited edition design with tank attachments has proven commercially viable in arcade locations, attracting customers and younger players despite initial expectations it would appeal only to home collectors.

    high confidence · Dennis Nordman: 'Some of the LEs that have been put into some of the arcades and FECs so far, the game is earning fantastic and getting customers that normally don't stop and play a pinball because those big light up tank treads.'

Notable Quotes

  • “I wanted to do a unique looking pinball cabinet... pinball cabinets in general are very unattractive that's why they fill them up with artwork to make them look better.”

    Dennis Nordman @ early in discussion — Explains the core design philosophy behind the tank cabinet concept

  • “My thought was that'll keep players coming back just like Buckhunter did... you can kill it with one direct shot if you hit the red target first, and that would lead you to a better wizard mode.”

    Dennis Nordman @ rules design section — Reveals the intentional game design mechanics meant to encourage replayability

  • “We didn't always agree... But I think in the end, I hope that by now he sees my madness, that I did have a design for it. And hopefully the payoff was just entertainment.”

    Jack Hager @ creative process discussion — Shows the collaborative but sometimes contentious creative process between designers

  • “We don't want to burden the player with having to sit through a movie or a narrative... you are a rookie tank pilot. You've been assigned to this obscure moon that orbits this planet called Lumina in the Namdron galaxy.”

    Jack Hager @ narrative section — Explains the balance between storytelling and player engagement

  • “I had some costume elements, but he came up with sort of the German accent thing, and he loves ice cream, and a lot of the side jokes are all Jeff's.”

    Jack Hager @ character development section — Shows actor collaboration in character development

  • “The arrangement of the targets in front of the tank I tried several different arrangements... And it worked on paper. But, of course, with ball speed and ball spin, you can't really control that.”

    Dennis Nordman @ technical challenges section — Illustrates the gap between playfield design theory and physical reality

  • “I read Pinside. It is okay... we intentionally wanted some of the lines to fall kind of flat or the jokes to be not that great, like as people call them, you know, for them as dad jokes.”

Entities

Dennis NordmanpersonJack HagerpersonPaul RenopersonChristopher FranchipersonSteve BowdenpersonGalactic Tank ForcegameAmerican Pinballcompany

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: American Pinball team actively engaged with Slam Tilt Podcast and community feedback, with Jack Hager explicitly acknowledging reading Pinside forums and defending design choices against criticism.

    high · Jack Hager: 'I do read Pinside' and responds to criticism about overacting and flat humor by explaining intentional artistic choices.

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Development process involved iterative dialogue between designers with not always agreement, particularly between Dennis Nordman's initial concepts and Jack Hager's creative direction (ice cream theme, campiness).

    high · Jack Hager: 'We didn't always agree... But I think in the end, I hope that by now he sees my madness, that I did have a design for it.'

  • ?

    design_innovation: Galactic Tank Force employed unique visual enhancement with 3D lenticular back glass coordinated with Christopher Franchi's artwork, particularly around monitor display area, praised as noteworthy technical achievement.

    medium · Dennis Nordman: '3D back glass the lenticular back glass and the way the lighting plays against Chris's artwork... I don't know anybody who doesn't go nuts over that.'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: American Pinball deliberately chose campy, humorous tone with intentionally flat jokes and overacting rather than serious military theme, as deliberate design strategy to appeal to families and create enjoyable home experience.

    high · Jack Hager: 'We intentionally wanted some of the lines to fall kind of flat or the jokes to be not that great, like as people call them dad jokes and all that. So you could have a good time playing the game in your home with your kids or grandkids.'

  • $

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.191

0:00
Wow, this really is everybody who's ever been on MTV, isn't it? Uh, wait a minute. If it's everyone who's ever been on MTV, how come we weren't invited? Yeah, yeah, this sucks. They never liked us. I could always tell. It's like they were ashamed of us, and they never let us score. Dammit, Beavis, settle down. Maybe we can still get in. Let's, like, call them. Yeah, yeah, let's go. Yeah, I need the number for MTV immediately.
0:33
What? I don't know. Hey, butthead, how do you spell MTV? Coming to you from beautiful upstate New York, this is the Slam Tilt Podcast, a show about all things pinball. I'm your host, Ron Hallett, here with the other host, Bruce Nightingale. Hello, hello. Hello, Bruce. Hi, Ron. How are you doing? I'm doing great. And this is episode 212. And this is a very special episode, Bruce. Yes, very special. I think this is a new thing for us. I don't think we've done this yet. I don't think so either. But we have the crew here from American Pinball. And we're going to be talking Galactic Tank Force. Yes. everything you'd ever want to know about the game. So we have, I have in my notes, introduce yourselves, but I actually have a list here. We'll see if I get everyone's name right. So we have Dennis Nordman on design, Paul Reno on design, Jack Hager on art director, Christopher Franchi, the artist, and Steve Bowden on rules. Welcome, everyone. Welcome, everybody. Thank you. So let's just start right off. galactic tank force how did this come about why tanks why tanks so this is dennis so i'll try to answer that as much as i can remember because paul and i started this project a long time ago but i wanted to do a unique looking pinball cabinet i did one with woe nelly and um i just think pinball cabinets in general are very unattractive that's why they fill them up with artwork to make them look better. I wanted to do something that looked interesting when it was closed up, something interesting for people's game room. A lot of people have cool stuff in their game room, gas pumps and jukeboxes. I wanted to do some 50s sci-fi kind of rocket ship, but I soon realized with all the curvilinear forms that that would require working fiberglass, and I didn't want to deal with that. So I remembered in my tin toy picture collection on the Internet that in the 50s there were these toys called space tanks. And mostly what they were was redecorated tin toy tanks from the war. And they were just decorated with space graphics. But they had a lot of flat surfaces, much easier to adapt to a pinball game. So that's how the tank cabinet got started. Plus, I just love the colorful design of all of these space tanks. And Chris, of course, took a plain wood cabinet and made it beautiful with all of his graphics. But that's how the tank itself came about. Then the play field, I think I started it. Then I invited Paul Reno in to help me build it and wire it and design it. And, Paul, you can comment if you want if my memory is incorrect on that. sounds correct so far okay so we worked on it on and off for a number of years anyway that's why space tanks okay so you you're going to go with tanks so looking at the play field how how did that come about like basically you have the tank directly in front of the player yeah well if we have a game with cabinet that looks like a tank i think paul was involved at this point, but we assumed that you would need to battle a tank. And my first initial thought with the game rules was to make it like Buck Hunter, the video game. I had one in my office because I had started on Buck Hunter, the pinball game, before I got laid off from Stern. But I loved that game because it kept me coming back because I wanted to shoot every animal with a headshot, And that was very difficult to do. So we have the same thing in the tank that's right there in front of the player, is that you can kill a tank by wounding it two or three times, and then finally you can kill it, or you can kill it with one direct shot if you hit the red target first, and that would lead you to a better wizard mode than just by killing the tank with a lot of shots. So my thought was that'll keep players coming back just like Buckhunter did. And then you have the swinging target that has a cow on it. Yeah, of course. If you have a space game, you've got to have a UFO, and it's got to have a cow under it. So, yeah, where did that whole idea come about? Because at some point it looks like the idea was to make this as very campy, as camp as possible. Like we have cows. We have ice cream. Well, ice cream you can blame on Jack. Jack is the one that went off in that direction, which I thought was funny. It made the game less violent and more humorous. I mean, it's a war over ice cream, so it's not that bad of a war.

Jack Hager @ community criticism discussion — Directly addresses and defends against community criticism found on Pinside forums

Clementine Moorfoot
person
Jeff Hooverperson
Carrie Hoskins-Rivasperson
Mitch Pollittperson
Slam Tilt Podcastorganization
Ron Hallettperson
Bruce Nightingaleperson
Midway Gamescompany
Beast tournamentevent
John Yauseyperson
Jessica Derbalaperson
Bobby Laresaperson
David Fixperson
Cirque du Soleilcompany

market_signal: Limited edition tank cabinet variant performing unexpectedly well in arcade/FEC locations despite initial expectation it would only appeal to home collectors, attracting younger players and non-traditional pinball customers.

high · Dennis Nordman: 'Some of the LEs that have been put into some of the arcades and FECs so far, the game is earning fantastic and getting customers that normally don't stop and play a pinball because those big light up tank treads.'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Christopher Franchi transitioned from Stern Pinball (where he worked on Guardians of the Galaxy, Beatles) to contribute to American Pinball's Galactic Tank Force as artist, representing boutique manufacturer attracting established industry talent.

    high · Franchi states: 'Usually when I come in, I'm working on Guardians of the Galaxy or Beatles or something that's already created and you can't really steer away from that' but with GTF had creative freedom.

  • ?

    product_strategy: American Pinball created both standard deluxe and limited edition tank cabinet variants, with tank attachments primarily appealing to home collectors but LE version proving viable in commercial settings.

    high · Dennis Nordman: 'I knew not everybody would want to buy that cabinet... especially I didn't expect arcades to buy it' but LEs have been successful in arcades despite expectations.

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: Video asset production faced logistical constraints with actors from different locations (Seattle, Chicago, Hollywood) filmed separately across multiple months, requiring flexible scheduling and pickup shoots.

    high · Jack Hager describes scheduling: 'we didn't have all of the actors lined up in the same month... We never really had all of the actors at one time' with pickups filmed months later.

  • ?

    product_concern: Galactic Tank Force experienced production airball issues not present during developer testing, later resolved with addition of shield mechanism over targets.

    high · Dennis Nordman: 'Nobody in the company saw any kind of air balls or anything while we were developing the game. I don't know why that happened.' Later: 'We've added a shield on top of the targets, which really helps deflect the air balls.'

    • 5:56
    So we had the swinging target, and at some point I stuck a UFO on top of it like it was UFO swinging back and forth. And then I found these miniature cows, so I stuck one of those on there. So where did the whole concept of the story of the game, because you have a bunch of different characters in the game that are represented on the video clips. There's a lot of video assets, and they're actually on the actual actors who play the roles or on the artwork. They're on the back glass.
    6:30
    Jack is the guy to talk to about that. Jack was the creative genius that came up with that whole storyline.
    6:37
    Jack just left for a pizza, I think. He was here a minute ago, but I'll let you know when he's back.
    6:45
    No, this is Jack, and guilty as charged. And I'm not going to let Dennis off that easy. He and Paul gave us a tremendous amount of inspiration starting this game. My background was with Midway Games for many, many years. And that's actually where I met Dennis and Greg Freris and Python Angelo, several other people, the Ritchie brothers, because the video department was just downstairs from the pinball department. So we would intermingle and, you know, co-inspire each other on projects and everything. So I was very much involved at Midway with video coming into arcade games. So starting with NARC, which then led to games like Mortal Kombat, the Mortal Kombat franchise, NBA Jam, NHL Open Ice, anything that used 2D digitization in putting them into games. I was pretty much spearheading that at Midway early on. Let me interrupt for one second, Jack. Jack is the guy that sculpted the Skull Mountain for Elvira and the Party Monsters. That is true. And so if you can pick one of those up, I'll be happy to sign it for you if you ever see me at a trade show someday. So like Dennis said, you know, Dennis showed up, and he had showed me the tank game a few years prior to my starting at American. But when I came in, we were finishing up Hot Wheels and Legends of Alhalla. I was involved in just making sure that those guys got everything they needed to produce their game. And then Dennis brought in his tank prototype with Paul, and it was phenomenal. It was my first time seeing it in person, and everything was just as Dennis described it. So there was, you know, the tank in the middle of the play field. There was the cow hanging from a UFO. There was the planet on the back wall with the three rings. And then he had this great concept artwork from John Yausey from years earlier that John took a stab at it and really kind of fostered the whole 1950s pulp science fiction look at that time. So I just kind of looked at the things, and part of my job was I also wrote games, and I wrote dialogue and worked with actors, live actors a lot. And just seeing the cow, the way I think, it just really inspired what comes out of cows, what cows make milk. But what's even cooler than milk? Well, ice cream. Oh, my God, everybody loves ice cream. and the planet on the back wall is what threw the whole thing into outer space because it's like, well, this play field must be taking place somewhere that's not Earth and why do they have a cow on this moon? And I just thought, well, maybe it's like a research base. That's kind of cool and maybe there's something special about the planet and it was just thrown out and I just kind of wanted to see how people would respond to it And you could definitely immediately, definitely could have immediately taken steps to make the game more aggressive or more military. And we decided not to almost immediately. And I'm sure there's, you know, any number of opinions about that. But we thought, no, Dennis really enjoyed kind of reaching for the campiness of 1950s pulp entertainment and so on and so forth. and the ice cream was just a little element that I thought, well, that could exist in this story. Let's see how that works. And then Dennis had some character ideas. So he had the idea for a heroine, a female heroine in the game who ended up becoming Captain Kyan and she would be driving a similar tank and giving you advice potentially. That kind of developed and grew. And then there might be a male hero character. That's where Duke Moonwalker came in. And a lot of these names came either also from Dennis or from David Fix or a group of people might go, hey, what if we use this name or whatever? Dennis came up with the name of Kyan for Captain Kyan, and I just changed. And that helped direct the design a bit too. So that's why she has flaming red hair. And then to contrast with the hair, the blue outfit looks really nice on the sketches I was doing, which then kind of then led to the design of Duke's outfit as well, and them being sort of like the blue outfits. And then we had to have somebody responsible for the ice cream or somebody who was driving the ice cream processing. and that's where Professor Plotnick comes in. And somebody from England actually asked me if I intentionally gave him that name because in England, if you said that somebody was a Plotnick, like to nick something in England means to steal. So this guy steals the plot and it wasn't intentional. I just thought, no, Plotnick's a good name. And so that's where Professor Plotnick came from. And I can go more into the characters later, but that's essentially how that stuff came up. And I just tried to keep bouncing things off of Dennis. And we didn't always agree, you know, that is this what you want or should we go for this? But I think in the end, I hope that by now he sees my madness, that I did have a design for it. And hopefully the payoff was just entertainment. We just wanted to entertain people and make something quirky enough that would bring them back and hopefully invite younger players and families into the game as well. Jack added a lot of interesting details. He probably made thousands and thousands of sketches for each little detail in the game. One thing that I thought was great that he did was he wanted to put some kind of a design on the UFO. and I was just thinking military-looking kind of stuff. Jack came up with the idea of doing a crop circle design on top of the UFO, so that's where crop circles come from. Yeah. So thank you, Dennis. But as all this comes together and as we, you know, I feel like I just sort of put up the rough carpentry for this structure, But then having Chris Franchi come in and then really put a polish and a cohesiveness on everything was just wonderful and really showed. And consistently, everybody loves the artwork, the cabinet artwork on Galactic Tank Force. And I say cabinet artwork specifically because there are separate artists who do video artwork, and I want to comment on them as we move on. But the work that Chris did really brought it all together and gave it just a great polish. And he brought his own inventiveness and his own creativity into the process, too, that just put it over the top as far as I was concerned.
    14:34
    So, Mr. Franchi, walk us through your creative process here. You come in, you see we're doing 50 sci-fi.
    14:43
    My creative process, well, it was mostly, I mean, you know, Jack really had everything nailed down when I got there. So I was just really kind of polishing some things out. And like the characters, the costumes that were made weren't, you know, they had a certain budget to work with. And I felt like as far as artwork goes, I could, you know, blow that up a little bit. You know, add little trim and little pieces on the outfit and all that that aren't necessarily there that you're not really going to notice are missing. But it just kind of helps with the artwork. and um you know but but really everything was was laid out i didn't really have to create anything i think i i think i did the logo which was really based on something jack had already done and i just sort of played with it a bit but uh you know as far as the creation of this stuff goes uh jack gets all the credit for that i just really just rendered it yeah but you know when an artist this given subject matter and their their way of interpreting it is how it transformed and things happen with the back glass and then oh my God then the 3D back glass the lenticular back glass and the way the lighting plays against Chris's artwork all over the cabinet, especially around the monitor display. I don't know anybody who doesn't go nuts over that and all of the details in that. That's totally Chris Franchi. and we were really, really fortunate to have Chris on the project. That's for darn sure.
    16:29
    Well, it was fun to do that because Jack allowed for a lot of looseness on this stuff. And usually when I come in, I'm working on Guardians of the Galaxy or Beatles or something that's already created and you can't really steer away from that. You can kind of create a certain vibe. but that's really it. But with Galactic Tank Force, you know, this stuff was all just being created. And, you know, Jack, you know, allowed for freedom in certain areas and all that, which was really fun. So, you know, I suppose I did add, you know, some things here and there. But, you know, it was it was what the project, you know, dictated and how Jack, you know, handled running the process of these things, you know, coming together. so early on it says like there was a decision made we're going to have the cabinet that looked like a tank yeah yeah yeah you couldn't you couldn't that was that that was literally the elephant in the room i mean it was it was here the prototype was here and the prototype was beautiful too every every version of this that dennis worked on was amazing and beautiful Paul helped me build that prototype. We built the cabinet. We painted it. My stepson made some graphics for it. Paul helped me wire the play field and came up with some great play field ideas. The mirror in the back and the planet, I think, was Paul's idea. And putting the mirror behind it made it look like a real three-dimensional planet.
    18:04
    Yeah, and the tank, you know, as far as putting the tank together, As Dennis said, his son did some graphics, you know, some pretty basic stuff just to put on there. But that was really the inspiration for what I did. Between that and, you know, Dennis and I both share a love for old tin space toys, so I had books laying around. We actually have the same books. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So, you know, I just did some research, and, you know, I'm very familiar with the tin litho process. So I knew, you know, making this cabinet, certain graphics are going to have to be very flat, very two-dimensional, solid colors. And then things like the rockets have more dimension to it because they're supposed to be mounted, you know, real three-dimensional rockets mounted on the side of the spaceship.
    18:51
    And then, of course, the tin, you know, rather than just go really flat with it, I made it look more like it was a life-size tank. So there was some rippling in the sheet metal and rivets and stuff like that. But, yeah, it was basically a conversation I had with Dennis and looking at what his son had done. And that's what, between the design of the cabinet and applying that style of artwork, that's what really brought everything together.
    19:18
    So the cabinet was designed as a limited edition. I knew not everybody would want to buy that cabinet. and I didn't expect them to, especially I didn't expect arcades to buy it because it just looks cool when it's closed up. So I just thought it was a special thing that some people might want. Like a lot of people buy SUVs, but General Motors still makes a Corvette for the special people that want it.
    19:44
    But the interesting thing about that cabinet, some of the LEs that have been put into some of the arcades and FECs so far, the game is earning fantastic and getting customers that normally don't stop and play a pinball because those big light up tank treads and everything it catches their eye it's something like they've never seen before so kids are drawn to it and are giving it a try okay so if I walk up to Galactic Tank Force what is the story what am I going for this is me trying to get Steve into it here like what's the story of Galactic Tank Force You said, what's the story and what are you going for? That's two completely different things. Two different things?
    20:29
    I mean, the story, you've got a tank that's sitting there dangerously threatening you, staring right at you, saying, hit me, hit me, hit me, right? And so the first thing the player learns when they get up there is how dangerous the tank is. One of the things that was really fun about this past weekend, I mean, I guess not to put a time on the show, not to date the show, but this past weekend we had the Beast tournament where Galactic Tank Force was available for play and also for tutorials, which happened during the competition. A bunch of players sought me out and said, I want to play the tank game. Please tell me a little bit of how to play it. So, of course I will. So me being a teacher, I know the scaffolding technique. I just give them a little bit that they can handle until they want a little more. And so that first little bit is, welcome, this is a tank. It is very dangerous. You see how dangerous it is? Let me show you about how to one-hit kill this tank. And then they go, wait, what? You know, oh, okay. And so I give them a little story of what the methane means and how methane is used to power our weapons and how you need to get some more methane using certain shots. and then they see the tank get, let's say, weaker and then, oh, I can actually one-hit kill this tank and it's an exciting feeling for them. Just seeing it live, oh, okay, now this tank doesn't seem quite as dangerous as it did five minutes ago, even though it's still dangerous. And then I'll use that to show them how they can really turn the tables on this dangerous-looking tank that's sitting in the middle and really turn the tables toward the player instead of against them. And that's what really gets them into the other features of the game. And then it's fun to see certain things on this game just happen to them, like the meltdown and explaining what the meltdown is and explaining what the multiball is and seeing the special guests that show up as pilots in it and say, is that you in there? Yeah, that's me in there for a couple seconds. Yeah, that was good to do that. That was fun.
    22:37
    But the story is just overall wacky fun as far as I'm concerned, I'm glad it is as strange as it is.
    22:45
    It's a great way to just get people into the game, and it really draws even the tank version, the deluxe version without the tank attachments, it really draws people over just in the way it looks. And the fact is there's a giant tank sitting there that they can just bash on. It is the bash target of all bash targets, but then as soon as they hit it, they go, okay, I have to do something else because this thing is destroying me. And that's what gets them started.
    23:11
    And I actually didn't realize the tank had a robot in it. It's a surprise. It's a surprise inside. It pops up.
    23:19
    It's a surprise inside. And then you see, it's like, who's this guy? Why is he so hard to defeat? He's like, yes, he is. You've made it this far because you've proven you're a bit of a player. So we've got to give you a little bit of a challenge.
    23:34
    Okay. So we have the game and then we have the story. So at what point did you cast some actors for these different roles, these different characters that you came up with, and did a lot of filming? So what was involved in all that? Because if anyone's played the game, there's a lot of cut scenes and a lot of video assets for all these characters talk to you.
    23:59
    Jack? I think that's Jack was a captain. Sorry, I was muted. See, and I was warned, don't put your mic on mute because you're going to forget it. You guys just missed the best part. I explained the whole thing. Where's Jack? He's our genius on this. So there is a pretty efficient story that goes with the game, but understanding Dennis's version and view of the game where he wants players to walk right up and start playing. We don't want to burden the player with having to sit through a movie or a narrative, but basically the narrative is you are a rookie tank pilot. You've been assigned to this obscure moon that orbits this planet called Lumina in the Namdron galaxy. And for you kids at home, that's Nordman spelled backwards, but it sounds perfect. And you're just assigned to this very quiet base. And all they're doing is researching and making this incredible zero-gravity ice cream on this moon. Nothing ever happens there. and within a very brief amount of time, all of a sudden an alien tank shows up and everybody is besides themselves. What is this thing? Where did it come from? You're the only one who can save us and that's how the game starts. So that's pretty much the essence of the story. Now as far as looking for characters and whatnot, like I said, I've been doing this for a while at Midway and everything And we do audition actors. We bring in different people. We try different takes on it. And for one reason or another, these are the four actors that ended up being the character. and I'll start with Captain Kyan. She's an actress out of Seattle, Washington named Clementine Moorfoot and her day job is doing cosplay stuff. She has a huge online presence and she has a huge fan base and I had seen her in a video for a Chicago Comic-Con and that's why I assumed she was from the Chicago area. But it turned out she was visiting a friend, but I got in touch with Clementine anyway. She auditioned for us and really got the character right away. And just visually is just stunning. And she really suits the vibe that we wanted for Captain Cayenne. You know, she's very helpful. She's very knowledgeable. And she has that nice retro 50s look about her too. Professor Plotnick is very interesting. He's actually a pretty major Chicago celebrity by the name of Jeff Hoover. And Jeff Hoover is the head producer of WGN television in Chicago for the Morning News program. And that sounds very stuffy and kind of like a serious role. But I've known Jeff Hoover on television for many, many years. And anytime they do a skit or something funny or they want the newscasters to dress up in costumes, that's Jeff Hoover's bit. And he's known for doing all kinds of crazy and wild characters. So I had a friend who knew Jeff and got me in touch with him. And he came in and I explained what we were doing. And Jeff pretty much defined Professor Plotnick on his own. I had some costume elements, but he He came up with sort of the German accent thing, and he loves ice cream, and a lot of the side jokes are all Jeff's. But we had to write – we wrote some hopefully humorous stuff. And then Duke Moonwalker, I think Dennis came up with that name. He's the hero that commands the space station that floats above the moon of Lumina and lets you know what's going on. in, but he's sort of not really all together. He's always like a few minutes behind of what's really going on. So you're already being attacked by tanks before he realizes it, or spy bots, the flying vehicles. So Duke Moonwalker appears in the video monitor and he gives you instruction and help and so on and so forth. And then the person that's the arch villain, the arch enemy that's responsible for all of this stuff coming down on you is Empress Anoya. And Empress Anoya is portrayed by a local Chicago celebrity now,
    28:42
    Carrie Hoskins-Rivas, her full name is. And Carrie is best known to video game players as Sonya in the Mortal Kombat series. So she came on early on. Actually, I found Carrie many, many years ago. well, I don't want to say too many manys, a few years ago when I was at Midway and we were working on NBA Jam. And I needed some cheerleaders for the game designers of that game. And I had a friend that I had worked with who recommended her, gave me her number, and she called me that day. And we've had a great friendship ever since then. And she appeared in several Midway games. and she really hit it out of the park, I think, in Galactic Tank Force because she finally got to be an evil character. She's usually a nice character fighting for justice and all that kind of stuff, but here she really gets to play up the whole evil kind of stuff, and she really does a great job overacting.
    29:42
    Yes, lots of overacting. I say that with love. I mean, all of them. They all do. I know early on there were some comments and people like, why does this seem like middle-aged teachers doing this or whatever? I can't remember all of the takes. And, yeah, yeah, I read Pinside. It is okay. I just, okay, that's what some people think. But we intentionally wanted some of the lines to fall kind of flat or the jokes to be not that great, like as people call them, you know, for them as dad jokes and all that. So you could have a good time playing the game in your home with your kids or grandkids or whatever and just enjoy the campiness of the humor and the overacting. And that was all intentional.
    30:32
    What were some challenges with the game? I would assume not everything goes perfectly. Like maybe a mech didn't work the way you'd like it to. You couldn't get something, maybe a shot, quite the way you wanted to, or you had to change some stuff up?
    30:47
    The shots, we had worked on the game for a long time, Paul and I, so the shots were pretty well refined. And the first tank mechanism that we did, the first prototype, it worked fine. We didn't have any problems with it. And so that came along later with probably from the kind of material some of the vendors used, I guess. But nobody in the company saw any kind of air balls or anything while we were developing the game. I don't know why that happened. And so the air balls, yeah, and there was a fix. It's like a shield that goes over the targets. Well, the first thing we did was put that save it post between the flippers because I hated seeing you smack the hell out of the tank and the ball would shoot right down between the flippers. And so that was a problem area. The arrangement of the targets in front of the tank I tried several different arrangements I tried a semicircle the other direction I tried straight across I tried a lot of different things and I ended up with that semicircle that we have trying to direct the ball back towards the flippers. And it worked on paper.
    32:10
    But, of course, with ball speed and ball spin, you can't really control that. You know, when you draw lines on your computer, yeah, okay, that ball will never go down the middle.
    32:21
    Damn kinetic energy. Yeah, yeah. So we put that ball saver post in, and whenever a tank target is hit, that post pops up just for a few seconds to save the ball from going down the drain if the ball goes towards that area. Yeah. So now we've added a shield on top of the targets, which really helps deflect the air balls. Yeah, I will say I played it just this weekend and it had the shield and I did not get a single air ball. Good. Very good. Now, I have a couple of questions. How long did it take the actual the video assets to be recorded? Was it like a couple of weekends or was it a month or two months? You know, how how many takes did you have to do? Well, yeah, it was tough because we didn't have all of the actors lined up in the same month. I think there was the first month in November of 21, I think it was, we had our first test. And in the case of Clementine, she had to fly in from Seattle. So we had limited time with her. So not only did she have to do all of her acting, but her costume had to be built by hand while she was here. These weren't off the shelf or from costume stores. In her case, in Duke's case, and in Empress Anoya's case, they were all made by hand by a very skilled costumer we had, who was a friend of mine from Cirque du Soleil in Las Vegas. and she came out with her sewing machine and just did miracles with stretchy fabric. So we never really had all of the actors at one time. There was a time where Clementine and Empress Anoia were in front of the camera together, and we did have some scenes that we wanted them to interact for team play, and they did. We filmed that. But later on, months later, Jeff Hoover came in for Professor Plotnick, and then we brought in Carrie again because she's local, so he could interact with Empress Anoia on a few things. and then the guy who played Duke Moonwalker, Mitch Pollitt, he was a local actor who then almost instantly got picked up by somebody in Hollywood, had to go out to Hollywood for a bit, but he did do some filming for us first, but he came back later. So at least with the local actors, still not too long ago, they would come back and do pickup pieces that like, oh, we forgot to do this or we wanted, this is something we'd like to add to the game. So we've been very fortunate to have access for everybody. I do want to mention, when you do talk about video, the artists that I work with that are part of our team, a key part of our team, Jessica Derbala and Bobby Laresa. And Jessica came from Columbia College in Chicago and had just graduated and did so much work on video processing, on helping filming the actors, on doing effects and modeling and whatnot. Just an amazing job and continues to to this day and has added just a lot of really valuable input from her perspective. Bobby Laresa, I had worked with at Teamplay, which is an arcade and amusement company. I had worked with Bobby for many years and at a couple other places, too. And he's a really, really good quality 3D modeler and animator. So Bobby also helped design things like the robot. So Bobby actually helped create the files that led to the physical toys in the game. So he helped us out in more than just video. So the video process, yeah, the lines, I can't give you an exact accounting of how many lines we created, but we did have to really think about an overall storyline, a momentum for the game, which does exist. As Stephen said, as you go up the ladder, the momentum occurs and you discover things and you open different features and the characters will respond differently because now, oh, you're doing this thing now. So hopefully as people have the game, explore the game, they will find and unopen a lot of these extra lines and funny situations that you find the characters in. Humongous storyboard. yeah apparently it was the first of its kind i should say if david fix was here he would be doing his pt barnum bit to sell you how great a novel this is but it's true so no you know sort of wisely nobody had attempted to do this yet because it is a you know a bit of a uh a never-ending ladder of videos and like oh my god if we do this then we have to have one that does this and this and this, but we managed it, and we have a great, great team, and I'm grateful to everybody who's been on this project from the outset who helped me make this game the best it could be.
    37:48
    Steve, how far are the rules in your mind? And you know where I'm going with this. If you're going for a hard percentage, I'm not going to give that because that's a moving target. Of course it is. Come on. but I know you're giving some sort of... It's a moving target with a cow on it. Yes, with a cow on it. That's like saying version 1.0 is 100%. No, I don't want to ever say that. I hate that saying. I hate that. I hate that, too. But how do you feel? You know, you feel like they're coming along well, and you're probably... It's coming along very well, I believe, and I'm just saying look forward to getting to the end. That's all. I'll say it. look forward to getting to the ending of this game but yeah there was a lot to the implementation of this and I definitely want to say that first of all I'm grateful to Casey Butler and Joe Schober the software team who are and continue to be essential regarding rules and rules implementation and also special respect to Casey for some of his lighting techniques that he did in this game There was definitely some Separate comments that I've had from people In places I've been who talk about The lighting on this game Casey's light shows were great Right I mean they are very Very good very attention getting And very helpful for this So yeah Very grateful to have been You know a part of refining This game and having it come out and people enjoy it No it's a very fun Game it's actually it reminds we have a 50s movie truly where you have you know it's almost like the blob you know or that kind of stuff you know you have the hokiness and but it's a fun hokiness it's not like a bad like oh the blob was a very serious movie bruce oh that's steve mcqueen it's a very serious film when you go campy go all the way go all the way when you go campy it's enjoyable i loved it i actually was like wow it shot great i knew what i was doing almost right away i was like okay blinking shots were great i was very happy and when i watched ron you guys play it i was like wow you guys are really blowing it up so steve you're saying that we probably haven't seen all those clips yet that is certainly correct sir you have not seen all the clips yet i wanted a game that when you walked up to it you knew exactly what you're supposed to do a lot of games today you have no idea what you're supposed to do but you walk up to tank force and you know oh i gotta hit that tank and I got to hit that UFO.
    40:24
    How about the music? We haven't gotten into that at all. The sound package. Now, when I first played it, I kept hearing everyone saying it was, what is it called? Dubstep? I don't think I'm even saying it right. Is it dubstep? It's dubstep. I don't even know what that is or what that means. But people were wondering, why doesn't it sound like a 50s movie?
    40:48
    Here's why. First of all, when I started with the dubstep, this was years ago before people really knew what dubstep was. So it sounded fresh and unique. And it was my thought, this takes place in a different universe, in a different time, and their music is different. Their music is something that we haven't heard a lot of. So that's why I like the dubstep in the game. and then as far as the the main composition and everything that was all composed by matt kern who was a great and celebrated game audio engineer and musician and i think matt did a great job of just adding a lot of texture and flavor to the game where you do get you know there are definitely some sci-fi heroic space movie themes and quirky themes and he had a he i shouldn't say had because he still has but he has has a difficult job of you know like now i need to make something about ice cream now what you know and then i've got to make something about enemy ufos and flying vehicles and tank battles. And I think one thing I know Dennis insisted on was realism for the tank battles. And I think he really accomplished that. It's very gratifying when you start landing shots on the enemy tank and it starts exploding and you feel the whole cabinet vibrate and it's really satisfying. Okay. So how did everyone feel about the reveal at Texas Pinball Festival? What kind of feedback did you get when that came out and you had you had a tank you had an actual tank a motorized tank by remote control i was there at the seminar came in through the seminar room well people were chasing the tank around you know i mean we were following ryan mcquade's tank you know right ryan built the tank and was just driving it around and people were just oh the tank is over here now oh the tank is over here now let's open up and play oh let's move it down a few feet over here over this corner and the tank's not over here it was great for publicity and photo ops and all that so i mean i think it was great i think people enjoyed the the innovative way of revealing the tank game yeah let's roll the tank why wouldn't you roll the tank it's it's a it's a giant toy that you really want for your home yeah that was pretty cool ryan was the genius that figured out a way to make the tank actually drive i know people saw it and be You're like, wow, is that going to be the super-duper L.E.? I think he'd be willing to sell it for the right price. So when it's revealed at Texas Pinball Festival, how did it feel seeing it out there, everyone playing it? What kind of feedback were you getting on the game? Well, that's the whole reason we all do it, right, is to see people have fun playing it. So it was exciting for all of us. some of us uh do what we do so that we can hear canada shit all over it but i love it yeah i also have a question i have a little note here lunchboxes.
    44:20
    They're supposed to be lunchboxes, isn't there, at some point? There is. There will be. The lunchbox, I can be blamed for that. But the concept behind that was, through my conversations with Dennis and how we both have a love for this old space stuff and all that, a lot of these books include, like when Flash Gordon was a popular TV show in the 50s, they sold ray guns and helmets and all of this cool shit to support the show. And I thought, well, since this is a generic theme, wouldn't it be interesting to create a background for this that never existed? So I did a lot of supporting graphics that weren't used on the game or anything, but like in advertising banners and things like that, where I had made toy guns with the Galactic Tank Force logo on it, trading cards, action figures, all this different stuff. And it kind of gives it, actually a couple of people actually thought, when was this on TV? Because I've never heard of it before. It never was, but I thought that would be fun. And when I was talking to David Fix about what could be done to, what could you get with the collector's edition or whatever they're calling it, the top line version, the first thing I thought of was a lunchbox. I said, well, you can take all your plastics and all your extra parts and stuff like that that you get, put it in the lunchbox, put the lunchbox in the cabinet, and that would be really fun. It would be a cool thing that you could put in your game room or something like that. So if anybody thinks that's a moronic idea, you can blame me for that. Oh, I like it. Actually, I said a lot of people, they saw the lunchbox, like, I want a lunchbox. Well, here's the thing about the lunchbox, though. So I know a place, because I used to make lunchboxes. I would order them blank, and I would put these stickers on them and make all kinds of goopy lunchboxes. So I told David Fix about this. He goes to order the lunchboxes, and the company's like, oh, well, there was a major mistake. We don't have any of those in stock. We're still waiting. Every two weeks, I think, David calls them, and they're still waiting for the stock to come in. So that's what's delayed the lunchboxes. I've got a box of, I think, 12 of them in my basement that I'm bringing over just to get started. But we're still waiting for the stock to come in, so that's been the delay on that. So it could also apply issues once again. As usual, yeah. But who would have thought it would have been the lunchbox? Yes. Yes, we can make the games, but we can't make the lunchboxes. Yeah. But they will be available both if you buy the collector's version or there's, I think, a non-thermous version that you can get in the American Pinball gift shop on their website when those are ready to go. So you heard it here, folks. The lunchboxes will be there eventually. They are coming. I think along with the lunchboxes, you were asking what the experience was like for team members at the Texas show. When I was there, I was just overwhelmed and so just knocked out by the work that Chris did on the surrounding banners for our booth and everything. I had seen some digital files but seeing them on the show floor in scale was just phenomenal with a super evil version of Empress Anoya and a super heroic Captain Kyan And everybody approaching our booth knew what you just knew right then what the vibe was And it all comes together in a lunchbox, you know, and there's so much demand for those, too. That's for sure.
    48:09
    All right. You know, we're missing Dave Fix here from this for the full all out sales pitch. That's right, baby. The American dream of American pinball. He's not here, baby. He is not here.
    48:24
    He is not here to tell us where we can get this game and when they're available, et cetera, et cetera. Ah, that's why he didn't show up. But then he wasn't here to interrupt you. He wasn't. There you go.
    48:40
    Or to defend himself against those kind of comments. No, not at all. Yeah, so this is available now, I believe, correct?
    48:50
    Yes. So what models are there, just for those who are out there who are like, you know, I want one of these Galactic Tank Force pinball machines. What are my choices?
    49:01
    There's the, I think it's the LE, which is the tank cabinet. Then there's the Deluxe, which is no tank cabinet. and then I think there's going to be a signature edition. Yeah, there's a signature edition of, I think it's 200 games. Yeah, I think it's 200. It comes with a bunch of extra stuff, and it comes with a special apron that's been signed by the entire team. It has a cool hologram. Yeah, it comes with a 3D back glass. Yeah, yeah. Well, the 3D back glass, we should talk about that. Yeah, where'd you find a vendor to do that? Linticular's still around. Yeah, Fix worked that out. But when they asked me for the – I had to break the artwork into three-dimensional layers. Like what do you want in the front? What do you want in the back? 108 different layers. Yes. And that was a whole lot of fun. But it looks really cool. It looks really fun. I was so excited. The first time I saw that was at Texas.
    50:05
    And, yeah, that's really cool. Between that and the cabinet, I'm getting one of those collector's edition ones. I just can't wait to have this thing.
    50:16
    I just had a thought that Steve mentioned there's a feature called Meltdown, and I just realized that gives a whole new meaning to a game about ice cream. See? It's also the feature that we hope that the players who are just walking up to the game accidentally start, because it's made that way. It's just you hit the bumpers enough until it starts. What could be easier? You know, hit something you really want to hit because it's exciting. Hit it more and you'll get a multiball. All right. Yes, I had fun. Hopefully I've earned your extra dollar.
    50:50
    There you go, right? So something, something, oh, wait, the second ball has come on. Oh, oh, wow. So I have not played pinball before. Now I've got two of these balls running around here. Let me find out how I did that. oh wait i can use both of these balls to attack this tank that's been threatening me yes you can right so let's turn the tables on on annoyance army well i do like that you actually have different modes too like utter madness and that kind of stuff it's just you know it's it's good i know exactly so you know it's just that's where it really fits in fun as you said you know as dennis said before you know some of the games you walk up to you don't know what the hell you're doing. The lights flash for your game. You know where to shoot. You know what you're going for, and the video helps you out. That's all you ask for. So I have a question for Dennis. Has Brian Eddie contacted you at some point because he's mad you're stealing his gimmick with the cows?
    51:52
    Cows and UFOs have been around since before I was born, probably. All right. Well, I think I'm all set. You all set, Bruce? I'm all set, too. Thank you very much, guys, for everything.
    52:05
    Congratulations, guys. Honestly, I'm going to clap that right now because you guys made a great game. Thank you. We want you to be happy and finish the game and go get an ice cream cone. I mean, celebrate it. Have fun. And that's one thing I think I've enjoyed, seeing people from around the world have started taking pictures of themselves with the game, eating ice cream, and it's fun. And that's what it should be. And I just want to say I did enjoy the ice cream at the seminar. Yeah.
    52:37
    You're welcome. That was my idea. I do look at stuff like that. Free pizza, free ice cream, that's a good thing.
    52:46
    How do you finish that without free ice cream? Exactly. So everyone go out there, eat some ice cream, and play some Galactic Tank Force at a location near you.
    52:58
    And pretty soon you can pack your lunch for work in a fine, attractive Galactic Tank Force lunchbox. I cannot wait. There you go.
    53:06
    So thanks, everybody, from American Pinball. Thank you, guys. Thanks for having us. Thank you. And thanks, Paul. He dropped off, unfortunately. I think he had some technical issues. He dropped off early. Paul had to drop because a thunderstorm came through his area about six o'clock and he lost power and his cell phone finally died.
    53:29
    Well, thank you, Ron and Bruce. This was a real pleasure. And guys, everybody on the call, it was great to hear everybody on the same call. This was awesome. And now we can make fun of Dave for about this now, too. I love this. This is great.
    53:47
    we're back on that was really good i enjoyed it very much yes you know bruce we're going to take some heat oh of course we all you guys didn't ask the hard questions you guys like well i asked him about issues i asked him about issues you kissed their asses yeah yeah whatever we can't win no you can't so guess what so for those who for those who got good memories if you remember somewhere in February, I think, or March, we were saying how we were going to do a special episode, something that was new for us. That was this. It took us this long to get everyone together. It took us this long to get everyone together, folks. Yes. At least they talked about us this weekend on a pinball podcast stream. On a stream for Twitch.
    54:39
    What are you talking about, Bruce? This is now the Silver Ball Chronicles, right, Joe? Oh, I didn't plug them. No, but I mean. Oh, I did plug them, or did I? Dave Fix plugged us. Yes, he did. So, yeah. So Dave Fix and Steve Bowden were announcing the Classics finals, and I actually watched it back to see the whole ruling thing that happened, which we'll talk about in another episode. Yes. Dave Fix was like, I'm sure I'll be talking about it on the next episode of Silver Ball Chronicles. Like, oh.
    55:14
    Fail, Dave. That's right, baby. I got totally confused about podcast with which baby. I was only there for 35 hours this weekend. It wasn't like he didn't see me at all.
    55:28
    Yes, Bruce continued his retirement by playing well once again. Yes, I did. I was going to suggest to myself to retire. And then you played really well. But then, yeah, yeah. We'll talk about that later. We'll talk about it next time. Well, let's just say, yeah, next time. Ronnie was in the money. I was in the money. And let's just say I wasn't doing well, and so I went over and played one of the non-tournament games, a game called Dialed In. And with the two games, I was just so happy. I felt so good. I just went back over to the tournament area and just killed it.
    56:02
    Dead. Silence. Okay, Bruce. That's how you end the show. Yeah. Dead silence. Do you have a name, Bruce, at all? I'm going to look up right now. I was just waiting for you to. While he's looking up, we are the Slamtail Podcast. Are we? I thought this was Silver Ball Chronicles. Hi, my name's Dave.
    56:25
    It's David. It's David Davis on Silver Ball Chronicles, which you can listen to on the Pinball Network. And we will be recording our new episode soon, Bruce.
    56:33
    Hi, my name's David. Okay. Very nice, Bruce. Very classy. Hey, at least I'm saving the earth by buying my carbon offset. he's just doing American things he's doing American things by buying his way out of being no one knows what you're talking about Bruce he posted it on your page so don't even go there still no one knows what you're talking about not everyone looks at our page Bruce as we have found out because we have a long waiting list for us stop now well it's filled now we have our 40 players they're all posted on the Facebook page and we have eight backups. Wow. Ron, you want to go to 48?
    57:20
    I'd really like to not have people on the wait list, but man, when we did 48, it was so... It was so busy. It was so crap. People were uncomfortable. I know. And I don't want people to be uncomfortable. No, of course not. Unless we put them in more upstairs. Unless we make people feel uncomfortable on the podcast. That's fine. We can do both. Yes. we'll work on Ron if you feel like you want to make it 48 you bust Ron's balls this past couple of next weeks on the emails and posts and everything like that you can email us at slamtelpodcast at gmail.com that's slamtelpodcast at gmail.com check out our website www.slamtelpodcast.com all our links are in the upper right hand corner and you know Bruce I just found out something what did you find out Do you realize the pinball at the lake or pinball at the whatever it's called, it's going to be the same weekend as Stomp. It's a thing that's in California, so it really doesn't affect our player base. Not at all. But it's probably going to be streamed by IU Pinball, which means no one's going to watch our stream. Yeah, they will. They'll watch ours in the beginning until like 2 o'clock or 3 o'clock. Then they'll jump over. So let us know, folks. Let us know if it's worth it for us to stream at all. Everyone loves the Golden Stream. And you're not playing. No, people are going to want you to play if you don't stream.
    58:45
    So you have to look at it that way. No, no, I'll just tech. Oh, God. What? I did enough of that this weekend. Oh, you had fun. You know I did. You saw me. Yeah. We kept everything running. You'll find out all about it in our next exciting episode. Yes, so stay tuned. Yeah, thanks to everyone in the Clusterbuck, et cetera. Thanks, Steve. Steve, follow us. Who did we just talk to? Yes. Hi, Zach. Pinball princess, et cetera, et cetera. Yes. Do you have a name, Bruce? I do have a name. And I had something else I wanted to mention, and I completely forgot it. What would that be? I don't know. I'm, like, old. You are old. And I got older. Oh, yeah. The past week. Yes. Why were you in a positive note? Bruce, you had your normal examination. How did it go? No polyps? Well, the doctor shoved a whole hand up my ass. Yeah, you're okay? No, not that examination. Oh, damn. Sorry. Yes, I am now cancer-free, well, 25 and a half years. I had my yearly checkup. Everything was good. I'll see him next August. So wait a minute. Are you getting to the point where you may have been longer?
    59:52
    No, exactly. Well, let's say it this way. 26 years ago on my birthday, I found I had cancer. That's why I hate my birthday. I closed my bar on my birthday. So it's like not really a fun day for me. birthdays just birthdays now i'm 52 so 26 years i was cancer free i had cancer for six seven months and then cancer free so it's a nice split in between well you're a full two years older than me well you know and two years smarter easily mm-hmm okay oh why is that i'm so pissed i can't remember what the hell i was gonna say because you're old i am old i is it is it in my little uh let's see repairs ball back plugs and no it's not here in a couple weeks yes countdown and it's mine to borrow borrow yes borrow unless you want to give me your quicksilver on the way back and i'll take that home with me no no i like that quicksilver I had it for a while. I like Quicksilver. Quicksilver's cool.
    61:01
    It is. Okay, we're killing time here. It's like really late. Bruce is liable to just fall asleep. You didn't yawn. I didn't yawn once. You were on mute the whole time, though. Yes, I was on mute a lot. But guess what? It's 9.38. I have to be up in five hours. Yeah, Bruce gets up late. He leaves for work at 4 a.m. Yes, I do. You heard me, probably. Before you do your outro, I'll do one final little funny. So I slept over at Bruce's house Sunday night after the whole Buffalo thing.
    61:28
    I know where he's going with this. And so I get up at like 8. Well, first you probably laughed at me when I went to bed at 7.30. Oh, yeah, I did. But I get up at like 8, and I'm being super quiet. I'm just going to kind of leave. And I know Bruce isn't there, but I figure Kathy's there somewhere. I'm tiptoeing around, not making any noise, all that. I'm carefully opening up the door, and then there's no cars in the driveway other than mine. Like, God damn it. What the hell did I do that for? I felt like an idiot. It was great. Yeah. I saw you leave on the ring. You saw me leave on the ring? Yeah, the ring camera we have on the top of the house. Oh, yeah. Bruce has so many cameras. He's like a voyeur. Yes, I am. It's weird. You're probably looking at me right now. No, no, no. Only in the back and the front and the sides.
    62:19
    Okay. Until next time, folks, say goodbye, Bruce. Goodbye, Nicole Turcotte. We'll be right back. Meteor Level Zero Clusterfuck George Takei Timballs Bruce Isles Tournament Talk Car Holder Cheetah Xanadu Cash Grab ELO Ball Bank What You Buyin' Game You Love Game You Hate Tournament Talk Pinball Princess Sir Oh my