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Pinball Shenanigans the Documentary!

Pinball Shenanigans·video·28m 33s·analyzed·Nov 12, 2025
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.028

TL;DR

Pinball Shenanigans documentary showcases Mike Dimus's 44-machine collection and the hobby's evolution.

Summary

Mike Dimus presents a documentary from Crazy Kuck Collections (filmed in 2019, before Pinball Shenanigans YouTube channel launch) exploring his pinball collection of 44 machines. The video covers pinball history from the 1930s through the modern resurgence, the LaGuardia era destruction and Roger Sharp's 1976 legalization victory, his personal collecting journey starting in 2017, and practical restoration/maintenance work. Dimus emphasizes pinball as a multi-faceted hobby encompassing collecting, competition, repair, and community building through the London, Ontario Pinball League.

Key Claims

  • Williams produced 20,000 Adams Family machines, the most produced pinball machine in history

    medium confidence · Dimus historical overview; commonly cited in pinball community but specific production numbers should be verified against IPDB

  • Humpty Dumpty (1947) was the first pinball game with flippers, made approximately 6,000-6,200 units

    high confidence · Direct statement with specific model and production numbers; historically accurate per pinball historical record

  • Mayor LaGuardia led confiscation and destruction of pinball machines in New York City in the 1940s, using sledgehammers and dumping machines in lakes

    high confidence · Well-documented historical event in pinball lore; Dimus recounts accurately

  • Roger Sharp legalized pinball in 1976 by demonstrating it was a game of skill to a court jury

    high confidence · Foundational pinball history; widely accepted in community

  • Williams closed in 2000, leaving only Stern Pinball as a manufacturer for a decade

    high confidence · Accurate regarding Williams exit; Stern survival during the downturn is documented

  • Dimus started competitive pinball in 2007 as player #3,090 in the IFPA database

    high confidence · Personal testimony with specific verifiable detail

  • Competitive pinball has grown from ~3,000 to ~70,000 players over approximately 10 years

    medium confidence · Dimus estimates based on IFPA growth; credible but should verify against official IFPA data

  • London, Ontario Pinball League started 6 years prior with 12 people and now has 40-50 attendees monthly across ~7 hosts

    high confidence · Personal testimony about community organization he founded

Notable Quotes

  • “Pinball machines really are summed up into one word: fun. I enjoy all aspects of pinball.”

    Mike Dimus @ ~3:00 — Core philosophy statement defining why he collects and engages with the hobby

  • “I started collecting maybe about 7 years ago. My number of machines went from maybe four to right now I have 44... I have more machines than I have space for.”

    Mike Dimus @ ~4:30 — Demonstrates exponential growth in home collector enthusiasm and market accessibility

  • “When this machine was unveiled at the Chicago Pinball Expo of 1947, literally a couple hours later, all flipperless games became obsolete.”

    Mike Dimus @ ~23:45 — Illustrates the revolutionary impact of flippers on pinball game design and market dynamics

  • “I wouldn't say I necessarily have a favorite game. I just really enjoy the newest game that's in my collection, which will almost certainly always get the most attention.”

    Mike Dimus @ ~28:00 — Reveals collector psychology: active rotation and engagement rather than static favorites

  • “The mechanical nature of the machine: you got the lights, you got the sounds, you got the call outs, you got the art, and it's a big physical toy. It's just a big giant toy.”

    Ray (or league participant) @ ~61:00 — Articulates the multi-sensory appeal that drives pinball enthusiasm across demographics

  • “This is really just me being a big kid playing with a bunch of big toys.”

    Mike Dimus @ ~63:00 — Self-aware articulation of pinball hobby as adult play and nostalgia-driven engagement

Entities

Mike DimuspersonCrazy Kuck CollectionsorganizationHumpty DumptygameAdams FamilygameMayor LaGuardiapersonRoger SharppersonWilliams ElectronicscompanyStern Pinballcompany

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Content creator (Dimus) actively contributing to pinball media ecosystem through YouTube channel (Pinball Shenanigans), podcast hosting, and community-building activities while maintaining active collector/competitive player status

    high · Dimus runs Pinball Shenanigans channel, hosts podcast with friend, competes at provincial/national/world levels, organizes league, documents restoration work, engaged in all aspects of hobby

  • ?

    event_signal: London, Ontario Pinball League demonstrates successful grassroots community organizing with sustained growth from 12 to 40-50 players over 6 years across ~7 host locations; includes IFPA-sanctioned tournaments and mixed skill levels including top-100 world players

    high · Dimus founded league 6 years prior, initially recruited via online ad to movie theater machine, now meets monthly with expanding participant base and competitive tournament infrastructure

  • $

    market_signal: Modern pinball resurgence narrative emphasizing competitive growth (3,000 to 70,000 IFPA players in ~10 years), arcade/barcade proliferation, multiple manufacturers entering market post-Stern monopoly, and grassroots league/community infrastructure expansion

    high · Dimus articulates clear historical inflection point: 2000 Williams exit/Stern monopoly → decade of struggle → modern multi-manufacturer resurgence with competitive scene at 'all-time high' and leagues 'popping up everywhere'

  • $

    market_signal: Home collector market demonstrating strong growth and accessibility: Dimus accumulated 44 machines over 7 years (from ~4), indicating affordable secondary market, parts availability, and repair skill democratization enabling collection at scale

    high · Personal testimony of exponential collection growth; casual sourcing of used machines; local parts availability; online repair resources; friend networks enabling knowledge transfer

Transcript

youtube_auto_sub · $0.000

0:03
Back in 2019, a film crew was doing a series of documentaries on strange collections in Canada and hence the name Crazy Connect Collections. As you can see here, it says each episode is about an unusual collection and the person behind it. And they did 10 episodes and they wanted to do an episode on my pinball collection. So, you can see here that they did an episode on Titanic artifacts, on ladybug figurines, even torture equipment, and then there's me, Pinball. So, they did this documentary about a year before Pinball Shenanigans YouTube channel was actually born. And at that time, I had maybe a couple dozen subscribers. So, now that the channel has grown over the years, I thought it would be a good time to replay the video for your viewing entertainment. At times, it's a little dodgy and cringe. And you'll get to see me do some bad acting. I'm sure I got some facts and details wrong when I was giving my brief history of pinball. You'll see me stick a quarter into my dollar slot of my machine, which is set to free play. But if you've been watching the channel at all, then you know that these are basically some pretty typical shenanigans. So anyways, this fiveman crew showed up from Toronto or thereabouts with, I believe, two vehicles just stuffed full of equipment. They uh spent two days with me filming the whole thing and uh you know, lots of setup and lots of uh fun toys that they utilized in the production. And um I think they did a great job. And uh so I think without further ado, I present to you Crazy Kuck Collections. I'm Mike [music] Dus and this is Pinball Shenanigans. [music]
2:05
Pinball machines. [music] What do they mean to me? They really pretty much are summed up into one word, fun. I enjoy all aspects of pinball. [music] I enjoy playing them and purchasing them, collecting them. [music] I restore them. I buy them, sell them, trade them. I like to work on them. I also am interested in pinball [music] history. I uh like to compete. I compete on a provincial [music] level, Canadian level, national level. Uh so I like uh so many aspects of pinball. I listen [music] to pinball podcast. I've watched pinball tournaments and streams. I even have my own podcast with a friend of mine and uh so I'm [music] just really fascinated with all aspects of pinball and uh yeah, so it's just [music] it's just fun. It's just a fun hobby.
London, Ontario Pinball League
organization
Rayperson
IFPAorganization
Chicago Pinball Expoevent
Jeff Teolisperson
Kyleperson
  • ?

    community_signal: Collector mentality emphasizes active rotation and continuous engagement: Dimus rotates newest acquisition into focus, performs full restoration/cosmetic/mechanical work, plays extensively to learn rules, then sells for next machine; hobby as process rather than static curation

    high · Direct statement: 'Whatever the new game is, I will take it apart, clean it, fix it up...play the crap out of it...either hang on to it or maybe sell it for the next one'

    • 2:58
    I'd say I started [music] collecting maybe about 7 years ago. Uh where my number of machines that I own went from maybe four to [music] right now I have 44. So just in the last 7 years it's kind of went a little haywire and now I have more machines than I have space for.
    3:27
    [music] Pinball really was invented around the 1930s. It was like a it's really pretty much a piece of wood with some metal pins in it. you plunge the ball up and it just bounces around, lands in in a hole worth whatever amount of points. Uh there's no flippers. Uh that that was pretty much invented in 1930. And so you got these metal pins on a board, you got a ball, and therefore you have pinball. And actually in 1940, they were starting to be seen as gambling [music] devices. and you could gamble and win money and you know the bar would pay you. [music] They actually became illegal in New York I think was the first state to make pinball machines illegal. So the mayor of New York, LaGuardia, he actually so made pinball machines illegal and went around with his crew and collected and confiscated all the pinball machines throughout all the bars and and wherever they were, laundry mats, and literally took sledgehammers to them and smashed them and destroyed them and then dumped them in the lake. Uh so that was the fate of many pinball machines [music] in the in the ' 40s.
    4:49
    Not until 1976 did uh [music] a man by the name of Roger Sharp come by. And he actually went to the court system. They had a couple pinball machines in the court room. and [music] he went and played the machines in the court for the jury [music] and said, you know, I'm gonna plunge the ball, make the ball go here, [music] take this shot. And uh he's known to like have called the shot. And [music] the jury saw that, hey, this is actually a game of skill and not a game of chance. So because of him, pinball was made legal [music] again. And he is basically pinball royalty to this day.
    5:38
    early 1990s [music] was another big boom of pinball. Uh Williams was out making machines. They made 20,000 of the Adams [music] family. That's the most produced machine in history. The pinball industry [music] kind of crashed in 2000. Williams closed down and there was only one [music] manufacturer left and that was Stern Pinball. So [music] Stern hung on by bit of a thread there for a decade and uh and now we're seeing a modern-day resurgence in [music] pinball and arcades and barcades are popping up everywhere. There's [music] a bunch of different companies now making pinball machines and that's where you're seeing the modern day resurgence of pinball. Like there's leagues popping up everywhere. The arcades popping up [music] everywhere. Competitive pinball is at a all-time high. When I first did my first competition in pinball, [music] it was 2007 and I signed up. I was uh I was player 3,090. [music] Now today, there are about 70,000 competitive players in the datab bank. [music] So just in the span of, you know, maybe 10 years, the the competitive scene has grown exponentially from 3,000 players [music] to 70,000 players. So, uh, you know, I, like I said, [music] I've competed, uh, Ontario championships, Canadian pinball championships, and even the World Pinball [music] Championships. So, this is the modern-day uh, pinball boom. So, that's that's pretty much where we are at today. That's the brief history of pinball.
    7:29
    All right, let's uh get in the pyramid again. Oh, here's glider cough round. Okay, it's almost ready. If I hit the pyramid, then you'll get to If I hit the pyramid, then you'll get to see the effect. I just got to make the shot, though. Yes. All right, check out the Stargate pyramid. I got to battle this dude. It's going to pop open. This guy's coming out. I got to battle him. Try and destroy him.
    8:05
    There we go. Oh yeah. Check this out. Eye of Raw. Eye of Raw. There's three stages. First stage is I got to beat the glider craft.
    8:40
    Oh my god. Oh my god. Phase two is over. All right. Well, I got through phase one of the wizard mode. And uh it's half a billion points. That's not so bad of a game. One of the most historical and possibly rare machines in my collection is the first game that ever had flippers. Uh it's called Humpty Dumpty. And she's 72 years old and uh still functions and plays. And uh who I don't know how many are left of those, but I know they made around 6,000 of those. So, uh there may not be a lot of them left, though, cuz that was right in the prime when they were, you know, confiscating and destroying machines. That that would have been one of the ones they were confiscating for sure. So, [music]
    9:41
    this is uh the oldest game in my collection. It is a very interesting [music] piece of pinball history. We'll start by uh showing you that [music] takes a nickel to play. You get five balls for a nickel, unlike today where you get [music] what, three balls for a looney possibly or a dollar. Uh, so let's stick that in there. And you slide this in. And there we go. We have lights. So this game is historically [music] important because it is actually the first game that was invented uh and had flippers. The typical flippers are at the bottom of the machine. This one is very different and unique. There's six flippers and they're oriented in, [music] you know, three different locations on the playfield. You got them at the bottom, the side, and then on the top. And they're only 2-in flippers. Most people are used to the bigger flippers at the bottom that are 3-in. As you can hear, it's got the old chimes.
    10:46
    No electronical sounds, no call outs, no music, just some cool chimes. and you don't have as much control as you uh do on modern games, but back in 1947 when this came out, this was the most control anyone had ever had. So, I should flip that ball. But when this machine was unveiled at the Chicago Pinball Expo of 1947, literally a couple hours later, all flipperless games became obsolete. Once you go from no flippers to flippers, [music] it's just uh revolutionary for the pinball industry. This game changed changed everything. This one [music] in particular, there was about I think 6,000 or 6,200 of these made. Who knows exactly how many are left in existence. [music] There still could be uh a fair number, but uh you can be [music] certain that a lot of these were destroyed. [snorts] Fortunately, some survived. So now pinball [music] is legal again, and we can we can continue to play it and not fear the police coming to confiscate our machines.
    12:10
    I wouldn't say I necessarily have a favorite game. I I just uh really enjoy, you know, like the newest game that's in my collection. That will almost certainly always get the most attention. Whatever the new game is, I will take it apart, clean it, fix it up, shop it up, do the electronics, the mechanics, and the cosmetics, put it back together again, and then I will play the crap out of it. learn all the rules, uh, have my fun with it, and then either hang on to it for a while or maybe sell it for the next one, and then the next game gets the most attention. So, I used to not really know anything about fixing machines, but uh, kind of forced into figuring it out because once you start building a collection, stuff happens. I've studied and I've learned and friends have helped me. The internet is a good resource. There's there's pinball repair help groups. And now I actually am pretty good at fixing uh electronics and mechanics and pinball machines and solving problems. And I've learned to appreciate the the repair and and solving problem fixing aspect of pinball machines just as much as playing them.
    13:26
    We're off to my buddy Ray to uh pick up some parts here. He has a lot of parts. Sometimes I don't have everything I need in stock, so I usually call up on him and see what he's got. It's local. Saves me uh a couple weeks having to wait for shipping. So, that's always handy. A lot of the times when we buy a pinball machine, you can find some interesting things in the cabinet of the machine. Like I'm always hoping to find some hidden book of $100 bills that somebody forgot about, but haven't done that yet. But uh one time we were picking up a machine. It was in a garage, so it wasn't exactly weatherproof. I guess a squirrel was using it to to store his uh his nuts in for the winter. And by the time we got it home and opened it up and really got a good look at it, we must have pulled out like 20 or 40 walnuts out of the machine. So, my buddy Ray, he uh he's also pinball collector. We've got several pinball enthusiasts in London and he has probably about 15 machines of his own. And every once in a while, we get together at his place to play. Every month we go to a different person's house. We have about seven different hosts and he's one of the hosts. So,
    15:31
    Hey, there he is. How are you? How are you? Very good. Come Very good. Come in. in. Right on. Okay, cool. You got some parts Right on. Okay, cool. You got some parts for me? Uh, Uh, we'll sort it out later. Okay. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Let me just trade back. All right. Let me just trade back. Ah, trade some parts. Parts trade. I Ah, trade some parts. Parts trade. I like it. Okay. Thank you very much. You're welcome. You're welcome. All right. We'll uh we'll talk to you All right. We'll uh we'll talk to you soon, Ray. Well, good luck. Work for you. Well, good luck. Work for you. Thank you, sir. Thank you, sir. Bye. Bye. See you.
    15:58
    Okay. So, [music] I got a bag of parts from Ray. Just a few different things. And uh we're going to go to my house and see if we can tweak up and fix a couple things over there. [music]
    16:28
    Okay, so we got a few things [music] on the to-do list. Uh I always have a to-do list having a [music] collection this big and uh you know I'm going to try and knock off a thing or two. I know that uh this [music] flipper is acting up. So, these flippers are fine, but not getting anything on that flipper [music] there. So, we're going to try and uh fix that. So, we'll uh plunge the ball down and uh just take a look and see what we got going on under here. Remove this piece and slide off the glass. Let's
    17:21
    Okay. So, do check under the hood here. Remove the ball. Get that out of there and prop this up. [music] So, this is the flipper right here. So when you press this button that activates [music] this solenoid which flips the button and for some reason it's not working. So it could be [music] a few things but first thing to check is oh there it is. See this wire if you look closely [music] it's actually come loose. Uh and that's a common thing. There's a lot of vibration. You know this happening all the time and eventually uh the solder can can go bad. So uh that we can fix. [music] Got some solder. We need uh wire strippers. [music] Get some nice fresh wire on this. And twist [music] that wire a bit. The trick to soldering is uh you really want to heat up the space. You don't [music] want to just heat up the solder. You want the wire to get nice and hot. You want the lug of this coil to get nice and hot. And [music]
    18:42
    So, let's cool [music] that off and tug on this wire. And that wire is on there. Good. [music] We can actually put this into lamp test. I'm going to show you.
    19:05
    And that one is clearly out. And even this number one looks [music] like it's out as well. So, let's solve that problem.
    19:15
    Obviously, [music] changing uh light bulbs is not rocket science, but it is part of what you have to do. [music] So, this is my bulb collection. Uh I often remove all the incandescent bulbs [music] from a machine and put in LED bulbs, and that's part of how I collected all these. So, I've got a little bulb tester right here. So, I can just pop that [music] in. Oh, that one works perfect. So, actually, before I spill that, we're going to set that down. That would not be fun to have to clean up. All right. [music] And that bulb is good. So, let's check on this number one bulb. [music] Pop that in. Ah, beautiful. Okay, so let's put this back [music] down. Get rid of these bad bulbs.
    20:08
    And now you can see the [music] four works and the one works. And all our bulbs are good to go. Yeah, there we go. Back in action. So, voila. My plunger here is uh not really working very well. So, I want to [music] change the spring on that. So, that's what we're going to do next. So, let's get back in here.
    20:37
    All right. So, here's the plunger mechanism. And in order to access this spring here, which is just old and dead, going to take off the rubber. That's the shooter tip, which contacts the ball, launches that into orbit. [snorts] And then we got a clip here that we have to remove. So, these pliers should do the trick. So, pull this spring back. And then there's a washer there, too. And pop that out. There's the C clip.
    21:14
    Here's the washer. And here is the spring. And then you can even And that's your shooter rod invented in 1930, I don't know, somewhere around there. Okay. So, uh, what we're going to do is
    21:40
    our C clip, stick that back on, and put the shooter tip back on. Just leave that there for good measure. And voila, we've got a new shooter spring. Just like that.
    21:57
    And we can even give it a quick little test here. And beautiful. It works.
    22:14
    So, we started up a pinball league about 6 years ago. [music] It's called the London, Ontario Pinball League. We had 12 people at the first league night and that was a success. [music] And nowadays, uh, nine seasons later, we get about 40 to 50 people at every league night. Uh, we meet about once a month. We have about seven different hosts. I am one of the hosts. All right, everybody. All right, everybody. We're going to get started shortly. Welcome to the IFPA Pinball Point Showdown.
    23:01
    Everybody really enjoys it. We've got a mix of, you know, every age. We have [music] lots of, you know, young kid, young, old, male, female, a little mix of everybody. uh from very novice, very beginner pinball players to we actually have some players that are in the top 100 uh of best players in the world in our league. So, it's quite the range of skill as well.
    23:35
    The beginnings of interest in pinball in London kind of happened. I think I'd put an ad on online saying, "Hey, I'm looking for a couple people that are interested in maybe going out and playing some pinball somewhere cuz we knew that there was a pinball machine at a movie theater and we got a maybe two people, three people. So, the four of us went to the uh movie theater and we're playing this pinball machine and we that was sort of the early beginnings of the development of the London, Ontario Pinball League.
    24:16
    I think just the mechanical nature of the machine. You got the lights, you got the sounds, you got the call outs, you got the art, and it's a big physical. It's just a big giant toy. Right. Right now, I'm in a match uh four player group on Star Trek here, and I've already played two balls and they have not been very good. Uh, three players have about the same score right now. Actually, all four of us are pretty close. I got one ball left to try and pull out a victory here. So, it's going to have to be a good ball. Uh, a little bit nervous still. So, I got to shake off the nervous energy and uh put my crap together on this last ball here and try and get a victory.
    25:12
    This is really just me being a big kid playing with a bunch of big toys. the physical nature of the pinball machine and the skill set that you have to learn to develop to become a good player and get the wizard modes and get the high scores. It's really skillful and you can improve your skill and you know when you get better you can appreciate other good players and uh pinball you can always improve your skills and I really enjoy just learning more and more about getting to be better at playing uh getting better at fixing machines and just learning about uh pinball uh in general all kinds [music] of aspects.
    26:03
    And third place, $40 goes to Darren. No, me. No, me. Mark.
    26:13
    In second place, Darren for $60. Good job, buddy. And in first place, And in first place, Jeff Tiolas. First time ever getting to hand to the king. Good timing with a 1.6 billion on Game of Thrones. Good job, buddy. Thank you. Thank you. You are the victor. [applause]
    26:40
    Thanks again, Kyle, for hosting. Appreciate it. [applause] Appreciate it. [applause] We'll see you guys at the next tournament, which is tomorrow. See you guys. See you guys. Yeah, you too, man. We'll see you at the Yeah, you too, man. We'll see you at the next one. Later, Rob. I'm out of here. I'm out of here. Where'd go?
    27:34
    Ow. Take the shot. You'll be fine.