Thank you. Hello and welcome to another episode of the Classic Pinball Podcast. My name is George and I'm joined by my co-host Dave. Hello Dave. Hello George. Folks, today we've got a special guest, someone from Ohio, someone who won the 2021 Solid State Award at Pinbrew Fest. Tom, I hope I don't butcher your last name. Chiquetti? Chiquetti. Pretty good. Okay. Okay, Tom. It's been pronounced about 200 different ways, but that one was close enough. Yeah, I've got one of those names, so I understand. Unlike our good friend Dave, who everybody knows his name. Thank you very much for having me on. Pleasure talking to you guys. Let me do a little setup. Tom contacted me through Pinside and said that he had heard me talk about his game, I guess, on the Pinbrew Fest episode. Is that correct? Correct. You were talking with Keith Campanelli about the upcoming show. And if I recall correctly, I don't think Keith helped me out too much with the description of your game. Yeah, he said he remembered the game, but he didn't remember what the history was, what I did to it, and all that. Keith's got a full plate, so he gets a pass. He's super busy right now. Today we're going to talk about Tom's Game. it's a Data East playboy that's, I guess, sort of been rethemed. Would you call it that, Tom? I would say it's kind of a minor retheme. It's a minor retheme. It's not a major overall, but it's the few differences that were made to it. We're doing something a little bit different here. We have not had – I was trying to remember, Dave. Have we had anybody else on the show to talk about one of their games? Yeah, we did. What's one with Lady Death? Oh, OK. That's right. With Tommy. Tommy Skinner. That's right. He did Lady Death, which was a definite re-theme and a kid. Tom, why don't you give us a little history of this game, how you acquired it, what you actually did to it. And the one thing that I'm interested in is the graphics that were applied to the play field and how that all went. So, the floor is yours. Well, here in Columbus, Ohio, I actually work for an operator, distributor. I run Dart Leagues for them, but we're a main operator in Ohio, so we set games out on the street and everything. And next door, our parent company is a distributor and they make sales. Well, they took this game in on trade about three years ago and it was an old data east playboy that came out in 89 it had i wouldn't say it's been neglected but it was kind of not well taken care of over the years it came out in 89 and it was out on the street and in people's houses in the basement just so it was it was pretty filthy had some you know coils not firing needed a little bit of minor board work it was it needed some attention i had never been interested in the game but i i saw it in the warehouse and i offered them a price where they gave it to me for a good deal so i said okay i'll take it home you know clean it up play it for a little bit and then sell it so i i got it home and over the year i was working on it and play fixing doing repairs cleaning it up doing a few changes on the play field, like color changes and things. Actually, it started growing on me. It's actually a fun little game for Data East back then. It's got the typical gameplay from that era with the million-point shot that helps you catch back up and the silly little call-outs and the ramps. It's a Data East game from the late 80s, early 90s. Dave might have familiarity with those games I certainly do not so I'm interested in hearing a little bit more about it the one thing that stands out about that game that I've always kind of been turned off of was the Translight the Backlash Translight it was like one of the from that era where it's like photoshopped and just it's got Hugh Hefner on there with a bunch of playmates and then it's also got a mixture of like animated girls and others. It's just, it's a really bad. It seems like somebody got a Photoshop for Christmas and started having fun with it. Correct. I agree. It's not the, it is not the nicest looking translator back glass that's out there. Data East in general didn't really do that great with their trans lights and back glass. So they're kind of, kind of hacky in general. It seems to me, and again, I don't know anything. It seems like there were a lot of money-saving measures that were taking place during, I guess you could call the dark ages of pinball, or at least the beginning of. Yeah, and I think Kevin O'Connor did the art on it, which, don't know, he's amazing. But I'm guessing he probably didn't do the back glass, I'm hoping. I mean, the play field artwork looks great. I mean, it goes with the game well, but yeah, that back glass just needed replaced. so there's a there's a gentleman on pins pin side it goes by the name of pinstein he does he customized a translate and package for the game that focused on marilyn monroe and it's just beautiful what he did and it's amazing looking so i purchased it it's he only made like i think 20 kits so it's you get a translate you get a playfield decal because on the playfield they had all 12 playmates from that year of 89 or 90 i'm not sure which one they used but i think her name kimberly conrad was the playmate of the year so she's predominantly focused on the playfield really big and so in this kit you got the translate you got a decal that goes over Kimberly Conrad's face with Marilyn Monroe's face. And then below that above the slingshot, there's a signature, Kimberly Conrad, but then it's replaced with Marilyn Monroe's signature. And then there's two instruction cards that go down on the bottom. And I tell you, once I put that in, it completely changed the look of the game. It made it look like it was a modern Stern, just the way the artwork. And it's probably going to stay in my collection because of that, just because it's so beautiful to look at. Now, I asked the question earlier, is it a sticker? Is it a water decal? What is it exactly? And you can't just leave it that way, I'm guessing. no the the the marilyn monroe face and the signature is decal that just it's a real thin decal that just goes right over top of the plate field so it's not a permanent change so if i ever did sell it and someone didn't like marilyn monroe they could easily put the old trans light in and just remove that decal without even damaging the place so it's a regular you know adhesive that goes on there and that's it it's it's like uh yeah that's it and it matches You wasn't clearing nothing over it. I did not. I considered maybe in the future if I did want to, if I knew I wanted to keep the game permanently and I got the itch to try and tear it all completely down, clear-coated, I might. But that's another bridge to cross in the future. Dave, do you have any familiarity with this game? Sorry, I was muted. No, you were just disregarding me. That's all. Yeah, I'm just ignoring you, George. You know, that's how they go. Yeah, of course you are. No, I've never really, I've worked on Day to East from that time frame, but I've never really worked on one of these or even really played one of these. I just, while you guys were talking, I looked up the Godawful Backglass, and you are correct, Tom, that they could have done a lot better, you know. Yeah. Looks like Bubbles the Clown with the bubbles and the balloons around. It just looked, I don't know. It does have the old lady on it, which every Playboy seemed to have on there. She was in the cartoons and all that In the magazine Unfortunately she's on the play field still But she's not on the new translate Yeah and the translate has like a Cut out bunny Looks like a cut out bunny standing up or whatever In the background And even the Girl that's sitting down center stage Right next to Hefner She doesn't look like she's having a good day She looks way too serious Could have done better You said you don't much familiar. I think they only made like 2,300 of them. I don't know if that would consider it a hard to find one or a rare one. And I'm not sure how popular it was on the street, considering the theme probably couldn't place it in most places. Well, what are some of the other games from Data East? And the question that I have is, are all their operating system and boards the same? And I'm going to come to one of the boards in a second. From that time frame, yes. From that time frame, the late 80s, yes, They're all kind of interchangeable. I have a Phantom of the Opera also that's, I believe, less than a year apart from the Playboy, and all the boards swap in and out of those. Yeah, I think it's around late 80s, maybe 1990, that late 80s generation. So, yeah, they kind of have that generational stuff. They can swap things around with those. It's basically, it's the newfangled Stern, the classic Stern. Then they turned into some other little game. No. Gameplayer? Yeah, not Gameplayer, but they made this Gamitron. I forget the name of this case right now. And then they turned into Data East. And then they turned into Sega. And then they turned into Stern, what they are now. Just commenting on the gameplay. It's not a whole lot to it. It was just like the games from back then, but it's got some funny little call-outs. and Hafner is actually talking to you during the gameplay, so that's always fun. Is there any music in it? There is. There's little tunes that play, like the electronic tunes. I can't remember the one that plays at the end of the game, the name of it, but I guess it's a classic Playboy song. Now, are you familiar with the Valley Playboy? I've played one and I've never owned one but I really would like to get one someday are you familiar with the song that plays in that game um isn't that the song yeah that's the one I guess that's the question do they play that same song there's a tune that plays at the end of the game when you finish and the lyrics scroll across the score display but be my playboy blah blah blah okay well let's i'm gonna i'm gonna move from that to the backbox okay what component is in the upper left hand side because the heat sink on there looks like something off of a vintage motorcycle that thing is gigantic what board is that Power supply. Have you seen the size of that heat sink? Oh, yeah. Yep. It doesn't look right. It's for the five-volt level. If you try to dissipate that much heat, it doesn't sound to me like it's an engineering marvel. Just that. It runs kind of hot, yeah. A little. If I can remember right, and I think Dave can confirm, I believe the Data East and the old System 11s were pretty similar board sets. they yeah they were yeah pretty much date east and stern always copied people and then they redid it and you know they were kind of always the follower let someone else lead the way and they kind of took the boards and kind of did their own little thing with them but they're some stuff's directly swappable um and i believe that that uh power supply is one of them but the other boards they're very close you know they basically just robbed from williams at the time Tom let's uh go back to one of your original statements you said that you work for a distributor so this is going to kind of dovetail into tell us a little bit you know the obligatory question that we all have how'd you get into the hobby it doesn't sound like it's a far stretch to figure it out but what other games do you have and unfortunately we're not going to see you at pin brew fest this year and we'll talk about that in a little while okay um uh i got into the hobby by um it was this is way back in the aol chat room days i was uh searching around back when you had to dial up make the awful sound just to get on and i was chatting i saw there was a a chat room called Ohio Arcade Collectors or something. And it caught my eye. So I jumped in there and I was talking and I started talking with two guys that were here in Columbus. And I mean, this was 25 years ago. And I just turned 50 last month to age myself, but 25 years ago. And I had no idea you could buy arcade and put them in your house. So we started talking and they said, Oh yeah, we have these auctions every month or every other month here in town at fairgrounds so i started going with them and i bought my first couple arcade games and like covet it just spread like crazy i just came hooked and started buying games i gradually uh got my first pinball machine which was the kings of steel little valley kings of steel and i started teaching myself to work on these games and stuff and a local operator a really small local operator. I said, this is where I would go to buy old games and parts from. We just got a good relationship together, and he hired me on as one of their collectors, going around fixing games and collecting money and all that. Ever since, I been working for him and then five years later the major operator here in Ohio which is where I at now my two friends worked for them and they got me a job there and I been here ever since And what I do here, I don't actually work with the games. I started out as a technician, but then I got promoted up to run dart leagues. So we have electronic dart boards now that it connects to the Internet. They're soft tip boards, and you can play people from around the world. it's pretty cool. So I just set up dart leagues and that's what I do. I get paid to play darts all day. Not bad. So you have no interaction really with the gaming side of the house. When I mean that arcade games and pinballs. I'm the only one here currently that actually enjoys pinball and wishes that they would start setting more. So whenever we do have one in here that needs chopped out or cleaned, I'm the one that volunteers to do it. Now, does your distributor distribute newer games and put them out on location? Well, that's the thing. The distributor side of us is the owner of the entire company, and I work for the other daughter company, which is the operator. So we're the same building, but we're two completely different companies. Gotcha. But, yeah, they do sell new games. They sell Sterns and Jersey Jacks. So, in fact, I have a Rush Premium on order that I'm waiting on. oh so you and Dave have something in common yeah I've been waiting 20 years well actually my entire life I have a Rush tattoo on my leg so I've seen him 15 times I've traveled to Toronto to see him I'm going to put a halt to this for a second oh I want to talk about Rush no you got to understand we just published two shows the first one did well the second one did okay I'm trying to steer clear of Rush just for a little bit. So, sorry. I'm going to put the book on it for a few minutes. We'll come to it, Dave. Calm down. All right, we'll come back. All right. All worked up over your new game. I'll stop pouting. Think of all our classic people out there. Okay. We got them coming up. They're coming up, folks. Don't worry about it. Classes are coming back. So, we got a whole line here. Don't worry. Right. I mean, Tom was kind enough to contact me, and I thought, you know, this is a good time to get somebody who's got a game that we probably would never ever see or review and i'm going to put the offer out there to others uh you know you can contact us through pinside or you can contact me and dave through our gmail account so far nobody has taken me up on it but i've forgotten for a couple of episodes so if you do care to contact us it's the classic Pinball Podcast, all spelled out, with the numeral 1 at the end. So the Classic Pinball Podcast 1 at gmail.com. So who's going to be number one? We'll find out. Tom, I'm guessing you have other games. I do. What other games are in your collection? Currently, I have 12. I have seven in the house. That's about all I can fit right now. Three in the garage and two are being babysit. I have a, if we go from oldest to newest, I have a flip-flop from Valley, old EM. I have a Flash Gordon, Silver Ball Mania, which I'm currently restoring. I have a hard top for that, which I got from the Outer Edge guys here in Ohio. They make those hard tops, and they actually use my Silver Ball Mania play field to scan to make that hard top, so I'm pretty happy about that. I have an old World Cup from 1978 I have a World Cup from 94 Phantom of the Opera I have an Excalibur Old Gottlieb Demolition Man Monopoly I have a Spider-Man, the new Stern one and I recently picked up a Black Belt which I'm not sure if you've heard of that one it's an old ballet from 1986 they only made 300 of them well that's really that's way dark ages that's when ballet was yeah i i don't know that game um it's very unique pretty wide assortment it's got a it's the ballet black though it's really unique it's got an upper flipper that fires backwards towards you that goes up around okay i'm gonna have to go check that out yeah it's pretty unique uh nice collection there i've had uh silver roll mania i've had a couple of those sold sold those flash gordon great game uh i got a couple of those sold a couple of those what else you say for classic ballads oh yeah flip-flop i had one of those recently so i sold that off kind of cool game where it had the um bounce back into the lanes in the bottom there kind of like uh like viking and like centaur a little bit yeah like a little you know yeah yeah those are kind of cool but yeah i can't keep them all right right now I have my eyes set on a not that I need another pinball machine but an OXO Williams. I got my eyes set on one of those. I just spotted one that I might be grabbing. So we'll see. Is that the one with the tic-tac-toe board on it? Yeah. And after I saw that in a recent tournament about a year ago, it's like, you know, that looks like a really fun game. Is that the one that was in the Classics tournament at Indisc? yeah yeah eric play exactly as soon as i'm playing it's like i think i need that game we'll come to eric in a little bit i got a whole list of stuff here to talk about i think i saw one of those in texas oh yeah was it good shape pinball the texas pinball festival i think i'm pretty sure i saw one you're you're you're stealing my lines there tom Let's move to the Texas Pinball Festival, which happened this past weekend. Tom attended. Tom, why don't you give us an overview, and then I've got a couple of questions. I'm sure Dave does as well. It was an amazing weekend. So much fun. There were so many games there, a couple of rare games, lots of vendors. Your first time? It was my first time. leaving the airport in Texas. I've only ever been there for layovers, but this is my first time actually going into Texas. It was amazing. The town of Frisco, which is just outside Dallas, beautiful. The Carl Weathers was perfect. The food was insane. It ruined food for me back in Ohio for the rest of my life. You got your taste of some Texas barbecue? Oh, yeah. I had it twice. It was just ridiculous. I'm surprised you didn't eat it every meal. It's kind of hard not to do when you go out there. Yeah. But, yeah, the show was great. I mean, I'm actually looking forward. I'm going to try and go again next year. Well, let's hit the highlight reel that everybody's talking about. Did you have the opportunity to play Rush, Weird Al, and then, Dave, I want you to chime in about this Revenge of Rudy or Rudy's Revenge. You know, the Funhouse Redo. Yeah. So let Tom talk a little bit about some of the newer games that people might be interested in. And then some of the highlights that, you know, he saw for those of us who have never been to TPL. Well, I'll start with the two that I'm sure everybody's interested in. Weird Al and the Broody. I saw both of them and I watched people play them. but the line for those two games were consistently six or seven people beat the entire show. And I never got a chance to actually play one, but I got to watch people play them. And the Weird Al is going over like hotcakes. Everybody's loving it. It seems like it's like Multimorphic is going to knock it out of the park with that one. The Rudy one, it looked good. It had the little extra LCD screen on the play field and had the dot matrix display and the animations. Everything seemed to flow really good on it. The sounds were good. So it kind of makes me regret selling my fun house years and years ago because I probably would have converted it. It's Rudy's nightmare, right? Correct. Yeah. I watched the video on it when they were advertising it. And I'm more of a purist, so I like the original better, not to poo-poo on what people are doing. And great, kudos for doing it, and great, and a lot of people like it. but for me, the new sound calls kind of took away from it. It didn't sound like Rudy, even like a – I'm just expecting the real Rudy, and they had a different voice guy do it that wasn't even trying – it didn't sound anything like Rudy at all. So it kind of – it took me away from what the game was, you know what I mean? It's like a whole new game in a way for me. But that's just me. I don't know what your impressions were. Was it fun to play? Was it kind of a whole new experience for you? Well, I didn't actually get to play it, but I saw everybody else playing it, and they were having a good time. They enjoyed it. I mean, obviously, the shots are all exactly the same, but the rule sets are different. Yeah, it seems a lot more deeper because they can add, like, today's technology to it to make it a deeper game. Right. So that's always good. But, I mean, as far as the conversion, it looked pretty clean. Like, it was meant to be built that way. So it wasn't like a hack job. Right, right. I'm saying for me, the sound calls in the game, just the voicing and so forth, when I was watching it, I was like, ah, it's not for me. Oh, no, yeah, I can totally see that. There were, what, nine or ten of those multi-morphic games there? Yeah, they had... Were they all Weird Al? No, they had two Weird Al's, and then they had Lexi Lightspeed, Cosmic Cart Racing, Heist, and a couple other ones I can't recall. But, yeah, they had quite a bit of variety. I'm wondering, and I talked about this in one of the shows, there's a game called Heads Up. I guess it was never released, but I got to play it in Houston a couple years ago where the two games are tied together, and you're actually playing against somebody live right next to you on the same game. And you can take points away. You can add points. You can block shots. It's definitely a different experience. I'm wondering if they had that game there. I want to say I think they did, but I don't want to say I'm not correct. That's okay. There's a lot to do about that show. Oh, it was three days, and I still don't think I saw it. It was a pretty huge layout. What was the most unique game you played? Most unique game? There was an old Stern Viper that I've never seen. That was pretty interesting. Oh, yeah. Viper, great back glass on that game. Yeah, it was beautiful. It caught my eye as soon as I went past it. Yeah. I have a new old stock. You own one of those? I got a new old stock back glass for that game. It's gorgeous. The snake and the hug babe on there and the snake is very, I don't know, maybe not safe for a home environment. I don't know. Yeah, there was an old one that was called Free Fall. It was pretty interesting. I guess it was pretty rare. Yep, wide body. I've had two of those, sold them both off. Pretty game. One of the really unique games that was a custom that a guy did, it was the old Bally Star Trek. But what he did was he made a completely the same game, but he made the play field a mirror image. Yeah. I've seen that. It's a mirror universe. It was called Mirror Mirror. Yeah, it's from one of the episodes. I saw a picture of that as well. Spock with a beard. Yeah, it was beautiful. yeah that's that's a cool i like how that guy did that that's a great idea on that one that was well done was that one like a did he actually make it talk to or just basically it's the same game everything just the artwork is different but everything everything was same except a few of the inserts were different but i mean like they had just different writing on them right and the plastics had different graphics but the gameplay was i believe pretty similar gameplay sound similar just the whole the visual was was different right yeah talk to us about pin brew fest you were there last year yes obviously you won for the best solid state yeah tell us a little bit about the show we've had you know obviously the bias opinion with keith right you have no vested interest i'm guessing so give us uh give us your thoughts honestly Pembroke Fest was I've been to this past year I've probably been to five shows and Pembroke Fest is up there as one of the funnest ones I was at it was just I mean it was early right after everything opened back up so it was not as big as you probably wanted it to be but it was a pretty good size and everything was spread out perfectly the layout was great the game. There was plenty of games there. Surprised from what I've seen from other shows I've been to, Pembroke had the most games that were actually working and playable as far as what was on the floor. At Expo, I want to say maybe 60-70% of the games were working. The other ones were either shut off or just not playable. Other shows, like there's constantly games blacked out because they're just not working. But Pin Brew, almost every game was working, and it was really nice. The beer, I'm not a big beer guy. I'm more of a bourbon guy. But it was really nice to have all those different options to try out and taste test. I found a couple that I actually enjoyed. But, yeah, and then they have food trucks outside with some great barbecue and pizza. It was an all-around really fun event. and I'm really upset I'm going to miss it this year. Like I said, I run Dart League, so I'm going to be in Vegas for a week for the World Dart Championships running that tournament. Oh, let me cry for you, Tom. Oh, geez. Well, I actually will be working that week, even though my wife doesn't. Hey, I got a question for you. Are you planning on going to the Pinball Hall of Fame? Yeah, I've been there twice already. I've been to Vegas a couple times the past year for darts again. I went there the week before it had their grand opening and I went back in January. It's an amazing facility. They've got so many games, so many fun games, rare games. It's a great place. Maybe finally I can get past the first part of the pinball circus. Yeah, the pinball circus. I've played that once at Allentown. Fun game. It's a damn elephant trunk. Yeah, yeah. Is it kind of complete yet? Is the game sort of code is complete? Someone complete the code? Or I forget how that goes. I don't think I've ever gotten far enough in that game to ever find out. Okay. But it's playable. It's fun. I got a question, too, comparing Texas Pinball Festival and the Pin Brew Fest. Some people were saying about the Texas Pinball Festival that they had food trucks there, but it was just kind of, they didn't care for it because they'd been waiting in a long line for a hamburger, like 30 minutes or whatever, and the food was decent. But when I hear about Pin Brew Fest, the food trucks are awesome and people had a better experience. Was that your experience too, do you think? I think it's kind of hard to compare them. I mean Pin Brew where it was located pretty much all you had around there was like your typical fast food restaurants Okay At Texas Pinball Festival I mean you had Perry Steakhouse right across the street which we went to and I had the most insane pork chop I ever had in my life. There was barbecue places everywhere, so I never really went to the food trucks, because I figured if I was in Texas, I'm going to eat some pork. Yeah, why have a hamburger when you have steak? Exactly, yeah. But I did see the food trucks there, and they were pretty busy most of the time. because the only other thing they had inside, they had like their typical concessionary with like, you know, the pizzas under the heat lamp and the dry off. Yeah. Yeah. Seven, seven, 11 food. No, thanks. Right. Yeah. Tom, did you have a chance to go to the flea market? And can you tell the audience a little bit about that if you did? You need to swap me? Yeah. I walked through there and yeah, it was, it was like your typical swap meet and people with their trucks backed up and games in the beds and tables of parts. It was fun. I didn't buy anything from there because obviously I flew there, so I knew I wouldn't be able to bring anything back that big. I did buy some parts inside the show, a few mods for my games. I purposely packed an extra suitcase inside of a suitcase to put all the stuff I brought back in. But yeah, I didn't buy anything from SWAT. Anything you would have bought that looked like a bargain? Yeah, I mean, if I lived locally and I had a truck, there was a couple guys selling games, you know, like for a decent price. There's playfields, back lessons. But, yeah, it was fun. I did buy a Translight from Christopher Franchi. He made a custom Jaws Translight that's beautiful, so I bought one of those. I was able to roll that up. A lot of speculation if that game is going to come out or not. Yeah. I mean, that'll probably be. I don't buy brand new games, but Rush I had to, it was obvious. But Jaws I probably would buy a brand new monster. The company I work for, the owner, he retired last year at the end of the year. Well, he owned Captain Fantastic. He grew up playing and all that. And it was in our warehouse for a couple of years. He brought it in, needed some work done to it. Well, man, this story is going to break. So it was in the warehouse, waiting back, just sat there for a while. Well, towards, uh, right before he retired, they said, Hey, we want to shop that out and restore it for him for like a going away, like a retirement gift. So they sent me back to get it. I went back and I was like, couldn't find it. Looked all over the warehouse, went next door, looked all over. We couldn't find it. Um, so like we looked for two months thinking, and maybe it was hidden away in a corner or something. No. How big is the warehouse? It's a huge warehouse. Like I said, we're one of their biggest operators in Ohio. And the distributor, they sell throughout the Midwest, so they have a huge warehouse. So I'm looking, and finally we find out during the pandemic, when we first came back, we had some new employees, new guys, younger guys. I mean, nothing personal against them, but they're like in their early 20s, mid-20s. they were told to go clean out the warehouse and get rid of all the junk ah junk got it okay right they saw this old electromechanical pinball machine thought it was a junk machine and it ended up in the dump nice good place for a complete a complete working captain fantastic so i was sent on a mission to go find a replacement so i was on pin side on marketplace He's looking all over. And finally, super nice guy up in Cleveland, Ohio. He had one that was in his family for pretty much most of the game's life. It's a beautiful condition. And we purchased that from him, and now I'm in the process of restoring that for the guy that retired. I'll ask. Did you get a bargain, or did you have to pay up? We paid a little bit over the market price, but like I said, this game is beautiful. What he told me was when it first came out, it was operated for a year or two, and then his family bought it, and it's been in his family ever since. So, I mean, the back glass has no scratches whatsoever. The play field has no wear on it. The Captain Fantastic is pretty good. That's great. The game plays. You just need some adjustments. You need to clean it up, some rubbers and lights. It's going to be a beautiful game. But, yeah, it's heartbreaking knowing that there's somewhere in the city dump of Columbus, Ohio, there's a Captain Fantastic. That's awful. Dave, I'm going to give the floor to you, mister. One more thing. It'd be more heartbreaking if it went to the crusher. Yeah, I'm afraid to know where it went. Or the dump with the bulldozer running over it. It reminds me of the end of Tommy where he's like running through and all the games are destroyed and on fire. That's the thing that got me into playing pinball. I was watching that movie when I was a little kid. Well, I get a – I don't know if you want to do this a separate thing, George, but I got some other stuff on my sheet kind of thing. Basically, I got some viewer mail here. I can read for the interesting viewer mail I just got in or listener mail, whatever you want to call it, and some other little stuff. But we can – you know, I can do it with Tom on here too, either way, unless you got other stuff you want to do. Tom, do you – if you want to stay and participate, you're more than welcome. If you've got to go and get back to work. I'm open. and I'll stick around if you guys. No, stay. Stay. We like the interaction. Go ahead, Dave. My pleasure to be here. All right. Well, listener mail. This just came in off the presses. It says, Dr. Dave, just found the Classic Pinball Podcast a couple weeks ago and have been checking them out ever since. Awesome podcast. Informative, entertaining, best of all. Not all about the latest $10,000 games on the market. Whoops. George, you're right about that rush thing. See, he doesn't like the rush. No, I'm telling you, I saw it in the numbers. I think people were polite because you bought the game. Right. I don't think they really like the delivery thing. So I got to put a little distance when you get all your toy box set up. We'll make it kind of funny, too, because we get some funny stuff to do with that. When I put the thing all together, we get some funny stuff in there. So we won't totally monopolize it all. But yeah, case in point, it's not all about the latest $10,000 games on the market. I've been in the hobby for just over two years, so my collection is a mixed bag, mostly Gottlieb wide-body machines. Anyway, I was wondering if you have classic pinball podcasts or Dr. Day's pinball repair t-shirts. Another thing we've been talking about forever, George, is getting t-shirts done. And now this guy's talking about it. I would like to purchase one or both. I also heard you're going to Pinbrew next week. Looking forward to that show myself. give up the awesome work and let me know about the t-shirts take care scott in medina new york okay good yeah okay somebody's listening and i have you uh how did you come to find us uh it was a couple years ago i just i didn't know there was pinball podcasts out there so i found a couple of them and i just searched for a pinball podcast on apple and you guys came up and i just started listening. Like he said, I really enjoy listening about the older games. That's pretty much my wheelhouse. The new game, I like playing the new Sterns and New Jersey Jack games, but to me, give me a bunch of old Bally's and Williams from the 80s and 90s and I'll be happy forever. I'm always interested. Are there any other pinball podcasts that you listen to regularly? Yeah. I mean, I listen to the pinball show with Zach and Dennis. I listen to Jeff on his show, Jeff Teolas. With Marty, right? Yeah, with Jeff and Marty. I listen to Kaneda just to see what he's got to say. I know a lot of people don't agree with him, but he is right most of the time on the things he says as far as upcoming. So you paid up? You went behind the payroll with Kaneda? I did. I gave him a few bucks a month. But, you know, I've met him in person at the Expo and at Texas Pinball Festival and talked to him. If you sit and talk to him, he is a really nice guy. He's the Howard Stern of Pinball Podcast. I was just going to say that. I was just going to say Howard Stern about him. I was just going to say that. Yeah. But, yeah, if you get a chance to meet him. Yeah, sit down and talk to him if you ever get a chance to meet him. You'll see he's genuinely a nice guy. Yeah, yeah. Show us how it's done. I like to watch YouTube channels on pinball. My favorite would be Kerry Hardy. I just love watching his restoration work, which he actually won Grand Champion Best of Show for his getaway. If you get a chance, watch that series of videos he does on YouTube. It's the most beautiful game you've ever seen, what he did to it. I'm not a regular of his, but I'll give it a watch. Yeah, Kerry Hardy on YouTube. Kerry Hardy, C-A-R-Y, Hardy. okay go ahead Dave what else you got I have more viewer listener mail but I'm having trouble finding right now so that's the latest one but there'll be more down the road but also in speaking of classic pinball I was teasing for a while about the Rolling Stones and it finally came out well Evil Knievel is getting closer and closer and it will be a two check them two Evil Knievel is going to be a cpr playfield one and a regular uh original playfield one i'm doing two at the same time it's another doubleman twins episode okay so we're probably going to end up doing i don't know i've got some ideas for when we go to pin brew fest i'm leaning it's more than 50 now so uh i think uh i've got some good ideas for when we're there dave i know we're going to be drinking beer and playing pinball, but we'll find some time to do some recording as well. There were some beautiful Evel Knievels at the Texas show. Oh, yeah? Solid State and Evel Knievel. There was one, I believe he converted an old Knight Rider to an Evel Knievel and Evel Knievel. That's a good conversion. I take that. They're very similar time frame, very similar games, but Evel Knievel is a much better execution of a game. a better game. It was pretty fun to play. Yeah, I have a Knight Rider. It's just like Bobby Orr and Mata Hari. They're all kind of the same. But the Knight Rider, I have that special chip that my buddy made, the ROM version. It makes the Knight Rider a better game. Yeah, you put that in my game one time. I don't remember when, a long time ago. George is kind of a purist No, George, it makes it way better It doesn't make it Talk or play music A little bit of addition Makes it count down the bonus when you go in the hole And kind of increases the value of those drop targets Every time you get them down progressively So it kind of adds a nice little couple niceties To, I don't know, just broaden That game's horizons, bringing it up to the year 1978 or 9 anyway Not a game I play a lot of in my collection But For $100, it was a pretty good buy. I don't know what those are going for these days. Some of those cheap ones are fun. It's fun. I've been on the Xenon kick. I shopped a bunch of games last week. I got bored and did four or five of them. That was one. I'm getting better at that game. I used to be really horrible at that game. I've gotten quite better at it, but we'll see. You know what? Let's talk about tournaments for a second. I left this till the end. Oh, yeah, tournaments. Yes, George. Were you surprised at what I sent you yesterday? I was shocked. I was like, wow. I just texted that to everybody I know. Well, tell the audience what I sent you. Well, George sent me and said, hey, have you seen this? and something about IFPA and said, hmm, let me just do a little reading here. And I was on site working on two Terminator 2s at the time, so I was a little bit distracted, but I started reading it and it said, wait a minute, I see my name in here. Hold on. And then, I'm going to pull it up right now on my little thing here. And it said, IFPA's Player of the Month biggest movers for November 2021. won so here are the november 2021 ifpa winners players of the month and biggest movers so players of the month so and so and so but then it said biggest movers david o'neill from boston mass 21 000 spots followed by sam of malden with 12 000 and then jerry with 10 000 like i moved up 12 21,000 spots. Now, I couldn't find your IFPA ranking. I found mine. I was actually surprised that I had four tournaments in there. I'm at number 6,711 or something like that. Tom, you said you played in the Classics tournament? I did. Are you ranked? Not very well. Well, join the club. I play in leagues a lot here in Columbus, and I try and get into the tournaments at the shows, but, God, they sell out so fast, so hard. But, yeah, I don't think I'm ranked anywhere, anything to brag about. I know. I did, though, if I want to put a feather in my cap, I did win the 2002 Pinburgh for the C Division. If you want to go back that far. I don't even think they have it on the website anymore it was way back before it became the monster that it was I'm just I'm looking forward to the next tournament like that I had fun qualifying and I was I got to pick some select games like yeah I can do it on that game yeah I can do that did you happen to notice who made the finals out in Texas no who you're uh your good friend zachary he did yes he did again he's uh he he got throttled though in the finals he didn't do very well but he made it to the top four again uh he's a you know you uh you hit the buzz so i know everybody's sick of hearing it but uh he's a pretty good player. I'm hoping at some point in time you guys meet again. How's that? Sure. Yeah, why not? Sounds good. Okay, I just looked it up. I am 1,834th. Okay, so you're good. How do you look it up? Do you log in? How do you look it up? I'm 57th in the state of Ohio. There. I just went on to ifpapinball.com and if you're registered on there, then you can just look up your past history, past tournaments, you know stats Okay Yeah ifpapinball Oh here we go okay my rank here we go i am 3895 and i played two tournaments i guess yeah so the audience again is not surprised that i pulling up the rear so if i just if i just play and don't do anything else but just play in tournaments i can one day be uh number one in the world now i don't think in league play you get points for a league player. Yeah, I don't really do. I used to run a league and I don't really do the league thing, but I have no time for it, running my biz. But it was fun for a while, fun for a five-year run. So I'm hoping if I can juggle my schedule around, I think you guys said you were going. I'm going to try and go to Allentown for the first time. Oh, you're definitely going to that. Yeah, I'm going to get three shows. I'm trying to figure out how I'm getting there. I don't know. I think we might, my wife and I might have another trip planned around it. But I'll be there one day. Yeah, I think it's a seven-hour drive from where I'm at. I might jump in the car and maybe bring my wife with me. Let's go on a little weekend in Pennsylvania. It's like, hey, you want to go see where the song is written about? Downtown's a fun show. Yeah, I heard it's pretty nice. It's a fun, it's a very chill, relaxed show. The farmer's market doesn't take itself too seriously. So it's kind of laid back. That's what I like about that show. It's a laid back show. I've heard that's the swap meet you don't want to miss. yeah also swap meet tons of good stuff there yeah it has a little everything you know and this year they actually have a that uh real professional you know tournament the uh i think it's ifp sanctioned tournament uh eric stone's going to be there for this one in uh isn't that the swap meet where the infamous fathom was picked up yeah yeah i know the guy yep yep yeah uh let's let's talk about our good friend eric now that you brought him up i went out uh two mondays ago and uh watched the bat cave again and forgive me i think it's dr frank is the guy who runs that particular website and it's a club in i guess it's in lakeland florida he does a really really nice job with the that twitch broadcast and i interacted they did have the texting going back and forth. But I don't think, again, Eric had any clue who I was. And I started up on him and then I said, he's playing the game, he's not going to pay attention. But if our audience wants to watch Eric, who's now, I think he's ranked like 30th. He dropped like a... I'm not going to use the phrase. Yes, he dropped in the rankings. You were going to say he dropped like a stone, weren't you? Yes, I was going to say that. I caught myself. That's usually your domain. I helped with that one. That's okay. So, Eric, if you do happen to hear this or somebody down there in Fort Myers, let Eric know that it's George from the podcast that heckles him, and maybe he'll pay attention next time. Well, probably, actually, if you go to Allentown, you'll probably get to do an interview with him, too, Eric Stone, live from the attorney. Yeah, we need to pay a little bit closer attention. The last time we went to Allentown, it was kind of like an afterthought. I had my friend Jack with me, and I pulled a couple of people together. But this time, I'll try to be a little bit more organized. There's just so much going on. It's like you're a little kid in a candy store on an attention deficit disorder with a puppy. Well, especially me. I'm not usually there for a long period of time. It's usually walk the hall, say hello to a bunch of people, We'll go put the feed bag on across the street at the farmer's market and then split. So it reminds me of a full day affair for me, unlike you who goes for what? All three days or four. Right. Yeah. You can make a whole vacation of it. But it reminds me of the famous thing you go into a store and it's a sign saying unattended children will be given an espresso and a puppy. I like that. OK. Okay, we're going to end this here and now. Tom, I want to thank you for coming on and sharing your game and talking to us about TPF and Pin Brew Fest. Hopefully you do make it to Allentown. So thank you for coming. Yeah, if anybody out there listening, you can get an opportunity to go to Pin Brew. Do it. You won't be disappointed. I guarantee it. And Tom, if you want to go a little further, you can come to Pintastic coming up right after the Allentown show. Yeah, I'd definitely like to come up to that area. I'm part of that crew there. I run the best in play. Say goodbye, Dave. Goodbye, Dave. Oh, right. Hey, Tom, great to have you on. And George, it's been wonderful as usual. No, it was my pleasure. I enjoyed it. I appreciate it. I was going to say, you asked about Rush. I did play it. I've been playing it here on location. I got a buddy who has two of them. He's got a pro on location and he's got an LE at his house. But I've been kind of not, I've been purposely trying to not dive deep into it yet because I want to get, I'm waiting to get my own so I can just spend all the time in the world on it. So I'm kind of, you know, just hanging back a little bit. Go ahead, Dave. You got your opening. What opening would that be, George? Well, you could tell us all about your new, I mean, your new your dollhouse i mean your new game yeah well i wouldn't say dollhouse i would what's not a bad one i'd call it jukebox right now george it's a box of lights that sounds really cool it's a dollhouse where you're buying additional play things for the box well george you've already like a thousand dollars and stuff for that game in tchotchkes certainly george yes yes You have a dollhouse. I'm going to call everybody out. It's a jukebox. It's a dollhouse. All the mods for that thing? No, but I haven't. There were some really nice mods at the show that guys were coming up with for selling. So what did you buy, Tom? I didn't buy any yet. I'm still waiting to get my machine before I start deciding on what I want to do to it. But I do have a set of Neopirate drumsticks at home that I'm going to add to it. See, for me, I didn't want to go totally crazy. like years ago remember that twilight zone and that one guy i think it's new hampshire just kept saying oh he marketed a quarter to put it on the play field a standing up quarter just stupid crap he just like loaded up with toys of us and have a toy box on it it was way over the top way too much stuff so i don't want to be that guy especially with this game i want to do tasteful ones so so i pulled i did a lot of i bought a lot of functional things for the game so things like the god awful stern scoop protector or the surround there that's beat up and grabs the ball and just crap it's too thin even Cliffy's having a problem making one that's going to work but it's better the one guy's out that did a good job is Ninja Camp with a 3D printed one out of the TPU material that looks like a Rubbermaid kind of product that looks very promising people will play with that one so I ordered a couple of those one for me one for my friend paul who's who got the premium i got the le of course um i get a play for a protector for it that's going to protect you because we those these new play all get dimples even though some of the people say oh just play a crap out of it all the dimples will even out over time be like a really crappy orange peel car finish no i'd rather have a pristine play field it's not like the playfields of years ago with the harder wood this wood is softer so it's not the clear that's denting it's actually the wood that's denting so you put a protector on it and it won't so i get that the scoop protector i got the dalmatian dog and the hydrant thing going on there i got the um the tube lamp kind of led thing on top of the time machine it looks like uh the back glass time machine tubes i have um pin woofer total uh sound package upgrade that thing is well worth the price that's that's up a whole other notch um i i get a poke Subware from the bottom. I decided to upgrade that. I took my super-duper M&K home theater sub, and I stuffed that underneath the game and tried that. It's like, wow, this sounds better than most people's home theater now, you know, playing this freaking thing. Actually, no, scratch that. I'm not playing it. I'm listening to it. I've only played one game in this thing. I'm keeping it virgin until I can – until wedding night. Then, you know, then we'll have a party. But that's what we're doing there. What else am I doing with the game? Did you get the covers for the flasher caps? No, I was going to do that I didn't do that yet There's two different versions One's a hand painted And one is just A lesser one The hand painted ones look interesting I'm tempted, a little pricey But I don't know I'd have to see it in person I've actually seen pictures I'm not totally sold on that one yet I'm definitely going to do those Because I've never liked flasher caps on slingshots. It drives me nuts. Anything I can do to cover those up. Yeah, I still might. I might do it. That's a possibility. I've actually put a paw. I told them to hold off on my game until I really want to find out if they're going to fix that scoop issue. I don't want to spend all these thousands of dollars on this game and just beat up the first day. Yeah, that's why. Well, I definitely wanted the LE, so I had to jump on it. So I did. I got a good price on it, and I jumped on it. And I didn't really know this was going to be a problem. I actually jumped into this game with both feet first, and then George told me, hey, you should check out the big thread. And now, thanks to George, I'm looking at that thread every hour for Rush updates on what the Pinside Brain Trust is coming up with all the different stuff for Rush and how to make it better, how to re-engineer stuff. I'm just gobbling it up and eating it, everything. That's why I haven't played it. I have plenty of other games to play. I just basically, once in a while, turn it on, admire it, play some tunes on it, make sure it's all tuned in, turn it back off again until I get the Ninja Scoop. The Ninja Scoop, I think, is better than Stern's version is a stupid Marge blue hair thing. They fall apart right away, too. Horrible. It's crap. So I'm not putting that on either. I'm putting on the aftermarket one from Ninja Camp. It looks really good. Not to dive too deep in the rabbit hole, but that buddy of mine here in town, his LE, I believe he said he opened it up. They set it up. They played 10 games on it, and the scoop was already destroyed, and the ball got stuck. They stopped playing it. They turned it off. He said he's not playing it again until they get something worked out. Well, if you listen to us when we played the game in our last episode, we watched it as we were playing the scoop getting destroyed, and then Dave broke the game. Yeah. It's ridiculous. So let's move away from Russia, unless you have something else to add. Just said they're the greatest band in history. That's all I got to add. Yes, they are. especially favorite song subdivisions for me. How about you, Tom? Oh, that's a great question. You know what? It's a lot of people find this odd. And in fact, I was talking to Jeff Teolas at Expo last year, and he was asking what song I would want in that game more than anything. And it was the big money. Yeah. The big money from Power Windows, I think has the greatest two and a half minutes or two minutes of them during their solos in that they've ever done. It's just the way that all three instruments marry together and they play off each other. Go back and listen to it again. During the solos of that song, it's just amazing. All right. I like that song. I'll listen to it again for the first time again. Oh, one other thing I put in the game that I highly recommend is that Rush concert ticket, magnetic one. It goes on the backboard. They come up with that stupid red load your QR code crap. right over that looks way better i saw somebody do that that is yeah and i think that's about it for mods i think there's probably more but i kind of forget them but i okay good i'm gonna put a uh i'm gonna put an end to this because we just probably lost half the audience again Thank you. Big money goes around the world Big money underground Big money got a mighty voice Big money made no sound Big money won't win the cities Big money won't rise Big money will not run Big money, car advice Goodbye, Norma Jean No, I never knew you at all You had the grace to hold yourself With those around you They crawled out of the woodwork And they whispered until you prayed And they set you on the treadmill And they made you change your name And it seems to me You lived your life like a candle in the wind Never know who to cling to When the rain sets in And I would have liked to know If I was just a dream A candle burned out long before The legend ever did Dave! Who? Dave! D-A-V-E! Yeah, Dave! Dave! Right. But George, you don't know what you're saying. You're under their control. Ha ha ha ha ha. Mmm.