America's Most Haunted Rob Zombie's Spook Show Internationale Domino's Spectacular Pinball Adventure The Jetsons Total Nuclear Annihilation Alice Cooper's Nightmare Castle Rick and Morty Halloween Ultraman Scooby-Doo The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Looney Tunes Evil Dead And finally, there's Beetlejuice. It's showtime! All have come and are part of the legendary legacy of Spooky Pinball, but perhaps the enduring legend. Alright, what's up everybody? Welcome to a very spooky, heavy-handed episode, number 217 of Don's Pinball Podcast. I have Blade Beetlejuice for months, and now other people have too. Let's get into the nitty-gritty of this now that I can finally talk about it. Let's go! A warm, devastating welcome from around the pinball world to all of you, straight from my brain to your ears. We're making fun and magic happen, and that couldn't be encapsulated any better than by the event that just happened. It must have been less than 48 hours ago. It seems like a lifetime ago. A moment in time, celebrated at my house, at the factory, all Beetlejuice all the time. There was a school bus involved. There was an America's Most Haunted in my living room that just materialized out of nowhere. Out of the ether, ABBA was there with longer lines than Portal at TPF, and then we had the whole arcade downstairs. We screened the trailers. There was food. There was more Chipotle that would choke 17 camels. I couldn't believe it. And not one person left that party not having had the best time. The feedback I'm getting, and thanks to the village that helped me put this on, by the way, Sterling, I'm looking at you, John Tomberland, everybody, Josh Cox, the people from the producer-level Patreon channel that we've been working on this behind the scenes for weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks. Spooky Pinball, I convinced them to do it. They met it. They met the challenge. Si va ko in avatar language, man, to pull this entire thing off. If you want to hear a complete breakdown, it's over there on the Patreon. I dropped it that morning of launch day. But my God, man, can we just take a breath here for a second and just look at what's going on? A game that pre-pre-pre-sells out. A game that sold 70 units in 13 minutes by telephone in front of me. And I know you called 300 times. I know you did. There was 1,000 other people that did too. And 70 people got through, and most people didn't, and it sucks. I get it. I get it. But I done told you. I done told you. Get on a list. Get on several lists. And I'm going to tell you now. You're going to hear this from everybody else. Go get on a list right now for Spooky Pinballs 2026 because it's going to be as big or bigger than this. this trajectory is going straight to the moon like some meme coins man in 2023 uh let's go ahead and take a little break here and i want to tell you a story i want to tell you a story that happened at io arcade in madison wisconsin shout out to hilton madison pinball i was there and we had a launch event of sorts it was the first time we were streaming texas chainsaw massacre just after the launch i was happy to be invited just a little fledgling podcaster back then in those days set up the streaming rig we had bug was there luke was there hilton was there and like that was it man we were the farthest thing from pinball celebrities there could possibly be but at that time we also had a game from stern pinball that launched jaws the pinball adventure you've played it it's amazing shark doesn't eat the ball unless you buy the 400 upgrade kit fun game super fun game elwyn at his peak man the follow-up to godzilla and i remember playing that game with a certain spooky Lucas. And that was his first time playing it. I had the game at home. Like I was showing them like the shots and stuff. And I remember him commenting. I never thought he said, this is what he said. Direct quote. I never thought I would make a game that could rival or, or be better than like an Elwynn Stern game. And at the time, like I had played Looney Tunes, I had played TCM and I agree. The flow of that game is unconscionable, especially in spooky pinball standards. It's like their greatest flow game, I think, to date, even better than the Evil Dead or the dogs barking upstairs right now. And so, like, I get it that he was hype. And at the time, that was my frame of reference was playing TCM, playing Looney Tunes. And I'm like, my guy, you know, the flow is great. Like, it reminds me of Foo Fighters, another great flowy game. And so at the time, I'm like, yeah, you know, your game's got a lot of great flow and stuff. But I mean, Jaws is a special game. Jaws is a special game. But at that time unbeknownst to me Evil Dead was far into production and development and I think he was referencing that game This game Beetlejuice was even in development Maybe just a white one at that point But now I get why Lucas said that after he played Jaws for the first time Wow, I think I made a game that could actually rival one of these. And he knew, man, he knew. He had played Evil Dead. He'd been playing it for a year. He had been in development for Beetlejuice and its crazy shots and layout and far shots and close shots and flow from one thing to another and theme integration. So now I get it, now that I'm privy to that. And so that was just a moment that hit me watching this whole launch, right? You know, I had seen the game, of course, and I had seen the trailer about a week or so ago. So I got to take people downstairs that were seeing the trailer for the very first time, had never seen the game, and I got to see it through their eyes, like that first perception. I must have did this with five different groups of people. Standing off to the side and just watching as mouths drop open watching this thing, and I get it now. I get it, man. These are games that are definitely rivaling some of the best produced games that we have seen ever in pinball, and I am absolutely here for it. Guys, Beetlejuice, I've played it. Kerry Hardy's played it. 20 to 50 other people now have been in there and played it. People are stopping by the factory, getting to play it now. We're all going to play it at Pinball at the Beach. We're going to play it at Texas Pinball Festival, and I absolutely get it now. I can't wait to share it with more people. I can't wait to stand back and watch the throngs of people at 10 of these machines at TPF while they're three to four people deep for the entirety of the show. And I can't wait. This is going to suck, man. But I can't wait for people that just are casual pinball fans to come in and be like, oh, my God, they made a Beetlejuice pinball machine. $10,000. You know what? I think I owe it to my family. and they're going to walk over to the desk and they're going to say, you know, he's pull out his wallet and he's going to say, all right, I'll take one of these. And he's going to get sorry with these have been sold out for months. And it's going to be tragic. I saw the same thing with evil dead at the, uh, MGC in Milwaukee. It sucks, but this is where we are, man. This is what maintains all the value. So please for the 30th time, get on a damn list for like the next three games, man. Cause there's not a dud in a bunch. Oh man. So I love this message that's getting out there now. These guys have leveled up. They're showing no signs of slowing down. And I think this will hopefully put some pressure on some of the other manufacturers to keep leveling up their games. I know for a long time, pinball was being saved. Pinball was on life support. We owe Stern, Gary, the whole crew over there for getting through the dark times. And they did it with Wheel of Fortune, of all things. They did it with 24. They did it with CSI. What the heck, man? What the heck? I don't know. Everybody must have been on life support back then. But we're here now. We want more than just plastic toppers, especially for this money at the top of market. And I think we're seeing that reflected in the fact that we're not seeing LEs immediately sell out anymore. Even 500 Walking Dead remasters. A heck of a game. A much saturated art package. But we're not quite seeing as much magic there with our money. Resources are finite. And if I've gotten my pocket change, this is just like being back at the family entertainment center when I was 13 years old. Pocket full of tokens. You know, I just got my butt handed to me in Mortal Kombat 2. And now I'm walking the pinball lineup and I'm looking at Fishtails. I'm looking at Terminator 2. I'm looking at Indiana Jones, a pinball adventure. I'm looking at Adam's family and I'm wondering, okay, I got like five tokens left. Where am I going to spend them? You know, where am I going to spend my time? Where am I going to get the best chance on winning a free game and extending my gameplay? Like that's what we're looking for. That's all we're looking for. And when I see something drop like the leak, the mistake, the X-Men topper that came out that reminded me immediately of this triple sliding billboard over on 192 in Kissimmee, Florida, right above a closed sizzler advertising the Spider-Man ride over at Islands of Adventure and then flying on the wings of Avatar and shooting a submachine gun in Southern Orlando. I'm looking at this for the same money. It's $1,500. That's the same price as the Beetlejuice Snake Topper. What are we doing, man? I want this to be some selective creative pressure over on the team there to elevate their game. Rise to the challenge. See Vako yourself, man. Get over to Animal Kingdom. Get over to the world of Pandora and go on the ride and, like, see what Sigourney Weaver is bringing in that pre-show, man. So I can see this with a lot of parallels. I was dealing with a lot with parallels today. I'll start with the party. I was at this party, and I've been hearing feedback now from people that have attended. Most of the people that have been giving me feedback have been hearing kind of the same thing. Don, this was the greatest pinball event I've ever been to. This was better than any show. I had more fun here. It felt more exclusive, and I think that was the trigger. So my impetus for this event that we had was to capture some of the same magic that I've had before in some theme park events that I've gone to. I'm a huge Disney theme park fan for 20 years, man Myself, David David Van Es, Carl D'Python Anghelo We were all together on these roller coaster forums back in the day And Disneyland used to do these special themed events around their attraction And there was one in particular that I remember And it was celebrating the Haunted Mansion They had just started doing the makeover for the Nightmare Before Christmas layover that they would do from October all the way through the holidays at Disneyland. They do it there every year. It's fantastic. It's magical. It's not something you find in Orlando. And they did a celebration event in a theater where they got the voice actors from the Nightmare Before Christmas on stage including the man who portrayed Otho in Beetlejuice. He was also the voice of the mayor in Nightmare Before Christmas. Lock, Shock, and Barrel were on stage, and they did a live rendition of Kidnap the Santy Claus. And I just remember going to this event and seeing these people responsible for creating that movie, creating that theme, listening from the Imagineers as they talk about the development of the ride and changing it over, then being escorted for a VIP ride on it where we got snacks at the end, and there was special merchandise available, and it was just a very magical evening where you felt exclusive, right? It was exclusive only to event attendees. The general public was barred from access for the evening. We had, you know, wine and music, sips and nibbles. It was fantastic. And so I think, inadvertently or inadvertently, I recreated that same thing in a cornfield in Wisconsin around this game with some parallels in there because some of the same actors were in attendance. and so I think that was some of the magic that we've now got in pinball and I'm so excited and happy for it. I've got more parallels here. Okay, everybody knows by now if you're a fan of themed entertainment that Universal Orlando has multiple lands now themed around Harry Potter. We just got a Harry Potter pinball machine and it's kicking total butt. And the answer that Disney, the chief rival there in Orlando, had to the Harry Potter land that was growing and expanding at Universal was their own Star Wars Galaxy's Edge land with arguably the greatest dark ride ever completed on Earth, Rise of the Resistance. If you haven't been down to Hollywood Studios or Disneyland to ride this thing, it's absolutely phenomenal. Multi-sensory, multi-part, great pacing. It's everything you want. 360 degrees of absolute bang-on theming. I wish we could get that replicated in pinball. Of course, the answer to that from Universal was Epic Universe, which is totally immersive, full of some of the best creative talent that we have in creating themed environments. And then Disney, again, it balls in their court. They're bringing Indiana Jones ride to Animal Kingdom. They're bringing the Land of Encanto in South America. They're bringing Monsters Incorporated over to the Hollywood Studios with an indoor door coaster. We've seen a pinball machine from Monsters, Inc. It's a homebrew from Trident Pinball. Ernie Silverberg's awesome, awesome game. And then we're also seeing a new Cars ride dropping into the Rivers of America, the Magic Kingdom, followed by a Villain's Land. And so my point is that these companies are in this deep rivalry for tourist dollars, similar to us, whether it's tokens in the arcade or racks of $1,000 at the home. And they're all competing for the same pool here. Now, Stern may play coy and say that we're 90% of the market. When a game is released by somebody else, it's merely a blip on our radar and that's it. But if you look at it, you got 1,000 Beetlejuices that sold out in 13 minutes, even before the countdown even started. 500 Winchester Mystery Houses that dropped up out of nowhere and got easily snatched. We're seeing thousands and thousands of Harry Potter CEs going out there. So collectively, I mean, that's 5,000 or so games altogether. Throw in a couple Turner games, maybe a couple modules for Multimorphic, and you have what would have otherwise been spent on The Walking Dead, on X-Men toppers, on shooter rods and things with Stern. So I think it's significant when viewed as a collective there. So what I want to know is where's the Beetlejuice swatting killer IP from Stern Pinball? They've got to be back there in their coffers, in their boardrooms, in their meeting rooms, cooking up something delicious. They've got to be looking at their lineup and moving the games around like they're playing chess or something. Like what can we bring out here? What can we move here? What strategic thing can we do to position our games even higher than this and recapture the continuity of the zeitgeist in our icy grip? Maybe they don't. Maybe they don't talk like that. Maybe they just eat hot dogs and make plastic toppers and they sell enough of them and it's not even a problem. Who knows? I don't know what's going on in the inner workings over there. I've got friends over there. There's great people working there. And I can't wait to see what can come out of George Gomez magic laboratory of pinball. but I'm just it's just an exciting time right now man we're gonna get Beetlejuice the production's gonna start in January I don't even know where else to go with this should we talk about the game I'm sure every podcast out there has a review of the trailer and everything I don't think there's all that many though that have hands-on experience just yet so that's something that I can help provide for you uh Sterling over at the pinball studio just released his podcast talking all about the game gushing about it. I love hearing that because it substantiates my own passion for the game too. Like it's not just me. Other people are enjoying it. So I think we can finally answer a lot of things about this new game. Don, does it shoot well? Yes, it shoots well. Yes, the flippers are strong. They don't feel like pinball brother flippers They don feel like old Jersey Jack flippers They feel like the stern pinball spooky shooter flippers that we all grown accustomed to Somebody on the forums was asking is this a game that requires precision flippers? No, it'll probably play better with them. I mean, what else wouldn't? But I don't think that that is necessary at all. You have shots that are arrayed out in front of you, not too dissimilar to a fan, but this is definitely not a fan layout with that upper area with the couch and the waiting room that's up there that plays like its own area i love shooting up there and just playing around and not have to worry about balls draining left right and center when you're up there that's super fun there's a lot of cool shout outs to classic pinball moments in this game of course you got the couch that reminds me of the simpsons pinball party we finally get to put balls on a couch and thematically it totally fits and works there's the now waiting sign that's right back there there's a whole area that's built around it you won't even see all the art on the playfield on the finished game because it's going to be underneath plastics and such but there's like a whole scene that's back there if you look at just like the regular playfield layout go get yourself one of these scratch and dent playfields if you see one man the franchise art is amazing adorn your walls with it so all the ramps feel good nothing really rejects I know TCM Looney Tunes had some steep ramps which occasionally ball would creep up to the top if it was only kind of a medium powered flip up there and then would come down very dangerously towards the center i don't see that here where i the only close place would be that red ramp on the left side the dante's ramp but really it's much more forgiving than some of the other ones that we've seen recently um so with this game i don't get a whole lot of rejects or losses down the outlanes when they do lose they go right down the middle or you're fumbling for your flippers or your flippers are possessed and who knows what's going to happen next shots from left to right I think Jengiz will probably do a great video like ironing out all these details what I can say is everything feels fun everything feels fair everything feels hittable and approachable and Dag Nabbit just about everything is backhandable as well this is a shooter's paradise kind of game all right nothing feels clunky it's like they they design a layout and maybe they could squeeze in one extra shot and then they wisely don't because it improves the overall process and instead of trying to pack in an eighth or a ninth shot in that array what they're doing is uh transforming the shots that they do have to do different things once you qualify things we've heard about the rampception ramp on that middle ramp where it's a 180 ramp at default and then when you get to scoot around the waiting room uh you'll get a a ball lock qualified and then it'll pop up and you can shoot back and start loading the couch full of pinballs. Super fun. Super fun. Of course, the Beetlejuice mech on the right orbit does a whole lot of stuff with that shot. Probably my favorite shot of the game is when it sails right through there, right orbit style to a wire form, returns back to the left in lane. Love it. Feels great every time I do it. I want to just do that all day. Other times, Beetlejuice will grab your ball and start a mode. Other times, it'll lock behind a drop tar, stand up target, no drop target, and then you can hit it and that'll qualify the bell ringing mini game that's in there. lots of fun stuff on all these shots i don't think anybody was walking away feeling like it was unfair it felt like they wanted to jump back on and play again many people did and i think that was really part of the allure of this exclusive midnight party so we'll let other people go through and dissect the entirety of the play field i'm just excited and hyped for this game i'm excited and hyped for the community that gets to participate in it and i'm so glad that this event went off with such an unhitchable time period that we hopefully can do this again, but even bigger last time. Man, a lot of surprises, okay? I was shocked at the amount of Chipotle that Spooky Pinball brought over to my house. My freezers are full of chopped up meat and beans and cheese and whatever else came in their trays. So everybody ate good the entire time. We had pizza in the evening. We had Chipotle in the early evening. Mad Pinball showed up with a bus in America's most haunted and brought in the room. Thank you, Corbin and the team. Angelis, you're awesome. I was there printing t-shirts for everybody. We were, we had banners for people, gift bags and things. Everybody had a good time. Nobody left there thirsty and I can't wait to do it again. So if you're on the Patreon at patreon.com backslash Don's pinball podcast, there are photos up there of the show. There's a review in depth of the entirety of the party and we're doing the giveaway this week. I've got Beetlejuice translates to give away, not just any Beetlejuice translights but one that are also emblazoned with the logo for the Midnight release that will be replicated on the back glass for the Midnight version of this game the SLE is happening and we have 20 of them and that's something that's pretty cool go ahead and email me at donspinballpodcast at gmail.com if you want more information you want to talk more about it or you just want to buy me a root beer or something I'm having a great time in pinball and I hope you are too Let me know what you think about this game, man. I mean, it's incredible. I'm having fun playing it. I can't wait to get it. And it's just going to get better. It's on SpinballPodcast at Gmail.com. That's how you get at me. Why don't you shoot a rod or something? You got a Star Wars? I got stuff for you. Just let me know. We'll hook it up. Where's my Diet Coke?