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Episode 220 – Sweet Emission

Slam Tilt Podcast·podcast_episode·2h 8m·analyzed·Dec 14, 2023
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.030

TL;DR

Pinsonati recap, tournament results, Stern tours, BNSOR topper pricing, Twippy Awards media categories removed.

Summary

Slam Tilt Podcast Episode 220 covers Ron and Bruce's attendance at Pinsonati (Cincinnati pinball expo/tournament), discussing the venue size, tournament formats, Ron's tournament performance, and news about Stern factory tours and Black Knight Sword of Rage topper pricing. The hosts also discuss the removal of media categories from the 2023 Twippy Awards due to community toxicity concerns.

Key Claims

  • Pinsonati is a smaller show similar in size to Pintastic with multiple free-play game banks and light vendor presence

    high confidence · Ron and Zach attended Pinsonati; described show layout and scale directly from experience

  • Ron Hallett finished in A Division finals at Pinsonati's Who Day Memorial Match Play Tournament (10 rounds, top 24 to A division)

    high confidence · Ron stated he made A Division finals; John DelZoppo won A Division, Tim Ellis won B Division

  • Raymond Davidson won the Progressive Strikes tournament at Pinsonati

    high confidence · Hosts explicitly stated 'Raymond Davidson' as winner of strikes tournament

  • Deborah Tallman won the Gauntlet tournament at Pinsonati

    high confidence · Zach stated 'Debra beat Trent in the finals' of gauntlet

  • Black Knight Sword of Rage toppers increased in price from $500 to $1,500 over four years

    high confidence · Ron: 'The original one was $500. You know how much it is now? $1,500.' Characterized as 'cash grab'

  • Stern Pinball is implementing regular factory tours similar to other production companies

    medium confidence · Ron mentions Stern starting regular tours; Zach confirms awareness but dialogue is somewhat unclear on specifics

  • 2023 Twippy Awards eliminated all media categories due to community toxicity concerns

    high confidence · Email statement received stating media categories 'were instead lending to a toxic environment within the community'

  • Zach has persistent 'endless balls' issue with a Far Out pinball machine

    high confidence · Zach: 'I keep having the endless balls issue' and considering replacing the head assembly

Notable Quotes

  • “It's like a smaller Pintastic. A room full of games. If you want to play pinball, it's good. If you want to do anything else, not so good.”

    Ron Hallett @ ~12:00 — Describes Pinsonati show structure and appeal to pinball-focused attendees

  • “The worst strike format. You guys were just killing it with the bad formats.”

    Zach @ ~34:00 — Community criticism of tournament format choice at Pinsonati

  • “2023 Twippy Pinball Awards Media Categories Removal Statement... I've determined that these categories were no longer meeting our mission of celebrating the pinball hobby and were instead lending to a toxic environment within the community.”

    Twippy Awards Committee (via email) @ ~1:01:00 — Official explanation for removal of podcast/content creator award categories

  • “When you figure $500... even if it was $250 back then and it went up to $500, you would then make it $1,000. But going for the old $1,500 for a game that's been out four fucking years. Cash grab.”

    Ron Hallett @ ~56:00 — Community perception of topper pricing as exploitative

  • “I finished first [on Stars]. So third and two seconds and that was not enough to move on. So you failed.”

    Bruce Nightingale / Ron Hallett @ ~44:00 — Ron's tournament match results, laid out humorously

  • “I managed to avoid fourth a lot. That was why. That's how I got in.”

    Ron Hallett @ ~38:00 — Ron's self-deprecating commentary on tournament performance

  • “I love that game. I played it like ten times that weekend during the... What is wrong with you people?”

    Zach / Bruce @ ~41:00 — Disagreement over Algar game quality; Zach defends it while Bruce criticizes

  • “There's a new Wonka movie? There's another one. Prequel movie... Starring Dune Dude.”

    Ron Hallett / Zach @ ~49:00 — Casual off-topic discussion about film industry and IP licensing trends

Entities

Ron HallettpersonBruce NightingalepersonZachpersonPinsonatieventWho Day Memorial Match Play TournamenteventJohn DelZoppopersonTim EllispersonDeborah TallmanpersonRaymond Davidsonperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Stern Pinball implementing consumer-facing factory tours as customer engagement/marketing strategy

    medium · Ron mentions Stern will have regular tours; Zach confirms Stern had one 'just last month'; framed as regular commercial offering like chocolate/car factories

  • ?

    event_signal: Pinsonati tournament structure includes Gauntlet format (6 games, 6 minutes, simultaneous play with specific goals) as innovative competitive element

    high · Gauntlet described with specific rules: 'Six games. Each has a goal. You have six minutes to complete them'; Deborah Tallman won with multiple rounds of competition

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Community toxicity concerns cited as reason for Twippy Awards media category removal, indicating interpersonal tensions in content creator ecosystem

    high · Official Twippy statement: 'I've determined that these categories were no longer meeting our mission of celebrating the pinball hobby and were instead lending to a toxic environment within the community'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Tournament format criticism at Pinsonati: Amazing Race ladder format and Progressive Strikes format both cited as problematic by hosts

    medium · Zach: 'The worst strike format. You guys were just killing it with the bad formats.'; women's tournament used 'Amazing Race' format described as ladder where everyone plays

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Hosts debate game quality merits of Algar (criticized by Bruce) vs Zach's defense; represents broader community disagreement on game design appeal

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.386

0:00
I'm getting kind of tired, butthead. Can we switch? You dumbass, it won't work that way. Don't you know anything about making love?
0:08
Oh, yeah, yeah. Coming to you from beautiful upstate New York, this is the Slamtail Podcast, the show about all things pinball. I'm your host, Ron Hallett, here with my other host, Bruce Nightingale. I feel so woke. What? I feel so woke. We're doing changes. Did you just wake up? Yes, I feel so woke about it. We're going to cancel everything out. Oh, God, not you too with the stupid...
0:45
And this is episode 220. Do you want to get into that right off? No, no, no. We're going to let people hang on for 30 minutes like they did on the Eclectic Gamers.
0:56
Oh. Lastly, when we get to the Twippies, I would advise you just listen to the Eclectic Gamers podcast. No, they did a way better job. They're going to do a way better job. They did a way better job as compared to whatever we're going to do. I'm an asshole, so, you know. We just spent 20 minutes working on audio. Yeah, we suck. Yeah. New headset, though. I can go work on a play field while I'm doing this. Yeah, so, listeners, please, what do you think of Bruce's headset? I noticed it's a little more base response, a little less high end. And maybe some people won't like that, but we'll see. Who's that sexy guy on your podcast, Ron? Would that be our third? I'm just kidding, just kidding. We have a third host. We do? Who is that? Please inform us. Hi, Zach.
1:48
Hi, Ron. Hi. Hi, Ron. He's so excited to see me. Well, I spent like an entire weekend with you. Yes, that was very, very fun. That was a whole week ago. And that was like 16 hours of driving at least?
Slam Tilt Podcast
organization
Twippy Awardsevent
Black Knight Sword of Ragegame
Stern Pinballcompany
Far Outgame
Cosmosgame
Gauntletevent
Alien Stargame
Medieval Madnessgame
Doctor Whogame
Algargame
Starsgame
Electric Bat Arcadeorganization
Cincinnatilocation

medium · Bruce: 'Yeah, it's a fucking turd'; Zach: 'I love that game. I played it like ten times that weekend'

  • ?

    event_signal: Pinsonati attendance by major podcast hosts provides venue feedback and tournament coverage; described as successful smaller-format show with good game availability but light vendor presence

    high · Ron and Zach attended Pinsonati; detailed tournament and venue observations provided; Pinsonati confirmed as December event with 10-round match play format

  • $

    market_signal: Black Knight Sword of Rage topper price increase from $500 to $1,500 over four years characterized as exploitative by hosts; potential margin increase not justified by product innovation

    high · Ron: '$500 probably cost them to make. Going for the old $1,500 for a game that's been out four fucking years. Cash grab.'

  • ?

    product_concern: Zach's Far Out machine experiencing persistent mechanical issues; considering head assembly replacement or whole machine swap as troubleshooting approach

    high · Zach: 'I keep having the endless balls issue. I think I'll just buy a whole new head and just slap it on'; considering body swap if head replacement fails

    • 2:04
    Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. And you didn't even buy a pinball machine and bring it back. 16 hours locked in a car with me.
    2:12
    And folks, he's still sane. Yeah, like Zach just wouldn't stop talking. Yeah, that's got to be it. That's totally it. It's more like being in the solitary confinement room in a prison.
    2:27
    Very quiet. Don't drop the soap. Oh my. Episode 220. Oh yeah, I said that already. You did say this already, boy. This might be our last episode for this year. No, I don't think so. Why not? I'm an asshole. Yeah, but in two weeks it's Christmas. I don't want to record. And the week after that's New Year's. You have a week in between. And I'm off. There's like three days in there at least. I know, exactly. There's five days. There's seven days. What did we? I can, but I'm always off Christmas. Christmas Day, Ron's doing nothing anyway. But the last so many years, we have always. He's doing nothing at all. He's just sitting on his ass. The last so many years, we have always taken this period off. I know, but this year. Because guess what? Dare to be different.
    3:15
    Dare to be. Bruce, you realize the only thing that could possibly happen is the Jaws reveal. That's it. Well, and I have four days maybe to work on a pinball machine, and we'll get more things to the people. And I want to be on. And if you want us to be on, tell us on our email. So if you demand another episode before next year, just let us know at slamtailpodcasts at gmail.com. If you want Ron to get a break because you care about him.
    3:46
    Zach, what's your vote? Don't let it end on this sort of note. Don't let it end Baby, we could have so much more More, more Can we leave the final episode of the year with me on it? Exactly Wow Was that like a stealth insult? We need somebody who's up all night We need Ray on again We'll just do it like on Christmas Eve Ray's up all night, okay No, on Christmas Eve at like 2 a.m. we'll record it Exactly And he'll be up and he'll be fine We'll all be up anyway Because we're so excited about the presents in the morning that won't be good to go. Excellent. So we've already made this decision, an executive decision without. All in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? The ayes have it. I just said I was opposed. But you said it was awesome. I'll send out the calendar invite. Exactly. This is going to be awesome. Oh, God. All right. Well, the first thing I got on my list here is Pinson Addy. Because me and Zach went to it. Yes, they did. And they didn't invite me. Would you have gone, Bruce?
    4:51
    Probably not. Exactly. But you didn't invite me, so I couldn't. I mean, I don't want to go. I invited Ron, so. Yeah, we talked about this the last episode. Zach just completely forgot that not only the conversations that had occurred and the actual, yeah, like physical, you know, talking conversations and threads had occurred, and he just completely forgot about all of them. Well, I didn't even know I was going, so you might have really surprised me. Wow, that is pretty scary. if you don't even remember when you're going. Hmm. So how was it, boys? How was the show? Let's talk about the show first before we get into the nuts and bolts of the tournament. Because Pinson, yeah, that's right. Because it's the show. There's a tournament that's part of the show. A tournament is part of the show. But in tournaments. Yeah, but they're one show. Yeah, yeah, that's right. But, yeah, show. How was the show? Haven't you learned Zach is never wrong? Yeah, he's never wrong. Ever. The show was a lot like, uh, Cleepin, really. Okay. Well, I've never been to Cleepin, so. What? No. Yeah, he hasn't been. Oh. Well, uh, similar size. It's a smaller show, but they've got, you know, a whole bunch of banks of free play games all filled in pretty well, and very light, uh, vendors. market presence. Yeah. And just, uh, two or three vendors stuffed in the end of, like, 30 games. And the fudge guy was there. Oh, we love the fudge guy. Yes. Is Fudgy the Whale there?
    6:20
    No. I didn't see Fudgy the Whale. Fuck. Yeah, it's like a smaller Pintastic. Okay. And no seminars. Yeah, no seminars. It's a game. A game. A room full of games. If you want to play pinball, it's good. If you want to do anything else, not so good. It's bad. Or if you want to be in a tournament, it's good. Well, that's playing pinball. Well. That's true. You could be playing pinball and not paying the extra price of it, though. But I did like the fact that it wasn't that crowded, which is nice. That's number one pet peeve for me, too. Well, it was way more crowded than last year because there was no power last year. Oh, yeah. But the thing is, I like the smaller shows like this. Yeah. Because I'm not. And where are you going next month, Ron?
    7:07
    Where am I going? InDisc. That's small. Oh, sorry. That's small. The floor is pretty small. Yeah. The flea market's very small. Yeah, the flea market's very small. It's not a show. I know, but Phil, you don't like people. And it's not that crowded either, really. And it's got a fairly large facility, honestly.
    7:28
    Is it bigger than the Texas room? Possibly is, now I'm thinking about it. You mean the Texas tournament room? No, the Texas actual free play room. I believe it may be bigger. That's a very big room. It's not. So it's bigger than Cincinnati is what you're saying? Uh, no, Texas. In Texas, he's saying. Yeah, but you said Indus is bigger than Texas for him.
    7:52
    Yes, that's what I just said. You just said Cincinnati. So, by the commuter process, Indus is bigger than Texas and Texas is bigger than Cincinnati. Okay. I was waiting for it. Indus is bigger than Cincinnati. You've got a weird way of getting there, but okay, sure. Just like you're getting closer to my age than yesterday or last week was. Oh, that whole thing again. It works. Yeah. It works. That's a little grace.
    8:17
    They had Elton John there, which had a line. They had a Pulp Fiction. One just only, huh? Just one. And they had a game that I had never seen. Well, the deal was that I played everything because I go to every show. It's a good game. Oh, God, not that stupid game. But you still have it, Bruce? No, I don't. Couldn't have been that good then. No, I almost had a chance at another one. Almost had a chance at another. Okay. Yeah, you know how it goes with me. You know, once you get one, it's like, you know, potato chips. You know, you get two or three games. The games. Okay. So, you're just, my train of thought's lost. I know. I love distracting you. You're awesome.
    9:04
    So, they had a game that I haven't played. Like, I played Pulp Fiction, Labyrinth, Elton John, all these new games, but I hadn't played this one. I mean, I played Elements and Pony Factory, but I have not played this one. Oh, you played Spinal Tap. No. Oh, okay. Have you played a Spinal Tap? No. No, no one has, except for... No one has, unless you go to Vegas. No, and that one's broken. Yeah, it's been broken for a while. Oh. Oh, bummer. I haven't seen anyone actually playing it at Vegas ever. Yeah, I don't think it's a real thing. I've only seen it being broken at Vegas. Yep. Everyone post a picture of it being broken. Look, it's broken again! It could be like the Batman 66, where it's not actually hooked up. And they just revealed it out and left it off on the floor just to claim us there. I'm Batman. To keep the grants from going. But, um. We don't play, Ron. We forgot about this already. What's next? I didn't play it, but they had a James Bond. Oh, the new one. The $25,000 one. The, uh, what's it called again? The 30th? 60th? 60th anniversary or whatever. Yeah. It's like $25,000 pyramid. I was just trying to figure out what you were talking about, Ron. That wasn't actually at the show. It was in the volunteer room. Yeah. And I wasn't a volunteer. But it was right next to that one tournament room, so you got to just look at it. You could hear it and see it, but not play it. You could drool over it.
    10:24
    And unlike 76, you could hear other people playing it. Wow. Yeah, it hurt. Although the cause wasn't that impressive. Wow. I'm Bond. Zach, you're so mean. James Bond. I'm Bond. I'm Bonded. James Bondage.
    10:41
    Did that hurt? Yes, it did. Tom Dondage. So? So you didn't play it still? No. That's the moral of the story. Yeah. Why did you bring it up then if you didn't play it? That's the first time I've seen it in person. Well, still, did you play it? With all the shows I go to. Ron, did you start off with, I have not played this game yet? Yeah. You insinuated that you were going to play a game. What part of yet is insinuating? I said, I have not played this game yet. Zach, you know I'm going with this, and you know I'm right. I agree.
    11:16
    How can you possibly agree? I thought the exact same thing, Bruce. I thought the exact same thing. It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what you say. It doesn't matter what you mean or what you said. It's what Bruce heard. Exactly. And Zach agreed, so it's both of us.
    11:31
    It's going to be a fucking classic episode. Especially the part where I say how I did way better at the tournaments than Zach. My event was open, Ron, if you want some of those on your side later.
    11:46
    Right now I'm crushing it. Yeah, I think you beat me at two out of three tournaments, right? Wow, look at this. Well, I didn't really get a chance, a second chance on the first one. Well, neither did I. The third one. Well, neither did you, but you had played it before in literally almost the same game. Oh, I played the same format before, so I didn't advantage. The same format in four of the six same games before. Yeah.
    12:11
    Well, he has no comeback for that. I win. Later, Space Invader. Beginner's advantage. I'm sorry. What are you fuckers talking about? Okay, well, they had multiple tournaments. See, now everyone was thinking the same thing. I just said what they thought.
    12:30
    Okay. Yeah, they had a gauntlet there. That was Sunday. I love that video game. Which one? Gauntlet? Gauntlet 2? Gauntlet Legends? Dark Legends? I love Gauntlet Legends. So in the Gauntlet, there's six games. Each has a goal. You have six minutes to complete them. Go. Six minutes? Go? Yeah. Six minutes. So all at once. Yeah, all at once. You can start all the games. You can play multiple games at the same time. If you want to try that, yep. Just get done. Oh, my fucking God. Yeah. Isn't that great? I was plunging one game into the pops and then flipping another game to shoot into the medieval madness castle and then going back and it came out of the pops. So the games were. The games were Alien Star. The goal was to spell alien.
    13:14
    Okay. Then you had Medieval Madness. The goal was to blow up a castle. Okay. Okay, that's easy. Okay. Big Game. The goal was to spell big. Oh, that's hard. That's three punches. On three balls. Yeah. On three balls. That sounds impossible. Uh-huh.
    13:30
    Not according to Ron. I heard that uh-huh. I heard it on his first try. I think I did. Yeah, he bounces up a couple times. I think I did. What was the other ones? Oh, Game of Thrones, you had to start what? Lannister. So you just hit the center ramp, then canceled out of the thingy, then keep hitting the center ramp, and it's over. That was actually probably one of the easiest ones. Then Mandalorian was a starter mode, which was surprisingly difficult for me for some reason. And then Doctor Who was a slight video mode, which is you've got to hit, what, seven stand-ups on the right there. Yeah, that's hard. Yeah, that was the one I had the most problems with and end up. I feel like I just cheated you, so. I feel like I hit them multiple times. Yeah, I agree. I was watching you like, oh, he must have it now. Yeah. He must have it now. What am I missing? And, yeah, so I got stuck on that, and time expired. I had five of the six done, and your time has expired.
    14:30
    And Zach got it on one try. well usually Zach is the more proficient player here I wanted to try it again because you get into the finals if you get under the six minutes or whatever so you were trying ten bucks per try so I put another ten bucks in but then they had another policy that newbies get for like if you've already done it you go in the back of the line so people haven't done it yet so I waited for like an hour and then the finals was going on for A Division and they're like, oh, they picked Doctor Who, so it's going to be at least another half hour away. Oh, Jesus. Half an hour. I looked at Zach, and I'm like, I think it's time to go. Like, yep, time to go. So we left.
    15:12
    I'd already loaded the game in the car and packed. You brought a game? What game is that? Only the best zipper flipper game ever, Bruce. I don't think so anymore.
    15:22
    Oh. Doggies is pretty good. But is it better than Cosmos? No, it's not. But I have to say, Doggies really impressed me yesterday. Good segue. I agree. But, you know, Doggies is good. Doggies is good, but Cosmos is a little bit better. When you can get the space, you know, the loops or the planet. When you can orbit Uranus, nothing beats that.
    15:43
    I don't want to orbit Uranus. You know, Cosmos, Doggies, I played that at the Museum of Pinball in Banning like once. Did it work? I don't know. That's the one I sent you pictures of. I was confused with all those converter thingies. I don't know. I don't know if it was worth it.
    16:01
    Yeah, that confused me. At League, there's so many streams of like, what? While playing that game, it was great. I loved it. I had a good time with it and everything. Yeah, me too. But Cosmos was one of the only games I got first place on.
    16:16
    You're welcome. Yeah, thanks. It's not only a Cosmos. Actually, you should thank Eric Wert for choosing for me to bring Cosmos. I gave him a lot of choices. Oh, thank you, Eric, for choosing Cosmos.
    16:26
    Yeah, so what are the other ones? Okay, they had a women's tournament, which I cannot find the winner. I think it was done like on a spreadsheet or something. I can't find it on Match Play. I think it was like a different kind of format. It was an amazing race, Bruce. Oh. Oh, fuck. So what is that format again, Zach? What does that mean? Shit, shit, shit, and more shit. Oh, did I say that a lot again? It's a ladder, but everyone plays it. Oh, that one. Oh, the one we bitched about last episode. Yes, and we bitched again probably again. Okay. Yeah, that's just a terrible format. I don't know who won that one. Then they had a, what was it, strikes tournament? Yep. Progressive strikes. The worst strike format.
    17:08
    You guys were just killing it with the bad formats. And the winner of that was Raymond Davidson. David Raymondson won? Yes. Wow. And I beat Zach. I lasted one more round than him. Yep. So I'm the winner. Well, I got a fourth and you got a third. That's the round before. So you had like one more round to squeak by? Yep. Squeaky, squeaky, squeaky. I lost by like 50K on Diamond Lady. And you own that. Yeah, you own that, and you suck. You suck at that. Yeah, I missed the spinner, and I died. Yeah. You lost multiple times on that. You really sucked at that. I also won on that, so. When? I didn't see that. Oh. I need proof.
    17:48
    On the match play and the search for. On the match play right now, actually. Who day? The other tournament was the Who Day Memorial Match Play Tournament. What the fuck's a Who Day? Oh, that's right. You're in Cincinnati, which is... Who Day.
    18:03
    It was also a guy on Pennside who passed away. That's why it's the Memorial Match Play Tournament. Oh, I did not know that. And it's, was it 10 rounds of match play? Yep. And then the top 24 go in A, and then the remaining... 16. 16 go into B. No restrictions. So even if you're like number one IPA in the world, you could end up in B and play in B. Nice. Foreshadowing. Yeah, foreshadowing. So, yeah. Lucky we don't know anybody who's the number one player anymore. Well, Raymond Davidson didn't make finals. What? Zach Fry did not make finals. What? Ron Hallett made finals. Oh, boy. Oh, and did I mention A Division finals? Did I mention that? The main division finals. They're not even low in the division finals either. Like midway. Midway.
    18:57
    Damn, I'm going to bow down to the new king. Bow down to the king. Don't mention the part where I lost in the first round.
    19:05
    I like to talk about that. Let's talk about that part, Ron. How did you lose? Actually, it was. Take us through the whole round. So we played Rush the first game. It was the three-game match. And it was one of those three-game banks, and you pick the bank. Yeah. And you would have loved this bank, I think. Well, actually, no, you hate Rush. I don't mind Rush. I can play. I just don't like it. You don't like it. So Rush, I finished third. Out of four? Okay. Yeah, four players. Oh, good job. Important detail there. Well, two of the players said pretty good. Good job you beat one person, Ron. Yay!
    19:47
    I managed to avoid fourth a lot. That was why. That's how I got in. So then the next game was one of your favorites, Bruce. Algar. Ooh, I would love to spank. Yeah, it's a fucking turd. God, it's such a bad game. Well, it was supposed to not be Algar, right? It was supposed to be Mata Hari.
    20:07
    Not like Kahneman? Oh, no, like Tronimo. That's right. It was supposed to be like Tronimo. Tronimo is not that great either. I would rather play like Tronimo. No. Yes.
    20:16
    I like Algar. We had one player in the group that had like 500K and destroyed everyone. It sounds like you did one thing and you did zero things. Yeah, you did zero things. You did one thing and you won. I was player four, and I was dead last by a lot from everybody, and I grinded my way and passed two of them and ended up second. With? I don't remember. 200K or something? I think it was 100K. Yeah, because that's what they had, like 100-something, 125-something. I had like 200-something. I'm just thinking literally nothing. We all, yeah, the game sucks. No, it doesn't. Yeah, it does. I love that game. I played it like ten times that weekend during the... See? What is wrong with you people? That game is a fucking turd. I love just smacking the balls over and over again. I love smacking balls right in the people's... And then you release the balls. Yeah. And you smack them some more. I love smacking the balls and it drains right down that little opening on the right. And that ball's different. They're specifically... You're hitting the balls wrong. Yeah, hitting the balls. I don't even hit the balls. I go for the spinners. Just keep it up. Just go right up top and just keep on doing it. Algar sucks. Let's try that strategy. Actually, you would have loved this, man, because the third game was our official game. Stars? Stars. On five ball. Well, I have to do a little. This is going to be funny. Guess what I'm thinking. Oh.
    21:37
    Yes. Okay. Zach. Wow. That's your worst. Ron, let's let the adults talk here. You shut up while we talk.
    21:48
    Zach, for next league night at my house, I'm going to set everything to five ball. Everything? Everything. Everything? Well, I only have a solid state. Okay. Wow. I can get behind that. I kind of like the idea. The Orange County guys would love you. Yes, because it's going to be cheetah, split second, free fall, big game, stargazer, nine ball, Solar Fire, Ali, Dragon Fist.
    22:15
    All on five ball. And Stars will be here. The official game of the Slamtail Podcast. So on Stars, I finished first.
    22:25
    So third and two seconds and that was not enough to move on. So you failed. I guess I failed. I didn't feel like I totally tanked it, but I guess I failed. So your bragging rights only went so far. No, I still finished higher than any of the aforementioned people, so I win. Is this the first time you beat Raymond in a tournament? Oh, I don't know. We'll have to check. Possibly.
    22:50
    And congrats to John DelZoppo, the winner. Congratulations, John. And in B Division, Tim Ellis won. Congratulations, Tim Ellis. Congratulations, Tim. And who won the gauntlet? It was Deborah Tallman who won. She won. She won the gauntlet. Apparently I got 12th in the gauntlet despite not going to finals. Not going to finals? Good job. And he's at 15th. Yay.
    23:18
    Yep, Debra beat Trent in the finals. Nice. So that was Pinsonati. Anything else you want to mention at all, Zach? Your thoughts on next year's show? Will you be going to it, Ron? It's a long drive. What if you flew? I mean, I like that it's a small show, but, man, it's a long drive. We'll see. I could say no now, and then when it gets close, they're like, maybe, maybe. Maybe I'll go this time again. So what did Raymond do? He watched you play on? No, he left immediately. I knew that. It was a long drive.
    23:59
    Hi, Ray. He's like, son of a bitch. So, yeah. And Zach didn't buy anything. He was looking. Yeah, I was looking. You almost got me to buy a far out, but it sold. Another one? Yeah, I'm like, you already have one. I keep having the endless balls issue. Yeah, I know you do. So you're just thinking to step remote. I think I'll just buy a whole new head and just slap it on so it happens. Yeah. And if that doesn't fix it, I'll note it in the body and I'll swap the body for another one. Yeah. And see what happens. I thought you were going to be like, I'll just give the other one to Ron that I can't fix. And I'll take the one I can fix. That was the next step, yeah. Yeah. Jesus. All right.
    24:40
    Cincinnati. That was Cincinnati. One talking topic down. Many to go. So I guess Stern is going to start having tours. Did you see this? Yes, they had one just last month. No, but they're going to have, like, regular tours. Like, you could. You can have one every year. You can sign up. No, no, no. Like, what you do, like, for regular other production companies, you can sign up and you can tour a car factory or you can tour like a chocolate factory. You can tour a... Chocolate factory. You can tour... Hey, I have a great idea for JJP. Are they going to re-theme Wonka into the new movie Wonka?
    25:21
    Wait a minute. There's another Wonka movie? There's another one. Prequel movie. Wow. Starring Dune Dude. Yeah, the Dune. But didn't they already do the Johnny Depp one? No, that's not a prequel. It's a remake. That's a remake. This is a prequel. So this is young. Yes. This is how he met the Oompa Loompas. Yes, and how he – and don't forget, in the book, it's not very good how he got the Oompa Loompas. Did you ever read the original book? No. Yes, it was slave labor. But it's just – don't they have any original ideas at all? No. Well, there is an original idea. They went and did a prequel. Yeah, that's original.
    26:01
    I mean, they were more original than Johnny Depp. Like, I went to see Godzilla Minus One. Another Godzilla movie? Really? Yeah, God. How many have they done of those? I think it goes on the news sometime. God. They did. It was good. No, no, you said it was a Godzilla movie. Yes. So what happened to the Godzilla movie? It's a correct Godzilla movie made by Toho, the only ones you should ever watch. So he grows up. He gets hit by a nuclear blast. He kills a city. People attack it. He comes back and then kills the city again. So you've watched every Godzilla movie? No, he didn't kill the city again. No.
    26:38
    No, that's not what happens. But when I went to watch this movie at the fake IMAX in Rochester. What do you mean fake? You said the size was wrong? That's IMAX. It literally is the same size as the one here in Albany. Fail. You said the screen was bigger. So you didn't know how big the one in Albany was. Yeah, I didn't know how the, yeah. As soon as I saw the one there, I'm there like, this is the same size. But you got it for free, though. That's true, I did. But the movie experience is just... Dead now. No, it's just when I was a kid, went to the movies, I loved the coming attractions. That was like one of my favorite parts. You go to see the movie. When the movie was supposed to start, you get like three or four coming attractions, and then the movie would start. I'm coming.
    27:26
    I'm attracted. So I go in there and... That was good. early. I didn't go into the theater way early. Yes, you did. What time did you leave? Into the theater. I went into the theater 10 or 15 minutes before I was supposed to start. Why that early? Yeah, 15 minutes early, because you have to sign seats. I like, because a lot of times they have trivia. Nah, no trivia. Just a fucking endless stream of commercials, one after another after another. And then at 12.17, the movie was supposed to start at 12.15. At 12.17, when they're finally going to actually start something, it says, we hope you enjoyed our trivia and whatever. It says, you didn't have any fucking trivia, piece of shit. Every question I saw, I liked. I thought it was good. You nailed all the questions, Zach. And then at 12.17, they start the barrage of coming attractions. It's like, hey, look, a new Planet of the Apes movie. Oh, Aquaman 2. Oh, Ghostbusters. Wow. This is great. They had like four. You're telling me they're going to make a Godzilla movie now. Yeah, a Godzilla movie. They had like four coming attractions and then two commercials. Like, what the fuck? And then two more coming attractions. And did they tell you to be kind and turn up your phone in between also? Oh, that too. Yeah, they did that. Be kind, rewind. Yeah, be kind, rewind. It was like 1240 before the fucking movie started.
    28:56
    Holy shit. You had somewhere to be? Oh, that's just terrible. I was thinking of going to the matinee with Bruce. I know. I wanted to go to the matinee. Oh, God. It was so bad. I know. That's what happens when you don't go with somebody. You get, you know, your whole thing goes off to the fucking house. No, I would have been annoyed no matter who I was with. No, but he would have just arrived late and made you arrive late, too, so you'd miss it all. No, I would have been in the seat just waiting for him. I'm not late. No, but you know not to go 15 minutes early. Yes, I would have walked right in. You just have to come late, you know. Never. I never come at all.
    29:30
    Okay, what else do I got here? I got, oh, Black Knight Sword of Rage Toppers are now available. The original one was $500. You know how much it is now? $1,000,000.
    29:46
    $1,500. For fucking what? It's $1,000 better than it was before. Cash grab. That is definitely a fucking cash grab. That's a huge cash grab. When you figure $500, okay, it costs them how much to make? $200? $500 probably.
    30:06
    No, even if it was $250 back then and it went up to $500, you would then make it $1,000. It would still make your two times the, you know. But going for the old $1,500 for a game that's been out four fucking years. Cash grab.
    30:25
    You need to put that sound in the thing now, Ron. No. Yes. No. Yes. No. Zach, what do you think? Are you just going to get Zach to agree with everything you say? Is this the whole gimmick? It was the whole soundboard, I think. I think so, too. Nah. You know, I would. We get, like, Bruce releasing the ball bag and, like, echoing stereo sound. Oh, that'd be stereophonic. Yeah. Quadraphonic. Or you could put, like, a whole bunch of levels, like an acapella.
    30:55
    All the possibilities. If only I could have won a Twippy, I might have put that kind of money into it. Oh, but we can never do that again because we've been banned. Well, everyone's been banned, actually. There's no being in the podcast ever again. That's why we're going to stop that episode. Okay, so let's get into this now since you brought it up. Of course, since I brought it up, it's literally on the format. It's on the format.
    31:18
    So, yeah. I mean, well, the first thing I saw about it was actually an email to our email box. Once again, which is slamtelpodcast at gmail.com. It basically says, 2023 Twippy Pinball Awards Media Categories Removal Statement. What does this mean? With input from the Twippy Committee as well as members of the pinball community, I've decided that the Twippy Pinball Awards will no longer include any media categories. I've determined that these categories were no longer meeting our mission of celebrating the pinball hobby and were instead lending to a toxic environment within the community. I'm very sorry to those pinball content creators who worked hard to become eligible, especially those in the new categories And I forgot about this They were going to do new categories this year meaning favorite pinball streamer favorite new pinball streamer you know so someone other than Deadflip could win Wait a sec, wait a sec. I think it should be all six years. You know, if you've been around for six years, this is your first time for the award. This should be new for you. Favorite pinball podcast, you know, favorite new pinball podcast, favorite pinball YouTube channel, favorite new pinball YouTube channel, favorite pinball website. Well, favorite pinball website is always Pinside. Yeah, I don't know why. And it came from Will. Maybe it's the people from Brazil that vote that in always. It came from Will Otting, who we had on last year at the Twippies. And, yeah, then I saw this was on Facebook.
    32:48
    And, wow, I have never seen such universally negative comments in my life for an announcement from multiple sides. And for those of you at home, this is all basically our buddy Chris. Chris the podcaster. Chris, it's called Chrissy. Please call him properly. Yeah, Chris the podcaster, who basically Colin from the Kineticist took over TWIP, or This Week in Pinball. Yes. And they have a promoter's database there, or did. That's gone now. They did. That's also gone. But they removed all of Chris's stuff from there, and Chris didn't like that. So Chris. Pissy Chrissy. basically did the um yeah reinstate my shit or i will start toxing you what is toxic i did not know the word toxic what is the word toxic because i did not know it until you guys had to put a description of this but i never knew what it was so what does that tell you exactly tell them what it is because you're you're more in the uh it's like posting the personally feel like you're a dresser stuff of people online so then people could go to your house and shoot you or anything so why would you do this if someone did this to you in the past oh yeah we could yeah of course yeah yeah almost like that was a problem you know yeah this happened to the same person who threatened to do this to people of the twip committee and I would say it's just two people. It was Colin, basically. That's the crazy thing. Will made the announcement. Yes. He posted it, and it went all these negative comments. They were all towards Colin, and Will was like, I made the decision. And they just completely ignored him. Ignored him every fucking time. He just got very good at the comments. I thought they had a loop, but I didn't even know who Colin was. Like, everyone hates this Colin guy. Yeah, first Chris said, I'm not doing another piece of content until Twip reinstates my Twippy wins into its database. This is the guy that deleted me, and he put Colin's personal email. Yes. That was the first part. But then, to go to the next level, that must have went nowhere, because he said, tomorrow I'll post his cell phone number. No more content until my achievements are reinstated. Is this bullying or me standing up for my 10 years of hard work? It's bullying. But I have another problem with this also. I'm going to play both sides here. Ooh, devil's advocate here. Ooh, devil's advocate. I like it. Let's be fair. I'm going to be fair with this one. First, unless you did something in the rules and saying it was a bad thing, this is what should have happened. If you had a problem with Chrissy, you do the Academy Award thing. Once you did one thing against the threat of somebody or anything like that, you say you have now been banned for a year or two years. You cannot be voted in. You cannot do anything like this. and in two years you get brought back and you say, have you learned your lesson or not? If not, you know. This has been an issue multiple years. Every year. Nothing was ever done.
    36:01
    The pinball awards, which TPN runs, they have an eligibility thing, which basically says if you do any of these things, you're not eligible. Yes. So if you literally have one that said, like, if you assault another member of the pinball community, boom, Chris would have been out for at least a year for the Tim Sexton incident. If you put, like, if you dox people, you're banned. Boom, he would have been out for a year. That's what they should have done. They should have said, this year, from all the stuff that's happened, we are banning him for this. You can't do it. Yes, you can. No. Yes, you can. You would have needed something earlier in the year. Guess what?
    36:40
    It looks like you're just making up the rules, Zach. Guess what? At a minimum, the first time he does something, you could say, hey, we're not going to accept this. And the next time he does it, you could go, bam. That you could do, yes. And he did it three times in a matter of four days. It's not like they didn't have any prior warning about it. Exactly. And the crazy thing is, like you said, he had this happen to him. For those who don't know, when he was banned from Pinside, he joined. He started posting on Rec Games Pinball, Usenet. Yes, with Frank Futter. Which is totally, oh, God, him. No, that was another guy. That was a turd. So there's a blast from the past. So he starts posting on there, and it's completely unmoderated. You can do anything you want. You can post anything you want. And there was a guy that appeared when he appeared. So this is Pam's. I'm wondering if it was also him, too. But he'd be doxing himself, which would be so bizarre. Well. I remember his name was like T-C. T-E-E-C-E-E And he, as soon as Chris popped up, he was like, I fucking hate this guy. Get the fuck out of here. I will be your worst nightmare. And he started posting, like, everything. I'm like, here's his, here's him. Here's his parents' name. Here's his address. Here's where he works. This is his boss. All that stuff. And supposedly, according to Chris, people called his boss, told him what he was doing online.
    38:07
    Well, I didn't know. That was another incident. That was two years ago. Exactly. This was from 2016. This was even before that. Yeah, and Chris was like, okay, I'm out, and he left. And then the guy that doxed him, he also disappeared. It could have been just some guy who hated him who created another username because he didn't want to do it under his own. Or it was the same person. Or he doxed himself, which would be the most bizarre thing of all time. But he's done weird things also, hasn't he?
    38:34
    He has. But the thing, it's like now it's gone for everybody. I know. You ruined, now here's the problem I have with the Twippies. Uh-oh. I'm going now both sides, as I said. Both sides. What does the Twippies do? What is their main goal for the Twippies? Besides, not the Twippies, but this week in pinball.
    38:57
    What, news and stuff? Okay, news. Where do they get 30% of their news probably from? Uh, podcasters interviews. Oh, okay. Yeah, okay. Now you see where I'm going. Okay. Now you've actually taken away, for the people you're getting your news from, you've taken everybody away to have any new person come and try to find your podcast. Here's the thing, though. You're assuming that other media content creators care about winning one of these. Nope. I'm just going. I'm going down to both sides. Okay. Let me continue. So you've now cut off one finger of your reach part of saying, hey, all these contact people that we're talking about, you now have to go look at them, and you can't vote on them, and you can't say what you liked or disliked about them, and da-da-da-da-da.
    39:54
    Second, you now took away them to possibly get an award, which, guess what? I don't give a flying fuck. I laugh about this now. It's actually funnier than ever. What I wanted to do to this episode before all this shit came out was vote for the Brewster's Million vote. Oh, vote for no one. Vote for none of the above. That would have been even better.
    40:17
    If we got more people to vote for none of the above than anybody, that would have been classic. You know, I was disappointed because I had an awesome Beavis Bloodhead clip ready for this. like when voting season started, this is what you would have heard. Well, are you ready to cast your vote for Big Daddy Butthead? You know what I'm saying?
    40:45
    I'd just like to say something, Butthead. If I could just talk for a minute about the importance of voting, because it's really important that you vote. I mean, everybody should vote. Everybody.
    40:58
    Even if you're really stupid. Even if you don't know anything, just as long as you vote. And it doesn't even matter who you vote for. Just vote. Vote. Vote for anybody. Just flip a coin and rock the vote. Shut up. We don't want them to vote for anyone, dumbass. We want them to vote for us. Oh, yeah.
    41:20
    When I was going through clips, I saw one, and it's like, oh, God, that's perfect. But the thing I'm going to go back to now is you've now taken away two fingers. If anybody posts anything on their podcast, would TWiP still use it? Would you not feel a little like, well, guess what? I've banned all these people from all this information and taken away a possibility for them to win. I'm still going to use your content. I mean. That's kind of a dick move. But Map Arcade is going to use the content too. That's fine. did Map Arcade make a program like that and then say I'm going to take it all away from you? You ruined the whole thing for one asshole. Plain and simple. Ah, so you mean it's like that full metal jacket scene? Yes. This one right here. Private Pyle has dishonored himself and dishonored the platoon.
    42:17
    So, from now on, whenever Private Pyle sucks up, I will not punish him. I will punish all of you. Yep. I'm really liking the sunboard thing. I love this thing. So that is the problem I have. You've now pissed off all the people who have been giving you content, and they've used Chris's content also. That was the thing about the comments in this. Like, half of them were Chris supporters. Oh, of course. And when I was reading that, I'm there, okay, how many posts down until I see the word canceled or woke? Woke. I got, like, I think three or four posts down. Four. Yeah. Before I saw it. God, there you go. Or fascism. Fascism was the best one, too. That'll be Chris. I don't know what Chris has said, but I guarantee you that's probably going to be his angle. They're trying to cancel me. They can't cancel me. You know, that kind of stuff. But then the other half were, like, content creators that were pissed. Like, why are we getting punished? Yeah. And the next thing I have a problem with is taking away his wins. It's the Pete Rose thing. It really is the Pete Rose thing. Oh, you say, like, you can't take away his wins is what you're saying. Yeah, you really can't unless he cheated, well, Brazil, on votes.
    43:31
    If they can prove that he cheated on votes, then you can take them away. But to take away everybody's wins, like Jack Danger, all these other things, all these media content things, that is wrong also. I'm sorry. Even if you added, like, a conduct rule and then kicked it out, you could still maybe throw away somebody's wins. No, you have to. He's saying there's nothing wrong with anything he did, and you still kick him out. It's a bit weird. Yeah. That's where I think they're wrong. They should have said after the first time this year, hey, here is your warning. If you don't behave and if you don't follow the rules of the contact, you're not going to be included in voting. He would have fucked that up in three days anyway, and then it would have been done. See, the thing is, I mean, I listened to him back in the day. I never did. I thought he was very entertaining. The problem was he would have these episodes where he would just, like, Thumb drunk rambling. Well, yeah, or bust on someone for, like, 20 minutes straight. Like, what was the point of that? Well, he did that to me before we had what I said, hey, why don't you use that money and maybe donate to something? I had, he did a Facebook post for, like, 10 minutes on me, or five minutes maybe. Oh. I'm like, okay, I'm going to turn the tables. I was not aware. Yeah, he did that, and that's why I said let's then do the Lyman thing for a good cause and get the money donated. And we got a really great response. And then he said afterwards, oh, I said that you did a good job with that. How can I tell, Chris, you're behind a paywall half the time? And if you aren't, I'm not going to see your Facebook post because guess what? I really don't give a shit. I didn't see your original Facebook post. People had to tell me. And the funny thing is a lot of the reasons people like you are the same reasons they like Chris.
    45:14
    He's not in bed with the manufacturers. He'll say whatever. You know, like, you know, Bruce, who we have, we have Raymond Davidson, the programmer of Rush at RPC. And during the, I think the RPC, the Rush launch party says, Raymond, I really don't like Rush. Like, to his face. It's like, wow. He literally will just say anything. I won't say anything. Because guess what? That's, you know, I didn't mean anything respectfully because guess what? I love his other games. And I don't really like Rush as a rock band pin. Rush is great. I like the band. I just don't like it as a rock band pin. Just like Dialed In is great, right? Right, Zach?
    45:51
    Uh, what? Exactly. Dead silence. I do think it's actually not the worst music for a rock band pin. There's been worse ones. Oh, there's worse. Kiss. Aerosmith. Kiss. Kiss is not good music, but it goes okay as a pin. Well, wait a minute. So you're saying Aerosmith is worse than Kiss? Even on music.
    46:13
    I mean, we shouldn't bring up Like Elton John or something. Can you imagine if that was a pinball game? I'm back in the saddle again.
    46:21
    I'm back. I mean, come on. That's pretty bad. You're right, Zach. I have to agree with you now. No. That's like my favorite song, I think. I'm back. I remember that song. I'm back in the saddle again. How can you have never heard the song? So you never picked that song at any point or heard it at any point? I only picked Sweet Emission and Walk This Way. Sweet Emotion. Not Emission. It's not about farting. it's about farting after you eat some um flowers i don't know yeah well first you walk this way and then like ron honestly you know you never you never cared about this award maybe i did in the first two or three years i thought it was cool to be nominated more than once uh you know two two you know i mean two different podcasts that i'm on we're both nominated. I'm just saying. I'm just saying. That was kind of cool. There must be not a lot of people out there to listen to the Pimpin' Ball podcast. No, I'm joking. The way I look at it is this. It was great to be nominated. And guess what? We got nominated by our fans. Which is the best thing of all. I'm very honored by that. But why should one asshole ruin it for everybody? The funny thing is they just had... I was watching it actually a couple of days ago, the Game Awards, which is the big one for video games. Yes. You know, they're in an actual. For someone who doesn't play about advertising in a movie. Yeah. Well, the whole award show is just trailers for upcoming games. You've seen this game coming up soon. But the thing is, they have one content creator award, and they give it away on the pre-show. They don't even air it. Yep. Once again, I think it just proves that we can't have nice things. And in the end, it's all Zach Benny's fault. Yep. Because he's the one who created this thing. Yes, he created it. It was his idea to do the content creators. He admitted it on the pinball show. So it's got to be all his fault. So you're now punishing everybody. Way to go, Chrissy.
    48:29
    Time to fucking grow up and put on your big boy shoes and be an adult for one. Yes, we can do that. I know you can. We have it. You have it in you. I think so. Maybe not. He's just a fucking narcissistic pig.
    48:45
    I think just the fact that he threw a drink in Timmy's face. Yeah. And then recorded an episode where he asked Timmy what flavor drink he'd like thrown in his face next time. And then he pulled it like a few hours later. Yeah. He thinks like, oh, no one's ever going to hear about this stuff. Guess what? Everyone records it. Everyone saves it. I have so many, like the funny thing is when I see pictures sometimes from his posts, like, oh, yep, yep, Venom's going to be the next game, Venom's going to be the next game, Venom's going to be the next game. Like, no, it's not. It's 007. You even thought it was Venom, and guess what happened? You know, he's always, like half the time he's fucking wrong, and people still send him fucking money.
    49:25
    Don't know why. I'm worried more about the listeners, because he's literally told the listeners, as like, talk to this person or do this to this person. Yeah, he's an asshole. Don't fucking do it. I know you will. And that's what scares me. Guess what? I think in certain states it's now becoming illegal. Becoming illegal? Yes. Well, no, I mean like you can be charged with a felony with this. But yeah, it's just a piss show. And of course, somebody ruined it for everybody. Me? I'm grateful for what we have. I don't do this for glory. I don't do this for... or glory holes. You just... I give everyone the smocker.
    50:12
    This is so fun, isn't it? It is, but this is why I do this. We get paid to do this. Oh, we don't. No, we don't get paid. I don't want to ever get paid for this. I do this to hang out with my friend Ron, hang out with special people like Zach. Zach, you're special. Yes, you are. You're not a friend. You're just special. Oh, he's special. All right. But he's a good friend, and we've met a lot of people through this show, and we have a lot of friends through this show. And I would never want to get rid of that. I'm not going to charge my friends to listen to me, but Ron's other podcast does. I'm not going to go there with that one either. You don't have to pay to listen to the other podcast, you lying turd. If you want to hear it early, you do. And without commercials, you do. But other than that, if it annoys you that much, you can just go in and edit out the commercial. How do we edit that? Just put it in Audacity and clip out where the commercial is. I don't have Audacity.
    51:07
    You have a lot of Audacity, Bruce. Let's be honest here. I do. Yeah, you do, Bruce. All right, can we move on? No. What are your thoughts about this? I heard your thoughts. I'm the one who's been talking. Now it's your turn.
    51:20
    I mean, I pretty much agree. I mean, I think there is a place for people like Chris. if he's not like completely doxing people and physically assaulting people. I think there is a place for some, because a lot of the, how can I say, a lot of the media, they do get very buddy-buddy with people in the industry, and they're not going to ask them harder questions on their shows.
    51:49
    You kind of need people that are going to. Be an asshole? Yeah, like you. You're perfect at that. You need people that maybe the companies aren't really like, oh, God, this person, you know. Because for true media, I mean, to me, if you're trying to have integrity, how can you be buddy-buddy with what you're supposed to be covering? In our case, we kind of, like tons of people in the industry were not in the industry when we knew them and hung out and stuff. and then they all get hired, and it puts us in a very awkward position. I just look at it as I always said. I'm not going to jeopardize their job or anybody's job. But you are going to still yell at Dwight Sullivan. Fuck yeah. That's what I'm going to say. Yeah. End of time. God, I fucking will. I told you, next expo I go to, I'm bringing a fucking flasher. We won't jeopardize his job, but we'll jeopardize his eyesight. Yes, but then he can't write code, and then I'll be good. I think that would jeopardize his job, Bruce, at that point. Let's see codes by, like, speech dictation. Make sure you wear sunglasses, Dwight. Wear sunglasses for the next talk. Just in case. But no. Zach, your thoughts.
    53:01
    I think it was just banned him day one. Just like banned him for actually doing something? Your name is stupid. You're banned. No, that's just. Not as bad. That's bad. But he's always been every, it's literally every November he starts his shit.
    53:21
    He does. He did all the same stuff in Clav in the video game. Yes, he did. He did in Clav. He did in all the car things he was in. It's just, it gets old.
    53:31
    And people still keep on supporting him. This is the longest I think we've ever talked about him. He's probably listening right now with his quippy in his one hand and masturbating in the other. Oh, I guarantee it. Yes. I got five more minutes. Yes.
    53:46
    As far as he's concerned, he's won. He's won. He's won this round. You've won this round. He's won this round, but now you've ruined it for everyone else. I can't wait to see the next show. I want to see him. You don't see he ever goes to shows anymore, even though he's been banned from one. Actually, two shows he's been banned from. Well, one is a tournament. The other one is a show. Yes. You know. Well, whatever. Can we move on? Oh, we can always get away from this. Trust me. I feel bad for the new podcasters and for the people who did have awards other than the podcaster one, and they lose their stuff. That's the bad part. I feel sorry for Colin and Will and the whole crew there. I do, too. But they should have been handled differently. They should have, but, I mean, they decided, like, screw it. We don't want this drama anymore. We're going to do this. And wow. They didn't realize the backlash. Wow, the backlash was just insane. Insane!
    54:48
    Is Papa back, Bruce? I hope fucking so. But I doubt it. I've heard inklings. What's a Papa? The Professional and Amateur Pinball Association. Basically, they posted on their Facebook. No, actually, was it YouTube clip? YouTube. And it played the Jaws theme for some reason. Which is weird. And then what did it say? Like, coming soon? Coming soon in 24. 2024. Yeah. I would love to see it. I've heard some rumblings that some show had to change their date. Yeah, and I've heard some rumblings that it will be announced at the end of this month what it is. And it will most probably be an event in the spring. Oh, sorry, did I cough like that? That might be in the state that Bruce just coughed.
    55:37
    I mean, these are rumors I've heard. Yeah, I've heard them, too. and they're different people too. I have no confirmation, but I mean. Oh, God. In case you didn't hear me first time or third time or fifth time. Yes, yes. There might be a certain location that opened up recently. There may be some kind of thing going on.
    55:59
    But again, I haven't heard confirmation, so I'm not going to speculate. Well, I just did. Yes, you did. But I have to say from what I've heard, it sure sounds like, yeah, that would make sense. It could. It could, Rabbit. It could. Would it be Pinberg? Or would it be smaller Pinberg? Would it be just like a... I hope it's not like an invitational thing again, because I'll just be really pissed off. Invitational? Invitational. Like, you know, like, you know, oh, only the top 250 players can come to this, or top five, you know. You said again, though. Well, I consider IFBA that, you know, the championships. They've never done that. No, no, the championships. Yeah, that's not IFBA, but that, yeah, IFBA's always done that. That has nothing to do with Papa. I know, but I want to see it for all. Yeah, that's Finberg. As long as you can hit the button faster. Yeah, exactly. That's going to be the next thing. If it's like a Finberg thing, it'll be even smaller. You'll be having less chance of getting it there. Exactly. And the demand is going to be even higher. Oh, it is. Higher and higher. It's going to be like a two-second time limit or something. Two-second. Boy, you know what I'd be doing? Cutting all the Internet lines except for one directed to that computer. Get in a group with ten other people that each get ten. Well, it depends how they do it. Yeah. Because they did, what was the old way? You could get up to four or five? Yeah. Now, I have a question. Would it still be the same feeling?
    57:16
    If they could have games together. Well, no, no, no. Don't forget, you also have the people who were running Papa. You know, you had all the good people who made Papa what it was and Winberg what it was. Yes. Who says they're going to be involved with this?
    57:30
    Being that their website says it's coming. But will they all be back? We don't know this. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I don't know. You don't know.
    57:39
    So, you know, it's all what it is. I hope it comes back. I hope it comes back better than ever. I just don't know if you're going to get the size like everyone expecting. I think it's probably going to be a 250 to 300 person thing, and it's going to be like bang, bang, done. Mm-hmm. I still feel like a Papa feels more to me than a Pinberg.
    57:59
    Yeah. Yeah, it could be. Considering just, like, everything. Mm-hmm. Which is too bad because Pinball is the best thing ever, but I wouldn't mind actually going to a Papa sometime in my life. Oh, you never went? No, never went. Oh. We have a Papa Virgin here.
    58:18
    Is that the newest pinball machine? It's like an EM? Papa Virgin? Papa Virgin. Okay. What else do I got here? Oh, some corrections. Or a correction, kind of. Not me, right? It's you, right? Well, no, it's a correction of the thing everyone's been saying, that. American Pinball's next three games are all going to be original teams. I think we even said that. Yeah, we did. So they just had Dave Fitts. That's right, baby. The American dream of American Pinball. That's right, baby. He was on the Luther King Pinball Podcast, baby. We tried to set the record straight. Where basically he said the next game is going to be a Barry Osler original, so original team. Yep. Then it'll be Whitewater. Well, he didn't say Whitewater sequel, but yeah. So Whitewater sequel will be next. And then the third game will be a licensed game. The next two games, so games three and four will be licensed games. Hopefully they can make it to the two licensed games because I don't get the original theme thing. I still don't get that. Who would want an original theme game? Unless it's styled in.
    59:22
    Can you imagine if Jersey Jack made an original theme game? It would be the lowest seller ever. It would kill the company. Oh, wait a minute. That's right. You played Elton John. That's Cincinnati, like one game. Yeah. That I beat you on. But what do you think? What do you think of the game? Well, first of all, without any ball save, it was brutal. My balls just kept dying immediately. Yeah, you weren't getting any ball time for some reason. It wasn't even set up that hard, but they had the tilt really tight, and there was no ball save. And you brought up something that I could not see. And I kept hitting the dead end shot and draining down the out lane over and over again. Oh, you just brought up something I could not see. Now I hate you. I found the dead end shot. I was so in Elton John and then the dead end shot. And then I watched I.E. Pinball. Carl D'Angelo did a stream of it on location, and I'm watching for it, and I see it. And you went, damn it.
    60:14
    From the side flipper, use two shots you can hit. There's the ramp. The warp ramp. Which is the warp ramp. Yep, from Star Trek. Perfect. Nice ramp, and also it will divert lock balls into piano, depending if the locks are activated. Sounds like a really bad idea for JGP's target audience. Then there's the second shot, which is above it. But what it is, it literally just goes back there, hits a rebound rubber, and comes out like a turd. Like the ball is just like near it. It's even worse than Led Zeppelin Pro's side shot. Yeah, it's basically like you're hitting a dead-end shot. Now, it has an up post that's for when the lock is lit, and you lock balls in there, but then it just releases them. And then they just dribble out super slow. Yes. If it came out, if they put like a kicker there or something, if it somehow came out and like went right to the upper flipper again so you can just try another shot, that would have been awesome. But it doesn't. It literally just dies and drops below the flipper. That like, oh, why did that shot have to be there? Like I love everything else in that game. Yeah, and every other shot like is coming fast back at you, you know, and there's lots of dangerous targets to shoot and stuff. and then, ugh. Yeah, then it just comes out like, ugh. And it's right in the sweet spot of the flipper, too. Like, I could not stop hitting it.
    61:32
    Well, you know, I didn't get the full respect of Led Zeppelin, and so I wanted to make sure everyone got to play this one. Is that like Steve Ritchie Keeler? Yeah, Steve Ritchie Keeler here. Hi, Steve Ritchie. What are you talking about? It's a great shot. I, I, yeah, maybe if they bent the wire for him or the lane guide enough, the ball guide, maybe it could, like, come out and reset. Move half of it and make it just go in the orbit. Ron, you know you love me. Stop doing this. Just make it, you love the game. I'm Steve Richie. You bought all my games. Buy this one.
    62:11
    It's just, I love everything else about that. Oh, except, except the, um, the transitioning pictures that remind me of a link. that are still there. They really need some more video assets. They're coming, right? They have video assets, but they've been using most of them for the topper on the CE. It's like, no, I want to see video like you did. You did Guns N' Roses. We had tons of video assets on the screen, and you have, like, none on the screen here. It's so weird. I don't get it. I mean, maybe it's because we're all from the 70s. Most of the ones where he's, like, you know, good, and it's not going to be, like, very high quality, so they don't want to do it or something. That's what's on the tiny screen.
    62:51
    I want sad songs to stay so much. Sad songs to stay so much. So turn on my home. Turn on my home. Yes. Turn on those sad songs. Just how many Elton John songs I've never heard before.
    63:09
    The Crocodile Rock. I do that one. Okay. Lucy in the Sky. No. You never knew Lucy in the Sky was that one? Maybe that's the cover. That's the Beatles. I know, but still, he did. Yeah, he did a version. I've never heard the cover of it. I've never heard the song you just sung. Don't Go Breaking My Heart? Never heard it. Is that on the game? It probably is. Don't go breaking my heart. I couldn't be much higher. There, I'll be. If I'm being fabulous, baby, I'm not that kind. Ooh-hoo. What? No one knows who's there. Nobody knows. When I was down. I was a clown. Sorry.
    63:49
    Nope. Never heard it. I'm a rockin' man. I don't know. Oh, okay. Okay, good. Daniel. I don't like it, but... Daniel, my brother. Nope. You are. You are older than me. Do you still feel the pain? No. Oh, wow.
    64:09
    We're losing here, Ron. He's on like three songs. How wonderful life is Yo here in the world Your song No I mean you had a Three Dog Night album when I was over at your house there Zach and they actually had, I think, the first version of that because they put it on an album before the old version. The Bitch is Back?
    64:33
    No. Philadelphia Freedom? Philadelphia Freedom. No. Oh, my God. Wow. Island Girl? Pinball Wizard. You know that one. That's the Who's Wrong. Yeah, but that's in there. I've never heard Elton John's version before. That's the one they have video assets for, and that you'll probably see eventually because Blu-ray, movie, it's probably going to be good quality. How about I'm Still Standing? I'm still standing. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Nope. Wow. Mama can't follow you, mama can't follow you. I think we see the problem with their theme selection. Yes. Even like Aerosmith, I knew more songs than this. Blue Eyes. Baby's got blue eyes. Godfather and Elton John, their selections for this year. I've seen a Godfather. Yeah, but do you think it's a good theme for pinball? No. Not the way they did it.
    65:28
    Okay, how would they? To me, when you were using video clips of your employees in the game, that means you didn't have enough there to do this. I feel like it may not have been great, but I feel like Valley Williams would have done it better. How? I don't know but I feel like they would have. Well back in the 90s we got Marlon Brando to do call outs for the game. That's how. Yeah. I'll get him coming off with a kind of that's right. Okay. I feel like most manufacturers these days do not really understand theme integration.
    66:05
    Wow. Well wait a minute. How is I thought Elton John had great theme integration. I think most of the Jersey Jacks have done work at call-outs and good build-ups and stuff. Every Jersey Jack game still has the multi-ball start sequence. The least interesting thing in the world. Like you did the call-out?
    66:26
    Yeah. I'd say mine was better than that. Wow. But wait a minute. When I did the call-outs in your game, you specifically told me not to be excited. Yeah, and you were still more interesting than Jersey Jack was. Wow.
    66:44
    So you are like, multiball. Double soup with a jackpot. Yeah, like, you know, the 90s games. Every one of them has a good multiball start. Well, why didn't you want that?
    66:56
    Because I'm not making a 90s game. Yeah, he was making a 70s-style EM game, kind of, that solid state. Yeah, you should have said that knocker golf like 10 times instead. Yeah. You should have done an 80s, early 80s game. And you're going to go, ooh, jackpot. I could have just gotten an emulator for the Gottliebs down there. Bye.
    67:15
    Bye. We love you, Gottlieb, which will come in later, actually. Oh, my. This is going to be a long episode, ladies and gentlemen. Coming in. So, next thing I got, I don't believe we took this long to get to it. There was a new game reveal.
    67:35
    Oh, really? Two new games revealed. One play field, two games. We got from Spooky Pinball, and I was looking at this, it was almost a year to the day that they announced Scooby-Doo. So we could pencil in our 2024 episode? Yeah. Yeah, like basically beginning of December, they'll announce whatever's going to be the game for 2025.
    67:59
    And so it was only a one-year turnaround this time? Yeah. That's pretty good. Faster than JJP almost. Faster than someone. Yeah, they're like, next to Stern, they're like the most reliable as far as building, announcing, and the actual theme quality.
    68:15
    Come on. Okay, Godfather, Elton John, or Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Looney Tunes? That's all, folks.
    68:26
    Besides from actually making a cohesive game, they do basically beat Jersey Jack in every way. Yeah. And also having any animations at all. Except for having a good game. Bruce, it's Jersey Jack. They haven't made a good game since, like, Woz. I agree. Stop. I agree.
    68:44
    I just love all these backhanded insults at the greatest game ever. Hobbit? Hobbit! Wow. Pirates?
    68:54
    Dungeon and Reset. Oh, by the way. That's the best email I've done, right? I think we got on them last time because they're still at .99 on Pirates. There was some kind of beta. Immediately afterwards. Yeah, there was some kind of beta sent out. They hurt us. Oh, yeah. We're fighting for you folks. Yes. Yeah, we're making it happen for you. Yes, we're making it happen. So, Spooky announced they have two new games, same play field. Basically, from everything I've seen in the play fields, it's pretty obvious. They did Texas Chainsaw Massacre first, and then the Looney Tunes, they kind of... To beat, to beat, to beat. That's all, folks. But I'm like Halloween and Ultraman are using two completely different teams on both games, which I think is a good idea. Yeah, so do I. Because before it was like Halloween and then you had the equivalent rule that was kind of the same thing in Ultraman. So now, in theory, with two completely different teams... It's twice the chance for one game to not suck.
    69:47
    Okay. And then all we need is for one game not to suck and then we figure out how to install the code for that game on the other game. On the other game and you're set. So we can save the other one afterwards. Did you say it's Scooby? Is that true? Scooby-Doo, you can't turn off extra balls? You cannot turn off extra balls. Who the fuck programmed this fucking thing? But the thing is, and just to bring this up, because we have the programmer on. Hi, Zach. Hi. Stern has their system layer. All the stuff that's basically in the, when you go into the regular adjustments, how many balls per game. So does Dizzy Jack. You know, extra balls, all that stuff. And then. Your base code. Your base system code. And then they have the game code on top of that, which is what, you know, the people you usually hear about work on. Guys like, you know, Raymond Davidson or Dwight Sullivan or, you know, Timmy Sexton. They're running the application code. That's what they're worried about. Like, they don't have to worry about the stuff. And you think that, like, in the adjustments, there's standard adjustments and then game adjustments. And don't forget, the base code was all helped by Lyman, don't forget. Lyman helped do, you know. Well, some of it was from way earlier than that. Oh, of course, but, I mean, he kept on modifying it all throughout. And similarly, I know, like, when Jersey Jack first opened, they hired Kiefer, and his first, like, two years were just writing the operating system. Yes. But what you said to me, Zach, was that, or what you said, was that for, like, every game, it's just been a from-scratch bill. Well, every game. So, like, America's Most Haunted and Rob Zombie used the Pinhack 1 board set, and they both had the same operating system written in C or Assembly, I think, and made for the dot matrix display. And then they went to Alice Cooper, right? Yep. Was that next? That was next. If you don't want to include all the dominoes and jessons and all that. And they swapped two P-Rock boards running on a PC written in Python, so they revamped the whole operating system and couldn't even figure out how to make the plus and minus buttons on the door adjust your go through your menu so you have to use the flipper buttons for that. You know, definitely knew what they were doing at that point. And then they went to TNA which was coded by Scott Denise instead using his own system so it was a completely different software system again. That's why he also releases the updates for that himself. It's not too spooky. And then went to Rick and Morty which was based on some of that but written by Eric, who's last name I can't say. Pripke? Yeah. And so they wrote a new system again for that. And I don't know what language that's in, because I haven't gotten a dump for that one yet. And then they went to Halloween with another new board system, and they revamped it again for that. And then they went to Scooby-Doo, which I dumped that, and it's written in C-sharp. And again, as far as I know, they still carried some of it over, like the new video system for Alice Cooper, because they kept crashing with C-sharp, so they slowly moved over to all C-sharp. But it's still, again, mostly a new base operating system and new board set again. It just seems to me that would be where a lot of the... Because if you're having crashes at the system level, if you don't have a universal system layer, you're going to get stuff like you can't turn extra balls off. Yeah. Or you turn on the game one time and the power, the voices don't come on, no sound at all. or, you know, just wacky shit. Yeah, I can imagine that happening. Yeah, I would never have noticed that would happen now.
    73:14
    So you both, okay, let's see. Have you seen the games? Have you seen the trailers? Yes. One of them. Good job, Zach. I saw both. For once, I saw both. For once, you saw both. So for once, you did your research. Good job, Bruce. Mm-hmm. So what do we think? The layout looks cool. Yeah, it looks pretty cool. It looks like they said, you know, let's not do an upper play field. Let's make a game that plays more normal. Yeah. With four flippers and two pop bumpers. Yep. Yeah, normal. Well, I'll say, think about Spooky, forgiving the 3D printing, the issues with the game breaking down or whatever. It is awesome that a company like this can exist because they can just, they do anything. They do anything on a play field. they might not necessarily play code all the time but they will try anything and I think we need more of that do we?
    74:10
    yeah, do you want to be just the same old cookie cutter layouts over and over dead silence, I guess that means no, yes, I don't know because I haven't really liked a lot of their play fields lately many of their play fields have at least been average but just the code also has issues Like, I feel like if half their playfields came out of Stern, you're the only people who actually can consistently make good rule sets in pins, it probably would have been a fine game. Yeah. But with Scooby, you rolled the dice twice. Yeah, Scooby, at least the game shot good. Rick and Morty sucked shooting. Halloween sucked shooting. Yeah, but Rick and Morty, the code wasn't bad. The code wasn't bad. I thought the code was actually the best part of the game. Yeah. And Scooby-Doo shoots okay. Yeah, the code sucks. But the code is not great. It's terrible. Halloween, the code is bad, and the shoot is bad. What's not great about it? I like the solving cases thing. I don't mind that part about it. I don't mind that part at all. What's wrong with it?
    75:10
    It's not very balanced, and you don't know what the fuck's going on. What does that mean? It's not very balanced. What does that mean? Certain modes are really killer, and if you don't know how to get the multiple... If you get the triples scoring at the end of the mode, it's even better, and then there's character modes that are worth basically nothing, and the multiballs are worth too much and there's other multiballs that are worth nothing.
    75:32
    It's just not very balanced. And sometimes on the screen you see it tells you exactly, but I saw Zach get into a multiball within 30 seconds. I'm like, how the fuck did he do that? Oh, that was Captain Cutler. I just granted Captain Cutler. You know how you can just do that all day up until recently? Just up top all day. Up all day. Imagine if that might be a bad idea to allow him to load. Just like having extra balls before some. Imagine that might be a bad idea. They're doing three versions of these games. I thought you said there's two versions. There's two versions. No, there's two games. There's Looney Tunes and then there's Sex and Change on MasterCard. Looney Tunes and Sex and Change on MasterCard. And there's three versions of each. Standard Edition. This is the same as they did with Scooby. Standard Edition, Bloodsucker Edition, and the Collector's Edition. And the one everyone actually buys. Well, from what I can read, it's the same as Scooby in that Standard Edition doesn't have any of the sculpts. Yeah. Like the cool stuff. And they don't want you to buy the standard edition. And I know this for a few reasons. Number one, they say, right, if you're going to pick, if you go to their site and say, I want a standard edition, it says, like, you are last. You're last. These are going to be built after Bloodsucker and Collector's editions. Okay. That's fine. The Gooby standard edition was $77.69.
    76:47
    Looney Tunes and Texas Chainsaw Massacre standard is $82.99. So they want $500. They do not want you getting standard edition. Did the other prices go up, though? One went up and one went down.
    76:59
    Bloodsucker edition, Scooby, was $87.69. Now it's $89.99. Okay, so $200. So $200. Then the collector's edition, Scooby, was $97.69. The new one, these are $96.99. Wow, so it went down. Yeah, it went down like $70. I do appreciate that they still put in the effort to bother making it standard. Yeah. Even though it feels like it should go the way of the JJP standard. Yeah, they made the standard, and they tried everything for you not to get that one. I can't imagine anyone who would ever buy that, except for, like, people who really, really, really do want the game, but also are actually just really cash-strapped. Yeah, but you were going to buy it. You wanted the standard edition of Scooby, right? Well, if it didn't come out last, yeah. Yeah. But, like, they're making it as hard as possible to want it, but obviously a few people still want it, and they do still make it for those poor people. So, like, it's the rarest game you can get. Yeah. I bet that they just made them all in order of when you ordered, you know. But I understand why they don't do it either, because it would be even harder just by making a standard edition. Tooby, they made 16, oh, man, I'm trying to get it, 1,969 units, 1,969. Get it? If they sold them all, we don't know that. Now, for Texas Chainsaw Massacre, it's 888 units, and Looney Tunes, 888 units. For a total of 1,776 units. So they're actually almost 200 less. Is there any reference in that number? But we don't know if they made that many Scoobies. Maybe they only sold 50 or 60 of them. I don't think they sold out. But at least they chose a thematic number for Scooby. Yes, of course. But like 888, that feels very random. Well, there's 1776 there. They're going to sell this until 2026 for the Bison's annual. That's going to release an updated version of Spirit of 76. Yes. Oh, God. The Spirit of Massachusetts. It's just the spirit of America.
    78:51
    But yes, I don't know why they went this way, but I bet you they didn't sell all the Scoobies out. So they probably went, why do we commit so much? Let's commit a little less, get more demand, and go from there. Yeah, not just like $850 or $750 or $800, $888. So how do you think it looks? How do the games look?
    79:11
    The layout looks interesting. I think the layout looks interesting. I feel like it's not going to actually shoot good, even though it's got lots of good shot combinations. Yeah, I kind of agree with you, too. Okay, explain. Why do you think it's not going to shoot good? Because the last one shot well. It's always a flip-flop with this guy. It is. Halloween shot like shit.
    79:31
    Halloween shot like shit. But Ultraman shot great. No, it didn't. No. Oh, wait, wait. Rick and Morty's shot was kind of like shit, too. But that wasn't them. I know. I mean, Halloween, Scooby, and this were all the same designer, right? Yeah. I can just see things like there's like a repeatable side ramp for the upper right flipper. Mm-hmm. But that feeds it back to it. But like, you can see in the video, like the way it drops it out of the habit trail, it's not a clean feed. It like rattles, just falls somewhere. Like it might not even be near the flipper. But that could be just prototype. And they don't drop it above the flipper. They drop it like immediately in front of the flipper too. I know, I know. Your shot is going to get ruined half the time. but I don't think it's a good time because you can see the same style of exit is on Scooby-Doo for some of the shots. It matters because it's in lane. It'll make the feed clean either way. You can watch in the video just not cheating cleanly.
    80:23
    No attention to detail and that sort of thing. Are you getting one, Zach? I'll go and play a Looney Tunes someday. So Looney Tunes would be the one you would get. You wouldn't do Texas Chainsaw Massacre. No, not at all. And if it's good, then I'll watch out for a cheap one locally. I do like how So, you know, Halloween, they obviously did not get a lot of the assets, or if they thought they had them, they couldn't use them. I remember there was a whole thing about the licensor wanted the video done a certain way. That's why there's like almost no clips in the thing. And this one they went out of the way to say, like, we have all the assets. We have everything.
    81:02
    Mom got me the 4K movie, and I'm good to go to steal any clip I want. But, yeah, Texas Chainsaw Massacre does nothing for me. It would only be Looney Tunes. It would have to be certain. It's hard to make horror. I mean, the horror-themed games never sell. They never sell. I hope that Spooky just really likes horror stuff, which I assume is the case. Yeah, it is. I appreciate them sticking to their guns of their namesake. Yeah, but it's not working. They're in the corner immediately when they started the company. But it's like, think of, like, A Nightmare on Elm Street didn't sell. I mean, are you going to say Monster Bash? That's horror themed. Like, well, it's Universal Monsters, I guess. It is. But think about this. What cartoons would you want in Looney Tunes cartoon?
    81:52
    All the ones they showed in the trailer are all the best ones, so they're good there. They got, like, the Barber of Seville. They got the... They got Gossamer. Yes, they got Gossamer. They have all the ones that, like, yeah. Yeah, they got Roadrunner and Coyote. and yeah, they need the gremlin. They have a voice. I saw Chicken Hawk is on one of the art pieces. I did see that.
    82:17
    I'm trying to find his name. The dude is going to do the voices. I wonder if they're going to do like they did with Scooby and overdub his voice for the original cartoons. Because that's what they did with Scooby-Doo.
    82:30
    That would... Even in the video clips? Yes. In the video clips for Scooby-Doo, they even said that. They overdubbed them. the original clips with the new voice actors. So I have to assume they're going to do the same here. Although, because there's only one voice actor. It was doing everything. Well, to show his awesome talent level, if you look at the game, except Elmer Fudd, they pretty much all were the same voice actor originally, and that would be Mel Blanc.
    82:58
    So you only need to license one voice actor. It's easy. Obviously, he's the next Mel Blanc then. It's just like I get through it. Like I can always tell the difference. And it always just like.
    83:10
    There was only one time I could not tell the difference. And that's when Billy West took over for What's His Face on Ren and Stimpy. When he took over Ren. I literally could not tell there was a difference. Like I couldn't tell they changed voice actors. What about the new Rick and Morty? I haven't seen the new Rick and Morty. I haven't either.
    83:28
    All right. But, you know, good on Spooky. Do you think they'll sell out? No. How do you think reception of Scooby has been overall? I think it got hurt by their previous game. Yeah. That's exactly why I asked, because I feel like whether this one sells out depends on how people thought of Scooby specifically. I think people like Scooby more, so I'm thinking. More, but was it, like, great, or was it just like, eh? They're going to sell out on Looney Tunes. They're not going to sell out on Texas Chainsaw. And this should be the sign to them saying, okay, guys, stop with the fucking horror. But they're spooky.
    84:07
    Does it matter to them if they don't sell out, though? Oh, I think it would. Like, they'd obviously prefer it, but, like, it's not like they're going to lose money if they don't sell out of Texas Cancels. If they make the, you know, the play fields and everything like that, they, you know. I feel like they're not going to batch all 88 at once. Yeah, well. And we know they get friendly with Spares, too, because they give them away in all the shows and things. Yeah. I feel like they could easily continue just making dual things and have horror be one and just expect they might not sell out all the horror. Yeah, as long as you budget for that up front, you won't be losing anything, and you've still got spot to grow if you need to. But, I mean, like, Jersey Jack has Jersey. Is there going to be Taylor Ham and egg sandwiches at every time? Well, you could have said, like, it's Jersey Jack, and they don't even make them in New Jersey anymore. Exactly. What's the difference? And he's not even from New Jersey. He's from New York City. Yes. But the plant was in New Jersey and liquid.
    84:59
    But, you know, who cares about the name? It's time to, I think, bite the bullet and say, guess what, guys? This isn't working anymore. Let's get off the horror themes. And they won't. They'll beat it until they don't sell anymore. Well, they had Rick and Morty, which is more of a sci-fi theme. Sci-fi is fine. That was cheap. I'm Austin Abruz. If you've named yourself Spooky Pinball and you keep making horror games, then you don't. I feel a bit disappointed, even though I don't like the horror games. I want you to stick to whatever stupid gun you have. No. I think that's detrimental to your company. So if Barrels of Fun makes a game that's not Barrels of Fun... Yeah, if they make a boring game, they should be in trouble. Yeah. Yes. Okay. We'll punish them.
    85:40
    Oh, we will. All right. So that is Spooky Pinball's Looney Tunes and the Texas Chainsaw Massacre. You ready for the ball bag, Bruce? Who isn't? Okay. You ready for the ball bag, Zach?
    85:55
    I'm facing myself. Just once on one sack to actually go, oh. I think I'm doing my best. All right. First email. This is from Scott W. Hi, Scott. It says, Bruce and Ron, I have been listening for a couple of years now and would like to thank you both for an entertaining, educational, and always interesting podcast. Why, thank you. Thank you very much. My question is that every time you mention David Fix from American Pinball, Ron goes into his American dream voice. What is the story behind this? I have never been able to catch why he does what sounds like, to me, a 1970s wrestler. Well, it all goes back to Deep Root. Yes, it goes back to Deep Root when Robert Mueller, whenever I would do Robert Mueller's voice, because he was so braggadocious, I felt a wrestler, he should be a wrestler. and I just picked Hulk Hogan even though he's a baby face. And it went, listen brother, we're deep root dude. We're changing the industry brother. Our games are going to be incredible. Did you try the pin pod brother? Oh yeah baby. I'm almost sad that they didn't succeed just so that we could just get him continually shooting random shows every year at shows. Oh God. And I really enjoyed. It would have been so good. I really enjoyed doing that. Hulk Hogan, it's just ridiculous. We were robbed of more Hulk Hogan impressions. Yes, we were robbed. So, one day fixed. David Figgs took over at American Pinball, and he's got the hat, the cowboy hat going. And I was like, well, it's American Pinball. How about the American Dream? The American Dream is Dusty Rhodes. Yes. Wrestler, 70s, 80s. WCW. Yeah, NWA, Florida. He was an all-time legend. Loved Dusty Rhodes. And that's how it talked, baby. He was the American Dream. I'm the American Dream. Dusty Rhodes, baby. So, David fixed me the American dream of American pinball. And the thing is, we came up with that. And then, like, that expo, they had their contest for the homebrew section that the winner could get their game made. And they called it the American dream contest. I know. It's like, hey, you ripped off our gimmick. Did that ever happen? No. It may be. I mean, I guess they hired the Sonic dude. No, that was the previous year. That had nothing to do with that contest. That was the previous year. Oh, yeah. Well, he brought it again. I got mixed up. Yes, yes, right, baby. You got it mixed up. You got to listen to the American dream of American pinball, baby. By the way, I was on the Lose a Kid Pinball Podcast recently, baby. And then I was also on the other one, the Pinball News Podcast. It's like three hours of day six if you want to listen.
    88:34
    Boink. Thanks, guys. See you around at RPC. Thank you, Scott. Woo-hoo. Thank you, Scott. Well, you'll see Bruce. You'll only see me once every couple months. Next week, right? Maybe next week, yeah. Oh, God. What's next week at RPC? What does RPC stand for, Bruce? I don't know. Zach wasn't saying for you. You're one of the owners. It's the Richmond Pinball Collective.
    88:56
    What a dumbass. It stands for the Rochester Pinball Collective. I see their logo on my Facebook all the time. Which is located at 349 West Commercial Street, East Rochester. Suite number?
    89:12
    2965. With how many games? I'm trying to get... Now, people. Oh, God. We have 50 games. Mm-hmm. That's a nice, even number. A perfect number. Just like the United States of America. That's right. I feel like we should expand it to include... We're not letting Puerto Rico in here. Puerto Rico and... And... Guam.
    89:35
    I'll find a Guam. Just no Puerto Rico. Okay, Guam. Guam and the... What's it? The Aleutian... None of the Aleutian... Well, the Aleutian Islands are part of... What's the other one? No Marshall Islands. No, they're too small. How about... We can get with the Barbie pins and put that in. That can be... How about St. Thomas? Okay, guys. Next email. Glenn says... We're on to something here. Yes, we are. You can't change the subject. I'm killing your buzz. We need to get... Yeah, we're talking about the tournaments. We're talking about tournaments. What tournament? Next week. There's a tournament this weekend. You mean the one at the Richmond Pinball Collective? Yes. Yeah, the one at... One tournament.
    90:14
    It's the Classics Pinball Tournament. And you can teach your speed going of beating Zach at tournaments. At the tournament, it's tailor-made for Ron Hallett. Okay. The Classics. It's only RPC. It's only Classics. Okay, what's this wonderful format? Frenzy. Oh. Oh, another Frenzy. Oh, Classics Frenzy. So you're going to be playing a lot of pinball. No, that's a less amount of games, too. You're only playing like 20 games, I think. Only 20? Yep. And what's the finals format?
    90:45
    I forget. I think it's for match play. Probably match play. But on only classics. Only classics. So once again, there's no way that I can just choose Guns N' Roses, Avengers Infinity Quest, and Batman and knock Ron out. You're right. But you can still choose Doodlebug. No, it's not there right now. It's not there. It's in the back, isn't it? It's on the floor. So I can't choose it. Wait a minute. It's on the floor so you can't. It's not on the floor. Okay. Yep. And high hands off the floor. Ooh, I know it's a good game. It's a very good game. And we could put Fireball on the floor. Ooh, Fireball Classic. You just imagine the possibilities. Yeah, imagine getting totally screwed over on that game. Yeah, imagine the final game, the final round. Oh. Ron or Zach for the win, tied. He chooses Fireball Classic, and then I beat him on it. That would be great. That would be not great. Meow, meow, meow. Remember Turd or Treasure?
    91:41
    Oh, yes. Last episode? Well, Glenn emailed us to tell us, as of now, Pharaoh still needs six reviews and RoboWar still needs four. RoboWar's for sale right now, Ron. You should buy that. So, come on, people. Get out there. Go to Pinstyde. Get some Pharaoh, some reviews. Be honest, too. It's not good. And RoboWar, it's better. RoboWar, you can buy. $4,200.
    92:03
    There's one for sale. Next email's from Mike. The subject says, I forgive you. Okay. That must be you we're talking about. No. for saying that Toy Story 4 is a bad game. It's one of my favorites, but alas, we can all be horrifically wrong at times. Love the podcast, Mike. Now, Bruce, dialed in or Toy Story? Dialed in. It's better. All right. I will say that part. I don't think Toy Story, it's more balanced. No, it's not. I don't think that, but it's more. It's not. You keep on fooling yourself with it. It's not. You could just play the multi-ball and get way too many points.
    92:46
    But it's still, I feel like it shoots better dialed in. I have to say that. Other than that? Dialed in, loved by Ron Hallett and no one else, obviously. Yes. Except that the modes start on Toy Story is a nice wide ramp, and on Dialed In it's the stupid scoop that's tiny as hell and rejects all the time. Mine doesn't reject. Yeah, it does. No, it doesn't. Just not when you shoot it. Yeah, works for me. That's what I like to say when I'm fixing something in IT. It works for me. Just can't duplicate the history. Sorry. Yeah, my favorite department on my job.
    93:18
    The next one is from Pinball Princess. It's not overly long because she has a thing for us to do. Another bracket. So it will be long. That will be long. It says, Dear Host, Other Host, and Co-Host, Other Other Host. Wow. Rejoice or despair. I have plumbed the depths of IPDB. not all that deeply, to be honest, in order to bring you, and by extension me, some entertainment in the form of a bracket of pinball things to argue about. This bracket is a best worst of the best worst of the infamous Gottlieb System 3 games. The object is to determine which game is the most Gottlieb System 3 of them all. I love Gottlieb-y this. That is, when you look at a game, something about it, the rules, the mechs, the cheesiness, This, the everything, crushes you with the weight of, yep, that's system three, all right. Cognitively, we all know, I said that right? Yeah, cognitively, we know they all are, unless I messed up, but viscerally, which one grabs you in the pit of your stomach and gives you the system three shivers?
    94:21
    Now I have a question. Is it you and me voting and Ron and Zach is the tiebreaker? Yeah. Okay, I'm good with that. This could be tantamount to the worst system three. I don't know what that means. but I am not entirely sure those two metrics are identical. Some of these very Gottlieb games could be endearing in their Gottlieb-ness. So there you have it. The most Gottlieb System 3, Gottlieb System 3. Or the worst one, if you find that defining the Gottlieb-est, oh, God, the Gottlieb-est, Gottlieb too obscure of a metric to actually define. Good Lord. Looking forward to the half hour of arguing debate. Player 31915. P.S. Topical, would you buy that? And it's a picture of Mario Andretti. for $2,900. No. I played this the first time at Pinsonati. Yeah? What'd you think? It sort of sucked. It's not sort of. The spinny thing was cool, though. I like it. Yeah, I like spinny things. I like things that can block off different shots in different ways, like the crane on Batman and stuff. I'm Batman. Okay. Do we have the brackets up? I have the bracket in front of me. All right. Zach, you're the tiebreaker, and you've got to keep track of the ones we're picking here. Oh, God. So we don't get, like, screwed up.
    95:35
    First battle we have is Hoops versus Deadly Weapon. Oh, this sucks because you took two of the better shooting ones and put them together. It's not about better shooting. It's about Godly System 3, yes. Oh, yes? I thought they were just better games. The most Godly System 3. That's what it says. I'm just going to go for a best game. Hoops. That's not wrong.
    96:01
    Carhop versus Cactus Jack. By the way, Zach owns the Deadly Weapon. He does, and that's why I chose you. I own the Hoops, too. He owns both. Oh, but Hoops is not a standard System 3 game. It's weird for System 3, you know? Mm-hmm. But Deadly Weapon, it's got the stupid Mystery Award multiball and stuff. They're both street level, so. Yeah, so Deadly Weapon is the more System 3. Carhop and Cactus Jacks Cactus Jacks Carhop Ooh Tiebreaker versus Jack Hmm So I played a Cactus Jacks at Cactus Jacks Hmm.
    96:37
    And me and Raymond found that you could shoot the right mystery ward and it would feed your right flipper and you could hold the flipper to trap and then you could back into the right mystery ward. Yeah, that's what I did. And also that the in lane there was what lit it.
    96:52
    That felt like a very system three thing to me. So I'm going to catch Jax Okay We have Super Mario Bros. Mushroom World Against Super Mario Bros.
    97:03
    Okay, Mushroom World is the little one, right? Yes, it is I played Super Mario Bros. And it was very repetitive and boring So that's very System 3-ish So I'll say Super Mario Bros. Okay Street Fighter 2 vs. Gladiators What's the most System 3-ish? Ish. They both kind of suck. They do suck, but Gladiator's better. I like the way Gladiator shoots better. Yeah, me too. But it does have the exploitable thing and all that, so they're very System 3-y. So, yeah, Gladiator's. Gladiator.
    97:36
    Okay, this is going to be a tough one because Stargate versus Mario Andretti. Stargate. I mean, again, are we going System 3-y? You just said before at the beginning we're playing the best games. I know. I'm just trying to make this a little very, you know. I know you are, but guess what? It doesn't work that way. Mario and Dreddy really fucking blows chunks. Stargate is one of the best System 3s out there. Stargate. Which makes an outlier. Stargate. I got to use Stargate.
    98:03
    Waterworld and Class of 1812. I'm saying Waterworld. I'm going Class of 1812. It's so cheesy. It is so cheesy. It's funny.
    98:15
    Zach. You got a tough one here to break the tie. There's a no-win situation. I've never played 1812 before. Oh, you'll get to in a couple months at the league.
    98:26
    At the league? At our league night in Newark. I thought you had a Bone Busters. I think she has a class of 1812 also. Oh, okay. Which one has the heart? The class of 1812. Okay. The giant beating heart in the back. Much like the dancing... Cacti. The dancing cacti in Texas Jacks. Yeah. Which is, I can't believe they put that much bomb. I love that. Yeah, that's the good part. That's the best part about it. Look about the, what's it called, for Elvira, the freaking tangly things, the monsters.
    98:59
    The what? Tangly things? The floppy monsters. You mean the frogs? No, not the frogs. The other things, the floppy things. The frogs? Oh, the thank you boys? Yeah, thank you boys. Oh, yeah. Oh, that one. Okay. Yeah, that's true. And both games have it.
    99:15
    Waterworld, class of 1812, we need a decision. Waterworld. It's got the up-down thingamajigger, and it's got the movie thingamajigger, and it's got the paying for things with dirt, so that feels very System 3 to me. Things with dirt. All right. Hop over to the other side here. No. One more. Well, no. That's in a different track. Oh, okay. Okay.
    99:37
    Cuball Wizard versus Freddy, A Nightmare on Elm Street. Ooh. Cuball Wizard is very – I mean, it's got rowdy ramp around. He's got Rowdy Rambran. He clearly can't beat Rowdy Rambran. Okay, so are you picking Q-Bowl Wizard? I'm picking Q-Bowl Wizard because Freddy fucking sucks. Rowdy Rambran! I hated that game every time at Papa slash Pinberg. It's got some little stuff in it. It just... Yeah, the goal sucked, but it just sucked. Yeah. It sucked. It really did suck. Oh, man. What's the one quote? Welcome to Pride Time, bitch! Yeah. It'd be funny if it said that. Rescue 911 versus Caribbean Cruise. I've never played Caribbean Cruise, so I have to go Rescue 911. You don't want to. It's Rescue 911. All right. Frank Thomas' Big Hurt versus Silver Slugger.
    100:29
    Hmm. I'm going to let you go first, Ron, this time. Both baseball teams here. I'll say Silver Slugger. I'm going to agree with you. Okay.
    100:40
    Shack Attack versus Wipeout. I'm going to say Wipeout because I like that stupid thing where it moves back and forth. It's, yeah. Alright, Lights, Camera, Action versus Teed Off. I know Bruce is picking. Teed Off, I'm picking. Teed Off is good. I just don't like the middle piece in it, that stupid Williams disc music. I know Zach's not going to take Lights, Camera, Action but I'm going Lights, Camera, Action. I'd rather play Lights, Camera, Action but it's not a very System 3 System 3. I like the spinner thing, where you can do, and then the shoot lights, camera, action with the lights and everything. It's so freaking cheesy. T-Dolph is the answer. Okay. Surf and Safari or World Challenge Soccer? Surf and Safari.
    101:29
    Okay, back up top. Now. Hoops versus Cactus Jack. Hoops. let's see Super Mario Brothers versus Gladiator Gladiators ooh Gladiators they're both yeah because they're both very Gottlieb-y Gladiators is better Waterworld versus Stargate I'm going to make an interesting Waterworld ooh I'm going to need a tiebreaker oh we'll back go against this game one's got dirt one's got quartz they both have shitty trap-em-all flippers and they're both movie thing. Waterworld has a really big hole.
    102:11
    Stargate does not have a very big hole. But it has horses. No other System 3 has horses. That's not a System 3 feature.
    102:20
    So? It's got a shot that you just shoot to exclusive all else. Yeah, Waterworld has got to be the more System 3 game because the code is awful.
    102:33
    You left it to him and you know what happened. I know. Stargate's eliminated. And, Zach, do you own one? Yep. It's the best System 3. It's the best playing System 3 ever. But it's also the least System 3 System 3. That's why it's the best.
    102:48
    He's got a point. Barbed wire versus title fight. Title fight. Ooh. Barbed wire. The shots up top for the upper little play field, even though it's not an upper play field, and the loops and everything, it's weird. I like that part. That's really weird. That's not System 3. It's just got to be barbed wire.
    103:06
    Oh, God. My boy's got all the stupid standard Gottlieb shit in it. Like, it's all there. So, well, this is going to be a tough one. The cue ball wizard versus rescue 911. Wow, they're very Gottlieby.
    103:20
    Oh, I got to go Rowdy Ram Brown. Let's see. What do we have? Silver Slugger versus White Vow. I like White Vow. It's very gobbledygook. Come on. Look at your skiing. You're going down the slope, and the thing's going back and forth. Silver Slugger. You have to slope while you're skiing. Okay. That's how skiing works. Okay, Zach.
    103:47
    We need a tiebreaker. Silver Slugger versus Wipeout. Does Silver Slugger have, like, the WSWAR catch-up feature? Yes, it does. Okay, Silver Slugger.
    104:00
    Tee it off versus Surf and Safari. Oh, man. My two favorite System 3s. Hey, Poops is right there. You can't say that.
    104:13
    I'll say Serpent Safari. Ditto. Serpent Safari. Sorry, Teed Off. I mean, Serpent, especially with the default ROMs and random mystery and the hole there, it's very, yeah, it's got the power of Gottlieb. Operation Thunder versus Vegas. Operation Thunder all the way for one reason is it's a timed game. You have the timed mode in it, and that is so corny. Okay, Vegas for the full orbit repeatable shot and the catch up to your opponent feature, which screwed me at Pinberg. And the Mystery World Multi-Ball. Don't forget that. That's in very System 3. Well, you have to pick. So is it Operation Thunder against Vegas? Okay.
    104:55
    I'd love to see that orbit like 50 times in a row to win that at Pinberg. That's so awful. Okay, so Hoops versus Gladiators. Hoops.
    105:08
    I know if I pick Gladiators, Zach will pick Gladiators. And I really, I really, I mean, Hoops still has, you know, it's got the Gottlieb music. It's got some of the cheesy call-outs. It's got a little blaze in the corner. Come on, man. Or whatever. Shoot, Hoop, man. Whatever, man. It's like shitty art. Yep. It's got the unbound rules. Poops.
    105:31
    Yep, Poops it is. Okay. Poops, there it is. Waterworld vs. Barb Wire. Oh, God. Oh, my God. See, now we're getting to the real system. Oh, this is real system.
    105:46
    Primetime. Barb Wire was one of the reasons Mystery Science Theater, the movie, just didn't get a wide release because they released that instead, so I always hate Barb Wire for that reason, even though I picked it earlier. So I'm going to say Waterworld. barbed wire okay oh god I'm leaving it to Zach for this one you must decide does barbed wire ever bake whole yes okay and it's got a huge like the fat cell fat guy it's got the stupid toy in the middle yeah it's got the stupid golly of scoring yeah does it have the equivalent to quartz or dirt I don't remember is there something you can trade for in it I don't know another game yeah no you can't it's barbed wire oh It's the last one. You can't get any more after this.
    106:32
    No, I'll go Waterworld. Ooh. Okay. The stupid teams. Q-Ball Wizard versus Silver Slugger. Rowdy Ramp Rounds. Rowdy Ramp Round.
    106:46
    I mean, big freaking Q-Ball in the center. I mean, it personifies. Yeah. Surf and Safari versus Vegas. Ooh. I'll still say default surfing safari. Safari. Yeah. Museum Park does it every time. Rip Vegas. I mean, you have a dragon called Rodney in a water park with water flies. It's a dinosaur. Thank you very much. With people just hanging out with wild animals, and it's just normal somehow. Okay, so we're down to the semifinals.
    107:21
    Here we go, folks. Hoops versus Barbed Wire. No, Waterworld. Oh, Waterworld. Sorry, Waterworld. Either way. Hoops versus Waterworld.
    107:33
    I know what I'm picking. Hoops. Sorry, Zach. You have to not read the assignment. I'm sorry. You know, there's some things you just got to... You keep on adding to Steph. We're sorry, Steph. We just can't. We can't. You can't have Waterworld to top anything. Okay, now, this is the harder one. Yeah, the other side is more in the air here. Q-Ball Wizard versus Surf and Safari.
    107:58
    Again, I'll go default Surf and Safari. Do Q-Ball. Do it. Make sense. I have to do Q-Ball. I have to do the Rowdy Ramp Round. It is so cheesy. You have a big hole. You have the big Q-Ball. You have everything that is so... The trouble is, I've never actually completed a single ball of Cubo Wizard without walking away from it, so I don't know any of the rules. Hit it in the left-back section. Yes. A lot. Okay, does it have a catch-up award? I don't remember. I don't think so. I don't know a thing about it. I can ask a lot of questions. The answer is all going to be, we don't know.
    108:39
    So what is it? Well, I know that if I choose Cubo Wizard, then Hoops is going to win the finals, so I'll choose surfing. Ooh. Oh.
    108:47
    Just so we have at least interesting finals here. So here we go. The most godly system three godly system threes. We end up with Hoops versus Serpent Safari. So we got. Which are both at the RPC. We got a sun with a face on it. Hoops. Yeah, we got great music on both sides. In your face.
    109:12
    I mean. One with ramps. without ramps. They're both very gauntlet-y. What's more system to me, having ramps or not having ramps?
    109:23
    I think not. I think having ramps. I'm going to say Serpent Safari. I'm saying Hoops. Yeah! It's all on Jack.
    109:35
    This is a great, great bracket here, I have to say. Hoops has got the stupid displays. Yep. They're not stupid. Those are awesome. Basket.
    109:48
    Gottlieb stuff, though. That's the Gottlieb. There's no mystery award. You have the buttons in the front to save your name. You have the buttons in the front, but so does surfing, doesn't it? No. No, no, no. It is so Gottlieb there. It's not even funny. That could have been a fun... Well, they both have the System 3 African-American displays. Yes, they do. Hoops has got the stupid head arrangement with the thing at the top. Yep. and a small body, small cabinet. Yeah, that's true. Circus Starway's got the hole, the other hole, the mystery award, the repeatable shot that you can just hit forever.
    110:24
    This is really hard. I think you convinced me, Bruce. I'm going to go hoops. Yes! Hoops, man. Hoops. All right, so hoops is the winner. I didn't expect you all the way into cabinet construction details here. Yes. Surf and Safari doesn't have the extra buttons, so just to merit there. It was oddball. It's oddball. You know, early Gottliebs were good with that.
    110:53
    What was the first Gottlieb that had that? It might have just started with System ADB, actually. So that would be Bounty Hunter? Oh, God. Bounty Hunter. I wonder if it did. Let's see.
    111:08
    All right, we're back to where we had to be. Yeah. Click, click, click, click. So, that was the ball bag. It's empty. It's empty? It's empty. Bounty Hunter does have the buttons. Okay. That was the first one, though.
    111:21
    So, going to, I guess, probably the last item. Repairs. Yeah. You guys got to have repairs. I got tons of repairs. Well, I have one item.
    111:32
    So, let's see how quickly you get this one. So, playing Attack from Mars yesterday. Whoops. Ball goes in the pop-up. One of the pop-up is not popping, but it's making the sound when it hits the skirt. So I know the switch is working. Coil, wire, or coil, coil, coil, wire, or transistor. There's an important part I didn't tell you yet. Or the whole mech fell off the play field. Bingo! Kind of. That wasn't supposed to be right. No, no. Basically, I put it in test, and when it fired, you could hear it. You could hear the coil engage. It's like, okay, it fell apart. And, like, yeah, the prodding rings, the one thing just broke right off. It was sitting at the bottom of the cabinet. Yeah. So not even, like, usually the yokes break or, like, the thread breaks off the rod. Yeah. No, the whole rod broke off. No, no, that's the thread. The thread broke off. Okay. It was sitting at the bottom. Yeah.
    112:36
    We tore down Medieval Madness, found a broken yoke and metal, you know, for the pop bumper on that. Cleaned it all up. Rebuilt the flippers.
    112:49
    What else did we do with that thing? Waxed it. Cleaned all the ramps. Broke the dragon. Yep, broke the dragon. Broke the dragon, and it's back on the floor. And now we have Monopoly that's torn apart. I've got to clean the ramps on that. It's already been waxed and cleaned, so I'll be going back together and get that ready for back-on-the-floor readiness.
    113:12
    My play field, I started working on that tonight while I was on the show. I have a third of the wiring harness off the play field, so I've got about another two-thirds, and then we'll be able to swap that over.
    113:24
    And then I'll have a spare play field sitting on the ground, and I'll have one play field in motion.
    113:30
    What else do we have for repairs? Oh, Mark's got a weird one. World Cup Soccer. Mark, one of the owners of RPC.
    113:40
    First, he brings in a board, a driver board, and he has no, sorry, he has like a row or a column that's completely out for control lights. A row and a column.
    113:55
    Both. Yes. both interchanging each other at the, you know, we can't figure out why. And column four. Yes. So we're like, what the fuck's going on here? Okay. He's like, I got another board at home. He brings this board in, puts it in. Now he has no control lights.
    114:11
    No 18 volts, he said, at all. Yeah, no 18 volts. I'm like, what the fuck? Did you check this? I thought I did it right. No, you didn't. Fail. I know what's wrong. It's broke.
    114:22
    What else? Oh, I think I fixed white water finally. Something wrong with the ramp water? The ramp. Always getting caught up on the top. Oh, yeah. Always done. Where the buck is. Yep. I figured out what was wrong. One of the screws wasn't sitting properly, and it was barely the head was up, and it would catch on the head of the screw. Oh, the head. Oh. I hate when your head gets in the way. Yeah. So I got that flush, and we'll see what happens. Hmm. That's all from me on repairs. Zach, tell us about game night at the league night for your repairs. Yeah, Doggies was, like, nowhere near ready when I was there. I got that one quickly. Well, Bruce came over and went to town on some parts of it. I made my own gate. Yeah, one of the, like, seven gates in this game has a custom extra long gate arm on it that broke. And Zach's like, what do you think we could do with this? And he showed me the old one. I'm like, do you have any wire? He's like, yeah. Brings out a piece of wire. Okay, we're going to build it and bend it and make it the right way. Break out the torch. We got the flyers and the vise, and we made our own gate, and it worked. Yep.
    115:32
    I love doing that shit. It worked well. It diverted every time. I cleaned all the steppers, and we took apart the whole zipper foot with semi-clean wax. It was solid grease. So much grease. And then whoever put it together didn't put the cacti scoring units in the right place. Oh, yeah. It went 3-4-1, 3-4-2-1 was the order of the four players for the score reels. For the cacti. So we had to move them all around. Because you didn't have a cacti score yet. Cactus Juice. Yeah, it was the Cactus Juice score. But it's a cool game. You want to get all the Cactus Juice.
    116:09
    Yeah, and it had no problems at league, surprisingly. I thought for a barely tested EM something would go wrong. What game did die at league? Alice Cooper.
    116:20
    Go spooky. By die, what did happen? Just, like, died? The optos for the crypt lock are messing up. Oh. Just happened on the one RPC earlier. Yeah. Yeah, I was about to say, didn't that happen already? Didn't that happen, like, during death ball? Yep. Yes. Okay. Well, at the time, I thought, because I couldn't reproduce it afterwards, it might have been the voltage issue with just the power in the house. So I ran an extension cord all the way from my washer over to it, because it has a dedicated circuit in the breaker box. didn't help. Nope. Hmm. Fail. He's going to be taking that whole thing apart just to get those two fun optos. Yeah.
    116:59
    Someday. I had an all-style warp ramp registering extra on the Star Trek, and I found out the ramp was loose. Well, there you go. Yep. Then after Bruce left League, I put Jackbot together. Yay. And we built the flippers on that. I see you've changed. I know the setting now. It's A216. I have to turn it off every time we play it. What is that, the cheat button? Yeah, the allow cheating adjustment. But I don't believe in that. Well, the button's there specifically to cheat. No, the button's there to buy in. But you're not off. The only purpose is to cheat. Yeah, the cheat. Like, it's in the menu. It's in the menu. I still haven't managed to successfully cheat once yet either, so I really don't understand how cheating works. I need to read the rules. Yeah, I never understood the whole cheating thing. I've heard things like, in tournament mode, every fourth one is a bomb, or isn't a bomber, so I don't know. I thought every fourth one worked, but I don't know fourth what. Fourth what? Yeah, exactly. What are you supposed to hit? I see people hit that thing all the time. Well, I found out. They dream they hit it. Playing for the first time in a home environment where you actually hear things, there's a little beep when the cheat gets registered. Oh. I've never heard that at a tournament, you know, or anything. I've never heard that, no.
    118:13
    It seems like in tournaments, everyone always does it successfully, so I don't know what it is, but Yeah. Now I'm tearing apart the whole plinth on that to give it a tear down, cleaning, new rubbers. Some of the rubbers weren't even there. Like in the pop-up area, they're just gone. So that's a great start for a shopped working game.
    118:32
    Did I mention I won league yesterday? Oh, you had league? Yeah. Did you have it at the local? No, this is at the Excelsior. So you had four pins to choose from. Four pins, yes. It was a strike format for the finals. And you won it? I won You won league finals? I won league finals I had a game where I got to Monster Madness On Monsters And lost Because my opponent did the multiplier thing Yeah the multiplier thing The only thing that matters in any Dwight game You gotta love the multipliers Gotta love play from multipliers Luckily the final game Was on Twilight Zone which has no flavor multipliers yeah it was cool I haven't won that one in a while so that was nice you're on a roll now you should come to the RPC next week and play that tournament everyone should come to the RPC and meet all three of us oh god hug Ron stop I've never won an RPC well this is your chance Yes, this is your chance. A classic. There'll never be a better chance to win RPC than 5-6. Oh, we'll see. I'm kind of long-drived out. It's only three hours. And you have a place to stay at. It's three and a half hours. You drove eight hours last weekend. No. I know. What the fuck? You drove most of it. So, Ron, Bruce, you have to go pick him up. There you... Okay. I can pick up my game at the same time. Yeah.
    120:06
    No. That's the question, Ron. Do you want to drive out or do you want to lose countdown? No, no, no. One or the other. I don't want to lose countdown. You need to pick up Dipsy Doodle and put that turd in the back. Oh, God, no. Fuck no. I told you where to put that thing.
    120:21
    Yeah, I'll tell you where to put it. I don't want Dipsy Doodle. Oh, yeah, here you go. I'll leave you with this, the last thing before we go to the close here. So Zach brought Cosmos, as we said, to Cincinnati. Before we leave, I say, do you have the keys? Oh, no. And he has the bag, and I see the keys right in there. It's like, yep, right here. Got the keys. Like, okay, cool. So we get there, and he's setting it up, and he gets to the part where he needs to open the back of the back box, and it's like, uh. Oh, fuck. Where's the key? No keys? It's like, what? I thought you had the keys. You showed them to me. He's like, yeah, I have that key, but I don't have the back box key. No, I saw the back box key in the bag. Yeah, you said you saw it. Yeah, yeah. I swear there were two sets of keys in the bag when we started. Yeah. When we arrived, there was one set of keys in the bag. Yeah, okay. Someone just selectively stole just the back box key. I'm betting in like three years I'll clean my car out and they'll be at the bottom of the car. That's possible. Mm-hmm. Wow, three whole years to clean your car. Well, it won't happen until I crash it and have to buy a new one. So I'm there like, well, I'm looking at it. It's like my key might work for this. It's like, well, it's PBR. PBR lock. Well, is it the same one on your Dipsy Doodle? Yep. And it's like, it might work then. And sure enough, my key worked. My 1382. Thank you, Key. That's all. We all set? This has been a long one. Not that long. It's been two hours plus. No. People ask for more. They always want more. And remember, if you want Ron to get a break and want us to not record, go next year. If you don't want more. If you don't want more, you just say, I want more. Let us know at slamtailpodcast.gmail.com. But if you want to torture Ron with another episode before the end of the year, instead of letting him enjoy Christmas. The subject should just be more in capital letters. More.
    122:15
    Where's my soundboard? I need the guy to say, more. Yeah, where's your soundboard, Ron? Yeah, where's your soundboard? I kind of have a soundboard now with these, but I have to queue up all these clips ahead of time so I can actually play them.
    122:28
    Hey, what do you think of getting $700 million for 10 years? I like that idea. I'll take it. Yeah. I'm not a baseball player. I wish I was for that money. Holy shit. Oh, Tommy. I called that this year during the season. It's like he's a West Coast guy. He's not going to play. No, he's not Northeast. He's not going to go to Northeast. He's a West Coast guy. He wants to play in the West Coast for a winning team, and they've got to have a shitload of money. There's only one team in that that has all those criteria, and that's the Dodgers. Yep. And that's where he went.
    123:00
    And no one cares right now. Like, who the hell are they talking about? We're talking baseball. From Maine to San Diego, talking baseball. Softball. Oh, no, I'm sorry. Softball. We were talking about Silver Slugger and Big Bird. With Mattingly and Canseco. Can Griffey's grotesquely swollen jaw. Was it C. Saxon is running with the law. We're talking Homer, Ozzie and the Straw.
    123:29
    Classic episode for you Simpsons fans. What's a Simpsons? Oh, stop. It's a game called Simpsons Pinball Party. You've seen that. Isn't that a Dead of East one? There's one of those, too, yeah. And then they put that off for Stern with a theory game. Same company. They're spelled differently, though.
    123:49
    No, they're not. One's for the Simpsons. One's for a D and one's for an S. This has been Episode 220 of the Slam Tilt Podcast.
    123:58
    I just got right off that fucking... I sent the email a bunch of times. Our website is www.slamtiltpodcast.com. You can check it out. It's got all our links in the upper right-hand corner. I'm also on another podcast, which I believe, is the episode out yet? Or did he split it? I don't know. We have an episode about Capcom coming out on Silver Ball Chronicles, as can be found on the Pinball Network. Me and David Dennis. Neither of us will be winning Twippies. What's going to wrap first, the Silver Ball Chronicles history or the Beavis the Butthead clips?
    124:35
    Oh, we have a ton of Beavis the Butthead clips. Well, actually, I have two more seasons now. They just did. So that actually does help a lot. Well, they're still making more pinball, and they're still making more Beavis, so we're still safe.
    124:47
    Beavis. You're still in a good time. Yeah. Cool. Zach, would you like to plug anything? Yeah, would you like to plug anything, Zach?
    124:58
    The flexibility of spooky pinball machines. Yes. Plug it or request it? Just sarcasm. Oh, okay, sarcasm. Oh, gotcha. I attempt to take off both ramps and the entire upper playfield and, like, half the other stuff just to get the Optos. Although it's probably still better than the Optos on Star Trek. No, that Star Trek sucks. I don't believe in serviceability. Come on. The game will never break. It'll never break. You'll never have to fix that. Perfect.
    125:30
    Okay. Thank you, Steve. All right, that's the plug section. I think we're all set. don't forget vote for yes for Ron the work and hi to everyone on the clusterfuck now that we're all pressure free of trying to win no awards and don't forget if it comes back you vote for none of the above versus millions yes hi pinball princess follow bonus hi Zach how's it going it's going good I heard you guys do a podcast sometimes Yes, we do. Once over the moon. This is episode 220. Bruce, you got the name? You ready? You tell me. Prepared? You tell me. Never. Okay, say goodbye, Bruce. Goodbye, Greg Dunn.
    126:33
    I'll fight, I'll fight, I guarantee to keep you alive. Meteor, Blue Level Zero, Clusterfuck, Swish the Kai, Dimble, Blue Stism, Tournament Talk, Car Holder, Cheetah, Oh my.
    127:24
    Oh my. Oh, my. And I guess that's why they call it the blues. Ever hear that one? Come on, Zach. You ever heard that one? No.
    128:03
    Can you feel the love tonight? You might have heard that one because it's from Lion King. Exactly. You hear that one, Zach? You know that one? I've never seen that. Don't let your son go down on me. Don't let your son. That's not the joke.
    128:18
    Oh, God, no. Don't let your son go down on me. That was fucking awful.