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Episode 427 - Happy 100th Birthday, Wayne Neyens & a Visit with Dennis Dodel

For Amusement Only EM and Bingo Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·30m 3s·analyzed·Aug 2, 2018
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.027

TL;DR

Tribute to Wayne Neyens' 100th birthday and visit to Dennis Dodel's EM/bingo collection

Summary

Nicholas Backbone recounts his trip to St. Louis to visit collector Dennis Dodel and his game room, followed by attending Wayne Neyens' 100th birthday celebration in Arkansas. He describes playing various EM and bingo games at Dennis's collection, meeting Jay Stafford from the Internet Pinball Database, and witnessing Wayne's mastery of pinball at age 100. The episode celebrates Wayne's legacy, his donation of Spirit of '76 to the Pacific Pinball Museum, and includes historical anecdotes about working conditions at Gottlieb's factory.

Key Claims

  • Wayne Neyens was awarded his Spirit of '76 machine by Gottlieb for correctly guessing production would exceed 10,000 units

    high confidence · Nicholas Backbone, during description of Wayne's home and the birthday celebration

  • Wayne Neyens at age 100 nearly doubled Nicholas Backbone's score in a 4-player game of Spirit of '76

    high confidence · Nicholas Backbone, first-hand account of tournament play at Wayne's home

  • Wayne Neyens' Spirit of '76 is being donated to the Pacific Pinball Museum with a Lifetime Achievement Award

    high confidence · Arkansas House of Representatives citation read during the birthday event

  • Gottlieb factory employed workers specifically to assemble washers and screws on trays for the assembly line

    high confidence · Nicholas Backbone, quoting Wayne's daughter and another Gottlieb factory worker attendee

  • Wayne Neyens was born July 29, 1918, in Mason City, Iowa

    high confidence · Arkansas House of Representatives citation

  • Jay Stafford from Internet Pinball Database spent significant time playing United Caravan at Dennis Dodel's location

    high confidence · Nicholas Backbone, first-hand observation during visit

  • Dennis Dodel's bingo collection includes games like Lido (Futurity #3), Keeney Light Align, Bally Crosswords, United Caravan, and others

    high confidence · Nicholas Backbone, detailed descriptions of games played during visit

  • The latest issue of Pinball Mag was present at Wayne's birthday party in draft form with an article about Wayne's career

    high confidence · Nicholas Backbone, observation at birthday celebration

Notable Quotes

  • “at 100 years old he still loves and plays pinball and he is quite good on top of that Just an incredible, generous, giving man”

    Nicholas Backbone @ ~12:00 — Core characterization of Wayne Neyens' impact and personality at his centennial

  • “You should have seen the smile on my face. It's still plastered there right now, I think.”

    Nicholas Backbone @ ~16:30 — Emotional reaction to playing pinball with Wayne Neyens

  • “They said no Gottliebs were harmed in the making of this trophy”

    Birthday party gift presenters (paraphrased by Nicholas Backbone) @ ~28:00 — Humorous but meaningful comment about the trophy made from Bally and spotting disks, reflecting Wayne's Gottlieb history

  • “something as simple as playing pinball with you probably doesn't seem like a big deal but to me, it absolutely is”

    Nicholas Backbone @ ~39:00 — Emotional closing reflecting the personal significance of the experience

  • “Just the fact that that little thing saved so much time and effort on the assembly line that it was worthwhile for Gottlieb to pay people to do just that one simple thing. Just incredible to think about all the math that went into figuring that out”

    Nicholas Backbone @ ~22:30 — Reflection on Gottlieb's operational efficiency and manufacturing philosophy

  • “It's unlikely I'll see another of its like, and certainly there is none other than Wayne's own copy. Just amazing.”

    Nicholas Backbone @ ~25:00 — Emphasis on the rarity and uniqueness of Wayne's Spirit of '76

Entities

Wayne NeyenspersonNicholas BackbonepersonDennis DodelpersonJay StaffordpersonJohnpersonGordon HassepersonInternet Pinball DatabaseorganizationPacific Pinball Museumorganization

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: Dennis Dodel's collection visit demonstrates active community participation and knowledge-sharing within EM/bingo collector circles; multiple community members (Jay Stafford, John) gather to experience and discuss machines

    high · Detailed descriptions of multi-person visit to Dennis Dodel's game room with Jay Stafford and John; multiple machines played and discussed collectively

  • ?

    historical_signal: Wayne Neyens' 100th birthday and donations to institutions mark a significant passing of pinball era knowledge and artifacts to permanent collections

    high · Arkansas House citation of Wayne's status as 'American Pinball icon' and member of Pinball Hall of Fame; Spirit of '76 donation to Pacific Pinball Museum

  • ?

    restoration_signal: Historical documentation of specialized Gottlieb-era EM tools (hand drill screwdriver, budger tool, locking screwdriver) and their applications in restoration work

    high · Detailed descriptions of tools from Wayne Neyens' original Gottlieb toolbox and their specific use cases in wire lacing, screw placement, and assembly

  • ?

    historical_signal: First-hand accounts from Gottlieb factory workers documenting assembly line specialization and efficiency practices from the classic era

    high · Interviews with Wayne's daughter and Gottlieb factory attendee describing washer/screw assembly job and unit department assembly processes

  • ?

    operational_signal: Assessment of game condition and playability across Dennis Dodel's diverse collection; machines in excellent operational condition despite age

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.090

0:00
What's that sound? It's For Amusement Only, the EM and Bingo Pinball Podcast. Welcome back to For Amusement Only. This is Nick Baldridge, freshly back from a vacation that involved a lot of pinball and was extremely special. I was invited, and it was a great honor to attend Wayne Nine's 100th birthday party.
0:30
And before the celebration began, I had the great privilege of visiting my friend Dennis Total and getting to play some of his games and see his game room and meet his wife along with Jay Stafford from the IPDB, whom I've corresponded with for a few years now. and both Dennis and Jay have email interviews on the podcast of previous episodes and it was great to be able to see them and Dennis' friend John again and get to hang out for a little while so I arrived in St. Louis on Thursday we went over to Dennis' and got to play his games and his collection is amazing beautiful games and I thought I'd just talk a little bit about my experiences with each of them because it was incredible getting the opportunity to play these games and to hang out with Dennis, Jay, and John. So first we turned our attention to Valley's All-Star Bowler, which is kind of a miniature bowling alley. It's a contact bowler, but unlike a contact bowler where you physically roll the ball down the lane, there is a turret. It's a turret shooting game kind of like Midget Alley or some of those other games with a ball that is rotated at high velocity. In this case, the turret is simply a tube and there's a kicker which propels the ball forward down the lane hopefully hitting the pins that you intend to hit.
2:13
It's a wonderful game. it's something that I could see myself playing many many times the little cosmetic details are the thing that I appreciated the most I think about that game the representation of the bowling alley is spot on even though it's in miniature there are gutters and the pins look phenomenal even though they are half-fronted pins like on a shuffle bowler so they flip up just like on a shuffle but they're actually contacted by the ball.
Gottlieb
company
Spirit of '76game
All-Star Bowlergame
Carambolettegame
Lidogame
Keeney Light Aligngame
Bally Crosswordsgame
United Caravangame
Pinball Hall of Fameorganization
Challengergame
Pinball Magorganization
Arkansas House of Representativesorganization
For Amusement Onlyorganization

high · Multiple detailed play experiences across EM and bingo machines; all games functioning well with positive gameplay experiences

  • ?

    collector_signal: Wayne Neyens' Spirit of '76 recognized as unique and irreplaceable machine; only known copy belongs to Wayne; being preserved in museum collection

    high · Nicholas Backbone's statement: 'It's unlikely I'll see another of its like, and certainly there is none other than Wayne's own copy'; official donation to Pacific Pinball Museum

  • ?

    community_signal: Archival preservation of pinball industry history through interviews and personal interactions with early manufacturers and designers

    high · Multiple references to email interviews with Dennis Dodel and Jay Stafford in previous episodes; podcast format preserving oral history

  • ?

    venue_signal: Pacific Pinball Museum receiving significant additions including Spirit of '76 and previously Gordon Hasse's collection; establishing itself as archive of pinball heritage

    high · Arkansas House citation noting Spirit of '76 donation to Pacific Pinball Museum; Nicholas Backbone's previous interview with Gordon Hasse who also donated to museum

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Wayne Neyens demonstrates exceptional pinball skill at age 100, nearly doubling competitor scores in competitive play; establishes narrative of lifelong mastery

    high · Wayne Neyens nearly doubled Nicholas Backbone's score in 4-player Spirit of '76 game; high score record of 194,000 on his home machine

    • 2:48
    Just a lot of fun, and has the beautiful red ballet score reels. That's something I've always loved, are the score reels that are odd colors, like green or yellow or red, and that red is very deep and very attractive. So that was a fun game, and it was tough to get a strike. I did manage a couple, just barely, but that was a tough game. So next we moved on to the Carambolette table, and this is a Bagatelle-style game. And as Dennis said, he didn't know the rules, so we get to make them up, which I thought was excellent. So what we did is lined up each of the balls. There were a number, I believe, eight white balls, which are smaller than a cue ball and much lighter, and then one red ball. And as with most Bagatelle games, the red ball scores double. So we placed the red ball up near this series of gates. There are these different arches on about three-quarters up the play field. Beyond the arches were scoring pockets. So the goal is to shoot your ball all the way through the gate and land in a scoring pocket, hopefully hitting the red ball and pushing that through the gate at the same time. That is very difficult, and that was a lot of fun, though. So all four of us took turns and shot the balls, and Jay was the winner with a score of 350 points, which was extremely impressive. That's a pretty low-scoring game, at least for me.
    4:40
    Jay is a good shot. And that was further proven by the next game we played, which was a real bagatelle.
    4:48
    And this one had a loop. When you shot the ball, which was a cue ball, it hugged the arch and if it hugged the arch all the way around it would loop to another shooter lane so there's two shooter lanes and they're essentially connected by the arch at the top. So your goal is to give just enough force that it stops hugging that arch and then starts heading down the playfield. That was very difficult for me It took me, must have been 400 shots before I got it.
    5:30
    I just kept on rocketing around the arch, it seemed like, no matter how hard I managed to hit it. So that was a lot of fun, though. On the play field itself, there were a few trap doors, and if you managed to roll over those, the ball would be returned to you, and you'd win 150 points, which is just outstanding. Most of the scoring pockets, I think, topped out at 30 points. Similar to the Carambolette table, there was a brown-blonde ball, and if you hit that with the cue ball, then that ball would score double. And, of course, you had double the scoring opportunity there.
    6:13
    That was a heck of a lot of fun, and I can see a whole lot of competition going on with that game. Um, it was great. Uh, and then we moved, uh, to kind of the, the back part of the room where the bingos were. And, um, Dennis has an amazing collection of bingos.
    6:37
    I gave he, uh, previously in real life. So, um, this was quite a treat. And, uh, I spent, most of my time on the bingos playing Lido, actually. And with Lido, I got a number three Futurity game, and there was just so much to experience though. I played a lot of other games as well. So, Dennis, I know that three is on the Futurity. I'll be back for it later.
    7:10
    Dennis also had two different Keeney Light Align games, and they're each different. Very cool, both of them. The first is a kind of proto-bingo.
    7:23
    It a six game but instead of six 5x5 cards it six 3x3 cards So it kind of like playing a game with all super cards And the difference between a regular or real bingo and this game is that the trap holes are all over the play field and surrounded by rubbers and posts and so forth, along with plastics. It's quite a different experience playing this than playing, say, a Bally or a United bingo.
    7:58
    The shutter on it, I thought, was the coolest thing. It is pushed back with the initial coin that you use to fire up the game, and then it's latched into place, and it must be spring-loaded. It's either that or solenoid-driven, because as soon as you fire the first ball, wham! that thing shoots the shutter forward so fast, it's amazing it really makes me wonder why they designed that mechanism that way because I feel like that would wear out relatively easily, but anyway it was going strong while I was there, that's for sure so I did manage to get a couple small hits and then one pretty big hit on that if you light up the letters A through F, which happen to be all the center numbers or positions on each of the cards, then you get a massive number of replays. So I did manage to do that on my last game and then said, well, that's good. I got to play a Bally Crosswords. I've never played Crosswords nor Spelling Bee, and Dennis happened to have a Crosswords set up, and that game is very fun, but boy, it is difficult. It's extremely difficult to hit the number, or not number, the letter that you actually want to spell the name or the word that you're trying to achieve. Very cool. And up at the upper left and right side of the play field are stars. If you hit those, those balls are essentially wasted for spelling words, but they increase your scores. So it behooves you, if you can, to actually hit those. Of course, it's best if you hit those on your last balls so that you achieve the highest score and you're certain of a win. I found it very easy to hit those stars, but much harder to spell the words. so that was great though that game is low profile, it's very short so it's quite different from playing a regular full size bingo and beside that he had a Broadway 51 and this is the proto-Broadway 51 and a Bright Lights just a ton of fun seeing those games all lined up wonderful. So, Jay found the United Caravan, which is one of my favorites, and he got hooked on that thing. He was playing it for quite some time. Caravan is one of the, I would say, the most player-friendly bingos that was ever made. There are so many features which give the player distinct advantage. And it's really, really something. So I think Jay got a taste of that magic because he really camped out on that game and had just a great time with it.
    11:10
    Played a little ballerina. That's one that always makes my head hurt a little using the 1-7-7-1 feature. I thought I was using it to good effect, and then it turned out that I wasn't. So I got a small hit, but it could have been a bigger hit if I had not used that feature, which is normally the case. So I mentioned this other Lidl line, and the reason I'm kind of jumping back and forth here is that it was in between these two rows of bingos, and the second Keeney-Leidle line is a roll-down game. Not one where you roll down the glass and the ball comes back down the playfield, but one where you roll a ball down a playfield like a bowling alley, and then the ball can land in any of the pockets that make up the bingo card. And the bingo card on the back glass is made up of a variety of numbers, and these numbers indicate the score that the pocket earns, your main goal is to spell five in a line. Well, your main goal is to win, right, by getting the highest score. So in order to do that, you want to land the ball in the scoring pockets, which are the highest value. The ones that are the highest value are not next to each other. They're not consecutive numbers in a line. And so you have to be very careful and pick and choose what you're actually shooting for. I shot for five in a line and failed.
    12:42
    And one of the things that makes that really interesting from a risk-reward perspective is that at the back of the game is a small wire. And this wire is actuated by flipper buttons on the side. So if your ball happens to make it all the way to the back without landing in a scoring pocket, you hit the buttons and it will kick the ball into a different scoring pocket. It's quite challenging. I could see myself playing that quite a bit as well.
    13:13
    All of Dennis' games, super fun. Again, super excellent condition. It was just such a treat to be able to spend the time with Dennis and John and Jay and get to chat about pinball and just really have an excellent time. So a huge thank you to Dennis for having us out there and letting us beat on your games. It was just an awful lot of fun, and I really appreciate it. So the next day, I was picked up and driven down to Wayne Nines' town in Arkansas and stayed at a resort. It was a fishing resort, as it turned out, just beautiful.
    14:04
    And I got to meet various attendees that were going to the party. had just a wonderful time speaking with each and every one of them.
    14:15
    And the next day, we went to Wayne Nines' house. And his home, he let us into his garage, and we got to see his pinball machine, and we got to hang out with the man himself the day before his birthday. so at his home there was a friendly competition on his Spirit of 76 and if you haven't listened to the Wayne Nines interview that I've conducted or any of the Wayne Nines interviews that have been on other podcasts please go listen he an amazing man just really truly amazing at 100 years old he still loves and plays pinball and he is quite good on top of that
    15:11
    Just an incredible, generous, giving man. There was a friendly competition, as I mentioned, and the top three players got to play a game of pinball with Wayne Nines. and the game was Spirit of 76 this is his famous machine that he was awarded by Gottlieb for correctly guessing that the production was going to be north of 10,000 units just incredible and the machine was in amazing condition and it was a real blast to play so I managed to finish as part of the top 3 and got to play a round of pinball with Wayne Nyans.
    15:59
    You should have seen the smile on my face. It's still plastered there right now, I think. But he was just incredible. And I did not win by far in the four-player game that followed.
    16:16
    But Wayne almost doubled my score, or over-doubled my score. Just incredible. at 100 years old. He is still just sharp as a tack. He's amazing.
    16:32
    So some other things that were very special, along with the attendees that I mentioned that I got to speak with and talk to about the various projects that I've been doing,
    16:43
    and their outpouring of support was extremely gratifying. I wasn't there to talk about bingos, but I was asked about them several times, and that made me feel good. So I appreciate everybody taking the time to ask about the little things that I'm doing.
    17:05
    But I got to see Wayne's toolbox from his Gottlieb days. He still has it, still has his tools in there, and he had EM tools that I've never seen before.
    17:16
    These are things which I definitely need in my toolkit. and, you know, thinking about them, they're very practical.
    17:25
    I've never seen them before, so they're obviously not in common use today, but they're something that I think would be extremely useful. There's a few things. One is the hand drill screwdriver. That is something that I have seen before where you take the screw, you put it on the tip, and you just zip right down and it's on a, it's like a worm drive kind of thing. So it rotates around and automatically screws in the screw or unscrews it starting from the bottom. So that's something which I've been looking for casually for a while, but I need to step up my game, I think. That would be extremely useful. The next one was what Wayne called a budger, which I had never heard of before. but it's essentially just this metal tool that goes around your hand and you use it to push the wire bundle out of the way and lift up the lacing so that you can fit in one or two more wires if you've left them out or need to lace in some more. What a useful tool. I mean, it's so simple, but having done the simple work that I've done, so far on RoboFrenzy, I mean, it would have come in handy already. That's incredible. So having to lace in an extra wire after the fact is never fun. And that tool makes it awfully simple. It's just pointed on one end, but it's dull. It's not sharp. So it doesn't cut into the bundle, and it doesn't cut the lacing. It just kind of pushes things out of the way. That's all it is. The next tool was a locking screwdriver. And I'm sure there's many people familiar with this tool, but I'd never seen one used with flathead screws before.
    19:28
    Essentially, there's a line that sticks out at the tip that you put the screw on, and then you twist and lock it into place, and then the screwdriver holds the screw. Just another really extremely useful tool that would really help in a lot of situations, especially if you're lining up something difficult, like, say, the posts in a sling. You know, you're putting that together, and it's always a struggle to get the screw into the playboard with the post and the rubber and everything kind of in the way.
    20:11
    So it all depends on the game, but that's just one example. So that was extremely special. His toolbox was made out of wood, and it had some remarkable craftsmanship too, and it was extremely well organized on top of that. Wayne strikes me as a person who really pays attention to details and that comes across in his games also at the get together there was the latest issue of Pinball Magazine in draft form that was there for Wayne's birthday party so Jonathan if you're listening that made it and everyone was looking at it and remarking about what a great publication it was and what a great article you'd put together in my article, I mean book, on Wayne's career. So I'm looking forward to purchasing my copy as soon as they're available. As part of the celebration, I mentioned speaking with some of the folks that were there, and one of Wayne's daughters worked in the factory as well as another attendee, and I got to pick their brain a little bit about working at Gottlieb. And she had mentioned her job and this other person's initial job were the same. And here's what they did. They took a washer and they took a screw and they put the screw in the washer and then they put that on a tray. That's it. And they just did it as quickly as they could and filled up those trays. and then the trays were taken to the assembly line where they were used to assemble the game. And the thing that's fascinating about that for me is not the fact that that job existed, but the fact that that little thing saved so much time and effort on the assembly line that it was worthwhile for Gottlieb to pay people to do just that one simple thing. just incredible to think about all the math that went into figuring that out the other attendee worked at Gottlieb and started off in that area and then eventually moved into the unit department and the unit department would put together things like score reels or roto targets just making the raw assemblies, and then they were taken to the assembly line and screwed to the play boards and then soldered into place.
    22:47
    Just again, a really cool snapshot of how the factory actually ran. That's something that I've always been interested in, but increasingly so now.
    22:59
    So at Wayne's party, he received several different gifts. He received a stretched canvas version of the Challenger patent.
    23:10
    That is a game that he has famously talked about, the head-to-head game where the playfield tilts as you're playing. I played that at the Pinball Hall of Fame in Las Vegas, and I thought that was a heck of a lot of fun. to play. Of course, it was not well received at the time, and I think that is what informs the stories about it. He also received a Spirit of 76 clock, which was placed in the center of the table, right beside his Spirit of 76 game, and I'm going to remark again on how beautiful that Spirit of 76 was. It's unlikely I'll see another of its like, and certainly there is none other than Wayne's own copy.
    24:01
    Just amazing. I haven't mentioned his high score on it. He kept track of the high scores of, I believe, the top five people and he was number one, of course, with 194,000 and his game was set up fast and mean so it would have taken quite some time to get to that.
    24:25
    that score. He's an amazing player. I really had a lot of fun watching him play. So that day wound down after the little tournament that we had, and then the next day was his actual birthday, his 100th birthday. And the party was at the resort that I was staying at, and that was a very special event.
    24:50
    He was presented with a trophy or a present for his 100th birthday, and this present was made up of Bally search disks and spotting disks. very interesting use of different companies' parts. And they said they used that because Wayne has always been fascinated by the circuitry in bingos. So Wayne's question was, are there any Gottlieb parts on this thing? And they said no Gottliebs were harmed in the making of this trophy. So they said there were a few parts, though, and they were a few of the screws that held on the coil stops on the score reel. So the score reels were used to count his age. So they were set at 99 as it was brought in, and they incremented it to 100 there. I thought that was a cool touch.
    25:56
    So that was very neat. And he was from the Arkansas House of Representatives, which read as follows. Citation, Wayne Nyans Whereas Mr. Wayne Nyans, who now resides in Mountain Home, Arkansas, and was born on July 29, 1918, in Mason City, Iowa, will be celebrating the remarkable milestone of his 100th birthday, and whereas Mr. Wayne Nyans has lived a life full of treasured memories and has a wealth of wisdom and experience, having witnessed innumerable momentous events in history, and whereas Mr. Wayne Nines has experienced great advancements that were unimaginable at the time of his birth in 1918 and his life represents an important part of the American story and whereas Mr. Wayne Nines, a pinball icon and member of the Pinball Hall of Fame, is donating his most popular machine, the Spirit of 76, which celebrates the 200th birthday of the United States, to the Pacific Pinball Museum and receiving their Lifetime Achievement Award And, whereas Mr. Wayne Nines is blessed with a loving family, including daughters, Patricia Nines Cornish and Phyllis Nines, son Andrew Nines, five grandchildren and ten great-grandchildren so far, and whereas the House of Representatives of the 91st General Assembly of the State of Arkansas takes great pride in recognizing Mr. Wayne Nines on the occasion of his 100th birthday and wishes him many more happy years as a centenarian. Now, therefore, pursuant to the motion of Representative Nelda Speaks, the Arkansas House of Representatives directs that this citation be presented on the 29th day of July, 2018.
    27:40
    Just a very special event. And as it mentioned, his Spirit of 76 is being donated to the Pacific Pinball Museum. I've spoken about the Pacific Pinball Museum before when I had an interview with Gordon Hasse and Gordon had generously donated his collection to the Pacific Pinball Museum and this is going to reside there as well and I can think of no better place for the Spirit of 76 to reside than in the collection curated by pinball people at the Pacific Pinball Museum.
    28:22
    So that was also a very special thing. So a big thank you to Wayne Nions, and happy birthday, Wayne, on your 100th birthday. It was truly an honor and a pleasure to be there and to help you celebrate and to wish you well. And I most certainly do wish you well. and thank you for the gift that you've given me in allowing me to be there and to experience that and something as simple as playing pinball with you probably doesn't seem like a big deal but to me, it absolutely is well, happy birthday Wayne thank you to everybody who made that trip possible and spoke with me at Wayne's party and get-together, and I really had a lot of fun on this trip. This was just so far beyond anything I could have imagined.
    29:27
    So that's all for tonight. Thank you very much for joining me. My name again is Nick Baldridge. You can reach me at 4amusementonlypodcast at gmail.com, or you can call me on the bingos line. That's 724-BINGOS1 724-246-4671 You can listen to me on iTunes, Stitcher, Pocket Casts, via RSS, on Facebook, on Twitter, at Bingo Podcast. You can follow me on Instagram, also at Bingo Podcast. Or you can listen to me on my website, which is foramusementonly.libsyn.com Thank you very much for listening, and I'll talk to you next time.