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Episode 13-Jake Danzig and The Dukes of Hazzard

THE PINBALL RESTORER’S PODCAST·podcast_episode·1h 16m·analyzed·Aug 29, 2022
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.031

TL;DR

Jake Danzig talks pinball collecting, dog rescue, and creating a custom Dukes of Hazzard pinball machine.

Summary

Jake Danzig, owner of Pinball Investments and admin of the Strictly Custom Pinball Machines Facebook group, discusses his journey from arcade enthusiast to pinball collector and operator. He recounts his involvement in the Museum of Pinball auction, his rescue dog Jesse, and the creation of his custom Dukes of Hazzard pinball machine, emphasizing the collaborative effort behind the project.

Key Claims

  • The Museum of Pinball auction's high prices were driven by national exposure, multiple deep-pocketed bidders including Bitcoin millionaires, and the growth of arcade businesses across the country.

    high confidence · Jake Danzig, discussing reasons behind inflated Museum of Pinball auction prices

  • Rat Race sold for over $45,000 plus taxes and buyer's fees at the Museum of Pinball auction, making it the most expensive item of the entire auction.

    high confidence · Jake Danzig, recounting his failed bid on Rat Race at Museum of Pinball auction

  • Jake attended the first weekend of the two-weekend Museum of Pinball auction in Banning, California, expecting to fill a rented box truck but ended up purchasing only five items.

    high confidence · Jake Danzig describing his auction experience

  • Jake operates pinball machines on route: seven machines at one location and three games at an arcade, plus additional machines at friends' houses.

    high confidence · Jake Danzig discussing his operational setup

  • The Strictly Custom Pinball Machines Facebook group, which Jake founded approximately five years ago, has experienced explosive growth in the last 2-3 years with custom builds and rethemes being posted by community members.

    high confidence · Jake Danzig describing the growth of the group he administers

  • Ryan McQuade built a custom Sonic pinball machine that was featured in the Strictly Custom Pinball group before he joined American Pinball.

    high confidence · Jake Danzig highlighting notable builders from the custom pinball community

  • No official Dukes of Hazzard pinball machine was ever made by a manufacturer, which Jake identified when he first started buying pinball machines.

    high confidence · Jake Danzig explaining the origin of his Dukes of Hazzard project

  • K's Arcade, a distributor of electronic repair components and circuit boards (including Rotten Dog Williams System 6 MPUs), has closed.

Notable Quotes

  • “The time will never be ideal. And when she told me that, it just instantly clicked. I knew she was absolutely right.”

    Jake Danzig @ ~mid-episode — Pivotal moment that motivated Jake to rescue his dog Jesse despite his busy schedule; reflects his life philosophy.

  • “She just walked right over, put her head on my knee and gave me that look, and that was it.”

    Jake Danzig @ ~mid-episode — Emotional connection to rescuing Jesse; demonstrates the mutual rescue dynamic between Jake and his dog.

  • “I've been waiting for life to slow down. And, well, life just isn't going to slow down for me. As a matter of fact, you know, it seems to be every month or every year I just keep getting busier and busier.”

    Jake Danzig @ ~mid-episode — Reflects Jake's work ethic and personal philosophy on pursuing ambitious goals.

  • “The rescue was kind of mutual... She just appeared like she already had a rough life, so I was going to do my best for her.”

    Jake Danzig @ ~mid-episode — Establishes the reciprocal nature of the Jake-Jesse relationship and Jake's commitment to not giving up.

  • “I appreciate all the hard work somebody did even if it's just an artistic re-theme. That's a lot of work. For somebody to remake a game in the theme that they like, that's just very commendable.”

    Jake Danzig @ ~mid-episode — Explains Jake's philosophy behind curating the Strictly Custom Pinball Machines group.

  • “There's a point where somebody is like this collection is costing me more money than my passion is allowing me to throw at it.”

    Matt Listerud @ ~mid-episode — Reflects on why the Museum of Pinball was liquidated despite being an important institution.

  • “I have never had the illusion that these devices were meant to be sold to me. I've never lived with that idea. It's nice that we can buy them, but when people talk about the price of a pinball machine, it is an amusement device designed to take a beating in a public space and generate income.”

    Jake Danzig — Frames pinball pricing in context of intended use as commercial amusement devices, addressing collector price complaints.

Entities

Jake DanzigpersonMatt ListerudpersonJessepersonMuseum of PinballorganizationCaptain's Auction WarehousecompanyRyan McQuadepersonJohn NorrispersonChuck CaseypersonStrictly Custom Pinball Machinesorganization

Signals

  • ?

    collector_signal: Museum of Pinball auction demonstrated record pricing, with Rat Race selling for $45,000+, driven by national exposure, deep-pocketed bidders, and the proliferation of new arcade bar venues.

    high · Jake Danzig directly witnessed and participated in the auction, explaining the inflated prices as a result of multiple factors including bitcoin millionaires and arcade bar operators seeking inventory.

  • ?

    community_signal: The Strictly Custom Pinball Machines Facebook group has experienced explosive growth in the past 2-3 years, with homebrew builders and rethemers increasingly sharing their work directly on the platform.

    high · Jake Danzig reports that the group went from him manually curating content to builders self-posting their work, reflecting maturation of the homebrew scene.

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Ryan McQuade, a custom pinball builder who gained recognition through the Strictly Custom Pinball group for his Sonic machine, has joined American Pinball as an employee.

    high · Jake Danzig explicitly states McQuade 'started showing it at shows and now he's working for American Pinball.'

  • ?

    operational_signal: Operators face ongoing challenges with beverage contamination on machines, with bar patrons consistently placing drinks on games despite signage prohibiting the practice.

    high · Matt Listerud notes that despite 'no drinks on games' signs, beer seals are regularly nasty due to spilled drinks on machines in tap room venues.

  • ?

    business_signal: K's Arcade, a distributor of electronic repair components and circuit boards for pinball machines, has ceased operations.

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.228

0:00
A boy and his dog. Hi guys, this is Jake VanSick here with Pinball Investments, Making a video about the Gully Community vs Silver Slugger Well, it's actually me and my little angel Jesse Hey Jesse!
0:41
I can't help it Just a ghetto boy, never made it home. Damn right. Beats all you never saw, been in trouble with the law. Alright, I'm going to make a hopefully quick little video on something that I still don't know quite what to think of it. Welcome to the Pinball Restorers Podcast. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Pinball Restorers Podcast. I'm your host, Matt Listerud. How's it going? And here we are. I'm back with a special episode with Jake Danzig, the owner of Pinball Investments, a fellow restorer, as well as the creator of the Dukes of Hazzard pinball machine. Get to hear a little bit about how his involvement in the hobby as an admin for Strictly Custom Pinball Machines came to life, how he ended up with that sweet dog, Jesse, that he posts his daily adventures of. And, again, back to the games, you'll get to hear the story of how he put together the team and talent to pull off Dukes of Hazzard. So, without further ado, Jake Danzig. Just a good old boy Never mean it no harm Well, my cliche opening of every episode, I've always definitely had a guest on, so let's get into this hobby. By accident. No, it was coming for a long time. I was an arcade kid, grew up in arcades. I didn't mean to start buying games until I bought a house. I was rented for a good portion of my life. Just before I bought a house, a friend I had worked with came to me, and I knew he was collecting games, but he came and he just offered a Super Mario pinball machine. at a very good price. And so I said, absolutely. And I took it and it just, you know, like everybody else exploded from there. However, just slightly different for me is that, you know, when I started buying, I bought the first one, then I bought a bunch more and then I cleaned them up and fixed them up. And I found out that other people were willing to pay a decent price for them as long as, you know, they worked well, it pretty much just instantly turned into a business for me. So I like to say it's half hobby and half business for me but um you know just kind of the way it goes um there's some games i desperately want to keep but um you know just like everybody else don't have the space to keep absolutely everything so sometimes some games i want to keep just have to go i always say that uh it's a business when you say half hobby half business i like using the phrase it's a business that finances my hobby yeah yeah you can definitely say that you picked up into this because you currently have a large collection and you actually dealt with the museum of pinball yeah pinball's auction and i knew that you were on the episode of arcade pickers you were when cory massal was talking to you you were active on the auction as that was happening Yeah, because I know the guys that run Captain's Auction Warehouse, and I deal with them on a pretty frequent basis. But when that Museum of Pinball came up, it was a little bit different format, and there were some changes that had to be made. So anyways, they turned that in. There was so much inventory, they had to make it a two-weekend ordeal. Well, it's a drive for me and quite a process to drive all the way over to Banning, California. So I checked out the catalog many, many times and decided that it'd be best if I went there just for the first weekend and then just follow it along online for the second weekend. So, yeah, but while Corey was over visiting, I was still watching the auction. And it's kind of funny, I just kind of replayed, rewatched that episode he made recently. And that's, you know, I mentioned him, that's where I was waiting on the upcoming rat race. And yeah, silly me, I actually thought I was going to get that and didn't think anybody else would really want it. Well, ironically, it literally turned out to be the most expensive item of the entire auction. So, yeah, some other guys with much deeper pockets snagged that one up. If I remember right, it went for $45,000 plus taxes and buyer's fees. When I was at Expo last year, I asked the guy, because Rat Race was there. Somebody had brought that and a Varkon, because I'd never seen a Rat Race before. I've heard of the game. I hadn't seen it because it wasn't something I was actively looking out at the time. And they had a joust next to it, kind of fitting, actually. When I was watching that, and that game completely fully LED'd out, and for anybody who hasn't seen this, it's not exactly a pinball machine. It's a joystick-controlled pinball maze that can involve two players. And when they put the LED kit in that thing, it was beyond beautiful. And I'm like, how much do you guys end up having to pay for that? And they said, this is not for sale. And then you showed me that clip. I was like, wait a second, did you get it? I'm like, oh, no, that's right, you didn't. I was like, no. No, no, I wish. I actually could have afforded it, but there's no way I could justify, you know, spending that much on that game.

high confidence · Matt Listerud reporting news break by Big Daddy Enterprises

@ ~mid-episode
Dukes of Hazzard
game
Rat Racegame
K's Arcadecompany
Rotten Dog Amusementscompany
TNT Amusementscompany
Pinball Pimpperson
American Pinballcompany
Pinball Basementcompany
Mad Voodoo Pinballcompany
Big Daddy Enterprisesperson/organization
Weeblycompany
Digi Pinballcompany
Rob Burkeperson
Pinball Placecompany

high · News broken by Big Daddy Enterprises and confirmed through Matt Listerud's reporting on the podcast; Jake had previously purchased Rotten Dog Williams System 6 MPUs from them.

  • ?

    product_launch: Multiple aftermarket manufacturers are expanding product offerings: Weebly released Stern SB300 soundboard and Bally cheap squeak; Digi Pinball is developing Alvin G 2x20 alphanumerics and dot matrix displays.

    high · Matt Listerud reports these product releases in the 'Practical Nuke incoming' news segment of the podcast.

  • ?

    technology_signal: Aftermarket display manufacturers like Digi Pinball are developing replacement displays for rare and lesser-supported game systems, expanding repair options for vintage games.

    medium · Matt Listerud notes Digi Pinball's Atari and Alvin G displays as resources for owners of 'very rare games or just not necessarily the most commonly supported.'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Jake Danzig emphasizes the legitimacy and artistry of rethemed and custom-built pinball machines, viewing them as commendable efforts worthy of curation and promotion regardless of theme.

    high · Jake states he appreciates 'all the hard work somebody did even if it's just an artistic re-theme' and created the Facebook group specifically to showcase this work.

  • $

    market_signal: Operating pinball machines on route requires significant scale to be viable as primary income; passive income from individual machines is modest after accounting for splits, maintenance, and shipping costs.

    medium · Matt Listerud notes that 'to make it your primary, you have to build up a serious number of machines and a serious number of locations' and discusses hesitation about beginning route operations.

  • ?

    community_signal: The custom pinball community is maturing, with builders transitioning from hobbyists to professionals (McQuade to American Pinball), and heritage designers (John Norris) continuing to contribute outside corporate structures.

    high · Jake Danzig highlights both Ryan McQuade's transition to American Pinball and John Norris (former Gottlieb designer) continuing independent game design work.

  • ?

    historical_signal: Dukes of Hazzard television series left a lasting cultural impact significant enough that the absence of a licensed pinball machine remains notable to collectors decades later.

    medium · Jake Danzig states the lack of an official Dukes of Hazzard machine 'blew my mind back then and it still does to this day' and notes the show's significance: 'for those of us that grew up with that, that was huge.'

    • 6:28
    You know, especially even if I was to put it en route, you know, I'd be long dead before that thing ever paid for itself.
    6:38
    No, true. And you're not old, buddy. Just going to say. No, but over $50,000 for one single game. Yeah, that's not going to happen, not with me. It does make you wonder how the heck Sega made any money off of some of the, because they went back in the later years of the arcades, They actually cranked out some insanely expensive arcade games, experience simulator stuff. And I always look back and I'm like, how did that stuff ever pay for itself? Sorry, no, continue. I didn't mean to interrupt.
    7:16
    It was a side thought. No, it's all good. Yeah, that was a fun but long and stressful auction, going to that Museum of Pinball auction. I looked at it and I kind of thought, well, there's so much inventory. people are going to run out of money at some point. So there's going to be deals to be had. But then on the other hand, that thing was getting so much exposure, including even on news channels nationwide. It's like there's going to be just competition all over the place. So, yeah, I got there and I was expecting a lot of stuff to go high, but nobody was expecting for it to go the way that it did.
    7:55
    So I certainly didn't. I mean, I literally rented a box truck with a lift gate, and I was expecting to fill the whole thing up and bring it back to Phoenix. Well, I ended up bringing back just five items. Ouch. Yeah. No, that's okay. I mean, I couldn't have got those five items just in my truck. I would have needed a trailer or a box truck anyways. No, true. Well, you put games on routes. And I never actually have ever asked you, because me and you have talked for a while, I never asked you, so as an operator, is it more of like you're a casual operator, like you've made arrangements with some of these businesses, or is there a business that has literally all of your games in it somewhere? Oh, no. Now, most of my games are at home, but then I have, I think, seven pinball machines at one location and then three other games at an arcade. And then I have a few other games at friends' houses. They better not be set on free play. Well, one friend is doing a full cabinet restoration on a Kickman arcade game. Then I got another friend that he's hanging on to a red tent for me. And then he's also buying an Apollo 13 pinball machine. So I just went ahead and stuck it over there for now. All right, fair, fair. I guess that's the ultimate way of saying try before you buy. Yeah. Well, because I know, because you've mentioned that you've had games en route, and I do have a few other friends who have routed games, but I've never, I only know a few people who actually have built up enough of a quote-unquote inventory to make it kind of their primary business. and this hobby, and this applies to arcades too, it can be rewarding, and some games may make a lot of money, but there are also a lot of games that are very passive income. It's not, you know, when you deduct your costs, you have your splits, you have the maintenance. It's not a bad way to make money, but you usually have to, to make it your primary, you have to build up a serious number of machines and a serious number of locations. And I debate it all the time. I, I've, there's a, a kind of a retro pinball place, not too far away from where I live. And I saw that they had a Paragon. They had a, uh, was it a Gottlieb Bounty Hunter? And then they had right next to that a Time Warp with the actual banana flippers in it. Beautifully restored games. And then they had a whole bunch of new, newer sterns and so forth. And I thought about maybe I could make an arrangement with the neighboring, the neighboring bowling alley and be like, hey, I got like put five machines in there and see what happened. But at the same time, I'm just thinking to myself, I'm like, do I really want to find out what a nine-year-old kid in a bowling ball is going to do to a pinball machine?
    10:48
    Well, trust me, I doubt it would be any worse than 40-year-old adults with their beer in a tap room. No matter how many signs they put up, no drinks on games, every single time I go in there, I find out the beer seals are all nasty. Yeah, they set drinks on games and spill them on games just constantly. Oh, geez. And that is the risk. I think I remember somebody posted a thing that – it might have been you, actually. They posted this picture. It was a godly pounded house. And the sign read – and it makes me feel weird because I don't like to look at these. I don't think of these as antiques, okay? But the sign said, this game is an antique. Please keep your drinks off of this. and I'm like, ooh, does that make me feel older than I am?
    11:39
    Yeah, no, that one wasn't mine, but sounds good. It was, I actually left out a lot of the details of what that sign exactly said, just to keep this, you know, PG rated, because I intend to. So, you know, aside from building up a collection and moving forward, and yes, I know that the auction surprised everybody, and I think that was because, to your point, the level of exposure, the notoriety of coming out of the museum and for the most part, every one of those games worked. It was kind of like you knew what you were getting type thing and I think that kind of inflated some of those prices plus, yeah, you can hold out on Facebook Marketplace or buy off of Pinside but at the end of the day, when you look at shipping and maybe some people, it made more sense to just buy it out of the auctions. It's just not the oath to hassle. Yeah, it did make a lot of sense, and there's actually a lot of valid reasons for it. I'm not sure if you ever saw it, but I posted a big write-up about the Museum of Pinball Auction and all the reasons why it went the way it went. The only reason I did that is because I was just seeing so much garbage and misinformation online about how it was a scam and money laundering and just all this ridiculous nonsense. And I was just like, I was there, guys, and I know the people running the auction. And I was there and I could see with my own eyes. I knew what was going on. It's like it's none of that ridiculous nonsense that you guys are talking about. It got national exposure. There's not just one, but several people with very deep pocket. We're talking like Bitcoin millionaires. and then there's also the explosion of the barricades all over the country. All of them knew about this auction and they all knew that this was their one chance to get a whole lot of good games all at one time and get it over and done with. And for them, they're not caring about the value of the games. They're looking at this as just a total business expense. I mean, it's part of their whole business, so why wouldn't they at least give it a try? A lot of people have complained. I shouldn't say complained. I've seen some people, there are people that do, but I mean, a lot of grumbling sometimes where people are like, you know, I have never had the illusion that these devices were meant to be sold to me. I've never lived with that idea. It's nice that we can buy them, but when people talk about the price of a pinball machine, it is an amusement device designed to take a beating in a public space and generate income. And when they talk about the prices of certain used games, collector's market, or new games, I just kind of look at it from this perspective. if you've ever seen what a modern soda vending machine costs,
    14:43
    pinball machines are cheap. Oh, yeah. Because pinball, you're waiting for somebody to want to play it or be inspired to play it. A soda machine is making money based on the fact that somebody's just feeling thirsty.
    15:01
    But, yeah, no, I remember I did see the write-up that you did. And I did reach out to Chuck Casey, actually. Originally, I was supposed to have him on as a guest, and the next thing you know, the museum was going to be done. And the museum operated. It wasn't like a personal collection. There were a few collectors that created it, a board that curated it. And when they could not get a new location, and under the restrictions that they had because they were only open to the public a limited number of days a year the costs of that at a certain point become so extreme that i yeah i'm not i'm not saying i'm i'm like not being like oh that's it's just the cost for too high that's why it was over there was a there's a point where somebody is like this collection is costing me more money then my passion is allowing me to throw at it. And so I did talk to Chuck. I said, I'm sorry, buddy, about that. He said he was doing just fine because he's an operator. He owns an arcade too.
    16:13
    And very nice guy. Eventually I hope to actually have him back on as guest because he wanted to do it, and I was just happy to have actually gotten a hold of him, to be honest. So anyways, enough on that. I'm sure he'll be up for it. Chuck is a very nice guy. I know him as well. We poorly support the following companies. What are you buying? What are you selling? Multi-ball. The pinball place. Your premier retailer and authorized dealer for Stern, Jersey Jack, and American pinball. Large selection of new and used games, parts, and accessories. Find out more at pinballplace.com.
    16:53
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    17:12
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    17:44
    Oh, cool. I haven't really met anybody that loves this stuff. You know, even the guys who quote-unquote make you difficult or intense, not any bad term, are just eccentric and passionate. And sometimes passionate emotion comes off a little abrasive. It just means sometimes give the person more than one time to talk to you and you get the other side of the person. and thankfully this hobby has been plenty good for that. But enough on that stuff. I love this. I love bringing this up because my family has rescued dogs.
    18:32
    My parents always take on senior dogs. My parents, they go to the Whisker World, which is kind of like a formal gala event to raise money for a variety of, uh, like the main society as well as like, uh, pilots for pause. And, um, what is it? Uh, itty bitty kitty brigade, stuff like that. Uh, my wife actually fosters kittens just out of that but we always rescued animals and all of my all of the pets we have are rescues And the thing that I have loved is watching the daily adventures of you with Jesse
    19:12
    I appreciate that. Oh, and for our listeners, if you haven't seen Jake do this, at one time Jesse was petrified of stairs. And you would carry an 80-pound dog down the step every day.
    19:35
    And then you did tell me that it's not a problem for her to go up and down steps anymore. Well, up, but I carried her downstairs for over a year. And then I decided, you know, it's kind of enough of that. Let's see if we can get you going on your own. So still to this very day, and it's been almost two years now, but to this day, you know, she'll walk over to the top of the stairs when it's time to go down. But in order for her to go down, I have to sit down on the top step and coax her, you know, kind of nudge her down one step, you know, get her down one or two steps. And then after that, she's like, okay, and she'll go down on her own. but she just will not start from the very top on her own.
    20:32
    I'm not sure why that is, but we deal with it. Well, and I love seeing, I love seeing what you pull her around in the wagon and obviously the puppy ice cream cones, all this stuff. I love that stuff.
    20:50
    And just tell, tell the story of how you acquired, or who saved who here? Oh, boy. Well, I guess I'll start from the beginning. There's a very dear friend of mine who lives in Chicago, and we were talking one night, and somehow we got on the subject of dogs. I don't even know or remember how, but I guess I mentioned that I would really like a dog. I've been wanting to get a dog for like probably two decades now.
    21:28
    And she gave me a story about how she rescued a dog and it ended up staying with her. And it was like the best thing that she had ever done, best part of her life, something like that. And then I was like, the whole time she was telling me that, I was like, yeah, this makes sense. But then she told me something that was just the absolute magic words for me. She just told me it's something like having a kid. And she said, excuse me, she said, the time will never be ideal.
    22:00
    And when she told me that, it just instantly clicked. I knew she was absolutely right. And why we were even talking about that and why she said that is because I am so busy. I literally work just all the time. And I told her I've been waiting for life to slow down. And, well, life just isn't going to slow down for me. As a matter of fact, you know, it seems to be every month or every year I just keep getting busier and busier. And I just, I kind of take on the work because I have big goals and I'm going to accomplish them. But anyways, she told me the time will never be ideal. So literally when I got done talking to her, I jumped right on to Amazon and onto the pet supply stores, and I was looking for and starting to buy supplies, like dog beds and toys and everything I was going to need. And the one main thing was I needed to figure out some sort of a dog door, because sometimes when I leave for work, I'm gone for a long time. I don't want a dog trapped either inside or out, especially here. You know, it gets up to 115 in summer. I'm not going to just leave a dog outside. So I wanted to make sure to have a dog door. I found an electronic device that would literally open and close your back door so you don't have to cut a hole in the wall.
    23:32
    But as it turns out, that thing was still in development, so I pre-ordered one, waited a few months to get that and then got it installed and then I started looking for a dog after that I picked one out online from a rescue place and then I got there and the picture didn't have anything in the background to show scale well it looked like a Rottweiler but I'm sorry not a Rottweiler why do I even say that it looked like a pit bull but when I get there the thing was more like the size of a dachshund.
    24:12
    And I was like, okay, so how old is this little guy? I thought it was a puppy. They said, no, it's full grown. It's just like a miniature pit bull. I didn't even know that kind of dog existed.
    24:28
    So I was like, well, I like small dogs. I like all dogs, but this is really not what I had in mind. And so they show me Jessie, and I just flat out said no at first because Jessie kind of scared me. She jumped up at the fence and started barking, and I was like, I don't want a liability. I don't want some crazy pit bull that's going to go bite a little kid. So I kept looking around for a while. I went back and thought about Jessie again, and they brought her out to meet me. And I was a little nervous, but then she just walked right over, put her head on my knee and gave me that look, and that was it. So she ended up going home with me.
    25:17
    But it didn't take me very long to figure out that something was kind of wrong because they gave me paperwork. that the only thing the paperwork said, you know, as far as like directions or something goes, is that she needed a house, not an apartment. Well, I asked them, why is that? I was like, that's fine, I have a house. And, you know, they were just young kids, volunteers working there. They said they didn't know. And they just kind of figured just needed more space. well as it turns out whoever wrote that paperwork just was completely wrong instead of saying that she needed a house not an apartment what they should have written was needs a home with no stairs because she absolutely would not do stairs she wouldn't even go up for the first two weeks well I kind of knew something was a little off because as soon as I took her out and got her out to the truck and at the time I had a small little truck and she would not get in it I had to lift her up and pick her up and put her in there so I was like all right well we'll deal with this and then I get her home and she won't go up the stairs and I'm just like holy cow what that I'd get myself into.
    26:43
    So, yeah, she was definitely not the dog I was looking for, but as it turns out, she was absolutely what I needed.
    26:54
    And for the first week, we were both kind of freaking out, but I didn't give up or take her back because I didn't want to give up on her.
    27:03
    She just appeared like she already had a rough life, so I was going to do my best for her. And, yeah, as far as your rescue question, the rescue was kind of mutual. So I was going through a little bit of a hard time, and it turns out me taking care of her has paid dividends. She takes care of me.
    27:27
    It has been proven that pets will increase your lifespan. Just saying. and she's here right now looking at me wondering who the heck am i'm talking to
    27:39
    fellow dog lover it's all good i'll bring treats to the expo well excellent because she will definitely be with me and that's one of the things i talked to rob burke about matter of fact he just sent me a message a couple minutes ago but um and we was talking about the hotel stay at Duke's Pen and this and that, and I was like, you know, I'm going to have Jessie with me, and we were talking about her, and I said, yeah, if I can't bring Jessie, I'm not going. So she will definitely be with me there at Expo.
    28:19
    Nice. Practical Nuke incoming! TNT Amusements, the largest new and used game showroom in the world, featuring pinball, shuffle bowlers, arcade video games, bubble hockey, from EM machines to high-speed games of today, parts and accessories, shipping worldwide with weekly auctions, streaming online on YouTube, Twitch, and Facebook. Find out more at TNTAmusements.com. We're at the interruption, folks, for just a brief moment of news in the realm of pinball restoration. So, to start again with a little bit of bad news, K's Arcade has called it quits.
    29:07
    That's sad, just because of the fact that I have purchased from them in the past. They were a distributor of electronic and repair components, as well as circuit boards. And I have bought Rotten Dog Williams System 6 MPUs from him. And so that's disappointing. That news was actually originally broke by Big Daddy Enterprises. He said it's not official but official. Case is calling it quick, and now we actually all know that that is true.
    29:34
    Pinball Pimp has Starlight Laser Q for his new stencil set, so go ahead and get those. Weebly just keeps cranking out product here. So they have the Stern SB300 soundboard out now. bally's cheap squeak which again that's a these are not necessarily the easiest things to get and so that's really good here's a really interesting one digi pinball is making and sells the atari generation 1 displays and is developing alvin g 2x20 alphanumerics and the dot matrix display so for those of us who own very rare games or just not necessarily the most commonly supported this is becoming another resource so please stay tuned for more news and now back to the show before I bring up the pin in question you have a little bit of a back strike so you're the admin for Strictly Custom Pinball Machines the Facebook group Oh, yeah. And I love seeing the posts of people making homebrew games. I know that you've had to change the rules as of late because there are spam posts or, you know, oh, I just did a mod. Well, okay, the mod's cool, don't get me wrong, but it's not exactly a custom game. It went from something small to now this is a huge Facebook group.
    31:09
    Yeah, yeah, I know. it's really just exploded I'd say in the last couple years it was quite a few years ago it's probably a decade ago that I started collecting pictures of custom pinball machines and most of them at least back then were just rethemed so I was gathering up all these pictures for years didn't really know what to do with them I just I liked them they you know I appreciate no matter what the theme was I appreciate all the hard work somebody did even if it's just an artistic re-theme. That's a lot of work. For somebody to remake a game in the theme that they like, that's just very commendable. I was just collecting all these pictures for years, and then one day, maybe, I don't remember how long it's been, five years or so that I made that group. And just one day, it kind of hit me. It's like, I got all these pictures. I really ought to do something with them. So I got all these pictures, and I was like, well, I can make a website, but that's kind of useless because, you know, I don't own all those games and there's, there wouldn't be any community interaction. So I was like, well, I could do a Facebook thing. But five, six some years ago, there was not a big, huge difference between a Facebook group and a Facebook page. It's like they weren't as defined as they are now. Thankfully, I picked the right one. I made a Facebook group. So because in a page, there's no community interaction. It's just mostly for one business to post everything about their stuff. So I made a Facebook group and I told myself, you know what, I'm just going to post one custom pin of pics that I have per day at the most. But no, of course, I got so excited about it. I was so happy. I was getting these all out into the world so everybody else can see them. I was probably posting you know 20 30 different custom pinball machines each day for the first few days so i was going through all my inventory of picks that i had and then it you know it slowed down for a little while and then all of a sudden these last two three years the custom pins the re-themes and the full custom builds have just been absolutely exploding like i don't have to do all this work myself anymore putting it out on the group is like these guys that are building it they're putting it on there themselves so and i'm thankful for that because sometimes it's it's a lot of work trying to grab all the pics and and all the info and then once in a blue moon somebody will get butthurt that you use their pics without their permission permission even though you're literally promoting them for free i know it's like i'm just as far as that group goes i you know i don't make any money off that and that's not even the point i'm just promoting it out there for free for everybody and um you know a lot of whole lot of people really appreciate it some of the guys that have come out of this uh facebook group and some of the people have contributed to it i should say um ryan mcquade uh when he built uh sonic we kind of got to watch him build it before uh you know he started showing it at shows and now he's working for American Pinball. John Norris posted actually in that for some people who don't know who that is, he is actually a former Gottlieb Premier game designer. It's nice to see that he's still making games, whether he works for a company or not. I can already put the two together, you know, two and two together here, that after doing that, you decided that it was time for you to do one. and I want you to tell us about Dukes of Hazzard. If you, if my listeners, if you have not seen this game, first off, it is beautiful. The art package is phenomenal. The modifications done to it, the rule set changes, how everything tied together, very well thought out. And I know that you, you don't like taking the credit for, for this, and you're going to give credit to who helped, but you did orchestrate this. So tell us about Dukes of Hazzard.
    35:30
    Well, the Dukes of Hazzard idea goes all the way back to when I very first started buying pinball machines. When I first started buying them, one of the first things I did was to go look to see if the Dukes of Hazzard was ever made because I just didn't know at the time. And of course, it wasn't and that kind of blew my mind back then and it still does to this day because you know younger generation might be like what are you talking about but for those of us that grew up with that that was it was huge I mean it was it was more than tv for a lot of us that was you know life that you know the dukes of hazard was everything so they just never made one and then I kind of got into the whole custom thing, and I just stored it in the back of my mind for a long time because I knew enough about custom pinball machines to know that it was going to cost a lot, like a fortune.
    36:36
    And I know some guys have made custom builds on a real budget, but in order to do it even halfway of what I had envisioned, I knew that it was going to cost a lot especially since a lot of the stuff I can't do on my own I'm not an artist I couldn't even hardly tell you what Photoshop is so I couldn't even do clip art that way that's just not my thing it's not what I do so I was going to have to pay somebody at the very least for all of the art so I just kept in the back of my mind for a long time and then it was a couple years, I guess, now.
    37:21
    I was just, I was busting my butt so much just working nonstop. And it just kind of hit me one day. It's like, you know what? I got plenty of money. All I ever do is work. I really want to build this custom game because my, you know, the Facebook group, Custom Pinball Machines, it was just blowing up. and yet the guy that made it, the admin, he doesn't actually have one. So I was like, you know what, let's go ahead. And I didn't quite pull the trigger on it right at that time, but I was like, you know what, let me see what it's really going to take.
    37:57
    So I started calling around and talking to friends and certainly one of them was Brian Soros He made numerous custom games
    38:10
    One of his most famous at the moment was the Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Yeah, so I talked to him. I talked to him in the past before, but I was just trying to get some more insight. And I do have quite a few friends locally that I knew could possibly help.
    38:36
    Stu Wright of Mad Voodoo Pinball and CPR, he's also local to me. So I was like, well, it's an easy deal to deal with him because I can drive to his house.
    38:50
    So I talked to him and then I talked to some other artists. I wasn't intent at that point in time in keeping it local. But after a while, after I was seeing how much work and back and forth it was going to be, I decided, yeah, it's probably best if I keep it local and so I can coordinate the whole project as best I can. So I made the right decision, I think. I went with Stu for the art. and I ended up asking two of my other friends here, Katie and Olivia Helm of Outpost Cordelia, if they would like to be a part of it and my whole deal with them was the only thing they was really going to do was change the audio because my original vision for the Dukes of Hazzard was to make it look like Bally had made it in, say, 1979.
    39:55
    That was going to be the look, with the exception of I was going to use LEDs, most likely like the retro white style, that I was going to try to make it look like it came from Bally in 1979.
    40:11
    Well, I took the idea to Katie and Olivia. I wasn't really sure if they'd be receptive to it, But as it turns out, they were all about it. And I was like, it kind of blew my mind that they even agreed to it in the first place. Because, you know, they both got jobs, they got other stuff, and they got their business and their hobbies. But they wanted to be a part of it. And then I had another friend that was going to be my cabinet guy. Well, you know, during the whole pandemic and everything, his business exploded. And he couldn't get to the cabinet. Well, Katie and Olivia said, well, no problem, they'll do that too. I was like, well, I've seen their electronics work, and I was confident in that. I had not really seen, that I knew of anyways, their cabinet work. But I was like, well, if you think you can do it, go ahead.
    41:06
    So they did the cabinet, and then I saw that. I was like, holy cow, they just did it perfect. but the art let me back up to the art with my vision the cabinet art was going to be a little more simplistic because I figured once I put it inside the house it's just going to be like all the rest of my pinball machines and that is sandwiched between other pinball machines you're never going to see the side art so I was going to go Well, yeah, I was going to go cheap on that because I figured, you know, what's the point? But thankfully, Stu twisted my arm. He's like, no, you know, you're going to see it sometimes. You know, you're going to want to know that it's nice when you do see it. So my original vision for the cabinet was I was just going to make it orange with an 01 on the side, and that's it.
    42:06
    But Stu, he kind of talked me into doing full cabinet art. and they ended up printing them out in vinyl.
    42:16
    And I was so thankful that he talked me into that because I never even thought about putting this out in public at any time. This is just something for me.
    42:29
    But it's been out in one arcade for one event, and then it's been at two pinball shows. And now the latest news is we're actually going to go to Pinball Expo in Chicago this year.
    42:43
    So, yeah, people are going to see the side art, and it's going to look so much better than my original vision for it was.
    42:52
    Now, fast forward back to Katie and Olivia. The only thing I was going to have them deal with was the audio because the game was originally based on a Bally Paragon. Now, I could deal with Paragon rules if I had to while looking at the Dukes of Hazzard, but I can't have it playing Paragon audio and it's a Dukes of Hazzard game because it just wouldn't make any sense to me.
    43:23
    So I asked them if they could just do two things, basically. Put in the Dukes of Hazzard theme song, and then for the general audio, was actually just going to go with bells and chimes. They said they could do that, no problem. And as far as the bells and chimes go, that wasn't me just simply being cheap. That was because, honestly, my favorite audio of any pinball machine ever is bells and chimes. Because I don't care what pinball machine I'm playing, once you hear the same call-out so many times, eventually it gets a little stale. but bells and chimes like you know one of my favorites the got leaves pro football when you rip that spinner and both the bell and the chimes all light up that's music to my ears every single time no matter how many times i'd play it so and that and with and on a side note if you're if you were trying to you know your original idea was to make it as if you know Valley had made it in that period of time.
    44:33
    The Lost World was the first one they put the electronic sounds in. They still had a few games before that that still incorporated the chime units. And so to me, it doesn't seem out of place.
    44:49
    In fact, I'm something I've never done. No, not at all. I think I still got one downstairs right now, Bobby Orr's Power Play. Yep. Yeah, it's a solid state game with a chime box in it. Yeah, it was going to work for me. I wasn't thinking too much about what other people thought, but a couple things popped up. One was somebody had made, ironically, a Smokey and the Bandits pinball machine. I say ironically because the Dukes of Hazzard actually takes a lot of its cues from that movie, Smokey and the Bandit. And then on top of that, I think John Schneider, who played Bo Duke, I think he was actually in the Smokey and the Bandit movie.
    45:38
    But anyways. I'll check on that. Yeah. But go on. Anyways, somebody had made that pin, and I looked at it. I was like, yeah, that looks pretty cool. But then I watched the video, and he incorporated all the sounds and call-outs and audio. I'm like, you know what, that really does work. So I was still intent on just, you know, a chime box and was going to actually just leave the Paragon boards in place and just play on Paragon rules. However, upon talking to Katie and Olivia again, they started asking me about, well, how about we do this and that, And I'm like, you know, I didn't think those bally boards could do all that. And they were like, no, we'll put a whole new custom system in it. And I was just like, whoa, whoa, that was really not part of my plan.
    46:35
    And they just kept on twisting my arm about it, honestly. They're like, no, you know, it's not going to cost you, you know, an absolute fortune. We're not going to charge you, you know, a million dollars or nothing. But they had to twist my arm quite a bit before I finally agreed, you know, and a lot of this is to their credit.
    46:58
    You know, they asked me about multi-ball, and I wasn't big on that. And then, you know, they were talking about doing custom, just all this and that. I wasn't really big on it, and part of it was for cost because I didn't want to make this to where, you know, it's going to be nothing but a liability rather than at least something I can consider an asset, and if I ever wanted to sell it, I could get my money back.
    47:28
    But, you know, they came up with some good ideas, and then I was like, yeah, you know what? we go ahead and we can try it your way. And I agreed to that, you know, what they were asking for. But all along the way, I was basically the project coordinator and they kept calling me up and then I'd go to visit and I would, you know, be part of the approval process. And everything thing they were doing was just blowing my mind. I remember I showed up there one day, and they lifted up the play field, and I looked under it, and I was like, what the heck is that? And if I would have spent a split second to even think about it, I would know what it was. I was just like, I couldn't believe they went to that extent. They ended up just pulling out a whole lot of the standard Bally light sockets and just 3D printing an entire LED light board and putting it in place. I was like, wow, okay, that's cool. And then we got on the subject of multiball and I was like, I don't know, but I went back home and I had another Paragon. I took a look and without really understanding how they could encode it or rules or whatever, I was just like, well, how are you going to even load up balls for a multiball? So I was like, well, you've got these three saucers here. I guess you can program them as ball locks for when you get to a multiball mode or loading it up for multiball.
    49:12
    So they used that idea, but as it turns out, wasn't even really necessary with them because they installed an auto launcher.
    49:25
    So you could do a series of events within the game and not have to lock balls in the saucer. You know, they could code it that way, but, you know, that wasn't within my mind at the time. Good news, everyone.
    49:41
    Pinball Expo 2022. Pinball Expo, North America's longest-running pinball convention, featuring 400-plus games from around the world. See the latest releases from Stern, Jersey Jack, American Pinball, Chicago Gaming, and more. Tournaments, seminars, industry creators, content streamers, designers, products, and vendors. See games from Woodrail Antiquities to the insane custom homebrews of today and beyond. And new for 2022, in-person Jersey Jack Pinball Factory Tour held October 19th through the 22nd at the Renaissance Hotel in Schaumburg, Illinois. Find out more at pinballexpo.com.
    50:24
    Classic Clayfield Reproductions, your premier pinball hobby reproduction parts specialist. Featuring Clayfield plastic sets and back class reproductions for Valley Williams and more. High quality recreation achieved through both modern and vintage manufacturing methods. Find out more at classicplayfields.com. Yeah, as part of the approval process, though, I tell you, the one thing that kind of scared all of us was I got this brand new play field. You know, it was not the original Paragon play field. I got a brand new play field manufactured directly from CPR for the Dukes of Hazzard. And Katie and Olivia called me up and it was like, yeah, we want to cut a hole in your play field. I'm like, uh, they're like, yeah, in order for us to get multi-ball, we have to install a new ball trough, and it's going to need, you know, another hole or a bigger hole cut. And they said, well, it's going to be underneath the apron, so you're not going to see it once it's assembled. so I finally agreed I was just like yeah if you can do it no damage whatever nobody's going to see it then go for it but yeah Katie's the one that cut it and I know she was nervous as heck about it but it turned out perfect so yeah the whole game is it's a very big departure from what my original vision for it was going to be. But that departure, everything about it is better than what my vision was.
    52:14
    It was starting out as just simply an artistic re-theme of Paragon and then changing the audio. But what they did with it was, this game is actually, I'd say, closer to a TNA than it is a Paragon now.
    52:36
    And in fact, some people I see them walking by and say, oh, it's a re-theme of a Paragon. And I'm like, no, it's not exactly that anymore. I mean, pretty much the only thing even left of Paragon on there is the cabinet.
    52:56
    I mean, it's a brand-new playfield, back glass, plastics, and there's not even any original boards or wiring harness. All of that had been taken out. It's a completely new game. It's just the layout of the playfield is the same as Paragon.
    53:18
    And it doesn't play the same as Paragon either because of all of the changes. Yeah. Yeah, they literally, they printed, I think it was 16 custom parts that are 3D printed for this game. Some of those parts are specifically for the inline drop targets.
    53:43
    You know, that was one of the directives I gave to Katie and Olivia early on. I said, hey, if you really want to change the electronics, then you got to do one thing for me. And I said, that is make the game easier because I love Paragon, but it is frustratingly hard.
    54:03
    You know, then I told him, I don't really care about the score value. I just care about the gameplay value. And what I liked to do in Paragon was just simply knock down all of the inline drop targets and get the ball up into that saucer. That's a lot of fun. However, those drop targets reset after each ball, and it would take me maybe 20 games before I could actually do that on one ball.
    54:34
    So they said, well, they didn't know if they could make that happen with that specific drop target bank, but they might find another one. Well, they never could. So they could program that in no problem, but that bank of inline drop targets did not have self-knockdown feature.
    54:54
    So they 3D printed their own custom parts to where those drop targets have self-knockdown feature, and they put it in the programming to where it can knock them down or up at any given time that they wanted to. So, you know, even if you're playing in multiplayer, if you knock down two of those targets and it goes to second player, it resets them. You go back to first player, it'll knock down the first two for you again. So the game is not as hard.
    55:28
    The inline drop targets have carryover feature from ball to ball now. And that's something that I, when you get used to playing older solid state games, it wasn't until I played, I restored blackout, where that was more of the case. Not so much with the drop, it wasn't with the drop targets, but it did it, and I don't know if you've ever played blackout, but on the left, there are green stand-up targets. and you have to hit all of them four times to get the extra ball.
    56:10
    And to do that, to have to try to do that in one shot, to your point, is incredibly frustrating to do it in one ball.
    56:19
    But the nice thing is when you train, yes, your drop targets all pop back up in the banks, but you get carryover on those side stand-up targets, which enables you to have a chance at doing that. So, no, go on. So, by all means, go on. So, you know, they made the game easier by making the inline drop targets have self-dockdown and memory.
    56:48
    So, you know, and that was, you know, one of my first ideas. You know, I told them, you've got to make the game easier, and then I gave them that one single idea you know to make it easier but they went a step further and they just the whole game plays so much different you could park that right next to a paragon and it like night and day difference and um that's that's one of the key features is is that and then the other one is obviously it's got multi-ball, it's got the auto launcher, it's got ball save, which Paragon never had.
    57:30
    At least I don't think it did. I wasn't big on multi-ball at first because multi-ball does typically make games more fun but some games, especially the older ones, I just personally don't need it on. and if it was a different game, a standard body, I might have still been hesitant on it.
    57:57
    But Paragon, it's not just a wide body. It's a really big wide body. So I'm glad I went with that because, yeah, it's just two or three ball, multi-ball. you get that going especially in like the police chase modes is just so much fun
    58:20
    as i recall you're telling me there was a jail feature here oh yeah yeah um only uh there's three three pop bumpers up in the top center and then just like on paragon There's one pop bumper down on the lower left on Paragon. It's called, I think, the B Slayer.
    58:46
    Well, early on with the artist, I had this idea very early on. I just didn't know if I could actually get it implemented or not, and it turns out it worked out beautifully.
    58:59
    But I told the artist, Stu, I want this area right here, this pop bumper down on the lower left, I want that to represent the Hazard County Jail. and he said okay so he made that the jail area so we got that done and then I went to Katie and Olivia and I said hey you see this jail here you know this is the jail area and I said yeah it's like well jail is where you don't want to be right so I said every time you hit that pop bumper I don't want it to give you points I want it to take them away and so that's what they did and it actually works with the score value as well. So if you have two or three times scoring,
    59:46
    that one pop bumper is going to take away two or three times as many points as normal. Oh, yeah. Oh, man, I'm keeping this ball alive, but I'm losing. How is this possible? Yeah. Well, hey, it's not as bad as my idea I came up with after that, but we'll get to that in a second. But, yeah, I know a lot of pinball purists, you know, might be butthurt about that. Like, you can't take points away. Like, well, there's no rule book anywhere that says I can't. So, you know, there's plenty of video games out there that punish you for not doing this or that. You know, I don't know why in pinball, you know, your score can only go up. There's no rule. There's no law that says that. So I thought it worked out just perfectly fine. I love it that way. I would never change it.
    60:37
    And it does add a different dynamic to the game. It adds a, because it's like, you know, you gotta go. Oh no, it went in there. It's like, oh, well at least you didn't drain the ball. It'd be like, well, is it better? But that's, no, that's an Epic feature and it's, it is to your point. That is something that I, I like the idea that it's not so much that you're punished.
    61:04
    It added more challenge to the game in a playful manner without making it necessarily a harder game.
    61:17
    Because a lot of people think that challenge has to be dictated by difficulty. No, challenge can be, you know, because pinball, when you're playing in tournaments and short of a head-to-head machine you don't have something actively ever working against you so to me that that adds a whole new dynamic to challenge and i think that's great and that's why i brought i was trying to bring that back up i'm like no no the jail the jail yeah yeah and it's and it and it's not like it's an area say like some it's not like a modern game with a ramp was where the game is say no you can't hit that ramp or we're going to take points away because that wouldn't really make sense this little jail area just like in paragon with the beast slayer that's already an area you do not want the ball to be in right if it ball goes in there you get basically a 50 50 chance of it draining so this is not going to punish you for doing something you want to do. No, this is, this is, you know, an extra little punishment for doing something, you know, you're not, you're not supposed to have the ball in there in the first place. You don't want it in there. So now you really don't want it in there.
    62:38
    Oh man. So, but anyways, there was another feature you're about to talk about actually. Yeah, I came up with this little idea, you know, kind of as we were still building the game. But I didn't really think it was going to be a good idea. And Katie and Olivia kind of thought the same way. And that is my idea was for the two openings for the Hazard County Jail area, that pop bumper. Well, one is for the ball to go in and out, you know, from the play field where the ball can go into that pop bumper area. And then there's an opening where if the ball just shoots straight down, right, you know, basically to the out lane. Well, my idea was to put up posts in those two areas. So basically when the ball would go into the jail, those up posts would kick up kind of like a jail cell door slamming shut and basically your ball would be trapped in there for a few seconds now it sounds really good maybe for a digital pinball game but on an actual physical pinball machine that sounds like a real good way to just tear things up really fast you know the ball bouncing off the post and off the pop bumper it's probably going to just tear up the pop bumper skirt, the play field and everything.
    64:09
    And on top of that, we wasn't really sure we could even get that to work to begin with. So even if we really thought we could, I was kind of hesitant to go drilling more holes in a perfectly brand new play field.
    64:27
    But it's an idea maybe for the future, possibly. But probably not, though. Now, there is also the spelling coincidence that worked on your behalf when you did this, too.
    64:46
    Yeah, yeah. I had a lot of people ask me, why did I start with the Paragon? Well, for several reasons. I wanted to start with a pen that came out in that era, because that was kind of my original vision. And then the second reason is I actually, at the time anyways, I wanted a wide body because I wanted room for a lot of artwork, and that worked out pretty well. And then one of the big reasons was simply because of the insert count for Paragon just happens to be the same amount of letter count for Hazard. so in the context of the county of the dukes of hazard hazard is spelled with two z's instead of one so that worked out pretty well um i did want it to spell out hazard on the bottom set of inserts that are big i thought that would have looked pretty good however when i was at stew's house looking over his games and he had some you know like actors faces for one of his games over the big inserts.
    65:58
    And I got to looking at, you know, like Paragon and the Dukes of Hazzard. Because Paragon, you spell out, you know, Paragon in two different areas. So one is on the top right, and it's small inserts. And then you have the going across the center with the bigger inserts. Well, I really didn't want to, you know, not have it spell hazard or very big across the center. but it just didn't make any sense to use tiny little pictures of the actors' faces up in the upper right where you're never going to really notice them or see them. So we just put Hazard up in the upper top right, and then there's actors' faces across where it would have said Paragon across the center. and that's one of the things too I desperately wanted Flash the Basset Hound from the Dukes of Hazard to be one of them however there was seven main top human actors in the show and I just couldn't replace any one of them with Flash so we just put Flash in other areas of the game oh I get that obviously have a dog lover yeah um I did for I think I forgot to mention with my approval process with Katie and Olivia I was kind of getting to it and got sidetracked but um they kept showing me this stuff you know weekly or daily what they were doing I was like holy cow just like everything you're doing is so fantastic so at one point I just finally you know I told them, look, I'm so beyond impressed of what you're doing. None of this was part of the plan, but I love it more each time I see it.
    67:52
    You're making it way better than what I had ever thought of. So I said, from this point on, don't even bother calling me up and asking me about what about this or that. I just told them, from this point on, whatever you want to do that's going to make the game better, just go ahead and do it and let me know when you're done.
    68:13
    So it took a little bit of courage and just a little bit of faith at first, but after seeing what they were really doing,
    68:25
    I had the utmost faith and respect for them. I can't imagine having done any of this without them. No, but... But you definitely assembled the right team.
    68:43
    Yeah, I definitely got the right team. I'm glad I had Stu here locally, and Katie and Olivia, they absolutely blew my mind. So I know people think that I'm the builder. Well, I can't really – I'm not going to take credit for building it. I was actually supposed to do the final assembly. That was what my plan was. but between my business and then I keep a corporate job as well, both of them have been just nonstop work for the last few years. I just said, you know, I'm just, I'm not going to be able to get to this anytime soon. So they took it upon themselves and they pretty much did everything, including the cabinet work and all of the assembly.
    69:32
    They did all the coding, like literally everything, everything except for the art that Stu did Katie and Olivia Helm I have them to thank for this and it's a beautiful piece I mean and sometimes an artist has a vision of something they want to have made and there are always a project that exists that will run away from you to an extent and sometimes it becomes more and more and more. We call it the Clark-Griswold effect.
    70:12
    But, no, I mean, they're overseeing the project and giving the people that helped you do this also were equally enjoying aspects of this. I mean, aside from compensation, this was a fun project. and I think it was an opportunity to open up the revisiting, you know, layouts and so forth that have happened in the past,
    70:45
    but to give it, I would say not necessarily a modern feel, but a very nice tribute, and it's definitely more than just a review. It's a completely different game.
    71:01
    And, yeah, I did watch the stream when you were streaming playing it. And, no, no, this was an epic, epic project. And I'm looking forward to actually being able to play it at Expo in Schaumburg, Illinois. And I know it was a big stretch for you to get out there, for you to be coming out here. and as I said, I'll have plenty of treats for Jesse and I'll try to,
    71:35
    I'm going to be relieving people periodically throughout the event because I do have friends who are vendors and they like to be able to get away from their booths for a little bit. If at any point you want somebody else to watch the machine so you can enjoy it or if you want to be right next to it the whole time, either way, just let me know because I'm just looking forward to seeing you I'm definitely looking forward to playing this game. But I'm really looking forward to just petting Jesse.
    72:04
    I have a dog lover. We're both looking forward to it. We're just not really looking forward to the drive, but, you know, it's quite a drive, but we'll make it. Well, I hope it's not a petful. it's a long time in a vehicle but I know Jessie she's happy no matter what as long as she's with me so she'll be very happy that whole time actually I'll be on vacation from my corporate job for two weeks straight and driving out there is part of the first week so she's going to be loving it the dogs We get spoiled. My person is with me the entire time.
    72:52
    Yeah. Well, it is going to be great to see this. And, you know, and you do run your, aside from routing games, you also do restore and service. I do laugh at the one video where you're like, and since it's my name, you had Danzig playing in the background. I did have to chuckle but definitely I've thoroughly enjoyed the conversation and definitely looking forward to seeing the game at Expo are you planning any other I know it's a stretch but I know that you do what is it ZapCon or what you have done this last year you did ZapCon and Starfighters Pinball Festival Thank you, Starfighters. I always hope somebody makes, I've seen a last Starfighter. I want to see that one too at some point. I do know that and I do want to see the guy who made, because again, following your Facebook group, I want to see that Goonies machine that that guy cranked out. yeah you know what one one guy made that and then sold it and I think he sold it to another guy and then it got sold to a friend of mine here in Phoenix and then a sad story it apparently it fell off the back of a truck before my friend took possession of it or something like that. Anyways, it got fixed back up, but then the friend of mine that had it, I guess he got tired of it at some point, and then he sold it off, so it's been sold again. So I don't know who has it now, but it's out there somewhere.
    74:46
    People change out games. They're like, I'm done with it. That's time for something new in the rotation. So I get it.
    74:56
    All right, Jake. I'm not going to take up any more of your time. I really appreciate the phone call. Thanks. I'm happy that we finally actually got this done. This is actually attempt number two.
    75:09
    Yeah, I'm glad it's done too. Ladies and gentlemen, that concludes my interview with Jake Danzig, the owner of Pinball Investments, fellow restorer, and creator of the Dukes of Hazzard pinball machine. It was always nice to talk to him. I love always seeing his posts daily with Jesse. Please check him out on Facebook. Follow the Facebook group, Strictly Custom Pinball Machines. And see him at Expo, play his game, and bring his dog to treat. So until next time, keep it flippin'. Making their way, the only way they know how.
    75:48
    That's just a little bit more than the normal life. Just a good old boy Wouldn't change a big thing This has been a Ruby Butt Production Ruby, get out of the litter box!