you're listening to the head to head people podcast find us on facebook email us at Welcome everybody to the Head to Head Pinball Podcast. This is our episode 50 and my name's Martin. And with me, it's Ryan C. And we've got a very special guest all the way from the US with us on our 50th episode. This man is credited for working on over 40 different pinball machines over the years. He's a very busy man working for three different companies, Zynga, Aristocrats and Kapow Pinball. He also owns an amazing car collection. Ladies and gentlemen, Joe Kamenkow. How are you, Joe? Doing well. Thanks, guys, for calling. So we want to talk a little bit about your history before we talk about the modern stuff that you're involved with in pinball. So can you give us a quick overview of how you got started in this hobby and your journey up until now? Sure. My dad was a distributor for coin-operated games and amusements. as far back as 1963. In 1963, I was about five years old, and I would go into the vending company, and while he was doing accounting and things, I would play games and be around games. Obviously, back then, it was really a Gottlieb world before it became a Bally world. They were Gottlieb distributors. And then he went to work for Bally in 1974. And he was senior VP of Bally. So kind of growing up as a teenager, I would unload trucks, and whether it was early video games or, you know, a lot of Bally and Williams games back in the 70s, put them together, ship them to operators. And then when I got out of college, I kind of thought, well, you know, I was operating some games, and the games that were there I didn't think were terribly good or terribly fun, and figured, well, heck, I could do something better than what was there and started a company called Logical Highs in 1981 that had a right of first refusal to Williams. And actually the first pinball I ever worked on was defender pinball. It was kind of funny. Williams owned the right to defender, and I licensed them the idea to make a defender pinball and worked on the game. It was kind of one of those crazy things. If anybody ever looks at the pop bumper in the middle, You'll see it says, Certain Design Services Provided to Williams Electronics by Logical Highs, Inc. Nobody really ever knew that story, but that's sort of how we started. That was probably the first pinball I had anything to do with, and that was sort of towards the end of Williams not doing so well in pinball and the video game business taking over. And then, of course, probably one of the more famous pinballs I worked on was Space Shuttle. Williams had been actually closed at that point in time, and Larry DeMar, Barry Hausler, Mark Sprenger, and I worked through the summer of 1984 to conceive and make that project, put plastic ramps on the game, a couple toys, bring speech back, and two- and three-ball multiball. and the company, without getting about 4,500 orders, would have closed their doors forever. And that's sort of the game that saved Williams. Yeah, so everyone says that that's the game that sort of really did resurrect pinball at the time. What do you think was so special about that particular machine that made that happen? Well, it was a little bit of everything. It kind of felt like a licensed product. It brought ramps that were out of plastic sort of back into the game and everybody was sort of making single-level games again at that point in time. Larry and I worked really hard on the two-ball and three-ball multiball set. It was easy to understand, lock the ball, lock the ball, shoot the ramp. We used the top target in the middle sort of as a gate. And then if you remember, it had sort of like a rolling jackpot, so you could get multiple jackpots by shooting the middle ramp. So it just kind of gave you something to do when you were in multiball, instead of just flailing. And it was just a pretty special game. I mean, I go over to the Pinball Hall of Fame every now and then in Vegas and play it. And, you know, all these years later, it's still fun. So, if you have it on a digital version, it's really a fun game to play. So, how do you go from there to Data East? What's the transition there? Well, I left Williams. Mike Shaw left. I left not too long thereafter. and then I kind of worked on a game at a company called Game Plan called The Loch Ness Monster and unfortunately they chose to make a game called Cyclone by Roger Sharp and sort of ran out of money before we got to Loch Ness Monster. The pinball landscape might be different today had they made my game because, again, it had ramps and it had kind of like a sub play field with that little Loch Ness Monster going around on the motor and that was sort of like a predecessor to what they did on Creature from the Black Lagoon. And Gary was doing FinStar back then, which was sort of like a conversion kit for old Stern games. That was Steve Kirk. And the game called his eye. And when he decided to start Data East Pinball, it was me, him, and Shelly. Actually, before it was Data East, it was just Nuko. And we had talked to both Konami and Data East about creating a division in the States to kind of soften the highs and lows of making video games and having hits and misses and then having a more stable mechanical games division. And Data East came up with the money. Ed Pellegrini was involved with it. And I would say the rest was history. The first game was Laser War. And the game worked well. It was a good game and a fun game. and, you know, I think it probably wasn't until Time Machine or Phantom of the Opera that we started making money. And then, of course, we had big games like Simpsons and Jurassic Park and Lethal Weapon and, you know, I think our biggest year of production was maybe 20,000 or 29,000 games back then. So who was, I mean, Data East and Stern have always been known to be very heavy on licenses and not original themes. Where did that originate from? Was that you or Gary or...? That was me and Gary. I mean, we both believe in that. You know, first off, it gave more value. At that point in time, you know, operators would buy a game and then they would, you know, operate the game. But where they really made their profit on the game was selling the game to the consumer. Well, it's much easier to sell a game called Jurassic Park or Star Wars to that end user for a higher dollar than it was Torpedo Alley, right? And then, you know, you look at today, it's really a license-driven business. I mean, Simpsons or South Park or Metallica or, you know, all the other different things that Stern's, you know, currently making. You know, people want to collect things they like or they have affinity for or things they remember as a kid. You know, that's sort of the business, right? How hard was it to get the licenses back then? Oh, it was tough. First off, it was really hard to clear the rights on a lot of the different things. Batman was a really tough license to get, and we got the Michael Keaton. Jurassic Park, of course, batting Star Wars. Bigger companies like Williams were trying to get them, but personal relationships won out. But it was always a challenge. Everybody thinks our margins are small. and everybody wanted a lot of money for these brands. The bigger value always ended up being the collectible part of, you know, Steven Spielberg wanted a Jurassic Park or Yon DeBont wanted a Twister in their office or in their home. So that's kind of where it went. And then every now and then we'd find an instance where, like, Tom Hanks was going to be part of Apollo 11, but then he got his second Oscar and didn't want to be involved with merchandise. So, you know, all these challenges. And were you involved in the licensing for Back to the Future? Yes. So, yeah, do you want to tell us about the whole Michael J. Fox thing and why he didn't want to have his face there? Well, you know, again, that was one of those weird things. You know, we committed to do the game. You know, our budget was really small. We had a game ahead of it, which was King Kong, which really didn't look good. It was made by another designer, and we were having some trouble with just the game and the margin and the play. And, you know, sometimes a game just doesn't come together. So we had like six weeks to get the game together. You know, hindsight being 20-20, I probably would have done the arc a little bit differently than trying to replicate the movie poster at the time. And then we ended up not getting Michael J. Fox, so we kind of put heavy sunglasses on it. And it was Paul Faris' son Brad sort of became our model. And, you know, it's funny, subsequently years later when I did Back to the Future for slot machines, And, you know, Michael allowed his likeness to be used. So, you know, back in 1989, he was a big star. And, you know, I had big expectations of lots of millions of dollars to be on a pinball machine. And, you know, we didn't have a budget for that kind of thing. But the great thing is, you know, we worked with a guy named Bob Gale, who was the producer and writer of the show. And Bob and I have had a lifelong friendship since 1989. He's one of my best friends in the world and closest friends. So, you know, sometimes the Tim Ball is not perfect, but other things come out of it. And it was a pretty fun game. I mean, music was good. Brian Schmidt did a good job. We still have all three movies in it. And, you know, I'm pretty proud of it. How about these? There's a bunch of machines here that, you know, were produced in very little quantities, like Wild Horse Loon, Aaron Spelling, Michael Jordan, Mads, Richie Rich. Richie Rich is obviously like a movie prop for that movie. Well, we had a relationship with Joel Silver back then. We were doing Lethal Weapon, and he asked for a favor, and we did a favor. Yeah. So, you know, sometimes, you know, when you have Hollywood relationships, you wash hands and you do favors because that opens up the door for something else. As a matter of fact, because of the relationship of Back to the Future, I was at Bob Gale's 40th birthday party. And at his 40th birthday party was Bob Zemeckis' partner. And Bob was working with Walter Hill, Joel Silver, and I think Dick Donner at the time on Tales from the Crypt. And I went over to go show Joel and Dick Tales from the Crypt, and they were filming Lethal Weapon. Well, next thing you know, I'm in a trailer with Mel Gibson, and Mel Gibson, we sent him a turtle spin ball for him and his eight kids to use and enjoy. Next thing you know, we're doing a Lethal Weapon game, and Tales from the Crypt got pushed after Lethal Weapon. So, you know, one of these things where, you know, one door opens another door and opens another door and opens another door, and, you know, there you go. Same thing like, you know, we did Back to the Future and established a relationship with Bob and Stephen, and we got Jurassic Park. So, you know, you're a good guy, and you do good things, and you do good work for people, and you're trustworthy, you know. You know, relationships, you know, ensue. And so what would you say would be probably the most successful in your mind? And I know that there's varying definitions of success, but when you think about the Data East days, What's one of the successful machines that you would sort of look back and say, yeah, that was an absolute success all around? Well, there are a couple. I think there was different success measured at different times. I think Simpsons was really the first breakout game for the company. I think we did 55 or 5,600 units at that time. That was a huge run. And the first Simpsons was an amazing success. I mean, obviously, Lethal Weapon and Jurassic Park and Star Wars. I think we did 10,300 Lethal Weapons, 10,350 Star Wars, and 9,700 Jurassic Parks. I probably would have made more of the dinosaur. It worked a little better at the beginning. Those are huge successes. another data point which I can look at and go well South Park was maybe one of the most significant pinballs ever because honestly it kind of was lights out Williams because they had put all that investment in pinball 2000 and it was too big, too expensive, too heavy and what it proved was if you just make a really good pinball that's fun with some gadgets like a toilet, you can out-earn a game like Pinball 2000. They ended up out-earning it so significantly that it just showed the value of the misstep. So, you know, Williams kind of put themselves out of the pinball business by doing that. And then, of course, I look at Batman 66, and that could be one of the most successful games Gary ever makes. So speaking of, I guess, licensing of the time, and I just probably want clarity around this as well. So, you know, DataReast, obviously, in competition with the others, I just want to know whether you were involved in, you know, what you could do and what you couldn't do from, I guess, a trademark or copyright infringement. And probably the example I give is, you know, M-Ball and Tri-Ball. Tri-Ball, you obviously weren't able to do multi-balls. The whole multiball thing was just bullshit, okay? I mean, if you look at what the trademark actually was, it was not on the word multiball. It was on the particular font they used, which we didn't even use. But, you know, it was just this giant, giant, you know, if you can't beat them, harass them. If you can't beat them, sue them. At the end of the day, you know, I even think, you know, if I look back on it, I think our insurance, because they sued us for something we did in an ad, the whole lawsuit was covered by insurance at the end of the day. And what it did, it actually made us work harder, and it made us get pissed off. It made us do even better work. So, you know, multiball, tri-ball, you know, I look at the great pinball wars. What a waste of money. What a waste of time. And they probably would have done better to have, you know, made a deal with us, and we all could have tried to make pinballs with the same parts out of one factory, and maybe they'd still be in business. But, you know, give me a break. Dry ball, multiball, four ball, who cares? But it wasn't just that. Nobody cared then. The player didn't care then. But, you know, what you had was you had a bunch of, you know, I think people of the other company kind of running around going, the sky is falling in and we've got to stop them and slow them down. I mean, you know, I probably was a little bit of a jerk at one time, too. You know, the funny story was it was against the law in Illinois. to download and look at somebody else's code. Okay. And I think back then I put in ASCII something like, hey, Ken, hey, Steve, hey, guys, give me a call. Let's do lunch. Because I knew they were going to take our game. I knew they were going to download it. I knew they were going to look at our code. They looked at our code. Then I invited them to lunch because I knew they were going to be looking at our code, which, by the way, was a violation then of the law. And they couldn't say anything about it, but it got them pissed off. So, you know, yeah, some of the silly stuff. I remember seeing on one of those documentaries as well that when you were showing South Park at a trade show, there was like a hidden message in the D&D, you know, talking about that you guys knew that Pinball 2000 was coming, like it was like backwards or something. Oh, I don't think so. But if somebody wanted to, you know, I think we had BSMT 2000, which was the name of our soundboard. but if people were reading pictures in clouds, well, God bless them. That's kind of funny. It was like putting cows on the Williams display for Cam and Co. or Cam and Cal. Who cares? It was pretty fun. Now, I will say there was something that I did say at one of the trade shows. It was interesting. It was one of those interesting things to kind of change pinball and actually hurt the pinball companies. You know, back then, flippers used a tungsten break point, right? You use a mechanical switch on the flipper, and then it would, you know, go to the flipper, which would energize, breaking the 50-volt holding voltage, right? Yeah. And then if that little paw ever broke, well, then it didn't activate, and that's what burned your flippers out. So we were all using series-wound coils. Williams and I went to parallel-wound coils. We went to parallel-wound coils. I mean, my goodness gracious, if you go to engineering school, first thing they do is teach you what a series-wound coil is and what a parallel-wound coil is. But somehow Williams got a patent on a parallel-wound coil, and that was one of the great things in the great patent lawsuit, right? Parallel-wound coil. Okay. It's a big deal. So what patents do is they make you innovate. So we innovated to a holding voltage on a series-wound coil, and it eliminated the big tungsten point. And then eventually, you know, we put a timer in it, so even if that thing broke, that mechanical part broke, then the flipper wouldn't burn out, right? It was still doing what it needed to do. And it actually killed us all because now we weren't selling parts for burned-out flipper coils. or so, right? Because the flippers didn't burn out anymore. They just, you know, the part broke, you just fixed the part, but the flipper didn't burn. But we wrapped the flipper with a thing that said Ty Fasey, I think it was 2006, T-Y-F-A-S-S-A-I or something like that. And someone said to me once at one of the trade shows, well, what does Ty Fasey mean? Is that the name of the engineer that made it, Ty Fasey, or is he an Indian guy, Ty Fasey? or what does type-A-Z mean? And I said, it's very simple. It's just an acronym. Well, they said, what does it mean? I said, it means take your fucking flipper and shove it. And that was what was on all the coils. So, look, you know, it's a pinball machine. It's not a heart-lung machine. We're not saving the world. We're not changing the world. You know, it's funny. I used to read all the FAQ and IRQ and all this stuff, and everybody had all these rules and opinions. The games aren't tough enough, they're not smart enough, the rules are this or that. The games were fun. My games were always fun and always had a certain amount of fun. Anybody ever play Jurassic Park? You want to talk about a game that had a deep set of rules? Going to multiball and then getting to chaos and then having meltdown. That game had a lot of really cool stuff and smart bombs and everything else. And then there are other games you make that are really simple. I mean, I recently played that Total Nuclear Annihilation from that little spooky pinball company in Wisconsin. It was fun. Yeah. Right? You know, hit the thing, you know, be pinball. You know, hit it nine times, put the ball in the hole, put the ball in the hole, multiball. Keep the ball in play, dribble your score. Oh, there's a jackpot. It was fun. You know, these games don't have to be a Bible of rules. you know, firepower it was really fun, right? hit the six bank twice lock off three balls, play multiball I mean, how many times you play that game and go oh man, I was one ball away, or play high speed and go, I got the red light lit, but I didn't run it, right? so, sometimes I think we're too smart for ourselves so, with your data race days again, do you think there was a formula that you had or does it come back to what you're just saying as long as it's fun um that's all it matters well the formula for us first off was we had about 12 weeks to get a game done in out the door we were a teeny little group of guys i mean i look at stern today and my gosh they're you know 100 times bigger than we were we were you know three mechanical engineers and three programmers and you know we were less than 20 people trying to turn out four games a year and probably a novelty game so you know some stuff we had to reuse some things we started from scratch We always try to make the game make sense and take you on a journey and start somewhere and ratchet it up in intensity as you went along. Try to make things somewhat understandable. I mean, pinball, if you're really a good pinball designer, if you can remember shoot the blinking light is your main rule, you're probably going to make a pretty okay game. so you know I think we made we made stuff in our style I think the style of the companies changed a bit you know in subsequent years just as a lot of you know it's really kind of funny I look at the great pinball wars and go oh my gosh you know you know today Steve Ritchie or Dwight or George Gomez or Chuck Robert Blakeman all these guys used to work at Bally and Williams or Greg Freres you know are now all employed by Stern. My goodness, none of these guys, their livelihood is based on what we created and how we survived. It's kind of a fun link and nod. It's nice. I think they also understand Gary and the great sacrifice Gary went through to make the company and keep it in business and keep them all there. Unfortunately, the guys that were running Williams gave up and threw in the towel and it got a little tough. It didn't matter. They made 22,000 Adams families. They threw in the towel and put everybody out of work. Yeah. They made their money. When they weren't making enough money, they weren't in it for the long haul. So why do you think it was that you could get a machine out in 12 weeks? We had to. But they're obviously a lot longer these days. Yeah, you know, I guess it depends how, you know, how perfect you want to be. I mean, the auction office isn't ever perfect. You know, we have ball traps and stuff like that. Our games are fun. I mean, honestly, if I had to sit down today, I could do a David Hankin sketch in about an hour, have something with a ramp on the left and a target bank on the right and take that shoebox full of parts and maybe come up with a new gadget or maybe not. But I mean, you know, pinball's just not that hard. Yeah. You know, and you see it with the homebrew guys, right? You got all these people building stuff in their basement and in their garage and doing the pin and programming their own stuff. It's, you know, keep your pop-upers at the top, put a couple lanes, put a lane change on it. Here's a target bank. You know, here's a place to lock a ball. Here's a place to hold the ball. Here's a place to release the ball. It's just not that hard. I think, you know, when you're used to working fast and hard, you work fast and hard. And back then, by the way, guys, we drew this stuff on vellum. Today everything's with a cad. My gosh, just move the circle over. you should be doing it really fast now I know John Borg he's lightning man he can give you a play field in two days if you need one other guys to other people it's an art form it's just crafted roll the ball on a straight edge gotta move that ball over about an eighth of an inch it just depends on who's painting there's the guy that does the paint by numbers I've seen guys take take paint in buckets and throw it at a canvas and in 10 minutes it looks like you have to. And I see another guy's painted a canvas for a year and it looks like you have to. So, you know, it just depends on your technique. But it's also not just being able to design and do a machine. A lot of the companies that, you know, haven't been necessarily successful is it's not just about building a machine. It's about how do you become a manufacturing company? How do you actually now have a strong business model? Right. Well, look, it was painful. And I think a lot of people seriously underestimate how difficult it is to do what we did. Because you have to build an MRP and you have to build a bill of material because if you're missing one screw on your bill of material, you can't finish building the games. There's no screw to put that part on. So part of it's discipline, right? You have to build a buying function, and in the buying function, you need to have inspection to make sure the parts are coming in right. I mean, at one point in time on the title block of our mechanical engineering stuff, we added something to the title block. You know what it was? You know what it said? So I tried it, and it worked. You have no idea how many people design stuff and never try it to see that it works or built it to make sure it works. You know, for us, it was discipline, right? It was building a factory, building a line, training people not to overdrive their screws and thread your wood. It's, you know, building, you know, new inserts. I mean, it was just, we were too dumb to know how hard it was, okay? We were too stupid to know, you know, Gary and I, we often joke, we had to start a pinball company because nobody would hire either of us. and it was our careers and our children's future college. So we worked hard. Well, as you said before, it came out of necessity, right? You had to do it. There was no options for failure, so that's why you got something done. I look back on my days starting this company. And, guys, there were times when we were starting a new, we went to go put the new lethal weapon display on that game. And there was something that changed between our pre-production samples and the first piece parts that came in, and the displays were crashing. I remember working with Neil Falconer, rest his soul, and other people on the team. We didn't sleep for four days. I'm not saying we didn't take a nap. We didn't sleep for four days until we solved the problem. I kept a sleeping bag under my desk. And let me tell you, it got used. I was at work at 8 in the morning. I didn't go home most days until midnight. That's what it took to build a pinball company. Do you think that companies these days have the same work ethic, the new startups, compared to, you know, what you were talking about back then? Well, you know, I really can't say what their work ethic is. The fact that they're producing games, you know, good for them. It's hard. Will they survive? Probably a couple of them won't. Or the games they've built are, you know, kind of misguided and are so complex that even, you know, the people that are making them don't understand them. But coming in, the water's cold. I mean, it's hard. You better have some staying power to get past the first game, the second, the third, the fourth, the fifth. And the millennial is different, right? You know, our generation, you know, I have a lot of young men and women that work for me at Zynga. You know, how they program or do art while they've got YouTube going or Netflix going or Hulu going and their headphones are on all day long. And, by the way, a lot of them, you know, their quality of life is more important. They want to come in at 9 and bring their pet and eat some food. And 5 o'clock, you know, 6 o'clock, most of them are heading out the door. Their day's done. You know, it's just a different, you know, we were kind of Ironmen at the beginning of the business, right? We were there as things went digital. We were there as monitors became color. I mean, I was with Eugene Jarvis last week, and he's got a brand-new Halo game that Roth Rules is making. And we had dinner and I was like, holy crap. I mean, when you did Defender, you know, it was 512K in memory. Your icon on your iPhone is bigger than that, okay? And then I look at the stuff that we're making today. I mean, I know the social games that I'm making. I have games right now that have been in production for 18 months with a team of 85 people and multi, multi, multi-million dollar budgets. It's big stuff today. I mean, you have pinball. You know, it's not one programmer. It's multiple programmers. It has been that way for a while, programming sound, programming art, programming display, programming light effects. But, you know, Stern's making a pretty good product these days. I mean, I open up underneath the hood and look at the bus wiring system and the tricolor LEDs and everything else. I mean, crap, I'm glad I'm not making pinball these days. I'll do one every now and then, but I'm glad I'm not making it for a career. What happened, Joe, after, you look at your IPDB record there, there's a big gap between South Park, 1999, co-designing it with Joe Belser, and being involved with Batman. So did you just take a step away from Pimble for a while? Well, you know, when I first left, I helped Gary with stuff like Harley and like Austin Powers, actually. Some artists at ITT did a lot of the art on that game. And most people don't know that Romy Vasquez, who was one of my top slot machine artists, did that to help carry out in the transition. But, you know, Gary bought the company and took it a different way and for a while didn't have licenses on a couple of brands on a couple of games and went back to license and built a team. You know, it got really shaky for him, I think around 2008 when the market got really rough and, you know, the dollar changed and it was tough in Europe. But, you know, Gary and I have always remained very close friends. You know, I left the business at the time I did because financially it could not support both of our families. It just, something had to give. Of course, now I'm with the Australian gaming company that you guys are familiar with, Aristocrat. I'm their chief innovation officer. And, you know, they're the number one gaming company in the world now. So it's pretty fun. So what was your involvement with getting the license for Batman 66? Is there a Batman 66 aristocrat slot machine? There is a Batman 66 aristocrat slot machine, and there also is a Batman 66 social game from Zynga. Okay. So that's where it came in. Yeah. I knew Adam West for a very long time, probably about a decade before we did the games. And you guys probably heard rumors that I own a 1966 Batmobile. Yeah, we did. Yeah. So, you know, I thought it was sort of the right time to go back and do the Batman we always wanted. I worked with George on his original play field from first Batman, and we kind of huddled up and said, well, let's go back and make this a little more fun and open up the shots, and George came up with a great gadget in the corner, and we put the ramps on it, and Lyman did really great rules, and Chris Ranchi did his first job with us, did a beautiful job on the Batman art. And the game's been a wonderful success. And if you finally play the new Almost Finished Code, it's a great game. It's really fun. And then, you know, I said, well, Gary, this is kind of fun. It was our celebration of the 30th anniversary of the company. And I got with Gary and Dave. And I've been working on a license for about 10 years. one of those things like every year for 10 years I called them and said, let's do this. Every year they said no. And about a year and a half ago I called and said, well, let's do this. And they were like, okay, let's do this. So Gary and I have a product in Dave, another Kapow product that's coming out. There's one product that's coming out that my name won't be on, but I helped him get the license and kind of envisioned the original concept. and it'll be one of their Cornerstone games. You'll see that probably in November. And then after the first year, probably at the CES show, we're going to introduce a game that took me over a decade to get the license. Wow. And it's going to be a very, very exciting game. I can't say much more about it, but it's going to be very limited in the quantity we're going to build. We will never build it again. George Gomez kind of, you know, the question was asked at Texas Timberwolves Festival if CERN and possibly Kapow would revisit the Super Alley product range, and he said, yep, yep, you know, and you probably see it pretty soon with the next Kapow title. So is that what we're talking about here? Yeah, probably. And it's not going to be super-duper expensive. We're going to, you know, there'll be a couple limited versions of it. Guys, this game is the perfect pinball. And it's the one game that every pinball collector, player, has always dreamt would one day be made. I didn't think it would ever really happen. And it was literally a decade of tenacity to get the brand. So are you trying to get that brand for pinball or for slot machines and pinball? Okay. Well, for slot machines, we offered, I think, $50 million for it. Yeah. And we got turned down. Wow. Okay. I will tell you, it's probably the first million-dollar-plus license ever in pinball's history. Wow, okay. But is it a license that's been around for a while, or is it something that's been around for 10 years and you've been fighting for 10 years? No, it's been around for a long time. Yeah. Okay. just narrowing it down that's right it's been around a long time what do you think makes a good license these days I mean you obviously have a lot of licenses that you now deal with what makes you think you know what that would make a great pinball well I think it's just the collectability of it I think the affinity that people have for the brand the emotional attachment that people have for it I mean, do you guys ever see that guy James Corden? Yes. He does that talk show. Yes. And last week there was like a video that he did. He does that carpool karaoke. Yeah, I watched that one. I watched that one. Yeah. Did you see Paul McCartney? Yeah, it was amazing. I mean, did you see? I was one of the best things I've seen on TV in years. Yeah, people went bananas. Do you know how many views it's had in a week? A hundred million. Yep. 100 million views. I mean, you go, that's pretty powerful. That's what you want to look for. You want to look for something that's powerful. So how do you compare that to slot machines? Because there is a bit of a crossover, like there is in Aristocrats, Game of Thrones, and Walking Dead, Pimor Machine, but there's also some licenses like, say, Big Bang Theory, Sons of Anarchy, Superman, Man of Steel, that were never made into Pimor Machine. So what do you think the difference is? Sometimes it's just timing around a brand or where the brand is in its cycle. And you can't do everything, right? You know, Gary only makes four games, five games a year. Yeah. There are a lot of brands out there. You go to the licensing show, it's loaded. Do you also take into consideration the, you know, most people that are buying pinball machines are male. So I know one of the upcoming licenses with slots is Madonna, which is, you know, a huge brand. I'm designing that game. Yeah. So, you know, do you think that might not cross over to pinball because, you know, the demographic of people that are buying pinball machines is... Well, you know, there is a large female influence because, you know, your wife may not let you put a Playboy machine downstairs, but she may let you put a Big Bang Theory, right? Yeah, yeah. So, you know, though our player base is largely, you know, the Comic-Con geeky guy, I still think there is, you know, a lot of crossover. And, again, for me, I'm just going to choose the things that, for the few games I'm going to do in the balance of my career, are going to be the things that are really hard to get, that take, you know, that are really difficult to get or to work through connections I have from my other career to leverage those connections to create that next opportunity to get a Batman right, that maybe somebody else doesn't have the opportunity to get. Because usually if it's harder to get, it's going to be more collectible or more sought after, right? Exactly, yeah. When you see we come out within January, it's going to blow your mind. You just want to have one because it's so much fun, and so you just go, oh, my God, I've waited my whole life for this. It finally happened. What about something like, you know, people are always screaming for a Harry Potter demo machine, and I'm guessing, you know, slot machines as well would be popular, but, you know, I guess the story there, I'm sure you've tried, is that she doesn't want anything to do with gaming. slot machines or things. You know, there's a social game out right now with Harry Potter and, you know, as you've got the Broadway music show which we just saw tonight, you know, will there be a Harry Potter game? Maybe one day. There might be a Capel game one day. We'll see. Yeah. Well, I hope so. Get on with it. Like, honestly, I'm serious. Like, it really is my... Never say never. Yeah, never say never. I mean, of course, after that story that you said you called every year for 10 years, then, you know, eventually something might happen. There's a Goonies slot machine, and I don't think it's made by Aristocrats, it's made by someone else. Made by HT. Yeah. Do you see that as a good license for pinball machines? Maybe they're better things. Okay. They're better things coming. Yeah, okay. You know, maybe one day if you're, you know, if you're scraping the bottom of the barrel, They're just better things than that right now. Not to say that, you know, a Three Stooges or an Animal House wouldn't have its collectible, but it's just there's not enough heat around it. There's not enough affinity to it. There's just better stuff out there, okay? You'll see in January. You'll go. There's better stuff. You know, I did Downton Abbey both as a social game and as a regular slot, you know. But, you know, for my 55-year-old female, it was a pretty good product. Okay. How about this, Joe? I don't see this as pinball, though. To bring more women into the world. You've got two levels, upstairs and downstairs, I guess. That's how it works. How about Magic Mike XXL? That's a slot machine, right? I did that as a slot. I did that as a social game. You know, the problem was you couldn't find a straight guy that would play it in the casino. Nobody wanted to be compared next to it, right? Yeah. Oh, my God, look at those abs. Look at my beer cups. Oh, my God. Is it a similar sort of methodology that you have when you're selecting licenses for the slot machine world? We do a lot of research. A lot of research with our customers before we ever spend. We've got a big licensing committee and a million people have to approve stuff. But, you know, there's crossover. I mean, look, when I first went to IGT, what was the first two games I made? Munsters and Addams Family, I Dream of Jeannie, right? So they were real successful back then, and that's 19 years ago. It'll be 20 years this January. Is the, you know, you talked before about the Superliminary Edition, And I guess, you know, you were in uncharted territory in 2016 when you were releasing that machine because, you know, obviously there was a timeline you had to follow to kind of release it at Expo as a bit of a celebration. And, you know, the amount of the SLE was changed and, you know, it was a video process. Have you guys fleshed it out for this upcoming machine? Oh, yeah. No, it's going through like a grease pig. I mean, the art's approved, the brand is amazing, the sound is almost done, display work looks good, and, you know, it's just, it'll be ready to ship when we show it. So I mean more about the, you know, will people need to possibly apply for this versus just ringing up the distributor? No, I don't think so. I don't think so. You know, that was something we tried, and it was interesting, and, you know, created some hype and some demand. You know, this game's just going to be limited. I mean, we're going to make X number of them. That's all we will ever make of them. Yeah. And is this the kind of, is this one of those games that I think, when they're gone and they're gone, And there'll be, you know, there'll be thousands if not tens of thousands of games of demand for the brand. Yeah. So if you buy one and put it away and buy one to enjoy, you know, probably two years from now it's going to be something you'll sell for more. There just will simply not be enough games to meet the demand. and that's designed that way. We want to leave the market hungry so the people that get them and put them away know it always will have value. And as a game that you want in your home or in your collection, it's the first game any friend you have that will come to your house, that will be the first game they walk to to play. So I think you're in a good position, I guess, that you're obviously very well established and obviously your career is great and all that kind of stuff. And also, we did see your car collection. So I do remember seeing the Ford GT there, which is one of my favourite cars. So it really means that for you, you don't actually have to really care about the maximum amount of units. You really just want to make sure that you produce a great game and it's memorable, right? Yeah, I'm doing this because at this point in my career, I'm still enjoying doing it with Gary. And, you know, you try not to do it to lose money. As I said, the license was unbelievably expensive, but you'll understand why when you see it. We're just kind of both at a point of our career where we're enjoying doing this together. It's really special. We're making really special things. Will we do another one after this? I don't know. I have a real serious time poverty issue right now just because I work very hard in the other endeavors I'm involved with. But it was worth taking some evenings and some weekends and doing this project. I dare say it's the game I've always wanted to have in my collection, fulfilling my own dream. Can I ask one question about the... I don't want to give up too much information about it, but you worked with your team for Batman 66. You had Lyman Sheets, and he takes a long time with his code, I believe, because of his process, but when it is finished, it's kind of this well-greased, Pimmo machine with fully fleshed out rules and balance and stuff. Will he be working on this game, or he's not on this project no he's still working on Batman Batman's still not finished so you know we hope to have that finished in my lifetime and in his so we kind of kid about that at this point in time but he's almost finished but you know we've got a different team that's worked on this project and the bars it's a different it's a different type of product it is very classic pinball and I think you guys are going to really appreciate this game a lot. I mean, if you like playing pinball, you're going to like this game a lot. Okay, so then, probably a reflective sort of question. If you can think about, you know, making pinball machines in the 80s and 90s, making pinball machines now, but also dealing with license holders back then and license holders now, what's the difference? Well, you know, it's not terribly different you know you seem to have a sometimes it always feels like you have a different person approving your game for the first time that doesn't know what a pinball is the hardest thing is when you kind of deal with somebody that's a licensed approver and they think they're a game designer that's always a little challenging but you know the biggest thing now is they probably don't care about pinball because you know they're doing multi-million dollar deals for Pepsi and Taco Bell and you know Some of the studios are like, if the deal isn't a half million dollars or a million dollars or something else, we're not even interested in doing the deal because we don't want to waste our already spread thin legal department to draw up your contract. We are probably more of a gnat on their butt than anything, but some of them at least appreciate pinball. but that's probably the biggest thing is these big companies have become big companies that are stretched thin, you know they constantly seem to like lay off their legal team or their licensing team I mean one of the ladies who we were just recently dealing with in one of the big studios you know called and said hey on my last day you guys have been notified I've been doing your category for you know 10 years and my last day is on the 31st we just had a merger you know here we go we've got to train a new person again so it's It probably felt challenging that way. Fair enough. Just while you were chatting, I was listening, but I also just emailed the Australian distributor for CERN and asked if he'd put on the list for the next game. You're hyping it up so much that I'm just like, all right, well, you know, I missed out on so many other pinball machines, so let's get on the list. You won't be disappointed. Right, so I put on my list. You'll be really proud of this game and you have it in your collection. and it's going to be I've been playing it I've been playing the Whitewood I was in Chicago Thursday playing it it does something really special that I can't discuss right now but wait till you see it I can't tell you enough about it it's the game you've always wanted and I honestly never thought I'd get the license. Okay. I didn't think so. It was one of those, oh my gosh, we just stuck with it long enough that we got it. Awesome, Joe. So that's it. All right. Thanks, Joe. We appreciate it. Well, sure. Thank you and to the pinball players out there, keep flipping and keep putting a couple bucks in there. When you walk into a bar or someplace, put a couple bucks in a game. Keep those things operating. will you? It's really important. For sure. Alright, thanks man. Alright, bye now. See ya. So, that was Joe Camden Cow, Marty, what did we learn from that? We learned that making pinball is easy and hard at the same time. It is. I guess it's, when you've had as much experience that he has had, and obviously he's had extraordinary experience from the highs and the lows, he sees it from a different and probably more educated view than most. Yeah. And we said at the start, he has kind of three jobs, so he's just kind of doing it because he can. Not out of necessity. He did want to do it purely for the passion of getting those unattainable licenses. So we look forward to seeing his next collaboration in November, I think he says. Yeah, absolutely. Wonder what it is. So we got a lot of emails for our 50th episode So we're just going to insert a couple of the emails randomly throughout the episode Instead of reading them all in one big go So do you want to start us off, Marty? Yep, so Justice said, easy episode 24 That was the first show I listened to yours and thought I was going to die laughing You guys are the best, that could be as good as yours and episode 24 is also known as... The Drunken Episode. The Truth Bomb Episode. We've got another one from Chris Warren. He said, My favourite episode was number 48, which was just last week. Oh, two weeks ago, sorry. And the Sly interview. Very funny. Don't get crabs from those seashells. Well, and Ezra has also said, In very recent memory, the Stallone interview was cool. Great execution. and absolutely spot on. Well, if you're doing another one, I'll do one as well. John D. said, I died laughing when Stallone and the teenage girl called the show. Thanks for the laugh and look forward to the 50th podcast. So, let's get on with the show, Marty. Absolutely. Give us some news. What's some news this week, Marty? Well, we actually had an announcement from Papa regarding Penn Stadium. So, they say, we would like to welcome PinStadium Lights as a Papa TV sponsor. Pinstadium Lite's patent-pending design brightens the entire playfield and adds dramatic flasher effects to your pinball. They provide seamless integration of your pinball machine while maintaining that factory look all with an easy install time of about 15 minutes or less if you are not Martin. I was about to say. Yeah, I know. 15 minutes, if you know what you're doing. If you think you know your way around a pinball machine, easily 15 minutes or less. Yeah, so Pinstating will be providing all the lighting for the broadcast games during Pinderg and the Intergalactic Pinball Tournament and the Women's Whift Tournament at ReplayFX. So every single game, I guess, will be perfectly lit. I'm not sure if they've had lighting issues in the past, but our game is Thrones that we had, Marty, and you installed Pinstatings on there, and I picked that up during the week, or last week, actually, I think it was, and I put that on site this week at Pinball Paradise and the wow factor compared to the other games, I mean, as I mentioned before, I'm a bit OCD about certain things, like all my machines are going to be the same, so I'm not sure if pin stadiums would have survived in my collection without me buying, you know, 15 or 16 other sets. But, I mean, the owner was just blown away. He was like, holy crap, that looks amazing. And I got into multiple forums and the flashes were going off and, you know, it's a product that wows people and it might not be for everyone, but it's going to be broadcast to like 1,000 people. Yeah. The 800 people are going to see it there and see that it actually does a decent job. So, well done, Scott. Good job. Marty. Yes. Monster Bash remake. Yes. I heard the Speaking Pinball podcast, and Zach was teasing that he was the only one that knew this super cool feature that Monster Badge has. And I was like, you know, what's it going to be? And I found out, and I'm actually excited about the game. Really? What could they possibly do that would make that amazing? Like, beyond what it is. Yeah. I think it's such a... I mean, if this is true, right? But I think it's such a cool addition to the pinball machine that I'd rather people kind of be surprised by it. But all I'll say, Marty, and maybe you'll figure out by this, I'm not going to say yes or no, what's the number one complaint about Monster Bash? That's it. What's the number one complaint about Monster Bash? Oh, okay. I'm not going to say yes or no. No, I don't know whether there really is a lot of complaints, and I'm not certainly... Probably the only one that I know is that people sort of say that the rules are a bit shallow. Yeah. Okay. I'm not going to say yes or no. I'm not going to give you a reaction. We did get a reaction, though, from George J, and he said... He messaged in, and he said, the best recent segment, guys, was when the car got stuck in a ditch. Great job with Gabe right next door in Massachusetts. Well, did you know that Axel said, congratulations guys on 50 episodes, Mardo and Ryan. I look forward to Tuesday mornings when the new episode drops. I haven't missed an episode yet and they get better as time goes on. You guys really are ambassadors for both pinball and Melbourne. Gee, it's hard to pick a favourite. However, here goes. Episode 21 with Ron and Bruce from the Slam Tilt Podcast. They stand out as my favourite for hilarity. And also episode 41 with Keith P. Johnson was also my favourite from a content perspective. Keep up the good work and I look forward to congratulating you on your 100th. Yeah, a lot of people love the drunk episode, Marty. I messaged you during the week and I said, I'm pretty sure this is the winner because it's so old compared to the new episodes. People are like, I guess fly because it just happened. But the drunk one has legs. Thanks. Jake Scott messaged in and said, there's been a lot of great moments, but the drunk episode with Marnie was by far one of the favourites. Yeah, well, Nicholas Noban, good friend of the show and of the stream, also said, my favourite moment is Keith Elwin's interview because he's one of the most interesting people in pinball and I could listen to him all day. All the Jeff Teolis drop-ins are refreshing. Well, we've only really officially had one. and fun and Marty's yearly, I hope, drunk cast. So many moments have me laughing tears in the train with random passengers wondering what I'm listening to. Clearly a pinball podcast. Cheers. Back to the news. This is a huge, huge announcement, Marty. CPR, which stands for Classic Playfield Reproductions, right? There's a lot of information, and I might make some mistakes when I report about this now, But basically, when you playfield stuff, they're the main guys usually that you can buy the new playfields off. And they had gradings like gold, silver, bronze, depending on how well the playfields turned up. Now, the annoying thing about this is that they're not always available. There'll be a couple of playfields available at one time. When there's enough demand, they do a run. People get excited. They might have waited five years. They might have waited forever because it's the first time they're doing it. Because they also did it in batches, didn't they? Yeah, they did it in batches because of the process. They do different layers of colours. They have to make it set for two weeks. It's all written in the thread. The huge news is that... Oh, they also do plastics and backglasses. The huge news, Marty, is that they have figured out a different way to make these playfields. And that means that they can do a run of 100, like before, but they also can do a run of 10 or even a run of 1. so their goal is over the next couple of months or however long it takes them is to make every single plastic set, back glass and playfields that they've ever done, I think there's over 100 games, available to buy. So if you want one of the playfields that they've made before, you just go on the website, you order it and you get it delivered and you might scratch your head if you don't know what the whole process is and say, well, You know, it should have been like that to begin with, but obviously there's hurdles, and that's how kind of everyone has been making them. And this changes a lot of things, Marty, for a lot of restorers. Who else do you think it affects, Marty? Oh, it's, you know, anyone that has a machine that's relatively old where they get a cracked plastic, right? Yeah. And I think, you know, up until now, if you get a cracked plastic, you have to look online. And if you do happen to find either that plastic or a set of plastics, A, you're lucky, and B, you have to pay a lot of money for it because people know how rare they are. So, you know what I mean? So, this just opens up massive possibilities. And, you know, they had to buy new equipment for this. So, they've gotten rid of Marc Silk screening and it's now a digital press that they've got. It's a significant undertaking, but the demand is there. So you'll get your money back, guys, and then some. Yeah, and we reached out to them, and they agreed. We usually don't announce kind of future interviews, but they agreed to come on the show to talk about it. Yep. So probably in around two weeks. They're really busy at the moment, so probably in about two weeks, we will have that interview for you guys. And, you know, there's a lot of questions being answered in the thread already, but we kind of want to hear it from the horse's mouth. and it'd be interesting to see if they provide single plastics as well. So instead of buying a complete plastic set, you can just say, oh, my sling's broken, I can pay $10, $20 and get that delivered versus buying a $300 set and having all these stairs. Yeah, but it's not even just that. So, you know, that's on-demand. So effectively they've now become really an on-demand service. But what it also means is that they can do a low run of a number of machines and then set up a store and you can just buy those products there and then. So they do sort of replace some of those companies that are doing all those sort of plastic sets when they come available. They can just have stock of everything if they've got the room for it. Yeah, I think it also makes the, you know, a lot of people start doing their own playful swaps, I guess, versus getting a machine restored. You know, I think there's still obviously going to be a huge demand for restored, high-end restored pinball machines, but instead of getting a junk playfield and getting someone to repair it, you can just buy a gold standard playfield. So huge implications on the hobby because, let's face it, there's a big new in-box market, but people are still buying old games and they're swapping hands non-stop. So I hope they continue to make more and more playfields. Hey, Quicksilver Playfields. I don't think they've made any of those games, the old Sims. so do you know what else? what else mate? garbage no skill trash bag love the show I've been born newbie that was one of my favourite messages that was from Glenn thank you very much Glenn for writing this we did say you can write anything we did Alex Boz messaged in and said yo dudes my favourite H2H the more podcast moment is you guys discussing the terms and conditions of episode 50 giveaway apparently I can type any garbage here and I am in for the chance. Woohoo. Cheers, Alex. Thank you, Alex. Another one of my favourites. Tony wrote in and said, Episode 47, Josh Sharpe, best episode in quite a while. I think he means that all the episodes around that suck, Marty. I think that's what it's sounding like. We would crap up until that moment. But it was actually, do you know what? Around that. I've got to say, the Josh Up episode was absolutely amazing. Yeah. Crystal Gardner messaged in to say, Hey, Ryan and Marty, started dating a guy who's totally into pinball a year ago and trying to one-up him within the few last months while listening to your podcast. My favorite moment is when you guys are laughing, i.e. Ballsacks, the opening pinball company, and the Top 100 versus Google. Every week you make me laugh and I learn a thing or two. and then she asked a question about in the original theater of magic did the tiger saw spin i said no she lost the bet with her boyfriend sorry crystal you you know you could have just left it there and been okay but you had to get some news sorry about that so what do you know about dennis nordman i know that he's currently employed at deep root pinball I know that he makes probably the best flow in pinball machines that I like. You know, besides Steve Ritchie, he's a different type of flow. It's like a fast flow. Dennis Nordman's like a very poetic kind of flow. Yeah, Whitewater and Demolition Man. So I was listening to an interview with Dennis and Joshua Clay, the TopCast episode. I downloaded like almost all of those. and then whenever I finish a podcast, it just randomly chooses the next podcast to go to. I haven't listened to Dennis's yet and I'll link him in the show notes. It was a really interesting conversation he had and it was really honest with how hard it was to work with Disney regarding the Pirates of the Caribbean, Primal Machine, what they were allowed to do and what they weren't allowed to do and the license was so fragmented. Everything had to be done separately. hey, you want this? You've got to pay for it. You want this? And to make a viable pinball machine, they could only afford a Johnny Depp sound-alike. They said, okay, Johnny Depp wasn't interested, so we'll use a sound-alike, but you can only choose our approved sound-alikes. You're not allowed to choose anyone else. I don't know. It was a really interesting listen, and I guess it's kind of relevant to what J.J.P. would have had to go through and to see what they produced compared to Stern back in the day. So I'll link that in the show notes and everyone can give it a listen. Another interesting fact, Marty, he said that he has never designed an orbit that's just a clean orbit, that orbits all the way around the pinball machine. And I was like, huh. Well, why not? Well, it goes into the pops, though. I mean... Still, yeah. Well... If you hit it from the right, it'll go all the way around. That's right. So, he's a liar. I can't actually wait to see what he comes up with. It's been a while. I hope... I don't know. I hope there are $50,000 Deep Root Pimmel Machines, just so I can see, you know, what they're like. What are the $50,000 Pimmel Machines like? I don't know. Well, what does an $85,000 pinball machine look like? It looks like a Supreme pinball machine that's being advertised in Australia at the moment. So, you know, if people are going to pay $85,000, which they won't. I called that guy in by the way. Did you? Yeah. Was he legit? Yeah, he's legit. I saw it pop up and I was like, it's just hilarious. I find the entire Supreme pinball thing very fascinating. so I called him and tried to kind of suss him out to see how he got it, and, you know, I said, is it new in box? He's like, oh, well, customs opened it. I'm like, you know, does it work on the Australian power line? And he's like, yeah, yeah, for sure, for sure. I'm like, it doesn't. It's a spike. It's running on the wrong, you know, the wrong hertz. He's like, oh, you know, there's the AMD here. I'm sure they'll help you out. I'm sure they'll help you out. But, yeah, someone has smuggled, and I don't know how he wouldn't tell me how he got it. It, uh... Like, they were only shipping to, I think, Canada, Mexico and the US. So he somehow bought it within, like, the minute that it sold out in and got it shipped to Australia. Okay. Well, good on him. I doubt it's going to be on site. No, I don't think we will ever play a Supreme. But, as I've said a number of times, I played the Spider-Man Home Edition, so I know how it plays. I managed to bargain down my $25,000. Did you? Yeah. I was just like, you know, what would you sell it for? Come on, what would you sell it for? And he's just like, oh, you know, maybe 80. It's a significant drop. If I bargained down anyone five grand on a Tumor machine, I'd be jumping for joy. But in this case, it just goes ridiculous to slightly. Quite a small percentage when you're talking about the total asking price. Yeah. Anyway. But look, I just wanted to go back on a point that you said about Dennis Nordman and the flow. I kind of get exactly what you're saying. So we talk about Steve Ritchie. Steve Ritchie is ramp to flipper, ramp to flipper, orbit to flipper, orbit to flipper, ramp, orbit, ramp, orbit, ramp. Except for, like, maybe no fear that up a loop shot maybe breaks that away. Yeah, I'm sort of probably still more so in the more recent Steve Ritchies. And yes, of course, I'm a big fan of that. I really enjoy it coming back to the flipper. But yeah, I guess what you're saying with Dennis Nordman, It's more theatrical. It is more of a dance. It's more of a ballet of flow as opposed to stomp of flow. Sure, exactly. I think we talked about it before, but when Jack came to Australia and we saw him at Daldin, he said, you know, Steve Ritchie does amazing pimmel. If he was a musician, he'd be like a drum, like bang, bang, bang, bang. And Pat Law would be a finely-strewn violin. in. I think those games by Dennis Nordman, you know, some people don't like them, and I don't like all of his games, but those, or even Scared Stiff, like hitting the Boney Beast ramp on Scared Stiff feels nice, and when you get in that scoop and it shoots up, and it's a VK shooting up into a ramp, and then it propels the ball forward just in one sweet kind of motion. I don't know, it's kind of cool. I get it. So, did we hear from J.D. this week at all? Yeah. J.D. Swinkles. He said, hey, you guys. I have to say the latest episode, 48, I think. I think it's 49. With the fake Salone interview was a classic. And I also laughed my head off when you did the original question with the Google check. Very funny. Great job on all the episodes. And don't change anything. An interview with a designer of Kingpin would be very cool. One day, keep up the great work. Cheers, J.D. Thanks, J.D. Nima sent episode 24 hmm about two hours twenty minutes in Marty is tanked sure he says bobbly bobo and crack me up laughing Marty snorts Ryan's laugh goes to the next level drunk Marty is just the best thank you guys if you want to see drunk Marty just two times a week Marty's streaming Kimmel honestly if you could see it twice a week I just realised like You did a podcast and six hours of streaming. You did nine hours of talking about Pimble every single week, recorded for the archive. That's a lot. Yep. That's a lot, Marty. I know. I did even more this week. Perry Sexton emails in and says, Hey, guys, I enjoy every one of your podcasts. It's hard to pick a favorite, but I suppose the most recent favorite was the Zombie Yeti episode. You guys do a great job with interviews and ask all the questions that your listeners want answered. Keep up your good work. Isn't it funny that we didn't start off like that, Marty? Like, we didn't think we'd be the interview podcast. I know. But we have somehow become the interview podcast. Well, I mean, we still do other stuff as well. Of course we do. But, you know what? I'm going to say I think it's because we actually really enjoy doing the podcast. Not the podcast, the interviews, right? So we are genuinely interested in finding out these answers ourselves. And so what's actually probably been a big surprise about that, and, you know, Joe Kamenkow earlier was the same, is that I don't think it's ever happened where someone has said, well, I'm not going to answer that question. People just sort of answer the questions. And I think it's because we are genuinely curious and we want to know the answer. At the same time, We're pretty respectful towards the interviewer. We're not going to, you know, we don't interview people to try and find out what they did wrong and ask for an apology for something or, you know. Yeah, we're not going to get J-Pop on and call him a c***. Is that what Nate Shivers did back in the day? Is that what Nate Shivers' podcast is? I haven't listened to the podcast. Everyone says it's, you know, not a great podcast because he calls J-Pop a c***. Is that true? Oh, Thanksgiving. Oh, you bad person. Number 16, Marty? Yes. So, Will said, my favourite episode so far was when you talked to Bo and Keren and also Christopher Franchi. Both of those guys have a great sense of humour and you guys have a good banter back and forth. Thanks, Will. Back to the news. Marty, you just sold The Hobbit. Yes. So what do you think is going to happen, Mike? Oh, look, I think probably two weeks after I sell Hobbit, there'll be new code for it. What's happening? I believe this week, I think Wednesday or Tuesday, they normally stream, the JKP guys, they're going to be streaming new Hobbit codes, which is exciting for everyone that's been holding out for the Hobbit to kind of have that final bit of polish that might change up the gameplay. We don't know what's going to be in there. I mean, Keith said it was going to be after they're done with Pirates, so a lot sooner than expected. I don't think it's going to be released, right? It's just probably going to be shown on the stream while this is working. Probably a work-in-progress build. I don't know. Maybe. When is New Darlene Code coming? That's another one that needs... Well, I mean, the game's pretty much complete. It's just the video thing, I still don't understand why the people that call you on the phone still aren't animated yet. It's just an OCD thing. It really is. Wow. You can do nothing. No, I'll do it, Corey. You do anything. Anything's fine. Corey, Corey, messaged in and said, love the show, guys. All the way here in Houston, Texas. The slide bit last week had me cry laughing. So Scott said, Hi, Marty and Ryan. First, let me just mention how much I adore your podcast It is so much fun to listen to each week And I always get a good laugh at some point I'm a music teacher in Baltimore And have been a pinball fan since I was a kid I started working at age 12 in a movie theatre Back when that type of thing was allowed We had a few pins in the lobby And my favourite was Bride of Pinbot Yep, the one you were commenting so much on From the artwork from last episode That machine drove me wild with excitement and I promised myself that as an adult I'd own that very machine. Well, several years later, there she stands in my living room. Regardless of whether I win the big prize or not, he said it'd be super cool to get the dialed in art, I truly love what you do for the hobby and more specifically for my own entertainment. You'll always have at least one listener here in Baltimore and when you come to visit my great city, stop by at the Crab Town Diner. They've got about 40 great pins to play. Cheers. You wouldn't think a place called the Crab Town Diner would have 40 pinball machines, would you? No. What's Crab Town? But, you know, what is that? Isn't that like that Ace Dogi place in LA? The Caribbean barbecue place, and it's got all those pinballs as well? So, you know. Did you know the Kardashians went there, Marnie? No. I love the Kardashians. They're my role models. Okay. I just know they're not. Sorry. I haven't heard it yet, though. They're not. They're just not. They are literally the trashiest people in the world. They're rich as fuck, sir. They are rich, trashy slags. Do you reckon if I sucked a dick, I could become a slug? No. I don't know whether you released the video. I need a BBC. That's what I need, money. So, anyone? No. Okay. So, is that... P.S. I'll finish it off, Marty. P.S. I love Australia. My partner and I spend about a month there every year in Sydney. I haven't made it down your way yet, but have added Alice Springs to... Have you been to Alice Springs, Marty? Yes, I have. There isn't much in the town, is there? It is amazing. I did the whole get in the four-wheel drive, drive all the way through, you know, Flinders Ranges and then up to Central Australia to Uluru and then up to Alice Springs. It was one of the best vacations I've ever, ever had. I went really young to Uluru and Alice Springs, so, yeah, I don't have any memory except climbing Ayers Rock and people screaming at me telling me that I shouldn't do it. But I was a kid, so I was like, I don't give a fuck. Rob Miller. Yeah, thank you, Rob. Rob Miller emailed in and he says, Hey, Ryan and Marty, keep up the top work, fellas, in maintaining a positive and balanced outlook on the hobby. So much better than the trolls and the nitpickers. I am a nitpicker. You are. I don't know who you're talking about. Martin balances me out. Anyway, this is my entry for the Darwin slide up. Without a doubt, the best segment to date was the Google Voice Assistant segment where Google started to talk back to Ryan. I was laughing out loud in the car and I was almost crying It was so funny Everyone seems to have listened to that episode in the car and either crashed or almost crashed or cried You have caused people to have accidents, Ryan. I hope you're happy with yourself. So, good friend of the show and great podcaster, Jeff Rivera from the People Podcast. He said, good job, guys. I wasn't going to email, but since you're so thirsty for those replies, here we are. Actually, I really do enjoy the show despite the positive talk about Avatar. Clean that up and you might get a trippy. So congrats on 50 episodes. When you get to 100, you can do what we did and hold an event in Vegas, have Ryan Claytor make custom shirts and posters and lose in a tournament to your listeners. It's what true egomaniacal narcissists do. Oh, and a co-host, you decide which one, can announce that they're quitting the show and then leave any other to scramble to find a willing replacement. Good thing ahead, boys. Keep plugging away. So who's quitting, Marty? Me or you? I volunteer as tribute. I quit. I quit today. Okay. This is my last podcast. This is the last episode, guys. You guys think I'm joking. Yeah, you guys think I'm joking. Next episode, Marty's going to say, and with me is nobody. That's right. That's exactly what's going to happen. Head to nothing pinball. Yes. So what else is news, Martin? Well, you know, the world of Facebook. It's a crazy world, don't you think? Sometimes you see things and sometimes they're gone, but you still remember that particular moment where you see something and you think to yourself, what the fuck's just happened? That happened this week to me. Did it happen to you? Yes. I saw a post from someone saying that their time in the pinball industry is done. Yes. And who was that, Marty? Christopher Franchi. Amazing friend of the show, Christopher Franchi. And please, please say it ain't so. Yeah. See, I haven't looked. I can't find the post anymore. So maybe it was just some drama that was sorted out. But I do like his art, Marty. I love it. I don't own any of his pinball machines. I did hear you on another podcast today talking about how much... Just say that again, Marty. Just that intelligent thing that you said on their podcast. Just say it again on our podcast. I was on the Eclectic Gamers podcast this weekend. Half the show was talking about pinball. Half the show was talking about video games. And a lot of people messaged me saying that they were really surprised at how much I was into video games. Anyway, we'll get to that later. So what they said is, I like his art the most because even though you've got the likes of Zombie Yeti and Dirty Donnie, which they're amazing. I'm not saying that Frangie's the best and they're terrible. I'm saying they're just as good. But I like his art style because even though the imagery is flat, it has a 3D perspective to it. you actually get depth from how he uses, I guess, light and shade, but the sharpness of the object in front with the background, you actually just get this depth. And particularly on Guardians of the Galaxy, it's really noticeable there. It sounded smarter when I listened to it last night. I think it's because Dennis is with you and says something intelligent afterwards, whereas it goes back to me and I'm like, yeah. I said it better. What I'm saying is I'm not going to say this good, so you can go and listen to the Click Gamers podcast. Yeah. So hopefully that's whatever that was is sorted out. Otherwise, I mean, if he's not working for Stern, then hopefully he would work for the other, like every single other company would want him. Like who wouldn't want him doing the machine they're working on? Yeah. I can't pick up. He's proven himself, right? so it's only two two pinballs deep but you know well as you said on the collective gamers podcast like the art that's coming out right now is pretty damn good like we're getting spoiled for art we really are getting the best art it's just it's what we need okay what it is it's it's all the stuff that us as fans have hoped pinball art would be that's what we're getting except for Star Wars and Game of Thrones yeah so I don't know any other bit of the story but I guess it's an ongoing topic that we might have some more information about well you might have because I'm not going to be here next week yeah Michael Higgins messaged in Marty and he said hey you guys he didn't even actually write that he just said hey guys love the podcast I have no talent so I will mention my favorite moment in the podcast. I enjoy every show but recall laughing out loud the time that the Google voice did the talking. Sly Sloan was fun as well. I don't wish to encourage Martin's drinking, but the drunk episode was funny as hell. They're all funny. Keep up the good work. Michael Higgins. That's the top three. The top three emails in was all in one email right there. So we should almost just give it to Michael just like that because you've discovered them all. You've discovered them all. But we will be doing a random selection later. So Chris said, listening to Bowen talk about how to run better tournaments, congrats on 50 episodes, guys. I enjoy everyone. Thank you, Chris. Ryan T. messages in and says, hey, guys, just want to say love the show. Thought you might like a few Big Lebowski shots. Do either of you like White Russians? Is that even an entry, or was he just wanting to show us his Big Lebowski? He wanted to really show us his Big Lebowski. So, Ryan, you're amazing. for having a big Lebowski, right? So thank you for sending that in and making us feel terrible that, you know, we'll never play it here in Australia. Austin said, Hi guys, I had a really hard time picking one episode that's my favourite. There have been so many good guests. The Keats, the Joshes, how could I choose? Then I remember one guest that stood out from all the others. It wasn't a pinball celebrity or Andrew Highway. It was Ryan's daughter explaining the rules to Kreta from the Black Lagoon. That interview put a huge smile on my face. She is adorable. Thank you for all the time you spend making the podcast. And can I also just say, so I go over to Ryan's now quite often, and his daughter, V, is that funny every time you see her. She is hilarious. She's the most difficult kid I could ever imagine to raise, but it comes with just making me laugh almost every day with just the random stuff that comes out of her mouth. And sometimes you laugh at her because it's so funny and she gets upset because she wasn't mean to be funny. Her mind just works in a kind of a different way than everyone else. So I told her, I wrote out that email to her and she was just so nonchalant about it. I don't think she gets the whole podcast thing and having people listening and stuff like that. And someone actually came over on the weekend and I can't remember what she said. You know, he was a pinball guy. And I think she's asked the guy, like, do you have a pinball podcast too? And he was like, no. And she was like, what? Like, she doesn't get, like, it was just hilarious. Anyway, that was another four. So let's go to another huge, huge announcement. It is a huge announcement. So it was announced this week that Steven Bowden, good friend of the show, they're all friends of the show, Steven Bowden has joined Deep Root. The Deep Root? Like the Deep Rooting Deep Root? Yep. Deep Root Pinball. Now, Steve's very lucky that we managed to get Joe Cam and Cal to come on the show the last minute, because if Joe didn't come on the show, the episode would have been called Steven Bowden Gets Deep Rooted. I was going to be the episode's show name, but the 11th hour, Joe came through. So this is – we discussed this. I mean, we've been discussing Deep Root since the first kind of ridiculous set of announcements. And I'm allowed to say ridiculous because they were, right? Like, the stuff they were claiming was pretty – you know, he's toning it down now, Robert. But, you know, the biggest question was who's doing the art? But after all of the announcements were made about all of the hires with sound and five playfield designers, the question was, who's doing the code? And the answer was, I think it was Turnalogic. And everyone kind of scratched their heads and said, you know, well, they're not really pinball people. And then there was a question was, you know, the code will never be... What was the thing? Like something like, you know, will the code ever be complete? or would the code be complete on release? And he said, we hope to make that question irrelevant, kind of suggesting that it might be open source. And he said, no, it's not. Anyway, that was all a couple of months ago. Steven Bowden is now going to be, I guess, spearheading the rule set design. I don't think he is a programmer, Marty. No, I think he is. Yeah, I can't remember the title, but it really is about rules. Yeah, I think he also is an ambassador for different... That's right. Does that mean he has to wear the anal gag logo on his face? I think he does. But do you know what? I actually think it's a good move because, you know, yes, we joked about the name and all that kind of stuff, and yes, it's funny, and we were always going to laugh about Deep Root, and, you know, Robert Mueller wrote to us one day and said that he finds it funny as well, and we had some good banter with him. So I like the fact that Robert Mueller's actually got a good sense of humour as well, so that's great. but here's the thing about Steven Bowden you cannot ever say a bad word about Steven Bowden because he is just the nicest person he really is he's a really nice guy he's got infectious energy he makes a great ambassador for that company yeah he loves pinball as well and if I was to think of two people, if someone said who should we poach and get to design our rules for our company. There might be a lot of other people out there that could design good rule sets like Steve, but from a public's perspective of what I've heard on podcasts and on YouTube, the two people would be Steven Bowden and Bon Currence, and both those two people. I mean, as I said, Keith Alwyn obviously knows rules back to front, but I've never heard him on a podcast talking, like Steve has been on a million podcasts, And every time he goes on there, he speaks passionately about rules and what he likes and doesn't like. He does a lot of streaming commentary, right? And he talks about the rules and the situation of what people are doing as well. So he knows them really well. The most thing I'm excited about is Steve doesn't like the things that I don't like. Sure. I don't think you're going to see a light show in any of DeepRip pinball machines, if Steve has anything to do with it, that will blind you. because Steve brings glasses to pinball tournaments because he hates certain lights flashing in his retina. He will make sure that the tilt warning sound is different than any other sound in the game. I remember, I think it was on the pinball podcast with Jeff, and I can't remember if it was Jessica back then or the other dude, but yeah, talking about how I think it was X-Men or something has a borrowed sound from a different section. So when he's trying to get into the zone, he doesn't know if the sound is a tilt warning or just stuff like that. Like, he is deep into pinball, so he will be a great guy to design rule sets. Yeah, absolutely. I don't know how he's going to do it for, like, five games or three games or whatever it is. It seems like a pretty hard thing to do, right? Like, how... I don't know. I don't know. Good on him. I think it's absolutely a good move to bring him on board. Yeah, big congratulations to Steve. And we would have got him on the show as well. I mean, he's going to be appearing on the This Week in Pinball podcast to talk about it. So that'll be, I guess, tomorrow. So I look forward to hearing what he says. Yeah. Speaking of hearing what people have to say, do you like that, Greg, right? Yeah, good one. Here's what James Todd had to say. Hey, guys. Thanks for keeping up the great show. It's great to keep up with all the news both worldwide and in Australia specifically, too. my favourite moment would have to be Marty's brunch show I'm sure there will be plenty of others with the same thought cheers James thank you James Andrew Clark messages in and he says there are so many the news special the triceps and the cast later pretty well every episode mentioning the letter folding machines Ryan singing etc etc so I want a clarification I said the singing is horrible and he says yes that's why I like it because I you know like making fun of you um David McKinnon hello David he says hi Marty and Sir Triceps keep up the great work on your podcast I have two special mentions in regards to your comp one favourite episode was Christopher Franchi as he was really open and honest and I love his artwork especially Batman 66 and he said just to piss off Ryan here's a pic I took of him showing off his triceps in front of his head, which we'll put that in the show notes. No, you will not. Dave McKinnon, he loves Christopher Franchi. If there was a Christopher Franchi fan club, he would be the first guy to register. He is, like, he's obsessed. I bought him some Christopher Franchi art when I went to TPF, and it got ruined on the way back. But he got it repaired. Everything was good. Anyway, Andrew McLean messages in, and says, Marty's pot plant, just a small, some might say, wee joke. Do you think that he thinks that I weed on my pot plant? Ah, okay. So, just to clarify, I didn't weed on my pot plant. I vomited all over them. You didn't vomit, Marty. You chundered. I chundered. Chunder. Oh, my God. Chunder. That fucking episode from Slam Tilt where Ron was going off about Shunderstruck. That was amazing. It was hilarious. All right, back to the news. Massive, massive news. Star Wars 1.0. This is the biggest news of the week, guys. Star Wars 1.04 code has been released. I haven't even read the show notes, Marnie. What's in there? Nothing. Nothing? No, no, literally it's just bugs. Bugs being fixed? Bugs being fixed. Okay. I'm not even going to say spit and polish. It's not actually even that much. Did we just put in there so we can go back to our emails, our glorious emails? Correct, correct. So we'll go to the emails in a second, but I just wanted to, there was another tribute that came through. Would you like to hear it? Sure, money. I actually haven't had this. Hey, Jeff, you ready to record? Yeah, what do we got today? You're asked to do that tribute message for Head to Head Pinball. What show is that? It's those two guys from Australia. They have pinball over there? Yeah, I don't think I know the show. You were on it once. Duh, not surprised. I am the frickin' voice of pinball. Have you heard some of these clowns on air? I mean, really. Hey, wait a minute. Is it that drunk guy and that pervert who loves triceps and bones up to strikes and spares? Yeah, that's him. Oh, for crying out loud. Does anyone even listen to that? Oh, look at me. I can talk into a laptop mic and put out a show on the Internet because no real radio station would hire me. Pathetic. Fucking amateurs. I know, I know. All right, let's get this over with, all right? I've got better things to do. Hey there, it's Jeff Teoles of Pinball Profile. Just want to wish a happy 50th episode to Marvin and Riley. You guys are the absolute best. It's Martin and Ryan. What? Martin and Ryan. Does it even matter? All right, I'll start over again. You know, head-to-head pinball podcast wouldn't even be possible if it wasn't for two guys in New York State. Ron Hallett and Bruce Nightingale, who created Slam Tilt Podcast. And Ryan, he was such a big, big fan that he not only would email every single week, but he would basically steal the format of the show. You don't believe me? Here's Ron and Bruce to say, am I right or am I right? Oh, you're right. Those freaking convicts down there, those sons of bitches, they steal everything. We even did a cease and desist letter against them, and they still steal our things. God damn it. As the same member of the podcast, I have to say, Bruce is right. Wow. Woo-hoo. I win. I have a feeling, even though they've only done 50 episodes, pretty soon we're going to start hearing George Takei and some omis. Why not, right? Oh, yeah, they slammed the top 100. Yeah, that's the direct ripoff of Face Off. Yeah, exactly. See, their news segment is a ripoff of a piece of news. They do a mailbag. Yep. And the teabag them fuckers. Oh, okay. Of course, no one else does the mailbag, Bruce. We totally invented that. Of course we did. We did. Of course we did. But we do love the boys, and they are one of our favorite podcasts. Chef Teal's guy also is pretty good. But they are one of our favorite podcasts, and congratulations on 50 episodes, guys. well-deserved and keep up the good work. Here's to 50 more. Ha, suckers. Hello from Dr. John. And Emily. And do you know who Marty and Ryan are? No, aren't they the people from Sesame Street? No, that's Bert and Ernie, but they're sort of the same as them. They do a podcast. How come I've never heard them? Because they swear a lot and they're usually drunk and they're weird. But they've done 50 episodes, so congratulations. Congratulations. I hope you keep it up and keep letting everyone know that not all Australians are like you. They're more like us, aren't they? Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well done, boys. Bye. See ya. We have the new president of Deep Root. Steven Bowden joins us right now. Hi, Stephen. How are you? Excuse me? Was I recently promoted already? No, no. I'm a rules designer and a Deep Root ambassador, not president. I'm just foreshadowing. Well, you've been on so many different podcasts, so you are perfect for this. We're going to play Slam the Top 100, but we're not going to do pinball machines. We're going to put in the random generator podcasters, all right? You'll get one. I'll get one. We'll play their stupid little game and see how this goes. So, Stephen, this will be yours. Google, please give us a pinball podcaster. Oh, too bad. You have Ryan. You're cut. All right, Ryan. Take Ryan. Let's do this. Google, please give me a pinball podcaster. Lucky you. You get Martin. Oh, this is an easy win for me. This is the piece of cake. Talk the praises of Ryan. Go. Ryan is awesome. He knows the rules. He really gets into the game he's talking about. He even goes into the game's soundtrack and sound effects and call outs to see if there's Easter eggs. And then they'll ask the interviewee a strange question about it to get some sort of exclusive. That's journalism. Real journalism right there. Well, most importantly, Ryan seems to have control of the gifs that get posted on the poll to see who won the debate. That's very smart to have control of that, but it seems to be that the better drift wins anyway. Also, his Roussac presentation was very good. When I got one, he delivered the goods quickly and efficiently. I appreciated the Roussac presentation to me. So, all in all, let's vote Ryan. Ryan all the way. Martin, what can I say? You know, you start off the podcast with the better voice, and that's why you hear Martin on right away. The guy is a professional. He is a better pinball player. He just recently beat Jordan Treadway, one of the greatest players in the world. This guy knows his stuff a way better dresser, too. That laugh is infectious. It makes us all laugh, too, and we love it when we listen to head-to-head pinball. Does this guy know gin? My goodness. I don't drink gin. I want to drink gin when I hear Martin talk about it. And nobody, and I mean nobody, can read a pinball flyer better than Martin. I think I'm going to debunk Martin. Well, you know, Martin, he gets drunk a lot, even more than some of the meltdown podcasts that I've done. He plays in tournaments, which is good. I must give that. But he's admitted to not knowing some of the rules of the games he's played in the tournaments. I feel if Martin had Ryan C's dogged dedication to game knowledge, he would do even better in tournaments than he does. And as I mentioned before, he falls victim to Ryan's gif trap. He seems to be getting the worst gifs. He's assuring his defeat. He must find a way to take control of the gifs from Ryan. And if he does that, he might be able to do better. But vote Ryan. Ryan's better. Ryan will have the better gif anyway. Vote Ryan. Okay, I think I've said a lot of positive things about Martin. but I think I'm going to take this time now to attack Ryan. This is a guy who once talked about a circle jerk to a 16-year-old girl. Have you ever heard this guy interview anybody? Here, I'll give you a sample of it. How did he get into Timbo? Every freaking time. And hey, Rapunzel, cut down your hair. What is he, a rock star? Come on. You're not fooling anybody. You mentioned the ruse axe, him delivering it. That wasn't an Australian thing. That's just one of his many perversions. So go ahead and vote and figure out which one's the better of the two. It's easily Martin. What do you think, Stephen? Ryan clearly won this. I've had the better arguments. It's Ryan. Vote Ryan all the way, everybody. All the best to you in Texas, Stephen. All right. Thank you very much, Jeff. Hey, guys. It's Stallone. I heard about the number 50. It's a big number. Happy birthday, Martin. Hey, head-to-head. It's Mrs. Penn. I wanted to congratulate you on your 50th podcast and let you know I think you're freaking amazing. I listen every week with my main squeeze. Isn't that right, honey? That's right, suckers. Petey, be nice. Sorry, Mrs. Pym. I don't know what you see in those two losers. I'm the only man you need. Well, why don't we sing them a special song? You know, the one we sing to each other? You mean our song? Okay, you ready? Let's do it. Okay. La, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la, la. I just can't get you out of my head. Boy, your love is all I think about. I just can't get you out of my head. Girl, you're more than I can't you think about. That's all they deserve. They can fuck off. Bye, boys. I'm sick of you. I'm sick of you. I'm sick of you. I'm sick of you. Guys, happy 50th. Love you. Keep up the great work. I give it a seven. Oh, my gosh. It was honestly worth doing 50 episodes just to have that happen. Oh, my gosh. Unfortunately, Jeff, it's based off a random number generator and not talent. Is it, though? My neck hurts from laughing. So speaking of which, let's talk about Slam the Top 100 from last week. So this was Adam's family, which I got, versus Star Trek Next Gen. Yeah. And as Jeff was saying, you did put up the better, oh, no, it was actually Steven Bowden that said, you actually did put up the better gif. He was saying, is it gif or gif? People say gif, people say gif, both is acceptable. Okay. But, yeah, you even put up the better gift, but Adam's family was always going to win. Yeah, 64% of the votes, 92 votes all up. I'm happy with 36%. Yeah, that's a decent thing up against Adam's family. No one can beat Adam's family. Absolutely. Shall we do it again this week? Let's go it again. Please generate a number from 0 to 100. Okay. 11. Indiana Jones. Okay, so you've got Indiana Jones. Okay. Please generate a number from 0 to 100. All right. 24. 24. Tron Legacy. Haven't we already done Tron? I don't think we have. You can check. Tron, your favourite machine. Thank you. It's going to be hard to argue against that, considering how much throughout these 50 episodes you've talked about how Tron is your favourite game. Well, Indiana Jones... I'm just saying the same. We are set the scene by if I didn't buy Indiana Jones, then we wouldn't be talking right now, Marty. Sure. That's how significant Indiana Jones is. Okay, cool. I'm just waiting for you to tell everybody how bad Tron is. That's all. Yeah, I know it's flaws. Okay. Indiana Jones, right? When you press start and you insert your credits, you hear that beautiful John Williams theme music. You feel like you were in the movie. You feel like a fucking hero, right, playing that game. It is one of the best pinball machines of all time, easily the best wide body, way better than Demolition Man, right? You've got the beautiful sculpted gun handle. You've got Harrison Ford staring at you on the back last run of Bruce. You've got the two beautiful ramps that you can do the dogfight left, right, left, right. You've got the turning skull in the middle. You've got the greatest super jackpot callout of all time. It's worth owning that machine just to hear that guy burst his veins saying super jackpot. I'm not going to try and do it because I'll do disservice. to the call-out. You know, three levels of multiple inside. You have three video modes, Marty, and yes, video modes suck, not in Indiana Jones. You can shoot people in a busy barn, you can do the minecart escape, and you can choose wisely. And if you don't choose wisely, yeah, your face fucking burns off. I give you Indiana Jones. Okay, thank you. I appreciate it. let's talk about disney tron legacy it is one of ryan's favorite games it's not ryan's favorite game the best game let me tell you why tron is amazing i'm going to start with the soundtrack let's talk about the soundtrack provided by daft punk it is phenomenal you stick a subby on that baby and your world is crazy it is just amazing you can hear the vibrations of the sound um it's got great lighting particularly the le with it where it's got the you know the lighting around the ramps it's got a really good rule set really tight rule set as well um you know it's not necessarily too deep which is exactly how i like my machines um it's got a great flow it's got a Great layout. You know, it's one of John Borg's best. Yeah, beautiful machine. Absolutely love it. Tron. Just to add a couple of extra points, Indiana Jones, the wizard mode is amazing. Hit every switch in the game to get one billion points. The machine goes off when you get it, right? Rocking up a play field, how can you forget that? Tron Legacy, what can we say about it? It's a Disney pinball machine, so under a lot of restrictions. you can't see what the hell is going on on that piece of shit D&D unless you buy a really expensive color D&D and then you can kind of make out what's happening. Horrible dots. The shot layout, you know, you can save about five grand and get a funny house instead, right? Just a reverse fun house. The gem shot, too hard. You know, the sound shot's pretty good. It's not amazing. there's a lot of if you don't shoot up the middle properly there's a lot of dead end shots where the ball kind of like doesn't like it does nothing and then just dribbles back versus like Sparky which has a magnet so if you miss the shot or get the shot it kind of throws it back every single Tron, the motor in there will end up sounding like this it's a horrible part that is really loud and the last thing is the software okay, the software is possible, because what happens, Marty, when you get to Siege Simulation or Portal, you play the shitty mode, you fail, and then you're in jail. Then you have to start all over again. It's a very linear game. Keith P. Johnson, he says he hates playing it. Keith Elwin, sorry, the other Keith. Doesn't matter, they're both the same people. Keith. Keith. Linear game. Who wants a linear fucking game? What do I do now? You just fucking do any of the stupid modes, and then you're You're done. You do because it's one of your favourite machines, right? So everything that you've just said about trying everybody, just like he said it's one of his favourite games. So that whole gem shot, I've seen him hit the gem shot and go, yes, gem shot, right? So, sorry guys, he's actually lying to you. So a vote for Ryan is a vote for liars. It's a vote for highway. It's a vote for Zidware. It's a vote for Dutch pinball. It's a vote for people that promise, but they're not actually telling you the truth. And also, speaking of promise, he said nobody forgets the path of adventure. That's because it never works. Okay, Indiana Jones was the first machine I ever bought, and it was so perfectly dialed in, and everyone complains about all this stupid shit. I still haven't, to this day, played Indiana Jones as good as the one I've got. I'm sure they've been restored, this, this, and that. They all play really average. and I understand why people don't like that game. The one that I had, maybe I was less OCD back then. It just played beautifully. Yeah, do you know what? It's actually, and you know, we talked about Star Trek Next Generation last week. Those, I've got to know whether it's of the era or whether it's the wide bodies of that era, but the maintenance on those is pretty high. Yeah. Anyway, so in the next couple of days, it'll be up on Facebook for you to vote for me. the honest part of this. Speaking of awesome people, more messages. This is from Hannah. And I love Hannah because Hannah watches my stream and also she doesn't like you, Ryan. Is she the pretzel person? Yep, she said, Hi boys, my favourite moment in the podcast is Ryan singing Captain Planet. I think you should end all podcasts by singing songs from my childhood. Also, Ryan smells. Love, Hannah. What should I sing this week? This is the hate mail which you got that said, love Hannah. Ah, that's right. Ryan smells, love Hannah. I think she likes me smelling. It's scientifically proven, right? If you love the way, like, love someone's stench, then you're chemically, like, aligned with each other, right? Okay. Yeah? I've not seen the lab results, but sure. Okay. Chris messages in and says, boys, I nominate, they're the very first episode. I don't remember how I found you guys, probably via RZIK, but straight away I was strung out for your second episode. I've since eagerly awaited every episode and enjoy each. And thanks to you, I now love the fine work of you two lads from... Sorry, let me start again. And thanks to you, now also love the fine work from the two lads from Upstate New York. Martin has introduced me to competitive pinball, and just tonight I competed in my fourth competition at Pixel Alley. I was like right there next to him. I know. Hello, Chris. Hey, Chris. We do talk to people. I'm improving each comp and I love it since your podcast came along it opened me up to so many aspects of pinball which I never knew about and never knew interested me I can't read today I'm sorry really love what you guys do I've got nothing but praise and thanks for your great work congrats on the 50 episodes looking forward to the next 50 Dave wrote in and said split pants in the ditch had me in tears Chris Dover writes in and says, to me, the best episode so far was the Zombie Yeti episode. Mr. Zombie Yeti just laughed at it. He didn't know it was in the car. He's long set up. I think he's going to say something really profound and truthful, and it's just a joke we have to censor out. Funny. So shall we do this week in pinball Before we announce the winner of the competition And talk about our next competition Let's go for it Okay So what did we both get up to this week? A shitload of competitions Like three competitions this week And I attended all of them You attended all of them I did Who did better than the other? You smashed it, Marnie I did alright this week, didn't I? You did really good, yeah I don't remember any of that When I was writing down what we did this week in Pinball I was like, oh shit, three comps It's been a long week It's been a long week It really has So we went to Pixel Alley And that is a three strikes elimination How far did you get through? I think I came seventh or sixth I had a chance to knock out someone It was the dumbest moment and he had $22 million on Guardians of the Galaxy, Luke, and that's not a very good score. I had like $10 million, got into all the multiball, and somehow just fucked the entire thing up. And I got eliminated, and then he went on a massive run. You lose seven games in a row. Met you in the finals, Marty. Yeah, up until that moment, I did. There was a couple of great games I had. I got close to $500 million, I think, on Guardians of the Galaxy. and Twilight Zone, I think I was in the top three, I managed to get something like 750 mil on my first ball, so that was going to be very hard to beat. Yeah, then got into the finals. I had two strikes left, but Luke beat me twice in a row. First I had a really bad game on Iron Maiden. I then had a semi-decent game on Game of Thrones, but Luke just absolutely had a cracker. But the other thing, obviously, we got to play Iron Maiden a lot more. And just the more I play this game, the more I am in love with this game. I'm in love with it too, Marnie. I've actually tried to poach an alley off a bunch of people. No one's telling me to stop. I need to play games now before ordering them. Guys, I'm just putting the feelers out there. If you're in on an alley and you've paid half from AMD or Zacks and life's a bit hard and you want someone to pay and take the rest of your order, it'll go to a good home. And then it'll go to Ryan's. Yeah. So, yeah. I started the competition at Pixel Alley. The one moment that I kind of raised a little bit inside, You know, I shouldn't raise it. It's a pinball. It's fun. You know, you need to be there relaxing. You can't hear the games there, right? Because they're playing like, what is it, Five and Backstreet Boys and stuff, right? Great music. Yeah, great music. I was playing Guardians of the Galaxy. It was that Guardians of the Galaxy game. I think it was the second ball. I shoved the machine. I got a warning. I thought I might have got a second warning. I look up at the screen. It says danger. I'm like, all right, one warning. because two dangers is danger, danger. I then got into multiball. Something happened. I gave the machine a little nudge. Kills. And I was like, what the fuck? And hey, I know this isn't something new, all autonomous players, but usually I can hear a machine, so I don't need to look at it. How hard is it to just write danger, danger when there's two dangers? Like, you've already got the danger there. The second danger is obviously treating someone in the code. just copy and paste the fucking, you know, the animation, and then there's two of them. So when someone looks at the screen, it says danger, danger. So what happens when you go into the settings and you allow three tilt warnings? Danger, danger, danger. Yeah, of course. I just wanted you to think through this. Okay, yeah, that's a bit of a hurdle. Or maybe it's danger times two, or danger times three. Yeah, yeah. Well, you know Pirates of the Caribbean, the new one, that's got the right idea. It shows you how many tip warnings you've got left. My fear is that these machines will forever be like that. Like, it's so simple to implement, right? But it'll probably never be fixed. I know Iron Maiden does it properly. Iron Maiden will say, danger, danger, and then tilt with, you know, Satan sitting there smiling at you. But I don't know. Like, I wouldn't have shoved the machine that way if I knew. Yeah, don't tilt, I think, is the real summary here. How come some machines, how come every fucking machine in the 90s has it, Marty? Somehow we incapable of doing that now I do not know man I do not know Anyway that just my one little OCD rage bit So then we went to Bayside Oh sorry I got another rage bit coming up from Bayside. No, no, no, it's from Bayside. I know you do. Yep. We then went to Bayside. So this is, what is it? It's a best game format over three games and then finals. So semi-finals and then finals. How'd you go, Ryan? I wasn't going to come because it's on the other side of the city for me. During traffic, it takes too long to get there. But you would have taken your time to get there. Well, your stream started and I saw you were streaming Ghostbusters, a game that I absolutely love. And I saw that the game had no tilt-bob, or people seemed to be shoving it around to very little consequence. And I thought, man, I've had a hard day. I wouldn't mind bashing Ghostbusters. I've got like a three in five chance of playing on Ghostbusters. So I drove up, managed to just kind of like get into the qualifying thing. I ended up coming. I had two horrible games on ACDC and Aerosmith. I needed like $300 million on Ghostbusters to get into the finals. I ended up getting like almost broke my wrist doing it, but got $150 or so on Ghostbusters and didn't get in. I didn't know, Mark. You know that skill shot plunge thing on Ghostbusters? I thought that you had to hit it before it hits the switch. And I thought that was the trick. But even if you hit the switch, as long as it's pretty quick, it still registers. So on every other machine, it seemed to be like I can do that whole skill shot thing. On this machine, I was banging it in. And as I said, it's on the stream. You can see me fail 15 times in a row with everyone behind me laughing. Embarrassing. So was that always the case on all code revisions? because this particular Ghostbusters has got old code. It doesn't even have the cross-disk. I know. I know. I was like, oh, yes, I got into that. I'm like, guaranteed, like, 50, 60 million, whatever it is. And I got the fucking bacon choosing game and got nothing. And so the actual worst thing about this particular Ghostbusters, besides the flipper gap, is that the left scoop just constantly spat the ball out down the middle. And, you know, with a wide flipper gap, It's very difficult to save it, but because there really was no tilt, Bob, we were just sliding this, and you had to violently slide this just to save the ball from going down the middle from that scoop. I kind of like playing it, though. Playing a ghost buses with a tight tilt, it's just horrible with the ball jumping around the place and the scleries and whatever, but I will actually try my hardest to go to the next comp simply because I want to bash that machine again. And I don't want to wreck people's machines or anything, but this is what I want to talk about. The condition of these pinball machines, Marty, and this is the biggest comp in Melbourne. This is what most people go to. There's 40-something people. It's a monthly comp, right? Lucas does an amazing job running it. It introduces a lot of people to pinball. He puts a lot of effort into it. Yes. We are supporting the people that put the pinball machines on site. Yes. They're not on free play. Money gets just put in there. The machines are shit, Marty. They are terrible. Fucking... They are awful. Not... Well, I would say probably the only one that still plays okay is Iron Man. Yeah. Because it's hardly anything to kind of break on there. There's nothing to go wrong. But the Simpsons pinball party doesn't work. The ACDC doesn't work. Can I just write this down? Aerosmith's fine. Aerosmith. Yeah, Aerosmith's fine. I mean, they're pretty much putting new pinball machines there until they have issues and they don't fix the issues. And if this was like, if there was a new issue or something like, hey, when I walk up to ACDC to play my game, okay, it's almost worse. When you have a good playing ACDC at home, you know, when you come to a one on side that's fucked, you know, the entire GI was strobing. Like, not strobing, like everything, the entire GI just flashing like a disco. so you can't, like, you have to look at the ball like a Dwight Sullivan jackpot was going off, but it wasn't, okay, just constantly the entire game. The four, there's five drop targets on the side, AC, DC, four of them were just machine gunning, just bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, the entire time, and they'd stop, and they'd do it again, so no song jackpots, wasn't registering any of the switches, nothing, and you somehow have to play those games, and if it just happened, then fair enough, but I talked to Lucas this is an ongoing issue like what what needs to be done like why is the Melbourne pinball scene supporting I guess because there's nowhere else there's nowhere else but like what needs to be said and what needs to be done for this shit to get fixed because obviously it's falling on deaf ears yep fix this shit guys come on fix this shit because we're supporting you so just pay someone to fix this it's probably not even that hard yeah so Simpsons Garage yeah Simpsons Garage right but on both like the one at Pixel and the one at Base like both the garage doesn't work I'm going to put my pinball machine on site my Simpsons and I will it'll probably have the size of the garage as well yeah you'll probably have to fix it every week but anyway so you know sounds like you had a bad night I didn't I had a great night because I managed to get into the finals. So, well, actually, I got into the semifinals, and how it works is, if you're in the top four, the top four plays off against each other, and if you win, you're straight into the finals. If you lose, you then play against the two winners out of the five to eight. So, I was in top four, I played against Jordan, on the stream, everyone sort of put money on Jordan to beat me, and guess what? He beat me. He beat me. Of course he did. But I then played next and I played on Aerosmith and I won. And so I got into the top four. And something happened, Ryan. What's that, mate? I had the eye of the tiger. You listened to Katy Perry, were you? Yes. No, I was listening to amazing friend of the show, Scott Denisey. I was listening to Total Nuclear Annihilation in my earbuds. No, I'll tell you what happened. So it was myself, it was Jordan, it was Nigel, and it was Stu. And again, you know, everybody, even myself, all money was on Jordan. But the first game that we played was Aerosmith. And Jordan put up, I think it was about a 90 mil. It was respectable. and I had to try and chase him down. And normally I would panic and I would frail about and I would try to get quick points. And I thought, you know what? I'm going to play a nice measured long game. And I did. And I just picked away and picked away, got into modes, modes, modes, modes, modes, modes, caught him and I won. By the way, it was 196 mil and you got 200 or so mil. Don't change yourself 100 million points, honey. I can't remember the point. Are you looking at the scores? Yes. Okay, I remember the scores. Okay, well, you're going to have to remind me then of what happened on Ghostbusters, which was next. I don't actually have the scores in front of me. I just remember those. No, okay. But I think... So Jordan played after me, so I managed to get 500 mil, and he was chasing down 500 mil, and he was on 300 mil, and I think he might have ended up on just shy of 400 mil. So that was two wins, and the scores on this were 4-2-1-0, so four for the win. So it was then, I was on eight points, he was on four points, and what it meant is in the very last game, which was on Metallica, I just couldn't come last. If I came last, I was out. That's right, it forced a tie-break between myself and Jordan if he won. Yeah, and he's pretty good at Metallica. He has a Metallica at home. He's great at Metallica. So I didn't win Metallica Because I got a respectable score But Sue blew it up But Nigel was playing He ended up not doing so well So I was through anyway But Jordan didn't end up catching up So I won Bayside this week Yay Marty Pinball practice It is It is pinball practice And then we had our third tournament which was the Ross Town Retro Pinball Arcade Tournament. How did we go, Ryan? Yeah, this is the one that I kind of snuck into because, you know, someone came and qualified late and modified the results and then someone else couldn't come because they had surgery. So I had no business kind of being there. So any result besides last was a good result for me. I managed to scrape through the first round and eliminate... Eliminate, well, it's 1-2 versus 11-12. And number one was Luke Marburg, a very good player, who beat you earlier this week. And number two was Marcus, the guy who owns all the Pimor machines. So came last on the first game, first, first, and I think third. So managed to just kind of scrape through second. So I got into the final round of sixth. And then I was up against you, Marty. Yes, so I managed to get into the next round as well. So three groups of four became two groups of three, and it was you, me, and good friend of the show, Stacey Borg. It's exactly what happened last year pretty much, right? Yep. And only one person got through to the finals. And what happened, Ryan? First game was last lap. Last lap, yeah. Yeah, I managed to come first on that. I was pretty happy and feeling pretty confident. Um, next game, and you came second. The next game was on Stellar Wars, which I was kind of emailing Bruce Nightingale, and I'm like, how the fuck do you play Stellar Wars? Is it really just spelling Stellar Wars? So I'm looking at the play field, and everything is so far, like, to spell Stellar Wars? Pretty fucking hard, right? There's so many things you have to hit. And the wars bit is, like, the in-lanes, and there's nothing to feed the in-lanes. anyway you've managed to spell stellar wars like a million times twice in my life yeah I actually put up a really big score like if those if those scores were entered in a normal competition they probably would have been like one and two or something like I managed to get like three hundred and something thousand you got like six hundred or seven hundred yeah it all came down to the last game on Paragon Paragon yeah so I love Paragon I love that the game was on there because the game is so unforgiving in certain ways. I was on only, I think, 80,000 on the last ball, and I kind of knew what score I needed to put up to catch you, and I was pumping myself up. I, too, was listening to music that day for probably the first time ever I had headphones, and I found that it kind of worked, especially in a kind of crowded space like that. Yeah, I punched the ball on the last ball, fully psyched up like yes I can do this I know what to do the game plan is there and the ball went straight into the beast's lair like I didn't even get the slip no you didn't it's just you know I had four other balls to do good work and I failed so that's Paragon for you yeah it really is so you were out I was in so I was sad for you not really I was really happy for myself paid back from last year Yeah, pretty much. And so, again, so I was up against Daniel Luth or Lex, we call him. And the three machines we had were, I've got to remember them. Was it Grand Slam? Grand Slam, Robot and something else. Xenon. Xenon. And it was Xenon. So, first game we played was Grand Slam. He picked that one And I lost Because I just don't know how to play that one It was awful I love Grand Slam I haven't lost once in Grand Slam yet So then we played Xenon And I won on Xenon Comfortably And then it was down to Robot The very final game And for people that know Zachariah Robot It's actually got this ramp That's pretty it's a U-turn ramp that's pretty tricky to get, particularly on this machine. And once you do, these five robot cylinders pop out. And if you do that, you get big points. So on my first ball, I managed to do that and drained as soon as I knocked them all down. But, you know, I was still on about 500 down. Yeah, something like that. And then Daniel came up. He did not get the robots up once, but he just managed to keep the ball alive and managed to get the, what was it, 20 times bonus multiplier. And so it was down, really it was down to the last ball. I was sitting on about 700 mil. He was probably about 780 mil or something like that. And so I plunged a little bit and just went straight down the guts. Now, also with Zachariah Robot, you get bonus ball time. So the more you're playing, you get these additional seconds at the end of the game. So once those seconds die down, the game is over. So I had 20 seconds. I punched the ball. The ball's bouncing around, fricking everywhere. Just not coming down. That's so frustrating. Did you scream, Eddie? Did you scream, give me the fucking ball? Yes, I did scream, give me the fucking ball. And it finally got to my flip bar. One flip I got, and I flipped it, and it went up that fricking ramp. Lit. All those robots, they all popped up. as it came off the ramp, my seconds ran out and I didn't get a clip on them. It was so gut-wrenching. So he pretty much won. So I came second. And I was happy with that. So for this week, I got two seconds on the first. And the first against Jordan Treadway is a mega first. So I'm happy with that. Future in Treadway. I've never heard about that guy. I had to bow for third or fourth place against Marcus. and I lost on last lap by trying to short plunge. It hit that weird switch and just instantly drained. And he kind of looked at me and he was just like, what the fuck did you do that for? Just full plunge. I'm like, I don't know. I don't know your game. Yeah, exactly. He was probably disappointed that I didn't beat him. He wasn't even smiling. He was like, you're an idiot. You could have beat me. Anyway. Thanks to Marcus for running the comp and Luke and Lucas for running the other ones. Shall we quickly go back to the last bit of feedback? Absolutely. So, Stu McLean says, Hi, guys. I never miss an episode of your podcast. I love the jocularity that you infuse into the show. It is both fun and informative and I find myself always looking forward to the next installment. Sometimes I listen to it at half speed just to stretch it out for a bit longer. It also makes it feel like I'm having a few beverages with you. I think that I speak to everyone on stage that I appreciate our episodes. Exactly. It's the thing that I speak for everyone that I say when I say that I appreciate all the time that you both put into making a top class podcast. Also, thank you for introducing me to the euphonic tones of Jeff Teolis. And finally, I love the chance to win. Keep up the great work. Thanks, Jeff. Here's one from Keith. You guys are awesome. Are my numbers better than Keith from Keith? Well, Keith can't tell you. They are. Thanks, Keith. So, one from Daniel P. He says, I hope I'm not too late. I hope you haven't filmed the new episode yet. I don't get that. I think my favourite episode so far has to be the last episode, episode 49, when Martin says, oh my god, mate, made me do a spit take when he was talking about Dust Kimble. The thing that I noticed about all this is that people have a different sense of humour. People think that some bits that, you know, were good. I don't know. Like, everyone has a different taste. Like, we can't make the perfect podcast for everyone, but if you throw enough random shit in there... That's right. You'll cater to everyone. Yeah. We're just throwing so many darts on the dartboard that we get a couple of them that are sticking. Exactly. That's the one we're getting in the eye. Scott says, While I'm disappointed that you Aussies don't regularly carry around roosacks, I do laugh at you bouncing up to Keith Elwin like a deranged leprechaun and bestowing upon him a sack for his golden coins. Congrats on 50 and we'll see Marty in Utah. That's what I'm hoping, Scott. I'm going to go for Aaron because it's shorter. He says, I couldn't pick any single thing I like about the podcast. I'm just trying to say congratulations on the 50 episode, guys. Day, Lex. Thank you, Aaron. And Jason says, gents, there are so many highlights over the past 49 episodes, but the highlight above all has to be the Google voice. You guys are really funny and you really get the balance right. I would love to send both of you guys your efforts for your 50th episode anniversary. Marty is easy just a fabulous bottle of gin but not sure what you get for Ryan. Ryan's OCD. Maybe some melamine sponges for cleaning his games or possibly a box of hexagons or maybe a voucher from beardandblade.com.au Anyway, James, keep up the great weekly work and let me know where I can send the half-century treats. So, what else happened in your week this week, Ryan? So, I went to a pinball meet, a really big one, this weekend, Marty, after the Ross Town... Oh, fuck me, sorry. Yeah, I'm so tired. So, I went to a pinball meet on Saturday, Marty, after the Ross Town competition. You couldn't make it. I did a Facebook Live video there, so you can see this guy's amazing collection. His name is Paul, and his wife is Kathy. And I had a really good time playing Adam's Family. It was like the first Adam's Family I played in a while that works really well, and almost to a dimension. I know it's not super-duper hard to do that, but every other Adam's Family I've played, you can't make the ramps properly unless you hit them perfectly. Yeah, he's got a really nice collection. This is a monthly thing in Melbourne because of a guy called Michael Smith. He has kind of been the catalyst to making sure that every month in Melbourne there is a non-competition pinball meet where people just get together, play, have fun. They're all organized on rzrk.com.au. Go and check it out there. Creatures from the Black Lagoon is gone, Marty. Already? Yeah. I never bought it, so I could have had it for one day. I was just picking it up for someone. I hadn't actually played it pretty much since the competition. I'd just been flat out. And it was funny because Eddie came to pick it up. And, you know, I was joking before about putting Simpsons on site, but I'm considering it. And I've never put a white Star Pimor machine on site, Marty. So I didn't really know how the coin mech kind of thing works. So I kind of, you know, I tried to get the coin mech to work. It wouldn't work. I rang up Michael from AMD, and I had a chat to him, and he was just absolutely amazing. Boom, the next day I had this interface board that I needed to use, and he gave me instructions on how to kind of hook it up. I sat there for about an hour poking around. I had to find a set of 12 volts and ground, and then I had to find out where to get the pulse from. I know this is all going over your head, Marty, but this will be useful for someone. I was kind of proud of myself of getting as far as I did, but I couldn't get the pinball machine, when I was putting coins in, to pulse on anything. And I had a little test fixture set up, and I thought, you know, I could spend like another five hours here and not get anywhere. And I knew Eddie was coming over the next day. And Eddie's a genius when dealing with this stuff. This guy fixing pinball machines, like, no one's business. So I thought, I'll just wait for him to come over. I'll ask him, and I guarantee he's just going to know what I've done wrong straight away. sure enough he comes to pick up creature i run through what i just you know told you just now and he says you gotta close the coin door i'm like what do you mean he goes on these pinball machines the door gets no power if it's open and i'm like what the fuck the sam pinball machines do the belly williams do but for some reason the white star pinball machines don't so sure enough i didn't even need the fucking interface board like there I was already a boy in there. So that whole thing was fantastic. So from Michael, talking to me on the phone about how to do everything. So I pulled the plunger out on the coin door and it worked. So that might save someone a couple of hours of editing. The more you know. Yeah. So Game of Thrones is now at Pinball Paradise. I already mentioned that. My kids absolutely love playing No Good Girl This Money. But do you think that's its target audience? else? Well, my kid also loved playing fishtail. She called it, my youngest one, called it fishy pinball. And then one day it was gone, and she walked into the room, and she just started crying and says, where's fishy pinball? Where's fishy pinball? And she was too young for me to explain to her, like, it's gone. It was never mine, whatever. Anyway, every time I rearrange the room now, she walks into where Wizard of Oz is, and it's not there, and she freaks out. Like, she's scarred for life over over the fish sales pinball. You know, where's Wizard of Oz? Where's Wizard of Oz? So I think the same thing is going to happen when No Good Covers comes out. Trying to shield her from that. Lastly, I may have bought another pinball machine literally 15 minutes before we started recording. That's right. You just said, add this to the show notes, breaking news. You know what though? I'm not going to announce what it is or anything because it has not been picked up yet. so who the fuck knows if I actually bought a pinball machine money has been transferred this is a pinball that was on the list I guess you will never find out because I have quit the show but Marty might really next week well so speaking of trying to buy pinball machines I'd try to buy a pinball machine I've been sending you like every shit pinball machine that I've seen I know and one of them I happen to want and it was at a good price and I even looked at the price and went, I don't even know whether I'd haggle that much on the price. I'm happy with that. The machine looks good. I sent, and it was on Facebook Marketplace, and I sent a note to the person saying, is it still available? Two hours later, he said, yes. I said, because this was on Friday, I said, would you be around on the weekend for me to come and have a look? And he said, I'm not in the whole weekend. Why are you advertising the machine then? You know what, mate? Just to cut into your story, as soon as I saw this Pimor machine, which was sent to me by this person, I mentioned him when I told the proper story, I said, can you message this person as well? And he said, what's the point of me messaging? Then we're just fighting over the same machine. I said, I don't know, just double the chances of getting the machine. Some people just, a certain way you write the message or, you know, might write them the wrong way. And it fucking worked mighty because I was writing pretty much the same shit that he was writing, the same price as everything, right? And I was getting different responses. She was like, no, you know, how much are you going to offer? And trying to get me to bid higher and higher and higher. But the other person that told me about the machine, he got it. So. Wow. What the fuck? Do you know what I mean? Do I have to message this guy and say, hey, I'll come pick it up on the weekend? sometimes because sometimes you're nice and you say you know hey can I come and check it out and they might think oh this guy is a fucking tie kicker fuck them just say I'll take it I'll come pick it up on the weekend and then if it's shit you can walk away fuck them sometimes you have to be the cunt Marty yep I just I just think with this one it's like if he's just like well I'm not going to be here on the weekend what he could have said was do you know what sorry look I'm not going to be here on the weekend However, you're more than welcome to come over during the week. Okay, so that was it. So, is it still available, Marty? Is it still up to date? I'm not even bothered. Come on, you can't be that sensitive, Marty, when you're buying a Puma machine. I just feel I'm going to pick up a machine with negative vibes. It is. It's going to have negative energy, and I don't need that. Well, it is on Facebook, so he did get to see your face. that's the bad thing about buying and selling on Facebook is that people get to see your face. Like, I don't like that guy's face. I'm not selling to him. Yeah, yeah. Well, I also did look at his profile, so that's why I stopped. Anyway. So, obviously, I've mentioned it before. The other thing that really happened on this weekend was I was on the Eclectic Gamers podcast. I got up at 4.30 in the morning, Ryan, to record at 5 o'clock in the morning. Why? Why couldn't they do it later? Actually, I think I did the same thing. I think I'd oak up at five or six. I don't know. It was a Sunday morning. I could sleep in. It was not a big deal. But what was really interesting is that, you know, the podcast goes for nearly three hours, so, you know, you know it's a good podcast when it goes for that long. And literally, like, 50% of the show we talked about pinball and 50% we talked about video games. We talked about all the eight generations of consoles and what were our favourite games on each of those generations. And that was a lot of fun because... That's the bit that I'm up to, so I look forward to hearing that. Because obviously people listening to this podcast know that I play pinball. What people don't know is that I have played an extraordinary amount of video games and I have owned an extraordinary amount of consoles. That's why you think that fanboys are stupid, Marty, because it's all good, isn't it? It's all good stuff. Well, this is what it was about the Hot Fanboys, because back then, the whole, you know, Sony-Nintendo console wars, I was like, why are you guys fighting? I have both of these consoles. They're both good. How many times did Mario win on each generation? Any times? Um, none. Come on, Marty. I don't know. I'm not going to tell you. You've got to listen to the podcast. Okay, okay. I've been playing Mario Odyssey with my kids, and that shit is magical. I have no other word but magical. Like, it makes me feel like I haven't grown up, and I don't have bills to pay, and I don't have the stresses of anything when I play that game, because it is that. This is on Switch? Yeah. Maybe I need to get my Switch back. Hi, James. Oh my gosh, he's so good. And, you know what else, one of the main things that's good about, you know, don't worry about the mechanics and the flawless execution of everything they try to do. It's the sounds. Every sound in every world is perfect. And I'm just thinking, man, if they could make a pinball machine, not the Gottlieb one, just pretend that never happens. If they could make a pinball machine that's like a new, like a Jersey Jack, surely they could do it because Nintendo had, they were very close for a very long time, right? Like, they wouldn't allow anything except you to play Nintendo content on their consoles. But now you can get, like, iPhone games. It's like Fortnite's cross-platform with... That's right. Yeah. So, surely someone's working on that. They have to. Mario multiball. Luigi Switch Frenzy. Funny. So, that's really our weekend. And that's, we've read out all the messages that have come through. Shall we do a random number and find out who's won that amazing prize, which is, what is it again, Ryan? It's a full side, cabinet side art for Dialed In. It's a decal. I guess you can leave it with the, you know, like, don't stick it on the wall. You can just kind of like... Oh my God, I'm going to blank. Blue tack it on your wall. Yeah. So I will generate a number from 1 to 37, Marty. Go for it. Please generate a number from 0 to 37. And please be in Australia. Coming right up. 30. Chris Nalen. Wow. Maybe he'll talk to us this time. I have a question to Chris. So he was the one that said that he liked our first episode, got him into playing pinball. We saw him at Pixel Alley, which was his fourth competition. So well done, Chris. You have got this fabulous prize. Nice. I guess I'll just give it to him at the next Pimbalelly meet. Why is every prize from Victoria? I don't know. Have we just anything yet? It's just very convenient, so... We do have a lot of listeners. Like, you know, Dyslance, the podcast, like, a lot of their listeners are everyone they know in New York, so we have a big following in Melbourne. Absolutely. All right. We've got another competition, though, don't we, Ryan? Yes. There's some kind of a T-shirt. Like, you know, we've gone 50 episodes without palming off any swag to anyone. So what have we done, Marty? So we've actually got a fan of the show for quite some time now has been sending through some concepts for pinball T-shirts. And I guess we kind of didn't really want to necessarily, well, maybe I didn't really want to necessarily do the pinball T-shirt thing because I didn't, you know, we're just a little podcast and we sort of just do it for a bit of fun. and, you know, getting a T-shirt made up is serious business, right? What? Mrs. Pin did it like the first week. She was all in. Well, as soon as she did all her swag, I thought, well, we've got to do it. Yeah, that was a trigger point as well. I was like, fuck, if she's doing it, then let's get on with it. We have to. So we had done a very, very limited run of pinball T-shirts. you can see the design on our Facebook page that is the back you can see a very very attractive man modelling that t-shirt on the front you can't see the front but the front's just got a little small head to head logo on kind of like your pocket sort of position Marty, breaking news our most liked photo on Instagram is the back of your head there you go clean shaven yep thank you beardandblade.com.au Two flags in one episode There you go So here's what you're going to do We are going to give away Three t-shirts Ryan Okay Three t-shirts I don't actually know I haven't been involved in any of this process So I'm not playing dumb Ryan did one of those t-shirts And said I will never wear one That's actually what happened Yep I love pinball t-shirts anyway you just said you don't like pinball t-shirts okay so here's what you need to do because these t-shirts are super limited edition Ryan they are SLEs SLEs SLE t-shirts in order to to get one of these t-shirts don't tell me mate post a video on our Facebook page telling us why you deserve Don't do that. Oh, no. It's so embarrassing. Are you serious? Oh, fuck. This is how you get super elite. It's either that or you need to write a four-page essay explaining why you should, you know, be in the running to get one. No one's going to send in a video. Oh, okay. No, I'm absolutely kidding. But... Ah, okay. No, I'm not going to... I can't believe you. All I'm doing is I'm telling everybody that we've got t-shirts, and next week we will tell you the details about how we are going to run a competition. Ah, okay. Yeah, it was so simple. Like, you thought I was really going to do that. So it's not this week? No, no, no. Oh, gosh. This week was already a massive competition. We're going to do it again next week. Okay. When you've quit the show. Well, I've quit the show, and I'm not actually here. What else have we got? Is that it? I think so. I feel like there's meant to be something else. There is one more thing, Ryan. Wait. Yes? We are going to play you out after we've finished. Ah, yes. So are we explaining what it is? No. Well, you can explain. Okay, so good friend of the show, Andrew McLean, he made this song for me and Marty, and it was funny because when he sent the song, Marty, we were disagreeing about something. Like, you know, it happens every week, we talk about something. I was like, no, it's just like... Yeah, and I was like, fuck you, Marty. And then this song came in and I was like, ah, I love Marty. This is a great relationship. It was, it was. It was that moment. He must have sensed that we were... Look, it doesn't happen that often, But there are some times when we don't agree on things, and then it was this moment where it's like, yeah, I do love you, bro. It's like when, you know, you're going through a hard time in your marriage or relationship, and you dust off the wedding photos, and you're like, oh, fuck, look at us back then. We were so happy, and we do love each other. We do. Let's work through it. Yeah, so it was one of those moments. And, yeah, he made a song for us, Marley, our own, like, theme song, it's almost. It is our song. So, I love you, right? I love you too, Marty. Thanks, everybody. We'll speak to you again next week. See ya. Bye. How old are you? I'm 19. Hilarious. Hey, mate. Full-letter voting machine. So cheesy. She obviously is. You've got a more manly voice than me, Marty. I just, you know, I just want it to be magical. Just to average, I'll say, guys. Who'd have thought, what a surprise, that these two would hit it off so well. A podcast worth listening, the pinball chat is bristling. The whole world is under their spell. Oh, money and Ryan, not a bromance, more like a romance. And given half a chance, under the covers, they've both been lovers. Talking pinball, having a blast Time for the top 100 Opportunities are squandered Who's going to win the Stoker High? If pinball's got a spinner Ryan Lobson, he's a winner Muddy loses because he reads a flyer They have many pinball guests Jeff Fiola, he does jest How about Johnson, Gomez, Ritchie, Stuart White? Some of Koda's money likes. Hey, Highway, take a hike. And Ryan, likes a good, real set, obsessed. Money and Ryan, not a bromance, more like a romance. Give it a half a chance, after the covers. They both love it. Talking pinball and having a blast. When Monday comes around I wanna hear that vodka sound Of Marty sculling more of his gin He wants his iron maiden But A and D won't trade in The Hobbit, what a pain it's been And Ryan's on a mission Without his wife's permission To purchase more machines that make him grin She hates the walking dead She has nightmares in her head. She'd rather play Ghostbusters instead. Oh, money and riots. It's defying. How you've shot to fame so fast. More than a year now. Not too highbrow. And yes, I think it's going to last. 99. Oh! Well done, McCloud. Just make me win this. Nothing to do with the client behind all these items. Well, like, here's the thing. Boom. It's a cult, isn't it? Oh, I'm starting to cry.