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episode 14. at the table or what will we talk about? (1)

The Spinner Is Lit Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 40m·held·Jul 22, 2018
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.033

TL;DR

Kitchen table roundtable discussing pinball industry news and upcoming games as of July 2018.

Summary

Spencer Klingin hosts a roundtable discussion at his kitchen table with fellow pinballists Dan Durbin, Alex Lambert, and Brian Kast, plus his wife Rusty. The group discusses recent pinball industry news from July 21, 2018, including Team Pinball surprise Mafia game announcement, Dutch Pinball's Big Lebowski production crisis and GoFundMe, Jersey Jack Pinball's Pirates of the Caribbean spinner redesign, Alice Cooper prototype and lost Godzilla license, Houdini: Master of Mystery of Mystery reception and rumored Oktoberfest sequel, Thunderbirds shipping, and Heighway Pinball bankruptcy amid Alien Pinball delays.

Key Claims

  • Team Pinball announced the Mafia game on July 21, 2018, with 10 units ready to ship at $7,500, with no prior public hints of the game's existence

    high confidence · Spencer Klingin announcing news from 'today' (July 21, 2018)

  • Team Pinball is composed of former Heighway Pinball staff who built the Mafia game independently

    high confidence · Spencer states 'some of the guys that used to work at... Heighway Pinball... got together and they built their own game'

  • Dutch Pinball has approximately 40 games built and sitting in boxes that cannot be shipped due to contract negotiation issues with manufacturer ARA

    high confidence · Alex Lambert corrects earlier estimate: 'I heard 14 games... The estimate is around 40 games sitting in boxes ready to be shipped'

  • Jersey Jack Pinball removed the three spinning rings from Pirates of the Caribbean after the prototype stage for reliability reasons in route/home locations

    high confidence · Spencer: 'The one we had there was a proto, so it had the spinning rings, which are going to be lost when it comes home... they had to remove all of those... they said, hey, we cannot get this thing to work effectively in a route location situation'

  • Spooky Pinball lost the Godzilla license bid but acquired an unknown license they expect to announce within a year

    medium confidence · Spencer: 'they are excited cause they do have an unknown license, which hopefully in the next year or so we'll know about'

  • American Pinball next game after Houdini is rumored to be Oktoberfest

    medium confidence · Spencer: 'Their next game is rumored to be Oktoberfest'

  • Thunderbirds is priced at $4,999 and features a mechanical swimming pool that opens to reveal a ball-lifting elevator mechanism

    high confidence · Spencer: 'the price is 49.99... They have a mech where the swimming pool on the game opens up and the ball lifts up on a little elevator and then rolls down a habit trail'

  • Heighway Pinball has filed for bankruptcy and is in liquidation, defunct, while still managing Alien Pinball delays

Notable Quotes

  • “We talk about pinball, you dumbass.”

    Dan Durbin @ ~0:03:30 — Sets the casual, humorous tone of the roundtable discussion and frames the show's philosophy

  • “They came out with the game. There was no, you know, none of the speculation, none of the give us money, none of that nonsense. It's just, here we go. It's new in the box. It's ready to ship.”

    Spencer Klingin @ ~0:10:00 — Praises Team Pinball's business approach and contrasts it with other manufacturers' crowdfunding practices

  • “Either way, you're going to lose. People are going to be pissed off if they bought the game and the three spinners didn't work, and people are going to be pissed off because you removed it.”

    Dan Durbin @ ~0:25:00 — Articulates the no-win scenario Jersey Jack faced with Pirates of the Caribbean spinner redesign

  • “This is Jersey Jack. You expect pinball without compromise. That's the idea. They're supposed to be the ones who do it.”

    [name withheld pending review] @ ~0:27:30 — Reflects community expectations of Jersey Jack's premium positioning and execution standards

  • “Alice Cooper is absolutely amazing. In my opinion, the artwork, especially on the cab, is right up there with Big Bang Bar, one of the most beautiful cabs I've ever seen.”

    Alex Lambert @ ~0:32:00 — High praise for Spooky Pinball's Alice Cooper aesthetic compared to a legendary title

  • “I love the fact that while you're playing through it, it's got a bunch of like actual facts about Houdini and the things that he did. Like a pop-up video kind of thing.”

    [name withheld pending review] @ ~0:45:30 — Highlights innovative educational gameplay element in American Pinball's Houdini

  • “If I had endless funds, I'd probably buy it. Hell, I might end up buying one anyway if it's really an awesome game.”

    [name withheld pending review] @ ~0:60:00 — Expresses strong interest in HomePin's Thunderbirds despite premium pricing

Entities

Spencer KlinginpersonDan DurbinpersonAlex LambertpersonBrian KastpersonMarianne RustypersonSeth HolderpersonTeam PinballcompanyDutch PinballcompanyJersey Jack PinballcompanySpooky Pinballcompany

Signals

  • ?

    announcement: Team Pinball announced Mafia pinball game with zero advance notice, 10 units ready to ship immediately at $7,500

    high · Spencer: 'That just got announced today... there was no hint of this thing even being, you know, designed or built. It just came out of nowhere, out of left field'

  • ?

    business_signal: Dutch Pinball facing severe production crisis with ~40 Big Lebowski units built but unshipped due to manufacturing payment disputes; resorting to GoFundMe to complete project

    high · Spencer: 'Dutch kind of... They walked away from ARA, basically... they went to China and contracted... Now you've got a lot of people who think the game is amazing, but ain't going to pay for it'

  • ?

    product_concern: Jersey Jack Pinball removed three spinning ring features from Pirates of the Caribbean after prototype stage due to route/home reliability concerns, disappointing collectors seeking full feature set

    high · Spencer: 'they had to remove all of those... they said, hey, we cannot get this thing to work effectively in a route location situation'

  • $

    market_signal: Community sentiment indicates strong price sensitivity; multiple games priced $7,000-$7,500 viewed as high; American Pinball's $5,000 Houdini seen as better value proposition

    medium · Alex Lambert: 'I feel like it could be a little bit lower than $7,500'; Spencer on HomePin at $4,999: 'incredibly reasonable given how much games cost right now'

  • ?

    business_signal: Highway Pinball filed for bankruptcy and entered liquidation while Alien Pinball remained in delayed production, triggering industry supply chain and operator impact

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.302

0:00
Welcome to the Spinner's Lift Pinball Podcast. I'm your host, Spencer Klingin. Not with us tonight is our co-host and engineer, Seth Holder, who is on a continued sabbatical. But we love you, brother. We can't wait until you're back on the next episode. Tonight's episode, episode 14, At the Table, or What Will We Talk About? I got a whole table full at our kitchen table studios. Special guests tonight, and that includes Dan Durbin, Alex, whose last name escapes me right now. Lambert. Alex Lambert, and Brian Kast, and my lovely wife, Miss Marianne Rusty. Say hello, everybody. Hello, everybody.
1:05
We had a little fun tonight, do a little roundtable, just talking about pinball. In fact, Dan and I had been talking, we were all playing league together a few weeks ago, and I was like, yeah, I'd love to have you on the show, but I don't know what we talk about. And he's like, we talk about pinball, you dumbass. So here we are at the table. We've got wings and chips and salsa and guacamole. And tonight's podcast is sponsored by Heineken Beer. So we're going to get right into it. Brian, why don't we start with you? Just introduce yourself and tell us a little about your history of pinball. I'm Brian Kast. I'm 41 years old. My turn-ons include Funhaus and Gilligan's.
1:42
Started collecting back in 2003. First game was a Funhaus. Been collecting since. My experience with those started when I was very young because my grandparents had games in the basement, which was kind of a rare thing here in Sacramento. Some of them were pinball.
1:59
Right on. Dan? So I'm Dan DeVrend. I've been playing pinball pretty much my whole life, but I've been into owning pinball machines since 2005, 2006, and I started with a Judge Dredd. Alex? Hi, my name's Alex. I started playing pinball probably around early 2002, late 2001. I played a fishtails at McGee's Sports Bar in Citrus Heights and an Adams family. And ever since then, I've been hooked on.

high confidence · Spencer: 'Now, even though this company has now filed for bankruptcy, it is in liquidation, defunct. Heighway Pinball, an alien pinball'

  • “Within a year they had a fully working prototype game of you know completely redesigned and they redeemed themselves with the community and they bought themselves a ton of goodwill”

    Spencer Klingin @ ~0:50:00 — Acknowledges American Pinball's redemption arc from initial failures to Houdini success

    • American Pinballcompany
    HomePincompany
    Heighway Pinballcompany
    Mafiagame
    Big Lebowskigame
    Pirates of the Caribbeangame
    Alice Coopergame
    Houdinigame
    Thunderbirdsgame
    [name withheld pending review]game
    Total Nuclear Annihilationgame
    Golden State Pinball Festivalevent
    Capital Quarter Pinball Leagueorganization
    The Spinner Is Lit Pinball Podcastcontent
    Gene Cunninghamperson

    high · Spencer: 'Now, even though this company has now filed for bankruptcy, it is in liquidation, defunct. Highway pinball, an alien pinball'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Spooky Pinball lost bid for Godzilla license but acquired unannounced license expected within next year

    medium · Spencer: 'they are excited cause they do have an unknown license, which hopefully in the next year or so we'll know about'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: American Pinball overcame community skepticism from early failures (Houdini's problematic launch) to rebuild goodwill and establish product credibility

    high · Spencer: 'Within a year they had a fully working prototype game... completely redesigned and they redeemed themselves with the community'

  • ?

    design_innovation: HomePin's Thunderbirds features innovative swimming pool mechanism that opens to reveal ball-lifting elevator, integrating show IP into core mechanical gameplay

    high · Spencer: 'They have a mech where the swimming pool on the game opens up and the ball lifts up on a little elevator and then rolls down a habit trail'

  • ?

    rumor_hype: American Pinball's next game after Houdini rumored to be Oktoberfest-themed title; community speculating on design direction and appeal

    medium · Spencer: 'Their next game is rumored to be Oktoberfest'; community discussion about unlicensed theme viability and bar venue appeal

  • ?

    community_signal: Multiple new manufacturers (Team Pinball, American Pinball, HomePin) entering or expanding market simultaneously; competition for finite collector/operator base intensifying

    high · Roundtable covers 7+ active manufacturers all releasing/planning releases in 2018 timeframe with significant overlap in collector interest

  • ?

    operational_signal: HomePin Thunderbirds experiencing parts sourcing challenges during production; supply chain constraints affecting broader industry shipment timelines

    medium · Spencer: 'I've been hearing they're having some problems with getting their parts sourced and everything'

  • ?

    venue_signal: New games appearing at casual play venues (Coin Off Sacramento, Quarter World Portland, Alamo Draft House SF); expanding location-based play opportunities in NorCal

    high · Spencer mentions playing Houdini at 'Coin Off in Sacramento on K Street' and Big Lebowski at 'Quarter World' and Alamo Draft House; discusses venue routing viability

    • 2:28
    I played a couple of tables when I was young, but I couldn't remember what they were. Miss Mary Ann. Hi, I'm Rusty. I'm Spencer's wife. Hi, Rusty. Hi, everybody. I like Spencer. I played, you know, when I was a kid. I didn't start collecting. well I really never started collecting Spencer collects and I just go along for the ride although the screaming awesome black rose in our game room does belong to me woo right on love black rose I just gotta get the ramp back on this pitch it broke it the Golden State Pinball Festival but it's well done okay so we're at the table we got our quick bio we're going to talk about the news The biggest news was just broke today, and that'll be July 21st, 2018, is Team Pinball and the Mafia Pinball game. That just got announced today. What I think is really cool about this is there was no hint of this thing even being, you know, designed or built. It just came out of nowhere, out of left field, like, hi, here we are. We're a new company. We got a game. We got 10 of them in the box, ready to ship. Buy from us. so uh apparently some of the guys that used to work at dutch pinball and uh i'm sorry at highway pinball and uh well we all know the story about that if you don't well they went out of business in the middle of shipping alien pinballs which we're going to talk about it alien highway in a little bit but uh they got together and they built their own game it's a single level play fill. It's got a full LCD video screen, but it's a very simple, old school, early solid estate layout. No ramps, no weird toys or gizmos, single ball play. It looks pretty neat. It's got original artwork. It's got original music, but I'm looking at the price tag of $7,500. Alex, thoughts? Yeah, I feel like it could be a little bit lower than $7,500 just by looking at the game. I was it can probably be more like 6k or maybe the same price that your dainty would be well i just found out about this thing myself i'm really really curious about it i like the idea of a mafia-based pinball machine that's really never been done and released to the public yeah we have kingpin but again not really released to the public price sounds high to me but everything's high to me right now in terms of price but i'd like to see when i play it and see what it's about I'm not going to judge until then. And I'm pretty sure that's why they kept this quiet, so there wasn't a lot of harsh judgment out there in public before it came out. I agree, Brian. And the thing I like most about it was there was no, you know, give us money, we might build something in four or five years.
    5:15
    You know, it's just, hey, here's our game. We got it. It's ready to show. What are your thoughts, Dan? Same basic thing as the other guys. Price seems a little high. Theme, really, really cool. play field really really simple but how impressive that this company is going to bust on the scene with games ready to sell you know there are people ready to spend money there are people waiting for titles they'll sell the 10 let's see what they do after that yeah they're limited to 100 and i have no doubt with 7 billion people on planet earth uh and growing every day they can sell 100 of them i think the price point's a little high but considering this manufacturing United Kingdom, considering what labor costs are, you know, it makes sense. Rusty, any thoughts? I don't have any thoughts. I'm sketchy about the theme, but I do love me some kingpin. So if, you know, but then again, is it just basic, simple, or, you know, just too easy? You always got to worry about something being too easy. Excuse the music. That was part of the kitchen roundtable sun walking through. Ambience. We are recording live at the Kitchen Table Studios with Bud and Heineken. And no, we're not a paid endorsement. Wait, what? Yeah, I don't get paid for this, man. Wait, what? I'm leaving. I thought there was money. I thought we were going to make the cash. You know, final thoughts on Team Pinball, man. I sincerely root for these guys and wish them well. And for no other reason, I think they did it right. They came out with the game. There was no, you know, none of the speculation, none of the give us money, none of that nonsense. It's just, here we go. It's new in the box. It's ready to ship. And if you give us money, we're shipping your game that day or the next day. So kudos to you guys. I wish you the best out there. And I hope to play one of your games somewhere at a collector's house or maybe even on location soon. So next up, we got Dutch Pinball. the Big Lebowski and the Seattle 7 GoFundMe. Seattle 7 are seven guys from Seattle, or seven people. They might have a woman or two, I'm not sure. But they're trying to do a GoFundMe to raise money to get the Big Lebowski games completed and shipped. What are your thoughts? Why don't we go in reverse order and start with Dan? I don't think the Seattle 7 are technically from Seattle. Oh, really? I should probably do my homework then. The Seattle 7 is from the movie, right? Yes. So it's probably just that these are their mysterious benefactors who are, you know, hoping against hope that they can turn this debacle into something salvageable. Lebowski's a hell of a game. You know, Bride of Pinball 2.0 was a hell of a piece of hardware. I don't think that anybody wants to see Dutch Pinball fail, especially because a lot of guys have a lot of money tied up in it. but it does seem like they have just mismanaged themselves into oblivion.
    8:18
    Yeah, yeah. Brian, what do you think about that? So correct me if I'm wrong, but aren't there a bunch of games already built that the guys who built the games are holding on to due to a contract negotiation issue or something like that? ARA, the estimate is around 14 games sitting in boxes ready to be shipped. I heard 14 games. It was 40, isn't it? Yeah. My mistake. Thank you. So it does kind of suck that, you know, some guys are going to have to pay more money to get their games out or depend on a GoFundMe. I don't know the specifics of the GoFundMe, but, you know, it stinks for those guys who have already paid in full and then being told they need more money from them or whatever to get their games out. Kind of like Magic Girl. Yeah. I wish everyone the best. I hope people who have paid for their games get them at the price promised.
    9:07
    We'll see. Well, Dutch kind of like what? They walked away from ARA, basically. ARA manufactured the games. Dutch didn't want to pay for them when they were due, said they were being overcharged.
    9:19
    ARA essentially said, you know, we own half the design. So that's when they went to China and contracted with, I cannot remember the name. Right, me neither. Starts with an X. Yeah. But, yeah, just basically it was an incredibly bad decision. That should have just absorbed the loss, got the games, sold them, you know, then they would have gotten enough goodwill to have sold another batch of games. Now you've got a lot of people who think the game is amazing, but ain't going to pay for it. Right. Did everybody play it at Golden State Pinball Festival this year? Yeah, I loved it. Great game. Gosh, yeah. Yeah, me too. Yeah, absolutely. I never got near it. I thought you played with me. Uh-uh. I never got close to it. I thought you did. Well, you have to remember is when Gene did Big Bang Bar, he took a loss in every single game. Right. So it happens. Right. But if he decided to make something else, he would have had support. Yeah. Because people would have known that he got results. Yeah, it took him a while from what I understand. But, you know, at the end of the day, he delivered his promise and delivered the product. And that's where I'm at. Look, these guys have stumbled many, many times. I think all anybody really wants is to get the darn game to me because all of us have played them. It's an amazing game. It's a lot of fun. Sure is. It is a damn good game. This is Big Lebowski, correct? Big Lebowski, yeah. Yeah. And Bride of Timbuk 2.0, same thing, man. They took an okay game and made it a whole bunch better. You know, the hardware they created for that is YM, the software, you know, the retro kit. Really cool, man. And, you know, I'd like to see them do it on other titles because there are other titles out there that could really use a little freshening up.
    11:00
    On to, what else do we got? Does anybody else have a thought before we head out a big Lebowski win? it would sure be nice to have him out there someday yeah i you know i i hope for the best but uh it's just like i did play one at a quarter world two uh back on my november trip to portland right and i thought the game was all right it wasn't really you know up to full date and working properly i know one of the techs was telling me they've had problems with it all day long because it wasn't you know i've heard a few of those on location but then i've heard it was a couple of And there's one in Alamo Draft House, too, in San Francisco. So shout out to TJ Byer for that, putting that out there for people to play. Yeah, I've heard that one's been up and running and working great. Yeah. The Golden State one had problems pretty much the whole show. Upper Flipper was extremely touchy. But, you know. You're in a show, so. You're in a show. It's on free play. It's a show. Better be appreciative. Things break. Deal with it. All right, on to JJP and Pirates of the Caribbean. We're waiting to see that. Now, I did not play that at Golden State because we're really, really long. And since we've got a good friend of ours, a good friend of the show, and a brother in our league, brother and sisters in our league, the Bannister family is going to be getting one. So I figured I'll just hold out and play theirs.
    12:16
    I played. I played it. What did you think of it? I liked it. It was very deep in the figuring out how to shoot, what to shoot, why to shoot. that's going to take a lot of time. It's going to take a lot of time to try and figure that all out.
    12:35
    It's not simple by any means. Yeah, it reminded me a lot of WOS. Like, it's wide, it's big, but it's fast. I still think Pirate Ship I thought was pretty cool. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff to shoot at, you know, and the pirate deck was cool. I didn't manage to, like, get the ball to the pirate deck and then get it in the cannon and then shoot across the play field, which sounds pretty cool. The one we had there was a proto, so it had the spinning rings, which are going to be lost when it comes home. Except for the small ring in the middle. There's going to be a spinning disc, but not with the award functionality. I was a little disappointed about that, that they had to remove all of those. You know, but I admire the fact that they said, hey, we cannot get this thing to work effectively in a route location situation. I agree. Yeah, that is true. And I think that took a lot of courage to just be up front and say, we've got to retrofit this because when it hits the floor and it's out on location or even in a home game room, we want this thing to work reliably over and over and over again. So there was a little bit of backlash at first, but I think that subsided because I think people thought about it and realized, you know what, I'd rather wait another three months and have it where when I get it home or when I get it on location, it's going to work every single time. So I think that's much better. And I agree with you, Spencer. Either way, you're going to lose. People are going to be pissed off if they bought the game and the three spinners didn't work, and people are going to be pissed off because you removed it. Right. So would you rather have people be pissed off and it works, or people be pissed off and it doesn't work? Obviously, you're going to want people to be pissed off and have it work. And things happen. I didn't get a chance to play it. I was only at the show one day this year. But I did spend a lot of time looking at it because I didn't want to wait in line and there was no fast pass. and it's a good looking game. Yeah. That's the next year's show, Fast Pass. Yeah, that's a great idea. You know, we say that now and we're going to get a ton of email about that. You get to manage that. Which, if you'd like to be on the show or just have a comment or a thought or a suggestion or a death threat, you can email us at thespinnerislit at gmail.com. Please remember we're making a death threat to call it the proper person. Yeah, right. That's D-A-N. And I think that they blew the launch. Honestly, I mean, they haven't launched the game, but I think they blew the announcement. They brought it out too soon. They said they'd deliver what they can't deliver.
    14:59
    I think that people are going to miss out. I think they should have figured it out. I mean, I know you do what you got to do, but at the same time, this is Jersey Jack. You expect pinball without compromise. That's the idea. They're supposed to be the ones who do it. But they are giving really great tech support, and they're continuing to work. They just released a code update for Hobbit, and apparently it now has a there and back again mode. Wow, just like Lord of the Rings. Just like Lord of the Rings. Well, we'll just wait. I'm sure Martin at pinbits.com will take a look at it and have it solved in about two to three seconds, and we'll be able to retrofit it soon. There we go. 3.1. There we go.
    15:37
    Spooky. Well, you know, they set out the very first Alice Cooper. We got to play one of the prototypes of the show. What did you guys think of the game? Alice Cooper is absolutely amazing. In my opinion, the artwork, especially on the cab, is right up there with Big Bang Bar, one of the most beautiful cabs I've ever seen. I'm not too much of a new game person, but this is one I want. It's beautiful. It's fun. Even with the prototype code, I enjoyed it. And kind of like my buddy Dan, I'm a sucker for molded plastic stuff. So it's great. I want one. All resin.
    16:13
    It's all resin. And I said that to Charlie, and he's like, it's all sculpted resin. I also really like TNA. TNA, I think, is really terrific, especially the music, you know. TNA is an amazing game. Sorry to get a little bit off topic. That's okay. We're talking about Spooky, so you can throw anything out there you want. It doesn't have to just be Alice Cooper. Alice Cooper is awesome. I really want that game to be as good as it's supposed to be. We played it a lot. I played probably ten games on it at the show. Yeah, several games. Super cool. Super, super beautiful. Like, I could care less about Alice Cooper, not that he's a bad guy or a bad musician. He's just not really my jam. But, man, if I had, you know. Unlimited funds. Who was the artist? Well, not even unlimited funds, but if I just had, you know, what is it, $6,500? Something like that, yeah. That I just immediately wanted to throw into another pinball machine, it's the first on the list. So your toilet's on. There you go. Well, I just sold my Star Trek. Rusty? I didn't see I didn't get to play Alice Cooper I did play TNA You played Alice Cooper with me Did I play Alice Cooper with you? You played Alice Cooper with me So I played it with both of us You played it with both of us Did I really? Rusty was playing the Alzheimer's mode Rusty was way too drunk Well who knows Like yesterday I had such coffee and Baileys The coffee and Baileys And then the What was it? Morning, noon, night And the Thursday or Friday night That we had the absinthe And it just got a little weird Rusty's high on lye And glue drinker. What is pinball without alcohol? Anyway,
    17:44
    but what I do remember, of course it helps when a friend has one, is total nuclear annihilation. TNA is the bomb ditty, especially once I discovered you can backhand it in and get all your multi-balls fairly quickly, which helps move along through the reactor destruction. And you can steal other people's locks. which is a fun, the music on that. I want to sit and you guys are looking at my game room and my tour of hot tub right now. And all my games just about still, uh, soldier from the show. Cause I've been so busy working and doing family stuff. And that's why we haven't done an episode in three months. So all our listeners, all 14 of you, I sincerely apologize for that. But, uh, it's only 11 this episode because we're playing alone in a dark room with music like that and a really awesome game, uh, just out of the hot tub and relax with a adult beverage. There's nothing better, man. And a kick-ass black light belt. There you go, which I got to pull off the wall and get to your house, sir. Uh, yeah. So, you know, we're real excited for spooky. They just went to that, uh, big convention for licensing. And I guess they're a little, uh, down right now. Cause I didn't get the Godzilla license they wanted, but they are excited cause they do have an unknown license, which hopefully in the next year or so we'll know about. it sure was great. having them finally come to the show, and they were just the most awesome, wonderful people. And at their last podcast, their June 1st podcast, well, actually they did it in July, so two podcasts ago, they showered praise on all us NorCal peeps and our show pretty much the whole episode. So it's just really nice to hear. I'm glad to hear that. They're just the nicest people, man. I just wish them all continued success. So we're off to American Pinball, which by now we've all played Houdini, and found it to be – you know, the thing about Houdini is everybody's tight shots, tight shots. Yes, amazingly tight. Now, I did get a little more time on it at Coin Off in Sacramento on K Street. So if you're ever in the capital city of California, K Street, Coin Off, great place to play pinball and have pizza and beer or sodas or water.
    19:55
    21 and over. 21 and over only, folks. You must show ID. Regardless of your age. Right. Yeah, they asked me for ID. well you're so useful buddy I am I had a couple of pretty good games on it started getting the feel of the flow it is a tough game, makes you want to play better but it's not bad overall I think it's good for a step their next game is rumored to be Oktoberfest so in any order all my wonderful guests Dan, Brian, Alex and my lovely wife Mary Ann Rusty thoughts and the dog Bud, who you can hear in the corner, coughing up a lung. He's saying what he thinks of that theme. So he's really excited about Houdini. He's really excited about Houdini. He's excited about coin-op. I finally got a chance to play Houdini last week. I've been dying to get down to coin-op. I just haven't been able to get down there. I missed it. I missed it at Golden State. And it's a difficult game. The shots are tight, and I didn't do very well, but it's an absolutely beautiful game. I would want more time on it to play a little bit more. I grew up in a household. My dad's always been a big fan of magicians, so I'm well aware of Houdini and his history. And it's great. I want one. It's fun. I want to spend more time on it so I can progress in the game. It's a plain and simple, it's a fun game to play. Tight shots are great. It's going to keep you challenged. Why would you want a game that's easy to beat on your first ball? I like the price on it too yeah the price is great it's not like 6 or 7k you know like any of these other games it's 5k you know sometimes if you're lucky maybe 47 you know it's a lot of machine for the money and I think that they kind of borked the playfield layout I do think it's too tight I think that the theming is actually super cool in fact I love the fact that I know a lot of people have sort of like, you know, should have not liked it because of this. Excuse my language. Beep. But I actually really like the fact that while you're playing through it, it's got a bunch of like actual facts about Houdini and the things that he did. Like a pop-up video kind of thing. I love that. That's a great analogy. That's amazing. It's so good. Buster and I love pop-up video Spider-Man, the first Spider-Man movie. We'll watch that with a pop-up feature over and over again.
    22:27
    No. That's the mark of a profoundly disturbed mind. Octoberfest, a lot of speculation about that. I mean, Houdini, you know what? Again, considering how they started out with having that train wreck that John Papaduke threw together with, you know, foam core and, you know, foam core and six sexual fantasies or something. I don't know. Anyway. That's not Papaduke. That's Trudeau. Oh, that's Trudeau. Oh, wait. Hold on. Rib shot. there we go 86 that guy from pinball we did yeah he's completely we 87 within a year they had a fully working prototype game of you know completely redesigned and they redeemed themselves with the community and they bought themselves a ton of goodwill I wish them nothing but the best of luck because any new pinball is good pinball man if it flips and plays and has cool sounds and does neat things you know has a cool gizmo or something cool artwork i'm in man it may not be the best thing you've ever made but it's pinball it's good so we'll go with that octoberfest i just want to see it i i reserve judgment on any game till i actually get in front of the plate because you can see pictures you can see video it never does a game justice until you get up there and you pull the plunger and you start flipping and go oh wow that's really you know a light show a feature a sound effect something I'm just worried it's going to be like the Price is Right where the yodel guy goes up the walk with the yodeling and he's wearing the little leader hose. Is that Cliffhanger? Yeah, the Cliffhanger game where you have to get close without going over or he goes over. That would be a great video mode actually. How great is that theme? I know everyone's kind of not happy about the theme but I mean it's not a band it's not a movie I mean it's a cool different sort of theme it involves drinking and leader hosing and partying I mean schnitzel gruben I mean it's awesome pretty amazing see what I'd like to see like any bar gate get one of these that's why you know Rusty and I both absolutely love dialed in and people poo poo the thing all the time well it doesn't make any money because of the thing and that's because most people today cannot think for themselves They can't think for themselves. It's like they have to have a movie poster or a rock band stuck in their face to go, oh, I'll play that. One person said it looked like SimCity on crack. I love it. I love that game. Oh SimCity Yeah SimCity That game shoots amazingly well But we getting kind of off track because we already covered JJP But you know all these companies man they putting out good stuff So, yeah, an unlicensed theme talking about drinking and eating sausage. Eating sausage, yeah. Yeah, bratwurst and beer with your friends.
    25:26
    German beer maidens. I mean, come on, man. This is excellent. As long as at one point that game needs to be able to reverse the flippers left, right, right to left. Or it would be like in Tommy where you can do the whole game like that. It would be awesome. Yeah. There was already drunk multi-ball in the game. Thank you very much. And maybe some clips from Blazing Saddles about Schnitzel and Rubin. That's all I'm asking. Schnitzel and Rubin. Or Young Frankenstein with, he must have an enormous wunstacker. Right?
    25:55
    Bluka. Okay. So we're on to home pin, folks. by now you've all seen the Thunderbirds pinball you have to it is shipping now I've been hearing they're having some problems with getting their parts sourced and everything I don't know how much of that's true being so busy with work and everything I haven't kept up nearly enough lately but have you anybody seen the little video clip of the Met where in the TV show the swimming pool opens up and a rocket will come out of the swimming pool to launch. And they have a mech where the swimming pool on the game opens up and the ball lifts up on a little elevator and then rolls down a habit trail, I guess, back to the flipper. It is freaking cool. That's pretty neat. That is pretty neat. That looks pretty awesome. That's one of the best shots of pinball. It's really cool, you know, the way they integrated it. I mean, I remember watching the show in syndication when I was a kid. I'm not the biggest fan on the planet. it but uh you know what man i i can't i want it like everything i just want to play it so you know and i wish you well the biggest thing i think about it is you know is they were saying okay we're gonna get the price down well the price is 49.99 so uh five thousand dollars that's incredibly reasonable given how much games cost right now well it is but when you can get a brand new in the box Iron Maiden or Guardians of the Galaxy for $300 more, I mean... It's reasonable. Eh, we'll go with that. You know what? If I had endless funds, I'd probably buy it. Hell, I might end up buying one anyway if it's really an awesome game. I'm so glad it wasn't based after the fabulous Thunderbirds, the awful music group.
    27:38
    But it has Steve Ray's brother. Yes. Jimmy. Is it Jimmy or Jimmy Ray? So we have that. Alex, any other thoughts on Homepion? HomePen, I haven't really studied as much. Obviously, there are a bunch of pinball companies out there. I didn't hear about them actually just until today, believe it or not. Really? Wow. Yeah, normally I'm – You're missing the boat, man, because you're usually up on everything. Normally I'm on top of stuff. Usually I have to talk to you to find out what the hell is going on. I need to know what's going on with that, man. Yeah. I haven't been up on HomePen a lot. That's okay. So any other thoughts about HomePen, folks? Rusty's got nothing. She's run off and Brian's in the bathroom. That's okay. Smoke break, bathroom break. Smoke break. Yeah, I want one too, but she's out there and I'm – Well, my only thought about Thunderbirds. Yeah, your only thought about Thunderbirds? Is – Angry Birds. There's that. Is I'm so wrong. I knew it would go to Team America in the Team America theme song, which I won't repeat right now because it's got that four-letter word in it. So they curse. Like Sopranos. Yeah, Sopranos. yeah actually you know what I really like that game and I've never seen the show oh the show's great never seen it eventually I might sit down I just I so rarely have time to watch TV when I do on the rare occasion I'll just binge watch I binge watched the entire series of Breaking Bad cause everybody kept going you gotta see it you'll love it you know being a pest control guy and I finally I binge watched the thing in like five nights and I just I stayed up late every night and watched like five episodes or something that's been really Breaking Bad huh Oh, it was, Matt. But I ended up really liking the show. And that's why Spencer now cooks meth. Yeah, right, yeah.
    29:19
    That's why he's talking about buying new in-box pens. Yeah, no, no. Right? Thunderbirds, let's see it. I hear it's a System 11.
    29:29
    Yeah, no, it's got a standard dot matrix display. But, I mean, I hear that the gameplay-wise and everything is very, very System 11 era. Nothing wrong with that. No one cares about the theme. Let's see if they can get some into the U.S. and we can get a chance to try it out. I know they were really anti-let's not sell it in America for a while because Mike's an Australian with an attitude. But it looks like he finally came around and realized that if you don't distribute to us, not enough people really buy the games. So love it or leave it, right? There you go. Now, even though this company has now filed for bankruptcy, it is in liquidation, defunct.
    30:13
    Highway pinball, an alien pinball. It's been the constant talk of league nights locally with our Sacramento area group, the Capital Quarter Pinball League. It's been constant talk every night of league nights since the Golden State Pinball Festival.
    30:29
    We've all played it. We all absolutely have nothing but good things to say about it. And at the show, I don't recall seeing it ever go down. even though I've heard that many of the games have a lot of technical problems. That game played flawlessly. It's smooth. The flow is great. The call-outs, the music, I mean, the total package, man. I think, you know, as far as execution, I think they did a fantastic job. It's just like with the Big Lebowski, it's absolutely heartbreaking because that game is not going to get into the hands of nearly enough people who love pinball just to play and enjoy because now Rusty's like, you got two good kidneys. One goes to our son Seth with one kidney and the other one we're selling to buy Alien damn it. She really likes it. Then you can't drink yourself stupid every night.
    31:16
    Did anybody actually see the Xenomorph work? Yes. I did. We all did. We were playing a three player Rusty, me and Kendra and she got multivolved and got Xenomorph as I knock over the microphone. Good job. Thank you. That must be the Xenomorph.
    31:33
    Yeah, it worked flawlessly. The one time I saw it. What a great theme. I've always wanted an alien. And they built an awesome machine out of it, and Highway happened.
    31:44
    Yeah. What a disaster. That's why I go and just kind of jump backwards real quick to the new guys on the block. Not the Dutch. The team. Team Pinball. Wow. Ready for my next Heineken. The first one's already hit because I'm a lightweight. I'm Irish. I can't wear my boots.
    32:07
    Anyway. But can you beat your wife? Yeah, that's right. Tonight's episode is also sub-subtitled, The Spencer is Lit. Spencer is always lit. Shoot for him.
    32:20
    There you go. Once again, brought to you unofficially by Heineken. So anyway, yeah. Premium quality. So, Alex, talk to me about Alien Man Fox. Well, I played it, obviously, at Golden State. Yeah. It's the one that came out of Flipper Room and Concord. Shout out to Flipper Room and Concord, Mike, Pete, all those guys down there. I like the game. I thought it was really cool. I am disappointed to hear about Highway Weaving as a pinball company, you know, because I was hoping to, you know, play a little bit more aliens out there, you know, because I've always wanted an alien pinball thing to happen. And finally my wish came true, and it did. And I love the artwork on it. I love the little toys, gimmicks. I feel like the shots are cool. I did horrible in the game, believe it or not, you know, which is surprising for everyone to hear. But, you know. You're not always good, Alex. Humble brag.
    33:11
    You know, I actually didn't. Like, shot me in the face, you know. For our listeners that don't know Alex, he's an absolutely amazing pinball player. Rarely loses to anyone in most of the games of the Sacramento area. I don't cheat. He does not cheat. Has his high score. However, last week, Jeff and his lovely wife's party, their housewarming remodel party that we got invited to. I beat Alex on a game of Break Shot. First time I've ever beaten you on any game in league or outside of the league. So I'm tooting my own horn on that. Big accomplishment to you, my friend. And Alex enjoyed that. Thank you. That was fun, man. We had a good time. Big thanks to Jeff and his lovely wife Courtney for opening up your home to all of us. That was really awesome, you guys. You got a beautiful home and a great little collection of games there. And that break shot, Jeff, you did a beautiful job getting that thing chopped out. Way to go, Jeff. Sorry about all the things we broke. Yeah, right?
    34:14
    So I really enjoyed Alien. Like I said, it was only the show one day. I got a couple games on it. It was amazingly fun. The xenomorph worked. It was just a great game. I really liked it. Yeah, it does stink that, you know, there's kind of it's in limbo right now. but the way I see it, you know, somebody else might be able to take the design and build it and we can call it a legal alien. And we'll go from there. I love it. Wow. I love it. And we can have Genesis play. It's no fun being in a legal alien. That's right. Got to get Phil Collins in there doing something. I'm telling you. So ultra copyright infringement, you know, that's the next game we're building. Ultra copyright infringement. We'll just, we'll just borrow things without asking. So, all right. Yeah, another pity. I'm excited about that. Rusty thoughts.
    35:05
    Being a girl, I thought it was really pretty. I thought, being a pinball player, I thought the shots were really good, lots of nice things to shoot for, not overly confusing in its layout, pretty self-explanatory. Some games are, some games are not so much. this one was a winner in my book and it's not going to be available for me to buy so I'm very saddy-waddy about that and no dig on JJP because I know that they pioneered this and they do a really good job but it is by far the nicest use of an LCD in a screen or on a game like it was super well integrated, looked great had movie assets I mean And good sound calls, the whole works. Really, really just awesome game. And another company that was just brought low by rampant, rampant mismanagement.
    36:06
    Yeah. Building a prototype game, you know, a homebrew or whatever seems to be fairly easy these days.
    36:14
    Manufacturing many games, that's where the rubber meets the road. My only critique of it, and it's just in general, This business model has been tried many times with pinball. The base cabinet where you can just switch play fields multiple times.
    36:35
    Like pinball 2000. Pinball 2000. Even before where they had – P3. Yeah. Well, P3 is the one, and we're going to get to that in a minute, even though I didn't put it on the itinerary. Williams tried it with Congo. Right. You could buy the kit for Congo to put – I think it was India. Stern tried it way back in the day with No Fear. Yeah. Mike, it's been tried before, and, you know, it's a really good thing, especially with, like, a game where you can just disconnect the play field, stick it in your – It's a great idea. But it just never translates well. Well, it's work. Let's put it that way. Right. If you're an op, you know, okay, you may be able to swap the play field and call it a day. You know, don't worry about the cap decals. It doesn't matter. completely, but with P3, you can swap in the cab decals, but the way I see it, it's just work. And I'm not knocking any ops in particular. I'm saying in general that ops tend to be, from my experience, a little lazy sometimes. Not calling out anybody in particular, because I know there's ops out there that do amazing jobs here in the Sacramento area, but there are ops out there that can't even replace rubber rings and don't want to do it. So if you don't want to play as a rubber ring, doing a playfield swap is absolutely something you're not going to effing do. Right. Good point. Now, the exception to that, I think, may be with you brought up P3. And the thing about P3, the thing I most – and I played the prototype game.
    38:04
    It is. I played the game, one of the prototypes at Pinnagogo, what, three years ago. I played it at Golden State. I played it for the short time when it was on location at Coin-Off. It has a blackout mode, a blackout multi-ball mode.
    38:21
    Really fun game. I really enjoy it. I really, really enjoy it. I think, you know, everybody goes, you know, the different play fields and the video integration, all that. It's all great. The flipper design. The standard flipper design, other than getting stronger for ramps and other things, has really not changed drastically for 75 years. But Jerry Stellenberg, bless his heart, and a wonderful human being. We got to meet a few years ago and talk at Pinnagogo. I'm just the nicest guy, nice Texas boy. I love that. I've yet to ever meet a Texan in all my travels. I thought to him, too. Wouldn't give the shirt off of their back to help a complete stranger. Two years ago. That's just a Texas thing. But really cool dude and great design. It's selling, and bless his heart, man. I'm so happy for him. But the flipper design is radically different than anything before. I think that's just fascinating. But that's the one because the games are – The video screen is on the bottom. Right. And so you just change it up for play field. It's really cool and really interesting, and I wish them the best of luck, and I hope this is going to be the one that actually makes it. But as a rule, I mean, many people have tried it, and it's always a really neat, innovative idea, but somewhere in practical application, it just gets lost. I think with Highway, that was one of the many things where, like, don't reinvent the wheel. Just make a really kick-ass game, and we'll buy it, and we'll put money in it.
    39:40
    And their first title. Full Throttle. The theme, eh, didn't hate it, didn't love it. Oh, my God, that thing shoots great. The physics on that, the geometry, the kinetics, the layout, it's just a – the modes are fun. The layout's great. Rusty and I had a blast playing that when they had it at the show a couple years ago. Love that game. The one thing that would really keep me from buying one if I had the coin is getting parts and any tech problems because there's no tech support for that game. Yeah, but come on. When did we call tech support for a game? I actually called Stern a few years ago. It was still real new. Spencer, nobody likes you. Everybody loves me, okay?
    40:25
    Y'all pick on me because it's done out of love. No, I called Stern about my Royal Rumbles having an issue. I forget what it was because it was like eight, ten years ago. And they actually helped me with it. That's pretty awesome. Isn't that pretty awesome? And it was down at East, too, because it was obviously down at East. And then Sega and then Star Wars. And I was like a total noob. They were Stern when they made, back in the 80s, they started off as Stern Electronics. Right, back in the old days.
    40:51
    I still remember the local arcades when I was a kid, and they had an old row of the classic Stern games. Shout out to Sea Witch. All those old games are awesome. I hate that game. And Pinball. I like Pinball. That's a title I've never played. I played Pinball Hall of Fame. So, yeah. Pinball, playing Pinball. speaking of Stern we're on to Stern boys and girls so Stern Iron Maiden is selling like hotcakes everybody's thumbs up except Dan awesome game because I know Brian and I are both huge Iron Maiden fans that is an amazing game I mean it makes me harder than Chinese arithmetic it really does it's really friendly to new people too I feel like I saw a lot of new casual people because the basic rule is hey you know the arrow's lit it's it's blinking shoot there yeah that's what i tell people um really having fun with that game guardians of the galaxy with the i forget the dude's name that added the the the software update with the we get all the songs from the movies um not sure okay uh george uh his has that and so does the one at uh uh cheddar's house eric's um i was over there the other day and played it um because they only came with like four songs or something from from the movies but there's a software update somebody did a secondary party and uh forgive me for not remembering who it is um another heineken i'll probably remember yeah um but uh it adds all the songs so you got like you know escape the pina colada song uh they've added some great and first people kind of but the code updates i like i said i just played with the latest code updates and eric's the other day plus the music mods and it's really fun the modes are great you can stack the modes you can do like it's got all kinds of really cool things on it and uh it's really becoming a really awesome game you know it's going to need a new update soon where you make insensitive comments and you get fired from the game oh there you go here we go james gun mode there you go there's my room shot i just you'll hear it in post but yeah no but you know what man it's it's way better than I thought it was rusty. We played in a bunch at Golden State Pinball Festival. It's a fun game. And we didn't really worry about it because we know, like, you know, 18 people who are going to buy it. So, you know, we weren't going to miss it at all because it'll be right there. It's a fun game. The first time I played it, I wasn't really impressed. But the more I played it, it's a fun, flowy game. Yeah. The ram shots on it are really fun. The Groot Head is kind of cool. Magnus, interesting The modes are great, you know, as the rule set's developing It's becoming a really fun game Iron Maiden, I mean That's absolutely Spectacular Yeah, I mean, it's the total package And congratulations to Keith, that one For literally knocking one out of the park on his first game He hit a grand slam It's got everything, it's got an amazing rule set I mean, the theme The art package The music, the callouts, the sound effects they just did it right. I mean, it's, you know, if it's not the best-selling game they've ever done, it's going to be darn close.
    44:06
    Oh, that's not even close. Yes. Spencer, I know Iron Maiden fans who are not pinball people who have bought one. I knew that would, too. It's amazing. You know, I was very much, if it's not Derek Riggs, I'm not interested. But the artwork looks great. Yeah. The songs are great. And with Iron Maiden, choosing the songs is incredibly difficult because they've got at least 40 good songs that could have gone on. They're a huge catalog. I mean, they've been around since, what, 80s? 70s. Around with Metallica. That's right, 78, 79. That's right. They've been around. The Soundhouse tapes. Yeah, they've been around forever, and it's awesome. It's the first game in a long time where I was like, I need to buy a new game, and I've never been a fan of new games in terms of wanting to buy one out of the box, but this one, I've got to get it. Yeah. It's absolutely a must-own for me. we need to have a music night where we sit down and listen to a lot of good old records what's the seventh son from beginning to end and you know well that's what it does need it needs an update so stern if you're listening if you can get through rhyme of the ancient mariner the song and one ball you should get a bonus damn right you should get a huge bonus because that's a long song big bonus now the next rumor title and the release should be coming up very soon in the next well I heard next week but that's just a rumor Deadpool it is not going to be based on the movie it is going to be based on the comics and Rusty's boo like X-Men Rusty will watch the Deadpool we don't have the second one yet because it's not out yet we have the first one, Rusty will watch that movie over and over again and for no other reason just to see the scene with the I can kind of see why they're doing it out of the comic too I just figured Rusty was a Ryan Reynolds fan okay yes it is true I am the only person who really enjoys Green Lantern not the only one I do too I own it I watch it I like it Ryan Reynolds if you're listening to this for some odd reason please come out to SAC and maybe autograph Rusty's copy of Green Lantern there we go that would be good I actually like that movie too I didn't think it was great but I didn't think it was horrible you know it's always hard to do an origin piece because you've got to tell the story for people who don't know the mythology. That was maybe the worst piece of casting in the history of bad casting. Well, I can think of worse. Deadpool is great casting. Give me another. Wait, wait. Ryan Reynolds' The Green Lantern was not good casting. Oh, I thought you said bad catting. Meow. Bad catting. Bad cats. I played bad cats at the show this year. Steve Boo. And unfortunately, well, one I couldn't hear if he came here or anything, but that's a normal show. the flippers were not at full strength. So it was really frustrating. Bad bats? Bad bats. And I want to play more of that game, and I want to like it. I mean, I don't know. It's quirky. I love anything with the backboxing animation. Back to the old school EM days when I was a wee lad going to the local pool hall, which we weren't supposed to go to because it was seedy. It was in the seedy part of town, and people smoked, and you could drink beer there. Because you could score perils. And you could shake the game and get up a certain light combination, and then boom, win a free game. Right. Leon Ramp in the freeway.
    47:25
    Yeah, so Eugene Jarvis and Sidman are 2012. Stern is at Comic-Con this weekend, and they're having an amazing weekend, I'm told. And they've got a lot of good stuff going on. They've got Rockstars. They've got Testament. They've got Kerry King from Slayer. They're signing autographs. And they've got pinballs on free play. And they've got daily tournaments, you know, high score tournaments. and people with more money than they know what to do. Stern, sell, sell, sell. Sell, sell, sell. So God bless Stern, man, and the distributors who are selling at Comic-Con because, you know, you guys are getting the word out and promoting pinball. Proselytize, brothers. Someone steal me an Iron Maiden sign. Yes. Those Iron Maiden banners are way cool.
    48:07
    So we've got Stern going on. And then our last one is Deep Root Pinball. Deepridge stayed amazingly quiet since their announcement other than their you know they've been real good about you know sponsoring pinball tournaments and you know pinball shows Texas Pinball Festival they were a sponsor they're a sponsor of Replay FX and they're keeping quiet if you're in the know on pinball if you're really into the drama what's going on yes they did hire John Papaduke but they've also hired the great Barry Orsler and the great big man himself.
    48:46
    Ennis Nordman. Ennis Nordman, yeah, maker of such great games as Whitewater and the Elvira games. Indy 500. And, of course, Barry Orsler. I'm going to go back to Barry Orsler's first game, which I played back in junior high at the local arcade in my hometown. Phoenix, Williams-Phoenix, great game. I think it was 77 or 78. and then later on I mean he made us look like it's pinball my god one of the best game or guard Gorg are which is sitting I just have to unpack it and put it back together so we can play it space shuttle space shuttle yeah the machine that saved pinball yeah it really did you know so you know they've got they've got a huge pool of talent they've got most a pro player just helping them out now Bowden, Stephen Bowden Thank you That guy's got, him and Bowens Bless their hearts man Because those guys are like just International goodwill Ambassadors for pinball And they're always smiling, always laughing Every time I watch a Stephen Bowden video I can be having the worst day And he makes me happy Because he's just such a happy-go-lucky dude Having a good time playing pinball He's over at Deep Root now And segue back to Spooky If you don't know, Bowen Kearns is developing rules for the Spooky Games. So with Bowen developing rules of Spooky and Steve Bowden over at Deep Root. You know the cool thing about Deep Root man they haven asked for a penny from anybody and they actually trying to help rectify some situations with the whole John Papaduke mess
    50:28
    And, you know, I can't wait to see what they've got. The only thing that turns me off is just like with Dutch Pinball when they first came out, you know, their arrogance and their hubris. You know, we're going to be the greatest pinball company ever, and we're going to show Stern. God's got news for you. You're not going to show Stern anything. Everybody that's ever played a pinball machine in the last two decades, if you go to a show and you see Gary Stern, my advice, sir or ma'am, is to walk up, shake his hand, introduce yourself and say, Mr. Stern, thank you. Thank you for when the darkest times, when pinball was nearly dead, you kept the flame going. You kept manufacturing pinball machines. I mean, I can't even count how many times they almost went out. Everybody else gave up.
    51:14
    And Gary Stern and Stern Pinball never quit. Hey, you know, there were some lean times where their games weren't breaking any, you know, they weren't breaking the sound barrier. They weren't doing a lot of innovative stuff. But, damn it, they kept games on the line. And they kept new pinball machines coming out for us to enjoy. And, you know, if you're a pinball fan, you do owe a debt of gratitude to all those guys at Stern Pinball who even when times were really lean and they were just barely hanging on, they kept the doors open and they kept making games for us to enjoy. So God bless those guys. And a big shout-out and another hit of this Heineken to Stern Pinball. It's a beer, though. They know how to be Stern. They're not up to Stern being Stern. Well, up next is a scotch, so it's going to get really good tonight.
    52:03
    Well, Deep Root thinks they can buy their way in. They bought a lot of good talent. They're throwing a lot of money at sponsorship. Hopefully they'll use some of that money and make a great game or two. But so far, all they've done is talk. Right. But they haven't shown us anything. But they're staying quiet on that end. And they've got Texas Pinball Festivals next year coming up in March. Well, we've got Expo coming up in October. Nobody cares about Expo. Everybody cares about Expo. What's Expo?
    52:38
    That's kind of mean. It's when they announced Pirates of the Caribbean last year. No offense. We love you, Rob. Texas Pinball Festival is great. Golden State Pinball Festival is great. Expo is Expo. Yeah. It's an industry show and always has been. If you're going to make a splash, you're going to make a splash at Expo. Yep. But, yeah, the arrogance, you know, I think that's why I appreciate, like, Spooky so much. Well, is it arrogance or are they naive? Does he think that he could buy a bunch of designers and a bunch of software guys and a bunch of pinball personalities and sponsor a couple events and have that turn into success? Or do they have the magic to make good games? Because that's the theme of the day. That's all it is, is good games, you know. These companies that we talked about tonight, you know, Highway, they made a great game. Boom, gone. Dutch, they made a great game. Boom, gone. You got other companies that are making games that seem sketchy or so-so. They're still around, you know. Who knows what this team pinball thing is going to be? Who knows what Thunderbirds is going to be? You know, maybe they have something going on. Maybe they don't. Maybe they'll last. Maybe they won't. Deep Root, they need to stop talking and start building. Agreed. I'm getting tired. Ozzy Osbourne said something many years ago. Really good. Really profound. He said, you meet a lot of people on the way up to ladder success. Don't screw them because you meet them on the way back down as well. Well, Ozzy Osbourne also said that was a live bat. Touche sir Touche Yeah right So you know again I wish him I really don't wish anybody ill will It's where the rubber meets the road Set the game in front of me at a show Or a local watering hole Arcade Public place And Bud say hello That's our dog Bud He's got a really big head No, he's not a pit bull. He's a German short-haired pointer. He's going into multi-ball right now. He's going into multi-ball. Like Aerosmith. And until you have a game to show off, shut up. Well, you know, they haven't really talked too much. Shut up. Let's make pinball great again. Shut up. Make a game. Pinball is already great again. Let's see what Barry can design. Let's see what Dennis Norman can design. Let's see what these guys can do. But until then, shut up. So, well, now we're on to pinball memories. And I had the guys over last week, not including Alex. I don't know if you were out somewhere. But, you know, Brian and Dan came over. We spent about four hours just talking about the old days, the glory days of pinball and Sacramento Pinball Group and RGP. And you guys have been in the hobby as far as buying games and owning games quite a bit longer than me. So, Brian, I'll let you start, man. Just talk about the glory days in the northern California area. Well, I'm not even really old school compared to the guys I met when I started collecting.
    55:42
    I bought my first game in 2003. I had an interaction with Cliffy very shortly after buying my fun house. And I drove to San Ramon, as many of us have, to go visit Cliffy because he is one of the greatest people in the hobby. Super friendly. Hear, hear. has done a ton of good work along with folks like clay and pam to keep games alive and i remember going out there and getting some protectors from my fun house and ron chan had a very nice twilight zone sitting in the garage and you know cliffy pointed out and i remember him saying oh this seems great he's like man he's done a great job shopping this cliffy and he hadn't even touched it yet and that's how i met ron chan who is one of the oldest people i know not in terms of age He's been turned on like no man in the hobby.
    56:28
    Yeah, all the people. Ron, Cliff, all those guys. Just the most awesome, just kind, generous, decent people out there. I know it was different a little bit back then. You could go into RGP back in those days, and the designers were on there fairly regularly. There was lots of conversation about game rules and how to complete games, where you could go play, league nights. Keep on running. the natures and along that along that line and people would have parties and they'd announce them on the internet uh and that's something right nowadays you just you don't hear you don't see some random guy saying hey man i'm having people over to my house come on over here's the address but guys like rob bell would announce stuff like that online saying hey arnold's fun night yeah you know that's how i got into into the scene in sacramento rob bell threw an invite on rgp hey anyone in northern california wants to come over if i don't know you drop me a line said hey uh i'm new to pinball but uh i'm here in north cal would love to come over okay you sound cool come on by sucker i mean no no no i've not never met rob bell but i feel like he's a chill dude he's a really good guy he is i've only met him a couple times that's how it was Mr. Valley. It was a much, much, much smaller and still tight-knit, as it is today, community. So things like that weren't unheard of. And now in 2018, with a few exceptions, you don't really hear about people doing open invites to parties. I know Dayhawk does one where he announces it and you have to RSVP and all that good stuff. Yeah. And it was just smaller. Oktoberfest parties. Yeah, but he sends out invites to people to know. Every year I get invited, and I've yet to be able to make it something. It always comes up. Make a goal to come this year. I'm going to. As sure as I'll try, because Lauren's another really, you know, he's a righteous dude. We actually always have a big toast just to say thank God Spencer didn't make it. Probably do. Huzzah. You know, back then, back then, SPG, I think I was the 12th person to join. Wow. And the meets back then, it was either the first or last Thursday of the month. Forgive me for not remembering, but there was nights you could show up and no one would come. That's such a trip. It's so mind-blowing. Yeah. It was weird. I remember showing up at James Eads' house one night, and I was the only person that showed up. One night, a guy named Damon, who I think is out of the hobby now, he was in the middle of winter, and me and two people showed up. Folsom Damon, right? Yeah, Folsom Damon. Yeah, that dude was cool. And we showed up, and three people showed up. Yeah. It got, you know, as the hobby got a little bigger, it did blow up. The biggest one I can remember is when Todd and Susie did the Big Bang Barbecue for their Big Bang Bar opening. And that's where I met a whole bunch of other people. And it was great. It's still nice now. But back then it was just, it was much smaller. And it had that real tight-knit family feeling. It was great. It's still great now. But back then I have many fond memories. Yeah. I got to see a little bit of that. Our first Pinnagogo, 2011, I think. I didn't know anybody. I was just talking to people online, a couple of people. We show up at the show. Dottie immediately, before we even got to the door, walked up, introduced herself, invited us to her house to play pinball. Her and Keith. Bless their hearts. And they didn't even know us. Yeah. And we get in. We pay our money. we meet uh steep faith jungle queen shout out to jungle queen and just couldn't be nicer and then we uh sparky invited us to the barbecue we brought i don't know what we brought we brought a dish or something and we started meeting people i met maverick and we met of course met sparky and you know a bunch of the the you know guys uh hector and like that a bunch of the old school Sacramento Pinball Group guys.
    60:32
    And, you know, wow, just an amazing group of people. Todd and Susie and Greg Owen and, you know, and Brad, Mr. Grumpy. Mr. Grumpy Pants. Love you, Brad. Love you, brother.
    60:47
    Not to his face. You know what? Brad's one of the sweetest humans that's ever walked the earth. He's like, you know what? He's like a cactus. He's prickly on the outside but sweet and awesome on the inside.
    61:02
    Why don't you know he's juicy on the inside? I don't know if he's juicy. You better be careful. Some cactus, you eat them, they'll make you vomit.
    61:09
    But Brad, well, because he's – no, it's just the best group. The pinball people are the best people. Especially in Sacramento. But I love telling those stories, you know, because everybody's just so awesome. They just welcome us in. And, you know, you brought up Cliffy. Cliffy's agreed to be on the show. I just got to reach out to him. We got to set a date. He's going to be on the show. I want some on the show. Dan, your origin story, if you will, sir. It's a lot like Brian's. It was probably around 2005, 2006. Same kind of thing. I went to Pentagogo like you did. I met a lot of people at Pentagogo. I went to Rob Bell's party. That's where I met you officially. That's where I met Brian. So you guys have been together since like 2005.
    61:50
    Yeah, we responded a lot via email because of SPG, Levi, we never met face-to-face until one of Rob Bell's pinball fest. I want to meet you, Super B, for years. I want to meet you, Super B. And then we finally met, and now we play in a league together. It's not I want to meet Gunstar, hero. Oh, excuse me.
    62:10
    We met at Rob Bell's. We both got restraining orders on each other immediately, and we've been kicking it since then. Boom for I don't know why.
    62:20
    You know what's funny, too, is we went to that first thing at Rob's. And that's where I met Cliffy. And I was already familiar with this product. And so was Will, because Will came to me with that, came with me to that. And I remember going to Will, I'm just like, Will, this is Cliffy, you know, who makes Cliffys. And Will was honestly impressed. He's like, dude. And like, it was such a, it was such a cool thing to go and, you know, have people open up their homes. and uh you know then of course the next logical step is you have people over to your house which i started doing once or twice a year and uh and then once you started having people over to your house then you know you got to really start meeting people because they'd come over play your games hang out we had guys like al would come around of course steve greg uh you know all the all the old school guys chris woodruff oh geez yeah chris woodruff andy we're after you We don't know. That's what we just said. Wow. He's around. He's a maverick. I don't think he's gone. And then we had other guys who they'd come in. I mean, they'd be a big part of the group. They'd borrow tools. They'd buy, sell games. And then just they'd wander off to do something else for them. Maybe it wasn't the long-term calling. They felt the bug, and then they got out of it. And I kind of can relate to that because I was sort of burned. and then the link thing started and I started playing with you guys and, you know, it relights the fire, you know. Playing is what makes it matter, you know. A lot of people will get by for so long on just buying and selling machines. But when you play them and then you play them competitively and you have the steady meetups, and I think that's what killed SPG was we lost the steady meetups. Steady meetups, yeah. It wasn't once a month, once every other month that we were getting together. We need to maybe bring some of those back. We do and it would be great. uh it's part of it is it became almost impractical uh it exploded at one point and there was like 200 people there was like 300 plus people we had guys who joined on the east coast simply trying to buy and flip games and we kind of lost track of we're looking for people in sacramento bay area yeah and it kind of got bigger than what it should have in my opinion uh others may feel differently of course but there's still a core group of folks involved in that it's just gotten a little bit. It's almost extinct. I still love it. If I accept a post, I would. I just don't have it anymore.
    64:53
    Like Dan said, you drift in and out. Life gets in the way. Right now, I put in 67 hours this last week at work. When I'm not doing that, I'm at Taekwondo with the boys. Russ and I are doing something. I'm in an off-duty myself. I'm not playing much. Basically, I play at league and that's it. I don't turn on my game too much anymore. I'm in a hiatus when it comes to fixing the ones I have and for people. Right. And it's an ebb and flow thing. For me, it just goes in and it goes out. What's going to happen, you know, maybe tomorrow, maybe in two weeks, is I'm going to get that fire underneath me, and I will go full throttle for a while, and then I'll calm down a bit. Do me a favor and fix your games, Brian. Yeah, I got to do the same thing. Probably tomorrow. Fix your games, Spencer. I'm going to work on it tomorrow, get stuff set back up. We got to pull the ugly blue AstroTurf out of the game room. Whatever, it's awesome. Yeah, right. And I got to pull the cool blacklight Mountain Creek painting off the wall in the hot tub room. Just go to Brian's house to his Tiki room. I just have to paint all the other stuff that glows in that room that wasn't me. Awesome. Are you going to have animatronic stuff like the Tiki Hut? I'd really like to. The Tiki Hut is one of my favorite attractions. I, the tiki room. Uh, I know how to do it. I just have never attempted it before. I'll cite, I'll sidetrack and tell us a quick story. We went to Disneyland. We took, uh, Malcolm, you've met, and you guys haven't met our daughter, Hannah, uh, who's married and lives up, up North, up by Chico and Paradise from the Goya area. But, uh, on the second day of Rusty and Malcolm got sick with a bug, stomach bug. So my daughter Hannah and I went out on our own and it was really nice because we had just daddy daughter time. She was nine at the time. She had been previously with her mother and her mother's family. She's from my first marriage. And I had never been, this was my first time ever going to Disneyland. And I'm 35.
    66:51
    Because my parents suck. I didn't know Disneyland was around. Yeah, right. God bless them. My parents did the best they could with what they had, which wasn't a lot.
    67:03
    But she took me to Tiki. She goes, Dad, you got to do this. Because she'd done it before. and that's my favorite place in Disneyland because I got to share it with my little girl I'm getting re-cleft so stop re-cleft brought to you by Heineken thank you honey just so the audience knows Spencer and Rusty have more kids than Miss Williams we got kids everywhere there are a few of them kicking around so thank you dear just like Alex is my son I didn't know exactly that's what she always says and didn't want to this day every time we go to Disneyland damn it Tiki Hut because we got the Dole Whip and I just love that everything in that whole place the Tiki statues the birds the chairs I mean everything sings and dances the flowers sing Disneyland in 16 years well you know it's funny you brought that up but you know when I was younger you know early 80s mid 80s Disneyland had awesome arcades They had three great arcades. You had Teddy Bear's Swingin' Arcade in what was now Critter Country, and they had all the old-school games that they had retrofitted to be a Disney theme. So instead of, like, the Williams Big Golf, it was, like, Big Owl's Putt-Putt, and they took the figure and made it look like the bear from the Critter Country Jamboree. You had the Penny Arcade on Main Street where you had old-school pigeon bats. the, I don't know what the proper name is, but like the movies where you can turn the peep shows I love them. I love those. To this day, I love those. And for the newer games, you had the second floor of the Star Cave, which always had these brand new pinball machines lined up against the wall. And I remember going there and playing high speed when I was a kid, and my only goal was to make the siren turn. And they always had the cool old games, and all they have left now is the Indiana Jones across from the ride, which is probably the most played Indiana Jones on the planet. Last time we were there, they still had the Tron.
    69:09
    That was Flynn's Arcade, I believe. Yeah, Flynn's Arcade. That was a California adventure. They had a Tron Elite. They had a Whirlwind. They had a Whirlwind and a Cyclone, which flopped out.
    69:20
    Those were not owned by Disney, none of them from what I can recall seeing. That Tron was just a train wreck by the time we got there. Oh, when I was there last time, someone had stolen the LE plate off of it.
    69:32
    But all those games, you know, where they were being stored was the second floor of the Starrcade, and that's now been turned into, as of today, an overflow line for Space Mountain. I would love to see them do a Flynn's Arcade one, and if they remodel Tomorrowland, I think that'd be a great fit, but we'll see what happens. Or Wreck-It Ralph. That was a long time ago. Alex is on some, you know. They still have a Wreck-It Ralph. Last time I was there, it was still there. I don't know where it is now. I haven't been since November.
    70:01
    But, you know, they had excellent arcades when I was a kid, and I'm sure before that, 50s, 60s, 70s, they had amazing stuff. And it's stuff you don't see anymore, except in places like Museum de Mechanique. I love that place. Have you ever been to San Francisco, California? I always think about that place. Museum de Mechanique down on Fifth Street. Shout out to Dan and Ed and Dan Zielinski. They have a – well, last time I was there was about two years ago because we went to an A's game.
    70:30
    And me, my boss, my son, my oldest son, and his son, the four of us went to an A's game. And then we went down Pier 39, went to Museum of the Mechanic. The Adams family played flawlessly. The Indiana Jones played flawlessly. All they had to wait in line. The Pirates of the Caribbean was beautifully kept and played flawlessly. The Pitching Bass played great. Everything. I played Death Race and it was freaking awesome So just another comment For the Bay Area and Northern California folks Remember that Playland, not at the beach, is closing So please get out there I actually got teary eyed When I had to read that It's not cool That they're closing, but please go out there And put some money into it Stuff's being auctioned right now Not yet, not yet The auction's not due until September And if you're the proprietors of this And you're happy to be listening to it I have an idea where if you want to move, where you could possibly move to. Sacramento, where rent's cheap, babes. Come on up. We'll support you. I'm serious. Reach out. There's just a big article in the Bee about trying to get new stuff and revitalizing old Sacramento. Yep. I'll be there if it's not my job to give you my own parking space. So, you know, if they're willing to have a cheaper rent in old Sac, you know, they already have the train museum. You'd feed off that crowd. It's always crowded. It's something they should consider if they're willing to move. There's plenty of space. Hey, it's not at the beach. That's why they call it Playland off the beach. It's not at the beach. Moons of Sacramento. Playland off the river. Tell San Francisco to pack sand because they're way too expensive, too pretentious. They have too many pinballs. It's a hop, skip, and jump from the train museum. It's right underneath the freeway from Golden Wall. You can probably make money.
    72:09
    I do want to touch back on Clippy, and he's agreed to do the show, and I just got to reach out to him. We've got a set of day when Seth can be available as well.
    72:18
    because we're going to go into that. Actually, we're going to go into that after your segment, so remind me to talk about Cliffy.
    72:25
    But thank you, Brian, for that PSA for Playland out at the beach. They've got some things that you'll never see anywhere else in the world. They've got, what, one of four Laughing Styles left, which have known where they are. Yeah.
    72:38
    Never liked Laughing Styles. But you know what? They've got other games. I mean, it's a point where these are old-school amusements that you just, you're not going to see anywhere else. And just like the circus, which is largely gone now, which there's still a few small ones out there. Join the circus. There's still, right. There's still, thank God we have one freeway exit from where we're sitting at the Kitchen Table Studios is a six screen drive in which is still active. And especially during the summer, my lovely wife, Rusty and I and our children, we went three weeks in a row and see great movies. pinball, drive-in movies, bowling, soda pop and glass bottles, man. These are things that make America truly great. They're simple things. A&W. If you're anywhere near an A&W this summer, okay, these are my two prescriptions for summer fun. Inexpensive, the whole family can enjoy. You find an A&W that serves A&W root beer and a glass mug. And you go enjoy. You find a place that serves dip cones, a foster freeze, a tasty freeze, especially a dairy clean. Get yourself a vanilla cone, chocolate dip, and enjoy, folks. That's summer. That's America. So we're going to turn it over to Mr. Alex with the trip report because he has a trip report from today. This could be a recurring segment, sir. So your trip report. Go. You're on, Alex. Today I drove about an hour away from the house to check out a Scandia Golf Land in Fairfield. Now, I'm sure everybody remembers Scandia Family Fun Center. Yeah. The one in Sacramento has zero pinballs. I mean, zero pins. They got a great shooting gallery. They have a, which is broken. Okay. Yeah, I know. Yeah, Sacramento, Scandia is a gangster's paradise.
    74:26
    So I went down to Scandia Golf Land. By the way, they are now a Golf Land property. They were able to keep the Scandia name three years ago in the spring. They have a new sign. Yeah, they have a new sign, which looks pretty sexy. It is pretty hot. You know, no more burnt-out, scanty signs like the one in Sacramento is.
    74:46
    Just talk about the games, man. So I played a crap ton of NBA Fast Break down there. They've got seven games right now. Don't they have two? Two Fast Breaks that are linked. And they're linked. Yeah, which, thanks, shout-out to TJ Byer for keeping those up. TJ, you're the man. Yep, they have some NBA Fast Breaks. Yeah. Monopoly, Revenge from Mars, NASCAR, Shrek,
    75:11
    and Avengers, Boo, and obviously X-Men. You like Avengers. I actually do. Somebody had to. You know, it's like Elvis.
    75:22
    Bud! You're too young to drink. Bud hates the Avengers Bud telling Brian he doesn need another Heineken And Bud telling me stop liking his Bronte by Heineken Bronte by Heineken So, you know. So, yeah. And what else did Brian drink? Low-calorie venom. Wow. What could possibly go wrong? Energy drinks and beer. And chicken. Can't see wings. Thanks. We live in a Rob Zombie now. Guys, please, touch the salsa, the chips, and the guacamole. It's going to go over. It's also late, everybody.
    76:01
    It's not like I was pre-gaming at the house. So they have a pretty good lineup now. They do, yeah. I remember when it used to be just two pins for a while. They actually were not bad, kept up. I had another friend of mine. I kind of taught him with pinballs. His name is Eric Smavel. Shout out to Eric.
    76:17
    He's a big Street Fighter guy, and he kind of knew a little bit about pinball, you know, and I talked to him. I met him probably about maybe four years ago when I went down. I'm like, oh, wow, these pins are well kept up. You know, they're decent. They're on the way to where I'd go visit my no-no grandmother, you know.
    76:33
    Did you say no-no? Yeah. That is so sweet. Yes. Italian for grandma. That's beautiful. Because I have two, so we had to kind of make up another name. I love that. That's beautiful. I'm getting buzzed, so I get verklempt. I know. I get verklempt over everything now. It's Heineken, baby. It's Heineken. That should be the next spooky game, Heineken.
    76:53
    Heineken pinball. They made Domino's, which was like... Well, you know, touching on the Scandia, back in the day that place had one, it was probably the second best arcade, maybe the third in Northern California. That's what you were saying earlier tonight. The Runner Park one had 20 pens. Yeah, pre-show, we were talking about that. You were talking about that Black Knight 2000, that Whirlwind and Twilight Zone. I just remember going there when I was a kid. It was probably like 80, late 80s maybe.
    77:20
    There was like two or three full rows. and I remember that was the first time I ever played a Black Knight 2000.
    77:26
    It was the first time I ever played a black hole in a haunted house. And it was great. You know, and back then I stunk. I was a kid. So my goal was to, A, keep the ball active just like everybody else. And then you get in the upper play field. Yeah. And they had a little downtime, you know, after the owner passed. You know, they sold off pretty much everything they had. And with TJ, again, as you mentioned, coming back, I'm hoping it's going to become another place to play. And Alex did mention Rohnert Park You know When I went to school At Sonoma State The Rohnert Park location Oh my god The tech there His name is That place is amazing They went from They had a really cool collection To a while When they only had a couple games And now it's coming back up From what I understand And that's great Yeah You know Pinball is obviously coming back In a big way man It's never going to be What it was 70s Early 80s It's just not going to happen I grew up in a One horse town About 90 miles north of Sacramento, Oregon, California. And when I was a kid, back in the EM days, there was a bus depot with probably 12, 15 games. There was a buddy of my kid I went all through junior high and high school with. His older brother owned a head shop. It was called the Dream Shop and they sold pipes.
    78:40
    This was back in the 70s. Pipes and like... And we don't mean PVC pipes. Pipes were my... Water pipes. What would you do with pipes? Don't call them long because you're going to get kicked out. And Auroville, Spencer. You would get arrested. And they had about six, eight pinball machines. We had two arcades that would have like two, three rows of pins and all the latest video games. Air hockey under a black light. That was badass.
    79:07
    Air hockey would. You had to ask to have the black light. Strobe light. You had to ask for a turn on strobe light. And then you'd be, you know, because we were teenagers, he would have been imbibing certain substances uh-huh anyway um who was it uh schmidt no not schmidt um what's that other cheap beer this big i don't know shaper 299 12 pack when i was in high school so anyway um but with the football everywhere and every ball and pop didn't they get into that when all those hillbillies went blind probably Every Bob and Pop grocery, the little burger shacks. They were everywhere. We talked about Shakey's Pizza last time you guys were over. Shakey's was the legend. Everybody had a game or two or three. I mean, all the laundromats. Well, Shakey's was huge because of their game rooms. Yeah. Because they all had a philosophy that teenagers and kids needed a place to hang out. Yep. Yeah. Spencer, you know, you're 100% right. When I was a kid, they were everywhere. 7-Eleven always had at least two games. You could go to the laundromat and have a game. Yeah, 7-Eleven. The bowling alley. where I ended up working out through the majority of my high school years, they had a ton of pinball machines. First place I ever played Flash, first place I ever played Gorgar, one of the brand-new games. Yeah, and when I started working that bowling out, we always got the brand-new games, which was great. Yeah, it interfered with my work. There was times when I was a mechanic and I had to go back and fix something, and I would tape the button down holding the ball so I'd go back and fix and then come back. I don't know why that transistor failed. In the heyday of arcade. I have a board smelling. And before I started working there, you know, I was talking with the owner, and they could pay their electric bill for the month in one week of take from video games and pinball machines. Wow. And consider how much money that is. That's absolutely insane. Yeah, it's a lot of money. You know, it's – And that boom is what's fueling the resurgence. It is. Because now all of us are old enough to where it's like we want to relive that plus, in some cases we have the money to invest in expensive toys I remember going to Denial's Farmers Market in Roseville I was probably 8 or 9 years old and they had a line of games there then and I remember specifically the only game I remember playing was the Gottlieb Soccer which Eric Selford has won in our league so shout out to Eric Selford shout out to So Adam, who hosts, the Neth family, the Bannister family. Where's my mug? Yeah, right. And Michael Hozier. And, of course, the obligatory practical Steve. Shout out, brother. I love you. And the Moe shout out, which Moe, when are you coming on the show, bro? And somebody handed me another rusty hand and me a bottle of water. My lovely wife, Rusty. Honey, thoughts on back in the day playing pinball? You know, he was talking about the weird places pinball would show up. The porno theater.
    82:09
    I'm going to take your word for that one. How did you plunge that porno theater? Zip. There's actually a bar in Santa Rosa called the Cozy Car that is a porno bar. Oh, my. I know that place. Steve Borrell mentioned this. I can't wait for Alex's trip report from there. There we go. I won't go in there.
    82:31
    He'll come back. He'll be all smooth. they'll be like, so let me tell you about this new place that I went last week. Hello's.
    82:38
    Can't see anything. My palms are hairy, but I had a good time. I don't know what this pinball is that you guys are talking about all the time. So, Rusty, when you were younger, where were you playing at? Okay, one block from my house was a corner liquor store, little convenience store, just prior to the heyday of the AMPMs as they started popping up everywhere. You would just go to the corner store. And in that corner store they had Defender and they had this, that, and the other. But they had a Medusa pinball machine. And I find myself flipping Medusa quite a little bit. In fact, so much so that I actually turned the game over. The only time I've ever done it. How'd you play the game upside down. I know. It was amazing. She can defy gravity. Defy gravity. You won a free game. I did. I won a lot of free games. You do.
    83:39
    That's the one I remember the most. Then we moved up to Stockton when I was quite considerably older.
    83:48
    We would have to have a very small house and so I had to go to the laundromat. In said laundromat was Adam's family. And I continually played that because the staircase and thing. I was actually playing that yesterday.
    84:04
    Oh, yeah. I have to get the ball up the staircase, and I've got to make the ball come out. And I had no idea what I was doing. But I had quarters going anyway. I was doing laundry, so I just pumped quarters into that. And, Rusty, that game is always plugged in. I think that's how a lot of people remember games like Adam's Family and Funhouse was like Adam's Family, I had to make the thing come out. That was the only goal. I didn't care about anything else. Thing had to come out. Funhouse, I had to put Rudy to sleep. I had no idea how to do it back then. But man, that's all I wanted to do. And you touched on Adam's family. And at that point, for those who don't remember, that game was everywhere. 20,000 of those men. Every place had an Adam's family. They were all over the place. And they were always in various shapes. Sometimes you got lucky and it played perfect.
    84:53
    Other times, not so much. well and the nice thing with Adam's family if you don't really know how to play you're just playing it because you like the theme you want to see thing whatever all sorts of stuff can be busted on it and not functional as long as it flips you don't really notice flips and things works for the most part you're right there's really only two things to be broken right? the thing? if the thing doesn't work and if the bookcase doesn't work you don't know the thing isn't working but that's still all you're striving for. Yeah, right. But if you don't know those things are working and then it never comes out, you're just like, yeah, but it drags you back in and you're like, well, I didn't get a thing this time, but I will. Yeah. I remember when somebody showed me the skill shot. Yeah. Plunge about maybe three quarters of the way. No concept of how that worked and just blew my mind. Open my mind to the fact that there was strategy to pinball. You know, I remember playing Space Shuttle and Pinball. I loved Pinball when I was a kid because Pinball machines seemed a little dangerous, right? They had, like, you know, the crazy art, the crazy electronic voices. Like, when I was a kid, I'd hang out in the game room at Crestview Lanes, which was the best game room in South America. RIP Crestview Lanes. That's over on Madison, right? It's gone now. We're out of business. It was on Winding and Marconi. Yeah, it's gone. That's right. Drive by. Oh, Fire and Sun. I'm sorry. Whiting and Benson either. Fireside does not have an arcade anymore. I played a lot at Fireside. Yes, my mom worked there. Fireside does not have an arcade anymore. I played, I would play, you know, Star Wars, the arcade game. I would play, you know, all the Pac-Man, Popeye, stuff like that. And the pinballs were over there. And every once in a while, the Black Knight would, the Black Knight will slay you. And as a kid, I was legitimately freaked out by that. Right. But, you know, then you're like, well, I've got to, you know, I'm a man. I've got to face my fear. Steve Ritchie, baby. I've got to put 50 cents in this sucker and see what it's all about. And, you know, other games, you know, Gorgar. What's the other one we were talking about the other day with the really cool art? Centaur. Like, when you're a kid, you see Centaur. You've got the biker, you know, Centaur. You've got the chick with the bug eyes. And you're just like, what in the actual hell is going on here? pinball was dangerous it had an allure pac-man was friendly when i was a kid that was the thing if you played pinball you were like medusa they ended up making a pac-man rebellious and then it became like a nerdy thing and then now it's kind of like a not i don't want to say so much counterculture but kind of like nerdy nerdy rebellion yes it's still nerdy you know when the movie what was a special when lit came out right documentary everyone flipped their shit oh they're only showing the freaks of the show well you want to show normal folks i hate to break to everyone who's listening we're all freaks oh yeah we collect and we play pinball that's not something that the general population does i'm not going to say normal because there's no such thing as it but we're all involved in a niche hobby yeah but what's really funny is anytime i bring it up and i bring it up as much as i possibly can i find a way to enter into any conversation because you never know who's going to have a game or know somebody knows something it knows somebody's going to have a game we can get real cheap. And universally I hear almost verbatim these words. I love pinball. I used to play all the time as a kid. Do they still make them?
    88:22
    Today I was at one of my clients and the guy I was working with, my contact was a government account. I had one little thing to do today, no big deal. But we got to talking about it again. He's looking for a game, someone to help him find a game. But his boss is a big pinball guy. was at the, he comes, the way he was coming to Pettigoogle, came to Golden State this year. He came up and I met him once before he came up. Hey, do you remember me? Blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, oh yeah, of course I remember. We shook hands, we talked for a bit. Rusty and I were playing Alien when he came up to talk to us. So, that was really cool. Speaking of which, let's share some thoughts and memories of the first annual Golden State Pinball Festival. I'll start because we're talking about Cliffy and we're going to get him on the show and it's going to be awesome. I threw out the idea for the Steve Charlton Spirit Award maybe a month and a half, two months after the last pinnacle bill.
    89:23
    And I threw it out to the guys that were like, we love it. Do it. It's your baby, your idea. Go with it. So I suggested, I said, well, who are we going to give the first one to? So I suggested, I said, you know, I can't think of anybody that deserves it more than Cliffy. I don't think he's ever got the accolades and respect he deserves.
    89:41
    So it was real important to me. And everybody unanimously agreed. Like Isla, they're like, damn right, it's Cliffy. And, I mean, it just, you know, he was so gracious and so humble about the whole thing. But to be able to, you know, honor Steve's memory and to honor him will mean a lot to him.
    90:02
    Brought to you by Heineken. People are going to love this. The beer that tastes like corn. But just to say, hey, man, you know, and he was such tight, good friends with Steve. You know, they're like brothers. But to be able to give Cliffy the accolades in his day, you know, and just was really awesome and really special. I can't wait to have him on finally on the show.
    90:27
    That was really cool. And to honor Steve and have Steve's daughter and grandson there, that was really a great experience. Yeah, that was awesome. We bought the tickets, we went to the dinner It was Absolutely Something that you couldn't miss When we knew it was for Cliffy Everybody really It was a great night Had a great time It was amazing The experience, just the Friendship and the love For the hobby and for each other And I think that's the thing about Golden State If you come once As I tell everybody, once you come If you come back a second year, you're part of the tribe. You're part of the family.
    91:09
    And then it's just, you know, after that, by the time you come in the third year, you better be volunteering or bring in a game. So, Spencer, I'm just going to interrupt here a second. You know, I think I've already mentioned the first time I met Cliffy, went down there and got some protectors. Yeah. The thing I didn't mention in that story is, you know, I'm sitting there, I'm chit-chatting with Cliffy about what games I have, and Steve called.
    91:29
    And Cliffy goes, here, talk to Steve. I had never met Steve before. didn't know who he was really but it was just an interesting thing where he's like here talk to steve yeah and it was just another way to meet people back then was just like hey i collect games you do too we should hang out more and you know steve you like pinball i like he was absolutely amazing i love talking with him i miss him me too uh i didn't have any system 80 games but he was always fun to talk to there was stories he told the stories and i remember a lot of stuff in pentagogo he'd always show up with his van and he'd have games to set up it's like hey man let's help you set up and he always did it on his own yeah and he was just one of those really down to earth genuine people you don't find too much anymore no you don't meet people like that on the street or in line at your local safeway he was like that and so i do consider myself fortunate to have known him and to have called him, you know, a friend. Yeah. He was a good guy. Clippy's a great guy. And that's the best thing about this hobby. It's not playing the games. It's not restoring the games or anything like that. It's the people you meet. Yep. Because I'd say a full 99.999% repeating, of course, for you nerds.
    92:48
    Nerds! Everyone in the hobby is nice. Just the best people in the world. Yeah. it's different than other hobbies I'm involved in where everyone seems to be really down to earth and nice and willing to help yeah well with the memories of the first annual Golden State Pinball Festival what I really noticed and it's kind of carried on from Pinnagogo is the whole when you first go it's about touching every game, playing every game there's a line I'll wait okay I've got to play this game. And then you find yourself playing the games like, well, I've got to play pinball. So that's the second year. By the third year, once you started meeting people, then all of a sudden it's social time. And you pick out your favorites you really want to play. You get in line for them. But while you're in line, you find yourself making more new friends. And, oh, you like, you know, this, the one major line at Bolton State was Pirates of the Caribbean.
    93:53
    And it was just kind of a case of, hi, yeah, there's two of you and there's two of us. Well, can we play four players? And let's all, you know, let's, you know, A, we get the line moving a little faster, but no faster really in the end.
    94:09
    But it's this new friend. And then all of a sudden it's, oh, hi, as you're passing by in the hallways. I met a lot of people at Pentagogo just through that, believe it or not. And, Russ, you're 100% right. Next thing you know, we have numbers and we're close. The first couple of years I was going, you know, like come Sunday evening, I had sore wrists. My fingers hurt. By about the fourth year, it was like, okay, I want to play this game. I've never played it before. I want to play this I've never played it before. And then you're socializing. and you know now with my youngest being born you know on pinnago weekend i remember that uh i get to go you know if i'm lucky one day and i don't play much i want to go see my friends i don't get to see our late night clashes our early morning yeah and you know and i miss that because i just can't make it but at the same time i can come in and say hey to people and see people i haven't seen you know in a lot of cases it's been a year since the last time and you it becomes more like a family and yeah it's great to play games and see stuff you haven't seen before but i like seeing the people who i haven't seen in a year more than anything else wait there were games at golden state oh yeah weren't there like 400 yeah uh no uh it was over 300 like 327 or 47 yeah they were really there's a lot of games don't forget there were games on the campground i understand I understand that some guy brought a Spanish eyes. It hardly ever worked. Hey, Hey. Yeah, it works. No GI. Somebody brought a black rose that someone else broke. And then, Hey,
    95:46
    Hey, somebody brought nothing. Yeah. The return off. Some asshole didn't bring my Gilligan's. I wouldn't have happened. I didn't break your Gilligan's. That way. When I found it, not just rewelded and redixed. It's sitting on top of the game right now. I just have to polish it up and put it back in the game. I told you, bring it over. Well, I'll probably just do it tomorrow. Bring it over. For anyone who listens to this, who might be in Northern California, who hasn't come to the show, just all the games are awesome. Even the Broken Spanish Eyes, which was the only Spanish Eyes. Let's just put it that way. The rest got deported. If you wanted to touch a Spanish Eyes, there you go. That was your chance. The most popular machine at the show. It's got Spanish Eyes, too. Bill, Bill, nothing. Everything's fine.
    96:32
    He looked great. PDX Monkey. Shout out to PDX Monkey. Shout out to PDX. That guy's done more beautiful, good stuff for the hobby. John. I forget his last name. For nothing. Isn't his name just Monkey? No, it's John Holmes. I didn't think he had an actual name. Whatever your birth given name is, PDX Monkey, we love you, brother, and we hope you're doing well. It's Monkey. We sincerely thank you for everything you do for the hobby. I like watching the older folks get the John Holmes joke. One more shout-out tonight. Justin. Fat trade. Justin. Kelly. Fat trade. Deadpool. That, Deadpool. That, that was a time when he was really kicking it. Another righteous dude. You know, Pismo. Tony. I'm going to screw up his last name.
    97:18
    Argusai, I think. And I might get that wrong. And I apologize. My brother I see once a year, man. Love you. I'm so glad I get to see every year of the show. Keith and Donnie. if you know Keith and Dottie if you're from Sacramento or Bay Area you know they had some personal issues over Keith is awesome Dottie is incredible they're the most awesome people and I'm so happy for you guys the courage they've shown in the last year bless their hearts we love you guys Huzzah final thoughts guys thank you so much for coming to the house tonight and hanging with us and doing the show again Dan quit killing my name Dan's Revenge he's like Jaws 4 just because I push him to have a show more than once every six months Alex Lambert at least he gets mine wrong or gets my name too what's your last name Look at your ID. Just think of Star Trek, you know, when you think of their last name. Think of Star Trek. Rusty, it's not Spencer's fault that you forget your name. He's a little old. Remember that when Spencer was in school, his history class was called What I Did Yesterday.
    98:43
    That's true. So final thoughts, anybody, everybody? I love your shirt. He's wearing a Star Wars hula shirt. It's gorgeous. Good choice. I love that shirt. I need one. Chewbacca and pineapples. It's great. And the Millennium Falcon. Let's give some credit here. It has been a pleasure.
    99:01
    It has been a pleasure to be involved in this train wreck. Please do more than one show every six months. We will. So I can quit hassling you about it. And next time you need a train wreck, give me a call. I will. Plus your dog needs butt stretches. You all can remind him of me. Yeah, shout out to Bud. Shout out to Bud the dog. Boop, boop. Now he's not hyper anymore. Shout out to all the wonderful people at Capital Corner Pinball League who host. and put on events. Oh, and Mark Scott, the creator of our theme music. A big thank you again to Damian Charity, who actually helped found the Capital Corridor Pinball League. CCPL. CCPL forever.
    99:43
    You can listen to us on iTunes, SoundCloud, and Acast. This has been Episode 14 of the Spinners Lit Pinball Podcast. and as always, non-politically because that's not what it's about. It's about just having fun and meeting good people and making new friends. And slapping your balls around. Slapping your balls around. Thanks for everybody at the round table for joining us tonight. Play pinball. Keep America strong. And do drugs.
    100:14
    Wow. See, I knew you were in trouble when you invited Brian. What? We're doing it live, Jim. We're doing it live! It is live! Mouth it around!