Journalist Tool

Kineticist

  • HDashboard
  • IItems
  • ↓Ingest
  • SSources
  • KBeats
  • BBriefs
  • RIntel
  • QSearch
  • NName Review
  • +Health

v0.1.0

← Back to items

Pinball 2000 Part 1

Fresh Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 44m·analyzed·Apr 10, 2024
View original
Export .md

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.034

TL;DR

Fresh Pinball discusses America's Most Haunted acquisition, Pinbrew Fest lineup, Sega Showcase games, and teases Pinball 2000 series.

Summary

Fresh Pinball Podcast hosts discuss their acquisition and setup of an America's Most Haunted machine (64k plays, immaculate condition), upcoming Pinbrew Fest event with multiple games including Barry O's Barbecue Challenge Limited Edition, and a deep dive into Sega Showcase pinball games from the mid-90s. The episode includes technical discussion about generator power for running pinballs at events and previews an upcoming multi-part series on Pinball 2000 with George Gomez.

Key Claims

  • America's Most Haunted machine acquired has 64,000+ plays on its audit and is spotless with immaculate playfield despite heavy usage

    high confidence · Host and Kyle verify audit reading and discuss Dave at ULEC Pinball rebuilding it 6-7 times

  • American Pinball sold all three Barry O's Barbecue Challenge units on the floor at TPF, plus two units sold by other distributors

    high confidence · Host states 'I know they sold all three that American Pinball had on the floor there. And then there were two other distributors that had them on the floor as well'

  • Barry O's Barbecue Challenge features bash locks on far left and right orbits with multi-ball steal mechanic and spinner ramps

    high confidence · Detailed gameplay mechanics discussion; host played it extensively at TPF

  • There were six total Sega Showcase games: Star Wars Trilogy, Jurassic Park, Star Trek, Space Jam, X-Files, Lost World, Kill the Bugs (Starship Troopers), and Independence Day/Viper

    high confidence · Host researched and listed all six games; Kyle participated in verification

  • Sega Showcase games produced in mid-90s (circa 1996) with very low production numbers compared to Bally/Williams' 2,000+ unit runs

    medium confidence · Host estimates production at ~800 units; characterized as low-quality materials and art prone to fading

  • Barry Ousler originally envisioned the game as a car hop delivery theme (like Taxi) before switching to barbecue theme

    medium confidence · Host reports Mr. Fix's account at TPF; Gottlieb did Car Hop in 1991

  • Fresh Pinball Podcast has international listeners in Finland, Singapore, UK, Australia, Sweden, and Belgium

    medium confidence · Host pulled analytics from Spotify; notes skepticism about legitimacy of some listeners

  • Holland America cruise ship has three Stern Spike 2 games: Star Wars Pro, AIQ Pro, and Turtles Pro

    medium confidence · Host researched cruise ship game lineup; mentions seeing pictures

Notable Quotes

  • “I mean, if that's true, Dave is truly a purveyor of pinball because that thing was clean.”

    Host (Jeff) @ Early — Emphasizes the exceptional condition of the 64k-play America's Most Haunted machine

  • “The flippers had plenty of strength. And I will say Texas I would think would be the absolute best place to show that game with all the barbecue and everything else going on.”

    Host @ Mid — Assessment of Barry O's Barbecue Challenge fit for market; mentions positive reception at TPF

  • “I think some of these games just really need to be given a chance. It's cool that it's an original kind of theme too. It's not playing a movie while you're playing. You're just there to play some pinball.”

    Host @ Mid — Defense of original IP themes vs. licensed titles; compares to Taxi's eventual acceptance

  • “Absolutely, dude.”

    Host (Jeff) @ Mid — Running gag - listeners created drinking game for every time host says 'absolutely'

  • “The energy down there, it is definitely like a player's sort of show, a show where people are going in excited, wanting to have a good time playing games.”

    Corbin @ Late — TPF described as player-focused event with different vibe than other shows

  • “There was just a line five or six deep of people waiting to play their games.”

    Host @ Late — Describes Spooky Pinball crowd demand at TPF

  • “I don't have a good idea how much power they really draw, but as a generator, it takes a bit to rev up. It could potentially act like a low-power situation, which those games do. They reset themselves.”

    Ben (via Corbin reading) @ Mid — Technical explanation of generator power issues with pinball machines

Entities

KylepersonCorbinpersonJeff/HostpersonZachpersonDavepersonStevepersonMr. FixpersonGeorge GomezpersonBenperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Spooky Pinball reportedly sold all machines brought to TPF and returned with empty trailer; sustained demand observed throughout show

    medium · Host reports: 'from all reports they sold all of the games that they took down there and went back to wisconsin with an empty trailer'

  • ?

    community_signal: Fresh Pinball Podcast experiencing measurable audience growth and fan recognition in field; listener created drinking game based on host catchphrase

    high · Patrick recognized Corbin at delivery location; international listener analytics from Spotify; drinking game feedback

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Looney Tunes and Texas Chainsaw share identical playfield layout but employ completely different coding teams at Spooky Pinball

    high · Host's direct observation at TPF: 'exact same layouts, but completely different coding teams'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Barry Ousler's original game concept was car hop delivery theme (similar to Taxi layout) before pivoting to barbecue; demonstrates iterative design process

    medium · Mr. Fix's account at TPF about original vision; Gottlieb Car Hop reference

  • ?

    event_signal: Texas Pinball Festival positioned as player-focused venue with different energy/vibe than other major shows (Expo); sustained gameplay crowds observed

    high · Corbin's direct observation: 'The energy down there, it is definitely like a player's sort of show'

  • ?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.313

0:00
Welcome everyone to Season 2, Episode 5. Yes, I know that for 100% certainty. Welcome to the latest episode of the Fresh Pinball Podcast.
0:38
DJ Kyle is back with us tonight, the second return of Kyle. Kyle? A lot of complaints without him. A lot of people wrote in. Did you guys get emails? The quality of the sound was definitely not as good. So I was glad that he spent a little bit of time with the board here before we got recording and got us dialed in. I had to. How are you feeling, Kyle? You've had some serious acquisitions going on over at the house. I am flipping fantastic.
1:07
Yes. So what? We went in together on an America's Most Haunted. It's so good. I haven't played it yet. Yeah, it literally showed up, and I was like, oh, I'm just going home by myself with this game. Bye. But he spent some serious time cleaning it up, dialing it in, getting it going. Suspicious. So we had gotten it from the purveyor of pinball, Dave, up in Michigan at ULEC Pinball. And when he dropped it off, he'd said to me kind of casually that it had 64,000 plays. So I relayed that on to Kyle, and he said, oh, there's absolutely no way this game has 64,000 plays. I mean, if that's true, Dave is truly a purveyor of pinball because that thing was clean. Like I went through and did the lighting stuff that I like that you like that we do to all of our games. But it was spotless. What did the audit say? Did it say? It says 64 some thousand. I saw the picture, man. It's the truth. And he said that he's rebuilt it. He said at least six times, if not seven. But to have that kind of play, like usage on it. And not a single dimple. And that's what I was going to say. The play field is immaculate. Very interesting to hear. So if you want to play one of 150 America's Most Haunted, this one will be at Pinbrew Fest April 4th through the 6th in Girard, Ohio. It's coming up quick. So come on out and – I'm looking forward to it. Come out and see us. We've got a serious list we started putting together. Well, let's talk about it. Let's talk about the list a little bit. Do you have any other to introduce to everybody else? Yeah, I'll finish introducing everybody. Everybody knows us. No, let's talk about the list of Pinbrew Fest, Corbin. Let's talk about the non-spooky games that we're talking about bringing. Okay. Ooh, what about Queen? Queen is in the box there. Sorry, sorry.

  • Spooky Pinball sold all games they brought to TPF and returned to Wisconsin with empty trailer

    medium confidence · Host reports based on observation; notes speculation involved; mentions Spooky had 2 new games plus couple Scooby titles

  • Looney Tunes and Texas Chainsaw Massacre share exact same layout but have completely different coding teams

    high confidence · Host's observation from TPF; states as definitive finding

    • America's Most Hauntedgame
    Barry O's Barbecue Challenge Limited Editiongame
    Pinbrew Festevent
    Texas Pinball Festival (TPF)event
    Sega Showcaseproduct
    Spooky Pinballcompany
    American Pinballcompany
    Mad Pinballcompany
    Cool Cats Countersevent_venue
    Looney Tunesgame
    Texas Chainsawgame
    Holland America cruise linevenue
    Barry Ouslerperson
    Pinball 2000topic

    event_signal: Pinbrew Fest April 4-6 in Girard, Ohio confirmed with substantial machine lineup including newly acquired America's Most Haunted and Barry O's LE

    high · Multiple references to event planning; specific dates and location given

  • $

    market_signal: Barry O's Barbecue Challenge showing stronger-than-expected market reception; all units sold at TPF and multiple distributor locations; positive feedback from players

    high · Host states 'I know they sold all three that American Pinball had on the floor there. And then there were two other distributors that had them on the floor as well, and they sold both of those'

  • ?

    announcement: Barry O's Barbecue Challenge Limited Edition confirmed for Pinbrew Fest with specific feature set (shaker motor, visglass, extra lighting, knocker, side armor, powder coat)

    high · Direct quote from Steve at American Pinball about exact specs; hosts verified receipt of machine

  • ?

    product_strategy: American Pinball offering Aura Lighting upgrade accessories for existing games; modular upgrade path for manufacturers' earlier titles

    high · Host confirms 'they're going to be offering a full line of accessories to upgrade all of your American pinball games'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Hosts surprised by Barry O's positive reception; initially skeptical of barbecue theme but impressed by gameplay and location viability

    high · Host: 'Even I, I was like, it's kind of not whatever theme to me, but it has that very nice little niche, niche-y thing'

  • ?

    technology_signal: Generator power for outdoor pinball play confirmed problematic due to THD (Total Harmonic Distortion) and current spike issues; inverter generators preferable but risk of voltage sag

    high · Engineer Ben's technical breakdown; recommendation for <3% THD inverter generators

    • 2:52
    On the list of games we're talking about bringing is we're looking at Frankenstein. Sega Frankenstein. Color DMD, The Works, Extra Lights, everything like that. It's coming with us. We got Tales from the Crypt. Yes. I guess we have two kind of creepy ones off the bat there. Kyle had done a quick topside on that with a new rubber ring kit, some other adjustments, some scoot protectors and whatnot, and she's looking fine.
    3:17
    It's very bright. Very, very bright. We've got Data East Jurassic Park. It's coming out. The one where the dinosaur eats the ball. It happens. And that has a color DMD, too. Pretty clean game. It does. Shaker motor, cliffies. It's a nice game. A few little mods. They're both for sale, aren't they? Oh, yeah. Everything on this first section is for sure. Yeah.
    3:40
    Legends of Valhalla. Classic. from America. Swords of Fury. So that's William's Swords of Fury. That's one of my personal favorites from that era. I'm going to have a tough time watching that one leave if somebody scoops it up.
    3:54
    This one's not for sale, but the barbecue... You want to talk about that? Yeah, hit the horn, Kyle. Hit the sounder here. So we'd already announced that we were going to have the American Pinball Berrios barbecue challenge, but after talking again to our boy Steve... Always hooking us up. Steve hooking us up. At American Pinball. Shout out, Steve. Applebee's is on me if you make it out the pin brew. He didn't get us the Barry O's classic for the show. He got us the Barry O's limited edition. That's very exciting. It is. It gets you the shaker motor and visiglass. It gets you the extra lighting system in there, real knocker, side armor, and powder coat. I love those real knockers. Maybe I'll email Steve tomorrow and see if he can send the wrong game, and then that way he has to drive us the right game. Right. And then we get to hang out. In the American pinball van, a.k.a. Toyota Sienna. A.k.a. Steve's van. So that's all of the non-spooky games, Corbin? Yeah, that's all I have on the list. Awesome. So we've went over extensively the spooky games we're going to have. Yeah, and then all the other. Essentially, for spooky games, we're not going to have Jetsons, Ultraman. I forgot about Ultraman. and Alice Cooper. Those are the only three unless by some chance over the next two weeks. Somebody email Zach.
    5:15
    Who should they email? At freshpinball at gmail.com. Damn straight. Get us that email. Maybe you could hook us up. I'd love to. Or just bring it out. Even if it's yours. Yeah, absolutely. Bring it to the show. Add it to the booth. You can hang out with us. It'd be cool to have this experience. I mean. If we bring out the bus, it gets you a VIP pass to the bus experience. So you have that to look forward to. All right. So Corbin, how are we doing tonight? How are we feeling? Doing good. Been moving a lot of pinballs lately. You have been busy. You've been setting a new location, too. I've been seeing pictures popping up with that. That looks like a really interesting mix of different equipment. Yeah. It's going well. It's out in the Belton Village. It's called Cool Cats Counters. She's got a lot of sliders, a lot of slider options, some pasta. Actually, I had a mac and cheese with spicy chicken in it the other day. Nice. That sounds real good right now. It's actually pretty good, yeah. Yeah. Nice. But, yeah, no, we're getting her set. We got So Far Creature from the Black Lagoon is out there. Diner's going out there. Diner's going to go out there. That Jolly Jokers is out there. I saw you setting that up. Oh, cool. Nice nostalgia mix. So it's done up. It's like a 50s kind of diner theme. Perfect. Fits right in. That one's out on the floor at the booths and stuff. Very cool. We got a jukebox going. And then there's a separate little game room area, and that's where we got air hockey, alley cats, because the place is called Cool Cats Counter, so it seemed like it. We need to get a bad cat. We do. Absolutely. I thought that as well.
    6:39
    But, yeah, no, we're going to move a couple more things. Basketball game. Yeah. A couple more things in there. Definitely looks like it's coming together. It's going to be really cool. It's nice to have more of those places around. Absolutely. For sure. Absolutely. Zach, how are we feeling tonight? I am also flipping fantastic. We have two out of four people that are flipping fantastic. High five. There it is. Oh, yeah. Corbin's not congested anymore. I'm here and I'm awake. So let's kick off this fact check. So on the last episode, if you made it to about halfway into the episode, we talked extensively about Barry O's barbecue challenge. And I made a couple omissions slash errors. So at one point I called it a single level game. What I meant by that was that there was just initially going to be one trim level of the game, the classic. Some people thought that I meant that it was like a street level shooting game. There are ramps on the game. Like a break shot or something. Exactly. There are two ramps on the game, and the cool thing about the ramps are there are spinners on the ramps, which is – Spinner ramps. Yeah, not something you see at home. And also it's very similar to Taxi's layout is what we've been seeing also. Well, you played it. So I played it extensively down at TPF, and I really, really enjoyed it. So the bash locks that I talked about on the last episode, there's one on the far left and one on the far right. Once you lock a ball in there, then the game encourages you to continue to hit those balls to get bonuses, jackpots, whatever else, which I thought was a really cool feature. If we're playing a two-player game and I lock a ball, if Corbin bashes my ball, then it locks that ball for him. So now he has ball one locked. It's as easy as steal a multi-ball. It is. So do you actually steal it? No, you don't steal it. You still have to hit it once. It just qualifies both of you. Correct. Then consider it locked. Yeah, but whoever uses it first. Right. So there's one on the left, there's one on the right orbit, and then your cash in is like an inner right-hand shot. And all the shots on there are very makeable, lots of flow to the game. The flippers had plenty of strength. And I will say Texas I would think would be the absolute best place to show that game with all the barbecue and everything else going on. And the reception seemed to be super, super positive. So I know they sold all three that American Pinball had on the floor there. And then there were two other distributors that had them on the floor as well, and they sold both of those during the course of the show. So you can't be mad about that. I know they took four out to the Vegas show that's happening as we're recording this episode. I haven't heard reports back if they sold those four off of the floor or not. They seemed to hold up. I mean, I know you and I were talking earlier this week when we were doing some deliveries. Like most of the games, I mean, there were just lines. Getting hammered. Yeah, four or five deep the entire weekend. So you're talking about some significant flipper fade. It's going to happen when coils are heating up like that. And still even on that game, I was able to hit every shot on there, hit the ramps consistently. That's good to hear. Yeah. I mean it's a simple game. It's not something like we talked about on the last episode. I think it's perfect to go into a spot where you can kind of leave it and forget it. There aren't places for balls to get stuck. There aren't a lot of points of failure. I think it's something that location-wise can definitely be something cool and something different. I'm pretty – I'm surprised with the reception on it too because it seems like it's really actually catching up.
    9:56
    Even I, I was like, it's kind of not whatever theme to me, but it has that very nice little niche, niche-y thing. Well, I think – like I'm sitting here looking at some of Zach's games, and Taxi was one that came to my mind of if somebody came out with a game now and they're like, okay, here's the game. You're a taxi driver, and you're going around and you're picking up Santa Claus and Dracula and whatever else. People would be like, you're doing what? This game is stupid, whatever else. But it's an all-time classic. So I think some of these games just really need to be given a chance. It's cool that it's an original kind of theme too. It's not playing a movie while you're playing. You're just there to play some pinball. Yeah, when I talked to Mr. Fix a little bit at the show, he had said that originally – Is it – it's an LCD? It is. There are actually two LCDs on it. There's one on the back box and there's one on the play field. He was saying that Barry Ousler actually had envisioned it and designed it to be like a car hop type game to where you're delivering orders to these different places. So Diner. Well, yeah, in reverse. Diner, and I think Gottlieb actually did a game that was actually called Car Hop in the 80s, like a Gottlieb premiere type game. So he was like, yeah, I think we're going to have to come up with something a little bit different because this has definitely been done before, and that's when they moved over to barbecue. but it's always been envisioned as that sort of non-licensed, just sort of fun thing. I like the simplicity of it. It's not hard to explain to somebody, like, oh, how do I play Taxi? You pick up the people, whoever's flashing. Who's flashing? You get all the people in the car, you hit the jackpot. Got Lib Car Hops from 91. 91? Yeah, it's a system three. But it definitely has that old-school vintage look feel to it. Yeah, you've not really owned many. I don't. I know nothing about them. Because you don't want to fix them. I'm just saying I feel like I don't ever see them or maybe I do, maybe my eyes just don't see them the System 3's I still see but like previous to that like the Gottlieb Premiere era I don't see a ton of them other than at places like yeah exactly I need a cactus check so I mean just remember we need the cactus check lots of drops so again the locks on Barry O's that I didn't know are called bash locks and we've described them in depth at this point The other thing that I didn't know the actual name that they were using for it is on the limited edition of what they also used on Galactic Tank Force. Their pin stadium type lighting is called Aura Lighting, so that's what that was called. And it seemed like that's going to be available then to add to your other ones long term. Exactly. They're going to be offering a full line of accessories to upgrade all of your American pinball games. When Keith came over to help me load up Tales from the Crypt to bring over to drop off to you guys, he played one game on America's Most Hot and he's like oh the original expression lighting because then it doesn't have that lighting yep, built into it so even talking about that there's they have that in the Star Trek LE too on the inside along cut into it it's on the outside and the inside all of these things that they've tried at different times that then kind of evolved into something else pretty cool so Corbin had talked about X-Files and seeing Sega Showcase games. So I went and looked that up and there were six total Sega Showcase games. Can we guess them? Yeah, go ahead. These are the ones that have the rounded heads. So the Jurassic Park one. Star Wars. So we have... There was a Star Wars trilogy I think or something like that. Yep.
    13:24
    There's a Star Trek. Space Jam? Space Jam is correct. Star Wars trilogy is correct. Lost World is correct. X-Files is correct. Kill the Bugs. And there are two more. Kill the Bugs. Let's Kill the Bugs, Kyle.
    13:39
    Starship Troopers. That's probably my favorite of the Sega showcases. And then there's one more. Independence Day. No, that is right before. Is it? That's right before. So this one we talked about, the television show Viper. That was a showcase. Make driving, make riding or whatever. So those are the six. I've had an X-Files. I've had a Lost World. I've seen Space Jams quite often. viper i've only ever played once so star wars trilogy they had at tpf they had one at vfw but it was off the one year then when you were we played it last year i put like five games on it so after the first game i'm like oh this game kind of sucks i'm like but i'll give it another chance i'll play it again there's no line for it i play it again i'm like okay there's some interesting things to do by the fifth time that i played and i'm like okay there's actually some decentness going on here the production numbers and those are probably pretty um low so that was like mid 90s yeah i would have 96 oh yeah exactly right in that era so you're not talking about a lot of games even bally williams is doing like 2000 so they're doing like 800 and the whole reason we had talked about those is those are after frankenstein to where they really started to like pull stuff off of them and use like the least amount of mechs and just lower quality materials so even the art and stuff on those games just really never holds up and fades and is kind of prone to being around the flipper buttons, finger oils and whatnot, wiping off all of the art. I remember we played the crap out of that Starship Troopers at Arcade Super Awesome when it was in the old location. Yep. So he's since moved his games. He has them in three different places now. He has one in, I think it's called Great State Brewing, Hoof Hearted, and then another brewery all in the Columbus metropolitan area. I like that original location. Oh, there was nothing better. Yes.
    15:29
    Yep, absolutely. Oh, so I just said absolutely, and I had someone who texted me and said that they've started playing a drinking game for every time Jeff says absolutely, they take a drink. And by about ten minutes in, they're wasted. There's enough people listening to make drinking games off our podcast. So apparently I need to start being more aware and saying absolutely a little bit less. A little more, I feel like. Is it just when you say it or if anybody says it? I guess from the feedback I received, Jeff says it a lot. Okay. I'm just saying if we say it, though, are they going to drink if we say it, too? I don't know. Absolutely. Absolutely, dude. So I also had another note that our sound levels were way off for the last episode and that we, quote, unquote, need Kyle because everyone's mics were way too low. See, who emailed that? Who said that? It wasn't. Was it Kyle? I'd have to go back and see who it was exactly. Did Kyle email that? I did not. So, Corbin, I have one other fact-checked message I'm going to go over. If you wanted to pull up, I think Ben had sent you something about generators. Yeah, Ben sent a real long – I want to make sure that we cover that. Yes, absolutely. But I also wanted to shout out, since I spent some time at TPF with the spooky people, to point everyone to the 2017 pinball documentary. It's available for free on Amazon Prime, and it's called Things That Go Bump in the Night, the Spooky Pinball Story. And this is a devoted family man in rural Wisconsin gives up the security of a successful 20-year career to pursue his dream in the boom or bust world of pinball manufacturing. While trying to break into a tough competitive market and build a thriving business, he must navigate the bumpy roads that new startups inevitably face without plunging its family into financial ruin. Who watches? It's so good. I said I watch that. Everyone at this table has seen it, but I encourage everyone who is listening to this podcast to – If you have not, definitely. It will make you – if you're like, ah, spooky, whatever, I could – And then go tour their factory. And then play America's Most Haunted and hear Charlie's – some of his call-outs on there. Like literally he's like, ah, should have kept my day job. That's like one of the call-outs. It's him. So one other note for the podcast. This week, Corbin and I were delivering some games in the Cleveland-Akron area, and we got the first – Yeah, Medina. The first game we dropped off was in Medina. It was just a quick into the garage, onto the next, and then we were stopping in Brunswick, Ohio, to drop off a Jaws Premium. And we hop off the truck, and it was a customer that Corbin hadn't met yet. So we walk up, and I say to the customer, this is my partner, Corbin, working with Mad Pinball. And Corbin says, oh, hey, hello. And as soon as Corbin says hello, the customer goes, are you the Corbin from the podcast? And never even gives me a second look for the entire – he's just starstruck. And he starts telling Corbin about how he listens to the end and everything else. Everybody listens. So this is a huge shout-out, Patrick. If you are listening, we truly, truly appreciate the support. And everyone listens. That was awesome. That was definitely one of those moments where it's like whenever we do this, we literally think that only we are listening to it. We're having these conversations anyway. How many people at work listen to it? That we're rambling to ourselves only. The other day, Mary Beth was like, you know, I was wondering if they're going to put, like, I wonder when the next one's coming out. She's like, oh, I guess I'm going to ask. I have, you know, the inside scoop here. Right. You have the inside track. So along those notes, I pulled up the analytics on Spotify to see. I'm always fascinated to see if people like what states they're listening from. And we actually have countries, international listeners. So we had listeners of the last episode in Finland, Singapore, the United Kingdom, Australia, Sweden and Belgium. Shout out to everybody. I mean, they're all bots. I feel every single one of four people using VPNs. I don't know. Yeah, exactly. I feel like next time I go over this list, I need to learn to say thank you in all of those different languages, but we'll save that for another podcast. Well, you are going on a cruise, and you'll be bored. That's right. There's pinballs on a cruise. There are. So we're going on a Holland America this time, and they have three Stern Spike 2 games. Ooh. Do you know what ones? I do because I saw a picture. So there's a Star Wars Pro, an AIQ Pro, and a Turtles Pro. How much time did you spend deep diving to find this information? Oh, yeah, a lot of time because this is very important to me. You're like hacks into the cruise lines, like pictures.
    20:06
    I'm already ready to go. Like I'm going to get in good with whoever has the keys. That way if they're not already insider connected, I can start getting some achievements. So you're taking your cleaning kit and all of your adjustments. Let me know if I need to ship parts or whatever. I already have some stuff in my backpack, so I should have whatever I need. Some extra, you know, rubbers, cleaned up balls, whatever we need. Always got to carry an extra rubber.
    20:26
    So, Corbin, let's talk about this generator situation. So on the last episode, we had talked about maybe wanting to run pinball machines outside of the bus at events and using a good Honda generator. So one of Corbin's good friends, Ben, who is an engineer by trade? Yes. Yeah, yeah. He's an engineer. He lives down in Columbus, him and Shannon. Or Honda. Maybe. I'm not sure. Yeah. He does stuff for different companies because he does stuff for Harley. He's done stuff for – but either way, he's an engineer. So he'd given you a pretty nice breakdown of why it's not a good idea essentially. Pretty much. That's how it sums up. Should I just read it? Yeah, hit him, man. I'll just read it. This is what he said. When you sent it to me, I found it – like it's long, but it's very informational of like why it's not a good idea. Yeah, so I'm going to read this, and I'll go slow so hopefully it makes sense. But all right, so he said – this is from Ben. Also, I listened to the podcast and had a comment about generators. Long story short. Wait, wait. Long story short? Which I love he said because then it's like I have to scroll to see the end of the message. It's just a long story. Isn't that your – somebody should do a shot when you say long story short. Yes, Tia said that. So anyway, long story short, you had once an inverter generator like one of the small Honda models. The generator motor outputs AC and it's converted into DC. The integrated inverter then converts the DC into a clean AC single. There's a measurement for this called total harmonic distortions, THD for short. I've gotten in trouble with some THD before. Which is shown as percent. Generally low. Generally low THD is considered less than 6%. The Honda and other good ones say less than 3%, which is what I would recommend. The issue might be the spike in current demand from flippers and such, which I guess that makes sense. That was definitely always my thought process, and more so on older games than newer games, because I would think a modern spike to stern, you're going to get a pretty even draw most of the time. I feel like the ones I have the most issue in, there's like weak power and things are like... WPC? Yeah, WPC. Especially the ones that are like the next gens and the ones that are like loaded to the max with mechs and optos and all kinds of stuff that like, as soon as it starves for power, once you get it going. Or if you're on the same circuit as other games and they get going. So it's like if only one game is being played or if you have five games going, then it definitely pulls more. So I definitely, that makes sense though why it would cause more issues. So anyway, back to where I was. I don't have a good idea how much power they really draw, but as a generator, it takes a bit to rev up. It could potentially act like a low-power situation, which those games do. They reset themselves. The five drops below, it starts resetting on you, which would be the concern. Don't we have a thing that you can plug in and see how much it draws? Yeah, it's like an inline. You plug it into it, then that into the wall. You've got to find it, though. We were building the bus to see how. I found in my notebook the other day of things like what we're taking drawing. We had like a box fan, lights, this and that. The N64 was on that list too. Of course. I mean you got to factor it all in. Right, like, oh, just in case we bring the N64 along. Can we run this off the solar panels? Okay, so then on the second part of the message then, big generators, non-inverter. So this is the opposite of what he was just talking about, right? Yep. Just create AC straight from the engine. the downside is any change in rpm will directly affect the ac frequency for electronics that rely on that it can be a problem which pinballs i feel like they need the consistency like it would not be good some electronics have a good power supply that can correct for that but it can get dicey if not which i would have to agree with him that i think it would get dicey yeah it'd be interesting to test in like a controlled environment yeah like without in the garage or exactly at the shop or something just fired up because it sounds like the first option one of Those big-ass power banks. Yeah. Not necessarily a generator, but – Well, I wonder, yeah, if you could do a generator powering – The power bank. The power bank in that way. Which might regulate it then. Yeah, exactly. You're getting the steady draw from the power bank and then the generator just recharging that. I mean the bus has enough solar. It might be all right. It doesn't run off the solar. I mean we're going off on a lot of legwork and everything else to try to get pinball going in a parking lot. So we're pretty dedicated to this. Which we're going to do at VFW or something where we're like, oh, yeah, there's a couple hundred inside. Oh, yeah, we're just going to play in the parking lot real quick. Well, now that we're going to have this Berrios LE, I really want to try to get that up to VFW and see if they'll let us. Because I know they have that breezeway kind of that connects two of the main buildings where they've had games that have been brought in before and see if they'd be open to having that in there. I'm sure people would be interested to see it and check it out. That or, I mean, if the Looney Tunes or anything else. Exactly. Bond 60th. Plus I feel like it's just a good connection to make to get to know the people who run that up there because, you know, like they used to say on NBC, the more you know.
    25:20
    So this episode is going to be at least part one of part two, if not a three-part series on Pinball 2000. So we're going to talk about it preemptively a little bit, and then we actually have pretty much a date on the calendar with George Gomez to do part two. and then if it's necessary we'll do a follow-up to everything we talk about and a recap of what george talks about with a part or at least like a half an hour yeah you know we go we go an hour no matter what yeah it's just talking bullcrap did you undo texas are you doing that afterwards yeah should we talk it's up to you do texas now do texas now okay so i get a deep end i had to go to tpf all alone you know we all would have loved to have been there because corbin was at the Hartville Market Hawkins Sweatshirts Kyle I told too late so he couldn get a flight It Wednesday Hey I going to TPF When are you leaving Friday morning Oh, okay. Yeah, that was definitely poor planning on my part, but got down there. We had talked about it like a month ago. Right. Decided that we weren't going to go. You bastard. Well, we have a nice contingency of customers down there that buy from Mad Pinball. I've not been to that show previously, so it was like, you know what? It's not falling on spring break this year. I don't know when it's going to not fall on spring break again, so I better go while I can. And I will tell you what, the energy down there, it is definitely like a player's sort of show, a show where people are going in excited, wanting to have a good time playing games. Of course, all the manufacturers are represented and all of that fun stuff. But comparatively to Expo, it was just a different vibe altogether. I've had fun at both shows. Texas was just, I don't know, turned up to 11. It was very, very loud. Even without us. Even without you guys, but I will say – You probably enjoyed not having us around. No. After a couple hours, I was like, you know, this is kind of boring not having like you guys running all your shenanigans and everything else and Corbin up on stage sitting next to people trying to conduct like a podcast or whatever. who knows george gomez lifting play fields and whatever else spilling drinks yeah no i definitely prefer to have you guys with me but spooky was there they had their two new two new games as well as a couple scoobies they had uh tna and from all reports they sold all of the games that they took down there and went back to wisconsin with an empty trailer best case i mean It's speculation, but you know. Yeah, and I was around, I mean, they were right when you walked into the main room, and they may have had to make an adjustment on the game here or there, but every time that I walked by, there was just a line five or six deep of people waiting to play their games. That's awesome. So my takeaway at that point was Looney Tunes and Texas Chainsaw, as we all know, exact same layouts, but completely different coding teams. And I will tell you what, if you didn't know that they were the exact same layouts, and they weren't side-by-side and you just played them based on the modes and the skill shots and whatever else, you would never even think in your mind that they're related whatsoever. They play completely, completely differently. That's pretty cool. I'm excited to play the Texas. Is his on the farm, Madcap? Yeah, so shout out Matt Quirk and Kent Ohio at Madcap. He has his Texas chain, so I believe it's number 31 on the floor there for the folks to enjoy. Right up there. Yeah, we'll be pulling it out and adding Elton John in there in the interim while we have it out at Pinbrew Fest. So that will be a good time. Looney Tunes is at quarter up. Yeah, so Looney Tunes number 89 is in Akron, Ohio at quarter up right now. Before people get all cranky about that, oh, how did you get that number all of a sudden? It's a show game, guys. So there was a report of a Pinside terrorist incident today. Terrorists, sons of bitches. We don't negotiate with terrorists. I'm on my computer sending emails and directing this and doing that, and all of a sudden I get a text from Corbin. He's like, Amber Alert, there's been a terrorist incident. I tell you these things so you don't have to find out about it. I just wanted you to know because we talk jokingly like we're not going to put a picture up because someone will. You know, they – yeah. So all of the ones at TPF, Spooky had been – had the foresight to put tape over top of the numbering plates. That way there was no sort of drama or anything. My early pictures, I put Matt Pinball stickers over it, just wedged it. Yeah. Should have done better. But yeah, the terrorists were not happy about that. So anyway, we just want to clear it up now and just say that it's a show game. So that's why we got it. And that was just a number that was pre-assigned to us. Correct. So we had it in time for everyone to enjoy. Yep. At Pin Brew. At Pin Brew, at events and everything else. And that's why we had it for less than a week, and it's already in front of the people. Out for the people. That's why we do it. Yep. So that was the first booth, and then right as you walked in also were all of the high-end restorations that people did for judging. So there was an awesome earth shaker that Cary Hardy had done. There was an amazingly beautiful F-14.
    30:31
    I don't know if you guys saw that picture of that Indiana Jones. I saw that Indiana Jones. It was a crazy cabinet. Wasn't that, I think, sick? No. So people were telling me apparently they used to have one that was done up exactly like that at either Disney World or Disneyland. It was totally a piece of shit. Yeah. I read about it on Pinside before. This one was just gorgeous. Definitely check out the socials, Mad Pinball. I have it posted on Instagram and Facebook. It's just absolutely gorgeous. Where's yours at these days? Where's what? Uranium Jones. It's folded up in the lab. Oh. You want it? No. The people at Quarter Up have been chanting for it. We can take it up there. And then another one that's a big love that I've always loved, the Sega Batman Forever. I think that's one of their loaded games, like of that similar era to like Baywatch and Frankenstein. Is that – what's the display? Long, skinny on that? Okay. And this one had like this pop and purple powder coating, and they powder coated all the habit trails. I like the powder coat on Pinball Magic too. That one you posted. That was gorgeous. And that one had the topper from the same company that makes the topper for Breakshot. That topper is crazy. If anybody knows about this French company that makes toppers for those two games, and you can speak French and whatnot and help translate, get a hold of us. Speaking French is helpful. Email us at freshpinball.gmail.com. I like the Pinball Magic one, and I like the Breakshot one. I don't think I've seen it. Yeah, it's very cool. So then to the left of where you entered, there was a really cool booth that had a labyrinth. It had a Jaws LE. It had a Godzilla LE. You're going to let me order a labyrinth here soon. I can feel it. So that was the game of the show for me because at Expo, the line was like not five deep. It was like 20 people deep the entire time. We played it once basically. Maybe twice. Yeah. So something cool that Barrels of Fun did at this show was if you were a distributor, a vendor, or someone who had a game on preorder or was really serious about ordering one, they had some games set up like in a separate green room where you could go in and play the game and actually hear all the call-outs and everything. And I spent some serious time on that game. Which is a super cool concept. Yeah. With the seriously cool topper too, I would imagine. Yeah, so they had the toppers there, and they had actually just updated the code on the toppers to where they were way more interactive, which was pretty freaking awesome.
    32:51
    But the booth that had all of the cool LEs and stuff, it was for mods and whatnot, and they had just insane – like they had taken – like they must have been artists of some sort because they had taken like all of these foam blocks and like turned it into basically like the castle and the structures from Labyrinth. Oh, yeah, I saw that. That was pretty neat. It was pretty intense. So after you got through the entrance and you walked through those two, Jersey Jack had a big booth right in the middle there with all of their new games and whatnot. They had two Elton John collector's editions on the floor. And I'll tell you what, I was really blown away with the topper that they have on there. It's like full-on like – I've not experienced – I saw it from afar. Yeah, they're like concert spotlights on it. Then there's also like a projector disco ball that projects like a whole bunch of stuff on there. Like Zeppelin with their projectors? Yeah, for two of them, but like much bigger. Like I would say like almost four times bigger spotlights than the ones that are on Zeppelin. But they move in that same sort of pattern sort of thing, which I thought was awesome. So then directly behind Jersey Jack, Stern had an insane booth. And I know they had hooked up with Fun Pinball, a distributor in North Texas, as well as Marco. And they had everything that's available from Stern right now. I mean Foo Fighters and Jaws and just everything that's been on the production line in the last six months. There were a couple of Venoms. I know there was some pressure there to definitely display some Venoms. So that was cool. We talked about the Barrels of Fun booth. Our friends at the Electric Playground had a really cool booth where they had all three of their toppers on display. What was in the people? So they did have a really cool, as creepy as it sounds, people where you could see their first sneak peek of their first officially licensed topper. So they actually acquired a license for this, and it's going to be coming soon. I'm not going to tease it too much, but it's something I think that people are absolutely going to love. I need to text them. I need to send them a picture of Lebowski. Yeah. Okay. That's my plan for Monday is going to go next to the other two. I'm going to send a picture and be like, see what's missing. There's Twilight Zone. There's Godzilla. There's Lebowski. No topper. Because on display there, they had their original Twilight Zone one, and then they had the really cool black and white Twilight Zone topper that they've been – yeah, that looked awesome. Then they had the Lebowski wall hanger as well as the Lebowski topper, and then the Godzilla one with the Conqueror's Edition kit on it, which gives you four of the little LCD screens, which you can – it comes with some preloaded animations. but then also you can load your own little animations and clips onto an SD card. So you can really customize it. Could you put me up there? I could put you up there. I could put things from the Godzilla movies up there if I wanted to. It's just the four of us, and you'd have to beat all of us. Yeah. I mean, you could do all kinds of really interesting things. So I thought their booth was very cool. Don of Don's Pinball Podcast had a booth, and I'll tell you what. He was the star of that freaking show from set up until 2 o'clock on Sunday. I mean he was just running amok. He was with the spooky people. He was with the American people. He was with the – he did an exclusive. He had quite the getup on. So he was dressed as Don Wonka? Yeah, something like that. I mean he had like the cane from the movie, but instead of a normal cane, it had a speaker, a microphone, a microphone head on it, which was awesome. He was wearing the top hat and the purple vest with the purple jacket. I mean he was all out. and he had 3D printed a bunch of golden tickets and hid them throughout TPF. That's cool. And if you brought him the golden ticket, there was a prize. So it was really cool. At the Spooky Booth, they had a couple crane machines, and he had put one of the golden tickets inside the crane machine. So you had to throw money into it to try to win one of the golden tickets, which was neat. But while he and I were chatting it up on, I believe it was Saturday, this little girl, she probably was three or four, comes up to him And she was so excited to see him. She's like, you're Don of Don's Pinball Podcast. I love your suit. And she had these cool, like, sketcher light-up shoes, and she was showing them her shoes. And they just had, like – She's like a five-year-old? Like four or five. Okay. Yeah. And it's – for me, it was cool to see people that young at a pinball show and not just being drugged there by their dad or whatever, but excited. Being excited to be there. Like this person has been exposed to pinball podcasts and knows who Don of Don Pinball Podcast is. It was pretty wild. Yeah, that's wild for sure. So speaking of Turner Pinball, they had a booth as well. They had their two games in there, Ninja Eclipse. And they've switched it around. They've switched the cabinet. It's a regular game. Do they have a coin door on it? Yeah. They had totally revamped it into a stern style cabinet, normal legs, normal coin door, the whole nine yards. I mean – and on those, I literally did not see the glass lifted off of there the entire time because that cabinet still keeps that cool old school where the whole frame of the glass lifts up from it. Yeah, like OEMs. Didn't see them have to lift that a single time. People playing the crap out of it though? Oh, yeah. I mean it was three or four deep the entire week. And their pricing is like way more reasonable now, right? It's like $69.95 for the regular one. $69.95, and it's not even a regular one. So this is basically like an addition that they're doing for the first 100. So it has like purple powder coating and a bunch of other little features that are only going to come on those first 100. They're not doing distributors whatsoever. It's all direct sales through their website. But something cool that they're doing is if you reserve a game and you do the $1,000 deposit, they guarantee you that your game will be to you in 12 months. And if it's not to you within that 12-month period, they will refund your deposit if you request it, which is the first that I've heard from any of these startup manufacturers to where, hey, if we – we're going to give you a drop-dead timeline, and if we don't fulfill the game by then – stepping up so i was pretty impressed with everything that i was seeing with that damn i was gonna buy somebody's spot i know right maybe they'll be selling they'll have bought their spot for a thousand and be selling it for 1500 maybe you'll have to pay pay up for the spot maybe it'll be the old days of pinball so to the left of turner pinball was american pinball's booth so they had the uh pre-mentioned barrios barbecue games there that were all sold during the show those were getting rocked the entire weekend a couple hot wheels couple galactic tank forces they had a really nice booth set up there with mr fix they had the ufo again they had the ufo with the cow ryan mcquade was there throughout the show isn't he didn't i run against him you did yeah he has asthma so you won doesn't matter when's the win and then new salesman ron was there as well so i know that they're probably just absolutely exhausted because right after tpf they were going out to a consumer electronics show out in Vegas, and they had another, an even bigger booth out there. So in addition to them, Multimorphic also had an enormous booth with all kinds of different modules and whatnot for their games. They had some of the Weird Owls, the new Lexi Lightspeed, and then also the one that everyone was super hot about, which was the Princess Bride. So I went into this with as much of an open mind as I possibly could because I've enjoyed some of the other multi-morphic P3 platform games. Final Resistance was good. Final Resistance. I actually enjoyed the original Lexi Lightspeed a lot. What's that, Corbin? Nothing. That's all I had. So I stepped up to Princess Bride, and I was just completely underwhelmed. I mean you think the shots on Weird Al are way back. That's a bummer. That's such a license to be wasting. It's a solid license. The shots on this one are – they feel like it's back third of the cabinet. It feels like back quarter of the cabinet. And it could be just early coding and early programming to where – They just announced it. Right, where there might not be a lot going on on the lower screen yet and whatever else. They might be able to still code that out and save it, but, man, I was underwhelmed. They're missing that 40-plus crowd. You can have your glasses on to see that. What I was also a little disappointed of – Yeah, I think it's a powerful license. Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I mean so TPF is known for having like really harsh overhead lighting. It just makes it tough on the eyes. And for the P3s, they didn't put like HD or Invisiglass in any of the cabinets, so it just made it that much more – a lot of the other manufacturers, they knew going into this. You think – if that's something known, you're like, oh, let's be ready for this. Make it look good. Exactly. So a little underwhelmed with that, but there were a ton of other vendors with mods and retro boards and just all kinds of fun stuff. But one of the cool moments for me walking in was I was standing in line to get my wristband, and I see Steve Ritchie walk by, which I've seen him at other shows. No big deal at this point, Steve Ritchie. He's called us troublemakers. Exactly.
    42:07
    But he – Good morning, gentlemen. Terminator 2 caught his eye, and he was overwhelmed with the urge to play it, so he credited up and he played a nice three-ball game. And he was on it for a while, so Steve Ritchie must know how to play a little bit of pinball. Play better. We need to get him on some linked NBA fast break. I think that's the real dream. Should we take those out to pin brew? So that's always an option for sure. Getting them back out of tanks, though, might be a little bit of a challenge. But the interesting thing with Steve Ritchie is during one of the Jersey Jack panels, he was up there and he was basically quoted as saying that he left Stern and when he left, he was really upset and really mad and whatever else. So I think the matchup might be on NBA Fast Breaks is like him versus Gary Stern.
    42:54
    We can get him defrosted out of the carbonite. Or versus George Gomez. Yeah, I was going to say homie gumming for sure. That was another one of the really cool events was on Saturday night, 8 or 9 o'clock. They did an evening with George Gomez where he went in and did a panel and just talked about all kinds of crazy off-the-wall stuff, which I think is the perfect segue into Pinball 2000 because he was heavily, heavily involved with Pinball 2000 at – well, it was just Williams at that point, right? Yeah. So I know with a lot of the research that you've done on it, Corbin, some of this stuff has then later been reused in modern sterns with internet connectivity and Insider Connect and whatever. So I think a lot of these ideas that were being implemented into Pinball 2000 were then used later on. But I guess I'm putting the cart before the horse a little bit. Should we just do the base and just – first things first, explain what Pinball 2000 is. It's the pinball of the future. So if you haven't seen it, describe it, Corbin. It's not a full-size pinball cabinet like you would traditionally think. So it was 1999 they came out, and we're looking at – In the year 2000. Yeah, we're into the future. We were worried that we might not make it. Don't ever sing again, Jeff.
    44:11
    So the cabinet is definitely different. If you lay the playfields out, they're actually pretty much close to the same length, but the playfield sits all the way further back. And then there's a monitor in the head that is facing down and then reflects off of the glass. So this is 1999, so these are still CRT monitors. Big ass, yeah, tubes, yeah. Yeah, heavy ass monitors. And this game is heavy. It's heavy. And they now have, you can get replacements of LCDs to put in there that will wait. That's one of my questions for George. I was going to ask him what we have on the phone and be like, what do you think? Should I put an LCD, should I put a flat screen in it or should I keep it CRT? Because this one's starting to get a little shaky, and so I just don't know. So – but anyway, I think – You can always send it out to Pittsburgh Mike Baer. Get that thing fixed up. Yeah. We'll take care of you. I've seen them with the LCDs, and it's not a dramatic difference. I don't think it looks that different.
    45:01
    It would lighten it up. It does. Cut the weight out of it. It cuts the – there you go. That's the key to it all. When you're moving these games, those monitors are no joke. But is it the classic feel you're getting? So it's a shortened base on the cabinet. So a normal stern game is about 53 inches from back box to the shooter rod. With this, you're talking probably eight inches shorter on the cabinet at least. I would think so. Zach's going to grab a tape measure right now and measure it. So where we're sitting recording, we're in Zach's basement, and actually we have Revenge from Mars over here with us tonight.
    45:34
    And so the concept of the game was with this different cabinet style, you were going to be able to remove the play fields very easily. So you're going to be able to get these kits, which I'm going to bring next time. Yeah, and you'll just be able to – hey, we started off with Revenge from Mars, and now we're going to swap it over to Star Wars Episode I. And so the kit would come with a play field. You'd be able to very easily – with like – I think there's eight or nine plugs in there. Four foot. How – what's the top measurements? So that's 48 inches. So it's five inches. Maybe an inch over with the sliders. but just a little over $4,500. So I've never been on the inside of one of these, Corbin. Does it run off of like a PC tower? Is it a board set? There's a PC tower in the top above the monitor. Sort of, yeah. We can open it up. And then there's a board set that lays across the bottom with all your traditional solenoid drivers and all that kind of jazz. But it is more – and so like to update this, which I'm jumping ahead a little bit, but to update it, you hooked your computer into it. Very cool. And then you downloaded the update through that way. It was one of the ways you could do it. Just like you do now. Pretty much. How much? The head is almost two foot wide. The heads don't fold down either, obviously. Half the length of the playfield. It's like 23 and a half wide. Yeah, the head hangs out way over the playfield. So I'd have to imagine part of the vision with this with a smaller footprint as well is you can get into a bar or wherever else. It was going to be taking up less space, which at the end of the day, it takes up the same foot. Yeah. It's like, you know, I want a wall-hung jukebox versus a floor model. It's like, you're not going to put anything in front of it. Exactly. It's just more pain. It would have actually taken off, though. And you put five in a row, five different games, I guess. And then you swap. All you have to do is you get the kit and you have a different backlash. You put the different play field in. You have a different game than for a fraction of the cost of buying a whole other game. But the challenge is it just came out at a terrible time. There's terrible timing. I mean, pinball is on the decline anyway. That is one thing that's kind of cool on those P3s with their side art and their changeable. Because they had done that. That's how that Alien was too, the original Alien. The Highway Royce and Full Throttle came in those cabinets as well where they could be swapped out and swapped around. That's cool. Just the whole overall concept of cheaper upgrades for targeting the operators. I mean, this has been tried pretty much within every decade of pinball. Which is what Multimorphic, whatever that whole system is, is like the same thing. Interchangeability, be able to put, you know, hey, this game is basically not earning anymore. Let's try something else. Let's try something as much as a full game. A Nintendo-verse cabinet, pretty much. Exactly. I mean you had all kinds of other arcade manufacturers too that tried. There was the Bally Senti system, which was the exact same thing, and there were the Nintendo play choices where you could switch out daughter cards. It's one of those things that operators would love because I invest big money into this piece of equipment, and now I can invest smaller money to liven it back up and get that coin drop out again. That's where everyone's excited for a smaller price, quicker to pay it back. So let's talk a little more about the monitor interaction in this game because I think for people who haven't played the game, it's something that's hard to describe but is really awesome when you experience it. So the monitor is mounted basically vertically above and then mirrored down onto the play field. The back section of the glass is like a darker tint, so then it reflects onto the glass itself. And what it's reflecting a lot of times will be – so like in Revenge from Mars, it will be something you're shooting missiles. You're trying to actually hit these projected images. It's everything, though. It's projected. Your score, what to do. It's not like when you're trying to play one of these newer Sterns. Where it's just a flashing light. Yeah, and you're focused on the play field, and you can't look up to see exactly what you need to be doing. There's no question what you need to be doing. It's projected on the play field. Yeah. I think it's a really neat thing.
    49:20
    I think it's a wild concept, and I think just in general, if it was released at a different time in pinball's timeline, if you will, I think it would have been a much bigger success. Much, much bigger. And I think that's why we're seeing some of these things that they wanted to try with this now being revisited with Modern Stern because – Well, the hype is here. Well, at a peak instead of a valley. Yeah, exactly, because we talked about these games previously to where they were selling somewhere on Revenge from Mars and Star Wars. They sold between 6,000 and 7,000 units of each title. I mean that was hugely solid then. Yeah, Revenge from Mars was 68, 78, and then Episode I was 5,100. Yeah, I mean even in today's pinball. How many kits were sold? That's the other thing. Yeah, that's insanely solid. Didn't you pick one up? Speaking of Episode I, you see it's coming back to theaters. I'm such a sucker for that. Like I've given George Lucas so much of my money because every time they're like, oh, we added this whatever. I'm like, all right. I'll see you. I'll see you Friday night. Right. But these games are interesting to me. Whenever we talk to George, I really want to ask the question of were these dead on our – was Williams going bankrupt no matter what? Either way. How big of a big sports event would you have to have had to – Yeah, because when you're selling 5,000 of one and almost 7,000 of the other, I mean did you need to sell 10,000 of each to keep it viable? Do you know what new cost was on them, Corbin?
    50:46
    That is a good question. I'm just curious. No, I'll ramble a little bit. Just because there's so many more components. What our dad knows. Yeah. We did buy the Revenge from Mars. New out of box. Yeah, new in box. I remember putting it together. That's crazy. So, 99, you guys would have been young.
    51:02
    That's crazy to still have that memory, though, which is fantastic. 9 to 10, yeah. That's awesome. Because it was a cool – it was definitely different. Jeff, what's the born of date on the back there?
    51:13
    April 1999. April 23rd. It's about to have a birthday. April what? April 23rd. Do we need to start? That's something I need up to pinball birthdays. The born-on-dates of pinball machines. My calendar is going to get really full with birthdays all of a sudden. Google is going to be like, hey, Jeff, Funhouse's birthday is coming up. We'll be like, hey, Rudy, happy birthday. We have a birthday party for it. Let's play some pinball.
    51:35
    So while Corbin is looking up what the MSRP was on these originally, I want to talk about some of the titles that never were produced. So Jason Knapp of Knapp Arcade had done a nice article back in January of 2023 that highlighted some of the games that were either in early development or late development before Williams went out of business. And there are some really, really cool ones. So they had a Star Trek on the way. And after being at TPF there was a row of every single iteration of Star Trek from the 1980 Bally to the brand new Stern one and everything in between So you can see it definitely like a franchise or an IP that they went back to time and time again just probably would have bought three different versions of it guilty as charged because i personally owned the data east version i had the next gen and then all three levels of the stern water so that only leaves that i haven't owned the bally one which i wish we have which i would be interested to have because they have like a a kit for it where you can add speech to it. I've seen something like that. I almost thought that board looked pretty cool. It was like one of those all-in-one. Yeah, and there was all kinds of different sound packages and stuff. Yeah, exactly. It was the sound packages that looked really cool. So Star Trek was definitely one that I think they had early on in the pipeline of, hey, this is a license that we've used before that can sell just like pool and cards. So it's hilarious that you say. The sound card is just Jeff going, absolutely. Absolutely. I just take a drink. In my search, I just found a new in-box Revenge from Mars. How much? I'm sorry, what?
    53:15
    New in-box Revenge from Mars? It's a re-import. It's in Texas. You were just down there. $7,500. That's not terrible. You were just down there, Jeff. I know. It's been relisted twice. Yeah, you could have put that on your carry-on. That seems, if it's been relisted twice. It says new in-box, open box. Look at those graphics, though, man. Those are minty. It still has the peel on it. The protective plastic on the rails. Wow.
    53:43
    So it's funny that Zach brings up redoing pool themes because one of the ones that they also had in the pipeline was 8-Ball Universe. So instead of 8-Ball Deluxe or the original Valley 8-Ball, this was – I don't know. But could you imagine what you could do with – you could have pool balls like on a pool table being projected down. You hit the pinball into it, and the pool balls disperse, which would have been amazing.
    54:15
    So there was at TPF talking about 8-Ball Deluxe and all of those. They had in the homebrew section a game called – was it 8-Ball Beyond? 8-Ball Beyond. Yeah, I saw that one. And it was – Was it cool? It was not only just cool. it played like a game that was manufactured. It was solid. It was, it was coded. Awesome. The lighting was awesome. The Mac was awesome. All of that stuff. Yeah. One of these years we might do something. Yeah. So then side by side in another row, they had eight ball deluxe in the rapid fire cabinet right next to it. They had the Gottlieb premier cue ball wizard. And just to try to get people riled up, I posted on my Facebook that I liked preferred it, But I preferred the cue ball wizard, and man, I was getting heckled and peppered with a lot of hate for making that comment. Hate, hate, hate. But now I understand why Kaneda does what Kaneda does because whenever you put something out there incendiary just to try to get a reaction, man, people like fall into that trap very, very quickly.
    55:22
    So one of the other ones that they had in early production was an alien defender game. So I'm not sure if this was like a defender. Or like the arcade game. That would be interesting because you could mix it in so easily again, you know.
    55:38
    Yeah, you could definitely do a lot with it. But if you go onto the Snap Arcade article, what's really cool is there are some renderings of these games. And when I look at these pictures, they remind me of like modern day – like if you tell AI now to make a football machine or a machine of the future, that's what these games look like. They're wild on the Star Trek one. It looks like a weight equipment. Yeah, it definitely just totally reminds me of something that AI would create as opposed to – How is that pinball tooth – is that the – It's just like the same sort of shape, and instead of having traditional legs, it just – I'm talking about the back. Like the monitor is not in the right place and stuff. Yeah, it's just a different – a mock-up or whatever. It's not a final version. Share with the rest of the class, Jeff. I will. Sorry, sorry. I think one of my random facts was that the heads in the bodies ship separately, and so they didn't have matching serial numbers. That is interesting. And the heads were universal. They could be international. They could go wherever. That would make sense. The bodies were the country specifically. Because that's like how we discovered with that inner flip dragon that they shipped the bodies and the heads separately to them too. Yeah, and that's why that does that weird stuff. Huh, interesting. Yeah, that was one of the random talking about that, but they shipped them separately. Did we end up finding an MSRP on – Not yet. I'll dig in a little deeper. I bet if I asked my dad, I guarantee he probably saw the invoice. I was going to say he probably saw the carbon copy. So I'll – we'll find it. I'll do a little further research for next time. So one of the fascinating things for me on Pinball 2000 whenever I first approached them at quarter up was I'm just used to two flipper buttons, and you have your two flipper buttons, and that's all there is to it. And then once Corbin and I started doing a deeper dive on Pinball 2000, he's like, well, you know about the other buttons on these games too. I'm like, there are – Side action buttons. A quick story on that other button situation. For years, back when, like, after the game came out, one of that buttons, the right side I think maybe broke. Like the upper part of it broke. Something happened to it. Yeah. You could not get that button for years. I remember that. Like that game sat down at the shop for years and didn't go out because you couldn't get this freaking button. And this is back in the days of like – and I don't know how – you know, people who have been doing pinball for a while remember these days where there were just parts you couldn't get. Right. There were chips you couldn't get. There were, you know, arms you couldn't get. There were flipper buttons you couldn't get, and it was like at some point eventually we found somebody who found a box of new old stock in the bottom of a game or something. I'll give you three or whatever. Right. Well, I remember on an old TopCast episode. It's that broke for – Yeah. Like World Cup, man. Yeah, World Cup was one of those Doctor Who was down from a chip for the longest time. It's like you just couldn't get the parts. Gene Cunningham was doing an interview on there and he was talking about when he bought out one of the warehouses when Williams went out of business and they were just pallets and pallets and pallets of parts. And it's like you could just – I can just imagine all of these salivating operators like, I need to get some of those parts just to get my stuff out there. Well, it just sucks because – and that's always the hesitation or the concern with going with any of these new companies or anything is like are they going to make these weird parts that then we're never going to be able to get? and so the game's going to be good. But then as soon as like, even like today when I was getting a, looking for a board for TNA and I'm like, man, should I get to like, that's right. The habit now it's like, I always feel like I have to hoard it, which hopefully we don't have to get back to that. I feel like we're in a lot better place. We are, we are with a lot of, but then I get paranoid. So, I mean, and how could you not, whenever there have been, it's insane now though. I mean, for you, but that's right. That's right. I mean, knock on wood that we don't see another significant Valley, but if, you know, history is to repeat itself, which it has decade after decade after decade, there is at some point going to be another valley. And, you know, if not everyone survives through those valleys, then all of a sudden it's the question of, you know, who makes it, who doesn't. And then when someone inevitably doesn't make it, you know, what's available and what's not. But in that same same Gene Cunningham episode, TopCast episode, he talked about having pretty much a finished prototype of Pinball 2000 that was Playboy themed. That would have been interesting. That's another time again and again a theme. Because what? They ran a Bally version of that, a David East version of that, and a Stern version of that. So then you would be talking about four different title – four different types of Playboy going on. But Jason Knapp talks about it in depth of how they were – that was one that was just pretty much was going to happen, but Pinball 2000 didn't thrive and survive. That could be pretty wild, some 3D Playboy action, I guess. There could be different levels of mature content, for sure. I mean... Yeah. So what other little footnotes and whatnot do we have? All right, so we got a lot of random stuff here. So the updates, like we talked about, were by the computer, which was crazy. If you think about, like, back in 1999, 2000, like, what was that? A laptop. Like, how big was that? And what were the cables like? So now there is a – the one guy on Pinside, Apple Juice or whatever he is, and I think he was one of the same – the guys who did the code for the Magic Girl, the coder who finished the Magic Girl code. He actually has made a new update system that will – for Pinball 2000, which he does all kinds of stuff. Like he's updated a Sega board for like that Magnet Driver one for Twister or Goldeneye. Yeah. Like he always does updates of all kinds of great boards. So he's done a lot of work for Pinball 2000 as well, so I thought that was interesting.
    61:11
    So Jeff had briefly mentioned about how some of the stuff was similar to what Stern has now. So one of the big ones I had found was the similarities to Insider Connected, and this is one of the things that I'm definitely excited to ask George about a little bit. So there was a system that all these games connected, and they did it at Expo that year where they connected all the games. And if you were playing in the tournament, you would get a – at the beginning, you'd go and they'd take your picture. You'd get a little barcode on a card, and then when you'd go to play your games on the Revenge for Mars, you'd scan in with your barcode. This is sounding very interesting. Familiar. Right, so you'd scan in, and then during the tournament, there was a central – so they were all – I believe they were all hardwired together, from what I've read. Makes sense for 99-2000. Right, it was all hardwired together. But there was a central board then that had what you would say are the leaders on this board, a leaderboard, if you will. And then on the game itself, it would also cycle in between games. It was an attractor. It would cycle the pictures of the top players at the time because they'd take your picture at the beginning and everything like that. It's interesting. It's like a LAN party. It's definitely a precursor of what Insider Connect is now. And I know that they still have a lot of big plans. I know Lyman Sheets was big in writing the code for all of that whole system to make them all connect as well. So I know after he passed, obviously almost every podcast did an episode about him, and I listened through a bunch of them, and they just talked about how technologically forward he was with a lot of these things.
    62:49
    Pretty fascinating stuff. Absolutely fascinating stuff. So, okay, next thing I got here is that a lot of the Pinball 2000 website, like Planetary Pinball has it still active. And so you can go back and look at some of this stuff, and it's a goldmine. Like there's pictures of George Gomez on it. So if people are looking for it. Do you have that sweet hair? Yeah. Oh, my God. So the best way to do it is if you Google, just Google like pinball2000.com, and then you'll find it. It'll be like a Planetary website. Then you get on it, and let's see. Where are the pictures? So one of the pictures of him removing a back glass or like showing how to remove the back glass. Well, it's under the modularity. That's it. So once you get to the Pinball 2000 website, guys, just so you can find this, you get to modularity. You click the next arrows, and it has pictures of how to do the whole swap. You're going to remove the back glass, and it's George Gomez. And George has flowing locks of hair. There's a computer tower up there, by the way. Yeah.
    63:49
    So Corbin had sent me a screenshot of that, and I had forwarded it on to the sales director at Stern, and I said, you know, if this were to happen to find its way into a PowerPoint presentation that George is present for, I'm sure it would warrant a few laughs and reactions. So we'll have to ask George if that's happened yet. Lunchroom pop-up or something. It literally shows in nine steps, nine easy steps is what it shows to swap it from one game to the other. Swap the game. That's neat. Your play field, your connectors, which it does have a track system the entire length of the play field. I almost kind of want to swap it next time for fun or at some point. Let's do it. When you're showing me some of these still images, it's reminding me a little bit of those Deep Root videos. Did you guys see those to where they're trying to show like their play field rotisserie? It doesn't fucking work. It doesn't work. And the guy is just yanking on it like as hard as he possibly can. You kind of got to give it a little jimmy and it'll go. So, yeah. So that was cool. On the website as well, some – or feedback or frequently asked questions that were hilarious.
    64:58
    It's just amazing to me that this is still being maintained. Operator requested security features. Okay. So one of those was a – there's actually a key. For lockdown bar. Yeah. So there's a key that came and it was separate. So you pull – it's the key in the front. You turn the key. the lockdown bar would come out and it would allow then the location to pull the glass and if a ball got stuck or something on the top side of the play field it wouldn't let you pick the play field up or it wouldn't let you get to the money essentially so you're keeping the cash box secure it is I guess I asked my dad he didn't even know it was a feature and you know he had the game and operated it and so then I guess I'm curious one of the things I want to ask George is like was this a feature that like took off like that people wanted? Clearly not You think nothing else has it. Well, I can tell you this, though. A lot of the – like your dad not being aware of that feature, a lot of times that's what the distributor network is for is if I'm selling a new game or – And it has some new thing. So like whenever the – what's the new lighting system like in Foo Fighters? The expression lights. When the expression lights came out, they educated us on what that was. That way when customers – Like a pinball school kind of thing. Right. Whenever customers had questions, I was educated on it to where I could describe to them, hey, this is what it is. This is why it's different than Penn Stadium. This is what it does. It's actually – there's someone who's dedicated to coding this to each mode, to each song. It's a truly interactive sort of thing. So I could imagine back in the day it was a similar thing with Williams and Pinball 2000 to where they tried to educate their distributors who then needed to send that down to everyone else. Or was it like, oh, we're closing. We don't care. Yeah, but I think it's like the quality. A lot of times it's the quality of the distributor that you have. Are they taking the time to explain to you all of the features of the game that you're getting, or are they just taking orders and shipping it to you? Because there's a lot of stuff that you might not ever discover. Exactly. Speaking of pinball school, Jeff pinball schooled the shit out of that Looney Tunes the other night. No doubt. Fix it with a hammer. He smacked it on the front door. Fix it with a hammer. I didn't have the key, man. You got to do what you got to do. So some of the selling points on this, which I thought was interesting as well. I was just reading back to the website. One of it was that they viewed this playfield swap system and the computer system. Both were very easy to swap out. That whole cage could slide out of the top. The whole playfield could swap. So if you're having issues with this playfield, they were viewing this as, you can just swap the playfield, take it back with you, put a different playfield in, and then figure out what's going on back at the shop. Instead of swapping the game, you just swap the playfield. It is genius. And once there are eight modules out there or whatever, that's definitely a thing. For shop outs and stuff, you know. Right. Then the cabinet stays and you just swap the – yeah. Because they were also advertising as you could get generic Pinball 2000 cabinet art. Like it would just be – and then you could swap out the Nintendo cabinet. Then it's in a row so the side doesn't even matter anyway. No, it doesn't matter at all. It's easy, yeah. It's just the back glass and the play field.
    67:53
    Definitely. And so, okay, so there was three different ways you could update it. So there was the way I first mentioned the computer serial port where you would plug your computer into it and it would update through that off the website.
    68:07
    If you had it hooked up to a phone line at the time. Oh, update through phone line. It would update through the phone line.
    68:17
    So like that's awesome. Corbin, get off the pinball 2000. I need to call grandma. Right. I'm trying to update the pinball. Or you could just swap the ROMs. That's cool. Well, talking about the playfield swaps and all that, I will even say with like a modern Stern Spike 2, most of them, it's like two connectors to pull the playfield. So when people ask me all the time, oh, I need to put art blades in, I'm like, I just usually – if I have a second person, I just take the playfield out. That's how we always do it. Yeah. Wow, you guys waste a lot of time. But it's not a lot of time. Like I can have the lockdown bar off, the glass out, those two connectors off, and the playfield out. No, the serial – the Ethernet cable for the Insider Connect is a pain in the ass. Yeah, that's the only one. That's the only one. Yeah. It runs way too far. And it wraps around it like 700 times. Yeah, and you're just clipping all these zippies. Yeah.
    69:11
    They also advertised that it had less plugs. It requires only two screws to remove the power driver board in the cabinet, and it has 22 fewer connections than the previous system. The more that you're going through all of this – Because before it was a lot of connections. They were thinking about operators it feels like. Yeah, I really want to get George's perspective on all of this. I want to hear his thoughts on a lot of this stuff. It almost even – I mean I know it was a lot of operator back then, but I wonder if they were like, I wonder if we can start selling these people for their house. It feels – with the simplification of some of this stuff, with the easy swap and the less connectors, Like it all sounds like they had a thought towards easier to maintain, which then would mean in a home as well. New stereo sound system places speakers closer to the player for maximum enjoyment at any volume level. I do. For your pleasure. I always approve of maximum enjoyment. It has a very built-in troubleshooting menu, which I – I mean the head is two foot wide. It is a very good troubleshooting menu, but the challenge is how are you supposed to use it with the glass off? How are you supposed to see when the glass is out? That's the problem. That is the problem. You're always hanging upside down. I'm hanging upside down. I'm asking the origin. Well, it's another one of those things with like Bond 60th when they went with the mechanical score reels. It was like, well, now how does all the Insider Connect stuff work? So they had to put the little LCD into the play field. That way you can navigate all the menus. You can do all the troubleshooting. You can have your Insider Connect stuff in there because if you don't have that, there's no real way to navigate it. But I thought it was interesting as well. at TPF, they had one of the Haggis Centaurs there, and they had two on the apron. They had two tiny LCDs on the apron that had game information and whatever else going on at the same time. That's always something that I've seen companies try from time to time, but has never really taken off yet. It's like, I'm a full endorsement of this. Even in the early 2000s and stuff, they had the little LCD screens on the playfields and whatnot. Oh, yeah. Simpsons and Monopoly. My favorite world poker tour. I know you still have that.
    71:12
    It's saying that you can swap the play field in 60 seconds or less. I say we do it in time. Which I feel like now we kind of have to have a competition. I feel like with a modern spike two, with a second person, under three minutes for sure. Is it saying two people or one people? It says second person, two people. But no, this online. Oh, it didn't say. Okay. Well, if it has that reel, you just slide it out the front. What does the picture show? I mean if it's essentially a full-length play field, you're going to need a second person. I mean that's some weight, man. Uh-uh. No way, man. George is doing it by himself, dude. I pulled Alvarez out by myself. Yeah, but he has like the long hair going on there, so it's like the power of the hair, man. So just because you're bald. I know. It's hurtful. Makes me sad. Okay, so moving on. So the website is most enjoyable. There's also like that foreign website that these people – it's a little bit inactive now, but some people got really deep into, so like there's a whole development of trying to be able to play against other people. And then also this weird feature of being able to control other people's games. So like they were, they were just trying to design this program as far as I can understand. So that like Zach's over here playing, but it's looked out and then you're at home. You're like, watch this time to mess with Zach. Right. And it's like, people put a lot of effort. Yeah. They were just, weren't able to get past the like start button. There was like one, I think it was a start button barrier. that was holding them up. I could imagine there are some things in the game that aren't connected in that way. So like you said, if it's the start button or whatever it is, it's like, oh, we have this one hurdle. You'd figure they would have found some way to wire that into everything else. Zach's playing and it keeps resetting. He's like working on it. They see it's back on again and he just resets it again.
    72:54
    It just reminds me of the side-by-side Godzillas that they had at pinball. I was just thinking that. Just thinking that. It sounds like that sort of thing where it's like you're tilting someone else's game or just the different ways that you could set up versus matches and whatever else. It would be very interesting to see that on modern games. So the designers on these two games. The first one was primarily like George Gomez was heavily involved with it. And then the second – so the first one was Revenge from Mars, which is the follow-up to Attack from Mars. Right, all-time classic. Yeah, which awesome. And the call-outs on this are amazing. We'll get to that in a second. But then the second game, Episode 1, Star Wars Episode 1, Jar Jar Binks, the whole shebang, that was J-pop. Wow. I did not know that. Which surprised me when I was playing it. It's like a shooter rod. I'm like – Yeah, the shooter rod made sense. And then – but that game is so repetitive. Oh, yeah. It is. Between the two, Revenge from Mars is my – for sure. Would be my preferred one. I agree. But when you're talking about a license in terms of drawing your casual person walking by, there's nothing bigger than Star Wars. It makes you wonder how much they let him work on it too. Episode 1 was just coming out. So that would have been still in the era of – Hot license. So hot. Like it's very topical. Like here's your script. Make a pinball. Yes. And there are a ton of assets in that. So like the video assets that you're getting of like Young Anakin and Jar Jar Binks and whatever else are like nice screen quality. Don't you battle Darth Maul and stuff? Yeah, Darth Maul. There's the yellow ship. There's Podracer. The Naboo Starfighter or whatever. I'm nerding out so hard right now.
    74:38
    It's good. The assets are good. I'm just saying the games are all repetitive. I was just impressed with the assets. It's J-Pop, so that was just random. That was probably the last thing he did full on and finished.
    74:52
    Speaking of J-Pop, I saw down in Texas that Wormhole Pinball also fixed a Magic Girl and recoded it and everything else. So it's not just – But they did it by themselves. Like they did not – So it's different than – Yeah. I mean however they finished it, I'm sure it's not exactly the same as the others. I was going to bring up the real working Magic Girl video. Yeah. Like I was saying, you guys. Yeah, yeah. That was really interesting. I know. Look it up on YouTube. I want a Magic Girl. We need one for the magic theme. I feel like if American can keep going with the momentum now in the direction that they're going, like get their next game out after Berrios and get some cash in the vault, like you could see them eventually doing a big game every year and then doing like a Magic Girl or a whatever else or a Big Bang Bar and things like that. I could see them doing those sorts of things because that's what interests a lot of the people who are there. and I know during that Magic Girl presentation two years ago at Expo afterwards David Fix came into the room and said hey if someone were to make this game how many people would buy them and if anyone would do it it would be David Fix and Jeff raised his hands and his legs we all did yeah you're going to ask in this crowd like oh yeah who would like you know go to the AA meeting asking who wants a drink but I would I mean if somebody built a Big Bang Bar or a Magic Girl and it was 15K or under, I'd be in. Absolutely. I consider these Big Bang Bars at 30, so like yeah. Yeah, exactly.
    76:27
    So talking about some of the other stuff, there were tons of rumors going around at TPF of like future titles coming and whatever else. And it always puts me in an awkward position on the podcast of when there's speculation out there versus like what's actually coming because there are some things that I do know that I'm not allowed to share. and you know he doesn't tell us either so don't worry yeah world i mean corbin's family owns the company and they still don't know i gotta keep it gotta keep it secret who's gonna tell me about tradings that's not true that is totally i eventually tell you after they've been sold after they've been safely sold hey i had this but it sold yesterday but it was interesting to see i I saw that Pinball Brothers or Pedretti was doing their teases of what's coming next for their Bally Williams planetary license that they have. And they were talking about the playfield manufacturer that they were using, which instead of using the European Mirko, they were using CPR out of Canada, which I thought was really interesting. And as the weeks go by, they're going to – I really like CPR. It's one of the ones I've dealt with. Yeah, they're going to talk about all of the different components that are going to go into these games, which I think is a good way to build consumer confidence on your games to say, hey, this is who's building the cabinets. This is who's play field we're using. It's very upfront. It's very open. This is what board set we're using. You've done quite a few swaps with them, haven't you? CPR, yeah. Is that what Adams was? They hold up pretty well? Yeah, yeah. The one I have not done is Micro yet, which I've read such mixed – and that's who's doing Funhaus. They have Funhaus right now. So is there Micro and Mirko? Or maybe it's Mirko. Is it the same? I might be saying it wrong. Who does Jersey Jack? I believe it's Mirko. Okay, then I'm saying it wrong. Mirko. I could be wrong too. Somebody fact check us. Please email in at gmail.com. The company that does they do Jersey Jacks They have all the pooling issues on GNR so I just read such like bullfins I read people who have had great experiences with it Then you have people who have just had like horror stories with it And so like they're making the one for Funhaus. And like I would love to get a Funhaus one and I want to do a Funhaus one. But then I'm like I'm just rolling the dice. So it's like maybe if they're at a show or something, I can see it. Especially when you're spending that kind of time doing a complete play field. It's like the last thing you want is for it to come out and just be totally. And then you replace everything else, and then it would just be something on it that would just drive you nuts. Well, I will say on the GNRs, upon further review on those, the playfield quality wasn't so much the problem on that. They were tidying her. So the holes that they drilled were a little bit too big. So what happened is as posts would loosen over time, then it would start to move a little bit. Rip it out. And when it would move a little bit, it would then cause the clear coat to pool because the clear coat was being pushed. So the way that they combated that eventually was they sent out those – the washers, and what that did was made it to where there was no movement on it as it loosened. So it wasn't a defect as much in terms of like the finish. The quality of the plate and the surface itself. It was more of whenever the holes were drilled. That's what I was told, and it made a lot of sense once I kind of looked back at some pictures. It's like, yeah, that's exactly what happened. But you would think with clear coat, like if that has 30, 45 days, whatever, to set up. That's what I always – I never – It should take a lot for that to move.
    79:48
    Because you think of automotive clear coat, it's like that's – once it's set, it's set. It's rock solid.
    79:54
    So I don't know. I haven't used the Miraco or however you say it yet, but I'm curious to see. But whenever they put on their website – Do they do different titles than – They do. What CPR has available. Like Funhouse is the main one right now. Yeah, so they've presented before at expos and whatnot. And it's always one of those things where it's like, man, you guys are really – you're really bold to be putting yourself out there whenever there have been these problems. They're very vocal as well. Like they fire back. Yeah. So there's a lot of that. Any other Pinball 2000 notes here? Do you want to talk about quotes? The quotes are amazing. Yeah, absolutely. The quotes are absolutely ridiculous on this. Like in Revenge most – I mean Star Wars is going to be Star Wars. So I'm not going to get – So Revenge is our classic commentator, right? Is it – Tim Keats Row, right? I think it is. I believe it's Tim Keats Row. I'm pretty sure it is. I played it earlier. It's definitely Tim Keats Row. And there's so many like Bill Clinton, Hillary Clinton things. Oh, yeah. It was very topical for the time. Take her out of my truck. Leave the truck. So like – Guy in the Mars women. So during the alien abduction. And I'm just going to read this. This is direct. Don't take the wiener cart. Yeah, that's one over here. This is right here. This is Martians. Behold our power, Clinton. Hillary, come – I'm not even going to do a good accent on it. Hillary, come here. You gotta see this. Hillary, help! They're taking my car.
    81:15
    He can't even do it. Can't even do it. Clinton responds, Don't let them take the interns. Very appropriate.
    81:24
    We will take everything. Martians. Pilot. We got them on the run, Clinton. Can you take this dress? Oh my god.
    81:33
    Do they have international or intergalactic dry cleaning? Take this dress. Take that, you greedy Martian. If you're under 30, you'll have to have a history lesson. Yeah. Clinton, don't take the weenie cart. It's my favorite.
    81:48
    Think about the meaning of weenie. Clinton, take the First Lady, but leave my monster truck. Yeah, if you're under 30, do a quick Google of Bill Clinton, Monica Lewinsky, and a lot of these call-outs will make a lot more sense. Clinton, do you have any female Martians? Which is funny because they're like, Mars needs women too. Right. No, they don't have any Martian women, Bill. Take that, you earned films.
    82:16
    Clinton, I feel your pain, Martians. Oh, Bill. I have one button's back. It is nice to have the buttons back. There's a whole scene where the Martians are drunk, where they're drinking during Martian happy hour. There's a whole scene. And they make all kinds of drunk comments, which are amusing. we have the secret weapon which is the Abe on steroids Abe Lincoln robot fighting the alien no feels like a precursor to Abraham Lincoln vampire killer dude right bonus waves then there's the leaning tower piece of struggle yeah that's one of my favorite modes yeah which is with the thick it's all heavy this one has all Italian accents which all of like a lot of these are you know heavily influenced obviously by Attack from Mars where you go through the different cities and whatever else. So it's the same sort of vibe with that, and they use the same accents and whatever else. So I got a mode the other night where I was playing Space Invaders pretty much. Yeah, you were telling me about that. It's called – so it's Martian Arrow – so they're Martian Tank, Martian Autopsy is a mystery mode. So these are all mystery modes now. Right. Yeah. So shoot the scoops and you're going to get one of these things. You have to clear out the first three. First is Martian Tank. Well, four technically. Then we have the Martian Autopsy.
    83:33
    What is this, a full-body caffeine surge? That's not my spleen. That's my wife. Oh, man. Wow, these are great.
    83:47
    Then there's the Martian aerobics, which is the one you described. So it's basically like Space Invaders. Yeah. There's all the Martians. Like the Rosen Columns coming down. And it looks exactly like it. And those missiles you hit and stuff. So you have to hit the ball to hit the missiles to take out the invaders. Yeah, and you have to line it up correctly too because you're going back and forth. That's like a roving shot sort of thing. That's cool. So then we get back into normal modes. We have our multi-ball. We destroy 10 ships. We have drive-in multi-ball.
    84:15
    Move your saucer, which is such – yeah, right here. Okay, perfect. Yeah, creature from the Black Lagoon. Move your car. Taxi, all the different road show where they're like, move your car. They tied that in, which is awesome.
    84:28
    How do you tell the Martian to move? I can't see. bonus wave paris in peril so which is back you know attack from mars as well which this all is a french accent um big old beam the big old beam the big old beam is hilarious because it has like i would i'm assuming are two farmers having a conversation like him and his wife edna we're gonna have bacon for a month baby okay so yeah you cannot protect yourself from the giant Edna, get back in the house. I'll take care of those Martians.
    85:02
    Ned, man, that's one big pig. Edna, I've never seen a pig like that before. People are like, why are they just literally reading these lyrics? That's ridiculous. Let's take a minute here and go around the table, and I'd love to get each one of your takes on why you think Pinball 2000 didn't succeed. So I'll start, and I'll say my opinion on Pinball 2000 is that Williams was already going under no matter what. The higher-ups had already made the decision in my mind that they were killing pinball. They'd invested whatever amount of money into this project with the thought that they were killing it no matter what. So there's no way in my mind that you could have had the sales numbers that you had. I agree. I have to agree. I'm glad to fully agree too. I know you want to go around the table, but that's – I mean if this was pinball in 1999, it would be totally different I feel like than pinball in 2000. It would have been – And what if it was – what if the year was 1991, let's say, and they were trying this at the same time as Adam's family and whatnot? Like would – I think it would have made a difference. I agree with you. I think the timing. I think the timing was the problem because the numbers were there. That was the highest numbers they sold. 7,000 of them? Yeah. In recent times. Because we were looking at like NBA Fastbreak in 1997 and the numbers were like half. Oh, or Scared Stiff or Circus Voltaire. Like any of those. 4,000. Junkyard. Oh, yeah. If you were selling 3,000. Under 2,000. Yeah. Some of those are like – Tales, I think, is like a 2,000 production. What do you think, Kyle? Do you think there were any other factors? It was already just kind of predetermined. I think I've said this before, but I mean, bowling alleys and smoking ban killed all of it. Yeah. And not just Williams and Bally. It killed everything. Yeah. But Ed always blames it too on like the TVs, just everything moving to like TVs. Yeah. And the death of arcades. Yeah.
    86:41
    Arcades had such a bad rep. But I remember being like in a thriving bowling alley and then smoking ban and it's closed in a month. Yeah. So, I mean, that really limits. I do remember the smoking, man. Yeah. Smoking or non-smoking in this restaurant? So I remember in Ohio when they, the first night that I was working in theaters at the time, and at midnight it was changing over, and we went to a Denny's or whatever, and it was the first time, and there were people who were essentially, like, rioting to where it was. At Denny's. Yeah. There's a longest time where there would still be all the bars where you'd walk in, and they'd all pretend like they weren't, and you're like, yeah. And there still is. Oh, I remember going down to some of the restaurants on Tusk towards Massillon, and you would go in to some of those little shadier kind of places. I mean I'm a smoker, and I don't want somebody smoking around me while I'm eating food. It's just bizarre that for the early portion, the early half of my life, that was just the norm. Oh, the norm. Totally like, oh, it's smoking over there, but it's not over here. You're fine if you go over there. The whole sort of thing, but that definitely had a huge impact on all the amusements and that sort of thing. Yeah, you don't have to – the CD jukeboxes, you'd have to regularly go through and clean all the CDs because they would literally have a film. So there would be 100 CDs on there. You'd sit in front of – you'd camp out, two buckets of water, soap them, rinse them, put them back in. Yeah, I took in a demolition man at one point that had more tar on – like I mean it was microfiber cloth after microfiber. Was it from a house or from a bar? It was from a bar. I mean it was terrible. And when I was big into the arcade side of it, monitors were like – Always. It's amazing how much brighter my eyes will look once you wipe them down. It was always monitors, and then the control panels always had cigarette burns from your playing from whatever. So you sit your cigarette down for those intense moments of Pac-Man or whatever else. I do love those pimples that have the little cigarette. Yeah, I think that's so cool. I always remember – it's not a cigarette smell, but our tails sat in a pizza shop for years, and it smelled like pizza forever. Darn. Right. Oh, darn. You open that plate and feel like – I had seen a Pac-Man documentary years ago, and a big section of it that they talked about was most people are right-handed, and Pac-Man is just a one-handed joystick game. So on the left-hand side of almost every Pac-Man cabinet, there's significant handware from people holding onto the cabinet. So a fun random right-hand, left-hand thing. On jukeboxes, there will be – or anything that has two bill acceptors, there will be a right and a left one. 100% of the time, the right one will have easily three to four times as much as the left one. Yeah. Totally believe that. I would totally use the left one for, I believe that you would. And that's just to be a contrarian. There's still a few, few, few bucks in the left one, but I'm telling you the right one, all Kyle's here last week. The right one will always fill up and they'll be like, it's out. It's like, use the left one. And I'm like, Oh, it does get a little, that's like when we got to unhitched on Wednesday for Looney Tunes and the right coin shoot was, you know, not functioning the way that it should. Micah and Kyle had pretty much sent all of their quarters through the right coin chute and a few through the left. So whenever I started pounding on it, they were all going through on the right-hand side. So that was definitely right on with what you're talking about. It's just so random. So the last little I know, we're at about an hour and a half mark here, so we'll wrap it up. Yeah, exactly. As far as Kyle hasn't cut us off yet. The one last pinball. I could have just left. I mean, that Jaws is cold out in the van. 2,000 thing that I had. If they're cold. If you're cold, they're cold. Bring them inside. Got to bring them inside. Got to let them warm up a little bit, get the frost off the Optos. At pinball school they taught us. Shoot the wamps.
    90:08
    But I happened upon a pin side thread when I was doing my pinball 2000 research of a whole homebrew section for pinball 2000 cabinets where people would go in and completely retheme these. Oh, okay. Which I do remember two years ago at Expo there being two different ones in the homebrew section. Yeah, I do vaguely remember that. I know one of them was like a – it was called like Haunted Mansion or Haunted House. It was like some sort of spirit sort of thing. So I actually ran on to the person who designed both of those. And interestingly, for his homebrews that he did because he thought about selling kits for these like actually commercially like making 50 of them or whatever. There's definitely a movement, a following for these like the people who are into them are into them. So he went to the point to where he was developing them, and he didn't want to have to pay for a license or whatever else. So they were unlicensed IPs, original themes, whatever, and that he didn't – he couldn't use the monitor inside the screen because I guess inside the game because there's a patent for that. That in order to then sell that as part of the kit, he would then have to license that patent, which would be interesting to see. Did Williams hold that when they sold that? Who did they sell the patent to? There's some patents on the back of the cabinet I can see here. Yeah, so that was one of the considerations for that when he was building these kits for these that he couldn't use the monitor without having to pay that licensing fee. Which would really change that shit. Oh, yeah. But I do recall playing both of them. I hope to see them again in the future. There are pictures on Pinside of a lot of them, which are interesting. But as we know with any of this stuff, we highly encourage everyone to get out there and play some pinball. So these pinball 2000s, seek them out. I'm going to get them together. Wherever they go next, they'll likely – because this is in – Quarter Up, weren't they? Yeah, in episode one. I just brought it in. One of the features, cool features on the boards is this is one of the first ones that had the LEDs to show whether fuses were blown or not either, which is kind of cool. That's a real nice feature. Yeah. So on these, once Corbin gets – they were at Quarter Up for a really long run together. I think this was there from like 2019. Yeah, because I know Kyle said even before he knew any of us, he remembers going up there and playing. I remember playing that and being like, ah, that's stupid.
    92:18
    What a stupid-looking game. But I think it's another one, too, where you can appreciate it a lot more. I think Zach's appreciated it a lot more since he's had it in his basement and he can hear all those cheeky call-outs and know what to do. It's cool to begin with, but having it here in the basement, just playing it by myself for hours on end. I do enjoy that it's a little more immersive, especially on location, because even with having that overhang, it's a little bit darker on the playfield. It stands out. Even if it's real bright. Yeah. It stands out nice, too. And like I said earlier, it's nice to see the screen on the field and you know what you need to do. It's not a new stern where like, oh, I keep looking up or something else. Hey, hit the action button. Exactly. Jeff and I were playing Looney Tunes. Yeah. It's that same sort of thing. If it's flashing, I'll hit it. That's my – Pretty much. If it's flashing, I'll try to hit it. Will I successfully hit it? Probably not. Well, Looney, you could change the – what object you get on the other button. Jeff and I figured it out. Yeah, there are all kinds of interesting little quirks and intricacies with that stuff. But it would be cool to get these in, get them completely gone over. And then when we have a lull in new in-box releases, it would be a cool little tour to do at a few spots to get them out there. Because anything that we've taken out that was misunderstood before and then people experience, their reaction is so much better. I mean, we preach about the fast breaks. NBA, yeah. The fast breaks. I know when we do Flipper Football, it will be another one that will speak to people. in the pinball 2000s once they're featured in explain our tournament well i mean we just had a killer game of flipper football i took a picture it was at least 30 minutes what was our uh 33 32 that's right i won anytime you had like six players we won zach you dropped out pretty quick no i didn't i dude i i kyle scored a lot of goals i messed up the first first my first ball and then i scored a goal up until the last okay i'm probably football you can do up to six players And when you do a six-player game, you're on teams. Players one, three, and five are together. Two, four, and six are together. Odds and evens, shirts and skins. Right, and how much time – you have so much time.
    94:21
    So either you score or you drain. If you drain, it's an own goal or a goal for the other team. If you want to score quickly, that way you can score more goals. Well, it ended up that I got extended time, Zach got extended time, and Keith got extended time. So it was team one. Zach remaining versus Keith and I. So Keith and I were down by five. We get it down to one goal. And Keith blew it. He blew it for us, for Kyle and I, for the win. He was under the pressure. It was a lot of pressure.
    94:52
    But my point with the Pinball 2000 is I think that if we feature them and explain to people, hey, there's this other action button on here and there's this and there's that, and, you know, we can even open them up and show people what's going on with them. I think it's interesting. You know the launch button does stuff too during gameplay? Exactly. Yeah. We're going to swap them together. It's going to be a fun moment for us. Because I teach people all the time on the Alien, the Pinball Brothers Alien game that you use the launch button to activate your shotguns and whatever else. It will be sitting there flashing. I'm like, use it. Do the thing. And they're like – I didn't spend enough time on that. Yeah. People just don't know. So it's the same sort of thing with Pinball 2000. Don't you do that thing yet? I got to talk about events real quick before you hit that thing. Yeah. Let's do events. I see him over here hovering over the button. You're hitting the play button. We've talked a lot of pinball 2000 the next time. I'll reorganize my thoughts. We'll do some more. We'll talk to George. And then we'll, we'll need to recap after George because I want to do this swap together and we can talk about it. Yes. I don't think we've ever really, we bought that kit and we kicked the shell. That guy's episode one and put up high score or ridiculous grand champs on it. And then we put the kit down at the shop and haven't touched it since. Yeah, pretty much. So, all right. So upcoming events, we have Monday, This upcoming Monday. Monday, March the 25th at quarter up in Akron. We're going to have. Lebowski, baby. The big Lebowski. So we talked last episode about all the big games coming in. And we got Lebowski came in. Louis Toons came in. Texas Chainsaw came in. Jaws Premium came in. And I'm telling you, out of all of them for me, Lebowski. How many white Russians have you had this week? None. I don't really remember. I don't either.
    96:31
    But I played that game a lot. I mean, I've got a lot on the game. So just like they did with Bond up there, just like they've done with all of Jaws and whatever else, is definitely costumes are encouraged. Oh, absolutely. I think we're giving away a rug as a prize. There'll be a rug given away. I'm sure White Russians will be available. Oh, fully. I think that's the only thing they're serving, I believe, that night. You're not allowed to have a beer. Yeah, yeah. No, I'll have White Russians. I fully expect this game to bring the arcade together. Yeah, it's going to pull together nicely. But at the time up there, we're going to have – we're going to bring up Lebowski. Looney Tunes is already on scene. I'm going to leave it there for that as well. And Jaws Premium will be up there by then as well. So it's going to be the spot to be next Monday. So you want to hear my most ridiculous takeaway of why I like the Jaws Premium more than the Pro? Oh, my god. Something that's not worth $2,700. Yes. I'm right in. Let's see what it costs. Not the amazing upper playfield, not the trans light, not the moving boat with the shark. I love real drop targets. Instead of having static stand-ups of the three bank on the left-hand side, it's actual drop targets. And that is so satisfying to do. Can I just buy that? Can you just buy that, Mac? Yeah, absolutely. Put the premiums. So you want to hear a funny story about that? So when the original Bond, the last run of Bond had come out on the Pro, it didn't have the little scuba diver scene. Just fishing, yeah, in the side. So I had put in an order for three of the clear plexis and three of the things that went underneath, and I was denied on them because you can only get them if you have the premium or the LE. You have to prove that it's going to one of those games because they don't want you doing things like that. I got some premiums. Right? We have some serial numbers we can use. But it's the same sort of thing like we've talked about with mirrored back glasses. It would be cool to be able to get one for like House of Horrors or Jaws or whatever. I'd be willing to pay.
    98:24
    But the only way you can get them is if you send them back. Even Jaws looks good. James Bond looks good. Who Fight Us looks good.
    98:35
    Who Fight Us. I think it was me and you looking at some translights the other day and we're like, they're getting lesser and lesser even on the reflective. Or we got it unhitched. We had them laying on the table because of the Iron Maiden. Iron Maiden, yeah. So we got that coming up. So that's Monday the 25th starting at 7 o'clock. Get with Ben and get yourself registered and get in there. Even if you don't want to play, just come on up and wear a costume and hang out. Probably be there for like three or four days. Yeah, so Corbin's been big on doing these events. It's heavy, so we're not going to go in too much. Talk about the heaviest game I've ever lifted in my life. That is it. So what do we have coming up after that? We're going right into Pin Brew after that, right? Pin Brew will be the next thing, yeah. So then that's April 4th, 5th, and 6th. We'll be set up there with our spooky booth. They sent us a plethora of banners and trans lights for giveaways and whatever else. We'll have our own stuff going on. Spooky banners. Yeah. We might be able to hook you up, Zach. I'd say – you know what? I'll also go ahead and say it the 3rd of April. That's a Wednesday.
    99:37
    That will be the next one that we would be at unhitched. Let's just say we'll take the barbecue one out there maybe. Okay. So Barry O's Barbecue Challenge LA. We haven't talked about it. It will 100% be. It'll be here. I'll be back, and I would love to do that. It'll be a great shakedown for it, too. Yeah, yeah. That's what I was thinking. Why not? We'll give it a little test time. Yeah, yeah. So Wednesday, April 3rd, Unhitched in Louisville, Ohio. That'll be kind of the debut for us of Berrio's Barbecue Challenge. Sounds good. And I'm on vacation. Perfect. So that'll be a good time. And then Kyle's going to be setting up the Rob Zombie Experience starting on Thursday, April the 4th. Come see us at Pinbur. Yeah. It's going to be interesting. It's going to get weird. The lineup of games that we keep – because we're taking a crane. We're talking about taking a crane too, I think. So 15 pins and a crane. At least. I really want to have the crane, and in the crane I want to do – we're going to have the fresh Mad Pinball shirts. Yeah, a dollar a try for a shirt. I mean that's a good value because those shirts, I mean, are $20 a pop if you buy them otherwise. I mean throw a $20 bill in there. I think we should put some other prizes too that are like some beer tickets or some – you get to play a game against Kyle. Maybe keep – Free stuff. Yeah, he could do some of his 3D-printed mods that he's been doing on Pinside, which have been a huge hit. Oh, I forgot to give him stickers. He's coming over tomorrow morning. Yeah, we'll see him at Breakfast Club tomorrow. But yeah, definitely, if you're within, I would say, even three hours of Pin Brew, it's worth the trip. Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Columbus. I'm just looking forward to that giant chicken sandwich from that food truck. They do not mess around with the food truck. The one size your head. Oh, dude. I'm saying that seems wild that you think – I saw it. I saw it on there. Oh, okay. I didn't know you saw it. I thought you were just assuming. I heard that Corbin was treating us all to dinner at that Italian restaurant that we love out there. I heard that was – Did we eat at that restaurant? I never ate there. I mean, I've never eaten there, though. See? It's good. I mean, it's a good – Me and Jeff have been there several times. We need to break in that new Mad Pinball credit card. I forget what it's called. Yeah. Best call it Calamarian. It's easy for you. Exactly. I'm in on that. It's so good. So we're very excited for Pit Brew. The bus will be out there. It sounds like we need to fire it up, dude. Yeah, it's time. This is the season. It is. So that's the big up and coming. We've been talking with the operator, Scott McCabe, down at Sandy Springs of doing something down there with Looney Tunes. So we're going to do a collab down there. And then I've also been talking to Mike Baer at Hoover Pinball League. Coming up this summer, they're doing the most mega of mega match plays where they're going to have a ridiculous number of games. Are we taking some games? Oh, yeah. We're going to be heavily, heavily involved in this. We're going to be talking about top players in Ohio, top players in Michigan, Kentucky, EPA. This will be at the Lodge. How many games can you fit in there? So it is a huge – so they're talking about not just using that entire basement but also using part of the main level as well. So, I mean, I'm in. I'd heard rumors of up to 100 games. I'm down. Which would be, yeah, we obviously can't fill that up a little bit. Wow, I can't wait to be out of that strikeout in one second. Same. But I know just in this area, you're talking about, what, Aaron Rich and Steve Prusa and Zach Bowers and Galvin. I mean, there are just some serious, serious players just in this area. And then you start bringing in some of the Pittsburgh crew. It could get serious pretty quick. The Ohio State champ came out of Columbus this year, so you could see some pretty awesome stuff. So stay tuned for future events. Definitely there's more in the pipeline, more coming. Absolutely, absolutely. One last time around the table, and then we'll cue it out here with some music. Zach, some words of wisdom for the people?
    103:24
    Play better. As Steve Ritchie once said, play better. Corbin, final thoughts? Nothing. Come play some pinball. Yeah, we're getting ready to carry that Jurassic Park in here. Yeah, we're about to play Jurassic Park. The boys are so excited for it. They should be. Max is like, I can't wait to see you. That's a nice dress part for a Denny's. T-Rex is going to eat the ball, man. That's where it's at.
    103:45
    Kyle, final thoughts? I better get Jaws into the garage or it's going to be real cold tonight. All right, everybody. Thanks for sticking with us. We'll see you when we see you. And until next time, play better. Play better.
    104:05
    Play pinball with my dad Need a pin, call Mad Pinball Top of spots, ain't got a ball Call 1-800-MAD-PINBALL