New Road Show Pinball Machine Pickup - It Needed Work!

Cooltoy·video·9m 24s·analyzed·Jan 8, 2026

Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.020

TL;DR

Cooltoy restores and heavily customizes a Road Show pinball with new art, mechanics, and planned audio replacement.

Summary

A content creator from Cooltoy documents the restoration and customization of a Williams Road Show pinball machine acquired via trade. The video covers extensive mechanical repairs, LED corrections, complete cabinet artwork redesign with a custom black-and-yellow asphalt theme, flipper rebuilds, and planned upgrades including a Pin Sound board to replace the original unpopular Carlen Carter country music soundtrack.

Key Claims

Road Show is a Pat Lawlor widebody design from Williams with two talking interactive dummies named Red and Ted
high confidence · Cooltoy, opening description of the game's features and designer
The original Road Show soundtrack features Carlen Carter singing a country song during multiball that the creator finds objectionable
high confidence · Cooltoy, detailed criticism of the soundtrack quality and Williams' decision to feature Carlen Carter
The machine shipped with inconsistent artwork—Red and Ted look different on the playfield versus backglass versus cabinet sides
high confidence · Cooltoy, detailed analysis of the original art package inconsistencies
The dozer mechanism under Ted is notorious for breaking down and required PC board replacement and structural repair
high confidence · Cooltoy, discussion of work performed on the Ted dozer feature
A custom ROM version 7.0 randomizes modes to prevent repetitive, linear gameplay from the stock code
high confidence · Cooltoy, explanation of the custom ramen installation and its benefits

Notable Quotes

“I love to find them used and abused so I can, you know, fix them up, spruce them up, and uh, you know, put my own flare on it.”
Cooltoy@ 0:13 — Establishes the creator's restoration philosophy and content focus
“It does have an absolute um abysmal soundtrack...every time you play multiball, it plays a single repetitive country song that is just absolutely ear bleeding, if you ask me.”
Cooltoy@ 2:10 — Core complaint about Road Show's most criticized feature; motivates the Pin Sound upgrade
“I've always hated the road show side artwork. I thought it was like the most phoned in, lazy artwork ever.”
Cooltoy@ 3:07 — Justifies the decision to strip and replace all cabinet artwork
“These things were money-making machines back in the day, so people were like, 'Hey, don't steal money out of my coin box.'”
Cooltoy@ 4:03 — Historical context for understanding operator-era security modifications on arcade machines
“Scoring a jackpot should be a momentous occasion that you love, and this is like just the most annoying thing ever.”
Cooltoy@ 7:16 — Explains additional motivation for the Pin Sound board replacement beyond just the multiball track

Entities

Cooltoyperson Pat LawlorpersonCarlen CarterpersonWilliamscompanyRoad ShowgameFunhousegame Addams FamilygamePin Soundcompany

Signals

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restoration_signal: Complete cabinet artwork removal and replacement with custom black-and-yellow asphalt-themed design; powder coat color scheme modification (yellow lockdown bar, black legs with metallic flake)
high · Detailed description of stripping original art with heat gun, fixing cabinet damage, creating new artwork package, and changing hardware finishes
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restoration_signal: Extensive mechanical repairs including flipper rebuilds (4 flippers), broken left slingshot linkage replacement, worn shooter spring replacement on both shooter rods, dozer mechanism PC board and structural repair
high · Creator details each mechanical issue discovered and corrected during restoration process
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restoration_signal: Replacement of improperly installed red LEDs with white LEDs across the machine to correct color appearance of insert lighting
high · Creator explains how previous owner installed red LEDs under orange and white inserts, creating poor visual effect that was corrected
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product_concern: Original Road Show artwork package criticized as inconsistent, lazy, and incoherent—Red and Ted characters appear visually different across playfield, backglass, and cabinet; color palette (blue, orange, yellow) described as weird and unharmonious
high · Extended critique of art package cohesion and aesthetic choices made by Williams in the original design
?
product_concern: Original soundtrack featuring Carlen Carter's country music during multiball widely criticized as annoying, repetitive, and ear-bleeding; jackpot sound effect also criticized as unpleasant

Topics

Pinball restoration and customizationprimaryRoad Show machine features and mechanicsprimaryCabinet artwork redesign and aesthetic customizationprimaryAftermarket audio replacement and Pin Sound boardsprimaryPat Lawlor design philosophy and recurring mechanicssecondaryWidebody pinball design and layoutsecondaryOriginal Road Show soundtrack criticismsecondaryCustom ROM modifications and gameplay balancesecondary

Sentiment

positive(0.78)— Despite significant criticism of the original soundtrack and artwork, the creator is enthusiastic about the restoration project and the game itself once customized. Positive tone dominates the narrative of fixes and improvements.

Transcript

youtube_auto_sub · $0.000

In today's video, I'll go over the latest uh little pinball project I've been working on for a little while. Uh picked this up in a kind of a trade deal. Road show needed some TLC and that's kind of, you know, my bread and butter. That's the way I love games. I love to find them used and abused so I can, you know, fix them up, spruce them up, and uh, you know, put my own flare on it. So, if you're into that, stick around. So, this is Road Show. Uh, Pat Lawler design widebody game came out from Williams. Uh, basically kind of think of Funhouse if you're familiar with that one. Got a talking moving head with Rudy over there. This time you get two, Red and Ted. Basic premise, you're working on a road construction crew traveling across the United States and high jinx ensue. Uh, couple of good things I like about this game. Number one, uh, the unique playfield layout. You know, it's it's a wide body design, so it kind of feels a little bit different than a standard pinball machine, but it's got lots of modes. Um, unique mechanisms. We got the two talking dummies that are interactive. You got a bulldozer face in front of Ted. Uh, you can shoot the balls in their mouth. Uh you got multiple diverters that shoot the ball different ways and feed to the flippers various different ways. You got four different flippers on here. You got, you know, subtle uh Pat Lawler, you know, design cues that are across multiple games. You know, your classic shoot through the pop shot that he's kind of known for. You got the little mini flipper over here for the side shot. Allah Adam's family, you know, unique game. It does have an absolute um abysmal soundtrack. You got a lot of players. For whatever reason, Williams like married Carlen Carter and was like, "Hey, we're gonna have you voice one of these characters and we're gonna showcase one of your songs during multiball." And for whatever reason, they were just like, "That sounds like a great idea." I don't know if they were just like banking on Carlen Carter being like the next big thing like Schneia Twain or something, but uh that didn't that didn't pan out. And unfortunately, every time you play multiball, it plays a single repetitive country song that is just absolutely ear bleeding, if you ask me. Um, but that's that's okay because I'm I'm correcting a lot of these issues. When I first picked up this game, um, had a lot of issues. It was dirty, had LEDs in it, but whoever installed the LEDs, for whatever reason, used a bunch of red LEDs. So, everything looked really awful underneath it. Like, you know, they put red LEDs underneath inserts that were orange, so the light was weird. And then white. So, I mean, everything looked weird. Got all that corrected. Put white LEDs across the board, so everything color corrected. Looks nice. Put some super bright pop bumpers over here to liven it up. Uh, it's got a radio over here, a faux radio. Kind of little playful [music] playfield toy. It was red stock. I painted it black cuz essentially I've got this uh [music] black and yellow paint scheme kind of going on here. This is my kiss my asphalt aesthetic that I'm going with. Um, I've always hated the road show side artwork. I thought it was like the most phoned in, lazy artwork ever. And on the side of the cabinet head, it's got, you know, a weird Carlen Carter version of red that doesn't match the aesthetic that's on the back glass playfield. You know, the art package on this game was always weird because it wasn't cohesive. Like I said, the the way that Red and Ted look on the playfield is completely different than Red and Ted look on the back glass as well as what they, you know, characters look like on the side of the cabinet. It was just awful. Plus, it was blue and then there's a lot of orange and yellows going on. It's just it's very weird color palette. [music] So, I just nixed it in the butt, got rid of it, stripped all the cabinet artwork off. That was an absolute nightmare to do, but you know, get it done with a heat gun and a paint scraper. [music] Got it all scraped away, fixed to some dings and some holes. There were some security screws on the front of the cabinet, which I absolutely hate seeing those, but I understand why they were there. You know, these things were money-making machines back in the day, so people were like, "Hey, don't steal money out of my coin box." So, they put those big honking security bars over their coin boxes. So, patched that all up, got all the artwork off, made my own artwork. Uh, it's basically kind of a black asphalt background with, you know, a lot of the artwork that is used in the promotional imaging of this game. Nothing fancy, nothing too crazy. Um, but something that was a little more eye pleasing to me at least. Um, put all new armor on it. The original road show, some of these shipped with like blue powder coated legs and then stainless steel, you know, lock down bar and side rails and all that kind of stuff. Some of them shipped with all stainless steel. Since I was getting rid of the blue cabinet artwork, I didn't want to put blue legs and all that stuff on it. Since I already have a cabinet that's completely yellow powder coated, I wanted to kind of mix it up a little bit. So, uh, I went with a bright yellow, uh, for the lock down bar and the side rails, as well as a [music] dark, um, glossy black for the legs, um, the hinges. Uh, where else? The the shooter rods since we got two shooter rods. Um, and they all have metallic flake in them. So, it has that kind of nice sparkle to it. Allah, similar to asphalt, you know, that's kind of what I was trying to do with the the tie-in. original owner had side artwork blades on this and then almost immediately like ruined his side artwork art blades by lifting the playfield and scraping them all up. Um, and once you do that, it just looks abysmal. He created two massive gashes that were multiple inches long. So, I was like, "Okay, get rid of those." Um, put some just basic black um street artwork here on these sides. So, that is my new decals. [music] Uh, what else? Had to rework the dozer over here on Ted. Um, it needed a new PC board underneath it that senses the impact on it as well as it had a little notch in the background that had been broken off so it would lift but it wouldn't hold up cuz that notch would slip out. So I had to [music] fix that all up. Um, but red now work great. The mouths open and close, eyes, eyelids, everything. Um, those things are notorious for breaking down across the board. Uh, you know, some decals on the dozer blades there. Spruce that up a little bit. um rebuilt all the flippers, which is absolute nightmare cuz like I said, there's four of them and I did the usual shop job stuff where, you know, I replaced all the rubbers. Um so, rebuilt the flippers. When I first got it, the uh left slingshot didn't work. And once I got under the hood, figured it out, had a broken linkage underneath that. So, replace that. Left slingshot was working great. Now, um replaced the shooter springs cuz you couldn't shoot the ball with the right shooter across the playfield. It was so weak. Um same thing with the left. It was so wore out. You couldn't [music] make this uh flying rock shot and hit Ted up there, which is worth like 25 million. So, it's worthwhile to change that. So, got that all squared away. Um, pretty much done with it. Color DMD in it. The only thing I'm waiting on is delivery right now. I'm waiting on a pin soundboard so I can get rid of that god-awful country music. Um, and the awful jackpot noise that this game makes when you score a jackpot. You know, scoring a jackpot should be a momentous occasion that you love, and this is like just the most annoying thing ever. So, get rid of that awful country music song. I'm going to put my own soundtrack in there. Just waiting on the mailman to deliver the pin soundboard, as well as some Cliffy protectors. Uh, the scoop over here, the fish hole, if you will, as it's called, chewed up from years of use. I got to rebuild that. But Cliffy, he's always, you know, a couple months out. Also have a custom ramen here. Version 7.0. Basically randomizes a lot of the modes that go on in this game. Uh prevents a lot of the repetitiveness and, you know, just the super linear gameplay that the stock form factor had. Uh which is nice. Adds, you know, like I said, a lot of replayability because you're not playing the same mode every single time over and over again. Plus, you get to see a lot more of the modes and the diversity those modes offer later on down the game play sooner than later. But other than the pin sound board, uh getting my Cliffy protectors delivered and uh making a topper, this thing is essentially done. Plays great, looks so much better. Uh put a, you know, a new apron on it. It's all black, glossy, got the road show bulldozer on it, colorized. [music] Played with that in Photoshop, clean it up. Just, you know, toned it down a little bit with the crazy wackiness that was going on with the color scheme that was everywhere. try to get it a little more narrowed down with some yellow, black, and oranges and uh you know, just try to make this thing look and play as good as it really should be because it's a fun game. It gets a bad rep because of the awful soundtrack, but luckily Pin Sound's going to fix that. Guys, let me know. Have you played Red and Ted Road Show Pinball? What do you think of it? Are you like me? Do you hate the soundtrack? Let me know your thoughts and opinions down in the comments below. If you enjoyed the content, make sure you hit the like button. Share this video with your friends if you found the information helpful. And as always, thanks for watching, guys. Really means a lot. [music]