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The Pat Lawlor Workshop

Fresh Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 17m·analyzed·Dec 9, 2024
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.034

TL;DR

Fresh Pinball S3 finale: game room upgrades, container shipping logistics, and operator insights on X-Men/Ninja Eclipse performance.

Summary

The Fresh Pinball Podcast Season 3 finale features hosts discussing Kyle's upgraded game room, container ship logistics, Ninja Eclipse distribution updates, and location operator experiences with recent Stern releases. The episode covers fact-checking discussions, pinball-specific technical repairs, and community engagement around competitive play and arcade locations.

Key Claims

  • A standard 20-foot container can fit 33 American Pinball Hot Wheels games

    high confidence · Corbin/Kyle discussing American Pinball flyer specifications; verified from official promotional material

  • The average-sized cargo ship discussed (2008 model, $16M price) can hold 15,000 containers

    medium confidence · Zach provides research-based calculation; specific vessel specs mentioned but not independently verified in content

  • Ninja Eclipse has one remaining distribution slot available through Mad Pinball; pricing is $6,995 plus shipping

    high confidence · Corbin directly states Mad Pinball has one remaining slot; pricing explicitly stated by hosts

  • X-Men Premium (Angelique Stark novelty variant) achieved 250-300 plays in first week at Quarter Up arcade in Akron

    high confidence · Corbin directly reports play counts from location data; confirmed as current week leader

  • Ninja Eclipse underwent minimal maintenance after 3-4 months on location (several thousand plays) - only flipper rebuild and wipe-down required

    high confidence · Corbin reports firsthand operator experience with Ninja Eclipse on high-value locations; prototype noted with subsequent build quality upgrades

  • Roger Sharpe action figures sold out within first day of release at approximately $100 retail

    medium confidence · Hosts discuss sold-out figures; specific production run numbers not stated but initial rapid sell-through confirmed

  • Foo Fighters LE had a faulty main board causing node board initialization errors; board replacement resolved the issue

    high confidence · Kyle describes detailed troubleshooting process and Stern tech support confirmation of main board failure

Notable Quotes

  • “If you're cold, they're cold. Bring them into Kyle's basement.”

    Host @ ~00:05:00 — Humorous reference to the host's decision to relocate games to heated basement; shows casual, community-oriented tone of podcast

  • “We have one slot. That's the top distributor in the world. We were in early and we were in often.”

    Corbin Angeli @ ~00:35:00 — Direct statement about Mad Pinball's distribution status for Ninja Eclipse; confirms premium distributor status in pinball industry

  • “I was super impressed whenever it came from off-route and we took it over to PGX. Literally, it was just wipe it down and away you go.”

    Corbin Angeli @ ~00:36:00 — Positive operator feedback on Ninja Eclipse durability and build quality; validates location viability

  • “The best smelling soup I have ever smelled in my life... I was willing to trade Corbin for a one cup of this soup.”

    Kyle @ ~00:45:00 — Humorous anecdote during technical repair; demonstrates podcast's casual, relationship-focused tone

  • “X-Men was the top still. I had no doubt. I figured X-Men was still up there. Turtles is up there.”

    Kyle @ ~00:32:00 — Real-time location play data showing X-Men Premium and Turtles LE leading at Quarter Up; indicates strong location performance for recent Stern releases

Entities

Corbin AngelipersonKylepersonZach AngelipersonMad PinballcompanyAmerican PinballcompanyStern PinballcompanyNinja Eclipsegame

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Mad Pinball maintains premium distributor status for new releases with high-allocation first-access (early ordering on Ninja Eclipse); demonstrates strong manufacturer relationships

    high · Corbin: 'That's the top distributor in the world. We were in early and we were in often. I mean, we had a lot of faith.' Secured multiple Ninja Eclipse allocations across locations

  • ?

    community_signal: Location operators actively tracking play counts and game performance; discussing rotation strategies and new game integration with competitive league partners

    high · Corbin: 'I do have play counts, at least on some of them... X-Men was the top still.' Discussion of Hoover Pinball League launch collaboration and competitor feedback

  • ?

    community_signal: Roger Sharpe action figures achieved rapid sell-out (within first day) at approximately $100 MSRP; indicates strong collector demand for pinball history memorabilia

    medium · Host discussion: 'They sold out in like the first day... it was like a hundred bucks or something... it was like a legitimate run'

  • ?

    venue_signal: John Wick performing better at location (Quarter Up) than home market penetration suggests; aligns with pattern that games without strong home adoption find location audience

    medium · Kyle: 'I really feel like the ones that don't sell as well into homes when they are on location, they do even better because people are like, hey, I want to go out and try this game.'

  • $

    market_signal: X-Men Premium (Angelique Stark novelty edition) demonstrates strong location performance sustained beyond launch week; outperforming newer game releases

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.234

0:00
What do you mean? Is he going to sing something? Let's go! The Rash Bin Ball The freshest of the freshest Delicious Soup Edition Pinstadium Neo Fusion Atoms Deluxe Extreme, extreme, extreme You can rewind for $399
0:30
Welcome everyone to Season 3, Episode 10, officially the finale of Season 3 of the Fresh Pinball Podcast. And away we go. We are live at the revamped Kyle basement. Fresh Pinball. Fresh Pinball delivery. You want to talk about fresh. We went from Stern Elvira, House of Horrors. Awesome game. Spooky, Total Nuclear Annihilation. Rob Zombie, Spook Show. And those were the three lonely games whenever I showed up. I guess also when we say these things, we're like, oh, this poor guy. He's got like three solid games in his house. Like some people only. But it felt bad. I even swapped out Safari's not here right now. I've also heard there's people in Indiana and places like that that have one pinball. One game? Oh, womp womp. That's sad. So games added, Kyle, to the basement. You upgraded from the Foo Fighters Pro to the Foo Fighters Premium. Ugh, Foo Fighters. The expression lights, it's flashing at me right now. Looks so sexy over there with the dead post. Yeah. Nice. Nice addition there. So then Elvira obviously still here. And then a little bit of Williams love. Got Hurricane. Yeah. I was thinking this line of needed some. I'm so excited. It's been a long while since I had a little Python Angelo. Digging it. So then we reconfigured everything now to a spooky row. So it made sense. Rob Zombie and TNA in the Spooky Road book ending.
2:24
Ultraman. Yes. And Rick and Morty. Yeah. It's looking so good. Looking so good. I've only been trying to pry that from Zach's hands. You're just lucky it's getting cold. That's exactly it. I want to park in the garage. Cars need to come inside. If you're cold, they're cold. That's true. Bring them into Kyle's basement. Thank you. Thank you all very much. All right, we'll go around the table here briefly and see how everybody's doing, how we're feeling. Across the table from me, we have Corbin Angeli. Corbin. Doing good. How are we feeling, buddy? I'm doing good. Doing good. Just carrying some pinballs around, dragging it around in the snow. Nothing new. You've been a busy beaver this week, though, moving some pinball around, doing some work on the Mad Pinball Showroom. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Playing with some electric, doing all kinds of crazy stuff. Fun stuff. Never stopping. And sitting to Corbin's left, we have Zach Angeli. Zach! Flippin' Fantastic. Just hanging out with my pinball pals. I'm going to have to rename you Mr. Flippin' Fantastic. The next batch of Mad Pinball shirts, we'll get a one-of-one that just says Mr. Flippin' Fantastic. I can't wait. We have a first mate. We have Flippin' Fantastic. We are going to have some serious container talk this week. We've got some... That's some real information coming, I know, for those inquiring minds that need to know. And to my right, in his pinball palace and Kyle's revamped game room. Kyle? Balls up, baby. How you doing, buddy? I'm flipping flabbergasted. You should be flipping flabbergasted. This is amazing. This is such an awesome upgrade. It's like, can I get that Foo Fighters that I don't quite own yet? All right. bring me some games people all right let's kick this baby off here with a little bit of the fact check so we're gonna start with no good gophers so corbin had acquired a no good gophers in trade yeah and since he didn't have room that fortunately came to me and i've gotten to put some time on it so after the last podcast i've made it all the way through to the wizard mode and i am typically not wizard mode guy because uh average pinball player at best but i'll as kyle and i were discussing earlier today yeah it's definitely you know that era of bally williams aren't the deepest of the deep games so it's very obtainable which is nice it is nice it is nice and so you had also sent me that link to the uh extended kit and i'm curious too and i don't know i have you've never seen have you seen the extended one no but i'm curious if any of our listeners have If anyone's ever played it, I read the thread, but I just feel like there's not a whole lot of them out there yet. I think it's like a $2,000 kit. It's similar to the... Rudy. Yeah, Rudy. It upgrades it to like an LCD. The whirlwind situation.
X-Men Premium (Angelique Stark)
game
Foo Fighters LEgame
Foo Fighters Premiumgame
John Wickgame
TMNT (Turtles) LEgame
Ultramangame
Rob Zombie Spook Showgame
Total Nuclear Annihilation (TNA)game
Quarter Up Arcade (Akron)location
Rob Lansdaleperson
Hoover Pinball Leagueorganization
Roger Sharpeperson
No Good Gophersgame
Pocketeers (Buffalo)location
Arcade Legacy (Cincinnati)location
PGXlocation
Zombie Yetiperson
Turner Pinball (San Antonio)location

high · Corbin: 'X-Men was the top still' with consistent leader status; 250-300 plays in first week at Quarter Up, maintained lead into second week

  • $

    market_signal: Ninja Eclipse shows strong location performance (minimal maintenance, consistent high play counts) and robust distributor confidence; one remaining slot indicates near-complete channel distribution sell-out

    high · Corbin: 'We have one slot remaining... That's the top distributor in the world. We were in early and we were in often.' Reports 250-300 first-week plays at Quarter Up; minimal maintenance requirements.

  • ?

    operational_signal: Ninja Eclipse receives positive operator feedback on reliability and build quality after extended location testing; subsequent manufacturing iterations incorporate community feedback

    high · Corbin: 'We had it on multiple high-value locations over the course of three to four months, a couple thousand plays. We literally rebuilt the flippers and wiped it down. That was it.' Notes: 'They definitely are all about taking in people's feedback. They listen to it and they make the changes.'

  • ?

    product_strategy: TMNT LE with new topper integrated at location ranks #5 in play count despite not being newly released; suggests cosmetic upgrades drive location engagement

    medium · Corbin: 'Turtles is up there. It's an LE... That Turtles is number five.' Discussion of topper adding novelty factor despite established game

  • ?

    product_concern: Foo Fighters LE experienced main board failure on customer machine; issue required board replacement and Stern technical support troubleshooting

    high · Kyle describes node board initialization errors, calls Stern tech support, swaps board from second Foo Fighters LE, confirms main board failure as root cause

  • ?

    supply_chain_signal: Stern games can be palletized three-wide in standard containers for efficient logistics; Jersey Jack games ship on full-size pallets reducing container density

    medium · Discussion of Kerry Hardy video showing Turner Pinball operations; Stern games 'three wide' vs Jersey Jack 'full-size pallets' affecting shipping efficiency

  • ?

    collector_signal: No Good Gophers 2.0 kit exists ($1,600-2,000 range) providing LCD upgrade and Raspberry Pi implementation; limited adoption with few units reported in field

    medium · Kyle: 'I think it's like a $2,000 kit... I read the thread, but I just feel like there's not a whole lot of them out there yet.' Notes Black Rose as known owner

    • 5:23
    The Bride of Pinball. Black Rose, I think, has one. That's why I wasn't going to mention it. It's all Black Rose one for sale. I'm kind of curious about it. I don't know. I need to play Nova Gophers to see. It might be kind of fun to do. So you came over the one Friday morning, Corbin, and we played a little bit. I mean, again, very obtainable wizard mode where you make it through all nine holes, so on and so forth. Some of the fun things, obviously, I found on it is the jump ramp is awesome. That slams down on the play field. Is it the same as Toy Story? I mean, does it feel very similar? Yes, I care. Yes. Okay, just curious. Because everyone says that, and I have not played it. I mean, I played it. So, like, the Duke Caboom ramp on Toy Story comes up from the play field, and it has a post that can come up on either side of it. You're pronouncing it wrong. Anyways, it's a... Kaboom! Toy Story 4. Kyle plays it once, he's an expert. Whereas on No Good Gophers, the ramp is above the playfield at all times, and whenever it is activated, the same way the Duke Kaboom ramp is, by the in-lane switches on your left-hand side, it then slams down onto the playfield, and then you hit it. So if you hit it, then you're trying to... You can have two shots you can go for, the same sort of loop that you get on the Duke Kaboom ramp, or the hole-in-one shot, which is fantastic because you hit the hole-in-one shot, now you're on to hole two, hole three, hole four, whatever. But the shots on it are definitely Lawler classic sort of flow, fun. You've got the spinning disc on there, the same as you have on Toy Story 4, some other funness on there. You've got the two gophers themselves, Mr. Buzz and Mr. Bud and Buzz, I think they are. So lots of fun to be had on there But I've been having a good time with that one Seeing I had no idea that that 2.0 Code even or kit Existed until I think it's on sale For like $1,600 right now On sale? It replaces the DMD with the LCD Yeah I think it actually runs off of a Was it a Raspberry Pi I think it was a Raspberry Pi on that one All right, fact check item number two. This was emailed in to us about our topic of macaroni and cheese. What is defined as macaroni and cheese? So the listener said that macaroni and cheese is not defined by the noodle, but by the type of cheese that is in it. So what type of cheese? It has to be some version of cheddar cheese in order for it to be mac and cheese. No. What if it has like pepper jack in it? Is this person a chef?
    8:02
    I didn't ask for credentials. I mean, like, should they work at the USDA? Did they send you a sample that you didn't share with us? Is there a sample somewhere? Are you asking was there a sample? And I've already eaten it? I assume you've already eaten it. Yeah, I mean, I hope you did.
    8:16
    That's what I was told. I was told that it is not the type of noodle that mac and cheese can be any noodle, but it has to be a version of cheddar cheese. Some cheddar, because there could be some other kinds. Of course, you can mix in some other things. But if you have Alfredo, then all of a sudden, that's not, like, if you have a you know a spaghetti noodle or a fettuccine noodle and then you put alfredo on it that's not mac and cheese well no no it's alfredo it's alfredo sauce but it's just not cheese parmesan yes no i'm following that i agree has to have some kind of a yellow you can you can have some elbow noodles you can have some spirals i think we can bring it into spaghetti at this point even oh man why not i mean you just put the cheese on it why not cheese yeah i can totally i've had some it's like those craft mac and cheese dino shapes you know still craft mac and cheese yeah dude the shapes is better right yeah i've had some dark times in my life where there haven't been a lot of groceries in the cabinet i don't think i've ever done uh mac and cheese with spaghetti so that would be that would be even a little bit of a left turn for me i bet the boys would eat it no problem i'm kind of tempted by it right i'm gonna make it this weekend all right so follow-up fact check item here you know let's just let's just go straight into some container talk we're really excited about this season building up all night yeah this was definitely from the last episode the thing that i got the most responses messages and just people that were literally laughing their asses off of uh kyle saying that he's not ready to be i'm not ready to be a first mate no no people were having a good time with that so i felt underprepared for how deep the container talk conversation went last time so i did some more research that way i can answer a lot more of the questions that you find gentlemen and the listeners may have game on about cargo ships so let's start with the biggest question of how many containers will fit on a cargo ship. Full size. A standard. What's a standard container? So the ship that we were looking at that was once 19 million and now on sale for 16 million. This is our 2008, right? What's it, Christian? It has no name. If we're paying that money, we're paying. It's the SS Gary Stern. You guys know this. USS.
    10:45
    Okay. Obviously. So that ship, how many containers, Corbin, do you think that that ship can hold? Are we going standard size containers? That specific ship, standard size containers. And mind you, one container can hold 33 Berrios barbecues. No, Hot Wheels. 33 Hot Wheels can fit in one container. That's an important thing to know whenever you're putting out flyers. You said it's way more than we thought, so I'm going to guess high. I'm going to go, you can get maybe 1,500 containers on there. Okay, Corbin's guessing 1,500 containers on our cargo ship. Zach? I'm guessing like 100,000. 100,000 containers? Yeah, a lot. It seems like a lot. That might be too much. Corbin with a small number, Zach with a big number. Kyle?
    11:35
    You can see my notes, but don't cheat. Oh, I can't read. Appreciate the honesty. Yeah, it's fine.
    11:44
    I'm going to go 300. 300 Super low So our specific cargo ship Which is an average size cargo ship Our 2008 Standard size You got 758 15,000 containers On our cargo ship 15,000 containers A lot of containers So a small cargo ship Which since the 16 million dollar price tag is a little high You can get 3,000 containers Onto a small cargo ship But our specific one, which is an average size, it is 15,000 containers. This is really average, though. Yes, of course. Come on. It's an average-sized container ship. All right. So important things to know about these container ships are you have a captain, you have a chief mate, a second mate, and a third mate, chief engineer, and then first through third engineer. So I feel like I need to assign some positions here. Kyle needs to be, I think, chief mate No Is he ready? Zach needs to be chief engineer I mean, it just adds up Corbin's the captain And then I'll just be the janitor I can be in charge of cleaning the toilets We need a chef, man Oh, okay, yeah We'll be hungry out on those high seas So Corbin runs the ship Zach is like, this shit's broken Tells me what to do Correct. And then you're just like taking a shit somewhere. Yes, essentially. Business as usual. Yes. A little stinker tinker time. This is how this all works. That's almost half a million Hot Wheels. That's a lot of Hot Wheels. We should put that on there. Could they make that many? So we need to do the calculations at some point, though, of what is the charge per container that you charge. And then times 15,000 containers. I think to Zach's point earlier, you could very quickly repay the cost of this cargo ship. Yeah. But here's where the rolling costs really start to add up. So even after you have the ship for $16 million, each one of those positions that I was referring to make between $80,000 a year and $150,000 a year. That's a lot of drama, man. Depends. It's a lot of nausea bands. Subtract one container because one's going to be dedicated to Kyle's motion sickness crap. Stuff. So you're talking about captain, then first chief mate. Can you run it with four people? I mean, not an average-sized container ship. We'd have to downgrade to a small container ship. What's the price on one of those, Ron? We're probably going to have to figure that out. That might be more realistic. 16 mil might be out of our reach. I saw something interesting on cargo ships, too. It's about how they run on diesel fuel, mainly in port, and then when they get in the high seas, they switch over to a fuel oil type. Really? Yeah. I wonder what the reasoning for that is. It was cheaper to run the other shit. Hell yeah. I don't remember. In international waters, it's not illegal. Yeah, we can do anything we want out here. No CO law. Yeah. For sure. Interesting. Let's get some sails or something to sell that shit. Pop up a couple sails. Wind powered. So as Kyle and Corbin alluded to earlier, we saw the flyer from American Pinball's Hot Wheels, and you can fit 33 of those into one 20-foot container, which is a standard size container. When I was looking at that, it's just interesting information to include. On a flyer. Yeah. That's something that you need to know at a quick glance. Do you think that... They've ever filled a container of Hot Wheels? Well, I'm sure they have to ship overseas to multiple people, but like...
    15:19
    All at once? For one customer, that's what I'm wondering. If one person's ever bought 33 Hot Wheels. 33. Not 34, you can only fit 33. Somebody's like, I need 34, and they're like, dude, just get one less. The container's a better deal.
    15:35
    They're at like 30, and they're like, get three more, it's a better deal. So last item I have here during the container convo conversation. Is that the same you can fit in a truck then?
    15:47
    No, because a semi-truck is 53. 53? 53 feet. I'm trying to think how many we can fit in there. So 20 feet. The only time we had to split a load, I think, was Jersey Jack games. Yes, correct. Stern zone. But those go on full-size pallets, whereas Stern games you can go three wide, Yeah, which I saw a Kerry Hardy video. He was down at Turner Pinball in San Antonio. And Chris was saying that they also palletize theirs. That way you could go three wide inside a standard container. That does make sense. It does make sense, which they are cranking those games out to. Yeah, I've been seeing those landing and people being happy about that. So if you're you're out there and you're waiting on your ninja eclipse, they're coming. They have officially sold out In terms of all of them being deposited Between Turner Pinball And the distributors that they've brought on board Us, Mad Pinball We do have one spot remaining So if someone wants a Ninja Eclipse Get at Corbin at MadPinball.com Or Jeff at MadPinball And we can get you hooked up So you can literally buy one slot Yeah, I have one slot We have one slot that is ours To be sold that's not spoken for yet. So if you're out there... That's the top distributor in the world. No kidding. We were in early and we were in often. I mean, we had a lot of faith. I actually responded to some terrorists yesterday about Ninja Eclipse because somebody was asking, like, yeah, but does it hold up on location or has anyone routed it? And I was like, actually... The one time you didn't just lurk? Yes. Wow. What did you say? I said that we had it on multiple high-value locations over the course of three to four months, a couple thousand plays. We literally rebuilt the flippers and wiped it down. That was it. I was super impressed whenever it came from off-route and we took it over to PGX. Literally, it was just wipe it down and away you go. We might tighten something up, a minor stuff. That's a prototype game. They've made a bunch of upgrades to the build quality and everything else.
    17:49
    They definitely are all about taking in people's feedback. They listen to it and they make the changes. All the details. Definitely. Details matter That's exciting, so one more person can get one Yeah What did those run? $6,995 plus shipping That's pretty good They're on the line now So I mean Now in the next couple months they'll be moving It's $94 It's $1 less than a store I guess as mad pinball as the never over MSRP People, it's very important That we don't sell it for a dollar too much It could ruin our entire reputation I was just letting you know what Ninja Eclipse. We've got to be on the real, real. So Ninja Eclipse, if you're looking for a spot, we have one. It's going to be landing with operators. There are a lot of games. There's going to be one up in Buffalo at Pocketeers. There's one coming to Chicago. There's one coming to Arcade Legacy in Cincinnati. So if you're in any of those areas, get with those locations and get in and check them out and play them. you have a good time with it and you're wanting to get in on that game let us know or you know just be on the lookout for their future releases because once these games get built the next awesome thing is uh right around the corner from them i'm excited to see what see what else comes what's next as always that's like it's such a pinball thing where it's like all right this is cool this x-men just came out that's awesome but what's next what's next always never satisfied no i don't know i'm still pretty happy with x-men it's pretty fun so corbin you took the Angelique Stark novelty X Premium up to quarter up in Akron and Killing it Killing it Oh yeah I think for the first week it was up there between 250 and 300 plays Wow. So.
    19:37
    So... And it's still been the leader for the past week since. It was also a... So we're recording on a Thursday, so you did a poll today, right? I didn't pull the pens because... Time. Yeah. But I do have play counts, at least on some of them. Yeah, I was just curious on a few of them. X-Men was the top still. I had no doubt. I figured X-Men was still up there. I was guessing Jaws was still up there. Turtles, actually. Turtles? Turtles is up there. But Turtles also has the new factor. It does?
    20:10
    Obviously, it's not a new game, but it's new up there. Well, it has the topper on there, too. It's an LE. Is that number five? Yeah. So that Turtles is number five. in that Ultraman's number five. Man, we've got some number fives floating around. Did we have number five? Was it five or eight of the X-Men? X-Men was five, too. Yeah, the old X-Men. LE was five. Should have kept it just for that reason. Should have kept it for the number five, man. Just for the number five. The other one that's been surprising me up there is John Wick. It's been getting some serious play. Again, like we were talking about with that game, I really feel like the ones that don't sell as well into homes when they are on location, they do even better because people are like, hey, I want to go out and try this game. I want to play it. My buddy doesn't have it or I don't have it, so let's enjoy it on location. It had a weird, the lock wasn't working on it when I was up there today, but the plug just had come unplugged to the whole row of Optos. That's my kind of fix. Yeah, it's like, well, you know, Ben had texted me and said, hey, it's acting up. Should have super glued it. Yeah, could have used a little hot glue. You could see, like, the one end just had started to kind of lose, so easy enough. very very cool but we had done in collaboration with the hoover pinball league our x-men that was the premium that we ran through there right yeah the launch there and uh rob so i want to shout out rob lansdale i think it's lansdale yeah a couple things here dude has the most insane x-men comic book collection i've ever heard or seen of in my life so apparently he just acquired and he's bought them all, like none online. He goes into comic book stores. Finds them in the wild, if you will. In the wild, goes through the boxes to find them, finally obtain like the last one that he has been on the hunt for for years. That would be so awesome. Like what kind of good feeling would that be? It would be a crazy man. Right, because it's so easy. He then is left now with what do I do next? Yeah, what do I move on to next? Because it's like in 2024 it would be so easy to just go on eBay or go on wherever and you can buy the whole thing. Everything, right. easy but to track down every single issue in the wad i'm sure you had comic book shop owners like on the lookout for specific issues and everything else but yeah i saw that and i wanted to shout him out on that but the hoover pinball league x-men launch party winner your boy right here took home the grant this is the first time that i didn't have to just take the grand champion plaque out of a box and pretend that it was mine. This one was legitimately mine, so that was a good time. I showed up. You did? Nothing but Stern Classics got fucked.
    22:49
    It was so bad. So what was it? It was a three striker. What did you play? Four or five games and that was all she wrote? Yeah, that was it. Because you got on Meteor and Sea Witch.
    23:01
    I'm like, oh god. I'm not good at these. I'm not good at any pinball, but especially not this not the greatest i should have brought your new jet today that's why i should have oh dude i just want some back glass sweaty sweaty baby you know i'm gonna switch them out yeah oh yeah they travel together yeah so did you guys see i think it was the kinetesis slash this weekend pinball the roger sharp action figures oh yeah yeah can we get it sold out you know i did see they sold out in like the first day yeah it's like 100 bucks or something i don't know how many they make like 10 it's it was like a hundred or something yeah it was like a legitimate run roger sharpe's a superstar that house the call we're on today he had a like a little signed selfie with him i missed that and the daughters they were all in it in the picture oh really yeah so it was like from expo yeah it was from expo for sure oh that's super cool yeah i'm gonna have to check that out when we go back to replace that i was trying to tell you about it but you're just super obsessed dude okay so we went on a home call i focus on anything i'd went on wednesday food fighters le and it was reading uh no initialization of node boards one four eight and nine and like i've seen that a ton of times oh interlock switch is messed up or a connection has dropped off somewhere it's it's nine times out of ten just a quick super easy fix i get there check all the usual suspects and no bueno no joy not booting up so i start to mess with it a little bit i'm jumper in this i'm jumper in that i'm like man it really feels like it's the main board but i rarely see these main boards fail it's a game that had less than a thousand plays on it had like 800 and some plays yeah so i'm calling corbin he's like no everything that you're doing sounds like what i would do to kind of narrow this down like uh screw that guy he doesn't know what he's talking about so i call stern tech support they've never been to pinball school they've never been to pinball school and they're like no you're looking at all the right things it sounds like it's probably the board so i text corbin like hey I know you've got a Foo Fighters LE in your living room right now Can you just pull that board out of there And we'll go back tomorrow Throw it in there and see what's going on So we do just that Throw the board in And it turns out it was a bad board But when we walk in the house Oh my gosh The best smelling soup I have ever smelled In my life It's a Puerto Rican or something soup Isn't that what they said? Maybe Thai From Thailand? she said some country i thought she said oh she might have said thailand i don't know it wasn't i was willing to trade corbin for a one cup of this soup it smelled absolutely we're downstairs he's like down there plotting he's like if i just go up there you sneak it out i'm like he's like you get the car grab the pot i'm like i don't know man like you're gonna steal the whole pot of soup might be hot like that seems messy i thought the real play was that we kidnap and ransom one of the children for some soup right corbin talked me down from that i don't have time I got other stuff I got to do. But the real subject that came up during this repair was this, and I need responses from the listeners of, do you know just off the top of your head when your milk is going to expire in your refrigerator?
    26:14
    Because I always, Scott asks, we're repairing his game. He's like, what is today? I'm like, oh, it's December 5th. I thought your phone went off or something. He asked what the date was, and I said December 5th. And I'm like, yeah, my milk expires today. And both Corbin and Scott look at me like I'm from another planet. Was it in your phone? No, I just know. I thought you had an alert in your phone. And you're like, hell yeah. I honestly thought it was an alert on your phone. And I was like, he has his milk expiration in his phone? I can't get over this. You just knew it. Outside of a bowl of cereal, I don't drink milk. If I'm going to have a bowl of cereal, I'll throw some milk in there. But that's it. This is not as wild that you just knew it, but it is kind of random. Do you always know the expiration? I always know. So what's your name? I had a little bit left, and I threw that out. How did it smell? It seemed fine. Because expiration dates aren't really the date it expires. It's the buy-buy date. So when did you switch to a new one? So I threw that away, and I bought the Nature's Basket this time from Giant Eagle, and it's good until February 9th. Dude, don't trust that shit. Dude, I've got a two-month run on this thing. No. That's a long time ago. Is it powdered? No, it's like legit. Is it from a cow? I mean, it says it's from a cow. No, dude. No? That shit was by some nuclear power plant or something. The cow was? Yeah. Probably. Maybe it's like triple pasteurized Reverse osmosis I don't know What's the pH level of that milk Can you measure pH in milk I noticed Norm was blown the other night So that's the thing is he's the only one that drinks the milk Yeah that's what I'm worried about I don't know what everyone else's milk situation is But if I buy a half a gallon It's gone in like three days But if I buy a gallon Then it's expiring I hear you If I could get the ones from the cafeteria sometimes, I would. That would last you? That would be your... Yeah, it'd be good for whatever I was... For that meal that I'm... And you're... And you get a half you need. Yeah, then I don't have to worry about it going bad. I don't know. And it's kind of a little bit of a bakist. I could see, you know... She does. She's going to go on a run. Yeah, but she'll get it, but then she'll have a whole list of other stuff she needs to do, so she'll just get it then.
    28:17
    This goes bad. So here's the question to everyone out there. Do you know when your milk expires? Just like off the top of your head. I'm going to start pulling people. Be like, hey, when's your milk expire? You're in the grocery store, like in the dairy section. When's your milk expire? No, that's not a good place to ask. They checked on the way to the grocery. It has to be out in the wild. We have to be like at a pimple. At a corner. Yeah, or someone should be like, hey, guys, when's your milk expire? So if we see you and you know when your milk expires and can prove it, you'll get a prize. I'm lactose intolerant, motherfuckers. I don't drink the milk. Tia doesn't drink cow's milk. No milk. It's all on Noren. I haven't had milk since 1993 Lactose intolerance Alright In further Black Friday news I don't know There were some good deals going on out there In the pinball world I know Kyle did What did you pick up? Some Titan rubbers? The 20% off? Titan rubbers and some Some jimmies I can't let it all out No, no, no A bunch of jimmies UV jimmies So anyone that's aware of the Rob Zombie experience from last year's Pin Brew Fest, Kyle is about to step the Rob. This is going to be Rob Zombie experience 2.0 this year with some serious upgrades. So just prepare your eyes, your ears. We keep topping it, but eventually I don't know what we're going to do. There might be like a sense of smell part of it that's like a scratch and sniff sort of thing. A scent tower. Did you have a smoke machine last year? No. We didn't. I have some opportunities here. so kyle did the the 20 off from titan did either of you guys do corbin you're always buying stuff i bought car parts oh all right did rock auto have a big black friday no uh subi mods okay some subi mods i got some ratchet straps from home depot oh and some uh some more like you know box cutter you know change the razor blades out because i feel like i'm always looking for one so i'm just leaving them everywhere now so i'm very susceptible to marketing very very i did get something i'm sorry i'm going is it about the ratchet straps no i got something pinball related oh go ahead it was uh i saw it zombie yeti had a little free shipping thing going and he had an original alice in wonderland print or whatever oh shit yes yes yes yes it was pretty sure it's like it's probably like four dollars cool but whatever yeah so the ratchet straps i fell down i was looking for ratchet straps have you guys seen the ones that are like the auto ratchet straplins like you don't crank them but my dad saw when he's been like did he buy them he doesn't know where to find them wait wait wait she's not cranking at all it's like if we're talking about the same thing it's like a real and it then it clips on or whatever and then it comes out and it shoots back in yeah like a seat belt basically but if you're but if your load moves during transit it retightens itself as it shifts so it never comes loose have you found where to get I do. I found it online. It's like $40. They're like $10 each. It's like $40 for four. How long and how wide? So for the one-inch wide ones, they're good for up to a 500-pound load. That's a little personal, Zach. Dude, I need to ask you this. This is the first thing I looked at. So it was the one-inch wide for up to 500 pounds. I thought about using the word thick. Which is plenty for a pinball machine. So I thought about, I'll have to order some, and then we can give them the thorough test. But if anybody out there already has them or has experience with them, Zach, where should they drop us? Freshpinball.gmail.com. And speaking of ratchet straps, though, I think they clip into the tracks, too. Oh, that would be cool. I saw these ones that you don't have to feed through, and they come through the side. You still have to ratchet them like a peasant. Right.
    31:55
    But they slip through within your ratchet strap instead of feeding it all the way through. I just like the whole, you know, your load shifts. Your pinball just automatically moves. It's nice that, like, hey, it's not going to be so long to get out of here. I was just driving safe with those little children. You had them in nice and tight, too. I don't know if I trust that in barriers shipment to Europe.
    32:15
    How many barriers can we fit in the container? In the container, do they get strapped down, or are they just kind of sitting there? They bolt stuff down the shipping container. Really?
    32:24
    I've seen cars, like, shipped over and stuff, and they, like... Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I've definitely seen unboxing the cars. Bolt wood and stuff down. But they'll stack them in there. So, like, you'll do one car on the bottom, one car on top. What are you fucking stacking? Like, a car on top of each other? There's, like, a shelf up there, though. No, it's like a shelf. Oh, I know. I've only seen, like, two deep. Think of, like, a four-post lift sort of thing. Okay. What the lift is. I've never seen them like that. I've only seen, like, two by two. Yeah. I guess one by one. Not really two by two. Do they strap stuff down in, like, semi-trucks? They use those long bar things mainly. To wedge it. Yep. It makes sense why some of this shit comes the way it does. So my big Black Friday purchase was Christmas tree. And I went with a Fraser fir, got it home, got it in the little eight-footer. I got eight-foot ceilings. Come on. Get it in there. Get it set up. Things are looking slick. Things are looking good. Where'd you get it from? Lowe's. Come on, man. You know my move. I can't be out there. What did they run you there this year? There was a sale. It was like $20 off. I think it was like $60 for this tree. I think I'm going to go to that Hollydale one. You're going to the tree farm? No, not the tree farm. Was she a Butte Clark? Hollydale by La Pizzeria. Okay. This is the best tree I think we've had in a while. I'm pretty happy with it. No lights. I can show you guys afterwards. Okay, yeah, sounds good. And there was only a small light about the Christmas lights, so I think it was like a How many times did you have to put the lights up? Three times.
    33:52
    Three times. I had to put the lights up three times. I have a fake pre-lit one, and it's very convenient. I can't do it. I'm not, and I can't go.
    34:04
    So Christmas trees in, Christmas trees up. All of that's good to go. We'll do it this weekend. We talked about milk expiration dates. Oh, so Star Wars, Dwight Sullivan, we've talked before about Midnight Madness with Star Wars. Yeah, there's no time. Midnight and Star Wars, according to George Lucas. But it turns out that they had physically coded Midnight Madness after the game and put it out there? It went up to 1.10 code was the last version that had Midnight Madness on it still. Everything after that, no Midnight Madness. So we just have to get that version of Midnight Madness on it. Can you pull? Is it on? Do people know? They probably took it off, but somebody has it on the forum. Pull a code off. I'll just reach out to the terrorist or whatever and ask them. Somebody's sending it to people. Some folks have to have it. So you have a Star Wars premium. We can get that code. We can throw it on there, and we can experience the forbidden Midnight Madness. What if someone's smart enough to move the code off of that to the latest code? Ooh, yeah, like merge them. Yeah, all you computer people, you know, figure that out. Yeah, we need to add a fifth into this group, someone that's good with all the coding stuff. We're interviewing for a coding position. If you can send all resumes to freshpinballatgmail.com, that would be great. We pay you one bush light. Peach. You can have regular or peach, whatever you want. All the pinball you can play. All right, so this fact check has kind of drug on a little bit longer than I intended it to, but my final item here will be a Black Knight Swords of Rage has come into the circle. So I had an opportunity to go down to New Albany, Indiana, and I traded an Iron Maiden premium to a gentleman for a Black Knight Swords of Rage LE. So the Black Knight is home safely. I've been flipping it. How's she playing, man? Oh, my gosh.
    36:03
    So people tend to, and I guess I'm around a lot of serious pinball players, and they talk about how the pro is so fast. It's brutal and it's a challenging game and whatever else. And it is all of those things and how on the premium and the LE, the upper play field just slows everything down and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But it's Black Knight. It's not Black Knight without the upper play field. It does slow it down, but it also makes the game, you know, it's a longer player with the upper play field. But in a home environment, like you can backhand every shot on that game. the modes and the fights and the battles and the multi-balls i mean there's a retro mode that you can get into uh once you've been through a couple of the different multi-balls and modes that you can start that turns the lcd screen into like black knight 2000 oh that's cool i don't know i don't have a lot of time on that i've played on like location a bunch of times but yeah it really got deep in it i really enjoyed it a ton we went out what two years ago for corbin's birthday to Birdfish. Yeah, and Keith Campanelli had his either premium or L.E. out there. She did.
    37:12
    She was absolutely... She brings it up often. That one's in the fold. I definitely need to have you gentlemen over that way. We can all get a little bit of time on it. For sure. While I was in New Albany, I went to Rec Bar in New Albany, which was fantastic. One of our operating partners has games at Our Lady of Perpetual Hop. So they had their league night while I was there, which was Thursday night. So I went over for their league finals and hung out there. A lot of really cool people. It was an awesome crowd of literally people who were first-time pinball players to people who have owned pinball machines for decades. So I swung by there, and then my hotel was over just across the river in Louisville. So I went to the rec bar in Louisville, and it was definitely a treat. They had a joust pinball machine in there. The original Steve Ritchie, not the original Spider-Man, but the Steve Ritchie version of Spider-Man. I mean, they had Aerosmith connected up in there, all kinds of cool games. So I think I bought $10 in tokens. And since the replays were so low and people were walking away from free games, it literally took me what felt like. What games did you say you played a bunch? What did you get stuck on? Something random. I got stuck on Aerosmith forever. That's right. because I put up an amazing game for me and it gave me a free game and then I got a match and it was every time I would walk was it a premium? no it was a pro a little bit of a disappointment because you shoot the scoop for the elevator and it just shoots it back out onto the playfield it's like oh that's a pretty awesome elevator thanks but it seemed like every game that I walked past someone had left a credit on it like I can just leave this credit over here I got to play this game But if you down in the area definitely check out the rec bar locations Our Lady of Perpetual Hops definitely a thriving pinball community And I know that a ton of those folks are going to be supporting Pinsonati this weekend. So what, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, which will be the 6th, 7th, and 8th. They're probably down there setting up today. They are setting up. David Rowland was posting some pictures of games being set up. That's always a cool show. Cool show. We collaborated last year with the Electric Playground down there. You'd take in your... Twilight and Godzilla. Yeah. And you had multiple people having a bidding war over your Godzilla. Just sold it. Yeah, that was a weird, weird time. But yeah, great show.
    39:45
    Definitely, if you have the opportunity this weekend, get down there and check it out. so now that we're only 40 minutes into this episode after all of the drivel and other shenanigans that we've been talking about i wanted to talk a little bit of pat lawler and i know everybody around this table has obviously some experience playing his games whether it's been adam's family or bonsai run or any of those things so let's talk a little pat lawler corbin when i say pat lawler what comes to mind for you well i mean obviously the first thing ever you know that always pops in your mind is all adam's family the pinball everyone always talks about yep um but you know i think a he's had a crazy career uh the next i always hear about his workshop that always kind of uh has intrigued me there's just so many stories of him like building these games and trying different things i mean bonsai run is such a off the wall crazy concept um awesome game and and just to think about like the career that spanned from 80s all the way up to you know toy story uh was that was that the last one or he did yeah toy story was his final design so he feels a little bit like almost a george gomez type of of character to me where he was in he's never gotten to like the management of it all i feel like yeah george is He's now kind of shifted into management at Stern and still designing and helping and building the teams there. But Pat always was just strictly designing. Because when I was looking at his game list of what he's designed, I had known that Banzai Run wasn't originally Banzai Run. It was a game called Wrecking Ball that he had designed and then repurposed for Banzai Run. but when I was scrolling through I feel like in my mind when I think of him I figure he's like a Steve Ritchie that was out there making games for decades so he had to have made like 30 40 games or whatever when I went through his list of actual produced titles how many games do you think he was on design for so we're saying from like his first game was what 1988 88 till uh 2022 and he was pretty active because there was like pat lauer like he did his own like uh contract games for stern where they were buying the designs from him for a while so he never really has taken a break uh 47 zach how many do you think he designed i don't know about 40 these are actually they got produced games that were produced correct i'm gonna like 25 kyle 18 Kyle nosed it. 18 is the number that he made, which I felt like is less than I would have guessed for someone who, you know, it's not like he was in and out of pinball. I mean, he was, you know, he had a little bit of a break from 08 to 17. You know, his last one with Stern was CSI in 2008. And then with Jersey Jack in 2017, his first one was dialed in. So you do have a little. He dialed in Wonka and Toy Story. Correct. Yeah, correct. Those are his three JJP games. CSI, though? That's the last one. That was the last one he made with Stern. Which is funny, we were talking about Cincinnati, because we played the heck out of that CSI that was down at Cincinnati with the boys from the Electric Flag Round. It's kind of a fun game. And I've sensed... We don't see it a lot, I feel like. No, at Rec Bar, at the one in Louisville, they had a really nice one, and I played a couple games on it. And it just has these fun little mechs in it, just all the things that you would expect to come from them. And you look at, like, if you look at this list, I mean, the things that were on it, like, you know, Power hitters from every decade. Yeah, I mean, Earthshaker. So we run down the list. Banzai Run, obviously, is insane. Like, you know, you're playing up the vertical play field. Yep. Earthshaker, the fault splits in the building originally sunk. Mm-hmm. Whirlwind, we have spinning discs. And the Shaker motor. Yeah, and the first was the Shaker motor.
    43:41
    Funhaus, the Talking Rudy. I mean, that was... Funhaus was an all-time class. Oh, it's one of my favorites. Then you get into Adam's Family, Twilight Zone. Both are just... I mean, Twilight Zone, the mechs on it are way, way crazy. Roadshow, you got the mouths again. Safecracker, another unique, crazy rolls of chocolate. I'd love to have a Safecracker.
    44:02
    Then you get into No Good Gophers, which Jeff was drooling about earlier. It has having interesting mechs. Monopoly, the poor man's family. So you get into some interesting stuff. I'm scrolling through this list and there's no dogs on this list. All of these games are either good or have really good redeeming qualities roller coaster tycoon ripley's believe it or not nascar family guys shrek i mean there are some that are better than others but none of these are like that mini playfield which is awesome yeah i don't like shrek and family guy right the nascar is fine nascar is cool how it zips around and slams into the nascar or not has like it has a couple different for that era it's loaded yeah it really is so i think during that era so roller coaster tycoon ripley's believe it They're not NASCAR family guy in CSI. I think that was during the time where he was just doing strictly contract work with Stern. So he wasn't officially an employee. He had Lawler. I think it was like Pat Lawler designs or something like that. They did a Dale Jr. NASCAR overlay. Yeah. And then you also have like they have up the Grand Prix. I knew that one. I didn't realize they did a Dale. I've seen a few Dale Juniors. You actually see him sometimes. Do it for Dale. Well, it's interesting with the NASCAR and the Dale Juniors and all of those, like they're in the South everywhere. So when I see them pop up, they're in the Carolinas, they're in Georgia, they're in California. Whoa. I know. The first time I saw them was in South Carolina. But I've seen – I saw a really nice Dale Junior pop up with Great American Pinball not that long ago out in Chicago. They had one, and it was gorgeous. It looked very, very minty.
    45:42
    So what do you think of, Zach, when you think of Pat Lawler? I say Pat Lawler. For Funhaus. Funhaus? Yeah. His, you know, System 11. Oh, really? Like, Corbin said about his shop at his house. I'd love to see that. I think he has one of every of his games. Really?
    45:58
    Somebody had said, because there was, at one point, some of them got water damage or something, because it was in the back of the barn. But I guess it's not that many games, if you think about it. 18 games. 18, it's not that much, but at the same time, if I had 18 in my house, it'd be, Here in my workshop, it'd be a lot. If it was Hendrix, you'd be like, oh, two hours. Right. Like, come on. Well, talking about water damage, have you guys been following on Pinside and Marketplace and everywhere else these games that are coming out of Florida post-hurricane? No. Oh, no. Have you been seeing this, Kyle? I've seen a few. Are there deals to be had? No. I feel like they're overpriced for what they are. Because a lot of times it looked like the water got to literally where the bottom of the cabinet got. Like lower leg bolt, I'd say. Yes. So not into the electronics, but sog into the wood, you know. I'm just thinking if you just buy them for the boards or something. Or the plate heel's not bad. ACDC Lucy for like five grand. Yeah, so I would think a water damage ACDC Lucy would be less than five grand. Yeah, but it was still fine. Because what are you going to do, get a new cabinet? Well, if it's a modern stern. You just buy one. Yeah, you could swap it out. It wouldn't be that big of a deal, but it needs to be a deal for it to make sense. Like $2,500. What are you going to pay for that? Like $500? I mean, I'd pay a couple grand, but not five grand. It depends how bad the damage was. Yes. And you can see inside. Is it molding inside? I mean, you got to think of flood damaged cars, too. Exactly. It's a lot of salt, though. You got to remember the salt down there gets in electronics or really screws shit up. Right. Is the water that was in your home just storm water? Was it ocean water? Like there are a lot of... Wasn't it all ocean water at that point? Wasn't it urine? Yeah, dude. We're just wondering. It was like that South Park where they backed up me. Well, what was the game, Kyle, that was 1 of 10 or 1 of 12 that popped up that was a Storm Damage 1? Mafia? Dude, if I had a game that was 1 of 12, I would haul that shit out with me. Yeah, it was a 1 of 12 Mafia. Was it Capcom? No. I don't think that was a Storm. That's Kingpin you're thinking of. No, it's Mafia. Some weird-ass fucking... So it was like Game Concepts or something like that. It's out of England. was the startup. They didn't hold it up because who cares. What was interesting, obviously, I wasn't in the hobby at that time, so I wasn't aware of that game, so I did a little bit of research on it. It's a single-level game, not the most fantastic art in the history. It reminded me a lot of Punny Factory. I was just thinking Punny Factory. Yeah, of that same sort of like, hey, we're going to do this proof-of-concept game, and then after we get this game out there, then our next game will be really the big leap forward. well from this it was andrew's relatives i'm looking for it but jeff always sends me a picture when he gets his hair done i'm 90 sure it was called mafia um but yeah it was an interesting one but it was one of the uh the storm damaged ones but yeah fun house i mean that one when i first started coming out to you know knowing of whose games are whose and i was playing um Corbin's Funhouse. I was like, man, this game is absolutely incredible, all-timer, tons of fun, tons of fun shots, awesome mechs, Rudy mocking you, the call-outs, the clock, everything about it. The second shooter rod? Yes, yes, we've talked about that before, where there are just so few games that have that second shooter lane. And Pat Lawler has two of them, that one and Roadshow.
    49:27
    Alright, so we have here... It was not a Storm Damage one. And if you think about it, Funhouse is a standard by when Road Shows Wide. Yeah, so this mafia was Hurricane Milton caused some cabinet and it says freshwater flooding, but only reached the very bottom of the machine. Electronics remained high and dry. What are they asking for? So they're asking $6,500. Do they show pictures of the boards? They don't. Or the bottom of the cabinet or any of that. But yeah, there were 10 made and this was number four.
    50:01
    Insurance would pay out on that, right? I would think so. As long as you have it all properly. Well, here's the question. Did they get paid out on insurance and then they're also selling it? So you're double dipping at that point? When I've done insurance jobs at the insurance company, then they had asked me to either take it back or I could buy it if I wanted to. Right. Because it's like a car. So then somebody probably, like the guy who did the thing, then just said they're buying it. There's a buyback option. Dude, it totally looks like Pony Factory's back last night. I know, right? Doesn't it have those vibes of like the single level, the art, all of those things just very much to me had that same sort of vibe.
    50:37
    Four of ten. Yeah, four of ten. And like I said, whenever I clicked I ended up going on Pinside and looking at the company that made it. They were out of it. What year was this? I think it was like 16. He's a Megatron and a Meteor. I love me some Meteor. I'm a sucker for the old Stern Electronics. They're pretty cool, man. They have some sweet artwork Work on them, too. I'm going to bring that alley, bud. So whenever I think of Pat Lawler immediately, I think of Safecracker. A couple different reasons. I think it's an extremely unique game. I think it's a fun game. It comes from that era of the mid-'90s, 1996, where they were trying, like, let's throw this against the wall and see if it sticks. and my first experience with that game was Tia, Norn, and I were traveling and we're in Paris, France, and we're looking for somewhere to grab some lunch and Tia finds this. Flipper? Flipper? Exactly, finding the Flipper. Tia finds this, I think it was some sort of Asian ramen bar and we go in there and they have a couple arcade candy cabs and they have a safe cracker. So I go over and I put five, six, seven, eight euros into that game and had an absolute blast on it, fell in love with it then and there. And it made a ton of sense in that space of why they went with a small, like let's try the smaller game, something with a smaller footprint that we can fit into maybe some spaces where we couldn't fit a traditional pinball machine. Yeah, it makes sense, you know. All that stuff made a ton of sense to me. And then since then, I got to play it at Pinsonati last year. They have one over at Past Times and the ones at Past Times. VFW has it. The ones at Past Times, they had special tokens made. So I think there are six different ones. Phil had all of them in his car. Yeah, and a few of them have the Pastimes logo. They have all kinds of different things on them, which are super amazing. If we get one, we'll have to obviously make our own tokens. The other place I ran into it was a suburb of Orlando, Florida. We were waiting on a flight. The Pinball Lounge is inside of a bowling alley in Oviedo, Florida. Amazing lineup of games in there. That was in the place that had the Big Bang Bar, too, didn't it? Yeah. Okay, that's what I thought. Yeah, same. And then down in that area, they have a Silver Ball Del Rey, which also has, they have like barbed wire and all kinds of just off-the-wall stuff that you don't see on a regular basis. Raven. Kyle, I say Pat Lawler, what do you think?
    53:05
    Hmm. It doesn't have to be a game. It can be whatever. It can be a mech. It can be a... A feeling. It can just be a... I like those weird story games. So the ones like Layden has run Monopoly Rollercoaster, Ripley NASCAR, Family Guy, Shrek and CSI was a stern run I was afraid that Corbin was going to bring me Rollercoaster Dude you chose Rollercoaster Tycoon It should have been And it was like a random ass text I did that's what I was going for Because if I ask you what game you're going to say I don't know Just bring me something So on Rollercoaster Tycoon It's not a bad, I enjoy that game. No, it's just super easy. It's really, really fun. It is super easy. I wonder when he designed it. If anyone has any ramps, I need one. Was the Dunk the Dummy, when he designed it, one of those troll dolls with the crazy neon hair? Or was that, oh man, we can get these trolly dolls for like five cents each, so we're going to put this into the game. I heard it was actually a Gary Stern model first, like a little Gary Stern doll. But then they X'd me, that's the one with the troll. We need something with a little more hair than Gary has. Yeah, exactly. The hair adds to the... Because I've heard from that whole early, like, 2000 to 2010 era, like, they would pull off the shelf. Like, you go to the toy store and can get this. Even, like, the Mustang stuff, the Transformers part. Yeah, exactly. Or even... The doorknob on... From Tales from the Crypt. That's exactly, like, that's an off-the-shelf. Mustang is the one, definitely, when we had that pro in for a minute where it's like, this is literally just one of those die-cast model cars. And they sent us the prizes that were the Matizo or whatever the name of that company is. They were the model cars, and they were the ones that are on the thing. But, I mean, then again, you look at Toy Story 4, it has some cake toppers. Well, let's talk a little bit then about his era. So, obviously, you have his Bally Williams career. You have his Stern career. And then at the end, from 2017 to 2022, you have his Jersey Jack career. So, the Jersey Jack time. Not the end. He's still alive. He's still doing stuff, absolutely. I heard he's working on Wizard Blocks. Yeah, the end of his official design time. Toy Story 5. Which one of those Jersey Jacks is your favorite or do you think is the best of his? Dialed in, Willy Wonka, Toy Story 4.
    55:24
    Corbin? You've had a little bit of time on Wonka. Not enough. You've had Dialed In at your house. I did Dialed In. It's cool, but I like Wonka. I like the vibe of Wonka, I think. Aren't the toys on that really fun? Like the Wonka vision, etch-a-sketch looking thing. And the details. There's a lot of details on Wonka that I really dig. Where you have to shoot the everlasting gobstopper, and then it turns, and you drop the ball in there. I haven't been able to get the Wonka Vader yet. That's the only thing I haven't been able to get. So I'd only played standards before we got that one in, and then I played over at Belt Kings, and he also had a limited so that Wonka Vader isn't on the standard. So the first time I shot that at Belkings, I'm like, oh, that's sick. Yeah, we're going to pry that out of my dad's hands before it goes out. Yeah. Zach? I'd probably say that, yeah. Have you played all three of the longer? Yeah, I played them all. And I had Toy Story 4 at my house there for a minute, too. More than a minute, I'd say. It was a long minute. We had to drag that out of the clutches of your children. Yeah, Max's hands. How many thousands of drink straws did you have to buy to play that game? It's a right flipper problem. But I had to grow a corn on the walker. I actually sell a drink. I have a Drink Strong dispenser next to me. 4 is cool. I like the Duke of Boom shot. Yes. But I don't know. The Wonka just spoke to me. The colors, like Corbin said. Dialed in is cool, too. I don't know. It's cool. I feel like of those three, the mechs, if I'm just looking at mechs, I'm going to look at Dialed In and I'm going to look at Wonka as the two that are kind of neck and neck for me because you have, obviously, everything we talked about on Wonka that I think is amazing. But then dialed in, it's like you've got the cell phone over there. You've got where you can – A lot of cool references. A lot of cool throwbacks, you know, back to the Bally Williams times. And you've got to appall that it's an original title. It's not a – Original title. A license theme. You've got the drones on there. You've got all the magnets going on. You've got the spaceships. We need less spinning on the drones, please. But, I mean, what's that – if you hit the left orbit shot, there's almost like from Funhaus where it opens up and you shoot it into... The trap door, but it's called something else. Yeah, it's one of his rolling jokes that he uses across a bunch of his games, the same Crazy Bob's. Oh, yeah, yeah, it's a Crazy Bob's place. Was it a Beaver store or something? Yeah, whatever. So, I mean, it's like all those little inside jokes that if you get them, you get them. If you don't, you don't. So, Crazy Bob's has a Big Bang reference, I feel like, on it.
    57:52
    Is there something else? So, of the Jersey Jack era, I'd almost have to lean Dialed In being my favorite I do love Dialed In so that'd be my number one Wonka 2 Toy Story 3 I like Toy Story, it's fine I'm amazed at how well Toy Story 4 earns but I think it's Craig Drill I think that guy's bought that game a couple times over at this point Kyle do you care to chime in on your ranking of Waller career during Jersey Jack or are you going to abstain from this part of the conversation I think I going to abstain
    58:30
    So we have the three eras. We have his Jersey Jack. I go dial in if I have to choose. That's fair. So his three stops, Bally Williams, Stern, Jersey Jack, what do you think was his best time? It's hard to not go Williams. I'm a Williams guy.
    58:55
    There's so many classics through Williams. It's funny too because he has credit for Bally and Williams games. He does because it's Williams early on and then... Roadshow was ran under Williams so it was no good gophers. It's so interesting to me that Adam's family is under Bally and not Williams.
    59:12
    Because it always felt like we'd heard The reality was kind of like the more off-the-wall crazy ones. Yeah. Did you see the article the other day? I think it was a nap thing. It wasn't that fascinating. It's fucking crazy. So we talk about all the time, like, things being in games that then are in the movie. The fucking Jurassic Park 3 thing. So the egg from Jurassic Park 3 is not in the movie. And there are a bunch of other examples of things. So from the Addams Family in the script, the house itself was supposed to be able to, like, change the weather or do all kinds of crazy things. But it's not in the movie. Oh, so it's like, now you've done it. So when they designed the topper, the topper is the cloud, the storm that it's creating with the weather vane and the whatever else. But it was so inexpensive for them to produce that topper because all it is is a vacuum form mold or whatever. Just a couple of decals. Even once they knew it wasn't in the movie, they just left it on there. It's so crazy. And I never made that connection. I just figured they were just like setting, it was just making that, it's just such a moment, you know, like, for sure. And then I've never understood Or I've never found There are the clear ones and then there are the black clouds I didn't know any came out black originally I didn't know that was a thing I wonder if the black clouds came on the gold edition You can get them, you can get either one They're the same price But yeah, whenever I saw that little nugget about The storm cloud, I'm like oh I never even had thought to myself I wonder why that's up there It just kind of tied in with the game Did you know why? Nobody looks at fucking clouds Rick and Morty just restarted again dude Rick and Morty's not behaving over there It was happy in my garage Sometimes games they lose that magic smoke When they get moved from one house to another So yeah I think We're all pretty much on the Same page of his Valley Williams career being his most It's hard whenever you have Adam's Family Which is the best selling game of all time You have Funhouse Twilight Zone, Banzai Run What's your favorite from his let's say system 11 what's your favorite from the wpc i think yes that is the perfect question so let's start with somebody else's i'll start with myself yeah jeff what you got so my favorite of his stern era and this will be no surprise to anyone at this table is nascar um i love turning left i love shooting the test car i love the impossible extra ball shot uh help me rig it You should make a tailgate at night. And I've seen an alternate Translate before for that. That is the Ricky Bobby one, and it is on for us. That'd be great. So that is my absolute favorite of the Sterns. Honorable mention for me from the Stern ones. I also do really enjoy CSI, and I've had a few opportunities to pick them up, but just never at the right price. The centrifuges. I love the centrifuges. So tasty. I love the skull ball lock shot that you hit. Like those balls actually go into the skull eye sockets, which is fantastic. That's an interesting mech, too, because then it lowers or it raises up or something. Yeah, it's a very, very – that's definitely one that's on my list. So that's my honorable mention for the Stern era. And then the Bally Williams time, I know that Adam's Family is the bestseller of all time. And it's a fun game. I think it's overrated, personally. So my favorite from that time is Safecracker. Safecracker, nice. It's unique. It's loaded. It's cool. It's not your normal scoring game. Your objectives are different, and then the tokens on top of that are just like the icing on the cake for me. Kyle, favorite from the Stern era from Mr. Lawler?
    62:54
    Favorite from the Bally Williams era? Grand Prix. Ooh, okay. Grand Prix. Also known as NASCAR. So that's the European version of NASCAR. And they had that up at Vintage Flipper World. It was the first time that I ever saw it. Aren't they sitting next to each other? Sitting next to each other. As they should be. It's interesting because it's the exact same game, obviously different art package, and they have call-outs from the actual...
    63:21
    Is that the one that had a center post? That was Lord of the Rings. You're right, that popped up. The European Lord of the Rings because it couldn't be a game of chance. It had to be a game of skill. Right. Your favorite from his Bally Williams Era Kyle You've got some No Good Gophers Roadshow, Atoms, Twilight Zone Whirlwind, Earthshaker I like Twilight Zone What do you like about Twilight Zone? I mean what's not to like? It's obviously an iconic game It's like the only wide body game I don't mind playing Interesting I didn't know that That's not bad That's one that when it plays right I really enjoy Yeah, yeah. Like, I don't mind the floaty on that game, especially. No, I felt like before Corbin brought his in and, like, completely rebuilt it, it was like, man, this game is just not that great. It kind of feels tired, all of this stuff. And then when you complete, like, you went through that game. Oh, yeah. And when it came back out, I was like, damn, this game is like, when it plays right, it's fun. Yeah, because it's only been routed since 1993.
    64:23
    She was a little tired. And then on top of that, it's like the electric playground did that. just absolutely bonkers topper. Sick. I need to get another ball. Somebody stole a ball off it. The moving eye.
    64:36
    The load the gumball machine. You get the ball to orbit the habitrail. You've got the clock on. And then I saw that they're going to do a desktop or a wall shelf version of it to wear. Very cool, because they have a Lebowski version of their wall art topper. And then I think for Great American, who does the black and white versions, they're doing a special run of 10 toppers that are going to be black and white for that. So all kinds of cool stuff. I'm pretty sure I have a picture of Corbin putting the topper on Twilight Zone, and you're taking a picture of him doing it, and I'm taking a picture of you doing it. I'm pretty sure I have a picture of both of you taking pictures. The ultimate picture inception. Real weird. Only one butt crack, though. It's unusual. Oh, man. Are you taking a picture of your own butt crack? No, it's yours. All right, Corbin, your best Lawler from the Stern era your favorite Lawler from the Bally Williams era Stern era I think I'd go I like the Shrek Family Guy layout and I'd say between the two I think maybe Shrek because I like the green and I'm a sucker for these little mini play fields with mini flippers and mini wire forms I'm a sucker for that so I always I love the Stewie multiball or the Donkey multiball so I'll go with one of those So it's interesting on that one when you look at it, Family Guys 2007 with 2,500 produced, and then Shrek a full year later in 2008 with 600 produced.
    66:11
    So it's not like a spooky sort of repurposed one where we're running them in tandem at the same time. It was a fire to everybody. Not a finished one, but the other one. Yeah. Let's fire everybody because we have no money. Like we were talking about, I think, maybe off the podcast, pre-podcast, this is the era that it was Steve Ritchie was a contractor, Lawler was a contractor. I think Borg was their only in-house designer at the time. So any of these other ones are, hey, okay, we contracted you to do this layout. We can re-theme it to Shrek. Cool. Yeah.
    66:44
    Yeah, I'd say Shrek, Family Guy layout. I enjoy it. Bally Williams? I'm probably going to go Whirlwind. Ooh, all right. You are a fan of Whirlwind. I do love me some Whirlwind. How do we all miss it? I'm so dumb. I mean, really, all Whirlwind, Earthshaker, Funhouse. I do love me a good Earthshaker, too. I love Earthshaker as well. Earthshaker is currently sitting next to Funhouse in my house. Yeah. They're both amazing. There's so many good games, but Whirlwind, I think, is what I would say would be my pick.
    67:14
    Yeah, I love some Whirlwind. It's another one that you had on route that I really fell in love with. when you had it out and then when it went away, it was like, oh, man, I miss that game. It's in right now. It's like sometimes you don't know how good you have it when you have access to a game until it's gone. Because I felt the same way when your Aerosmith Premium was out. I played it. I was like, I don't know. I really don't love this game. And then it went away. I'm like, I miss Aerosmith Premium. So did you know there's two different Whirlwind back glasses?
    67:42
    Tell me more. So originally they produced one with a Cubs hat, I believe. One of the kids in the audience. And they're like, oh, shit, we can't. actually do that they didn't get the right so they put a w you'll see well one of ours is a w sticker over top of the cubs so you can feel the sticker over and then the other one then they started printing it with just the the williams hat instead those sort of things fascinate me like that and then like on taxi the back glass where like when you have the red hair yeah they're just all those different little things to where it's like we think we can sneak this out there and nobody will notice and then there was no sneaking somebody noticed especially when you're a chicago-based company you're putting something out with cubs on it's like you really think this and no one's gonna notice this you really thought that that was uh that was the move i don't i think the one that's in is the i think it's the one with the sticker on it but i'm not sure so yeah obviously an absolutely iconic career um you know just some all-time banger games some amazing mechs amazing just designs unique stuff uh you know whenever our last episode we talked about underappreciated designers I think Pat Lawler by and large is properly appreciated when most people talk about their Mount Rushmore of designers his name is one that generally is put up there as one of the four greatest pinball designers of all time and rightfully so in my opinion there are just so many amazing amazing games yeah absolutely love me some Pat Lawler so we have well eclipsed the one hour mark here we probably talked about you know 30 minutes of cargo container talk and then 30 minutes of pinball update vehicle updates we do we need uh we do need the trailer corner this is the really important segment here so once again segment three of corbin's trailer talk corbin hey how's it going guys nice to happy to be here this is uh This is Jeff Stark here, a long-time listener, first-time caller. Good to be with you, Corbin. Yeah, yeah. So today we're going to focus on not the trailer as much as the truck itself. We've been doing some. We got the classic? Yeah, the classic's been getting some love. Classic went under surgery, man. Went under surgery. So to start things off, we went ahead and did a complete front-end rebuild. Upper, lower control arms.
    70:08
    Axles. Axles, because they had to come out to get the control arms out. And then we had to cut the arms in half to get the torsion bars out. And done it all day. Took us up with this most badass fucking air hammer. Torque arms are a pain in the ass to get out, we found. And then it got rear brakes, too. Yeah, complete rear brake rebuild. And then all new tires. And it's getting alignment tomorrow. Tomorrow morning we're aligning it, yeah. It's a little floaty right now.
    70:33
    I eyeballed it. How was the drive over in the snow? Not great. We just took it easy. It was fine. We just took it slow because it was like, oh, it's slow. It's snowy out and it's floating all over and we got a lot of pinball babies in the back. We got a squall today. I was surprised. Real fucking cold and then snow blowing. We need more. That's the update of what's going on. Hopefully next, now the truck's back together, we'll probably do a little work on the trailer next. Fix the fender, put new tires on it. The tires are already in hand. The fender just needs some... Courtesy of our Summit Racing sponsor. We paid for them, so money. Money, money, money. Money.
    71:14
    So, yeah, that's the update. Trailer talk with Corbin. I think the takeaway here is that what you're towing with is just as important as the trailer. Yeah, we're going to maintenance everything. Maintenance is what we're trying to take home from here. And I think next up, too, the other truck, the black truck, is going to need some of the brakes. They sound a little funny on it, so that'll be next. Sounds about right. We'll probably do some of that damn fuel pump again. They get used. They get abused. Just started making noise.
    71:39
    Just last week, man. It's down the middle of metal The rotor is half gone I don't know how this keeps happening Can you turn this rotor when it's half gone? Well, not so much Nope, bug off Alright everyone, Trailer Talk this week We actually have a new sponsor For the Trailer Talk section here It's brought to you in part by Everything Education That is your local Canton, Ohio school supply store They're located at 3828 Cleveland Avenue in Canton, Ohio. They do all our printing. They do all the printing. If you are a teacher, homeschooler, any of that stuff, you need some school supplies, give them a call. Christmas gifts for your kids. You can hit them up anytime on the web or give our girl Kelsey a call at 330-491-9866. And ask for Kelsey only. She's who can help you. Thanks for sponsoring us, Everything Education. Should we do a showroom update? Should we talk about our showroom? Let's do. Just briefly. I think we should talk about it. So you've been working hard. So out of the blue, I'm like, hey, Corbin, what's going on today? And you're like, oh, I've been playing with a bunch of electrical and I'm running stuff and I'm moving games. We need more juice. Yeah, so? Four more breakers. We added four more circuits in because, you know, we want to power some games. We got some games there. We do. So we're going to decorate the walls a little bit, get a couple more games there, get some other games out, and, yeah, we'll have a showroom. We were giving it a little bit of a test run on Wednesday. Darkroom Pinball. Darkroom underscore pinball on Instagram. John came down and was doing some glamour shots of Spooky's Texas Chainsaw Massacre Collector's Edition. We got a beautiful... That's a low number, too. That's like 11 or 18 or something, isn't it? That's a very, very early number. Matt got that game like right off the rip. Yeah. So that one's... Buy it so we don't keep it. That's the real struggle for that one for sure. So if you're interested in not having to wait for one, obviously below MSRP since it's a used game. I think it has under 1,500 plays. It was low. Amazing condition. Plays great. All of that stuff. I think we had it listed up at $8,500. OBO, pick up in North Canton, Ohio, or can be shipped to you at the buyer's expense. But yeah, Texas Chainsaw Massacre. That one was my little maiden voyage into the conversion over to the showroom. And I'll tell you what, I think it's going to be a comfortable space for people to be able to come in, check out some games, flip some games, all of that goodness.
    74:13
    Definitely. All right, Kyle, final thoughts, buddy. What do you got for me? I'm flipping Flabbergast. You should be flipping. Oh, I have a dog, too. Oh, funny girl. Funny girl's here. She's a little shy. She's no Ziggy where, you know, a lot of shaking and barking. Ziggy will let you know when someone's coming. He will for sure let you know. Hey, man, the load in the dryer. Squirrel farting outside. It's a squirrel. Did you guys know? There's a package being delivered across the street.
    74:45
    Final thoughts, Zach. What do you got for us, buddy? This is the season finale. Just get out there and play pinball. What else were you trying to say? Be nice to each other and play pinball. Yeah. I love it. We don't have any events coming up, do we? We don't. Oh, Corduroy's Christmas party. Yep. But next season, be prepared. we're going to be doing some events. Corbin is already itching to do a big tour. So I think in January you can look forward to us pulling the trigger on something epic where we're going to get around to a bunch of locations with a bunch of cool games, get everybody out, have a good time. Yeah. But the quarter of Christmas party, that one is yeah. Monday, December 23rd at 7 PM. Ben's got all kinds of raffles and stuff going for it. Like all kinds of things in the works. I think he's, is that when he's given away the play field? He's, yeah, there's a play field. And actually, the way to get entered, you get tickets to get into this raffle for this play field. And you can, I think you can buy them, but the better way or the cheaper way to get them is if you go up and you're playing in the league the weeks leading up to it, if you... High score, wasn't it? Well, if you place well in the league, you get so many tickets. And then if you have grand champs on any of the games up at quarter up, that also then earned you tickets into this lottery, this drawing. So, I mean, there's a lot of fun stuff going on. So what is it? It's a – what play field was it? I don't remember which one it was, but, I mean, it's a legit – No, it was Game of Thrones. Game of Thrones, yeah. So you're still going to have Monday, December the 9th, Monday, December the 16th, and then the actual party on the 23rd. So there are multiple opportunities to win some tickets, which will get you some entries. Or you could just go up any day and set a grand champ on something, and your initials are up there. Come the 23rd, you're getting into entries. And depending on what your work situation is, if you can get in at 3 o'clock, 5 o'clock on a weekday, get in there and back away some games.
    76:40
    Well, Corbin will be there. He'll let you in. It's all good. Somebody came in today. I'd open you up, buddy. Yeah. If it's an after-work sort of situation, come on in, grab an adult beverage and a hot dog and flip some pinball. Yeah. any other final thoughts Corbin? that's all I've got it's been an awesome season it has been doing the podcast is a ton of fun for me my thanks to everyone that listens and all the cool people that have been sending us their Spotify raps where it shows it blows my mind when I get a message from someone and we're in their top 5 podcasts that they listen to there's like 6 podcasts available on Spotify whatever it takes to be in the top six we'll take it alright Kyle if you want to play us out with some Mad Pinball jingle when we come back with season four we may have a new jingle so get ready for that we'll have options it's not going to be gone it'll never be gone this one will always be here we might have some other jams that we can mix in until next time