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Episode - 28 , 2019 whats new, lets review

The Spinner Is Lit Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·2h 43m·analyzed·Dec 28, 2019
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.036

TL;DR

2019 pinball review episode featuring cabinet restoration techniques and free game acquisition stories.

Summary

Episode 28 of The Spinner Is Lit podcast reviews 2019 pinball highlights with hosts and guests discussing cabinet restoration techniques, free pinball acquisitions, Sacramento Pinball Group history, and local venue visits. George Gonzalez shares detailed expertise on cabinet refinishing using shellac primers, stencil work, and decal application. Brian and Dan's story of acquiring three free games and subsequent restoration projects dominates the second half, while the group reflects on SPG's evolution from grassroots monthly meetups to a declining organization transitioning to Facebook as Yahoo Groups shuts down.

Key Claims

  • George Gonzalez charges approximately $700 for cabinet restoration work, despite it being worth $2,000-$3,000 given the labor involved

    high confidence · George states 'I usually charge about $700 dollars' and later 'I couldn't charge enough to do these cabinets, really. I would literally have to charge somebody $2,000 or $3,000'

  • The Sacramento Pinball Group (SPG) was started in 2002 or 2003 as a news group

    high confidence · Brian and hosts discuss: 'SPG is Sacramento Pinball Group and it was started how many years ago Brian? 2002 or 2003 and it's a news group that's how it was originally on that platform'

  • Jeff at Pinball Pin supplies the best stencils available, with Nicholas The Hunter helping scan cabinets for stencil creation

    high confidence · George states 'I buy stencils from Jeff over at Pinball Pin. I find his stencils to be the best. They are awesome' and notes 'I have a friend of mine, Nicholas The Hunter, that he now takes and scans cabinets for Jeff'

  • Brian acquired three complete working pinball games for free via email from a former SPG member who wanted them gone

    high confidence · Brian describes receiving an email Saturday night after Thanksgiving from 'a gentleman saying, you know, Merry Christmas, and I have three free games to give away for come first serve' and notes 'The guy was really nice. He had them wind up in the hallway'

  • The three free games acquired were in various working conditions: Heavy Metal Meltdown (wettest, coils non-functional), Riverboat Gambler (right flipper issue, drop target reset bar broken), and one unnamed game requiring most work

    high confidence · Brian details: 'And I put a fan in the heavy metal meltdown, let it dry out, because that was the game that was the wettest' and 'Riverboat Gambler, we pulled the batteries out, and that game actually played, except for what, the right flipper didn't work'

Notable Quotes

  • “I couldn't charge enough to do these cabinets, really. I would literally have to charge somebody $2,000 or $3,000 to do something like that. I usually charge about $700 dollars but I don't have a full-time pinball job.”

    George Gonzalez @ Early segment — Illustrates the economic reality of cabinet restoration as a labor of love rather than profitable business

  • “It's easier for the scotch. I got a whole bunch of scotch. Some I already had. Some I got for my birthday. Some I got for Christmas.”

    Spencer (host) @ Mid-segment — Light-hearted aside about birthday/Christmas timing

  • “How often do you get free pinball games? Never. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Especially for the condition that these were in, right?”

    Hosts/Brian @ Brian's story segment — Emphasizes the rarity and excitement of acquiring three complete machines for free

  • “I couldn't sleep. I got out of work on the road at like 7 o'clock, man. Like I couldn't sleep at all. It was visions of free games dancing in my head.”

    Dan @ Brian's story segment — Conveys the enthusiasm and anticipation around free game acquisition

  • “SPG became too big for a social group. A lot of the guys I met, initially, I met through SPG. Sparky and Steve. Maverick. Yeah, you know, I met all those guys.”

    Hosts @ SPG history segment — Documents SPG's evolution from intimate monthly meetups to larger, less cohesive organization

  • “The Sparky Barbecue sort of replaced that. And, of course, it completely—I think that it was kind of responsible for the explosion of the group. Once everybody caught on to what we were doing, they wanted to be involved.”

    Hosts @ SPG evolution segment — Tracks how community events drove SPG growth and transformation

  • “I took it so no one else can get it, so if we want to use it, we can. It's there.”

    Brian @ Facebook SPG transition segment — Explains motivation behind migrating Sacramento Pinball Group to Facebook before Yahoo Groups shutdown

Entities

George GonzalezpersonSpencer ClingenpersonBrianpersonDanpersonJon HeypersonEric SelfordpersonMariannepersonAlexpersonNicholas The Hunterperson

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: SPG evolution from grassroots monthly meetups (15-20 members) to hundreds-strong organization, then decline back to informal mailing list with most engagement now happening through Sparky Barbecue and other events

    high · Hosts describe growth trajectory: 'it became too big for a social group' and 'the Sparky Barbecue sort of replaced that... once everybody caught on they wanted to be involved. We went from 15, 20 people to having hundreds of members'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Positive nostalgia for SPG's grassroots era (2002-2010s) with recognition of current decline, coupled with commitment to maintain regional community through Facebook and local events

    high · Hosts express wistful memories of early SPG while pragmatically managing transition: 'it was so organic and so grassroots and it still is' but acknowledge 'It's dead within under a week' regarding Yahoo Group closure

  • ?

    community_signal: Sacramento Pinball Group transitioning from defunct Yahoo Group to Facebook as primary communication platform, indicating organizational adaptation to platform changes

    high · Brian states 'I took it so no one else can get it' regarding Facebook group, and hosts discuss Yahoo Groups shutting down and moving to 'Sacramento Pinball' Facebook page

  • $

    market_signal: Free pinball games available from former SPG member liquidating collection, suggesting some recent market activity and player roster changes in Sacramento area

    medium · Brian describes email offer of three free games from 'a gentleman' who 'had been a long-term member of the SPG, I guess about eight years ago when they broke'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.490

0:00
welcome to the spinners lit pinball podcast i'm your host spencer clingen tonight's episode is episode 28 what's new and let's review 2019 with me tonight is my lovely wife marianne rusty hey and back uh for a second run on the show eric selford hey there we go uh back again of course is uh from the round table crew is alex howdy dan yo brian Hello. And with us tonight for the first time on the show is fellow pinhead and all-around good guy, George Gonzalez. Hey. Yay. Woo. I waved at him. Woo. Boo. So we're going to jump right in. George is a longtime pinball enthusiast, good friend, good friend of the show, and fellow Capital Corridor Pinball League member. and he's going to talk about some really awesome cabinet repair and restoration that he does. Take it away, George. All right. So my background, I'm a cabinet maker by trade. I also was a finisher and also a house painter. So my claim to fame is that I'm able to restore pinball cabinets to its original glory and then some from, you know, up into museum quality, although it just costs so much to do something like that. But for the most part, I do all the restorations and do reinforcements of the cabinets just to make sure, you know, a lot of the bottoms of the cabinets are coming apart. So I can repair all those things. I can manufacture parts for the back box, whatever it takes to get it back into its glory. So some of the things that I do in order to get them into a professional grade quality, and I have to give a shout-out to my friend Chris Bannister, who is also a calendar maker and is part of the CCPL and also part of the Golden State Pinball show. he he is also given me some great pointers on some things like primers because back 25 years ago they stopped using lead-based paints we can't use any of the primers that have lead-based you know and some of the VOC's that California's outlawed so having said that the primer that I use now is bin by Zinsser and it's a shellac based primer. So as far as the cabinets go, after I restore the cabinet, manufacture any parts that need to be done, I sand them down with a 50 grit belt sander and then I go down to an 80 and then I start using an orbital with a 100 and up to 150 grit. Then I prime it from after the primer dries and then I fill it with bondo and or plastic wood depending on the condition of the cabinet itself so and then after I put the bondo on there and I sand it again I reprime it and then I check to make sure that there's no other imperfections if there are I fill it up and then I prime it again and sand it down to 150 so after that I use a oil-based paint that you can only buy in quartz and that comes I usually buy it from Sherwin Williams they do a good job of color matching anything for me that I need color match but for the most part most bases are kind of a cream color white and then other colors go on top of that so I usually put on a coat of the of that oil-based paint I have to let it dry depending on the weather the weather you know the temperature and the moisture and air dictate how quickly anything will dry. So after I dry everything, everything's dried, then I go back and I give it a light sand with probably some 220, and then I give it another coat of white. From there, I use rattle cans to put on the colors. Usually you can find things that are pretty darn close as far as color matching. I haven't run into any problems with getting something relatively close for that. So some of the things also are the stencils. If it's an older machine, stencils, many are available, so I have to make the stencils myself. So you talk about stencils in older games, which we've seen your work and we know how beautiful it is. But you also do more modern games that have like decal reports. Yes. Okay. So the decals is a different process, and I'll talk about that. But let me just stay on one with the stencils right now. So sometimes I buy stencils from Jeff over at Pinball Pin. I find his stencils to be the best. They are awesome. I mean, there's no comparison to anybody else out there. He just does a great job with it, scanning machines and such. And we actually, I have a friend of mine, Nicholas Hunter, that he now takes and scans cabinets for Jeff and sends it to him. and then he makes those stencils and puts them into his library, you know, as long as he has a license for it, of course. So we go from there. So the stencils that I make are all handmade. I use scalpels, actually. I buy packages and packages of different types of scalpels with different points and curves on it so that I can make the stencils. And then with the stencils, I find that some of them I use a low-tack adhesive to put on there. But once you put the paint on it, it tends to kind of melt that and it will kind of creep up underneath. And I have to do a lot of cleanup on it. So what I've discovered that the best thing for me to do is I weight it down. I take actual pencil, the proficient pencil blade, and I cut them into different lengths and I can mold them and put them around my stencils. And then when I spray them, I can actually adjust the way the weights are so that I get over-spray to kind of duplicate the old-style stencils that they used to use. Back in the day, they used to use these bronze stencils that they used to slap up against it and spray it, and you get a lot of over-spray. So I'm able to duplicate that as well with those stencils. Which I saw on that last game you did. I'm trying to think of the name of it. It looked perfect. It looked like it just rolled off you somewhat. Yeah, I couldn't tell you exactly which one it is. I think it's a poker thing. Well, the one that I have in my garage right now is called the Big Deal. That's it. That's the Big Deal. And that one really came out nice. It duplicated that over spray. Yeah. It looks real natural to the original. It looks like it literally just rolled off the assembly line. It's beautiful. So I use a 5 mil Mylar, and I tape it on there, and then I make pretty different colors. I take them out, slice them up, and I have my different stencils. I put them away, and then I apply them and put all that stuff on there.
Chris Bannister
person
Jeffperson
Nickperson
Adam Preslerperson
Lauren Drainperson
Toddperson
Sacramento Pinball Group (SPG)organization
The Spinner Is Lit Pinball Podcastorganization
Pinball Pinorganization
Capital Corridor Pinball League (CCPL)organization
Chico's Bail Bondsorganization
Barnyard Dad's Kitchenorganization
7:33
After I'm done with that part of it, then I take and I do a polycrylic clear coat. The reason I use a polycrylic is because it has some elasticity to it. So since we're moving pinball machines around often and we're shaking them and, of course, we're playing them, it doesn't crack. And that's the main thing about that. So that's the, I guess, the main theme. So in lieu of our podcast tonight, I did have a Facebook page that I didn't publish until just tonight since I figured, well, this is the perfect time to do it. And that page on Facebook is Will Work for Pinball. And if you go there, you can see pictures of the big deal that Spencer here was talking about and a bunch of other machines that I've done through the years. And it's only been the last couple of years.
8:28
But, yeah, so that's that part. Now, as far as the ones with the stencils, I still use the same process with the two coats of primer with the Bondo and the whole thing. I paint it, usually depending on what color the base of the machine is. I recently did a Funhaus, so I used the Funhaus blue. I had the custom color made and then I take the decal that it comes with, well not that it comes with, but that we buy online at different places. If you want, you go to Wilworth the Pinball and there's some links there that you'll be able to find some of the decals. So what I do, the decal, I lay it down onto the cabinet, line it all up and I weight it down and then I peel back just like maybe about four or five inches. I take the back of it off, and then I put that onto the cabinet, and I use that as a hinge so that I can then take all the weights off of it that I put on there. And I use weight weights because I want to save weights. It's like literally five-pound dumbbells, paint cans, whatever. I need to weight it down. And then I take those off, and then with the help, usually my wife, we start peeling back, and I start applying the decal all the way down the cabinet. and then I trim it all the way around and then I go back and I clamp on some straight edge and I take and I cut just like maybe an eighth of an inch back from the very edge because so that way it sticks really well because you know on most cabinets it's kind of rounded and you don't want to glue the decal onto that rounded edge because it'll eventually come up so I just cut it back And the nice thing is that it matches the color because I already painted it up underneath. I've seen the Funhaus. Nick's Funhaus. Nick's Funhaus, which is for sale right now. And the pictures on the line don't do it justice. It's a beautiful machine. But on top of that, he's excellent. He knows electronics really well. So his claim to fame is that he's a computer software engineer. He has, what, like nine patents? He's got 37 patents with Apple. 7 with Apple. Wow. That's impressive. We've got to have Nick on the show, too. Yeah, Nick is great. He's a very, very interesting person, extremely intelligent, and he's self-taught on everything. And I tell you, with electromechanical games, he can make it work to perfection. I don't know a whole lot of people that can do that type of work, and there may be people better than him, but I tell you what, he's probably going to be one of the top people. So I've done his fun house and also his taxi. Yeah, that taxi's absolutely stunning as well. Yeah, beautiful.
11:12
So, basically, that's it as far as the cabinetry goes, and finishing them up, but when they come out,
11:22
they just look really nice. And my thing about pinball is that, you know what, I couldn't charge enough money to do these cabinets, really. I would literally have to charge somebody $2,000 or $3,000 to do something like that. I usually charge about $700 dollars but and i don't have you know i also have a life and a full-time job but i do this on the side so my thing is if somebody comes to me and says oh george this machine that i have is one that i i grew up as a kid playing pinball and i really need this i i don't i can't find anybody to do it and it's like okay i'll do it you know and and so uh this is how it goes but you know more and more uh just you know trying to find time in order to to do more pinball machines and get it out there as a restoration so it lasts another 40 years for the next generation of pinball players. Awesome. Yeah, so it's a labor of love. Exactly. Awesome. So again, your Facebook page is We'll Work for Pinball. And everybody here in the room, I believe, has seen George's work and it's really, you have to see it. And go online, go to Facebook and check out We'll Work for Pinball and look at the photos of his cabinet restorations because they're top notch. you just, you can't miss out on that. Is there anything else you want to throw in on that? No, I think that's about it. Anybody have any questions for me?
12:44
I think we've all seen your work, so it speaks for itself. And Brian here is great with color matching, so we did a whirlwind for Henry. The one I broke. The one that fell off the truck. Yes. That never happened. so nobody can prove it happened it didn't happen actually yeah at this point you really can't right because it looks good so awesome man thanks for sharing that and thanks for coming on the show absolutely man we've got to get everybody on it it's been too long since I want everybody to know that I'm not just here to promote this cabinet I'm here because everybody in this room they're my friends and we're all part of CCPL and we have a great time hanging out with each other and just having a great time It's easier for the scotch.
13:36
I got a whole bunch of scotch. Some I already had. Some I got for my birthday. Some I got for Christmas. Nice. Because my birthday is 10 days before Christmas. Happy birthday. Oh, I want to mention our new sponsor. That would be Chico's Bell Bonds. Serving the Inland Empire and the Gali since 1976. Chico's Bell Bonds. Let freedom ring.
13:59
So now we're on a flyer. Okay, you know there's some pinhead out there who drives by a Chico's Bale Bond somewhere. The sponsor of the show? Wow. Thank you. Email us at thespinneraslit at gmail.com because you know what movie that's from. And you get a free taco. So many tacos. Taco bounce. May not actually get free tacos. Whatever happened to my life? Brian has the epic score. Score. Brian, the floor is yours. Tell us about your epic story. So, it was the Saturday after Thanksgiving, you know, middle of a long weekend and everything. We're all kind of winding down, goofing around. And about 11.30 at night, I hop on the old email because it's Saturday night. I'm a single man. So, yeah, I'm sitting at home online.
14:52
And the email pops up. I would, but my data can't support it. Oh. So, you know, I go into this. Dark stream, huh?
15:03
It was cold out, Musty. It's cold out. Maybe it's cold outside. There's an email from a gentleman saying, you know, Merry Christmas, and I have three free games to give away for come first serve. And I was about a half hour late, threw in my hat, you know, hey, send me an email and say I will take all three and I'll pick them up. No problem. wasn't expecting to hear anything, then him and I started exchanging emails. He's like, well, you know, just, hey, what do you have? This is what I have. Okay, well, when do you want to pick them up? Whenever you want. You know, to the point where I was ready to say, at this point it's about midnight, 1230, I'll come right now. I'll wake up Dan, and we'll go get free games. I was not asleep, by the way. So I start emailing and texting Dan back and saying, hey, man, those free games, I think I got them. And Dan being the level-headed person that I know sometimes is like, hey, man, I'm not going to count it until they're in the truck. I was like, well, we're picking up tomorrow at 9 a.m. And he comes over at about, what, 8, 8.30? He's like, I couldn't sleep. I got out of work on the road at like 7 o'clock, man. Like I couldn't sleep at all. It was visions of free games dancing in my head. And Brian was real confident. And I was just like, oh, man. So I texted him and I was like, all right, man, I'm on the way. And he's like, we don't have to be there until 9. I'm like, too late. I'm in the truck.
16:24
Dan hops over. We go get some supplies, i.e. breakfast and a couple of straps and stuff like that. Our good buddy Adam Presler is like, hey, if you want to roll, let's go.
16:35
We get there. We hop in Dan's truck. We pull up, and the guy's really nice. He had them wind up in the hallway, and we just started loading them up. There was no question. There was nothing like, oh, well, this thing looks broken. Free games. Who cares what they look like? We're loading these things up. How often do you get free pinball games? Sorry to interrupt. Never. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Especially for the condition that these were in, right? They're all working games? Well, no, they're all games. They're all complete. They boot. The ad said... You got it. The ad said, we know the games work right. Some of them are missing major assemblies, etc., etc. We get them home. We unload. It's starting to pour rain, and we're moving. We had all three games in the garage in about 10 or 15 minutes. And usually with Dan and I, 10 or 15 minutes in, We got the lift out by the car. We're good.
17:27
I need another beer. Yeah. We load them up. We get them into the garage, you know. We end up having to drill all the locks out. No big deal. Who cares?
17:36
And I put a fan in the heavy metal meltdown, let it dry out, because that was the game that got the wettest. And we pop it on. And lo and behold, you know, it fires up, and it starts, but none of the coils, no coils. Don't know. I haven't even looked at it since. Riverboat Gambler, we pulled the batteries out, and that game actually played, except for what, the right flipper didn't work? Yeah, which is probably something stupid. Stupid. And then the drop, one of the four bank drop targets, the reset bar broke in half. It's metal, which is just... This is just like, seriously, how did that happen? And then the Black Rose, which we just finally popped open last week, is probably the one that's going to need the most work, but it's still in good shape. It just ended up being a real cool score, and the guy was really nice about it. We posted in a couple places, and everyone's interested in the heavy metal meltdown, but that's when I'm like, this is cool as shit. I love hair metal. That's what I remember I was doing when I was a kid. Unless you have a strange science, then we can talk. If you have a strange science or a Blackwater 100, we can talk.
18:38
But, yeah, it was one of those things. It finally happened. We had a good score, and, you know, Dan helped out big time. So Dan got a nice free game for $2,000 worth of gas because his SRT-10 is very similar in style. I basically broke even on that deal. Hey, Brian, I got to try this. I think it's better gas mileage. Probably. You know what? It was great. The guy was really nice. He basically wanted them gone. He had been a long-term member of the SPG, I guess about eight years ago when they broke. He put an email out. I actually went back and searched in the archives. I couldn't find it, but that doesn't mean a thing. And they're going to clean up your nice free games. And it was fun. They're still in my garage slowly but surely getting stuff done. I got a half dozen other projects going on right now. And a ball bowler you need to get moved. Todd, come pick up your ball bowler. We love you, Todd. I'm working on Henry's Data East Star Trek. Just got my kid's pachinko machine working for Christmas. Awesome. Yes. Got Roadshow finally figured out. Funhouse needs some resistor. It's just projects up to here. Yeah, because I got three games that are halfway working right now I got to get to. and the Area 51. It was a great story. It was a great trip. The very next week, we went and helped Adam pull a really sweet pitching bat out of his uncle's basement in Gulp. It was the most 70s basement I've ever seen. I just wanted to live down there. It was great. I can see Brian sleeping back in a pillow. No, I slept on the pool table. Excellent. We'll have to have Adam talk about that. That's really his story. But, yeah, we got a great score, and the game's going to take a little bit of money and some elbow grease, but they're going to work. Nice. Nothing was major, and so far I think the only thing, because you said major assembly missing, is the boom box for heavy metal melting has to be basically glued and screwed into the front panel I'm going to have to make, and that's going to take a thin piece of wood and a router table. Yeah, you can help me with that. If we only knew someone who knew how to build pinball machine cabinets. I will need help with that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the one thing I need some work on. But the plate, though, the cabinet, they're all decent. I mean, they all look really good. And the price was right. The price was right, and the guy undersold the condition. You know, I was expecting a little bit more roughness around the edges, but I think Daniel will agree. It's just they look great. Like, on his, the black rose he got. It was fantastic. The black rose he got, we thought the cabinet got, but it's not faded. Get it close. Oh, he repainted it. Once you're this far away, it looks great. Yeah, I think it's a 10-mile-per-hour cabinet. Yeah, we were both pleasantly surprised. So if anybody's looking for a Black Rose, Dan might have one or two for sale. You could link them up. There you go. See you sound about tips. That's my theory. It doesn't matter. Exactly. There are actually people all over the country that listen to the show and in other countries, interestingly enough. Thank you, all you wonderful listeners. I know. SPG is Sacramento Pinball Group and it was started how many years ago Brian? 2002 or 2003 and it's a news group that's how by Hector Villalobos shout out to Hector and family Adrian, way to go Adrian that kid's a pinball that kid, he just makes me feel inadequate inadequate, yeah He's so good. He's a monster.
22:12
Go to their house and see how many high scores. Oh, he's got them all. Well, his dad might have one or two. No, he has a few on him. Hector is a very good player. Hector and Adrian, yeah, I enjoy playing with them a lot. Yeah, they're both great, just great guys and great football players. I play with him on every game day. So we, weren't we part of the Yahoo group and then we moved over to Slack? Is that the way it worked out? Well, Slack's just its own little modern entity, but Sacramento Pinball Group's still going, and Brian booted it over to Facebook because the old Yahoo Group is going away. It's going away to the dinosaurs, so it's moved over to Facebook thanks to Brian. It's modernized. It was just something that no one else could take. I had no intentions of taking over or anything like that. I was like, hey, I'm going to take it so no one else can get it, so if we want to use it, we can. It's there. Fine. it definitely wasn't like there was no idea behind it replacing anything yeah but eventually yahoo groups is going yeah that's a real bummer but you know what that's the spg is on it's been on a very long and slow death spiral um it doesn't get used too much anymore yeah i'll be surprised if when the yahoo group goes the spg lives on group doesn't go with it like it's not like there's really a dedicated group anymore. It's just sort of a mailing list. But it used to be like we would have monthly or bi-monthly or quarterly get-togethers and we would take turns hosting. It was cool. I mean, it was a social group. The nicest way to say it was a social group. It got too big for a social group. A lot of the guys I met, initially, I met through SPG.
23:48
Sparky and Steve Faith. Maverick. Yeah, you know, Hector. I met all those guys. I kind of met Ethan there, but then also on Pinside. So, and then the show. Well, if you want like some... The post office. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. It was so funny because we live like, what, like a mile and a half from each other? If you want like some weird history, like SPG, the barbecue thing started because it was the SPG barbecue. Right. And it evolved from we used to do an SPG after party at Steve's house in Davis, which was, of course, difficult to host after running the show for three days once the show kind of came under the SPG's control. Right. And that was Pentego. Pentego, yeah. And so, yeah, the Sparky Barbecue sort of replaced that. And, of course, it completely I think that it was kind of responsible for the explosion of the group. once everybody caught on to what we were doing, they wanted to be involved. And we went from it being, you know, I don't know, 15, 20 people, to having hundreds of members. I took one of those pictures, and there must have been a couple months. It exploded.
25:02
Oh, yeah. When I joined, I think I was like the 12th person to join. We would do, I think it was the first Thursday of every month. And every time, you know, 10, 15 people would show up, and every other time, nobody showed up. You know, there's a couple times I showed up, like, at an old member of Damon's house, and it'd be, like, me, Damon, and an old guy named James Eves would show up. Yeah, James, he's the man. We'd play three or four games, and we just, we were out in the garage talking all night. It was very, very low-key. More people got involved as, more people got involved in the hobby as it slowly picked up steam, because back then there was hardly anybody involved. Right. You know, Ron Chan got involved, because I ran into him at Clippy's house one time. Oh, wow. And, you know, it jumped from there. and you know the biggest I think the biggest turnout we had for any SPG event was the Big Bang Barbecue when Todd got his Big Bang Bar and the place was that was the A-Tex like that was huge and Todd is always like hey man I'm opening up my Big Bang Bar come over well the thing about Todd's thing too it was so organic and so you know when I first got involved it was so organic and just so grassroots and it still is Go ahead, Doug.
26:18
The bird is launched. So how do we navigate to the SPG group now? I think it's dead within what? What is it, Dan? Like what? It's dead like in under a week. You can't join Yahoo groups without an invitation. If you'd like to be involved in SPG and you live in Northern California or someplace surrounding and can be a contributing member, find the Facebook group and hook up there. And answer the dumb question. The Facebook group is Sacramento Pinball. Also New England. We can get you onto the SPG mailing list by invitation. Tax-free pinball in the capital city. I don't know. Our most bitter debate was whether we should keep the tagline or not. Oh, yeah. There was a big fight about it. There was a schism. Like, we were fighting about it. Some people thought it was stupid, and some people are like, it's fine. It's great. It's here.
27:09
They got Hector. They said, why did you say that? He's like, well, because it asked me to say something. I love it. It's cool. It's on the shirt. And you can actually buy the shirt still on one of those t-shirt sites where they make shirts and mugs and stuff. I forget the name. I was looking for it because I was wondering when the bowling shirt. I've been meaning to order one of the t-shirts. Yeah, we did a short run of those at one point. People still wear one. I wear mine when I can remember. I still see them every year at the shows. The big problem is on the shows, it's hot. And that's another shirt on. It's like, man, shorts, t-shirt, I need a bullet shirt on. But my physique's too pasty white to just wear that, like all blind people. So, you know. But, yeah, you know, if you're in Northern California and you're interested, send an email and we'll take care of you. Nice. Unfortunately, you know, we do try to keep to Northern California. We've had a couple people sneak in from the East Coast trying to find deals, and they've been booted. We'll also accept the Northwest and Eastern Nevada. Yeah, so Will, if you're listening, join up. James is still a member. You know, we're pretty open, but we like to keep it on the West Coast. Yeah, anywhere in Northern California through the Bay Area, Monterey, like that.
28:25
Do we have people out there, I think, for members? Yeah, yeah. I'm surprised I'm not a member. I just signed out. There's actually, we have a thing. Did you read the bylaws that says no Alexes allowed? Do we have one? Yeah.
28:36
Let's just bring pizza. No, I got one. I'll accept you and I can. You'll get done tonight. Okay, Alex, you have a trip report? I do have a trip report. Trip report. Well, if anybody, today's trip report is brought to you by Dad's Kitchen off of Freeport Boulevard. Right next to the Freeport. They got some, oh yes, they got some great beers on tap. They have excellent food. Awesome food.
29:08
Super good food. and a diner, a high speed, and a cyclone, courtesy of Lauren Drown, a.k.a. 7 Alarm Pinball. Nice. Lauren's a good dude and a good off. Shout out to Lauren and all of his games. And he also does Woodstocks and Cider House. So Woodstocks and Davis and Cider House, if you've ever gone to those two places. What are the rules at Cider House?
29:32
Break a bunch of cider. Boom! So, Alex, I have a question for you. How are the machines? Because a lot of times, operators' machines can be hit and miss. The machines at Dad's are definitely a yes. Okay. 100%. Very, very nice. For being old games, too, essentially. The high speed has a playfield protector on it.
29:53
The Cyclone has strong flippers. And you can easily hit the jackpot shots. And the Diner plays like butter.
30:03
Those are all fun games, too. Those are the ones you don't see out too much anymore. Diner, I haven't seen Lord's Diner but usually like 90% of those since they were diamond plated have issues around the inserts for Boris and his folks Cyclone's probably the best of the late model single ball games that we ever did even though the shots are repeating, it's still one of the best games, it's super fun it's such a fun game it's probably my favorite out of the Comet trilogies it's like Cruisin' World, you know they get a Cruisin' trilogy I haven't seen a Diner Do you know anybody else that has a tiny? I know Lauren. Lauren does. Moat does.
30:46
Terry Richards used to have one. I don't know if he still does. Yeah. It's one of those games. They're rare, kind of. They're super fun. I remember playing it when I was a kid at the Borea. They always had one. Is it the most racist pinball ever? Yeah, I'd say stereotypical. Actually, it's not. Common, I thought, was. No, there's one more race. Oh, gosh. We'll go back to that. It's a great game. And what more can you say about High Speed? You know, it's the Steve Ritchie classic. It's a classic. It's absolutely fantastic. And Lauren's High Speed he got from Izzy, and it plays like butter. It used to be Izzy's High Speed. Yeah, Izzy's stuff is top drawer. Isn't Black Knight really the Steve Ritchie classic?
31:24
No, High Speed. No, over Black Knight. High Speed over Black Knight. High Speed was the first game to have a jackpot shot. Huh? Is it the same way? No, it's not. Yeah. No, that's wrong. No, I'm not going to do it. Progressive jackpot. Yeah, there you go. Kind of like taxi. I made my scotch really stiff tonight. Taxi? Yeah. Taxi? Yeah.
31:48
Taxi. So, I mean, you stop by the bakery, then Daz, and over to your place for the next episode. Yeah. And then go see Izzy. That's right. Go see Izzy. Yep. And you have a second location. I do. My friends operate games at the Drive-Ins. They're not really pinball people. They're normally into that Dance Dance Revolution and crap. Let's do the art! Yep, which I know your wife loves. She does. So shout out to Jamie. Good. You're married up, sir. Woo! Now. So there is a new place, and they are going to have two pinballs. Kind of close to Spencer's house, but I have a feeling I'm kind of helping them out, run the arcade a little bit. Not entirely, though, but it's Monster Mini Golf, and they're going to be the new owners starting New Year's Day.
32:36
And they've already put all their stuff in. They kicked a former – they kicked patent vending out. That sucks.
32:45
No shit. They have a pile of quarters. You should be able to add dollar bills. No shit. What are you going to do? They were not under contract with Monster Mini Golf, so with new owners taking in, it really helps. And what's the location? It's right over in the Nimbus Shopping Center, kind of by the Fist Hatchery. It's close to Boulevard and Hazel.
33:08
It's by Cattleman's. There is an old spaghetti factory inside. And a brewery. And Fort Rock Brewery, which has great beer. Excellent. So you can grab a beer and play some mini-golf. Don't the Timbal's have the brewery also? I think the toy store. I don't know if the toy store is still there anymore. Oh, shit. Yeah. We're talking about expense. we don't know if we're doing this yet, but we're talking about expanding the game room too, even. We don't know yet, though, so don't. Alright. Everybody keep it on the DL. Yeah.
33:42
Just between us. Are they going to have redemption games? Oh, yeah, they have redemption games. Nice. My favorite one is Elvis. It's Elvis.
33:55
No, my son He loves Monster Mini Golf. He loves going there. Well, he'll love it even more now that there's pinball, maybe. Because they play indoor mini golf, and it's all, like, glow-in-the-dark. It's being run by good people now. All right. And they have a Jurassic Park Pro, which I just did the code update for a week ago. Which code is it? The latest. Which is? 9-6. That's what I thought. Yep. And then they're going to have, starting mid-January, maybe, they're going to get a Stern Wars. so they're going to have two pinballs there. Talking about the third war. Get a Stranger Things. I don't know if they'll get a Stranger Things. That's a topic, you know. Black is not. They're just aiming for two pinballs. Where do they go? If they get five, we'll start having Legion Furnace there. Oh, nice. Maybe, yeah. Okay, tell them we'll start doing it. Maybe, yeah. But I'm really starting to, Scotch is starting to kick in, so don't pay him too much attention. If you spend $30,000 on pinball, you'll come down to the outwards of $30. That's right.
35:01
So, we're going to segue with that. I wish you had anything else. That's it. And we're going to start talking about what's new. What's new in pinball? What is new in pinball? Okay, we'll go in quick order here. Who wants to know what's new in pinball? Rick and Morty pinball. Boom! Chuckie pinball. They went on sale, what, a week ago? Ten days ago? Sold out in two hours. They actually sold, yeah, it was just under four hours. Oh, so my bad. There may be, now, Spooky Pinball itself is sold out of their run. There may be a few distributors that may have one or two here or there. Talk to your local distributor. Get online. Good luck. And they moved production. 750 units. Yeah.
35:45
What's really, a couple of key points about the game. Scott and Nisi, you know him, you love him from Full Nuclear Annihilation. This is his second game. Also, the creators of the show, the names I forget, Scott, well I would have forgot him anyway, but you get the idea.
36:03
They do all the voices, they're doing custom call-outs, both a family mode and an adult mode, so if you know the show, Rick and Morty, you know it's going to get a little salty. I think it's Dan Harmon and Justin Roiland. Justin Roiland, thank you. Sounds right.
36:17
You can look at the teaser trailer and the game trailer on YouTube. This thing is going to be a slam dunk out of the park. It looks fun as hell. Unique layout. The left slingshot is not a slingshot. It's a pop bumper. And it has a little thing called a slam. A slam. You spell slam. In lanes and out lines, and you can flip them and adjust them. And when you do that, and you hit the pop bumper, If it goes down the hill. It'll save your ball. It's a ball save. Coming off to the left end lane is the.
36:56
Anti-gravity device? No, that's the right. Right end lane. Magna save and the button is on the right side of the cabinet. Like an original or Black Knight 2000. Now off the left lane you have a ball return from the time portal. The portal. Portal. Jim Martin in Reno is getting one. So shout out to Jim Martin. Shout out to Jim Martin and Reno. We'll probably hear more about that when Mark calls. Yep.
37:20
So it's got a full scope to the house. You shoot left orbit. It goes into the garage, which is the portal, just like in the TV show.
37:30
Got all kinds of cool features. Don't take our word for it. The Neatly Lock 2.0. It's a horseshoe with two lit drop targets. The drop targets are underplate to lit, which is really cool. so you can lock two balls up there or three? I don't know. I think two balls, and there's up to four ball multi-ball, I believe. And then there's like a post thing. Yeah. There's a lot of crazy stuff. Scott is going to put some shit into this game. Three-flipper game. It's more than you're ready for, especially considering that it's a spooky game. Yeah. Not that spooky doesn't make good games. Right. Interesting side note. This is upping the game for Spooky and Spooky. Oh, and then some. And then some. I think it's gone even beyond their expectations. Interesting side note is, if you don't know who Project Pinball is, by now you should. They're a wonderful organization. What they do is they put pinball machines in children's hospitals and Ronald McDonald houses. And how they do this is they raffle off pinball machines. They had a Rick and Morty raffle. I bought a ticket. I called my lovely wife, Rusty, had her get the ticket for me. I was at work.
38:45
Normally, for any game, it takes about three weeks on average for them to sell out 200 tickets. These sold out in just over two hours. Wow. So, yeah. What were the tickets?
39:00
$85. Wow. So, even though I didn't win. For a 1 in 200 chance. That's a pretty, that's a good odds. And it goes towards a good crowd. Great cause. So even though I didn't win the game, I still won. Boo. But I still won because somewhere out there is a family at a Ronald McDonald house with a sick family member or at a children's hospital, and that's going to put a smile on somebody's face when they're dealing with a real challenge in life right now. And so like the Stern Pro Models are $50 a ticket. You're going to blow $50 on drinks or dinner or coffee and cigarettes or whatever. Blow 50 bucks on something really worthwhile. Take a chance on winning a pinball. I love you, Spencer. I love you too, man, but not in a sicker jailhouse way, but two more drinks and we'll talk.
39:48
Did somebody say $50 blow? You have to pay any veteran in any port to storm, boys and girls. You just close your eyes and pretend it's a girl. Sometimes you're unlucky there's a storm in that port. There you go. Hello. Get a little salty. So that's just kind of the overview. Keep checking. They're going to be doing a gameplay video in the next couple, three weeks.
40:12
SpookyPinball.com. You know, you can find it on YouTube. Let's move on to Stern Pinball, which huge kudos and shout-outs to the guys at Stern Pinball. They officially released the game on December 23rd, Stranger Things Pinball, Netflix Stranger Things, and had it in people's homes and in distributors' warehouses the same. day. Insane. Not just in America, but throughout the world. From Europe, and I don't know about Australia, but I know... They're already shipping them. They're already released They already released People in the United Kingdom had them on the 23rd So Stranger Things Pretty strange Pro Model Premium L Dan you want to take over I got to go get a cigarette
40:58
What? Pro model, go. He was in my mouth. He's never stopped you before. It's Attack from Mars, but with a teenage girl with a nosebleed. And a naughty hand in the middle with a whole... But wait a minute, who designed it? Brian Eddy. Who's back after how long? 25? Something years. Yeah, Brian Eddy. 22. You know Brian Eddy's games. 22. The Shadow. Medieval Madness was back. Attack from Mars. Medieval. And Medieval Madness. So, 97 was his last pinball game he's been doing. He's been doing video games. He did Arctic Thunder. Great game, by the way. Oh, I love Arctic Thunder. So, he's back. Now, let's go into the Premium LE because that's got the most awesome features. but bang for your buck is the pro. Brian, go. I'm looking forward to playing all of them. I'm withholding anything. They all look fun. I like Attack from Mars. I like Medieval Madness. This looks cool. I really want to see how that projector works. I think that's going to be pretty cool. I think that makes it great. It's a very unique idea, so I'm really looking forward to seeing it. It's Stranger Things. What do you expect? I've never seen the show. I've never watched it. You would love it. That's for me. I haven't had internet at my house since November of last year. Oh, okay. And I just, I don't watch television, so. Did anyone else check out the Jack Angel game? I haven't seen all of it yet. Not yet. I watched, like, the first hour of it. The game itself looks really good. Like, it looks like what you expect a Brian Eddy game to look like. I mean, almost to a fault. I know a lot of people have said that the layout's not very imaginative.
42:37
But that's because Attack from Mars is kind of the archetypical fan layout. Yeah, it's a fan layout. two ramps you've got your left lane you've got your ramp you've already got your left orbit you've got your ramp you've got your left lane you have a fold down it looks like a building and it folds down and there's a center bash toy that actually has like a hole that you can shoot the ball up into somebody, I don't know who this sick fuck is but they called it the fleshlight the Demi Gorgon It's a Danny Gorgon. Now, on the pro, it just looks like the building. And then it nears on the right side. On the far left, you have a saucer you can shoot the ball up into. If the ball lands in that saucer, it'll fire it up into the drop targets in the middle. There's four drop targets in the dead middle that you can knock down and then shoot through. And when it plunges, it plunges up into those drop targets, which does have the potential to suck because that's kind of, you know, kind of like Star Wars.
43:43
But the stream, I mean, obviously the guys playing the game are super good pinball players, so who knows what the layman's going to see, but they didn't seem to be having too much problem with it. Well, you have to figure that things on the earliest of early code Yeah, it's on point like 6.8 and already has the pro model, which has already been delivered and the premium LE coming soon has already got like 12 modes, 6 for each season I believe it is yeah it's got basically like so I'm assuming everybody knows how a tap works right so when you hit like a lane 3 times it starts like a little mini sort of like a hurry up you know atomic blaster or Mars Needs Women or something like that well in this game each of like if you hit the 3 shots to that, it starts a mode based on the show. And it plays a clip and it has the voices, so it looks really, really cool. And then you play out your mode. And they've got an important note, thank you for bringing that up, is they've got all the assets. They've got video and audio from the first two seasons, because the whole game is based on the first two seasons. And they also are going to have call-outs from the actor who plays the hopper. Sheriff Hopper. Calling in from David Harbour. Is that it? Thank you. David Harbour, yeah. If you haven't seen the show, I just started watching it a couple weeks ago. My kids love it. It's great. I'm catching up. It is great. It's great. If you grew up in the 80s, you're going to love the nostalgia because it takes place in the 80s.
45:24
The premium and LE model, the screen and the ramps and the drop targets, and the spinner, are all this. The stand-ups. Yeah, the stand-ups are all plain white because it's a first in pinball. It's an actual projector that will project images onto all these things.
45:46
That's a ranch. On the ranch. On the ranch, the stand-ups, the drop targets, the spinner. So it's going to, I'm looking forward to see what they do with it. Now, on code is Lonnie Rock. Lonnie Robb. And, um, the art, I don't, okay, so I know the art is done by, like, not a famous illustrator, but he's definitely very Franchi-like. Yeah. Like, where he does, like, that more photo-realistic. And how's that movie poster? He's so, like, cool. Like that Drew Struzman style, but it's definitely not Drew Struzman because, obviously, that's not his name. But what's the other, uh, Mike Minicore, who was really awesome and shared some great stories with us at the dinner at Golden State Pinball Festival last year. One of them about Attack from Mars. So he's also on code. And, of course, Brian Eddy himself, before designing, was writing code for pinball games. So the code on this, from what I'm understanding, when finished, maybe not the Pro, but definitely the Premium LE, are supposed to have upwards of 50 modes. They could definitely do a lot, considering you've got the screen and the projector.
46:56
Realistically, when they come out was season four, they could just roll that in on the projector. And add in modes that support season four. Exactly. I think rights-wise, they only have the first two seasons. Oh, is that what it is? But I mean, it's really nice to see that they've got all the assets, because we're going to talk about Jurassic Park later. Fantastic game, but there's almost no assets. Generic park! Generic park. It's so great. It's like Stranger Things. Stranger Things looks really, really cool.
47:26
Can't wait to play it. One of the things about Stranger Things. Now, I'm not as techie as you guys are with the man who designed it. I'm just a simple caveman. But my point being that Stranger Things has come out, and my kids really love that show. Right. But we like it, too, because it has some nostalgia from back in the cars that they're driving. It's back from the 70s and 80s and such. and so what's happening is that this particular pinball machine is now transcending from generation to the next generation and I hope that we have more machines like that because if you think about it, all the machines that we've been playing are from back in our day and if we want to keep the younger generation into the whole pinball scene, this is a way of doing it. One of the most amazing things about both this and Rick and Morty, and Rick and Morty unfortunately is very limited release, but Stranger things, you know, Stern's going to sell as many as people want to buy, is that they are contemporary themes, you know. And it's the same, like, Stern's good about that. You know, we've had Game of Thrones, we've had Walking Dead, they were all, you know, pretty much still in their prime when they got games. These are games that'll go out there, people will see just the fact that it says Stranger Things on it, and be like, oh, I've got to give that a shot. Yeah, don't put a dollar in it. Let's put a buck into this. Now, I don't know if 10 years down the road anyone's going to give a shit. Right. You know, it's not Ghostbusters, but it is something that, like, people will see and people will want to try, and it'll get people to play on the strength of its theme. The good news is is that with, you know, an all-time bonafide classic design team and effects, it's going to be a really strong player as well. Well, you know, the other thing, too, is that I mentioned this earlier about when we were doing the cabinet restoration and stuff, is that, you know, machines that you used to play when you were a kid, and now you're able to buy one and have it in your collection, one that you're never going to get rid of. Maybe that's going to happen with Stranger Things, because it's going to bring that type of the youth generation into it all. Oh, sure, yeah. 20 years down the road, you know, everything will be popular. Like, you're getting to the point now where people are all like, man, do you play that Johnny Mnemonic?
49:46
Where when Brian and I got started with our pinball thing, like, Johnny Mnemonic was like an $800 machine because nobody played it. They just looked at the theme and were like, fuck this. Like, we don't want this terrible game sitting in our game room. Like, get rid of it. And, of course, you know, for low-buck guys like us, it's like, that's music to our ears, you know. so Stranger Things you know it's a $6,000 machine brand new you know it's probably never going to be an $800 machine but I think it'll have it's day it'll be great for operating it'll be a really really good theme for them I think that Stern will get some big sales on it I can't wait to see in the flesh a premium the flesh light oh yeah but you know what you do is you shoot the ball up in the Demogorgon has a hole in the middle of it, and you shoot the ball up the ramp into the hole that killed the Demogorgon. It's in the hole. But, in the hole! Even taking a step back from all this stuff, is there a better time to be a pinhead than right now? No. There is not. No. Uh, 1992. Yeah, really. Now there is a... But wait a minute, quantify that. Why? Tell us why. Because, fucking, there were like four giant pinball machine manufacturers making like 10 games a year, and the games were all-time bonafide classics. Well, okay, Adam's down. A lot of those that came out were stinkers. Yeah, they didn't become classics until many years later. Even looking back on it, they were back to the future. Even counting Back to the Future as a bonafide classic. I love Back to the Future. And back in like the day when that game came out, it was awesome. That's what Back to the 80s Cafe needs. Exactly. A Back to the Future pinball. They're opening the second location. Are they really? They are. Wow. But how many manufacturers are there of machines right now?
51:39
Real ones? Those hands are not on there at all. Am I getting ahead of ourselves? No, no. There's one. We'll go ahead and start. Every other manufacturer cranks out like maybe one game a year, maybe two if you count the release. Yeah. But still. We've got to start an auction. But I'm not trying to take anything away from what's been accomplished this year. There have been, like, what? Five games? Spooky and new? Oh, no. Stern, Jersey Jack, Luki, American, Chicago Gaming. Highway, who went away. Highway went away. But we still have. Jets went away. Right. But we still have. J-Pop went away. Oh. Yeah. He just came back as Deep Root. Yeah. But like in 1990, you had at the same time, you had Williams and Bally. They were one company. But they weren't ginormous. You had Data East. Yeah. And you had Gottlieb. And you had them working on a full-time, multi-release schedule. And Capcom. I don't think Capcom was making games in 92. I think that started a little bit. Like, they sort of saw what was happening in 92. And by the time that they jumped in, it was like as the slide was beginning. Well, that and, you know, Python got rest his soul. Going, hey, let's make a game about Adam and Eve and have total nudity. And have them shoot the ball into Eve's vagina. And let's throw up the Japanese businessman. Yeah. And then they went, holy boo, we're closing this plant now. We too low. Something wrong.
53:11
That is the best. That will live forever on YouTube. Asian, I don't know. We'll never live that down. This was a great interview with Stern, man. Again, it's the Stranger Things thing that was really crazy because Stern just sort of was like, it's the end of the year. We're going to announce a surprise. And it's shipping. Yep. You know, it wasn't like one of these things where, like, we're going to announce a new game. Four months. And, like, six weeks later. Yeah. Four months later. It's in your little board. Five years later. From what I hear, knock on wood, we're going to see Rick and Morty's out much sooner than we expect. Really? Apparently, Spooky is moving on. Nice. Like, Charlie's big thing was we are not going to announce a game before we're ready to start making it. I've seen pictures before Christmas. They already had cabinets and water fields ready. I've been ready to drop in the cabinets. They're getting ready to ship. There were unexpected growing pains with Rob Zombie. Right. That worked through. And with Rick and Morty, they had their ducks in a row. So we're supposed to see those games sooner than we expect. So that's going to be pretty exciting. It's not going to be like a year later. I believe Coin Up possibly might be getting one. Not sure. Coin Up's getting one. No, I think Joe is for sure. No, I'm getting one. Somewhere is getting one. Yeah, coin-op's getting one. Maybe it'll be San Francisco.
54:39
No, it's going to Sacramento. Joe, we love you. Are you bringing yours to Golden State? My what? No.
54:46
You didn't win. This is still in the rumor mill, but I'm going to throw it in anyway. Hot Wheels by American Pinball. It has to happen, because I've already modified 400 Hot Wheels with LEDs to sell $200 each. Nice!
55:03
And the cool thing is, I even got an aftermarket add-on for the game. It's a piece of track, so when someone's doing better, you just... Yes! I have issues with Hot Wheels. Because we all did that when we were kids. I have issues with Hot Wheels, because my parents used to whip me with my Hot Wheels tracks when I was a kid. To this day, I can't go through the Hot Wheels aisle of a Walmart without sweating. I was going to say getting turned on, but... Right, so at least that wasn't the wrong way. I thought we were going to make some cool toppers. That's right. Well, you know, with the Hot Wheels track, and you guys can't see this out there, raise your hand if you got hit or hit someone with a Hot Wheels track when you were a kid. Oh, yeah, hey, where's this Mario Kart track? I want to, you know. Oh, send the boys around.
55:42
We'll see what happens. Yeah. You know, Hot Wheels, that's definitely a theme that, you know, everybody playing with Hot Wheels. Absolutely. Okay, but here's the thing that you guys aren't really considering either. Hot Wheels Collectors. Does anybody know about the world of Hot Wheels Collectors? Yeah. They're insane. A couple of my clients are huge Hot Wheels Collectors. It makes the pinball collector world look insignificant in comparison. Yeah. You've just got to consider, though, are these guys going to make the jump from buying their $1 cars to buying a $7,000 pinball machine? Some of them will. And some of them will. You know who is a huge Hot Wheels Collector here in Sacramento? Tom LaBrie. Oh, really? Tom LaBrie, Night Company Theater. That's actually why he started a toy store behind the Sacramento Waterman store, and it was like a consignment place. I went in there one day, just like, oh, it's a toy store. Where the fucking Tom LaBrie's sitting back there? I was just like, hey, I remember you from like the 70s. He's like, thanks.
56:45
When he talked to the other, did that fucking man talk? Oh, yeah, I mean, he was old. Yeah, God rest his soul. Tom LaBrie, yeah, he was old. He was, man, If you grew up in Sacramento, Channel 40, like 1130 at night, Tom LaBrie's Night Comfort Theater. Yep. Oh, dude, that played at like 2 a.m. in San Diego.
57:04
Tom LaBrie's Night Comfort Theater. I had actually seen the yard when he did Dune, and I still have some of his commercials. There are some amazing YouTube clips of Tom LaBrie's Night Comfort Theater, and his waterbend commercials, which are just insane. Oh, yeah. He was a staple of 70s local TV. Speaking of rumors, though, did anybody catch the question and answer session at the beginning of the Stranger Things, the video thing where somebody asked them about Bill and Ted's and they said they can't talk about it? Yeah, that's a Jack Danger thing. Is it? Yeah. Maybe, maybe. I mean, who knows? Because they've got the new movie coming out. That's a Jack Danger thing. Well, Hot World makes perfect sense because it's a theme that everybody, you know, a lot of people are debating, oh, I don't want that. Okay, you know, same again. They're building a Led Zeppelin machine. Yeah, right. Come on. Well, Hot Wheels. Okay, American Pinball puts – okay, they don't skimp. Bless their heart. They put a ton of stuff into their games. If you've got a Hot Wheels game, you know it's going to have the orange track ramps and 50 bucks setters, a loop-de-loop in there, and probably a jump. It's going to be fun to shoot. How deep it'll be, what else it'll be, don't know. But I'm looking forward to it, and I'm excited about it. Because we all grew up with Hot Wheels. I still remember getting the Hot Wheels where you get the little badge with the car. I got like five or six Hot Wheels with my Christmas presents this year. Yeah. We all love them. Hot Wheels never go away. If they do it, I think it's going to be cool, and I think it'll be a fun game, and I think we'll enjoy it. What would be really cool is if you plunged the ball, and it wasn't a ball. It was a little Hot Wheels car. That would actually be cool. Or if they had a tracker on the outside, and the Hot Wheels was around the outside. Yeah, like a NASCAR. There are already a ton of pinball machines, factory, that have Hot Wheels in them. Right. like Demoman, Sopranos, Mustang.
58:55
Does Mustang have a homeowner? I don't know. It has a car. It does have like that larger like that Mike Stowe size die-cast metal thing. When we played like the last Pinnagogo we went to, when we played the Batman 66, wasn't that a Hot Wheels Batman car? Yes. There was a Hot Wheels Batmobile car. Yep. Corvette. Viper Knight driving. Yep. There are some games that have actual Hot Wheels just from the factory. Like, not even someone just gluing them on. You know, it's crazy. Any car game that's ever been made. Just like Shrek had McDonald's Happy Meal toys. Yeah. Any game that's ever had a car theme made, someone has made their kid's toy box. Yep. And stuck a Hot Wheels on it.
59:41
High speed getaway. So we're up to the latest pinball. I can't even get the name of the company. but it's called Punny Factory it's called Pinball Adventures there's a story about these guys is it all about how their life got flipped upside down no so these guys started off as a publisher of like a book and they were doing that book with TNT Todd Tucky and apparently when that book came out it was a piece of shit and Todd Tucky was making fun of it on his YouTube show. And then that guy came onto Pinside and started shit with Todd Tuckey on Pinside. Which is awesome! Because everybody was just like you. Not everybody on Pinside loves Todd Tuckey, right? Like, we look at some of his prices and we look at his LED jobs and we sort of go, yeah, whatever. There's still some people who are like, oh my god, in the 90s he threw pinball machines off the roof! But when this dude came and started shit with Todd Taki on Pinzai, he got fucking buried. He got burned. He got obliterated. And apparently, his decision was, I'm going to double down and produce a pinball machine.
61:01
Wow. And he got the guys that did the mafia pinball to help him. Yeah. Those poor dudes. Now, it is designed by Andrew McVeigh, who did the work on... They do nothing. No, no. Andrew McVeigh is the guy that owns the publishing company. I'm sorry.
61:23
Hold on. I have my notes here. Oh, Dave Sanders, who worked on Full Throttle and Alien over at Highway. Dave Sanders, who got screwed by Highway. Right. He did that. Poor dude. It's a single-level play field, has no ramps, but it does have a vertical drop target, knock it down, hit a little building, vertical up kicker that has a ball return. Kind of an interesting-looking one. It's like a, you know how I'm mousing around the whole time? Wait, is there, like, actually a picture of this pinball machine? Yeah, right here. Holy shit. I'm on pinball news right now.
61:58
What's the theme of it? Punny Factory. Pun. A factory. I'm going to order one. Like Dad Jokes. That's the first thing that came to my head was dad jokes. Oh, it popped into your head? Yeah. Like dad jokes? Yeah, like dad jokes. No, it daddened.
62:15
Womp womp. Oh. Womp womp. Daddy didn't love me. Nothing could be fathered in the church. So, it's coming out. It's there. It is what it is. We'll see how it goes, folks. You know, if this thing is cheap enough. Well, it actually looks almost... Fuck you. It doesn't look bad.
62:41
It doesn't look that bad. If MSRP is under $4,000, it'll be a hit. If it's $8,000 or whatever like... If not, uh-huh. The Mafia? No, they sold 10 of those. Okay. But the company that figures out how to get machines under $4,000... Thunderbirds. No, it was still $5,000 when it came out. Yeah. $49.99. I know. No, like, they're going to do some things. Because, you know, a Stern Pro now is officially more than $6,000. Yep. Like Thunderbirds. That's Thunderbirds. You know, you got me saying that. Stranger Things. Is $6,000. That's the price of the, like, 61. That's, like, $6,095. So they finally broke that $6,000 mark on a Pro. And I know that means street price is, like, $5,700. But, you know, if somebody sits in there. Probably $5,000. That's when E-Fruit's talking their shit. Like, they're going to be good. And they're going to be cheap. That's our next topic, so I'm glad you segued into that. Funny Factory is going to be a giant bomb of Thunderbird Proportion. Go ahead. Well, you know what, though? Ah, yeah. We can get some of those Stern machines a little bit cheaper if you come to Golden State Pinball. That's right. If you order for the show price, you're going to save a couple thousand dollars. And check me in. Wait, how many days are left until Golden State Pinball? I'm glad you asked. I just got my hotel room. 152 days until the Golden State Pinball Festival in sunny Lodi, California, the weekend after Mother's Day. There we go. So if somebody wants a Stern pinball machine at show price, which is about $2,000 less than you might get it from the website. Oh, I think it's not quite that much, but it's a few hundred. It's still a good deal. It's a great deal. You get the show price discount. You get no shipping and no tax. Well, there's that. So you're saving a bit. So you can get that through Marco's specialties. And don't quote me on this, but the pinball pirate Chris Coots, I believe you can also get. I saw that. And you may be able to get American Pinball Games through, help me out, boys. American Pinball? Who's the distributor? Hi-yo!
64:50
He's the guy that runs Pinagogo again. Oh, Don Miley. Although, I don't think you can go directly through Marco in order to get the show price. You have to go through the people from Golden State Pinball. So, non-contact us. We'll probably leave some contact information. GoldenStatePinball.org or gspf.org or .com. Probably a little early to be honest. Probably a little early, but keep it in your to-do list. So, okay. So, Deep Root Pinball, you may have seen the stream for their Retro Atomic Zombie Adventureland prototype game. or Raza. Now they're going to have a release day. It's going to be a whole day long thing at their headquarters in Texas the week before Texas Pinball Festival. Five hours of Deep Root.
65:38
And they're going to have seminars. They're going to have a gameplay demonstration with Steve Bowden who's doing the rules.
65:46
They're going to have a Tex-Mex buffet. I know, right? Are they going to have a Magic Girl? Yeah, they could have a Magic Girl. They're going to have a non-working Magic Girl then. So they're going to have... Magic Girl. He said that they're going to fix Magic Girl, but they are going to make Magic Girl work, and that they've even redone the art and made it better. It's the theater of magic. Because it's always about the art, isn't it? Theater of magic. Okay, so... Yeah, the theater of magic. Okay, I'm going to just throw this out there, my initial impression of the game. They talked their game, they talked a big game, like a lot of these other fly-by-night new guys. Well, it's going to be better and cheaper and quicker. They backpedaled on everything. It was a sledgehammer they could take to the game. Now it's a hammer. It was going to be the quality of a Ferrari, the price of a Kia. Now it's like, well, it's going to be the best value for your dollar. Okay. In other words, it's going to cost a lot more. The innovations. We're going to innovate the cabinet. Many people have tried. Look at highway. No one cares. You know what we want? Theme, theme, theme, theme, theme. No. No, no, no. Have a good game. No. Yes. Fuck the theme. Rick and Morty absolutely cemented the fact that his theme is Steam Alone. Rick and Morty sold out in under four hours. Right, because Rick and Morty fans are insane and there's enough of a crossover with pinball. But here's the reason, right? Here's the reason that Rick and Morty sold out in four hours. Because everybody with $1,000 bet $1,000 that they can make money on it. Yep. Exactly. They didn't buy it because they really wanted Rick and Morty. A lot of people did. Oh, the play fans are chipping, so you know, I figure. When you bet $1,000 that you're going to make money. Period. Right? They do everything right. They don't, though. They do. No. They don't. First of all, spooky pinballs, love them or hate them, have reliability problems. Right? They're built on P-Rock. P-Rock's a great system. It doesn't always work. Right. You want to check that out? I can refer you to who only ever have problems with their machines. Number two, they're a work in progress, right? Their machines are moving out of that was built in my garage phase, and they're moving into a more professional quality. But their customer service is? Well, their customer service is as good as it can be for a company that's basically run by a small family in Wisconsin. you know nobody you know i i love a good theme but i don't buy a machine you know because i'm like oh my god it's something i have to have theme wise otherwise i would have a black and white source of reach no not only that but you know what there's a lot of companies out there that are unreliable yeah when they first started everybody's in a lot of pinball is unreliable okay deep root the game looks fun i'll give it that it's got great art it looks fun the game There's nothing on there that's innovative. And now you've got Rick and Morty with theme and some cool features. Now you've got Stranger Things with new innovation. But here's the thing. Rick and Morty are sold out. Right. Apparently. Stranger Things is going to be an old game in a few months because that's learned. You know, who knows what Deep Root's going to come out there with. As long as they bring out a good game. And, hey, man, love them or hate them, it's a Papa Duke design. People love Papa Duke design. John Papaduke makes fun games. He hasn't made a fun game since 1997. Well, he hasn't made a game since 1997, except for Parcel Magic. He hasn't made a game since 1997. You know who else hasn't made a game since 1997? Brian Eddy. Brian Eddy's game is actually produced. Brian Eddy's game is huge. It's on location. Here's the thing. Give it a couple months. I don't love Deep Root, but I don't understand the aggression. They haven't taken anyone's money. all they've done is talk a lot of shit and slowly produce a product. They're already doing better than Dutch Pinball. They're employing Steve Bowden. They're employing Papaduke. Fuck why, who knows. They're employing Barry Oursler. They're employing Dennis Nordman. They're employing John Norris. I owe an apology because I couldn't remember his name. They're employing a ton of pinball legends. They're going to make a product. Maybe that's it. maybe they kind of just kind of talked way too much. But who cares?
70:12
Well, some people do, because when they were talking about Magic Girl, a lot of people were all excited.
70:19
No, that was American. Oh, sorry. Wrong line. Anyway. And to top it all off, thank you for saying Magic Girl. They paid the Magic Girl owners off. They didn't have to. And he even, I don't know if you caught the interview not too far back, where he was like, yeah, I really should have done that. Really shouldn't have brought the Magic Girl shit up. It really just distracted us from the job at hand. But you know what? Now it's taken care of. You know, Deep Root might very well be the disruptor that the pinball industry desperately needs. You think they'd be a bigger disruptor than Jersey Jack? Sure. Jersey Jack has the potential. Yeah. And Jersey Jack, and we're going to talk about that, honestly. Jersey Jack was the disruptor six years ago. Yeah. But we've settled back into this thing. Stern's making five games a year. Jersey Jack's making one every 18 months. Spooky's making one every two years.
71:16
There's one pinball manufacturer. Love it or hate it. Americans making one every, what, two years? And I love Americans games. I think Houdini's an underrated classic. I think that Oktoberfest is way better than it has any right to be. you know I would love to see those guys do something really really cool I don't think it's Hot Wheels but that's a neat theme it's like some of the other manufacturers I mean how many games has Spooky put out will this be what number 5? well they have I mean they did the they're all Spooky games but I'm just saying as far as different machines they're under 10 and same thing with Jersey Jack they're under 10 so I mean they're still establishing themselves but they've already forced Stern to up their game you know Stern wouldn't have gone to a large display Stern hasn't upped their game though they didn't have a large display Stern's games are maybe worse than they've ever been you know the display's fine if you really like the display I don't know I kind of like the DMV. If it's incorporated well, I mean, like, you know, Batman 66, it's not necessarily my favorite game, but I think they did a really good job of incorporating the screen into the theme and into the play of the game. I thought they did a really good job with that. The screen's the future, or at least the present of pinball. But it's just one of those things where it's like, for the most part, you know, look at Stranger Things.
72:55
Very much going on there. Not yet. Not yet. Attack from Mars is the prototype for every Stern game ever made, because they figured out how to make a game that won't break, and it's fun to play. Spider-Man. Well, Spider-Man, yeah, exactly. It had, like, a moving target thing, and that was the game that they made in, like, what, 2007? Yep. You know, like, they haven't made anything like that in forever. Deep Root has basically come on the scene and said, look, we're going to make games that are as good as Stern's building, that are going to do new things that are going to do them, and they're going to do them cheap. Now, we'll see. I hope they do. They're still talking a lot of shit, for sure. I don't think that they deserve to catch it in the face just because they've talked a lot of shit and haven't delivered yet. Because at this, you know, we give everybody else all the time in the world, you know, fuck it. You know, let's let Robert come up with whatever he's going to come up with. And when he releases his product and he wants to ask $8,000 for it and wants to pre-order it and all that, then we can call him a hypocrite. right now, just fucking let the dude build his game. Yep. You know, and let's hope that, like, in the background, after this whole retro-atomic zombie Adventureland stuff, that they have a cool theme, which apparently they're supposed to have a shit-hot 80s theme on point that they reported on, like, what, a year ago. And they're supposed to have a brand-new original theme from Dennis Nordman, you know, which hopefully won't get all kind of nerfed like his Elvira did, because I've seen the original ramp designs and that looked awesome, but Stern couldn't make those. You know, let's see what those guys are going to crank out before we give up on them. Spencer, we're running out of conversation here, man.
74:40
You want to do the new releases of 2019? Yeah. Okay, so games in 2019. Woo-hoo, monsters! Monsters. So we got Monster Great No, Monsters Early January 30th I like Monster So Monsters Great shooter, great route game Home game can get kind of stale because the code's pretty basic. Route game, it's kind of 50-50.
75:27
And everybody knows the theme. It's just too old. There is that consideration, too, is that my God, it shoots great, though. It's a good shooting game. It's a fun-playing game, but the theme, I don't know how many people under the age of 40 know what the Munsters even is. I still maintain that all the hype was because everybody thought it was going to be the Addams Family. Like, everybody thought it was going to be and then it came out and it wasn't. Everybody was like, oh. It's still a fun game, though. I'm still entertained, and I was reading a bitch post about this the other day. Somebody was complaining that they did a color premium and they were all mad. And I'm still like, I don't know why you would buy anything but the black and white premium. That game is beautiful. It's so rad. Yeah.
76:12
And the LE, though, that lower play field looks kind of cheesy. I like it. I think it's fun. It's fun. It's a family guy on crack. I think it's cool. Tiny little flippers. I know, but how many lower play fields have habit trails? I think it's cool. That's cool. I think it has a second set of flipper buttons, but I thought it was cool. It's still fun.
76:34
I think it's cool. That's pretty cool. I think players have to make little tiny pin stadiums for it. Do they really?
76:44
That's cool. I have not seen those. Yeah, apparently. Oh, God. Yeah, okay, so what are we doing, monsters? Jurassic Park. Well, no, that was way later. What about Black Knight? Well, we're just bouncing around. I just wrote it down out of order.
77:02
Water Nine. Generic Park is maybe the best Stern game ever made. That's a pretty bold statement, son. I like the little track. That's a pretty bold statement, Cotton. This show plays out for you. It's so fucking good.
77:14
Keith Elwin's second game, his first was Iron Maiden. Now we've got Home Run 2. Which is maybe the best Stern game ever made.
77:22
Hey, I hear Stern's making a new game, and it's the best one they've ever made. Yeah, it is. No, seriously, the Elwynn games are so good. And, you know, when it started out, like, I didn't think that they would be able to beat Iron Maiden. Like, Iron Maiden is such a cool game. That's why Archer came along. It is the exact Stern game, right? It doesn't do anything fancy. There's nothing on it to really break. but it plays like a motherfucker. It's so fun. Yeah, that's true. And when I first played Jurassic, I was sort of like, first of all, I do call it generic park because I hate the theme, the sort of quasi-Jurassic Park theme. And I played it, and I thought the pro felt very still, and then I played some limited editions, and I'm like, oh, this is pretty cool. And then I went back and I played a pro on more updated code, and I'm just like, the combos are so fun to hit. The shots are so fun to make. The ramps are so satisfying. The rule set is great. the sound isn't really annoying even though it's still generic park that is an awesome game and I just went around from like is it better than the four flipper Iron Maiden oh I'm so close to saying yes but Jurassic Park is fan fucking fast yeah it is we have one now like I said Monster Mini Golf and what I heard is it's mobbing on location it is mobbing big time is there another thing that people that aren't pinball people, but like play football, they'll see, oh, Jurassic Park. I know that. And they don't care if it's following the movie Jurassic Park. The general public doesn't give a shit. It is totally mopping on location. It's a win-win.
79:03
I did not know that. Elvira, House of Horrors, which I still haven't played yet. It's awesome. That game's so much fun. Oh, I like it. Is there one local? No, there's a local collector that has one if you want to play, we can help you out. John? Why don't you guys reach out and get another site in his house so we can go. That's another low production game, isn't it? They're still producing it. It's not quite like a It's not, I mean, it's by the WizBane guys, by Norman and Lyman Sheets Code, but it's not officially a WizBane game, although they say they're as proud of it as if it was. it's super cool. The theming is amazing. If you like Elvira obviously it's a treat. Brian and I have both spent quite a bit of time on it and it's really good theme wise. The code is early because it is a Lyman game and it's super super early. You know it's going to kill when he gets a dialogue. Give him two years and I bet that would be like... But theme wise if you're into Elvira and if you're into cheesy, like, B-horror movies and stuff, there ain't much that can beat it. It works for me on a lot of levels. It's not as good of a shooter as Jurassic, but it's a solid shooter. Absolutely. And it's got a lot of It's just fun. It's got a lot of personality, right? Yeah, it's fun. The house is cool. They got the hologram thing on the ramp up to it. The crypt with the way the head turns around is really neat. the box. It's got the box. What was it? Elvira's Dusty Box? They couldn't call it that, but that's what they wanted to call it.
80:51
That's great. But yeah, it's a fun game. It's just fun. You know, I remember when I first put air on it.
80:59
Okay, George, there's only someone who takes a joke too far. I don't know who it is. It's you. Okay, Brian, I know you don't care for me. This is the only way to play Black Jar of Error. I don't like it at all. But you love the new one. Yeah.
81:14
Elvira and the Party Monsters? Meh. The ramps are cool. Dude, Elvira and the Party Monsters is great. Thank you, boys!
81:21
Scared stiff? I love that game. Scared stiff is a good game. I like that game a lot. Meh. But this new one is a lot more fun. When I first saw it, I was like, wake me up when you're done. It's Medieval Madness with a horn. I'm having multiple dreams. That's my favorite. I really like Medieval Madness. So you put all of them together? that is cool yeah that is cool you put all of them together having said that what we should do is we should have one of these podcasts over at John house Oh by right And the party house of Scared Stiff I've offered to host it at my house, but I don't have it at my house. Well, I have a Scared Stiff right now. Yeah.
81:55
Next up is Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Is there anybody here that hasn't played Willy Wonka? Me. I haven't played it. Golden State, who played it? It's excellent. It is super fun game. It's super smooth. Pat Lawler design. It's Willy Wonka. How can you not love that? Oompa Loompas. I mean... My only complaint about him that was so minor was it's hard to see the ball feed to the upper right flipper. Otherwise, that's a fun game. It's really hard for me because I'm so damn short.
82:27
You guys will see me standing on my tippy toes playing a lot. We'll get you one of those Marco boxes. I need a Marco box. I'd like to see the goddamn upper play field. No, Willy Wonka's great. It's a super fun game. I think my only drawback to it is I played it in a go-go, and it was hard to hear the call-outs because it's a pinball show. So what are you supposed to do? And in addition, this is only available on the Special Collectors Edition, that they added call-outs from Julie Dawn Cole, who played Baruch Assault in the original movie. Wow. I want to know.
82:59
Yeah, the custom call-outs she did for the game, but only for the Collector Edition. I wonder if she was younger, like, if her husband would make the call-out out sometimes. I want it now. Daddy?
83:11
Daddy? I want it now. No, Willy Wonka's great. It's a super fun game. It's a great Jersey Jack game. It's no Pirates of the Caribbean. But it is. But it's producible. It's producible and it works. It's super, super fun.
83:32
I don't have anything bad to say about it. Are there any locations? That one should use some work. Bay Area.
83:38
Where, like, Flipper Room or something like that? Flipper Room, Free Gold Watch, and Outer Orbit, and Level Up. Okay. Does the PPM have one? No, they do not. They don't have one yet. Okay.
83:53
That's probably the one thing that bums me out most about Jersey Jack games. They have some great games, but unless you know somebody that has one, it's hard to find one on location. That's why they lowered the price on the standard model to try to get more on the location $7,500 That's still a lot Come on Sell your Cuda and you'll get the game at $90 Sell your Hyrule or Casino Black Knight Sword of Rage Love it Love the program Don't care if it has an upper play Don't care either It's fun. It's fast. It's furious. It's fun and the music by Scott Ian of Anthrox kicks ass. The pro is garbage and the music gets old fast. That's good to hear. Well, I am a metalhead.
84:44
When I used to have hair. 100 years ago. No, it's a fantastic game. The premium LE rocks. I mean, it's got its audience. And most of the audience is us hardcore pinheads. The standard casual player has no idea what it is. You know? It's too hard for a casual. That's true. It's brutal. It's super nasty. The pro is especially brutal. Oh, the pro is horribly brutal. I love it. There's just a lot of, like, It's classic Steve Ritchie. It's fists in your face. It's like, you better pay attention, because I'm going to clean your closet. That's not true. Because most Steve Ritchies have long shots and predictable feats.
85:26
They do. It's aggressive. Think of Star Trek. Yeah, it is very aggressive. Like, it is nothing else. It's the machine that Steve wanted to be. The irony. Even Bud agrees. Yeah, exactly.
85:39
Don't destroy my enemy's web. He's like, no, it's cold out there. Baby, it's cold outside. Any more than this? I don't know. I mean, last night, I think it didn't. It's getting a rough wrap. Yeah, we're going to. It's an awesome game. Yeah, if you want one, you can get one now for at least $1,000 under original list price. We got a guy in NorCal selling a collector's edition for $6,900. For which one? Black Knight George Rage. Really? And it is pristine. Yes. It's absolutely perfect. Jason Fasler over on Tracy. Yeah, he's selling that. What's he making room for? Wonka. He's got Wonka and Jurassic Park limited edition coming in. Oh, wow. Speaking of Elite Off Collections in Northern California, Yeah. He does an open house every other Saturday. If you're in North Carolina and you want to go, reach out to him on Facebook. Not every other Saturday. Every other, I'm sorry, every second Saturday. There you go. Which is the same Saturday as the coin-off monthly tournament. Which is over. Well, I do want to start, right? No. They're not doing it anymore? Oh, he's not going to do it anymore? No. Really? Not enough people? It's over. So just because my wife doesn't want to do it. Unless somebody steps up and wants to do it and they don't have to do it on the same day, yeah. That's good. It is no more. No, I'm for sure not. I would take... Oh, I probably shouldn't That was fun. That's unfortunate.
87:02
Well, I was never wondering if that was live, but, you know, Spencer's ass doesn't edit it. Yeah. He was like, Dead Air is great! Dead Air is great. Yeah, well, okay, these weren't really new games. The one was. The Star Wars home pin was new this year. Yes. By the point of 2019. Nobody here has played it. No, but it looks fun. Yeah. And... Is it stern? Yeah, they made a home edition. Do you remember when Mike had the Spider-Man, the home version? Oh, yeah. Like that. It's like in a hand. There's no coin door. Like they built on that, right. Except it does have a coin door, but not a coin slot. It just has a door now. Yeah. It has a blank. Yeah, just a blank door with no coin slot. And it has like a little, little, little bit of fun. Metal ramps, metal habit trails, got the little TIE fighter toy, got the Death Star toy, just like the regular pro model. It looks fun as shit, but why wouldn't you want to pay a thousand bucks and get a pro? Yeah, exactly. But you know what? Because it's like $4,000, and you can get a used Pro for $5,000 all day. Well, you can probably get a used Pro for a little less now because they've got the comic book art edition out now. And you can get a brand new Pro for $5,700. There you go. But that's without this year. Wait, but I have one that I want to talk about. Oh, yes, go ahead. I have one that I want to talk about. There's another one too, right? I'm dating myself. I understand this. But I'm telling you, I love Batman 66 because of the graphics. So now, I've revisited the... Hey, you know, Batman 66 came out in like 2001. No, but Eric brought up a great point. They brought out the Catwoman edition this year. It came with a different trans life. Ooh. And different eye art. So check this out. I've revisited the show. And it is cheesy as hell. But I tell you what. the graphics on the Batman is so cool to watch. It's just really nostalgic. If you give Wadman Sheets three years, he will make you a It's a great game. So I understand there's going to be stuff like that. That is one of my favorite all-time games.
89:10
There's one for sale in the Bay Area. Buy it. Buy it, George. Bye. Will somebody write my wife an email? Yeah, I'll write you a note, sir. No, take care of those. There you go. All right. We're going to make you off a prescription. Yeah.
89:28
You know what? My birthday's coming up. Yeah. So if anybody wants to send me a Batman 66, I got here. We'll work for pinball. There you go. We'll trade. I need eight games. We'll trade. Well, for a Batman 66, we may do a little bit more for pinball.
89:51
Rusty, that's not fair. That's a Batman 69. Oh! Short string. What's this thing called? A bat film? Right. Someone who always takes the joke one step too far. That person is George.
90:06
It's one word. Although, Catwoman, you never know. Right? Exactly. Julie Neumar Eartha Kitt or Michelle Pfeiffer no no the original show Julie Neumar Eartha Kitt and Lee Merriweather there were three sure so anyway we're on to the game that defined the decade the definitive game the game changer game of between 2010 and 2019. Dan, go.
90:46
All right. So I think this is important because we're at the end of the decade, right? And you have to look at the games that, like, really changed the course of what happened to pinball in the last decade. And I can think of two games, specifically.
91:01
My runner-up is ACDC. ACDC is the game that kind of brought Stern back from the brink and sort of showed that Stern still knows how to make a decent pinball machine.
91:15
But I think that the game that really changed what was going on in pinball in the last 10 years was the Wizard of Oz.
91:23
Because like we were talking about earlier, it put Jersey Jack on the map, it made Stern up their game, and perhaps the worst thing, it showed that pinheads are willing to spend retarded money to buy their game. a buyer's card. Including Magic Girl. But that was the thing that, again, it kind of showed that, like, hey, look, there's life. Like, you don't have to make games for these razor-thin margins. You can make a good game. You can charge a little more money and get the good theme. People will pay for it if it's got the quality. And Wizard of Oz itself is a hell of a machine. You know, it's... Regardless of theme. Yeah, regardless of theme, like, you know, Jersey Jack, you know, he went out there to prove a point. He went out there to prove that they were going to build the Cadillacs, the Bentleys, you know, the most deluxe high-end pinball machines on the market. And, you know, even if you don't love the game, nobody sits down and gets that first look at Wizard of Oz and goes like, oh, you know, this isn't very impressive. Even today, with all the color-changing inserts and all the crazy mechanisms and the multiple-ray play field and the crazy in-lane games and stuff that you can play, the golden slipper, or the ruby slipper flippers and the flying monkey, not available in all versions.
92:47
I'm looking for a yellow back row, by the way. The 27-inch display in the back box. They're the first people to do a LCD full-color display. It was the game changer. Hey, that's why old guys still buy Corvettes. What? You know, if we can. Yeah, I'll agree with that. and the other one I'd say was also a very strong runner-up was the Medieval Madness remake.
93:08
That gave a huge impact. It brought prices down to earth on everything. Oh, yeah. Who cares? Because it got people who were just like, you know what? I'm in the hobby, but I'm not spending $14,000 on this, but I need a brand new one for 8. And it plays pretty much goddamn the same, and it brought down prices back down out of the crazy stratosphere everything was coining up. It made it so even the common-ass cheapskates could own a medieval Mad Men. Yeah, so what was the original price on an medieval Mad Men? I, sir, own a medieval Mad Men. Wait, wait, you mean like way, way back? Yeah, when the first came out, how much was that machine? It is 20, original sticker price was 26, 2700. But it was, no, no, it was in the threes. But here's the thing, to buy one, you have to also buy other games. Like, they're like, If you want to be Evil Madness, I don't remember what the game was where you can research it. You have to buy, if you want to be Evil Madness, you have to buy, like, a circus full of tears. A circus full, like, two or three circus full of tears to get it. They had a real messed up system back then. But 2010, a route beater with Evil Madness that played and worked, but was a routed game, would cost you $10,000. And that was because when the pinball market started to resurge, everybody looked at the big, big classics. Medieval Magnus, there were only 4,000 of them out there Now, 4,000 is a lot in the pinball machine world It is But, considering that Medieval Magnus is arguably The greatest pinball machine ever made It is And the best all-rounder It had a particular kind of demand And even when pinball machines were cheap Even in our $800, $900, $800 They were still $5,000 or $6,000 And so, yeah, you know, Medieval Magnus was crazy expensive Their remake came out, it was $8,000 and that's a lot. Like, I don't think anyone's going to look at a Radio 9 stream and go like, well, you know, let me check the cushions of the couch. But, you know, yeah, that's a good point. What it did, you know, and it's kind of another negative influence, where Wizard of Oz proved that people will pay more, like, this kind of showed all the Valley Williams elitists that it's just like, by the way, your investments quote-unquote aren't safe, because anything can be remade. Now look at what Monster Bash is they're selling for. Yeah, right. You know, Attack from Mars was kind of already in that $6,000, $8,000 range. How about Theater of Magic? Is it in the same conversation? It's on the list to be remade. Yeah, it's on the list. Yeah. I would be surprised for a while because it seems like they're really focusing on the WPC 95 games, but I'm sure they'll move back into the WPCs. That's a great game. I loved it. Attack of the Sand Dunes. Possibly. Well, they talked about Cactus. I think Cactus is almost definitely the next player. Because they didn't... Wasn't Cactus Canyon a really low... They didn't pay $875. $900.
96:08
But Cactus Canyon was the last standard before Pinball 2000. Yeah, before Pinball 2000. It got cut short. And there was a lot of development story and development drama. In fact, I don't remember what podcast he was on. But F the Geek, the guy who did Cactus Cannon Continued, Eric Kripke, he actually did an interview with somebody. I don't remember exactly who. Isn't he working at Spooky now? I don't know. I think he is. He is. But he actually did an interview where he talked about, like, the development of Cactus Cannon Continued and how he actually ran into Static with the guy who was originally doing the software, who's apparently involved with Chicago Gaming. because, you know, everybody was like, oh, him and Rick hate each other, and there's a big, you know, rivalry and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And from what I heard, from what he said, they called, he called back, they never managed to get in touch, and the last that he knew they were working with, whoever the original software guy was. Right, and they're sort of a one-offer. But, yeah, Cactus Canyon is definitely a game that, like, it's going to get its day in the sun. Now, whether it's a game that deserves a remake or not is up to you, because it's like a lot of people feel like, okay, Medieval, Bonafide Classic. Attack, Bonafide Classic. Monster Bash, Bonafide Classic. Cactus Canyon, just rare. Maybe a Bonafide Classic that never got its chance. Big Bang Bar, maybe a Bonafide Classic that never got its chance. Who knows? They made 200 Big Bang Bars, you know. If they bring them out at $8,000 apiece or $7,000 or $6,000 or whatever they're going to charge, are they going to be a big hit? But, you know, yeah, that was a great pick by Brian because it does sort of prove that like, hey, The remakes are for real, and they changed the high-end collectors, you know, high-end used game collectors market, because now, yeah, nobody feels safe spending $15,000. The two biggest collectibles now are probably Adam's Family and Indiana Jones. Well, I mean, Big Bang still sells for $18,000. Right, right. But I mean, because if they do end up remaking it, that one will still hold a lot of value, but... It could be remade. Yeah. I mean, maybe Indiana Jones is a long shot. Would you throw Lebowski into that mix? That one's just... We'll have to sit down and do another episode. And that's got to be about licensing, too. I mean, licensing is going to be a killer. Apparently, Dutch re-upped. Dutch still has the rights to the big Lebowski. And apparently they're talking that they're going to make more. Whether it's the Coens or Universal or what, like, apparently whoever has the rights to Lebowski for pinball is just like, oh, you still want him? Sure. You're like, they don't give a fuck. Buy me one. I'd like to better be successful. Speaking of Lebowski, so the weekend after, not this coming weekend, New Year weekend, whatever.
99:10
Well, let me take a step back. So, like, the weekend of the, what is it, the 7th, 8th, maybe? Press Theater showing the big Lebowski. Very cool. Nice. Might be a good pinhead to go check that out. Yes. Definitely. So, George, what's your most influential game of the last 10 years? Good pick, Brian. Good pick. Oh, boy. For what? For your remix. Oh, yeah. They rock. What is it, George? You know, I'm not as slick as you guys on all this kind of stuff. George, you are super slick. I say Avengers, be honest.
99:44
Who is this man? I am Zoot! Jack! Ah! Ro Nelly. No. No, yeah. You know... Ro Nelly, the beginning of the retro remake. I mentioned it before, but I tell you, the game that I really do love is Batman 66. And it's because of the graphics. It's because of the soundtrack on it and just the nostalgia.
100:09
And it's so clear. You see the graphics on the DMD that they have, or the monitor that they have on there. It's just perfect. and it just goes so good with the game. The theme integration of that game is amazing. Absolutely perfect. Maybe we could consider that to be Stern's response to Jersey Jack. Oh, sure. I mean, the whole graphics on it is just... Yeah, it's a fantastic So I think for me, that is the game. I don't have that in my collection, but you know, you guys have heard me talk about this probably over and over and over again. I know that Steve over at Adam's house has this machine. Hey, George, buy one. I want to buy one. George, why can't we talk to Henry? I know. Henry just bought one. Yeah.
100:55
Wow. You know, it may not be the most popular machine out there, but for me, it's a fantastic machine.
101:04
Batman's absolutely the most popular machine out there. Are you hot? No, is it really? Oh, yeah. Batman's super popular. You love Batman. And for me, that's what it is. You really missed your window, because in the first year or so, when the software was just shit? Yeah, nobody liked it. Everybody's very shit on it. And then when they got the software, they got the software figured out and they got that 1.0 out. Yeah, everybody was like, that's amazing. It's just like Walking Dead. That's been a common theme with a lot of Stern games. Ghostbusters in the same way. Metallica. That got dumped. Everyone was confident. Can we still get that machine brand new? Yes. Have you played Metallica when they used it? There's a lot of different games. I want a brand new box. Golden State pinball. You can get one. Okay, mine. Glad you brought up Metallica. Now, obviously, like everybody else, Wizard of Oz in the last decade was the game changer. It raised the bar amazingly high, made everybody else stand up and go, whoa.
102:06
Not only is pinball bad, but but, okay. My honorable mention goes to Metallica. Okay, look at the Stern games prior to Metallica. They get a great theme. They'd have great gameplay. They'd have some great features. They'd have some great rule sets. But what was missing? The one missing component for the total, like you talk about ACDC. What's the one Achilles heel of that game? The artwork blows. It sucks the sweat off a dog's ass. It's shitty artwork, okay? It's phoned in Photoshop. Now, Metallica, total package. theme, music, call-outs, light show, features, gameplay, and then the artwork on that, the whole package. That game, once they got the code done, has no weakness. It has no weakness. There's no weakness on that game. The play field's not amazing. But it's great. It's fun. It's solid. It's a solid game. It's definitely a tough game. That's my honorable mention. That was a great call. That started the beginning of the art. Yeah. It's kind of falling apart because, you know, Donnie's gone. Well, Donnie told me a great thing, and I talked about it on a previous episode. Who's the other guy?
103:28
Donnie's still there. Chris Franchi's gone. Now, Donnie and I were talking at the show at Golden State Pinball Festival last year, And he told me that when Metallica was in negotiations for the game,
103:43
that Stern didn't want Donnie. They wanted their own in-house guys. And they said, no Donnie, no game. Yeah, Metallica. And that came about because of the Dirty Donnie Earthshaker re-team. Right. He did for James. And that was at one of the PBEs. And that game played like an Earthshaker, and it looked incredible. And we've all seen Dirty Donnie's helicopter that led to that. I love that game. Yeah. Dirty Donnie definitely he knows his stuff and it made Metallica and he's just the sweetest guy he's a laid back, super down to earth cool cat that loves pinball that's cool car yeah cool car that's my there's so many more we can talk about Spooky and their great success story if you look back man 7 years ago they were sitting with you know on the line America's Most Haunted And they sold one In two weeks And they were sweating bullets And they went to Texas Pinball Festival And they basically sold out They didn't sell out there but they sold like 60-70 games there that weekend And then they went to their home show Midwest Gaming Classic A month later And sold out the remainders they had So great success story I mean there's so many but Jack Remember before Jack came along He's a pinball distributor. Pinball. Right. And before that, a Radoff and a Tepp. But before that, between 1999, when everybody else closed their doors, and 2011, Stern was just keeping the flame lit. And they were making some good games, and they were making some games that weren't good at all. Austin Powers. Yeah. Casino. Which, my God, they had such a great theme. Yeah.
105:31
Monopoly. I actually liked the game. Go play it at Louie's. Yeah, I'm not that dying to play it. But I'm going to go to Louie's for Midget Raccoon in February. That's the game that changed Stern's life in the late 20s. But I bring up Metallica because it was another game changer. It brought real hand-drawn, old-school pinball art with a modern twist and flare. And the actual music. And the music, yeah. And you're definitely right about one thing. Man, ACDC was not a good game. It's not the prettiest game, but it's got everything else going for it Oh, it's fun to play Features, ruleset, live show Music It's not a pretty game It's not Look who did the art, I don't even think you can find out who did the art Because they just don't want to admit it You got done Rusty and I did it, actually Yeah What was the art that you got? It'll be a little giant Rusty and I did it There you go Honey, your picks for Game of the Decade. Okay, so you actually brought it up. I really think that a lot took off. Well, let me go back to George. With Batman 66, it ignited that culty, you know, the bringing in the okay boomers or whatever. Okay, that really started igniting for, you know, a select crowd there. one nobody has brought up, but I thought was kind of interesting because it is kind of on its own standalone is TNA.
107:08
TNA kind of stands on its own. It was an original theme. Not a brand new idea. Nothing brand new on it, but it was something new. It wasn't easy to play. You couldn't just go up and shoot and then get all the points and then walk away with, you know, five free games left over. You really had to work that one and figure it out. But my pick actually is America's Most Haunted only because it also started that whole new renaissance with bringing in new blood into the pinball world where, you know, you got a new guy with a startup and he's, we're going to put this out on a everybody's going to get a kick out of and then doing you know then you know in comes Jack and he brings in the whole thing where you can get the pictures done like I'm dialed in but you know and then in comes Highway and American and all these people started coming in and putting in their two bits you know make or break let's see what we can do so I think it was about little startups a lot of business models were changing when it came to the business the dawn of the fatigue that's the best I've heard those are great points because Q&A when other people were trying to get out and unlicense because people were the only one to unlicense themes and they just weren't really taken off Q&A came out of the gate as a homebrew and everybody went, holy shit, this is freaking awesome. With no ramps. With no ramps. No scoops, no nothing. It's a 70s game. Yeah, it is. I'm a big fan of the live 70s game. That's a great point. Early 80s. Yeah, late 70s, early 80s. But I mean, it's a fantastic game. The music, live show on that thing, the gameplay, it rocks.
109:18
It's a great game. Great point. I still feel like that game really gets by on style. It is a great game to play, but like the sound and the life are mind-blowing. I have it in my head right now. I like The Americans Most Haunted, and that was one that I actually thought about because, yeah, that did sort of prove that, like, mom and pop in the garage can make a game. Well, I mean, you know, you had, you know, back last that you had Gene Cunningham, right? Like, he took a game that had been made, and he grassroots shit and he made it. Yeah. And then you have uh who are the motherfuckers who tried to make Predator? Skippy. Those guys tried to make a game in favor. From what I heard it's an absolute shit game. And then you have the dude, yeah it's not supposed to be great. Then you have the dude who uh the Greek mythology one. I am still pissed about that because that guy did everything right and got shit on because of all the other bullshit. Which never went anywhere. like, you know, Charlie you know, and Ben Heck you know, you gotta give Ben Heck a lot of credit for that like, those guys proved that it's like, two dudes working in a garage could start a pinball machine and be successful and actually make pins like we were saying earlier, they're up to like five, six, seven games now you know, with their contract bills and their designs, and they have a roster of designers, and I'm not gonna like spread rumors or anything but Spooky put out a little Happy Holidays picture and you know who was sitting at the table with him? Jesus, Ben Heck. Just about. Yeah, he was on the last podcast too. And like a couple years ago Charlie and Ben Heck have been like going at it on the podcast. There was some words exchanged because Ben was bitter and Charlie was like I did what I had to do and Charlie did what he had to do to keep the line running. Sounds like Ben might be back in the fold. Yeah, then they ditch Charlie's artist. They ditch Ben Forsyth. That sounds like he might be back in the fold. He was the guy who designed the boards and designed American Most Honest. Yes.
111:33
Eric, thoughts? That's a tough call. I've got to say that I've always had a spot in my heart for Dialed In just because it's so original. and although it hasn't done real well as far as sales and all that kind of stuff, there's some really interesting stuff in that game. It's well-respected. It's like an evolution of PIN 2000 kind of. Yeah. It brought back Pat Lawler. It did. It brought back Pat Lawler. And I like the selfie mode and some of the other you can use your phone to run the there's a lot of really interesting stuff in that game, but it just shows that so much more can be done with the electronics now. Yeah. And the code, I mean, 10 years ago, did anybody talk about code? And now it's like the number two thing, whenever there's a new machine, lose code. Because it's more important than the play field. Yeah. Like, again, the play fields are so basic on Stern games anyway. Yeah. All you have to really talk about is, like, you know, the code. Right. Yeah, and it's the evolution of the game, the continuing evolution of the game. I mean, it's all about the code. Yeah. I mean, really, I mean, Guardians of the Galaxy, perfect example. that game when it first came out. And I love that game because I own it. It's a great game. But you know what? It wasn't great until three or four codes later. Yeah. In all honesty, I was most afraid of Guardians. Which is not standard, by the way. Like, that's a lot. Guardians is a great, it has a great story, though. Because remember, Guardians got pushed up because of production problems. So Guardians, that poor game got dumped in the world with extremely early code that was just junk. It was. It really hurt that game coming out of the gate, and then the code update saved it. Yeah, and I have that machine. I will never get rid of it. I love it. I'll make sure to fix for it.
113:31
I think I would say the most influential game would be Archer, because it expands on the thing where some guys building some stuff on their own in the garage. They get picked up by Stern, and it becomes Iron Maiden. The next thing you know. The next thing you know, he's fell out. Arguably the best Stern game of the last 10 years. And then the next thing he does is what? Jurassic Park? Arguably the best Stern game of the last 10 years. Yeah.
114:01
Well, wait a minute. That's two 10 years. And I think that that probably influenced, I don't know who did that. I don't know who did Deadpool, but just George Gomez. I think that's because of Iron Maiden and Archer. Because they're just different ideas for shot making. That's something else to point out. You've got the old guard. You've got Richie. You've got Lawler. You've got Gomez.
114:26
Just the guy that went away for Kitty Forge. Trudeau. But you've got that old guard. That's not a He literally might have designed more pinball machines than anybody else. Exactly. He had a lot of design. Bork, John Bork. All these guys that have been doing games continuously for the last 30 years plus. All done great games and continue to do great games. But then you've got these three young gunslingers. With Jersey Jack, you've got Eric Meunier, who did Pirates of the Caribbean, his first game. Holy moly. Mother of God. Great game. Okay. Then you've got the desire of Archer slash Maiden slash Jurassic Park. Keith Elwin. Keith Elwin, multiple world champion pinball player, designing a game with his brother in his garage. The next thing you know, he's got game of the year with Iron Maiden, and then it's really looking odds on favor that this year Jurassic Park's going to be game of the year. I bet they could sell a shitload of Archers if they decided to. I bet they could. That was a good game. I would love to say that I did catch up on the show now that I got Dulu the show went to hell the last couple of seasons it did it's not as good the next season Archer in Space that looks good if that rips off what's the bar movie where he goes into space Moonraker if that rips off Moonraker you know it's absolutely going to rip That's one of the worst Bond films ever made And it's hands down one of my top three favorites So then you have Scott Denise Who came out of the gate with a homebrew pin With Total nuclear annihilation And then now he's got Rick and Morty I mean these guys are the new Blood And the new blood is looking good And then we've got another old guard who hasn't done a game since 1997. Comes with that.
116:36
Yeah, the scotch has kicked in. Brian A. Don't call it come back. He's been here for years. That's true. Actually, if you watch this video, Brian A must have been like a kid. I know, because he doesn't look that old. That dude does not look that old. No.
116:51
Not at all. That's what Richard O said. Yeah, exactly. So, I'm sorry. I cut Alex off. So, we have Alex and his bits. That's right So Most influential game The influential game Elvis We know that We started you at 12 We know it's Elvis Yeah I'm sorry 14 Exactly Or 15 That hound dog Yeah Okay So you were 16 Okay So I was 16 When I When they started doing that So the most influential game Is Okay Rolling Stones No I'm kidding It's Metallica. Metallica and Wizard of Oz. Really changed the way Pinball went through in the last year of this decade, I feel like. Well, obviously, like you said, Wizard of Oz, it has all the DLCD, the shots, and new game being produced. So why? Why do you think why? I think Wizard of Oz was definitely a game changer. The code on it, the shots on it. Two upper playfields. the flying monkey, the models. Yeah, some models. And again, right back to the kitsch. Okay, that whole... Oh, everybody loves Wizard of Oz. Everybody loves Batman. Everybody loves Monster. Everybody, even somebody who hasn't looked at a picture in 30 years, goes, oh, they've got a Wizard of Oz pinball? Cool. I'll drop money in it. I still can't see the upper plate. We've got to put the game in the kitty legs position for Spencer. You know what? I thought Elvis at a toy store that had kitty legs. I will add that I think the most dishonorable mentioned game of the past decade, and it may not have come out back then, just because it led to the whole FOMO fiasco in the hobby would be Tron Oli. because that game created that I have to get the pre-order in for the LE right away, and I have to give my money to these unproven companies. That's cron spot. That led to TBL. Exactly. I still feel like that all comes down to Big Bang Bar. Well, the Big Bang Bar back then, you were almost lambasted back then if you got in. So many people got, oh, it's never going to happen. But for an LE, it did. And so, like, everybody got, like, that super FOMO. And that really screwed a lot of people out a lot. I guess he does count. It was 2010. Yeah, that's actually a good pick because that actually kind of created Stern's L.E.M.O.B. Right, yeah. Good point. Yeah. And it created, you know, hey, I'm going to give this guy, you know, $15,000 for my Magic Girl, my Raza, with the Alice in Wonderland bullshit. Or what was the other? The Predator bullshit. Yeah.
119:43
or all that stuff that happened, and it happened because of that fear of, oh, I got to get in, I got to. And, you know, how many people in our local group lost, you know, sizable chunks of energy. I mean, we know half a dozen. My favorite story about that is Justin Kelly, Fat Train. Shout out to Fat Train. I don't want to be telling this story on the air. No, he told this story on the episode, on his episode. I got to get him back on the show because he is so goddamn funny and just a really good dude. The Soprano story and the Star Trek story was great. The best one was the Jurassic Park, though, the day he, because he bought his first game, Jurassic Park, had the shaker motor. And then he went and bought his second game, and I'm trying to think what it was. Dynamite, wasn't it? He bought a few games for shaker motors, and he bought something without a shaker motor. And he's like, it's busted. It doesn't work. Because it didn't have a shaker motor. That was great. No, but Justin bought a Magic Girl.
120:38
And, like, so he got a hat. he finally got his game when American through J-Pop delivered the games. So he's trying to sell it a couple of years ago, three years ago, three, four years ago, at Pinnagogo, and he put an ad up out on the billboard out in the entryway. So because we were talking earlier, he goes, yeah, I saw how, you know, John Papadu gave me a Zidware hat. I still got it brand new, never wore it. So I went up to him, his ad wrote, comes with a free hat. And he walks by and sees me riding it, and he just loses it. He's on the ground rolling, laughing. He's crying. He's laughing so hard. He's like, that's fucking great. He goes, I'll fucking throw in that. So as far as I know, he's still got it. New in the box. He's never opened it. Was that the show? New in the box? Yeah. They wanted $25,000? I don't know what he wanted for it. I think he paid $13,000. But I mean, we know people that got ripped off on two or three J-pop games and the Predator game and Lebowski and Alien.
121:35
Well, yeah. I don't know if any of our friends go for Alien. I don't know. I don't know if anybody got ripped off. I don't know if I personally know anybody that got ripped off on Alien or not. But apparently the rumor is Pinball Brothers is going to be making that.
121:50
We might see Alien at Texas Pinball Festival, Rossi. We might. It's going to be an Alien. Speaking of Texas Pinball Festival. That's the game that actually saved my life, Donald Trump Millionaire. We really were talking about Texas Pinball Festival. Well, we are now. Oh, segue! Segue. So unless anybody else has anything to add to the game of the decade.
122:19
So I think the – there are no losers here, but everybody bought up great points. No, Tron, great point. Medieval Madness, great point. TNA, great point. Batman. I mean as far as code goes Game Changer Wizard of Oz Metallica ACDC all those really have raised the bar for pinball in the last decade And there some other games too And changed the direction of the industry It did. It absolutely did. I mean, look how well ACDC sold. It still sells. It's still selling, you know.
122:51
Okay, so we have upcoming shows. January 9th through 12th of 2020, InDisc. It never drains in Southern California. Major, major tournament. And that's a band in California at the Museum of Pinball. Is that a Stern Pro Circuit tournament or a Papa tournament or anything? Papa and IFPA, yeah. I don't know if it's Stern Pro Tournament, but it might be. I know it is. Is it a major? It's a major tournament. The big boys will be there. Is it a major? It's a major award. It's for G-Way. It's Italian. it.
123:29
And then in February, we don't really have anything yet, but it's still early. People are still adding their shows. We're going to have Spencer Fest. We're going to do it over here at Spencer's house. We will have upwards of five pinball machines. Yeah, we will. We have in March 6th or 8th, we have the Louisville Arcade Expo in Jefferson Town, Kentucky. That's going to be both pinball and video games. And then, of course, March 27th through 29th at Texas Pinball Festival in Frisco, Texas. T-P-F.
124:01
Just go on their website. Google it, folks. You guys can do this. You can email me at thespinnerslit at gmail.com You can dodge a wrench. You can dodge a ball. There you go.
124:14
In April 3rd through 5th in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the Midwest Gaming Classic, which is pinball, arcade games, cosplay, board games, console games, the whole shoot and match. And that's Spooky Pinball's home show So expect to see Rick and Morty Pinball's In abundance there We're going to fly all the way out To Canada Our neighbors to the Great White North Today They have Yagpin Pinball and Arcade Expo May 1st through 3rd In Sherwood Park, Alberta, Canada When is that a boot? It's a boot. It's a boot in May 1st through 3rd. Plus, you can go to Tim Hortons. You can go to Tim Hortons? Yes. And you get some. I haven't been. Smuggling Trader Joe's. Canadians love Trader Joe's. And they don't have Trader Joe's. They don't have one. And then in May 2nd. You know, in Canada, you can get alcoholic Snapple. No way. Really? Yeah. It's fucking cool. All right. I'm willing. It was not bad. Snapple? I don't know. Snapple? Maybe. Stuff on Earth. Snapple. May 2nd. Yep, there we go. Hello.
125:28
May 2nd through 3rd is the Flip Expo in Le Traport, France. So our French pinhead brothers. So that should be good. And then, of course, in 152 days, our local show, the Golden State Pinball Festival. The Greatest Show on Earth. May 15th through 17th, 2020. And beautiful, sunny, low-dive California. Don't let Spencer hand you your whirlwind. Gotta be there.
125:58
Too soon. But I'm fine. June 5th through 7th in Tacoma, Washington is the Northwest Pinball and Arcade Show. Taco. Great show. Taco. Tacoma. Taco. Tacoma. Tacoma, Washington. Only show in Virginia. They had a Hercules. Nice. is a great show. You can get up there. It's on the top floor of this convention center thing. It's really weird to be playing pinball on the third floor, but man, it's a really nice show. Beautifully air conditioned in the summer. A lot of cool restaurants around there. I mean, Tacoma is kind of dark, but it's worth going to. Yeah, I gotta get up there one of these days. And like Golden State Pinball Festival, they give, they set up, the proceeds set up college scholarships for kids. They also raffled off a new Stern machine. Nice. That's awesome. I don't remember which one it was. It might have been Munsters or something, but still, it's like a brand new machine. So that's some upcoming shows for 2020. We played with Fish Tales and his Amolition Man. Yeah, we did. And both people from our league won them. I know, I know. And nobody's called foul. Well, there was no foul. technically the person who won the demo man is not part of the league but his girlfriend is yeah but he's come a couple times as a guest and did you see how excited they were they won that thing that's their first game that was the best yeah that's their first it's always nice to see people come to the show and win a game yeah where's roxy we haven't seen her much lately she was there two two weeks ago yeah yeah you know holidays everybody's got stuff going so that's not all, but it's the list of what I got right now and upcoming. I love Roxy and Camara. She has a high score on their games? Camara. Of course she does.
127:55
So, we're down to memories and memories of 2019. I'm just going to let you guys You know what? I was going to pick up George B's walk into the bathroom. He had one of the bathroom. Okay, what about that? I'm going to start with Rusty. Memory isn't 29. We're above two hours already.
128:18
And I don't know. Okay, my memories. What I love best in pinball 2019, Deadpool. Yes, Deadpool. I enjoy the art. I enjoy little Deadpool bobbing around in there. I enjoy it. Well, but I did all my playing in 2019.
128:40
Sure does. Okay, because I didn't get my paws on why so Golden State. Okay, well, you can down some. No, we played the one over at Louie's. In 2019. Oh, we did, huh? We did. It's not there anymore. It's an Apple Monopoly. Anyway, I love Deadpool. I'm looking forward to the new stuff, the new Elvira and stuff for 2020. And whatever innovations they can come up with. Yeah, Deadpool's from But I didn't touch one until 2019. Well, that's her favorite. We went right over and played it across the street from her. In 2019? No, in 2018. No, it was 2019 when I touched one. No, you played it earlier than 2019. I guarantee it. Hey, George Zimmerman's here. I love that one, too. Didn't touch that until 2019. We're making it to George Zimmerman? Well, that didn't go down until 2019. Well, there you go.
129:37
I'm looking forward to playing that. I didn't touch a Deadpool with the disco ball until 2019. What about you, Eric?
129:45
Man, there's so many good games out right now. Just like when we started at the beginning, this is a great time to be a pinhead. There's so many good games that are out from so many different companies. If you're in a position where you're going to acquire a new machine, it's pretty hard to decide on one and say, this is the one I'm going to get because the rest suck. because just about everything that's coming out right now is good. It's all good stuff. I mean, I would love to get a Stranger Things even if the code's not there. I just think that that's going to become a great game. It's like people used to crap on Ghostbusters. Now, all of a sudden, there's this code that's better on Ghostbusters. Now people are like, Ghostbusters is a great game. It's a great game. People used to shit on it. I don't know how to play it anymore. We changed. We saw it. We kicked its ass. Bunch of whining fucking maggots. Speaking of the white flipper gap,
130:42
there's one other thing that came out of sales where the guy shrunk screws into his game and put star posts right near the tips of his flippers. I don't think that was real. It's real. No. What game was that? Yeah. What game? Because he has acorn nuts on top of it. He's trying to sell it. Yeah. He put, and everyone's like, Hey, the guy's, like, not hurting for money because he's just sort of like, look, it's a term, bro. You fuckers need to calm down because, yeah, people are just like, oh, my God, what did you do? You would have thought that he did, like, you know, you would have thought he, like, stapled a dead baby to the back. Yeah. Well, there is that. There is John Ferdow. Do they have a dead baby mod for that?
131:26
We're waiting for the code update. I'm waiting for the code update. That's when the baby's built. Okay, so whose memory are we up to, Alex? Oh, gosh.
131:35
A game or just whatever? Just your best memory of 2019. Discovering Uncle Vito's. That's a great location. That is an awesome location. Here at Sacramento, Uncle Vito's. Great pizza, good fun, great lineup. Just update the code, that's all. Jurassic Park, Deadpool, Gardens of the Galaxy, and Iron Maiden. And there's usually not very many people there. Excellent. You can almost always walk in and get right on a game, not have to wait, and the games usually aren't screwed up. Holy Diver is the same way. Their games are well taken care of. Holy Diver, yeah. And they have good pizza there, too. Holy Diver haven't been yet. They're going to get down there. Holy Diver is all premium games. Yeah. Iron Maiden, ACDC, and Metallica. All premiums. They are in great shape.
132:21
We're lucky. We have a lot of premiums and LEs on location locally. True. We're really lucky. From the LEs. Yeah. Talk about, I mean, look at coin-offs. Got the Batman 66 LE there. It wasn't there when I was last there. Oh, they took it out? I think it's just being, it's a rotation game. He pulled it out because he needs to fix the turntable. But apparently it's quite a job. It's a thing to book. It's a thing that he asked. But it's been there for, what, a year and a half? And Ghostbusters is old because I guess there's some other things wrong with it. I mean, you know, they should all come to me. That's what's cool, though, about Queen of those. The thing is you don't have LEs. It's in the storage facility. Is that something else I'll bring up real quick is when, you know, we moved from Oroville down here eight years ago. It was a pinball wasteland. Oh, yeah. You would have one game at a pizza place. Crust off. A crust off. Beef pizza. Beef to absolute hell. Missing parts. It worked it off. Crust plastic piece. Yeah, it was like a month old, you know, and it wasn't anywhere near level. Oh, yeah. You'd plunge the ball. and we'd chill.
133:27
We would go to a laundromat. Oh, yeah. Laundromat was a strange science. Strange science. And I mean, only half of the damn game worked and we played it as best as we could. It was actually up in Oroville, believe it or not. Oh, wow. In Oroville. Did we do laundry up there? Yeah. He's like, no, no, actually, they made meth in the washroom. Probably. Yeah, they probably did. Strange science! No, we would go there just to play the game. Well, and it dried up. The dryer was on. Oh, my dryer went on the fridge. That's why you have to be in science.
134:02
Dude, Dan, what about you? Your collection has, like, tripled in size since last year. Holy shit. Honestly, my high point of the year, and, I mean, it wasn't anything I ended up buying or anything, but I was really stoked for Black Knight. When I heard there was going to be another Black Knight, I couldn't get news fast enough. I watched all the streams. That's true. I was really excited for Golden State because we had Black Knight there, and I got to spend some time on it. And it's a fine game, but it wasn't anything that I needed to own in a world where I already have Black Knight 2000. But, yeah, for me, that was, like, the high point of 2019 was just the fact that they made a new Black Knight. And, you know, maybe I'll get one someday.
134:43
God knows I'd love to buy Jason's, you know, if it was just a little bit different timing. But to be completely honest, like, that was just the most unexpected, the most awesome thing. If they had called it Black Knight 3000, I would have... That's... Talk about, like, semantics, but, I mean, they would have just beat me. They would have just beat me to the finishing.
135:05
So, Brian, how about you? Well, I got my Iron Maiden. Iron Maiden? Yeah! That was easy enough. It was a joke, semi-joke, and I made the offer. Okay. All right. I'm getting under the weather.
135:25
Adam's a good guy. Adam's a righteous dude. Shout out to Adam Pressler. Yep. I gotta talk to him and go pick up. Yep. Grab it. Grab it like a rabbit.
135:39
What about you, George? Me? I'd like to play Batman 66. That's great. I like it. I got something else even better. and that's my pinball friends yeah I love all you guys we love you George I've been through a pretty rough patch in the last couple months and my pinball people have been there for me and I'm getting a little choked up so just bear with me you're allowed that's really special to me in the last few years that I've been in the pinball community it just brings me so much joy just to be with everybody playing pinball, doing good, doing bad. It doesn't matter. I've come in last in our league, and I've come in first in our league. Well, and they're in the regular season anyway. Of course. I count. But you know what? That's what it's all about. It's about my friendship with everybody in the pinball community, and that's what we're all about. We're about friendship. It's community. You know what? We all hold each other up when times are bad, and we are shaking hands and raising our hands together when things are great. And that's what I appreciate about everything to do with pinball. Well said, brother. Well said. Bravo. No, that's the meat and potatoes of the whole pinball hobby is the games are just a vehicle that brings people together. Yep. And that's what the shows are about. half the time we spend a lot less time playing pinball and a lot more time sitting around drinking coffee, BSing, eating donuts, drinking beer and whiskey and just having a good time. I'm wondering how long you know. Especially multiple years of going to different shows and it's just like oh it's you, I can't remember your name but I love you and oh I do remember your name and your name And, you know, and then all of a sudden, and you can't walk five feet. You're not hugging on somebody or catching up or whatever. It's a fabulous feeling. And the nice thing is we met a new young man, Fletch. At the last one. Hey, Fletch, shout out to you, dude. Hey, Fletch, are you living? And hopefully, yeah, Fletch is alive. hopefully him and his lovely girlfriend come back his girlfriend was doing real well on the tournament but a really great guy and it was their first time coming to a show their first time and you know it's like alright new friend every year we meet somebody new and then we see them the next year do you think the hobos guys will be back? I hope so Ken Hobo is a real hero Okay, we need to retell that story for the best of 2019. I don't even really remember how it happened. I just remember that there was a force at Golden State Pinball Festival, and that man's name was Pinball Hobo. Okay, so the homeless guy, I'll tell the story the best I can, was outside of the gates of the show, wandering around the streets of Lodi, telling people all about the show and pointing them in the direction. Because the main road was locked off. He was turning them into the side gate. Didn't they end up giving him lunch on a shirt or something? Yeah. I think they gave him a Golden State shirt. I wish Kander was here. She can tell this is there. It was there. We should have given the guy a pinball box to live in. Like, seriously. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I know. My best marks of pinball in 2019, two games I got most excited about was Black Knight. I just really got excited about it. Yeah, I was just so excited. I remember you and I on the phone for two hours talking about it. Like school kids, man. It was great. You know who was way more excited than both of us together, even he didn't buy it, was Shannon. Really? Shannon was really excited. And because it just brought that. And then he's like, this is a fun pilot. No, it's not, though. It's a great game. But it reignited that old fire of when we were younger and games would come out. we didn't know who the designers were we just know oh this is a new game oh this is so cool remember the first time you played the original Black Knight and you're like what the hell is going on here what's this magazine what is this yeah exactly I remember when I played Black Knight I remember it was at an arcade that I would go to as a kid and it actually I was a little kid you know because I was like what 81 right 81 yeah I was like 5, 6 years old and it freaked me out because it talked and it talked in that voice and it was like Black Knight We'll play you.
140:28
All right. It's like, get to the front. Right. That's my thing. That's right. You can Michael K voice in that thing, you know. But I remember in 89 playing Black Knight 2000 for the first time and just being blown away by the digitized music. Wow. That thing's great. It's still great. You know, when they announced Sword of Rage, like I said, you know, they have the music and they have the game and it's great. And I didn't need to own one. But, you know, actually, Brian instead brought up a couple other high moments for me. You had the cheers. Number one was the pinball adventure that we took to Reno to go get my Doctor Who. That was fun. That was super, super fun.
141:10
You know, that was a long, long story, but that ended up working out real well. There was ice, and there was driving fast, and there was pizza, and there was a train and tight alleys, and it was really cool. He really means it. I went on a lot of pinball adventures with Alex. I think Alex and Brian were you guys both there for Indiana Jones? Yes. I wasn't. I was. For Indiana Jones? I was. That was a pinball adventure so I got my Indiana Jones this year but the guy came with me. It's not even so much getting the game. Getting the game is always super exciting but it's almost always like who goes with you to get the game?
141:45
You know. We've been on a lot of pinball adventures to get Brian games. We've been on a lot of pinball adventures to get me games. Alice has been a lot of pinball adventures with me. They're always the most fun because you're bringing home a new game but you're doing it, like you said, with your buddies and then you get to play pinball. Like we did at Flipper Room. Where are you going to call them? My game's broken. What do I do? Who are you going to call?
142:10
You know, Rick and Morty I got super excited about and part of a big part of the excitement where Rick and Morty was being excited for Spooky and seeing something do so well for them. Yeah. You know, and because I just wish these guys so much good fortune because they're such good people and they're the little mom and pop shop that could.
142:36
Let me know, man. Those guys made Raw Zombie and fuck that game. I love that game. I do, too. That game called me a chicken fucker. I know. I love that game. It's a great theme.
142:48
It's a great theme. You kind of wish it just had that little something extra in it, like the play film. I like the play film. It should be better.
142:58
It has everything else. Yeah. Gameplay. But, you know, for their sophomore title, their first license team, not bad. Yeah.
143:09
The shows. And, you know, just the get-togethers, going to your house the night before Thanksgiving, the camaraderie, the friendships. going back to Dan's house he always has a nice oh and I won league once and you beat me and well I'm Knight I beat you all the time I beat you a lot tonight I beat you the last night that's right yeah just go and make a league in this room gotcha bitches I'm not I'll actually be when Rusty's at interleague championships with you Dan and with you Alex I'm actually going to be I'm going to be at PPM I'm going to be at the pinball museum with the boys trail life troop we're doing a field trip that's going to be awesome get them some fake eddies and go to the forbidden island lounge and get a couple of tiki drinks That'll be good. That'll be good with a young boys Christian scouting organization. I believe that Christians say you can drink.
144:22
Thou shalt drink so long as thou hast 21 year old ideas. There you go. There's that. Wow, we are salty tonight. God created alcohol because he wants us to be happy. And he didn't want the Scottish and the Irish to rule the world.
144:41
There were just so many moments, but like I mean, Golden State, obviously. But then Pin and Go-Go was so back to the roots of when we first got into the hobby and just hanging with all you guys. That was a real great moment. There's so many. And, I mean, I could jabber on here for hours. But, you know, I mean, everybody. And have. And have and do. Everybody puts their two cents in. I mean, there are no wrong answers here. George hit the nail on the head, though. That's what it's always about. Our friendship. It's our friendship. Our opinions. The Finn crew. Yeah, the community. Are we tight or what? We are, man. We're family. The weird Uncle Spencer. Yeah, the weird Uncle Spencer, yeah. Okay, so what do you guys want to see most in 2020? You guys are sick. Black Knight 3000. Boom. Someone hit the boom button. Boom button, yeah. So what do you guys want to see for 2020? Click. Pin crawl. Yes. We need to do a road trip somewhere Yeah, we need to do a pin crawl Go get like Phoenix Games and Flip A Room And about to press down to East Bay Just spend a day Delay on vinyl All that shit We should go out to Reno We should go out to the biggest little art museum We should go press start You're not going to like this So Mark was telling me about this The end of March They're closing their doors Oh, you're kidding me Press start? Really? So we've got to get up there before they close that. Son of a bitch. It's just not making it, huh?
146:17
They lost their... They were getting kicked out. They were leasing the building. And they were getting kicked out. And it's going to be a medical clinic. Maybe we'll find a different location. You know what, though? There are a lot of... There is a butt-ton of real estate in Reno. And John, the owner, was saying they have no plans on moving. so unless some miracle it's like they never put a sign on the bottle comes out they never put a sign on the bottle and they couldn't have thought they were going to be that at all there was a sign saying for sale and someone did buy the property already so end of March it's closing its doors okay so we got to plan a trip up there organized pin crawl okay yeah until the end of March yep let's do it all right well let's put that on the books yeah Okay, Rusty Thoughts for 2020 Well, I'm just looking forward to Golden State pinball Always And trying to figure out how we're going to do Camp Silver Ball this time Because with the stormy weather last night We lost most all our camping gear Right, yeah You know Yeah, we were I had to throw away my tent Yeah, we did too You and I were throwing shit in the garbage for two hours. I feel like the high point of the show for me that year was telling Rusty, you need to pack up your children and go home.
147:45
You guys are going to wake up in Oz. Yeah, one of the pop-ups ended up upside down on the roof of Donnie's trailer the next morning.
147:57
But we did this for our weather, and so it guarantees another, what, eight years of good weather for God we hope. You never know. God willing. Yeah, generally it's going to be nice that time of year.
148:10
It usually is. Yep. It'll probably be 95. I thought the funniest thing was Will was funny to sleep out on the sofa. I know.
148:20
What a dumbass. With pneumonia. Yeah, right. Wrapped up in a sleeping bag, completely wet, with like six cases of PBR laying around in it. He would have been really mad though If his weed would have gotten wet He would have been grumpy biking Grumpy biking Eric Thoughts for 2020 Just looking forward to the shows I think I'm going to try and go to Northwest Pinball Expo again That was a good show Golden State of course And try and hit some other shows And just generally get out to more locations And play more games on location Didn't end up with that this year definitely get some people organized together and do some pin crawl type stuff I think that'd be a lot of fun because it's cool to see people in league every couple of weeks but it'd be cool to go out and do something with a group of people on location that's not anybody's house right just go check stuff out meet other people and just spread the love agreed Alex I wish we could do the pin crawl Well then we'll make plans And you know Reno for sure And we'll Let's try to do one Every month or something We'll set up a pin crawl There you go Sacramento pin crawl Or whatever Yeah Start small We got some good places Fanny Ann's Shout out to Fanny Ann's I have not been to Fanny Ann's Steve Burrell is one of the Top operators in Northern California His games are always Always even Perfect Go to Strikes in Rockland And Vinyl Rock Barbershop In Rockland I gotta get over there That's some good stuff? Oh, yeah. Vinyl Rock has an ACDC, a RoboCop, Data East, a High Speed, and a Roller Drone Tiger. Nice. Well, here's a blind. It sounds like a cat. And then Strikes, which the pinballs are in the sports bar. They have a Spider-Man, an Iron Man Bolt, and an Iron Maiden. Nice. Wow. That's solid. Damn. Spider-Man.
150:30
Steve got me. Okay, Timmy to cut you off. You totally meant to cut him off. That's what you do. That's the end of the program. That scotch is hitting hard.
150:40
Joe, Dan. You know what? I want to see a lot more of what we've been getting. You know, I mean, I hate to hear about Press Start, but I want to see more cool locations opening. I want to see more cool games coming out. I want to see more people opening up their homes and showing off their collections. You know, we have a lot of good stuff going on In our league, there's going to be some changes This year, hopefully for the better You know, we'll see some people move around No doubt, because we've got shifting days And shifting rules, but You know, new people are in charge Of some parts, and It's going to be in a minute That's right, bud, you tell them, get them!
151:18
But yeah I want to see more of what we've been getting As a couple of our guys have said tonight It's a great time to be up in there Not as good as 1992, but still pretty good. What about 91? So, 2020 should be good. What came out in 91? 92 was Adam's family, right? Or was that 91? 91 was Checkpoint, T2, and Gilligan's. T2 was a pretty good fucking era. 92, Adam's family, Black Rose. Black Rose actually got put off the line. It was Adam's family. Getaway. The shoot gate always came out. Getaway. Gateway, yep. Gateway, yeah. Gateway 2000. Yep. But, yeah, more of what we've been getting. At least the weapon three. Okay. Okay, okay. I still love that guy. I fucking hate that guy. He was a monster earner. He got away. Brian. Was Ghost Ops a knockoff of T2? I don't know. I really don't know. It is a knockoff of T2. Oh, hey, another big moment of 2019 was the three-game score. Oh, absolutely.
152:13
Absolutely. I don't know. I need to. No way. I need to get off my ass, I guess. I got to go back to my problems. I got my repair backlog so I can get all my games fixed that's not it you know I just right now like it's just weird holdups and I've had Henry's Star Trek torn apart now for three weeks because the one cap I need to fix the soundboard is unavailable everywhere and it's just there's no replacement for it so I'm like the The cap on his soundboard puked his guts. I know, but which cap is it? I have some caps I might have. I'd have to double-check the value. I don't know offhand.
153:03
Just, you know, get more involved in that. I'm still really not playing too much. I was telling Dan I played my Iron Maiden for the first time in two months the other night and put up like a half-billion-point game. Nice. Which I haven't played that well in a very long time. Right. But, you know, it's nice to play still every once in a while with the boys. You know, just keep on moving forward, I guess.
153:30
By the way, our parts aren't due until after New Year's. That's fine because I can't order the other parts. Yeah, until after New Year's, nobody's really doing anything. We just kind of go through the motions and get through New Year's and then... Yeah, it's patched up with cleaning and stuff like that, you know. If I had my parts, I could be working on new black roads. I'm sorry, three black roads. Flea Black Road. Flea Black Loves. You know what? You got a plan. We all got a plan. Yes. We got a plan. That's where we start. George.
154:01
Oh, boy. So many things. Yeah, the pin crawl sounds like a great thing to do. Get out there with all our people in the different locations and things of that nature. We got to support location pinball. Yeah, we got to. Otherwise, we won't be there. Yeah. Also, you know, I want to say that, you know, We'll Work for Pinball is not promoting a business. It's promoting an addiction? No, the addiction, but the pinball, the pinball community, that we will be able to rebuild pinball machines and put them out there for the next generation. Absolutely. And that's the most important part. So, coming up on We'll Work for Pinball, my next My next pinball cabinet is going to be a barricade with stencils from Pinball Pimp. You'll be able to go on my site and look at the video on how we do everything. Also, the next one after that will be a twilight zone that's going to have stencils and how to do all that.
155:05
I'm going to put it out there for everybody to watch and do. Now, the thing about it is that, you know, looking at it and doing it looks like a very simple thing, but it's difficult. It's not an easy thing. I mean, I've got a lot of experience and everything, so I want to be able to guide people into if they think that they can do it, I want to be able to guide them into doing such. So that's what this website is about. It's not about business.
155:33
Awesome. And remember, every project that you send to Will Work for Pinball gets a poor, underprivileged young man that much closer to a Batman 66. Exactly. There you go. I really got nothing more than we've all said, and I love Eric's idea of let's do pin crawls, let's get out there, let's support location pinball. Uncle Vito's. Uncle Vito's, all those places, man, in Sacramento, in the Bay Area. There's so many, like I've literally still never been to Free Gold Watch yet I haven't either We gotta get there I'm just looking forward to the shows League Hanging and playing with all you guys Talking about the new games, doing more podcasts I mean, the whole package, man Just having a great 2020 2019 has been an amazing year And I've been so truly blessed I talked about it briefly on the last episode I just celebrated my 20th anniversary through with the company I work for. So I'm wearing a Fossil watch, and you guys have all seen it now. What makes this watch special, it's engraved with, uh, thank you for 20 years of service. The company's founder and his lovely wife gave me this as a gift. So I want to shout out to Corey and Mickey Stahl. They're the most wonderful bosses anybody could have. So I love you guys. Shout out to you if you listen to this episode. If you make it two hours and 37 minutes and six seconds in, You'll hear this.
157:03
That's okay, man, because it's going to be good entertainment. It's just been an amazing year, you know, of highs and lows, but a good year overall. Looking forward to 2020. I want to also give out a shout-out to a fellow pin brother and friend of the show, Dan Fenton. Dan's in Texas right now with his son, visiting Dan's dad who's recovering in the hospital. I'm not sure from what, but he posted on Instagram today. that his dad's doing okay. Good. And, yeah, and so, Dan, you know, give our love to your dad, and you guys have a safe trip home, and you owe us some barbecue stories because he's bragging up that barbecue saying it really is something. So when we see you next time, man, you got to regale us with stories of Texas barbecue. And so you guys take care and have a safe travel home.
157:56
God, I could go so much longer, but the scotch is really hitting. Maybe Brian will find a girlfriend in 2020. You know what? We were just at Target with Target Rich, but if you're not ready, that's okay, too, bro. You've been through a lot this last year. Does anybody else have any shout-outs and thank yous? I want to thank all the listeners, the people who support this show and listen, the Roundtable crew, everybody who comes on the show and helps out and supports our little, you know, Kitchen Table Studios podcast.
158:29
You guys have been great in 2019, and we have some special surprises for you in 2020. We're going to have a lot more new guests, and the roundtable will be back. New guests? I'm not going to do that. New guests. I'm going full money here. All right. Thanks a lot. That's close. Rusty? What?
158:50
Shout out some thank yous. Oh, and real quick. Oh, Kendra. Shout out to Kendra, who's a little under the weather, couldn't make it tonight. Recover. Love you, sweetie.
159:01
Hi, Kendra. Hi, everybody. Shout out. Just to our listeners, kind of echoing what Spencer said, he really enjoys doing this. We all enjoy doing this with him. When he can't wait to do a show, he does his own. So he gets a wild hair up his butt and off he goes. So thank you so much. And hopefully we'll actually, you know, Spencer will learn to edit or something in 2020.
159:35
Brian will get a girlfriend. Spencer will learn to edit. It could happen. Tell me before he's over first. Daniel will buy a Black Knight 3000. Woo! EK3K. Yeah, tomorrow. we're going up to Jason's house get in the fucking car road trip anybody else got a shout out any shout outs here buddy yes I want to put a shout out to all the Northern California pinball community I know that's a lot of folks these days you know you guys are really making this the place to be to play pinball you know we've got some great locations in Sacramento we've got some great locations of the Bay Area. We've got some great guys who have fantastic collections that are super, super generous making them available. I want to thank Mike and Steven and David for all the work they do with CCPL. That's a lot of work. I know it benefits us all. Absolutely. I think that it's definitely what's restocked my passion for pinball and got me playing competitively, where before I was definitely more of a casual player. Some would argue that I still don't play very competitively, I'll say, fuck you, Alex. But, no, I mean, honestly, it gives me a reason to enjoy a hobby that I was already involved in. And I want to thank Spencer and Rusty for doing this, bringing us here, opening up their house, feeding us, and letting us raise their refrigerator and waste your time and have a good time. Yeah, pet the dog, laugh at the kids. if we weren't doing this who knows what trouble we'd be getting into on a Friday night it's always a pleasure having everybody over I want to thank Brian gives me a lot to do Brian is my running buddy and getting in a lot of trouble pinball trouble keep me out of trouble he is a steady companion and a good dude, and he definitely fixes a lot of problems for me, so thank you for that. But, you know, the whole pinball community, everyone's so generous, everyone's so good to each other, that it's pretty amazing that we're lucky enough to have this kind of camaraderie. And we're not all great. I mean, we got Alex. I mean, what do you think?
162:06
Now Alex is a game-changer. Oh, yeah. But, yes, thank you. Any final shout-outs? No, I'm good, but go ahead. So, because we're going to open up the game room here in a minute. Drink up, bitches! No, I'm good, you know what? Love all my pinball people, man. That's the strongest point. You're not driving home, buddy. Pound them both. Yeah.
162:25
Oh, okay, so yeah, pound them. We'll have another. Fuck it. Exactly. So if you're not driving and I'm not driving, we're good. Dan's got the wheel. Brian, you got one last word to say? Everyone has a good 2020, man.
162:39
Everybody, have a happy and safe new year, and thank you all for listening. This has been episode 28 of the Spinner is Lit Pinball Podcast. George, you got to get in for the final showdown. If you don't know the words, just play along, people. Play pinball. Keep America strong. Woo-hoo!
163:03
Tacos. Nice. Got to get it. Sorry. I'm sure it's played out at this point, but you got to do it. What's that? What are you doing?
163:17
We're in song. I'll play it for you. Yeah, play it for me. Okay, go. Pizza! Yeah, I can't get up on this stage.