Hello and welcome to another episode of the Classic Pinball Podcast. My name is George and I'm joined by my co-host Dave. Hello Dave. Hello George. Dave, to use a cliche, are you ready to rock and roll and party every day? And all night too, certainly. Why not? I guess you have already guessed, audience, we're going to talk about Bally Kiss 1978. Dave, you want to take the reins for a few minutes and tell us a little bit about a game? I have one story, but I'm going to save it because we haven't talked about this person in quite some time. Well, I will say one thing about this game. The project date was 78, but the release date is 79. June 79 is when it came out, but the project date was actually in April of 78. So I read wrong. That's all right. The backglass says 78, so you're not totally wrong. Oh, it does. It does. But it got released in 79. Okay. Do you want to tell the folks a little bit about the game? The design was done by whom? Design was done by Jim Potla. And who did the artwork? Kevin O'Connor. Now we talked about him in one of our episodes. I went and did a little research and I'm sure you're looking at it as we speak, talking about Kevin or Jim. I'm talking about Kevin. Okay. Kevin did the artwork on a couple of games that I own and probably games that our audience is familiar with and I'm not going to talk about recent games because he is a Stern employee. Dave and I talked about we're going to see him at Pintastic in a little under a week. That should be interesting. But some of the games that he did from my youth are Flash Gordon, Frontier, Medusa, obviously the Kiss that we're talking about, Skateball, which I own. I think I see an original Star Trek, Supersonic. The sounds in this game are very similar to some of the sounds in Supersonic. Did I miss anything Dave? I think that's pretty much all the older games. Viking, Skateboard, Frontier, you got those. I think I hit Mystic. Nope, I didn't hit those. But he's also done a lot of the big Stern games like AC/DC, Batman. I mean, he's got quite the pedigree. He's been around for a long time. How old a guy is he? Is he a contemporary of ours or a little older? He's gonna be older. Because you gotta figure he's probably in his 20s or so, maybe 30 tops so you think he's probably in the 70s now. He's probably in the 70s. Gotta be. Well, we're gonna find out when we see him. Can you talk a little bit about gameplay on this game? Gameplay? Yeah, fun game. You basically want to punch the ball. The skill shot is to get the middle lane at the top. You have five slots to get into. You want to go in the middle one. That lights a line. It also opens up your gate on the right side so you don't lose the ball out the right. I think you got to go back one step. Sure. Isn't the object of this game to spell KISS multiple times? Yeah, you want to keep spelling KISS multiple times. And then that's how you get your 40,000 super bonus, your 80,000 colossal bonus. That does a holdover. You also want to keep getting the A, B, C, D down on the right stand-ups because that'll do it. Do that two times we'll get your extra ball. The first time get you two times bonus. And if you want to at least try to get down you know A, B, C and lose the ball, that A, B, C, or get three out of four, they'll still be there for the next ball. So there's a carryover. There's a carryover. The A, B, C, D carries over. Here's the thing that I noticed right away with this game. Up top, you have five lanes. Dave talked about the middle one. The other four, from left to right, obviously spell KISS, K-I-S-S. But you also have stationary targets around the playfield, starting from left, up to the top and then over to the right, again to spell KISS, K-I-S-S. So that's two opportunities to spell KISS. Now there's a grid in the middle of the game. There is a red kiss, a white kiss, a yellow kiss and a green kiss. And there are four arrows—one on the left side of that cube, one on the bottom and one to the right. Here's what I don't understand. What lights the arrows? Obviously you can spell a whole line by going through that upper switch. But how does it get from color to color? I'm kind of, I guess I don't understand how you fill in the whole grid work to get 40,000 or 80,000 bonus points. Well, to tell you the truth, to all the excitement, I kind of forgot myself how that happens. No, come on! That's the whole game! I'm going to say I didn't really even care. I just keep spelling KISS over and over again and this just happens. But I think it progressively starts out with the red until you fill it, then it goes down to the white, then you fill it, and it goes down like that. I'm pretty sure. So there's no switching between? No, because otherwise you never fill it up. So what does the arrow mean? It just says, hey, you're working on this one now. Oh, come on. And then I think when you're going to score the bonus, it kind of says we're going to score this lane, this lane, this lane. I don't know, George. It's a good question. Okay, okay. Maybe this one's... I've owned this game forever, but I never really paid attention. We didn't talk about that. How long have you owned the game, and where did it come out of? Is there any kind of backstory? Yes, there is. So this is one of the first games I ever bought back in the early 90s. It was in the Want Advertiser, and it was out of Revere. This guy's house. He got it from... Revere. Revere. Yeah. I'm pretty sure this game came out of either a Boston Garden or one of those arcades in Boston way back in the day. And he wanted $1,100 for this, mostly working. It had a little tilt issue, which all it was was the capacitor was shorter than the tilt bob. So I cut that and it was good to go. So you paid up a long time ago. I did. I paid up. What do you think, do you think the list price of this game was in accordance to other games we talked about around $1,600, $1,800 back in the day? When this came out? Yeah, when it was brand new from the distributor. Yeah, probably $1,700, something like that. Okay, so that's still strong money, obviously, for a used game. But they made what, 17,000 of these? So it was a pretty... And you've got to figure, when I bought it in the 90s, KISS was still very relevant as a rock and roll band, so that's why he's cashing in on that too. They still... Well, I think they're having their farewell tour for the 19th time. But whatever, you know, Gene doing the money grab as he always does. That's why the two S's in KISS are money signs. And also Gene Simmons, the two S's are money dollar signs. Yeah. We know what he's about. Everybody's seen the TV show. Not a big fan of Gene these days. But you know, I can't... like another podcast or I can't do Gene Simmons, nor will I. How is this game viewed from the collector community and from the player community? You know, everybody talks about it but doesn't really talk about it well. You know, you never really see this. It shows you know, I don't really see this game show at all. You don't really see this. And for making 17,000 of these, you don't see these out and about too often. It's amazing. Well, we talked about it in one of our last episodes that they had one up at Fun Spot in Laconia, New Hampshire as a rare whitewood. Wasn't it? Well, right, it was completely burned out. And I'm looking at this game, you know, the clear-coated playfield from Bill Davis just looks outstanding. I mean, it just shines. It's uh, if you're a KISS fan, I can understand why you would want this. It's got all the nice bumpers on it. But here's my question. We're going to go to the spinners with the Gene face on it. How does one activate the spinner on this game? And if you tell me you don't know, I know that one, George. Oh, oh, pick me. I got it. I got it this time. I did. Okay. The middle lane, that skill shot middle lane where it says "light a line" when lit. You want to get that with the white thing lit. Get it in there and light your spinners. And the biggest thing in this game to go for is those lit spinners, especially when you juice them like I do. They'll spin forever, and you rack up a ton of points for the 1,000-point spinner shot. He's got some pretty nice-looking plastic sets. Oh, the plastic sets. Oh, yes. Very nice. And I'm not talking about Gene and what's-his-name on the right there. Paul Stanley. I say Motley Crue girls, eat your heart out, because the girls in here, they're girls, girls, girls. They're not wearing much. Folks, I'm looking for a flaw, and there isn't one on this game. So whoever's getting it is going to get a really, really nice game. Anything else we need to know about this game? We're going to play. Okay, I'm going to do the mea culpa right up front. I haven't played this game. First of all, you've got to help me. I played this game when I first got into the hobby up at J.R.'s house. For the life of me. Oh, now I remembered his last name. John Reuter's house. Guess who I played this game with? Think long and hard. I'll give you a clue. Give me a clue. Our neighbor. No. Did you really? I don't know if I've ever told this. No, that's funny. I was new to the hobby and I knew of Bowen and I don't know if he had, you know, won a championship or I don't remember his legacy, but he was a known entity. And I told him that I was, you know, interested in playing, you know, all the Bally games that John had, which he had quite a few. And I had never played KISS. We stepped up and played KISS. I don't have to tell you the outcome. You can already determine that prior to me even talking about it. But that's the first time I ever met him and he was very gracious and put up with my nonsense. I mean, you know, a tournament player versus a rook. It was fun. It wasn't as fun the second time I met him, which was at...Oh, help me. Pintastic. No, uh, the person who used to live... Sausage Man Mike? Oh yes, whatever modern game we were playing. I'm like, oh, I never played this game. And he remembered who I was. And I walked away after the first ball. I don't even think I got to the end of his first ball. Hour in an hour, I was waiting for like 10 or 15 minutes. I just walked away. I said, Bowen, I go, just continue to play. I'm never going to match this. It's not worth me watching you play for 45 minutes. Hence why I made my Classic League several years ago. Well, I mean, you know, hey, you put Fireball Classic in there and, you know, you'd be in quick order. I don't know about this game, so unless there's something else that we need to talk about on this game... Yeah, I got something. So, Bally, back in this time frame, they had an edict. The edict was the girls on the back glass in the classics, they had to be grapefruit size. And so they did not disappoint, George. They are grapefruit size. Who did the artwork on this game? This would be Kevin O'Connor. Oh, that's right. We talked about that. Actually, we can ask him about that edict when we see him live at the seminar. I had another question I was going to ask. In fact, I'm actually going to even bring a grapefruit with me and show it. Say, what do you think, Kevin? ask, and now I can't remember it. Maybe I'll think of it as we go along. We should probably play a game unless you have another story. I think that's about it. The pop-up caps all have the four members on each cap. You can buy those, though, right? You can buy those from Steve. Anything else on here? I mean, the apron is perfect. Yeah. I mean, whoever owned this game took nice care of it. And if this was in an arcade, it didn't see a long period there, which is weird. I don't even remember this game. I'll be honest with you, I don't really remember playing this game back in the day. I played a lot of this back in the day. Fun and Games had this game and I played a lot of this. Um, I liked playing this game. I did really well. I just keep getting A, B, C, D down and get special and hit the spinners and I did well on this one. Well, I think we should probably...oh, I know what I wanted to ask you. Yeah, we talked about the sounds being like Supersonic. Now I read and I don't know if this is correct or not. Are there two songs in this game? And if they are, what songs are they? And will they be recognizable to the audience? Yes, if you're a KISS fan, you will know these songs. So the songs are... "I Want a Rock and Roll All Night" and then when the game ends, it's "Shout It, Shout It, Shout It Out Loud." Okay, well that makes sense. Okay, now this another tidbit in this game. They really wanted to push for this game to be a talker and have some kind of music in it for the KISS. They wanted to have this be like their cutting edge game. But the technology was just not there. Gene wanted it and they wanted to really have this be their breakthrough game with this one here for the high-end technology. But it just was too early. And, you know, so games like Xenon and other ones like that, 8-Ball Deluxe, they're the ones that got the technology. This one was just too early. Right, but that's mostly talking. I mean, how long did it take before you really got, quote-unquote, music in a game? Yeah, well, yeah. It was a while. It was a while. But, you know, look at Flash Gordon. Flash Gordon, when you hit the spinner on that game, it sounds like an electric guitar being played. Right, but I'm saying there's no quote-unquote music clips like today's modern game. I guess Gene got the nod when they did the Stern version of the game. I only played that once. Yeah, hacky though. It hacky though. It hacky, right? But I only played it once at the uh, New Hampshire Pinball Co. I don't know if that the name. Like Gene, Gene says if it's not pinball, it doesn't have balls or something like that. It's just like give me a break. Give me a break, Gene. Are you surprised? No, no. Hackarama, right? Well, I think we've probably talked enough about the game. Why don't we play a game? We're not going to play three. We're going to play a game. Dave is going to attempt to fill out the grid. I'm going to pay close attention and do play-by-play. I think I know enough about the game that I can get us through it. Please interject accordingly, Dave, if I don't hit it direct. All right. And I did a practice game ahead of this, and it was no Fireball Classic marathoner. I lost the ball pretty quick. So I haven't played this in a while. I just set it up because I'm getting ready for a sale coming up soon. I want to make sure it's all good to go, dialed in. And I haven't had this up in several years, and it's still playing beautifully. Well, somebody's going to have a happy Thanksgiving because the game's going to get delivered in a couple days. So why don't you tune things up? Are there any sounds on this game that I might be able to recycle for later shows? Yeah, I'll make a little sound package for you. And point out when... and have a really great time. Oh, I talked over it. You did, George. I talked over it. We'll do it again, George. We'll do it. Sorry. That's all right. Here we go. Okay. All right, one more time. Now, you didn't really answer the question. So is this game revered by...oh, this guy's gate too. Oh, I didn't know that. Um, I mean, do people really like this game? Is it one of the solid player games or it's okay? It's okay. It's a B-plus, I guess. You know, uh, people. So it's no Fathom, no Eight Ball, no. But no, it's solid. It looks like a fun game. It's a fun game. It's kind of like on par. Supersonic. Away Supersonic. A lot of people don't really care for that game. I like it. This game is a sister game to Supersonic. It's got the same five lanes up top. It's got the drop targets there. It feels a little similar. I don't know. I like this game a little better than Supersonic, but they're both decent B-plussers. So here's the "Party Every Night" tier. There you go. How about that, George? I'm a little underwhelmed. Underwhelmed? Oh, I got the middle. Oh, Dave got the middle. Okay, so that filled in the red KISS with the arrow to the right. Now we're on the white. But why is that left arrow instead of the right arrow of that lane? Or that KISS? That's weird. Well, the white one is. And now the right arrow. Oh, you know what? These mean that you completed them. This means you're going for it. So the yellow is you're going for yellow. You've completed and completed. And the red one on the right. But what are the four on the bottom? I think that's maybe scoring your bonus at the end, maybe. I don't know. I really want to hit that spinner. So you're halfway there. He's got the red KISS and the white KISS. Oh, he has a spinner shot I wanted. And he's got the spinner. Oh, that's got a good spin. Oh, yeah. It's juiced up nice. And Dave is two targets away from getting the multiplier. He needs the D as in Dave. Well, I got the multiplier. Oh, so that's the extra ball? I just need the extra ball shot. Oh, so you need the D for an extra ball. Yep. D for Dr. Dave. Let's go. Oh. How about D for...D for D. Go on. Oh, so you only played one person. I thought you said play one game. Oh, I thought we were going to play. Oh, we can still...I can do a redo. Okay, do a redo. Okay, here we go. Even though you did...You're going to beat me anyway. You're going to fill in the grid. I'm...Now, does the grid stay lit, or do you have to light the grid every time? And if you don't know, just say I don't know. I don't know. Okay. I forget. You know, it's amazing that people even listen to us. We hear something, you guys got to work on your accuracy on what you're talking about. It's like, no, no we don't. You're not tuning into this. No, we don't. You're not tuning into this podcast if you're looking for accuracy. We, uh... We're having fun. Yeah. Our audience is loyal. Let's just say that. And Dave just filled in the red KISS, so yeah, the right arrow is lit. Okay. Dave is one letter. He needs the A and he didn't get anything. Okay, $65,000. I don't know if that's good or bad. Not too good. Okay, let's see if I can get the free game is $320,000. Oh come on. So, okay, so I need the K in KISS. There we go. That's what I wanted. The spinner. The spinner's nice. Still don't have the K. And I just got, so I just got red KISS. Out she goes. Glad you beat me on ball one. 64 to 78. Oh, so it did hold. Yes. Okay, so the grid holds. So Dave is working on the white KISS, which is the second KISS. And Dave just filled in the white KISS, and now he's working on yellow. He needs I, S, S. And he's working on the 2x. He needs the C and D. So this isn't a bad game. No, it's a fun game. It's pretty... It's kind of basic, but it's fun. It's pretty basic. I mean... Okay, so I'm working on... sort of social. Well, we make it... sad and social. We make it social. Back to my old ways. So 107 to 95, ball three. Not too good. No, we're done better. Well, there we go. A little bump there. Again, we're the only people I know that actually do this. So Dave filled in three out of the four. So we still don't know why the arrows on the bottom of those columns are the...oh, I know. They're scored during once you get the 40,000, I think. That's when they come into play, when you hold over. Okay. All positive. Let's see if I can...you've got to fill that card. If I level the game properly, you'll get a better time. Oh, I got it. Let's go to the right. Oh, I just filled it in. What did I do? You did. You filled the card. Nice. Now you've got to fill it again. Right, but what...so we're going to stop. So I got 40,000. But none of those bottom arrows. So do you think if I light the top one it lights one? No, I think when the bonus is going to score the 40, I think it's going to do something with those. Okay. Just say you didn't. I don't know. I'm not sure. I'm guesstimating. All right. No, I didn't do that. All right. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, George. We have two high scores. Okay, I actually beat you. You did beat me. I'm the king of the mountain. Let's play one more game just for... All right. All right, for all the KISS marbles. I want to see if we can get to the bottom arrows. Oh, for the Knights in Satan's Service, let's go here. The what? Knights in Satan's Service, George. KISS. That's back in the day. They said these guys were satanic, and so they called them the Knights in Satan's Service. It's a rumor. Have you ever seen these guys live? I think I did. Well, you'd remember, wouldn't you? I never have. Back in that time frame, there was some alcohol and substances, George, that you never really know. So, it's kind of a blur sometimes. You know, George. I do get it. You know how it goes. It's the 70s. Yeah. And the 80s. Yeah. Here we are today. Here we are today. I am... I'm actually dumbfounded that people actually listen to us. Okay, Dave got it down the center lane, so he filled in the red KISS. He's working on the white KISS. Let's see if he can fill out the grid. It's behaving better already. That's all right. Oh, you had to get... So how did...by getting the middle thing. Oh, that opens the gate too. It does. Okay, nice save, Dave. Okay, so Dave's...I don't know if he's got any thresholds. Probably not. But it doesn't matter. I'm guessing if you get a couple hundred thousand, you've done pretty well. Yes. Okay, so he's got two of the KISSes, the red and the white. He's working on yellow. So can he get it? No. So I just filled in the K. He needs an I and an S, and he throws. Out she goes. So, Dave, at the end of ball one is at... Yeah, this reminds me of Supersonic with that... Yeah. You ever play Supersonic? I do. Not set up. But I do. Okay. Into the S. And Drain-O-Rama. For a whopping 3,000 points. For me, this game is a great game. But if it's the only game you had, it's good in the lineup. You know, it's good for a variety. We tend to say that a lot. Yeah. I mean, I am going to miss the game, but I can't keep them all. So, no, this is, I mean, this is a money game. And if you're not, if it's not, you know, a grail game, I get it. I mean, like you said, you can't have them all. And you've got a warehouse. And I just did the same exact damn thing and lost the ball. Oh, boy. I need a drive. Wow. 147 to 5,000 points right now. Yeah, they're not surprised. So, Dave is going for the green. The last KISS, number four. He's going to have to spell it. He's got a K. Oh, so now the two...okay, now I'm really confused. The two bottom arrows are lit. Oh, maybe because...oh, because, you know, the green. Because now I get the whole grid down. That's what it's for. I just need one more. One other. I'm going to get the S over this way. Come on. Yeah, almost. There it is. Oh, there you go. Oh, okay, so they all...they all lit. That doesn't make any sense to me, but okay. It's more of a guide. So Dave's got 40,000 points. He doesn't have...I need to multiply. He hasn't gotten A, B, C, D. I need the A. Okay, so Dave's kicking me. Oh, I'm not going to get the A. Okay, folks, I'm going to have to have like, I'm going to have to have a spectacular ball. 228 to 5,000 points. Great. Rub it in. Come on. You got the A. There we go. That's good. So that gets me two. Okay, now we're getting it. Come on. We got to spell the grid. Okay, we're going. We're going. They should re-theme this game as The Three Stooges, because it sounds like Curly. Yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck, yuck. Oh, no, no, no, no. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Better. Alright, 100,000. That's alright. Match. One, two, three. Alright, I shouted it out loud there, George. Good game. Yeah. Okay. We're done. Okay. And, yeah, you can see Paul Stanley with Mr. Starry. You can see his package, which is great. His package is front and center, George. Just like on the Rolling Stones. You get to see Mick's package, too. What is wrong with you? You know what? And I like a dope and sitting here looking at it. Forget about the package. Just look at the plastics in the game instead. Don't look at the back glass. Over and out. You're going to ask Kevin about that when we meet him? I might. Hey, Kevin. I'll have my wife ask him instead. I'm not even going to say it. Shut it off. Turn it off. Turn it off. Turn it off! You need my love, baby, oh so bad You're not the only one I've ever had And if I say I'm gonna set you free Don't you know you'll be in misery They call me Dr. Love They call me Dr. Love I'm calling Dr. Love I've got the cure you're thinking of Dr. Love Bye.