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SAM-I-AM: Stern SAM System

Fresh Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 17m·analyzed·Jul 4, 2025
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.030

TL;DR

Fresh Pinball discusses imports, deliveries, and operational logistics in season finale.

Summary

Fresh Pinball hosts discuss their season finale covering operational logistics: customs/tariff paperwork for imported games (Hexa Space Hunt, ABBA Voyager), a delivery adventure to West Virginia involving a rope bridge and fainting goats, auction pickups including a Dark Escape arcade cabinet, and various operational updates on container shipping and pricing.

Key Claims

  • Spooky Pinball has built 300+ units by the time game #225 shipped to Canada, with 25% temporary tariffs currently applied

    high confidence · Corbin discussing Spooky production numbers and Canadian tariff situation; concrete unit number referenced

  • Dark Escape arcade cabinet was too large for small trailer; would have required disassembly into 2-foot sections

    high confidence · Corbin and hosts discussing measurements and trailer selection decision

  • Gatlinburg Pinball Museum auction had seller refuse approximately two-thirds of bids despite multiple winning bids placed

    high confidence · Corbin discussing auction pickup experience; auction company confirmed rejection rate

  • Fresh Pinball importing games from Italy through Memphis FedEx hub and Jamaica, New York customs ports

    high confidence · Discussion of two different import routes and customs paperwork processes

  • Some import shipments (Alice in Wonderland, recent Hexa/ABBA games) cleared customs without tariff assessment despite 25% tariff environment

    medium confidence · Corbin noting Alice thread discussion and their recent luck avoiding tariffs; acknowledges uncertainty about ongoing tariff status

  • ABBA Voyager edition priced at $13,000+ with 300-unit production limit

    high confidence · Corbin discussing high-end ABBA variant pricing and production numbers

  • Hexa Space Hunt was held in customs/quarantine for approximately two weeks before clearing

    medium confidence · Corbin estimates 'maybe two weeks, I want to say. Maybe that's an exaggeration' on import hold time

Notable Quotes

  • “I would honestly wait if I was him. I would wait, but then I also gave him the option of like we can have it shipped into a shipping terminal in Buffalo and then he can come across and pick it up. And then when he takes it across the border, he then is responsible for declaring what it is. He can just handle that. That's a fucking box back there.”

    Corbin @ ~45:30 — Illustrates creative workaround for tariff avoidance during Canada shipment; shows operator-level strategies for managing customs costs

  • “It's just a matter of figuring it out. The most challenging part is I think that they just don't – they're not going to call and tell you that they're waiting on something. It's just going to sit there until you reach out.”

    Host @ ~44:00 — Key operational insight about FedEx customs process: proactive communication required, not automatic notifications

  • “So only this environmental game is the only game that we end up winning. Which was still a good deal or whatever. But it was just like, oh.”

    Corbin @ ~18:00 — Illustrates auction unpredictability where seller refused majority of lots despite winning bids

  • “I think they're backwards. I think his goats should... he says, oh, yeah, I got fainting goats over there. But they don't faint for strangers. They only faint for people that they know.”

    Host @ ~30:45 — Comedic moment questioning customer's fainting goat claim during West Virginia delivery

  • “So I would speculate they probably built 300-plus at this point, but the number-wise, if you're going strictly, that's where they're at.”

    Corbin @ ~48:15 — Spooky Pinball production volume estimate; indicates manufacturing scale beyond publicly tracked unit numbers

Entities

Fresh PinballorganizationKylepersonCorbin AngelipersonZach AngelipersonHexa PinballcompanySpooky PinballcompanyDark EscapegameABBA Voyager EditiongameGatlinburg Pinball Museumorganization

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Tariff costs are being passed directly to customers with actual assessed amounts rather than estimates, creating cash flow and pricing complexity for distributors

    high · Corbin: 'when your game ships and when it comes through, whatever the actual amount that we're charged is what we will then charge you. It's the only fair way to do it.'

  • ?

    business_signal: Spooky Pinball has produced 300+ units by game #225, indicating substantial production capacity and ongoing manufacturing at scale

    high · Corbin: 'I would speculate they probably built 300-plus at this point, but the number-wise, if you're going strictly, that's where they're at.'

  • ?

    event_signal: Gatlinburg Pinball Museum liquidation auction showed unusual seller rejection pattern (66% of lots refused), suggesting operator financial distress or selective disposition strategy

    medium · Corbin noting seller refused 'probably two-thirds' of winning bids despite placing multiple successful bids at auction

  • $

    market_signal: Customs tariff environment remains uncertain; some shipments clearing without assessment while others incur charges; industry confusion about timing and retroactive refunds

    medium · Corbin noting Alice thread tariff discussions and wondering about retroactive refunds for games that cleared without charges

  • $

    market_signal: Temporary 25% tariffs on Canadian imports creating customer decision paralysis; workarounds (Buffalo terminal, delayed shipping) being proposed as tariff-avoidance strategies

    high · Discussion of 25% Canadian tariffs, Buffalo terminal option, and waiting strategy to avoid tariff assessment

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.233

0:00
Pinball Jail. Gotta stay out of Pinball Jail. This is the trick. Fresh Pinball. The freshest of the fresh.
0:14
Pinball Jail Edition. Breaking free. It's gonna be a jailbreak. Welcome, everyone, to the season finale of the Fresh Pinball Podcast. Yes, moments ago, we decided that this would be the perfect time. We've got to quit this one. Season finale. What season? Four?
0:41
Is it season four already? Is it season? That sounds about right. Yeah, I think so. Maybe not. Is it season two? We're less than a handful of seasons in. I don't think people understand how willy-nilly we do this. We walk into the room and Kyle's like, I think this should be the finale and here are the reasons why. Right. Okay. So welcome, everyone, to the season finale of the season that we're in. The next episode that you hear after this will be the season premiere of the next season that will follow the number of the season that we're currently in. Probably. It is July 1st, 2025 for reference. The year of our Lord. Yes. 2025.
1:16
To my right, on the board, the master of the episodes. The guy who's back. The decider of the seasons, the balancer of the volume pots, Kyle! Hey.
1:28
What's up? So in case anyone hadn't noticed, on the Finney's episode, Kyle was absent, and I effed up the intro and the outro music. It was super, super quiet. It's okay. We forgive you this time. We had the soothing sounds of Finney's in the background. We really did. It was the beeps and the creeps and the sweeps and everything else. And across from me, Mr. Zach Angeli How we feeling, buddy? A little mad at the city of Canton right now About my bus and my driveway But other than that, I'm still flipping fantastic So any hardcore listeners of the podcast Will know of some of the stories That Zach has regaled us With the RV bus When we've taken it to VFW It's titled and licensed as a RV That is a recreational vehicle It is, not for hire It might look like a bus But it's not It's an RV The picture just cracks me up They literally sent a picture of it In the driveway And they circled it in red It's like oh I wondered what bus you were talking about Not to be confused with the silver Subaru That's sitting right next to it That's okay we're fine with that Bus problem And to my left Mr. Corbin Angeli How we doing buddy? Doing good doing good all right let's kick this episode off with a quick fact check so i actually received an email and this was referencing back to one of our earlier episodes let me pull it up here from stefan karakis uh who corbin you're working on his dad and and uh stefan's uh project up in barberton for timber beast and all that i saw you'd posted on social media here recently you're going with the card system there, and you had a kiosk that was wrapped with their logo and whatnot. Yeah, it's pretty sweet. I saw it. Yep, yep. So it's wrapped, and then there's also cards that we got that have the Timber Beast logo on it. And I think they also program it, like when all the little screens are going, that it's going to have their logo on it as well. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah. That's pretty freaking cool. That's neat for how much? A lot of money. For just a small percentage of the take. Yeah, but Stefan emailed and said that he was listening back during his travels at some of our older episodes and came across – I've been really bored. I don't know if he was traveling with his dad or not, but I know that his dad was just recently in Croatia, which is the homeland of my ancestors. And then more recently, I thought he said that he was in – what's the banking home over there? Switzerland. He was in Switzerland because his Evil Dead payment was coming up. And so I'm like, hey, you know, you're going to need to move some money from those numbered Swiss accounts. But he was listening back to the John Norris episode. And I mentioned that when I get to the West Coast, I like to grab some Del Taco. And he said that there are several Del Tacos now in the Columbus area.
Stern Pinball
company
Space Huntgame
Stefan Karakisperson
Jeffperson
Timber Beastorganization
Pinball Junk Drawerorganization
Alice in Wonderlandgame
  • $

    market_signal: ABBA Voyager Edition priced at $13,000+ with limited 300-unit production; high-end variant market segment active

    high · Corbin discusses ABBA Voyager at 13k+ pricing with 300-game production limit

  • ?

    product_strategy: Hexa Space Hunt held in customs for approximately 2 weeks before clearing, demonstrating import delays affecting machine availability timelines

    medium · Corbin: 'It's been in pinball for like two weeks, I want to say. Maybe that's an exaggeration. It felt like a long time.'

  • ?

    product_strategy: Hexa Pinball has teased next game after Space Hunt currently in prototyping phase; new release anticipated in near-term

    medium · Corbin: 'I saw a tease on their social media that maybe their next game is prototyping right now and we're not too far away from seeing what's coming after Space Hunt.'

    • 4:25
    So here's the question, though. And I feel this to be true. Like, what's the sandwich place that you always talk about out in Colorado? Chiba Hut. So if there was a Chiba Hut here, it would probably then be less special because you can have it whenever you want. Right. Chiba Hut's fucking good. Just like this. I think I'd eat it every day. Yeah, I'd still eat Chiba Hut no matter where it was. There was one in Cincinnati for a minute. But Columbus is still far enough away where it's special. Columbus would still be a treat. It would still be a treat, yeah. Because we're, what, you guys are about, what, 2 hours, 45 minutes to Columbus? Depends where we're at in Columbus, yeah. I'd say average two hours. I guess you are farther, yeah.
    5:01
    Hour on 30, hour on 71. It's like anything else I know, Corbin, you're also a huge Melt fan As I was And when it was just the couple up in Cleveland It was special because you couldn't have it every day But I guess it still continued to be special for you And you had it every day When it was in town too So maybe you're the wrong audience to be asking about this If it's good, I'm in But shout out for that email Definitely It's an interesting thing because There are certain places that I go and I'm like ooh, I'm here, I need to make sure I grab this. What's the one in Texas that you always have to go to? Texas? Well, like Chicago is obviously... Portillo. Something like California is like In-N-Out or whatever. Right. People are always into that. What would be Texas? I feel like there's some... Some brisket joint, I assume, right? No, it was like some drive-thru, and they had margaritas to go with the nostrils. Oh, really? Okay. I'm trying to remember what the name of the place was, but... Interesting. Fact check us. Any of our Dallas, Fort Worth, Texas people, let us know what the big... People in Texas don't listen to us. Come on, man. People play pinball in Texas, right? Yeah, there's a lot of pinball in Texas. Oh, yeah, yeah. Pinball in Texas, right? We have that prize giveaway going on in Texas. Has anyone ever done that? The Texas Pinball Festival. The challenge, the free play challenge. I completed it, and I didn't get shit, so. Your prize is in the mail, but has anyone else? Bunch of bullshit. All right, so apparently in the last episode, I talked about that when I was in Mineral City, that there must be some time vortex or time dilation there. Which then with the bakery and TV tavern and everything else. So people said or the person said what emails, not what emails, what pinball machines would tie into like time travel or whatever else. So immediately for me, I thought of from the movie Stargate where you have the Stargate and it opens up in the portals and you travel between worlds. Time warp. Got time warp. That would make some cool sounds. Time machine. Is there a Back to the Future, too? Is there a Back to the Future? I was thinking of Time Machine, maybe. Either way, which one has the cool sounds? Which one's the Data East one that has the cool music? Time Machine. Time Machine goes to like 50s, 60s, 70s. That's what I was thinking of. That was the one I was thinking of. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was a really cool one. It has really cool sounds. Technically, Junkyard, you go back in time. That's right, you do. Yeah, yeah. So I saw someone post today, Corbin, and you may already be aware of this, 2017 or so, someone ran a whole bunch of molds for the ends of the cars that then go along like behind oh the wrecking ball for junkyard so instead of it being those flat you know whatever is it actually looks like cars being stacked into all these different places that's cool pretty freaking cool yeah yeah so those were the time dilation ones i also thought that star trek on a technicality could also be a time travel type one because it's also back to the future definitely back to the all right corbin let's hit up on i don't think we've talked about this since the last episode so we had a delivery near charleston west virginia and then we also had some auction pickups one day we haven't talked about this i don't think we've talked about this oh yeah it was a journey so let's talk about the auction first because the auction is kind of like the precursor to everything. So Kyle, I think, originally found the link. It's his fault. Sent it to the group. And it started because it was a new in-box TNA. So this was, if anyone else was aware of it... Oh, Tennessee Adventures. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. So the Gatlinburg Pinball Museum, Gatlinburg Arcade, it was something along those lines was liquidating a bunch of equipment. And Kyle sent the auction to the group and there were a bunch of new in-box pinball machines. Bonnelly, TNA's in the box Bon 60th they had a Stern Spider-Man still in the box all kinds of just things that I was drooling over they had a lot too there was like multiple it was hundreds of items right? 200 items? Purple Jetsons yeah we bid on that and so it was the day we were doing delivery so it was like the auction started ending so we pulled over and we were like literally over in Jackson and so we started bidding on stuff and it's like well if we get one thing then we have to we can get a couple you know as soon as you're one down there we're gonna make it worth the trip and so i i read it but i didn't fully read it i guess yeah that it's skimmed it if you will yeah yeah the details of it all but basically the seller had the right to refuse any of the bids and so i ended up winning the uh the well nelly that's what i was the most excited about because me too got a great deal and i was like i i just had decided like we need one so we got that we got the new inbox tna we got the what's the name of that game evil dead you know walking how do you what's the name of the um it's like that game zombie jurassic park game yeah so it's a konami multiplayer environmental that you go in and it's so it's literally set up to where it blows wind on you it's 40 is what it calls it yeah you wear 3d all your senses it blows air in your face you wear 3d glasses it shakes it yeah it shakes it bakes it does well if you need any 3d glasses i got some left over from my launch kit how do you oh the jaws one yeah nice i can't remember the name of the damn thing that's the only picture i have of it too yeah it's a really cool it's a big old cabinet it is it's like we'll remember the name it's like a left for dead zombie sort of thing anyway it's awesome anyway so we won that it measures your heart rate through the hand controls. Yeah. If you get too many, like scares, it gives you, you get less points. Yeah. So 3d vibration, air surround sound, and then their panic sensors that are built into the guns to read your pulse or whatever. Yeah. So we got that. I think we got, do we get, I thought I got another pinball. There were several, like five or six items. And we're thinking, Hey, even if they decline like one or two of these, like it's going to be worth the trip. Yeah. Right. Because then we got them. They were all at like decent prices. Like there was just so much stuff. Decent prices, but not steals. Not steals, no, because some of them were definitely routed. Because some of them had card readers and they'd pull them off or whatever. Nice little hole in the coin. And so we ended up, you know, they called me the next day and they're like, yeah, we just were calling about pickup of the one lot you wanted. And I was like, oh, I want more than one maybe, just thinking maybe they were just going down the list and they hadn't hit the other ones yet. And she's like, oh, no, the seller refused everything else. And it's just like, oh. So only this environmental game Is the only game that we end up winning Which was still a good deal or whatever But it was just like It's pretty sweet I was really excited That new unboxing I was excited about And that wall in LA But what are you going to do I mean I'm sure The immersion game Will probably out earn Every fucking pinball People understand that Corbin's passionate about pinball not just operating so they also talked to the auction guy about it and they were like that's not normal like the amount that and we looked through like dark escape dark escape thank you nice yes just come into your head thank god but they said yeah most of the lots like they rejected probably two-thirds of the right the lots it was it was crazy so now we're looking at it we're going what if it's just a straight shot down there it's what like a seven-ish hour drive seven hours yeah something like that so being who we are we're like hey we already have this delivery for a King Kong premium. Why don't we make it a 12 hour drive? Right. That's going to Charleston, West Virginia. He was like right off the route though, because he was right off 77. So it was like three hours, two and a half, three hours in something like that. Yeah. Hit him, you know, on the way down. But yeah, it was a, we get off the exit and it was a, uh, yeah. So adventure. He lives in the woods. So literally like the Creek that, uh, runs through his property is named for his family. Like all of that. Like this is generational land. Like these people have been out there for a very, very long time. So there's no like real infrastructure for any of it. So whenever there's a lot of rain or snow thaw or anything else, the – They can get stuck on the other side of the river. The creek rises above the level of the little cement bridge that they have there. So for their purposes, they can park on the other side of the bridge and then walk – A little barn over there or whatever. Right. They can walk across like this rope bridge, Corbin? He built it out of like rope and then he had like plastic like – I think the way he was describing it, I didn't go up on it. But it seemed like it was like the plastic that he used for decking or whatever. Like Trex decking. Yeah, like that kind of material like laced into the webbing almost. So like it was like a – it was a pretty stout rope bridge. Like it had like sides and it was suspended and everything. Indiana Jones Pinball Adventure. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the day before, he sends me a video of literally probably a foot of water that's running over the top of the bridge. So he's like, hey, if it rains more, I'm not so sure. You guys might have to come across the bridge with a dolly and a pinball machine. I'm like, hey. And it looked like it might be strong enough. I would have considered it. We were pretty committed. So, hey, let's throw this in the trailer. Let's get down there. I mean, he already paid for it, right? Of course. Of course, of course, of course. Of course we'll bring it across. So, well, let's back up a second here and talk about how big this dark escape is. Normal trailer versus the trailer that we took. Yeah, yeah. Jeff was a little concerned the day before or whatever, or a couple days before. He's like, what trailer are we taking? I'm like, I don't know. Let's take the small one. We're just going to take the lift gate truck. I consider it, you know. I bet you did. Corbin was very confident that it would fit into the small trailer. I'm like, hey, let's just, like, pull up the flyer and measure the opening. He had a whole day of working on it that we were going to measure it. So we measured it. So you found a flyer of it, though, more importantly? I did. Oh, I want to see that. Was it close, Corbin? I don't really think it was. It was not even close. Was it like feet? It was. If we would have gotten down there with that small trailer, we would have been taking this thing apart in like two foot sections. Oh, Jesus. Take it away apart. Anything will pay. Eventually, yes. I agree.
    15:15
    So then it was decided, hey, let's take the big trailer. So then before we went to Kevin's We dropped the trailer Put the pinball machine just on the lift gate Over the river, through the woods Up the hill to his cabin To grandmother's house It was pretty slick The park and ride right off the exit It couldn't have been better It actually lined up pretty easy So we get in there, we set up his game We break down the WWF Royal Rumble And we put the Godzilla next He had a Godzilla up there And we put a King Kong next to it Which I think is just a nice match Get the games out of there We're loading up, shaking hands, saying our thank yous, all of that. And then he drops what nugget on us. Okay. I did some more reading about these goats. So have I. Yeah. I think they're backwards. I think his goats should. Anyway, he says, oh, yeah, I got fainting goats over there. But they don't faint for strangers. They only faint for people that they know. So he has eight goats. And then he tells us that only two or three of them are fainting goats. Okay. But they'll only faint if they know you. Yeah. I don't think that's true. I think he just didn't want us to go hang out with his goats It was a real Rollercoaster ride for me A. Finding out you have fainting goats I feel like it would be for a stranger only My mom's got goats if you guys want to Do they faint? I don't know I don't think goats are eyes are weird Maybe he just says that because they faint for him And he's like oh the only favorite people they like Is like dude they faint for people they don't like Here's my theory It's like the Jack and the Beanstalk magic beans where he went in and he traded his truck, his brand new F-350. I noticed he didn't have a car there. That's what I'm saying, for these goats. And then he comes home and he's so excited and his wife's like, oh, man, where's your truck? How did you end up with all these goats? He's like, don't worry, they're special magic fainting goats. The goats, they ate it. That's right.
    17:05
    I don't know. Next time we go there, I'm going to introduce myself. I'm going to say some goat treats. I'm going to get there like, hey, we're going to deliver at 9, but I'm going to be there at 8. That way I can get to know the goats a little bit. But on my way out, I can get them to faint. We were camping out doing a hip camp with the bus this weekend. And it was at a farm and there were goats. And the one kept trying to attack the boys. So we got hammers. I've had some run-ins with goats. So that's a story for another podcast. So we get them set up. We get them delivered. We're out of there. We've got the trailer hooked back up. And now let's head on into, what, Johnson City, Tennessee? Yeah, Johnson City. Wagon Wheel, man. That's right. We get down there. Yeah, we get down there. We get to this place, pull into the parking lot. So it's this three-unit strip mall, and the only active store in the strip mall is like a wig shop. Yeah.
    17:54
    It's back behind the wig shop in the garage doors or whatever. So I'm already questioning. Like, we have a – I mean, how long is the black truck? I mean, that's a full-size extra cab with the long bed. Not the long bed, but at least a standard bed with the lift cage. Oh, it's a long bed. And then you've got the 30-some-foot trailer on top of that. and I'm looking at all this going, this is going to get real interesting. It was, yeah. But we got back there. We got it loaded pretty easy. The IT guy wasn't very much help.
    18:22
    There was that Jetsons too. That was one of the conventions in that auction. We bid on for sure. It's like one of five or something. Two Jetsons. Just what we needed was two. Two Jetsons. Maybe we get one good working one. Yeah. Put it together. Cobble it together. If we're going down.
    18:38
    Anyway, yeah, we get it loaded. Get out of there. Three pieces. Bing bang boom Just rolled them right onto the trailer Raised the levelers Didn't even strap them down So anyway we say to the IT guy We're like yo man The guy who let us in We're like what's up with the food Is there somewhere local we should eat We're about to drive back Let's get some food get some gas There's an Arby's over there He's like barbecue There's a place The Red Pig or something Red Pig Barbecue right up there and there's a it's right next to Kroger so there's a big parking lot of easy for you to park and we're like oh it's gonna do this this lines up perfect he's like it's my it's the best place in town some people disagree but okay so we go up there five minutes away I mean he was right up the hill big parking Ample parking It was nice We go in And as far as I can tell the only thing they had a menu on the wall But the only selection was like a regular or a small pulled pork sandwich. Right. Pork sandwich. Which one? Regular or small? And Jeff's like, can I get the pig too? And he's like, no, do you want a regular or a small? I roll up to the counter. And he's like, what size? And there's this whole big menu of all of these things you can pick from. I'm like, awesome. I'm going to pick all these cool different things or whatever. He's like, no, dude. These are the two things. Do you want big or small? This is it. This is it, bro. It's like going to Popeye's, man. I did have Mellow Yellow, so I knew I was in the South. But a lot of times, like a taco truck or something, you're like, let me get that tongue. And they're like, white people don't like it, so we don't have it. So rating was low It was okay Yeah it was nothing to get excited about But we were back on the road We got the regular size I think we left at like 6am 7am or something And we were back before midnight So it was just one day there and back Delivery, pick up that stuff No blown out tires No moss All the tires should be new by now All new tires, all new bearings That one was bad I wasn't mad about taking it either It's a nice trailer to run around with I guess Dad's using it tomorrow The last item here That I wanted to go in for the Fact check here is We've missed this probably on a couple episodes Let's do a little container talk So we've had a couple games being imported You know Coming through The customs And the forms and the papers and you know these are the things whenever you're fantasizing about having your own cargo ship maybe you just really don't think about is all the paperwork that's involved two different ports lately jamaica new york is one yep and uh memphis memphis memphis tennessee is the other one it's bizarre to me and i know that fedex is based out of memphis so that makes sense that they would have a major hub there but that something would come from italy straight to memphis like to me it's like italy went to jamaica okay new york yeah yeah new york okay which i'm assuming must be like somewhere in i like to imagine it's like i like to imagine it's some sort of like little island where they send all of the pinball machines and all this stuff is dave you know where jamaica is can you go handle that for us um i saw he's in cleveland which thanks for he was yeah what was he picking up so uh stern electronics lightning or something like I keep meaning to tell him I have an alien star. If he needs any random parts, because I have a carcass on him. I know he's doing something with it. So if he needs any random pieces, I'm going to have it. Anyway.
    22:15
    So pinball jail. Let's talk about when you're importing something, you think to yourself, like, no, no muss, no fuss. This will be easy. Honestly, part of what I think about is the amount that we're paying for this shipping. It's like, this shit isn't included in the paperwork. You guys are going to fill out the paperwork? Like I'm just, that's, that's my really my one thought on it. But I think now that I've figured out both, both of the situations. So the first one, we just hadn't shipped anything through customs this year with FedEx. And so it was just filling out their like tax paperwork or whatever, basically. And so once that was on file, that should take care of it for now, like for anything else coming in. And then the other thing was, it was the first time Hexa had sent anything really to us. and because the first one, what they ship it as a prototype or as like a test or something. And so this time it was, it was shipped as an actual game. So I think this is also just a matter of, and after talking to the FedEx people, yeah, once I have the paperwork, once we know it's coming, I'll just preemptively, as soon as I have the tracking number, they say, if I send it to the certain email address with that tracking number in the title, it auto uploads it to your, uh, to that file. So as soon as it hits it, it says, we already got the paperwork we need. It clears it. No problem. So it's just a matter of figuring it out. The most challenging part is I think that they just don't – they're not going to call and tell you that they're waiting on something. It's just going to sit there until you reach out and you're like, hey, what's going on? I'm sure they just have stacks and stacks of stuff. And as soon as you tell them the number, they immediately will say, oh, your agent is Jeff. Here's his email address. And their email addresses are all numbers. It's very efficient. Jeff at MadPinball.com. they're all very efficient though it's not like they're not spelling anything out there like 8224 at fedex or whatever you know it's all very efficient that's awesome because sometimes you get those weird last names and personally you can't understand the words so it's all and they give you their extensions and then as soon as you call that person they're like hold on give me the number boom pull it all up this is what we need nice so as soon as you get it started it's just then going back and forth and getting it figured out the way they want it so the big talk amongst everything in the world has recently over the last few months has been tariffs and all of that stuff. So both of these games that came in, were you assessed any on either of those shipments? We somehow got through, I guess, in like a patch of nothing. I'm not having it, which I saw some Alice in Wonderland, I think, got through too. They got through without tariffs. Oh, nice. I don't know. The terrorist things have been pretty heavy on the Alice thread, so I don't know if they still charge them it or not. That's what I'll be interested to see. Because some of them, they paid for it like a month or two ago at the time when it was. And so now if they came through and there was no tariffs, how would that be handled, I wonder? Because I know for us... It should be a refund, right? Well, I don't know. Well, for us, for Predator, we've sold a few. And how I've communicated to each one of our depositors is when your game ships and when it comes through, whatever the actual amount that we're charged is what we will then charge you. It's the only fair way to do it. I think so. Like if I preemptively or we preemptively charge, it's like – It's a game. It's a guessing game. Yeah, either I'm charging too much, I'm charging not enough, whatever it is. Especially with the timeframe that sometimes it takes from when you pay the invoice ahead of time for some of these ones. I'm not – like that just aren't as like – like not stern basically. You know, like if they're a month, month and a half out, a lot can happen in that timeframe. I mean that's even with Spooky right now. We have one that's getting ready to go to Canada. What number I was going to ask you is – 225. Okay. So they're in the – okay, they're in the 200s. $225,000. They had a big container of international games that went out that were higher numbers, but since that distributor had some here, there, and everywhere, they built them all at once, put them in a container, and sent them out. Makes sense. Fill the paperwork once. I get it. I would speculate they probably built 300-plus at this point, but the number-wise, if you're going strictly, that's where they're at. But it's supposed to be 25% tariffs going to Canada right now. So it's the big communication of, well, if you wait two weeks, there's a good chance that these temporary tariffs will expire and then it will come through at zero. So how do you want to handle that? Is he going to wait? He's going to let me know tomorrow what he wants to do. I would honestly wait if I was him. I would wait, but then I also gave him the option of like we can have it shipped into a shipping terminal in Buffalo and then he can come across and pick it up. And then when he takes it across the border, he then is responsible for declaring what it is. He can just handle that. That's a fucking box back there. Yeah. It's just a box. I love to build box forts. That's all it is. Did you see how beautiful this box is? It's just a box.
    26:51
    Don't read what it says on the side. Don't worry about this. Don't worry about that. Nothing to see here. Just some fucking rocks in it. So two pinball machines this week out of pinball jail. As of this morning, the Hexa is free. And honestly, I've been like. Space hunt coming to Corbin. It was peaked and then it came down a little bit just because of this pinball. It's been in pinball for like two weeks, I want to say. Maybe that's an exaggeration. It felt like a long time. It's been a long quarantine. I will say, though, those guys have been very – they've helped with everything they can. They're very helpful, the Hexa guys. And I think they seem very excited for us to get it. And I saw a tease on their social media that maybe their next game is prototyping right now and we're not too far away from seeing what's coming after Space Hunt. So we could be right on board for that. We're about to get one of those around town. If I would have known, it's like, just send us both at once. I mean, what are we doing here? We're going to fuck around with this paperwork again. So then the other game that was coming... Do it while it's fresh.
    27:46
    ...was an ABBA Voyager edition. So that was the high end that they were limiting to... So what did those cost again? 300 games, I think they were like... 13. 13 grand plus shipping plus... And what number is this one? And this was... It landed yesterday. Number two in the United States.
    28:03
    Guaranteed. I don't know the number in the United States, but it was number 75 overall. So a little bit of a higher number than I actually expected. Okay, they sold a few of them. But they're not hitting that 300 any time soon. I mean, maybe eventually. I think Predator has better sales than AVA so far. I would assume. Yeah. I think that an interview that I heard on Loser Kids, they were saying that they're limiting the total production of Predator at 800. So even if it does super well, they're limiting essentially in the evil dead threshold. so there won't be a booze. I don't think that's a bad number to hang out at. I think somewhere between 500 and 1,000 kind of seems to be the sweet spot to keep demand on things. Do you think we're going to get one of these predators for our own entertainment? We've never done a Pimple Brothers before.
    28:50
    You know how I feel. I don't know if I'm ready for it or not. You know how I feel. You don't want to do it? I don't mind a headache, but it's just some things. Yeah, I know, I know. If we were just going to have it in a game room, that's a different mindset than it's going to go to Cleveland. Or not use it, yeah. As soon as, like, I mean, Ninja Eclipse, I didn't even bat an eye whenever you said, oh, yeah, I'm going to take that up to Lakewood. I'm like, it'll be fine. Like, I have no doubt. It has decent money in it. Yeah, it does look great. About the same as Corvette or Fast Brakes. I would expect in that environment it would do a little better than some other places because, yeah, there's a good pinball community up there. Evil Dead still. Is there a space on the wall? Should we put something up there? I don't want to make it a museum, though. with explaining it makes it too museum feeling when you have signs. But it is cool whenever someone can... Because some people care this is rare or this is one of 100 or this is whatever, and they're like, oh, well, okay, I definitely want to check that out. But it's hard to do that without beating someone up in the head with signage or whatever else. We need to feature that Combotron game up there. We do. We need to get some hype around that. We should do like a night or a tournament or some sort of event involved. Can you do a tournament on that or something? Oh, yeah, without a doubt. That's your department. We definitely could. I'll come. We definitely could. All right. I'll come. But you said it. Is there a bear? He'll be there. So, yeah, we've talked for 30 minutes about absolutely nothing. So this is par for the course and the norm. But, yeah, I think tonight we wanted to talk about what I would consider for the most part a valley for pinball. It was kind of a time whenever Stern was struggling. They were the only game in town They weren't putting out a ton of games every year But let's talk about the Sam System era Of Stern Pinball There's a lot of bangers man There's so many fucking bangers There are dude There are so many of these games I feel like I'm just going to say Before I even look through a whole list of it right now We'll be places We'll be at shows or whatever And we'll be playing some of these games And we'll be like CSI What the hell CSI is cool I mean we have Rolling Stones I mean it's fine X-Men Sometimes I think maybe we should have We should have kept that X-Men Neither you or your dad were excited about it It was I liked the theme but it wasn't there We kept the Avengers Premium That's a weird one So what this is 2006 to 2014 Is that the era I wouldn't mind finding a Mustang Ellie Or a Premium Do you think the Premium is probably even What was 2017? ACDC, bro. Yeah, those are... I like ACDC. Those are just the remakes, yeah. They were still building Stern Sam systems. Whenever I started with Mad Pinball, you could still get them.
    31:39
    Did you get, like, the Walking Dead? No, whenever I started, you could still get ACDCs, Metallicas, and Star Treks. New in box still. They were still producing them. Should have got some of those. Oh, yes. You're right. That was five years ago. Metallica, X-Men. Anyway, I'm just saying, there's some good stuff. Transformers, I think Transformers LE is one of the best deals on the market that you can get I haven't looked at prices in a while but I guarantee you it's still like a $5,000 LE if you're trying to build your LE game if you're new in the game and you want to get some LEs to get some street cred Transformers is one I think you start with Transformers and then you go to Turtles and you just buy all the LE turds I like Turtles I know you do because the cash van is always full and I liked it when I had it at home Anyway, the Transformers powder coating is super cool too Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Split down like both sides Autobots and Decepticons That's pretty sweet Is that George Gomez too?
    32:34
    Transformers? Yes Don't hit on our boy George He's one of our top guests Our best guest ever You know we still need a big buck Hunter It'll happen I cannot believe that Kyle Grimm sold his for $7200 That's insane When he said that I was like oh he got rid of it because I was like, I was trying to get that traded in or whatever, you know. And he's like, oh, yeah, I got some guy offer me 7200 before. I'm like, oh, shit. Well, yeah, it's gone. Pack it up. Take it. Goodbye. Shrek's a good one, too, right? Right. So let's briefly go through the list here. Was there a time frame between Shrek? Yeah. A year difference. Okay, sorry. Go on. No, no, you're good because it's an interesting thing we need to hit up on.
    33:16
    So 2006, 3,000 units, World Poker Tour. No, no, no, no, no. No? Start at the beginning. Don't cut Kooky Carnival. Start at the beginning. It's not pinball! No, it counts. It counts. So, Redemption Game. These were at Chuck E. Cheese and all of your family entertainment centers back in the day. The Simpsons Kooky Carnival by Stern Pinball. Designed by... We'll end up with one of these guys. Dennis fucking Nordman. We'll end up with one of them. With who? It's Nordman. Who's on software? Oh, your buddy Dwight. Dwight Sullivan. I bet that game has Midnight Madness. It needs to be some Midnight Madness. It does have Midnight Madness. Ooh, what time is it? Secret Midnight Madness. I have a Midnight Madness at home. Uh-oh, uh-oh. What did you bring home? Dirty Harry, baby. I did see you pull that.
    33:57
    Yeah, no fears already out there. So World Poker Tour, big time. Still, I see that in tournaments all the time. And every time you get that, isn't there that one that's come back? Three or four times. And it has, it's just these games. One thing I just want to say about this era of games, too. We got a few of them new in box. Pirates of the Caribbean. Yep, definitely. They are one good thing to know. Unboxing that and being blown away by a pirate ship. Yeah. One thing to know when we're going through these two is that Dennis Nordman, I think, was one of the only designers that was still at Stern. Everyone else was fired, and he was still an employee. Right. But Steve Ritchie and Lawler were contracted at this point. So you have Steve Ritchie designs, Pat Lawler designs. Pat Lawler Productions. No, I don't know. No, I think you're right. It was Steve Ritchie Productions and Pat Lawler Designs, PLD. Yeah, because he had the hand. The red button. So World Poker Tour, I believe that's a Steve Ritchie design. Of course it is. Big tournament player. Yeah, Steve Ritchie, Dwight Sullivan. If you like drop targets, that is the game for you. Didn't you have that in your basement for a minute? Oh, yeah. Yeah, when we were training. So Kyle was whining and crying. I'm like, I'm going to bring you a game. So I bring him that, and he's like, uh. And then a couple months later, I'm like, hey, I think time to sell that. I think I sold that. Maybe it could hang out for a little while longer I feel like at one point you were like How much do you want for it I feel like you were close to trying to buy it Remember when we did the split flipper championship At my house That was a great game for split flippers It really is So then 2006 also We have Pirates of the Caribbean Dennis Nordman So I just looked at that whole list That was the only game from this era that we bought new in box That was the only one I remember our dad buying it It's dead. 6,000 produced, though. That is a huge movie, dude. And we bought it, went straight to the Aconcan Airport, and it sat out there for a couple years because it just got played nonstop. Like, it just went. So I think you started to talk about it a little bit. Talk about how just these are workhorses. They're rock solid. Yeah, these and then also, like, into the next era with, like, Elvis and all those. Like, they are all just – So White Star. Into the White Star. They are just, like – you put them out, and they just run. And they could sit places that they don't turn them off. They don't do whatever. Right. and they would just work. You would be able to walk up, put your quarters in, flip a ball. There would be five balls stuck on it on a seven-ball game, and it'll still start a game. Still fire a game. They were solid. Because I know that World Poker Tour, the first time it came in, when it got traded in on a, I believe it was a Led Zeppelin, it had like 60,000 players on it. And I looked at it, and I'm just like, there's no way. It didn't look like something that had 60,000 players. Shirley was building them back then. She was putting them together. She was on the line. Crunching the numbers. But Pirates is still one that's... And it's cool. It has some cool mechs. Like the ship and everything. And the license. Solid license. Everybody knows. They have the full movie assets. Everybody's got something. Oh, yeah. I mean, that's like straight off the theatrical cluster. I mean, I hate to call you guys straight out, but White Star is before Sam. Right. But we're saying those two ones that kind of run... Oh, okay. I thought you said right after. Oh, right. Either right. Which would be Spike 1. Yes. No, you're right. But those two that run concurrently are just... They're made to run. And they're made to... If it loses two balls, it's like, whatever. We had six. We have four. Four's enough. We're good. We don't need that coil over there. It's all good. Hey, Sega, thank you for designing our architecture. Right. Yeah, I mean, it was just Sega into that. So two games in 2006, and then we move into 2007 where we have three games, Family Guy, Spider-Man, and Wheel of Fortune. And Black Spider-Man. I didn't even know that was a thing. So that's essentially an LE edition of Spider-Man. And this was the first time they did Spider-Man. Yes, correct. This is before they vaulted later on. And when they vaulted later on, they didn't, when they renewed the license, they couldn't get the movie art. So then that's when they go with like a comic style art. But it's interesting here that 2007, Corbin, as you pointed out, you have Stern Family Guy. I didn't realize they weren't at the same time. I don't know why in my mind I thought it was like the same time thing. And then Shrek's not till 2008. Maybe I should keep Family Guy too. I don't know. So $2,500 on Family Guy. I saw a chip in the play field. $600 on Shrek. Wheel of Fortune, man. That's a Nordman, isn't it?
    38:16
    That's such a bizarre game. It's a turnburglar is what it is. I honestly wouldn't mind getting one of these Indiana Jones. You say that when you see them. I like playing it. I enjoy it. It's not bad. And I think it's another brand like Jaws and Jurassic Park and Star Wars. Most people know what Indiana Jones is. It's a good title to walk up to. It's a Borg game. Yeah, this is exactly to Kyle's point. This is when I think Borg and Nordman were the only in-house at that time. So... They could only hire the other guys when they actually had some money Here 500 bucks for your design I kind of surprised you guys didn get a Spider That feels like one that would kind of like be in your wheelhouse How close was it though It's a year. It's only a year apart. No, it's way too close. Those were back in times where, like, it would go years in between buying pinballs. Harley, then... Not weeks. Oh, yeah. Minutes. I've had to work a lot to get to this point.
    39:09
    There were times where, yes, you went and bought pinballs for years. Obviously, because we didn't get any of these. Harley, Simpsons There was no arcades or anything There was nothing It was dead The airport and bars We had a couple bars Indiana Jones, Batman, The Dark Knight Shrek And CSI So The Dark Knight, that one's already sold After we go through it Thanks for letting me know Down in New Albany, Indiana Empire Comics. They're adding on a pinball space. Oh, you know, you might have told me about that. Yeah, so he's going to have Dark Knight in there. He already has an Evil Dead CE. There are a few other games. He might need a Deadpool premium for the right price. I was thinking about keeping both of them, but... He was looking at an AIQ, so I've kind of had my ear to the ground if someone was wanting to trade in an AIQ to move down there to him. But yeah, he's putting together... The pinball scene down there is insanely strong. That's where Our Lady of Perpetual Hopps is, where our friend David Rowland has all of the games. But be on the lookout down there because he's about to launch his Harry Potter collector's edition over there. So all the people down in New Albany. And then there's also a rec bar right in that area. They are pinball blessed down there. Did you see that place Tank was at? There was a bunch of pinballs wherever he was. Is he in the Carolinas I saw somewhere? Virginia Beach. Virginia Beach. That's what it was. They weren't inside of Connected. If anybody has a CSI out there, they would sell me for like $2,500. Dude, I'd get down for a CSI. A thousand of them, Kyle. A thousand. So rare. I love the little skull lock, and I love the little centrifuge thing.
    40:49
    I'd get down for a CSI. Did you have an X-Files? I had an X-Files. My aunt has seen every single CSI iteration, every episode, every season, for every year. CSI New York. CSI Miami. CSI. Hotlanta. CSI Las Vegas. Hotlanta. CSI, After Hours but those are some interesting ones I mean Dark Knight every time I see that one and I play it it's always a good time it's one of those classic George Gomez designs you've got the Joker that's on that same this is the last action hero crane isn't it such a good game it's a ton of fun then CSI we already touched on so then we move into 2009 two games in 2009 so if you look at the total amount produced for those game is insane to me right like so the two games uh a total of under 1500 total units produced in 2009 24 based on the television series and then nba which was an export supposed to be an export only game 250 units that's insane to me because it's like of all the licenses ever like nba should be like in america too right like and so like didn't some did what's his name have one tiny have one of those or something where were they don't go for that much money though i don't think they're not insane because it's not a very good game i mean it's also in that era like as i'm sure you found you gotta find it in like the right you gotta put it in the right like get it up in the calves arena oh yeah like the right spot or even like at the at a place like the arcade at lakewood you put it next to the papa shot people are gonna be much more excited about of like that's a good idea yeah you need to pair it it pairs well does it play well with others i did get a kick out of that complete sidebar yeah when we were at pin brew um we had tags on all of the games and i put signs of like where different locations were and on one of the for sale signs corbin put plays well with other pinball machines or something plays well with others oh i listed again i listed that jurassic park on our website today and i put comes from a multi pinball home prefers to go back into a multi I like that. I'll have to check that out.
    43:03
    Just so they know. You're going to adopt these things. We screen our homes. We don't send these things to fucking anywhere. Can't have that sitting next to a... But to your point, Corbin, how everything was so slow for arcades and pinball and everything else, 2009, the only pinball manufacturer at that time, essentially, made less than 1,500 total games in a year. That's crazy. Because there was no one else. Well, do that math. No one else is making pinballs, though, right? No one else? Right. Say it's 1,500 games and the wholesale on those games. Because even Gene Cunningham was out by like 2008, 2009, right? Yeah. 1,500 games times four grand a game? I mean, where's- So literally us four running the company? Yeah. This is literally Shirley era building games. We got to get her on the podcast. Have we told the Shirley story? Do the people know of Shirley? We just say Shirley and no one knows who we're talking about. I think we just got to let it go. I don't know if we should. We're not going to go too deep into it. I don't think we should divulge. No, no. She'll be on. Yeah. So then we move into 2010 and we have two of the wholesale club specials. So Iron Man Classic and Batman Standard. So this is where they take the games. I don't know if I've ever seen this one. This one I think I've seen, but I don't know about that one. So it was interesting when I started to research. Yeah, exactly. Oh, yeah. That's why. Okay. And I only found one ad on all of Pinside for one ever being for sale. Because they sold three of them. Kyle, how much do you think the Batman standard on Pinside, the only one that's ever been listed on Pinside, was listed for? When was the date on it? Let me look it up and see when it was dated. What's your guess?
    44:44
    So the game came out in 2010 originally, right? Yeah. And it was probably like a cost of $200. $800. So this was in January of 2024 Oh well Probably 5 grand Zach how much do you think they listed a Batman standard So this is the game where they had less Is that Atlanta guy It could have been Crazy Don $60,000 Zach your guess I'm going to tell you it's less than $60,000 I know what I have Alright cool that narrows it down to Let's go $59,000 I was going to go $4,500. $10,000. The one person who ever listed it on here listed it for $10,000. It was not marked as sold. Decided to keep. What did they take out of it? I mean, obviously, it has no... No crane. No coin door. It's like two things in the game. You get the spinny joker, but that says you get no crane. No coin door. Okay. Yeah, I mean, these are the home ones, so... Iron Man Classic's not awful playing. Iron Man Classic, so we had one come from... You had that one. I was real tempted to be like...
    45:50
    But you had just had that incident with Aaron, so I think you were a little Spanish of Iron Men at that point. Yeah, they're catching on fire maybe. So also in 2010, 850 produced Big Buck Hunter. I want one of those. I'll say it out here. You know where to email us that if you got one. Where should the emails at? Freshpinball at gmail.com. Or Corbin at madpinball.com. So I love this game, but just because it's so... Random. That deer runs across you, just hit him. It's cool. You don't see it a ton. I get a kick. Well, it's coming right at you. I'm not going to pay $7,200 for it. I'm just going to say that just so you guys know. But we'll trade or do something cool. It's very much wizard mode is attainable on this. Like, you can be a very casual player. I'll trade that Star Trek next gen for one straight up. Okay. I mean, does that seem like a fair trade? That's a solid option. That's a solid trade. Yeah. If you have one, I'll do that. I think those next gens go pretty decently. Oh, yeah. I have no idea what. Six, pretty easy, Corbin. And then at the end of 2010 We have a true pro LE split here of Avatar So you have an Avatar Pro and an Avatar LE So my understanding in this era is These are between the two levels purely cosmetic So you're going to get The same thing, same mechs All the same mechs on the playfield But then you're going to get the nice chromey Side armor And then the lenticular back glass And all of that fun stuff I don't know, man. The Ampsuit model, which just falls down and lifts back up on the Pro model, has animated legs which march up and down. That sounds a lot like the mech on the Avatar Jersey Jackal. It does. Interesting. But the Pro did not have that. Okay. It's L.E.O. But that's not changing gameplay. No, I guess not, yeah. Shaker? Yes. Invisiglass? Or HD glass? No, they didn't even have that invented yet. The technology didn't exist.
    47:46
    So then that shoots us into 2011, which we roll into 2011 with The Rolling Stones, regular version in LE.
    47:55
    Man, this was a banger year, 2011. And then Tron Pro and Tron LE, which has been on my short list of games that I wouldn't mind. They're going to rerun it. They have to. Tron, the movie's coming back. I kind of want to do it. They're doing another movie. We should get one and do like the all the. I've never seen any of the movies, Jeff.
    48:13
    Have you played the pinball? All the Powerballs. Yeah, I've played the pinball. All the Powerballs. Yeah, yeah. In Tron? But I've never seen the movies. But apparently you have to put only Powerballs in it? Yeah, that's what I was just saying. Oh, okay. What were we playing? I was playing something that had all Powerballs in it. Okay, yeah, that's right. And then at the end of the year, Transformers Pro and LE. Transformers is cool. I'm telling you that Transformers LE is the deal, the bargain. I kept trying to buy that one at the Alliance Mall for so long. Can I tell you guys why Transformers leaves such a terrible taste in my mouth? I don't know why. When we were rolling through St. Louis and Kyle drove us to that place. You should have saved. With the dirtiest, brokenest games. We should have rescued that game. We could have rescued the game. No beer. Shitty beer. Oh, my God. Yeah. So you read it online, though, and it seems like it has the best potential because it's like one of those, what do you call them? draft by the ounce places.
    49:09
    For beer. By the ounce. I saw the episode the other day, actually. Did we talk about it? Yeah, yeah. We should have just taken it. We could have saved all those games.
    49:19
    So, yeah, that's a pretty banger. We should have kept that ACDC we had, too. Yeah, but that was right before things really started to ramp up for you. I know. I like the ACDC. Another ACDC will find us. Let's get a loosey one. Yeah, 2012, then you're looking at, I mean, And this really lights it on fire with ACDC because, to Kyle's point, they ran those for five years all the way to 2017. So, I mean, that's a nice long run on those games. There's a lot of them out there. There's probably still some sitting in a box somewhere. So that's when Steve Ritchie is officially back with Stern at that point because I don't believe that's a Steve Ritchie production. I think that's an actual – he's with Stern Design. And then we have John Borg doing X-Men Pro and X-Men Elite. It's so funny because these guys just like this is all they knew. They were like, we're just going to keep making games. So someone is going to buy them hopefully. Yep.
    50:09
    And then their third game of the year, and this is kind of when they're at that three games a year sort of cadence, you know, trimester thing, the George Gomez, the Avengers, which then, Corbin, you just recently put out en route the premium. I like it. I had a lot of fun with it when it was in the garage. It's that quarter up now. There we go. It got a trade in. It had 800 plays on it from the factory. So it's that quarter up. If you want to go play a brand new Avengers premium, literally felt like you put it right in the front window. So it gets all sunshiny. Yeah. I put it on the porch. It's on the patio. They put the umbrella up. If it's raining a little bit today, it'll be fine. Everything will be fine. So now we get to 2013 and this is when we start to get into the pro premium Ellie, uh, segments here. So 2013, we kick it off with Metallica pro premium and Ellie. And this is when we start to transition from that photorealistic art into actual artist-made renderings. So that's the Dirty Donnie art that everyone kind of goes gaga for. Let me ask you about this next game here. I see it coming up. I know it's one that's near and dear to you. I don't know what you mean. So of all the art packages, is the LE, like, total package your favorite all-around cabinet art? Without a doubt. Okay.
    51:23
    They're all interesting. No, it's a great question. I love the side armor on the Ellie with the light up. I love that kind of detail. Let's not even tell people what it is. It's Star Trek.
    51:34
    But to your point, though, there are a lot of times when a game comes out now, I like the Translate on the Jaws Pro. It seems like Stern's been doing that a lot. Yeah, I'd like to mix it up. Well, you know, we should probably give the Pro buyer something better. Cooler R.
    51:51
    Our Kong is getting close to being like, Before it goes back out, I have the team holding. I'm going to put the banana rod on tomorrow. I saw a banana rod, Dad. It's pretty sweet. It's a pizza banana. Yeah, he sent us two of them. So what are we going to do with the second one? We should give it away. Prize. Oh, prize for sure. We should definitely give it away. I have your chicken bucket, too, for your jaws. I need to get that to you. I was thinking about pulling that jaws recorder out. You should because, A... And then maybe we'll unbox a new one and put it up there. God, that's sexy. The 50th. Have we even seen the new 50th yet? In my mind. What do you think it's going to look like? It's going to be, I think... It's going to be blue and white. Blue and white. Yes, I envision very much like the whole 4th of July, red, white, and blue. Very basic, very classic. I think that's where we're going with this. I'd love to see something enhanced with 3D glasses. It looks normal if you just look at it, but you throw on 3D glasses, it's like 4D.
    52:47
    Like a stranger thing upside down. We need a whirlwind fan on top. It also sprays water I have to stand behind the game and squirt people with a squirt gun Jeff comes every time How's it going? It wouldn't surprise me if they do something 3D I mean they tied it in with the video mode I honestly always forget that that's 3D Me too I wonder if they can do something with the artwork Like they did on Stranger Things With like the UV you're saying? But like the blood pops instead of Or just as like happy 4th of July They did something like that That'd be really funny. That'd be wild. If they added something like that. It's the Blood Red Kiss edition. But we'll know if anyone that's listening to this in the future, you'll already know exactly what it looks like because we're speculating because this is the night of the correlation corner. And if you need one, we might have some left. Corbin, C-O-R-B-I-N at madpinball.com Or Jeffy Jeff. If you must.
    53:49
    Jeffy Jeff at madpinball.com Super near and dear to my heart Where was I when I was playing a pro And I was like man this is just a good time If you had the space I'm saying maybe your collection was at I don't know how many you'd have to be at Maybe 50 in your house or whatever Would you have all three of them next to each other If I had 100 If I had a building where I had 100 Then it's like at that point I could justify having all three But you would Would that be the first one that you would have And he would link all the flippers so I could play all three games at one time. What I would do is I would have them completely separate rows from each other and then I would wait to see how long it would take for Tia or Norn to notice that we have all three. It would be a while.
    54:36
    So then we move on to 2014 where you have Mustang Pro Premium and LE. That's when we're getting to the 500 produced here on Mustang. I almost like the Premium back. I do like that orange. That pops. But we had a pro come through. I think that was right before you kind of took over, and you were kind of hemming and hawing, and then it was like, hey, man, it's a pro. Let's move this on. You're right. So then they vaulted Iron Man at that point and re-ran that. Eight million times? Oh, my God, yeah. At least eight million. It said 300 is what it says on here. Yeah, right.
    55:12
    And then we go to... Gary's a straight shooter, bro. He also didn't release any of these numbers. Just the LE numbers, basically, yeah. And then The Walking Dead, which is being hot and heavily rumored right now as being the remastered game of 2025. I kind of like that title. Dude, I'm just drawn, dude. So I saw an original Ghostbusters topper pop up for sale. What's too much to pay for that? Four grand is too much. Three? Three is also too much. Okay. They're like $800 now. Yeah. When they rerun it, they will also do a new topper for it. Did you see they're doing Star Wars toppers too? Is that topper that cool though? That Star Wars one is terrible. Is it going to be that shit then? Yeah. Okay. Fair point. So what is the new thing? So basically it's a fucking base that's like $400, right? Right. $400. And then you put a piece of plastic in it for another $200. It's plexiglass. Oh, okay. They said it's bulletproof. Is it? That's what Eric or whatever from... He said that it was bulletproof. It would stop a bullet. John Wick would, but anyway.
    56:23
    It's not out yet. Sorry. Sorry, we're not supposed to talk about that. This is classified information.
    56:29
    Forget you heard that. But the base has a node board to integrate with all of the other expression light stuff. So now in your cabinet and in your speakers and on your topper you have... But they're not doing cabinets anymore. They did it on Wick. They did it on... They'll do it when they feel it's appropriate to the theme. So when they think they have a hit. I feel like there was one. No, I feel like they put it on games that they... WIC was like one that was like maybe just a stretch on it. I guess it was just music at first. That's when they... Like music pens at first. It was. Isn't WIC's AI controlled or something? The Rose Sky now. No, that's... That's controlling our lives! That's the Harry Potter art, okay? That's not the end. Oh my god. No, Harry Potter!
    57:14
    Anyway. But yeah, that's that topper. So for Ghostbusters, I would imagine that they're going to have something. I would think that's a little steep. What about like two? I think two you could get away with. That and the Star Wars one, that R2-D2 one. That's why they did this one, this new version of the Star Wars one. One will find us.
    57:36
    The hot rumor is that the next Cornerstone from Stern could be a Star Wars themed pinball machine. Too long ago, right? I'm going to be a hope for a good one I like these other ones but I want a real good one So Zach you are the biggest Star Wars fan Around this table So if you could pick one piece Of Star Wars Whether it's a movie, a show, a series Whatever What one would you make? All Ewoks Yeah totally Probably the original trilogy for sure Like a New Hope But all three of them to get mixed together somehow Sir that is a lame answer I going to need you to do better I stand by the Data East one You not going to have a Clone Wars one That part of the reason why I like the Data East one so much because I feel like that one hits the best. It does. I had that here for a while. It has the Death Star that moves. Short to Death Star. And then you shoot the Stormtroopers with a gun. It's sweet. I mean, that one was a... Whenever I was fixing that one for someone in... Didn't fix it or whatever. I'm sorry to end up with it. But it's how does this keep up? I was like, this is a cool game. This has like so much of Star Wars in it. Like it was from that era. Some of those data East like Jurassic Park was the same way.
    58:50
    Pretty much. So anyway, the big thing. Star Wars, would you? The big. That's the original trilogy. Again. Yeah. What do you I know you want episode one. No, no, no. You want to George R. Bing's. Hear me out. Originally, I was thinking episode. Oh, shoot me in the face.
    59:07
    But here's where I'm at now. Hear me out. We're listening. Not based on a movie. Not based on a show. Based on an individual character in the Star Wars universe. Thrawn. A Darth Vader pinball. How freaking badass would that be? It would be. Like you could have his little TIE fighter and you could have like the battles that he goes through throughout the... Oh, it's such a cute little TIE fighter. Oh, it's so tiny. I just want to... He's got little dice in the window. He does. Little tchotchkes. Little dancing hula girl. That's where I'm at If I could have one it would be a Darth Vader Only You planted that scene somebody else's ear Because I read this somewhere else Did you ever get a Stern Star Wars? Sure I got a Star Wars Let me tell you It's about a quarter up It was on vacation for a while at the Lair It did go out to this place called Lair Got about 36 plays Went to quarter up pretty much brand new It did None of those were free. Since then, it's been played a lot. I like a 90s Williams style of the original trilogy. I just feel like the original trilogy... If they would have done it in like 94. You have the Data East one. You have the Sega one. You have the Stern one. It's like... And none of them blow me away. Yes, I like the Data East one the best, but none of them like... I kind of like the Darth Vader idea. It's a good idea. Wouldn't that be cool? I also like the idea, just that I'm thinking about it, of getting as many of the different Star Wars together as we can. I thought that's what we were doing for Sam's wedding. We are. We need to find the trilogy one. Where are we going to find that? I don't know, but Zach already told me he was going to spray paint a gold for me. What about the fucking Hankin one? Where are you going to find that? Yeah, Rob Burke. Rob will help us out with that one. He's trying to call me or whatever. I don't know why. He did. That was weird. You're lying to me. I don't believe you. I am not. I will show you my call box, sir. Did he think your name was Corwin? He was trying to call the people at Spooky. I get emails sometimes, or sometimes my emails go to him. Yeah. 825 AM. And I was awake. You know I did block a number It wasn't time for a nap No no no naps are later than that Had to be awake for elevensies Elevensies? What was that? It's like from Lord of the Rings Where they have to have their little meals Before they have their actual meals I don't know but okay Fair enough Alright so that's the Stern Sam era Some peaks some valleys Some low production times All of that stuff So, Kyle, what would be your best of the best and your worst of the worst from the Stern Sam era? If you could have one, what would the one be? And if you could say, this is the one that just doesn't cook my goose. I bet you could guess, which is odd for me. You love World of Fortune. No. CSI. That's my guess. World Poker Tour. No, Tron is the best. Tron. Tron is the best. Okay, my guess would be the one that you like the least would be... I'm going to go Shrek. No, Wheel of Fortune. Oh, all right. I'm sorry. I like Shrek. I know B for Shrek. I love Shrek. Somebody.
    62:18
    Somebody. A lot of Smash Mouth. Somebody. It's licensed. Somebody. You know they get a quarter every time that that's played. Somebody. Good for them, man. Right?
    62:32
    So what is it about Tron that speaks to you? Is it the brutality, the speed? Yeah, the brutality and the speed. I like that. That game is just... And I'm not huge on plastic ramps. I like plastic ramps. I prefer wire form because of the sound.
    62:49
    But the speed of plastic ramps... And I do like Norman. He's plastic ramps. It's interesting. I never really hate on one ramp or the other. Same. I was like, it's a ramp, dude. I never knew that was a thing really Materials matter Dude but There's plenty of sweet plastic around What would be a top game I would almost have to say ACDC I really enjoy it I mean close number two though It's uh The time that we took it VFW Then you let me borrow it in the garage for a few days I played the shit out of it I had a lot of fun with it Because that has a lower play field. It does. Yeah. And I felt like now the bell on that reminds me of the gong on Kong a little bit. The Kong gong.
    63:38
    To where you can hit that shot and you can hit it clean and maybe the bell's just like, no, sorry, not happening. Same thing with the gong. No, it's a really cool one. I liked it. That was one of the ones that when we took it on trade early on, I appreciated how much the music can enhance a game. If you're at home and you're playing it Turn it up and have a good time It just makes it so much more immersive Doesn't it have the band up top too on it? They dance The leg kick and the whole nine So what would be your bottom? Oh I don't know You're not going to hurt any feelings I'm trying to decide The bottom of the bottom The low of the low Of Stern Sam's system I bet you've probably not even probably seen an NBA. Never seen an NBA. Yeah. Have we seen one?
    64:30
    I'm not almost like, oh, I hate this fucking game. No, but there's got to be one that's the least favorite of the era.
    64:38
    Same game, ACDC. Because I don't know. But the pro. The pro. Bitch. I hate them to even have it. What's your top of the Sam era, Corbin? My top? I'm going to say Big Buck Hunter. no what's your bottom big book no no no wizard of oz um tron's good acdc is really good avengers premium has been a recent like surprise yeah i'll say star trek i really enjoyed star i'm not gonna give one because i can't do that star trek i really enjoy when you let me borrow the the premium he doesn't he wouldn't let me borrow zellie it's like a star trek my least favorite no i really there's a lot of really Cool shots on Star Trek. Yeah, and like the effects, the lighting effects, even on the premium are like very cool. Agreed. And the Pro is just fine. The Pro is fine. It is. I like, I told you, I talked about my Transformers cabinet. Of the Pros, like that for me is like, it's not stripped. Pirates is solid. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So my least, I would say, I, the art on like World of Warcraft. It's so bad. It's bad. It looks like AI did it. as far as like games go like because there's like the rest of these games are fine they're fine they don't offend me like Rolling Stones I get tired of quick but whatever I like how your but the redeeming thing on World Poetic Couture is it's the art it's the garbage it's like so many drop targets and then it just has that fucking like you know Steve Ritchie's just like smoked a joint and is like fucking just wailing on his guitar for the soundtrack yeah for sure my top game in that era by no surprise would be Star Trek it's one of those ones to me as I've talked about before that anybody can walk up and play it and enjoy it because literally if you're even just shooting up the middle all day you're going to hit a couple ramps and you're going to take down the Enterprise what's your high score on Star Trek? I'm not amazing on that one I think I have like 400 and some million is my high score on that one which took me a long time to get past Pop Pop because Pop Pop was killing it I had like 290 million which is a pretty nice score on there so I did play a Star Trek Pro That's where I was at when Norton and I were in Niagara Falls at that Family Fun Center. They had that and Adam's Family.
    66:53
    I got the most warp ramps that I've ever gotten on the one at the arcade. I got 18 in one game, which is insane for me. We maxed out the jump rope on Champion Pub the other night when we were playing it. Oh, shit.
    67:04
    It's not that many. Then you're always the champion. Keith had it before. It's like, all right, so it's you and then Keith. It's whoever the last one gets to put their initials in. Where's Whodunit at? I don't know where Whodunit is.
    67:22
    Is that at Catwood? No, it's at a campground. My least favorite would be X-Men of this era. There are Star Trek premium scores, like over a billion. Whenever we had that LE in, and it was even like a Magneto edition or whatever. I like the theme. I like X-Men. You have a play field on the wall. I do have the play field on the wall. I just couldn't get into the game. I tried.
    67:47
    I wanted to. If there was one that we were going to like, it was like number five. It was five or something. It was number five, which is the same as Turtles and Ultraman. How do we end up with all these same numbers? It's very bizarre.
    68:02
    That's just rush. So email us in. What the fuck? Freshpinball at gmail.com. Let us know your tops and your bottoms of the Sam era. Your loves and your hates. what's good in a tournament, what's fun at home, and all of those things. Definitely would love to hear some feedback on all of those. Should we give them a tease? So what next season is going to be about? We should. We're just going to get back to our roots. We're going to get in our time machines. We're going to get into our Stargates and our DeLoreans. We're going to go back and we're going to start. Our centrifuges. We're going to look at some things that we've talked about in past episodes, maybe things that we want to revisit and we got right some things we got wrong things that we still want to work on or whatever Zach also didn't talk about that music yet either oh yes please so I was at the shop fresh pinball I was at the shop working today and had some primers on at the end of the album and went to radio and all of a sudden this random song and I was like what was that I rewinded a little bit It was this band that was using Pinball samplers As part of the music And it wasn't Bally Williams music I gotta find it Sorry Mr. Bungle yes Mr. Bungle The album was Mr. Bungle And the song is Carousel And it has Cyclone For sure And then we found out Stubb and My Ass Is On Fire also have Earthshaker and another System 11 I don't remember either way more System 11 music but yeah it was pretty cool surprise at the end of the day and this was back from the early 90's it's Mike Patton from Faith No More it's his side project must be a pinhead especially in the early 90's Yeah. Well, it's interesting. I mean, the more that we've kind of gotten ingrained in the inner side of pinball, there are a lot of musicians who are into this. Like I saw Stained was just in Akron not that long ago, and the lead singer is wearing a Stern hoodie, and Ryan Adams is a big pinhead. Shane Told, obviously, who does the Nudge cast. Oh, yeah. We're going to get one of these famous people to come play pinball somewhere. Yeah, it's like I think there are a lot. The guy from Bare Naked Ladies is a huge pinhead I think music and pinball I heard something about Jack White being one too He was Funhouse The guy from Bare Naked Ladies did Yeah with Rush He was big involved with the production of that game Well and then The guy from Anthrax did the music For Black Knight Slash has done so much Slash yeah The lead guitarist from Creed has done a bunch of music For like Venom and other games So there's definitely a connection there Of course you did the music for Venom Wow It's the next Deadpool So there's a cool connection I think Between music and pinball I think there's definitely a major connection there Any final thoughts Kyle? Do we have any events coming up? We do, we will touch on that Whenever we get to meet Go out and play some of those weird sterns Go out and just play in general Play as much pinball as possible If you see an NBA somewhere Go play that shit for sure And then if you have one for sale Who do we email to? Freshpinball at gmail.com Or Corbin at madpinball.com Do not email Jeff at madpinball.com Email Jeff because he'll tell you Madpinball.com and his cell phone number is 330 933 In all reality, if you want the best chance of me taking it Email me Jeff normally works as my buffer Gatekeeper Cockbogger, whatever you want to call it Whatever you want to term it. Pinball block. Corbin, final thoughts?
    72:11
    I had some. Do you want me to talk events while you get your final thoughts together? So here in July, we have a couple cool events that we're going to be involved with that I'm actually going to be out of town for. So Corbin will be steering the ship. Did you approve that with HR yet? I didn't talk to HR. I didn't talk to the boss. Zach did ask about that if HR was... I mentioned it. He's like, you know, I didn't see a request come through. Here's the problem. Corbin couldn't find the carbon copies for me to fill out the form in Triplicate.
    72:45
    But here in North Canton, the Sweeper City Pinball Championships will be going on July 17th through the 20th. Yeah, Greg Kennedy, Mike Bear.
    72:58
    Awesome player. He basically co-TDs with galvin like i know galvin is so greg was actually just over for like the world championships over in like austria or wherever it was yeah it was some big tournament thing that i'm always have we met him yeah he bought dirty harry last year okay we met him and his dad that's nice so that'll be sweeper city the 17th through the 20th if you want to participate uh you can hop on to Facebook and get in there and do that. IFPA, check it out.
    73:31
    So they're shooting for 128 registered players, which at that point it then becomes huge whoppers. There might be like a pre-Finnies tournament. Is that still possible? Yeah, so Wednesday the 16th. You'll be around for that. I will be there for that. That will be an IFPA tournament. Two weeks ahead of time. It's all him. Starting tomorrow.
    73:53
    Starting tomorrow. So that'll be those dates. Super City next week and then. Yeah, so then quickly after that we have Pinberg, which we are sponsoring and providing the games for the Stern Gauntlet. In partnership with Mike North Canton, guys. That's right. Hoover Pinball League, Mike Baer is going to help us out with that. But that's July 23rd through the 27th at the Resine Esports in Bridgeville, Pennsylvania. Over $42,000 in prizes. obviously tickets for the tournament are already sold out but yeah that's going to be we also have the Rubber City Tattoo Convention Akron, Ohio it'll be a free play arcade any thoughts on what you might take up there? Metallica is an absolute that's a banger that's with the expression lights in the cabinet Topper you can put our plates on too Chef's Kiss I'm not sure what else is going to be there we'll have to figure it out by then whatever fits in the trailer. Venom! Venom's going down to Holy Moly, I think. So cool stuff that we have coming. Obviously we talked about Hexa Space Hunt should be here. It could be here by the end of the week at this point since it's out of quarantine. Honestly, I would say Surprise is only coming from Memphis. Whenever he says it's coming today, I'm like, it didn't get released and it's not going to get here today, dude. They've got to give it a check up. I would say Friday's the holiday though, so Monday at the latest, maybe Thursday. So that's coming. It would be fun to play a nice French game on 4th of July. Thanks for the gift.
    75:25
    And then we have Merlin's Arcade coming. One of the demo units for Merlin's Arcade. So that'll get in. It's a prototype. We're going to get to play the prototype. We're going to tour that around here, and then we're making plans. It'll be at all these events that are coming up. Yeah, possibly Nickel City is talking about having it for a run. Rochester Pinball Collective. Pittsburgh, we're trying to get it in over there as well. That Dave Sousa character isn't there. If he's nice again, it's going to be such a good year. I haven't checked on the weather because it's been too hot. It's been hot, hot, hot. All right, Corbin, back to you for final thoughts, buddy. No, I think you covered all. You covered all the bases? Yeah, I don't think there's much else.
    76:06
    You know, quarter-ups Monday nights, Lakewood. I was talking to them. They said they had 32 people last night. Ooh, all right. So that was good.
    76:14
    Yeah, we'll keep new stuff. Phineas on Wednesdays here in Canton. Are they starting again tomorrow? You know, I'm going to tell everyone that we're just going to be doing it every Wednesday. If everyone shows up, let's just keep rolling. Yeah, if you're there and I'm there, we'll play. We're going to switch some games around here soon, I think. Kong will be going back to quarter up. And Barberton is getting ready to get started. I think tomorrow I'm going to get a load out there, so we'll get that party rolling.
    76:38
    Something else, I just, I don't know. Anyway, yeah. Yeah. All right, Kyle, if you want to play us out here with the Mad Pinball jingle, thanks, everyone, for listening. Play some Midnight Madness tonight. Play some Midnight Madness. Play some pinball. See you next season. The next time that we see you will be the news. Which is funny because this is our radio program. I'll be seeing you. I'll be outside your window as you're listening to this podcast. Just creeping. Turn the music off so they can hear. Please make sure that you drive safely because if I'm outside your car window while you're listening to this, I'm going to be sure. This might be shut off.
    77:19
    Thank you.