From unsolved mysteries to unexplained phenomena, from comedy goal to relationship fails, Amazon Music's got the most ad-free top podcasts, included with Prime. Because the only thing that should interrupt your listening is, well, nothing. Download the Amazon Music app today. Support is available 24-7 with VerboCare. We're here day or night. ready whenever you need help because a great trip starts with the right support the pinball network is online launching silver ball chronicles turn them on turn them on turn on those sad songs dammit jersey jack is it good i mean it's star trek it's the best star trek they've done i like it Hello everyone, I'm David Dennis and this is Silver Ball Chronicles. And with me is Ron Karate Champ Hallett. What's up, fella? Hello. I like that name. Yeah, people might not know this, Ron, but you were once a karate champ. Champ. Yeah, Data East Karate Champ. I was a world record holder for nine years. World record holder. Mm-hmm. That encompasses the entire planet, right? The entire planet, yes. I had the highest score of all time on Karate Champ. Wow. That blows my mind. You have a plaque and everything. I have a plaque. I did it during a tournament in public, so no Billy Mitcheling here. People actually witnessed it. Were you in, like, the Guinness book that people get at Christmastime? I don't know if they put those in there anymore. Oh. But I was. I'm still listed on the Twin Galaxies site, but I'm second now. So how do you get back into first place? I'm too old. Too old. Can't do it. Too old to begin the training. I was in my 30s when I did it. I'm 50 now. It's not happening. Wow. Okay. Yeah. Some employee at Galloping Ghost Arcade beat it. Not fair. Screw that guy. Not fair. Or gal. So what have you been doing? You been traveling? Have I been traveling? Oh, yeah. Well, I'm trying to think of the last time we recorded. Was it Expo yet? Yeah. It was just about. Just about. Oh, it was before Expo. Okay. So I went to Expo. You're making this super easy this month for everybody, Ron. Yeah, I saw. They're going to be so mad about how much crap they're going to have to listen to before they get to the topic. I played every new game that I could possibly play. Your favorite was Elton John? Of all the new games I played, yeah, yeah, I'd say that. Wow! I mean, as far as new games, I mean, Pulp Fiction I'd already played. A lot of the games I'd already played that were newer, like Galactic Tank Force, et cetera. I mean, the only two I played, Labyrinth, Elton John. I'm trying to think of completely new I hadn't played yet. Oh, there was that eight ball beyond homebrew. That was cool. Nice. Very good. Very good. So there's lots of goings on in the industry. Stern has released a couple of re-releases, which is really exciting this year. James Bond code has finally caught up to where the game is not a good chopping mess. You with your bond. It's been almost a year. What are you going to do when the Goldfinger LE edition comes out? I'll probably, I don't know. It depends on the price. That's pretty awesome, man. Goldfinger is a pretty epic, epic moment in my life when it comes to cinema history. I'll tell you that. Do you expect me to talk? No, Mr. Bond, I expect you to buy this game. For a slight markup. A slight markup. I wanted to let everybody know we've added show notes to silverballchronicles.com. You can jump on over there, Ron. You can check out all of the show notes that we've put in there. All of the various topics that we talk about are listed. Then I have all the sources. So you can take a look at all of that stuff. So one thing that we have noticed is when we place some of the sources in the description of the podcast, it tends to mess up with the direct links and things. So we've put them on to the website, and I think we've improved the experience for everyone. Mm-hmm. Mm. As everybody knows, we have sold out to Patreon, and we're only doing this for the money. Well, David is. That's right. That's right. Papa needs a new Porsche. Mm-hmm. And the only way I'm going to get that is at $3 a month for probably, what, 300,000 months? so if you'd like to pop in for a month or two uh give us a three dollar donation just to say thanks let us know that you're actually listening uh join us for some behind the scenes chit chat we've had quite a few people just kind of come in for a month and go out and that is perfectly cool that is cool with us um nothing has changed on the podcast it'll always be free on the tpn feed and our dedicated Silver Ball Chronicles feed. But if you want early ad-free access, you get that at $6 a month. And if you stick around for three months, you get a sticker. Ron, big fan of stickers, aren't you? Yeah, I love stickers. Do you have a sticker book? I have like a sticker piece of my wall in my game room where I just put stickers because where else am I going to put them? You don't have any Silver Ball Chronicles stickers, do you? I don't think so. I don't think I gave you any stickers. Oh, my God. Yeah, I got a lot of stickers. Hey, speaking of stickers, if you stick around at the next tier for three months, our elitist tier, you get a free Silver Ball Chronicles t-shirt, and it's tri-blend. All three of the blends. That's better than dual blend. It is. It is. Dual blend. Oh, why did I think that was funny? Do you know we're still active on our Facebook page, which you can get to at facebook.com slash silverballchronicles. Join us over there. Leave us a five-star review wherever you found us. If that's Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, your favorite podcatcher. If it's on the Internet, if it's on the IPDB database, if it's over on this week in Pinball's database. Always leave us a five-star review. Anything less than five stars and you're dead to Ron. What happens if four stars is the max they allow? Four stars is the max they allow. Don't leave us. don't leave us a review. Oh, okay. Only five. If it's ten, ten is okay. Anything less than five is not appropriate. But if it's a ten-star rating and you give us a five, you're also dead to Ron. There's also t-shirts. We sold a t-shirt last month. Oh, we did? A t-shirt. Ah, cool. I think it went to, like, Virginia or something. Thank you, Virginia. Thank you. Virginia is for Chronicles lovers. Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. Comments and corrections from the previous episode. Speaking of Virginia, Virginia emailed us to silverballchronicles at gmail.com. And they said that Bill Paxton and Bill Pullman look nothing alike. And then they also sent us a photo. But in this photo, this photo is skewed because Bill Pullman is much younger than Bill Paxton in this photo. Or is that Bill Paxton? No, no. See, you don't even know. No. Paxton is on the left, and he doesn't look anything like Pullman. I agree completely. Yeah, because Pullman is older in this picture. His nose is completely different. But look at those eyes, those endearing eyes, the hairline. The hairline is completely different. Yeah, you're right. No, it's exactly the same. No. No, Virginia, you are correct. David is wrong. The entire state of Virginia is wrong. Other than that, no corrections, which I think is pretty good. And most of the time I think it's because any time there's a correction, it's generally something kind of minor. But we do get lots of folk that will send us little links here and there of information that's like, hey, you should add this or you forgot to talk about that or whatever. We love those. Silverballchronicles at gmail.com. We love to take a look at those and do some reviews. I think we'll probably get a lot of emails about this month's topic. What do you think? Yeah, like you missed this. You missed this because a lot of people were here for this one. Yeah. I was here for this one, at least the last part of it. This is a topic that I'm not particularly well-versed in. This is something that I had to do a little more extra research and listening in. And when that happens, I always end up uncovering things that I'm like, ah, do I talk about this or do I not talk about this? And then the worst part is in like three months, I'll listen to something and they'll bring up, oh, here's this fact about Capcom. And I'll be like, frig, that was a good point. I can't go back and change that. I mean, I could, but I choose not to. You could just use AI and like replicate us and add it. Yeah, so I did use AI a couple of episodes ago to help me write out the episode. I put a disclaimer in. Everybody knows the disclaimer. Was that two or three episodes back? I have to say I'm not using it anymore because it kind of sucks. It's very wrong. And then it made my introductions to games way too long, and I tried to cut it and mix it around. It just didn't work. So this is all on Ron this month, guys. Shall we begin? Sure. Capcom was a game company who wanted to get into the hustle and bustle of the pinball industry. They wanted to ride that wave of popularity. They wanted to jump on that rocket ship that was pinball in 1995. But sadly, they were the victim of wrong place, wrong time. Add to that a bunch of mismanagement, timelines that were too short, and Python Anghelo, and you've got yourself a recipe for a big Steven pile. This month, we stumble through the startup of a company, the failure of that company, we trip over a crazy collector or a dreamer, whatever the heck you want to call them, and then the sad demise of everything that we thought could have been. this month the Capcom debacle. Ron, what do you remember about Capcom? When I say Capcom, what do you think of? Other than that Oscar-worthy intro you just gave. Wow, thank you. By Oscar-worthy, I think you were going for an Oscar. I don't know if you're winning one. Capcom, when I think of Capcom, I think of mostly ex-Williams employees that probably got paid more to go to Capcom. I think of the mechs in the Capcom games are just awesome. They are so loud and just heavy duty. I think of the strongest flippers ever on a pinball machine. Wow. Okay. Okay. So when I think Capcom, I think of like Street Fighter and Resident Evil. Those kind of things. And I also think about a terrible website. Do you see this website? This Capcom.com website? it's terrible and then you go to capcom usa and it's very nice and pretty but it's just it's what a weird landing page this is very 1999 or 2003 back there it's very weird but that's what i think i think of something totally different when i think capcom do you remember megaman megaman was a capcom property uh is that like on nintendo yeah how do you not know these things you were a friggin karate champ champion yeah in the 80s huh all right i was getting past my prime of the beginning of the uh nes era oh i see that was my peak although i do i do have a ton of nes games who doesn't it was probably the last console i actually had a bunch of games for capcom this company that's known mostly for street fighter the absolute what number one fighter of the 19 early 90s right well street fighter 2 right okay yeah street fighter 2 the street fighter series but there was also mortal combat was in there but i would say what street fighter was really the the tournament game of choice it was probably amongst the biggest earners of all time in coin op do you remember the craze around the fighting game uh not really no neither do i but if you do know about that i have seen it in various documentaries which could be propaganda but anyway it was a big time they wanted to get deeper into coin op and the way that you got more coins was you got into pinball and that's what a company called data east did well gary stern of stern pinball and data east pinball and sega pinball said capcom had decided in japan to do this probably looking at data east success in pinball that was like that was it somebody in japan in a boardroom was basically saying well data east is building pinball machines look at all the pinball machines are selling we could be doing the same thing well george gomez also has a pretty uh pretty smart insight into this as well george says the guy who convinced capcom to get into the pinball business didn't really know what they didn't know they didn't understand the business. Ah, so there's a little bit of, let's say, politicking, salesmanship, perhaps, on breaking into that business. Who is that guy that George Gomez is talking about? That would be Python Anghelo. We know him from, what was that, episode three, probably? Bat shit crazy, the Python Anghelo story? This is like... She'll have to bleep out now. Oh, yeah, well, that's how it goes. Well, how about a Jeff Powell? People know Jeff Powell. Jeff Powell worked for Capcom at the time, but what did he think about Python Anghelo? He says, Python's got his detractors out there. People love him or hate him. I have to love him because he was one of the people responsible for hiring me at Capcom. Well, nobody's ever told me exactly who made the final decisions there. well yeah i mean i have to like Python Anghelo because he hired me you don't have to like somebody because they hired you but i get what he means python was a charming guy you can go back and listen to that episode right he was a salesman he was a relationship person he was he was he was pretty nutty and fun but you can see that he's a very polarizing figure another person ward Pemberton, you may remember him as the designer of Bally's BMX, Dungeons and Dragons. Fathom. And the only one that matters, Fathom. Ah, mousing around. And don't forget GoldenEye. Oh, yeah, that's a good one. The good bot game. The good bot. You b****ers. So what did Ward have to say about Python? He said he had some good stuff, but he was a little eccentric. Yeah, that's a good way to put it. A little eccentric. All right. So let's draw back here, okay? Python Anghelo is having some trouble at Williams in the early 90s, right? He's doing Popeye. Well, he wanted to do Popeye, so that was his idea. He's coming off that smash hit a few years earlier of Bugs Bunny's birthday bash. It's been... I think it's Bugs Bunny's birthday ball. Whatever. It's a game anyway. No use getting the facts straight on our history podcast. Send your corrections to silverballchronicles.gmail.com, and I might read those corrections. Bill Paxton, Bill Pullman. He's having some trouble over there, right? You know, it's been a lot of years of crazy. Williams is getting a lot more corporate. But Data East has broken out to be a pretty substantial force. now with the death of of bally uh uh you know bally midway uh gottlieb is is is very diminished now that their premier technologies there's a big change in that industry capcom looks back and says well we could get into coin op deeper with pinball get more coins and then they bump into somebody of a Python Anghelo who's like oh of course it's super easy to build pinball here's what you need to do and of course it's a lot harder to build a pinball machine than it is to build a video cabinet well according to python he's actually you should probably do this because you do a really good python voice all right for the one and only time the podcast i'll do the money yeah i'll do the python voice okay here we go yes when i left williams i knew they wouldn't do pinball circus that's why i left wait are you sitting down i took 190 grand pay cut oh okay so what's pinball circus that is the it's it's in like a big arcade cabinet upright cabinet but it's got buttons on the side and you basically it's it's a vertical pinball you're trying to get the ball up to the top it's it's a pinball with levels jerry levels and it's pretty neat but i mean it wasn't there's no way that thing was going to sell it's a novelty game and it cost a ton to make there's no way williams was going to make that yeah so he had some big fight and pinball circus was probably one of those things it probably wasn't the only thing it probably but there was a lot of other things and you know what he left williams now i don't know if he left williams or if he was asked to leave williams either way apparently he made a hundred and ninety thousand dollar pay cut which I think is probably exaggeration. Oh, that's definitely exaggerated. He exaggerated a lot of things. Like $150,000 in 1995. That's like epic money. Yeah. Python would have stories like how he was a spy for the government and all kinds of – he had a lot of crazy stories. Like Steve Ritchie talks about how he got pulled over in his Porsche, right? And Steve Ritchie is like the guy who sells everything. He gets royalties on all of his games. But he wasn't driving like a 911 Porsche. He was driving like the little one. The little one? Okay. Yeah, the 944 or 924. I mean, it's a cool car nonetheless, but, you know, people say Porsche, and they immediately think like $300,000 car. And that's the guy who's selling a hell of a lot more than Python Anghelo, right? And Capcom, getting a little bit deeper into the idea of really going forward into this pinball industry, began shopping around. Because quite frankly, you can't just start up a pinball manufacturing company. We've seen a lot of that recently, but it was always best at the time to go and buy something. So they began looking for various manufacturers of pinball. The company that they bumped into in 1994 was a company called GameStar. What did GameStar do, Ron? Some of these names, GameStar, PinStar. GameStar made ticket redemption games for places like Chuck E. Cheese. Remember them? No? No, we didn't have that here. Oh, in Canada? And working there at the time was Ward Pemberton. Good old Ward. Yeah, Chuck E. Cheese. Yeah, they had one right by me. Used to go there all the time. What was it like? So we would always see Chuck E. Cheese in commercials here because in my part of the country, we get like the Boston PBS feed. As a kid, it was cool as hell. I'm sure it was amazing. The big animatronic Elvis they had there. And then didn't they have like the heads would sing and they would be all like. Elvis was a complete animatronic, like the entire body moved. Like Disney style? Like those movies where the animatronics come to life and kill people. That was this thing. Cool. Yeah, he was a lion because he was the king. Get it? Elvis, the king. And he sang actual Elvis songs. Hang on. And he had an Elvis impersonator who was actually good, do the intros, like when he would talk. Yeah. So cool. Well, Ward Pemberton, when he had left Williams just after Gilligan's Island, he went back to being a firefighter. but he also sort of part-time-ish would do these designs for GameStar. By the summer of 1995 Capcom took over the operation of GameStar and established Capcom Coin which was based in Chicago So we off to the races But then they gotta staff up. So if you got a bunch of guys that have done sort of redemption games, you know, and you got Ward Pemberton, who's made some okay designs, you still need to staff up. You need coders. You need mechanical guys and gals. You need some real designers. You need some pizzazz, some excitement. So what do you do? How do you get those people? Well, Gary Stern says they hired a lot of Williams people. Whether they were unsuccessful because of their own practices or because the market had blipped and they missed the high point, I don't know. So Gary knows that they went after the Williams people. We all know Capcom is not around and it didn't go very well. and by the title of this episode called the Capcom debacle, we know that something's going on here, but they were unsuccessful. So they cobbled together some of these poached people and we'll get into some of the names in a moment, but the design teams, they got to work with, what they did is they pulled in all these people, sit them together in teams, but then they pulled them in all different directions as to what they wanted to do, right? Like here's this theme and here's that theme and here's this type of production and build this mech and then choose that mech. But they had to start all over again. They had to create a board set. They had to create controllers. They had to, you know, they had to find parts and sourcing and all that stuff. They were really all over the place. And it was incredibly confusing to begin with, because they were in such a scramble to get started. part of the problem is said that Python Anghelo who had a bit of a rough leadership style was really undisciplined and not much of a leader which is why there was so much confusion and so many teams being pulled in so many different directions does that sound like something that you know would happen under python's leadership i could see that well jeff powell says whenever i worked with python i kind of have to pull the reins in and say python here sit down tell me how you want this and then it's up and adam's somewhere else he's one of those types that's always bouncing off the walls it's hard to nail him down on stuff but certainly has a lot of great ideas what can i say python is python a lot of guys have heard a lot of stories and they're always fun to hear his antics and misadventures and whatnot yeah so i mean this is this is top down right so by contrast when we hear all these stories about data east and when it was starting up right it was like Joe Cam and Cal and Gary Stern, and they're pinching every penny. Everything is calculated. That doesn't seem like Python's leadership style. It seems like he is flat out in a thousand different directions. You got to start somewhere. And the first person to start on a machine was Ward Pemberton. And he was working on a pinball machine, which allegedly was Mission Impossible themed. And this isn't like the cool current day Mission Impossible. This was the old TV series style Mission Impossible. Which was also cool. Come on. It was cool, but it was different. Was it Tom Antonio Cruz? No, it had Peter Graves. I'm Peter Graves. Peter Graves. I remember Peter Graves from Airplane. Everyone does. So Ward Pemberton says, there was a lot of tension between Capcom and Williams. Capcom was all of a sudden afraid to do things because Mark Ritchie had a clause in his contract and he couldn't do any pinball for a certain amount of time once he left Williams. It was just a little hectic over there when it came to getting some of the Williams guys over to us. Got a little nerve-wracking. Yeah, Mark Ritchie, Capcom got sued. Williams sued and made sure Mark couldn't do anything for a while over there. Oh, big time. That was actually part of a – I watched some – I can't remember what it was. It was a documentary about the video game department. But they had Neil Nicastro on there, the president of Williams, and he mentioned that. Like we had an employee that tried to work for another company. We couldn't let that happen, so we sued. And that's who he was referring to, Mark Ritchie. Joey, have you ever been in a Turkish prison? Because Mark Ritchie left right as Indiana Jones came out. He might have actually left before it was even released. Things were getting a bit messy. So Ward's working on a machine. They're trying to staff up a little bit. They bring in this Mark Ritchie thing, and the shit's going to hit the fan. And George Gomez says Williams retaliated. They sued everybody. That slowed the development process at Capcom and made the cost go through the roof. They had to turn on the money David Fawcett. They were spending a lot of money before they were going to get anything back. See, George Gomez, I think, is the kind of guy that respects loyalty. Williams has given Python and all those guys a lot of things. And you know what? That deserves a level of loyalty. even though, sure, at this time they were hacking and slashing or beginning to hack and slash at Williams and laying off people who'd been there forever. Yeah, yeah, screw that. It's not loyalty. But loyalty usually means a lot to a lot of people, and George Gomez is probably one of those individuals. So what do you do? You just sue everybody, right? You get a bunch of lawyers, and even though you may not have a case or maybe you do have a case, you've got to hire lawyers, and you've got to respond, and you're freaking out, now you're paying Mark Ritchie to sit on the sidelines, he can't do anything, that's not going to be something that Capcom wants. And that essentially meant that Capcom had to reinvent everything, because they were so scared of taking any intellectual property from Williams and bumping into their patents, everything from flipper mechs to bumper mechs, everything had to be redesigned and totally different to avoid patent infringement. Unlike Data East, which just ripped off Williams System 11. Right. But I think, so what do you think the big difference was between Capcom and Data East between the two? Why are they getting treated differently? That's a good question. I'm sure Williams was very aware. I mean, Data East did use different mechs, and they did kind of slowly change their system so it wasn't just a carbon copy of Williams System 11. But I always wondered why they – because there were instances where they either sued or were going to sue or they had – when Jurassic Park was on test locations, they had a Williams employee film it to see if they were ripping off their Funhaus follow-the-ball technology. So they had to change that because they were kind of ripping it off. They had a patent on it. So the dinosaur couldn't follow the ball anymore. so if i were a betting man i'm gonna i'm gonna i'm gonna totally speculate here which is the favorite part of everybody's uh bit when it comes to silver ball chronicles i'm gonna say a couple of the things were one gary stern and joe cam and cow may have ripped off some of the technology from williams but they probably remained calm you know they probably had relationships with the williams people and they probably went back and forth and then they probably made various deals and then as you said they came off of that sort of theft of the System 11 system in their next few games. I would also say that maybe the commitment of a Data East over a Capcom was probably another piece. I mean Data East was a fairly large company and you can allow a few stumbles. I would say maybe the next thing is that Williams learned from maybe the mistakes that they did with Data East, and they made sure that they went flat out with Capcom. So they weren't going to give them an inch where maybe they did with Data East. And the last thing would be that maybe Williams knew that the industry was on a downturn by now, or going to start a downturn. They were very much defending their territory. Does any of those make sense? I'd go with that. Well, you know what? When things start to get crazy and frothy and costs go up, what do you got to do? You got to trim the fat. And the first thing they did was fire Ward Pemberton. Well, Ward says, I had a run-in with Python Anghelo. Parker, Richie, and Python were like a team, so I got let go. Python was one of these guys that always wanted to take credit for everything, even though credit wasn't due him. We just banged heads, one of those things. I wanted to really do another pinball machine there. Just it was one of those things where we had high hopes, and I see nothing but dollar signs of potential. I was very sad to be let go over there. Ah, okay. So we're seeing some warring factions now, right? So when you're trying to upstart a little company here and you're trying to manufacture things, you don't want to have the old guard fighting the new guard, especially when the new guard, Mark Ritchie, has to sit on the sideline and can't do anything. You know what I mean? Remember, Mark Ritchie and Python were a team in games like Taxi. And Diner. Ooh, Diner. My favorite food-based pin. Order up! They're going to need a sound guy. And that's where they brought in Jeff Powell, who is currently struggling in radio. Jeff says, It's fiercely competitive everywhere in radio. I decided to make this decision as to which way do I go. I sent out this VHS tape to this blind ad and thought nothing of it. Two weeks later, I got a letter back saying, We'd like to interview you. I called up and walked in and interviewed with people like Python Anghelo, Mark Ritchie. Ultimately, I ended up interviewing at length with Mark Ritchie, and he offered me the job. Yeah, so there you go. So now the new guard, they're starting to bring in their team members, guys like Jeff Powell, who's on the audio side, and I think does a pretty stand-up job. But they're finally getting around to it, and you know what? They're getting ready for that first pin, which is October of 1995. So Capcom started looking for somebody around mid-94. They found somebody at the beginning of 95. They cobbled together a team, and they launched something at the end of the year. So we're getting some pretty good timelines here. That pin was called Pinball Magic. Magic. It sold 1,200 units. It was designed by Bryan Hansen and Rob Herdado. Mechanics by Michael Zhang and Rick Morgan. Dots by Scott Pilkuski. Pilkuski. What do you say? How do you say that? Wow. You're going to have the most butchered names ever in this episode. This is a bad one. Pilkuski. I don't know. P-I-K-U-L-S-K-I. This one I got Hugh Hugh van Zanten and Jeff Busch. We know that name. Music and sound by Chris Granner and Jeff Powell. Chris Granner, another one of those poached names from Williams. These are a lot of names in here we don't know. A lot of names we don't know. We know Jeff Busch because he did a little bit of art for a couple of the other companies. And we know Chris Granner, but we don't see any other names here, right? Mark Ritchie's not involved with this because he's tied up in sort of his legal thing with Williams. We got the new guy, Jeff Powell. Don't forget the software. You skipped his name. Oh, Sammy Zare. Sammy Zare. See, that name I got. That's a hard one. He's missing a vowel. I got that one. But this is an original theme, magic theme. Yep. People love magic in pinball. It's nothing more magic than pinball itself. First thing we need to do is promote this pin, right? And people love the flyers. You got to sell it. Got to sell it. How do you sell it? Can you read that? It's pretty light. Nope, I can't read that. All the dazzling sights, sounds, and sensational shots are choreographed to high-tech perfection to guarantee game quality and reliability. So they're talking about short circuit protection. Line voltage. One coil type. Adjustable flipper power. Burned out lamp and solenoid detection. Lamp warming. Industry most user friendly diagnostic system. We're selling the platform. And they're not kidding. I would make a recommendation. Go to YouTube. I got this video up right now. Go to YouTube and look up Arcade UK. One word. Capcom Pinball. and there is a video that shows all the Capcom pinball features and he's showing it on a pinball magic. So it ties into the game we're talking about. Their platform was very impressive. They have a driver board that is literally the size of the backbox. It's huge. Because they had to redesign everything, they said, you know what, we're going to make this a Cadillac. But it detects when things are broken and things like one coil type for the entire game. You only need to have one coil. You don't need all kinds of different coils. It just takes one coil. And it adjusts the power up and down depending on what you need to be done. Yeah, speakers or actually enclosures try to get a little better sound. The playfield mounting, when you pull the playfield out, the way it comes up, high quality, like really heavy-duty mechs. Listen to the drop targets on Capcom, on any Capcom game. But like Pinball Magic, they are so loud when they reset. So they're doing well here. And the strongest flippers in the industry. The art is great on Pinball Magic. It kind of looks a little bit like Theater of Magic. That's weird. We'll get into that in a second. No, Python demands you get into it now. No, we're going to go into design first. We're going to go into design first. So the design. We don't know who Bryan Hansen is, right? Well, you know, I mean, you might remember him. He's done some of the designs over at Premier, which was originally Gottlieb. Okay. Bryan Hansen, you might remember from Rescue 911. But where did Pinball Magic come from? Well, Python says, pinball magic was not done in Capcom. That was done by Bryan Hansen and me in Bryan Hansen's garage. At the time, I didn't know Brian was hurting for money. He only did it because you want to get the F out of your uncle servicing or repairing games. Bryan Hansen's building a game in his garage. Python Anghelo knows Bryan Hansen, and they needed a game really quickly because they just fired Ward Pemberton, and he was making a game. So they need to get something and slap it together, and this was the game that they got. They had to design, as you mentioned, a whole new board set. Well, they needed to do a whole new sound system. And they also had to do all of this while dealing with Python Anghelo. What does Jeff Powell say? He says, early in the Pinball Magic game, Python comes by my office door. People who know Python know he's a very animated person. He kind of flails his arms. He talks with his hands a lot. Just very flamboyant. His eyes are very big, like horses' eyes. And he's dancing outside of my office going, Jeff, you have to vibrate the cabinet like this. okay, I guess that means we've got to stick more rumbling thunder into the game. Wow, okay. So he's better base. Yeah, so I mean now they've got to put these enclosures you were talking about. You've got to kick more. But he's just like, how do you decode that craziness? Well, I mean, Jeff Powell figured it out, so good for him. Mark Ritchie is also one of those guys that was able to work with Python on a regular basis and pull things out of the fire and understand what the heck he was talking about. it was some pretty cool stuff and Mark Ritchie's wife is the voice oh yeah that's right Mark Ritchie's wife is the voice of the magic lady but what about all these unknown names so let's go let's wind it back and talk about some of these unknown names well Python says when I joined Capcom I said to them I'm coming but I have to bring this young new talent guys that live and breathe pinball so basically what he means by the young talent is people not hired by Williams because, quite frankly, the people working at Williams are probably pretty happy there, and they've got a long and extensive track record of hit games. So what was the team he brought in? Well, we talked about Bryan Hansen, right? He actually worked with Rescue 911, but he also worked at JJP years later on Wizard of Oz. Ah. We got this Rob Hurtado. Hurtado, I'm guessing. Hurtado. It's probably Hurtado. Right. We've got Rob Hurtado. He was at Sega. Yeah. but he was really only there for a cup of coffee. He got Hugh van Zanten. He did three games at Capcom, and that was it. So there you go. He got Jeff Busch. He did a lot of art at Sega. He's actually done American Pinball. He worked a lot with them, and he's got like 10 games under his belt. So he did stick around, okay? So he's a decent name. Michael Zhang, he only did Pinball Magic. That was his only game. Jeff Powell, he did all the Capcom games, or most of them, or worked on most of them. And he also did some work on Shrek from Stern, remember that? Is he an all-star? Is he getting his game on? Oh, God. Rick Morgan, okay, big name in pinball. And by big name, I mean he worked on Pinball Magic, and that was his only game. Chris Granner, huh? The legend. Yeah, he let it go on with Stern and Jersey Jack. This Scott guy with the ski last name? Scott Pekulski. Yes. And Sammy Zier. Yeah, so they only worked on Pinball Magic. So we can see here that these young, new talent that live and breathe pinball all basically came in just for this one thing. Except for all the other ones that didn't that you just mentioned. It's either they were there forever, like three of them. or like five of them just were there for a cup of coffee. And funny enough, the names that did stay forever were names that had already been there forever. You know what I mean? That's true. So what about the game itself? I like it. I've never seen one. What? You've never played a Pinball Magic? No. No, I'm very well aware of Pinball Magic. I've seen Pinball Magic on streams. We're looking at the play field right now. It's got several really cool features. You've got the wand where there's a magnet on the wand, so the ball will roll along the wand, like underneath it. So it'll stick to a wand, and it'll roll down. Yeah, and that hand moves. Cool. It diverts it. And then the stage will open up, and there's a ball in there, and it will levitate, like actually levitate. Like you'll see the ball go up. Wow. Yes. How does that work? Um, either it actually levitates it. If you say magic, I'm going to flip it. Or it either actually levitates it with the magnet, or it might have been like, it might use a mirror and, like, rotate the mirror or something so it looks like the ball's levitating when it really isn't. I'm trying to remember how it works. Didn't John Papadiuk try to make a levitating ball for Magic Girl? I played that at Expo. It didn't work. I don't even want to talk about that game. So, yeah, this game worked, you see, pinball magic. So it's already superior. Super cool skill shot that goes right into the hat, you know, the magic hat. Playfield's kind of ugly. It's got that weird yellow that just doesn't seem to work on pinball. But it's cool, right? I liked it. It's got the mechs, and it works, and it's solid. It's solid. And there's plenty of them that still work today. It's, you know, we're pretty happy about this, right? This is a pretty good game. Their dot matrix displays were pretty good. I always liked them. So cool. This is a very good first effort. I mean, it didn't sell a whole lot. It sold 1,200 units, but it is the first game from a new company. Well, you know, Williams had another Magic-themed game, and it came out at the same time. Theater of Magic, which everyone loves. So, but Theater of Magic came out first? They both came out the same year. Both came out at the same time. Amazing how that works. That's so funny. Do you think there was probably some hurt feelings there? Well, according to Python, he says, Williams had no plans to do a Magic game. Right. Who did? Who did Theater of Magic? John Papadiuk. The guy doesn't even feel pinball. He will do anything. He's a chameleon. Python is the king of snakes, and I eat Papa Dukes for breakfast. I found out later from inside guys that love me for a long time, someone said that Capcom are doing this. He said, okay, I'm doing a game with this theme. If someone told me, listen, our competition is doing a theme, do it. You know what I'd do? I'd turn a desk upside down. I'd spit in their faces, turn around, pull my pants down. I don't have to do that. Why would I be a designer? I would say I'd come up with a better theme, something else. Oh, this is one of my favorite Python films. Yeah, I really should have done that in the Python. So if you go back and on the sources at silverballchronicles.com, you can take a look at this old TopCast interview with Python, which is a legendary interview. Because he holds no punches. And that's the censored version. Yeah. So he saying here they were doing a magic theme and then somebody at Williams told John Papadiuk John Papadiuk decided to make the theme as well which one of these games is better i actually kind of like both of them i mean the the theater of magic is much smoother yeah it's a better shooter it's a smoother game but yeah python hates John Papadiuk he hated John Papadiuk he's called him yeah chameleon he called him a con man he's called him many things needless to say there was some hurt feelings there but this is another way that Williams was willing to sink Capcom. So this is not an uncommon kind of thing. So if you think about Williams and Gottlieb in 1994, Williams had World Cup Soccer done by John Papadiuk, his first game. Just before they released that game, Gottlieb released World Challenge Soccer. And they actually said, we heard they were doing the theme. we made the theme faster and got some sales before they did it's not uncommon in the industry right so maybe we should have some thick skin the other way they made it quickly is it's basically car hop yeah they just took another design and sort of slapped something else on it well they got to do their follow-up right the next big smash and that's gonna be airborne with this is basically top gun deepest ramps in the history of pinball only capcom flippers can make these ramps This is a jet fighter theme. It's from March of 1996, so we're looking at about four months, five months later. It sells 1,350 units, so we're selling more units. This is designed by Claude Fernandez, so there's a name that people should know. The mechs were done by Michael Zhang and Rick Morgan. Dots by Scott, what's his name? Mikulski. Art by Hugh Hugh van Zanten Music and Sound by Chris Granner Software by Dan Markham and Jeff Marshall So we see that there's some new names in here and some existing names that we've seen before This is my kind of theme This is fire and fast and speed Wow, there's a lot of ramps in here Well, there's a lot of habit trails there's a lot there's a lot of habit trails in this game let's let's talk about what's going on in this play field before we even get into the other stuff it's a highway to the danger zone holy moly there's a lot of this would have been like 10 years after top gun so yeah the ramps are insanely like anything other than full flipper power even on a capcom and you're not making anything in this game so in the middle it's got those weird 360 ramps that are in the middle of the play field that zip up really quickly back to your right and left flipper on a habit trail so you shoot it it flips kind of at a 180 comes right down to the to the to the flippers inlanes but then you've got another ramp on the right side that sort of feeds like this weird diverter area i'm not sure those are ramps from my memory i think really are they you hit it up there and look at the very top there's like three lanes it can go in and it'll go in one of them and then it releases it through those habit trails to you. Ah, man. Yeah, I don't think they're 360 ramps. It's been a while since I played it. It's a pretty nuts-looking thing here, right? They went to something to really impress everyone, I think, right? Like, Williams doesn't have this many habit trails. Yeah, he's got a lot of habit trails. What's your favorite kind of habit trail? Is it a ziggy-zaggy one or one that kind of just goes straight back? I like the kind that go in a circle, like Lethal Weapon 3 or Jurassic Park. Yeah, you like the gimmicks. Yeah, well, yeah. It looks cool. Like it doesn't have to go in a circle, but it does. Okay, well, here's the flyer, which is not in very big picture. No, can't read it. We apologize. We can't read the flyers. It's too small. Pilot, you're cleared for takeoff. Airborne from Capcom. He's got a great back glass, though, eh? Taking on the Russians. Upside down in America. Yeah, he's upside down. Why does that have to be America? He could be in Toronto, for all you know. That sort of looks like New York. Everything is New York. Would you buy it? No. Well, you know what Capcom says? Put on your helmet, jump into the cockpit, and buckle up. Roar with the Blue Angels and scream across the sky with Airborne. Capcom Coin Op Incorporated's newest pinball machine. Oh, and airborne players compete in a traveling international air show that takes place in America, France, Germany, Italy, Robert Englunds, and Spain, but not Canada. And each country's air show announces prop players to perform stunts in languages native to that country. How's that going to work? If he says something in Spanish, like, what did he say? What stunt am I supposed to perform? realistic stunts such as one-half barrel rolls, hammerhead stalls, and corkscrew spins. Okay, okay, wait a second. So this isn't like jet fighters shooting down the Ruskies? No, it's like an air show. Oh, that's a terrible thing. Nothing says cool like a freaking air show. Alright, everybody, this is the part of the air show where you walk around and see the pilots and sit in the cockpit. The game is very orange. Very orange and red, which means it will probably fade badly in any kind of sunlight. There's a pretty awesome German flyer in here, too. What's this? Endlich. Endlich. Endlich. I don't know what that means. Let's look that up. Let's not say we did. It means finally. Finally, we have an air show related theme game. Oh, my goodness. Look who's manufacturing that in Germany. It's Ballywolf. It says, Impost für neun kreative Freundin. Yeah. And you can send in all that angry German emails to silverballchronicles at gmail.com. Well, okay. This is the game I have played. The Third Design by Capcom. Ah, yes. Actually, my favorite game of theirs. Really? Okay. Breakshot. They were already cost savings. three games in that's your first that's your first clue that they wanted to do a throwback cheaper game by may of 1996 they are they are what a year and a half in uh-oh as gomez had said they turned on the money taps and uh they were bleeding i think here they sold a thousand units this game is designed by Greg Kmiec who did xenon right he worked at bally for years and years and he basically retired mechanics by chuck biddlecombe dots by denise walliner art by stan fuku fuku who i think was held in very high regard in the pinball industry music and sound by jeff powell and software by tony de feo i can say that italian name hey it's tony de feo come over here and have a hot italian sandwich no comment uh mark ritchie he was working on another project at this time uh which would reign secret and we'll talk about that in just a second uh how about this break shot so it's a pool theme billiards if you will okay it has amazing art i think uh it's a little bit uh risky it's totally and so are the dmd animations yeah it's clearly designed for a bar and to appeal towards kids this clearly has the uh art direction of Python Anghelo but you got the women in there you got smoking there's like smoking hey guys as a quick heads up i wanted to let you know that in my real life i'm david the advice guy At Dennis Financial, we aren't investment advisors or insurance agents. I always thought that sounded terrible. We want to provide you with sound financial advice. In fact, we want to provide you with investment and insurance advice for life. And we take that honor very seriously. Do you know individuals who receive financial advice for 10 years have two times the financial assets of unadvised individuals? For example, we've got mortgage insurance at the bank, right? Well, did you know a 40-year-old non-smoker can save $30 a month every month for 20 years just from shopping around for a more competitive rate? Now, just imagine what a pinhead like you could do with that extra money. Toppers and shooter rods, anyone? If you're looking for a more human dimension to your financial advice, Dennis Financial Inc. has you covered with advisors licensing most Canadian provinces. contact me via email at david at dennisfinancial.net for a free rate quote and a copy of our value of advice ebook or check out dennisfinancial.ca insurance solutions provided by dennisfinancial inc canadian residents only yeah smoking was still cool at around oh really okay yeah yeah now it's not cool smoking's not cool vaping smoking not cool uh this is a beautiful playfield like it is really well designed like the bottom is is breaking pool balls it's in this really cool purple the it's a very comic booky style uh the ladies although a bit suggestive and and not particularly appropriate are actually like well illustrated, if you will. There's drop targets, and then there's this really cool pocket thing in the middle. Yeah, what's it called? What's it called? It has a name. No idea. Oh, come on. It's probably written. It's the Super Q. The Super Q. Go for the Super Q. Oh, yeah. How could you forget the Super Q? Yes, introducing the Capcom Classic pinball line. Uh-oh. It sounds like they were going to be making more of these classic, classic-style games designed specifically to appeal to all players. Sensational playfield sounds and artwork all fit in an affordable package, uncomplicated and fun to play. These games are great for your profits all the way around. Now this is pinball. Yeah, this sentence on the flyer scares the crap out of me. Doesn't it? Doesn't that just sound like, uh-oh, this is not going well. Wait a second. Do you see that this, so there's a guy on the back glass, okay? He's hit the pool ball, and it has flown into the air, and it has bounced off of a few things on the back glass, okay? The first thing is it's bounced into this lady's hand and knocked her drink out of her hand. Then it hit a moose. No, no, no, no. Take a look at these ice cubes here. Look where these ice cubes are falling. Oh, yeah. This lady has caught the ice cubes with her chest in the middle of her chest. Like, this is ridiculous. this is so so by the game was designed to appeal to all players except for women right like so then it bounces off the moose's nose and then it bounces off another lady's butt who's sitting on the pool table which is not a very good place to sit because how is your ball supposed to bounce off the side if she's sitting on it this is ridiculous this is totally unrealistic and then And there's this really creepy guy in the background drinking a beer. It's really unusual. It's a nice illustration, but it is a bit... Break shot! It's not for me. Break shot! It's a cool game. It's fun. It's very green. Green has a bit of a curse, does it not? In pinball, all games that have a green backbox or lots of green on the play field tend to not sell very well for some reason. I think it's because green is a bit ugly on a cabinet so what do you think of this game? you like this one? this is a winner? I said it's my favorite Capcom game but what makes it the winner? your favorite game? it's another pool-based theme with a cool little super cute toy it's a pretty cool mech so you lock balls in there for kind of like a multiball thing but then they bounce around It has a full orbit that goes all the way around. I'm a sucker for those. It's got the little mini flipper up top. Captive ball on the left side that bounces up into – it's a captive ball into what do they call it, a Newton ball, right? That's a good one too. It's got drop targets, got a set of drop targets, kind of an unusual play. This is a really great design by Greg Kamek. Like this is actually a really great play field. But it didn't sell very many units, only 1,000. Yeah, yet I've seen these all over the place. I have too. Really weird. So May and 96. Things are not good in May of 96, right? We're looking. This is like when – what's coming out around this time? Like Attack from Mars? Is that coming out in 96? That was 95. 95, right? And that didn't sell a whole lot. No, nothing is selling. Even Williams is firing people and cost-cutting at this point. Like, things are in a bad way. So Capcom has come in. They've been sold a bag of goods of how easy pinball is. They've been sued a bunch of times. They've had, I would say, some chaotic leadership in there. And they can see that they're not selling anything. But Mark Ritchie, he was going to save them. He was going to save the sales. He was going to knock it out of the park to use one of those awesome pinball cliches. he was making a game called Kingpin which was a mafia themed pinball machine and it was gonna win but what did the Capcom executives say? They said no we need a machine to get out quick. We need something fast and cheap. So they said Flipper Football. That's what we're doing. Well as the rumor goes as the story goes Big Bang Bar was supposed to be next but Python pushed for Flipper Football and flipper football python with hindsight what he does is he spins it that it was actually the executives at capcom well yeah i've heard the other story more than than the executives one yeah so this is another slap it together kind of quick theme this is a soccer theme from september of 96 so we're looking at six months later sells 750 units it's designed by Python Anghelo and Bryan Hansen. It's got art by Hugh van Zanten and sound by Jeff Powell. This game was one that could have been better. It's got a smaller backbox. It looks a little different. What have they done to this backbox here, Ron? What they've done is they put the DMD under the glass in the play field. The backbox itself has this weird trapezoid with the short end on the bottom and the long end on the top and they put a physical soccer ball they stuck it to the that's a pretty smart idea actually it's a very python idea but uh when it comes to pinball it looking very different is not a good thing uh as we've learned yeah you hit drop targets down in the back and you score goals goal the thing i remember about it it has a r-rated mode what yep well when it's in r-rated mode there's f-bombs the one guy moons you yeah someone had it at a show in the r-rated mode i'm like did the game just f-bomb me did the dude just moon me like there's a dude who literally moons you so at the top of the playfield there's a set of drop targets there's two little flippers up there you sort of flip it flip it flip it flip it kind of like the upper playfield uh in uh uh game of thrones you know where it's got the two flippers up there it's sort of like a little thing but this is this doesn't have an upper play field it's the top part of the lower play field right there's it's again it's a single level machine so there's no ramps in here remember all these ramps we were talking about well they blew that budget back back with airborne and they don't have any more ramps to build it's it's a gimmick game and it gets old quickly because you just keep scoring goals over and over i mean it does have a really it has cool dmd animations like when you score a goal, but it's like the same one and it replays it every time you score. Flipper football takes the most popular sport in the world and delivers it as a 20-inch by 46-inch coin-operated electromechanical replica. It is the first of a revolutionary new game based on the interplay display. For the first time ever in any game, we have achieved actual synchronized interactions between ball play and the interplay display trademark. A three-dimensional ball is shot at a goal under the display located in the play field, and its progress is continued on the display with 2D animation. So you shoot the little targets in the back, and it goes into the play field's DMD display, and it continues in the fake world. This smaller backbox is lighter and easier for disassembly and transportation. You take it off your location because no one plays it. It might be lighter, but how is folding it down? This thing you literally have to take off. It doesn't fold. Go to the IPDB page. There was a thing about the R-rated ROM on there. Speech includes an adult mode containing profanity and bodily noises. Oh, yeah, I think it farts, too. Yeah, of course it does, because farts are hilarious. To me, that's... I just think of Python whenever I play this game. Well, it was designed by Python, with Bryan Hansen doing the actual work. It's a world under glass that Python is well known for, right? If you look at Taxi and those games where it looks like a highway, and it looks like a, I mean, this literally looks like a football play field. Yeah, I just see some meeting where we need to have an R-rated Rob. He needs to moon you. Because you've got to have that because guys in bars love that stuff. And quite frankly, people weren't playing pinball in 96, and this very much accelerated, I would say, the death spiral of Capcom. This was a half-baked product, and I think you can really see that. What does Jeff Powell say about that? Jeff says, I remember in October of 96, they let the first wave of engineers go. I think there were 20 people let go. That was a pretty sad day. I remember company-wide emails saying, we need to pull together here, guys. Paul Williams, who knew a little more of the inside stuff, stopped by my office one day and said, when Tsujimoto, which hopefully I'm at least close on that, the CEO of Capcom, first set this up, they knew that they had to be prepared to go about $100 million in the red. At that point, by October of 96, they were already about $60 million in the rent. By December of that year, when they pulled the plug on a lot of the rest of us, it was a really dark day. So you can see that they were bleeding money. $100 million is a lot of money to lose in 1996. But they had these saviors, right? They had Big Bang Bar, the savior. which was supposed to be out before Flipper Football it's been kicked around everybody talks about this Big Bang Bar some people have probably oh I've heard of that or they're well aware of that but there's this legendary game this outer space bar theme it was designed somewhere in late 95 or through 96 there were 14 games produced there were 14 basically prototypes it was designed by a gentleman named Rob Morrison. It has Mike Miller on mechanics and John Boydston on mechanics. Dots by Kevin Kevin Loza. Art by Paul Mazur and Stan Fukuda. Wow. Sorry, Stan. And I know that I'm... This is not a joke, folks. I really legitimately try. I'll take the hard ones, Music and sound by Jeff Powell and software by Steven King, not the author. Are you sure? I'm pretty sure. How come you got Jeff Powell and Steven King and I get Stan Fukuda? Yes. So 14 units. I believe 13 are still in existence because I believe one was lost in a fire. So the theme here, right? So this is Capcom's Big Bang Bar. It's like a space bar, right? There's all these people in space and they're hanging out at the bar. this is like the this is like the bar at the end of Spaceballs you know they're all just hanging out having a having a drink in a in an area there's all these weird characters floating around it was designed to be released in 96 but as you say it was delayed till February of 97 but Capcom closed in December of 96 So it doesn have a flyer but it has some flyer prototypes So it got like this is what the flyer was going to look like. And then they were going to put the words around it. So I guess we have to make that up on our own. What kind of, what kind of things would they say about Bing Bang bar in it's a bar in space there's a tube and there's a lady with sunglasses from space don't forget it's got raised ball it's purple what do you think is going on here i think this game is super cool uh the art on the play field is like this light blue with these like lady and this alien it's laid out really well do you remember that game zombie adventure what was it called raza retro zombie atomic adventure land retro atomic zombie yeah yeah it's kind of got that bit of a vibe to it right that really kind of cool art style and very much like that game there was you know none of these really existed but it's cool i really like i can see how this is very catchy and this i think probably would have sold really well if it would have finally got out it's risque right it's it's got beer and drinking and it's got a uranus joke dancer yeah there's a okay let's talk about the tube dancer what's going on in there she's in a tube and she's topless and she spins i guess right yep uh or or they spin i don't know what gender a space alien would be. But it's got hair, a little bikini bottom thing. It's kind of neat, right? I mean, I get what they're doing there. She's a stripper in a tube. And there's a lot of double entendre, all kinds of stuff. If you drink quickly, it'll be like, wow, that didn't last long. Yeah, everybody loves a premature ejaculation joke. it's got really cool sculpts and molds and the habit trails are in this lime green it's a cool game it looks it's attention grabbing for sure so uh stan really i think killed it when it comes to the the art here on this game um but there's some things around this game that that okay well here's some some quotes from stan but what was stan's last name again ron uh stan says the challenge for me was to convey that message when someone first sees the back glass i wanted the background to be dark like a nightclub or space but also bright colors to convey the overall mood and fun of the game yeah he's going to a club he's going to space club the play field was designed by rob morrison now this was his first play field uh this is where he got his own you know all-in hands-on experience we don't know a whole lot about rob morrison but jeff powell can give us some information in there. He says, Rob, it's so many ideas that he couldn't incorporate everything into it. He basically threw the kitchen sink at the machine. That's probably what scared the CEO, or that's probably what scared the executives at Capcom, was the price of this machine when we could do this flipper football, and we could do a break shot, and we could make it that much simpler. Well, that's when the switch was hit. Well, Jeff Powell says, just before Big Bang Bar is ready to be manufactured. We had a bunch of German arcade owners come in. They saw Flipper Football, which had a soccer theme and soccer scoring, and they went nuts over it. Capcom jumped at that and pushed it forward. They thought that it would be a hit in Europe and save the company. And we've heard this a bunch of times, right? Back in the 80s when things were floundering, a lot of the folks over at Gottlieb, they bent a lot to what the European distributors and European arcade owners wanted and they wanted some of these kind of older themes again they're the ones that are buying the game right the nowadays you and i ron are buying the game and enthusiasts have their own barcade back in the day it was the big distributors that are buying those pins you don't have to sell it to the end consumer you just got to sell it to the distributor and that's what they inevitably are looking to do here but it was pinball expo in 1996 when Big Bang Bar was displayed and wowed the crowd. Well, Capcom brought Flipper Football and Big Bang Bar. Everybody loved Flipper Football. No, no one played Flipper Football. Oh, so they all played Big Bang Bar. Yes. So why would, okay. So then they still manufactured Flipper Football, and it inevitably crashed, right? These guys come over from Europe, and they're like, you need to make the football game, and then they bought 750 units of them? Wow. Talk about stabbed in the back. After Expo, which seems to be a theme in the pinball industry, let's go to Expo and put on a smiley face, and then when we come back, we're going to fire everybody. Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, like at least three times now. So you better watch out when you go to Pinball Expo. Yeah. Jeff Powell says, we had the thing finished and ready to go, meaning Big Bang Bar. We had prototypes out in bars and arcades. The artwork was done. Everything was done. It was a complete machine. I put a year of work into Big Bang Bar. And then to not have it get out was just kind of crushingly frustrating. Oh, so sad. But they also had that other one, Kingpin. That was a gangster theme in 96. They had nine prototypes. This was designed by Mark Ritchie. He was poached in like late 94, early 95. Even sooner. Even sooner. Yeah, probably. He didn't actually get a game designed at all. He did like, I guess, back office stuff, right? Like, I guess he collected a paycheck. Well, they sued, so he couldn't make a game. Right. So he's doing other things and collecting a paycheck. But he finally did get a design. He just never did release it. I always wondered how that was because his brother, Steve, is working at Williams, and he is working at Capcom and getting sued. That must be weird. That must have been weird. So I guess you put up with that because Steve Ritchie is Steve Ritchie. They needed him to design Star Trek over and over again, and nobody else is going to do that. Tony DeFeo, he would tell IPDB that at this point, in November of 96, he left Capcom. Steven King, he was already gone, who was one of the fellows working there. Then Bill Futsenruder, who you will remember also from back in the day and working at Data East. Williams. I think he was at Williams. He was at Oldstern. yeah he was around forever he took over to finish and complete a lot of the gameplay for kingpin but by december the 9th 1996 capcom just let everybody go finally they're dead now we can end the episode nothing else to talk about with capcom nah there's plenty to talk about we didn't talk about kingpin kingpin's awesome ah okay well let's talk a little more about kingpin they made nine of them which i think eight remain because i think one of them got destroyed in the same fire that destroyed the Big Bang Bar. Yes, I think someone had both. Boy, that sucks. Yeah. Oh, wait a minute. I have to read more stuff now? You have to read more stuff, Stewie. I want a raise. Join us on Patreon to support the show. Our pro-crony level is the perfect way to say thanks, and it starts at $3 a month. Want to get early access to episodes before everyone else? Who doesn't? Have a strange love for stickers? That's kind of weird. Do you know what Discord is? I think I do. Yeah, probably not. Interested in having your comments and questions take priority in our episodes? Jump on up to the $6 a month premium crony level. Really, you're going to call it crony. Want all the other perks and a shirt after three months? Join us at $20 a month and you can be an elitist crony. Oh, my. It had the fishtails, like crisscross, habitrail thing going. Okay. But with spinners in front of both ramps, which makes it superior. Of course. Spinners make everything better. It shot great. Yeah. It shot like Fishtail, so it was good. Right. And this game and Big Bang Bar are similar in that they're like mode-based games. There's a shot to start the mode. On Big Bang Bar, it's to use the ramp, which is so steep. You need Capcom flippers to hit it. There's a story that Williams actually did a version of Big Bang Bar, but their flippers weren't strong enough to make the ramp. Wow. Okay. And on Kingpin, it's the Lex, which is the hotel on the left side. Yeah, and that kind of looks a little bit like the one that's in Dirty Harry. The Hotel Lex. And I like the theme better because it's mob stuff. Like you hit the Lex, a bad guy gives you something to do. You do it. He says, good job. Now I've got to kill you. He tries to kill you. You kill him, and you take his place. awesome and you make your way up the uh crime meter it had it had the whole power meter thing where the flippers get weaker they tried that stuff i don't know how well that so like if you're getting shot you're losing health it's by the time i played at least the software iteration i did you get to the the end of the game and it has like the flippers get weaker and weaker and then you're dead okay okay but it's a cool it's it's cool it's a good looking game and we'll get into a little maybe a little more this year in the future but i mean i don't know how far along the software was there with the wizard like the final thing was in it like i've i played both the big bang bar and kingpin and finished them because they each have their own like ending huh i think in the current market they would be considered shallow but in 96 they would have been you know the same as everything else that's pretty cool now greg kimmick he was also working on a game called red line fever the worst kind of fever to have uh and uh the game wasn't produced they didn't really make anything but just a white wood it was based on a motorcycle theme well greg says red line fever was designed to combine the real world experience of motorcycle racing with the symbolism of pinball by offering playfield racing theme features in addition to handlebar flipper switches the handlebar was mounted on the front of the cabinet a few real world motorcyclist pinballers that's a mouthful relayed their approval to me of the game when it was shown it was the best game i ever designed it was the last game developed by capcom before the door shut it was scheduled to be capcom's next game there's only one prototype whitewood in existence ah okay i've never seen super cool so so this is on ipdb so you can actually see this white wood on there. It does look kind of cool, but it looks weird. Righteous, it says. Which is obviously the thing. There's a wonderful picture of Greg Kamek. Or not Greg Kamek. Is that Greg Kamek? That is Greg Kamek. I thought he was older than that. He's got handlebars. He doesn't have handlebars. He's got handlebars. That was at a show, and it was right next to the best data East Game ever made, Lethal Weapon 3. Yes, and Kingpin to the left of that. What do you think of the carpet in this hotel? Man, that's terrible carpet. Brown. Anyway, so you can check that out on IPDB. It's kind of neat. The back ramp is like an orbit ramp thing. Unique. Looks neat. Apparently, to Greg Kimick, this is better than any game he's ever made. Better than Xenon. Better than Breakshot. It doesn't look better than Breakshot. No, this is hyperbole. He's totally lying. This doesn't look great. It looks okay. Well, the thing is, it's a prototype. I mean, I'm sure they could make that big red thing in the back look better. Yeah, maybe. The best game, I think. Oh, yeah. The best game that Capcom, I think, designed but was never released was a game called Zingy Bingy. Do you recall this game? Yes, I recall Zingy Bingy. so as the story goes the president of capcom was was visiting and saw this game and that's when he decided like yeah we're shutting this down that's how the story goes so uh this is the adult sex theme game because we don't have enough of those yeah it was designed in 96 there was only the whitewood produced it was designed by Python Anghelo and Bryan Hansen and software by bill foots and router ipdb would say that python came up with the concept of the game in 1985 when he was working at williams and uh he signed a concept drawing from 1985 which is in uh the ipdb section for zingy bingy so he came up with this idea in 1985 and williams looked at it and said no effing way and williams looked at it and said you know what uh let's put that in the parking lot uh This concept art, it looks a little bit like, oh, like jackpot kind of with a lady playfield on the left side and then an upper male playfield on the right side. And there is some jacking going on, but not jackpotting. His hands are full, but not of anything but himself. It's very weird. Go ahead and take a look at that. Don't look at it while you're driving. Or with children around. Don't look it up at church. so then also on ipdb there are pdfs of the actual photos of the whitewood yeah and what are we looking at here i can't believe there's not better photos of this i knew the guy who owned this and i i found out at the last expo i guess he actually sold all his games so he doesn't have it anymore so i have no idea who has it now but he had the game and he had a party there like years ago where people actually got to play this thing so that so so we're looking at a play field with The DMD under the glass in the back of the playfield. There's a lady's face on this plexiglass at the very back of the playfield and a man's face. They're both gorgeous. Yeah, basically the pop bumpers are her boobs. Right, because they're round. And the side flipper is the guy's penis, basically. Yeah, the man bit. And it's like an Adam and Eve theme here. Yeah. It's too much. it's a way too much. So what does Python say that the leadership team thought of this? He said they took polls with 138 women and it was approved unanimously. We did two playfields. It was a riot to play. Imagine a game where you can go with your girlfriend and have a blast because it does gender partners. Player one male, player two female. Imagine a game where you can have interaction. interaction i mean it's phenomenal you know oh my god great idea it's a great idea ron it was so great the president of capcom said shut this stuff down when i look at this this is the game i want not only in my bar but in my family room oh definitely oh god python okay so as you mentioned the capcom executives actually didn't like this theme at all yeah python tried to change the team to adam and eve but this did not help yeah yeah but python had other ideas yeah okay okay he said i have sit down pinball for you sit under a playfield with your head in a bubble and flippers in front of your nose and balls fly around your head but because the money man oh yeah but because of the money man and the copycats and the bullshitters all over the industry yeah that didn't happen because not that it was a bad idea and it wouldn't make money uh it's because of the con men and and those people you know pulling the strings and John Papadiuk oh yeah he hates right that's that's the reason that he couldn't do his his uh sex themed game it's ridiculous it is it is literally ridiculous in the end though if he was still around python would be welcome with open arms at any pinball show and papaduke would not yeah how funny is that hey yeah think about that That's pretty weird. John Papadiuk only sunk one company. Well, no, I guess he sunk two. Okay, well, that's it. Capcom's dead, and you can see why. The leadership was terrible. The decisions were terrible. They were in the wrong place at the wrong time. They started it way too late. They missed the peak. Yes, if they were in the late 80s, early 90s, they probably would have lasted longer. Was anybody surprised at what happened at Capcom? Well, George Gomez says, nobody gets it right 100% of the time. Capcom closing didn't surprise me. I saw the games they were making and how they were struggling to sell them. I knew it was just a matter of time. Yeah. No tears from George Gomez. Yeah. What about Python Anghelo? Yes, Capcom bullshitted me. That's what he said. Anything to say in closing? Play some pinball magic. Play some Airborne. if you can find them. Especially play some wonderful Break Shot. As always, you can send your comments, questions, corrections, and concerns to civilcronicles at gmail.com. 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