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Episode 8 - Jim Cantiello / Shane goes to TPF!

Nudgecast·podcast_episode·1h 34m·analyzed·Mar 27, 2025
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.036

TL;DR

TPF recap: Shane's tournament run, game impressions, and JJP's Harry Potter surprise announcement.

Summary

Shane Toll recounts his experience at Texas Pinball Festival (TPF), discussing tournament play (finishing 4th in novice bracket despite a tilt-out), newly debuted games including P3's Portal and Turner Pinball's Merlin's Arcade, Spooky Pinball's sold-out Evil Dead, and Jersey Jack Pinball's surprise Harry Potter announcement by Jack Wainari. Hosts analyze gameplay impressions, manufacturer business performance, and community reception.

Key Claims

  • Merlin's Arcade had significantly better player reception and gameplay flow than Ninja Eclipse, Turner Pinball's previous release.

    high confidence · Shane Toll directly compared both Turner Pinball games after playing Merlin's Arcade at TPF, stating 'This game blows it away' in reference to Ninja Eclipse.

  • Spooky Pinball sold out Evil Dead, with the last 25 units going to a distributor.

    high confidence · Ian Jacoby stated 'the big news over the weekend was they sold out. They sold their last 25 to a distributor' regarding Evil Dead at TPF.

  • Jersey Jack Pinball has acquired all movie assets for Harry Potter and spent millions on the license.

    medium confidence · Ian Jacoby reported Jack Wainari's announcement at TPF: 'they have all the movie assets' and 'he said he spent millions of dollars like acquiring this license.'

  • P3's Portal experienced wear issues after three days of heavy tournament play, affecting performance (slow, sluggish flippers, janky ramp).

    high confidence · Shane Toll played Portal on Sunday after three days of use: 'the flippers were probably pretty worn out, tired. But the game felt pretty sluggish and slow.'

  • Turner Pinball's Chris Turner acquired Deep Root Pinball assets during their financial collapse and subsequent auction.

    medium confidence · Ian Jacoby explained Turner Pinball's origin: 'Chris Turner is this young guy...he snapped up a lot of those things that they were working on. Basically, when they went to auction, he was able to buy those properties.'

  • TPF tournament had 168 total participants split into two sessions of 84 each, with top 16 from each session making advanced brackets.

    high confidence · Shane Toll provided specific tournament structure: '168 people in the tournament. Divided by two because there were two sessions. So 84. And then 16 made it from each of the 84.'

  • Evil Dead is Spooky Pinball's best game to date, surpassing TCM in overall quality.

    high confidence · Ian Jacoby stated: 'It is their best game' and 'Even bugs like My Favorite is TCM...But Evil Dead is their best game.'

Notable Quotes

  • “TPF is sick. I love it because you're getting a little bit of the experience that I always have...when you get in that main room, it is like a cacophony of noise.”

    Shane Toll @ early segment — Establishes the overwhelming sensory environment of TPF's main show floor and Shane's experience contrasting with casual attendance.

  • “the game is really beautiful and the way they put everything together. But I don't know, man...the game felt pretty sluggish and slow.”

    Shane Toll @ P3 Portal discussion — Candid critique of P3's Portal despite acknowledging the company's innovation, hinting at wear-and-tear issues affecting gameplay on show units.

  • “Turner pinball is doing as well as anybody else in the industry right now with it with this new game it is really really good.”

    Shane Toll @ Merlin's Arcade discussion — Strong endorsement of Turner Pinball's competitive standing, suggesting industry parity with established manufacturers.

  • “This is the one. This is the one that's going to bring... Everyone's going to be ordering these games.”

    Shane Toll @ P3 Portal expectation-setting — Reveals Shane's pre-game hype for Portal, contextualizing his subsequent disappointment.

  • “When I have the option to play Evil Dead or D&D at Lit Pinball Bar i choose evil dead a lot like a lot like maybe two to one.”

    Ian Jacoby @ Evil Dead assessment — Demonstrates Spooky's game quality through direct preference comparison with Stern's flagship D&D (Premium/LE title), indicating a surprising shift in choice behavior.

  • “they just started this company from scratch they do all the design work themselves...they're both there behind the table selling merch. I know. For their own company. It's crazy.”

    Ian Jacoby @ Spooky business model discussion — Highlights the hands-on operational model and sweat equity of Spooky Pinball's founders, contrasting with larger manufacturers.

  • “I wouldn't spend a dime until I saw it.”

    Jack Wainari (cited by Ian Jacoby) — Jack Wainari's cautionary statement about Harry Potter licensing investment, delivered in memorable fashion that hosts found notable enough to repeat.

Entities

Shane TollpersonIan JacobypersonTexas Pinball FestivaleventP3companyPortalgameTurner Pinballcompany

Signals

  • ?

    event_signal: Texas Pinball Festival 2025 successfully hosted major new game debuts (P3 Portal, Turner Pinball Merlin's Arcade, Spooky Evil Dead) and significant industry announcement (JJP Harry Potter); 168-person tournament with multiple divisions; event maintained community vibes and organizational quality.

    high · Shane's first-person tournament participation (4th place novice bracket), multiple game playtests, tournament structure details, and event logistics observations.

  • ?

    product_launch: Spooky Pinball's Evil Dead sold out production run with final 25 units to distributor; represents successful product completion and market demand fulfillment.

    high · Ian Jacoby: 'they sold out. They sold their last 25 to a distributor, picked up the remaining ones.'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Turner Pinball's Merlin's Arcade received unexpectedly strong reception from both hosts despite low initial expectations; represents positive sentiment shift toward Turner Pinball as credible manufacturer competing with established players.

    high · Ian initially skeptical of Merlin's theme but revised opinion; Shane 'couldn't say enough nice things about it' and stated 'Turner pinball is doing as well as anybody else in the industry right now.'

  • ?

    product_concern: P3 Portal showed performance degradation after three days of tournament play; flippers sluggish, ramps janky, overall feel slow; raises questions about durability and maintenance of show units.

    high · Shane Toll: 'I know those flippers were probably pretty worn out, tired. But the game felt pretty sluggish and slow. The ramp that came down was kind of janky.'

  • ?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.277

0:00
Need a pinball machine? Another pinball machine? Maybe some fat accessories like a topper or a shooter rod? Yes, you do. Hit up Jeff over at Mad Pinball for the best products and service, and use our promo code NudgeCast, and get a free exclusive t-shirt when you buy any game. And you also get free shipping on any new in-box stern. So many great games are out right now. Go pick one up. Hit up Jeff at MadPinball.com, and don't forget to tell them we sent you.
0:59
Hey everybody, you're listening to NudgeCast, the official podcast of Nudge Magazine. That intro music you're hearing right now is the song K2 by Liquid Mike. I've been obsessed with those guys. That's from their fifth studio album. It's called Paul Bunyan's Slingshot. Just like super fun to airbase to, very 90s style. As always, I'm Ian Jacoby, a.k.a. Doc Monday, the editor-in-chief and publisher of Nudge Magazine. With me is my co-host, Shane Toll of the band Silverstein and the Lead Singer Syndrome Podcast. Shane, you're back from TPF. I'm back. I'm back, baby. Yeah, man. It was a grueling fucking weekend. It was a lot. It's Monday morning and I'm feeling a little beaten down and it's pretty rough. I had a fucking blast though, dude. TPF is sick. I love it because you're getting a little bit of the experience that I always have. It's like whenever you talk to me, it seems like when I'm coming back from Chicago or one of these places, I sound the exact same way. You know, I think one of those episodes, I'm like asking you for tips because I'm like, I don't know. Yeah, dude, I know. It's like the thing about TPF and for anyone that's been in there, you know, it's in a convention hall room, right? There's like a hallway around and there's a lot of things going on. But when you get in that main room, it is like a cacophony of noise. It's like hard to even describe until you've been in it. And I think my voice is so beaten down just because I've been screaming over machines unknowingly all weekend. And I can usually, because I'm a singer in a band, so I have a little bit of vocal cord strength. But I think even I couldn't hang. And that's why I'm sounding like this this morning. But, dude, it was a great time, man. I spent a lot of time in the tournament room, unfortunately. because I was like, damn, I'm spending so much time playing tournaments that I didn't have as much time to really check out the show and play as many other games casually as I wanted to. But I still got to play some of the new-new, and I still had a blast. Well, we'll get into that in just a second here, but I wanted to ask, this is your first TPF, right? No, I was there last year. Oh, you were? Okay. I was there last year. It was my second, I guess. But it was the first time playing in the tournament there. I knew it would be long because tournaments are always long, but I didn't really read the entire structure. Actually, this is what I read. I read six rounds on one day, four rounds on the other day. Okay, cool. So ten games. That's fine. Didn't realize that a round is two games, not one.

  • The TPF tournament used a 'two games per round' format to accommodate long-playing modern games, with 10 total rounds across two days.

    high confidence · Shane Toll explained the format: 'I read six rounds on one day, four rounds on the other day...Didn't realize that a round is two games, not one.'

    • @ Harry Potter announcement section

  • “if they have all the music you know what i mean like if they have john williams music that will kill me like i love like it just makes me think of christmas time.”

    Ian Jacoby @ Harry Potter speculation — Reveals Ian's fantasy about fully-licensed Harry Potter music assets, setting expectations for depth of IP integration.

  • “the whole seminar kind of scene at tpf is a little bit disconnected from the show itself...when they happen that like you know they're in this little theater room and like it's almost always like a quarter full.”

    Shane Toll @ Harry Potter announcement context — Explains low in-person turnout for JJP's announcement despite high online hype, suggesting venue logistics and scheduling issues.

  • “I tilt out on my first ball, and I only had 500 points. And that was a kick in the teeth after I'd been playing for three days.”

    Shane Toll @ tournament results discussion — Emotional impact of EM machine tilt rules costing Shane a higher tournament finish, illustrating the stakes and pressure of competitive play.

    • Chris Turner
    person
    Merlin's Arcadegame
    Ninja Eclipsegame
    Spooky Pinballcompany
    Bugperson
    Lukeperson
    Evil Deadgame
    Jersey Jack Pinballcompany
    Jack Wainariperson
    Harry Pottergame
    Stern Pinballcompany
    D&Dgame
    Steve Richieperson
    Joel Engelbertperson
    Deep Root Pinballcompany
    Brad Dukeperson
    NudgeCastorganization
    Nudge Magazineorganization
    Mad Pinballcompany

    design_innovation: Evil Dead demonstrates sophisticated integration of light-show graphics with physical gameplay (girlfriend head-spinning spinner animation, disembodied head knocker feedback); represents creative design approach combining visual and mechanical elements.

    high · Ian Jacoby detailed specific mechanics: 'when you hit the spinner her head spins right like it on the screen and then you get past that and then you are having to like it's like a disembodied head...every time you hit her head on something the knocker goes off.'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Jersey Jack Pinball acquired full Harry Potter movie assets for announced upcoming pinball game; claimed multi-million dollar investment in license; represents significant licensing commitment.

    medium · Ian Jacoby reported: 'they have all the movie assets' and 'he said he spent millions of dollars like acquiring this license.'

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: Turner Pinball's Chris Turner acquired Deep Root Pinball assets during financial collapse and auction; represents recovery of abandoned IP/designs and potential career trajectory for emerging manufacturer.

    medium · Ian Jacoby: 'Chris Turner...when that [Deep Root scandal] happened...basically when they went to auction, he was able to buy those properties.'

  • ?

    operational_signal: Spooky Pinball operates with minimal staff; founders handle design, business operations, and direct sales at conventions; pack/transport games themselves; reflects bootstrap business model scaled to growth stage.

    high · Ian Jacoby: 'they do all the design work themselves...they're both there behind the table selling merch...they packed a truck and they flew down.'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Ian Jacoby expressed stronger preference for Evil Dead over Stern's D&D at Lit Pinball Bar (approximately 2:1 ratio), suggesting Spooky game quality now competitive with flagship Stern premium titles.

    high · Ian: 'When I have the option to play Evil Dead or D&D at Lit Pinball Bar i choose evil dead a lot like a lot like maybe two to one.'

  • ?

    event_signal: Jersey Jack Pinball's Harry Potter announcement at TPF seminar had low in-person attendance (quarter-full theater) despite generating significant online hype; suggests disconnect between show announcements and main floor/casual attendees.

    high · Shane Toll: 'the whole seminar kind of scene at tpf is a little bit disconnected from the show itself...when they happen that like you know they're in this little theater room and like it's almost always like a quarter full.'

  • ?

    community_signal: Bug from Spooky Pinball listens to NudgeCast and was motivated to debate Ian about shooter rod buttons (from previous episode); demonstrates podcast influence within industry and community responsiveness.

    high · Ian: 'Bug...says he finds it very entertaining. He's really enjoying the podcast. And he says that ever since you called out Shooter Rod Buttons...he is getting flooded with messages.'

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Merlin's Arcade designed for broad player skill range; wider in-lanes reduce ball drain likelihood; described as 'not overly complicated' but 'modern enough'; appears intentionally accessible to novice players.

    high · Shane: 'It's not a very difficult game. Like, I find even the in-lane is kind of like a wider in-lane...It seemed like it might be maybe better suited for, you know, a novice player like myself.'

    • 3:35
    So you play two games against the same group of four. I don't understand that formatting. Why? I think the reason is because if you do two games at once, it's a little bit faster than if you're waiting for somebody to finish a long player. Like if you do an EM with somebody, right, you can be done an EM game with four people in like literally less than 10 minutes. Right. But if you're playing like some of the long players there, like there was a Foo Fighters, there was an Iron Maiden. You know, those games can go like a long time. Like you can talk about like a 30 minute plus game easily, even when they're playing like tough. you know, which tournament games typically are.
    4:16
    So they did it like that. So I was like, oh, man, so this is going to take way longer, like twice as long as I thought it was going to. And, yeah, it was a lot of tournament play. But at the end of the day, played pretty good. Ended up with a plaque. I got a plaque on my wall. So, yeah, you know, it was worth it. I even got money. So, hey, there you go. I know. I saw that. Yeah. So we'll get to, like, an overview of TPF in a second. But I think I do want to ask, so you got, can we reveal it? You got fourth place in your tournament. Amazing. That's a super... I mean, out of how many people are we talking about? Well, so, okay. So, a little caveat. I didn't get fourth place in the fucking Texas Wizards tournament. I got... No, I know. Because I'm not an A or B ranked player, because I'm technically a novice player with my IFP ranking. I like how you say technically.
    5:04
    Technically a novice. Well, you know. Technically. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever. I'm just giving you... It just is. I'm giving you shit, dog. But, yeah, because my ranking in the tournament was in the top eight that didn't make the actual finals. Because the finals was six. There's 168 people in the tournament.
    5:25
    Divided by two because there were two sessions. So 84. And then 16 made it from each of the 84. So I wasn't in the top 16. But because most of those players were A or B ranked players. There were several players in the top 100. Sure. Even Derek Thompson, I think he's in the top 10. So there were some really, really good players there. And at the end of the day, I made the novice finals. I cracked the, which is eight people, and then I cracked the top four. And if I didn't tilt out on the only game that ends the game if you tilt out, Volley, an old EM. If I didn't tilt out on that, I think I would have had it. I would have had enough points. But I tilted out on my first ball, and I only had 500 points. And that was a kick in the teeth after I'd been playing for three days. But it was a great experience. And my girlfriend, of course, beat me. She got second. She got second place. Amazing. Yeah, she didn't get higher in the tournament, but she got higher in the novice final. So it was a really good time. And, man, it was just vibes were so high. and shout out to all the TPF tournament directors. Man, they killed it. All the decisions they made were really fair, really on it. There were no freak outs at all in any of the three days, any groups. I was surprised there were no man babies screaming and shouting at anybody. It was very chill, really good vibe, especially for a tournament that's kind of a big deal. Definitely. I think it's funny because you're right. Even though the stakes are higher, I think because there's a tradition with TPF. I think we've said it already, but for those of you who aren't understanding what TPF is, we're talking about Texas Pinball Festival. Oh, yeah, that's important. Which is basically outside of Dallas, like Fort Worth, right? It's in Frisco, Texas, just north of Dallas, yeah. And I think sometimes when you're going to like TPF or MGC or some of the bigger ones where you're like, wow i bet it's pretty high stakes people are gonna freak out you kind of find actually that everyone's very well behaved i think a lot i'm not sure who the td is for uh or like the person in charge of the texas pinball festival tournament but i just know yeah you know from rachel ristow running stuff and different people like yeah you know they they keep they keep it just very chill and very like they take it seriously but they're not um you know there isn't a lot of those escalations which is really nice no and i think the other thing about tpf is because it is probably the biggest pinball only festival or one of maybe next to chicago expo yeah it's massive people are so excited to be there like vibes are just high like it takes a lot for someone to i think have a bad time there like if you love pinball you or it is your christmas and your birthday put together kind of thing like it is it is beautiful so just everything felt great And it's cool, too. Even the tournament, there's people of all ages. It was people from 9 to 90. It was really cool to see everybody coming together from all walks of life to just love and competitive pinball. And, of course, the show part, too. It was just so cool. So many cool new games, new products, and just people hanging out, partying, having a good time. It was a blast. Yeah, let's get into that a little bit. So there were a couple of games that premiered technically at TPF. We had the P3. They did Portal. Yeah. Did you get a chance to play Portal? I did play Portal. Yeah. And that had massive, massive lines. They had three set up, two of the extended edition and one of the standard. I played the extended. We did a long time in line to play it, actually. It's a long player, I think. the guy in front of me had a pretty massive score. I was watching him play it for a long time. He seemed to enjoy the game. I don't want to talk crap on the game or P3 because I actually am a pretty big fan of what they're trying to do. I love the concept. I understand that space is such a premium in people's houses that the P3 concept to be able to swap out the games and everything. you know i know there's people that have two p3s and are swapping out you know it's rad you know and i think i've always been bummed that you know a lot of the the changes in the playfields are like right at the back of the game you know and you know when you look at like a lot of them it's like okay the game is so wide open i know they have that that beautiful screen on the playfield and everything but i'm always like i don't know do i want to it's hitting a shot all the way at the back is kind of a weird feeling and portal you know the idea is to kind of solve that right because you've got the ramps closer up and you've got some other things going on.
    10:21
    I'll tell you this. I know you're a big fan of the theme, right, Ian? Yeah, I love the theme. I don't really get the theme. I don't really know what Portal was until you told me. Sure. And the game didn't resonate with me, really.
    10:36
    I think the game is really beautiful and the way they put everything together. But I don't know, man. I know those flippers were probably pretty worn out, tired. But the game felt pretty sluggish and slow. The ramp that came down was kind of janky. And again, people have been ripping on these things for three days. I played it on Sunday. So I don't want my review to be on the record as like, this game sucks because I don't think the game sucks. I was a little bit disappointed because I was really excited for this. And I thought, this is the one. This is the one that's going to bring... Everyone's going to be ordering these games. and it unfortunately didn't feel that way to me, but there were people really digging the game. Well, you brought up a really good point in that, Shane, in that I think sometimes it's hard, especially with companies like this or smaller companies who are only bringing a couple of games. Those games are getting played so much and so hard. What do they say? Road hard, put away wet. Yeah, that's right. Like, that's how these games are kind of treated at these things. So it can be tough sometimes. Like, I've had that experience before. I think the first time I played Ninja Eclipse two years ago is, like, I couldn't hit, like, any of the shots. And I truly don't think it was the engineering or anything. It was just the fact that, like, those babies were piping hot, you know, the coils in there. They just, you couldn't do it. But let me tell you, though, this is a perfect segue. You mentioned Ninja Eclipse. that was the first game from turner pinball and i gotta tell you man merlin's arcade the new game from turner pinball blew my mind it is awesome okay the game is awesome i walked up i didn't have a lot of yeah what's the word you didn't have the background of the lore of a fucking like to the knights of arcade like i don't even know what the fuck's going on there so i know i had no preconceived notions of this game being anything i didn't really get the theme or anything but man first of all i played that you know that game had huge lines too that game is fast as hell okay the shots are super super cool there's a lot of really fun things in the game like the the one side loop is a super super satisfying shot the foosball soccer guy that you can hit like as the spinner is such a fun thing everything the ramp is great man the game rules and and it looks good it feels good it's snappy it i'm telling you turner pinball is doing as well as anybody else in the industry right now with it with this new game it is really good and yeah the concept again i'm like ah this is weird like artwork didn't jump out at me but when you're playing the game it really has that kind of feel like a 90s sort of dumb like theme like that's just campy you know and you just kind of you kind of get into it when like sir lancelot is like playing basketball or whatever or you know because it's like an arcade it's like it's so stupid but it works and it's super fun and you just find yourself playing this game and everybody I talked to, everybody was talking about how fun this game is to play. I was like, $500, and they raised the price a little bit. They might have been overstepping. Now that I played the game, I think that's exactly right and exactly what they should have done. And I think this game is going to fly off the shelf once people start playing it. Because I thought Ninja Eclipse was pretty good. Yeah, me too. This game blows it away. It's really, really good. It surprised me so much. It was really, really great. That's actually really good to know because I'm not too big to say when I'm wrong. And I was kind of tough on this. When I saw it, I probably was where you are. I'm like, okay, this doesn't really make a ton of sense to me.
    14:48
    The theme was all over the place. the artwork i like so i think brad duke also did the artwork to this which i think he is such an amazing artist i love the art on ninja eclipse i think it's like very samurai jack influenced and so but just like for whatever reason when i saw this one and like i don't know maybe i just had my my hater hater goggles on or something but yeah but it's it's cool to hear you say that because it's a really great example of how gameplay is ultimately what matters right like a first impression for me of this thing is like, like whatever, but just hearing kind of people say that, and maybe, I don't know if you could speak to this at all, but so the basic concept of it, right. Is like, we have like nights of the round table. Every shot is associated with not only a night, but also an arcade game. Right. So there's like foosball. I know there's like, there's like a Pac-Man type game. There's like, uh, like a, you said like a pop a shot, like basketball kind of thing. Yeah, I think so. That's basically kind of what you're doing in the game? I think so. I mean, again, I played the game three times. Right. And, you know, if you're looking down, you're trying to play the game, you know, and you don't always, like, I can't comment on every in and out of how the whole game works because I don't. There's games I've been playing years I still don't understand really, right? Yeah, you're not Joel Engelbert.
    16:07
    Shout out to Joel. I met Joel over the weekend. What a nice guy. No, we'll get to that. Yeah, we'll talk about those things later. But, I mean, it's just fun, man. It's just fun. It's campy. It's silly. And the flow is incredible in the game. It's a flow monster. It's so much fun. And I just enjoyed shooting it, man. It was like, well, it didn't feel overly complicated. It didn't feel like, I don't know what's happening. There's too much to understand. It felt simple enough, but modern enough at the same time. But it was great, man. Everything shot well. It was, it's not a very difficult game. Like, I find even the in-lane is kind of like a wider in-lane. so the ball tends to kind of go there and not in the out lane or not back in the center of the game. So a few things like that. It seemed like it might be maybe better suited for, you know, a novice player like myself. Hell yeah. But it was, I cannot say enough nice things about it. And, of course, the whole Turner staff is cool too. Like they got, I think they had only two of the Merlin game and they had two Ninja Eclipse, but they had like their staff there. they were like welcoming people to the game. You know, if you had questions about what you were doing, they were there to ask. Like that's a company that's really doing a good job of kind of like welcoming people to play their games. Not just like, oh, there's a line, I don't know, like just have fun and whatever. It was cool that they were there to answer questions and, you know, whatever. I don't know if you know the entire history of where Turner Pinball comes from, but they're really born out of tragedy. Chris, I believe, and I'm sure someone can correct me on this, but I believe Chris actually worked for Deep Root. And so when that, unfortunately, and for those of you who don't know, maybe you're new to pinball or whatever, basically Deep Root had a financial scandal where some people went to prison. All these things happened. These assets were up in the air. And Chris Turner is this young guy, super cool, just a very friendly man, but also very business savvy, he snapped up a lot of those things that they were working on. Basically, when they went to auction, he was able to buy those properties. And so I do know, I think this game is actually a design. I was trying to look to see who the designer is because I know he's been in pinball for a long time. And I'm sorry that I'm not pulling his name right now. You can tell because it does feel mature. It feels great. That's so cool. like that's one of my favorite experiences is when you kind of go up to a game that you have no you know it's almost the opposite of what you had with the p3 you were really you really hyped on the p3 and it was like it was okay but maybe not my favorite this one you have no almost like low expectations and then all of a sudden it's like yeah damn this is like quite good yeah no it was quite good you know and i think there's a game one more game that i hadn't played that you have played that I'd like to talk about. Yeah, what's that? That's Spooky's Evil Dead, which, you know, the big news over the weekend was they sold out. They sold their last 25 to a distributor, picked up the remaining ones. So if you want one, there's a few still out there, but Luke and Bug were celebrating, you know, big time. Like, yeah, this game sold out, you know, and it's a big win for them. What do those dorks do for a celebration? They're, like, drinking, like, fucking mug root beer and having a pizza party like the squarest bros around.
    19:35
    Yeah, you know, it's yes, in a way, yes. I hung out with Bug and Luke a little bit and I gotta say, Ian, now, Bug's a listener of the show. He's been listening. He says he finds it very entertaining. He's really enjoying the podcast.
    19:52
    And he says that ever since you called out Shooter Rod Buttons, was it the last episode? It was last episode. Yeah, it was last episode. He is getting flooded with messages.
    20:07
    That's the nudge effect. Bug wants to come on and debate you about shooter rods versus buttons. This is going to happen. We're going to have an upcoming episode with Bug from Spooky Pinball himself. And he's got his point. You better come prepared, Ian, because this guy, he's an ultimate nerd. And he's going to know exactly what to say to defend his point. And I'm interested in what he says. But I'll tell you, man, ever since we had that talk in the last episode, every time I go and I look down to my right and I go, oh, it's not a rod. It's a button. I think about you and your hatred and your hatred for buttons. So I want to hear the debate. So we're going to have Bug on as a future guest. But congratulations to Spooky for selling out the game. Yes. And my take on the game, I had very high expectations.
    21:00
    Very high expectations. I built it up. I mean, I was part of that. But, dude, it is good. It is their best game. I played it three or four times, so not as much as really I wanted to play it. Because, again, they had ten of them. They had ten of them, and they were packed out the entire weekend when I walked by. Dude, the game is super fun. Lots of creativity in there. It's a great shooter as well. It's kind of undeniable. It's an undeniable game, and it's their best game. Even bugs like My Favorite is TCM. That's my favorite game that we've made. But Evil Dead is their best game. We have an instant classic right here. It's really that good. Everything about it. The artwork's amazing. The graphics are amazing. The gameplay's amazing. It really all just works together. And yeah, I wish I could have played it for hours. the modes are so well integrated like into the game in the in terms of right like light show oh yeah you're actually do what you're actually doing like just the idea right we take for granted the fact like there's i forget what the girlfriend one is called where you're like her head spinning as she's dancing oh yeah yeah and when you hit the spinner her head spins right like it on the screen and then you get past that and then you are having to like it's like a disembodied head that you're like not hitting on things and every time you hit her head on something the knocker goes off right like those integrations are so smart and fun and like add a layer and it wouldn't matter right if if it didn't shoot well but god shoots so fun like especially for a wide body and i know this is one of those like people always say well it's a wide body but it's not because it's mostly a wide body to fit all this okay whatever like it still feels big it still feels big when you're playing it, right? Like the flippers are way on the... But I never once felt overwhelmed by it. I think I play it... I don't want to get shit for saying this, because you know I love everyone at Stern 2, and I love D&D. When I have the option to play Evil Dead or D at Lit Pinball Bar i choose evil dead a lot like a lot like maybe two to one um and like that doesn't mean that it's better or worse i think they're just like two different games but damn dog like when's the last time you said that about a spooky game whereas like yeah there's two options here i'm picking spooky like double what i'm you know it's just like that is so exciting and and i did want to respond because we we kind of went over that you're like hey let's give bug a bunch of compliments and and then we'll we'll move on to talk about his game i think that's great that bug listens the show that's amazing um i definitely think he is a nerd so you're right he's going to come prepared on that i think i'll probably deal with him the way i dealt with nerds like you know in high school which is like not going to come prepared and just like maybe make fun of them and like do some cheap shots yeah you might have to win that argument anyway exactly i gotta play dirty because this guy knows pinball way better than me he's younger than me he's better looking he's fitter uh he's making cool games so like bro i if i gotta be the guy who like throws you know like i pretend like when he socks me in the stomach like i'm really hurt and then i pick up dirt throw it in his eyes and then kick him in the nuts like if that's the way it's gotta go then that's the way it's gotta go but it's a good thing he'll have you here as as sort of the i'll be the referee once again you're the rep yeah absolutely it is though amazing though and i and i i know i'm tooting bug and and luke's horn a lot here please do it's like success what's amazing about these guys is they just started this company from scratch they do all the design work themselves they have so much creativity within their design work they're still young people you know they don't have the pedigree of like you know like i saw steve richie just hanging around you know actually he was talking about and luke when i said when i saw him too you know so it's like it was cool to see that kind of generational like you know new designer old design together talking just chatting you know but but those guys like not only do they do all the design work they come up with these incredible ideas they have to figure at how they're running a company, right? Figuring out the nuts and bolts with the business, the licensing. Then they're both there behind the table selling merch. I know. For their own company.
    25:28
    It's crazy. Like, how do they have time to sleep? And I said to them, I was like, because I know last year, they literally, like, put all their games in a freaking trailer and drove down from Wisconsin, you know? And, like, they did the whole thing themselves. And I was like, did you guys do that again? And they almost seemed embarrassed to say, like, actually, we packed a truck and we flew down. And I'm like, oh, you guys are getting bougie now. You know? Oh, man. Wow. Don't forget where you came from. But it's crazy to me that these guys still are so hands-on with everything. They know everything about their business. When they're not sleeping, they're working on pinball. But whatever they're doing is working. It's an incredible, incredible story.
    26:13
    And like Evil Dead is just, it's to see them come. Not that they're early. I think the early games were really good too. But to see them make this game now and have everyone rally around it and have this game sell out. And like, who knows what's next? It's amazing, man. Everyone is in their corner because like, how could you not be? My impression of Spooky, and we know this, like I've always rooted for them. um like when i was on pinball party and stuff like that it was always sort of you know kale was pretty anti-spooky i was pro-spooky and jason kind of fell fell somewhere in the middle on there right but even that being said i think i had to acknowledge right like they took some lumps like they so bug didn't start the company his dad did yeah and and and so i just want to make that delineation because that's actually makes this more impressive shane like he didn't start this company and there were a lot of people who are like they're driving it into the ground because i think their first couple releases when you know it was bug and spooky luke it was it was rocky and people were like quick to hop on that and be like yo what's going on so the fact that they right they say this in business a lot like i'm not a good businessman but i've been lucky to work for a lot of good companies and they always say you know it's not the mistake you make it's how you respond to it right and this game is just such a repudiation of like all the knocks that spooky have had against it like could there be board issues that come up sure we don't know but it seems like for the most part this is so well made great design super cool art like they finally had all the things like come together in a way that is like i don't know i was so excited but yeah enough enough about these guys i have one more uh question about games to ask you because there was one game that wasn't there that, for me, was sort of the talk of the internet, actually.
    28:07
    Mr. Excitement himself, Jack Winari, kind of snooze-fest announced that Harry Potter is the next title from Jersey Jack Pinball. And not only that, right, but they have all the movie assets. That's what I heard. And he said, I wouldn't spend it. Wait, should I do it like how he did it?
    28:28
    And I wouldn't spend a dime. I wouldn't spend a dime until I saw it. That was kind of how he said it. That's kind of how he said it, yeah. Yeah, yeah. I was like, bro. I don't know if it's his accent or if he had been on the sauce or what's going on.
    28:47
    He has an interesting demeanor about him, but I did like what he said. And I do like that he's spilling the beans. like there's a reveal coming he's like you know what it's my fucking company i want to say what i want and i think i think it's working i think the hype train is going to be real for this game because if they have all the assets if they're going to load it up like he he referenced wizard of oz which is like maybe the most with like loaded game of all time if it's going to be like that full of harry potter stuff this is going to be like this could be one of the greatest games ever it just could be bro if if they just have the music you know what i mean like if they have john williams music that will kill me like i love like it just makes me think of christmas time and we don't have like a lot of good yeah christmas pins in general so he said he spent millions of dollars like acquiring this license so were people talking about it at all there or like what was kind of the vibe like in because like when you watch the video it feels weird and i've heard like oh it was an hour late there weren't that many people in there um it was just like a strange response to me because i think like right people have all kinds of feelings about jk rowling these days like when i reposted when i reposted it i had people like why are we uplifting a turf and i was like i don't know man it's just like a pinball game i don't think jk has anything to do with it but uh what were people saying like at the festival about it you know it's it's funny the whole seminar kind of scene at tpf is a little bit disconnected from the show itself like i think a lot of people don't go to the seminars they aren't really like oh i can't wait for this one and then when they happen that like you know they're in this little theater room and like it's almost always like a quarter full is kind of the feel in there i don't know if it's because things get pushed back people aren't sure about the schedule or if it's just because there's too many damn things going on um you know but i think that announcement that announcement got way more hype online than it did at the show you know there were there were definitely a few people talking about it there was there was a lot of talk about barrels of fun not having their new game there too and kind of what it's going to be which is still like the the it's still wild i talked to uh i won't call anybody out but i did talk to a barrels of fun employee who said the internet is just doing our job for us like they are just totally like making people really confused about what our new game is going to be so i think that that was a lot a lot of the talk too because you know yeah uh jjp had already teased on facebook that harry potter was coming like everybody knows that i think i think the big news is they got all the assets this thing is going to be fucking loaded and the hype is there now.
    31:38
    But when? I guess we just don't know when. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. I'm excited to see. I mean, hopefully for me, selfishly, I'm hoping it's at MGC, which is coming up. Isn't that in a week? No, it's in like two weeks. Oh, two weeks. Okay.
    31:53
    Maybe. I would say that would be... Well, it's just a closer show for them is sort of what I'm thinking about it. But yeah, we'll see. So, well, do you think, I mean, this is your second one. Do you think you're going to go back next year, Shane?
    32:08
    You're in the pinball community now, right? Like you are, people can recognize you not just from your many accomplishments in the music field, but, you know, not just with Nudge, you're like, you're fully fledged, like you're in the crew now. Well, that's, it's funny you mentioned that because I was in the tournament room and I was just like playing a game with a guy and we were just chatting or whatever. and then he realized who i was and i was like okay yeah you know like i don't my band sold over a million records like people know who i am but he didn't know me from the band he knew me from the nudge cast and he's like oh my god i'm a massive fan i love the podcast so much and he like he really kind of nerded out on me shout his name is owen shout out to owen okay and i was like dude this this is like kind of new for me to have you know have like a a fan of what i'm doing in pinball which is really weird and then yeah and then i saw the guy again and then he actually gave me a couple metallica mods that he for for my metallica remastered le i was like what a fucking nice guy so yeah shout out to owen thanks for the thanks for the mods i'm gonna put him in my game uh this week it was cool so yeah we we've got we got real fancy in no one's ever given me a mod so um fuck off owen on that one but uh yeah he would have given you a mod if you were if you were there yes you say that but if you know i i'm sure we've been in the same room i don't know that i've ever anyway i don't want any mods just you guys you guys know what i like and it's drugs so just give me those give them the k2 and give me the k2 yeah wasn't that the intro song k2 that was yeah give me the k2 just it's like uh it's like if you spray sawdust with chemicals and then try to smoke it is basically what it is don't give me any k2 i don't want it banana peels exactly well shane uh i don't want to take any more time waiting we have a great guest coming up uh jim cantiello is a td and in charge of the la pinball league and i mean just like you'll hear like just a lot of really fun stuff a super cool la guy and great energy but um yeah he's also he's also a big celebrity interviewer and he's a he's a major player in hollywood he is and he actually gives us some advice on how we can fix the twippies so um stay around guys uh next up is our interview with jim cantiello Well Shane, our next guest is a producer, director and showrunner Back in the day he was also a hilarious sideline reporter He produced tons of segments for MTV News, X Factor, and other fun early 2000s internet content adjacent stuff. More recently, he's had an extremely impressive run as an award show showrunner. He's worked on Vogue's Met Gala coverage, SNL's 50th Red Carpet, and the Red Carpet for, I don't know if you've heard of it, the Academy Awards. He's also the LA Pinball League co-director and a huge pinball nerd. Please welcome to the show, Jim Cantiello. Hey, Jim. What's up? Thanks for having me, guys. And you're so sweet. What a nice intro. I'm the red carpet guy. I just want to clarify. I did not work with Conan O'Brien on the Oscars. That's fine. I worked on the red carpet that preceded it, for sure. Yeah, absolutely. That's sick, though. Shout out to E. I'm the E guy. So make sure you guys watch live from E when you're choosing your red carpet programming. Always, for sure. Ian, you're getting a lot of compliments on your intros lately. This is going to go right to your head. it it already has yeah well it's like the only writing i really do for the podcast so you know i just try to stick some some good stuff in there and then i just worry that i'm gonna like stumble over it when i'm reading it so it's always nice when i get it out you know pretty pretty evenly but uh jim you know a lot about this you have been a journalist for many many years i guess i actually just kind of wanted to how does one get the job as like an mtv journalist your stuff was so funny. It wasn't just like news-based. It had like a perspective to it too. So how did that start? Um, you're so kind calling me a journalist. I am, uh, I was a producer that just like really was in the right place at the right time. I was doing, um, I was a production assistant. That's how I got my foot in the door there at MTV news. I was previously in a voiceover audio engineer at MTV that I got through an internship there. And then, um, someone at MTV news saw something that I wrote and was like, wait, you're really, you have a really interesting point of view, like, come work for us. And then very quickly sort of made a like sort of name for myself at MTV News. And then they threw me on air and it went really well. And I got to, I think part of what, uh, there was some focus group at some point in MTV's long storied history where they were like, we like nerds who know things. So it was like that directive that there was like, wait, you're a non-traditional like person. You're not, uh, I mean, to be credit, like MTV News had Gideon Yago who I knew who was also like a nerd who knew things. Um, so I was kind of like, but I was like the zany guy. Uh, so I was like, yeah, it was like a weirdo that was really into the internet in early internet and lucked out and, uh, had a wild career there. I'm so thankful and feel so lucky, but like I didn't go to journalism school. I went to film school. So I get, I get a little nervous, like, don't call me a journalist. Cause like while TV news was real journalism and I learned how to be a journalist there by incredible actual entertainment reporters and journalists. I like I feel weird taking that I I feel the exact same way people will say that to me about nudge now they're like pinball journalism I'm like well my MFA is in short story writing so it's not I I don't exactly come to it from a journalistic background either so I I think it gives you though sort of a unique I don't know so were you writing a lot of the like segments that you were doing like you were I wrote like 99.99 percent of any time you saw me at MTV saying things. It was like my point of view or my script, or it was like someone that was working with me, but it was like us together. It was always supposed to, that was kind of my shtick. It was like, I was the voice of the people or like, you know, so, and it's how I ended up being a host. Cause I had written something for years. I was working behind the scenes. Actually next year is my 20th anniversary of my segment starting to hit MTV and I have them all digitized. So I think I'm going to like create some weird website and put them all up. Cause for like two years, I was doing stuff exclusively behind the scenes and some of my sensibilities are still coming through and it's weird to look at that as like a baby producer being like oh weird I uh so I was very fortunate that they uh I went in with the script one day and I'm like what talent you want to read this and they were like no idiot like you need to say it and I was like what and that's like so anyway yeah that's cool 20 years 20 years ago a lot of that stuff is kind of lost too right like you know it's all gone yeah it's it's kind of annoying there's so much stuff that that even like you know my band was on you know whether it was mtv or much music and it's like i would love to find like that stupid interview that we did on you know you know we had like a trl canadian version of trl up in canada on much music and you know i would love to see that stuff and it's just gone forever and so depressing just you uploading that stuff anywhere like on youtube or whatever I think people would actually really enjoy watching that back. Not just, I mean, some of it has not aged well. I don't know. I found one piece. Some stuff. It's like, it's like, hell no, dude, this is like, we're not trying to get canceled up in here. But there was one piece. I remember when Brittany announced she was getting divorced from K fed. It was like, or, you know, it was the beginnings of entertainment journalism really. And just journalism in general, having to chase the clicks. So we had done probably like 75 stories in like three days. And at some point someone was like, we should do a story in defense of KFED. And so they were like, you should write that. And I like this whole thing. And it's like, you could just feel every inch of it being like, I have to write this because we have nothing else to say about this at this point. But I watched that and I was just like, oh, I don't want that on the Internet. That's horrifying. I guess he was kind of a pioneer of self-care. Perhaps we could say. I don't know. I'm trying to think of like a nice way to say he's a slacker. But yeah, amazing. Well, it would just be – Shane, I would love to actually see 2006 you on Canadian MTV. I think that would be – There's still a few clips. Please. When I was applying for my green card, I had to show – I had to prove I was famous enough to get one. So there was a lot of deep diving into, okay, any mainstream TV appearance I ever did, I had to try to find it. And it was difficult. but there was a few that were like really really fun to watch um but yeah some of it is some of the answers i had like i wouldn't have said that now that's for sure i was at mtv as they were everything was transitioning to being all digital and like tapeless and it was really immediately as someone i started in the dubbing department so i was always very like obsessed with like tapes actually oh my god i actually have some like old beta sps that's mariah carey on trl when she like showed up and uh was crazy a piece of history amazing i took that on my way out it's a copy the original but i was like fine um but anyway it was really depressing when i started to notice and a lot of my segments themselves got like vanished from an ether as soon as the avid like cleared our hard drive which we needed to do for space like i was like oh i guess i'll never have that glee cap ever again cool that's fine uh but like to think one that's my stuff but like just to think of like interviews that we did with like you know celebrities i remember once oh my god when michael jackson died we were pulling everything from the library and the executive producer at mtv news was like who's now an oscar winner by the way heyo he was like get the intro to thriller when thriller premiered on mtv and you'd think that that would be easy to find in the library at mtv and it actually got taped over in the early 80s in the same that is a recycle tape in like the mid to late 80s it wasn't like a huge thing yet so they were like well we gotta just like so it just didn't exist that is like the equivalent of taping over the wedding video with Monday Night Football or something 100% for some like probably some Edie Burkell music video premiere it just came up 10 years later 6 years later that is wild wow um but anyway let's talk about pinball yeah let's let's do that or no i mean you take this wherever you want but i'm just you know no i know you're antsy i love it i i would rather i like that you're such a pinball well i might have a couple more questions for you on reporting stuff later as it comes up because well i'll just say this for you i like you might not know this maybe you do you you follow nudge on instagram but i was a sideline reporter this year actually for the pinball uh the twippies which is pinball's award show i might need some advice from you for that but yeah we'll we'll get there i think um what would you do if your microphone just stopped working as a soundline reporter or not sorry not your microphone your your your camera feed yeah my camera stopped working stopped working would you go over the host shoulder uh and just like loom over them because that was my choice i'm usually in the control room so i would be in your earpiece screaming like get out of there what are you doing you're making them look like tiny people all right no we'll get okay let's we'll get to that later but when did you start with pinball like were you a kid were you an adult what how great question multi multi answer here uh so my one of my best friends growing up my neighborhood buddy his name was mike i had two mike best friends mike and mike one of the mics had a basement with a six million dollar man pinball machine in it and his basement was like the only air-conditioned basement in the neighborhood and they also had like a pool table like every video game console air hockey they had bumper pool like it was the house and one of those games i grew up in like eastern long island strong isle represent um a town called satakit which is really small but it's in between port jefferson and stony brook which are like bigger towns that some people have heard of um so yeah so we were there and I played a lot of pinball there. It didn't fully vibe. And we also had this place called Spaceplex growing up in Long Island. And it was like every kind of arcade, but they had three or four pinball machines. And it was the early 90s when I was going to a lot of pinball, I mean, a lot of arcade birthday parties as a kid. So I have vivid memories of playing T2, Addams Family, and then plugging in the C&C Music Factory in the jukebox so I could hear everybody dance now. uh it's like a little gay boy as i played pinball um so and then that place this is like really crazy uh i'm gonna take you into a dark space but there was like a kidnapping that happened where like a girl from our hometown like and and they said like the last place she was seen was spaceplex so then like every parent stopped letting their kids have birthday parties there when the place closed down but then years later we found out that like she actually never had been at spaceplex and had been abducted by a family member this was like all of us we had a substitute teacher who was the cop that like rescued the girl from like a dungeon in a family member's house anyway wow i think often about those poor business owners at spaceplex that got like sideswiped by some weird alibi by a shady anyway totally yeah no that like spaceplex like justice for spaceplex like they lost out on crazy revenue oh it was a crazy place i had this like web thing that like definitely wouldn pass code now because it was also like an amusement park park And they had bumper cars And then they had this weird web thing It was all latex webs that you could climb and that had different levels And definitely Games of Truth or Dare were being played there as little... It was so inappropriate. But you'd get smacked in the face by rubber bands. It's like, how did kids not die on that?
    46:31
    It makes me think of the Terminator 2 arcade scene. you know have you seen this boy you know it's like everyone was scared of arcades after that oh it was the best so that was like my early days pinball i didn't get like hardcore into pinball when i like realized that pinball was basically an analog video game until i was much older so like my mtv days i would hang out um in new york city pinball was kind of everywhere when i was there i was in new york city from like 99 to 2012 and there weren't many spots where you could go to play a bunch of pinball but there were many spots where there would be a game or two right so i had a really tight-knit group of friends one of them was like a secret pinball wizard and was like secretly going to warehouses on the weekends and like going to like gambling pinball nice yeah but like had a bit of a problem it was like very big rounders energy and we didn't really know about this until like years later when he like kind of figured out how to manage his pinball like addiction and then like kind of got us all into it so that he could scratch his itch without pissing off the Russian mafia. I'm speaking of her.
    47:36
    That's in my brain. I never went to these warehouse parties, but that's how I story produce them. It could have been the Yakuza. We're not really sure. We don't. Any one of those organized outfits. They love that white water game, man.
    47:49
    That was when I started to really play a lot of pinball. Then there was a moment when I worked on the X Factor. I got flown out here. Very fortunate. I had 12 weeks, I think that Fox put me out in some fancy apartment and I got to bring my, one of my best friends, Brendan out with me as my producer. And we had a lot of downtime and we were like, let's look up pinball while we're out here. And that's when we like found pins and needles, which, uh, Oh my God was like pinball heaven and was the absolute gateway drug to like inject this in my brains. This is not just like a hobby, but like my full personality from here moving forward. Yeah. Just like, I think about it all the time. I like it's when I really started to appreciate the artistry of it, the whole the community of it, all of it. It all clicked. I'm in L.A. here. And so timeline wise, then when do you start to understand about like organized pinball or like joining the L.A. Pinball League? When is that kind of coming into? Yeah. Great question. I didn't join any leagues in New York. I knew they existed and my friends were kind of circling it, but none of us really like all dove in until I moved away. And then they were like, oh, we missed Jim. Let's just join the league. And then once I moved to L.A., it was like a pinball desert here other than pins and needles and like Blipsy's Arcade, which always had broken machines. And then there was like a Shadow Lanes near me in Koreatown that had like a broken game or two. and it wasn't until 82 open the bar where the la pinball league eventually moved to where we are today that like we had a real space that was pinball in los angeles and thank god for 82 and scott and the team that runs that place were really and they took so so let me hold on let me i'm getting way ahead of myself yeah it's needles pins and needles was like this place in echo park that was like in a band rehearsal studio space you could like rent a room by the hour to jam out with your, you know, your poor band. Um, I don't think there were actual recording studios in there, but maybe I'm not a musician. So maybe that existed, but it seemed to me, it was always just like poor musicians who needed a closet to like jam out as loud as possible. It was just like silver, like hipsters hanging outside, like smoking cigarettes. And that's kind of what it was for a little bit. Right. So, uh, so yeah, when I was here in 2011, pins and needles was actually in this weird space upstairs at that space where you would like, we read about it on the internet the corners of the internet and we're like let's see this out so we show up to this place we're hearing this like crazy music everywhere like what we're going through hallways very la quintessential la and then you like wound up a little staircase and then came across a room that was like bigger than most rooms that i'd seen in new york city period full of pinball machines and then this weird like 70s couch in the middle and this like angel in braids and the biggest bong i've ever seen in my life and just like stacks of pizza boxes around her like taking a huge rip and then like she like looks up and then i'm like hi can we is this pins and needles and she's like smoke i mean it was like out of a movie yeah it's just like yeah yeah like yeah like quarter machines over there help yourself avoid the games with x's on them because i'm about to have a league here and it was like one of the earliest seasons of la pinball league so i wasn't there to join the league i was like oh okay you know me and my friend brennan were like, we'll be out of your hair. We were so intimidated by it. And man, that place was amazing. And then I ended up moving to LA six months, maybe a year and a half after that experience. No, about six months after that experience. And at that point, Pins and Needles had moved down into a garage space in the same building. And that's when I started to see the community in a way more robust time because it was more like evenings I would go there and they'd have the window open, the whole garage door open. And they had this amazing, just giant speaker with a turntable hooked up to it and it would just be echoing the most wonderful sounds and music someone would be djing there and like pinball would be happening and man so that was and that was the first time you played in a league was at pins and needles what year was that so the league didn't i know i did not actually ever play the la pinball league when it was at pins and needles i only joined whence 82 opened okay i was a little intimidated by pins and needles uh it was so cool but i just was like i don't know if i'm cool enough to hang here and it did seem like the peeps that were in the league at that time were like a friend group you know what i mean it was like that was yeah i think that's a common experience with a lot of like pinball is very insular sometimes like and it's and it's sort of hard to crack some of those social circles i think it's getting better now as we see sort of a diversity of like backgrounds and stuff as people get into it but the la pinball community now is so vibrant and there are so many places i'd be happy to talk about any and all of them and so many communities and it's uh but anyway And also the no fault to the early L.A. Pinball League people who I now know so many of them and they're all so sweet. It was my all insecurity being like, you don't know my social. You know, I think all us pinball people can relate. We're all weirdos and awkward and 100 percent. But that's so cool, though, that you've gone from being kind of intimidated to the space to now kind of co-running it. You know, where you see where you see those people that were like you that kind of stumble in that look and go, oh, like I heard about this, you know, pinball thing. and I'm interested in trying it. And now like you get to be, you know. Oh, it's my favorite thing that I do. Yeah, you get to help people kind of navigate that. And weird parallels to my career, part of what I hear from a lot of people I work with now in my role as like an executive producer is from hosts is they're like, oh, Jim, you're so good when you talk to me because I used to do that. So it's like, oh, I know the crazy shit going on in your brain. And I kind of feel like I bring that to pinball too, where it's like, oh, I remember when I was like so nervous and like self-conscious about my skills. Like it took me like, I think, seven years of playing at the league before I won my first trophy. And I remind people that all the time because I see people get really freaked out and like stressed out about winning a trophy. And I'm like, you won it in three years. Like it took me seven. Like, stop. You're fine. You know, I like. Yeah. So anyway, I wanted to know, like I've asked this to we've had other tournament directors on like famously. Juana Summers is a tournament director out in Baltimore.
    54:03
    We've had Elizabeth Weinberg on before, but I always like to ask what they think is a good attribute for a TD or a director to have. For you, it sounds a bit like empathy, but I guess, yeah, I'm interested to hear kind of your thoughts on what you think makes for a good tournament director. Oh, I mean, I think it's personal preference, honestly, Because I think if there are certain types of pinball player that want a really buttoned up experience and take it really seriously and want everything to be like. So I think if you're looking for that, you find peeps that have that energy and like you'll find them and you'll then and that to them would be like an amazing tournament director. For me, the stuff I'm looking for is like, yeah, human beings. I love I like reminding people that like pinball is a game, not a sport. At least that's my POV. Right. So, yeah, for sure. We're here to be casual. And also, my philosophy about pinball is it's like a tangible object, just like a piece of tape. It deteriorates. It has quirks. And sure, if a quirk is really a problem, we'll kill it. But also, I'm impressed that you can get Grand Champion at your home Godzilla that you personally wax and fine-tune. But can you play on 82's Godzilla, which is played by drunk people 99% of the week?
    55:24
    it's like different skill sets. Are you a better pinball player? I don't know. It's all relative. So that's like, you know, that's sort of how I feel about a pinball. Like for me, yes. The way I like to do is like inclusive too, is like a gay person. Like I want to make sure that people feel safe. Um, we're in LA, so it's a pretty chill environment for that, but still, you know, we try and like make it, I really, one of my favorite things about running the league is when we see like someone come week one and they're a little reserved and quiet. And then they like kind of see who's here and they see me and they, Corey, I can't go, I can't believe I haven't said Corey's name. yeah i know cory and i uh go way back um she's amazing uh so but then seeing people on week two when they come with like their full selves and it's like oh they've changed how they're dressing or like all of that's like oh they feel comfortable enough to like be themselves around us that to me is like the best um and i also just love the colliding of personalities like i love that we have like public school teachers hanging out with like the guy that does visual effects or like marvel movies mixing with like people who are like nurses like it's just such a cool that's always my favorite thing about the tournament tournaments that i do i live in las vegas is just the the range of ages we have in different people and it's like it doesn't matter what you believe politically or anything like we're just there you know to fall around the silver ball you know and it's a beautiful thing that we it's like everybody's little escape i think from from whatever they got going on but it is it is nice jim to have someone like you in those positions just because like you had mentioned like you're a little bit like tentative the first time you go and i think for me a big part of it was like i'm worried about rules like if if i'm gonna press you know oh i didn't press this for three players instead of four like you know like those things it's like it makes a big difference when and i've been to both and i totally understand people who is like they kind of assume you know what you're doing you're here like we especially i think smaller tournaments sometimes like if you know just everyone is there like you'll be like okay like here we go we're uploading our scores and all this stuff but um it's really nice to have someone who can be a little more look i'm understanding that there is a social element to this actually and that is the primary element for a lot of people here and that we want someone who is taking that into consideration even more than just we're following the rules to get to whatever, a completion of a tournament. 100%. I mean, we are. LA Pinball League is an IFPA-sanctioned league, so we follow all of those things and keep that seriously. But we still do it in a very casual way, if that makes sense. And try to keep those vibes. And like I said, the beauty of LA Pinball is there are places that might have more... intense energy that if you really are seeking that out you can find that um and there are places that have even more mile that aren't ipa sanctions you can like really kick back and not even think about points and all that stuff in the back of your mind yeah i think we were talking about waltz you know being kind of a more of a chill sort of environment and that's good that you have a different range of it totally people can find what they need you know and we love the cross pollination that's been happening you know having like waltz people come check out 82 82 people go So while it's Revenge of, we have lots of people from Ace in the Valley, which is a super cool spot with amazing pinball. It feels like pinball is sort of having a renaissance, like a bit of a boom right now. Oh, man. It's beautiful. All the companies, there's so many new machines coming out. Everything seems bigger than it's been. Are you seeing that too? In a place like LA, it's obviously a massive city. Are you seeing more and more new people coming out? The tournament numbers growing?
    59:09
    Or just, you know, 82 being more busy in general? I would say that it's been swelling ever since post-pandemic. Like, after the pandemic, it was like a floodgate had opened, and we went from being, like, around 40 people to, like, 60-plus some seasons. We're kind of now down back to, like, around 40, and I think part of that is because even more places have popped up since then, and there's only so much pinball that, like, people can play in a week. So we've lost some regulars, but then the beauty of it is, like, we now have so many new people that are coming in and becoming regulars. So I, you know, I, if I looked at the like, um, attendance over the years, I would say that I'd like, we have, we have this one dude, Jim, another Jim, Jim E. Um, I'm Jim C. He's Jim E. Jim E has been there since season two of, uh, LA pinball league. And we're in, we're about to finish season 57 and he's been to every single season. What is it about four? Do you do about four seasons a year? Is that three to four? it depends on how busy Corey and I are. And Corey and I got the league from Molly, Queen Molly, Queen of LA pinball. Um, she gave it to us, I think 2018 or 2019. She moved back to Pennsylvania. And at that point she like got to know both of us. And she was like, I was like, honestly, one of the most like treasured moments of my life to have like Queen Molly be like, Jim, I would, would you want to run the LA pinball league? I was like, are you kidding me? Like you're going to give it to me. which is like, well, you and Corey. And I was like, even better. Yes. Corey's so good at getting, cause Corey plays so much pinball. I mean, I play a lot of pinball, but Corey like, and she competes. So she's going everywhere all over the country all the time. And it's so good about bringing new people to our league. And she also started a bells and chimes LA league. So yeah. You're a busy guy though. Is it, is it hard to with your schedule sometimes to be able to, you know, manage it or I mean, I guess you have a partner too. Oh, it's hell. Okay. But you have a partner, I guess, to lean on, like Corey. But it sounds like she's busy, too. We are both super busy. And it fluctuates. My awards season for the past several years that I've been doing this, obviously, is crazy busy. We now plan for it. So we're going to be dark for two weeks around the Met Gala. Because I know I'm probably going to be in New York. Corey's probably going to have to travel for work herself.
    61:27
    So we just brace for it. And I'm now doing it enough that I know how much time it takes. so I can find the like three hours a week that like I have to do paperwork for it spread across the week like I can manage that even when I'm super busy and honestly sometimes I like that when I'm like drowning in research about like celebrities and like it's like kind of nice to just be like data entrying for a minute like take my brain off of it um you know I wish that I was like married to like a super rich person and could just make pinball my life to be honest bro same right like i have such vision for like what i could make this league like i would love to cover the league like a real sports thing because when i'm doing the paperwork i'm like oh my god that game was so close how exciting like i know right live for those details and i feel like there's so much story i could tell with our pinball league i just don't have the time to jim we'll stay we'll stay in contact and i feel like we can start our pinball media company at some point in the next five years it's good so i have so many i'm like i have tv show ideas about pinball said every single person that plays pinball ever i know but i'm like really hoping that some of them can happen i have like a really good celebrity angle okay all right i'm hoping it can happen speaking of celebrities uh speaking of celebrities have you brought any in to league have you had any been like hey you should check this out you know it's like a cool cool vibe you know because i i'll be honest i've looked through the ifpa database like there's people i'm like i heard they fuck with pinball and i like search their name and just to see if any tournaments come up but i guess some people will be under under aliases i guess too for ifpa purposes i have not ever recruited a pinball a celebrity i'm not friends with that many celebrities to be honest uh i did have a like pipe dream that when i was flying back from snl 50 i would be next to Jason Sudeikis. And I had to do pinball paperwork flying home from that trip. So I was like, oh, I know he's going to see me entering scores on Medieval Madness and be like, what's that? And I'd be like, LA Pinball League, you should come! When he won his Emmy for Ted Lasso, we were leaving after doing the after show for E! Me and my crew were going to the garage and he was coming out of the Crypto.com arena holding his 10 Emmys or whatever. And I shouted like, congrats! Go play some pinball! And he was like, fuck yeah i'm going to play pinball and i'm like they all looked at me and they were like i'm like oh yeah i know every celebrity that plays pinball like i just know that they do so that i could talk to them about it yeah well i know we're gonna manifest we're gonna manifest this right now we're gonna have him on for nudge cast episode 100 we'll be i want to know if he has a medieval does own a medieval madness and i want to know if he owned it when he worked on snl and tina fey was his boss and how weird is it to have tina fey like your boss's voice on a home pinball machine yeah it's doing a valley girl voice uh that yeah it's interesting i we i know a couple celebrities who play pinball just because i mean not to toot my own horn but they subscribe to nudge so we got we got rich summer has been like in the he's been in the crew i think he bought he was like one of the first hundred subscribers to nudge he was even a bigger yeah bigger nerd than you shane so they're out there for sure i know that they are but uh um yeah it's gonna have been canceled well yeah and you know that's fine and and uh we don't have to talk about them yeah no rich is awesome i like it blew my mind when i i i defeated him at a pinball tournament at lawless many years ago and i just like left and i was like i beat the dude from that i know and you're like he should be good it feels like a madman type game you know you're like i guess if you're not playing them on ems or something it would be like you know that would be an unfair advantage but so i got an i got an idea in so we've got we've got this list of like general pinball questions what do you think about we do them kind of quick like we come at you kind of hard with them yeah let's do it let's give us some short answers can we do that this is oh yeah i'm really rambly sorry guys but no no no it's fine no no no he's saying for us because I ask rambly questions. So we're going to hit it fast. It's going amazing. I'm just wondering if maybe we can try the Jim Cantiello pinball lightning round. What do you think? I agree. Let's do it. So let's do it. Alright, I'm going to kick it off. What's your favorite game?
    66:02
    Oh, fuck you. I can't answer that. Impossible. Impossible question for the lightning round, but hey man, we're trying to go quick. If I was rich enough to own a pinball machine, I would own a Godzilla, a Sopranos, and a Pulp Fiction. Bam. Good choices. Damn. I just played a good Sopranos for the first time ever this last weekend, and I'm obsessed with it. Where's the fucking money?
    66:27
    It's all the best when you put the coins in. What are your favorite spots to play in LA? Oh, another hard one. I love 82, my home bar. I gotta give it love because it was the original, and it's where I really became part of the League community. And it's also, I love Danny, the guy that maintains the machines there. He's super sweet. Also, they give me free drinks, so it's hard to beat that. And then also, I love, I have a daughter, so I love going to Revenge of, because it's one of the few family-friendly spots I could take her to play pinball. I love going to Walt's. I mean, if I could live in a pinball bar, I would live in Walt's, and I love all the people over there.
    67:06
    I love, I honestly, there are so, now there are so many. if you would ask me this when I first moved here, I'd be like, Oh girl, it's grim. Like I'd tell you family amusements, a weird random, um, like arcade on Vermont, sort of near silver Lake that, uh, used to be really awesome. Cause it was 50 cents a game. But then after pandemic had to be a $25 entry free entry, all you could play. And there isn't enough pinball there for me to make that worth it. Um, okay, wait, lightning round. Sorry. I'm done. That's all right. Um, how good are you at pinball would you say are you uh you said you took you seven years to win a trophy but since then are you are you kicking ass or what i'm pretty good i'm not amazing i have no tolerance for shit like jurassic park where i've got to do 75 things or like game of thrones where it's like i need like any game that i need to have like a card and john wick with weapons like no no no so That is the limit to my love.
    68:03
    It's hard for me to actually compete on a lot of those games because, girl, I don't have time. I have a kid. I got a busy job. I don't have time to listen to an hour-long tutorial on how to play a game.
    68:14
    Again, if you're into that, yes, good for you, but there are so many people that are so good at that shit, and it's like, oh, I can't.
    68:22
    It's true. Not a Bowen Cairns fan or Papa Tutorials. That's okay. They're not for everybody. I love that they exist, and I wish I had time to do that. I just don't. But you're right. There are games that knowing more about the game is more important than actually being good at pinball, which is maybe a problem when that's the case. I agree with you. Ian, you got another one? Yeah, absolutely. I want to do two back-to-back, and just give me your answer and a real quick justification why, because I think you're uniquely qualified to answer these. So Kesha, Brittany, or Christina, who deserves the pinball machine? Oh, Brittany. Don't even. I mean, I love Kesha. But there no And you want the secret wizard mode where you shave her head You want that A lifestyle Britney game. I love it. My friends and I used to joke that we used to make jokes about Mel Gibson making a Passion of the Christ pinball machine.
    69:31
    You'd unlock a mode where his abusive voicemails would come and as you were resurrecting Jesus or whatever you'd hear like, I will murder you in the rose bushes. It was dark, dark, dark sided. There's a sugar tits multi-ball. Yeah. I mean, okay. So Brittany, for sure. For that one, that's easy. I was just thinking like Kesha, maybe because you could really reskin Elton John pretty easily. And I feel like land on a Kesha sort of like look and aesthetic. But yeah, I know that you were an animal, Ian. That's like so hardcore. Like, you're like, you know, is my girl yeah for sure i love kesha okay so here's the other one okay room raiders next or date my mom who deserves the pinball machine oh i think room raiders you want the black light multi-ball you want the like getting abducted in a van at some point like um to be honest like the dream tv pinball machine that needs to exist is the price is right like think of the mini games think of the like yodeling guy like you could take that in so many directions it's true yeah sometimes you know because i live in vegas and i see there'll be different themed slot machines right you know like like they did the wonka like there's so many willy wonka slot machines and then they did they did a pinball machine and there is a price is right one and that would be oh really good another one that i just saw a slot machine i just saw in vegas that would be an awesome game is Squid Game.
    71:05
    Whoa. Squid Game would be huge. It would be massive. Although I bet you would start playing it and by the end of the game you'd be like, this isn't that good. Maybe.
    71:14
    By the time you get to the wizard mode, you're like, you know, I had this right in the first ten minutes. I kind of got it. Yeah, that's true. I would say the graphic design on that game would look amazing. Oh, that would be sick. No, I would love to play a Squid Game. we need to stop the old man bands i'm sorry like i agree like it needed to stop after like the rolling stones machine and that was like a long time ago and we're suddenly like i i mean i love iron maiden i love the design of these games but like the themes they don't speak to me they don't know the good news jim is that there's not that many left it's like getting new like other other than like pink floyd and black sabbath or you know there aren't that many more because they've done them all they kind of have right you know at one point is it going to shift over to like fallout boy like what age will we be when like fallout boy or like he's a silverstein pin let's go dude i'm getting done i i would love a fallout boy pin straight up dude oh my god it'll be pretty big i bet they could do it cool because those guys are those guys are cool and they would be like hands-on and they would make it awesome i know yeah pick a member to play they are they are chicago yeah that makes a lot of sense i don't know if i won't okay wait i'm gonna i'm gonna name drop i once uh they did like a crazy three like four city thing in one day for mtv when infinity on high album came out and i was the producer with our our talent john norris interviewing those dudes on their private jet for like and there was like a blizzard we almost died it was crazy that is crazy i worked for like 42 hours straight it was crazy anyway just just us talking about this actually has me reminded chain i actually told you this this week and i won't out the person who gave me this information but another famous chicago musician almost who is not a rocker almost had a pinball machine unfortunately a person of controversy these days i heard about this yeah kanye kanye west i i know someone who actually was working on a kanye west game that i guess was being licensed and everything and it just fell apart at the last second but that one To me, before he went full-on crazy, that would have been a perfect one for my generation. Unfortunately, you can't really be this anti-Semitic and get a pinball machine made about you. But you know what? It would have been so much worse if it did happen, and now people have them in their houses. Right, get rid of it, yeah. Yeah, you got it. You can't play the salty ball. Yeah, for real. Okay, well, let's get past it. I shouldn't even have brought up Kanye. Do you use headphones ever, Jim? When I play pinball? yeah yeah uh i do not not competitive not for league night but if i'm by myself uh as a freelance you know i got i call it fun employment um i will for sure go especially if like a new record comes out that i want to listen to i will give it like the pinball spin okay and for a while i would have like a playlist just for pinball um when i'd go and listen uh yeah no i love it it changes the vibe um there are some people that play in our league for key nights when they feel the pressure it's a lot of finals people will do the headphone thing i don't love it for like our social vibe but i also respect you know like it's not that pervasive um and i understand why some people want to like yeah what about you guys are you into it i'm unfortunately well i am and this is actually running kind of idea we've had on the show because i think people really especially competitively boil down into either headphones or not headphones they feel pretty strongly about it i unfortunately i try to jim it's really good to hear your perspective on that and being like you know i understand people wearing headphones i don't love it like because i actually feel that as a headphones wearer because sometimes like i really try not to let this happen but i am a quite competitive person and i think for me a big part of headphones is like centering myself and like keeping calm and like walking around and i it's it's always a really hard balance for me on those nights um especially because i'm used to right when you're playing by yourself you are playing a lot of pinball like you never stop playing but in in a league night or a tournament you're mostly not playing pinball so it's sort of about keeping that focus and keeping calm and not letting your nerves kind of get to you so it is a it is a balance right between sort this like anti-social behavior of like i can see people watching me you know stomping around listening to my music like talking to myself and i know i kind of look like a freak but also i need to kind of do that to be able to like have a good time myself even though that's bizarre so um no i don't i totally get it thank you for explaining that i yeah no i get the vibe from the people i'm sorry sorry shane go ahead no no finish what you're saying uh i got the sense when i started to see more and more people with headphones i fully clocked that energy and i'm I'm like, oh, yeah, they're not trying to be dicks. For me, it's weird.
    76:05
    In high school, I would have people be at the library wearing headphones, listening to music, studying. I could never do that. I would be thinking about the lyrics. I'd be thinking about the music. I couldn't focus on what I'm doing. And maybe that's why I can't really wear headphones when I play. I start thinking about a song or music, and then I kind of lose track of what I'm doing in the game. So I don't know. It's not my bag. I never wear headphones. although I'm not burdened by being an artiste like you Shane so it's no problems for me you know I yeah I listen to a lot of electronic music uh whenever I have a beat or something if I need music on I can't I can't have lyrics at all uh but pinball or something I don't know you know that state where you like can loot like kind of like be out of your body and just like be so connected to a game where you feel like you can it's like almost Donnie Darko shit you can see you are the balls coming way before it's even there. And you just, I feel like I do that when I have headphones on way more than when there's everything out. Right. Dude, I told someone the first time I played with headphones after never having done it, it felt like riding a bike with training wheels, like for the exact reason that you're talking about, it allowed me to like flow state focus on the ball in a way. Like, I don't know about you, Jim, but I like struggle a lot with like anxiety and thinking too far in the future about like what, What's someone going to react to this or not react? And in pinball, what is so therapeutic and great about it is, like, I can't think more than a half second in front of it. Like, I might know this ricochet and this ricochet, and that's it. And so, like, part of this whole thing is, like, the music kind of gets me into that space, and I'm not even – I'm, like, sure, I'm listening to music in a way, but it's almost like it's just a – what's it called like a chemical reaction or something where you're sort of dumping these things in together and it's like creating something greater than the sum of its parts so i also find that i can problem solve a lot of work issues that i'm having like creatively while playing pinball and it's like my team when i'm like oh let me like i have tomorrow i'll come back with some thoughts because i like i'm playing pinball it's really weird it just kind of like kind of cleanses your mind or something like it almost like just blank slate or something it's interesting is that what you it is something where i like am able to think about it while playing pinball it like yeah it like unlocks a wavelength in my brain where i'm like i'm on it unblocks me in a weird way because there's a weird thing maybe i'm doing something else i don't know i know there's a weird thing with time like that too like it with music too like well you know let's say we're practicing a new song like my band and like we'll you know we play it like seven or eight times and we're like ah there's like always something wrong like messing something up if we just stop and just take a break like we don't you know just go back to it tomorrow first thing nail it first try it's like just the time of something you know yep you know and maybe yeah stepping away from it and maybe with pinball it's just kind of like does something in your brain where you just completely reset. You know? Because I find that too, just like following around the silver ball, you can't really think about anything actively, but passively maybe you are.
    79:24
    Interesting. God, we love pinball. It's the fucking best. No days off. Let's go. All right. I do want to ask one more question, Jim, before we let you go here. We did have the Twippies this year. They were unfortunately a bit marred by some technical difficulties. You can't always control those. They were pretty good, Ian. Give yourself some credit. I want to give the Wormhole team credit. It was pretty damn good. A couple little squirrels, it wasn't that bad. And a couple big ones too. So just give us some advice on what you would do if you were us as a young upstart award show. We're young. We're hungry. what do we focus on how can we like do the best with the least amount of money oh that's hard hire jim as a producer that's what we got to do we can't afford him that's why i'm asking him this question he loves pinball maybe maybe you'll get a deal uh yeah the pinball discount um there is this one edit uh post-production facility that has a back to the future pinball machine in the like lobby area and i anytime i'm on a show and i have post-production like can we edit there that's awesome so i don't often have i'm not usually i'm in live television so i don't often have post-production but when i do um okay uh i don't know like that's all right that's hard because you guys don't have budget so i would say uh talent's always good so whoever your host presenting those you know yeah engaging yeah um i want to wait i want to watch your award show can you send me i'm sorry i'll send you i'll send you a link i'll happily note it for you hell yeah okay i'm telling you this you know we're getting we're getting jim involved this is gonna happen we're it's gonna happen slowly he's gonna wait how long is this award show you're like it's seven hours long no it's it's an hour and a half we actually got through it in about an hour 50 and that was part of um we really wanted to focus up because this is this is a this is a my philosophy you and you tell me if you agree with it or not this is actually great i was always like i think people care most about results and so for us it was like we wanted to get results out you know like clearly but i guess um yeah during an award show is that what you're kind of doing you want to show i guess you know reactions and that kind of stuff but um i mean i do like red carpets mostly so i'm always we're just like trying to queue up the most exciting arrivals at all at all times and make red carpet look as busy as possible you know the dirty secret of red carpet producing is, you know, we have these machines that can play back anything to make it look live when it's not always live. So we, you know, we do our, and we have a whole amazing team that's constantly, you know, a red carpet will exist usually an hour or two before we're live on the air. And in that hour that we're not live, we're just being like, who can we stack the top of the show with? So that when you tune in, it's not like, who is that? You're like, oh, I recognize that person. That's sort of the art of what me and my team do. Wow. Dude, that is so smart, though, because I think that was something for us that was like, so I was going to be, you know, like sideline, basically a red carpet reporter. And I think we had like one or two interviews that we knew we were going to do, like lined up. And then it was like, I will figure it out as we go from then on. But just like thinking about it in those terms of like, you know, live doesn't have to always mean live. We could even have some of that pre tape and just thinking about like, who are the heavy hitters that were just like, you know, if we can get Keith Elwin, And if we can do whoever, like how we, how we kind of like give the illusion of, of busyness, even if it's not, you know, I guess that's like for as a live TV producer, the thing that I'm always doing is what do we do when the thing doesn't exist or is dead or let alone like if there's a technical problem, but like, yeah, what, how do we not have dead air? Uh, if you guys have a capability of like pre-taping things, that would really help you. You could roll that shit in and give, it also gives your hosts and your things a break to catch their breath. It's true. we're usually pre-taping more it's like oh well we're rolling coleman domingo right now but like angelina jolie just rolled up she's not going to wait for us to finish that let's just get in the can and we'll roll back there you go yes the eric stone weather report of best locations for the twippy is the best yeah jim we did have that we had eric stone is a weather man and he uh did he did our best of locations as if like it with a weather report green screen and that was that was amazing well i hope he choose on it next year guys what do i do is there a campaign do i gotta like do a consideration ads yeah absolutely yeah that that couldn't hurt i i think one thing it was like we had so many awards for location but somehow like the pacific northwest and california were all lumped in together and it's like that's a crime like that should that is a that's a big crime i i feel like california california needs to be its own spot for sure. But yeah, beyond that, definitely, we'll get you in the publicity machine for that. You'll be part of it. Okay, wait, real quick. Let me tell you the crazy thing about Corey Casella and I. Corey and I grew up in towns next to each other on Long Island our whole lives. My ex-wife was best friends with a girl whose boyfriend, now husband was in a band with Corey's brother like our lives were in parallel and we did not know each other until we joined the LA Pinball League and in casual conversation she was like wait you're from Long Island? I'm from Long Island we were like we went to like the same library? We were like our high schools were rivals and then it was like wait your brother's in a band with like Cynthia's like husband like what? What? It's crazy and like that to me is the beauty of pinball it just brings the weirdest people together and it was like and now we're like you know she's one of my closest friends in la we do so crazy like it's just crazy i love that shit and you two are sort of the yin and yang of la pinball because uh i i mean so for people who don't know cory is quite like she's quite sassy online she's called um and i'm nice dad that's how we good cop bad cop yes she is the most Long Island energy and, and people in Los Angeles don't always understand Long Island energy. I grew up around Long Island. She's like my sister to me. Like I get like, this is, she's exactly like my older sister. So I'm like, Oh yeah, she's like, but some people are just like, what is that? I love it. No, I love it. Or Derby girl. She's the coolest. She has fried chicken tattoos all over her. Yeah. Ask her about fried chicken. She will give you the real, it's the best and i just wanted to give her props too because obviously she does a lot of work with you you guys do a great job together and also she had given me shit for not she's actually in minneapolis right now which is like uh an hour away from where i am and she was so pissed that i'm not meeting her uh at lit in minneapolis and i was like well i'm recording this podcast she's like you've asked everyone else on from la but me and i'm like this is the most cory response to this whole wow yeah yeah so uh and i said well you know we don't put cry babies on and that really uh incensed her oh man um i know no i'm saying like she can give it i can give it right back i love it like that that's my love language you know what i mean so all right well well in it to wrap things up jim thank you so much uh for joining us thanks for like talking pinball did we ever get what your favorite game is i don't think we did godzilla pulp fiction and and sopranos that's what i own but also i would i mean i love adam's family i love all those classic 90s like williams games like i i love they're only i there are more games that like less game how do i say this i could name games that i hate more than games that are my favorite like they're all failure except right like like deadpool i'm sorry i'm in the minority i can't with deadpool i can't i always i always say games are like ice cream flavors like you know everyone's gonna kind of have different ones they like and even at different times your life you're gonna like different ice cream so that's very true maybe one day i'll like avatar i doubt it but maybe one day maybe like stern avatar that would really be something um all right well hey jim thanks so much we'll talk to you soon hell yeah thank you guys i'm so honored to be asked thank you so much for having me on this
    87:58
    so there it is our conversation with jim cantiello of mtv fame many other things he didn't want to talk too much about that he was like let's get to pinball let's talk about it i can't stop thinking about pinball i gotta talk about pinball but uh but his accolades are pretty crazy you know ian I didn't tell you this, but before we were going to talk to him, I went on his, I went on his YouTube and I looked up his name and he has like a reel of people that he interviewed. It's like crazy. The first clip is him with Taylor Swift being like, I could never be your boyfriend, Taylor. This is nuts. But he's like, he was a major, major guy in the music industry, interviewing people. It's like, it's crazy. Oh, and he's still just like so connected to the entertainment industry in Hollywood. Really a successful guy and it's so cool that pinball has become such a big part of his life and really has been for a long time. That was the craziest thing for me interviewing him because sometimes we'll talk to people we don't just have people working in pinball on the show. We just have people where it touches their lives in some way and sometimes when you'll talk to a celebrity they'll be like oh yeah they like pinball but it's not really they're you know like they like it the way that i like whatever you know like oh i'll play chess every now and then but i'm not like a great chess player but like he's been into it oh yeah from like the 2000s on like he he was is is a player so yeah i mean just a really sweet man and like really funny uh i i look forward to just like talking to him again and we both got to get out to LA and play in some of those nights because I know him and Corey throw uh you know great tournaments great great league nights so for sure it's a quick drive for me man you got to get out here do some west coast hangs it hangs with me yeah absolutely I'm I'm I'm putting it on the docket 2025 I'm doing a lot more traveling so uh I have more I have more PTO at my new cush job which you know speaking of that I got to get back I got to get back to pretty quick not to not to let the real world uh seep into our sick ass pinball podcast but uh yeah you mentioned bug coming up very soon yeah we're gonna we're gonna organize that one too he'll be on the show in a couple weeks make sure you're subscribed make sure uh you follow whatever you got to do share this thing around it's growing it's growing fast it's really awesome and last week we opened the floor to some potential sponsors. We got a couple in the works. So if you want to get on board, if you want to support the show, we've got a pinball brand, a lifestyle brand. Get in touch. What's that email address again, Ian? Yes.
    90:52
    Nudgepinballmagazine at gmail.com. Yeah, you're going to have a big keyboard to type that one in. I know. It's terrible. Well, you can also hit me up on Instagram. You can hit us up on Facebook or you can just go. If you go to Nudgepinball.com, you will be in direct contact with me, Ian R. Jacoby. So, yeah, absolutely. Hit us up if you if you want to advertise, if you just want to say, hey, if you're like curious about writing, if you want to get involved in some way, we're we're definitely we're barreling down the tracks on issue five. It should be, you know, it's not really wrapping up, but getting there. But, man, we're looking for stuff for issue six. And yeah, please hit us up. Nudge Pinball Magazine at Gmail dot com or just go to Nudge Pinball dot com. Hell yeah. And one final shout out. I got to play the Tony Hawk homebrew. That game is super, super cool. I love the timer. It's not ball-based. It's time-based. Well, kind of both. It is sick. That was a super cool game, too. I hope that becomes a real game at some point. Me, too. Good job, Nick. Actually, Nick will be featured in issue five of Nudge. So there you go. Great plug. Well, thanks, everybody, for listening. We will see you all in a couple of weeks. Peace and love.
    92:06
    rhythm's dancing through my head