OK, pulpit gone. Let's go. All right. So number five, AP sells more games. If AP sells all of those games, there is a tiny, tiny chance they may allow Cuphead to see the light of day. Even though I don't think that will happen, that's probably the best chance for us ever to see Cuphead. I'm giving Cuphead like less than a 20% chance of ever coming out at this point. I'm just saying these are some of the ways it could be brought back from the Evil Dead. Speaking of Evil Dead, number four on the list is Spooky. Spooky is actually the right size. I don't think they could get away. You have to admit that, yes, Cuphead's maybe not as big a title as the Evil Dead, So maybe they would need to limit it to like 250 buttercabs and 250 regular ones or like 500 machines in total or like 420 machines. I don't know. Like they would probably have to limit Cuphead to sell out. But think about it. The machine would cost next to nothing in research and development. All Spooky needs to do is go to American Pinball and say, look, with David Fix out of the picture, We really think that we could bring your game to market. You've already done the code. You've already done the animations. You've already done the graphics. You've already done the college. You've already done the design. Even if they're not done the code, if Spooky said to American Pinball, let us give you 5% of every sale, or I don't even know how that would work, 2.5% of every sale. Let us give you part of every single solitary sale so that you don't throw this in the garbage and tens of thousands of dollars, tens of thousands, probably $100K, if not more, has been wasted on creating this beautiful game, perhaps American Pinball's best game. And maybe it would say American Pinball here and Spooky here, or maybe it would just say Spooky because they buy it outright. But Spooky, are you listening? I know you guys know how many hours and time and energy went into making Evil Dead such a rad pin. If Spooky Luke or Bug, if you're listening, I don't think you do, but if you are, and Dawn, talk to Dawn, talk to Kerry Hardy, if they both tell you that this is an incredible pin, think of the year and a half to two years development you need to put into a game. You could just literally jump the queue on any games that aren't ready to go up and have it there. All right. Excuse you. We're finding out now an hour in why you don't just drink root beer for breakfast. OK, says the guy not to do hard drugs. Come on. Come on. Pop. Almost as bad. Nah. No, I'm just kidding. All right. So but I'd like to see Spooky get them or CGC or another boutique. Hell, Pinball Brothers, Dutch Pinball. Are you listening? OK, but they would take them like decades to build this. But did you hear what they did with the get them to the chopper? Get them to the FOMO. Get into the FOMO! Okay, I'm not going to try to do it. Y'all are sick of it. But they're trying to say that either they only built 150 and all 150 are left and they've sold none, or they only built like two and there's 150 left because hardly any have sold. It's like, what is going on with Predator? What is going on? Anyways, the machine looks cool. I think it's going to be hyper rare. Okay, maybe they wouldn't be the best to build Cuphead. Let's assume, though, we'd like to see CGC if they got Cuphead. Wow. CGC takes like six years to design, produce, make, code, get callouts, right? That's how long it was for Pulp Fiction. So you could save six years. Instead of us waiting until the year 2031 for CGC to come out with a new original pinball machine, they could have one out next year because it's already done. So what I'm saying is I'm hoping that Cuphead doesn't just get thrown in the gutter and get gutter-gooled, okay? I'm hoping that somebody finds poor old Cuphead alone and sad in a dark dungy basement, comes there with the key, alohamores that Shatz, gets him out of there, gives Cuphead as much drink as he needs, and he's a thirsty boy. If you've ever played the game, he's thirsty. Okay, give him as much liquid as he needs to rehydrate that mofo and get it made. Because, look, the game's either like 75% made, 85% made. If code is the only thing left, if it's fully designed, the artwork is done. If we're at 95, 96, 97% of the game is done, please don't do it for me. Don't do it for Orby. Maybe do it a little bit for poor Ryan McQuaid because imagine you work your whole life to get into an industry and you finally get into American Pinball and you get hired by a company. This is your dream and then you spend two and a half years maybe three years creating what you believe will be probably hopefully American Pinball's best game. Their first really good game with some decent flow cool max fun shots. I mean, nobody's like, wow, GTF, GTF, wow, the flow in GTF, it's so good. And I love you, Steve Bowden, but no one's like, Berrio's Barbecue, wow, the mechs in that are so complex, you've got to check it out. No, they're just not. Legends of Valhalla people might be saying like, Jeff Teolis, the golden voice of pinball, congratulations. I actually do think LAV is probably their best game other than Houdini. And when your first game ever is like your best game and then your second best game of your entire portfolio is a game not even designed by you, it means that you needed fresh new designers. And look, you got a fresh new young talented designer like Ryan McQuaid and the game never got released. And so this makes me cry just a little bit, a little tiny bit in Minecraft. I wouldn't cry in real life, not even at funerals. My Oma died now, I was like, yo, Oma, you've been on the earth. 80 years, you did well. It's all good, girl. You go up there to heaven and hang with my mom. Go get it. Go see your bestie up there. I do like to think about my mom and my Oma up in heaven, like hanging out, having a drink or two. Don't worry there, guys. Your heavenly livers last forever. So you go ahead. You have that second vex or you have that. I don't think anyone got that reference. But you go have your second screwdriver, vodka orange, mom. Go for it. Go for it. Oma, I love you. Mom, I love you too. I'm looking at a picture of my mom and my Oma on my new bookshelf that Danielle just completely painted and revamped. So thanks to Drop Target Danielle for that. Okay, so Ryan McQuaid, I want Cuphead to come out. I don't want it just for American Pinball. I don't want it just for the Cuphead fans. I mostly want it because as being a half Dutch dude, the thought of this much money, this much time, this much energy. Think about the coders. Think about the designer. Think about the engineers there. Zofia! Do it for Zofia! Come on! Zofia put her heart and soul into this. She waited 30 years to get back into pinball designing and 20, I forget, it's been a long time since I heard that pinball profile. But she was out of the game for decades and she knew when she came back she had one pinball machine she wanted to work on. Her favorite video game cuphead. And guess what? She never got to see the light of day. So don't do it for me. Don't do it for Ryan McQuaid. Don't do it for Dave Fix for sure. Don't do it for Zofia. Okay. Do it because if you're a pinball company, this makes financial sense. Pay them a small 5-10% or a small fee up front. Get the rights to it. Believe me, American Pinball wants to make money. Maybe not Dave Fix, but the people at the top, they want to make the money. Go to them and say, we'll give you a percentage. We can build this. We can make this. It's already there. The cost of designing a pinball machine is far greater than the cost of simply giving a tiny royalty. Bottom line, say what you will about me. Who cares about my honors degree in marketing? I'm saying, care about my 30 years of running companies. That's right. I've been helping running companies since I was 16 years old. And I'm in my 46th year. Whoop, whoop. Happy birthday month. Happy birthday month, boy. Okay. So thank you so much to everyone who donated to help me get that episode out there, the Stern Rant. It will be coming soon. Also, I'm going to start doing a monthly What the F Happened Last Month. I'm going to be bringing on characters you already know like maybe Tim the Lion Man Lee, Glenn the Skateboarder. Hopefully maybe I can grab a Retro Ralph, a Cale Hernandez, Cale Hernandez or Jamie Burchill. Maybe who knows I can grab one of my old favorites. Maybe I could grab a Ken, a Ken Cromwell. That would be great to talk to him for like what the heck happened last month. Ken though, once you're behind the paywall, I got to hear you say one swear word, Ken. Even if it's like, aw, shucks. We got to get Ken to say one swear word. You can do it, Ken. You can do it. No, I didn't say a swear word this whole show and it was the hardest thing I ever did in my life. Here we go. So do it because it makes financial sense. Don't let your pride or your ego get in the way of saving years of developing a game. Are you listening American Pinball? Are you listening CGC? I mean, honestly, the third option is a very, very good option as well. If you're a brand new pinball company or you're thinking of designing a new pinball company, what's the company that did Dune? Man, they, oof, that Dune launch, whoo. Even Jack Gwinnari was like, all right, hold my beer. Here's how not to launch a pin. Here you go. But Dune, okay, Dune is like the best looking, prettiest pinball machine with the best sound and colors. Even my boy over there at Dirty Pools helping out with all the sound engineering, which boy, it needed it. Thank you. It has cool mechs. It has cool shots. It is better. I will say this straight up. I think Dune is a better pinball machine than any pinball machine ever created by American Pinball. But it took them years and years and years to do all the work to get it out and yada, yada, yada. I don't think the launch was done at the right time. I don't think it was done properly. However, however, I think it's a great machine. And I think it's going to have, as they say in the pinball industry, a very, very long tail. For many, many, many years, people will be making Dune. Okay. But here's the thing. If David Van Ness and the whole team over there is passionate about Cuphead, I think they're I don't don't get mad. I'm not trying to be ageist. I do think on average, most of the guys are 10, 15 years older than me. Like I think they're 55. And so I think a lot of those I think they like the older themes, the labyrinth is of the world. Okay. The non Jennifer Connelly, I'm getting the Jennifer Connelly edition. No, I don't like labyrinth. I don't like the shots and labyrinth. I really don't like the I think for a pinball company's first offering, it was like a solid C+, but there's no way I'm going to get hyped up and pumped up about a C+. And I'll tell you this, if Cuphead is no better than Labyrinth, then listen, barrels of fun, it ain't going to be any fun to buy it. But if David Van Ness, what a move, a guy coming from originally Spooky, for you to go over there to AP and just buy that, this could save your company tens if not, let's be honest, how much did, like David Van Ness will know listening, how much did Labyrinth cost in total between design, creation, tool and die, you know, like sound, visual, art. Let's not forget about the art. Franchi's never going to endure another one of my 600 episodes again if I forget about the art. But like with all the time and energy, I didn't love the art on Labyrinth either. I did like the art on Dune though. It's deece. It's hardcore deece actually. It's definitely different and it's definitely very deece. It's better than deece. It's better than mid. It's good. It's very good art. I like it. It's great. I'll say it's great. Okay, I've came too far. I've gone full circle. But if a brand new company were to come out and they're in the middle of designing a pin, it's going to be another six months, eight months, 12 months, 15 months for said pinball company to actually finish designing and creating a pinball machine because it takes years. The smartest thing they could do if they already had the experience of manufacturing and they could prove they could do the manufacturing So a lot of times pinball companies are started by other people who worked at other pinball companies Surprise. If they were to come over and start a new – if someone were to start a new pinball company, the smartest, easiest way to do it would be to buy Cuphead. And really limit it. If you're a brand-new company, maybe limit it to, like, 300. Or have like the easiest thing to do as a pinball company would be to make because AP didn't really have tiers, but you could make tiers. You could make like 100 of the most sought after and charge. I really wouldn't charge much over 10K if you wanted to sell out, especially with Cuphead, okay, as a newer company. But let's even say you had it at like 11 or 12 for the SLE, their version of the SLE, 100 of them. And maybe you make 300 more or 400 more just regular ones, right? That could maybe sell. It would probably take a long time because Cuphead is not a, sorry, Franchi, knock it out of the park theme. It's just not. But it is a very good theme. It is a wholesome theme. It is a family friendly theme. Nobody's going to complain about the guns in that one because I'm pretty sure it looks like he's shooting watermelon seeds. He's going like, ba-do, ba-do, ba-do, ba-do, right? So he's shooting literally out of his mouth watermelon seeds. If you're someone offended by watermelon seeds, you suck because watermelons are freaking delicious. All right. I ranted and raved too long. Let's close this up. Number two is the co-op approach. This would be the most complex but the best. If you could get five to ten very serious pinball nerds who were also either kind of into Cuphead or it would be better if they were really into Cuphead, They might be able to go to AP and say, look, can we cooperatively either buy out the rights for this and find someone to build it for us or perhaps cooperatively build it ourselves? Now, this would have to be super uber niche like pinball adventures where they're making three pins a week or two pins a week, right? It'd have to be something super, super niche like that. But that is a way it could be saved. And if they were never going to commercially sell it, they could probably, hopefully, American Pinball has the parts. Like you'd think at this point, if they're this close to like putting full production, you'd think they have at least some parts ordered. So you might be able to get some parts at a very liquidated price as well. The co-op approach would be the hardest approach. But hey, if my boy Bruce over there at Slam Tilt can start the co-op, I forget their name. Oh my God, East Rochester. Is it East Rochester, New York? That's where it is, but I forget the name of the co-op.