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Tucson Pinball Podcast – Episode 76 – PoKME DangerMon

Tuscon Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 19m·analyzed·Apr 13, 2025
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.033

TL;DR

Host explores Pokémon's $98.9B franchise dominance and implications for pinball licensing.

Summary

Host discusses Pokémon's unprecedented success as a media franchise ($98.9B revenue since 1996), placing it #1 on Wikipedia's highest-grossing media franchises list ahead of Mickey Mouse. The episode contextualizes Pokémon's dominance through personal gaming history (Game Boy Red), community engagement (card shop play groups), and comparative analysis of other major IP franchises. Discussion establishes rationale for why Pokémon pinball would be culturally and commercially significant, with tangential mentions of other pinball opportunities across franchises ranked by revenue.

Key Claims

  • Pokémon is the #1 highest-grossing media franchise of all time with $98.9 billion in total revenue since 1996

    high confidence · Host cites Wikipedia's 'List of Highest Grossing Media Franchises' (last updated April 9) as source; notes Pokémon beats Mickey Mouse ($61.2B) by ~$40B

  • Pokémon's $98.9B revenue breaks down as ~$91.6B retail sales (cards, toys, merchandise) and ~$6.13B mobile games

    high confidence · Host references Wikipedia data with detailed categorical breakdown; retail dominance attributed to card game sales

  • Pokémon box office revenue is $1.156 billion despite weak theatrical performance

    high confidence · Host notes Detective Pikachu as most recent viewed film; observes movies perform better on streaming/home video than theaters

  • Jersey Jack Pinball has acquired Harry Potter license and will produce multiple machines from the IP

    high confidence · Host states 'recently they have talked about that Jersey Jack Pinball has Harry Potter' and notes concern about splitting content across machines rather than doing just one

  • The original Pokémon Red/Blue versions had version-exclusive creatures (Charmander, Bulbasaur, Squirtle) requiring player trading to complete Pokédex

    high confidence · Host recounts personal Game Boy Red experience and mechanics of Gen 1 trading system; historical game design fact

  • Pokémon TCG card game popularity has surged in recent years, with local card shop needing to split elementary/middle school groups into separate sessions

    high confidence · Host describes child's experience at Epic Worlds card shop; venue expanded from single 2-hour session to multiple lengthened sessions due to demand

  • Time Magazine published a Pokémon special edition titled 'The Games The Shows The Evolution: 25 Years Pokémon in America' calling it 'the world's most valuable media franchise'

    medium confidence · Host mentions Time Magazine special edition but does not provide date or full citation; content transcription incomplete at end

Notable Quotes

  • “I don't normally get into rumors because that's exhausting, right? So if you live by the whole, not philosophy, but like if your entire pinball existence is getting excited for the next titles up, like that's exhausting.”

    Host @ ~0:00-0:45 — Frames episode philosophy: discussion of franchise value and licensing potential is grounded in pragmatism about rumor fatigue in pinball community

  • “I am still convinced to this day that Pinside willed Munsters into existence. Even though, I think John Borg has even said, like, I wanted to do that title.”

    Host @ ~1:00-1:30 — Notes community enthusiasm's influence on game development; contextualizes why major IP licensing matters to pinball discourse

  • “Because that's basically what Pokemon is. It's a completionist, like, dream. Because you have the Pokedex, which is like your encyclopedia... And when you fill that out, it's like a stamp book or a sticker collection.”

    Host @ ~4:30-5:15 — Articulates design philosophy behind Pokémon appeal—completionist gameplay—relevant to pinball's collectible/ruleshot mechanics

  • “So the next one on the list is, this is where it's like, wait, isn't, couldn't this be listed somewhere else? This is called Disney Princess... Like Disney Princess, like isn't that like half the Disney cartoon things?”

    Host @ ~20:00-21:00 — Critiques methodology of franchise categorization; raises question about how IP sub-brands are valued (relevant to pinball licensing strategy)

  • “Recently, I don't know if I'm going to do a show on this or not, but recently they have talked about that Jersey Jack Pinball has Harry Potter and they have all the movie... I'm sure that they will do just fine. There is so much content to pick from that it would make me nervous if they only did one pinball machine off of it.”

    Host @ ~26:30-27:30 — Breaks news of JJP Harry Potter license; establishes strategic insight that major IP should span multiple pinball releases

  • “And I have thrown several controllers at the TV and you can't do that anymore because you break one or the other. And, you know, with the Nintendo, neither one really broke.”

    Host — Personal anecdote; illustrates retro gaming durability comparison between eras (tangential to pinball but establishes host credibility on gaming history)

Entities

PokémongameStern PinballcompanyJersey Jack PinballcompanyWikipediaorganizationJohn BorgpersonJack DangerpersonGeorge GomezpersonEpic Worldscompany

Signals

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Jersey Jack Pinball confirmed to have acquired Harry Potter franchise license for multiple pinball machine releases

    high · Host states 'recently they have talked about that Jersey Jack Pinball has Harry Potter' and notes concern about maximizing content across multiple machines rather than single release

  • $

    market_signal: Pokémon ranked as #1 highest-grossing media franchise globally ($98.9B), nearly $40B ahead of #2 Mickey Mouse; retail/merchandise dominates revenue (~$91.6B)

    high · Wikipedia citation of 'List of Highest Grossing Media Franchises' with detailed categorical breakdown; Time Magazine special edition confirms Pokémon as 'world's most valuable media franchise'

  • ?

    collector_signal: Pokémon's core game mechanic (Pokédex completion) mirrors collector appeal in pinball; completionist gameplay design pattern

    medium · Host articulates Pokémon as 'completionist dream' with Pokédex functioning like 'stamp book or sticker collection'; trading mechanics required for 100% completion

  • ?

    community_signal: Host perceives community speculation (Pinside forum) as influential on game selection/development; notes Munsters as example of designer responding to community wishlist

    medium · Host states 'I am still convinced to this day that Pinside willed Munsters into existence' despite designer John Borg claiming independent intent

  • ?

    venue_signal: Pokémon TCG experiencing renewed popularity; local card shop (Epic Worlds) forced to split sessions and expand hours due to demand growth

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.238

0:00
Wayne's World! Wayne's World! Party time! Excellent! What's up everybody? Welcome to episode 76 of the Tucson Pinball Podcast. Welcome to Wayne's World. Really quick, I want to talk about the title of this episode because it might not be super obvious because I'm not entirely sure how many, The Valley Company, Subsidiary of Walter Kidde & Co., Inc., Mirco Playfields, Tim Kitzrow, Scott Danesi. Or if that's just kind of like, hey, that's a clever title, you know, whatever. But anyway, so that's the title of this episode. And I don't normally get into rumors because that's exhausting, right? So if you live by the whole, not philosophy, but like if your entire pinball existence is getting excited for the next titles up, like that's exhausting. There's so many games that have been made that are ready to be enjoyed. Like why sit there and stress about what's coming out next that like what if it's the title what if it is the title that I'm thinking of and hoping of and dreaming of but what if they do it wrong what if it's the wrong designer what if the layout is something totally that I didn't want or what if they they don't use the aspects of the IP that I want or you know on and on and on and on and on it's like it's oh my gosh it's just exhausting there was there was a I was at a point in time when I was excited about like the rumors and kind of the, you know, the inside information that some people seem to get and like where do rumors come from and I never got any inside information but I don't, I don't really care. I'm sure there are more of these than I think there might be. I mean, if I could make this happen, I'd make it happen. But, you know, like, people would float these random ideas, and it's like they were willing them into existence. Like, I am still convinced to this day that Pinside willed Munsters into existence. Even though, I think John Borg has even said, like, I wanted to do that title. Like, I wanted that theme. And people were like, yeah, it could be the second coming of Addams Family, you know, because there's obvious like, you know, semi comedy horror, like black and white, can't be, you know, like, there is some crossover, there is some, some similarities, but like, they were wanting it to be like the second coming of Addams Family, when, you know, the the remakes were starting to not really catch their stride, but like, the remakes were starting to kind of become a thing and gaining in popular opinion. Tim Annn multiple John Popadiuk, Bob Betor, Keith Elwin, Laser Los, Bowen Kerins, Larry K. Sheats Jr., I was sitting there like, why is this so fascinating to me? And I think I can explain it. And so we're going to do that. Anyways, so my history with Pokemon is I played Pokemon Red on the original Game Boy. So yeah, the gray thing with that little, like what was it, like maybe a three inch screen and it had the green background with the gray dots on the front of it. It was not backlit. If you wanted to play your Game Boy in a low light situation or in the dark, you had to have an attachment and it was very cumbersome and everything required batteries and the Game Boy itself took four batteries and then like this this light magnifier thingy took extra batteries and you know games were games were hard back in the day you know they didn't have save points and and all this other stuff and to combat that there was this thing called the Game Genie and if you've ever used one of those yeah Game Genie was awesome but it was super cheating but it had this little recipe book with all the different codes on it and you know you just punch that into the Game Genie and it would interface John Popadiuk.

There are over 1,000 Pokémon characters in circulation across franchise generations

medium confidence · Host estimates 'a little over a thousand characters are in that ballpark... a thousand different Pokemon plus or minus a hundred' but acknowledges inexactness

@ ~6:00-6:30

  • “I found something... Wikipedia... this is called List of Highest Grossing Media Franchises. And the little subtext says, this is a list of media franchises that have grossed $2 billion and more.”

    Host @ ~9:30-10:00 — Introduces primary research source for episode; establishes factual framework for franchise value discussion

  • “Number one on the list is Pokemon. Started in... 1996 total revenue since then 98.9 billion dollars.”

    Host @ ~11:00-11:30 — Core claim of episode; Pokémon's ranking establishes why it matters for pinball industry licensing potential

  • “I mean, there's quite a few on there that's like, I'd play that, I'd play that, I'd play that. Yeah, I'd play that for sure. Oh, I'd buy that one.”

    Host @ ~43:00-43:30 — Reflects on list of franchises as pinball opportunities; demonstrates how franchise value data informs player/collector interest

  • “Like this Sonic the Hedgehog, like I just want to keep going because like all of these... are just amazing.”

    Host @ ~38:00-38:30 — Enthusiasm for franchise list suggests multiple pinball licensing possibilities; underscores breadth of potential IP untapped by manufacturers

    • Pinsideorganization
    Time Magazineorganization
    Mickey Mouse and Friendsgame
    Star Warsgame
    Harry Potter / Wizarding Worldgame
    Detective Pikachuproduct
    Game Boyproduct
    Munstersgame
    Aaron Davisperson
    Fast Pinballcompany
    Dragon Ballgame
    Despicable Megame

    high · Host describes child's participation in TCG tournament requiring split into separate elementary/middle school sessions with lengthened time slots

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Host expresses burnout with rumor/speculation culture, preferring focus on existing games; reflects broader potential fatigue in pinball community around endless announcement cycles

    medium · Host opens: 'I don't normally get into rumors because that's exhausting... There's so many games that have been made that are ready to be enjoyed'

  • ?

    content_signal: Podcast episode uses Wikipedia data as source material to analyze franchise values and implications for pinball licensing; reflects media strategy of data-driven discussion

    high · Host cites 'List of Highest Grossing Media Franchises' with detailed enumeration and analysis across 45+ franchises, connecting to pinball themes

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Host identifies multiple franchises from highest-grossing list as potential pinball opportunities (Cars, Despicable Me, Dragon Ball); establishes wishlist of unannounced titles

    medium · Host repeatedly notes franchises as 'I'd play that' candidates; expresses desire for untapped IP like Cars ('I think that would be a cool pinball machine')

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Host argues major franchises should span multiple pinball releases rather than single machines; cites Harry Potter's content volume as rationale

    medium · Host regarding JJP Harry Potter: 'There is so much content to pick from that it would make me nervous if they only did one pinball machine off of it'

  • ?

    historical_signal: Host traces personal Pokémon history from Game Boy Red (1996) through mobile apps and Switch; contextualizes generational engagement with franchise

    high · Host recounts Game Boy mechanics (lack of backlight, 4 AA batteries, Game Genie codes), original trading cable, evolution to Bluetooth/online trading

  • ?

    product_strategy: Discussion of franchise revenue breakdowns suggests major IP licensing becomes increasingly valuable; retail/merchandise dominance indicates collectible appeal

    medium · Host notes Pokémon's ~$91.6B retail sales vs. $6.13B games revenue; contrasts with franchises where revenue more evenly distributed

  • ?

    business_signal: Highest-grossing franchises list shows concentration at top (Pokémon, Mickey Mouse, Winnie Pooh); suggests limited pool of mega-licenses for pinball manufacturers to compete for

    medium · Top 50 franchises by revenue range from $98.9B (Pokémon) to ~$8B; only ~8-10 active pinball manufacturers competing for equivalent IP

    • 6:06
    I'm just the editor at the end I created all of this work and my my video were literally playing it at To this day, each different color game had a unique character, a unique Pokemon that you could only get in that version. And so there's always been a way to, if you caught one on the red, if you caught the red distinct unique guy, the two things were, what was it, Charmander and Bulbasaur, and their stages or whatever, I'm going to actually get you to Charizard and oh boy, it's not, it's not, what is it, Bulbasaur, Ivysaur? No, that's the green guy.
    7:12
    Squirtle, Blastoise, there we go. Yeah, because some of them phonetically like they rhyme and some of them like they jump the shark. So Blastoise is the third level of the blue guy. Anyway, so if you caught any of the first, second, or third tier of that unique character, like with the original Game Boy, you had to have a physical cable to connect them. On later Game Boys, you could do it through not necessarily Bluetooth, but kind of Bluetooth, basically. And then I think the current gen, like Switch stuff, you can just trade with anybody online. But, you know, we were all excited when we caught the unique thing and you traded with your friends and then you could complete, Because that's basically what Pokemon is. It's a completionist, like, dream. Because you have the Pokedex, which is like your encyclopedia of like, this is all the Pokemon in the game. And when you fill that out, it's like a stamp book or a sticker collection. Like when you fill it all out because you've either seen or caught all of them, that's one of the things of like completing the game. So anyways, but if you have one that you can't get because it's literally not in that version of the game, then how do you solve that problem? www.willywonka.com Play some old video game stuff. If you've got a Raspberry Pi, put RetroPie on there and somehow find ROMs. I'm not gonna say go pirate stuff, but go find some ROMs and go play some Nintendo or Super Nintendo games. Or do this. Go play Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 2. Yeah, go play Turtles 2 and give that to your kid and say, here, I will buy you a Lamborghini when you beat this game. And then just watch them cry because that game is, you know, you can't beat that game. Or, what was it, Lion King on Sega Game Gear? Oh man, that was some stuff. So there's probably a good thing that back in the day, the original Nintendo controllers were way lighter than modern controllers because they didn't have batteries, they didn't have, you know, rumble packs or shakers or anything. They didn't have like stacks of circuit cards. They were they were very lightweight, sparse and everything. So they were pretty they were not very hefty. And our TVs had glass, you know, not the glass was fragile, but like it had a curved glass front. And I have thrown several controllers at the TV and you can't do that anymore because you break one or the other. And, you know, with the Nintendo, neither one really broke. And so, you know, that was not quite the smart thing. I'm not going to say I'm, you know, back in my day I started playing Pokemon when it first came out because, you know, I didn't because it started in Japan and the US didn't get it for a year or two later. But I played pretty early on and I've seen kind of the way the franchise has gone. I remember seeing the cartoons on TV but I have no idea what their normal airtime was. Like I know that Saturday morning cartoons was definitely a thing because I know I watched them but I don't think Pokemon was a part of Saturday morning cartoons. And for the longest time I could have sworn, like I would have told you and I would have I've made a very hefty wager that there is only one theme song for Pokemon. And that's not true either. So the theme song that you should know, if you know any song, if you know any of those theme songs, you should know at least the season one or the gen one theme song. Like because that is, in my opinion, that is the only song that you should know and then branch out from there. All the other ones, they just sound kind of funny after all you've ever heard is the The original theme song. And you know, I had a few cards, but I didn't play and you know, I wasn't like taking them in my lunchbox and trading them, you know, at school or anything like that. Like I just had a couple cards because you just acquire things, whatever. Mostly because I also hung out at the card shop, but I played Magic and the Star Wars card game. This was 1997. And yeah, so I mean I had some cards but it wasn't really like my thing. Fast forward to a couple years ago and my youngest started playing at the local card shop that had opened called Epic Worlds and it's not too far away and they started off with a combined middle school, what was it, no, elementary school and middle school like In Mayeremi long a proposed abstract art style Student Jo這裡 Arnold Waylander, parte de companion owes a lot de nadzieję en cinco años en la animación que hemos visto en los últimos cinco años. No nos olvidamos de N Briowy, Sergio Esp�ưl, Brother Habanador, big sharpener 통 Schüler Venezuel, River Pool, The dinheiro más wowomoyejo,Это не перевел д urgency to Us вод Meng, Like everything was a V card, which is like way strong. And then there was some kids that were just like they were playing with literally what came in that starter set. And just because you have expensive nice cards doesn't mean you're going to win. But I mean, it gives you pretty good odds. I mean, it's not really pay to win, but it's that aspect definitely exists. But anyway, so we did that for a while and it got so popular that this store had to split into two different sessions between the elementary and middle school groups and they move them to two different days over time because at first they were just doing like two different hour two hour sessions and then it got so popular and busy that they had to lengthen the time even more and then they were just running into like other stuff like their D&D stuff or magic stuff with song love help The Valley Company, Subsidiary of Walter Kidde & Co., Inc., Mirco Playfields, Tim Kitzrow, Scott Danesi. It took, I don't know, 20 years to get back into the world of Pokemon, but not a whole lot had changed, you know? Like, they, the store had a big TV and they had Netflix on and they had a couple different streaming things and when it was Pokemon time, he would just like go back over to whatever account had the Pokemon, you know, running and just hit play from where they left off from last week. And they would just play episodes the entire time. So you had that ambiance going on and everything. So it's it's definitely it hasn't let up and if anything it's it's gotten you know more popular and you know the original gen 1 stuff it's still in circulation as far as like which characters are there and overall there's there's a little over a thousand characters are in that ballpark right there's a thousand different Pokemon plus or minus a hundred let's say I don't know the exact number it's it's not really important it's it's expanded but it's not like insane. So, I was actually kind of curious, like, what kind of footprint Pokemon had as far as, like, sales and, you know, revenue and, you know, the number, the quantified popularity as far as, like, spending goes. So I did a little bit of research and I found something and you know it's the thing it was okay so what I have that's presented the most easy to kind of scroll through and look and digest some of the the information it's on Wikipedia and Wikipedia is certainly not like the greatest source of all time but this is not like All this stuff is super serious. And like I said, it's been vetted. It's last update was on April 9th, which I'm pretty sure is today, so this is constantly being updated. It's probably not got any kind of API pulling in numbers, so it's just all humans going in and updating stuff when new data points come out. So on Wikipedia this is called List of Highest Grossing Media Franchises. And the little subtext says, this is a list of media franchises that have grossed $2 billion and more. So the way it's broken down, the first group is 50 billion plus. That's B, billion with a B, B as in Bravo. And some of these could probably, like, you know, this is where we start getting into the hair splitting aspect, right? So there's a few of these that I would probably argue could be combined and we'll get to that soon enough but I do think that there's you know like obviously this is not the most perfect list of all time. That's not really what I'm asking for. I'm really just kind of asking for something with a little bit of references and cited sources to just put some sort of an estimated list together. It doesn't have to be the definitive list, but some sort of list, right? So let's get started. Okay, so in the 50 billion plus category, we have number one on the list is Pokemon.
    18:29
    Started in, so they have the franchise, year of inception, total revenue, and then they have like kind of a breakdown, like categorically how it looks, like how the numbers kind of break down. And then they give like the creator's name, the owners, and like a little bit more information than we really need to go into. But we're just going to go through a few and talk about whether they, you know, they might be in pinball already, whether they might be good future pinball licenses or, you know, just kind of just kind of wing it a little bit. So number one on the list is Pokemon 1996 total revenue since then 98.9 billion dollars and the way they break that down which is like some of these some of these breakdowns and just kind of like the percentages in the categories are the way things are weighted is like it's it's actually really amazing one of these on the list you know you'll never guess what number four is like number three is shocking you know one of those like uh youtube on the that side bill yo Paintball 91 billion dollars So you have like seven and change billion dollars left right So you that that what like 8 is remaining So like over 90 is retail sales But that is that is going to be you know the card game cards and all the stuffed animals If you walk down like the toy aisle in Walmart they have there well there more than one toy aisle in Walmart but like they have Pokemon cards I've got a couple of cards, they've got stuffed animals, they might even have injection molded type, not action figures, but kind of like action figure things that are smaller characters. They might also have, they don't really do books, but just kind of some of the selection of toy stuff. That's all lumped in there. I would, I'm willing to bet that the cards are the vast majority of that $91.6 billion, but still, like that's a, that's a big number, right? Okay, so the next thing on the list is mobile games, $6.13 billion. And when I, when I see mobile games, because they don't have any other games listed here, I'm, I'm just assuming that that includes Game Boy, like every generation of Game Boy, And then the Switch and the Wii and the Wii U, which I don't think anybody bought, but you know, that existed. You know, GameCube, like all, whether it's console or handheld, like that's all stuff. Plus, like Pokemon Go, which is a phone app. I don't know what else they have as far as phone apps, but I think there's one other thing, but I'm not entirely sure, but Out of the six billion dollars, I'm willing to bet that Pokemon Go is probably a fairly small portion considering they've been doing the Game Boy side of things since 1996 and that's probably a pretty hefty percentage of that number. And then Box Office is the next thing on the list and that's 1.156 billion dollars. So did you know there was Pokemon movies? There are. You can watch some of them on Netflix. I think I've watched Detective Pikachu. That might actually be the most current one, but I think that's the only one I've seen, but certainly not in the theater. It was on Netflix, or maybe it was on Amazon Prime. It was on one of those streaming things. There's actually been quite a few Pokemon movies, but you can find them in the $5 aisle at Walmart. I don't know why they don't do well in theaters where the show is fairly popular and obviously the cards are still in the pop culture front and center situation. But I mean, still, they've done over a billion dollars in box office sales. I don't know if any of these are from the movie. Home Video, which apparently they didn't even go to the box office with some of them, they just went straight to like DVD, $38 million, so we're dropping off a cliff really big. And then there's one final bullet point, and I don't even know what this is. I clicked on it a while ago, I read about it, I've already forgotten. It says jet aircraft livery sales, livery sales, whatever that, that's like transportation, right? I mean obviously jet aircraft is transportation, but livery, livery, I don't remember what that means. Isn't that medical something or other? Anyways, three million dollars. So I don't know why that's still on the list. Like that's literally a rounding error. Just you don't need to include that. But it's there. We're not going to go in detail, in that much detail on the rest, but I just was like, hey, Number one's number one. Ha ha, funny, it's the topic of this conversation. Mickey Mouse and Friends, 1928, $61.2 billion. So we are almost $40 billion difference between number one and number two on this list. Retail sales, $60.66 billion out of the 61 is retail sales. And when you have theme parks selling, like yogurt says in Spaceballs, merchandising, yeah, that's probably going to be a pretty big number. Mickey Mouse and Friends Box Office $226 Million VHS DVD $323 Million I'm not sure if you guys are aware of this, but I found that this probably is going to be way higher if we scrutinize this a little bit more and maybe we're a little bit more generous in kind of combining some of the titles. But this specifically says Mickey Mouse and Friends. If this was like Walt Disney and Company, this number would probably be higher than Pokemon potentially. I mean, I could see that, but I don't know. I think, actually, I think everything that we're thinking of, you know, like Lion King and, you know, every animated Disney thing of all time, it's probably down in this list, but I'm not going to deal with that. I'm not going to put you through all that. So that's actually the only two things on the 50 plus billion section of this. So the next group is 20 to 50 billion, and this one kind of surprised me. Winnie the Pooh, 1924, $48.8 billion. Retail, $48.25 billion. DVD and Blu-ray is $40 million. Box office is $545 million. So that's not actually in order, but either way. Winnie the Pooh is number three. That's kind of interesting. Star Wars, 1977. Yeah, somebody should make a Star Wars pin. $46.7 billion. This one has quite a few bullet points. This one's actually kind of more split than the other stuff. Merchandise sales is $29 billion. Box office is $10.3 billion. Home video is $1.2 billion. Is that the special edition VHS? Did they really sell that many? Honshot first. Let's just put that out there. Video games is $4 billion. Book sales is $1.82 billion. I've read a few of those. TV revenue, $280 million. I hope that's not all. What is it? The Star Wars Christmas special something or other? Either way. So the next one on the list is, this is where it's like, wait, isn't, couldn't this be listed somewhere else? This is called Disney Princess and it says 2000 is the year that it started and it's 45.4 billion. Retail sales is 45.468 billion. Home entertainment is 14.7 billion. It says it's animated films, it's owned by the Walt Disney Company, created by Andy Mooney. Like I honestly like I don't even know what that means. Like Disney Princess, like isn't that like half the Disney cartoon things? Like I mean maybe not Aladdin but like Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, stuff like that. Anyway, next one on the list, Ann Pan Man? 1973, $38.4 billion, retail sales is $38.42 billion. I don't know why that's a bigger number than the overall museum. That's a new category. $14.5 billion. It says it's a picture book. It's a Japanese thing. I think I know what that is, but I'm not entirely sure. Barbie 1987 $36.3 billion. Next one up is the Wiz... this is weird that they have this listed out like this. It says Wizarding World and then in parentheses Harry Potter. Shouldn't that be Harry Potter and then just be like everything? 1997 $34.7 billion. This one has the most bullet points and has a pretty good spread actually. The Office is 9.6 billion. Book sales is 8.07 billion. Merchandise sales is 7.1 billion. That is a lot of wands. Home entertainment is 4 billion. Video games is 3.5 billion. Don't their video games get panned pretty hard typically? Like isn't the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, isn't that one of them that kind of was just like, eh? Oh wait, maybe That was Gollum. Yeah, that's the one that Dennis doesn't like. It's Gollum. He made fun of that and he's like, I'm not going to buy that until it's a dollar. Okay, so that's maybe not that much. Oh, the Wizarding World thing, that's what that is. Everybody was worried that that's what Jersey Jack was going to do. And recently, I don't know if I'm going to do a show on this or not, but recently they have talked about that Jersey Jack Pinball has Harry Potter and they have all the movie I'm sure that they will do just fine. There is so much content to pick from that it would make me nervous if they only did one pinball machine off of it. That's something that it's like, yeah, let's split that into a couple different things. So back to Harry Potter, breakdown, TV revenue, one billion. I think that's all from TBS because outside of Friends, I think that's all TBS shows is Harry Potter, Friends, and the Atlanta Braves, right? Like that's kind of their thing. Studio Tour, $975 million, and Stage Play is $427 million. Does Harry Potter have a play? I mean, I wouldn't be shocked, but I did not know that. Here's an interesting one that's combined is the Marvel Cinematic Universe started in 2008, $33.8 billion, box office is $31.1 billion, and then home entertainment is $2.7. I think the home entertainment, isn't that all just like Disney Plus? So I don't know how they get their percentage off of like Disney Plus subscriptions, assuming that's where they're getting that number from, but whatever that weighted average is, that's just going to go up over time because everybody, not everybody, Disney Plus
    30:23
    Hello Kitty 32.8 Billion Dollars 2 Bullet Points Merchandise Sales Box Office $31,487. Was there a Hello Kitty movie at some point? I mean there's a citation, I'm not going to click on it, but I think that's kind of a rhetorical question. It sounds like there was, it also sounds like it did not do very well. Next on the list, Call of Duty, 2003, $31 billion. A single bullet point, video games, $31 billion. I don't know why there's only one bullet point because my kids have some like Lego-ish knockoff action figures and so there should be some merchandising in there too whether it's like $50,000 or not should still be listed because it's not just video games man. Batman 1939, $29.8 billion, most of its retail sales, then box office, then TV revenue. Spider-Man 1962, $26.8 billion, Transformers 1984, $25 billion, Dungeon Fighter Online, I have no idea what that is, 2005, so it's new enough that I probably should, but it's $22 billion, it's all computer games, no idea. Cars 2006, $21.5 billion, I think that would be a cool pinball machine. Candy Crush 2012 that is a mobile app that has made 20 billion dollars. That's pretty amazing. Now we're into the next 10 to 19 billion. Looney Tunes 1930 17 and a half billion. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1984 17.4 billion. Lion King. See like why isn't that on its own in the Disney thing, right? 1984 15.9 billion dollars. That was a hard video game on Sega Game Gear. Game Gear, yes, Game Gear. Genesis was not the handheld. Game Gear was the handheld. That thing ate batteries like crazy. That had six AA batteries, three on each side behind the handles. And you know what you did with that thing? You never bought batteries for it. You bought the rechargeable packs for it because otherwise you'd be broke buying batteries. Because you'd get like an hour and a half, two hours of playtime on six AA's. That's an expense like that thing is like you know you remember those gas the gas guzzler thing with you know automobiles yeah that thing was a gas guzzler oh my gosh and it got warm but it had a color screen and game boy didn't ooh all right door of the explorer 2000 uh 15.8 billion dollars i don't know how pac-man 1980 15.4 toy story 1995 14.8 peanuts Where did that homebrew end up? I think Aaron Davis from Fast Pinball was doing that. I think there was a little bit of a hiccup with the design team on that one. They were... Anyways, that was in work, but $14.4 billion, Paw Patrol, Avengers, Frozen, Space Invaders, Spongebob, Warcraft, Despicable Me, ooh that would be fun, Star Trek, Street Fighter, Grand Theft Auto, Rala Kuma? No idea. The Monster Strike, 2013, $10 billion. That's a mobile game. Never heard of it. Jurassic Park, 9.7, James Bond. James Bond, 1953, $9.75 billion. There are 14 million James Bond movies. How are they not higher on the list? Box Office, 7.87 billion. Home Entertainment $373 million, Merchandise Sales $1 billion, Video Games $500 million, Angry Birds, Dragon Ball, I've seen that come up in the wish list of games, Dragon Slayer, Thomas and Friends, that used to be called Thomas the Tank Engine by the way, if you You know, you know, that theme song is playing in your head right now. Fortnite, Mario, Mario at $8.75 billion, video games $7.3, box office $1.3, home media $21 million. On that box office, I'm willing to bet most of it is the new one, because it's not the old one. The old movie was so bad. Middle Earth, parentheses, Lord of the Rings, like why not just say Lord of the Rings? I don't understand. Are we trying to avoid lawsuits or something? But like anyways, X-Men, DC Extended Universe, Fast and Furious, Pirates of the Caribbean, Ben 10. Ooh, I watched, I didn't watch, my kids watched a lot of that, therefore I watched a lot of that. Sesame Street, quote unquote, the Muppets. Are those two the same? Yeah, they are. I mean, they are, but not really. They're two kind of different things either way. Ultra series, Ultraman, like can we just, why? Why is the main title not at the top? Like the Ultra Series should be like in parentheses on this one. Madden NFL, Fate, Superman, Halo, Ice Age. Like this Sonic the Hedgehog, like I just want to keep going because like all of these Shrek, Phantom of the Opera, My Little Pony, hey there's Steve Richie's next game, My Little Pony. All right, Avatar, Scooby Doo, Yu-Gi-Oh!, Mamma Mia.
    35:53
    That's from 1975, really? Musical theater, box office, $4 billion. Okay, so $5.16 billion for Mamma Mia. Musical theater, $4 billion. That's pretty impressive considering the box office was $988 million and the DVD sales was $180 million. Aren't they on like Mamma Mia 4 now or something? Anyways, Mortal Kombat, Gundam, Genshin Impact, 2020.
    36:21
    Well, why haven't I seen that? Anyways, The Sims, Bob the Builder, Simpsons. Wow, The Simpsons is so far down. 1987, $4.9 billion. Merchandise hit, so this is why it's so far down. Merchandise, it's 4.2 billion out of the 4.9. Box office, $536 million. Video games, $141 million. The box office, all you're thinking of is Spider Pig, Assassin's Creed, Beyblade, Big Bang Theory, Seinfeld, Mission Impossible, Twilight, Gran Turismo. So now we're getting kind of in the in the weird stuff. Oh the Smurfs. Hey, that sounds cool. Cabbage Patch Kids, GI Joe, Hunger Games, Minecraft, Blue's Clues, Beauty and the Beast. So why isn't Beauty and the Beast in like grouped in with other like that's too specific. Like put that in with Walt Disney and Company. Just put them at number one. It's fine. Whatever. Skylanders, Titanic, Titanfall, Bratz, Care Bears, Terminator, Thor, Astro Boy, Iron Man. Why isn't Iron Man in with Marvel Cinematic Universe? Because they're saying 1963, $2 billion, box office, 2.4, home entertainment. Like if they're talking like Robert Downey Jr., Iron Man, like what other box office stuff? Do they have other Iron Man movies? I don't know. The Galaxy, Elder Scrolls, Skyrim, Godzilla, wow Godzilla is so far down on this thing. It just barely beat Inside Out and it's been around 60 years longer. Indiana Jones, Madagascar, Captain America, again Captain America not in the MCU, it's on its own. Kung Fu Panda, Winx, Club, I don't know what that is, Winx with an X, 2004, animated series, Powerpuff Girls, Friends, Sailor Moon, $2.5 billion. I think the cast has made $2.5 billion at this point. How has the show only made that much? Box Office, $89,000. Are they showing that in theaters? There wasn't a movie, was there? Sailor Moon, The Incredible. This list is just amazing. And we're actually almost at the bottom. How many of those were pinball themes? And how many of those were not pinball themes but were like, hey, that sounds fun. And I mean, there was a couple that were just kind of like, eh, maybe not. But I mean, there's quite a few on there that's like, I'd play that, I'd play that, I'd play that. Yeah, I'd play that for sure. Oh, I'd buy that one. You know, like, there's a lot of stuff on here. So, and then it was also kind of funny because not too long ago, maybe it was a couple weeks or a couple months at this point, but Time Magazine put out one of their special things, and I know they do this like, might even be like every week, right? So, but anyway, so they put out a Pokemon Time Magazine special edition, which again, I know they do all the time, but still, they did a Pokemon one and it was, it was kind of a thick magazine. I think it was it would be a very very slender book or a very very hefty magazine And it the subtitle is The Games The Shows The Evolution 25 years Pokemon in America It says the world most valuable media franchise Hey maybe they pulled that stat from Wikipedia And then it says how to master Pokemon Go because that like one of the current things like anybody can play that I know people that play that all the time I used to play that a lot at work pre COVID I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to do this because there was a lot of Pokemon stops on my little daily walk routine that I would do. So anyways, like it is front and center not only in the sales of games and media and content and you know whatever to whether it's kids playing the video game or whatever but like it is definitely registered, not registered, is recognized as a nostalgic franchise at this point. I just didn't have time to go through all the things I mentioned at this point. Time Magazine says it's the most valuable, so who am I to argue? So, the rumor is there. So who do I want to have design it? Well, there's two guys and this is where the title comes in. And I don't want both of them to co-design it. It's not that. It's one or the other, right? Right, so like, I don't, design by committee does not work, right? Have we, we've learned this, hopefully, the pinball industry have learned this, but the enthusiasts have hopefully learned this as well, that design by committee does not work, because then you get like, the Homer mobile, right? And that is, even though I think Homer designed that by himself, but that was basically designed by committee, and it's, it's a terrible car, and everybody should recognize that. But anyways, so there's two guys, Keith Elwin, Mr. KME, and Jack Danger, right? So why should Keith design this, right? So Keith has more designs under his belt at this point, and each one of them have been really strong designs. I mean, the IP that gets linked in with them have just gotten stronger and stronger. The first game, Iron Maiden, was kind of, um, not divisive, but it definitely had, you know, its supporters and its maybe neutral people and then it had its detractors. You know, like, Iron Maiden has, like, in the music world, like, they don't get played on the radio, they don't get a lot of, you know, not that they would be on, like, MTV or anything, But like they they aren't like ACDC or Metallica right and I don't know you know if they're I don't I don't know why not but they definitely have their fan base and they they tour and they travel a lot and they are extremely popular they have a ton of sales and they have a lot of fans and you know they they're doing their thing and that was his first game and there are some people I know that didn't get that game strictly because of the license and then there were some people that were just they got it in spite of the license and then they were like you know what the music's not that bad so it kind of grew on them but I have the game it was Keith's first design and I happen to think that it's it's a really good layout there's a couple really challenging shots there's a couple really easy shots and you know early on it lets you shoot the easier shots and then as you progress further and further it makes you I'm going to chip away at some of the harder stuff and if you want to cash in on the four different Eddie cards, right? If you want to get the trooper Eddie card, you have to get that super jackpot shot, which is an upper flipper shot while you're in trooper multiball. I mean it doesn't have to come from the upper shot. I have definitely ricocheted from the bottom left flipper and almost had a direct shot that went into it after you hit the entrance and it kind of harems into it. I've also had some really lucky shots that just collected for me because I certainly didn't do it intentionally. But, you know, for the most part, you have to do that intentionally. But like, you know, at that point, if you want the card, you have to do it. And if you want to get to battle the beast, you have to get all four cards. And it's like if you want to get really far in the game, you've got to do all the different stuff. You can't just shoot the center ramp all day because eventually that won't start your modes anymore either. You know, so there's there's a skill level progression and that carries through with all of his different games. There's easier shots and there's harder shots, and he makes you shoot the harder shots eventually. And also, he designs the layouts with the rules in mind, and he's not programming them, but he is one of those playfield layout designers that is really leaning on his programmer and saying, hey, this is kind of what I want to do with this sequence of shots, or like, this is one of the modes I want, and these are the sequence of shots that I think plays out the in here you know wifi school grandma didn't feedback here into orbit you know through this or whatever like let's go back to our mean real quick so you're early code on iron maiden was just like a just two loops all day and you'll score lick a lot of points and longs easy app pop like you're safe right you can't drain up top and and then it was just like now I'm going to stop that. And so after a couple loops, the posts come up and they do a combo breaker and you have to go the other way. And then you can do that for a couple loops and then the posts come up again and combo break you again. And it's like he'll let you stay up and do it, but you got to go back and forth and back and forth. And it's not the same thing as just doing, you know, upper right flipper, upper right flipper, upper right flipper all day, all day, all day. Like he just was like, no, that's an exploit. I don't like it. We're going to change it. And there's some programmers are typically the ones that have to pick up on that as opposed to the game designer themselves. Just so happens that Keith Elwin is the best player of all time, so that kind of helps, right? So if Elwin is assigned or I don't know if he he's probably just a touch too old to be like, yeah, I played Pokemon, you know, like he'd have to be like he was he'd be more of like a I'm a little bit of a younger adult when he started playing. I've heard people just a couple years older than me that have said, just after my time, that I would have been hooked on that. So I was more into theme XYZ. So I don't think Keith has a lot of nostalgia for original Pokemon stuff, but whether he I don't know that he had a whole lot to do with, you know, whether it was Iron Maiden or Godzilla or Jaws or Jurassic Park. I know he had some, like there's a backstory on Jurassic Park. Like that was definitely something that is nostalgic to him. But, you know, for the most part, I think Keith could, you know, like he's joked about like doing laundry day as a theme. And I'm willing to bet he could make a pretty good pinball machine out of like the concept of doing laundry, right? So like, it would be fine, right? Okay, so let's change gears and go over to Jack Danger. So why Jack? So Jack is, Jack's not scared of anything, right?
    47:12
    So like, he's like Mikey from the, what was it? The Life cereal commercial? Like, get Mikey to try it. He'll try anything. It's like, if you give Jack like, I mean, you don't have to give Jack ideas. He's got his own ideas, but if Jack gets an idea, he's just like, yeah, I'll do that. You know, like, like his whole thing is like, he's joked for a couple of years of like, I'm still trying to convince Gary Stern, you know, or Uncle Gary to let me put a spinner in the outlaying type of thing, you know, like, and he's just like, yeah, I just want to do it. Like, and it just doesn't make sense. Like, it's not practical. It's not needed. Like, why would you need to do that? But it would still be, like... but why not? Like, whatever. You know, if you've got 10 bucks left on your bomb, like, throw a spinner in the out lane. Why not? You know? Like so what if you get one spin when you just do a normal drain, or when you have like a really powerful sling out lane drain, and it gives you 10 spins and all of a sudden it like, I don't know, beeps at you or something like whatever. I don't even know how you use it or why you'd use it but that's his idea not mine. You know but like Jack's not scared to do anything, right? So he's done X-Men, he's done, you know, we're going in reverse order, but he's done X-Men, which is just like ball paths galore, and like, it's not quite whack-a-mole, but it's just kind of like, if you've never, if you don't have much experience on the game, you're just like, where's this ball gonna end up, right? Like, you see where it's going, but where's it gonna stop? And yeah, like I played that in Texas in the tournament and it destroyed me because I didn't really know what I was doing. I mean, that's problem number one. Problem number two, I was just like, hey, I hit that ramp. Why is it in here all of a sudden? Like, why is it coming this way? Like, that's not that's not normal. And not to say that Jack is like super hellbent on abnormal stuff, but it's just like Jack is willing to try anything. And he's, you know, he's just kind of got that fun, free personality. Matt Savard and больше Email whom I know for my work by the way alres temperature ɨɞʜborn The It has like this S curve path that will eventually like feed the upper flipper and like it's it's just like it crosses the center of the playfield and it like opens up into this wide open area but then all of a sudden it goes into this this other entrance and then it kind of does this really sharp curve not a sharp curve but like it kind of goes around and all of a sudden it like feeds out the right side orbit and then it feeds in front of your that upper right flipper like that's cool right like that's that's fun you know and That's not a normal path. Like most people would have just put an orbit that went all the way around. You'd end up in the same spot, but be way less cool, you know? And then go in reverse some more, right? On Jurassic Park Home Edition, he had the Robocop homage jump ramp. Like that's cool. You know, like he's, it's not that he's like stealing design ideas or anything, you know, but he's not, he's not scared of being like, hey, you know what? That was cool in the 80s. We're going to kind of modernize this a little bit and do it again. Just look at the Danger Room on X-Men, right? So those are my two guys. I want those two guys to design Pokemon. And I want Stern to do it because I don't want Jersey Jack to do it just because I don't really... Well, this is not meant to be insulting to Jersey Jack, but we're about to get to one Some of the reasons why I think Stern has to do it, right, as opposed to some other company. So but now, so the reason why those two guys are my two picks to do this has nothing to do with me not liking the other designers on staff, right? Like this is not a, oh, I don't want John Borg to do it or I don't want Brian Eddy to do it. It's like, yeah, come on, please, right? Like, I have Borg games, I have Eddie games, right? Like, John Borg, Metallica, Walking Dead, Hello, Masterpieces, Brian Eddy, Attack from Mars, like still top tier masterpiece, like one of the best games of all time. Like, I love games from both of those guys. If either one of those guys did it, probably would be just fine. But I would prefer Elwin or Jack to do it just because I think it'd be interesting to see what they come up with. So here's why Pokemon works as a pinball. Not just from a geometry standpoint, but from a customer base and not necessarily just a buyer base, but a player base. So the player base is five to 45 plus years old at this point, right? Like this game has been around, like this franchise has been around for 25 years, right? So, and they're still putting out new additions and they're putting out new content and different things and everybody is, you know, has some sort of potential to be interested in it. There's something for everybody, whether it's the cards or, you know, the winning a stuffed animal at the fair, whatever, right? There's, or the TV show, like it's still a cartoon thing and cartoons are just, they're easy to do. And Pokemon, like, it does have some violent aspects to it, but it's not presented in a overly aggressive, gory, bloody way. It's a combat concept, right? But it's not presented in an overly bad way for a child. A kid could watch that and be like, oh, this is entertaining. You could sit there and break it down and be like, oh, there's some interesting... I don't know, like Freud? Not Freud. But like, you know, you can get into some of the like, oh, like, are these creatures there on their own free will? Are they forced into combat? This is seeming like gladiator battles and, you know, somewhat slavery and, you know, whatever. And oh, it's violent. And oh, they have X's over their eyes. But don't worry, they're just knocked out. You take them to the hospital. What do they call them? Like the healing center or the pokey center, something like that? Pokemon Center? Whatever it is. It's like you can have them rest and they will be back to full health. You know, like nobody dies in Pokemon. Like they just get knocked out. Same thing with the video games. So it's like, it's not that bad.
    54:36
    And then you've got, you know, players of the video games. They're already like into the gaming world already. Same thing with the card game. You know, these people are already gamers, right? Like you're in that same genre. It's not that big of a leap to say, hey, pinball's fun. Come do that too. It's this cool franchise that you already like. Also on the collector side, right? So pinball has a pretty broad range of potential players and it's from, you know, just I've got a couple quarters rattling in my pocket. I'm going to go play a couple games and hope to pop a couple replays or matches or whatever to I make a lot of money and so I'm going to buy every limited edition game that's Stern and Jersey Jack pumps out every year, you know, like, and that's, that's tens of thousands of dollars every year. And both of those individuals can both enjoy this hobby. And that's a big gap in, you know, their, their spending potential, right? So but you have the player base, and then you have the collectors. And even on on the collector side of Pokemon, like there's there's people that buy graded cards, they get, they get, you know, they don't get I'm not going to get into the cards necessarily, but you open the pack and it's some super awesome cool thing, right? And it's a low print count, high demand, so it's already valuable. You go submit it to one of these card grading companies and they give it a 9 or a 10. You're hoping for a 10, but even 9s are pretty good as well. And it comes back a 10. It's in this tomb, basically, this clear plastic tomb with a barcode and a serial number for like the grading company serializes it, like what job number it was for them, not like the serial number of the card. And it's basically it's sealed and yeah, you can break it out of that, but like what's the point? But if you have like a graded 10 Charizard whatever, it's now worth more than just a It's a loose, in a sleeve, Charizard of the same exact... You know, it doesn't matter. They could be the same condition, but the fact that one is graded and one is not, it could go up in value by two, five, ten times the amount. You know, there's a Charizard card from like 1996, and if it's a 10 grade, it's like $40,000 or some like insane thing. It's just... Like, the level it gets to is kind of silly. Like, oh, you have a kingpin, one of nine pinball machines? Well, here, I have this 10 graded Charizard that there were like thousands of, but you know, how many got destroyed by nine year olds in 1996? And you know, so I have this 10 graded reverse hollow whatever Charizard, and it's worth $40,000. Like, what? It's a piece of cardboard. Yeah, but it's from 1996. Yeah, but so is kingpin. Kind of. Okay, point being, there's pinball players run from a very wide range of potential individuals, and so do Pokemon people. And then you also have, this is really funny, because this is actually something, these notes have been around for a little while. These notes might be older than Barry O's barbecue challenge, and it's funny now because We see like how much this didn't work, probably because it was not done for the right customer base. But this note I have right here, it says, card stores might even be a buyer. High traffic, some are small, but some have a lot of space. That was one of American pinball selling points on Barry O's barbecue challenge for like, Yo, let's hit up Barbecue Joints and see if they want to buy a pinball machine. It's like, no, they're there to eat and get out. And the barbecue place doesn't want campers. But you know who does love campers? Card stores. I mean, bars do too. But card stores like it because people are just hanging out and people are buying packs http://www.F spreadsheet.com.uaWA U S Bibliography, PO�� Panodiocia Edgo OU Scocasios Freשותdır? Oh my goodness So we were there I was there with Ryan and he was playing games and I was just kind of sitting back I was talking to the owner and he about my age so we were just kind of yapping we were talking about magic from back in the day And some of the kids had like finished like because they try to do two games at least right Two maybe three games And one of the kids had finished his three games and he was just kind of hanging out waiting for his sibling to finish and you know they were hanging out with, these are all friends anyways, like they enjoy each other's company and it's just cool, right? Everybody's having a good time. And so the parent shows up and they had already agreed earlier that they were going to get a couple packs but at the end, right? And I don't know if that was some sort of a bribe tool of like you got to get through the game stuff before we're going to buy any packs. So anyways, so this kid walked over and he picked out two or three packs, whatever it was, and he got – he opened a couple of them. I don't remember if it was the first or the last, it doesn't matter, but he opened this, it was an Aerodactyl V, and it was an alternate art, because they have like specials of the specials, and which are even more rare, and you know, typically they look better and whatever. And like the normal version of this card was like five bucks. But this one and this was like peak demand for this set and this specific card along with like two or three other cards in this set. So this card was like and they looked it up real quick on the exchange. There's an app for this that there's there's like this entire marketplace. It's it's actually really cool, really efficient, really effective to just like and it makes it's you remember Beckett, the magazine Beckett that you could buy every month and it literally told you like The value of like every baseball and you know football and whatever card and they had Beckett you know Beckett also had like magic and Star Wars and stuff but they had like it was like when you when you get the newspaper and it had like the stock quotes like that's basically what Beckett was it had all the prices you know from whenever it was printed and that's what this app basically is but it's like right now right now now and there's multiple stores that can list stuff like so there's a little bit of fluctuation and then there's like based on the No information about their shipping aids are required. Click the link in the description for more details and to win a free Undertale. Three years worth of GOTC Art Bossades,
    62:27
    In the first half of the season, the team was up. He said, whoa, great pull, man. That's $120 on TCGTrader. And all the other kids in unison were like, wow. And that's like the scene in the beginning of Willy Wonka, right, with the Candyman. And all the kids were just like, I want a pack, and I want a pack, and I want a pack. And it's just like, you want these kids to pull these cards in the store, preferably with a big enough audience as can fit in the store. Like that's what you want because that will stir up a frenzy and they will buy more and more cards. And it's not like there's nothing devious happening. Like it's just exciting. I've been there. Like I just said, you know, like in the late 90s, like I didn't live at a card store, but I was at the card store an awful lot. And yeah, like my buddies and I, we would ride over there on our bikes and we'd go spend our allowances. And you know, it was great when somebody pulled a cool card. It sucked when they got to put it in a deck and use it against you, because then it was like wow, this sucks, like I'm excited for you, but screw you dude. You know, I wanted that card so I had a, you know, now I have a stronger deck against you, but you know, that's the way these card games work. But you know, like that just whips up a frenzy and that causes excitement. So can you imagine like how cool it would be to walk into a card store and have a Pokemon pinball machine there? You know, like, whether, I don't know that, like, yellow is necessarily a great pinball color, but if you had a Pikachu edition as the pro, and then you had... what would you do for the premium? Because what's funny, okay, so what's kind of funny is, like, Pikachu is, like, the face of the franchise, like, everybody knows Pikachu, it's the yellow guy. And, but, in the card game, Pikachu is kind of like, not really all that strong. Pikachu is not even like the final version of that progression, right? So it's Pichu, Pikachu, Raichu. So Pikachu is like the mid-level and like, he's not as strong. Even Raichu is not typically like given very strong cards. You know who is though? Charizard. That's the red dragon. And yeah, like even like Charizard is Pokemon Red, like the original Game Boy game, Charizard is that character. And, you know, like, so Charizard has been front and center since the very beginning. And everybody loves Charizard, unless you're playing against a Charizard deck. And then it's just kind of like, ugh. But yeah, so like, what would they do for the different editions? Right, so would it be like would you make Pikachu the limited edition just because he's like the face the franchise and then do Charizard as the pro but like that wouldn't make sense though because like you you sell the most pros.
    65:25
    Depending, you know, like there's some games like Godzilla and ACDC and and a few others that are just like pro does that even exist like it's premium or bust right. And, you know, so would you do like Pikachu's the premium and then Charizard is the LE? But then what would you have as the pro? Because you can't have something that's just kind of like, yeah, we don't like that at all. Or maybe, maybe the pro would be like what they did with Iron Maiden and just have like the collage of Eddie's. You just have like the collage of Pokemon. I don't know. That's not my decision to make. That's nothing for me to worry about. Whatever. So on the actual pinball side, so outside of the people side of things, so back on the pinball side of things, why is Stern the best choice? Well, because they do the manufacturing volume that other companies could dream of, and actually most companies don't even attempt to dream of, because they're just like, well, we don't want to be Stern because we can't, so we don't even try. So you don't have to deal with that. But I want Stern to do it because they're going to pump out the most of them. And if I can't get it right off the bat, at least I know there's going to be a lot of them out there. And another thing is Insider Connected. Hello? You know the entire premise of Pokemon? What's the tagline? Gotta catch them all, right? So what's the best way to personalize a completionist collection type thing? Oh, I don't know. Is it that QR code that you scan in on every modern Stern that like knows all your stuff and like tracks your achievements and stuff? So on Pokemon you could have achievements, but it could also act as your Pokedex as well and know exactly who all you've caught when you, you know, encounter them and catch them and whatever. lol
    67:55
    And that's exactly that. Yeah. So that's pretty much like the biggest nonphysical pinball selling point of that is Insider Connected is, it can be used, like, just with John Wick, how they're using it for the contracts. You know, like, you can tailor the way IC is used. It doesn't have to be on every game, but like, there's certain licenses that are just like, Oh, you know what we could do? Like this, this would be fun.
    68:25
    So anyways, it's got to be Stern because you've got to have the insider connected and then it's going to track, you know, all your collection and everything like that. So and between Elwin or Jack, I don't care. I know Jack just did X-Men. Elwin is supposed to be coming up with King Kong, which I'm sure it will be a great game. The license doesn't really do much for me, but neither did Godzilla and I own one, so, you know, whatever.
    68:54
    So, but here's like, in closing, this is my absolute wish list, right? So, it has to be Gen 1. Like I said, for the longest time, I didn't even know that there was more than one theme song, because there was a theme song for each season. And that just shows how heavy on the legacy side of things that they played the Gen 1 episodes or Season 1 episodes compared to any of the other stuff. Right, so Season 1 is basically Gen 1. It's the original 151. And if you've ever seen any of the episodes, they have like these jingles that you sing along with and it like does a portion of the Pokédex, you know, a portion of that list of the 151. And they got them all to rhyme and it's like this little, you know, mid-90s hip-hop rap thingy where they got them all to rhyme and it's, you gotta do Gen 1. And you have to do, you know, that 151 and you know what's great? There's some license holders that are just like, oh, we can't do our most popular thing of all time because we have this current game we're trying to push. So, we're gonna force this current thing on you, and you can't do the thing you actually want to do.
    70:16
    So, I mean, I understand Nintendo's kind of a pain in the butt anyways, but... Even if they tried to do that, hopefully, somebody at Stern would sit there and go,
    70:27
    So, we don't wanna do whatever your current gen is. We wanna do 151, gen 1, and we're going to do that, because your current card set, Scarlet and Violet, You have a subset and they release a new set of cards like every four months and which oh my gosh like that's why the consumable aspect of like coming out with a new set every quarter or every two quarters you know like that is that's kind of genius and in the on the card playing side they've actually started putting letters on each set and not each set but like each I think it's like Robotnik
    71:39
    And there's more. We'll be back in just a minute. Thanks for watching. I'll see you next time. Bye. Hey, they've done this before, they know what they're doing. So Scarlet and Violet have multiple like sub, they're unique sets but they use like Scarlet and Violet and then they have like a subheading as like the actual set name. Well they have Scarlet and Violet 151 and this is not a like traditional set but it is, it's kind of like a, it's not really a special set, it's not like a limited run, entionalujljw Росс51199. They have this one three pack set and there's a poster in the back that's all folded up and they have a, what is it, they have a Charmander, a Bulbasaur, and a Squirtle, which are the original three starter Pokemon that you get to pick from in the game, in one of the games. And then there's a pack behind each one of those cards. And that is its own set. And it's $15, which is like, it's $5 for each pack plus the bonus is just kind of thrown in there. And that's one of the things, but they don't do that for other sets. They're just doing that for the 151 because that's the nostalgic pull, right? And they have other different bundles the way they've got them set up and they all have their own little like swing of things. And I have one of those like three pack set with with the starter three like I have one of those unopened. It's sitting right behind me because I saw that and I was like, damn it, I have to have that. I'm not going to like I bought some and open them because like finding individual packs are hard. But I was looking at that. I was like, oh, like you got me nailed it. Like, it doesn't take up much space. It's fun to look at. And you're just like, yeah, I feel, you know, like, I remember 1997 all over again now. Like, that feels good to, you know, just kind of look at that and be like, yeah, I remember that. You know, like, they, they're good at what they do. They know exactly what they're doing. But point being, you have Gen 1 as a current set, you know, from 1996 to 20... I mean they started printing them in like late 23? I don't even think it started in 24. Like they've run this set for quite a while and like they're still running them because you can get them at the vending machine that just showed up at my Safeway. Pokemon card vending machines have been like an East Coast, like Midwest thing for a long time. Long time, I don't know exactly how long. But like west of, I don't know, the Mississippi, like they just haven't been a thing. I only know about it because I've read about them in like different articles and you know I see the comments of like wait there's vending machines for this stuff? Uh yeah we have one at Safeway now because my son told me about it. And uh guess what's in there? Uh 151. And I was just like oh sweet they started printing these things again. Because I have been working on this set like this is one of the sets like this is the only set that I have been buying cards to because I want to complete this set. I hope you enjoyed this set. So tell me that this is not a good idea to have your Gen 1, your OGs as your pinball machine concept. This would work, you know. Do the comic slash cartoon. Do that art style. Oh my god, please don't do like... there's some cards that are like the modern sets that they're doing. Some of them are like... they're CG but it's bad CG. Like there's they've tried a lot of different stuff like there's actually some like claymation stuff where they like take pictures and then there's some like stuff that's been knit and it's like there's some interesting stuff that they've allowed their artists to do like it's not actual like it is art but it's not like pencil color pencil and marker art it's like you know setting up a scenery type thing and then taking a picture type of art but there are some that Does anybody remember Beast Wars from Transformers? Yeah, there's some that are like that, and let's not do that, please? Please? Pretty please? Oh, like, I would beg to not have that show up, because that would be like Game of Thrones all over again. Please don't do that. And on the inside of that, Gen 1, 151, the original song, throw in, you know, like, closing credits, I don't really care, you know, throw in the Pokédex with the Insider connected, like, you want to talk about a winner. There are some people on pin side that have no idea what they're talking about and it's not their fault it's just not from their time and there's a couple that just happen to be very vocal and they're so very wrong. This would be a massive seller and the customer base is huge, the player base is huge and This is one of those things where it's like I would be sitting there going just please kind of do it right. You know, like I'd be kind of worried but at some point like you also just have to sit there and just be like, you know, whatever they do it's probably going to be really good. So anyways, I'm not going to ramble until they actually release this thing. Like I could probably just sit here and hem and haw and just be like, oh, but wait, there's this side story and that side story. Oh my gosh, it's been almost an hour and 20 minutes. This was supposed to be a shorter episode. I knew it wasn't going to be because this was going to be like... This episode could have as many tangents as a circle. And if you don't get that joke, you didn't pay attention in high school. But anyways, yeah. Pokemon, whether it's, you know, the next couple months, next year, whatever, like, I'm waiting for it and I'll probably have to buy it. I don't have room for this stuff. I'm gonna sell games. I don't want to sell games. I hate selling games. I need more space. No, I don't. I need to stop buying. No, I don't. I need to keep buying games. No, keep buying games. Keep buying games. Play more pinball. Have fun. Party on. Party on Wayne! Party on Garth! It's Wraith World! Party time! Excellent! And... we're clear!