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#94 Horror Show 2 - The Classic Pinball Podcast

The Classic Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 15m·analyzed·Oct 25, 2022
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.034

TL;DR

Horror pinball list discussion and WPC troubleshooting story with unresolved technical issue.

Summary

George and Dr. Shock (Dave) discuss a curated list of 11 horror-themed pinball machines (Gorgar through Monster Bash) from an unknown online source, debate the list's accuracy and completeness, note several omissions (Halloween, Tales from the Crypt, Elvira's House of Horrors, etc.), share their personal top-three picks, and pivot to a technical deep-dive into a mysterious WPC-era fault code on a Whodunit restoration involving a non-functional 12-volt opto supply affecting multiple interconnected systems.

Key Claims

  • America's Most Haunted was Spooky Pinball's first game, released around 2014

    high confidence · George and Dr. Shock discussing the game in the context of a horror-themed pinball list

  • Haunted House is a wide-body game with three levels and six to eight flippers

    high confidence · Dr. Shock describing personal experience working on the game

  • The Sega Frankenstein (1995) had 3,000 units produced

    medium confidence · George reading from his list; specific production number stated

  • Vampire by Valley had 799 units produced (George initially misread as 399)

    medium confidence · George reading from handwritten list

  • Alice Cooper's Nightmare Castle was built in 2018 with only 500 units by Spooky

    high confidence · George reading from list; confirmed as contemporary game

  • Whodunit was made in 1995 by Valley Dynamics

    high confidence · Dr. Shock stating this while discussing his restoration work

  • WPC-era driver boards from 1990-1995 all share the same basic architecture with MPU, driver board, and opto subsystem

    high confidence · Dr. Shock explaining the common technical platform affecting multiple games

  • A Pinside forum thread about the F115/F116/J112 opto 12-volt supply error has remained unresolved for 3-5 years with multiple posts offering no solution

    medium confidence · Dr. Shock describing his research and online findings

  • Dr. Shock solved the opto 12-volt supply problem on Whodunit independently without Pinside help, but defers full explanation to Patreon

    high confidence · Dr. Shock stating 'I solved it, George. By my own little brain, I solved it. Pinside did not help me on this.'

Notable Quotes

  • “This is a top 11 list. They probably liked Spinal Tap. You know, we go to 11.”

    George@ 3:45 — Humorous observation about arbitrary list construction; sets tone for skepticism about the list's authority

  • “The claw thing always gets broken in that game. It's always broken.”

    Dr. Shock@ 4:03 — Indicates known design flaw or maintenance issue with the game's claw toy mechanism

  • “I think there's six or eight flippers in that game... he's fastidious to say the least, he's the Pintastic tech that keeps those games running.”

    Dr. Shock@ 7:44 — References a well-known collector/technician in the community and describes a historically significant wide-body machine

  • “We basically gave it a day spa, shopped it out... We basically rebuilt everything.”

    Dr. Shock@ 8:47 — Indicates comprehensive restoration work; leads into the flipper coil-stop shearing anecdote

  • “I think I rebuilt these things so good and tight that that thing coming back hit that coil stop just right that it sheared them both off. I've never seen it before.”

    Dr. Shock@ 9:47 — Rare mechanical failure attributed to over-tightening; demonstrates restoration risks

  • “This game was made in 1995... that's why they're so popular... the 90s DMD games, by comparison, the DMD games in the 90s seem simple.”

    Dr. Shock@ 23:15 — Explains collector interest in 90s DMD games and positions them as bridge between classics and modern complexity

  • “This person said, this is very common, and I've never seen anyone post a solution to the problem.”

    Dr. Shock@ 28:19 — Indicates long-standing unresolved technical issue affecting multiple games

Entities

GeorgepersonDave (Dr. Shock)personTony ZitzikpersonJohn DaypersonSpooky PinballcompanyStern PinballcompanyWilliams PinballcompanyBallycompanyData Eastcompany

Signals

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Unknown internet list of 11 horror-themed pinball games lacks clear provenance, criteria, or comprehensive scope; hosts identify multiple notable omissions (Halloween, Tales from the Crypt, Elvira's House of Horrors, Devil's Dare, Centaur, Godzilla, Frankenstein, Alice Cooper's Nightmare Castle) suggesting the list was compiled before 2018 or incompletely

    high · George explicitly states 'We don't even know' when/how the list was compiled; notes 'this wasn't like oh here's a complete list of all the horror themed games'; hosts identify ~10 additional games that should have been included

  • ?

    product_concern: Freddy's Nightmare on Elm Street has a chronic design flaw where the claw toy is 'always broken'; suggests either fragile construction or design oversight in original manufacturing

    high · Dr. Shock: 'The claw thing always gets broken in that game. It's always broken.'; describes it as a known issue, not isolated case

  • ?

    product_concern: WPC-era pinball machines (1990-1995) experience persistent, multi-year unresolved technical fault: F115/F116/J112 opto 12-volt supply error message that renders machines inoperable; affects Whodunit and likely all games from this era using same driver board; affects motors, optics, and ball detection systems

    high · Dr. Shock describes Pinside forum thread with 3-5 years of unresolved posts; states 'this is very common, and I've never seen anyone post a solution to the problem'; confirms problem persists across multiple board swaps, suggesting external issue

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Dr. Shock notes 90s DMD games now appear 'simple' compared to modern releases; this shift in perception reflects industry evolution toward greater rule complexity, multiple code versions, and frequent ROM updates

    medium · Dr. Shock: 'the DMD games in the 90s seem simple. And so now, it's all about compare and contrast, and now these games seem like [simple]... compared to the newer stuff and the different rule sets and different ROM images coming out'

Topics

Horror-themed pinball games ranking and curationprimaryPinball game list accuracy, completeness, and community debateprimaryWPC-era (1990-1995) pinball technical architecture and common failure modesprimaryRestoration and repair of vintage pinball machinesprimaryPinball collector preferences and game acquisition trendssecondaryCommunity troubleshooting resources and expert consultationsecondaryDMD-era pinball game design and complexity compared to modern releasessecondarySpooky Pinball's growth and product linementioned

Sentiment

mixed(0.55)— First segment is lighthearted and humorous (skepticism about arbitrary list ranking creates levity), but transitions into frustration during technical troubleshooting narrative where Dr. Shock expresses exasperation with unsolved long-standing technical issues. Ends on hopeful/proud note as Dr. Shock claims independent resolution. Overall tone is casual and collegial between hosts despite technical frustration.

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.227

0:30
I got long hair, my eyes turn blue. I got long hair growing on my fingers too. I'm a wolfman. I'm a wolfman, baby. And if you see me, I'm a frown. You better watch the way you hear me howl.
1:00
Hello and welcome to another episode of the Classic Pinball Podcast. My name is George, and I'm joined by my co-host, Dr. Shock. Hello, Dave. Hello, George. Dr. Shock sounds very shocking. What do you got for me now? Well, I mean, you deal with electronics. I'm sure you've had the quote-unquote buzz.
1:33
Yeah, it's like a dog bite, but a very small dog bite. The reason I called you Dr. Shock, I think, if memory serves me, and it's not very good, back in the day, the horror show on Saturday nights had the character of Dr. Shock. So it fits the theme for today. We're going to kind of go on a little bit of a horror show. So with that said, let's enter the realm of horror.
2:04
Spooky. Well, our audience does it every week. Yeah, they do. I've got a treat for the audience. No cards, no letters, no texts, no emails. I clipped this list off of the internet. It's minimal show prep. It is not my list from 11 to 1.
2:34
We're going to talk about horror-themed pinball machines today. And we're going to start with number 11. I don't need a lot of comments about the game because you go into it later in the show. But number 11 is Gorgar. Gorgar, right, yeah Now I'm going to ask you to comment on the games as we go along But I'm guessing you're not going to agree with this list As far as number 11 to number 1

  • “So I just take a working game... I put the original board set that was working in my game, I put it back in, and guess what? It worked. Checked fuses F-115, F-116. It said the same freaking thing, George.”

    Dr. Shock@ 28:26 — Key diagnostic finding: problem persists despite known-good board, indicating external issue

  • “Did you solve it? Oh, I solved it, George. By my own little brain, I solved it. Pinside did not help me on this. I figured it out.”

    Dr. Shock@ 29:51 — Teases solution; defers explanation to Patreon, creating cliffhanger

    • Gottlieb
    company
    Valley Dynamicscompany
    Segacompany
    America's Most Hauntedgame
    Scared Stiffgame
    Creature from the Black Lagoongame
    Haunted Housegame
    The Addams Familygame
    Bram Stoker's Draculagame
    The Walking Deadgame
    Monster Bashgame
    Halloweengame
    Whodunitgame
    Pinsideorganization
    Pinbrew Festevent
  • ?

    restoration_signal: Comprehensive flipper rebuild on Bram Stoker's Dracula resulted in rare coil-stop hex bolt shearing failure, possibly caused by Dr. Shock's over-tightening creating excessive spring tension; required complete flipper plate replacement

    high · Dr. Shock describes new rebuild so 'tight and powerful' it 'sheared off' both hex bolts on coil stop; customer reported flipper stuck in up position one week after rebuild; suspects either factory weakness or previous over-tightening cycles

  • ?

    collector_signal: 1990s DMD-era pinball games (Valley Dynamics, Bally WPC platform) have increased collector demand due to perceived simplicity, build quality, and ROM stability compared to modern complex releases; perceived as sweet spot between classic mechanics and modern features

    medium · Dr. Shock: 'That's why the 90s dmd games that's why they're so popular'; notes improved perception due to 'simple to understand compared to the newer stuff and the different rule sets and different ROM images coming out'

  • ?

    community_signal: Pinball community maintains informal expert network (e.g., 'Johnny Pinball'/John Day) for troubleshooting; some experts (like Dr. Shock) avoid Pinside forums and solve problems independently; suggests parallel expertise channels and possible distrust of crowd-sourced solutions

    medium · Dr. Shock describes calling 'John's house' for help; later says 'I do not post on Pinside' and 'Pinside did not help me on this. I figured it out.'; implies preference for direct consultation over forum posts

  • ?

    product_launch: Spooky Pinball released 'Halloween' pinball game (timing unclear from transcript); game was notable omission from internet horror list, suggesting list predates release or compiler was unaware

    medium · George references 'Brand new spooky game. Not on there. Dave talks about it later in the show. Yeah.'; later cryptically notes 'this will be out before halloween publish this list'

  • ?

    machine_intel: Alice Cooper's Nightmare Castle (Spooky, 2018) had extremely limited production run of only 500 units; indicates high FOMO/collector appeal and scarcity-driven demand

    high · George reading from list: 'Contemporary game built in 2018 and only 500, I didn't know this, only 500 units. Your favorite company, Spooky. Alice Cooper's Nightmare Castle.'

  • ?

    operational_signal: Commercial location operator of Whodunit (Houdana location) unable to resolve opto 12-volt supply error and adopted workaround solution of disconnecting slot reel motors entirely, leaving game in reduced-functionality state for years rather than replacing driver board

    medium · Dr. Shock quoting Pinside post: 'In my case, I operate a Houdana location. After spending weeks trying to solve the issue before putting it out, I ended up simply leaving the reels disconnected.'; post noted issue unsolved for extended period

    • 3:04
    In addition to that, just so you don't think that this is the only part of the list I've got about another 10 that weren't included on the list That probably should have been Now again, this 11 to 1 list, they're not going to put an order of 11 to 1 You just put them in just time Somebody put their list together from 11 to 1. It is not my list. It is not your list. It is somebody's list. Somebody's list. And I don't know who that somebody is. If you want to go see it, go and Google pinball horror-themed games,
    3:35
    and you'll come up with the list. There were a couple of them, but this was the best one. Okay. According to some random dude on the internet, this is what his 11 to 1 is. Somebody came up with this list. So number 11 was Gorgar. It wasn't even a top 10. It was a top 11 list. They probably liked whatchamacallit, Spinal Tap. You know, we go to 11. Never mind. Oh, yes. He's going to 11. Number 10. We've never talked about this one. Freddy's Nightmare on Elm Street. Gottlieb, 1994. Your thoughts? The claw thing always gets broken in that game.
    4:05
    It's always broken. The what? This little claw. Freddy's claw. It's a claw in the game. I'm not real familiar with the game. It's a toy. Not that you're surprised or the audience. My sister and brother-in-law had this game for a while. And every time you start the game, it goes, ding, dong. Freddy's Home. You know. Good, bad, or otherwise? Really not that great. Should it be on the list? Yeah. Sure. This is going to get a lot of people upset. Number nine. Twilight Zone. No. At number nine. Well, are we going by
    4:36
    I don't know. Scariness. I knew this was going to come. By a good game. What are we going by? I try. Look, I didn't come up with the list. Would I have put this on the horror show list? No. But there are a couple other games that we're going to talk about that might not have made that list either because they're kind of on that border of sci-fi, horror, but not really full horror. When you found this list, was there a descriptor saying, I accumulated this list in this order because of X?
    5:06
    Did you see that I didn't even bring it up on my iPad? I have it written out? Okay, that should tell you everything. I don't know. Random whatever. Okay, so I don't agree with that. I like Twilight Zone. You probably like Twilight Zone. Good game, but I'm not sure it should even be on the list. Nah. Let's go to number eight, a game I've never played. Spooky 2014, America's Most Haunted. I think it's their first game. I don't know if I've ever even seen this game.
    5:37
    I think I saw it at a show. I didn't play it, but I think I saw it at a show. So I don't really have a like or a dislike. Don't know it. I'm pretty sure I don't like it. Just because. Well, you articulate that later in the show, but we'll come to that. And, oh, you just reminded me. You're not going to believe this. He didn't put this on the freaking list. No, no, that's ridiculous. I'm not going to. I can't believe he didn't put that on the list. I just remembered that. That's ridiculous. When does this come out?
    6:09
    Didn't I do the whole, didn't I absolve myself of everything right from the beginning? See, I knew this was going to be good. because you'd be going, and imagine if this was a pin side thread. Oh, my God. Oh, oh. Oh, punches. It'd be post number 10,000. Right. Okay, you know this game. Number seven, Bally, 1996. Scared stiff. Yeah, okay. Spooky. Yeah, sure. Makes it. Makes the cut, right? Yeah. Okay, so this next one.
    6:41
    Again, another Bally game. Creature from the Black Lagoon, 1992. Now, would you say that it's on all the horror, you know, on Saturday Night Horror Theater? It's kind of monster, like creature double feature kind of thing. It's like where Twilight Zone is. I think it makes the cut. Yeah, okay. It's kind of creepy. If it wasn't on Saturday Night Horror Shows, you know, on TV, probably wouldn't make it. Okay, this one. Haven't played this in a long time. Don't see this too often. Gottlieb, 1982. We're getting a little older.
    7:12
    Haunted House. Yeah, okay. I worked on that several times, that game. That's like working on three pinball machines. That's a wide body, right? Yeah, wide body. Multi, three levels. I think there's six or eight flippers in that game. I always just think of Tony Zitzik when he invited my family over to his house, and he had just completed that game. I know I've talked about it before, but he painted all those little checkerboards by hand because it was all burned out. That's a lot of work. Well, remember who we're talking about.
    7:44
    he's fastidious to say the least he's the uh pintastic tech that keeps those games running for we're going to come to that a little later uh so that was number five number four one everybody loves and we'll probably never see the light of day again the adams family bally 1992 that makes the cut certainly okay but we're at number four it's not number one number three we've tried to talk about this later in this show
    8:15
    Williams 1993 you worked on this game recently Bram Stoker's Dracula yeah it's very it's kind of dark and creepy so I'll ask now and you can do the comparison audience later on what the hell did you do to the game do you remember what did I do to that game Oh, no. Boy, hold on. Let me consult my consultant. What did we do to that game? She says everything. What didn't we do to that game?
    8:47
    We basically gave it a day spa, shopped it out. I think it took two days. Okay, so nothing memorable. Oh, you know what? No, it's not even memorable. Something that's never happened to me before on a game like this. Shop out the game, rebuild the flippers, blah, blah, blah. and he emailed me about, I don't know, a week afterwards and said, Hey, is this normal? The flipper is stuck up and not working.
    9:18
    It's like, no, it's not normal at all. I don't know what's going on there. He said, send me some pictures. He did. And the coil stop for one of the flippers, it sheared off its hex screw bolts that hold the coil stop there to the plate? yeah just sheared off both of them how? I don't know they weren't rusty I said well that would take some force to just knock that George I think I rebuilt these things so good and tight that that thing coming back
    9:48
    hit that coil stop just right that it sheared them both off I've never seen it before so I said I think so I said well someone in its past either tightened down way too much or weakened them at some point, back and forth, back and forth, and put them back in at some point, or from the factory there. I don't know. But a fresh rebuild, I think, got him so powerful that it just sheared those off. So he needed a whole new flipper plate and everything. Well, I'm glad you remembered that. So disregard the end of the show, folks.
    10:19
    Okay, we're down to number two. I'm not surprised by this one. I don't think you will either. Stern, 2014. not a game that I'm fond of because I don't like the creepiness The Walking Dead yeah that definitely qualifies I don't like the creepiness either it would be in top 3 I think if this were to go out to vote a lot of people like that game we're in the minority I like the game because it has that well walker guy in the middle looks like a big fat guy that threw up on himself it looks great it looks really good in my living room
    10:49
    I don't like that game I don't get it either man ok number 1 One is the loneliest number that you'll ever do. And it's not the game that one would think. Monster Bash Williams, 1998. No, I wouldn't think of that either. It's more of a fun, it's like Scared Stiff kind of. It's kind of a fun rock and roll monster thing. Right, but it's got all the monsters in it. So, I mean, you know, people do dress up as those people for Halloween, so it makes sense.
    11:21
    but there are games that are missing yeah some yeah definitely when was we don't know when was this compiled we don't even know we don't know but what's the but i have more than one that's the crazy part about this list this wasn't like oh here's a complete list of all the horror themed games that are out there in pinball as of this date we don't know it wasn't like that okay so because this game we're talking about people up because this will be out before halloween publish this list and see what the heck you... I should probably do that. Yeah, you should.
    11:51
    As an auxiliary... One more time. As an auxiliary... No, that's not what you would call it. Ancillary? Like an addition? Yeah. Addendum. Addendum? Why am I trying to use fancy words? Dope. So here's the most... Precursor. You're cursing. I get it. Go on. So here's the... So here's the most obvious one that's missing. Halloween. Yeah, hello.
    12:22
    Brand new spooky game. Not on there. Dave talks about it later in the show. Yeah. Unless you have something else you want to add right now. What, Halloween? I don't know. I can tell that it's a horror show. Literally a horror show. Yeah. Well, you kind of go into it later. What about Devil's Dare? Where's that game? Oh, that's not even on my list. That's freaking no one's putting that in the list. It's a big devil head on the game. Well, it's not on here. It's very scary. People only want it for their kids and they're going to scare their kids Okay here's another one Didn't you just say this one? Tales from the Crypt?
    12:53
    No That's another one 1993 Here's one that was on another list Centaur? Yeah it's kind of creepy It's a little dark theme It's a dark theme It's not a happy go lucky thing Here's one And I don't know if I've ever played this But this is crazy that this is on there. Frankenstein. Sega, 1995. They made 3,000 of them. Yeah, that should be on there. I don't think I've ever played that either.
    13:24
    How about Godzilla? Did that make it? No, that's not on my list either. It's a monster game too. Well, you're serious. See, but this is the whole thing of this program. Right. What's the line? Is there a line? Yeah, I would think the whole monster. I think more of the creepy, gross Halloween, you know, Freddy Krueger, yeah, Scared Stiff. Is there a... Oh, those are the Scared Stiff ones? Well, Scared Stiff, Freddy Krueger, Nightmare on Elm Street, that's another one. Okay, okay. And the... I'm not a big horror... And the Walking Deads.
    13:55
    Those are Dead Ringers. Ah, I get it. Dead Ringers. You know what I did there, folks? Oh, boy. Oh, Fireball. Fireball Classic. Yeah, there's a devil on there, but it's really... Nah. It's not that dark. It's okay. how about this one contemporary elvira house of horrors yeah hello that one too yeah so that wasn't on there no okay i like i happen to like that game this was compiled back in 2018 i'm gonna give you a chance in a couple minutes let's relax here's one that i have a fondness for
    14:28
    because i used to put dimes in it yeah folks dimes in it at the boardwalk seaside heights New Jersey. They only made 399, excuse me, 799 of these. Can't even read my own handwriting. Vampire by Valley. Oh, yeah. They had one at the Pentastic show. A really nice restored one a couple years ago. At Pentastic show, they had a vampire. I would have played it. I thought that was a really cool game. That is a Bud Ugly game. That thing does not look...
    14:59
    I like the artwork on that. It reminds me of Stern Dracula. That's another ugly game. You're reading my list here. No, I'm a mind reader. It's the next one. 1978, Stern Dracula. I happen to like this game. Half played it at the... This plays nice. Now, do you have one? I do not have one because it's ugly as hell, literally. Well, usually the back glass is roached. No, but just even the color palette. It's pink, yellow, and black. Right, but usually the back glass is roached. Yeah, but even the artist...
    15:29
    It was roached from day one when the artist made it. I mean, it's a couple of kids with crayons. Big hater. Okay. I like the play of it, though. Okay. Another one. Contemporary game built in 2018 and only 500, I didn't know this, only 500 units. Your favorite company, Spooky. Alice Cooper's Nightmare Castle. You probably never have played it. Never played it. I have. Okay. I played it quite a few times. What do you think? Very difficult, but a cool game for a modern game.
    16:00
    Pretty cool game. They had it at the Titan Pinball Rubber booth out in Houston. So I kept playing it, and I said to the guy, I go, you can boot me off any time. I go, I'm just going to keep playing it because I'll probably never get to play this thing again. He's like, that's why we have it here. Well, that's nice of him. That was really cool. Yeah. Okay, this is a fence-sitter one, but it kind of leads into a couple other things. Would you include The Wizard of Oz? No. Well, what about The Wicked Witch of the West?
    16:31
    No, it's very happy with the little colors and so forth. But witches and goblins and ghouls and, you know. Yeah, but it's... Dr. Fauci. Yeah, put Dr. Fauci in. That would be freaking scary. They should put that out. Aren't you going as that for Halloween? Yeah. All you got to do is wear a mask. Oh, that's right. You don't wear a mask. Oh, George. You did it, George, now. Now you've done it. My mask protects you. Oh, the horror. My mask protects you.
    17:01
    Or was yours protection me? How does that go again? I gotta trust the science. Isn't he the one that kept saying wear a mask? So like Halloween was every day for the last two and a half years? It has been Halloween every day. In fact, I keep going these days. I see people still wearing them. I say, it's not Halloween yet. What are you guys doing? You're way too early. Okay, so here comes the big question. I just gave you a list of almost 20 games. If you were to put your top three games out of this list together, as far as horror themes, what games would you put on there?
    17:31
    Out of that list? Yeah. I would put probably Walking Dead would be on there as a horror theme. No, this isn't your favorite games. No. Let me rephrase that. Yeah. Games that you like out of this list. To play. That you would put on the top three. That I would like to play. Yeah. It's a good player, too. Right, right. Not just a theme. No, no, no. Not second-guessing the populace and saying, oh, these are the top three games that should be on the list. No. The three games that you find most favorable out of this list. But again, the criteria is...
    18:02
    You like it. That's the criteria. I like to play... I'm going to have to say it afterwards. That's a couple different criteria, though. That I like to play. I don't like to play any of them, really. Oh, you know what? All right. Twilight Zone. I like that. That's a good one to play. Okay, one. That's a player. And... What else is on there for a player? Oh, Haunted House? No, not a big fan. That's okay. Let me see your list here. Hold on. No, I don't care for Elvira that much.
    18:37
    Actually, I like Bram Stokers. Or Stokers. Or whatever his name is. Bram Strokeby? Yeah. Let's see. You got one more. What else is on there I like But I had a chance Okay well I not going to include that one My games would be the games that you don like Vampire, Dracula by Stern, and I would probably pick A Virus House of Horrors, just because
    19:09
    I don't own one. Did you play it yet? We played it in the, we played it in the tournament out at Pinbrew Fest. Oh boy, you have a short life. That was in the tournament? I don't remember. Yeah, that was in the tournament. No, usually when you go through. It was on the end. It was on the far left. You know what happens, George? Oh, my. When you go through a traumatic thing, your brain kind of just X's that stuff out, you know, and that's what happened. You're scaring me. I did that bad. And I didn't include that just for the show.
    19:40
    Okay? So, that is our list. Please do not write us. Do not text us. Text George. No, don't. Email George. I don't care. I don't care what your favorite three games out of this are. I don't care. I figured we'd keep with the Halloween theme because we've never done a horror show. Well, we've done a horror show every week, but we've never done Halloween-based horror. Some more horrific than others. Right, right. Well, last one was real good. Let me praise the audience, and then we'll move on.
    20:11
    Folks, thank you. Last show, even though we did not focus on any games, well, we focused on games, but, you know primary wasn't one game focus was like one of our best shows in the last year or so so thank you i happen and we'll end it on this dave i happen to think the reason why is because there is absolutely nothing going on in the pinball world as you know i listen to a lot of podcasts haven't even come out in the last week or two because they're going to chicago
    20:44
    Well, what about Bond? There's so much stuff to talk about Bond and Bond and more Bond. I thought we were going to get through the show without you using that word. Bond. No. Dick. Dick Bond. Okay. No. So. Hey, you know what? What about Jane Bond? Are they going to make that for equal time and whatever? No, they bond. Or they bond. We bond. Yeah. You bond. I, she, it, you, they, all of it. Just everybody is bonded.
    21:17
    Don't say the other word. We're not going to. I would never. Even though it's a horror show theme, and it would probably fit, we're not going to go there. Okay. Just think centaur, folks. Oh, I know. Okay, I get it. Yeah, I know you do. So, speaking of horror shows, George, this will tie in with our horror show theme of games. and a game we did not mention on the list is also a game for I had some technical issues that was stumping me. I also stumped a bunch
    21:48
    of people on Pinsight as well and I think they're still stumped. How about a Bally whodunit? Murder Mystery. It's a murder on there. Murder Mystery. Murder? It's a stretch? Well, so is free to have that list a stretch. I'm stretching it further. Okay. So tell us Okay, tell us about this game. So this is a 1990... You didn't tell us this story already? No, I don't think so. I picked the game up, but I didn't tell the story.
    22:19
    This happened last night. This is like recent. Then you definitely didn't tell the story. No, no, no. Okay. So this is like one of the last games they made. Maybe you told me that you were going to pick it up. Yeah. I forget, sorry. Yeah, that's okay. I say that a lot. Yeah. Don't you agree? You too. Me too. okay you haven't been drinking your two pints a day not yet we haven't we haven't started yet that old timers are starting to sink in i think so well this game was made in 1995 so it's uh who is it valley okay so they had a lot of really good that's why a lot of people
    22:56
    collect these right yeah that's why the 90s dmd games that's why they're so popular i was raising a family so i didn't have a lot of time with them all back in the 90s truth be told i really didn't care for the 90s DMD pins back in the day. I still like my classics and I still do, but in light of all the newer games coming up and how complex and how complicated they are, now, by comparison, the DMD games in the 90s seem simple. And so now, it's all about compare and contrast, and now these games seem like, and the build quality
    23:27
    is great, they're simple to understand compared to the newer stuff and the different rule sets and different ROM images coming out and so forth and different um you know upgrades so anyway this is 95 uh ballyhoo done it i um restoring it for a customer gonna play it for a while and i said okay you know what i have some boards some some driver boards that that go in this game that i need to test out and fix for on the road gonna stop you for a second for those of us who don't know what kind of board set goes
    24:02
    into this? How many different boards are there? Is that part of the story? It can be. All these WPC games in the 90s, they have an MPU, skinny board on the left. They have a big-ass... Sorry. Is that the brand name? Big-ass productions. No, they have a Beyonce board. No, it's that weather girl. Oh, yeah. The Mexican weather Girl, Mexican Weather. Is that where that's from?
    24:33
    Yeah, you mean... Oh, I thought it was Australia. No, the Mexican Weather Girl. You know, this is like one of the first shows I don't have any grant input. Oh. Grant, where are you? You know what? I think he's in the Mexican Weather Channel. You might be watching that. Yeah, because, you know, she's like Vanna can turn a letter, but she turns her derriere instead. She's got a big bumper. Yeah, and it's a nice bumper. It's not a plastic one like Beyonce. No, it's not. No, it's a real deal. Anyway. Anyway, enough about that happy... Why do I do that? I should never... Now you're
    25:05
    off track. Get back on track. Hey! What's Beyonce's brand? Oh, yeah. You know what? She sold her name? Yeah. You know who owns Beyonce? The same people that own Krispy Kreme. What's the name of the company? Jab Holdings. You know what else they did? You're not pulling my leg, are you? No, no, no. Jab Holdings and also the same company. So they own multiple businesses. Oh, a lot of them. Yeah, they also own people, too.
    25:36
    I'm cringing right now. So the past couple years, you know, when you were required to get a little Fauci-ouchie, they gave you a free Krispy Kreme donut if you show your certain card. And Krispy Kreme is owned by Jab Holdings. Hmm. Do scary music now. Just saying, George. Just saying. I'm just dropping off the mail. Folks, I'm holding my face with my hands. That's why you can't hear me, Dave Marston. Make it stop. I need an adult.
    26:08
    Get back to the story. Okay. I'm off track. Well, I'm way off track. Anyway. Yeah, you're on tree juice. I got it. Come on. Back to the scary story. So anyway, so it has a big driver board in there, huge driver board, lots of components on it. That's where all the inputs and outputs happen. and that's what makes the solenoids go, that's, you know, all that kind of thing. Flashers and lights and all good stuff, all the stuff happens there. The MPU is the brain that processes it all and stuff. So I had a bunch of these driver boards in various conditions.
    26:38
    I wanted to go, you know, see what they are and rebuild them or whatever. So I put them all one by one into a working whodunit, my whodunit, and started putting it in there, testing it, okay, I've got to replace the 5-volt circuitry and all that kind of stuff. And on the second one I did, when I kept putting it in and putting it out, all of a sudden I got the dreaded, and this is the dreaded thing, when people hear, when they see this WPC message,
    27:10
    they get, again, horror show. They go, oh boy, how the heck am I going to fix this? the dreaded message is it comes up on the screen when you boot it up check fuses one f115 f116 j112 and the opto 12 volt supply that means you have hosed your machine hoser and now you have to do some serious troubleshooting what the frick did i do and by the way when you check those fuses guess what they're always good they're not there's no problem with the fuses okay first thing that
    27:42
    comes to mind if I came to that crossroad, I would get in the car and drive over to John's house and grab him and say, come with me. So Johnny Pinball, you're coming to my house. Tell me what's wrong with this thing. So what did you do? Not a bad way to go, but instead of going the John Day route, because I don't want to, you know, just in case of blast. You didn't post this out on Pinside. No, no, I do not post on Pinside. I do go to Pinside. Right. Because there's, it's a, Right, there's reference material, but we did not post.
    28:12
    It's the Alexandria Library of Pinball. It can be. So I just Googled that on there, and then I got this. One person said, this is very common, and I've never seen anyone post a solution to the problem. Great. That's great. So I just take a working game. So now what I did, I put the original board set that was working in my game, I put it back in, and guess what? It worked. Checked, uses F-1-1-5, F-1-1-6. It said the same freaking thing, George. So that's okay. alright, it's probably the opto 12 volt supply isn't happy
    28:44
    let's go look under the game there's a little opto board under the game that does all the opto processing and it needs 12 volts for a little light to come on there is that light on? No there's no light on the board, therefore the game ain't happy with no 12 volts so no optos work and you close the door and the thing keeps trying to kick a ball out because it thinks there's a ball there because no light flashing on the opto it thinks there's a ball there, so the game is all confused it ain't going to work and having a real bad problem and i've had a bad day so this guy says i've been looking for a few years to figure out this problem this is on pin side i have a question
    29:18
    i have i have lots of questions but this is the main one how many other games had this board set in it all of them all all of them from the 90s pretty much well it's like let me keep it withdraw my phrase 1990 to say 95 and it's a lot of games in there well that's a lot of games yeah That's a lot of the games we talked about earlier. 96 to 98 or so had a different driver board, but that's a lot of games. And they all could have this problem. I know you're getting there.
    29:49
    Did you solve it? Oh, I solved it, George. By my own little brain, I solved it. Pinside did not help me on this. I figured it out. I'm going to stop you here. Folks, to get the answer to this and many other questions... You'll have to wait until next week. No, we're going behind the paywall. Oh, the paywall. Yeah. Paywall, yeah, that's right. Our Patreon link is... Right. 1-800... F-U Classic Pinball Podcast.
    30:23
    Oh, George, people are hating that right now. Sorry, I had to. You had to. I had to. That probably scared people right there. You know how many people... There are going to be people that do that. I know. for more information pay pay up insert credit card at a dollar 99 a minute and we'll give you the answer 10 seconds at a time so um so this guy's and this actually this post is related to because this guy and this can go for any game in the early 90s this post is related to whodunit
    30:58
    so he's working in the same game this whole thread's in the same game i'm working on the same problem. He said it can be related to the slot reels. Now, there's three slot reels in this game. No other game from this generation had three motors. Oh, that's the game. That's a cool game. Yeah, there's slot reels in there. Well, you showed it to me. Yeah. So there's three motors in there, and they need motor controllers, and they need the 12 volts, and they have optics. So there's all kind of stuff going on with the 12 volts so you can go down and not work. Because I know when I put the game, when I tried to do this whole test and so forth, not only was I getting that message,
    31:29
    but I noticed in test mode the little up and down, there's an up and down thing like in Black Knight 2000 that brings these stand-up targets, three of them, up and down, like a little gate that comes up, hit the three targets, goes down, and you can shoot behind it up a ramp deal, right? Same in this game. That thing wasn't going up and down. The slot reels weren't working at all when you were in test mode. None of that was working. So this thing took out a whole bunch of crap that is not a happy game. So this guy said, try unplugging the blue connectors that go directly to the real stepper motors and stepper motor drive.
    32:02
    Try Then he said, in my case, I operate a Houdana location. After spending weeks trying to solve the issue before putting it out, I ended up simply leaving the reels disconnected. And so he couldn't use any of the slot reels. I like to find actual fix. It didn't make the problem go away. I've tried all kinds of things. We swapped in a friend's game, we swapped different things out. And here are some other threads about it, each without any kind of resolution. And he put links to about six or seven different topics talking about this,
    32:32
    and no one had a resolution to it. How long has this thread been out there? A while? I think three. Like I said, a couple years, right? Yeah, three to five years or so. Yeah. Wouldn't, if you had a game that was just inoperable, wouldn't that just, that would drive you nuts. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it was driving me nuts. And this, and by the way, this was at, I was working on this game late at night, so I was tired and I just started working on it and as I'm getting like 10, 11, midnight that's when those problems start happening so now it's like okay, now I'm not as sharp, it's late at night
    33:05
    now I'm going to start making mistakes, I did start making mistakes causing me to introduce more problems into the game and I said Maureen, I've got to go to bed, I've got to hit with fresh eyes in the morning I'm just grinding metal, I'm like Ripley in Aliens grinding metal there, it's not going to work out so finally I said let me just look. Any kind of troubleshooting thing, you basically say, okay, what has changed since a working state and a non-working state? I had a working
    33:35
    game, and now I have a non-working game. What did I do differently? What did I change? And I put the original boards in there, and it still wasn't working. It still was having this problem. So the boards are fine. They have to be. And so is the octoboard in the game. That's fine too. So then I looked at the connectors. I'm thinking connectors. I kept reseating. There's about 20 or 12 to 20 different connectors on the board. Whenever I pull them off, put them back on again. You're not supposed to yank on the wires. You yank on the connector because you can pull the wires out, okay?
    34:05
    And I did. I yanked on the connector, knocked the wires. So, George, this all comes down to, and you're going to know this one too, it all comes down to IDC connectors, insulation displacement connectors. I call them zero insertion connectors. Which suck. those things. Suck. Those black things with the red. Yes. Now, Bally used them way back in the day. They're horrible. Well, the reason you want to... They were cheap because all you had to do was put the wire through and it sliced it. Correct. And it... There's no crimp. Correct. All it is is between like a V.
    34:37
    Yep. Easy to manufacture. Cheap. Cheap. And basically, you're going to say you're a pimp manufacturer. Oh, this is only going to be out there for about two or three years. I'm going to throw it out. I only have to make it last two or three years. Who gets a crap? Right. It's cheap to make. Boom, boom, boom, boom. Or number of inserts, right? Isn't the number of inserts, pulls and inserts, like five or ten? The number is really low. You're only supposed to remove that connector only a handful of times before it corrupts. I want to say 100.
    35:08
    I think you get 100 out of it. No way. The 1, 5, 6. No way. I take that bet every day. You'll take the Pepsi challenge? It's probably more than 10, but it's not 100. Think of how, I mean, you just tug on those things the wrong way. Paging John Day, he'll know the answer. It's called connector time. So tell me you had to. All right, okay, so. You did all the connectors over? No, no, that's what you would do, George. I'm not George. I'm not doing that. That's, no way. no so i what i found is there um on these games in particular the the connectors that burn out
    35:42
    uh they get all singed and whatever on both sides the pin on the board gets all melty the solder heats up and also the pins on the other side that the the female side get all burnt is the um the feature light connectors is like feature lights i think yeah feature light connectors so they get all burned and singy and uh so someone in its past i could tell because they use they use yellow never seen the yellow idc housings this person put on there he did him for that so he put on he did
    36:12
    idc so he actually took an idc tool or a screwdriver and kind of jab these things into the freaking thing into a new idc connector for the lights why would you even use that again other than because it was in the machine and you think it's correct yeah but he bought a brand new one i understand that but you understand it's a pretty it's a pretty it's got this kind of connection right well back in the day back in the time frame they were actually saying they even sell them so buy your own idc insertion tool buy your idc no it's crap it's made for how many times have we talked about this tons so many times but this time it was it burned me so that's why this is a lesson
    36:47
    to be learned here so i say okay well that's the lights one what else we got here oh he also did a very small one on J118. What does J118 do? Oh, J118 feeds the opto 12-volt circuit for the game. Hmm. Alright. So let me just turn it on and jiggle the stuff around. Nope. Jiggling didn't help anything. It's like, alright. I am just going to go and replace all that junk with a properly nicely crimped 156. Oh, here's another thing too.
    37:19
    Is when you have like a thicker wire, like that goes into a 1-5-6 pin that all these IDC connectors do on that board, or most of them do, a thicker wire, when you jab it in, it's going to really jab into that wire really good because it's a thicker wire. It's going to make more contact. More contact. The Opta wires were thin. They're very thin. So when you jab it in there it barely you know a whisper a whisper thin It you know it a crumb crisp coating It not going to work out That why you want to have a crimp on it A crimp on it right So what I did is I took all that out of there Crimped it properly
    37:55
    Put J118 back in As well as the light connectors too Even the lights were working Because they had a thicker wire And guess what George? It worked What about all the boards you had? I fixed all those boards I tested all the other boards in there too And all the boards work too now everything where all the boards I fixed but here's where during the whole thing I'm going to backtrack before this fix um did I do that no not going to backtrack I'm going to go forward I decide also say okay while I'm doing this I'm going to do um uh test out I had a problem with some five volt
    38:29
    um regulators I bought the aftermarket stuff and it's like I had some problems in the field and so I'm going to do a test I'm going to test these things out but I don't want to keep soldering in unsoldering I'm going to just take some alligator clips four alligator clips and a small little unit, maybe like one inch by one inch, alligator clip them to the five volt power, five volt part on the board, and turn it on and see what the five volt reading is, and test each individual one as a QC, as a quality control check, to put it back in stock. It's about 20 of them,
    39:00
    and I'm going to do that, and I'm going to go further. So I fixed the game, and now I'm going to say, okay, fixed it, now let's try to test it again. when I say test, let's basically break it again. George, I broke it again. I broke something else in this game after I did this. I didn't have enough punishment, so I decided to really go back to the well. And I came up with, so I looked at the reading when I took the 5-volt reading. You usually want to see 5 volts or 5.1 volts.
    39:31
    I got like a 7-volt reading. It's way too high. And then I got, I turned the game off and on again, and now you've got a check U22 RAM error or U22 error message. So what that is, what is that? Well, only on these particular games, it is a WPCS security chip. These certain games are 1995. Got a mouse in here. Spooky. Who just came in? There's a creaky thing over there.
    40:02
    These certain games are from 1995. they have a security chip on them for so you couldn't copy the code or what I think William's getting very paranoid about someone copying their ROMs or something I don't know or maybe or copying their board set I don't know but they put this chip on there so that's almost like encryption or something so it's basically saying this chip is now corrupted and now the game ain't happy it's like oh now what I do so I started looking for that and now someone sells this security chip I could buy one it's like oh I hope it didn't start and now I can't move forward
    40:32
    again. So I decided to do the chip in the right way, and finally that message went away, so I didn't kill the chip. So that U22, it was happy again. After I took the 7 volts away, let it rest for a while, put 5 volts properly back in the game, and then it was happy again. So, all was well. Whodunit resting properly and recovering. Can we close the doors? and a leaf blower.
    41:03
    You know, George, whatever happened to, you know, and you know what's relaxing? Back in the 60s and 70s, you just had rakes and they'd rake the leaves. You could take a nap out back. It's just relaxing. No, today, no, no, we need to get it done faster. And you got the backpack thing on and you got the guy with the big blower out there. You're trying to relax on a Sunday and you get all this freaking noise. I want the nice... anyway george that's my rant that's my fall rant in the spirit of things bad dad joke
    41:38
    oh i get wait a minute i understand don't you even begin to comment about me we're going to go with the uh i guess you would call it a holiday of the month which would be Halloween and Dave is going to enlighten us with a recent repair story on Spooky's Halloween but before he tells us the story I just want to come clean because you did hear it from one of the fantastic shows we did within the last year I don't remember which one it is I actually played
    42:12
    the game and my comment is el stinkeroo you say i tend to agree with you george but on multiple levels now first of all this game is a very scary game it's by yes it's uh very scary game it's by spooky and it's halloween and it's it's scary but it's only scary on the outside, it's also scary on the inside. Did you get to play this thing
    42:44
    after you figured out how to repair it? Yes, I did. Were you able to hit all the hedge drop targets? Don't care. Didn't try. Tell us what was wrong with this thing. I'll tell you what I've heard. it's not flattering I heard that the build quality of these games is atrocious
    43:15
    hit the nail right on the head but you gotta tell me what you did so oh you wanted that too what are you doing over there I got little Miss Tiddlywinks over here doing her Tiddlywing thing alright so what I did so this guy called me up and he keeps getting I'm really busy with those stuff He wants to have little projects Little things that don't work So he bought a He bought a Wizard of Oz Had it for like a month He had a problem with it And I said well I can't get out to Philadelphia
    43:45
    So for a little while For like a month or so So he just sold that And then he got something else For a month And that didn't work out Or it didn't work And he sold that He's buying these games New games He keeps This whole year It's like one a month Has he gone through every flavor? Pretty He's getting there Spooky No not that bad Jersey Jack Yes Stern Yes he has Three Yep Chicago Gaming Company? No, not one of those yet. He's making the rounds, Jeremy. That's what he's doing. The pinball mulberry bunch, as it were.
    44:17
    Go ahead. What was wrong with the game? So, it wasn't... Switches weren't working, it wasn't serving a ball, all this weird stuff, and I said, listen, no promises there. I haven't worked on a spooky game yet. I'm pretty sure I figured it out, but, you know, no promises that I can get this thing going for you. So, I saw what he did. Because what happened is, he reported early on to Spooky, hey, I got this problem with this game. I'm a new pinball owner. I just got a brand new. It's having problems. Can you take it back? Oh, no, no. We can't take it back. Give me a new one. But we can send you the parts to fix it. I don't really know even how to solder or how to do anything.
    44:48
    I'm a Mr. Homeowner. I have no idea. Can you send someone out? No, no, it'll work that way. We just send you the parts, and that's our warranty. We give you parts, and you figure it out. So they don't even have a legion of you out there in the wilds. Ring, ring, ring. Dr. Dave, we have a house call you'll get a flat fee go out and fix this guy's game no nope uh-uh i can make it happen no that's different that's different that's ring ring ring yes this is dr dave no
    45:19
    affiliation with spooky how can i help you right yeah exactly different exactly correct no because you've said in the past that stern has you on a list and you get a call every once in a while Not often. Well, because you set your own rates with these people. So I set my rate. If my rate's higher than Joe Schwartzley down the road, they're going to figure it out and might use him more often. Then if he's not available, I'm like second stringer, which is fine because I'm, you know. Yeah, you show me how long that list is. Yeah, he's not too long. I think it's like two people on it. Okay.
    45:50
    So we last left our heroes. So that's it, just switches? Well, the thing is, though, there were a couple of switches that were not correct. So they got him a bag of switches. He started replacing things. he can't solder he's burning stuff he's the side artwork inside the game it's like nice side artwork inside all torn up scraped it it's torn up to shit it's done it's like it's hard to shoot sorry gentlemen it's uh that's right
    46:22
    you get half a ding for that one anyway it was all scraped up and crappy no I've heard that before that's up and down scraped and inside the game there's a solder like flowing down and stuff and it's like I said what did you do here oh I didn't know how to solder so I had to like I replaced he melted some switches I had to replace all like about eight switches and re-solder everything and cut things and kind of undo so he took a really nice well he took a non-working new nice isn't the word
    46:53
    you want to use is it no it's not really a nice game it's very dark it deserves you know the reason why it's a dark theme and it's got a dark past in a dark future. You're not a fan. No, I don't like anything about it. I just like, I don't want a creepy thing. You done hitting it? I should kick it a couple more times. I'm going to kick it a couple more times. So I found connections in the game. They do the same thing that all the other manufacturers are doing these days. Putting all the circuit boards underneath the play field. What could go wrong? I don't know. Vibration from a metal ball banging things around maybe might be a problem down the road. It's called planned obsolescence.
    47:25
    Yeah. It's also cheap and manufactured. It's also called we'll sell a lot of node boards. We certainly will at a big price. And we'll sell a lot of other crap. Because you can't fix these things unless you really get a microscope. Unless you're you. And you just keep making my point. And sorry, I keep harping on it. Buy more Stern pinballs. If you don't know how to repair it, you have no... You know what? Buy an old game like I own. You can just play it. Exactly. Even original boards too. Still fine.
    47:56
    And if you're really paranoid, just go out and spend a thousand bucks and put all brand new boards in the game you'll as long as all the connectors are done get out nothing's gonna go wrong you're fine right bulletproof you know you can do a todd tucky almost overbuilt right it's i don't want to go into it again that's why i don't buy these i got a night you're the reason you're you are the reason i do not buy a new game thank you i think because you're honest about it i am the rappers aren't gonna like that I don't care.
    48:26
    Me neither, George. Good. You can speak your mind. Good. Oh, so payday is winning. Josh is second. Well, so they can't play either. We're watching the Fox City pinball. I got a comment. Let me go in their chat section. Oh, no. I got to say hello. Oh, no. Where are they? Oh, no. What's it called? Fox City? Yeah, Fox City. Oh, good. I got it right here. Cool. Let me say hello to everybody. Oh, no. Oh, boy.
    48:56
    A commercial. Okay. So, you done with Spooky Bash? That's not to be confused with Monster Bash. You done? I think so. Yes. We're moving on. Wait, wait. Okay. I'm picking a game. No. Oh. Oh, no. You're not telling me. Are we still on the Halloween thing? We are on the Halloween thing, right? The Halloween... There is more. You're going to tell something really gross. Yeah. Go ahead. It's part of Halloween. It's gross. It's a gross Halloween. so I'm putting my tool bags down on the floor and so forth and he's a very nice dog there
    49:27
    this doesn't involve Pat Guano Pat Guano? Pat Guano, you know him? no, I know him I know Pat McCann no, Bat Guano this story doesn't involve Bat Guano, sorry no, no, Bat Guano, not this time around go ahead so I'm working on the game and the dog's really friendly and kind of like scratched my leg and it's like get out of here freaking kick them off. Like Jaws? Yeah, like Jaws. Same kind of thing. Like Jaws. That kind of thing. What the frick do you want to... And I got my stuff there. All of a sudden, I'm going down to get a solder
    49:58
    station out of there. And I move the bag and I see like a trail of smear or something. What is that? What is that there? Now, it's very dark in there. There's not a lot of light on. It's very dim. I don't know what I'm... Putting things down there. Trying to... My headlamp on. Working on the game. Working on Halloween. And I move it and then... It's like... What is it? And I look at it and it's like, that's kind of yellow. It's on the yellow side. And I said to the guy, hey, you know, maybe, can we clean this up a little bit? There's a little problem over here. Oh, I'm going to clean it up later. Okay, well, I kind of need to
    50:29
    clean up now would be good. So I took all my tools out of that area. I looked over and I put them in a different area. Took some crazy cleaning on multiple rags. Wiped the piss off of my, literally, the piss off of my bag. So that's happy. It's dog piss. Oh, that's better than human. Well, the jury's out, George. I don't really Are you done with the Halloween story? I think so. This is really bad. I think I'm done. My turn. Okay. No Fear. What did you do to that game?
    51:00
    No Fear. A lot. So this poor fellow, he's up in New Hampshire. The guy's selling No Fear. I think it was on Facebook Marketplace. Yeah. Oh, beautiful shape, blah, blah, blah. $4,500. Ooh. Not bad, right? That's a lot of money. Well, I know, but still, it could be worse. But it is a lot of money. Especially for not really... Now, he didn't say restore it. He just said, decent copy, for no fear. He gets in his car, goes up there.
    51:32
    And the guy shows up, and he's got his pickup truck there. The guy at the owner of the house and the owner of the game. And he says, oh, well, you know, this is the one you're buying right here. It's in the back of his pickup truck. It's not clean. It's barely worked. It needs a good... It came right out of an arcade somewhere. He said, what about the other one? Oh, no, I'm going to keep that one. This is the one I'm selling. Well, it should be less money. Oh, no, it's $4,500 still. Take it or leave it. I've got plenty of people that want this game. You started walking, right? I would have walked. Did he walk? No, he paid up.
    52:03
    He wanted that game so bad. He's like, okay. So now he's got to pay me to get it where it's supposed to be. So he's going to be into it for, you know, some good dough. Okay. A couple grand anyway. Okay. That hasn't happened yet? No, it has. part one is that I've done day spa part one I had to order some parts because the thing came with it had no spinner and it kept I was wondering why I kept saying in the back on the back glass for error code uh left lane switch not activating ever it's like why would that be let me see
    52:34
    there's a switch that works oh is it supposed to be a spinner here that someone decided to make off with so I had to order him a spinner only place that hasn't spinner is marco so I had to go pay marco to get that real one a real one and I got a real sticker to go on it who's the manufacturer? I don't know who it is, but Marco Carri. No, no, no. What? The game. Williams. Okay. From early 90s. Okay, I'm saving the best for last. You wanted to talk about Gorgar. Even though we've done a whole program
    53:05
    on it, you seem to think that you've already told this story. Yeah, I might have. And I don't know what story you're going to tell, so tell the story. All right, well, I'm fine. If you're hearing this again, folks, just tune it out. Well, after working on multiple Gorgar games, I find what they all need, and once you do these things to the game, it's a bulletproof classic Williams. You know, like him or hate him or whatever, but there are some good titles there. So, number one, you want to sell a pair of WPC Flipper Mechs.
    53:35
    You know, toss out the old Gorgar ones and put these in there. They solder right in nice. and then you know, brand new flippers of course and you put in these magnetic reed switch devices for your drop targets that's another thing that gets rid of that problem now you have strong flippers, accurate strong targets what else do we do? oh, and then, on top of that for safety, you've got to put in because the game, these games never came with any fusing that goes
    54:06
    from the transformer to the bridge rectifiers that are mounted back there So bridge rectifier shorts out, you're shorting a transformer, potential fire. William let the games go out the door like that. So what I do is I cut those wires there, splice in two fuses, two 8-amp fuses, slow blow, and that way no chance of a transformer fire. You didn't tell us about that. Everything prior to the fuse story you told before. Okay. But no, I never heard the fuse story. All right. Is that number two fuse story is from our buddy Andrew over at Weebly.
    54:37
    He makes this solenoid saber board. that he was selling early on is all populated, complete with a wiring harness. Everything is all cooked and baked and ready to order for the price. But he's been so busy with other boards. He's doing, he said he's selling it just as a kit. He can't, can't do it. He can't keep up. Right. And I want one of his rectifier boards, but I don't want to build it because I don't like doing the fuse. Soldering because it's a bigger real estate to solder in.
    55:08
    just never was really good at. I can do it, but I don't want to do it. I can do it sometime for you. No, that's not, I'm not asking that. I'm just saying, I'd rather just have it come from somebody who's already done it. That way, if it doesn't work, I point back at him and say it doesn't work. Right. So I put these, these are solenoid saver boards. So typically with Williams games, if one thing blew in the game, one solenoid shorted on or whatever, it took out the main fuse for all the solenoids you can't play the game not playable so what this
    55:41
    board does it takes all those um fuse lines it puts them all in individual fuses i'm thinking about five of them and it's a little board that goes on and you basically just jump over a jumper and this and that and put your fuses on there how much is this board you buy the board i think for like maybe 10 between 10 and 20 bucks for a kid that's nothing and then you're just going to do I spent all day one day doing ten of them. I just kept soldering, soldering, soldering. I made my own set. Right. But they're good to go. Right. Including wiring harness. You know you're going to use.
    56:11
    Every Williams game that comes in there, all these things go on it because I know that the game is bulletproof. Okay. So here's a game I don't know anything about as well. Not a big surprise to most of you folks. Let's see if I can say it without putting the R in it. Bram Stoker's Dracula. Blah, blah. You know what? We never talked about this game. We never have. It's very... It's kind of a dark game. Very like the music in it You can play it Play it And it the Halloween theme Oh Oh that makes sense In the back room it like It has this kind of creepy kind of smoky vibe
    56:49
    People like this game. It's kind of a fun game, but it's dark. It has a coffin in there that lights up and so forth. Somebody just came up with a mod for this game. Does Dracula come out of the coffin on the original game? No, it stays in there. Guess what? It comes out. Guess what there, Moddy Modster. Really? I believe. All right. I read so much crap. I'll have to ask. I think somebody, I think, don't quote me, but I'd bet pretty high that I'm right.
    57:25
    It makes sense. I'm on Dayspa part one. Would that make the game better? It'd make way better. I'm on Dayspa. So somebody, some crazy modster has been out there doing that. I'm on Dayspot Part 1 with this game, and it works great, but there's still more stuff to do, and a couple errors came up for things I didn't get to touch yet. Ooh, Harlem Globetrotters. Tell me this isn't a great... Oh, it's awesome. But it's been like this all... This is the cool thing. I've got to give props to Tom at Fox Cities. And Eric Thorne.
    57:58
    I butcher his name every time. Sorry, Eric. six tournaments over the Columbus oh wait are we allowed to say that? Columbus? I know you Mr. Free Speecher which one? what can we say? because the politically correct thing to say would be indigenous people weekend no it's Christopher Columbus right? the Nina the Pinta the Santa Maria yeah but even that history's kind of grappled we sailed the ocean blue in 1492 come on could you learn that in school? could it be? could it be we found it
    58:29
    earlier than that George? but that's another rabbit hole. I'm old. Okay. It's Christopher Columbus weekend. And every apple picker in New England is in my town. Oh yeah. And leap peeper. And. What are you going to play this for people? No. What can I know? I want to comment. I'm going to say nice. Just, just, uh, I'm going to say Harlem. Where's Eric Stone? Yeah. I'm going to say Harlem rocks. There.
    58:59
    have that there oh they're loving that why don't you I can get her gone but I'm not doing that now where is Eric Stone where's Eric Stone when you need him oh you wanna start something did you meet Dalton when we were in yes I heard him yes just shout him out that'll get things going
    59:29
    He has a rush. Did you know that? Oh, he should be your new hero. Who has a rush? Dalton. He won it. Oh, okay. Kentucky something? Anyway. Oh, he should be your hero. He's on all the time. I'm sick of watching it. Sorry, Dalton. I can't watch that. But I'm kind of doing my rush phase. I've kind of... Yeah, I know. It's like one step out the door. Do you want to go... I haven't updated the code yet. Do you have anything to talk about? Bram, Stokers, Dracula. you didn't even tell the story
    60:00
    I saw Dracula coming out of the box so the guy when he called me originally he wanted me to try to do a re-theme it's like well I probably could and I got some ideas a re-theme? yeah I could try it you've seen Sesame Street with the count what about the count up there 1 million ha ha ha ha 2 million ha ha wouldn't that be good? it's either that or dark it's no wonder we have listeners with that and you accused me of being
    60:34
    stupid well it's either that it's that's one guy the rethink it's one idea the other idea is going to go a little more hardcore it's going to put dr fauci's face over the vampire fauci face fauci face that kind of what is a fauci face little blood sucker that he is i didn't i didn't say sucker I've gone too far In keeping with the horror show theme I'm wondering if I'm going to cut that or not We're up late at night here
    61:11
    It's 1am right now That's why we're kind of punch drunk I do have one thing That I forgot to say One more thing being verbose and it has nothing to do with the horror. That never happens. Every time I hear you talk about El Toro and I know you know this cartoon I think of the Bugs Bunny cartoon with the ball. I know exactly the one you're talking about. And I have to watch it now and I'm going to clip something from it because
    61:43
    I get the perfect thing. Doesn't he like unscrew his horn and do something with it? And he does da da da da and he's kind of sharpening it up and sharpening it up. with a chalk. He's chalking each one of them. Is there a bullfight? Yeah, well, Bugs Bunny goes, dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun, bum-bum, and hits him in the face two times. Slap-slap, boom-boom-boom-boom-boom-boom-boom, bum-bum. Oh, it was great. Especially, the kids these days, well, I'm telling you, back in that day in the 50s, all these cartoons, especially Bugs Bunny, had all this classical music. So kids got to hear classical,
    62:13
    exposed to that, and good humor. Nowadays, you have, well, I think I told you, my granddaughter. YouTube crap. I watch Yogi Bear with her. She loves Yogi Bear. The original? Oh, good. Cool. She loves Yogi Bear. There's a new one that says... Grimpy! Yogi Bear. Yeah, but they went too far recently. They had him say, F*** the ranger, boo-boo. That was too far. They're a little too modern. I can't use that.
    62:44
    Great. Talk about my granddaughter. Oh, boy. You know what? I'm just going to say this. I am going to put this behind the paywall at some point in time, and I'm going to get a lot of money from you for not putting it out there. I just want to cut. We're done. We're done. Shut it off. Turn it off.
    63:15
    Turn it off. Turn it off! Gabe, I'd like to go back to our last episode. And I thought about this afterwards. You told us a story about Brad Delp and the machine that you acquired from his fiancée.
    63:45
    I happened to meet two of the band members a number of years back. Do tell. I went to the Melody Tent down in Cape Cod. So those of you who live in New England will know what I'm talking about. It's an outdoor amphitheater. Ernie and the Automatics was the backup band. And I know I was told and I don't remember. It doesn't matter. They were the backup band. Well, who's Ernie in the automatics?
    64:17
    Well, all you folks who are in Boston know who Ernie is. Ernie Bach Jr., come on down. Ernie Bach Jr.? No way. I actually met Ernie Bach Jr. In the automatic transmission. Right. I get it. Do you know anything about Ernie? Yeah, he had those annoying commercials on TV. Well, that was the father. Right, but he still has annoying commercials. He's carrying the tradition. Ernie is not a business major. Ernie went to Berkeley in Boston. So he's a music major.
    64:47
    But now he does cars, though. This is something probably most people don't know. Okay, interesting. For those who buy Subarus in New England, Ernie Bach Jr. gets money out of every single Subaru sold in New England. How's that work? He became the importer of Subarus 20 some odd years ago. Genius, George. Genius. Well, there's a reason why Ernie also bought a home in his old neighborhood down in Norwood
    65:22
    and then proceeded to buy every piece of property from his neighbors to create a giant piece of property in Norwood right off of Route 1. And anybody who knows that area, there are no giant pieces of property in Norwood. The Auto Mile? He made the Auto Mile? Ernie Bach Jr. is worth multiple, multiple, multiple millions. He's a very, very, very rich man. Would you say he earned it, George? Anyway, I'm digressing. This isn't about Ernie Bach Jr.
    65:55
    It's about the two people that I met from Boston. Barry Goudreau, I think is how you say his last name. He's the lead guitarist from Boston. and Sib Hashian. He's the drummer. So we happened to be, after the show, we went to this blues bar in Hyannis. And who's there? But those two guys sitting at the bar, I went up and introduced myself. Actually, I used my buddy Jim's young son who was underage with us in the bar. At 16, I threw him out front and said, Oh, he's a big fan of yours.
    66:26
    And threw the kid out front. Nice, good idea. They started chatting the kid up. I stood behind and introduced myself, etc. but as I'm going to the bathroom who's walking out of the bathroom Ernie Bach Jr. I go hey you're Ernie Bach Jr. he looks at me goes yeah I know yeah I know I am so wait so you're saying that after we did our show no no this happened a number of years but I thought of okay I thought of the story I would have told the story when you were telling me it'd be great after the show you could say yeah did you guys get that game as well or so anyway so that's my story about Boston and
    66:58
    Ernie Bach Jr. I have another story. Alright, what else you got? Are you, we still haven't come up for a name, but this is the second time I'm doing it. I'm going to call it the Pintastic Minute until we come up with a better name. So this Pintastic Minute is focusing on a word you may or may not be familiar with Dave. Are you familiar with the word Starrowing? Is that driving a Starrow Drive? Close.
    67:28
    What would you be driving if you were on Starro Drive? A truck and getting it stuck under a bridge. The crash is known as Starro-ing in the Boston area because drivers have been repeatedly warned for years, and I can attest to this. My friend did this over 40 years ago. If they're operating a truck or a U-Haul, they need to stay off of Starro Drive, Soldiers Field Road and Memorial Drive.
    68:00
    Why? Because all three roads have overpasses that are nine feet or less. Sometimes six feet. So, folks, if you're coming to Pentastic, do not drive your box truck in downtown Boston. Do not drive your U-Haul in downtown Boston. Because if you go under one of these overpasses, guess what happens? you rip the entire roof off the back of the truck in fact so much so i remember radio shows back in
    68:30
    that in the time frame that means wbz or one of these maybe it's a 104 bcn whatever they would have a segment called big bucks for stuck trucks so if you report a study how many stuck trucks today if you guess the right number you get big bucks with our last story truck nuts it does the truck nuts yeah they're gonna have big balls to go through those storage drive bridges or whatever Overpass. Underpass. Overpass. I know our audience already knows this, but Dave and I are both big fans of Bugs Bunny.
    69:00
    Obviously because we play the Bugs Bunny What's Up Doc song. I think it's something to say because you play the Bugs Bunny birthday batch. What a great game that is from the 90s. You've already talked about that. Anyway. What a shame. What a shame. There is something that I'm going to tickle your memory with, and it fits with our horror show theme. do you remember the Bugs Bunny short from 1952 with Chuck Jones oh good one water water every hair
    69:32
    see the names when they name these oh I know you're gonna remember it as soon as I know if I see it I know it but I'm gonna give you the visual all right go ahead give me the visual Bugs Bunny is in a flood he floats down the river and he floats to the castle yes I know yep with the Evil scientist and that monster that has the red hair. The red hair, yes. Do you know what that monster? That monster actually has a name. Yeah. Oh, what the heck was it? Its name, would you like to know?
    70:03
    Go ahead, yeah. Gossamer. Gossamer, yes. And do you know what Gossamer is? It's a bird? No. I didn't know this either. A fine, filmy substance consisting of cobwebs spun by small spiders. Seen especially in autumn. How convenient. It is convenient. Interesting. Come, Rudolph.
    70:36
    There is a rat loose in the castle, Rudolph. return him to me and I shall reward you with a spider gula so I watched it and I will include the most famous line I won't include that line I'll include some others my favorite at the end of the short come back here you rabbit
    71:06
    99 I love that is one of the best but that's not the only one he almost was Vincent Price doing the little doing the scientist guy but he sounds like Vincent Price it's probably Mel Blanc he's the man of a thousand voices but I'll include a couple of clips because there's some funny ones so with that said there's another from the Bugs Bunny era.
    71:37
    Another character. Okay. How about Witch Hazel? Oh, yeah. Every time she'd go away, the little hairpins would fly out of her hair and she'd scoot away. Do you know who Witch Hazel reminds me of? A person up in Maine? You mean the ones, my assistant up in the closet up there? Her name is Sharon. okay I'm gonna I'm gonna end with this she's a big fan of the witches
    72:14
    I'm gonna end with this oh yeah she's gonna be a big fan of mine the night before I'm gonna end with this the night before Halloween did you ever go out as a kid the night before oh for cabbage night oh okay no so you called it Cabbage night. Yeah. It was very destructive. I didn't get it why kids would do that. It's like, this is horrible. Egging houses, putting toilet paper in people's trees. Terrible. Mischief, mayhem. Why did I know you were going to say those things?
    72:46
    Anyway, cabbage night. Do you know how it got the name cabbage night? They go in the garden and get someone to farm and get a bunch of cabbages and throw them at the house? I have no idea. Yeah. Okay. Pretty much. This was good. in New Jersey we called it cabbage night too but it makes sense because New Jersey is the garden state it makes sense I think around here they're too freaking lazy so they just grabbed some toilet paper out of the house and eggs and called it done we can't find any cabbage I have some alternative names
    73:16
    but I'd like to read you what is referred to as cabbage night on cabbage night children who live in rural areas go out into the crops and collect rotten veggies then they go to homes of prominent people in town wealthy old old wealthy old spinsters that don't hand out candy right i can't read that part or the banker who closes on the family farm that's fair or that effer who runs the general store don't get me started oh god this person's
    73:51
    So it's kind of for retribution. Okay, it's still wrong. I kind of get it, but you don't... These people were paying with a broad brush and everyone got a problem. Well, I know two alternative names to it. And we're going to end the segment on this. I have heard people call it Mischief Night. Here's the one I heard one person from one little town in New Jersey. He used to call it Goosey Night. No. Oh, hey there, little guy.
    74:22
    Or less than little guy. Oh, gosh, it looks like my lizard Jorge is in Gorehead. My baby. My mechanical masterpiece. So nearly complete. So nearly perfect. If you only had a living brain. I am a zombie. I am a zombie
    74:53
    I am a zombie George, you don't know what you're saying You're under their control Who do you call when you want your pinball machine restored? Dr. J I walked with a zombie
    75:25
    I walked with a zombie Last night