TOPCast 54: Tom Nieman

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Tonight we're going to talk to a gentleman that started pinball licensing.

Yes, he was the man that came up with the concept of licensing themes for pinball machines

back in the 1970s and the first game that had this official license was the 1975 Valley

Wizard.

Prior to this, Guileeb had done a few close licenses but never officially got a license

like in the 1950s they did a game called Guile Dolls which was obviously a takeoff on

the play, the Broadway play, Guileeb's and Dolls and then they also had some games

like Seven Up and Canada Dry but they weren't officially licensed to the actual products

by Seven Up and Canada Dry.

So this gentleman was the first person to actually do the licensing and figure out how

to market games to dramatically increase sales because these Valley License themed pinballs

sold four to five times the number of units compared to unlicensed products at the time.

So licensing was really a marketing tool and this gentleman is going to explain how he came

up with the concept and what he did to get the increased sales and promotions to make pinball

more mainstream.

Special guest, special guest, special guest, special guest, I like to welcome Tom Neiman

to Topcast tonight.

Again, he worked for Valley and started licensing in pinball machines and we're going to

give him a call right now.

Hi, I'm trying to get a hold of Tom Neiman.

Thank you just a moment please.

Tom Neiman.

Tom it's Clay.

Clay.

So what is this okay?

This sounds fine to me.

A lot of the pinball people may not recognize your name right off the bat.

Young.

What kind of guy died?

Well, I was, but really you were instrumental in setting up, you know, if not probably the

first game that ever had in a quote official license for a pinball company and that was

with wizard right in 1975.

To my understanding, the research I did, I never found another license game and I think

that really my decision in working a little bit with Roger Sharp as he was doing research

on the original book.

He did find some glass.

I think a game called set it up in France, but it didn't look like it was officially tied

to the soft drink.

Right, in Canada dry, you mean to got leave.

Yeah, I think that that was another one that he found.

But for some reason it didn't look like someone had gone through the licensing procedures.

So most people that I speak to reference wizard as at least the first fully licensed game

in the golden era of pinball.

Well, let's back up and how did you get involved with pinball and what's your name?

Your history with pinball, where did it all start with you and how you got hooked up

with Valley?

I graduated from the University of Michigan in 1972.

In the fall, the fall in the winter.

So as a December graduation started looking for a job in January of 72.

And looked for in a lot of different places.

I had a degree in radio television and film for Michigan.

And my good friend, Bill Donald, who I had gone to grammar school and high school with

speaking to him at some points, I'd look at it.

If you're just looking for a job, something that generate revenue.

Why don't you go to work for one of the companies at Valley?

And I said, that'd be great.

I just need to get a check coming in.

I was married at that point.

And I took a job with Carousel Time.

Carousel Time was Valley's very first acquisition in the operation end of the business.

It was a large route operator of Kitty rides and bulk-zend machines in the Chicago and

area.

I took a job there.

They stuck me in the back room.

They showed me a schematic and asked me to work on some of the games, some of the Kitty

rides and stuff.

They quickly discovered I had no technical capability.

And rather than risk killing myself, they discovered I had a driver's license for trucks.

So I started driving the truck for them and delivering Kitty rides to various routes

sites in Chicago.

And I started giving them feedback on the routes and saying, which store managers like the

rides and which didn't, who cut their cords and who didn't and who kept them clean and

who didn't and moved things around accordingly.

They sort of saw this as someone who could analyze the route.

And I continued to do that until they pulled me off the truck and put me in the office

and that's all I did was analyze the route.

And then...

Wait, wait, wait, you said cut the cords.

What do you mean the operators would cut the cords?

Yeah, they cut the plug off to Kitty ride because they didn't want it was a pain in the

ass for the manager of the store.

He was a retail outlet.

People came to him for refunds or whatever.

He didn't like that.

And so he wouldn't be bothered.

Rather just pull the plug out of the wall.

They just cut the cord.

So when you went there was nothing in the cash box or very little.

You'd see the cord been cut obviously by somebody.

And once that happens too many times, you know you're in a location that really doesn't

watch you there.

So I would suggest the games or you know rides.

In some case games get pulled out and relocated to locations where the store managers love

the idea.

Now, why was Bali into operating?

Why did Bali get into operating?

Yeah, I mean that's kind of odd that the manufacturer.

It felt that there was a lot more money to be made on their operational side than there

was just making a device and selling it for a margin once.

They wanted to be in the flow of the revenue.

And they wanted to build an operation that had plenty of sites and then eventually where

they could migrate over their pinballs and video games that were coming out of the pinball

plant and the midway video products.

They went out and then at that point and bought Jewels Millman's Company, Aladdin's Castle.

The mall operation.

Jewels had been building game rooms in malls and was really sort of a leading edge type

operator.

And they acquired his company.

And then I worked for them briefly when they the mall operations came in and did some

mall management, some of the rooms.

But at some point I migrated over and left the operation end of it.

They put me over into corporate to turn into to become relative to sales.

And I worked in an office with Paul Calamari and Bob Harpley.

Calamari being the old, the grandfather of pinballs for ballet.

And really learned the business at, you know, sitting there listening to them on the

phone talking to the distributors, meeting people as they came into ballet.

And my job is primarily to blow out all the excess inventory.

Any of the overruns, they would give to me and I would figure out discount deals and pick

up the phone and bang away with all the distributors in the US.

How how common was overruns in manufacturing?

For ballet, fairly common at that point.

All the amazing considering how small their runs were.

You know, they were the third, the number three inball manufacturer at that point.

Right.

You mean Gottlieb was one, Williams was two and Balli was three.

Clearly the number one player, Williams number two.

I would have thought at this point that Balli was out selling Williams.

No.

If they had a 3000 piece run, everyone jumped through the hoops, they were all excited.

Huh.

So, as I was sitting there doing this and getting more and more immersed into the mentality

of pinballs and arcade rooms and having been not too far out of college and having gone

through the musical, the rock opera Tommy, it always wondered why someone had done something.

And I raised that question one day and a senior guy named Herb Jones.

Herb Jones seemed like he was about 150 years old when I walked through the door.

He'd been there since day one at ballet working with Ray Maloney.

And he told me that they actually had letters from the who.

And he then got some correspondence from the record label.

Requesting permission to use the name Balli in a song.

And if you remember, I thought I was the Balli table king.

Right.

The letter comes in.

Herb Jones, who at 150, has no idea who the who is.

What a rock opera was.

And fortunately, he didn't write them back and tell them not to do it.

I'm not sure he actually wrote them back and told them to do it.

But he showed me this correspondence and it was from actually the publishing company

for the who's music.

And so based on seeing that letter, I said, well, why doesn't someone do something associated

with it?

And I read in cashbox where they come to films and move forward on the production of the

movie, Tommy.

And once I saw that, I said, oh my God, someone has got to do something.

And I mentioned it to everybody in the company.

And they looked at me with these blank spares like, well, what would we do?

And what year was this?

Well, Polly came out in 74.

And I just got on the phone.

And the greatest advice that didn't get in the way was Ross Sheer, who was my boss.

And Ross was on his way out the door to go to Australia for three or four weeks.

And I told him my idea.

He said, spend very little time and no money.

So fortunately, he left town.

So he was there to limit me.

I called just into the monolith of Columbia films trying to find out who do I talk to.

I had no idea.

And weeks on the phone, between my selling circus circus and other stiff games, I would

just get callbacks or I pass under this person that dozens of calls.

And I finally found the absolute greatest guy in the world, a guy named Barry Laurie,

who was responsible for licensing and marketing and exposition.

And he was handling the movie Tommy.

And I told him, I said, okay, I might have said the largest pinball manufacturer, but

I think I just want the oldest pinball manufacturer.

You mean you might have stretched the truth just to Ted?

I stretched it a little bit.

And I said, we got this idea.

We want to do the game based on the movie and the album and blah, blah, blah.

And he just got it immediately.

Absolutely.

He said, absolutely, let's get together.

Greatest idea, blah, blah, blah.

You know, if you got some ideas, which you want to do to promote it, and I, you know,

I'm an idiot.

Oh, yeah, I get tons like this.

And so he said, great, meet me next Wednesday at such and such a hotel in New Orleans.

I'm in a meeting there we can do this deal.

But wait, you were on a no budget.

I'm on a no budget.

Hell, I didn't even know how to get a ticket to fly for Barry.

I had to find the lady who was in charge of making reservations to get me an airline ticket.

And I got it.

So I went down, found the hotel, went to, found his meeting.

They were just getting started, introduced myself to Barry for 10 seconds when he said,

hey, just sit here.

We'll get to you.

And for the next hour or so, watched him explain to these were the distributors from

around the country.

All the movies coming up for that year.

And I was fascinated.

I could have sat there all day and watched all the trailers and what they were doing for

this movie and that movie.

And eventually they came to the movie Tommy, which was going to be an absolute cornerstone

for their year.

And he, you know, the pictures get put up on the wall that are from the set.

The boat gets handed out and Barry, Laurie, turns and says, now I'd like to introduce

the Vice President of Valley Pinball who's going to come up and explain the promotion to

you.

You've been promoted, I see.

Yeah, I thought my boss was in the room.

The Vice President is here.

And on the way up, I walked as slow as I could so I could think of some promotion to do.

As we had not discussed, I'm calling you, I'd talk to Barry, Laurie, on the phone for

10 minutes and the live for 15 seconds.

And everything was, yeah, yeah, yeah, well, we'll do something.

Many, he introduced me and he said, want you to explain the promotion to these people.

And, you know, I just said, you know what, we've got a number of games set aside.

This is what you thought it out.

We're a game set aside that we were willing to put into a promotional pool.

And we're going to pick the, and I kind of paused as I thought, how many markets would

I do?

I said, the top 10 markets in the US.

And we're, you're going to do promotions.

You know, we'll donate a machine into the promotion as the grand prize.

Yeah, they loved it.

So you mean you were basically setting up a tournament is what you were trying to say?

Well, up, no, give away.

And I had no idea what, how they'd give it away, whether it'd be radio call.

And I didn't care.

I just wanted the exposure.

So, um, and you're just flying the city or pants at this point, right?

Absolutely.

You see, I don't even have the license at this point.

And so they aided up in, you know, New York and Chicago and Philly will do this.

And, you know, we got 16 radio stations and we, you know, we kicked around what we'd

have call ins do.

And then we'd have jockey's playing the machine in the lobby of the theater at the premiere.

And, you know, I stood there and just said yes to everything.

I had no idea.

And so that meeting ended and Barry and I wandered off.

And that's the deal.

And the deal was I gave him 10 machines.

Then eventually gave him probably another five or six to give away to executives at Columbia.

I gave Barry one.

I gave the, oh, the property manager one, you know, the guy, the prop master who takes care

of everything and I am full of people.

And then of course, eventually gave most of the stars in the movie some, uh, that pin

both do.

Now, when you went back when you're, when you're, when you're, when your vice president

got back, your boss got back.

How did he react to all this?

I've done, I've signed in shook hands with Barry.

This is it.

Flew back to Chicago and went holy shit.

What if, Valley doesn't want to do it?

And, um, because they had never done it.

Now under my arm, I had photos from the set.

I had a script.

I had all the promotional material.

I had everything.

And so I came back and I would say it was probably a tougher sell at Valley than it was

at Columbia Phil.

Once I found the right guy.

And so they stood back and kind of scratched their head and they said, so what are we going

to call it?

And that's when, uh, I don't think Barry had the right to license the name Tommy because

that was owned by the music label, but he had the right to all the images from the movie.

So that's how we conceded and came up with the title wizard, pinball wizard.

Now so your total licensing cost was maybe 20 or 25 machines, would you say?

Oh, plus my travel.

Yeah, that was it.

Just with just units.

Right.

So is in, in retrospect, I mean, that's like nearly free, right?

Third cheap.

Right.

Third cheap.

And they were okay with it.

And Valley was soon to be okay with it.

Yeah.

Then they said, well, what, you know, they know it had never been done.

So everyone goes, well, what play field?

And I said, well, let's go to work.

I kind of, where do I go to get a play field?

They sent me downstairs and Norm Clark into his lab.

We talked about features and games and the flip flags were just coming over from the

private developer who sold that feature to Valley.

Little company in Chicago who made features for the games force.

And he came up with the flip flag concept.

It just closed the deal and sold the flip flags.

So Norm was looking for a game to put some flip flags on.

And so we stuck that on the play field.

And I, you know, one whiteboard to me looked like another whiteboard.

Talked to Norm.

The critical point was, here's the date it's got to be ready.

This is the movie release.

So I need, you know, pre-production units by this.

We went backwards.

So based on that, he said, well, this whiteboard would be the most developed and ready to go.

Blah, blah, blah.

Now you need artwork.

So I had to go see Dave Christensen in the art department and do the glass.

Now, when did you have to get the glass approved?

I mean, did you know that you were going to have Anne Margaret and Roger Daltry on the

glass?

No, I gave everything to Dave.

And he kind of submersed himself into the rock opera Tommy and the album.

And I told him, I gave all the information I had from the meeting in New Orleans, promotional

information, the script, and everything else.

And I said, you got to pull out of this, the imagery, that would work for the game.

And Dave Christensen, he's a weird dude.

He went in the back room, soaked it all up, came back out, and it is amazing how he hit,

because he had a very limited visual give-and-do.

I had, I don't know, maybe a dozen color photos from the set.

And you remember, this producer around this was the crazy Englishman who's dead now, but

wild man.

And that knows how he was going to convert the imagery of that music to a visual.

And Dave, he remembered that he got his nakes into it.

He got so many of the little imagery issues that translated into the film.

And he did that.

He did all that without ever seeing the film.

He'd literally worked from about a dozen photos taken from the set.

So did, did, did, do all three or Margaret have to give any sort of consent on their images?

Uh, now Columbia films had their images as long as they were in character.

And did they, did they have any, I mean, when you showed them the artwork, did Columbia

say anything about it or say, yeah, no, that's good.

They'll go with it.

I think there were some slight modifications.

I think, I think David had sexed up in Margaret, maybe just a little bit over the edge.

We didn't have to dial it back just in the opportunity to put that.

I was going to say he drew a pretty good hand Margaret.

I mean, she looks pretty hot on that class.

Yeah, no, he did.

Well, Dave was, that was Dave.

Yeah, that was Dave's thing.

Yep, it sure was.

And just at that point Paul Ferris was coming into the picture, is taking over the art

expert.

Right.

Right.

Now, did you have a choice of artists or was Dave the artist?

Um, I truly think as I recall for this one, Dave was the artist.

He was available and, you know, his, his imagery was the most vivid.

Right.

And I don't think I chose it.

I probably didn't know enough to, I would certainly choose him today, but, um, I probably

didn't know enough.

And I was probably just given Dave.

So now the, the game goes into production.

You sell 10,000 units, which is like an incredible run.

What did Valley say?

They were, it was limited because they never went out and bought that many pieces in their

life.

We, we did an initial run, ran out of everything.

It continued selling so they went back and ordered, you know, more cabinets, more white

boards, more everything.

If we had had plenty of components, I think we could have sold considerably more than

we did.

But at some point, it was just such a great run.

It was through, it never ran that long on a production line.

So the profits go up.

Certainly after your first so many thousand, your margins increase on the units.

So they ended up making just a, uh, a ton of money on the unit.

And, and it was a great promotional fund from my standpoint.

You know, I went around to the various cities for the, for the premieres.

I was in New York for the, the world premiere and the big party that was down in the subway

station, that Columbia threw and got to hang out with, I was at the press conference with

all the stars from the movie ran around and got a pinball wizard t-shirt, shirt signed

by everybody and photographs taken and things like that.

So this was a pretty wild ride for a 20 something executive.

Yeah, I was about 26 or something.

And truly flying by the seat of my bed.

And I got to be honest with you, I go to the world premiere, I see it, I see it twice.

I think there was a early evening version and then the big gala one was that night.

I see the early version.

And I think, oh my god, what have we put, what have I got this company into?

I mean, the movie was so bizarre.

Yeah, the movie was a little strange.

And, you know, the snakes calling through the skull and the piece or the, the beans and

the amargab floating and I'm thinking, oh my god, I might have just fired myself.

But just hung in there and it came out and, you know, if they say the rest of history

was wildly successful, we created a pull through market rather than the traditional push through

market that Valley had been built, the industry was really built on.

You know, the manufacturers made it gain, pushed it down to the distributors and the distributors

pushed it down to the operators.

This product because of the publicity, reversed it and pulled it through.

The kids, the players wanted it.

They went to the locations and said, where's the Tommy machine?

Where's the pinball wizard?

The locations called the distributors, the distributors called Valley and said, I don't

know what it is, but I got to have three truckloads of the pinball again.

Wow.

So that created quite a stir and it took a while to get completely out of the system.

But I honestly, once it did, I sat back down in my desk, started selling pinballs and thought

that was it.

Rush here called me in his office and we kind of reviewed everything that went on and,

you know, obviously they were, they were very happy with me and I think they actually

gave me a little bonus.

And he turned to me and he said, whoa, what's your next get?

And I kind of blinked and looked at him and I had no count.

What do you mean?

And he said, what are you going to do next?

And I said, oh my god, he thinks this is a regular kick.

Yeah, he thinks this is a reoccurring thing.

Yeah.

And I said, well, you know, I got to sell, I got to sell this stuff and he goes screw that.

You have to sell anything, just do another game like that.

So, well, I kind of sat back down in my desk and scratched my head.

That was a little worried and concerned and then thought, well, if anybody came out

of that movie as a bigger than life, it was Elton.

And I had met Elton and I had met his management and the people who kind of kept him on a leash.

I had all their cards and I called him up and I said, you know, boy, that was great.

I think we had sent Elton one of the games and I was following up to make sure everybody

got it and was happy, blah, blah, blah.

Oh, by the way, what do you think if we do an Elton game?

And what was her name, young girl, who kind of controlled the whole situation for the

management company and she said, I love it.

Fly out and talk to me about it.

So, I jumped on another plane, went to the West Coast and sat down.

And here's the amazing thing.

I don't believe Elton had the right to his image from the movie.

Really?

And I didn't do this deal with Columbia.

I did it with Elton John.

Now, maybe he's so big and he was such a big entertainer at that point.

Columbia films wouldn't dare walk on to him.

Yeah.

But I thought about that later.

You know, the imagery in the glasses, all the movie.

Right.

We called it Captain Fantastic in the Brown Dirt Cowboy because that was the big double album that came up.

And that's what his record label wanted to promote, that name.

Now, the two have nothing to do with each other.

So, were you talking to the people that...

The Fantastic in the Brown Dirt Cowboy was an attempt at an animated cartoon that the hero was Elton John.

So, were you talking to Columbia or were you talking to his record label on the licensing?

Talking to his management and the record label, not Columbia films.

Okay.

But when they said from the visual standpoint, I said,

God, Elton and those boots.

I mean, how do you not do that?

Right.

So, we just, you know, took the imagery from the movie.

And again, Dave Christensen did the art.

And, you know, I think he hit it again.

Now, everyone knows about there's two glasses.

Right.

The original one that we did for the prototypes.

At some point, some of the management saw some of the little fine details going out on the crowd.

And they had to cover things up with stars that they thought was a little bit risque.

Yeah, I don't know if the stars really made things better or worse though.

But the production run is done with the stars.

Right. Right.

And then you cranked out 16,000 of, you know, the Captain Fantastic's.

Yeah.

It was, that was just a ton of fun.

Because that was 1975.

Elton was turned, you know, tied to the centennial.

And we did promotions.

Again, I just followed the same kind of promotional format.

Again, it was all games.

It was no cash.

It was all games with the fee.

Right.

Now, a lot of people, the record label got games and a lot of people.

And all Elton's friends got games and Elton's mom got a game.

And we delivered them everywhere.

So, did the game number go up significantly?

Army?

Did the game number that you gave away go up significantly?

No. I don't think we went over two dozen.

Interesting.

I think the record promotional ones were Elton.

Because you went around all the major venues that summer or that year.

I mean, I remember the Chicago one, that concert at the Madison Square Garden concert.

And I'd go to these things and I'd be backstage hanging out.

When Elton, you know, in the room in the back with the band and everybody and all the carrying on.

And I had a little seat on the side of the stage.

Or I would go to the audience because quite honestly, the show is much better from the audience than it is in the stage.

Right.

And so I, now I'd say just go to whatever you need to go to.

And I'd go to Philadelphia, go to New York, and go to Chicago.

And tied into the record label and the radio stations.

And it up giving away, you know, Captain Fantastic.

Wow. So, you know, the between wizard and Captain Fantastic, you know, they did,

they obviously did some other games like they did in Flip Flop and Bowen Arrow and Hocus Pocus.

Yeah. Well, no, that came a little after, but in Blackjack and Old Chicago.

But none of those sold anywhere near the units.

You know, I mean, if you got five or six thousand units out of any of those games.

It went back to the old three to five thousand unit.

Right, exactly. So, were they like knocking on your door every week?

Well, I mean, I figured you couldn't do every game like this.

And it took literally to put it together from the standpoint of find a deal, negotiate a deal,

get everybody in, design a playing field, design a glass, get an approval on the glass,

do a promotional of it, you know, all that tight end, cheesed it, took six to nine months.

Now, how did you, was exhausting, but you know, it took them much time.

I'm not sure you could do more than one every nine to twelve months.

Now, what about, you know, they started, they did these captive antastic home games that sold through Sears.

How did that?

Time, we started to take a shot at the home unit.

And we did, I believe we did, evil, con evil, which you know, was one of our first electronic games.

And I think we did the captive antastic. And that's when I brought in the guy from England

who did the album cover for Captain Fantastic.

Oh, man, great guy. And the illustrator from England.

And did the album cover for it. And I brought him in, and he stayed for about three weeks, worked with Paul Ferris very closely.

And they did that back last for the home game.

Didn't sell, I don't think those games were huge numbers.

No, but it was something.

Oh, yeah. That was a new market for Valley.

Right. Right.

Now, so what was the next project up? I mean, after, you know, they must have been patting you on the back after selling sixteen thousand years.

Who like that? It was, it was in real trouble. What day? Oh, am I going to do now?

And then I just sat down and made a list of every fantasy person I ever wanted to meet or think I wanted to do.

That's how we came up with Playboy. And evil, con evil, was big at that time.

I had three E's, Elton, Evil, and Elvis. And I got to do two of the three. The Elvis thing fell apart.

I negotiated with Colonel Parker, who managed Elvis. And I talked to him in Vegas.

And unlike everyone else who thought games were a good medium, the Colonel that couldn't give a shit about the games, he wanted cash.

Oh. And lots of it.

Like how much? Like lots.

Big percentage of every game sales. And I said, I said no. You know, I probably should have done it.

It probably would still have been worth it. We had a soul of fun. But I just had never done big cash deals.

Someone now, in the negotiations for these things, did Valley give you a lot of leeway or was it like, you know, they were just expecting to give out a lot of units of, you know, give out a two dozen games or something?

I don't ever remember them fitting and telling me what limits or what to do and what not to do. They just said, you know, go get some good deals at a good price.

And I was the one who was probably the chiefscape because I had started that way. And, you know, it kind of became invoked at that time to have your own pinball.

I mean, that's what led to things like $6 million man and the Rolling Stones, all those dollar parties.

I guess kept making a list of people who I thought would be cool to meet and some relationship to music and rock and roll and young kids and stuff like that.

And that's where stuff like Playboy came right out of that. Who, what a fantasy. You know, P.H. Kid doesn't buy Playboy but he can now play it.

Yeah, so you had, in 75 you had Wizard and 76 you had Captain Fantastic and 77. These were all like a year apart you had evil, cannibal. Now, how hard was working with evil, cannibal?

I'm not bad at all. Once I got to the right people, you know, everybody's got so many people around them. The outer shell will tell you no, no way, no way.

You got to get as close to the person as possible. And on evil, I just, he had been in Chicago. He did a jump at the amphitheater and I met his manager who once I explained it to him, he took it to evil and then evil kind of got involved and said, what was you doing? I explained it.

So we went ahead and I, you know, did the artwork and I took it down, got it approved. I actually ended up spending a weekend with Bobby, which Robert Craig, cannibal, was his name.

And a real simple guy, 10 minor from, some was in Montana or something. And, you know, he just had a huge ego and if you could stroke his ego, he was happy to do anything you wanted.

I remember I met him down at the Jackie Club in Miami where he kept a huge, but he had at least 150 foot boat or something and there was shooting some music video or some goddamn thing.

I went down there and spent the weekend on the boat and got the artwork approved, took some photos and we were off and running.

Yeah, and then he sold, again, there was this lapse where you fell back into this, you know, four, five, six, 7,000 unit thing and then you go to evil, cannibal and you sell 14,000 units. So you're, you're batting a thousand here.

Yeah, well, nobody was doing anything like it. I was just trying to mimic the music industry and the celebrity industry and I figured if you could do something that the players wanted, were they went and asked for it?

It was easy.

Now, but what you were doing sold more games and one run that they sold in three or four or even five different games and I mean were they rewarding you well for this? I mean this is unbelievable what you're doing.

Well, no, that was the downside of being as young and naive as I was. I thought this was my job.

You mean it really wasn't?

Well, it was, but you know, let me put it this way. If today I was doing it, my deal would be participation and I'd be picking a piece of the upside,

of which I'm sure all the senior executives at Bally ended up doing. But I never considered asking for that because well, well, it was such a great job. I would have paid to have it.

Okay. Now, what's the deal with eight ball? Eight ball came out and it's got the image of Fondziann it, but it's not licensed. What happened there?

GD, you think that looks like something? He's just a little.

I believe he was, that show came out of Columbia Films. It was distributed at the TV show and I bumped into the concept and I thought it shit well, we kind of went down that path and then we said we couldn't get a license or something happened. We couldn't pull the trigger on the license.

So we modified it and all the other people in the back glass are members of the art department. If you look at the glass, various artists for Bally are actually part of that back glass.

Yeah, but the girl, the main girl isn't that the pinky girl or whatever?

Well, it was pink, but it was actually Margaret, what was her name? Margaret something, it was in the art department.

Yeah, Margaret was pretty well endowed.

Well, those enhancements may have been.

Those were non-surgical art department liberties.

They have been taken there, but it, that game came out and ended up being huge. I think that was truly on the merit of the game. That was a fabulous play field design.

Right. Right.

Now, what about the power play with Bobby Orr? Was that, that was what you're doing, right?

Yeah, yeah, no, I met Bobby out in Boston and then he finishes great Boston and then signed with Chicago Blackhawks. He had just gotten to town.

I met him out by O'Hare and had a drink with he and his manager and hit him with the concept.

He liked it. We quickly did a deal. It's really almost a shame because Bobby Orr is the essence of the Boston Bruins.

Right.

But we did the deal in his, the autumn of his career when he was a Blackhawk of which he played only a handful of games due to the injuries.

But I really truly befriended Bobby and our two families spent a lot of time together and I spent some summers with him out in Cape Cod.

And truly one of the nicest guys I've ever met and spent time with and you know for the superstar that he is, you would never know it.

I used to go to the Cape in the summer with my family and then when we came off the Cape we'd spend that weekend at Bobby's house in Boston.

And it was just a lot of fun. He and his wife and his two boys and all our kids and had a very good relationship.

All right, we're going to take a break from our talk with Tom Neiman of Valley Licensing and we'll be right back after this message.

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All right, we're back with Tom Neiman of Valley Licensing.

I wanted to hit the $6 million man.

How did now, what did Major decide to go to the TV route now of that show?

Well, there was a, I had in my basement part of my collection.

I had a six player pinball that Valley did and the only made the prototypes and never made the unit.

Monster size back left, a back board.

You can imagine it was all a mechanical game and I don't know how I scored that out of Valley at some point.

There was only like two or three I've never built.

It was a six player game and I just thought the concept would fit.

I wanted to do a six player version of it with $6 million man.

We couldn't do the six player version but we did the $6 million man.

Now, how hard was it to work with Lee Majors?

Very remote control. Never met him, never did a thing.

Contacted the people, they said we'll do the deal.

I don't remember ever going out there.

It was all done to remote control.

I got all the approvals. I submitted artwork for approval.

There was no connection at all.

And it was again, payment was in games?

I think by then we might have been doing small amounts of money.

You know, $25,000 and if it goes over this, we'll put more in.

The numbers were never big at all.

Never near what they should have been.

But when those remote control games came in, they didn't contribute anything.

Nobody promoted it. Nobody did.

We had six ideas of promotions and I couldn't get them to do anything.

There were a handful of games like that that were not very interactive with the people behind the license.

What about Playboy? Playboy was the next one up.

I assume that you did actually work with Hugh Hefner on that one.

Sure. It was the day I pitched it at the office's, Playboy's offices in Chicago, to Christie Hefner.

And the guy who was running the Playboy clubs, I forget his name, but they were actually dating at the time.

And I pitched it to the two of them because I had that article from Playboy where he did on fireball.

Hefner said it was the greatest pinball ever made in blah, blah, blah.

And I said clearly, Christie, your dad loves the idea of pinball.

He has a true appreciation for it. You read this article and you can tell this guy really wasn't a stalgic over it.

And I said, you know, what a great concept for Playboy, blah, blah, blah.

I mean, we finished the conversation and a day or two later my phone rings, the switchboard, gives it.

And there's a deep voice that says, Tom Neeman, this is Hugh Hefner. I understand you want to do a game.

And I said, blah, blah, blah. I was awestruck.

Talked to him for about 45 minutes. Talked about growing up with Playboy, what Playboy meant to people.

How the idea of playing pinball, he described this all sexual overtones to pinball and standing between the legs of the machine and went on and on.

Was he really a pinball player?

Oh, God yes. They had all the tournaments all the time down at the house.

They had a recreation cottage on the grounds in LA at Charing Cross.

And they had a number of games in there and they had scores posted everywhere.

And I was there for tournaments where James, Jimmie Brown, the football player and Lance Rensel, the wide receiver for the Chargers.

Bill Cosby, those kind of people went there and they would go out there and play pinball for hours at a time.

And how did you pay you again with games?

We did the deal with games and he agreed.

Then the president of the pinball, the Playboy club came back and he said, oh, wait a second, this is nice.

Well, geez, Mr. Hector, it was wonderful. So I think I threw a couple bucks onto it but it was not big.

I don't think the whole thing cost us more than $50,000.

And how did it was ballet reacting to this kind of escalation in the pricing of the licensing?

They didn't have a problem.

Well, yeah, you sold it.

You know, don't give it away.

And they kind of knew that was my attitude.

I thought it was as much a prestigious thing for the subject as it was for us.

And I always pitched it that way.

I said, can you imagine I'm going to put out on, you know, around the country, 15,000 glowing, blinking, noise-making things,

you know, reinforcing whether it was Playboy or whatever the subject matter was.

You know, these are lit billboards that work seven days a week, 24 hours a day.

So your sales approach, you know, did you ever have anybody turn you down?

Well, Elvis, we walked away from him. He didn't turn us down. He just gave me a number that I said, can't be done at that number.

What kind of number were they talking then?

Well, good. I'm not either.

What kind of number were they talking back then?

Oh, he was big. He was a couple hundred thousand up front. He wanted that.

15, 20 percent on every unit sold.

Wow.

Wow.

And you know what? It might actually have worked.

But in my mind, I couldn't even fathom it.

Because I can get this person, this person, and this person for next to nothing. Why would I pay that?

Now in retrospect, we look back and think of Elvis.

But I turned down some licenses that were pretty stupid.

ET?

Oh, you had ET?

Oh, man.

I mean, I get called and Paul Ferrison, I would go do tours of the studios and other West Coast.

They'd bring us in and show us three or four licenses and say, all this movie's going to be this.

And that and that.

And I remember the ET thing.

And I thought, oh, there's one stupid ass movie.

And so.

Yeah, Gottlieb stole that one.

Yeah.

So I, you know, my track record is imperfect. I walked away from what should have been some very good deals.

Well, what were some other ones that you turned down that you were sorry on?

Well, the, you know, ET was certainly a big one.

You know, the Star Wars. I never chased it.

I was pitched it by some people.

And I guess my problem is I just wasn't a sci-fi fan.

And I don't know if I could have got it.

But yeah, I just, the discussion came up. I looked at it. I talked about it.

I had no idea what Star Wars is all about.

And I said, you know what? There's other ways to go.

Let's stick with rock and roll and stuff like that.

Now, did you ever turn one down that turned out to be, was good you turned it down?

Oh, you know what? I can't give you one off the top of my head.

I would hope that there was, we saw some stupid stuff.

Well, I'll tell you what I turned down. I'm actually very sorry I did because it impacted a relationship.

And Bobby Orb came back to me on Moosehead Beer.

He got involved with the brewery.

And as I look back on it, I think he said to them, oh, I can guarantee I can get this done.

And he came to me and he showed me everything.

Moosehead was just getting launched.

And it very limited distribution.

I couldn't find a Barnes or Cogga that carried it.

And he said, oh, it's just a great, it's green.

And he's got the Moose.

And I said, you know what? I'm not sure this has gotten you like.

I said, how can I invest time and effort into something that's so unknown?

And he pushed me and I should have said yes.

I said no. I didn't do it.

And the relationship with Bobby shifted at that point.

We saw each other a couple times after that.

I've run into him at certain events.

But it altered the relationship and I'm sorry I said no to that.

Wow.

Now, trying to look out after the company and I should have thought more about the relationships.

Now, what about Star Trek?

You didn't get Star Wars but you got Star Trek.

I got Star Trek.

Well, and that was a known entity.

I mean, Star Trek was obviously the series was huge.

I think it was that one based on the very first movie, man.

Yeah, I was based on the original show, not on any of the movies, which were coming out in the 70s.

And again, I got to tell you, I'm not a sci-fi fan so I wasn't a big Star Trek fan.

I just knew that it was very, very, very popular.

So I did that deal.

Did you have to deal with...

Oddly enough, it was part of a settlement.

Huh?

I'm not sure I should be telling all these secrets but...

If you remember, the pinball space and bitter.

You mean the game?

Space Invader?

No.

No, the pinball space and bitter.

Right, right.

Where Paul Ferris did the reflective glass?

Yeah, yeah, the three-dimensional marquee glass.

Right.

Yeah.

Paul did that artwork.

And in theory, was inspired by every monster type situation that he had ever experienced.

And in his mind to this day, he will argue that there is about six different movie creatures in that character.

And Columbia Films argued that that was...

Yeah, that was alien.

Yeah, was it...

Alien or predators?

Alien.

Alien, right.

I'm sorry, alien.

Right.

And we went ahead and did it.

We had the right to the name Space Invader from the video game.

So we said, God, we gotta exploit that somehow.

And so he created in his mind his ultimate alien.

We tried to avoid that word because of the movie.

Right.

And we got challenged.

Now, was that Columbia Films or is that someone else?

The studio behind Alien came after us.

And in...

Throughout letters.

Right.

And my attitude was screw.

Let's go to court.

You know, I can show you that it's the creature from the black lagoon and it's this and it's that.

It's a compilation.

Although the head certainly had some resemblance to the alien.

So the settlement, you know, that was part of the settlement?

Yeah.

And were they happy with that?

Yeah.

They said, in trying to get something for what we were gonna have to pay out, I said, well, why don't you include another license and we'll pay X for the license.

And you can take that as part of the settlement on this deal.

Because they didn't, we didn't go to court.

We didn't, they didn't prove it.

It was just a matter of lawyers, you know, rattling their swords.

Right.

And I said, you know, let's not...

I said, here's a raise of potential.

We'll pay X and then we'll pay another license and we'll pay X on that license.

And cumulative, you've been compensated enough.

You ought to be happy and let's just shake hands and forget it.

And that's where Star Trek came from.

Now, what about KISS? How was that?

Oh, great game.

It's all about fun.

Just again, another rock and roll fantasy deal.

And you hack your way through the jungle.

You can find the guy who's closest to the deal.

Boy, Lee.

This is last name.

Lee, young guy, Frizzy Hare.

And he was with management.

Got to him and we did a deal and tied it to the...

I think it was the Platinum album, double album,

where we did the promotion inside the album.

And that created a huge pull through.

I mean, the KISS sandwiches, you know, are...

Yeah, they're fanatical.

And we did a thing of...

Have your picture taken in your KISS outfit next to a KISS pinball machine?

Send it in and the most creative would win a machine.

That was stuck inside the Platinum album when it went out.

And, boy, we got some bizarre photographs.

Some obscene, some bizarre.

But what they did then, that forced them to run around to every arcade

and say, have you got a KISS machine?

Right.

And the guy's standing there looking like Gene Simmons.

And so the operator goes, oh my god.

I don't know what a KISS machine is, but I have to have fixed.

So they would call the distributor, the distributor called us,

and it built up a huge, huge pre-order on the game.

So you were basically turning into quite the marketing genius at this point?

Believe me, not because of a high level of intelligence.

It was just whatever felt like the right thing to do was what I did.

And now, did you ever have to talk to any of the people in the band?

Yeah, oh sure. There's that great photograph.

Paul Ferris and I flew out to LA when they were making,

I think that's a TV movie on the group KISS.

And they get a concert at the amusement park, the big one out there.

And Paul Ferris, myself, and this Lee get in a limo to go out to the concert

and we're going to meet with the group at some point in the breaking of the filming

and review the artwork.

And so we go out there.

And it's LA, but for some reason the night it's really cold.

So they dig into KISS Perfonella and find jackets for us and all that stuff.

So we pull into this mob scene of people in the limo with the KISS jackets on it.

I don't know who they thought we were, but it felt a little bit like a rock star.

They hung out backstage and watched the concert and then they finally broke for a while in the filming.

And Lee brought them back and we actually laid the artwork out on the hood of a car.

And the group now in full KISS regalia because they're in the middle of a show

is standing there looking at the artwork and we're getting their final approval.

And Gene Simmons wants bigger pecs and huge biceps.

And they all, it was a bit of a fantasy.

And in person nearly that big.

So we, you know, sprite modifications and they find off on a pretty artwork.

But that's the game that has the two sets, again two sets of glass.

Right.

Has the original KISS glass and then we shipped the first one into Germany.