You're listening to TopCast, this old pinball's online radio. For more information, visit them anytime, www.marvin3m.com, slash, TopCast. Welcome to another edition of TopCast. We have a very special guest tonight. This is our Sunday show. Normally we would be doing a technical show on Sundays, but tonight we've got lined up a very, very special guest that I'm going to introduce in just a second. He is a former Williams employee, and he's worked actually at everywhere from Gameplan, to Gottlieb, to Williams. And his career is pretty amazing. He's really stretched across a lot of companies, and he's had a lot of experience. I think he's going to be, you know, really interesting to talk to. And we're going to get going in just a second. Hold on a second. All right. Special guest. Special guest. Special guest. Special guest. Okay, I would like to introduce John Trudeau. Hi, John, how are you? Can you hear me okay? I hear you fine. How are you? Good, good, good. So let me just get your level up a little bit so we can all hear you nice on the air. So, John, if you've got a second, I'd love to talk to you about your career. Is that okay? Oh, sure. Okay. I'm here. All right, great, great. Really appreciate it. I really appreciate you coming on. So, I'm looking at the Internet Pinball Database, and I saw your very, very first game was Global Warfare by Game Plan in 1981. But they only made ten of these games, and it looks like from there you bailed and went to Gottlieb. Is there like a story behind that? Yeah, Global Warfare was Gameplan's attempt to get into the mid-size pinball machine market. It was wider than conventional pinball. And their sharpshooter and Coney Island games were doing pretty good for them. And they just decided to try their luck with a wider format. I didn't do the design on that. I did the artwork on that game. Were you an artist? That's what got me into the design area, the engineering area of the industry. Prior to that, I had been working out in the factory doing game testing and quality control. So how long did you work at Game Plan 4? I started in 79, and I worked, I believe, until about 82. And that's when Game Plan decided they didn't want to make pinball machines anymore. And I was still just getting my feet wet. So there was an ad in one of the trade publications for a game designer, a pinball game designer. And I responded to it, and got picked up at Gottlieb. Wow. Okay, so let's back up a little further. How did you get your job at Game Plan? I mean, did you always were interested in pinball, or was this something that, you know, you just happened across, or because you were an artist, it just kind of ended up there? No, the job at Game Plan was just something that I did for myself to change the direction of my life. I was an offset pressman prior to that, doing okay, making a good dollar but it wasn't much fun anymore and I decided to do something else I had some electronics training when I was in the Air Force but I just tried something for a little while and like I said I got hired as a game tester and I would take the games that came off the line supposedly finished and make them work right and so I had to troubleshoot them When you say make them work right was there like inherent issues with game plans? You're saying those are worse than, say... No, no, no. I mean, this is typical of any production. Games, the product comes down, supposedly put together and built correctly. And some are, but most aren't. There's little things that have to be tweaked. And sometimes things don't work quite right. And these games, while they're being produced, aren't being tested electrically. so when they get to the final testers that's where they get shaken down pretty well ok so tell me about the Gottlieb job then well I got hired over at Gottlieb about 82 and I had left at game plan a layout for a kill of the hunt which was shelved and not produced until many years later but going forward to Gottlieb So you designed it, Till the Hunt, or you did the artwork for it? No, I designed it. That was my first game that I actually designed and laid out. And how did you feel about them releasing it many years later? I was delighted. I thought it was just something that was just going to be gone. I had a few sketches of my own on it and not much else. that had made it up to, I don't even remember, I believe we made up Whitewood of it. And that was about as far as we got. And they put it in their little morgue because they stopped making pinball. Well, Gameplan re-entered the pinball machine again, the market again, I guess, I want to say late 80s, mid to late 80s. And lo and behold, I went to a trade show and there was a fellow of the hunt sitting there. Was that a good design for you? It was my first design, put it that way. It was okay. and I had learned to design without, how do I say it, with a lot of economy in mind. There wasn't a budget to speak of at Game Plan. Everything was being played pretty close to the best as far as cost was concerned, so we could recycle parts that we used on the previous game, we did. And that's pretty much the way Attila turned out. There was a lot of things that I had left in it that didn't turn out in the final game because of the academy measures. So then you went to Gottlieb and you designed Rocky. That was my first production game. Okay, and how did that come out in your opinion? That came out pretty good. That was an unusual layout with what we call the split flippers. There was a left and right on two pairs of left and right flippers. Right, right. Literally. and it worked well for the wider game and it made two narrow playfields out of one big play field that you couldn't get the wide shots at Did you ever meet any of the actors in the movie or anything? No, Sebastian Stallone was supposed to come back and well there was a rumor he was going to come back and he didn't he was in Chicago for a promotion for, I believe it was Rocky III. That's where this was supposedly, the game was supposedly in, Rocky III. And I guess his schedule just didn't permit it. Okay. So you never got to meet him? No, never got to meet him. I still have a back glass, so I figured someday maybe I'll run into him and have him sign it. Speaking of which, how many of these games did you ever, I mean, do you have like one of each of your games that you designed? No, I wish I did. No, I don't have any games right now. The last game I technically still have is my son has it. He has the Flintstones. But everything else I had to get rid of for one reason or another. Right, yeah, we'll get to that because you moved all over the place like in the late 90s, right? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Okay, so then you did Spirit and Striker and Crawl, which I think is a really cool game. Oh, thanks. I mean, I've played the one that Tim Arnold has. Well, you consider yourself fortunate. There's only ten of those, too. Right, right. Now, what was the deal with that? Why didn't that ever get produced? Tim Ball, at that time, was fighting for his life. And video was just pretty much eating up the market. Crawl was a collaborative effort with Columbia Pictures. with their release of their supposedly big movie, which turned out to be kind of a clunker. And I think the best part of the movie was probably the pinball machine. Right. Unfortunately. But it came out. We had two actual designers work on it. I worked on one design, and Ed Krinsky was working on another. Oh, at the same time? At the same time, and they were both Kroll Concepts. Any one else? Well, yeah, only because it was more buildable. Ed had a great idea which involved a clear upper play field. The entire play field was made out of a sheet of plexiglass, a half inch, and everything was mounted on that. And it was pretty much an open board, of course, But the effect of the lower play field lighting up was really dramatic because it was like a window. Right. The whole thing was really great. But I guess there were a lot of construction problems, manufacturability problems involved with using that piece. So mine was a more conventional approach to manufacturing a pinball machine. What, did they think that maybe the plastic would crack or something? I'm sorry, what? Did they think the plastic might crack or something? Well, they weren't sure. There was nothing, no history to go on. Something like that would have to be tested, definitely, for a long period of time. Gotcha. Okay. Okay. So then you went to another game that actually is really cool, but they didn't make a ton of, Q-Birds Quest. That was a, you know, that's another kind of cool game. You know, I mean, once again, Tim Arnold, I've played his, and I thought that was a really kind of a neat game. It's a hard game to find, too. Oh, man. It's an unusual game, I'll say that much for it. Right, right. There again, we were trying to emulate the video game. Golly, we had a successful video game, Cuber, and they wanted to say, well, let's spin off something. Let's make a pinball machine. I said, okay. So the game rules on Cuber's Quest pretty much follow the video game. Now, how much creative, I mean, how creative did Gottlieb let you get? I mean, could you pretty much do what you wanted, or was there a set of game rules or constraints that you always had to follow? Well, I think the biggest contributing factor was budget. And if I could show them I could bring a game concept to manufacturability within a given budget, I was probably given the go-ahead. And I mean, how did they put budget? I mean, how does that work? Well, it's literally a totaling of the cost of producing the game. Screws are so much, flat rails are so much, posts are so much, and mechanisms, especially the mechanisms. They'd have an accountant following you around all day then. Well, not really, But we knew how much a pop-up or assembly would cost, how much that's going to throw into the game. And so we didn't make games with 17 pop-up personas because not only would it not be fun, but it would be very expensive. Right, right, right. Now, here's another good one. Your nickname is Dr. Flash. Yeah. Okay, now where did that come from? That came from a friend of mine, Python Anghelo. So we worked together when I first started at Williams on two games simultaneously. And I guess in his demonstrative effort to describe what we were doing, he says, man, you're like Dr. Flash. And I guess it just stuck from then on. It was funny. Wow. So all the artists you worked with, I mean, did you have a favorite? I believe it was the last fellow I worked with. I really enjoyed working with Kevin O'Connor. Okay. We did a good four or five games, and we had one in the works, too. He was a great artist. You're talking about Aces? Right. Okay, well, we'll talk to that a little later. I don't want to spoil that surprise for you. Okay. Because that's a good one. That's a good surprise. So, okay, so then going down the golden Gottlieb road, did the games, touchdown, ice fever, and the Chicago Cubs triple play. I mean, and now the Chicago, or all those games, Rock Raven, Rock Encore, Hollywood Heat, Genesis, Gold Wing, Monte Carlo, all those games, I mean, was there anything that stuck out as, like, you know, one of your favorites, something that you really enjoyed? I did enjoy Hollywood Heat. It was, you know, a takeoff of Miami Vice. Right. and it looked good. And for our cutting-edge soundboard at the time, it sounded good at the time. And it was a lot of fun to play. That was a pretty little cool game, I thought. No, I noticed that Gottlieb did this a lot. They took namesake cinema releases and kind of twisted them a little bit so they didn't have to actually get the license. And this is, of course, a classic example of that. Oh, definitely. The only license up until that time, now we're talking the Premier days. Right. I call Premier and Gottlieb the same. I'm sorry, that's kind of my... It was the same product, but it definitely was a different... Different kind of owners, right? Oh, definitely. Yeah. Columbia Pictures had bought the Gottlieb Game Company from the Gottliebs. And then Coca-Cola bought Columbia Pictures. Is that the Mylstar? Yeah, right. That's when they tried to change it to Mylstar, and it was a big fiasco. Right. And then a large game distributor in New York bought Gottlieb, and that was premiered. They bought the pinball assets. Right. Right. Right. That was the vision. Right. And through these changes, I mean, you worked through them all. I mean, how was the transition from one owner to the next? Oh, it wasn't bad at all. Everybody was pulling in the same direction. It was a lot of fun, actually. I got to build the company from scratch. Right. Myself and two or three other key personnel were taken, hired from Gottlieb, and I guess he wanted to find out the minimum amount of personnel to start a company and do it well. And he got some good people. Mr. Shelbert wants to ask a nice question. Okay, Jim, go. I know during the time of Rock there was a lot of publicity with the local radio station. I can barely hear you, Jim. During the time of rock, there was a lot of publicity. Oh, rock? Yeah. With the local radio station that went on TV. There was a whole big... Yeah, we had a lot of fun with that. We did a tournament at an Aladdin's Castle, which is a... Yeah, a huge arcade. A huge arcade chain. And we had like a dozen rock pinballs, and we did a tournament there. That was a lot of fun. And we were covered by a program called Rock on Chicago. And was the machines, I mean, did the name of the machine actually reflect this Rock on Chicago thing, or was this all just laid out as a big promotional thing? No, it was just a coincidence that they came on to their broadcast with us. Gotcha. Because the game was named Rock. So when you went from Gottlieb to Mylstar to Premiere, was this like two complete inventions of Gottlieb, When Mylstar took it over and then Premier took it over, was it like literally building the company from the ground up like you were saying? Yeah. So you did it twice. The only thing that saved us is the familiarity that the hires for the new company brought with them. We knew how to build games. So when we brought virtually the same asset over to the new company, we just continued on. And your location was always the same. It was just who was cutting the paycheck and calling the shots, right? Well, the location changed, too. Gottlieb's production and engineering was in North Lake, Illinois. Right. And they had a plant in Bensonville that I believe was doing the PC boards and other prep work. our production, when it was reformed, everything moved to the Bensonville facility. And so we walked into a building that you could throw a bowling ball down from one corner to the other and not hit anything. Wow. And we moved everything in. And there even was a mezzanine built for engineering, double their size. And fortunately, the ceilings were high enough so we could get away with it. Right. So now, by 1988, you know, your last Gottlieb premiere game was Excalibur. Nope. Nope? Nope. Deadly Weapon. Deadly... Oh, right, right, right, right. Okay, I'm sorry. That's okay. Because I'm seeing International. Yeah, well, then there's those couple of cocktail machines in there, and Silver Slugger. Right, and Silver Slugger. And then Deadly Weapon. And then Deadly Weapon. But here's the big question. 1986, Demons. Now, this game did not get produced, correct? Oh, no, no, no. It was just a concept thing. But it's a really cool concept because you actually were doing kind of a pinball 2000 type projection thing of targets on the playfield, or through the playfield or something, right? Right. It was a reflection. Right. of the little statues that I had hung up in an upper backbox area that would light up and change color. And if you hit the target, they would fade out. He successfully killed that little demon. Now, why wasn't that ever produced or that concept ever used? I don't know. I guess it was just a matter of time. Premier, I was the only game designer for a number of years. And I was pretty much involved with just getting the next game done and needing production. So what happened to that Demon's prototype? It was destroyed. Oh. Yeah, it was destroyed before. That one was actually done at Gottlieb. So you mean it was way before 86? Yeah, it was in, I want to say about the time of Crawler somewhere, or Gilbert's Quest. I was looking on that, maybe a little after that. Wow, and nobody else ever picked up this idea? Not that I know of. I did do another presentation of something similar to it at Premier, and I did have a whitewood in the working prototype, There again, I think it was cost more than anything else. Instead of these little figurines or whatever, I had another play field inverted in an upper level backbox that reflected off the glass. and the ball was trapped between the glass and the play field. It was a single level, of course. And the ball actually rode on the glass. Now, that's a really cool thing. What year was that? Oh, that's a good one. Or which game was it? Oh, yeah, I'm trying to look through my little book here. Maybe it was spring break-ish type thing? Yeah, victory. Victory, spring break. Yeah, those were right on. Yeah, around that area. Yeah, the reason why I knew, the only reason I knew about Dean because Demons is not in the Internet pinball database. No, it was just a prototype game. Right, right. The only reason I knew about it is in the July 2000 issue of Pin Game Journal, I saw the article in there, and there was just a few almost blurry pictures of the whole thing, and it's like such a tease. That was the Polaroid. You know, I was lucky I shot those Polaroids because there was nothing else. Right. And I did have a video. So, that was a game in operation. I believe I gave that to Jim, too. Really? He didn't mention that. Thank you very much, Mr. Shelbert. He didn't mention that. I'll have to abscond that from him. I'll tie him up on the front of his cart tonight. There you go. There you go. Let the kid out of the bag, huh? Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Okay, so now, you're basically building games. You're using the System 80 platform. Now, how did you feel about the System 80 platform? Because, you know, the reputation for System 80 wasn't as good as we'd all like. I mean, how, as a designer, did you feel about it? It had a good number of capabilities. Its reliability wasn't stellar. We had the problem with the flasher lamps. We worked for a while there and didn't want to even put them under the play field because they would get stuck in the on position, and they would actually melt the plastic inserts. Right. So for a while we were designing with them just in areas that it didn't really matter if they stayed on and melted something. Right, until they burned out. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So that did get taken care of in the next iteration. And we put watchdog circuits in and the programming and everything else, but nothing was 100%. And now you were there when they transitioned to Gottlieb System 3, which was their new board system, which actually is a killer system. It was good, yeah. Excellent. It was designed by John Buras, who's a great guy. What was the designer's name? John Buras, B-U-R-A-S. Ooh, you're going to have to give me his phone number. Well, he did some games, too. He did Bounty Hunter. Oh, really? Yeah, and he did Rack Him Up. he didn't do a lot of games but every once in a while he got the inkling and said I think I might do a game did he have something to do with Black Hole too? yes he did he did the conversion from the original prototype and made it a game that was an outside concern that actually designed that brought it in and you guys took the ball and ran yeah I came in about the time that they were ready to release the game for samples. They were going to build samples with... They were actually in production of Mars when I went into Galway. Oh, okay. Okay. That's actually a pretty good game, too. I like that one. That was a John Beers game, too. Okay. Okay. So now, you were also there for the, quote, street-level games. Mm-hmm. The games where they made the cabinets a little smaller, they made everything a little less expensive, and all the playfields were single-layer, no ramps, None of that kind of stuff. Right, at Premier, right. Right, at Premier. And this is about the same time that, you know, late 80s, early 90s, actually I think it was about 1990 that maybe Williams was putting out kind of like a Funhouse-type games. That was like what you were competing against. How did you feel about that? Well, actually, we were a little before that era. Yeah, 88, 89, right? Yeah, no, Funhouse. Yeah, you're right. Funhouse was a little late. It was more like you were competing against Whirlwind and stuff. You know, I can't recall us competing, having that kind of competition. We were aiming at another niche as far as the marketplace was concerned. The leadoff game was Silver Slugger. Right. And it was received very well. We had a lot of success with that game. so I'm not sure of the production numbers but I think we did pretty good on that game 2100 of silver slugger well that's pretty good for for mirror yeah actually that is pretty decent well it's funny I do some repairs for people and this one guy has a silver slugger and he calls me about once a year to come service it and this guy he plays the bejesus out of this game every time I go there this thing is filthy and I gotta re-rubber it every year for him because he just, he literally wears the thing out. And he always tells me, he says, you know, I hate those games with all those fancy rules and the ramps. Because this thing's got flashers and it's got, you know, modern features, good displays, you know, stuff that is, you know, more in the newer games, but it's got an older feel to it where things are a much simpler time. And he just, I can't get the guy to shut up about it. He just went on and on and on. But that's what he likes. He thought it was great. Unfortunately, that was the only game that I really saw through to the end as far as a single-level game like that over at Premier. I did Deadly Weapon, but I wasn't there to finish it. It was finished up by committee. Oh, really? So it really wasn't my game at the end. I mean, it was my design, yes. but I didn't have anything to do with it. I had left Premier at that time. Now, your transition was from Premier to, of course, Midway Valley Williams. How did that come about? Well, I think it was a time for a change for me. I wasn't really pleased with the direction that Premier was going with their games and I decided just to run my contract to the end and we parted amicably and I went to work for Williams. I had met Steve Kordick a number of years before. He was a fan of my Chicago Cubs game. And we always talked about, you know, old South End ball. We became good friends. And so when I called Steve up, I said, Hey, Steve, I need a job. He said, Get out of town. So it was a big surprise to him. And I went over and had lunch with him. and he brought me in and talked to Ted Perez. I believe he owned the Castro at the time. I'm not sure. And then he decided to bring me in. Okay, well, let's take a little break. I'm going to run a commercial, and I'll let you get a drink for your voice. It's sitting right here. Okay. It's just H2O. All right. I'm going to run a commercial, and we'll be right back with John Trudeau, famous pinball designer from Gottlieb to Valley Williams and a lot of stuff in between We be right back The Pin Game Journal is a proud sponsor of TopCast It covers pinball like no other publication can. The Pin Game Journal is America's only pinball publication. Whether you're looking for new games or the classics, reports on industry shows or collector expos, insights on a game you want or features to help you fix the game you've got, Pin Game Journal is for you. Their website is at pingamejournal.com. Pins and Bids, Episode 2, Attack of the Phones, is now available at pinsandbids.com. It's the best Pins and Bids yet. Double the fun and half the underwear in the first episode. Surely to be nominated for Oscar for the best music thing sold in the last video. Best special effects during a dream sequence. Worth much, much more than the $6 included shipping and selling price. It's worth at least $7 or $7.50. Get your copy now at pinsandbids.com. And now for a word from our lawyer. The entire fair price goes to the Pinball Hall of Fame. First episode also available. Some pinball machines were hurt during the filming of the pin's vids, but they were all in your deranged DVDs on CoinUpGoodness.com. Okay, we're back with John Chigot, a pinball designer that worked through Gottlieb and Premier and Williams and a lot of other stuff in between that we haven't even gotten to yet. So, John, you've made your transition via Cordac, right? Yeah. Yeah, so Valley Williams, which I think is just really kind of cool. We share the love of the layout of the game and the flow of the game. I'm sure all the designers feel pretty much the same. So it was like a kindred spirit as far as putting me on at Williams. I don't think there was any second thought about it. Okay. I had a good reputation as far as turning product around, too. Great. And your first game was the Bugs Bunny birthday bash. Right. Or birthday ball, I should say. I always want to say that. B-B-B-B. Yeah, exactly. Tell me about that design and how the licensing was and working with a new set of people and a new company. Right. It was into the fire, so to speak. Because we were not only doing Bugs Bunny, we were also doing The Machine right at Pinbot oh you were doing that simultaneously that's where the Dr. Flash moniker came from so while we were doing The Machine, we were doing Bugs Bunny we actually did manage to get in a trip to California to the Warner Brothers Studios for the Bugs Bunny licensing and Python did just a stellar rendition of all the characters and some fantastic artists. And I wouldn't be surprised if Warner Brothers didn't want them to do their artwork for them. Well, you know, on a lot of licenses, literally the licensing company hands you the artwork that they want. I understand for Family Guy on Stern's new offering that that was the case. The Translight was done by the Family Guy people. They just literally handed it to Stern and said, this is what you're using. Are you saying that when you worked with Warner Brothers that you guys had complete creative freedom? We were given a style guide, and we had it be conventional to this style guide. But we were free to do anything with a good taste that we wanted to. And Python had an idea about making this a big birthday ball, because it was his 50th anniversary coming up, which was perfect for us. And I've been a Looney Tunes fan since forever. And I had an idea for that little reverse play field that I wanted to try to incorporate. So that all went together on that game. But every bit of his artwork, his pencils, had to be approved by Warner Brothers. And they were very, very happy with his work. It was all original artwork. And the painting itself, I believe, was done by John Yousi. So when he did the artwork, I mean, was there a lot of revisions? Or he basically did it, handed it to them, and they said, yeah, that's good? Yeah, the revisions that came back were really, really minor. It was maybe the shape of a foot here or there. And even those could have been argued about, you know, as far as it related to their style guide. But I think they felt like they had to find something. Right, right. Yeah. So it was really nice. So who was your design team for the Bucks money? Oh, boy, that's a good one. I had a fellow named Jim. You know, I can't even recall. Well, I'm sure Larry DeMar probably did your software, right? No. No? Jim Lee, I want to say. Okay, yeah. No. He did a couple other games there, too. and sounds Yeah, that was the other thing I was going to ask you about. Sounds may have been Paul Heitsch. Now, the character voices, how were those done? Those are done from Warner Brothers. So did you give them, just hand them a script and say, you need these? Yes, pretty much. And so it wasn't done, I mean it wasn't done in your studio at all? No. No, they did the character voices. Now, I don't know a complete history of the Warner Brothers Looney Tunes voices, but there was like one guy that did that. It was Mel Blank. Now, was it Mel or Mel's son that did this one? It was probably Mel's son. Okay. Yeah. Mel was getting up there at that point. Yeah, I didn't know when he passed. The only speech call that we lifted off of a cartoon, because it was a late entry in the game, was Suffering Succotash. Oh, really? Yeah. Can you hear the difference? No, not at all. Not at all? Not at all. Okay. So, you know, why didn't you just lift everything out of that and save yourself the trouble? They didn't have the speech calls that we needed, you know. Oh, right, right, right. Yeah, there's no, you know, you know, triple all. In any cartoon, they don't steal. No. Yeah, you're right. That was a silly question. Sorry. Okay. All right, so now you made $2,500 of the Bugs money, but then you went to the machine, brought it to Pinbot, and you cracked out over 8,000 of those bits. Mm-hmm. So that must have been, you know, you must have been pretty proud of that. Oh, that was a good game. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Well, it was a cool effort. I mean, Python did a lot on that, too. besides the artwork. He had started with the initial layout that I came in and finished pretty much. There were a few shots that weren't there that ended up being there. The heartbeat ramp, the second level play field. I wanted to make it look more like a sequel than it was looking at that time. I brought in that second plastic play field where the ball just bounced around them who, of course, were mini posts. Right, as kind of a tribute to the original. Right? So I wanted to make it kind of look like the original Finbop, but yet not. Yeah, I mean, the whole thing with the turning faces? Oh, that was Python's idea. That was Python's, okay. Yes, yes. That was pretty cool. Oh, yeah, definitely. You know, it had serious sexual overtones. That's Python. That's all him, huh? So you're not taking credit for that, huh? Oh, I wish I could. And he says, look where we're putting the heart, and look where this little space is going to be walking around here. He was just having a real field day with that game. And now did Williams, did any of the Williams management, did they give you any crap about any of that? Not really. No? No, they were pretty good. I mean, everything there is in good taste. Oh, yeah, yeah, but I mean, still, I mean, a lot could be read into that. You know what I mean? And, you know, I guess in the early 90s, maybe things aren't as good. Go back and, like, you know, what was it, like 8-Ball. The artwork on that is pretty suggestive, too. Yeah, that's true. That's true. Now, so now you're working, you've worked at these three companies, the Gameplay and the Gottlieb and, you know, the Bally Midway Williams. How, I mean, as far as creative license and allowing you to do what you want, who was the best, you know, out of these companies? Oh, Williams Bally Midway by far. Was that because you had just more money? Money and time. I think it was more time than anything else. Are you saying that the complete from inception to production was a wider window? Both. It was more than double what I was working in Premiere. So you're saying in Premiere you were doing a game in two, three months? Sometimes. I mean, what's the longest you had to do a game in the game? Maybe six months. Really? Yeah. And what, okay, with that in mind, what was the longest game in the Gottlieb Premier Series? They usually ran about a year. But no, I mean, what was the game that you spent the most time on? I want to say Judge Dredd. Okay. Yeah, that probably took the longest. And what was the longest Premier game that you took? Probably either Monte Carlo or Hollywood Heat, one of those two. Okay. So, okay, Shane. I want to go back and change that. I'll say victory. Victory. Okay, now what was the reasoning for that? Well, that's a double-level play field. Right, and they just gave you more time. I had more time to do it because they wanted to do something different. And they were trying that play field coating, that mylar sheet. And I can't recall what it was called. It didn't work out. Right. Okay. Okay, so then, after the machine, you did Black Rose, which, it's funny, I just was talking to a friend of mine. He is still operating a Black Rose, and his name is Trent Augustine. He's actually a really good pinball player. He's the right fifth in the world in competitive pinball. And, you know, we do, as part of our show, we do a thing called Play of the Week. And I asked Trent, I called him yesterday, I said, Trent, what are we going to do for Play of the Week this week? And he says, let's do Black Rose, man. I'm setting one up right now. and you started talking very passionately about the game. I mean, you know, and I said, well, you know, how do you feel about that compared to like the new Pirates of the Caribbean? And he goes, well, he goes, it's just the less expensive version of that. Which one was the less expensive version? Well, yeah, I didn't ask him that. That cannon assembly was not cheap. Oh, I bet. Now, was that your idea? Yeah, that was a takeoff on the catapult assembly from big guns. Really? Yeah, that's what was inside the game. We re-engineered it a little bit, so when the catapult threw the ball, the door would open like a hatchet. The ball would come out at the tangency of the play field, so it would be like shooting the ball at the flipper. Huh, that's interesting. Now, when you came up with that, I mean, did they kind of look at you like, you know, this is going to be really expensive. Are you sure you want to do this? I mean, was that like the thinking, or did they just say, no, come on, we're going to print with this one? When they let me go as far as getting a prototype built, and then it gets evaluated pretty much. As far as cost and that? It would have to be pretty bad for them not to say, go ahead. They got a little more conservative as the years went on, but at that point I had a pretty free hand. Now, who was the boss that made those yay or nay decisions at that time? Oh, I would say it was Kenny Fedezna and Neil Macastro. Okay. And did they seem like they were pinball guys at the time? Well, I don't know whether they're really pinball guys ever. They're businessmen. Right. Yeah. I don't think either one of them were pinball guys. I'm not saying anything bad about it. It's that they were businessmen. Because at the same period, the slot division was getting up and off the ground. And the pinball division was financing the slot machine division at this time. so every dollar that you made for pinball a certain percentage was going to the slot division which was just bleeding money at the time there was a lot of money bleeding in all the industry and I was just curious if you felt that at all at this period or if it just was a non-factor as long as we were being successful and they had a good method of treating their designers and the design team. Everybody was happy. Everybody loved coming to work. For my entire career, I never went to work. I went to play. And that was for almost 20 years. And that was great. So they had a great way of treating everyone. Their hours were extremely flexible. And as long as you got the product done on time, They really didn't much care how you got there. Well, how hard did you have to work in crunch time or whatever? Well, you know, my crunch time was, there were very seldom crunch times for me. I'm a pretty organized person. I'm a good engineer besides enjoying the design end of it more than the engineering end of it. So I understand what is involved in making a mechanism that has to do what I want it to do. A lot of times I handed off a mechanism or a design that was pretty much done, at least in theory, even in technical drawings. So I wasn't surprised in the end. my games were notorious for being the smoothest running production pieces that they had in the right ways. Wow. They loved running my games. Now, Mr. Sjoberg has a question. They kept it in on Black Rose. They hated leveling that thing. Don't use it again. Well, you know, I fix a fair number of Black Roses. And, you know, to be honest with you, the problems that are inherent in that game really don't have a lot to do with the playfield design. You know, it's the typical stuff in electronics that I have to deal with. Oh, no, it was just something that, it was very unwieldy. You know, there's a big mechanism. Yeah, you know, the one thing that I find is on some games, I can't get it to shoot all the way to the left or all the way to the right. Like, I can get it, if I adjust it so it's all the way to the right, then it suffers from all the way to the left. So I kind of got to strike a median on some game. Make sure that the right cams are in there. Well, what happens is that, you know, you're talking about a game now that's 15 years old. Yeah, I know. Yeah, so these parts are worn, and they get slop in it. So instead of it pushing the cannon all the way to the right or left, you know, what happens is... It doesn't make it all the way to the right or left. Right, because there's slop in there, and you can't get the parts. So the hole became a slot. Exactly. That's pushing. Right. And then you end up, so, okay, so I always get asked people, what's more important to you, the right side or the left side? And then I have to adjust it accordingly. I'd say the left. That's not always their answer. That's the one that locked the ball, though. Oh, right, right. Hey, Mr. Schoberg has got a question. He's been raising his hand in the class here. Yeah, me, me, me. Yeah, yeah. John, you pretty much, John, hold on. I can't hear you. Hello? Yeah. How about now? Okay. John, I got a picture of you I took a while back of you sitting in front of a bunch of stand-ups, plastic collector stand-ups. Sorry to get a little collector standpoint here. But you pretty much invented the stand-up idea, did you? Yeah, it was a lark. It was like we had a little bit of extra material on this sheet. And I talked to Kevin O'Connor. I said, hey, let's put something together. I said, how about a stand-up? we can do this, you know, four pieces of plastic. And that's the creature from the Black Lagoon stand-up. That was the first one. But, I mean, I know often the real estate on a sheet of plastic is pretty coveted. We kind of snuck that one in. That wasn't real apparent until we got the sheet of plastic in and that we were doing this. Because it's a big piece. Was there a complaint? They would have rather reduced that sheet of plastic by three inches and re-nested all the other parts. Were they mad? No. No? No, no, no. If they were mad, we wouldn't have been able to do it on. It was like, well, this is kind of a waste. But then they saw that the reception from the customers, the distributors, they liked having them put up on the games on their little desks and stuff. It was kind of cool. Yeah, yeah, really cool. Now, the next game was, of course, my favorite game, and a lot of people's favorite game, and that's The Creature from the Black Lagoon. As a matter of fact, I've got a spare play field here hanging in the studio, and this game is just gorgeous. Gorgeous, and I mean a great player, and in a lot of ways a very traditional game. You know, the multiball isn't like, you know, some kind of six-ball frenzy. it seems like you really captured the whole 50's drive-in movie thing perfectly. Tell me about that game and also the creative licensing and what you were thinking. Give me the whole story. The game originally was titled just Drive-In. That was my working title, Drive-In. I always wanted to make a drive-in movie game. Then we went from there and it says, well, what are we going to do with the drive-in movie? Well, there's a lot of things to do with a drive-in movie, which were incorporated in the gameplay. And from then on, it was like, well, you know, we'll go classic gameplay. Drive-ins are really 50s, 60s type things. 40s, 50s, 60s, I should say. And let's go with a classic theme. And And I started thinking about that. Something I am a fan of is anything that's 3D. I love looking at the little lenticular displays or wearing glasses. I've got some games that, you know, play in 3D. It's just fun. So I decided, let's try to do something in 3D. So we kicked this ball around for a while. And I said, well, what's the most successful 3D movie at the time? was Creature from the Black Lagoon. Not only was it a great 3D presentation, it was one of the most successful underwater shooting ever done up to that time. Okay, so now you go from drive-in, which is basically an unlicensed theme, to Creature from the Black Lagoon, which is definitely something you had to obtain a license for. That's right. So you go knocking on Roger Sharp's door, right? Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And how hard was it to get that license? They thought I was nuts. You know who? Roger said you were nuts? What do you want with an old black and white movie? Did the movie theater say you were nuts, or did Roger say you were nuts? Roger never said I was nuts. Roger always liked weird ideas, because he came up with plenty of them himself. No, Roger never said I was nuts. But here's the little question from Neil and Kenny. And they went with it, though, when they saw the whole idea. And that's when the hologram idea finally came around. Now, who was the inventor of that? Or, you know, I guess you didn't invent the hologram, but, I mean, whose idea was it to incorporate that into the whole setup? I wanted to do something in 3D. One of the concepts was actually doing the playfield artwork in that red-green anaglyph 3D line work. Okay. And actually having to wear the glasses while you played the game. Why didn't you do that? Well, you know where that's going. It's going to be too tough. Right. So we did a few little pieces with anaglyph artwork on it. And it just came out to be okay. and it really did stifle your freedom as far as the gameplay on there was concerned. So I said, well, let's do a hologram. Everybody's been talking about holograms. Let's see if we can do one. So we dug around the country and everybody, no matter what company we went to, ended up going to Polaroid. They do holograms for everybody, I think. And we finally ended up going to Polaroid with this idea. So you had to actually show up with some sort of a model for them to make a hologram after, right? Oh, definitely. The holograms are not like photographs. Holograms are real size. Where's that model today? I have one. Okay. And you still have it? Yeah. And because, you know, the holograms with time. I can remember back when I got my creature. I paid $500 for it. Wow. Yeah, this was probably in the late 80s, late 90s, I mean. And I thought, you know, this hologram, I've got to give me an extra one of those. So I went down to the distributor and I ordered a new hologram, and I think it was $23 to get the new hologram from Williams. Cheap at half the price? Yeah, yeah. And I thought, you know, what the heck, you know, if something happens, I got it. And then, you know, as time marched on, they started to become scarce because the holograms kind of changed. You know, green is good. Some of them was bad. That was always the kind of saying, you know what I mean? They degraded. Pardon me? Some of them really degraded badly. Right. And I'm not sure why. The only thing I can think of is maybe there was a lot of exposure to light. Some kind of ambient light, either sunlight. I'm not sure if that's the problem either. I don't think I can suspect. Because I've had holograms in my filing cabinet all these years, and they look like brand new. But the only thing is that they were in the dark. Right. You know, I should go check mine. I've never even looked at it. They turn thickly blue. Yeah. Yeah, like an aqua color. I've seen them that don't work anymore. So did anybody ever approach you and say, John, we need to borrow that pig so we can make that hologram again? I have to say yes, but I'm not going to expand on that anymore. Oh, really? Yeah. Well, can you say if you actually did lend it out? Yes, I did. You did. Okay. Okay, because, yeah, recently two different individuals actually produced that or got ready to produce it, but at least one guy did. But now they're like, God, Jim, how much are they? I've got to say that they're a couple hundred dollars or something. They're not cheap. You know, and it's just, oh, man, does that hurt. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And they're not cheap. The figure of $30,000 comes to mind as far as producing this hologram. You mean that's what they did today or what you made Williams back then? What Williams got nicked for back then. I'm not sure if that's correct or not but for some reason that just sticks in my mind. That incorporated making the original statue and getting it out there. The artist's feet. Jerry Pinsler, bless his soul, he was our sculptor. I love that guy. And he found himself a nice Japanese model of the creature that we highly modified. I told him how I wanted it posed, and he did just a bang-up job with it. And that original model was done in shades of gray. So when they shoot it, everything comes out green. Huh. Yeah, so it was all done in shades of gray. There were two original models produced from the mold. I have one and I gave the original gray one back to Jerry and he passed away. I have no idea what happened to that gray model. I had three others that I've sold that were not completed because the arm that reached out was in a separate part of the mold. But the mold was just a silicone mold and I could only get five copies out of it. Are you meaning before the mold degraded? Yeah, it just deteriorated. It was open, and I pushed another three out of it. And by that time, all the details started to get a little lost. And were you doing the mold and creating of all this right at Williams? Was this in-house? No, no. That was done by, oh, God, what was the name of the company? It was on Chicago's north side. It was a company that did the molding for us that Jerry Pensler was associated with. He had a working relationship with us, I should say. And he covered all that off for us. Wow. Yeah, I mean, great game. Now, who was the artist that you were working with that did the play field in that? That was my first rendition with Kevin O'Connor. Okay, and, I mean, he did a spectacular job. Kevin is so easy to work with. You know, I went and showed him. I said, this is what we're doing with the game. I said, here's our concept, and go for it. I like to create, you know, when I'm leading a design team, to leave my artists, and I say that for everybody, artists, let them create. Go for it. You know, this is the direction we're going in, and create something. And everybody usually comes up with a good product because they love it. Very seldom did I ever, you know, argue with somebody as far as what they came up with. Now, the one thing that a lot of collectors noticed on that game is that there's like two versions of the play field. One that was made by Tag, that the pink was more subtle and subdued. And then another play field manufacturer, I believe, made the exact same play field, but apparently when they did the Pantone colors, the pink was a hotter pink. Was that just a purely accident, or did you even, you know, Yeah, that was an accident. It was? Yeah, I wasn't even aware of it. Okay. Yeah, the only change we made consciously was in the little red inserts that were underneath the swimmer's body. Because when they lit up, they made a suggestive image, let's say. and it was something that was totally innocent. But when they lit up, it went, oh, no, that doesn't go. So we changed those red inserts to white inserts. Now, getting that license, how did that go? That was all done by mail. We never went anywhere for that. That was just a straight universal license. Everything was done by mail and then telephone. Roger had it all wrapped up and locked up. The only thing we couldn't use was the actors' likenesses. We got right to the song too, The Creature from the Black Lagoon theme, plus right to all the other songs we had in there which were great But with Richard Carlson I guess and who girl name Gina and Jean something or other But we couldn use their licenses So we changed them a little bit. I had my son's face put in there in the fifth helmet, just for the helmet. So your son's face is where? He's the hunter holding the gun on the back glass. Oh, okay. Gotcha. Now, was this an expensive license, or not really? Not really. You know, we spent our money in other places. I spent the money on the hologram, you know? Right. And the licenses for all the tunes, too, all the music. Now, was this the most expensive game that you ever did? Oh, definitely. Definitely. Yeah, great game. I mean... No, I had... And it reflects the fun everybody had making that game. Literally. Literally. we had a ball making that game. We were laughing. And when I came down, when the prototypes first, the first ten games got put together, the new games got tested inside the factory, what we called at the bottom of the stairs, because the pinball engineering was upstairs. And at the bottom of the stairs going downstairs, there was room for about six, eight games. You're talking about in the eatery, in the cafeteria area? Or are you talking about the game at the bottom of the stairs? The game at the bottom of the stairs. Right. Because the game at the bottom of the stairs was always the current game, right? Right. Right. Or games, whatever was down there. Right. And so when that got put in there, and we had it working, and everybody started wanting to play it. Then I went away. I went back upstairs to my office, and I came back down. And when I came back down, people were just hovering around it. And the girls down there, they were dancing to the tunes. And I said, I've never seen that before. Oh. They were actually dancing to the song. So this was probably one of your most rewarding games then, too. Yes, it was. Yeah, I had a good time. It was nice to see a very successful game. So now the next game, Judge Dredd. Now, this, you know, being an American, I was not aware of the English connection with the comic strip. Okay. You know, the only thing I ever saw, I saw the movie with Stallone. and you know me being the mindless idiot that I am I enjoy the movie I like Stallone sorry in Arnold movies I get it I had the Judge Dredd theme because I was a comic book collector I'm still a fan but I used to read a Judge Dredd comic book and it was published I'm sure it was published in Robert Englunds but it was all published in the United States and I said this guy is just nasty he's funny nasty He brings everything to a new ridiculous point. And I wanted to do Judge Dredd. Well, then I found out that Stallone was going to be doing the movie. So I had the option of one or the other. And I said, I want to stay true to the comics. Now, why, though? I mean, going after the Stallone angle, I would think Roger would be slapping you outside the head and say, come on. Well, it was a little. but I just wanted to keep it. I wanted it to be the comic book. And I think I was glad I did that. That's what I was going to ask you. Looking back on it, you are glad? Oh yeah, most definitely. Why? This is a true Judge Dredd game. It's not a Stallone game. I did a Stallone game. Right. So I didn't want to do another one. And it wasn't that really. I wasn't really sure of what that was going to bring to the table. I had everything I wanted with just the Judge Dredd character to develop this game. And putting Stallone in the mix was just almost making it more complex. Here we had the artists again, or the artists, I should say again, getting the approval from the studios in Robert Englunds to do all this. And, of course, Kevin had to go through what Python went through with Warner Brothers. And I think the game was beautiful, too. Okay, John, we're going to take another break. Okay. We'll be right back. We're going to run a couple ads, and we'll be right back with John Fiddle, the famous pinball game designer. Top Guys is brought to you by Marco Specialties, their pinball parts superstore. Visit their website at marcospecialties.com. You can search for parts by game name, game name, and part number. Marco Specialties was founded in 1985 and is headquartered in Lexington, South Carolina. They specialize in pinball parts, supplies, books, and anything pinball. Marco has been online since 1996 and is the web's oldest and largest pinball parts supplier. Their new 12,000 square foot distribution center services 25,000 customers in over 50 countries. Feel free to call Marco Specialties at 803-957-5500. Marco Specialties, your pinball parts superstore at marcospecialties.com. Thank you. Okay, we're back with John Trudeau. And, John, we're talking about Judge Dredd. And so you were pretty happy with this game licensing, the fact that you didn't do the Stallone and that you stayed true to the comic strip. Yes, very much so. Because you're a big fan of the comic. Mm-hmm, exactly. The biggest, I think the biggest fight I had on that game was getting that eagle put up on the top of the backbox. Really? Now, why was that such a big fight? Because it didn't bring anything to the game, except cost. I thought it just was like the ultimate statement for the game. Yeah, it's a nice crown. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. I mean, this is something, it's the overachievement that Judge Dredd always stood for. Right. Now, what about the dead world thing? Tell me about that. Well, you have to get into the comic book. The Dead World is Judge Dredd's nemesis, besides the everyday average criminal. Of course, he has to have a super nemesis. And these are the dead judges. And there were three or four of them. I can't even recall right now. But they lived in a place called Dead World, which I guess nobody can survive very long. And I incorporated that as a ball trap feature. and unfortunately I had to get rid of the holes in favor of slots so the ball could fall out by default but then it took the whole feature out of it because the balls couldn't go into orbit around the planet that I didn't want it I understand there's a kit now why did they want you to do the slots? because they were afraid that the crane would break and it couldn't bring the balls back out oh You mean, basically, if the crane broke, no way to get the balls out of the slide. You just sit there and watch them spin. Yep, pretty much. Well, it's like anything else. The ball goes into a ball popper. If the popper don't kick, you can sit there and watch it all day. Right. I mean, so... That wire falls off the coil. I don't understand your argument. What I would have done, of course, this is hindsight 2020. This is Shaggy's view of the dead world. So, okay, so what you do is, you know, you start the balls at 11 o'clock. They're rotating counterclockwise. And then at about 1 o'clock, you have a physical mechanism that the ball, nothing moving, but as that dead world spins around, it's kind of like two plates that come together that forces the ball out there. So the most it would make would be one revolution. That was not what I had in mind. Okay. I wanted them to go literally in orbit, and the ball would just sit there and go round and round and round. Well, you see, that's why I'm not a game designer. This is why I never worked. That's the way the game was designed, so they would go round and round and round. But as soon as the prototypes got to Europe, they were the ones that said, oh, man, this crane never breaks. The forces that be over there carried a lot of clout. The European forces? Yes, because they pulled in half the production. They were talking big numbers. And was it Nova in Germany that was like the big driver? Yeah, yeah. And Mondial in France for Gottlieb. Right. Yeah, I mean, they took in huge amounts of game. Yeah, like you said, close to 50% of Williams' production was export. Mm-hmm. That was pretty much the case for everybody. As a matter of fact, for Gottlieb, I think it was even higher. I believe you're right. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so then you went to the Flintstones based on the movie. The movie. The movie. Now, how did you feel about that one? Well, that one we went in to do the movie. And that's okay. You know, because Stallone was brought in as an afterthought. And I was all set with the comic book. But the Flintstones, there was going to be a new revival of the theme. with the movie with John Goodman and Rick Moranis. And I said, that's perfect. Let's go do that. That's a good license. So you actually went to the movie set for Full Stone? Yeah, that was fun. They actually built the town of Bedrock in a quarry. Where? There's two quarries somewhere outside of Los Angeles. and one is always not being used every other year. This guy goes and blows up one quarry during one year and he goes and blows up the other quarry the next year. So the one that wasn't being used, he allowed the studio to build their bedrock. And we were there just after they had finished shooting. And the town was still standing. So I took a ton of pictures. got me hanging out of the windows. Where are these pictures? I have them. Are you willing to share? Sure. So, was this the most fun game that you worked on? Hmm. You know, I had a good time doing all my games, to be honest with you. I think the game I really cracked up on and laughed the most on was probably Judge Dredd. Why? It seems like such a serious game. The humor is so bizarre. And the things we could do to make the fatalities worse and worse and worse. Now, who did the voices for Judge Dredd? I think Paul Heitsch. I don't know if he did the voices, but I know he did the sound package. Who came up with that super game concept? That was me. That was you? Yeah. And what was the thinking with that? Just try something else. It doesn't cost us anything. We're going to make more money. Yeah, pisses off the software guys, though. Yeah, exactly. Nobody else. Who was the software guy that you were pissing off? I have, you know, we probably had to bring in a couple of extra hands on that. Jeff Johnson was my software guy. He's a new fellow, started with Williams, and his first game was Creature with me. And fresh blood, he really liked being in the games industry, and he brought a lot of creativity to the table. So we went from there, and we segued right into Judge Dredd, pretty much the same design team. We were just having more fun with that. Now, on Flintstones, did you get to meet all the actors? No. No? Not in person. No. The audio hookup was done from studio to studio with John Goodman and Rick Moranis. They did 99% of the speech calls. Were they easy to work with? yeah, John was professional about it. He wasn't real, I don't want to say real friendly about it, but he was very professional about it. He did what we wanted him to do, and if we asked him to do something, he would do it that way. Rick, however, was over the top. He was bubbly. He suggested things. He said, oh, let me try it this way. No, no, I didn't like that. It was crazy, yeah. But it came out good. They both did a very professional job. When you do a sound session like that, do you do one guy and then the other, or do you do them together? No, no. One guy and then the other. I think one was in New York, one was in California, and I can't remember who was who right now. Okay. Okay, now, did you have to work with any of the ladies from the Flintstones? No. No? No. I can't remember the... Rosie. Rosie. Rosie was made petty. and Elizabeth something. Do you remember her name? Yeah, I don't remember her so much either. She played Wilma. But we did a couple, we just ripped a couple of speech calls from the cartoon. Oh, really? Yeah. Betty's Laugh. Right. And then something that Wilma said too. Now the bowling pins on that game, was that your idea? Yes. Okay, how did that come up? Oh, well, the lodge, the water buffaloes his bowling team how could that not be in part of the game that was my favorite part of that game right and the whole thing with the you know like the the literal rocks along the side of the game I thought that was really cool you know when I first saw that game I was like oh this looks so wild you know I'd never seen a ball look like the little houses yeah yeah exactly the rock houses You know, the set, as it may be. You know, was that, I mean, when you had those made, were they like, you know, hand airbrushed or something? Pretty much. But not a lot. There were stencils that they put over them. Because you made. They were able to produce them, you know, mass produce them. Yeah, because there was almost 4,800 Flintstones made. That's in late 1994 or mid-1994, which was actually a really good production run for games of that era. During the mid-'90s, things in the pinball industry were largely starting to take a little bit of a slump, and numbers were coming down. So a game of almost 5,000 actually was pretty strong back then. I thought it was a good game. I had fun with that game. I liked incorporating the bowling game within the game, too. Right. I thought that was cool, too. I mean, there was a high bowler. I would play the game and just shoot for the ramp to go bowling because I wanted to complete the game. Now, what about the spinning rock crusher thing in the upper corner? No, that was really a nothing thing. It was just something to keep the ball busy again, like we did in the creature with the bowl. Right, right, right. And shoot it up there and bounce the ball around a little bit. But the ball was free animation, as it may be. I mean, there was no moving parts other than the ball itself. This thing actually was motorized. Right. And you had to have some sort of entry switch and exit switch to tell it when to turn the motor on and off. So the motor timed out, but yeah. This was an expensive thing. Yeah, I had to, there again, that was a good tie-in with the movie because this concrete machine that was in the quarry over there was part of the deal, and I wanted that to be part of the game, too. Okay. Fun game. I like the game. I know some pinball players aren't a huge fan of it, but I thought it represented the theme really well. I think so, too. I got a little flack for passing that ball between the flippers. What do you mean with that backhand ramp? Yeah. So you mean, I actually thought that was pretty cool. It worked 100%. That 99.9, I've never seen the ball fall off there. Right. No, I haven't either. It just doesn't. Now, that particular idea, where did you grab that from? Was that like something you just woke up one day with? I wanted to be able to return the ball to the right flipper from either ramp without crossing over the play field. and blocking your shots. Right. And that's where it came down to. The reason I ask that is because in the late 40s, Williams first, like right after World War II, some of their first flipper designs used a kind of similar feature. It wasn't a ramp, but what it was is you plunged the ball in a normal ball plunger. It would go around. It would loop around the top of the upper arch, and then come down the left side, come behind the flippers, come up again parallel to the shooter lane, and exit onto the play field there. And I was just wondering if you had any history of... Was this more of a bagatelle game? No, no, it was pinball. Was it a flipper game? Yeah, it was a flipper. Oh, I don't remember that one. Yeah, the Williams games in the 40s that were named after cities. A couple... Boy, I've got to look that up. ...corporated that. I have to look that up. I wasn't aware of that. Okay, I was just curious if that was something that you saw and just kind of banked away, or if this was just all coincidental. Yeah, I had no idea they even existed. Okay, I'm just curious. Yeah, cool. You know, because I am kind of a historian in that I like Williams wood rails from their inception. in particular the 1954 Williams wood rails to me are just awesome. They try some crazy things with ramps and stuff that you didn't see again literally until the 90's. When I talk to design people I always ask them did this have any influence? Did you even know about this? And most of the time they kind of say what you say. No, I didn't even know that. I didn't know it. Yeah, I am not what you would consider a pinball fan. I love creating the games. I like playing them. But to follow games, like a lot of the fandom does, I understand their love for the game. But my love is in the creation. I enjoy doing that more than anything. and that's what kept this such a vibrant part of my life because here I created something or helped create something and when we were all done, it was a nice little package and everybody enjoyed it and we played it for a little while and they said, okay, now we get to do it again. So you really looked forward to going to work every day? Oh, we did. Oh, we did. We definitely did. It was not work. it's amazing that you know you were having this much fun it makes me sick I always said that I wish everybody could experience this type of work for at least a portion of their life it's just amazing now John you said that it was okay if we took calls so I'm going to yell out the 800 number to the world so anybody wants to take calls And if for some reason I don't answer the phone, it's because we're on a good roll. But here it is. It's 1-800-CALL-UP-AND-ASK-A-QUESTION. So now we move to Congo, which was kind of the last WPC-S or security game that they made before WPC-95, which is, you know, they kind of changed their hardware platform just a little bit in that era. What's, you know, the Congo, I mean, how did you feel about that game? That particular theme has been passed around engineering at least twice. It somehow landed on your desk? Nobody wanted to touch it. It landed on my desk. And I said, well, if I got it, let's go do it right. Were you forced into it? Oh, yeah. Oh, you were? Oh, yeah. So they said you were taking this one? Uh-huh. Okay. I got Mr. Shover just handed me a picture of you proudly standing next to a condo. Oh, good. He's had all kinds of pictures I've never seen. And the last condo, because was this the last game that was made in California? Yes. Yes, okay. And the last game that came off the production line, we had the design team go out and sign the playbill. Everybody. All right, John, we've got somebody calling in. Go ahead. We're going to take it. Hello, you're on the air with John. John, how are you doing, buddy? Good, how are you? Doing great. listen I'm kind of curious about the game that you never got to make there was a couple of them what's the one that sticks out in your mind the one game you always wanted to do and never got a chance oh Aces I wanted to finish let's not talk about Aces yet that's something we want to bring up a little we don't want to spoil that surprise to you I also pled my case for a Beatles themed game at Williams and I could not convince them to do it. That would have been a hard license. I thought it was easy. Oh, really? Oh, God. No, I mean a hard license to obtain. No, believe it or not. All the principals were very interested. We were in the preliminaries. The feelers were out there. We believed that Ringo would be willing to do speech for us. She'd do speech for anybody. Well, I mean, why not, you know? They do. They all just point out the Beatles, right? Oh, I couldn't believe that I could not convince them to do the Beatles. Who was the resistance there? Kenny and Neil. Right. Yeah. Okay. That was the only thing that I could not convince them to do. Well, thank you very much for calling. We appreciate it. That's a good question. Yeah, that's great. Thanks, guys. Okay. All right, John. John, let me ask you about this. When you made Congo, I mean, was there any kind of bad blood going on because of that theme? No, no, no, no. No, it wasn't. It was just a theme that I didn't want to do. I had something else in mind that I wanted to do. Now, you knew about the Williams beat time, right? What was that? Well, back in 67, Williams had a game. Oh, beat time. Yeah, which was. or the Boodles you know which was you know which was kind of interesting you know the unlicensed version again you know so I mean here they are going after a genuine license which is kind of cool I wish I could have done it I pictured it in my mind it was going to be I was going to take them up this was going to be an early Beatles game up until like through the movie Help and do all you know incorporate a lot of their early stuff black and white, the Edwardian looks. Wow. Yeah, I think it would have been great. And you're a big fan of the Beatles movies? Oh, yeah. Okay. Well, the two. The other movies are a little... Right. Mr. Shelberg is raising his hand again. Okay. Just more about Congo. I mean, did you guys know this was going to be the last production game at the California plant? Yeah, pretty much. Yeah, because we were already getting everything all lined up for everybody to move. Hey, John, you want to take another call? Sure, go ahead. All right, let's give it a whirl. Hi, you're on the air with John. Yeah, this is Tom Rader calling from Cabinda, Angola. Tom! How are you doing? Yeah, I know. It's about 2.30 in the morning, and my question was going to be about probably the cult favorite game that John made as Spirit Gottlieb. Where did he get that idea? It seems to be very popular with the pinball addicts. Spirit came out real well. That was only my second effort over there, too. It was kind of a... It existed between Black Hole and Haunted House kind of a thing. It laid out real well and it filled up a big playfield. Those are the white playfields, too. Yeah, they only made 1,200 of them, and hard game to find, really. Very, I understand. Yeah, a nice game, though. As a matter of fact, it's interesting that you brought that up, because a friend of mine has been looking for that game for a long time. Just can't have fun. I saw a picture of somebody with like four or five of them sitting there. Well, let me know who that is. Yeah, at the Pinagogo, there were four games lined up in a row last year. Yeah, probably were one. So that was kind of unusual to see that many games. Yeah, but I did like that game. I really enjoyed it. I just lost my back glass on that game too in my last move Tom did you say you're calling from Angola? yeah I'm actually about the half an hour north of the Congo River you're talking about the Williams-Congo game I work here in the oil field and commute back and forth between California and the oil field this is going to be my last tour of duty here in Africa I'm going to come back home to California and find work and maybe retire and spend more time fixing up my games that I have and stories, hopefully get more of them working instead of sitting at cut sets. The movie sets were all where they created their vision of Congo. It was really amazing what they did inside of the set. Make it look real. Well, thank you, Tom. I appreciate the call. Alright, enjoy listening to the show. I missed the first hour, but I've been listening since 2 a.m. in the morning here, so I'll listen some more. Thank you. All right, take care. Are you still with us, John? Yeah. Okay. You're going to get rid of me that easy. Wait, Mr. Shelbrooke's raising his hand again. What about Congo also switched companies? Did it not? It started out just like as one brand and switched to another one. Oh, yeah, that was pretty much... At that point, when I started at Williams they were separate games because Valley had been purchased I guess not too soon before that and so the games still looked different they made an effort to keep the Valley looking one way and the Williams looking another around the time of the creature because the original creature was artwork was done originally as the old Bally. And then they decided just to make every game the same. We're just going to put a different tag on them. Right, yeah. Like Black Rose, for instance, had the old Bally. Right. And Creature was going to have that back by pursuit. But they changed it just prior to that and then Kevin had to go and do his back glass over. I think Johnny Nemon was the first game that had that molded DMD panel that was black and it just said either Williams or Valley along the bottom and they just launched it. I actually have a couple of those panels brand new I don know why but I do You know for no good reason There were sets of plastics and things all made with both company names on them Yeah, right. And like I said, when we got down to Congo at that time period, it really didn't matter which name we put on it, Valley or William. Because everybody knew it was the same company. So now you did Congo, and you moved, and we're starting to work on a game called Ace. right? or Aces, I'm sorry, Aces I know nothing about this game matter of fact, the only reason I know anything about it is Mr. Shelder I know Mr. Tootouts so why don't you tell us about this Aces was going to be the next one in line we were trying to build up a whitewood we didn't have a working whitewood I had one carved up pretty much and had the inserts in it but it wasn't wired or anything. We were working on the mechanisms that was going to go in the game. And it was pretty much, we were going to call it, thanks to my artist friend, Kevin O'Connor, he says, well, we can't just call it Aces, we've got to call it something else. And he came up with the suggestion, let's call it Aces Escape from the Bermuda Triangle. And I thought about it, and I thought about it. You know what, that sounds pretty cool. So let's do it that way. And so that's what it was going to be. And he had given me just a pencil sketch of the side of the cabinet that his concept was for the logo and the general art feel. And that's as far as it got. Did that sketch emerge yet? Mm-hmm. I thought I sent it to you, no? Maybe. I forget. What was the, you know, when they were trimming down the teams, which I assume that's what you kind of got caught up in at the Williams thing. I mean, was this like a big surprise? Yeah, pretty much. It was. They just walked in one day and said, guess what? Yeah, you walk in one day and your badge doesn't work. It was really that cold? Yeah. Oh, my God. Yeah, yeah. It was cold. Just one day, you mean you're sliding that thing through and it's like... And it comes up red instead of green, you know. And did you just like shake your head and you knew what... Yeah, I thought something screwed up. That's all. And somebody came out the door and I went in. And then what? Well, then I got into my room, and somebody finally came around, and I think it was Larry. Finally he said, come on, we've got to talk. And then I found out. Who else was involved in that, too? It was Barry Osler? Barry Osler and Dennis Nordman from the designer. And they just wanted to cut the teams down in smaller groups? I guess. And was it just the Economic Times? Oh, sure. Oh, yeah. they were making a better return on their investment off of gambling pieces too. Right, because the spot machines were now, they were finally out of litigation with IGT, because IGT was trying to drag them through the courts for as long as they could, and Pinball at the time was supporting this legal mess, as it may be. And then, I think you're right, by 95, 96, they were finally out of that mess, and finally kicking out some slot machines, and I think that was just the beginning of the end where, you know, you could see. And you have to remember that although Kenny and Neil supported the pinball, while it was a viable product, they're businessmen. And this is why I say that I don't think they were real pinball people. No, I think so either. And they opted to go with what's best for the company. And a good businessman will do that. I can't remember hearing a story that when they actually showed Pinball 2000 for the first time to Neil that he was pissed off. That he was pissed off because he gave those guys like an ultimatum. Said, look, you guys reinvent Pinball or you're all out of here. Knowing or thinking that they couldn't do it. and when they actually showed Pinball 2002, I guess he was just furious because he saw the potential that that platform actually had. I don't know. It's just the same man here. Spreading vicious rumors. I'm real good at that. But Harry was just so mad that these guys, you know, because it was kind of an amazing thing that they did, you know, really for what it was. You know, it was incredible that they pulled that. Well, the Beatles game that I had referred to earlier, I did show them a scaled-down foam core. You know what a foam core is? Sure. Yeah. I made a foam core small-scale cabinet of the Beatles game that also used that inverted play field that I talked about from Gottlieb. Right. And I wanted to do that for the Beatles game. And I showed it to them, and I showed them the effect of one play field disappears into the other one, and it looks like it's like, you know, three feet past the play field that you were looking at before. But it plays just the same. It's really cool. But like I said, it's a scaled-down thing. And they were hemming and hawing and hemming and hawing. And he says, well, this is a good idea, but why don't you put a monitor up there or some shit? So I don't understand, you know, his surprise. So you were surprised when you saw pinball at 2,000? Kind of, but not again. You know, it was a good idea. I've been trying to do it for years. Right, right. No, I think what they did was great. It was perfect. Yeah, you were doing it since 86 with demons. Yeah. Yeah. But it's just, you know, like I said, it's that kind of 3D thing that I'm a fan of, you know, with the 50-50 mirrors and stuff like that. So when you got out of Williams, then you kind of went to what, a sort of design or decorating type design company? Yes. It was a point-of-purchase display company. Was that a good job? It was okay. It was okay. Something to do. Yeah. Keep the wolf from the door. And then you went to Churchill. Well, you know, I never went to Churchill. I was just a consultant at Churchill. He never hired me. And at that point in time, I had an offer for a job out by my son. My son was in Iowa doing some AutoCAD work. And I said, you know, I'm going to take this. And I gave Roger Dubois the option of hiring me full-time. And he said no. So I decided, you know, I took the job in Iowa, and I was coming in every few weeks, and he wasn't real happy with that. So we parted ways. I'm going to spew out the 800 number again, so, you know, in case somebody wants to ask another question. It's 1-800. if you want to call up and ask John Trudeau a pinball-related question. So then you ended up at Ice. And I'm kind of a big fan of Ice out of Buffalo because I love Czechs hockey. Yeah. Oh, yeah. They're a big claim to fame. Oh, yeah, because they've been making that game since 83 nonstop. Yep. You know, and I love that game. I really do. So you went there in the hopes of resurrecting pinball in Buffalo, New York. Yes. Okay, now how did that go? That went well for 90 days. And they only gave you 90 days, huh? No. It was their decision. They moved me out there. They paid for the entire move from Iowa to New York and set me up. And I said, great. And they had a fantastic team to work with. We were working with Caddyshack. And this is going to be a pretty funny game. Bill Murray was involved. And I was all hot about it. Had a play field all designed for them. I still have the design. By this time, I'm working on a new software called SolidWorks, which is three-dimensional. And you can actually put things together. All right, John, do you want to take the call? Go ahead. All right, let's see what happens. Hi, you're on the air with John. Yeah, I have a question about Judge Dratty and the catch underneath the Dead World mod to see what that was originally supposed to be intended to be used for. That was just there in case the ball fell in. There was never any idea of bringing that in as a part of the game. What it also did was give the world, the dead world, a better sense of depth, like it was floating out there because we cut that area of the play field away to make it deeper and put that pan underneath. So the world stood out. Interesting. So it was never meant to be anything besides just a basic catch. That's all. It's really interesting. I contacted you about a year ago. Actually, two years ago. I was a big fan and still am of Judge Dredd and helping, vitalizing, and getting that proto-mod going, actually. But it's really also interesting on how you got the whole theme of Judge Dredd correct, because I am a big fan of the comic book, It's very interesting how the movie, they really missed it, especially by not incorporating any of the dark judges. It's very interesting that yours came out, the machine came out first, and you basically got it. That's right. That's why I was happy with going with the comic book. I thought that bringing the movie in would just be more of a bother than anything else and probably wouldn't be true to the theme. and I was happy I did. It probably wasn't a bad decision either because the movie really didn't do all that well. It was okay. Yeah, it was okay. That's a good way to put it. I mean, it was the lone movie, so I went and saw it, you know. But the movie could have done so much better if they would have followed the theme of the pinball machine in the comic, if they would have really stuck with the era of the Dark Judges. I agree. I agree. There was a lot to be desired. Anything else that you wanted to incorporate on Judge Dredd that you ended up not incorporating on there? I noticed the New Court PowerPoint shot on the right corner. The world is a nasty place to live in is here. A lot of that gallows humor is reflected in some of the modes where there are fatalities and just all kinds of goopy little things. why I loved it. We really laughed when we were making that game. Any move your cars type stories? Not on that one. No? Everything was pretty straightforward. We had a lot of shots. I think my biggest thing besides the dead world was trying to stack the ramps. How many ramps can I stack up? You sure did a good job on that one. Over in the right corner, I think I got three or four of them up there. alright well thank you caller thank you very much bye bye ok John that was pretty good that was a nice question right as opposed to a bad question well believe me I'm sure there's I have no shortage of those trust me including in this interview so you know what happened with ICE I mean why 30 days and why 90 days why 90 days and out All right, well, when I got there, we set up the program. I started working in an office, started laying the game out, and I had some sketches I already worked up. And about 30 or 40 days into that, we went over back to Chicago to see if we could purchase the Williams system. Hold on, just a second. Hold on just a second, caller. Go on, John. I'm sorry. So we went to see the system, and what was left of the assets from the pinball was really, it was very sad to see. Everything was just put in a warehouse and on shelves. There was some old tooling and laying around and all dust covered already. It was sad to see the glory that was the Williams pinball machine just reduced to that. I would hunk, right? Yeah, it was a sad feeling. And then we evaluated their operating system, and their operating system was obsolete. All the chips on it. Right. All the WPC stuff. Out of that purchase would have been the patents. Right. And what does that really give you, not much? Well, it gives you, well, patents were a big thing between the companies. They shared them only because it was easier to share than a whist fight. And we've got another caller on the line right now with a question on what's your first name? Hello? Hello? Yes, what's your first name? Hey, this is Ken in Texas. Hey, how are you doing, Ken? What's your question for John? I've got two questions. The first question is the match sequence on Judge Dredd. I owned one in the past. If memory serves me, that's with the lady with the shotgun, right? Yeah, she does the reverse on a drive-by. Well, my question is, doesn't she fire three shots? I believe so. How did she get three shots out of a double-barrel? Oh, yeah, that's true. Maybe it was just an over-and-under, or was it a side-by-side? I think it's a side-by-side. Yeah, you're right. And I just wondered if there was something to that, or just... No, never thought about it. Nobody did. Oh, now that's a good question. That's a good one. Good catch. My second question, I actually sold that game to buy a creature. I'm a big drive-in movie theater fan. And my question is, when you were designing that game, Did you have a specific theater that you used to frequent that helped you in that? Not one more than another, no. They're all pretty much the same. I had a little part of my life in the Air Force. I went to theaters in Nebraska and Texas and everywhere. And they all look the same. All they got is a little booth with a projector and a crummy stack back. And it swings up by the screen, you know. They're all the same. Very good. Yeah. I appreciate it. That was fun. Thank you. Oh, you're welcome. All right. All right, so the ICE thing, so you go and look at the Williams stuff, and there's just nothing. There's nothing there. There's nothing there. So I worked for a few more weeks, and by this time, we're getting up to that 90-day thing, and they just came up to me one day and said, we're going to shut the pinball thing off. It's just not worth it. and I believe they had been getting a lot of grief over the telephone, over not getting these outside sources. Do you want to take another one? Sure. All right. Yeah, it's Gary South, heading from Robert Englunds. Gary, how are you? I'm doing all right. Good show. Hi, Gary. How are you? I'm fine. I'm just trying to work out what's going on. Hi, John. How's it going? Real good, real good. Good, good. I was wondering if you'd be willing to share with us what went on with those cocktail tables you did when you were with Premier. I got to do, I was privileged to be able to do those for Premier for an outside source called International Concepts. And they had an idea to license areas for exclusive play. I don't know how they did it, but that's what their deal was. They sold the game and the area where they sold this game. So if you had just, let's say, a Hyatt Hotel, those Hyatt Hotels in Kansas City or whatever, those were yours. Nobody else could go in there with another one of those pinball machines. That was their idea behind it. And I guess it was somewhat successful because we did two. But they're tough until they have those little cocktail machines. They're short and they're wide. Right, and kind of strange gameplay. Oh, yeah, very definitely. I mean, you shoot the ball, it's bad. Right, it's either up at the top arch immediately or down at the flippers immediately. Mm-hmm. I think I did a little better with the second game. Because I moved the flippers off to the right and I put a single flipper on the left side. But you didn't make a ton of those either. I would say 600 maybe. Right, right. Not many. But I've always been a fan of them. I had a friend that I was living by in Pennsylvania, Ron Schuster, who has a huge collection of pinball machines. Which do you consider the second game? I'm sorry, what? sorry it's a very poor connection which sequence did you design them in? was it Caribbean Antonio Cruz first then Night Moves? the other way it was the other way? yeah I think I DVD'd this and the other way around that's why I asked the question yeah Night Moves was first because that was pretty symmetrical the bottom right and Caribbean Antonio Cruz I moved the flippers over right and there's more of Night Moves around than there are of Caribbean it seems to me mhm All right. Thanks for that. Hey, Kerry. Good to hear from you. Take care. Take care. Bye-bye. Bye. Okay. It seemed to work out okay. All right. So now you're done with ICE. Well, we're done making pinball machines. Oh, so you mean you kept your job? Yeah. They didn't. They were willing. ICE? They moved me there. It's like, well, move me back or keep me. What do you want to do? So I said, well, why don't I stay on and see if I can learn how to do their brand of games. and I don't think on redemption redemption yeah and it's not as interesting as creating a pinball machine no way yeah because the rule set is pretty shallow yeah and your game sometimes lasts all of about 10 or 15 seconds well yeah and you roll your quarter down done yeah and your target audience is you know three feet tall yeah look mom look dad I got 10,000 tickets. Well, that'll get you a comb, dear. Yeah, it'll get you a comb that you didn't really need. Yeah, exactly. So we just paid $10 for a 5-cent plastic comb. Congratulations. Alright, we've got another call. Do you want to take it, John? Sure. Okay. Hi, you're on the air with John. Hi, Joshua Clay. Hi, John. How you doing? Good, good. John, I've got a question for you, and I don't mean this in a bad way at all, but do you have an obsession with playing with a pinball right in front of the flipper area? I think so many games you've done, like Congo and Creature, have the windows that the ball can occasionally be caught and thrown this way or that way. Or Flintstones, you've got the big old ramp that comes around, the ball can fall down there. It never fell. I'm not arguing with you on that. It never fell off that ramp. But the windows, however, I've heard before, and I understand. Black Rose is the same thing. There's a hole in a play field. And I understand where you're coming from. it just to me it seemed like why not use that space okay that was my thought and you know the window in Congo is the exact same window that was in Creature it's turned upside down and but it was just like it's good window we can play with this and when the game's adjusted right it plays right but that's the whole thing yes you know bad slingshots make the game stink too but yeah I understand no I I just always wanted to maximize my utilization of space. Okay, that's a fair argument, I guess. It always bugs me a bit, but that's all right. I still think that it's one of those ball is wild moments when it does happen. Yeah, I didn't like it either, because when Mike James did that, I went in and jumped at the window right away. I understand where you're coming from. Thanks, John. Sure. Hey, take care. Hey, that was an interesting... Yeah, but he's right. I've heard that, and I agree with it. but that's the way I design. Right. That's what makes things different. Yeah, no, it sure does. It sure does. So how long did you stay at Ice for? A couple years. Okay. Yeah. And did it just get to the point where it just wasn't fun? No. It wasn't my cup of tea. I found very little creative freedom. I was more or less relegated to the role of redesigning other people's games. Right. Getting them ready for production. which is okay, but that's not what I was brought out there to do. Anything would have been a disappointment, I think. When did the Vacation America thing come up? That was prior to that. It was prior to ICE? Yeah, that was prior to my going to Iowa. Okay. I'm just trying to get an idea of... Yeah, that was just before I left the state, went to Iowa for about a year or two, and then I went up and I had the opportunity to go to New York. I went to Buffalo for a few years. I was there for about three years. And so, have you talked to Sterling all about doing games? No. No? No. Are you interested in doing games? I don't think so. I'm starting a pinball company, you sure? Possibly. I'll hire you. Possibly. I had an opportunity to work with Gary many, many, many years ago when Data East was first forming their company. And they were seducing me. They put him over to their side. But this was when you were... I was with Premier. You were with Premier. Yeah. You interviewed with them. Well, more of a seduction than an interview. They wanted me to be there. And I finally just told them, no, I have an agreement. I have a valid contract. I'm not going to get out of it that way. And I stayed with Premier. Was there any particular reason why Data East wasn't that attractive? Well, it was starting another company all over again. Oh, so you mean this was where the Data East inception at 1987 is? Yeah, before they existed. Right, before the laser wars. Oh, yeah. Right. Okay, so this was probably even earlier than that, 85, 86, somewhere in there. Yeah. Because that was Gary and Chemical were the... Well, after I, Joe came in after I didn't get involved. Oh, okay. Okay, so you didn't have to deal with Joe. No. Other than the fact that he worked at Grebeer for a very short period of time, though. Oh, that's right, he did. Actually, he worked pretty much everywhere. Did you work with him? I worked by him. Joe is a hard worker. Right, right. I've never thought that I'll know anything about him. It's hard to believe a little bit to be desired, I think. Yeah, I'm just the spreader of vicious rumors. That's my job. And I start some pretty wild ones, too, you know. I'm a troublemaker. I am. But it's all in fun. Well, John, we're going on almost two hours here. I'm probably going to wind this down a little bit. Is there anything that we left out that you want? Just the last effort that Jim hooked me up with was Fox Sports. Oh, I completely forgot about that. You did the Major League Baseball. That's the only thing we didn't let down. Tell us about that. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. No, that's okay. That just completed it. Right. That worked out to be a wonderful thing. Well, I was in Buffalo and no longer with ICE. I was working at a little medical supply house, helping them with their testing gear. But this came along, and Jim says, are you interested? I said, hell yeah. So Shellberg set you up with this? Yes. Oh, my God. I can't believe the stinky foot guy did this. So I talked with the guys at Fox, and then they set me up with their studio out in California. It's called Blind, B-L-I-N-D. Wait, wait, wait. Why is it called Blind? That's the name of their company. And no apparent reason? Mm-mm. This is California. That's the reason enough, isn't it? I love California. Don't get me wrong. I'd live there if I could. But it's just an unusual, all lowercase, blind. I believe the fellow's name was Chris Doe, who was the lead on this idea. And we've talked many times. And I sent the sketch back and forth via email and got their feedback, what they wanted in the game, and they wanted a two-level game, and they wanted it to look like a baseball, and they wanted wire ramps and vacuum ramps and this and that. And so what I ended up with is a game that I really would like to produce. You did a game for a TV commercial, sponsored the Major League Baseball game in Detroit. Yeah, the All-Star game. The All-Star game, right. And basically you designed a killer game that was animated for commercial, and that's as far as it got. Yes, right. I still have the original. White wood. You made a white wood. No, not a white wood. I work in a 3D solid zone in software. Right. And I have all this. Yes. I have all this. This can be created. All the drawing, all the files for the ramps and the play field and everything, it could really be created. and also with the game that I had from Ice. I was working in SolidWorks, and that Caddyshack could be creative. You see, this plays right into my pinball company that I'm starting. Okay. And those designs aren't over. All right. All right. And so you had a lot of fun doing this? Oh, that was like manna from heaven. You know, I would have done that thing for free. And they paid you? They paid me. And how long did it take to do this whole thing? I turned that game out in two weeks. Oh, I knew it. I worked a lot of hours. There were no weekends. I worked, I would think it was like 12 days straight. Dr. Flatt. Long days. Oh, my gosh. Two weeks. Yeah. I hope they paid you for more than two weeks. They paid me well. They did? Yes, and I was happy with it. And I got a DVD of the commercial out of it. It's awful. Right. Right. That seems kind of like a... That's kind of a nice thing on the resume, though, I'll tell you. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, great thing. Well, cool. Is there anything else that I managed to screw up and leave out? No. Nothing that you know about. All right. John, I really, really, really appreciate you coming on the show. This was incredible. You're quite welcome. You're quite welcome. I mean, I just, you know, you've had an unbelievable career. Yeah, yeah. I look back on it and it was, wow, from one place to another. Well, thank you again. We're talking with Johnny Doe, famous pinball designer through Game Plan, Gottlieb, Premier, Williams, Ice. You've been all over the place, man. I don't know where it goes. I'm just following the ball. Yeah, Fox Sports, man. You've got to love it. Well, thank you, John. You're quite welcome, guys. Really appreciate it. And I'll love to talk to you again. Okay, glad to do it. Okay. Okay. Take care. Bye-bye. Bye. the