Welcome everybody to the head-to-head pinball podcast this is episode 98 and i'm not sure what we're doing but we've invited a lot of people all the way over from pintastic we've got all the who's who of podcasting and maybe missing a couple but people profile people play as podcast mrs pins slam tilt riptide podcast and even someone from the super duper extra awesome pinball show funny which was literally started a year ago two days ago anyway everybody over at pintastic introduce yourselves who are you joe lamere jeff parsons pinball players podcast dr pin ron ellett slam to a podcast i'm mrs pin i'm the voice of pinball and i'm christopher franchi and i love koala bears and uh representation way back here in the back in the back row pinball princess martin you're missing a good show i know it's no brisbane masters but uh this fantastic's pretty good they know how to do it here these chowder heads so so what are we where we're i don't know what day are we there because we're we're midday saturday so what time is it there like late at night, 11 o'clock something? Yes. 11.15 on a Friday night. And so how's the show been so far? I mean, obviously, the bit I saw was Jeff Deol handing out fireball shots at the podcast seminar, so no surprise. Was it live streamed? I heard. I saw it. It was live streamed. You're going to hear the effects of that in this entire conversation. He clicked that I went to the bathroom and shamed me for it. Listen, listen. Canadians are wonderful people. We're generous, so I thought I would share some Fireball, some good Canadian whiskey. There's nothing wrong with that. Is that actually Canadian? Yeah, it is. If you've never had it, Fireball whiskey is like if they made cinnamon hearts into liquid and added alcohol, it's really, really good. Yeah, I've had it. I love it. It's freaking amazing. Do you? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Literally fire out of your mouth. It's amazing. Listen, I was at somebody's house the other day, and they love gin. I'm like, look, I've got to go to Australia. I've got to get my buddy some gin. but he's a snob. Like if I bring Bombay Sapphire, he'll throw me out of the house. So what is a great gin? So I, you like some Australian gins, don't you? I'm just going to bring you Fireball. Yeah, just bring me Fireball. I mean, sure we get it locally and it's quite a cheap gin. It's quite a cheap whiskey. Sure. All right. Hold on. I'm going to bring you Fireball and Tim Tams. Ooh. They can't get Australia either. All right, fine. You get nothing. The usual. So what have I missed? happened at Pentastic that I should be jealous of at this stage? Well, you missed the fantastic podcaster's panel that had all of us on it, which was a huge, rousing success, and not many people left the room, so that helped. I think we did all right. Yeah, we did lock the doors. Yeah. And my pants fell down in the men's bathroom. Franchi. It was unfortunate. Way too much. So you watched the stream, Martin, what did you think? I mean, there was Ron Hall from Slam Tilt, there was Mrs. Pin, and there was Jeff Parsons, and yours truly. What did you think when you saw the stream? Well, I haven't actually watched the stream yet. I've just had some people send me some clips. So, you know, it looked really good. You know, there's been I think podcast panels before, and I guess it's kind of good that you've actually had a lot of people there watching you. People are sort of taking this stuff seriously as an event to go to as part of Pintastic, right? Yeah, it was the shit, man. I took it extremely seriously. I bet you did. Well, I mean, we obviously know Jeff did. So what was one of the more difficult questions you got asked? You know, it's funny because the narrator and the person who ran it is actually in the room right now. His name is Dave Marston. There he is right there. And he was fascinated by this whole podcasting. And I think he was surprised because he thought in some of the pre-questions and even some of the questions during the panel, is there big controversies in podcasting? And I think we basically said, no, there isn't. I mean… Not recently. Well, we all genuinely really enjoy each other. And it's like, do you watch more than one TV show? Do you listen to more than one band? You know, you don't have to like one and hate everything else. It's okay to have a few favorites, and that's kind of what it was all about. So there is no controversy. We're all drinking together, so that's good. Yeah. Yep. Are you sure? Well, not everybody. That's how Jeff got everyone on his side. Damn right. He's no fool. You know why I brought the fireball? Because Mrs. Pin was going to come out with all this swag. I'm like, I'm going to show her. I'm going to get everybody drunk. I thought she was going to come out with earrings and T-shirts and stuff. I have them. I legitimately was going to bring one of those T-shirt shooter gun things. But then I realized that people would be like three feet in front of me, and I might take off their head. This isn't like an arena for hockey. I was legit looking them up on Amazon. She came in on a Zamboni. That's right. Next year. I know. Things to aspire to. Save that for when you're here, Martin. Maybe a high lie rack next year. Yes. Mrs. Penn, I've got a question for you. What? initially to you but then also to joe who's the the new co-host we all know from head to head so we we've spoken for some time about you know the start of mrs pin and and how long are you into it now has it been five years yet two years 18 months i don't know it's been a long time it's been like i don't know a year and a half maybe almost so i i just remember early days you were sort of like your mind was being blown that you were like hang on i'm all of a sudden I'm part of this. How does it feel now when you're now on a panel versus the pulled pork sandwich incident of years ago? Oh, what is that? Oh, it's a story for another night, buddy. Tomorrow night. Wink, wink. Oh my. No. I don't know. I still didn't really feel like I necessarily... I was up here in my mind for the comedic relief to you know, lighten things up if it got too serious, to keep Shmef Shmiolis in line if he got out of hand, you know, cut him off. I don't know. It was pretty awesome, though. How dare you, woman. Well, so then to Joe, you're now part of that as well. So how does that from the other side to this side now? It's great. I mean, I feel like I've... Yeah, you've got to get close to that mic. He's new. Podcasting 101, talking on the mic. Joe's leaning back. He's like, hey, bro. Step back there. No, no, you've got to get on the mic there, kid. All right, come on, get in there. Answer the question. You noob. Answer the question, Joe. How do you feel now that you're part of the game? Beating down. Well, what Martin is saying is you were listening to several going on. I know Head to Head has always been your favorite and stuff. Now you're part of it. How do you feel to be on the other side? I know one of the questions, Martin, that was asked was saying things that may or may not be controversial. And you, last week, were talking about Willy Wonka and how much you love that theme. But you were critical about it doesn't have this. It doesn't have the imagination song. It doesn't have this. and people now think wrongly that you don't like Jersey Jack and that's not the case. Yeah, it's fun to be on the other side. I feel that certainly there's some scary parts of it because if you're just being honest and just talking and it's worrying that you're going to say the wrong thing and oh my god you guys are insufferable. We're pointing the microphone right at him because he's still not doing it right. Keep going You're doing great Marty he's going to have to be let go Applications are now open Who of the podcasters there Hasn't had somebody write in Telling them that they're wrong No one Oh my god it happens every week actually Joe has done it to me to be fair that was on Facebook so that was different no you know what I mean and we talked about that too you can't Christopher and I were just having a good conversation you know he's easily to me the best artist that we have in pinball and you can get 99 people loving what you do and one person can say I really don't like that for A, B, and C reasons and you kind of gravitate to that and you don't want to because you've got to realize you're doing some good work. And I know, Martin, you're the same way, and I think others too. You just brush it off. You listen. You listen, and sometimes people are right. But you can't please everyone all of the time. It's impossible to do. Yeah, I think, again, it's one of those things where, yes, everybody's really passionate about pinball. And as a podcaster, you have to talk about topics to make them interesting. And this is, you know, you obviously talked about the fact that somebody has said Joe now hates Josie Jack. Well, the week before, somebody posted that Joe hated Stern. So it's really hard. Who's next? Joe, why do you hate? He hates Home Pin. No. So, you know. Why did you get this hating host? My goodness. Did you get a nice Canadian on or something? There's no such thing. Well, that was kind of actually the appeal of getting Joe on was the fact that he had messaged me for a long time, you know, just ramming his freaking opinion down my throat. That's Joe. Sounds hot. It was. It was, obviously. But then, obviously, having him on, it was the same thing. It was like, hang on, he's somebody that's just got an opinion, doesn't care. That's kind of appealing. That makes good podcast content. Martin and I talked about that, too. You don't want somebody sitting on a fence, especially in a show like Head to Head. You know, if you're okay and you've got big shoulders and you can take the lumps, offer an opinion, and give your reasons why you feel this way. And people may agree or disagree. Probably most people will agree, but that's okay. It's certainly better than wafting back and forth, and Joe certainly does that. He doesn't do that. No, no, you don't. I'm not saying you draw your line in the sand. You just put it out there. Yeah. You do. I think that's good. 100%. You're in the class, Joe. Mm-hmm. Thank you. It is a fine line between having responsibility and not giving a shit, right? Exactly. I'm the responsibility, you're the not give a shit. That's only after your opinions on Wonka. So do you, go around the table there, do you still see yourselves as hobbyists when it comes to podcasting, or do you see yourselves as like official media? Starting with me, huh? Yeah. Nice and loud. Okay. Hobbyist. As evidenced by irregularity of recording and increased irregularity of editing. Hobbyist. Ron Howlett. A journalistic hobbyist. What does that mean? Exactly. Bruce isn't here. Since Bruce isn't here, I have to do the Bruce isn't. Oh. Well, that makes no sense. Exactly. He tried. Staying on brand. Mrs. Pym. I'm a journalistic hobbyist, too. Oh, no fair. Definitely pinball is a hobby, for sure. I do this because I enjoy doing it. I don't do it for anybody else. I hope other people enjoy it, but if they don't, I'll stop doing it. If that hasn't happened yet, knock on wood. Christopher Francis. I just dabble a bit, but I'd like to answer for Jeff Patterson, if I heard. Which one? Parsons, Jeff Rivera, Parsons, Teolas. I'm Parsons, yes. For Jeff Parsons, he would like to consider himself a podcastinator because he likes to put it off and just do it every three months or so. I get to it when I can. I got a life. That was like a dad joke. That was a total dad joke. Like bad? Like lousy? Stale? Yeah, a little bit. Sorry about that. And this is why I don't podcast. Well, okay. So let's just hone in a little bit, if we can, Christopher Franchi. Because obviously it's a situation that you've been in as well as us in that you're just a guy that speaks his mind. You've got your own Facebook page. You can say what the fuck you like. But all of a sudden, people start drawing you into something bigger. and you can't help but be put into that and then it puts you in this compromising position, how does that make you feel having to sort of have some sort of responsibility? And that's kind of why I was asking about the whole do you feel like you're media or journalist because there seems to be some sort of responsibility that comes with being a journalist. How did that feel for you going through that? Well, I do a different brand. What I've done is not really a podcast. It's more of a segment sort of a thing. What it's really kind of brought me to at the point where I'm at right now is that because I'm in the industry, it's something that I can't do. It's come to the – how do I say this? With words. It's become obvious to me that because I'm in the industry, it doesn't work to be a podcaster and to put yourself out there like that. It's just something I can't do. Because you're too inside? Not because I'm too inside. Certainly Stern isn't always happy, you know, hasn't always been happy with the fact that I've tried to be the liaison between, you know, when I first came into pinball, I always thought, like, why is it like the pinball makers and the pinball buyers? and there's like this wall in the middle. So I'm going to bridge the gap. I'm going to be that guy that sort of like shows people what it's like on the inside and all of that. But that coupled with being a very opinionated person has just put me in a position where it's just not conducive to a career to still do that. You know, Stern has never said anything to me, but I know it makes him unhappy. but it's just when you put yourself out there, you become a target. And I've been talking about how sometimes I feel like one of those little tin ducks in a shooting gallery, just waiting for people to take pot shots. And I just decided recently that it's best for me to just kind of lay low and do my work, let the podcasters do their thing. and unfortunately I can't be that bridge between the two because it creates a bad situation. Yeah, and understand, Jeff Teolas and I have had many conversations about having to take the high road effectively. So even though the more popular head-to-head became, the more we got attacked behind the scenes and publicly as well. And it is quite a challenge sometimes when all you want to do is fucking scream at somebody and say you're wrong, where in actual fact what you've got to say is, yep, I value your opinion, thank you very much, we're all in this and we all love each other. That's quite a challenge to do, particularly when you are opinionated, which we all are. But you know what happens, Martin, and you and I have talked about this, is I find, especially if it's posted on social media, other people kind of come to your defense just to let other people fight your battles. And you know what, if somebody feels a certain way and you're like, wait a second, that's way off base. It's very difficult to change them from their opinion. So you just let it be and, you know, listen to what they have to say. Listening is key, right? And I think that's all they want to do is be heard. And, you know, you go about your ways and they may choose to never listen again. But getting notified that you're hearing them is the first thing, too. It's the most important thing. and they just kind of want a conversation back and forth. And then maybe they come back, maybe they don't, but you've done all you can do at that point. Yeah, fair enough. And those people that have got co-hosts, which is really, you know, slam-tilled at the moment. And, you know, Ron, it's been interesting for you because you and... His name's Bruce. Yes, Bruce. You and Bruce are obviously quite difficult. Not difficult. You are quite different, but probably difficult as well. and you have to balance those two different personalities and two different opinions. And I've had that obviously when Ryan was on the show and now with Joe. How do you sort of manage that when you've got to be the voice for somebody else as well? Well, I'm right, Bruce is wrong. That's usually the way it is. Oh my. The thing is we really agree on most things. I can't think of too many things we totally disagree on. I mean, I know he hates Gottliebs for some reason. He's a very closed mind on that. And TNA, what the hell's wrong with that? He hates total clear evaluation. I don't understand that either. He just has some weird game opinions. But, I mean, I've known Bruce for, man, 12, 13 years. so I mean I know like you and Ryan didn't really know each other before the show I mean yeah me and Bruce have known each other forever so it's always a very easy relationship on our show unlike you and Joel O'Meara who go back how many years now? two months wow one meeting at Pinberg we met at Pinberg yeah this strange man came up to me and started talking to me and that was what happens right? I met him too. Go figure. So, Christopher Franchi, back to you. You are still working on Pinball. Is that correct? That is correct. What are you working on? Yeah. My next game is Sex Slaves from Outer Space. I'm sure everyone will enjoy it. I'm sure there's an octopus in it, you pig. I still work for Stern. I'm sort of on a small hiatus right now but I will be you know working on new projects in the coming months but I just enjoying a little break right now but still working in pinball Did you get your replacement Beatles I did not I waiting for my daughter to remove my 89 Batman Data East out of my condo so that I have space for it. So I've yet to buy it because I don't want a big box sitting in the middle of my living room. And Presley's here right now giving a death glare to her dad right now. It's a dagger. Mr. Dan, how do I get that home? I want it. Wow. Fight in the Franchi house. We'll get there. We'll get there. Question for the panel. What do you think of the release of Machines this year? The titles that have come out. Well, Joe hates them all. Correct. There goes my opinion. The title, I mean, the themes are all great. I'm just still wondering as a lot of them come out and they're not quite done. I watched my son who could get on Willy Wonka, and I couldn't play a little bit. I don't see really anything happening here, but it looks like a great theme. I just don't, you know. It's the problem that I think pinball has, whether it's a problem or not, but games are coming out and they're great themes, but yet is the game there to back it up yet? I'm not sure. Joe Lemaire. I think that, like, I really like Black Knight so far, and did Cooper technically come out this year? Last year. I think that was technically last year. Okay, so then I guess Black Knight is my... Somebody get this guy a calendar, please. Turn fanboy right here. Oh my lord. Probably still hasn't come out in Australia, but we'll let's count it this year for us. Oh, so that counts then. You're not Australian, Joe. I am one day a week. Dr. Pin. All pinball is good pinball. I like Willy Wonka, obviously, a lot. I bought one. We'll see how the code turns out. But so far, I love the shots. I love the layout. Black Knight is also a lot of fun. Tough to stay alive very long in that game. But outside of that, it's a fun theme. So you bought Willy Wonka unseen? I played it once. Okay. No, no, no, no, no, no. No? Listen, we put the deposit down. We haven't necessarily put the... That's true. Okay, that's true. We haven't effectively bought it yet. Shit in the she-shed. Tell me what's happening here. What's going on? I think it's going to be a great game. The code needs to be flushed out a little bit. A little bit. Okay. Stephanie. Yeah? Stephanie, what do you think? Games that have come out this year. I'm pretty partial to Sword of Rage. Okay. Well, because you're a big Tim Sexman fan. Is that why? Are you biased because of that? I'm biased because of having a kid from my hometown basically voting on it, yeah. But past that, it is a good game. Okay. It's brutal, but it's fun. I do find myself wanting to play it, even when I get my ass kicked by it. So Stephanie likes her ass kicked. Ron? I play Willy Wonka in Sword of Raid. Well, actually, I need to play more Sword of Raid. I played Willy Wonka not in the greatest of conditions so far. Where was that? I really like it to play it. i.e. out on a show with weak flippers, etc., etc., I'd like to play it if... I'll come over to Dr. Pint's house, and I'll play it when he gets it, so I can make a good opinion. And the software is only like, what, 40-50% done, so it's hard to make an opinion on that. I mean, Sword of Rage, I've only played the pro, and I've only played it like twice. Well, they announced it was at 1.4. So I need to play games more, is what I'm saying. I mean, are those the only two games that we're talking about right now? Monsters, hello. Was that technically last year? No, it was in January. I'm with Joe on the calendar page. Jeez, my goodness. I think Monsters is really fun. I wouldn't necessarily want to own it, but if it's in an arcade, I completely play it. It's a fun game. Great art. Yep. Great art. The art is amazing. Suck ups. Wow. I think Black Knight is fun. I like the little, what's that thingy? Flail. It's called a flail. I like the flail, and I love the feather. I think the plume is amazing. Flail and feathers. It just vibrates and wiggles so nicely. It's really amazing. And Willy Wonka, I don't know. I tried to be very diplomatic about my feelings of Willie. I feel like the reveal... Listen, you guys have to get your minds out of the gutter. You've got to stop saying Willie. I mean, what would you like me to call it? Wonka? Yeah, for sure. All right, well, that does make sense. God damn it. do you know how many hours past my bedtime it is right now? Like five. Anyways. Um, yeah, I think Wonka is, I am, I'm holding out hope for Wonka. I'm holding out hope, especially since you own it. Not quite yet, but, um, yeah, yeah, me too. October 1st. Is that this year? Yeah. Last year. You know, I can't follow up. Mrs. pin talking about... I can't follow you talking about things that vibrate and willies. I'm going to pass it to Franch. Sorry, I'm speechless. Well, I've got to go with the 2018... Sorry, 2019 Twippy Award winning for art, Monsters. Oh! Well, okay. For your consideration. Mr. Franchi, you and I had dinner last night and I said, what's your favorite child? In the sense of, you've got four games out, you've got Batman, you've got Beatles, you've got Guardians, and you've got Munsters. Rank them, one through four, your favorite part. Because I gave you mine, and we both agreed Batman was number one, because really it puts you on the map. And to me, Munsters was number two, then Guardians and Beatles. Not that I dislike Beatles, just if I had to rank them, that was it. And you were close to that. Yeah, I can't remember exactly. It was Batman and then Munsters second? No, you said Beatles second. You're right, right, right. Yeah, Beatles, because that was a long, tough road to hoe. You went Beatles, Guardians, then Munsters. And to me, Munsters, the art just pops. It's so well done. Did I put Munsters last? You did. I can't believe it. I've got to change that. Oh. Munsters third, Guardians fourth. Okay. Anyway. So, anyway, Munsters, a great shooting game. I enjoy Black Knight a lot. It's very fast, very punishing. I like hearing that operators like it. Willy Wonka, I think, is going to be fun, and the code will get better. So those are the three games. Next question, Mr. Martin. So then let's go to Munsters then, because everyone knows I've got one. And I love it, and I love it in my collection, because it is a short, sharp game amongst some long players. Like, it's got Lord of the Rings on one side, Wizard of Oz on the other side. But what do you think, because it actually has been quite controversial as far as the rules go, what do you think they could do and should they do something to improve the code or do you think it's it is what it is and let's just deal with it um i think it's fine by itself i mean i've been able to spend a decent amount of time on the game and um it's it still takes me a while to get to get a hold of it and i've still only gotten to the monster madness a couple times let alone the second level or any of that other stuff that people say the game's so shallow. I've never seen it. I really enjoy the game. I think that it's a little unfounded what people are saying about the game, honestly. I find that I would like to see, and I'm a big Dwight Sullivan fan. He's a great guy. I really enjoy him. But I would like to see that you can't carry over the six times play field to ball three. So the way everyone plays it is just wait until the end, cancel your jackpots until you've got six times at the end and you've got a bunch sitting there on the shot. I don't like that. I think there needs to be more risk reward in the sense that you lose it after a ball, it's gone. I always die before that happens. I don't even know what you're talking about. Well, yeah, I guess it's one of those things where some of the magic, and I'll probably use Iron Maiden as probably a good comparison and yeah, sure I sold it, but I still enjoy it but what I like about it is that everything is sort of laid out and you've got different ways to be able to navigate through the game. I think probably the challenge with monsters is you've got two bottlenecks I will put it out there. One is everything's leading you to the super jackpot and then everything's leading you to monster madness it's sort of in a way taking away that feeling of freedom and then it just becomes the same strategy over and over. Do you agree with that? Yeah, I mean, I guess I can see that, but there's so many speed bumps on that journey that I never find myself getting stuck within that cycle, I guess. Because the times I've played it, it's still really difficult to do everything you want to do, and certainly hitting the super jackpot shot on purpose is not that easy. I like the way it shoots. Yeah, I like the way it shoots too. I mean, as far as the rules, I don't really understand what I'm doing, but it shoots good. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. And I think that's probably what people are sort of saying is that because the layout, and it's one of those things where, you know, we see pictures of these new games and everyone's like, oh, you know, it looks like Metallica or it looks like whatever it is. But then obviously you shoot in this differently. And I think that this for John Borg is, for me, the best layout that he's done. The shots just feel super smooth. But that's probably what's holding it back from being a masterpiece. I don't think any of us own it. I do. You do? I got it. L.E., bitches. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, I don't know. Aside from Franchi, I think owning it gives you a different perspective because you just have the chance to play it to death. No, putting the art on it gives you a different perspective because you love it even if it sucks. But it doesn't suck. That's the whole thing. Well, no, no. But you know what? It's ideal. The game's ideal for me because I'm not this, like, code freak. I don't care. I just like to have fun playing pinball, and it's fun for me. I like the shots. It is. It's super fun. I even like the, you know, holding back on the jackpots because you don't know what you're going to get. You might lose your ball and lose it all. You know, you don't know what's going to happen. So it's perfect for me because it's not too deep. I like the fact that it's simple but there's still things to do and it's a fun game to shoot and it looks fantastic it's the first game in a while I've been able to explain very very quickly how to play the game which is nice in its simplicity you know and I've asked a few operators a few here at Pentastic how is it doing on location and they've all said it's done very well and I didn't know if the theme would turn people away because it's now 50 plus years old It's 55 years old since it came out in 64. But I was even asking Daniel Spoler of Project Pinball, is that a good game as far as maybe putting it in a hospital? He said, absolutely. The kids really like it. So I think it's nice to finally have a very simple game because a lot of the games that have come out are a little deeper, and they make them so that when you own them as a homeowner or a collector, you don't want to be tired of it. So I think this is a game they really made, probably for operators, which is surprising considering the theme. And I've got Franchi sitting beside me. The guy did all that art for Superman, and they chose monsters over Superman? Can you imagine the same play field with Superman? Tell me what people are going to gravitate to. Monsters. Bullshit. Listen, I like monsters. Don't get me wrong. But I'm telling you, man, that Superman would have been a home run. Yeah, I agree. I think that's a missed opportunity with that one. It is a missed opportunity. I'm staying with that one. I got enough heat for that the first time. Well, okay. What would you rather see, Superman or Monsters? Absolutely Superman. Joe Lemaire? I like Monsters better. You're an idiot. Christian? Superman 100%. Okay. All right, wait. Joe, Monsters or... Theme-wise? I'd still go Monsters. I grew up with Monsters, so... You didn't grow up with Superman? I didn't really like the Reeves Superman. You didn't like the ring Superman? I don't like Superman as a character. Oh, man. You don't like him as a character. Might as well be 75. It's like 12 Spider-Man stuff. It's not for Batman. Would you rather see Superman or monsters? I'm honestly ambivalent. Neither theme does it for me. Okay. Okay, how about you, Ron? It just doesn't do it for me either. Ron? Greatest American hero. Believe it or not. Exactly. Just think of the song. that plane number one hell yeah yeah yeah okay so then leading on from that because mrs pin you can answer that question and then because i know this has been a topic that you've talked about on your podcast and steph i'm sure that this is also close to you as well what are the things that would attract more females to the hobby oh my gosh there you go wonder woman you know i think Wonder Woman is a really big missed opportunity. I'm not. Agreed. I just feel like there are so many superhero pins. So many. I mean, to the point where, like, Munsters versus Superman, I would personally pick Munsters, because I feel like, even though my husband is telling me that there has only been one Superman pin, I feel like there might as well have been 12. I don't know. I feel like there are so many superhero pins, and that doesn't mean I don't like superheroes, but aside from Wonder Woman, I feel like Monsters was something new. It was a unique theme that I think is... I like that about it. Other than Wonder Woman, I don't know. You know how I feel about the Goonies. I just feel like that would be so amazing. Shut it! I feel like... Veronica Mars. Veronica Mars would be amazing. That's such a great... I feel like more female power. What the hell? Captain Marvel. This is like Pinside PD asking for a Wang Chung game. What are you talking about? It's a chronic virus, for God's sake. But does it have to be a female led theme for it to be appealing to women? No, absolutely not. And honestly, I think that one theme that's good for women is pigeonholing all women into one thing. So it's almost a catch-22 even trying to answer the question because, I mean, women come and, you know, everyone has different interests and personalities. We're talking about just different demographics, the same as we're talking, you know, making games for white males. It's, you know, white males aren't just, well, these three things appeal to us. That would be an unfair misrepresentation. similarly saying that all females would like this one theme is absolute crap. We can't keep pigeon-hawing people. We have to find good for you stuff. There's some way to go about demographics but to say it is cheap. You're right, Steph. I would say something like Wonka is probably a title that bridges both, right? Because it does appeal to both. Sure. I agree. By the way, Is there not a theme out there, and I'm not trying to get you going, Martin, but really, is there not one theme that's like, here's my money? If they came out with Harry Potter, you don't even need to see the game. It's just here you go. That would be a blockbuster just from what it's alone. Honest to God, Martin, if you knew it was coming, you would call. It could be the worst. Highway could come back and make Harry Potter, and you'd be like, here's my money. Correct? Without a doubt. and it could be the shittiest game ever made. A reskin of Thunderbirds. Yeah, a reskin of Thunderbirds. They have a Thunderbirds here at Pintastic. I took several pictures. It's in a Royal Banks, and there are like ten people playing, except for one game. I'll send you the picture. You can put it in the show notes, Martin. Not freaking that. Yes. I feel like, but I do feel like that in general you could go towards more, I mean, maybe it's because Dr. Penn and I have kids, but, you know, some more of the youthful themes instead of going with the, you know, new, like, adult movies. I'm not talking, like, porn. Don't. She always has given me a lot. Fifty Shades of Grey. Here we are. She's giving me a lot, Marty. Red Room of Pain multiball. All right. There we go. Mrs. Payne. In that respect, then Beetlejuice would have actually made sense, because that is a more modern title, is it not? I mean, yeah. Coonies in the same vein. They're about the same age, right? How about it? I don't know if I'd call that modern, but more family-friendly is something. Retro to someone my age or your age. Well, in that case, when you said Wonder Woman, would you prefer a Gal Gadot Wonder Woman or Linda Carter Wonder Woman? Yes. Linda Carter. Or a cartoon one. I'm taking any. Honestly, pro P&L-E. Yeah, why not do a different Wonder Woman on each model? Yeah, there you go. Do all three. I would be there. If it's Wonder Woman, that is that would be, for me, totally awesome. They did a Wonder Woman slot machine that was very successful. I don't see why not. Yeah, wasn't Wonder Woman scrapped out of Easter? No, not out of Easter. Sega, Atari, Ron, help. wasn't there a prototype? it might have been an Atari Atari Wonder Woman yeah I'd lean towards Linda Carter myself that would hit both demographics that would hit the nostalgia that a lot of people feel but it would also be freaking Wonder Woman and I would draw it and be happy that would be awesome alright let's move on to a slightly different topic but we're still sort of talking about the future of pinball here. What's the vibe, if any, at Pintastic about Deep Root? I haven't heard a word. Steve is here, Steve's competing, and that's about as far as Deep Root has penetrated. Oh, God. That wasn't even intentional. The oh, God that came out right after it. You should see Ron right now. He's mad. Alright there the episode title Thank you I appreciate it Oh my Debrute has penetrated Debrute has penetrated Fantastic Wow. The only plus I'm hearing is that the voice work on Raza is spectacular. That's all people are telling me. That's all I've heard. So good. Okay, well, that's probably interesting then, because obviously we saw that animation with its low-rent voiceover. but Marty don't worry that's just temp Bravo well done I guess what we saw from the clip of that which I sort of said reminded me a bit like you know Ratchet and Clank type you know Playstation games that's a pretty broad appealing theme from what I saw as well that's not your typical macho guy stuff right? Joe it's your call you gotta respond I've never played that game, but yeah, I mean, it seems just aliens, zombies, it seems like that checks a lot of boxes, but I mean, you don't really know until you see the whole package. I guess what I'm asking is really, there's a lot of pressure on Deep Root, not just because they've been delayed, but we are still sort of wanting something to really, I guess, shake up the industry somewhat. just because we are getting great titles that are coming out. We just talked about them, but are we getting more of the same? I mean, there's only so much in pinball that you can do that's really... Hasn't been done. Yeah, I mean, you can look at every game and go, that's Funhaus, and that with a scoop, and that's this with this, and that's a thing. I mean, serious innovation was Gottlieb, and... Yeah, see how that turned out. Exactly. It's like the Cambrian explosion of pinball machines. I've said that probably like ten times. It's funny, Bowen did a tutorial on Alice Cooper, and he said that Charlie thought he had invented that ball save where it catches the magnet and throws up in the middle until someone said, yes, Sega did that. And he's like, what, really? So, I mean, everything you can possibly think of. Doesn't Shadow do that? Yeah, well, it grabs it up for the lock and puts it in. You're talking about GoldenEye. Yeah. Oh, I see. GoldenEye and Sega does the same thing. And Charlie was like, I had no idea. Yeah, I mean, it's so easy to do something that you didn't even realize has been done before. Yeah, yeah, that hasn't changed. I mean, a lot of new stuff will come out like, well, that's innovative. Well, that was in this wood rail from 1952. So, I mean, Deep Root's been saying, almost insinuating Mr. President, that these games are going to be like solo maintenance. It's going to be, you know, basically saying the other manufacturers' games break down, kind of insinuating it's going to be like just super maintenance-free. and all that. I just said it and forget it, pinball. So we'll see about that. Well, if there's no flippers, it'll be easy. No, I'm just kidding. Hey, you know what? In this showroom, and we've been talking to a lot of people here, like Steve Ritchie's here, Eric Menear's here, and who else is here? Balser's here, Joe Balcer, who's got Oktoberfest here. And it's funny you're talking about Balser because we're talking about, I said to him, hey, what's your favorite game? And it's kind of tough to pick your favorite kid, but he did kind of allude to when Woz came out, you know, that really changed the game. And absolutely. And I said to him, I said, you know, in the last few years, and that game's now six years old, I said, you know, you can play Wonka and it reminds you of something else. You can play Black Knight and it reminds you of something else. But Pirates of the Caribbean, new one by J.J.P. And Joe and I were playing, Joe Lemire and I were playing several times last night. it didn't remind me of anything else. And it's deep, and it's fun. How many games in a row do we play? It's a great game. Yeah, it's a great game. But it's unique. So it's hard to do new things in pinball? They did do things in pinball in Pirates, I think. Yeah, but they're all subtle little changes to do a big innovation. But the characters and the different modes and stuff, I mean... Yeah, but that's just like Game of Thrones. Characters are done now. I don't know. It must be like, what, 30 of them or something? We had somebody in the chief seats, Ron Howell, senior in the back, firing off a shot here about pirates. Those guys in the Muppets in the back. Old orphans. Anyway. No, I mean, has there been something that's kind of... Martin talks about this a lot on Head to Head. You know, we don't want a revolution more than we want an evolution. Is that what you've said once before, Martin? Yeah, I think if you go for a revolution, it's a riskier move. So if you get it wrong, you end up with an Orbiter One. So it's really what do people actually really want? And again, it was one of the things I said to, you know, dropping a name, Gary Stern, when we interviewed him was, you know, do you look around or do you just have to just keep trying to innovate and push forward, you know, internally? or do you take other people's views and try and work out what the future is? Because people try innovation, and that's when we talked about P3. It's innovative, it's fun to play, but it really hasn't caught on. Yeah, and the radically different playfields are rarely ever successful. You look at the turds that you just mentioned, a lot of Gottliebs, look at Golden Wing and Transporter and all these other games. It's just Valley. Yeah, it's a Valley. It's Valley. But all these games that are super unique but are universally thought as crap games. Although I think Transporter is a great game, but all the really unique games are... Don't get Ron started. You mean unique more like Rocky or any of the Atari ones with the bizarre flippers? There's one here at Pintas with the flippers offset. Oh, Totem? Totem, yeah. Any messing with the flippers at the bottom seems to cause issues, usually. Probably the last sort of innovative thing like that was Wheel of Fortune, right? And again, people sort of really did embrace that because they couldn't get used to that new way of being able to manage the flippers down there. Why wouldn't they do that again? That's so simple to do. I want to see double flippers. I want to see like a big one because it sold nothing. It bombed horribly. Well, it did, but I mean that was probably more theme related than the game. Don't you think? Man, it's such an argument. But we're talking about the actual bottom of the flippers as opposed to... No, no. So you're saying like if that was... Let me pick another game. So that was Iron Maiden's bottom. Like that would have been totally accepted. Like, oh, this is great. Which Iron Maiden probably wouldn't have bombed like it did. But that was also another era where all those games bombed kind of. Yeah. But when you mess with that stuff, people just don't seem to like it. I don't know. Yeah, I mean, I like to see a double flipper set up. Like vertically or? Well, like next to each other down, like big game. Oh, big game? Like big game set up. But don't you love that, thank God, you know, Willy Wonka, they've dropped the price. Now you've got four flippers on that. Thank goodness that Keith Elwin on the pro for Iron Maiden gave us four flippers. I'm glad they're doing that. Yeah, but I'd like to see the double flipper down at the bottom. The interesting thing, you know, Martin, your Gary Stern interview, I've heard a few people this weekend talk about how great that interview was, and it was, because you know what you did? You got Gary to say more than what he says at every interview where he talks about, if you get him for 15 minutes, he talks about, we do three models and three different, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, the same marketing piece. You actually got him to talk a little bit about the business, and it was interesting. The one thing that really blew me away was him talking about the pros being underpriced. And he's kind of right, actually. I mean, Pinside didn't like to hear that, but they don't make a lot of money on those pros for what they put into it. Well, again, I sort of asked about that, and we'd mentioned on the week before. It is a company, so they actually are, they should be allowed to make as much profit as possible. That's really what it is. But as pinball people, we just want machines to not go up in price or for them to be $2,000 less than what they are at the moment. But yeah, look, I was quite surprised to hear that, that he was saying that the pros are underpriced. But I think really it's the premiums are probably where they're getting their most bang for buck. Yeah, and even then when they strip out everything and the price goes down, they complain about that. Like you look back at Iron Man and Avatar, those were much cheaper games or Buck Hunter, but they were much simpler games and people weren't happy with that either. So it's like there's a balance there. You're never going to please everybody. What did Bruce say? The Bruce. You can't please everyone all the time. So don't even try. I don't know. The Bruce-ism. Yeah. No one's always going to. See, I can't even say it now. I got stuck in it. It's midnight here. Yeah. It's late. It's midnight. It's alcohol. The last full-featured game Stern did at the old Stern price was 24. Yeah. Oh, wow. After that was NBA, which went mostly to China, I think. and then they had Avatar and Big Buck Hunter and Iron Man, which everyone loves Iron Man now, but when it came out, I was there when it came out. What is this crap? You should see the Costco version. What is this? This is horrible. Oh yeah, I played it. It's like an even cheaper version. Sorry, there's a Costco version? Oh yeah, they sold them at Costco. I didn't know that. There was also a Costco version of Batman. It has no magnet, right? which Batman not 66 oh really yeah it has like no toys in it clearly that plan didn't work well they had another stripped down they had a stripped down version of Iron Man yeah I played that Sanctum had that it's just like everything's just like the monger just comes up and it's just like a hittable toy you hit it it doesn't really work there's no magnets there's no magnets in front of it yeah it's like the lockdown the lockdown bar is plastic yeah it's very plastic so another thing that Gary also talked about was connectivity. Well, we sort of alluded to the fact that there might be connectivity between games, but the fact that these machines are going online, do we care? Yeah, I think so. I think there's a lot of potential of a lot of different things you can do with it. The first obvious thing is you automatically update code. I still think you'd have a problem with operators whether they actually enable that, but you could have leaderboards, you could have the game could be detect what settings are and match up games that have the same settings in them to go compare scores. I mean, there's lots that can go on there. Video games are connected online. Why not pinball? I'd love to know when they do that, what the defaults will be. As far as, will it be default update? Yes. How will operators take that? Why is my game down right now? Oh, it's updating. What? I don't want it to update at this time. Why don't you just fire it out? Yeah, I'm curious because, you know, like when they have games with swearing in it in certain games, it was actually done until fall, like non-family mode. I'm always curious when they add new features, what they will put as a default to see how the operators will react. Like if it's going out to the Internet. I can see it, you know, the other question is if it's going to go out to the Internet, how? Is it going to just like, I'm going to connect to the first open Wi-Fi spot I see. They're certainly not going to put cellular in the games. So someone's going to at least have to point it at a Wi-Fi, probably with a password or something, even get it online. And who's going to do that? There's still tons of operators. A lot of the operators are older school people. They don't even know half the stuff is in the menus or how to do updates. I mean, and this is indicative of the industry. I'm in the banking industry. and when the ATMs started to get more computerized where the techs would usually just install an ATM and plug it into a phone jack and here you have your ATM. Then they started actually running Windows operating systems on them and they had to actually set things up and configure firewalls and stuff and they had no clue how to do any of that. Okay, but do you think that's just satisfying the need that people have at the moment or do you think it's actually going to advance pinball somehow? They should advance it. I mean, I think stats alone, if you could say, like report different things on a game, audits, like, you know, like I think you said, like the ball drains here, like, all the time. Maybe we need to do something. There's a problem. Or maybe become self-aware and change it on the fly. Or become self-aware, or like this game tilts 30 times a day. People do not like this game, obviously. Or it's too sensitive. Yeah, or, you know, there's a switch that's bad or something. they can notify the operator that there's something that needs to be fixed. Hey, you should come over here. Instead of just showing up a month later and be like, I had no idea this was broken for 20 days. Or the operator can just ignore it like he normally does. Yeah, at least then he has a lesson. Dissing the operators. The first connective one should be a short circuit license. So when it becomes somewhere, it can go, number five, it is alive. so so being in i'm still going to be talking about stuff how to get pinball more popular um so we're we're obviously playing our part so well done podcasters uh how do is there really a is there room for pinball to go more mainstream and i'm talking about a visual medium like tv i know they've been trying it do you think that'll ever happen no no yes why yes when they decide to stop playing three ball games and make them timed games because it's easier to edit so you know what you've got two minutes to play this game get your best score next person two minutes to get your game or head-to-head versions um that's when it will be very successful because if you play darts if you play pool the better of the player you are, the quicker the game. If you play pinball, the better the player. You're playing for hours. I watched Bowen Kerins today on X-Files play 45 minutes, maybe. I was in queue. Got the hell out of there because I'm like, you know what? He's not even close to being done. Good on him. That's what you're supposed to do in this tournament or anybody who's great. I'm speaking of jealousy, but really, that's probably not a great broadcast to watch. How do you edit that? You do a two-minute game, I can watch that. And think about this, too. Here's another thing. The greatest ten minutes of pinball you'll ever see is what just happened at IFK 16 when Johannes Ostermeyer came back from $3 billion on Bram Stoker's Dracula to beat Daniela Chari. And that only took ten minutes to do. That was pretty darn cool. So there's a way to do it, not in the current format. I still think the hurdle you've got to get over is baseball. Everyone knows the rules to baseball. It's the same. With pinball machines, you're basically playing on the same field, but the rules are all different every single time. And I think that's going to be a difficult thing to overcome with people that are new to it. Why am I interested in this? I can see, okay, this person's got a better score than this person, but why? Even games done quick when they would try to explain, like, this goal is this. You have to do these six things and then hit this. And, like, someone's watching that, but I don't get that at all. I don't understand what they're trying to do. Yeah, maybe the head-to-head format with the goals and the very distinct goals. But even some of the goals, at least to me, were like, you know, hit these five things and then do this. And, like, well, if I had never watched pinball before. No, you've got to dumb it down. Okay. And you did that. And then they went to another set of games. Like, okay, you're going to do the same thing. like, oh, no, wait a minute, this looks different. What's this? Oh, now they want to do this. What does that mean? Well, you know what? If you're trying to capture that eSports market, get even close to anything that Fortnite or anything like that might do, you know what? Pinball, unfortunately, has to become... There's probably got to be a lot more video modes that the younger people can get behind, which pinball players probably aren't excited to hear. I know Joe Schober, who programs for Oktoberfest for American Pinball. They've got 14 different modes on that game, Oktoberfest, and he said, I'm not touching the video modes because he's a pinball player. But that would be more attractive to younger people, more attractive to explaining what to do. You know? That has a video mode. It does have a video mode. He didn't touch it. Kugler did it. So I'm just saying, you know, listen, we all have video modes. There are fun ones like fishtails, right? That's one of the best video modes of all time. I think in Star Wars, maybe, I don't know. But Getaway, I mean, we all know just to kind of stay in the middle of the lane there and kind of watch out. There's some good ones and there's some bad ones. Like Game of Thrones, that's a bad video, right? I mean, just keep going. Atari 2600, sword fight. But if you had good video modes, maybe that would be a little more attractive. Maybe to younger people, for sure. What's the highest rated thing that's happened? Probably Pinball. I would say probably the highest overall rating. How many people watch that? How many would they get up to? Maybe a thousand? I mean, I could someone like Ninja or some other Twitch streamer who's doing a Fortnite stream on just a weekday will get 50, 60k just on a regular stream. Any tournaments will get over 100k easy. What if Mrs. Penny changes herself to Mrs. Ninja? Do it. Can you do something about that? Ninja Penny. Mrs. Ninja. I love it. That was all Franchi. That was Franchi. I think that to get people more interested in pinball, more people need to know that pinball is still around because I think that that's a huge hurdle is that people just don't realize that pinball still exists. I just took my kids to see Toy Story 4, and in Toy Story 4, they actually have this whole section that is inside of a pinball machine. How cool was it? It was awesome, But this pinball machine was inside of this dusty antique store. This is kind of the image that is being portrayed about pinball, is that it's kind of like this dusty, old, nobody-does-it-anymore. So I think that in general, the perception of pinball in general has to change. So is that scene foreshadowing Jersey Jack with the Toy Story? I don't know, maybe. They're making Toy Story, everyone knows that. They're making Tiki Party. I think those rumors are always 100%. When it comes to Jersey Jack, yes, pretty much. I mean, they did have a render of the Tiki Party play field. So another name drop, you know, when we had Roger Sharp on our show, there it is. Oh, for the love of God. Who hasn't had one? Because we asked that same question, because I guess he's the godfather of pinball. He saved pinball. Yep, whatever, we've heard it. But we sort of asked, how do you get pinball to be more popular and he said it's still a grassroots movement do you agree with that i think it is yeah that's what the grass is growing taller it's good it's it's growing momentum yeah i think i think that they need to start going they need to start changing the themes they pick if they going to really get into the location pinball when it comes to getting themes that the kids and that they will actually be interested in. You mean like a Fortnite pinball? Not necessarily that, but I'm just saying, that's hugely popular right now. Huge. It's huge. The location people and the collector people, they maybe start segregating that a little. Hold on a second. All right. You know, Fortnite. How much does that cost to buy that game? Zero. You can buy downloadable content. It's a free game. The biggest problem with pinball, and the reason Ninja can have 50,000 people watching it, is because kids can have that game for free. Pinball is expensive. That's the biggest problem. It's not that the games aren't fun and the themes aren't great and the art's not fantastic. It's just the price point. It's not for everyone. But if it's in an arcade... If that was the case, you would have pinball arcade on Twitch and people would be playing. if the price was the problem. If you put a whole row of that in a Dave & Buster's somewhere and it was all the themes that people care about, the young kids were being into, it would do just as good as Redemption games and stuff like that. You could make pinball Redemption games and then they could fit in there too. But what's the problem with that? It's hard to fix the games, right? I mean, that's hopefully with what Gary Stern was talking about is that now you're going to be notified, hey, this is not working and you can fix it on the fly. But have you seen some of the games at Dave & Buster's? Do they have Dave & Buster's in Canada? I've been to a Dave & Buster's. I travel the world. I've been to a Dave & Buster's. You are so cultured. I've been to Chuck E. Cheese. I've been to Dave & Buster's. Gosh, that's amazing. Paul, you're an idiot. The sad thing is I haven't been with kids. But I think that if you put a Fortnite pinball machine in a Dave & Buster's where... Home run. Huge home run. What about Halo? There's tons of topic. Yes. That Halo game that Raw Thrills made is a huge success. It's literally huge, too. No, but I'm just saying. It can't be more complicated than the 3D motion roller coaster wind machine at Dave & Buster's that my kids are obsessed with. That cannot be more complicated than fixing a pinhole machine. Okay. You know what's funny? There's an arcade near where I live called Pinup Arcade Bar in Waterloo, Ontario. and they have probably, it's like $5 to get in, and they have 10 pins, let's say. Actually, they probably have 15. And do you know what? One of the most popular games is there, and none of us play it. Super Mario Bros. Look at that. He's never even been there. Ron's never been there, and you guessed it. Super Mario Bros. I heard the episode where he said that. Oh, I'm just saying it's the theme. People know that from the video games. So what Sarah, Mrs. Pin, is saying is Fortnite and Halo and all these video games, those are great themes. It's like Destiny or, what's the car one? Grand Theft Auto. I think that you can... What about Animate? Are you kidding me? Okay, guys, but that's going to get kids to go up to the machine and swipe their card because most of the times, the FECs that we've got, they're all sort of timed. You've got 30 minutes or an hour timed. You get the kids to the machine because you've got Fortnite or you've got Mario or whatever it is. the gameplay itself going to appeal enough? I think that's the struggle. Because it's a physical game and kids aren't used to physical games anymore. It's hitting a flipper button while standing. I mean, it's not like running a marathon. If it's designed for that purpose and it's a dumb down, I mean, if you just look at the highway concept for Angry Birds, that's more of a redemption, not your traditional Game of Thrones, but it's more of like a traditional redemption style. Which Martin shit all over too. Or P3's ship game and stuff like that. That's not as... It's just hit thing there, see it on the screen and then it's as simple as that. It's like a skee-ball but with pinball. You can make it... You can dumb it down to that point where that could succeed if it was designed for that purpose. Well, I think you have to dumb it down so people actually know where the start button is. I mean, I think we've all seen that, where swipe the card, what do I do next? You know what I mean? Or you just keep pulling the plunger. Just swipe the card, automatically start the game. Right. So that's my point is, it's all well and good to say we need to get younger people into it, but is the physical aspect of the game going to ever be as appealing as a video game? I would say not, but something's got to give, right? I think that to get younger people into it, You've got so many different things going on here. First of all, you've got to find operators that want those themes that would appeal to younger people. Right now, Stern is selling games like Aerosmith that don't appeal to younger kids because their market now is a lot more home than it is operators, I think. It is. And so if you're going to sell to those people, they don't want Pokemon. They don't want Mario Brothers. They don't want Fortnite. They want fans. They want the stuff that they grew up on. They want Goonies even. Well, Andy Rosa, who won the Stern Pro Circuit this year, and he's an operator too, he has been banging the drum for years. Stopped doing the Aerosmith, Metallica, Iron Maiden, stopped doing these classic rock bands. Now, that being said, as you said, Stern knows that their market for collectors is 40 plus. But he's saying Drake just came out with, he now has more Billboard top hits than Michael Jackson's, Or the Beatles or something like that. Or Rihanna or Lady Gaga. Why can't some of these things come out? I don't think they would work personally. I don't know that to be true. I wouldn't take the risk on something like that. Because Jeff Parsons and I are in the radio business, and we see these charts, and we see they're not flashing the pans, but they don't have the longevity of the Beatles who have a 50-year fan base or Aerosmith. That are going to die soon. That's the problem. you know like like drake call it quits tomorrow or you know who knows right i mean you never know like nikki minaj was the number one star a few years ago and then all of a sudden cardi b goes boom uh nikki's nobody and she's now you know that's that it just doesn't work like that in music today so i don't think i don't think you can do that and that would appeal to the younger people. The game. Pokemon appeals to me highly. I love that idea. I reckon Pokemon would be good. Pokemon would be huge. Yeah. Like the ball is the Pokemon. We literally had Pokemon Pinball. Pokemon Pinball is literally a game on the Game Boy. I have the cartridge at home. So does my boyfriend. He plays it all the time. I'm really jealous. Yeah, and there was even an update in Pokemon Pinball for like Generation 4 or 5. Can you imagine that in an actual bona fide machine. I just got a grand champ at one of many, of course, at an arcade, and I entered my name Red, and the kid beside me, who had to be 16, he's like, are you a Pokemon fan? I don't know, is Red a character in Pokemon? Yeah, because the original games are Red and Green, or Red and Blue in the Americas. I had to take my hat off to show that there were some shades of red somewhere in this gray mop. Yeah, no, the protagonist is usually named after the games, so, but I said the first games were red and blue or red and green, depending on which country we're talking about. And then wasn't there X and Y and all that crap? X and Y are more recent. Oh, my God, who knows? There's Leaf. Go, go, go. 101 here. I know nothing. And Pokemon Sword and Shield are just coming out soon with Wooloo. Well, we found the Pokemon. Well, here we go. Make the game. You're an expert. If they came out with the pinball, would you want it to be the original Pokemon or like all the 5 million that there are now? I would want originals desperately. Pokemon Contra. I feel like that would be a tough call. That would actually be, like, what if the pro was just like OG and then the premium was all generations, or if they had just OG. I feel like you'd want it backward. Like OG would just be, like, top of the line. Like OG LE? Yeah. Yeah, okay. I want to apologize to everybody over the age of 30 listening to Head to Head right now. That would actually be really cool if they made a Vault DMD sort of OG Pokemon game. Steph is on fire right now. This is taking a turn for the nerd. I love it. I play it every day, and I would not want them to ever touch it, but I would have them. When you post this episode, just call it Pokemon. You'll have the most listeners of all time. You've got a whole new audience, Martin. We talked about this a few episodes ago. I think Pokemon would be a... I do too. I don't get it. I don't know it. But if I had to put my money down, I would say it would be a huge hit. Pokemon is like the Harry Potter of the previous generation. Yeah, for sure. Keeps coming back. But I think what it's highlighting is that the whole video game to pinball sort of genre is missing. There would be so many great video game themes that would make great pinball machines. Why aren't they doing those? I had this discussion with my 12-year-old on my last episode, and he thought Metroid would be the best game. And there's actually a Metroid guy that has made his own homebrew Metroid here at Penthouse. Yeah, which looks great. I mentioned I thought Legend of Zelda would be a good – Oh, my God, that would be so good. Stop it. There's a lot of them, but I just think they're still catering. They're going to where the money is and they're still going to the home user over 40. The Pac-Man didn't do well. Back in the day... They almost did. But back in the day, the whole video game to pinball thing was common. You had Defender, Joust, Baby Pac-Man, the other Pac-Man. But, but, but, the games now, I mean, Pac-Man as big as it was and Space Invaders and all that kind of stuff, there's nothing compared to the Fortnite and Pokemon now. I think it's a missed opportunity. Even if you had, like, you know, Mustang, which, you know, I think the theme was pretty controversial at the time. Certainly outside of America, where Mustang for us is a bit of a cult thing. But even if that was a, you know, a Gran Turismo or a video license, that would have still had more mainstream appeal, yeah? Oh, yeah, if that was Fast and the Furious or something, then the game would have been way more popular. Instead of, go Ford, go Mustang. like well it's best and furthest like the rock there you go that will automatically sell copies but didn't Ford pay Stern to do that yeah that was more or less what their new what do they call them the lifestyle whatever sure that was more or less lifestyle it was the 50th anniversary right yeah that was like the first supreme Ford they should next question we're fading fast we're tired of this so okay one more so another one that we mentioned when we had Gary on was the whole they said they're going to do another lifestyle brand what do you reckon the next brand will be oh my god Coca-Cola why not that could be a good one Coca-Cola the Coke collectors are ridiculous what about a beer Coca-Cola bears everywhere but like Coors they did Pabst they did Pabst the pop-up with Bud why is it Earth oh my god with like the the horses What about Nike? Yeah. I could see a Jimmy Buffett Margarita Bill. Slow down, Parrothead. Unfortunately, I hate it, but that would make a ton of money. He's not even making a ton of money. Why is he talking? He's like a wannabe. Is that the video mode? Yeah, something that was in a restaurant. That could potentially be awesome. McDonald's. McDonald's? The McDonald's hamburger. Oh my gosh, that hamburger. Remus Multiball. That would be so amazing. Mrs. Topper could just be the M all lit up. Sure. No. Robble, robble. It needs way more jazz. Hold on a second. Mrs. Topper, what should be the topper? You'd need the Hamburglar. Yeah. You'd need the... Nuggets. You'd need the nuggets. The nugget crinklers. Yes, 100%. They were so good. I still have those. Yes. Retheme a Walking Dead. Oh, my God. The walker at Scrimmage. You just hit them all over. Try to break Ronald McDonald out of prison. He's in prison. Why'd you have to go there, Ron? Breaking Ronald out of prison? Yeah, you're breaking Ronald McDonald out of prison. What? You could have an orbit as a drive-thru. Yeah. That'd be so good. We're building one right now. That'd be so good. But in all seriousness, what do you reckon the next rock band's going to be? We just said! We mean all serious. Okay, guys, be serious. We're on head-to-head pinball. It's time to be serious. The Knack. What the fuck? The Knack. It'll be a rock band, surely. Come on, guys. I think Journey would be a good one. I agree, but... Visually, that would be a beautiful machine. It would be a Journey? We've had a neighbor who plays a lot of Journey, and it is... It's a video game. I'm a big Journey fan. I'd be all over it. Dang, Floyd. You could theme the music, too. Don't stop. Queen. Queen's the rock. That's in limbo, so that ain't happening. That would make the movie He has some unofficial pants. What about Michael Jackson? Is there a Michael Jackson pin? Not officially. That's Netflix. You don't want to do that. That's ship sale. Did someone say multiple? I wish that they'd go more modern. Works in time. They're probably going to make it. No. Is there country music? Dolly Parton. Yeah, but that's like old school country. What do you want? The Shania Twain machine? I don't know. I'm just thinking about like, you know, you go to the casino and every person has like a slot machine, right? So I'm just thinking. That's all. It's a lot easier to do a slot machine. You can slot with a theme on any slot machine. It's not a big deal. It's all digital. You don't have to like make a world under glass about Dolly Parton for a slot machine. Maybe Dolly Parton. Well, is there not Betty White? there's an Ellen slot machine what about Golden Girls what about Golden Girls pin that would be so good why do we keep coming to this it's supposed to happen Ellen lied thank you for being a friend Multiball there's an Anchorman slot machine but I mean I don't know how to translate slot machine we're supposed to be talking about bands man bands? I say Queen, Zeppelin Journey Madonna could be good Gaga a Lady Gaga machine would be To me, Gaga is the modern one, yes. We specifically talked about that, and I pointed him to her residency in Vegas, Enigma or whatever it's called. And I said, Franchi on art, or Zombie Yeti. That thing would be amazing. It has its own art. You had me at Franchi. You lost me at Zombie Yeti. I wanted to be all-inclusive. I actually brought that up once. It's kind of off-topic, but joining forces. or doing, like, let's say they did, I don't know, what you say for a band, Journey, and each... Each level being a different artist. Like, you know, I would do, like, the LA or the premium or whatever, and Jeremy would do one or the other one. Like, say, three different artists with three different games. That would be awesome. That would be cool, and then you'd pick your flavor. I mean, yeah. Okay, listeners are now going to say, Journey, it's confirmed. I heard it from Frankie on the podcast. Yeah, I mean, it's... I wish that they'd pick a band that hasn't been around for 40 years. What about Pink? No. No. Who's a trapeze, yes. She doesn't really have a visual style, I guess. Well, she does have the whole circus thing, right? So if you've got Alice Cooper's Nightmare Castle, you've got Pink and her circus thing. So you could actually do a circus theme with Pink as the protagonist. I've got the best idea. You could do Lady Gaga and cover the whole machine in bacon. Or meat. Was it just meat? I think it was meat. The meat pin. On that topic, Weird Al. Weird Al would make a great pin. No. No, he's too weird. He's too weird. He is. Beastie Boys? Beastie Boys? No. No. The thing about Lady Gaga, wasn't one of her album covers basically a copy of, like, Centaur? Yes, literally. Born This Way. Being part of a motorcycle. That was Fame Monster. Born This Way. I have all of her albums. I've seen her every time she does a tour. I love Lady Gaga. I think that'd be a great band. It's not a band, but I have to say it every time. Beavis and Butthead. Thank you. Yes, I'll buy one. So why not? Actually, Rick and Morty is the one that really would, I keep hearing more and more people talk about that. Somebody's making one back in Detroit, actually. I visit him at a local barcade all the time and ask him how it's updating. Home brew. Yeah. Now, guys, the TTI, has that happened or is it going to happen? What's going on there? Tomorrow night after the main. No, it's tonight now, Marty. Oh, yeah, it is tonight now, technically for us. Yeah, it happens. Are we all teaming up? Is that what the deal is? Yeah. Not all of us. Some scumbags. Joe is on his own. Yeah, I have my own winning team. Oh, my God. So Joe is going to be playing for New Robert Englunds Pinball League. Wrong. Wrong. No, you should be playing for a team head-to-head. Head-to-head. With Steven Bowden? I thought you were playing for... Timmy. Did you change your mind? I was told I needed to defend. Oh, okay. So last I knew he was playing for New Robert Englunds Pinball League. I'm like, okay, that's great. I'm a new one. New Robert Englunds Pinball League, but we were going to team up with podcasters, but now he's doing his own thing. He's not really a podcaster. He hasn't been initiated. Steven Bowden. Nick Stefano. That's not even fair. Is Keith Elwin just flying in for this? Is he coming in too? Geez. All right. Well, I'm not intimidated in the slightest. You're not intimidated? all i know is mrs pinn last year at replay fx at pinberg she was up against raymond davidson actually the guy looked like i'm david raymondson uh against adam becker and Steven Bowden and they were playing algar and i know who won that game and she's sitting right beside me so mrs pinn i'm looking forward to you being on our podcasters team next year we'll take these chumps down from head to head I'd also like to mention that I almost won the TTI, but some guy named Martin Robbins decided to go ahead and put dollars on the game because all of a sudden it became a dollar, you know, top two Tommy game. Let it go, Jeff. Let it go. I can't let it go. Let it go. It's a new year. It's a new year. Let it go. I crushed him on the casino game there on the Stern one. Yeah. And you picked that, too. My favorite thing last year, it was myself and Nick from Buffalo and Bruce Knight from Slam Tilt and Matt, and we were playing dialed in. And we all were just venom on Martin, just saying everything we could until we ran out of words because that jerk kept playing and playing. We just all walked away as he killed the game. So congratulations on your win. Asshole. Well, Joe, do your best to defend the title on behalf of Head to Head, But everybody, continue to have fun at Pentastic, and no doubt we'll hear more about it. But thanks, everybody, for coming on, and enjoy the rest of your time. We love you, Marty.