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Ep 6 - Get Your Game Back!

Jersey Jack Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·17m 51s·analyzed·Aug 11, 2020
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.029

TL;DR

Pat Lawlor reunited with his first pinball machine after 47 years thanks to Hemispheres Amusements.

Summary

Ken Cromwell hosts Jersey Jack Pinball Podcast Episode 6, featuring an emotional story about Pat Lawlor recovering his first pinball machine—a 1962 Gottlieb Flipper Cowboy he purchased in 1973 as a college student and traded away decades later. Kurt Hill of Hemispheres Amusements brokered the reunion after the original owner, Pat's high school classmate Chuck, contacted him through a service inquiry wanting to ensure the machine didn't end up discarded. Lawlor discusses the game's innovative mechanical design (rotospinner), his philosophy of reintroducing mechanical 'toys' to pinball games during his Williams design era, and JJP's plan to restore and display the machine in their game room.

Key Claims

  • Pat Lawlor purchased a 1962 Gottlieb Flipper Cowboy in 1973 during his senior year in college for approximately $100

    high confidence · Pat Lawlor directly states: 'I bought the game my senior year in college' and 'I got to believe it had to be around $100 because I wouldn't have had much money back then.'

  • Lawlor traded the Flipper Cowboy to an electronics business contact in exchange for a mixer and money to make room for his future wife

    high confidence · Lawlor: 'I traded him the game for probably a little money and a mixer and a few other things' and 'I had moved in with who has been my wife all these years. And I just, at the time, I didn't have room for a pinball machine anymore.'

  • The Flipper Cowboy's rotospinner was a mechanically innovative way to vary target values before electronic systems existed

    high confidence · Lawlor: 'the rotospinner is a mechanical version of how do you change where you're shooting in a playfield to vary what you're getting. It's really innovative.'

  • Lawlor brought mechanical 'toys' back into pinball game design during his Williams era, starting with Earthshaker and developing through Whirlwind, Funhouse, and Addams Family

    high confidence · Lawlor: 'when you when you start out with you know Earthshaker right Earthshaker had the drop targets and the you know the game shook in your hand and yeah and whirlwind we brought back the spinning discs from fireball except there were three of them instead of one of them'

  • Steve Ritchie shifted pinball design philosophy toward kinetic, flowing gameplay in the 1980s, moving away from mechanical gadgets

    medium confidence · Lawlor: 'Pinball became this sort of kinetic flowing thing. It was primarily due to Steve Ritchie. That was a good thing. That was a great thing.'

  • Kurt Hill of Hemispheres Amusements was offered $3,500 check by Pat Lawlor, but declined because the original owner (Chuck) gave the machine as a gift

    high confidence · Kurt: 'Pat actually pulled out a check here... I go, Pat, this is $3,500, Pat... I says, it's yours, man. The guy gave it to you.'

Notable Quotes

  • “I just think it's crazy. How many times in your life does something reappear after 47 years? The story to me is just awesome.”

    Pat Lawlor @ ~45:30 — Emotional culmination expressing the improbability and meaning of recovering a machine after nearly half a century

  • “I think you could say we're never going to build anything like that again. Well, no, we're not. But it's important. The concepts are always the same.”

    Pat Lawlor @ ~48:00 — Reflects on timeless pinball design principles despite technological evolution, explaining why JJP will display the machine for younger staff

  • “The rotospinner is a mechanical version of how do you change where you're shooting in a playfield to vary what you're getting. It's really innovative.”

    Pat Lawlor @ ~27:00 — Describes the mechanical ingenuity of the Flipper Cowboy's rotospinner feature, connecting historical innovation to his design philosophy

  • “When I got my opportunity to design games at Williams, the big thing that I did was I brought the mechanical aspect of what we call toys back into the games.”

    Pat Lawlor @ ~30:00 — Core design philosophy statement explaining Lawlor's signature contribution to pinball during the Williams era

  • “His goal was to make sure this game didn't end up in the dumpster. But more so, can it get back to Pat?”

    Kurt Hill @ ~12:00 — Establishes the humanitarian motivation driving Kurt's effort to reunite machine with original owner

  • “I have always felt like I needed one of every game I ever designed. So right now I live in the country. I have a pole building full of the games I designed.”

    Pat Lawlor @ ~41:00 — Reveals Lawlor's personal collecting philosophy and demonstrates the scope of his design legacy

  • “I'm not allowed to put them in the kitchen anymore. There's a limit.”

    Pat Lawlor @ ~42:30 — Humorous aside illustrating domestic negotiations around machine collecting, paralleling his earlier kitchen placement of the Flipper Cowboy

Entities

Pat LawlorpersonKurt HillpersonKen CromwellpersonChuckpersonMike FoxpersonSteve RitchiepersonLarry DeMarperson

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Hemispheres Amusements is actively restructuring its website and operating on appointment-only basis (likely due to COVID-19 timing of podcast), indicating business adaptation during pandemic era.

    medium · Kurt Hill: 'We do operate by appointment because of the COVID thing going on' and 'our website, which is under complete restructure right now, it's still up and running, but we're restructuring the whole thing.'

  • ?

    community_signal: The episode demonstrates how operators like Kurt Hill and distributors like Hemispheres Amusements serve as community connectors, facilitating meaningful personal stories beyond transactional business.

    high · Kurt's initiative to reunite Pat with his machine despite not knowing if the story was true, then giving the machine as a gift rather than profiting, shows operator role in community stewardship.

  • ?

    community_signal: Jersey Jack Pinball's practice of displaying classic machines in their game room for younger staff to learn from demonstrates commitment to pinball history education and mentorship.

    high · Pat Lawlor: 'I love bringing in, you know, the different people who work here like to bring in some of their games to show the younger programmers... give them a chance to play games to give them the feel of where the business came from. And I think that's important.'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Pat Lawlor's core design contribution was reintroducing mechanical 'toy' elements to pinball games during the Williams era (1980s-90s), deliberately contrasting with Steve Ritchie's kinetic flow approach.

    high · Lawlor explicitly states: 'When I got my opportunity to design games at Williams, the big thing that I did was I brought the mechanical aspect of what we call toys back into the games... I think what's missing from all of this is the mechanical toy version.'

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.054

0:00
flying through the airwaves and into your podcatcher it's the jersey jack pinball podcast hi what's going on pinball land welcome it's another episode of the jersey jack pinball podcast my name is ken cromwell and i'm your host now it's very likely if you're listening to a pinball podcast it's because you've got a passion about pinball and most of us will all have that in common if you've gone this deep into the hobby where you're listening to pinball podcasts. Now, usually, if at some point you've owned a machine or you currently own machines, the one thing that you can remember pretty vividly is your first pinball purchase or your first pinball acquisition. In fact, a lot of times when you meet people that are similar or have similar interests in the hobby, one of the first things that you may or may not ask is, hey, what was your first game? What was your first pinball machine? Now, without having to deep dive my own personal pinball acquisition experience to you all, I can definitely say that I do remember that day very vividly. I remember picking up an earth shaker and driving out to Lockport and going into a basement and inspecting machine for the first time and hauling it out of the basement with two other people with the legs still on. All right. It made no sense. But again, it was the first time I was trying to transport a pinball machine and it didn't occur to me that, hey, probably made more sense to take these legs off as I'm doing right now before I load it into my van. But then I also remember the ride home thinking to myself that I had acquired a machine that I never thought that I would own and to have it in my possession, I just assumed that I would have forever. But what ends up happening to a lot of us is that you're not in a position to keep that first machine that you ever acquire. And maybe because that's because of space or for monetary reasons or simply because you've become bored with that specific machine. But let me ask you this, how many of you have gotten rid of the first machine that you had ever purchased and wish that you could get that machine back. Not the same title, but the exact same machine. And that leads us into an incredible story involving Pat Lawler and Kurt Hill from Hemispheres Amusements and an old high school buddy of Pat's on how Pat Lawler, after an extraordinarily long amount of time, was able to get back the very same game that may have very well catapulted his interest and started his career in pinball. We're going to pick up the conversation that I was having with Kurt at Hemispheres as he kind of sets the table for this incredible story.

  • “It's like, I'll give you something for it. It's cool. It's got a cool history. I do like those Gottlieb wedgehead designs.”

    Kurt Hill @ ~10:00 — Shows Kurt's initial valuation mindset before learning the machine's personal historical significance

    • Jersey Jack Pinball Podcast
    organization
    Hemispheres Amusementscompany
    Flipper Cowboygame
    Earthshakergame
    Whirlwindgame
    Funhousegame
    Addams Familygame
    Gottliebcompany
    Williams Electronicscompany
  • $

    market_signal: A narrative arc in the episode connects historical pinball innovation (Gottlieb's rotospinner) to Lawlor's design philosophy, positioning mechanical ingenuity as a timeless principle across eras.

    high · Lawlor links the rotospinner's mechanical innovation to his later design philosophy: 'The concepts are always the same, right? The concepts are always the same. How does it shoot? Where's the ball going? What's it doing when it gets there?'

  • $

    market_signal: Pinball machine pricing context: Pat Lawlor purchased a machine for ~$100 in 1973; contemporary valuation by Kurt Hill was ~$300 condition-dependent, suggesting preservation value rather than commodity pricing.

    medium · Kurt: 'I originally had told originally had told him i was going to give him about 300 bucks for the game' vs. Pat's 1973 purchase price of ~$100

    • 2:27
    All right, so we have an in-studio guest here on the Jersey Jack Pinball podcast. Joining us today is Kurt Hill. He's the owner and proprietor of Hemispheres Amusements. What's going on? How are you? Not much. Glad to be here and thanks for having me. Yeah, so we've got a really cool personal interest story, which kind of brings you into Jersey Jack Pinball today. And I was wondering if you can kind of set the tone because essentially you brought something into the building today that was once the property of Mr. Pat Lawler. And he originally possessed this 47 years ago, and you kind of brought it back to him today. I'll let you pick it up from there. Yeah, that's correct. It's what we determined is a 62 Flipper Cowboy that Pat, apparently it's his first game ever that he picked up in a wanted ad and had it in college. And it fell into our lap through our website. we had a contact ticket come in so on our website we can you know our customers can fill out any information buying a game selling a game service whatever and so this came in and I had no idea what this was so I called the guy up and you know it's a flipper cowboy they're kind of cool they got animation in the back glass not a big em guy but good old clean ems how can you not love them you know so I called the guy up and we started chatting and he started telling me this story he says I went to high school with with Pat Lawler and this was Pat's game and you know any of us that have been in the industry long enough, you know, we've heard all kinds of stories and half of them true and most of them not, you know. So I said, yeah, OK. But as I'm listening to the guy, he sounded pretty sincere about it. I'm like, well, where are you at? You know, and he wasn't that far. So I set a date and we went over there and I took a peek at it. And unfortunately, the gentleman was in a wheelchair and his goal was to restore this game at some point. And, you know, the backstory is that he had traded Pat for some equipment that Pat wanted. And he had even received some quotes on getting the game restored. Never got around to it. And it sat in his home for however many years a long time You know you see the game And so I originally had told originally had told him i was going to give him about 300 bucks for the game you know i says you know look it looks fairly clean i'll give you something for it it's cool it's got a cool history uh let's i do like those gottlieb wedgehead designs yeah and you know it looked cleaner in the pictures and so when i got there i was a little little disappointed but at the same time it has great patina you know so So I was ready to proceed. And of course, I had called Mike and I says, hey, you know, I don't remember exactly how the conversation went. And that's Mike Fox, right? Mike Fox. Yeah. So I called Mike and I go, hey, is Pat around there? I go, this guy's been trying to get a hold of Pat for many years and to no avail. He would really, his goal was to make sure this game didn't end up in the dumpster. That was really the bottom line with it. But more so, can it get back to Pat? And I says, if this is truly Pat's game, we need to find out. So I, you know, Mike got Pat in the background there. Mike's ahead of business development here at Jersey Jack Pinball. I just wanted to let the listener know. So the customer, his name is Chuck. He said, you know, I want to give it to him. Tell him it's his. I don't need any money. Wow. And I was willing to give it to Pat for the car. I didn't mean to make anything on this. I wanted the game back in the rightful owners, which is Pat. And so that's what's happened. You know, we basically picked up the game. We didn't pay for it. And Pat actually pulled out a check here. thinking he's going to pay for the thing that whatever I paid for. I go, Pat, this is $3,500, Pat. Yeah, I says, it's yours, man. The guy gave it to you. And apparently they went to high school together. So hopefully that reunites a little relationship there too. So it's a really cool backstory. It really, really is. It's nice that you were able to kind of make it happen because the game came out in 1962. Pat doesn't possess that game until 11 years after its manufacturer year. So he gets it in 1973, and then here we are in the year 2020. Again, 47 years later, the exact same game that he had is in his possession. And it's thanks to you, Kurt. But his very first game. Yeah, his very first game. That, to me, is the story. That's right. You know, it's the first game Pat ever laid his eye, you know, basically possessed. And, you know, you'll hear more about that here, obviously. But it's so cool. Let's pick up the conversation that you had here with Pat.
    6:39
    All right, Pat. So Kurt at Hemispheres here. I got a couple questions about the game that we just brought to you. and it's a Flipper Cowboy from, what did we say, 64? 62. 62, sorry. So when did you buy the game, do you recall? Yeah, I bought the game my senior year in college. We bought the game out of an ad in the local paper where I went to school, and I drove to the guy's house, and he had the game for sale. And so we thought it was pretty cool. I lived off campus at the time, and we bought the game and put it in our kitchen. and it lived there my whole senior year and then I took it home after the end of senior year. So do you recall what you paid for it? I got to believe it had to be around $100 because I wouldn't have had much money back then. Right, right. Any reason why this specific game was just the one that was available? No, it was just, you know, there was an in the paper pinball machine. We spent our lives junior, senior year playing pinball. So the opportunity to sort of own your own pinball machine was an interesting idea. People thought we were crazy. I was crazy for doing that, but I'm still crazy, by the way.
    7:53
    You know, we then had a game that we could sit there and play whenever we wanted. And, you know, that way when we went out and played, you know, in the different game rooms and on the street, we were that much better. So that brings me to my next question. Did you know anything about this particular game? Had you played it before or you had never seen one before? I had never seen a Flipper Cowboy before in my life. And the game is actually very interesting because of the mechanical things that are in it. You know, it's a Gottlieb Wedgehead. It has a thing in it called a rotospinner. Up until that time, there had been no way to vary the value of targets easily. And the rotospinner is a mechanical version of how do you change where you're shooting in a playfield to vary what you're getting. It's really innovative. I mean, it's really innovative. Today, saying that, back then, did you understand that? In other words one of my other questions was going to be is there anything in this design which influenced your own games and the things that you designed Back then did you even really get that No no But, you know, now that I've been doing this for 40 years, the history of the people who were tasked with designing these games was always one of pushing the envelope. They all knew that people liked playing these games because they had a mechanical aspect that when there was something different in the game, the game stood a better chance of selling well. And people put more money in it because it was unique and different and fun to do. When I got my opportunity to design games at Williams, the big thing that I did was I brought the mechanical aspect of what we call toys back into the games. People loved the mechanical gadgets that were in these games in the 60s and the 70s. And that had changed by the time the 80s rolled around. Pinball became this sort of kinetic flowing thing. It was primarily due to Steve Ritchie. That was a good thing. That was a great thing. Steve was very innovative in what he did. I'm not downplaying any of that at all. I played a lot of Steve games before I was in the business and I loved them to death and when I got there I said I think what's missing from all of this is the mechanical toy version of what you know what am I interacting with on the play field and so you know when you when you start out with you know Earthshaker right Earthshaker had the drop targets and the you know the game shook in your hand and yeah and whirlwind we brought back the spinning discs from fireball except there were three of them instead of one of them and by the time you get to funhouse and adam's family you know we we were bringing we were bringing these things to life with mechanical things people had never seen before and they loved them. So about this particular game, do you remember why you got rid of it and why, or when you got rid of it and why? I just, I had it in my basement. I was home from college and at the time I was, if I remember correctly, I was playing guitar and I thought it would be more fun to have like a mixer.
    11:42
    And I knew that the gentleman I sold it to was in that electronic part of the business and he was interested in buying it. And so I don't remember the exact deal, but, you know, I traded him the game for probably a little money and a mixer and a few other things. I had moved by that time. I had moved in with who has been my wife all these years.
    12:11
    And I just, at the time, I didn't have room for a pinball machine anymore. So the pinball had to go. So the pinball had to go, right. Yeah, kept the wife and the pinball wife. That's kind of a common story, I guess. But did you have another game eventually at some point? I mean, obviously at some point. That's a funny story, too. One of the other things I bought in college was a jukebox. Really? So I kept bringing these things home every year at the end of school to my parents' house. And they'd go, oh, no, what do you have now? Right. And so for lots of years, I had the jukebox functional and I'd have parties at my house and we'd have the jukebox doing its thing. And, but I had not had a, I had not had a pinball machine until I got close to getting into the pinball business. At that time, I had met Larry DeMar and, and the two of us would spend an occasional Saturday going to auctions. And auctions back then aren't like they are now. Right. They were held primarily for operators they would barely be advertised to the general public And so we used to go to we went to a couple of different auction houses One of them was in Creed Illinois I never forget that. You know, we just started buying up old pinball machines and it was a fun experience.
    13:42
    So bringing those home to your then wife, I would assume. Right. How is she with those coming home? And I guess that brings me full circle. How does she feel about this one? Well, I have always felt like I needed one of every game I ever designed.
    14:00
    So right now I live in the country. I have a pole building full of the games I designed. Some of them are set up in my house. and I occasionally will rotate one from the outside into the inside. And she's cool with it. I just, you know, I'm not allowed to put them in the kitchen anymore.
    14:22
    There's a limit, right? Right, there's a limit. So how do you feel about this game bouncing back into your life after all these years? I just think it's crazy. Yeah. I mean, I think it's crazy. How many times in your life does something reappear after 47 years, right? The story to me is just awesome. It's a, you know, if you think about, I try and make people understand how old I am now. You know, this is almost half a century, right? This is half a century and something you owned half a century again has magically reappeared.
    14:54
    I think it's cool. And I think we're going to, I think here at JJP, we're going to take the game. We're going to clean it up. We're going to make sure it's working. And we'll probably put it in our game room here for a while at JJP. I love bringing in, you know, the different people who work here like to bring in some of their games to show the younger programmers and to show the people who haven't necessarily been in the business the history and give them a chance to play games to give them the feel of where the business came from. And I think that's important. I think you could say, yeah, yeah, we're never going to build anything like that again. Well, no, we're not. But it's important. The concepts are always the same, right? The concepts are always the same. How does it feel when you shoot it? Where's the ball going? What's it doing when it gets there? What kind of reaction are you getting? How is this being done to make the person believe they were getting from point A to point B? All of that is important. And so we're probably going to set it up here and we're going to let the younger guys play with it for a while. I have one request. Can I play you a game when you get it running? Sure. That'd be great. Absolutely.
    16:07
    A great story. I mean, I don't know how else to really say it. It's unbelievable. Let me ask you this. As a distributor for Jersey Jack Pinball, we thank you. How can people get ahold of you if they want to get a game? We're in Hampshire, Illinois. So we're on the outskirts of the city, straight west on 90. So we have a showroom there, obviously, to come in and play the games. We do operate by appointment because of the COVID thing going on. I can be reached by phone at 630-792-8910. And of course our website, which is under complete restructure right now, it's still up and running, but we're restructuring the whole thing. But that is hemispheresamusements.com. And if you're looking to get in touch with the original game from 47 years ago, give Kurt a call tomorrow. Thanks. Thanks for joining us. And thanks for everything. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. Thanks, man.
    16:53
    All right. That's going to do it for this edition of the Jersey Jack Pinball Podcast. I'd like to take a second to thank everybody that's tuned into the show so far. Hope you're enjoying a little bit of a different side of pinball with some unique access. Now, if you want to contact the show, you can do so. That email, podcast at jerseyjackpinball.com. I read them all. So feel free to go ahead and reach out, ask any questions, comments, observations. All are welcome. Now, I'm sure some of you are looking to start a career in pinball or even further your career in pinball. And you can do so by sending us a resume. that's to the email address careers at jerseyjackpinball.com c-a-r-e-e-r-s at jerseyjackpinball.com we will see you again next week with another show and for the entire team here at jerseyjackpinball.com thank you for listening and don't forget to take some time out of your day and play some pinball so long everybody