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TWIPYs: Behind the Scenes | Don Wants to Buy a Pokemon w/Ian and Colin

Bash Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 14m·analyzed·Mar 6, 2026
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.029

TL;DR

Twippies creators discuss production challenges, creative process, and comedic highlights from the 2025 special.

Summary

Don, Ian, and Colin discuss the production of the 2025 Twippies award show special, detailing the creative process, production challenges, and standout comedic bits. They cover the one-month turnaround, video production difficulties including green screen work, writing sessions, voice acting performances (particularly Ian's Arnold Schwarzenegger voice), and plans for future content expansion. The conversation emphasizes the creative risks taken, the collaborative writing process, and the team's reflections on what worked and what could improve.

Key Claims

  • The 2025 Twippies special was produced in a four-week turnaround with no prior experience doing green screen and video effects at that scale

    high confidence · Don, Ian, and Colin describe having 'four weeks' and being 'ambitious' with things 'we had never actually done before', including green screen work that 'took longer than expected'

  • Two back-to-back snowstorms in the weeks leading up to production caused major logistical disruptions

    high confidence · Ian states: 'And then, you know, we had two back-to-back snowstorms, two weekends in a row, leading up to the Twippies. And then, you know, I couldn't even get out of my driveway'

  • Don spent 12+ hours rendering video in the final 24 hours before the Twippies deadline

    high confidence · Don: 'i spent 12 hours i got up at 7 30 uh like saturday morning or something and i literally was rendering like editing and rendering all day dude it was crazy'

  • The Conan bit with Arnold, Gorgar, and King Kong required frame-by-frame re-centering of mouth movements during post-production

    high confidence · Don: 'record like the head further away because the closer you are right the more like the more a minor movement will affect the actual i literally had to go frame by frame and re-center you and arnold every single frame for like an entire performance'

  • The 2025 Twippies special is the shortest Twippies ever produced

    high confidence · Ian: 'Yeah, no, it's definitely the shortest. And that's good. That's really good.'

  • Mark Silk struggled to pronounce a fake alien Yelp variant ('Elp-sorps-yelp-sorp') and had to read the line approximately 25 times

    high confidence · Matt: 'it was it was funny i thought he might break down yeah and so no he was a total pro like it didn't phase him'

  • The team is considering splitting out individual skits and interview segments into separate YouTube videos and Shorts

    high confidence · Don: 'we're talking about maybe posting like getting those all the rest of the interviews finished at the same time as you know posting like the the separate clips of the you know conan bit the intro pentonium bit'

Notable Quotes

  • “It was beyond my wildest dreams, I think.”

    Ian @ early in conversation — Indicates high satisfaction with the Twippies special production and outcome

  • “I got sick twice if you can imagine in one month”

    Ian @ discussing production stress — Emphasizes the physical and mental toll of the compressed production schedule

  • “I literally had to go frame by frame and re-center you and arnold every single frame for like an entire performance”

    Don @ discussing technical post-production challenges — Highlights specific technical challenges of the Conan mouth-movement bit and Don's dedication

  • “Well, it'll probably be the first director's cut that's shorter than the original.”

    unknown (likely Don or Colin) @ discussing potential re-edits — Humorous observation about the already-lean runtime

  • “You're playing like a hundred foot monkey, you know, so that's pretty funny, man.”

    Ian @ discussing King Kong voice direction — Shows collaborative creative direction and humor during voice work

  • “awards make people go crazy, whether they're nominated or not”

    Colin @ discussing award show dynamics — Reflects Colin's philosophy on award shows and why the Twippies format avoids typical award show pitfalls

  • “this one actually... celebrates the winners you really busted it down to like the categories that make sense”

    Ian @ discussing Twippies philosophy — Shows how the 2025 Twippies differs from traditional award formats

  • “I've never been in any actual writer's room so that was like the closest thing to it and that was really fun”

    Ian @ discussing Zoom punch-up session — Indicates the creative collaboration felt authentic and novel to Ian

Entities

DonpersonIanpersonColinpersonMark SilkpersonMattpersonChristopher FranchipersonBrad AlbrightpersonRobert Smigelperson

Signals

  • ?

    content_signal: 2025 Twippies special took experimental approach combining traditional award show format with comedy sketches, green screen effects, and on-the-street interviews. Format designed to be shorter, more entertaining, and less focus on drama/competition than typical awards.

    high · Multiple references to Conan O'Brien format inspiration, deliberate pacing choices, emphasis on 'bonkers' comedy bits alongside serious award categories

  • ?

    production_signal: Team faced extreme time pressure in final 48 hours, with Don rendering video for 12+ hours on final day. Multiple technical challenges with green screen footage requiring frame-by-frame correction of mouth movements.

    high · Don: '12 hours i got up at 7 30 uh like saturday morning or something and i literally was rendering like editing and rendering all day'; Ian: 'two back-to-back snowstorms'; discussion of frame-by-frame re-centering work

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Twippies team explicitly rejected traditional award show drama/competition focus in favor of celebrating winners, entertainment value, and educational content. Format structured to facilitate creative content rather than awards being the primary focus.

    high · Colin/Ian discussion: 'this one actually no what it what it does is it celebrates the winners... the interviews are awesome and then if you can bust that out into longer stuff that's actually helpful to pinball'

  • ?

    community_signal: This Week in Pinball (Twippies) and We Are Pinball (podcast) represent key content production centers in pinball community. Team is collaborating across these platforms to expand reach through video content strategy.

    high · Don hosting both TWP and WAP; discussion of repurposing Twippies content into YouTube clips and Shorts; Mark Silk participation

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.223

0:00
so colin ian thanks for joining us you guys were gonna be back we're we're the we're the main uh twippies team apart from mark silk i guess but it didn't he can only do recordings in the morning because he's in the UK, so I didn't invite him to this.
0:28
Sorry, Mark. I think he's got enough stuff to do anyway. Yeah, I'm sure it's fine. Yeah, I'm sure he got enough of us for sure. Also, if he was on this, we would just be doing bits the entire time, so we probably wouldn't actually get anything done. My kind of guy, for sure. But yeah, so let's talk about the Twippies and how it went, how it happened. Can I just say that you guys absolutely killed it as the creative team, all three of you. Thank you. It was just awesome. It was beyond my wildest dreams, I think. Awesome. Thank you. And I thought you guys did pretty good.
1:10
Thanks. Thanks, Ian. Thanks. Always room for improvement. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. No, it was really fun. I thought it was super fun. And I think it took some chances in a way that the Twibbies kind of had to because, to be honest, like it's kind of stale it was funny i was calling i told you like i'm the only really holdover i guess besides you of like people who did stuff last year to this year um and so it was funny to see how different um production really was and i think it was really cool i mean maybe we can talk about like kind of reception and even like wanting even more people to see it than saw it but also like i think this is one of those ones where people can kind of come to it later and there's so many funny like moments and it just yeah it what it didn't feel okay one of my favorite things something that sticks out from my childhood or like early teens is when conan o'brien did the five-year special and it was like a crazy mix of like real stuff and clips and then also like you know a bunch of fake stuff and this was like in that uh yeah vein and so i love that part of it so that's a long-winded actual answer but yeah also yeah pretty good it was pretty good guys i know thanks pretty good it was pretty good man thanks man yeah yeah yeah yeah it almost killed me dude i got sick twice if you can imagine in one month if you can imagine that that's crazy was it was it stressful for you to um well yeah yeah so i mean yeah it because we you know kind of were ambitious and then you know didn't actually know we were doing things we're like yeah we can do that but things we had never actually done before yeah and um some of the some of the video stuff green screen stuff it was kind of like yeah we can do that in theory but we didn't really i don't know having not done it before it just took longer than expected. And we had two back-to-back snowstorms, two weekends in a row, leading up to the Twippies. And then, you know, I couldn't even get out of my driveway, so Don couldn't get over there. I couldn't get in the driveway. I had to park, like, next door and walk, like, through the snow. It was crazy. For, like, one of the last interviews on, like, one of the last few days or something of that week, which is, you know, we did the last interview, what, like a day before or something? We did it, I think, Thursday. The tight Thursday. Yeah. The Thursday before, yeah. So it was a lot. It was just a lot of editing and a lot of, like, you know, challenging things for people who aren't exactly, you know, video experts. Like, we both have dabbled in that stuff, and we knew we could do it, but it was just, like, there were some challenges and, you know, tricky stuff. um honestly though you know i think that this kind of like was for me personally kind of a proof of concept yeah like we came up with a concept you know collectively and um like can we do this let's try yeah you know and we we pretty much did you know minus like a few little things here and there like the last thing for me was you know i guess next time i didn't realize we would need an entire day to render the video the whole set like i literally was i spent 12 hours i got up at 7 30 uh like saturday morning or something and i literally was rendering like editing and rendering all day dude it was crazy yeah you know yeah timing timing of of that yeah ended up being late on it and which was unfortunate because we were like we can be the first whippies that doesn't have technical difficulties i know it's a curse it's a curse right yeah every every time no matter what you do but i feel we'll be in better shape if we do it again and yeah you know we'll kind of know it'll go a lot smoother and i think we'll be able to kind of give us are you guys a little more time are you thinking about doing it again is that dude i i think we i think we should well i mean i and and honestly if we had a little bit more time you know we could collectively you know conceptualize different like yeah moments and bits and parts and yeah Make it more of like a collaborative thing. I think for this, because we were limited on time, it was kind of streamlined with just us brainstorming and just like, maybe we should do this. Maybe we should, hey, Colin, what do you think about this one thing? Yeah. And just to keep it kind of expedited and fast. But I would have personally loved to like have multiple Zoom meetings, you know, brainstorm ideas, come up with like bits and skits and that kind of stuff. Yeah, yeah. We did have a lot of ideas that involved other people, too. And we would have liked to have brought more people into it. But it was just a matter of, like, there's just no time to, like, try to schedule another person and then, like, do all that extra stuff. So, you know, we did end up getting, like, Brad in there at the last minute. We got Mark in there, Mark Silk, and Brad Albright, the artist who's in the beginning of the video. Yep. But, yeah, it would have been cool if we could have just expanded, you know, to more people. Are you going to keep the lore going? The lore that you've created? I think so. I would like to. I'm probably going to get a Pentonium tat somewhere. Maybe like right here.

  • Ian screamed continuously as Arnold Schwarzenegger for the entire Conan bit performance despite physical challenges

    high confidence · Ian: 'How the hell did you do that, man? Well, I just always picture it's my ass on the line if it sucks... Right Yeah The stuff yeah basically to to write that initially i just watched like every single conan with arnold like five times'

    • Conan O'Brienperson
    Twippiesevent
    This Week in Pinballorganization
    We Are Pinballorganization
    Arnold Schwarzeneggerperson
    Gorgargame
  • ?

    content_signal: Post-Twippies strategy includes extracting individual sketches and interviews as standalone content for YouTube and social media (Shorts format) to maximize reach and engagement.

    high · Discussion of breaking down Conan bit into separate videos, creating director's cut, posting extended interviews, potential for 4K re-export

  • ?

    production_signal: Team attempted advanced video production techniques (green screen, frame-by-frame correction, special effects) on compressed timeline without prior experience at this scale. Identified specific lessons for future productions (distance from camera, subject stability).

    high · Ian on green screen: 'things we had never actually done before... we just didn't have time'; Don: 'for anyone that wants to do this... do not get up close to the camera like get like a little bit further back'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Matt and Don serve as core creative/production team (writing, direction, post-production), with Ian and Colin brought in for specialized contributions (voice work, award descriptions). Potential for expanded team involvement in future iterations.

    high · Discussion of wanting to involve more people, bringing Mark Silk and Brad Albright in 'at the last minute', wish to have 'multiple Zoom meetings' to expand collaborative opportunities

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Team moved from stressed/exhausted during production (Ian: 'got sick twice') to satisfied/proud of final product. Self-aware about limitations and eager to improve next iteration, positioning Twippies as proof-of-concept for sustainable format.

    high · Ian: 'Beyond my wildest dreams'; Colin on improving: 'Once we refine it, have some more time... it only gets better'; Don: 'I think we'll be in better shape if we do it again'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Writing process emphasized finding shared comedy sensibility, with Matt and Ian providing complementary strengths (Matt: structured/comprehensive writing; Ian: absurdist/sound design-focused). Zoom punch-up sessions with Colin added refinement layer.

    medium · Discussion of 'different strengths and senses of humor', Matt making Ian's ideas 'more comprehensive', Ian's preference for 'weird sound effects and squishy sounds and awkward moments'

  • ?

    community_signal: Street interview segments featured genuine pinball players and community members with varying levels of familiarity with Twippies concept. Self-aware comedy approach allowed both insiders and outsiders to find humor in segments.

    medium · Ian: 'it was like having pinball people... a couple people got it a couple people didn't'; discussion of importance of 'self-aware' humor in pinball entertainment space

    • 6:36
    Perfect. Which, by the way, this beard, man, I think it was a side effect of the Pentonium. If you look, it's unreal, dude. I don't even know how I got that long. The greys?
    6:49
    Yeah. The grey is in the shape of a perfect Gorgar face, which is crazy. That actually could have been what it was from, perhaps. I don't know.
    7:02
    So, like, can you guys walk us through your experience of the production? Like, how did you come up with the concept?
    7:12
    And what was it like actually doing the work of creating it? Yeah, and, like, also, how did, like, who made it really funny?
    7:21
    Who? Me. She and Shashobi. dude honest honestly like matt and i have very different like strengths and uh senses of humor you know so i think it was just like a collaborative like i i sprinkled in the stuff that i thought was funny and you know like matt in my opinion is is a great great like writing and kind of like uh just writing out the stuff that maybe that i think is funny but making it more comprehensive or like easier to understand for someone that might not have like my Tim and Eric or kind of like a random, uh, you know, since you're so random, it's, you know, it's just like, uh, yeah, man, I don't know what it is, but weird sound effects and like squishy sounds and like weird, awkward moments and stuff. I like that stuff. Yeah. I mean, I think we, we, we conceptualize just like right off the bat i think it was like let's do you know kind of conan meets an award show you know obviously conan is hosting the oscars this year and last year so it's like an kind of an easy reference point but really my reference point is more like the 90s like you were saying in the 90s show and just like silly stupid stuff and um so yeah the idea it was like let's make it like more of a actual kind of normal award show but then let's just make it kind of bonkers at the same time um and then like writing writing this stuff uh largely like we we did a lot of filming up front at all the different locations so pretty much right off the bat like day one we we worked on it basically january 1st almost yeah it was like a solid month straight literally a month yeah i think you told us like a little bit before that and then with our scheduling we could first start it and i think we literally had like four weeks yeah yeah and like right off the bat we we went to charlotte and greensboro and different just went to the arcades and started filming a bunch of stuff right away and right away don just had a ton of work to edit start editing all that stuff and the special effects and figuring all that stuff out so i just got to writing all the well you're writing the script on the way right like like we're driving like in the car also yeah all the stuff there we were writing kind of on the way and then because we just didn't have time like if we could have sat down and like just kind of like rehearse it's like gone through the lines and stuff but we're like we're just winging this thing man because we have to shoot like this the best the best thing that happened out of those was in my opinion was the man on the street interview stuff like what is it um the watson swippy you like that yeah that was really funny and like having because it was like having pinball people like they were obviously all kind i mean there was a couple people who are maybe not as into pinball but it was funny to hear even pinball people like a couple people got it a couple people didn't like uh yeah yeah yeah yeah and that was really um yeah i think that like it's good to be able to like it's a very rare commodity especially in the pinball uh entertainment space to sort of be self-aware and be able to like poke fun at yourself um and i think that's like a really fun way that like it both like then all those people knew what the twibbies were after that you know yeah no exactly and then and then also though it was like just yeah it was really i thought that part was so funny like and that was one that i didn't know like you guys brought me in to write That was what I was trying to ask with my question, Don, was like, how funny did I make you guys? But I was only, yeah, I know, but I'm going to make you talk about it.
    11:15
    You made me sit down and write some stuff. But no, I mean, I didn't have anything to do with that part of the show. And that was like a real joy for me to like watch those little clips were really, really fun. But yeah, after I had done the first pass on the Conan bit and the lore Pentonium stuff, then we brought Ian in and we did a little Zoom punch-up session. Yeah, we did rewrites. It was fun. You already had the whole bones of everything there, but a lot of it was getting... well first of all i think the we really wrote the arnold stuff a lot um during yeah and that was like because so i play arnold schwarzenegger in that so you were talking about you got too sick twice i think that actually cured my bronchitis doing that voice because i was like screaming and like it kind of like i felt something i felt something i felt something go loose uh like when we were recording it and i was like damn i think i fucked something up but then i think it cured me so yeah but you brought me in you brought me in to kind of punch up some stuff and it was really fun it was fun knowing that mark silk was going to read our stuff um yeah and and so that was really cool to do especially that but i love like dude i totally got like what you were going for in my mind was like hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy kind of vibe yeah um and that's my shit I wasted so much like dude there are band camps that I went it's so funny like I was the nerd at band camp but like truly like I would be reading those books instead of like talking to fucking saxophone players you know or whatever but like so like I was getting those references I love writing that stuff and I just could see Mark Silk like killing that vibe which he did so yeah that was really really fun I've never been in any actual writer's room so that was like the closest thing to it and that was really fun i just like pretty much what it's like yeah yeah no it was it was it was really fun and we would just kind of try to like it sounds so dumb and like this is what everyone says but it's like you just try to make each other laugh and um i think what was cool about it is then when we were especially like for us three when we were doing the conan clutch cargo um kind of bit so for like i'm assuming anyone who's listening to this has watched the Twibbies, but if you haven't, there's sort of a moment where Christopher... I don't think we had this part in my script. It was hilarious. I love this part so much. It's all that last minute. So it starts with Christopher Franchi trashing Gorgar's art and then Gorgar... No, no, no. Gorgar himself. We were... He's doing both. right isn't he kind of yeah or well well we actually he's describing the art specifically not making fun of the art but making fun of gorgor this this is important he was very adamant about not shitting on on the artwork oh my god okay okay guys uh sure okay yes you're talking about the imaginary person of gorgor and not the real art okay it's just that all the the only fucking thing we know about this guy is from the artwork nevertheless but uh um but okay fine when he's making you when he's making fun of the fictional person of gorgar and then he gets uh and then gorgar materializes in front of him and then i think kills is chris refranchi dead we don't know in twip in twippy laurie yeah he like really gets it and then and then it kind of starts a bit where if any of you guys have seen old Conan O'Brien bits where it's just a picture of the person and then a mouth is moving, right? So we all got to do voices, right? So Matt, you were Gorgar. I was Arnold Schwarzenegger. And Don, you were King Kong. And King Kong was my favorite. King Kong was so... He can't be hilarious. Yeah, for sure.
    15:29
    Yeah, and basically we just do a classic... Bash guys are trying to control the room and were all out of control. And for me, that was my favorite part of the Twibbies. Obviously, I got to do the most in that one, but also I just thought... The first time I watched it, I cut it out and made me laugh so freaking hard. Oh, my God. It was like, this is incredible. I love it. My God. I do like, Ian, when at some point in Arnold, you dipped into an Australian accent. Oh, yeah. Well, it was tough. I hope you caught that.
    16:02
    There's one or two line readings where I was like, I would probably do that again if I could, but also like... I mean, hats off to me. I feel like that's a pretty good Screaming Arnold for the 90s or something. I was going to say, the first line I was like, oh my fucking god, this guy is legitimately sending this shit right now. I didn't think you could make it for the entire script, dude, and you did. I was like, how did you do that? I used to be a singer and stuff, so you know, you just...
    16:30
    You just... Channel energy. Yeah, you project. I don't know. You guys know I'm a big guy. I can suck in a lot of air.
    16:40
    Initially, I was going to just do the Arnold voice myself because I can kind of do the Hans and Franz Arnold, but watching the original Conan stuff, it's the guy who does the Triumph the Insult comic. Yeah, Robert Smigel. Legend Smigel.
    16:55
    He's just yelling the entire time as Arnold, and that's part of what makes it funny. Immediately, I was just like, I bet Ian could do this. Yeah, no, for sure. I have good German accents in general, actually. Like, I can just do them because I live next to two German kids for a while.
    17:13
    But doing – you're right, though. Like, I was watching those, too, and Robert Smigel is, like, one of my fucking comedy idols for sure. He did Ambiguously Gay Duo. He did Coward. He's, like, yeah, SNL legend. So, like, I wanted to do it the way he did it for sure, which you're right. He's just screaming the whole time. And it's really funny to hear Arnold's from that era as opposed to kind of now because I feel like he's not doing an exact like the Arnold that everyone else does. He's kind of, yeah, it's something else sort of. So, yeah, but yeah, definitely was just like trying to ape that as much as possible. You're right. There are a couple. I mean, it was funny to try to find like what was the real like George Gomez. Like that's how Gomez like it is. It's like those are weird syllables to try to put together. I remember some of those lines were also so long that even as a regular read, it would have been difficult to just say it out loud as you're reading it, and you were just delivering full send, like this whole freaking paragraph. How the hell did you do that, man? Well, I just always picture it's my ass on the line if it sucks. So it like just fucking have no shame and get it out there Right Yeah The stuff yeah basically to to write that initially i just watched like every single conan with arnold like five times and i was taking notes like okay no r's are ever pronounced right constantly yell the entire time and i had a list of like 20 different notes because the they they'd have kind of recurring things like arnold was always making up some heroic story about himself. And so that led to this thing with Ian. Right. Yeah, with... 79. The 79 Twippies. Cyborg, you know, whatever. Cyborg, I told a Germanian, Mark Ritchie. We based the movie Collateral Damage. That was one of my favorite lines that we came up with together. It was about a firefighter who hates bombs. Who hates bombs. That was one of my favorite lines, too. Yeah, the one that I wish I could do that was your totally yours, Matt, was that I kind of fucked up and I wish I could do it again. It's the holiday classic film Jingle All The Way. You know, right? He like does it really fast. He's like Jingle All The Way. Like he like – that's how Smigel like he kills that. Jingle All The Way. Yeah. Jingle All The Way. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Every single one ever, they would always do the Jingle All The Way thing. Even if it was like ten years after the movie came out, it was always – always self-promoting. And then you came up with the idea of, like, it's the Williams, they should have made that into a Williams game. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And that was, like, we're both obviously fans of that. And then it was fun because from there, it kind of set the tone and, like, dude, Don, you found that voice that you were going to do while we were recording, you know, for King Kong. Well, do you remember your Arnold voice was, like, so, like, magnetic that I literally couldn't find my own voice because I started sounding kind of like... Didn't I sound like Arnold or something? I didn't. I don't know. I didn't get that, no. No, he's talking about when we were recording. Not with what we recorded, but I was trying to find this Kong voice because I'm Hispanic and I was like, you know, I can kind of talk like this a little bit, like a little bit of an accent or something. Truly the only of us who should do that, for sure. I couldn't do that. I couldn't do it. I could not because all I could hear was Arnold. Yeah, well, you got it. Eventually, yeah. Well, honestly, I think you were almost being too precious with it because you had so many different versions of a Spanish accent. You were kind of like trying out some different – like you had more. I had like one speed on my pitch, so I just pitched 100 miles an hour the whole time. You were trying to kind of like vary it up. It's like, no, bro, just like this is not about subtlety right now. You're playing like a hundred foot monkey, you know, so that's pretty funny, man. Yeah. I was, I was pretty happy with how that turned out. Yeah. I mean, you, Don, Don, like put it all together after we did all the sessions. Cause you know, on the real Conan thing, they're actually doing it live, live, you know, they have like somebody in the guys in the back room and Conan's just interacting with him in real time. But we actually had to, I had to do it, Ian, listen, and this is like a note for anyone else that's listening that wants to do this kind of bit. record like the head further away because the closer you are right the more like the more a minor movement will affect the actual i literally had to go frame by frame and re-center you and arnold every single frame for like an entire performance in because like well it was just you know yeah we tried right remember we tried to keep you centered but it was like well even you Even yours, yeah. I mean, I'm screaming at the top of my lungs. There's no way. Yeah, of course. Yeah, I mean, that just also shows you what a pro Robert Smigel was to just be able to do that live every time. Yeah, I mean, well, he was looking at himself doing it. So, I mean, f*** off, bro. I feel like I could do it. You did it. Yeah, no, that is crazy. That's wild. I can't believe you did that. Like, that's dedication to the band, for sure. I had to man I mean it worked you know there's like a few moments that you know I think we decided collectively that it was worth the performance to just have a little bit of the mouth kind of move a little bit because it was hilarious it does that in Spicle stuff too like get up yeah they played around with it some but for anyone that wants to do this for future reference do not get up close to the camera like get like a little bit further back and don't move at all yeah but we had to film ourselves separately reacting to everybody that even though we were also the voices of right through the characters right right so it create you know that whole aspect of it was like a lot of piecing stuff together and uh that took a lot longer i think than we were man it turned out so good though and you said you're gonna bust out like some of these things into their own videos so people can kind of just yeah that's something that that actually i wanted to talk to you guys about i mean matt and i haven't really like after the twippies we haven't really like caught up or done anything like this together so maybe we could all kind of talk about that and figure that out after the session or now or whatever but yeah i think that's a great idea yeah yeah i think i think we could like because there were aspects of it that we didn't get to do like a final layer of polish or just like the audio mix at the end like was kind of rushed and so there's just a few things that we could actually kind of like fix i guess that wouldn't take much effort yeah just and then post like kind of a final version of everything. Yeah, I mean, potentially, yeah, exactly. In 4K, you know, because technically this was 1080 just because it just took so long to export all the stuff in 4K, you know? Yeah, well, it'll probably be the first director's cut that's shorter than the original.
    24:30
    But I don't know. We got all those interview clips too, though, right? That's true. And that's the other thing is like we're talking about maybe posting like getting those all the rest of the interviews finished at the same time as you know posting like the the separate clips of the you know conan bit the intro pentonium bit could be separate little videos and just kind of having that all ready yeah having all that stuff kind of ready at the same time and then there could be kind of another you know blast blast of sorts or whatever yeah are you guys are you thinking like youtube or like social media stuff like yeah like youtube but but well definitely like that could that could also be broken up into to like shorts and stuff right right like sub segments of the conan thing that's what i'm saying is like i love like when i was literally just watching like conan posted to bill hater like bill hater was talking about this fart machine bit that they had on actually crazy on the movie collateral damage he was like an assistant on that but it's like a little four minute clip off off their uh podcast you know and uh but i and i didn't watch that but now i'm going to go listen to the podcast because i watched that four minute clip so i think that's like nice um one thing i wanted to i wanted to find out because i don't really know much about this but colin yeah i was curious i was curious like how long it took for you to like write the you know um like different category descriptors yeah and yeah we haven't talked about that was the process behind that. Colin wrote all of the game descriptions, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We moved, we didn't have too long to do that. Like, I think I had, what, a few days or maybe a week to pull that together. Yeah, but, like, fortunately, I had some basic stuff I could pull from from the prior year, just like we had done this whole massive voting guide that covered all the categories and all the nominees. so I was able to pull from that and just sort of channel my like award show voice in my head and kind of churn it out pretty quick I love for most of my life I've loved watching like the Oscars every year so I had to sort of like play that a little bit I thought they turned out great you kept them all like right around 20 seconds in hearing them done out I think they could have been a little bit shorter.
    26:58
    It dragged on a little bit, but it's fine. Live and Mark. When I was reading through them, I was like, yeah, they're all about 20 seconds. And then Mark read them, and the way Mark reads stuff, it kind of ended up a little more. Yeah, it's a little embellished.
    27:12
    Yeah, so I would take that back if I could, or at least do another half. Well, but who cares? And also, isn't this by far the shortest Twippies ever? I feel like it was, right? Ian, I think we might have lost your mic or something. Sorry, my bad. Okay.
    27:30
    Yeah, no, it's definitely the shortest. And that's good. That's really good. I think lean into that.
    27:39
    I'm a weird person to talk about award shows with because we, Colin, we've talked about this a lot. I don't like awards for art. I just think that's kind of stupid to do that. I think it's good because it'll get eyes on things. Like if a movie gets an award and a lot of people wouldn't have seen it, but it got this award, then that's good. But other than that, I always think it just makes people crazy. You know, Colin, I've gotten a little bit of it behind the scenes, but awards make people go crazy, whether they're nominated or not. Oh, my God.
    28:14
    You could do a whole podcast about that. Exactly. That's what I'm saying. That's why I don't like them. so this one doesn't do that this one actually no what it what it does is it celebrates the winners you really busted it down to like the categories that make sense and actually make it a little bit more about art and design like how it is now um because i love those conversations exactly and then the inner the interviews are awesome and then if you can bust that out into longer stuff that's actually helpful to pinball that's actually things that a casual can watch can watch that and learn something so like i agree is is it just going to be a huge dick sucking contest of what like award shows usually are of like oh my god like who cares we we don't want no one needs that there's so much of that in the world like this is better so so anytime we're kind of talking about this and like being like it's shorter it's got skits it's got actual interviews like those are things like to me i'm like yes that's the award show i want to see you know yeah it's like it's like the awards are sort of the like backbone and the structure that facilitates all the other creative stuff that that you can do with it um cool for sure at least that's how i tend to think about that i don't know yeah and we talked you know colin we talked a little bit about kind of the the structure that we came up with for this sort of potentially being able to be reused you know yeah for for future twippies well i think i think i think it it it is the format and the way they think about it moving forward. Absolutely. I think you can only go up from here with it. Once we refine it, have some more time to, like you said, have actual production meetings and brainstorms and really think it through, it only gets better. Yeah, for sure. By the way, I don't know. I think we probably covered what we need to cover, but I just wanted to mention one thing that I talked to Ian about was how we broke Mark Silk.
    30:16
    Oh, yeah. We did, yeah. Elp-sorps-yelp-sorp or something, I think is what it was. Elp-sorps-yelp-sorp. Oh, the... The fake... No, it's a fake... It was a fake yelp that I was trying to make up. Because, you know, like a Hitchhiker's Guide thing or something. But Matt had written something about there was a fake yelp. or an alien Yelp that they were looking at and so then I was trying to come up with a weird Yelp so then I said yeah, Elveserve's Yelp Yelp I think and he like you guys can probably put it in but there's like a clip of him trying to say it, it's so funny I thought it was like an audio edit mistake of first time I heard it so it ended up kind of getting messed up in the final version weirdly but what's funny is it was intended to be like sped up like on purpose as like a almost like an alien language you know like that was like the way to say it in that language was but it was the thing that Mark had to read like 25 times but he actually did have to read it multiple times I feel good about that like I was like damn alright here we go it's kind of like I figured out the move to get through like the judo master and I was like yeah gotcha buddy yeah it was it was funny i thought he might break down yeah and so no he was a total pro like it didn't phase him he was awesome man he was awesome he was really awesome yeah i was working with mark was was pretty amazing it was it was the only way the only reason it was hard was because he had too many good lines and it was like how do we even like pick because they're all different and awesome in their own way and it's like if we would have just done one or two of each would have been great but we had like three or four. And then like, yeah. And he was like adding stuff to an improv. Really, really, really cool, man. Just kind of, yeah. Adding a bunch of cool little flair and like different deliveries and like little sidebar comments that really like enhanced some of that, some of that script. Yeah. Some of that stuff made it in, but yeah, I would like to have, I would love to be able to like put out some bloopers or something, both from like the session with Ian. Oh yeah. We had, we had some crazy there. Yeah. There's some, we're going to have to, We're going to have to spend some time and go through and grab some of the best stuff from there because there's definitely some really good people all around, dude. Even have it be blooper reel at least to get ready for the next one. You know what I mean? If you have an edit of the bloopers that gets out right before the next Twippy's, be like, yo, we're fixing stuff. This year, yeah, that's a good idea, man. That's a good idea. No, I literally only have good ideas, guys.
    32:53
    If you call that out every time, we're going to be here all day. Dude, I can't with you, man. Was there anything else you guys wanted to talk about with the Twippies? Well, I was going to say, Colin, thanks for offering us the opportunity and just working with us to try to make something happen. I think we did, and we think we did something pretty awesome and fun.
    33:21
    There's a couple of little things that I think if we had a little bit more time could have been better, which I think if we end up releasing the 4K version, I think we probably will have some of those edits in there. I think it will be a little bit more polished, I guess you could say. Yeah, I guess if you haven't seen it yet, you could wait for that one or not. Or not. Do not. Go watch it. It's good, guys. Watch both.
    33:47
    It's fucking hilarious. I want to take away from that, too. is like, dude, this was like such a fun, like it was fun to make it. It was really fun to watch it. And I think like people, like I said, if you come to it now, you're going to have fun watching it just as much as you would have like if you watch it on Valentine's Day instead of hanging out with your girlfriend. So, yeah.
    34:10
    Watch it. Find it. So thanks. Thanks, Colin. And, you know, honestly, working with you was a dream because you were just so cool, so chill, like open to collaborating, like you weren't hounding us about like a schedule i mean it was just like heck yeah like this guy gets it um like just make just make cool art that's it yeah let's just have fun man and and honestly like i think if we end up doing it again i think it's going to be like even better so yeah thanks colin thanks yeah thank you yeah it was sick nice well let's talk about a little known franchise called uh what is it pokemon pokemon pokemon i was gonna say don't ask jack danger what it's called because he can't tell you obviously so i best friend so i i haven't are any of us actual pokemon fans like so i used to be uh in third grade i think yeah third grade I got like Pokemon Red.
    35:18
    And my buddy, who's my best friend, Josh. Game Boy. And we just duked it out, man. That became my thing. And I had just moved to the U.S. I was living on military housing and we used to ride our bikes to school together and play Pokemon. So did you also like watch the anime? Because that was probably out around then. I watched the show. I played the trading card game. I bought Pokemon, the trading card game for Game Boy. Oh, yeah. It was my jam when I was a kid, yeah. Yeah, I mean, I was already like 16 or something when Pokemon came out, but I was a gamer, and it was huge. So I think I did play through the first one or one of them on Game Boy. And I was like, that's cool, but I'm not. I'm a little younger, so I think that's why it got me. It hooked me right in. Yeah, I enjoyed it. I played through the whole game. I just was kind of like, all right, that's good. I'm good on Pokemon forever now. Yeah, I played it quite a bit, man. I remember coming out I was like in fifth or sixth grade and like uh I it was a really weird time because you're like I actually told this to the stern people but I was like you're kind of in between adulthood and childhood so it's like I had a bunch of x-files episodes taped and in the mornings like dude I was such a little freak like my I was like totally alone in the morning and stuff so I would just like watch an x-files episode waiting for pokemon to come on and then I'd watch every episode of Pokemon.
    36:41
    First season, especially, I saw every single one and definitely played Yellow. So that was a very big part of my life. You can see the seed for the stoner I would become by X-Files and Pokemon with a giant bowl of cereal. That the seed Just get back to that moment What about you colin yeah you know i was like 10 when it came out so uh all my friends were into it i i played i probably played it a couple times on on game boy but i never really like got into the series um that much it was not a big cultural touch point for me other than sort of realizing that uh it was pretty big at the time when when i was a kid and obviously it's been big since then so um it's just interesting seeing uh stern sort of move in in that kind of younger uh almost youthful direction with the ip you know that's that's what's interesting to me i think yeah i've been i'm a like big nintendo guy forever like i had the nes in like 1985 and i even had like a japanese famicom somehow and like every Nintendo system what is that? I was going to say oh virtual boy nice this is not a real virtual boy it's like they just came out with this you put a switch into it and it perfectly emulates a virtual boy that's cool I spent $100 on that thing so that's how big of a Nintendo fan I am I never owned one of those things, but I rented one multiple times in 1980. From Blockbuster, I did that as well. Yeah, I remember that. Playing Wario Tennis or Mario Tennis. Yeah, I have very, very vivid memories of like, yeah. For sure. And it was X.
    38:42
    Yeah, and it's just red because back in 1995, it was an LED display to be able to fit in that thing, but only red and green LEDs were really a thing at the time. Right. There were no blue or white LEDs, so it's just red. Everybody was like, why isn't it just color? It's like literally you couldn't make blue back then, which is crazy. Yeah, I think that's the reason that I wear glasses now. I used to have 20-20 vision before I rented Virtual Boy.
    39:09
    Yeah, dude, if you play it more than like 20 minutes, you're going to get a headache. Oh, yeah. It's like the first migraines I ever had was just that thing like roasting my retinas. Your retinas, yeah. yeah you have to like adjust the pupil distance and like no matter where you put it it's just yeah that doesn't feel right at all no human has eyes like this yeah yeah but anyway point being like i i'm most for as far as like pokemon coming out as a stern pinball game the thing that excites me the most is is really like what other nintendo franchises or might yeah like doesn't open the Pokemon's like the biggest, and technically Pokemon is kind of half Nintendo, half Game Freak. But, you know, Nintendo was definitely involved in this pinball machine. They have their hands in every Pokemon thing. So just like that door opening up, that's exciting to me. Like Zelda, Metroid, Mario, Donkey Kong, like all those things. They're all huge media properties, like as big as just about any other... And there was a lot of crossover with those particular IPs and pinball buyers as well. Totally. It's like they're gamers. Yeah, definitely.
    40:29
    And there hasn't been really. I mean, there's a Zelda homebrew. There was a terrible Mario game. Was it Gottlieb? The Gottlieb. Boy, it's so brutal. And you'll still see it pretty often, I literally think, because of the theme. like if that was some random it still does well on location certainly and it's Mario I can't emphasize enough how terrible that game is probably all the hate I have for Bone Busters I should really have for Mario but exactly like we need another Mario for sure that's the one to me when you talk about it I would love Zelda personally as a theme but man a Mario game would do Gangbusters oh yeah Yeah. You know what's funny, Ian? I had this, so for our dream theme segment, I had this original concept called Master Plumber with Harry Potter staircase style swinging tubes that you could reroute balls. That's what we should do for Mario, dude. Oh, yeah. I'll give it away to whoever wants to make Mario. Just take the idea. You're so generous.
    41:40
    You know, rerouting tubes that you can send the balls in different places. It's kind of, Winch, It's easy. Winchester has a mech like that, kind of. It has that rotating circle that changes ball paths. Or like the... Yeah. Staircase. Just put like four of them in there. Just, you know, have different combinations. We've gone far astray from Pokemon, but I do think... Anyways, yeah. There probably are some diverters in Pokemon. I'm trying to think about it. I mean, there are because balls will do different things depending, like, when you shoot it at stuff. but do you want to talk layout or anything like that? Am I the only one? You're the only one who's played it. I'm the only one who's played it. Tell us about playing it in the Astern event and just how that went down. We were all wanted to go but we were all doing quippy stuff so we couldn't make it. Yeah, you guys were all busy. I'm the only one who's super duper unemployed so I had no problem making it down there. And you're like a four hour drive away. Yeah, it's a four hour drive for sure. Yeah, well first of all let me just say I think there's like one Prevailing school of thought that has come out That is like, oh this is some like easy shooter I think it Is an, it's a fan layout But also I think it's doing a lot And it's kind of, there's a thing that Stern Has been doing with their layouts now that I really really like Where it's, if you're shooting it well It's a fast flower, the ball's always going You kind of get in a rhythm When you have problems you really got to like get it under control and it can be dangerous and i'll say this for like although like whatever i'm a fairly good player i think for for all the crap that pokemon got i'll say there's some really interesting stuff happening up there with like the upper like basically where the stand-ups are and where the mouth comes down i had what was essentially a power drain down the middle by it like hit one bank hit the other bank and then like came back down i'm like that's really interesting like those are it actually it has some surprising um it has some surprising moments to it while you're playing it uh but it is like an easier layout like and and i think that's a good thing for obviously we talked about how big the ip is like all that stuff but and the rule set so far the hard part about this is always talking about is like i think it shoots great i love it i i talked about this in our article my favorite shot was up the middle and it will actually return as like an orbit uh to the right flipper like the mouth kind of area like opens up and it takes that kind of and then there's that other shot that feels like it should be an orbit that is like one of those like vintage like george gomez ramps and i just think like having those unexpected returns and kind of having like those those are always like interesting to me when i when I'm playing it. The thing that they talk about that I would love to see more of is like, you always kind of at these Stern events, you always hear about the code that's going to come, but you don't really aren't. And I understand it. Like, I love all those guys. We're going to do an interview with, like, the three guys coding Pokemon, just because I find that to be so interesting. But it's just like there's the game that they talk about, and there's the game that is there. The game that's there is fun right now, But it is not representative of, I think, what's going to be in there, even maybe at, like, when there's, like, kind of, like, launch, like, actual official launch. So, yeah, that's kind of my impression. It'll be even better is what you're saying. Yeah. It'll be better. And that's what I mean is, like, there were kind of, like, they told us we could go to different, like, zones. And I know they have, like, different maps and stuff like that. That wasn't coded into the game when I was there. It felt like maybe So that at least I Never was able to do it I never saw anyone else do it I watched Steve Bowden play one ball for 20 minutes I was playing with him I was like this is the dumbest person to play with Why did I pick Steve Bowden to play with Like just gleeful And he's like in his own little world Just like having a ball You know what I mean And he's like weee And I'm like god fucking damn it Like when do I get to play and I never saw him go to a different zone either so I'm just saying I don't think that was in there yet I'm assuming that it will be though they talked a lot about that and I think that'll be really interesting those were the parts I was most interested in because it's like certain Pokemon are only going to be in certain regions or it'll be easier to find them they're going to make it really like Pokemon so I'm excited for that did it feel like a child's game when you were playing it? Or were you like, I could play this at an arcade and have fun and not feel like a doofus? So the rules are really simple. It's basically like Monster Bash, where it's like you hit something three times and then the fourth time is like a mode starter.
    46:34
    As far as a child's game, I mean, I guess they're all sort of child's games. Children's games, are they not? But I don't know. Like the art and stuff was cool. Dude, this is one of those themes where it's like, i actually got this is i'm gonna i sound so shilly but i don't give a shit like this was the one i dude you guys know i've been to like all these releases basically i think i maybe missed one this is the first one that i actually got chills when they like showed us the game they showed us the art the song played like i was like damn this actually is me this is like my childhood you know like and so um i think it's still a nostalgia twinge kids love it but i'm saying for me my child inside was it resonated with for sure okay so that's that that's the interesting about the property though is that like it does hit that nostalgia bone for like people of of our general age i mean it's 30 plus years ago um uh as well as you know some of the younger people who are into it even now so um it's got it's pretty wide appeal yeah i i think like gen z people generally are like have no hesitation to just still be totally in love with pokemon like like they like it's not a like i don't know like for for me some of those things are like well you grow out of those things like as you get older but i think gen z that's not a thing they're not growing out of pokemon yeah i mean i'm a bad judge of this because i like all the shit that i liked when i I was 17, so I don't know. Yeah. Yeah, I do too. For whatever reason, Pokemon just always was like more of a kiddie. It felt a little bit younger. Younger skewing thing than like other, you know, video game stuff that I was into. I had that more with Harry Potter than I did with Pokemon. I think Pokemon was still kind of in my age range, but I understand what you're saying in terms of like maybe not having that inherent. But I'm saying for this one, I actually kind of did. and I think like that feeling is there's no denying this is the most popular theme they've ever had just by looking at social media look at social media like yeah there are people there are people who I never see talk about pinball who are like oh my god there's Pokemon pinball Jack Danger was saying like he's got he said like he had an axe hit him up because they know that he works in pinball and they love Pokemon and they're like hey did you know there's a Pokemon pinball machine is like yeah I made it. Yeah. Like, yeah.
    49:05
    Uh, but, um, but so that's what I'm saying is like, it's, it's bringing in crazy, like, uh, like from everywhere, you know? So you got crazy external media coverage too, just from all sorts of like games outlets and pop culture outlets and all the, obviously the Nintendo outlets. So, yeah, I think even Nintendo like published something online. Oh yeah. Yeah. There was, you know, I, I followed some video game sites and podcasts and they were talking about it on there. And, And everybody, the overwhelming thing is like, wait a minute, $7,000? Right, right, right, right. No one knows how much they actually cost until now. Oh, that sounds so cool. Oh, no, I can't afford that. Well, you can go play it on location. What's also really cool is, talking to Zach Sharp, it sounds like the Pokemon Company, I think. Is that who is like the owner of Pokemon or whatever? Yes. So when they saw the game and were able to play it like it had just happened, I guess they were enthralled by it. They were like, yes, this is exactly what we want. And we're like, hey, we're going to bring this. This is our 30-year anniversary. We want these. Everywhere that we're going to be for all this celebration stuff, we want these pinball machines there. So, yeah. Perfect. That's great. so Ian did it feel like a Jack Danger game or a George Gomez game or something else I think well definitely more George Gomez in that it's more traditional I would say like there's not a lot of like the when I think about Jack Danger games I kind of think about okay here's how it's like Jack Danger and here's how it's like George Gomez I would say George Gomez we talked about that ramp there's a little bit more of a traditional simple design right and it's going to like lean on the code a bit to like get good that's how bond was people didn't like bond until the code got good right this might this is kind of in that zone but the jack danger part of it is more like when it's flowy it's you're ripping it and it's and you keep going and it doesn't stop flowing and and and sort of these unexpected returns and where it's coming from sometimes that can change but the flowiness is like quite yeah jacked injury nice nice that's good to hear i was gonna ask you guys too man so i've been like kind of waiting slash looking for a new game and uh i don't know man this might be it but like i'm kind of on the fence right because like a pro would obviously be like the easiest way to get in like i'm kind of thinking like this might be the game to try to find a way to buy even sell my games or something get the cash put it on route somewhere like maybe get some money back at least have it pay for itself or something like this would probably be the game right um i hit up one of the guys that i know here semi-locally in wilmington his name is eric aka zuti yeah um he has a distributor he has a bunch of games on route and stuff he told me that his distributor basically took an order for 100 on day one wow wow so he was like he can't even he's had the distributor for a long time, like since 2018 or something. He's like, I can't even get you on the first run. So now I'm thinking, maybe it's not a good idea.
    52:20
    I've heard that the first few runs are pretty much sold through later in the year. What do you guys think about that? Well, you're a glitterati media type. You can't pull some strings. Yeah, there you go.
    52:37
    What's Kaneda doing that you're not? Exactly. I don't know. guys help me yeah he's getting an le for three thousand dollars uh good lord i don't that's i don't know if that's true or not um i think dude i don't know what i well i if you're asking your personal personal if you're asking me if you should buy it and put it on location this is like i would buy a pro and put it on location duh like yes like that's right yeah that's the one i would do like i wouldn't right right empire i wouldn't do like other big ips i also wouldn't do this one i would do because i'm like there's a local record store here at braxis they've been trying to get a game forever it's a great all ages spot i'm like we need to find a pokemon to put in here it's a license to print money so um i i would say the only thing i the only thing i would watch out for is because of the demand for the game uh and i would buy it is if your local are going to get oversaturated. Saturated, yeah. If you're in an island, then go for it. You guys don't have a lot of pinball, right? We don't have good pinball. There's one place that will definitely get it, and it'll stop working in three months. There's one other place that might get it. I don't know. I just think having a game on location is such an uphill battle already. This is one of the few games where it's kind of giving you something.
    54:03
    Guaranteeing something, yeah. Yeah, that would be my read on it. Ian, did you get to play the Pro and the Premium? Yeah, I played the Pro, Premium, and LE. I mean, Premium and LE are the same. I was going to ask this. Colin, I don't remember from playing, but is the Magnet only in the Premiums and LEs, or is the Magnet also in the Pro? Oh, I don't know off the top of my head. I think that sounds right, yeah. I think it's... The magnet in between the Mewtwo at the top? Exactly. Yeah, I think that's why. That's premium only. So that is my only... Okay, look, I don't give a shit. I mean, I think it's pro because... Like, if you're putting it on location, it has to be pro. Because 85% of the game is there without it. This is what I love what Stern's doing in general, is that if I was... We're not rich, guys. Not breaking any news here. But what Stern is doing with their games now is you get most of the game in the design without having the extra mechs. And what's cool about this one is you still are getting all sculpts. No, the Pikachu doesn't move anymore. And no, the Pokeball doesn't move anymore. But they're there. And I know this. I don know if Stern wants us talking about it but that was at the insistence of the licensor They were going to maybe do plastics It was on the table but they were like look we want it to look good We really want it. So the only thing that's really, for me, a gameplay that was really interesting, that I think the magnet actually kind of gives a lot of variance to up there, that's the only thing you're missing. Other than that, everything is in there. So that means you're going to be fixing less shit, right? Right, yeah. Yeah, I think the Pro was super-duper fun. I had a ton of fun on Pros. People also say I like them because I'm a big guy that likes to move machines around.
    56:13
    It's always way easier in a Pro, right? I almost yanked my shoulder out of its socket trying to move an AIQ. That was like a premium AIQ the other day. I was like, ah, Jesus Christ.
    56:26
    But no, this one, the Pro is super fun. I think they shoot very similarly if not the same Nice It seems like Stern's been doing better the last few releases as far as keeping the core gameplay Yes, absolutely and it's probably way easier for their coders too I imagine especially with a game where you're coding in all this shit This is what I want to say to give those guys a little bit of slack They're coding in battling like finding pokemon and like going to places plus whatever like how that represents itself in gameplay so it's not like a broken pinball game where you score like a billion points from doing like one you know the thing that everyone is going to like exploit right so um right there's that is like in that way you know it's there's it's complicated did they did I would imagine that Nintendo is one of the hardest companies to work with because they're very, very protective about their IP. And historically, they got burned with the first Mario movie in the 80s, and some of that stuff was just trash. And they famously didn't do any licensing or anything for years and years and years and years. and now they're finally, I think because their CEO died a couple years, like five or six years ago, they are now like kind of opening up to, you know, you got the Mario movie and now you got another movie.
    58:04
    But did Stern say anything about working with, you know, the licensor or anything along those lines? I mean, very famously, I always show up late to these, so I always miss the initial talk. You miss? Were they – well, so I actually – I do have something for that, but I just wanted to say like in full disclosure, I'm not – I don't go to that part a bit because honestly I don't really feel like we find out anything at those. It's sort of like a nice like PR, like we got the license, guys. Aren't you happy? It's like, yeah, OK. Like congrats, guys.
    58:38
    I think the way that they got around with working with a really hard licensor like this is they used – well, first of all, they used the stuff from the show. And it was like everything after season 10, basically. And that was both because it was HD quality that it was like that was when they upgraded. And also because all that stuff is still canon Pokemon. And then on the play on the play field art and on the cabinet art. Right. They use Pokemon art. So like, yeah. And Zombie Yeti said, right, this is like the hardest job he still has ever done, just like laying it out. But I think that's how they got around it. And I do know this. This is like a crazy story is – so they were looking at the Pikachu like on the play field and it was – the like outline of it was in a 13-point like line. No, it was 15-point and they're like, yo, like Pikachu is 13-point. Like they – it's mind-blowing to me. Someone like measured that. They're like, no, no, no, no, no. Like you're trying to thicken it up because there's like pinball reasons that you would do it. And they're like, no, when we show Pikachu 13.5, it's like, damn, okay. So I think both hard and not hard because it's like not hard because guess what? You don't get that many choices. But hard in that like the application of that, you still want to be awesome. And I think it succeeded. I think they did a good job.
    60:03
    Nice. Yeah, so like obviously I wasn't there in a room, but I've talked to some people who have been in the room. my understanding is that Stern basically got a seat at the table or an opportunity with the license because of relationships that Seth Davis had from his time at Disney where some people at Disney eventually made their way over to the Pokemon company and that's sort of how that came together but that also means that Nintendo is still a little bit of an uphill battle I think that tracks because Seth Davis was so fucking happy that whole day. He was like walking around. He's like, he's like, he was kind of doing the thing. Or it was like, who's the guy who's like kind of like always shaking his head like the professional wrestler. He's like, it's bigger than Mario. It's bigger than Harry Potter and Star Wars. And like he was, I heard him say that like two or three times. I'm like, dude, this guy's loving this. He must be stoked, man. Oh yeah, for sure. Definitely. I think he is. Yeah. I looked at the list of the top media franchises on Wikipedia and Pokemon was number one. And it's not even close. It's like, yeah, quadruple the closest thing. Like Star Wars is like not even half of the sales figures of Pokemon, which is I think the card game is just especially like pandemic and post pandemic has been like it's a multiplier for that thing. Because it was like it was a kid's thing. it was all that stuff but you add in collectability into all that like that's really just it's chum in the waters of our capitalist culture fellas i mean i'm sure jake paul is going to get one of these i thought about that right i mean people are definitely going to be marking their their le's it's so funny right because so colin do you have any insight this is something i was interested in is like yeah they were talking about they had all these ideas for the le's and And they're like specific numbers that are essentially tied to Pokemon. They can't legally, I guess, say that it is, but they are, right?
    62:12
    Do you know anything about like any of that? In what regard? Was there ever plans to like actually have that art or any of that? Oh, I mean, I'm sure they might have suggested it or wanted to do it at some point. I don't have any confirmation that was ever like officially in the plans, but I'm sure it's something that they thought about and asked for. It's just like something that people are obviously going to do now, right? Well, yeah. I mean, I think a lot of people are, a lot of the DLE buyers, I mean, I do see a lot of conversation around that of people securing a certain number. Like your podcasting partner, Shane, I think he was big about getting a certain number. Yeah, you got, I think you got, Geodude. Yeah, something like that. But people are making that connection naturally and talking about it that way.
    63:11
    Regardless of whether or not Steron is officially facilitating it, people are doing it regardless. Yeah. I hadn't even thought about that. It's crazy, man.
    63:22
    What one would you guys want if you got him? No, I don't actually know any Pokemon. I would want Snorlax. I'm looking up the list. Snorlax is not bad I would want Snorlax Okay sure I mean I'd probably go Squirtle Do you remember the cheat on the Game Boy game Where you were like You had to like go on this boat And then go on the edge of the screen And go up and down a couple times Oh yeah Go find the Snorlax or something Oh yeah It was like a rare candy multiplier cheat Or something like that Right yeah Honestly though Snorlax is such a like frustrating pokemon because it's like just used as a barrier in the game right i mean it's like you can't get places you're just like this is the wall uh but i mean i get it i mean snorlax features very prominently on the play field it's like where the flippers like right underneath that like where you drain oh really there's a big snorlax there so oh that's cool uh i would probably pick abra do you guys know that one like abra yeah hell yeah because i have always liked psychic Pokemon. I think they're cool. I would always play them too early and in the wrong scenarios and just be really fucking frustrated just because I thought they were cool.
    64:34
    In general, I like those. Nice. Colin, what are you... I'm trying to look at lists and stuff. Is your kid... Colin, is your kid too young for Pokemon still? Yeah. He's two and a half. He watched a few episodes of Pokemon the other day and seemed to be sort of into it, but yeah, he's way too young. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Word. I was going to guess 23, so yeah, two and a half. That's a lot. 23, yeah.
    65:06
    Dude, you know what I just remembered? Thinking about the Pokemon, Snorlax is my first pick. Second pick, Mewtwo, okay? My aim screen name in like 2000 and like 2000. Oh god, aim screen name, alright.
    65:20
    MewtwoRules99, dude. Nice. Mewtwo Rules I was chatting with probably 30 year olds what's everybody's aim username back then mine was kdfans16 and it stood for Carl Denson the jazz saxophone player which I thought was really cool of course dude I was musicguru6 with a K nice it was a Screen name, I don't know if you guys all remember the MTV game show where they had an online trivia component. It was one of the first ones to ever do that. So that was my screen name from that, and I just used it for this.
    66:06
    Aim 2. That's hilarious. What was yours? Mine was, so I drove a Honda CRX. That was my, I don't know if you guys know what that car is, but it was like a cool hatchback. Yeah, yeah, of course. In the 90s, I used to race it a little bit. autocross it so my my screen username was crx goon damn that's actually like the toughest of all of our names that is by far the toughest one like still holds up that one's good actually yeah dude you have like bring that back you have real lore like behind you that we don't even know about you're like yeah back in my fucking street racing days have you ever have you ever watched have you ever watched initial d do you know what that is i i'm a i'm a familiar with it yeah i didn't like get into it or anything dude you should get into it you would like it now i still watch it hypes me up really yeah there was a game too like an arcade game yeah it's good it's it's it's good yeah but anyway i i that's how i'm thinking about you like because it's like basically about a kid who has like kind of a shitty car but it's like amazing at drifting and he can like win every race and everyone's like i think that i think that's like how i'm thinking about you i think he had a toyota 86 he does yeah he does he does if it was a crx i would have definitely watched that show yeah whatever that's so funny that's funny man so anyway pokemon is there is there anything else to talk about i'm gonna try to get one dude yeah yeah i'm gonna try to get one i think it's i think it's time because i've been like kind of waiting for a new game and like you know i think i can kind of like wheel and deal the ones that i have now to append the cash and be fine. You should just... Go ahead. Go hit up Jeff from Mad Pinball. Maybe he'll get you to the front of the list.
    67:51
    Mad Pinball? Yeah, Mad Pinball. They're a sponsor of the Nudgecast, so that's why I'm saying it. Oh, cool. Oh, okay. Cool, cool. They could... I don't know, but that's cool because I don't really know anyone, yeah. I'm saying he might hit Jeff up.
    68:06
    Servana? Is that his name? They had games at Triangle Pinball Collective. Mad Pinball had games over there. Oh, really? Yeah. He's a really good guy. He's super nice. Well, thanks for the tip.
    68:19
    Welcome. So, side note, does Stern have any like demo loaner thing that they do with streamers or anything like that? I thought I heard somebody say something about it. I think Ralph had a deal with them. I don't know if they do anymore. I don't either. It was all coordinated through their distributor network. Gotcha.
    68:46
    And I think one of their PR firms, too. No, I would love a game from Stern. That would be sick. It's probably all metric space, too, right? Well, I mean, you've got to plant some seeds first. If you stream twice a week or something, I'm sure that's something to talk about. But you don't even stream twice a year right now. so you know you gotta yeah gotta do that first you guys are gonna start streaming games yeah i think so i'm gonna build a streaming rig like in the next month i've i've thought about that so much uh i would love to do that well because we do budge the nudge and all that stuff um and i would love to like do some film versions of that because i also think it'd be funny like i can rip on people on stream kind of um but you'd be a hilarious streamer seriously yeah you really Yeah, thanks. But I think, yeah, that's cool. I'm like, I'll watch you guys do it first and then learn from your mistakes. There you go. All right. Sounds good. Appreciate that. Yeah, you can give us some feedback.
    69:49
    Of course. At least make it worthwhile. Well, you guys know I'm like your biggest fan. Well, it's probably who's that one guy is your actually biggest fan and then me. But the audio, Glenn. Glenn's probably your biggest fan. Oh, Glenn. Oh, Glenn Wechter. We love you, Glenn. Glenn Wechter is your biggest fan. But I'm like, you know, I'm coming in distant second.
    70:10
    Nice. Well, thanks for the support. We appreciate it. Was there anything else you guys want to talk about? I want to hear more from Colin if he has anything he wants to say. But I'm good, personally. Anything to add about Pokemon or otherwise? I think I would do Porygon. That would be my Pokemon. 137. Wow. That looks kind of cool.
    70:35
    $137 is the number anyway. Yeah, if I had to pick one. Nice, dude. Yeah, I'm excited. I'm excited to play it. I mean, this is the first media event that I haven't gone to since Wix. So we're watching it from a distance. And I got some big-time FOMO from hearing everyone's feedback on the game and how much they liked it and how much fun it was and obviously how excited the rest of the community is about this release. It's really positive to see.
    71:10
    Yeah, I'm like similar to Harry Potter. It's just like one of these huge franchises that needed to be a pinball machine just for the growth of the community and the hobby and all this stuff. So I'm glad that it's not a turd and that Home Pin didn't make it. Totally. could you imagine this no it's Homepins making Digimon that's the one oh man dude that's so true but who's gonna make Yu-Gi-Oh though oh shit that'd be like that's like a barrels title it's like it's got like a strong base it's like a weird cult following they're like yeah we'll make you love it for sure so Yeah.
    71:59
    So before we wrap that, what's Stern's next game going to be? Do we know? Are the rumors solid yet? Everyone says Transformers by Elliot Eisenman is the rumor. I don't have any in on that at all, but I think that's probably what it's going to be. I'm not super jacked on that theme or anything, but Elliot's a really cool guy. I think he's smart. I'll like to – look, I just want – yeah, exactly. I want new ideas in pinball. I want young people in pinball, so I'm psyched on a designer who's under 50.
    72:39
    Yeah, I thought Wick was great too. I still love John Wick. I like Wick. Well, I think that's going to wrap it up. It's a good conversation.
    72:48
    Yeah, that was fun. Do you want us to say bye or anything? Are we doing like a – Yeah, we can do that.
    72:54
    Maybe when... Bye, everyone! Good chatting. Alright, see ya. Bye, Ian. Bye-bye. Bye. Ethan says bye. Bye!
    73:14
    Watch more Pokemon. That is a 23. alright see you guys bye leave this territory now Return to your role.
    74:07
    Evacuate all personnel.