Episode 168: Pinball Magazine #5 with Jonathan Joosten

Pinball Profile·podcast_episode·44m 42s·analyzed·Dec 18, 2018

Analysis

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TL;DR

Pinball Magazine #5 celebrates Wayne Nyans' 159-game legacy and compares his innovation to modern designers.

Summary

Jonathan Joosten, editor of Pinball Magazine, discusses issue #5 featuring a comprehensive retrospective on Wayne Nyans, the legendary Gottlieb designer who created 180 games (159 in production) from 1949-1965. The conversation highlights Nyans' creative process, productivity under pressure, influence on pinball design, and comparison to contemporary designers like Scott Denise. They also explore design philosophy around fun vs. depth and industry trends in LCD adoption.

Key Claims

Wayne Nyans designed 180 different games, with 159 going to production between 1949-1965
high confidence · Jonathan Joosten states this directly as the feature article subject
Nyans' 159 games sold over 200,000 copies total
high confidence · Jeff Teoles cites this figure from the magazine content
Wayne Nyans just turned 100 years old and is still living independently, driving, and in good health
high confidence · Jonathan Joosten directly confirms during interview
Gottlieb was the dominant pinball manufacturer during the EM era, outselling Williams by 2-3x on comparable hits
high confidence · Jonathan Joosten cites collector sources and production numbers
Every Nyans game had to be mechanically and aesthetically different from the previous one due to distributor complaints
high confidence · Jonathan Joosten explains design constraint; Jeff Teoles validates observation
Scott Denise designed Total Nuclear Annihilation and also programmed the game code and music himself
high confidence · Jonathan Joosten discusses Scott as 'renaissance man' similar to Nyans
Stern copied Scott Denise's approach to humor and simplicity in Deadpool, including specific references like the Keith Elwin remark
low confidence · Jonathan Joosten's interpretation; Jeff Teoles disagrees and attributes humor to Deadpool's character canon
A Spanish company called New Canasta was the first to implement LCD backbox displays in pinball, before Jersey Jack's Wizard of Oz
medium confidence · Jonathan Joosten provides this historical detail, noting it was remake-based and shown only in Europe

Notable Quotes

“Every game had to be different than the previous one... Wayne didn't do that in the sense that he had to change things up because the distributors would be complaining like, ah, these games are all the same.”
Jeff Teoles @ mid-conversation — Illustrates the unique design constraint of the EM era that forced innovation on every title
“For a 10-year period, almost a title a month. So can you imagine that? You see how designers work nowadays, and obviously they're more complex.”
Jeff Teoles @ early-mid — Emphasizes the unprecedented productivity pressure Nyans faced compared to modern designers
“The first key ingredient should be it has to be fun. Then you can make it deep. But the game won't be any more fun if you make it as deep as whatever if it's not fun in the first place.”
Jonathan Joosten @ late-conversation — Core design philosophy statement about prioritizing fun over complexity
“Scott Dinesi designed one game for Spooky. And the biggest company that we have that's been around for 30 years, that keep blowing their own horn saying that they're here for 30 years, they're copying Scott Dinesi.”
Jonathan Joosten @ late-conversation — Criticism of Stern for borrowing design elements from Spooky's Total Nuclear Annihilation
“He basically had to take a piece of wood and his drawing material and if he was like okay I want to have a hole here then he had to drill a hole in it and make sure that it worked and if it was off then he had to replace it.”
Jonathan Joosten @ mid-conversation — Describes Nyans' manual, iterative design process without modern CAD tools
“Pinball used to be sort of like escape from the current world and just lock yourself into a game for two, three minutes and forget about your troubles and just focus on banging a ball around.”
Jonathan Joosten @ late-conversation — Articulates the original purpose and appeal of pinball games
“While he was working on one game he already had ideas for the next game coming up in his head. Then he had a sketchbook where he wrote down all of his ideas.”

Entities

Wayne NyanspersonJonathan JoostenpersonJeff Teolisperson Scott Deniseperson GottliebcompanySpooky PinballcompanyStern PinballcompanyJersey Jack Pinballcompany

Signals

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business_signal: Pinball Magazine operating as niche historical/cultural publication with high production quality; double-sized issues with comprehensive archival content; patreon/subscription model referenced
medium · Jeff praises magazine as 'encyclopedia' and 'timeless'; Jonathan describes sourcing photos from multiple museums; website pinball-magazine.com
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community_signal: Jonathan Joosten conducting extensive in-person research (two visits to 100-year-old Wayne Nyans; multiple museum visits; borrowed projector equipment) demonstrating deep community commitment to preserving and documenting pinball history
high · Jonathan describes 2015 and 2017 visits, projector use, museum visits to Pacific Pinball, Paris Pinball, Randy Peck's collection
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competitive_signal: Spooky Pinball's Total Nuclear Annihilation (Scott Denise design) positioned as innovative benchmark for humor, simplicity, and modern electronic music that larger manufacturers are now emulating
medium · Jonathan claims Stern's Deadpool borrows Scott's humor approach and dubstep music innovation; describes Scott as breaking barriers for Stern-style manufacturers
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design_philosophy: Debate over whether Stern's Deadpool (humor, electronic music, specific game callouts) copied Scott Denise's Total Nuclear Annihilation or simply reflected movie source material
low · Jonathan alleges copying; Jeff Teolis disagrees, attributing humor to Deadpool character canon; unresolved tension
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design_philosophy: Core pinball design principle: fun factor must be prioritized over complexity/depth; deep games that aren't fun won't sell or be replayed

Transcript

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0:00

Are you for real? It's so hard to tell from just a magazine. Yeah, you just smile in the picture of cells. Look what that does to me. It's time now for another Pinball Profile. I'm your host, Jeff Teoles. You can find our group on Facebook. We're also on Twitter at pinballprofile. Email us pinballprofile at gmail.com. And please subscribe on either iTunes, Stitcher, or Google Play. And if you really want a great history lesson, may I suggest you get the latest copy and all the back copies of Pinball Magazine. Why? This is one of the greatest collections of information you can find anywhere, and it's timeless. And the editor and creator joins us right now. Once again, let's say hello to Jonathan Justin. Hi, Jonathan. How are you? Hi, Jeff. Thanks for having me. I'm good, and I hope you're doing well, too. I am fine. Thank you for asking. I am so impressed with Pinball Magazine No. 5. It just came out not too long ago. Got my copy. And magazine, I've said this to you before, is really not the word you should call this because this is an encyclopedia. And it is so well done. First of all, bravo to you. And, you know, I always joked with you about, boy, when's the next one coming out? When's the next one coming out? I now know why it took so long for this one to come out because there's so much information in it. Well, yeah, about the name. Yeah, it's sort of a misnomer, I guess. I thought about changing the first A in magazine to an E, but it looked so weird, so I figured, no, let's stay with magazine, but it could be called a magazine if you want to. It is a magazine for sure. It's double the last size, and really, there is so much great content in there, and it has to come from somewhere, and the feature article is on Gottlieb's great designer, Wayne Nans, who created 180 different games, 159 of them went to production over 1949 to 1965,

1:56

and you have covered almost every single one of them with the help of Wayne, who you visited on two different occasions. Yes. So I have to be very appreciative to Wayne for, first of all, being willing to talk to me. Well, actually, I should say, first of all, for still being alive. I mean, get this. The man just turned 100 and he's still here and he is in formidable shape. Seriously, the guy is still living on his own. He's still driving a car and he's still stubborn as he always was, apparently. So I have to be appreciative for Wayne for still being here, although that's probably not something that's in my hands. But then again, he was willing to talk to me and he's such a great guy. Really, there's no way to describe what a great guy Wayne Nines is. And I think everybody that has been in the good fortune to meet Wayne and to talk to him will probably say the same thing. So I made two visits over a two-year period. I think the first time I visited was in 2015, and the second time was 2017. The visits were around the Texas Pinball Festival. So the first time I went to Wayne after the Texas Pinball Festival, and the second time I went prior to the Texas Pinball Festival, and actually I was planning to bring Wayne, but he was like, no, no, we're not going to do that. And he was apparently so afraid that I was serious that he was like, no, no, let's not do it. But it's an eight-hour drive for him, and I can see why a hundred-year-old would not look forward to an eight-hour drive. Although I'm pretty sure once he would have been there, I'm pretty sure he would have loved it. Well, especially now for a lot of the younger players that have never really known who was behind all these great Gottlieb games. I mean, we certainly know all the current designers. But, you know, to go back into history like you did and just to think about this, put things in perspective. The games he did, the 159 that went to production, sold over 200,000 copies. And he was doing, for a 10-year period, almost a title a month. So can you imagine that? You see how designers work nowadays, and obviously they're more complex. But the thing that amazed me when I was reading this in Pinball Magazine, Jonathan, was the detail of how he created these because he didn't have the resources that we have today and how he created from scratch every aspect of the pinball machine. It was fascinating, and you certainly covered it. And then there's another thing that I think, well, I hope that the magazine will showcase. Every game had to be different than the previous one. I mean, if we look at pinball now, except for Wheel of Fortune, every pinball machine from the last 20 years, possibly even 30 years, has what we call an Italian bottom, which means that you have the layout of the out lane, in lane, you have a flipper, a slingshot above it, and on the other side of the playfield it's exactly the same in the other direction. Wayne didn't do that in the sense that he had to change things up because the distributors would be complaining like, ah, these games are all the same. So he literally had to change things up, which resulted in very interesting games where he was like, okay, why don't we do the whole pop bumper section at the bottom of the play field? And then you get a game where he has the flippers above three pop bumpers, and you get a game that's so unusual, but that's unthinkable now. So in a sense, what I tried to do was I wanted to include every game that he made with a photo preferably in the same perspective as all other photos, photos so that you actually could take a look at the play field and see like they were actually very different from each other than what he was doing the previous games i noticed that too i mean you can see on some of his designs you know the big gaps or you talked about the current wheel of fortune those kind of uh in lanes at the bottom there were certainly that and i'm sure wayne was a big influence on that the big gaps that you saw but uh all the different designs were just unreal. And you were able to kind of capture that. You had a lot of the photos from some of these games. But I think you told me that when you visited Wayne, he had these great folders too with all the flyers of the games. That's so amazing that he has these. Right. So the first time I visited Wayne and we wanted to go over the game, I explained to him, like, what I'd like to do is talk about every game that you designed. And he was already like, well, I'm not sure I remember everything. But then he pulls out this big folder with all the flyers of these games, the sales brochures, if you want to call them that. They're all in this folder in sheet protectors. These were all single-sided flyers. So he has one on each side of the – he has two in a single sheet. And we start flipping through, discussing every game that he designed. But the thing is, while the flyers are great and it's a great collection that he has, but you can't barely see anything of the game on them. Especially these Gottlieb flyers all had sort of like the same format where you see the game in a sort of three-quarter type of shot, but half of it is like drawn in pencil with a photo behind it. So it's not very clear. So what I did the second time when I visited Wayne was I borrowed a projector from Ed Van Der Veen of the Texas Pinball Festival. Thank you, Ed. And in the meantime, I had been visiting several museums like the Pacific Pinball Museum. I had visited Randy Peck. I had visited the Paris Pinball Museum. And all these places have a large collection of games that were designed by Wayne Nyans. So everywhere that I went, I took pictures of those games. I had to organize all that. And I took the best picture, which eventually ended up in the magazine. But when I went to Wayne for the second time, I took the projector and instead of leafing through the folder of flyers, I projected every game life size on the wall in his living room so that he could actually take a good look at what the game looked like. That life size must have helped him kind of recall, certainly. I mean, we're talking about a man who's just turned 100 years old, and with all those different games, I can't imagine it's easy to remember, you know, what you did for each one of them. If you've only designed a few, yeah, you can probably remember every process, but that definitely had to help. And you've covered that in the magazine so well, too, as Wayne describes each game. I love some of his games, and I've been fortunate enough to play certainly not all of them, but many of them, and it's a real treat when you see great collections. I think of Clay in Michigan and his VFW Hall that has so many of these older games. And I think of games like Jockey Club and North Star. I always look forward to playing these games, and it's a real treasure for anyone who owns these games to preserve these. I imagine you're just as big a fan as well. I love playing these games. It's always, if you come across them, hoping that they are in good preserved condition and that they are playing well. Not everybody knows how to maintain a game, And sometimes with these EM games, if you get these pop bumpers that are just or flippers where you barely get the ball halfway up the play field, obviously that's not fun. But that's also not how they were supposed to be playing back in the day. You know, these flippers were they used to be powerful. So if you get one of these games in really good condition, then you actually can see that they're actually way more fun to play than some people currently give them credit for. The interesting thing, what I also try to emphasize in the magazine, is that when Wayne was designing his games, there was a completely different objective in the game than what we have today. In the sense that there were several ways to win replays, and the goal was basically to score as many replays as possible in different ways. But keep in mind that this guy only had to work with a couple of flippers, a couple of bumpers, a couple of dead bumpers, a slingshot, one, two, three, maybe a few more, a couple of rollover buttons, a couple of targets. That's about it. And try to come up with something every month again to keep the factory going because that's basically what he did. If he didn't have a design, then everybody in the factory was screwed and everybody chained into that like suppliers and so on. They also had no business. So there was a huge responsibility for him. We talked about that in the magazine as well. But then imagine just being so creative. So he would come up with a new game every month like it was nothing to him. Do you know what, Jonathan? I talk to artists who create masterpieces and it can be something like literature, art pieces, songs. And when you ask an artist to create something, the timelines don't always line up. So the pressure that he had to do this on a monthly basis for Gottlieb to as you say keep people employed and to turn it over It just doesn work that way for an artist because you can have a burnout factor And like you said, he didn't have the technology back in the 40s, 50s, and 60s that we have now today to create these specials. So that's the thing that jumped out to me. The games are amazing, but the turnout that he did this over such a long period of time and the volume that he did, I cannot imagine the pressure to do this and to be different and unique. It just doesn't usually work that way for artists, but Wayne did it. Yeah, so he really deserves a lot of credit, and I'm happy to give it to him, and I hope that he gets the recognition that he, I think, deserves. And let's not forget it. Gottlieb was, when Wayne was designing, Gottlieb was the number one pinball company, period. yet but they stayed that for like i think 30 to 40 years it was only when godly went into solid state that they were beaten by the other companies prior to that it was just godly yeah that's true i don't want to downplay uh valley or williams but in terms of production numbers even the big collectors tell me that if williams had a hit game then they still godly would outsell them probably two to three times in the numbers of that hit game that williams had um and for godly that would be a regular run, nothing special. So just to indicate how strong Gottlieb's presence in the market was at that time. I think of how innovative he was. And we have designers now with all these programs that can certainly help lay out the geometry, the physics of the game. That's not how he did it. And he had to physically create absolutely every aspect. That blows my mind. he basically had to take a piece of wood and um his his drawing material and if he was like okay i want to have a hole here then he had to drill a hole in it and make sure that it worked and if it was off then he had to replace it take a new piece of wood do everything all over again and that's how he made the games but the interesting thing is and he also describes that in in the magazine that usually he was such a a brilliant guy i would say while he was working on one game he already had ideas for the next game coming up in his head. Then he had a sketchbook where he wrote down all of his ideas, in a sense that helped him, I guess, because he never was short for an idea for the next game. He always had ideas. And even when he was, I don't know, driving on the countryside or taking his family to a museum or whatever, he was constantly thinking about coming up with new ideas for new games. Did he ever sleep? Oh, yeah, I guess he did, but he probably dreamt pinball. I think. I mean, just the volume. You're right. I mean, he'd have to. I mean, it's very impressive what he did. And it's funny to see how he passes it off as like, oh, well, it was just a job. That's so funny. He left such a legacy and he's so humble about it. Imagine you or I doing some of that. We'd be bragging about it all the time. He did 180 of them, for crying out loud. Yeah, over a period of over, well, a little more than 15 years. But still, it is very, very impressive. Of course, you can't compare designing a game back then with designing a game now. Imagine Steve Ritchie cranking out a game every month. But I can't imagine anyone for that matter. Just, again, the way games are now, I think it's certainly different. I mean, I guess if you had to, you could, but to make it different, boy, I don't know. And he certainly did with what he had available. It makes you almost wonder. Can you imagine, did you ask him at all about if you were to design a game now, what it would be like? I mean, with all the tools and all the different toys and things you could do? I'm not sure whether he actually would dive into that. I think if he would design a game right now, I think he'd probably still do something that's close to what he used to be doing. Obviously, because he missed the whole evolution of pinball that went on in between when he was designing games and where we are now. I mean, he would probably still go draw a full-size Mylar because he is not used to working on a computer with, what's that program called, AutoCAD. He would still do it old school, I guess. And he would just try to see, like, how can I create a great game on this wooden board, on this wooden playfield? I think he'd go for that. But actually, I think if he would want to, I think Wayne could currently be a very successful redemption game designer if he wants to. Oh, for sure. Because a lot of his games are intended to be not lasting very long.

15:57

And especially if you look at the games that he did in the days when the objective was winning as many free plays as possible, So if you convert that to winning as many tickets, then I think he knocked them out of the park and he completely dominated the redemption market. Maybe I should suggest that to him. I wonder what it was like for the distributors when they got a new game from him, how much the theme mattered. Because there's certainly a lot of pool-type themes, a lot of horse racing themes. There's a great basketball one. I wonder what mattered to the distributors back then when a new game came out from Wayne and Gottlieb. It's a good question. And I can't answer that because I wasn't a distributor back then. But what's interesting to see is that although Godly didn't do any licensing, they certainly tapped into pop culture at that time with a couple of games like Lovely Lucy, which was very clear, sort of based on the I Love Lucy TV show that was going on at that time. And of course, they changed it so that it wasn't based on the show, but everybody understood that there was a connection. And they did that with a couple of games, especially around 1954. And it's very interesting to read about that. Also that nobody ever thought about could we get sued. At that time, nobody cared. Now, you're right about pop culture and whatnot. I mean, look at Pioneer and Spirit of 76, and those games definitely related to what was going on at the time. I even think of other games too that weren't even about really pop culture, But just, again, something that it was a design, an idea that he came up with that we've since seen several times. I think of Squarehead, the tic-tac-toe, add-a-ball game. So we see a lot of add-a-ball games. But, I mean, the Squarehead, we see X's and O's. We see Mystic and things like that. And you have to kind of tip your cap to Wayne Nance for creating Squarehead to really bring this to the forefront. Exactly. So the man has a legacy. And at the moment, not that many people know about it. hopefully the magazine will change that. Oh, I definitely think so. And I've heard some of the other podcasters, I think the Pinball Podcast talked about the Mount Rushmore of pinball and who would go on that. And that's a tough one to say. If you had to pick four people that were the most influential in pinball, I'm sure you, after interviewing them twice and seeing what we're seeing in Pinball Magazine, you've got to put Wayne in your top four. Probably, yes. And Harry Williams for sure as well. Oh, I agree. And after that, I'd really have to give it some thought to think about who would be the other two. But Wayne Nygans and Harry Williams, for sure. And you might have some discussion whether it should be Wayne or whether it should be Dave Gottlieb, because Harry Williams, of course, was also a company owner. And Dave Gottlieb owned the Gottlieb company. But he was such a charismatic man. He did so much for the industry that he probably deserves to be up there as well. That's interesting. I'm not going to agree or disagree because I really haven't put much thought into it. I don't want to make an opinion now that would be on this podcast forever as people listen maybe down the road. My podcasts aren't really about the news of the week. They're more kind of like an audio version of your pinball magazine in a way of like this is – we're talking to somebody about a specific thing and it's kind of timeless. So I don't know who I'd put in there, whether I'd put Dave Gottlieb in there or Wayne, because you said, you know, he's the owner of the company. But is the owner as important as the designer or the front person? In case of Dave Gottlieb, I think those who know how Dave was and the way he run his company, they would probably say, yes, he should definitely be up there because he was very different than business owners that we see today. He was actually out on the floor every day when he was in the factory. He knew everybody in the factory. He knew their personal stories. He was very caring for his staff, and he had a knack for picking the right people to work in the company. And there's stories about that that Wayne is telling in the magazine as well. So there's another reason for people to just dive in and get familiar with who Dave Gottlieb was. Your website is pinball-magazine.com. You can order that magazine, Back Issues as well. I highly recommend it because this is a great keepsake for sure. Also, in the current article, you've got articles on another up-and-coming designer who's done pretty well from the get-go in Scott Denisey. Right. What did we learn from Scott from your interview? Well, I think one of the reasons, or let me tell you why I wanted Scott to be in there. What I usually try to do with the articles in an issue of Pinball Magazine, I try to find a common ground for articles that they sort of have in common with each other. And in the case of Scott, Scott designed obviously just one game so far. But besides designing the play field, he also programmed the game and he did the music for it. He programmed the light shows and everything. and in that sense he's a lot similar to Wayne Nyan's because Wayne was not just designing a playfield but he also designed the circuitry of the game so Scott's a renaissance man I guess yes and the fact that he has his his hand in everything that sort of was for me like the common ground and the reason to include Scott plus that I think personally total nuclear annihilation is a killer game. I agree 100%. Take that, Bruce Nightingale. It is a great game, and everybody who owns it loves it. I heard Ron Hallett recently say on Slam Tilt podcast that he owns this game, and he was streaming it, and he's getting to Reactor 6, and he's sweating while he's doing this. I know what that's like. Well, sorry, I don't know what it's like to get to Reactor 6, but when I get lucky and get up to 5, it's intense, and that's something you don't see in a lot of newer games. It's different. It's unique for sure. I don't know how it's not a game for everyone, but to each their own. It's certainly not as deep as some of the other games, so I'll give you that. But as far as fun, from the get-go, from the plunge, from the music, from the locks, if you playing multiplayer there just so many things about that game I love and you covered a lot of it in Pinball Magazine with Scott Denisey Right And I think what you just said here there one thing that very critical when it comes to both Wayne Nines games and Scott Denise Total Nuclear Annihilation and that is capture fun It doesn't have to be a deep game because you can have a game that is as deep as a phone book or as deep as Pinball Magazine if you want. But if it's no fun, then why would people play it? The first key ingredient should be it has to be fun. Then you can make it deep. But the game won't be any more fun if you make it as deep as whatever if it's not fun in the first place. It is interesting that you say that because I don't know what the marketing strategy is for pinball companies, and I don't pretend to know either. I don't know where the main source of sales comes from, whether it's a home collector, maybe looking for a deeper game because they're going to want to keep it for a while and not be tired of it or are we seeing more of these barcades pop up that has now dominated sales i don't know what the percentage is and i have no idea maybe you do maybe you don't but i think in all sales you're right the games have to be fun for someone to purchase them right because what happens if you have a game that's no fun it can be deep as the hobbit and i don't want to say that the hobbit isn't a fun game but nowadays if the theme isn't appealing to you you might still have a go at the game but if you don't enjoy it then you're not going to play it again that's true and you're not going to buy it either you know and the next time someone say i got a hobbit you want to play it and again sorry for picking on the hobbit but i could have there's a dozen games out there that i can think of and i'm like yes they have a lot of depth but are they really that much fun and And sure, I can see that tournament players would be very happy on. There's tons of ways to do different strategies and all that. But if it's no fun, then I don't even care about finding that out. You know, I just want to have a good time when I play pinball. Sounds very simple, but pinball used to be sort of like escape from the current world and just lock yourself into a game for two, three minutes and forget about your troubles and just focus on banging a ball around. Then you have to find a way to make that fun. It's not just like, oh, we have a steel ball, we have a couple of flippers. You flip it up and that's it. No, that's not. Then there's no game. And that's one of the key things that Wayne did and also what Scott did. And I seriously hope that Scott, now working on his second game, keeps in mind that don't lose the ball in the sense, make sure that the game is fun and everything else will come after that. My feeling is Scott will do a great job on game number two for Spooky. So Scott and Wayne have a connection there. Both designers kind of create everything. There's one more connection that Scott has with Wayne. And I didn't put that in the magazine, but I'd love saying it out loud here. When Wayne was designing games at Godbeat, the other companies were copying him. Scott Dinesi designed one game for Spooky. And the biggest company that we have that's been around for 30 years, that keep blowing their own horn saying that they're here for 30 years, they're copying Scott Dinesi. In what sense? Well, have you played Deadpool? I've played Deadpool, yeah. Yeah. Well, I think there's a couple of references that are clearly inspired on the success of Total Nuclear Annihilation, the humor that Scott tried to put into the game, and the simplicity that they tried to put in that game as well. And I can't say anything about future games, but I wouldn't be surprised if within a couple of months we get a single-level Sturm game with no ramps and all that kind of stuff. Oh, I definitely think that'll happen very soon. Editor, note this was recorded before The Beatles came out. But Jonathan, I don't see the connection only because I definitely know that Scott's game is very humorous. And when it does the different mystery things that you can get, that's very, very funny. And some of the other things that he's put in the game. Just the reason I might disagree is that Deadpool, who you've recently come to know from your recent flights, watching the movies and maybe following some of the comics, he's always been a very break the fourth wall, sarcastic, funny as heck, almost R-rated character. So the humor has kind of always been there for Deadpool. So I personally don't make that connection, but maybe there's something else you saw. Well, there's a couple of references in the game that if you listen carefully, I mean, there's a – you know about the Bowen Carrow's remark in Total Nuclear Annihilation, and then Deadpool comes up with the Keith Elwin remark. How is that not copied from Total Nuclear Annihilation? I didn't make that connection, but okay, if you think so. I mean, probably others do too. I just... And seriously, Scott does a game with all this electronic music. And aside from Tron, I don't think Stern would ever do a game with dubstep. And now in Deadpool, it's dubstep all over. And yes, I get it. It was in the movie as well. But still, it's not a music type that a company like Stern would easily associate themselves with, you know, because they tend to go with the rock bands. And with Tron, sure, they had to go with the Daft Punk album because that's the movie soundtrack. But other than that, none of the music in previous turn games was like that modern as we've seen in Deadpool. So in that sense, Scott Denise is breaking a barrier for innovation in pinball, I'd say, if you can call it that. Now, I've heard the saying where imitation is one of the greatest forms of compliments ever. Some might say borrowing, stealing. Let's be honest. Jersey Jack came out with Wizard of Oz, this great big LCD screen that people are in love with. Everyone now goes LCD screen. So is that stolen or is that just a great idea? You can decide. Well, Jack wasn't the first, but he was the first big company to do it. Who was the first? That was actually a Spanish company that did a game called New Canasta. and that was only shown at a couple of shows in Europe, I guess. It was a remake of a game from 1986, but that already had an LCD in the back box and the camera, so it would take your picture if you had a high score. And that was a couple of years ago, two, three years before The Wizard of Oz. But it's not important. I think the LCD is a... Well, it's very difficult to sell a dot matrix game right now if you have competition using LCDs. And so it's a matter of technical progress, I would say. I know you're a fan of Stern Pinball, too, because Gary Stern was in the article, and they promote Pinball Magazine as well. So I know you're not certainly taking shots, but it might just be a form of a compliment. Who knows? I mean, it could be ripped off. You just never know. I'm not there. Well, not to stab at Stern. I've been talking to Stern management for years, And I think the biggest obstacle with going to LCD was not so much the implementation of putting an LCD in there. That's the easy part. The difficult part is you need to get content to fill the LCD. And in order to do that, you need a staff of people. And it took Stern quite some time to do it right in the sense that you need a lot more people to get the content for an LCD screen than you need for a DocMatrix display. It's easier to use footage from things like the Batman 66 TV show or the Guardians movie where you're on something like Iron Maiden or Deadpool where you have to create the content. So that makes it a little more difficult. Well, look at what they did with Aerosmith. Aerosmith is a great example that they had to create everything. All those videos of the band singing these songs, they had to create that. And they're even the Steven Tyler character or whatever you want to call it. It's even the lips are synced with the music. So they took time to make sure that it was right. But that's something that previously for a dot matrix game, they never would have to worry about that because they would have done it differently. Now they need this content and there's a lot of time that goes into developing that content. But also in case of Guardians or Batman, you need a separate license to use those video footage. You know, so in a sense, the game becomes more expensive because it requires an extra license. And that was a big obstacle for Stern to deal with. And that's why it took them longer than other companies, I guess. Okay. So no stab at CERN whatsoever, just trying to explain what I understood from management, what behind the scenes the big hurdle was to take. Jonathan, I've made the connection between Wayne Nines and Scott Denise as, you know, someone who creates a game from scratch in every aspect of it, and you like to have those tie-ins. So as I look at the other feature article with Antoinette Johnson, I'm trying to make the connection, and I can only come up with you, yourself, the editor, and both with great hairstyles. Is that possibly it? Yeah. I wish you could do my hair, but sadly, it's all gone. But I ran into Antoinette at the Texas Pinball Festival, which we seem to be talking about a lot in this episode. But I thought she is an amazing woman, and she has a very unique hairstyle, which she is known for. But I was instantly intrigued, like, OK, so who is the woman behind the hair? And I figured, OK, while I'm here and she is here, let's do an interview. And that's what we did. And I do have a feature called the Essential Website. And I took the liberty to expand that a little bit. So in the sense that I used to take a look at websites. And in this issue, I'm looking at what Jack Danger is doing with Deadflip and the streaming of pinball. because he's doing something that nobody was doing a couple of years ago. And I think he's basically the godfather of pinball streaming now. So I figured in the liberty of being an editor, I figured that's making it. OK, there's not a real close connection to Wayne Nions, but Jack is pioneering. Wayne was pioneering. So if you want to look into that that way, that's fine with me. Other than that and otherwise, I also needed current content in the sense I didn't want to make just a completely electromechanical pinball issue because there's also people that like modern games, and I appreciate modern games. Heck, I bought Total Nuclear Annihilation, and I just ordered two more. So that's how much I like that game. Jack definitely is certainly at the forefront of streaming with what he does on a daily basis, too, and I think you got to see him again recently at Vancouver Flipout. So you were not only there, you were speaking, and you had your magazine there, but also you were DJing too, which had to be kind of fun. Yeah, it was, yes. So Vancouver Flipout had the premiere, so to speak, of me DJing at a pinball show. That was a first. Hopefully there will be more DJ gigs at pinball shows in the future because I really like doing it. And I been DJing for 30 years so it not something that I picked up recently but it was kind of funny Tommy who organizes Vancouver Flipout last year had a different DJ and I jokingly said to him why didn you book me And he said, next year I will, and he did. I love people like that. Oh, really? All right, Tommy, book me next year too if you're taking offers. By the way, Jonathan, I joke about you and Antoinette and the hair comparisons too. I'm a ginger too, so I have no right to talk about anybody's hair. Well, I can handle it. That's not a problem. You know, I mean. It's a good look. I like it. Yeah. And a lot of people copy me for it. So you're a trendsetter. Well, I probably wasn't the first. But then again, I'm trying to keep up the bold look if you if you if you want. I guess I have the hat for it. Let's put it like that. And Antoinette has a great hat to to do these crazy hairstyles. And what's going to be interesting, Antoinette told me that Diane Ritchie, Steve Ritchie's wife, at some point, Antoinette will do Diane's hair. I'm very curious how that will look. Oh, wow. That would be neat. Do Steve's while you're at it as well.