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#26 Xenon TV? - The Classic Pinball Podcast

The Classic Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·58m 15s·analyzed·Feb 11, 2020
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TL;DR

Classic Pinball Podcast discusses TV appearances, playfield tech, and INDISC tournament results.

Summary

George and Dave discuss their appearances on NBC Boston and NECN local television coverage of pinball, playfield durability innovations by Australian manufacturer Haggis Pinball, and George's tournament experience at INDISC in California. The conversation touches on cleanliness at public pinball venues, professional pinball league rethemes from 1981, and classic Stern game reviews.

Key Claims

  • George appeared on NBC Boston/NECN television with a segment featuring pinball gameplay

    high confidence · George describes multiple TV interviews with NECN and NBC Boston covering pinball culture

  • Haggis Pinball (Australian company) manufactures an indestructible playfield using 4mm acrylic bonded over plywood with graphics

    high confidence · George references a video showing Haggis Pinball's Kelts game withstanding a sledgehammer test

  • A 1981 Toronto company called Professional Pinball rethemed five classic games (8 Ball, Evil Knievel, Power Play, Strikes and Spares, Star Trek) for a professional pinball league offering $250,000 prizes

    medium confidence · George found a Pinside ad and brochure but admits uncertainty about the historical details

  • George finished 263rd out of 314 players at INDISC tournament in California

    high confidence · George provides specific tournament placement and game-by-game scores

  • Stern's Split Second has incomplete code and was never finished as a talker

    medium confidence · Dave states the code was incomplete due to Stern's financial collapse in early 1980s

  • INDISC tournament featured over 400 machines on location

    high confidence · George explicitly states this attendance figure

  • Playfield protectors are becoming mainstream and George recommends them as a cost-effective alternative to full restoration

    high confidence · George mentions installing protectors on his games and offering them to customers

Notable Quotes

  • “You will be assimilated. Your uniqueness will be part of our own... I like our uniqueness and we want to do our own thing.”

    George @ ~32:00 — George expresses concern about conformity pressure from the Pinball Podcast Network, comparing it to Star Trek's Borg collective

  • “They wanted the games to wear out... wouldn't that be something you'd want to try to eliminate or reduce so you're not incurring those costs?”

    George @ ~45:00 — Articulates shift in manufacturer philosophy from planned obsolescence to durability and serviceability

  • “Private collection versus public is two different entities entirely.”

    Dave @ ~58:00 — Explains why games play differently in tournament/location settings vs. well-maintained home collections

  • “They threw spaghetti into the refrigerator a bunch of times and stuff.”

    Dave @ ~60:00 — Describes Stern's desperate experimentation with themes in early 1980s during financial decline

  • “I'm a lion, I don't care... I'll wear that as a badge of honor.”

    George @ ~28:00 — George's casual attitude toward his tournament performance despite ranking 36th on Alice Cooper's Nightmare Castle

Entities

GeorgepersonDavepersonHaggis PinballcompanyEricpersonTommy SkinnerpersonBill MorrisonpersonNBC Boston / NECNorganizationINDISCeventSterncompany

Signals

  • ?

    media_signal: Classic Pinball Podcast hosts received local television coverage on NBC Boston and NECN, including gameplay segments

    high · George describes two separate TV interviews with gameplay footage and production details

  • ?

    design_innovation: Haggis Pinball (Australian manufacturer) developed durable acrylic playfield technology (4mm acrylic bonded to plywood) passing sledgehammer durability tests

    high · George references video showing Kelts game's indestructible playfield withstanding hammer test; mentions parallels to Elektra's acrylic approach from 1970s

  • ?

    product_strategy: Aftermarket playfield protectors gaining mainstream adoption as cost-effective alternative to full restoration

    high · George reports installing protectors on multiple games and recommending them to customers as 'poor man's clear coat'

  • ?

    competitive_signal: George participated in INDISC tournament in California, finishing 263rd out of 314 competitors, with notable 36th place finish on Alice Cooper's Nightmare Castle

    high · George provides specific rankings and game-by-game scores across 18 machines played

  • ?

    historical_signal: Discussion of 1970s-1980s manufacturer strategy to design games for rapid wear-out rather than durability to drive sales of new machines

    high · George and Dave explicitly discuss how manufacturers didn't invest in playfield preservation because games were designed to be discarded

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.175

0:00
This video was filmed on August 27th, 2012 at 1PM in Beljukovim city, Russia, Mexico, as I pickled Cinemacoshis and in the tent, Sosya which is an old cat on both my neck. I 에еча а chargerάing на орыхеіьうу е707б, Which is immediately Personality from 1922 as 11eltikå пайщет игко таджикияинъвн analytic gemsінъ labіа failed Неп Mooñе ber🧩IL turtle! War strongly action alegait 친구 Gospel of Korean 여러분 что Чеに immune член reagаетқا лsu А operаmat للمужд CCTV The Black Water ?! Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of the Classic Pinball Podcast. My name is George and I'm joined by my co-host today, Dave. Hello Dave. Hello George. Dave, it feels like such a long time since we last spoke, but believe it or not, we did do our last two shows three weeks ago, but before that, it was the day after Christmas. I'm so sorry. I feel like I've been holding back not calling you because I wanted to try to keep our podcast fresh. So my apologies. I mean it's been a busy January and I can't believe here we are already a third of the way through February and we're having a phone conversation. So sorry about that. But I wanted people to know that this podcast is unscripted. We don't, you know, this is us. And Dave is concerned that, you know, he's gonna make some errors moving forward through the show. And it's like, hey, don't care. Haters are gonna hate. We're gonna continue to do the podcast. If he's an error, he's an error. He's trying as hardest as I do. So with that said,
1:51
I've got a list of topics I'm going to present to you and I would like you to pick one and then we're going to go through all the rest. How's that sound?
2:06
Go on. Sounds good. Okay, so so here's your choices. One word clean Eric Tommy in this NBC Chronicle podcast Playfields, Rethemes. Hmm. Let's go with NBC. Well, why don't you tell me a little bit about your most recent encounter with television station NBC and is it NECN? Yes, NECN and NBC Boston. They also reached out to me like Channel 5 Boston Chronicle did and they wanted to interview me. It went really well. A young lady came over with, again, a crew and got another unique perspective. They kind of covered things that the Chronicle one didn't. You know, very little overlap. The reason we can get so many more versions of this podcast out this fall? Yeah, that's great. Yeah, I think you know one thing we're getting from the Office of Männ BU는 Malcolm That we are MB- какая exchange di dermaan I've been worrying that I just approximately done a big joke with each other before and said we can touch on both. I'm thinking about flipping theouting and taking it back and forth and going through that question. That's my part. Now speaking of taping, you know, again. You're touching upon so many, and don't you notice, the first webcast that we did which this time isn't the official story. How do we coincide? Well, the first time it isn't, but I'm thinking of the first time over here and I think this might have to do with the inevitably take back a question and putting in a passion. P.J.? Yeah, they- Did you play pinball with him? Yeah, because he actually has Monday off. So that worked out well and had him over in the afternoon. And they captured us playing a game together, just like we did years ago as teenagers or even preteens at Fun and Games. So it was very fun and game centric again. It was, they wanted us to play, you know, any game we wanted we were going to record us playing. And they wanted, they kind of wanted, they wanted us to say, well give each other some crap, you know, to trash talk each other. And I go, we don't trash talk. You know, we don't, we very, so instead it would be forced, you know. So instead of that it's like, we're going to do it our way. So we just encourage each other. And I would say, oh, nice shot PJ. I was great save you know back and forth back and forth PJ was very animated he's been these spins around when he lose the ball I do a lot of I know dancing around too and I'm getting into the game so that was fun they had us pick any game he wanted upstairs so I said well it's either fathom or Xenon I kind of really wanted Xenon because Xenon that I think that might have been a little extreme for television. I think that might have been a better choice. You think so? Alright, well... Yeah, if they capture the sounds, but I guess my question to you is, now that you've seen it happen once, what do you think their... It's getting very... Hang on one sec, I gotta throw this on hold. I'm in the middle of something. What's going on?
Jersey Jack Pinball
company
Professional Pinballcompany
Keltsgame
Alice Cooper's Nightmare Castlegame
Raymond Davidsonperson
Johannes Ostermeyerperson
Chronicleorganization
Pinball Podcast Networkorganization
PJperson
Fun and Gamesvenue
Bill Webbperson
?

venue_signal: INDISC tournament featured over 400 pinball machines on location with 314 tournament competitors

high · George states 'over 400 machines there' and provides final tournament ranking of 263rd out of 314

  • ?

    community_signal: Mainstream local television outlets (NBC Boston, NECN, Chronicle) producing pinball-focused content segments to reach broader audiences

    high · Multiple TV interviews described with production crews and edited content; Chronicle episode received 200+ views on Facebook with 60-70 likes

  • ?

    operational_signal: Public pinball venues have documented hygiene issues; community members taking preventative hygiene measures (hand sanitizer, targeted soap placement)

    medium · George references Pittsburgh Steelers towel used to wipe flipper buttons, Sarah's Arcade known for spreading germs in winter, Bill Webb using cinnamon soap near playroom

  • ?

    gameplay_signal: Game condition (tournament vs. home collection) significantly affects gameplay experience and player enjoyment/performance assessment

    high · Dave explains why judging games on location/show condition is problematic; George mentions games playing 'like new' versus worn condition changes experience

  • ?

    industry_signal: Emergence of Pinball Podcast Network creating concern among independent podcast hosts about conformity and loss of creative autonomy

    medium · George expresses concern about being 'assimilated' into podcast network standards, preferring independence and uniqueness

  • ?

    content_signal: Independent podcasts receiving mentions from guests and network figures, driving traffic to back catalog content

    high · George notes mentions from Tommy Skinner and Taylor driving listenership; observes other podcasts picking up their talking points about classic Sterns and price reduction

  • ?

    manufacturing_signal: Modern manufacturers (Stern, Jersey Jack) facing significant serviceability costs from playfield degradation issues, shifting philosophy toward durability

    high · George discusses how playfield issues cost manufacturers in serviceability and customer service; notes philosophy shift from 1970s planned obsolescence

    • 5:44
    You tell me. Yeah, no no no no I'm not talking to you Dave hang on Yes, everything's still on. Can I call you back in a little bit?
    5:58
    That's my sister dummy relax. No, that was Arnie. That was Arnie saying that. I was half listening. Anyway, now where was I? We were talking about, oh, so you've seen how it's been recorded once. What do you think the theme this time will be? Because if you did choose Xenon, I didn't give you a chance. If you did choose Xenon, you know they're going to talk over it. They're not going to allow those sounds on TV. If they do, that will make for some interesting TV. Oh. Yeah, you know what? That didn't even enter my mind at all. The only reason why I want to choose Xenon, because that Xenon back glass picture of the woman there, the bald-headed woman, that was the mascot for Fun and Games. So I thought it would be a good tie-in to have PJ and I play the Fun and Games game. And is that the game you played? No. I would bring my head back and forth because Fathom is more of a game that's fun to really fun to watch people play, you know, people play it. It's more entertaining. So I was going for well, funny games theme or, or really fun to watch. So I decided to go well, I'm gonna go fun to watch. And I said, I talked to the camera. It's like, so you're going to show the whole game you're going to show the other round while you're shooting us. Other games can be seen. Can you see Xeon Nexus? Oh, yeah, I can see that too. Next is okay. At least it's in the shot. So that's good. So we placed that. So you were a little bit better educated this time around as to what to expect.
    7:41
    Yes, yes. And I pre-quizzed her on different things like, you know, where she was going with this and what, you know, what she's looking for and that kind of thing. So it was kind of good going in. But I'll tell you what she did versus what Rahman did. Rahman had, he did a lot of studying, you know, maybe she did too, but I just know he told me this. I said, he studied my website. He had questions prepared. He had a whole list of things to go down and ask questions. And, you know, it was, you know, like that. She was more off the cuff. She had it all in her head and she would ask questions. And it came off well, but it was like a whole different way of doing it. Okay. Different strokes, different folks. Yeah, so we were downstairs for the first part. I said, we didn't want to shoot toilets. So I showed them, you know, Warehouse Central. Yeah, well, again, I had to basically take, lose about, I don't know, 16 games or so, get them out of the basement, because I need to make Oh no, you didn't do that again. Ah, yes I did. You're crazy, man.
    8:50
    I, you know, you gotta keep up appearances. So, so yeah, those went, those went outside for an afternoon. It was okay. It was a mild day. It wasn't that bad. I'm under a tarp and so forth. So we all protected. But, uh, you know, she, they, they love the tech area. You know, I had that all good, good to go and neatened up and I had everything all set up and they had me do some live repairs of stuff. So that was good. And then I said, oh, there's another area back here. Oh, let's see the other area. So I showed them that, oh, this is great. They love the Christmas lights in the top. They love the, you know, the feel of the classic central back there and usually chime central before. But, uh, now it's Stern central, a classic Stern central back there, three games I have back there. So they I love that. But the three games are Flight 2000, Stargazer, and what's the other one back there? Oh boy. Oh, wait a minute. I'm sorry. It's Kisses back there. Oh, Kisses. Still Kisses. I want to try to sell that, so that's why that's up. So they were having, what do you, you want to play a game for us and show us what's going on? And it's like, they were saying, well, how about Kisses? I go, nah, Kisses, the sound package isn't really there. Let's play Stargazer. So I played Stargazer for them. They're recording me playing Stargazer. That was great. They had me do, you know, touch all the targets so I make the sounds. So they got to see all the cool sounds that Stargazer makes. So hopefully that's going to come out really well.
    10:13
    Because that game is very unique like that. Well, backstop. Every time you talk about this, we get so many hits on our back catalog. Anytime we mention any of our other games that we've done and we haven't done enough, then that's another conversation not for today. Anyway, our back catalog keeps getting hit and that's a really good thing. One more thing, see I'm not aware, you know, they said, oh well, you know, the boobies on the Stargazer girl, right, you know, very voluptuous, they kind of, you know, sitting out there, nice rack kind of thing, but you know, it's not pornographic, it's art, you know, it's, you know, so they were kind of a little concerned, like, well, I think we can, I think we'll get away with it, you know, they may be still trying to, they might try to hide that on the show or, but, you know, but they were slightly concerned about it, you know, in a funny way, then I said, I said, guys, this stuff is so much I'm going to talk quickly about Chronicle. I thought it came off very well. Yes, very, very pleased with that. I have friends who saw it and we have to say kudos to my wife. Her phone blew up afterwards. The people who are her family in the Boston area must love this show because every single damn one of them and there's a tribe of them
    12:00
    Called up then she posted it out on Facebook and she had what she tell me over 200 people Watched it and I don't know she got 60 or 70 likes something along those lines I think Roman did a great job, he's a producer of the Chronicleshow, he did a great job producing, great job how he edited it together, it was really well done, the music he chose, we went to Fabio and he was great. I truly love you and I would do anything in the universe to have you there. Now you are Steve and what? I love you and I love you and I love you so much both. I'm going to be talking to Bruce saying, Hey, great job last episode guys. So very timely. He's texting me right now as we're recording. Well, let him know. You must have sensed we're recording. Death dive. Fathom the trap is set. Do you remember after I came back from California, you and I had this conversation and it wasn't on any podcast. So if it was my apologies, but I don't think so. Uh, and I told you flying home, I thought I got sick again. I'm going to start with the pinball, pinball is a kind of a, you know, the whole throat thing. And, lo and behold, a couple days later, this whole virus thing starts up. Oh! And it kind of got me to thinking about a couple of cleanliness issues around pinball. I saw the post this week on Pinzide, yada yada yada, people were making fun. But it's not so funny. I was recalling this person out at Indisc using a Pittsburgh Steelers terrible towel, it's kind of hard if you're a football fan not to remember that, wiping every game he went to for the flipper buttons. I don't blame him at all. Don't blame him at all. I listening to a podcast this week and they signing off Bill Webb is one of the co of Special Win Lit Now he got something that pretty smart He puts cinnamon soap in his bathroom near his playroom you know where all his pinballs are Genius He said if somebody doesn come out of the Father from debit zoom.com, Kevin from bid Twitch online, Take his hand and you know the right to left with the fingers, right? Yes. And then not, no, he did not rub it on his shirt or on his pants leg, he went direct to the machine. Right, right. Well, you know what, I've known someone in my past that some people don't really Think the right way, if you know what I'm saying. So, one guy I knew a little while ago anyway, he would go into the men's room, you know, he's going to do his business, but he would wash his hands first, then do his business, and then come out and not wash his hands afterwards. Oh, stop, stop, stop. Why do you do it? Well, that way it's clean. I'm touching it. It's like, no, you're not. You just touched your stuff and now you're going to shake hands with people?
    16:24
    And you looked at me like, oh yeah. I, anyway, I knew we had talked about it. I was blaming the, you know, the airline and the airplane. And actually, if you look at studies, yeah, you can, but it's a low likelihood. It's a lot of other stuff. So again, I don't want to go off on the whole clean freak thing, but it will kind of, it kind of made me pause after I was at Indisc for I'm going to look at things a little bit differently when I'm in a public place now, I guess is the end of the story. Well, I'll tell you, it's Sarah's Arcade. Pinball was an arcade years back. It was known in the pinball community going up there, especially in the wintertime, that you're going to get the funk. You're very careful touching all the games there, all the kids are in there, that kind of thing. You come out of there, you got to I'll roll up or something, you know
    17:26
    Because you're gonna get a problem. You're gonna get a cold you're gonna get something going on So she even put up a real station or a couple of them after a while put them out there in the on the floor Correct, you don't want to be known for that
    17:43
    What thing George your phone keeps dinging and your ding is coming on the broadcast Yeah, that's you oh Oh, it's me? When you don't answer, it dings a second time and somebody else, if it's a number one fan... Oh, it's Brandon. Okay. Eric, you did a great job with the broadcast talking to Eric and I don't know if you've looked at the latest ratings for IFPA, but he moved up considerably. What's he at, three now? Yes. Beautiful. That's where he should be. He should be one, but three is good for now. So well, so Raymond Davidson is number one and the youngster from Germany, Johannes, I always call him Ostermeyer, but it's Ostermeyer. One, two, and three. So congrats out to Eric. I'm hoping to get down there. We'll see. Time will tell. Going into, I'm guessing the Worlds unless he plays before that. The world's number three It's awesome. He's got he's got logos filled pinball working out for him pretty well
    19:00
    He's done a great job here we got another topic Tommy I thought you were a good storyteller He a storyteller as well
    19:10
    your thoughts Yeah, he's spun a great pinball yarn about his experiences of worth very entertaining The Great having him on You know, I I thought it was interesting where he came back to me and said hey Hey, what'd you do with the you know, lady death piece? I said it just kind of sat by itself So I figured I'd carve it off until I could you know get everything edited from fathom So, you know and then you know for him to say nice things on their podcast this past Tag along, It's a incomplete chipset of tapas on the pan, paint handling, on a
    20:04
    also digital data center in the 1960s. We don't cutting out? And I'll go by that. This is a really good way to get your own pinball reference out there. You know what I mean? There's some people who have some, you know, I look at them more professionally than I do us. And I kind of understood where they were coming from. I didn't get your reference, but I'm not a Star Trek guy. We seem to be on the outside rather than inside of the circle. Well, the reference with that, people know it is. I said the new, you know, what's it called, TPN, the network, podcast network, Pinball Podcast Network, it's kind of like, it looks kind of like the Borg to me. You will be assimilated. You know, your uniqueness will be part of our own. That's what the Borg would say. And I don't know, I like our uniqueness and we want to do our own thing and I don't know, we don't want to, I don't want to be held to anybody else's standards. We like our standards. I definitely agree with that. So again, thanks to Tommy and Taylor for mentions and steering people our way and making us feel a little bit more included. Yeah. I want, you have something else? I'm sorry. No, that's it. No, I said I agree. So I wanted to talk about my experience at InDisc and I'll make it brief because it doesn't deserve anywhere near the amount of time that you spent with the, Pinnacle of course, but I did enter the big tournament. I played five games. The best game I played. I think I already told you, this was Alice Cooper's nightmare castle. Out of 300 and some odd people. I was the 36 best on that game, which just blew me away. But right. I don't know why and I don't care. You know, I'll wait and see. I'm a lion, I don't care, you know, I'll wear that as a badge of honor for playing in the tournament, but it was all downhill after that. I played a game called Starlight and I went to look it up and I don't remember it, but not so good on that. 222. Meteor. Oh, did I get roasted? Here I'm thinking, ah, you know, classic game, step up and just got murdered. 312. So I must have been at the bottom of the barrel on that one. Biking, I think we spoke about that in our telephone call about the outlanes without being able to use that. What would you refer to those outlanes as? Bumpers, bounce backs. There are bumpers that bump the ball back into the flip. Right, right, right, back out into the lane. Those did not work. You know, they did that on purpose. Well, I'll tell you, Viking is way too easy with that in play. Way easy. Centaur is hard. They made it harder. They learned from Viking being too easy, I would bounce right back in. It was way too easy. I didn't do well, 245. And then there was Indy 500, which I had done very well in Texas, but going to Indisc a whole nother game, 201. So my final tally was I came in 263rd out of 314 people. Not a great showing, but considering the talent that was out in California, I feel pretty good about it. Nice. So, you know, I'm listening to different podcasts on different days and one of the podcasts starts talking about classic sterns. Now, you and I don't have a monopoly on talking about older games, but we're known for that. These two are not. And they started going down the road of George, which we did I don't know how many I'm going to be talking about the classic Sterns, the classic way, just like they were made back in the seventies. They were holding that torch. So, Hey, that's great. But we kind of covered that a long time ago. And they were talking, they were talking about George Gomez and they were saying, well, George, you know, really is striving to try to drive the game price down to 4,000 bucks. Well, there's another George and that's me. And I, I kind of said that a long time ago. So call out on that.
    25:00
    Comments, questions? Yeah, well, is it a coinkydink or I don't know. Whatever it is, it just was weird hearing it. It's like, I already talked about that, but okay. It makes me wonder at times. How's that? Well, I'm thinking maybe some people use our podcast for, I don't know, ideas for talking points in their podcast. Oh, I thought you were going to say toilet Paper, but there is no... There's no toilet paper. We're better than toilet paper, George. Come on. Okay. Playfields. Have you seen the video of Hoggis Pinball or Haggis? No. You need to go see this. They're an Australian company that's manufacturing a game called Kelts. Okay. Basically, it's a Scottish games. Scottish games, which I know they hold one here in New Hampshire in the fall. You know, they do all the, you know, throwing the log and throwing the stone or whatever else. I don't know a lot about it, but anyway, the game is formulated around that.
    26:17
    These guys came up with an indestructible or a playfield that will take the hammer test. And again, we talked about this with Tommy, I guess, last week. These guys took a sledgehammer to their playfield and there wasn't a mark on it. Go on. Playbook, graphics, 4mm of acrylic on top. Sound familiar? Electra maybe? Yeah. Sorta, sorta, right? So, it sounds like a hybrid hardtop. If you think about what I just said, plywood on the bottom, some kind of graphics in between, however that is done, and then they bond the acrylic to the plywood and graphics. But it sounded a lot like Elektra, you know, where they put that acrylic over the playfield, correct? You would know, I don't own one. Yeah, I remember. It goes over the whole playfield, correct? It was, and I'd say it kind of, I remember it being scratched up though. It would get scratched up pretty good, that Elektra. Right, but that was 40 years ago and chemistry has come a long way. How's that? Right. And I know playfield protectors are big right now and they work really well. I actually installed my first one on my pinball pool and now I just got a whole bunch more of them doing other games. In fact, now with my customers, if they want to get a poor man's clear coat after do a touch up, I recommend me doing that to their game going forward. So I can talk about that later on, but it's picking up steam because it's actually a cheap way to get like a I looking at it from a business perspective and saying to myself if you look at the games that we collect they wanted them to wear out And I'm going to bring this up in the next subject, but just hear me out. So they wanted the games to wear out. So they didn't put a lot of effort into trying to preserve the artwork. Now fast forward into the 2000s and you've got companies like Stern out there. Well, they've got all these issues with playfields and it's not just Stern, it's Jersey Jack and others. How much money does that cost them in serviceability, whether you've got somebody on the telephone or somebody from the hierarchy of the company? Wouldn't that be something you'd want to try to eliminate or try to at least reduce so you're not incurring those costs? So the philosophy I guess of playfields has changed quite a bit in 40 years. Would you agree with that? Yeah, it has. Because years ago, you know, they'd make a game to last, you know, two, three years and they'd hope you'd They would just toss it. A lot of arcades did just toss them right in the dumpster.
    30:35
    Um, they didn't want to come to... I believe you told a story about that. Yup. So, uh, yeah. So what do they care if the playfields gets trashed up pretty quick, you know? But now it seems like durability is an issue and people want to, I think manufacturers know the collector community up there that wants to keep these things going. It's a kind of a hard line for them to walk because you want to keep selling new games and I think they fear that people, you know, if I have, you know, a house full of games, I don't have room to buy the next new game. And so I probably won't buy the next new game unless I'm a flipper and like to get rid of one and I'm going to have to play it six months, sell it off kind of thing. So, you know, I'm probably trying to weigh that out, I would think, on how to go forward. Right, but if you, you know, you've been following along whether it's through me or you know your interest in pin side, but you've seen that this has become an issue and it kind of dovetails into the next subject which is three theme and I'm looking on pin side this past week and there was an ad for a game called professional pinball Have you ever heard of this? Never heard of that one? Well, it goes in line with the Lady Death and our friend Tommy Skinner. This was a company out of Toronto, Canada, and they rethemed five different games, if I recall correctly. 8 Ball, Evil Knievel, Power Play, Strikes and Spares, and Star Trek. The Well, here's the weird part about it. All the games looked exactly the same graphics. It was a picture on the back glass of two women with a guy in the middle with no face and a mirror. And then all the graphics were kind of similar color scheme and artwork on playfields. And I forget what they did with the side art, but that doesn't really matter. And these These were re-themed kits to, for some kind of professional pinball league back in 1981 and in the brochure, I'll ask you to go look at it after we're off the air, you could win $250,000. I'd love to talk to somebody who knows a little bit more about this because I had never seen or heard of this before. Obviously, you either. I'd never heard of it, no. So, kind of weird that you would take all those games and it fits in with kind of the theme of operate, not operate, well, I guess operators and Manufacturers looking for the planned obsolescence of pinball games. They either didn't want them to resell or they wanted them just to wear out. So, you know, you'd go out and buy something else. And I think it also goes in line with kind of what you were saying earlier. Everybody who's a collector has a space problem. I don't collect, I don't care who you are, you don't have enough room. Yep, room is a problem. It's this, uh, friend of mine and, uh, you know, brother-in-law, he, uh, he's always said, you know, why couldn't, why oh why can I just collect stamps instead of pinball machines? Because it's not as much fun. Good answer. La, la, la, la-la-la-la-la. One thing I forgot, I want to circle back for a second. I've got a list of 18 games that I played at INDISC and I want to just run them by you. If I didn't take pictures of them, I wouldn't remember, so got the old camera out. As I told you earlier, in one of the other podcasts, that they had over 400 machines there. So, here's some of the games that I played, you can comment accordingly. The beat the clock never played it looked at it didn't look like didn't do much for me that says that nineteen eighty four eighty five bally yet to follow will move forward baseball being grants uh... from that error of pin from ballet eighty that the dark ages With the flyaway targets in the middle, kind of like speakeasy. Correct. I had to play it... Yawnfest or what? Yeah, Eric. Yeah. Move forward. I played William's Comet, which I played because of Eric, and that's an interesting game. Yeah, it didn't do anything for me. I played a little bit of that, but it's just, the music is very irritating. Well, he had the earworm, so. How about, how about Voltan? Voltan Escapes Cosmic Doom, kind of a rare belly. Really not much going on in the game. Dave Christensen artwork. Great looking back glass, but not a lot going on in that game. Not a bad game, but I wouldn't chase it for the money. No, uh-uh. How about, do you own one of these? Did Stern make a game called Magic? Yes, I own one of those. Very pretty game, but a yawn fest. Nothing really going on in that game for me. Only played it because it was a Stern and a lot of the Sterns were down. I played their Nineball and Quicksilver. Yeah. Dave, I'm glad I know you. Man, it's like night and day. It's, it's, we're not going to go down that road. Just take the phrase and say thank you. Yeah, I'll tell you, it's a lot of people, you know, here's the problem. I've even succumbed to this as well at times. I'll play a game on location or on a show like that and I'll judge it just on how it plays when I know I shouldn't because you don't, you only get a real feel of a game I'm just going to do a quick recap of the game. I'm going to give you a little bit of a preview of the game so that you can see what it really is when it's totally restored and to look and play like new or at the very least play like new. Everything's nice and clean. I would agree. Private Collection versus Public is two different entities entirely. Here's a game I'm wondering if you own or did own and I like this game Stern Split Second. I don't care for that game. It's the code on it was never completed. It was, I think it was supposed to be a talker. Does it talk? I forget. There's something not complete. I think it does. There's so many playfields and targets and so much stuff going on that I played it a handful of times. I thought it was a lot of fun to play. Yeah, it's very pretty, but it's not complete. It's like, Stern was going out of business very quickly after that. They released a whole bunch of stuff, a whole bunch of weird themes and different ideas they had, and they had a lot of things, they threw spaghetti into the refrigerator a bunch of times and stuff. And when it started getting into like 82, 83 for Stern, they really were running out of gas and they were kind of just throwing things out there. They were kind of done and they The coders, the software guys, you know, kind of released it without being totally done with stuff. So, I don't really care for the back glass on it. Playfield looks cool. I played it at a show in Texas back in 2003, Texas Pinball Festival. That's actually where I first met Bill Morrison, who was also a classic Stern fan, still is. And it was kind of weird. I walked up to the games. I'd never played them before. It's like, oh, they got a split second here. And who's next to me that wants to play too? It's Bill Morrison. I didn't know at the time. I just knew him from Rec Games Pinball, talking with him and so forth. And I said, oh, hey, you want to play? Who are you? I'm Bill Morris. Oh, I'm Dr. Dave. Oh, wow. You know, so we just met in front of SplitSecond and started playing and hanging out, got to see his collection. And that was a lot of fun. So we kind of met in person over SplitSecond. I still remember that. Well, I like the game. I don't, you know, I know it's a rare game, but they have one out in indisc. So hopefully get to play it again. I'd play it again. I'd play it out in the wild, sure. Played this with our big buck hunter. I don't know what it's about, but I think it's because the target is moving and it's kind of like a shooting game, except with the flippers and a ball. I'm sure it's kind of like Mick on a Stick and I don't know if Sterns used that mech for other things, but I liked playing that game. I was playing that game, didn't know what I was doing, but I love shooting the deer. Yeah, that game they based it on because of the popularity of the Big Buck Hunter video game is so popular, it was so popular that they decided to release a pinball machine with the same thing. Don't really see, I don't know if they made a ton of those. I've never seen one out in the wild. I've never seen one in the show. I don't think they did. I think it's a rare game and I think it's a collector game because of that. Okay. Makes sense. Close Encounters. Played that, liked it. The God League, you liked that game? Yeah, actually I did. I had fun playing it. How? I don't know. I just, I ended up playing it. I think I did anyway. I don't know. It's on the list. I don't have any notes of whether I did or not. Maybe I hated it. I don't know. I think you hated it. Most people hate that game. It has nothing to do with that game. It is boring. Anyway, I played a bunch of EMs. I'm going to list them all and then we'll move forward. Tantrum, Folly Rockett 3. Oh! Rockett 3. Yes. It's a fun game. Gottlieb Roller Coaster, which is the one I told you I played as a kid. Duotron, El Toro, another game I played as a kid. Boring. This is fun, one of the first three ball multi ball games, very unique game. Game I put a lot of money in as a kid, I love that game. Yeah, the first dinosaur game. Yeah, it was right around the same time as Fireball. Right, correct. Kind of a wide body, I think it was kind of, wasn't it kind of a wide body game? Pretty sure it was, right? Wasn't it? Uh, no, no, I don't think it is. Oh, okay. No, it's a single, it's a regular pin. And then played two games where companies are out of business. I played Cosmic Carnival, which was, you know, colorful, but that's about it. And the Big Lebowski, which was fun. Fun game. I liked that game. Which was a fun game. So they had some rare stuff, but they had a lot of stuff there. It was a lot of fun. I wanted to make sure that I got all the games in because obviously we talk about older games and some newer games. And that leads me to the end, which is you. Me? What's been going on in Dave's life and tell me a little bit about what you've been doing. Alright, well I'll get my theme song here. Hold on a second.
    42:42
    This week in pinball, Dr. D. What is wrong with you? Can you hear that? Yes, I heard it. That's what I was going to say. What the hell do you think you are, Walter Cronkite? I mean, please. For those of you who are younger than any way.
    43:15
    I always loved that when I was a kid, I didn't really care for baseball too much, but I love it. And usually this was on and the guy would announce and about different players doing things like, oh, something, something special about that. I don't know. It's it brings back memories like that stuff. So what have you been repairing? I've been going crazy. Doing any restoration Yes Have you been traveling the world Yes yes yes and yes Lots of things cooking Well let see This past week I had a Joker poker Joker poker has been very popular lately I been seeing a lot of Joker pokers a lot of Twilight Zones and then old school you know godly haunted house and so forth So all it runs the gamut But Joker poker had one in Shrewsbury a good I had a guy out there, Chris, he had a, I installed a Pascal board, which I do on all my system ones, and it had a, it had the Pascal board said coil error, which is great because it stopped the game from locking on coils and burning things up because it halts the game. So I fixed that problem. I had a bad, what's it called, bad spoon switch. The spoon switch was loose, caused the coil, caused the pop-up to just lock on all the time. So the game shut it down until I could I'm going to fix that for him and get that all straightened out. Then we had a T3 Stern 2003 and a Monopoly. This other guy's house, he's in Weston, worked on that for a day. I'm seeing a lot of these now, the early Sterns, like from the early new version of Stern, 2003 era, T3, Monopoly, so forth, that they're having a lot of battery corrosion problems because no one told them to change the batteries out and now it's what? Oh darn, Dave, that's really bad for you, isn't it? Yeah, really bad for me. I hope you're turning off the hook. But it's pretty challenging board repair on that game. Sometimes, you know, and you can't really find that board anymore, the MPU board for that. Stern just started to remake them. A backwards compatible board has surface mount stuff versus that stuff had more through hole, they call it, We actually can take the chips out and socketed in these service. Did we talk about this before?
    45:39
    With the monopoly games or you really have to make sure that the MP use okay Before you buy one because a lot of them are roached and you can't get one Probably probably and so in its and if you can find a board usually you gotta pay four hundred five hundred dollars for the for the pleasure of that so I actually just painstakingly, and I tried the new methodology of getting rid of this alkaline corrosion, you use toilet Bowl Cleaner. The old way of doing it was using vinegar, 50-50 mix, which didn't really, it wasn't enough of a difference of acid versus base to neutralize, you know, didn't do that job, but the Toilet Bowl Cleaner works phenomenal. You know, throw some of it on there, wait a couple minutes, fizzes up, take it off, So starting trigger I had to do a lot of jumps and jumper things and get the new PAL chip for it. You had to get a special... Sounds like Frankenboard. I had to get a bunch of different chips and stuff and put it all in there. And I think I had it all. I don't have a test picture for it. It's like, okay, well, I'm just going to do a... It looks good to me. I own things out, you know, point to point. And I brought it on site, threw it in the game and... Eh, no. Problem. So, turn it on, the T3 is kept, the lights just kept, the feature lights kept going on off, on off, on off. It's like, ah, it looks like it's booting. So I called up Stern, I like calling up Stern, Chaz there, and just run things by him, you know, since he sees a lot of this stuff. And he said, well, if your game's not booting, there's something wrong, you might need a new board, it says, you know, he said alkaline corrosion, you might need a new board, you can send it to us, and it's like, ah, I don't know, it's something simple, It's something simple, you know. So I brought the board out and good thing this customer had a Monopoly game next to it. It's the same generation. I looked at the Monopoly NPU and looked at the one I just repaired, compared the area of corrosion. It's like, ah, I missed that little connection to one of the legs of the chip. It didn't look like there was anything supposed to be there on mine, on the T3, but on the Monopoly, it's right there. So I owned it, nothing on mine, something on Monopoly. I run one little jump wire there, boom, got it. Thing booted up, I was so happy.
    48:37
    I know you like the physical, but maybe you should take pictures of that board so that when you do encounter them again. Oh, believe me, I'm way ahead of you. When I did that, I was like, you know what, this Monopoly board, I am taking all kinds of closeup pictures of that corrosion zone all around there so I know next time what a good one looks like and so I can compare it to one that's compromised. You unlock this door with the key of imagination. Beyond it is another dimension. A dimension of sound. A dimension of sight. A dimension of mind. You're moving into a land of both shadow and substance of things and ideas you've just crossed over into. So what's next? What's on the restoration block? You usually have something in the basement that you're doing. I am trying like heck to finish up this Twilight Zone that I've had for... Oh no, come on! That's still there? It's still here. It's been here since March. The customer, you know, said, oh, you've been in a couple months with that? Back in my time, I go, I'm going to try, but I don't think so. But I'll try six months later, eight months later, and then other things came up. Transcription and you know training also do service calls if everything're fit in and fitting a life as well you know so I've been done so I and clients own is the most complicated for machine ever made and then I also worked in the complicated one of the most complicated midbrows made from guardley which is your haunted house it's like three pinball machines in one that was I did that for a whole that was a three day they spawned that we did that wasn't that need a lot of work we got that going Past mortocon CommercialAdv,
    50:37
    ohiltv.net 갈팝��격 así is Clover Food Lab, they got a medieval madness and they got a twilight zone there and they keep them on all the time. People playing them all the time so they get beat on pretty well. That clock was broken. Someone in the past put a clock board in there from a different manufacturer, I think Rotten Dog and a decent board but still had an old technology in it of the original optos which you really can't find anymore. They're not quite as good as a new version of doing things that this guy Ingo Out in Germany had that people love. So I got one of those boards, I've actually got a couple of them, and put that in the game. It has blue LEDs in it and I took apart all the gears and lubed them up and cleaned everything. And then you have to time the gears like timing a transmission on a car or timing a timing in a car. You time that so it lines up to 12 o'clock just right. So all these little things about this clock to get it right. Knapp Arcade then when it finally goes in the game and it doesn't boot up with a boom boom boom boom technician alert, look at this you know, clock is broken, it's so gratified when you get that to come up and it doesn't say clock brokeing, it comes up with free play with no credit dot and the thing when it first boots up it goes back and forth and it lands right at 12 o'clock like it's supposed to. Very gratifying in Twilight Zone when you get that done, so that was a milestone getting that thing right and the gumball machine taking that apart getting that thing right. I'm going to put the LED's on the game too, putting blue LED's underneath the ramps and some red LED's, LED strips and I'm going to put mirror blades on the thing. I'm blinging this Twilight Zone out. I'm going bling. Color LED. So it's going to be a lot of eye candy and I can't wait to take pictures and my website and so forth and I think the customers are going to be happy with the end result. It'll be worth the wait once I'm done. It's a really nice looking game when it's done up right. Oh yeah. In fact, I have one myself. I bought one recently, last year. I was originally going to fix it up kind of quick and sell it, but after doing this one, it's like, you know, I think I need to keep this game. I think I need to make one for me, make a real I'm going to have a nice one for me and have it for a while because it's a very unique game. Didn't get a lot of love in the arcade back then. People didn't understand it, but it gets lots of love now in the collector community. The collectors love the game. Well, the price point now, I saw one out on Pinside, a really nice one. Big money. I mean, as much if not more than a brand new game. I'd say I'm like 10K for a nice Twilight Zone. I think this one was in that area. So yeah, it's a far cry from when I got into the hobby, but we've talked about that before. You could have picked that game up for two grand back in the day and now look at it, but it seems to be like everything else. I want to put a wrap to this unless you've got another story to tell and I'll go from there. I got one more story. So I also work at this This corporation in their break room, they have seven newish pinball machines in their break room for their employees to play. And they have a Medieval Madness remake, a Deadpool, Ghostbusters, Family Guy, Game of Thrones, Kiss, and a Hobbit. So they play the crap out of these things. They're all free play. you guys really good factorial teen maybe on pretty well animal Casual at I'm going to play some of those. I'm really liking clear rubbers lately to use around some of these LED games because the LEDs go right through the clear and they really make the game shine and more light. More light's always good in these games and see what's going on. They had me come out there for a pre-tournament fix up situation. So I went out there and worked for several nights on that whole lineup and got them all sparkly. In fact, the Deadpool came out so nice and it was so pretty when I was done with it with clear rubber everywhere. It's like I need to get a couple nice shots of this game. So I took some really nice artsy shots at an angle and got angles that's right. And I put that on a Google post on my website, the Google part of the website I have, you know, when you search me on Google. And I put the post from me on there. That thing got, and usually I might get, I do a post on there for a picture. Don't forget, you know, oh, you've got seven hits. Your picture got ten hits and whoopee, you know, this one, the first day. Twenty five hits second day. Two hundred hits by day four. Is that you got a thousand hits looking at this photo? So people like the bling. People like the. The eye candy of that one wasn't talking to you. I was talking to them. Why don't you send me a copy of that picture so I can put it to this This program is for the people who watch this episode and people who can see your artwork but the only people who can see it are the people who subscribe to either Spotify or Anchor. So all you people who listen to us from other podcasters, you can't see any of the art. Every one of our programs has a piece of artwork to it and most people don't see it. They see the We'll get to it eventually. And we'll go from there. Yeah, it's a good point you bring up. I didn't quite realize that, but yeah. You know, we take the time, and especially you take the time as well, a lot of time to find the right photo to use for the thumbnail for our particular episode. So, yeah, it's nice to see that on there. You kind of know what you're getting into when you click on it. You know, as a little lead-in. Alright everyone, thank you for listening yet again, and I wish every one of you a great day. Be blessed and be grateful. Bye everybody.
    57:49
    We are the Borg. Lower your shields and surrender your ships. We will add your biological and technological distinctiveness to our own. Your culture will adapt to service us. Resistance is futile.