Ever since I was a young boy, I played the silver ball from Soho down to Brighton. I must have played them all, but I ain't seen nothing like him in any amusement hall. That deaf, dumb, and blind kid sure plays a neat pinball. Gaze at thy stars and ye shall gather riches. Thou art gazing at the brightest star of all. Star Gazer. Hello everyone, and welcome to episode 6 of the Classic Pinball Podcast. My name is George, and I'm here with my co-host, Dave. Hello, George. Today, we're going to explore another rare Stern game, Stargazer. Here we are again, Dave, with another rare Stern game, Stargazer. Where do you want to start this week? Let's start with the designer of the game, Brian Puklaki. He really hit out of the park with Stargazer, his first time at bat. He only did four games. They were all from Stern. Stargazer was a really awesome game in design, how it plays, and the artwork part of it, too. He went on to 1982. Stargazer was 1980 August. Then he went on to 1982 in January of making Iron Maiden, a wide-body game for Stern. They only made a little under 1,200, but Stargazer was even rarer at 869 units produced. They went on to do Hypnox, which really wasn't produced. There may be one out there. We're not really sure. And then they did Q, also in 82. They made six of those. Bizarre game. Don't really get that game at all. I had a chance to buy one once, and I passed. Didn't you own an Iron Maiden as well at one point in time? Are you saying a single Iron Maiden? No, I had two Iron Maidens. You had two of them? I had two because I like to buy them in pairs. I'm trying to remember if I had the opportunity to play that here, and I think I did. But isn't the Backglass modeled after someone? It certainly is. That would be Pat Benatar. Okay, that's who it is. Yeah, that's a wild game. So with Stargazer, it looks like he had a pretty quick career at four games. Has anybody heard from this gentleman since? Not that I know of. I'm not sure what happened to him. I think he worked for Ad Poster, like they all did, but I'm not quite sure on that what happened to him. But with Stargazer, he just did a wonderful game, and Iron Maiden looked like a great layout. It has upstairs and downstairs, double level game, and it has two back glasses for it, front and rear, for a really nice effect, a glowing effect. She kind of glows in the background in Iron Maiden. And I really wanted to like Iron Maiden. I got kind of a middle-of-the-road junker one way back when, early 2000s, and then I found one of the home-use only ones, so I bought that as well. and then I want to play in it for a while, restoring it up nicely, and I want to sell them both off because they look great, but they're really getting played much in my lineup. But Stargazer, that is bolted to the floor. He really did a nice job with Stargazer. Dave, why don't we talk a little bit about the artwork of Stargazer. That would be Gerry Simkus. He started out at Stern back in, again, 1980. He did four games for Stern. And interesting, he started out with his first game, Big Game, and then Flight 2000, then Stargazer. And then he did Split Second in 1981. Interesting thing is Stargazer was only one he did by himself. The other three, he had Doug Watson help him with the art. And Doug Watson, of course, for fame of Quicksilver fame. We talked about him last week. We certainly did. What about these other two games that appear on the list here? pink panther from gottlieb and then split second that's stern okay timeline and pink panther he did as well okay but it looks like he jumped from one company he must have been a gun for hire yeah as they all were pretty much ad poster they kind of grabbed him so you own you own a flight 2000. Do you still own a big game? I do, yeah. You don't own a split second, though? Never have. I got a chance, I was thinking about that game years ago, I got a chance to play one at Texas Pinball Festival, which is actually how I hooked up with Bill Morrison years ago. I was talking to him online years ago and finally hooked up at Texas Pinball Festival, wondering if I was going to bump into the guy, and I saw a split second there, I went over to it, didn't know what Bill looked like, all of a sudden I see this guy playing split second, and I was playing it and talking to the guy about it, and I said, oh, wait a minute, you're Bill Morrison. He's like, oh, you're Dave O'Neill. Cool. So we started talking over, you know, we met at Split Second and talked about it. And Split Second is not quite a finished game. It's kind of unfinished. It was supposed to be a talker. They never got that going, so it's missing voice calls and that kind of thing. It stops. There's like no sound at all for a while, and some sound calls that should be there that they're not so they just kind of at that point with stern they were in a rush to get things to market because they were getting ready to just stop production or close down or they had some kind of financial issues going forward but again 1980 stellar year that's when they hit all in the park after that they were kind of the wheels were falling off the bus a little bit split second isn't the game with like the clock arm no what am i i'm thinking of what game uh it's got that arm that kind of you hit it and it rotates around at the top of the play field? Oh, that's hot hand. Oh, okay. Different game. Yeah, that's the early years. I'm thinking clock. I'm thinking the thing is, you know, like a hands on a clock. You're thinking time. Split second. It's all about circus and about trapeze artists leaping from one thing to another and jumping around. It's a split second timing of grabbing on the other guy's hand and swinging down without falling off the... I'm not familiar with the game. I'm going to have to go look and do my homework. Kind of a circus theme. Gotcha. Anything about the artwork that you want to talk about with Stargazer? I mean, I have a couple of thoughts. Yeah, with Stargazer, there are constellations all in the play field. They had a western zodiac. Then they had some sort of fictional figures there as well, including a beaver, a swan, and a pegasus. they had a big creepy crow on the play field and the back glass had a crystal ball she was a hot gypsy woman kind of scantily clad and even her bra she had on her top she had on looked kind of flesh colored so at first glance wow maybe she doesn't have anything on on top and on top of that who knew that astrology required such scant clothing the Zodiac also in their advertising there were like four different birds and again i'm not much for constellations or uh or knowing anything about the zodiac or astrology so i don't know where those all fit in but her to be dressed like you know i didn't understand the connection there the tales of the arabian knights or you know something along those lines well i think what they're trying to go for is a gypsy look So she had a gypsy look. She had a crystal ball she's gazing into. So sort of a gypsy astrologer. So I guess Grandma-in-the-Box Gypsy at all arcades doesn't sell as well as the gypsy-looking woman. This hottie on the backless. I'm guessing that's where... Fourteen-year-old boys want the hottie on the backless. Yeah, okay. Now I understand. What about the Playfield Art? Playfield Art again gorgeous blue color design almost a sky color with Starfield on there and Zodiac characters everywhere A little bonus letter on there as well as almost a clock feature A little bit reminiscent of Quicksilver, the way they did it there. Oh, you mean down just above the flippers where the bonus area is? Yes. They kind of put the astrology map, I guess. Is that what you would call it? Yes, astrology wheel. Okay. yeah okay i'm not going to fault this game like i did in the last episode with the side art at least in this game it makes sense and the colors are you know it's got that nice rich blue in it so i think you know for period specific it looked real good it wasn't like you know slapping stern on the side of the game or uh or you know some of the other things that were done to cheapen the game or to make it less costly. How's that? Yeah, again, it's 81 Sterns. They started doing all that, just running Stern on the side and calling it done. They didn't really care as much, it seems, as compared to the 1980s stuff they did and even the late 70s stuff they were doing. Here's a fun fact, too, and it kind of ties in with the new Stern Ghostbusters they put out. In the original Ghostbusters movie, the boys' firehouse loft had a stargazer in it. I'm going to have to go back and watch that when it's on cable and see where that is. I don't remember that in the movie. I don't either, but back then we weren't looking for that stuff. Nowadays, whenever I'm in a movie, you know, watching something, even on TV, if I see just a glimpse of the corner of a pinball machine, it's kind of, I don't know, says where you are with all this stuff and the years of knowledge. You've looked at these different games and artwork. All of a sudden, I know exactly what that game is. I know the manufacturer, the year made, even going by, maybe even the designer. Right. And you see a lot of it in pop culture today. I mean, we're starting to see it in advertising. So, you know, pinball is coming back around into the social consciousness, probably maybe not as big as it was, but it's getting there. One thing, Dave, the one thing I did notice when I was looking at IPDB, you have an actual photograph i do i do early on when that uh website came out he was uh the person running it said hey anybody you have different pictures you can submit for stock photos for our site they go yeah i got lots of that stuff so i started just like taking pictures like crazy and sending them in and sending them in so a lot of my stuff is on ipvd um ipdb that's the word And it's great. It's there for all time. And I was trying to, because what I was seeing, I was seeing different games represented that I had with some crappy photos that someone just, like, sat together, didn't change the rubber out or anything. It's blown up play field, and that was a representation of a certain title. I go, well, that's not good. So I would, you know, take a picture of one of my restored games or partially restored or whatever, but at least better than what was on there. You mean like last episode where they had the lawnmower? Yeah, the lawnmower. Yeah, you know, and I don't know. I think I probably should submit that one, too. You know, I kind of stopped. I was so busy with other things, I kind of stopped submitting at one point because I just could have kept going. But, you know, the other guy who's really good at that, too, is what's it called? Vic Camp. Have you ever seen his stuff? No, Vic has lived nearby where I grew up, and Vic and I have exchanged e-mails when I first got into the hobby. and I know he's a bingo guy, but he also collects a lot of other machines. I think, isn't he a wedgehead guy? Maybe not. He might collect everything, but he's been in the hobby forever and a real nice guy to boot. I've never met him personally, but seems like a really, really nice guy. Yeah, I think he's old school Gottlieb stuff, EM Gottlieb stuff pretty much. I think that's where his strengths are, I think, with his collection from what I've seen from the pictures of his place. Right, but he's also written some stories online talking about, I think he grew up either in Belleville or Newark, and every corner store had a bingo game, and he mastered the bingo because there was money involved. So I always thought, you know, I grew up in New Jersey, but not that part. I don't ever remember seeing bingo games, but I think they were in more city bars, that type of thing. I don't think you saw them in your local arcade or your local 7-Eleven. No, they were a gambling device, really. So they're more of a, you know, like a slot machine, but more fun. Dave, are there any features or any other items that you'd like to talk about? Yeah, Stargazer in particular has some really neat features The three sets of three bank drops it has Especially the one in the middle, middle top There's a ladder there that goes up and down There's about eight different stops on the ladder The more you are towards the top, the more the spinner value is worth When you hit one drop target down, it stops that little ladder from cycling back and forth. So towards the top, the highest point at that point, the spin is worth 4,000 a spin, but it makes the targets only worth 5,000 getting them all down. Towards the bottom, if you get the bottom one, it stops in the bottom, you're going to get 100,000 points for the drop targets down, but only 500 points of spin. So it's all in timing and accuracy on where that stops and what you want to do. So what do you have to do? Does it reset once you go through the spinner? Or does it reset when you hit all the drop targets down? When you get all the drop targets down, it resets. So the spinner stays fixed at that level until the third drop target goes down. So if you have a lucrative spinner, you might not want to knock that third drop target down? Not on purpose, you don't. If you have 4,000 points of spin, you just want to keep nailing that spinner and leave those drop targets alone, which is sort of difficult because there's a couple of pop pumpers right nearby that are probably going to get it down for you anyway. So take advantage of the 4,000 spinner while you have it, if you do have it. The other three banks on either side of that, down below there, they're an angled shot, or I should say straight up and down shot. You can sweep those very nicely, and when you can do it, it's great. It's kind of hard to do. So the left bank, that middle target lights up for an extra ball once you get the Zodiac all lit up. And I have it set up a mine hard so that it goes off and on every time you hit a kicker. So also on this game, there are stand-alone drop targets, correct, for all the different Zodiac signs? Yeah, those are all stand-ups. So there's stand-up drop targets for all the Zodiac signs. In fact, you can get the Zodiac sign by the stand-up, or you can also get it by getting the left or right drop targets down will give you a Zodiac. It'll give you the next one in line or one of them by random? Yes. I think next one in line it will give you. So there are 12 stand-ups on the game then? Yes. Wow. Plus all the drop targets. Yeah. There's a lot going on. Oh, so this is a real shooter's game. Oh, a real shooter's game. It's a wide-open play field, which I like with these games. A lot of nice long shots. In fact, when this game was first reviewed, I think it was in PlayMeter magazine way back when, they loved it, except the one shot they didn't care for, it was kind of a dead shot, was going, you could shoot the ball straight up to the top middle, and then it would bounce up there and come straight back down without hitting anything. It was kind of a dead shot. but really doesn't really happen all that often but that's just one little thing they dinged it on but besides that it's a you know it's a great game minor point the other interesting thing and very unique in this game is they what do you call this george the this is called the semi-circle concave scoop which if you have not had the opportunity to play this game it is something I find difficult to get used to. I love it. It's like you're juggling the ball around. It kind of goes in the scoop and comes back around and you kind of I don know just the way the ball behaves back and forth it just very flowy It a very flowy game Well let talk about how it designed because people might not really understand what the concave piece means. So there is no lane there. So if you were to, I don't even know if you can shots a shot, but if you did, it went up the flipper, it would basically go around and back up into the play field but there is no lane it's just inside the slingshot it's kind of a strange it's kind of a strange thing yeah on your typical games you'd have an out lane which goes out and then you have a flipper in feed lane it would feed your flipper instead of going out on this game you just have two outlanes no flipper feed lane instead of the flipper feed you have those concave scoops next to your flipper and the only way to really, you've got to really master on this particular title and other ones like this, is the drop catch and that kind of thing, bounce pass back and forth, and then just using those scoops. Because those scoops are very, there's a star rollover on each scoop next to each flipper that'll score certain things. They'll score you a Zodiac, they'll score you points, they will light a spinner for you for 2,000 points a spin instead of 200 a spin. And this game is so glorious. When you can get all three spinners all spinning at the same time and you really get a i juice mine up so they spin you know i don't know 20 or 30 spins whatever we know you're the spinner king okay okay just in case you didn't realize that yeah your sign off kind of says it all so on this game it's great because you get them all going and those points are racking up you know tons of points racking up the only game that that did the scoop thing like this it's comparable at all i would say would be uh space the space mission or space shuttle Somebody else did that? Yeah, I think it's called Space Mission. Not a Stern. No, it's a Williams, the Williams game. I think it's a late 80s Williams Space Mission. Okay, we'll have to put that in the homework book. Yeah, not Space Mission. No, it's a different Williams game. This is Space Station. Space Station is from 87, and they're the ones that use that same idea, the concave thing. Right, I mean, it's an honest mistake. There's only, like, what, 9 million games with the word space in it? Yeah, that's true. Good point. So, yeah, an honest mistake. Here we go. Go. That sound means you're about to play Stargazer. Drop targets here. And lose the ball. Okay, I got an idea. Okay, what? Play. Play. Okay, Dave's going to plunge the ball, hits the upper bumpers. He just knocked down the top target bank. So Dave knocked the target bank down. Oh, now it goes back. Oh, I see what happens. Okay, so he's trying for the side target bank at 9 o'clock. So if you hit that, what happens? I'll get a Zodiac and I'll get a Multiplier. Oh, so the left-hand target bank is for Multiplier? Yes, Multiplier. Okay. So up top again, now he's got it cradled on the right flipper, and he's attempting to hit the Multiplier target, and he just did. So you're up to three times. Now, he's also got one target left up top. That doesn't matter because he just traded. That's when you press another credit out. So up on the bumpers again. He's cradling on the left flipper. He's attempting to do... I want to hit that right spinner. So you want to hit the right spinner because it's lit. So how much does that worth? That's 2,000 points of spin right now. Oh, that spinner's worth 2,000 points. Okay, so you've got to cradle on the right. So you're going for the multiplier again. Okay. So this isn't that difficult to cradle. There's a spinner. There you go. That's 2,000 of spin right there. If I get the other one going. Oh, okay. Okay. It stays lit, which is nice. What stays lit? That spinner on the left side, it stayed lit because I didn't hit it. So it's from last time I... So how much is that worth? That's $2,000 a spin. But you said you could get up to $4,000 on it? No, the top one. That one there is $4,000. Right now, that one's worth... Notice $2,000 a spin there. And that's $1,000 a spin because it's on the ladder, the middle target. The middle spinner. You know, the one thing... The one thing I've just realized... Is that this game's got three spinners. It does. And we kind of... We overlooked that a little bit. I did mention it, but... Right. But if I can get them all spinning at once, it sounds really nice. Once I get all the Zodiacs down, it sounds really fantastic as well. I'm almost there. Okay, so... Okay, so... Oh, you piece of... I was trying to be fancy. Okay, my turn. You call me. Forgive me, people. I don't have a lot of time on this game. But Dave is going to do commentary while I play. How's that? George punches the ball. Top pump, top pump. Down by the scoops. Golden drop targets. Has a lit right spinner. More zodiacs down. Pretty good. More zodiacs. Both spinners are lit. No! I'm just trying to create a little ball so you can hit one of those spinners. Here he goes. Maybe you get it. Oh, well. Got a piece of it. Oh, no! Oh, I feel your pain. All that for just that? That's all. That left spinner, if you can nail the left spinner and it's left for 2,000, that thing will rip beautifully. Okay. Let's try that again. I did try to hit it about five times. Oh, that's a weak spinner. That goes away once you hit 2,000. Oh, so, oh, that... You gotta recall it by again. Oh, man! There we go. Man! Nice flipper work there. Yeah, now I know. Now I know. Now he's hitting a 200 points of spin on that one there. Is that the dead shot we're talking about? Yeah, the top, yep, the top dead shot. He just hit that, yep. He's got about half the zodiac wheel done. Oh, nice spin. That's the rip of 200 points of rip. If that was 2000, George, you'd be happy. Yeah, I know. There it is. Now it's going out top again. Okay. No, no, no, no, no! Ooh, Stargazer's liking you. The left spinner is lit again. You can get a piece of that. Nice Good flipper work No don go in there God I can hit that shot for my life The drop target ladder is moving back and forth now No drop targets been hit from the top now. Oh, there's the 2000 point spin on the right spinner! There it goes. Very satisfying. Oh, look at that thing! It's still moving! You think you can hit that? No, not even close. Oh, I see it! Look at that thing. Very satisfying. No, no, no. Nice. Oh, here we go. He got the speeder going nicely. Almost got the Zodiac wheel done. He has one more ball. He might get the Zodiac wheel done. How am I doing? You're doing pretty darn good. Better than me. You got half a million on here. Not bad. All right. Not bad for your first time out. No, I've played this game before. Oh, your first time out today. Yeah. Trust me, I've played this game before. Not this well either. It plays nice, though. Yeah, that dead shot's kind of weird. It is. I'm going to get the scoop there. Oh, nice spinner shot. That's worth 4,000 to spin right there, George. Oh, and that's wrong. Target went away. Oh, I got a free game. Oh, he's got 700,000. Free game. Nice. Oh, now he has. Oh, what's that? He got the Zodiac down, and now the extra ball is lit, but his target's down. He needs to get the target down. I want that spinner. You need the middle target up or the spinners. I want that spinner. The Stargazer future's so bright, you've got to wear shades right now. Oh, see? The Zodiac makes a different sound now when you hit him. Because you're on level two. Oh! Which now you're on code two rules. Oh, come on! Oh, there we go! Come on! No extra ball there. Nope, you didn't get it yet. You've got to get the middle target. Oh, come on! The middle target went lit. Sorry. There ain't no gimme extra balls in this game. There's no ball state, George. I'm sorry. No, I don't... It's not in my vocabulary. Ooh, okay. The middle target's still available. This game's being nice to me. What's the deal, Dave? It likes you. It likes when you're talking about her. Nice save, George. George, you've been practicing a little bit. Not bad. You might pull a million points out of this. Just shy. 969. Will he match? No match. That was pretty cool. Isn't that fun? Get your adrenaline pumping, certainly. That's a great game. I'm going to play some sounds in this. Okay. So what I'm going to do now, I'm going to demonstrate the sound package of this game of Stargazer. very unique just unique like quick silver as well and you'll see what it does when i get down each time i get all the zodiacs targets down how it increases the pitch and how it really gets you your adrenaline going to you know do more and you'll see what i mean so i'm going to get all the zodiac targets down Last one. And as you go to the next round of Zodiac Targets, pitch is going to change. Now we're going to go again. Again more. Now it's more insistent now. Tension's building. Now this is going to change again. Go with the next round. Now we're maxed out. Now the bonus wheel is totally maxed out. Now we're going to go for multipliers and max out the bonus on the game. And here's what a special sounds like when you get that on the drop target. As compared with the extra ball target on the left. I'm going to build up the bonus multiplier now. So now they have it maxed out. Here's when I get the spinner. I'm going to get all the spinners going here. That was all three at once. And now we're going to lose the ball. I have special software in this game that this game and Quicksilver and a few others, the bonus multiplier holds over from ball to ball and I found it too easy on Stargate especially because you add the additive bonus multiplier of one plus two plus three plus four I believe that what does that equal I don't know 10 times I think something like that um I it's too easy if you get it all in ball one you're going to always have that maximum bonus at all balls and it's it's too laggy for me so I have it so that if you get anything over three times bonus the next ball we'll bring it back down to three times so you're going to start over again it makes the game a lot more challenging and more fun to play more that return to the game factor dave that's an excellent sound package now i understand why you wanted to do the recording live rather than via telephone so reporting from dave's basement arcade I'm George be good and be well Dave and I'm Dave keeping those spinners spinning wishing everybody have a blessed day and be grateful I can say when I got the game. No. Tell the Bill Morrison story. All right, so I was looking through my email, and it looks like Bill just picked up. Bill Morrison, my buddy in Texas, just went to his buddy's house in his garage, and his buddy said, hey, get rid of all this stern junk. And I don't know, I kind of took that to heart. So I'm thinking, well, I've got a lot of classic sterns, and I guess they're considered a stern junk, at least by this thing here. So let's, George, can you help me get rid of the stern junk? I think I might be able to help you. oh wait wait wait no george no wait wait hold on turn that off turn turn off the freaking saws and stuff no no i i was wrong it's it was actually from a it's an old email it's from 15 20 years ago. Oh, well, how far did we get? Firewood.