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The Super Awesome Pinbal Show S1 E2

The Super Awesome Pinball Show·podcast_episode·2h 2m·analyzed·Dec 18, 2019
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.033

TL;DR

Super Awesome Pinball Show covers Rick and Morty announcement, road trip adventures, and Stranger Things/Hot Wheels rumors.

Summary

Episode 2 of The Super Awesome Pinball Show features hosts Christopher Franchi, Ed Vanderveen, and Christian Lines discussing their recent pinball activities, interviewing Butch Patrick (Eddie Munster), and covering pinball news including Spooky Pinball's Rick and Morty announcement and rumors of Stranger Things and Hot Wheels from American Pinball. Ed recounts a 2,700-mile road trip to retrieve a Haggis Keltz machine and a Doctor Who TARDIS for Texas Pinball Festival 2020.

Key Claims

  • Spooky Pinball announced Rick and Morty pinball game with team of Scott Denise, Bowen, and Eric Pripke on rules

    high confidence · Chris Franchi and hosts discuss the announcement as just-confirmed news with strong enthusiasm

  • Rick and Morty sold out after episode recording

    high confidence · Christian Lines states: 'News flash. After the recording of this episode, they did sell out.'

  • Strong rumors surrounding Stranger Things and Hot Wheels from American Pinball

    medium confidence · Mentioned as 'very strong rumors swirling around' but not officially confirmed

  • Circus Voltaire 1997 Williams edition rumored to be in Chicago Gaming Company remake pipeline

    medium confidence · Chris Franchi states it's been 'rumored to be in the remake pipeline for CTC' due to difficulty finding originals at high prices

  • Haggis Keltz machine is incomplete—missing playfield, which was removed for Australian show

    high confidence · Ed Vanderveen explains Haggis took the playfield out before Australian show; cabinet and boards remain in storage at his father's house in Chicago

  • Elvis had an EM Knockout pinball machine at Graceland, still there unplugged since his 1977 death

    high confidence · Ed confirms Knockout (EM era boxing theme) is in Graceland, frozen in time since 1977

  • Rick and Morty is the first fresh/current pop culture theme from Spooky, breaking pattern of classic rock and 70s throwbacks

    medium confidence · Christian Lines and Chris Franchi discuss it as a departure from typical licensing trends; considered more current than Alice Cooper or AC/DC

  • Christian Lines experienced flipper failure on Stern Stars due to children overusing the machine; screws fell out from repeated play

    high confidence · Direct personal anecdote from Christian Lines about nephew playing extensively and causing mechanical failure

Notable Quotes

  • “News flash. After the recording of this episode, they did sell out.”

    Christian Lines @ ~45:00 (estimated) — Confirms Rick and Morty sold out immediately post-announcement, demonstrating massive demand

  • “You can't do much better than Scott Denise and Bowen and Eric Pripke on Rules... it's a dream team.”

    Chris Franchi @ ~50:00 (estimated) — Establishes credibility of Rick and Morty design team

  • “I think it's a really cool theme that a lot of people are going to like. I think they're going to sell out in a heartbeat.”

    Christian Lines @ ~48:00 (estimated) — Prediction about demand; validated by immediate sellout

  • “Rick and Morty is a fresh title that even my two college students... they love Rick and Morty.”

    Ed Vanderveen @ ~51:00 (estimated) — Demonstrates broad demographic appeal across age groups, distinguishing it from typical pinball licenses

  • “The thing is, when you have machines in your basement and you want to have people that you love play them and have fun with them, but what comes with that is the potential for the machine to break and you have to worry about fixing it.”

    Christian Lines @ ~30:00 (estimated) — Reflects common collector tension between preserving machines and enabling social play

Entities

Spooky PinballcompanyRick and MortygameAmerican PinballcompanyChicago Gaming CompanycompanyChristopher FranchipersonEd VanderveenpersonChristian LinespersonHaggis Pinballcompany

Signals

  • ?

    community_signal: The Super Awesome Pinball Show rapidly gaining audience (900 listens) and securing podcast platform distribution (Google Play, Spotify)

    high · Chris Franchi thanks listeners for nearly 900 direct listens and mentions recent platform signings

  • ?

    event_signal: Texas Pinball Festival 2020 announced with Sylvester McCoy as celebrity guest and Doctor Who TARDIS prop

    high · Ed Vanderveen describes extensive road trip to acquire TARDIS and mentions festival lineup

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Rick and Morty represents shift away from classic rock/70s nostalgia toward current pop culture IP

    high · Multiple hosts discuss it as 'fresh title' with broad multi-generational appeal, contrasting with prior Spooky licensing (Alice Cooper, AC/DC)

  • $

    market_signal: Rick and Morty sold out immediately post-announcement, indicating strong demand for current IP themes

    high · Christian Lines: 'After the recording of this episode, they did sell out'

  • ?

    community_signal: Christopher Franchi confirmed as co-host of The Super Awesome Pinball Show alongside Ed Vanderveen and Christian Lines

    high · Show credits and episode structure

  • ?

    announcement: Spooky Pinball officially announced Rick and Morty pinball machine with star design team

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.367

0:00
Coo-loo-coo-coo-coo-coo-coo! Coo-loo-coo-coo-coo-coo-coo-coo! Oh, Canada! And now, here's three hours of Jeff Teolis. I'm Jeff Teolis. How's it going, eh? Hey, Holzer! Can I borrow a loonie? No doodabooda, eh? Celine Dion's about to sing Oh, Canada. Mmm, maple syrup. Sorry, can I have another poutine? Thanks. Canada. Ten provinces, three territories, and one Prime Minister, Tim Horton. Beauty. Just kidding This parody is paid for by the people's president Jeff Hills And the citizens for a better IFPA Think about the art I'm at a B plus A special when I know I'm drunk The slapstick The following is an ad-hoc radio production
0:59
Now, ladies and gentlemen, time for the show. Sit down, kick your feet up, grab a cold one, get ready for...
1:14
The Super Awesome Pinball Show! That's right, it's time for everybody's favorite pinball show! With your host, pinball artist Christopher Franchi! Texas Pinball Festival's Ed Vanderbeek and Dr. Pin himself, Christian Lines Sponsored by Chicago Gaming Company makers of Medieval Madness, Monster Bash and Attack on Mars remakes Chicago-Gaming.com and by Glintaker.com distributed to great pinball machines, mods, accessories and branchy pinball wear Yeah, yeah, we're right here to get you all the extra wood Oh, this is bloody rude Hey, pinball people, it's the Super Awesome Pinball Show episode number two. Ed and Kristen, how are you guys doing? Great. I'm doing fantastic. Excellent, excellent. We're all doing fantastic, and the reason why is we've got to thank the listeners out there. We've got almost 900 listens, and that is strictly based on a direct link to our podcast home. We just got signed on to Google Play. We just got signed on to Spotify. We're still waiting on iTunes Music or Apple Music, whatever that is. So to have that many listens is It's just amazing. So I just wanted to thank you guys out there for listening and supporting the show. It's awesome. Hey, Christian, what's going on on the show this week? Tonight we have Pinball on the News. We have an interview with Butch Patrick, who is Eddie Munster of the Munsters, and Mark on Lidsville. We've got conversations with Steve and Mark Ritchie. We've got the Pinball Rumor Mill, which includes Stranger Things, Hot Wheels, which was just discussed today. Also we've got the holiday edition of Kids Say the Darnest Things, Art Lessons with You, Chris Franchi, a visit to the super awesome Pinball Terminology Graveyard and Pinball Hall of Shame, a Munsters giveaway, signed photo, and a purple LP, and also an update from Ed on what's coming to TPF in March 2020. We're going to finish the show with a story from Tales of the TPF, Lou Ferrigno's story, and much more. Sweet. That sounds like a jam-packed show. That sounds like a good two and a half hours. What do you think, guys? Let's do it. Are you down? Well, I think it sounds great. I've got my Bacardi and my Diet Coke, and of course now I've got to pee, So I'm going to let you guys start the show off without me for just a moment. I have the world's smallest bladder, for those that didn't know that already. I thought you were going somewhere else with that. I've got the world's smallest bladder. I'm talking about pee. Well, you know.
Texas Pinball Festival 2020
event
Scott Deniseperson
Bowen Kerinsperson
Eric Pripkeperson
Stern Pinballcompany
Circus Voltaire (Williams 1997)game
Creature from the Black Lagoongame
Godzillagame
Alice Coopergame
Butch Patrickperson
Steve Ritchieperson
Mark Ritchieperson
Kevin Mooreperson
Sylvester McCoyperson
Gracelandevent
Stern Starsgame
Elviragame

high · Multiple hosts confirm announcement and immediate sellout post-recording; described as major licensing win

  • ?

    product_concern: Flipper mechanism failure on Stern Stars due to heavy use by young players; screws loosened from repeated impact

    high · Christian Lines describes direct experience: 'the screws that were holding the flipper mechanism in had just fallen out from just overuse'

  • ?

    rumor_hype: Strong rumors of Stranger Things and Hot Wheels from American Pinball

    medium · Christian Lines states 'very strong rumors swirling around' but provides no sourcing or confirmation details

    • 3:36
    Are you really going to pee right now? No, I can hold it for a moment. But the great thing about this is you can edit all that out, and when I do, I'll be right back. The great thing about this is I'm not editing that out. Nice. Okay, are you guys ready to get into the days of our pinball lives? Let's get into it.
    3:58
    Like sounds to the hourglass, so are the days of our pinball lives. All right, guys, this is the part of the show where we talk about what we've done pinball-wise in the past two weeks. I, myself, have nothing to discuss about pinball. nothing well you know I spent a lot of time editing and putting this show together I'm really concerned about making sure we get this stuff out on time because everybody there's a lot of a lot of other people out there and let's just say mostly other podcasters who doubt that we can keep our quality and our timing up so you know I'm just working hard to do that I have only one thing I did post a list on Facebook of the top five games I would like to get for Christmas so I'll go over that with you guys and see what you guys think you can tune me out you can say that sucks, whatever, I don't care. You know, pinball is subjective, but we'll just see what you think. This isn't really in order. I just, I did one, two, three, four, five, but, and then I just filled it in. You know, I didn't say one was more important than the other, so this is just a list of five. Number one, the Valley Williams 1997 edition of Circus Voltaire. I think that's a great choice. Yeah, I think that's one that's been rumored to be in the remake pipeline for CTC because a lot of people want it, it's hard to find, and when you can find it's for sale. It's usually pretty expensive. But is it more expensive than what the current pricing of a Circus Voltaire is? Would a remake be more or less expensive than what you could just go buy one for? Yeah, that's a good question. I think it would probably be more expensive, but I don't think it would be drastically more expensive, and you're getting a new game with probably more bells and whistles. Well, usually what happens, too, is when they announce that they're going to remake it, then the bottom drops out of the old one. And that's what I mean. So like when Medieval Madnesses were $12,000, $14,000, you know, they tend to do a remake. You know, Monster Bash is Attack from Mars. Attack from Mars was kind of right on that edge when they came out with the remake, you know, $6,500, $7,000. So, yeah, so, you know, if the current title, and we'll just, you know, Adam's Family, we'll just throw that out there. So, you know, I think if Adam's Families are currently more expensive than what Chicago Gaming can get a remake in for, then that makes sense. But if you pick something like Creature from the Black Lagoon, those are usually run $55,000, $6,500. That's right on the edge, so there'd have to be some discussion whether or not they did a remake like that. I think even most of the games that they have on the list are pretty expensive to buy now used. And so that's part of the allure. But you have to factor in it's a new game, so that comes with a cost that I don't know if you can put a dollar value on. You don't have to worry about all the breakdown and that sort of thing. But we're going off target. Number two, Chris. Well, I'm going to skip to number five because you said it. Creature from the Black Lagoon. There's no question that that's a game you deserve to own, you should own, because of your bathroom. I think you should tell everybody what's in your bathroom. Christian, you've been to Chris Franchi's bathroom? I've seen pictures of his bathroom and not in the way that you're probably suggesting, Ed.
    7:03
    He just hopped in for a second to give himself a washcloth bath, if you know what I'm saying. how can you do all of that lies yeah no my bathroom is Creature from the Black Lagoon themed because he comes a very close second to Batman in my list of loves of my life so yeah I've always wanted to you know the game itself does kind of bug me a bit I'll say the fact that like on the lower not the lower playfield but the main playfield from the middle point up the ball just kind of disappears under there and you know it's like you don't know what's going on you know I mean, it's a fun game.
    7:37
    That's a mild thing to be bothered about, but just the fact that it's a creature from a black lagoon, I want it. So anyway. Let's go back to the bathroom for a second. Okay, when you open the door to his bathroom, there is a creature that is like peering over the edge of the door at you as you walk in. It's like a full half or half of the creature's body. Oh, yeah. What are we talking about? A lot of people use them for toppers. They use them for toppers. Yeah, they make toppers out of those. Except they put stupid LED lights in his eyes, which, yeah, he doesn't have light-up eyes, so knock that shit off. But anyway, yeah, that's coming out of the wall. That's going to be presented in a much different way, and I don't want to spoil the fun, but I guess I have to. He's going to be mounted on a floor-to-ceiling version of the movie poster that has him removed so that I can put that bust statue, whatever you want to call it, right onto the movie poster, and it looks like he's swimming out of the poster. And then I went and bought these little capsules, these little clear capsules at all different sizes made out of clear plastic, and I'm going to glue those on so they're like bubbles, you know, like three-dimensional bubbles coming off because they're cut in half. Your house is like Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory. I'm sure if you walk in the door, there's just amazing shit everywhere. It's a tribute to pop culture, and, you know, that's my love anyway. So, yeah, moving on, the next one would be Embryon, which is funny because somebody posted, this is a ballet title from 81 wide body somebody posted on my post like oh here's one that's for sale some asshole wants $5,200 for it I'm like yeah no like I could have got a mint one for like $1,700 like six months ago but I screwed up and blew it but yeah $5,200 I'm not thinking so the guy must have thought on my list and like went and jacked up the price and then posted it and went oh look what I found so fuck off but anyway that's a cool game Twilight Zone That's consistently at the top of everybody's list Or most people anyway Yeah, that's a well-loved game And well-hated amongst a lot of people too I mean, it's kind of one of those controversial games That you either love or hate But man, it's a packed game That playfield is one of the coolest playfields ever That's what I love about it And to round out the list I fell in love with this game after we played Florida And now I want one really bad The Williams classic from 1988 Swords of Fury Oh, yeah. Hey, I've got a line on one of those. Do you? Yeah. Send it up. Yeah. Paul McKinney, my partner, takes the pinball festival organizers. He's got one that he's contemplating selling. What's the condition? Is it nice? It's nice. I'll talk to him. Someone getting $400. Sounds good. All right, cool. He's sold. Done. That won't happen.
    10:20
    All right. That's it for my pinball, my week of pinball. It's not a whole lot. What have you guys been up to? Well, let's see. I just got back from a 2,700-mile mad road trip that I took. My buddy Kevin Moore went with me, and I'm going to go ahead and say thanks, Kevin, for going with me. I had to go to Chicago to pick up Haggis Pinball left a Keltz machine in Chicago after Chicago Expo, and I took custody of it to bring it to Texas because the next time they come back, it'll be at TPF. So I had to go pick that up, and then I had to go to Huma, Louisiana, to pick up a full-size TARDIS from Doctor Who that we picked up to go along with the Sylvester McCoy celebrity guest for TPF 2020. And that was just another shameless plug for Texas Pinball Festival by Ed. Where was that at? It's right outside New Orleans. Huma. It's not a Huma. Yeah, it's Huma, Louisiana. So Kevin and I, Kevin agreed to go with me, so we jumped in Kevin's truck, and we took off this past Saturday night, and we drove north until we kind of got tired, and we stopped right at the top of Oklahoma, where Oklahoma and Missouri come together, and we went to a casino and blew some money there. And the next day, as we headed to Chicago, we stopped at Uranus. So there's a town in Missouri called Uranus. Man, that is hot. Oh, yeah. Chris, how are you going to look at this? This is right up your alley. I was going to say, I thought I felt something down there.
    12:00
    And they really play it up. So you stop in Uranus, and they have a big store, more or less, you know, and they sell T-shirts. But the big thing is they sell fudge, and they make the big joke about, you know, you can get fudge from Uranus and all that. So it's a lot of fun. They had a Zoltar game that Kevin played. And I took some pictures, and it was a lot of fun. You know, we got T-shirts. But, of course, it's kind of like going to the Hoover Dam with all the dam jokes. You know, you go to Uranus, you know, it's all Uranus jokes. Did your teacher say, I had a great time in Uranus?
    12:34
    They have teachers that say that, of course. They've got his police department, you know, protecting Uranus since 19-whatever, you know. But that was actually a lot of fun and interesting. I bet that sounds a real shithole, huh? Yeah, I play some fun. I bet you, honestly, though, the people who live in that town must be ready to jump off the roof because that joke has got to be so played out. We have a city here in Michigan called Hell, and the big joke is every time winter comes, everyone takes pictures of the sign that says, you know, welcome to Hell. It's got snow and icicles on it, and they're like, hell throws over.
    13:09
    I live very close to Intercourse, Pennsylvania, and Blue Ball, Pennsylvania, so we've got our fair share of good cities. I want to move to Big Bone Lick. That's right. It comes up with these names. But anyway, from there, we drove straight on up, and we actually went to – we had to drop off some stuff. The National Video Game Museum is in Frisco, Texas, and they needed us to make a delivery, so we took some stuff to Chicago. But after we dropped that off, we went to Steve Ritchie's house. And Kevin and I hung out with Steve Ritchie and Mark Ritchie. Mark met us, and we went to dinner and had tapas. Have you ever had tapas? Do you know what tapas are? Of course, man. That was like the new thing a couple years ago, like going to a restaurant and just having tapas, which are essentially just appetizers, right? It is appetizers. And when you are 6'3 1⁄2 and 275 pounds like I am, guess how many tapas you have to order to feel like you've eaten anything. A lot. It's a lot. It's a lot of tapas. And so it was good. We had a good time. You know, the neat thing about it is you can try all kinds of different things. But when I told my wife, Kim, that we were going to go to Toppa, she just started laughing. And she said, yeah, you're going to want to go get White Castles or something after that because I don't think that's going to fill you up. So I hung out. So Kevin and I hung out with Mark and Steve. And I did a couple interviews with Mark and Steve, which you'll hear later on. Yep. Awesome. And after that, I went and saw my father lives in Chicago. So it makes it nice when I go to Expo, I get to see him. So we popped in with my dad, and that's where I was hiding the Haggis Keltz machine. So we grabbed that, had breakfast with my dad, and we headed south. And we went to Memphis and did a tour of Graceland. I know that's not really pinball related, but Elvis does have a pinball machine. He does. In Graceland. Do you know what it is? It's the Elvis home one. No. Nope. No. It's not Stern Elvis? I mean, isn't that the obvious? I know. Elvis died before the turn Elvis came out. Oh, no, no. You're talking about the kind of abuse he had when he was alive. I thought you were going to do his mid-70s. Yeah, it's in his house, and it's still there. So he's got the EM knockout, and it's the boxing theme. And the great thing about going, if you've never been to Graceland, the great thing about it is, not just that it was Elvis' house, but it's like a time capsule. So Graceland is frozen like in 1977. when he died. And so you walk in, and it's like the shag carpet in the kitchen is, you know, with the formica and the burnt orange, you know, and the green refrigerator. And it's really, really cool to kind of go in and walk through. And anyway, if you're an Elvis fan, he does have a knockout pinball machine. I just want to drag some hippies through that place and go, look, the 70s were not that cool. Knock it off.
    16:01
    Yes, the 77 was right when they went from EMs to solid stage, right? So he must have, maybe he never saw that transition. Well, I don't know if knockout was made. I think it was older than 77, but that's what's in the play. And you know what? It looks great because it hasn't been touched since at least 1977. It just sits in the corner. It's not even plugged in. They got the cord all wrapped up behind it, and it's just sitting there. It looks fantastic because obviously nobody's played it since Elvis died. That's cool, man. So are you the only guy in the States that has a Keltz, going back to earlier in your story? Yeah, and in full disclosure, it's not a complete Keltz. It's missing the play field. So what happened was during Chicago Expo, Damien, the guy from Haggis, if you're not following him, he's doing a daily video blog. So he's at Expo, and he's got Keltz, and I'm talking to him, and he's talking about he's going to come back to TPF. and I said, well, what are you going to do with it? Because I only bought the one game. He said, well, we're trying to figure out a storage place, or we're going to go in a storage place and put it there. And I said, well, why don't you let me take it? My dad lives here in Chicago, so I'll hide it out at his place, and then I'll come and visit him sometime between now and TPF, and I'll come get it, and I'll take it back to Texas. And he said, great. And in my head I'm going, this is awesome. I'm going to have the only Kiltz pinball machine in the United States that I can play between now and TPF. Well, then his wife, Georgia, reminds him, well, don't we have another pinball show back in Australia the following weekend? And he goes, oh, yeah. I can't build a new play field before that next show. I have another cabinet ready to go back in Australia, but I just don't have time to build another play field. So they took the play field out of the game. He built like a little wooden box, and he checked it on the plane, and they took the play field back with him. And the cabinet and all the boards, everything else is still in the game. He's just missing the play field. He's supposed to ship the play field back, but I have no idea when that's going to be. He's still working on the game. He's still developing it if you watch his video blogs. But anyway, back on track. So we finished with Graceland, and we shot down to Huma, Louisiana. This nice gentleman and I had been looking for a TARDIS to have at the show just because I thought that would be really cool, a nice backdrop. People would want to get their pictures taken with Sylvester McCoy. And this gentleman, he built one with his son who is now 17, but he's, you know, Many, many years ago, his son was a huge Doctor Who fan, so he and his son built this TARDIS, and his son is now 17. He was like, yeah, you know, I still like Doctor Who, but we don't need this TARDIS in our living room anymore. So they put it up for sale, and I saw it. So we went down there and picked that up and loaded it up in the truck, and we made the Mad Dash back to Texas. And that was my pinball adventure for the three days. Were you going to store this TARDIS before and after TPF? It breaks down really easy into panels, so that was nice. That was one of the selling points when I talked to the guy.
    19:00
    I guess I'm not a doctor who, I'm not a who-vian, I guess, if you're using the correct terminology. Nice. But I guess there's lots of builder groups that I guess building TARDISes is kind of a thing. So this guy made this TARDIS based off of these plans on one of these websites, and it's kind of like Legos almost. It comes apart pretty easy. You don't need any tools, and it goes back together. So it comes apart in panels. Currently, my buddy Kevin has it. He is going to make a couple corrections to it because he is a Doctor Who nerd. And so there's a couple things about it he doesn't like. Like it was missing the light on top, and so that was bugging the whole way. So like the whole last 300 miles, he's on the web, you know, internet trying to figure out how to get a light for the top of the TARDIS. So it's over at Kevin's. He's going to mess with it, and he'll bring it to TPF. After TPF, I don't know. We'll sell it. I had the idea that inside the TARDIS, it's not finished. It's not painted or anything. It's just bare wood. So I know how much people like to graffiti things, so I thought it would be cool that if you went and met Sylvester McCoy or got your picture taken with him or got an autograph, that you could go in the TARDIS and sign it or graffiti up the inside of the TARDIS somehow that people would maybe dig that. Maybe not. I don't know.
    20:15
    That's going to kill your resale value. If you're going to resell it. We can paint the inside of the TARDIS.
    20:21
    We'll just paint it. What's the point of having people sign it if you're going to repaint it? Dude, you have to make them feel like they're getting that personal TARDIS experience, right? And I may not repaint it. I mean, I'm just saying, people, you know, I don't know. I don't know what I'm going to do with it. Hey, take a cue from Stern and have that TARDIS chopped up into little 2x2 inch squares and make a limited edition Doctor Who pinball machine. Yeah, I know. No, but everything's for sale, so if somebody wants a TARDIS at TPF, hit me up. I think he's going to try and sell me at this show, too. What are you worth? Nothing.
    20:58
    Zing. The day the show went through. That's the Bacardi talking. I don't mean that. I need to join in on that Bacardi.
    21:08
    I don't want you to fuck off. So, Christian, how was your week? Oh, my week was good, man. Again, just like Franchi, I didn't do a ton. I had a couple repairs on my machines. I had my nephews over from New York who are amazing kids, but, man, they were beating the heck out of my pinball machines. And my three-year-old nephew was just tripping for about 15 minutes on stars. He would plunge the ball, and then he would just smack the buttons. And he just wouldn't stop until the ball drained, and he had to plunge again. So after about 15 minutes of that, the right flipper just went totally out. And I was a little worried about that, but flipped up the play field, looked underneath when they had all left. and the screws that were holding the flipper mechanism in had just fallen out from just overuse. So I just threw those Stern Stars. You just want to give a kid a power thud right in the back of the head. I know, man. The thing is, when you have machines in your basement and you want to have people that you love play them and have fun with them, but what comes with that is the potential for the machine to break and you have to worry about fixing it. And I'm a little bit OCD with my games, So letting him sit there and smack it around was not easy, but I did it because I loved him and fixed it. It was relatively easy to fix. Don't you love it when you have a company comes over and you've always got the one set of, whether it's your brother or sister or neighbors or whatever, they come over and they bring the kid and they think, oh, well, they've got a game room and that'll be like the babysitter, and they just let the kid go in by himself and they don't, you know. Yes. Yes, with the kid. So now you're babysitting in the game room, making sure that the kid understands what they're supposed to do and try to show them a little bit. Well, not only that, but we're all collectors to a point, and we want to keep our machines looking nice. So when you let a little kid in there, you can't blame him for not knowing how to use it, and he's going to obviously hit the smartphone. No, no, I don't mean that at all. I know, but you're obviously worried. I sit there and I'm like, please, God, don't hit the glass or put your drink down and spill it on my machine because I baby these things. I take good care of them. And I don't know. It's fun to have them over. It's fun to have people play it, but it always comes with a little stress and anxiety. But easily fixed. Cleaned off all the fingerprints from the glass, and I was good to go. And that was that. Last night, I was on call, and I got out late. So I got out at like 9.30 p.m., and I texted Sarah, who usually goes to bed around then, and I said, if you are cool with it, I'm going to go out and play Elvira because the machine had just come in at the bar down the street from where I work. And she was cool with it, thankfully, and went out there and played it and checked it out. I've got to say, man, it's a fun game. I don't know if you guys have played it. I played it in Chicago at Expo. And you have the game? Yeah, I'm looking at it right now. Oh, that's awesome. I just uploaded Code.88. I didn't know if I'd like it. I thought it was a really kind of wide-open play field, and I wasn't sure if I'd like it. You know, it was a wide-open play field. I wasn't sure if the shots would be as fun as they, you know, could be. And I really thought that there was a lot more to that game than it looks like when you just look at it on a picture on pin side. Really liked the house was cool, the ramps felt good, the mausoleum with that, you know, the three-part spinning mech in there that pops up the head and the scoop and that sort of thing. That was really neat. So I liked it. I kind of got into the rules. I got both multi-balls. So two thumbs up for that game. I don't know if I'd want to own it, but definitely liked it. I love my Elvira, and I'm not just saying that because I own it. I'm a fan. I love the fan layout. Everyone keeps saying, well, it's just a fan layout. But I think it's a fantastic game. It shoots well. It's got great shots. I have a good time playing it. I definitely want to play it more. I got maybe 10 games on it. But what I played, I liked. And there's a lot that you don't really see. Like the left return lane to the in lane with the ball lock there and the house has like the skill shot is right behind the house. You don't actually see where that is, but you just kind of have to find it. And then the mausoleum, the spinning roof on the house. I mean, all that stuff is extremely cool. So I like the game a lot, and that's pretty much my week, man. It was just playing that game and dealing with the in-laws, breaking some stars, machines. Breaking some stars. All right, all right. All right, guys, you ready to talk about pinball on the news? Let's do it. All right. And now, Pinball in the News with your super awesome eyewitness news crew.
    25:39
    Basically, the only thing going on in the news right now is we got Rick and Morty that was just announced by Spooky Pinball. And very strong rumors swirling around about Stranger Things and Hot Wheels from American Pinball. That seems to be the newest rumor. But let's go back to Rick and Morty. Wow, what a whole lot of buzz the announcement of this title has brought on. And I got to say, I think it's justified, number one. It's a very hot title. Number two, I couldn't be more happy for Charlie and his family on getting this. You know, I know he's still singing from Godzilla. And it looks like, you know, with the crew that he's got on board putting this game together, he's definitely going to have a big winner. And I'm really excited and happy for him. Oh, man, it's an awesome get. It's an awesome get for Spooky.
    26:24
    It's a license with a rabid fan base. It's like the best theme I think that they've ever gotten. It appeals to a pretty wide range of people, adults, and definitely not a kid show. I just watched a few episodes with Sarah a few nights ago just to kind of get a feel for the show because I hadn't seen a lot of it. And, man, it is a little risque. I mean, we watched Pickle Rick, the episode where Rick turns into a pickle, and it was freaking hilarious but also insanely violent. and tons of F-bombs, lots of people dying, but funny, really, really funny. So I think it's a really cool theme that a lot of people are going to like. I think they're going to sell out in a heartbeat. News flash. After the recording of this episode, they did sell out. Oh, my. I do think there's a lot of buzz around Rick and Morty. I've seen a lot of posts from everyone from my age bracket, which I just turned 50, so people in their 40s and 50s seem to be excited about it. But more importantly, you know, you get the buzz about, well, you know, it seems like every title is, you know, an old rock band or, you know, some throwback to something from the 70s. But Rick and Morty is a fresh title that even my two college students, our son and daughter, they love Rick and Morty. When I told our son, J.D., you know, he's 18 years old, he got really excited about it. He watches that show, I guess, quite a bit. I have seen it. It is funny, but it is some pretty dark humor. So if you're not into that, you may not care for it. But I do think it's going to be a big win for Spooky Pinball and Scott Denise. Chris, you had mentioned that the team on it is amazing. And, I mean, you can't do much better than Scott Denise and Bowen and Eric Pripke on Rules. You know, it's a dream team. And then to have that theme on top of it where, as you mentioned, you know, everyone loves that theme of all age ranges. so you're gonna you're gonna have a uh a really really hot title on your hands i think even more so than alice cooper even though you know that's a really big name it's finally a newer kind of still in pop culture still very relevant theme that uh i can't wait to play yeah i was just sitting back trying to think of like you know what what title have we had recently that that's a current title and and i don't i don't include like alice cooper because the dude's like 65 years old or whatever, you know, his glory days are, you know, were long ago. So I consider that a classic license. I consider ACDC a classic license. So like, what else has there been that's come out that's been, you know, current, you know, and I couldn't think of anything. So I'm going to correct you on Alice Cooper and say, we just saw Alice Cooper in concert and it was a fantastic show. You're right. He has been around for a very long time and he is considered classic. And I don't know if he's he hasn't really put out any new songs but he put on a fantastic show i do think he's still relevant and um my wife kim we just ordered her an alice cooper and uh spooky's going to bring it to tpf for us so and that was actually kim that played it at a friend's house and she said you know that is a fantastic game and i want that game so when your wife says i want that game you don't argue with it so that's right so we bought that you say so if you've got a wife that says she wants a pinball machine. So I ordered Alice Cooper and his spaceship. So continue. That was a good point, though, for Angie, right? Yeah, you completely misunderstood me. Like, I love Alice Cooper. He's actually from Motown. He's a Detroit boy, and I love his music. I'm just saying I don't call that a current title. I know he's still alive. I know he's still touring. I would just call that a classic license. I'm trying to think of what the most recent. Yeah, that's me. I couldn't come up with anything. I'm like, what, Game of Thrones? Was that the one? Yeah, that's probably the most recent. Yeah, Game of Thrones was pretty recent. You can't say Star Trek in the movies. Well, that's true, but that's still older than this. Deadpool is not really based on the movies, so that certainly goes back further. Well, Deadpool qualifies because it's your current comic book. Yeah, but it's been around for a while. Rick and Morty is over the last few years It something that just created not too long ago And Stranger Things is the only thing that might rival it So it seems like you know we give Stern a really hard time for old white dude bands and old things But it sounds like they're finally kind of bringing it into the 2000s with this next title, if it's true. Stranger Things I don't feel strongly about. You know, I've watched season one and season two. I've not seen season three yet. I do like the show. I just don't see the possibilities of what you can do and where you can go. That show is very shallow. Oh, man, this is a dream theme for me, man. I know a lot of people probably don't feel that way because people started the first season and they liked it, but maybe they lost interest into season two because it wasn't quite at the same level. But this thing has got a huge amount of potential, not only because the theme is something that a lot of people love, but it's rumored to be a Brian Eddy title. And so it's kind of his return to form in the pinball world. And with his history, I mean, the expectations for what he can bring are through the roof, obviously. But I think it's a show that you could probably get all of the assets for. There aren't any significant A-listers in the movie. Well, there's Winona Ryder, but outside of that. Who's the doctor? Matthew Modine. Yes. Oh, yeah, Matthew Modine. I have a feeling that, like, with Netflix, you're probably going to be able to get a lot of the, you know, the call-outs, the video clips, all the stuff that you really want to make the theme come to life. You know, certainly a lot more than, like, working with Disney or a major license holder like the Beatles would get you. Big cast, if the assets are there, if Brian Eddy is on it, and it's a theme that you love, which I do, I think it's going to be a huge winner. Well, a good tip is to go from its licensing. You know, like, for example, with Jaws, you know, where everyone's like, go to the Jaws game, like, you're not going to get the actors. You know, you don't see product out there with the actors in it. You know, you just don't. But Stranger Things, you see product everywhere. You know, we've got action figures, puzzles, you know, all kinds of crap. You walk into that back section in Target by the movies and the CDs and stuff like that, they've got a whole shelf, like, just a wall, basically, dedicated to Stranger Things, lunchboxes and all that. So it's obvious that the actors are at least visually included in the license. We just hung our Demi-Gorgon Christmas ornament on our Christmas tree tonight as we set that up. So, I mean, there's tons of it out there, as you said.
    32:58
    Yeah. You know, I think I just keep imagining a haunted house style lower play field. Like for the under. Upside down. I was going to say the underneath.
    33:12
    The underneath, yeah. Yeah, for the upside down to have like, you know, even though it's not upside down, That's still flipped around, and it always screws me up. I don't know why, but I think you've got to do that, and I think the backboard of the play field has to be the wall with the Christmas lights, you know? Yes, yes. And the output. Or the cabinet itself could have the Christmas lights on there. But I think that the upside down is really what everyone's been talking about in terms of how they're going to play that out. Not everyone loves a lower play field. It's kind of a love it or hate it kind of thing. I haven't really played a game with a lower play field that I have been totally blown away by, So hopefully if they do incorporate that with some gimmick, it's more of a lighting thing or something you see on the screen, a mirror. Yeah, all that stuff could be very cool. So that's one of the things that everyone's been waiting to see, how they incorporate that. It would be fun, though, at some point to have you talk about how you would do the cabinets for these new games if you have this license. I don't know your process in terms of how long it takes you to come up with an idea, but if you ever get a license, do you sit there and say instantly in your head, like, oh, man, it would be cool to do this, this or that? on the cabinet itself. Well, I've been fortunate enough to work with properties that, you know, that I was already in love with in one form, you know, another. So I didn't have to really sit down and get my head around anything. And the same thing with Stranger Things. I'm very familiar with it. So usually I would just sit back and, you know, I would think, okay, you know, you've got these. I always start with the back glass and the cabinet. And I think, you know, what are iconic scenes from the movie? I don't necessarily want to create a collage of characters or anything like that. But for someone to, you know, like if they're across the bar and they look over and they see, like, the kids on their bikes stopped in the middle of the road and all that crazy shit and the monsters up in the sky, you know, it would be a great side for a cabinet.
    35:03
    You know, to just try and find those moments. The back glass, I usually try to sum up the whole series. You know, like you don't want a magic moment there. you want like, you know, the full, you know, impact of the license there, all the characters and whatnot. You don't, you don't try to create anything more than the mood of the property and to make sure everybody's represented. And it's like, you know, just, you know, the, the action of the artwork, uh, sort of, uh, encompasses the property more or less. So I think, you know, I've, I've seen their, their style guide art and I don't know that you have to veer from that. I'm sure they will. And I'm sure, like, if I was given the job, I would probably tackle it the same way, very similar to what the style guide art is, which, if you've seen it, it's realistic like my style is, but, you know, I tend to be a little more graphic in outlining characters and putting, you know, signature color outlines around it just so that it doesn't look like, you know, a photograph. What is a style guide? What is that? The assets. You know, basically like if you had a company that made lunchboxes, when you get the license for Stranger Things, they'll provide you with like a CD or a link to a Dropbox or something like that. And you've got like drawings and photos and logos and everything you need to assemble a design without having to hire somebody to illustrate it. So they've got artwork that's already done that I've seen on action figure packaging and lunchboxes and some other stuff that's actually artwork. It's not photographs. but it suits itself to the pinball machine. But again, I doubt they do that because part of a heritage of pinball is to have pinball art, you know. Yeah. Regardless of how it looks, you know, if it's more realistic or more stylized like Zombie Yeti or whatever, that's part of the deal, so I doubt they'll use it. But all I'm saying is if I was given the job, I would tackle it a very similar way, And, you know, I would not make those kids look, you know, or any of the characters look, you know, cartoon or stylized. I think they just need to be represented in a true to life fashion. Right. That's cool, man. What do you guys like about Stranger Things? Because I can tell you that I've I've watched episodes one and episode two. I stopped watching about midway through episode three, not because I didn't like it. It's just, you know, when I did have time to watch television, it just wasn't one of the shows that I chose to watch. But for me, I loved episode one. I enjoyed episode two, but it's not so much the storyline as it is that 1980s. Yes. The way they film it, all the things that I remember as a kid that draws you in and that feeling that it gets. It's kind of like a Goonies, Lost Boys kind of feel when you watch it with the monsters and stuff. And so that's what I think is really what's most appealing to people with that title. I think that's the biggest draw, Ed. I think you nailed it. I think it's the, you know, the guys like myself that grew up in the 80s and remember all that stuff, you know, trick-or-treating with Ghostbusters costumes and all of that. But so the 80s references and, you know, just the callback to that time period and the nerdy stuff in that time period, I think we all really appreciate. And then the sci-fi angle I think is really cool. They always tell a good story whether it's, you know, over the top or not. You know, you can make the call. it is but it's also very very fun and uh i think the writing is good the characters are good the um they incorporate a ton of uh kind of movie tropes from really popular movies from that era you know you mentioned goonies it has that kind of vibe to it but uh it also has you know a lot of other movie quotes and and um you know the lunch boxes on the table are from all like the uh the really popular things from that era so that's part of the appeal so how do we How do we think that's going to translate into a machine if that's what's coming? So is that a pinball machine that you would want? Yeah.
    39:02
    So you're in on a Stranger Things if that's the title. This might be my new Stern. I have a Stern Stars and I have a Ripley's, but I don't have anything that's really from this era. So this hits all the right buttons, checks all the boxes. It's a theme I like. it's Brian Eddy and if the game looks cool I could definitely be in but you gotta remember one thing the curse of the Guardians of the Galaxy are they gonna get, is Stern gonna fork over the money for all of the tie-ins the music, the 80's music if the show shows a Ghostbusters lunchbox on the table they can't put that in the game just because it was on the show they'd have to get a license for it so how much of those references from the 80's are actually going to be included because you've got to pay for it. And Cern isn't exactly the company that likes to pay for things. I think the show is great because it makes you feel like you're in the 80s with all of it. And it's not necessarily that they show off the branding. It's that they show arcades and they play Dungeons and Dragons and they have their... Motorcraft bikes. Yeah, exactly. All that stuff is quintessential 80s and they don't necessarily have to license it. The music, obviously, they'll have to get. And if they can work with Netflix to get the likenesses of the characters and that sort of thing, which I think will be easier, as we talked about before, than some of the other licenses, they could get a lot going with this. If they get the movie clips, they get the pictures or the video clips of the show to incorporate, all of that stuff would be great. So American Pinball, now, the latest rumor is Hot Wheels. And that rumor came from just on Pinside or? It came from, well. Another podcaster. He who must not be named. You've already put that decree in there.
    40:53
    Yeah. No, Kaneda talked about it on his podcast. And the way he said it was basically like, you know, he knew about it. He was going to reveal it. He was waiting for the right time. And he got apparently over the past 24, 48 hours a few messages from people who were trying to guess what it was. And they basically said, is it Hot Wheels? And so he put two and two together and said, okay, if like this handful of people came to me and they all said the same title, it's obviously out there. So he just went and revealed it. So we don't know that it's true or not. It's just speculation, just like Stranger Things is. It's nothing more than speculation. But, you know, some speculation is stronger than others or whatever. So but I don't know. I have no inside information on this at all. But, you know, just to talk about it and say, well, what do we think the possibilities are? Well, possibilities, there's endless possibilities with a title like Hot Wheels. Of course, the first thing that comes into my mind would be some kind of a, you know, the orange track loop or something like that integrated into the game, maybe off the shooter rod. You do that shoot off and it does a little loop thing. And, you know, Hot Wheels is, my gosh, when did Hot Wheels first hit the scene? Oh, yeah, it's been out forever. 50s, 60s, I don't even know. I mean, I haven't heard anyone really say that this is something that's on their dream theme list, but, man, I can see the potential in this game. You know, as you mentioned, just having a ball in the play field act like a Hot Wheels car on a racetrack, I mean, the potential for that is really cool. Well, there's a lot of neat things you can do. Like the first thing I thought of when I heard of this title, I remember a product they had called Sizzlers, and that's where you had the Hot Wheels car had like a little jack, like a headphone jack in it, and then you've got this big oversized gas pump with a nozzle, and it would fit in there, and what you're basically doing is charging the car. So you put the gas pump nozzle into the car, charge it up, and you drop it down, and it takes off. So I'm thinking, like, you have to have a big plastic sizzler gas pump there, and the ball goes into a scoop and goes down and then comes shooting back out. Like, if you can tie the game into the products that they've developed for the line Hot Wheels over the years, that would be awesome. But, like, from my point of view, my first thought was artwork, And I think if they are doing this title, they have to go retro with this artwork because there's nothing exciting or nostalgic about current Hot Wheels packaging. It's designed to attract six-year-old kids, and that's really it. That's not who you're trying to attract with pinball. So you've got to go into that catalog of artwork from Mattel and pull out all those cool paintings that they did of the cars zooming over the orange tracks. And there's a ton of great retro art from the late 70s, early to late 70s, that's very vibrant colors, purples and greens and yellows and oranges and reds. And, in fact, I sent some stuff to Ed, I think, today, just like as an example of some of the stuff that I thought, you know, would be awesome. And I think that's the way you've got to go. You've got to get those old logos. The old logos were better because that's really who you're going for. I don't think any six-year-old kid's interested in like a Hot Wheels pinball machine. Well, the cool thing about Hot Wheels, it's kind of like a universal license. I mean, my girls are into Hot Wheels now, and I've been kind of getting into it. And Santa may be bringing a couple sets to my girls this year and just researching what's out there. There's a lot of really cool stuff, and they can incorporate any of that stuff from all of the eras, including the artwork. You know, take on a back glass or on the, you know, the display, take cars from each era and let you, you know, let you choose which one you want to play as with each car kind of having a different perk or, you know, scoring potential variation. And then, you know, you kind of play as that car and similar to the Oktoberfest tents where every tent, you know, or the signs, right? You select a sign and it will give you some sort of perk. So if you could select a car from all the different eras, I think that would be really, really cool. Yeah, but graphically speaking, though, you can't wrap up all of their eras in one package because it would just look like a big pile of garbage because it was all so distinctively different. Everything back in the 70s was very yellow and orange and red, and now everything's very blue. Everything now is very hyper-realistic. The drawings of the cars are almost like something you'd see in a car brochure, and the logos got real flames superimposed on it, blown out, where the retro stuff is a lot more kitschier. So you could definitely do that as far as gameplay goes. You know, you could do something like that. But I just think the general style of the art, they're going to want to go in that late 70s pocket there, I think, because that's what's going to – it's a tough – you know, I'm not denying that it's not a strong, you know, product. You know, of course, you know, it's been around for years, and it's still – you see Hot Wheels everywhere. But kids buying cars, you know, at Walmart is different than people putting quarters in a pinball machine. Right, but that's where everybody's going to get their mods is at Walmart. The modding potential that this game would have. So I'm thinking Hopper with all the food on his hands. It would be a ramp, right? Especially if they had areas of the game where you could interchange. I'm thinking about in Transformers, there's a shot where the ball actually hits a Bumblebee car and it launches that, and that's basically just a Hot Wheels car. It's into the target. So if you've got actual Hot Wheels on the play field and the ball hits that car and makes it do something and, you know, comes back, you know, and you can interchange those. I want to say that the game Checkpoint, Daddy's Checkpoint, it's got a Hot Wheels on it. It's got a Porsche on it. It doesn't do anything. But I'm just thinking the modding possibilities are going to be incredible.
    46:26
    And the play field. You just put it on your little toy store. Yeah. Play field possibilities too, right? I mean, all the things they can do with this. you know they've shown that they can do pretty new and wild things with a pinball that houdini with the catapult and um you know octoberfest with all the crazy wire forms in there you know imagine a pinball doing like a a full loop uh hitting a ramp and you know hopping over to another ramp uh similar like data east robocop um and just you know having a loop-de-loop off the plunge would be really really cool going upside down has that ever done been done in I don't think it has. Not a ramp shot like that. I don't know. That might be a good risk because it depends on your plunge. You know, if you don't shoot it hard enough and it only makes the loop about halfway, then it just drops straight down, then you're going to have problems. I would think, like, have it come out of the shooter lane and almost go on, you know, you could probably have a wire form with, like, an orange track attached to it so it appears to be orange track. And it goes up, goes around the orbit, comes down Star Wars style, and goes around the flippers and back up, and then it drops off, you know, and, you know, the bumpers and whatnot, whatever the design is up at the top. So to have the ball do a complete loop around the entire play field that looks like that orange track, I think that would be cool. Well, they could do similar to Jurassic Park. You know how when you hit the plunge button, it goes up and then around, kind of like a full 360, but instead of it dropping down into the in lane, and you could have it go down into a ramp, a descending ramp or something, to drop it off onto the play field. That's a possibility. But you look at the supercharger in Getaway, and you look at the Hyperloop in Star Wars. I mean, there's lots of ways to accelerate a ball so that it's consistently going in the right pattern. So I think you could do it, man. Yeah, or have enough power to make the loop to loop. Yeah. That's something else, too. It just hits an accelerator to make sure that it's going to get all the way around. With consistent speed and all that stuff. Yeah. I mean, the possibilities are pretty exciting. It's a really well-known license. Probably doesn't come with a lot of licensing restrictions, I'm just guessing.
    48:35
    I don't think that's, I mean, I don't know anything about licensing. Do you think that was an expensive license, if that's what it is? Probably not. But the tricky thing with Hot Wheels is that Hot Wheels itself licenses, They get the license for a Lamborghini. They get the license for a Ford F-150 pickup. Right. So you'd either have to sub-license that stuff or use original Hot Wheels vehicles. Yeah, they're all going to be like fantasy cars and stuff that Hot Wheels will come out with. They can't do it themselves. I mean, they make plenty of them, so there's no problem with that. And I think that's all the more reason to go back to the 70s because they had very classic, distinctive cars that they still make products of these days. I've seen, like, lunch boxes and Christmas ornaments and things. There's this car called the Twin Mill, and that was a complete Hot Wheels creation. There was a, oh, what was the other one, the weird van with the slanted windows. Anyway, there's a whole catalog of, you know, original cars that they created over the years that I think, you know, because nowadays they've got, like, toilet cars and, you know, it's just kind of, it's not. I mean, seriously, they do. They do have a car. I've seen them, yeah. But, Chris, don't you think they have to bring it into the modern age a little bit? Like, you can't just have a 70s Hot Wheels game. Like, maybe the artwork, I totally hear where you're coming from from that standpoint. But don't you think they'd want to have Hot Wheels represent all of the eras? You know, maybe they focus more on the 70s or the earlier Hot Wheels where we're all nostalgic for those designs. I don't think so. I don't think so, and I'll tell you why. It's because their original designs are sometimes either true to the time period they're in or they're very futuristic. So you can use those cars, and they're not necessarily, just if you just strictly look at the vehicles, they're not going to look as dated if you use a decent collection between the 70s and the early 80s. Because, you know, again, I highly doubt they're going to be using, like, a Ford Taurus and, you know, some of these other traditional cars that they make. Hot Wheels up. No, you're right, though. So I went to my mom's basement and pulled out, you know, some of my old Hot Wheels cars, and they could pass today. I mean, my girls like those, and they took them and, you know, still play with them now, and they don't look old. I think you can still buy the older, they still sell them now. You can go into Walmart, and they have their classic lines, and you can still buy cars that were originally produced years ago. They sell them today, so, you know, you've got to, I think one of the factors is going to be a price point. So if American Pinball can get that price point down lower than Oktoberfest, at least, even lower than Houdini. They'll sell for what, $7? $7.75? $7.75, and Houdini was $65, $68, $69, something like that. But if they can get that price point down a lot lower with that title, I think they would do really well. Yeah, I agree with you. I think you've got to be competitive with Stern. Pros are probably their, you know, their best, they are the best selling Stern. So if you can get, you know, a little bit above that, I think, I think American Pinball has really well built machines. They feel solid. I really like, you know, just the construction of those machines. So if they can come out with a premium product like they have in the past and be maybe below a premium, but above a pro, I think that that might be the sweet spot. I agree. So do I. Okay. So now it's time for a commercial break. We will be back right after this. We'll be right back. Guess what? I got a fever.
    52:11
    And the only prescription is the super awesome pinball show. Oh, yeah! Super. Get up. This show is sponsored by Cointaker, distributor of brand new, full-size, authentic Stern pinball. Chicago Gaming, Raw Thrills Arcade Games, and much more. Also, a full line of dramatic pinball mods, LED flipper kits, speaker lights, custom laser LED toppers, playfield protectors, Valley Williams parts, pinball apparel, and much more. Get the latest releases and glam out your game room with Cointaker. Everything at your fingertips at Cointaker.com.
    52:55
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    53:27
    This is Steve Richie with a mouthful of pumpkin pie. You're listening to the Super Awesome Pinball Podcast. Pinball Show. I'm not doing that. Yeah, you are. Pinball Show? That's what it's called. Okay, here we go. This is Steve Ritchie, and you are listening to the Super Awesome Pinball Show.
    53:47
    Now, back to our program. Well, it's about frickin' time. I am the God of Hellfire, and I bring you... The Super Awesome Pinball Show.
    53:58
    It's the coolest show. All right, now we've got the Twippies. The write-in categories were released for people to vote on. Basically, you're voting on a nomination, more or less. But we also have the list of all of the games that are going to be eligible. And there is no lack of controversy on any of this stuff, basically. No. It's just like anything else, pinball. As soon as it hits, it goes, oh, and they start. Well, are all these games eligible for every category, or are only some games eligible for some categories? No, I think for the game-specific awards, everyone that's on that list is eligible. Yeah, it's the same drop-down. They'll have all the different awards, and then there's a drop-down, and the games are the games. I don't know, how many are there here, 10 or 11? Actually, there's three of them on the list that just basically say need to discuss, so I don't think those are even final. No, they're not. The list that we have is a list that Jeff Patterson provided for us, and it's pretty much all of the potential games, and then there are a few on there that they're still debating on the TWIPI committee, whether they should be eligible or not. All right, Christian, why don't you run down the list? All right, so the list includes games from American Pinball, Oktoberfest, The Stern games are Elvira, House of Horrors, Jurassic Park, Black Knight Sword of Rage, Munsters, the Star Wars Home Edition, and then from Jersey Jack, you've got Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory and Wizard of Oz Yellow Brick Road Edition. And then the others that are kind of out there are Cosmic Carnival, Medieval Madness, the new additions that are questionable, I guess, in terms of their inclusion, Kelts, and Jeff did say that the Heads Up game, it will not be eligible this year for a 20. What the hell is the Heads Up game? Yeah, I had to Google that, man. I wasn't sure either. I think it's a, I think it's, fuck, I don't know. I honestly don't know what it is. Yeah, I've never heard of that title as a pinball game at all. I have no idea what that comes from. I know. I do not know what Heads Up is.
    56:14
    Well, we decree it ineligible as well because it doesn't exist apparently. But I'll go ahead and jump in with a couple of these on this list. I mean, it's a pretty solid list. I have questions. Of course, the ones I have questions about are, one of them are the ones that I guess are still discussing.
    56:29
    Well, one of them is not. The Star Wars Home Edition. What do you guys think about that? I mean, I know it's a, is that considered, are we considering that a full-size pin? Is everything in the Twiffies a full-size pin? Because, of course, my knee-jerk is, I mean, it's a fun game. I actually played it at Expo. Is it smaller? It is. It's a little smaller. I mean, it's kind of, if you think about the Bally Home Editions, I mean, it's bigger than those, but it's not a full-size commercial pinball machine. It's not a Zizzle.
    57:04
    It's not a Zizzle, but why would a Zizzle not? So talk about Zizzles. So why is that, you know, why is the Stern Home Edition included for a Twippy Award, but some of the other ones not? Now, of course, I know I'm not going to debate whether or not those other games are worth, playing or not, but still, I mean, is the Star Wars Home Edition... Well, yeah. I mean, whether it's Quippy worthy or not is up to the masses, but I don't think it's something you shouldn't include. I mean, it's a pinball machine that was released by a major manufacturer this year. It's no different than scaling up. If it was something with a wide body, you wouldn't throw it out. Right. Exactly. You know, so you're scaling it up a little bit. It's not like a Sears pinball machine, you know, like the Fonz or, you know, So it's a real thing. No, I get it. I guess I'm just going for the, you know, is this commercial equipment or it doesn't matter, I guess, is what I'm getting at. It's not commercial awards. It's fan awards. So it's just if you love pinball and the ball bounces around, then it's a pinball game, you know. There are some gray zones, though. Like, would a pitch and bat be eligible? You know, is that something that you would? No, it's not pinball. Well, it would be. Some people lump it into the, you know, to pinball, though, when they're talking about games. I mean, you're right. In the truest sense of the word, it's definitely not pinball. Not at all. It's the same reason why they wouldn't consider a bingo, you know, one of the old bingo games, you know, as something that would be eligible either. Obviously, I mean, they're ancient, but if somebody made a new one, it wouldn't be considered pinball. You know, the basic convention of how the game is played is completely different, you know, because you would, should we include pachinko, you know? Right, right. So you've got to stick to your guns. And I think, you know, Star Wars just being a slightly smaller game doesn't make it ineligible. It wasn't created for some special market or anything. I mean, other than the fact that, you know, here's something for your home that's a little bit cheaper. But it wasn't like it was made for some special catalog or something like that. Right. Or like, you know, Supreme was something different. Some of the questions that this list raises, though. Medieval madness? Is that where you're going? Because that was my biggest question. No, not medieval madness. But, like, you know, they've got Kelts on here. Now, Kelts is not. Kelts is one that, you know, I have questions about, and I'm going to interrupt you. God, what a dick.
    59:21
    Obviously. Feel free. Damn copper. But so here's my concern with Kelts is nobody has one. It's not a game that's shipped. I mean, yeah, a few people have seen them at, you know, Chicago Expo or I guess some of the shows in Australia. but even as a manufacturer, I don't know that I would want my game in the 2019, especially if that means it wouldn't be eligible for the 2020, because my coach right now, Damien, he's not a video blogger. He's making changes. He's not even finished. Not many, but, yeah, it's not even finished. And what happens, the company folds before a game is even shipped, and it's won a Twifly Award for 2019. Well, it's not just Carnival, right? I mean, that's exactly what happened. But they did ship some games, though. So, you know, I did think about that, but I don't know what the number is. But they did ship, you know, five, ten games before. More so with Kelts, though, is that, you know, it's the lesson of Jersey Jacks, Pirates of the Caribbean, where they showed the game with the triple spinning disc, and that was not in the game. Neither was the opening and closing pressure. So the team's still working on this game. It's not a complete game. How can you judge or vote or whatever on a game that, you know, because it has not shipped, it's not the final game? You're judging on a concept, on an idea that may not necessarily hold up. Well, I've talked to Jeff Madison about this. He's told me that he only will include a game that has shipped to customers. So if Kels doesn't ship by the end of the year, then I don't think it will be included. Well, we can vote on the cabinet because Ed has one. Well and that kind of the argument with Medieval Madness I think you know because the changes to the Medieval Madness are just the topper and the wider display So would it even be eligible for the other categories? Try this one, Ed. This one will blow your mind. All right, so they make some revisions to Medieval Madness and re-release it. Is that eligible? Who knows? If so, where's the comic book edition of Star Wars in here? Because that's the same thing. It's a game that they just made some changes in the artwork to, re-released it, yet it's not represented here. I think Medieval Madness is an unfair inclusion. And I think that's because, you know, that's one of the best games of all time. It's usually a number one on Pinside. And to have a new release of this game included is almost, it's just not fair, right? I mean, this game is amazing. So if you're putting Medieval Madness up against every other game that's ever been made, and it's the number one game, then how can you make a remake? Well, and that was my question about, you know, does every game go into every category? Because I could absolutely see Chicago Gaming wanting the new Medieval Madness topper being considered for, you know, something where the topper would fall into that category. There's one called Best Topper. Best Topper, okay. So there you go. So I can see Chicago Gaming saying, because that topper is pretty awesome. Thank you. Does that mean they have to put it in every category, or can they just say, okay, Medieval Madness, we're only putting it in for the topper category based on their new topper? I think they've got to do that. The committee needs to really consider the fact that some of these things need to just be put in. Like, you can't put Star Wars comic book edition in for game of the year, but you could put it in for artwork, even though I don't want the competition because I want my monsters to win, but that's fair. I mean, it's not even on the list. So why is the new art package that was created this year for a game that was released this year not on this list? So you have to go through here. You have to say, okay, Medieval Madness, not eligible for Game of the Year. Eligible for Game of the Year, sure. I had a feeling that was just an oversight. I bet we see it on the list, especially after this discussion. Well, yes, because we're very influential with the Twippy's crowd.
    63:24
    No, but you do make up a good point about the cabinet artwork, because I've got to tell you, I love the comic book Star Wars art. I really do because I didn't buy the Star Wars when it first came out. I mean, I didn't buy it just not because of the artwork, but at the time I had bought and made another purchase. But now I'm really tempted to pick me up one of those comic book editions just because I really love the artwork on that game. Do you have a Munsters? I do have a Munsters. I have a Munsters black and white premium, so I haven't colored it in yet. I haven't used my markers to color it in. but I'll get around to that like a play mat for a child's mirror or a restaurant or something you have to ask does a vault edition count? because a lot of times they'll change the artwork on those and it's the same game it's just a different art package so are they going to throw that in there as well? I think if that hasn't happened yet but I think if that does happen I think it's got to be considered at least for that category yeah if there's a significant and what I would consider a significant change. And so when you talk about Medieval Madness, the significant change being the topper on the LEs, but they've also now included the bigger, wider, cooler, redrawn DMV displays. Now, as far as I know, nothing has changed on the play field as far as gameplay or any of that kind of stuff. But when you're throwing that new display and you have the topper, someone might go, you know what, this is a whole new game for me, and it's better than everything else on the list. I think that's an unfair advantage. I mean, all of this discussion is why they have a Twippy committee, right? I mean, these are questions they have to answer. These are just our opinions, and they don't mean anything. So it's just us talking. Yeah. No, I'm sure Jeff has thought about all this stuff, and Zach and all the other people on the committee. And hopefully, you know, they'll put out an official list after they've talked about this stuff. But fortunately, we have the preliminary list. But when we went through these categories and I was thinking about what my answers would be, I pretty much just wiped Medieval Madness off the list. Because if I had to put that in there, I would be really hard-pressed to not have that be Game of the Year, right? If you're comparing that gameplay and the awesomeness against all the other games in there. You know, it's such an iconic game. So I haven't even thought about that one in my picks. Of course, you said that in my head I'm going, when did Monster Bash come out? I guess that came out two years ago. But I don't think that was eligible for a Twippy, if I remember correctly. I don't think it was. Yeah, so I don't know. But, of course, he's got it labeled Need to Discuss, so I'm sure they're considering it. But overall, I think there's going to be some tough competition. I'm just looking at this list. There's some really good games on here that, yeah, it's going to be tough to choose. That's all I got. Going down the categories and all that, it's fine to wait until the next episode to do that. I agree. I think, you know, going through each category and looking at all of this stuff and really thinking through it, I mean, I could talk about each category for, like, five, ten minutes. Monsters, bitches. You know, it's sad, whatever, but I've got a whole presentation to post. Oh, my God. For your consideration? You made it for your consideration? I made it for your consideration. You are awesome, Franchi. The only reason I did it isn't because, like, there's me and there's these four other guys and, you know, please pick me. It's because I think people have forgotten about it because it was literally a year ago. Yeah. It came out in January. I'm not just saying this because you are my buddy, but there is no fucking chance that any of those other games have a better R package than Monsters. There just isn't. I mean, Johnny Crap, okay, whatever, he did it. He did an okay job. And Yowsey did an okay job on Waka, but there's just nothing. Cosmic Carnival. Oh, fuck that, dude. No, that's not going to win. Ed's like the guy who represents the people out there that are like, if you want to fuck over Franchi, you can do it.
    67:14
    That's right. If you guys want to give Franchi an ulcer and see him break more twippies on stage, then don't vote for Mark. They're not going to let Franchi up on stage in 2020. They have to. If he wins, man, come on. Mike Vinacore is going to have some mace. He's going to be ready. Oh, my goodness. That wraps up Pinball in the News. Next up is People in Your Neighborhood, where I speak to Mark and Steve Ritchie.
    67:42
    Oh, who are the people in your neighborhood? Well, they're the people that you meet when you're walking down the street. They're the people that you meet each day.
    67:57
    All right, everybody, I'm at Steve Ritchie's house. We're downstairs. We're actually having pumpkin pie right now, and we're just having a couple drinks. Steve, how are you? I'm feeling great, man. That's good to know. Hey, before we talk about Black Knight, because that's your newest game, I have something I'm going to ask you that I don't think very many people know about. Now, you are missing a piece of your finger on your left hand, your left ring finger. I do. How did that happen? You may not know that, but Steve actually has, he calls it Nubby. How'd that happen? I was at our favorite riding place in Ottawa, Illinois, riding with the owner of the place and the state Enduro champion. And I didn't really, I mean, they were much better than me, but I figured I'd let them pull me through knot holes. So I rode, and they come to a place where you have to go straight down a gully and then back up, and you bump your back tire into this root ball of a tree, and they were landing flat on the top. Well, I never did that before. I hit the root ball, and then I just fell straight back down. And my finger went into one of the lightening holes in the sprocket. sprockets have holes drilled in them to make them lighter and it went into the hole and passed by the swing arm and it cut my finger off and it didn't hurt as bad as you think it would it didn't hurt anyway i had my glove on it scratched or whatever i don't know what happened but when i get at the bottom i go well that kind of hurts so i take off my glove and there it is no finger i can't tell you what i said because it's nasty but i went oh f o f o f o f and kind of went into shock and then and then I drank some water I poured water on it and the end of it was still in my glove so I was like checking that out I couldn't put the glove back on um I had to ride back probably four or five miles through rowdy stuff mud rocks steep steep little hills I won't say big hills and uh when I rode in the camper everybody went oh they were freaked out more than I was by then and uh they thrown me in the back of my van and I went to the hospital it was mother's I made a deal with Diana that I would go riding and celebrate Mother's Day on Saturday, because it was Sunday. Anyway, the guy said, if I sew it back on, it's just going to fall off. So I said, well, sew it up. And he did. Got a bandage and everything. I called up Diana. Diana searched every hospital to see who would put it back on, but no one could. So we all had pizza in my motorhome.
    70:24
    And that's a true story. So if you run into Steve and you look at his left hand, he is missing a piece of his finger. So Black Knight, are you happy with it? Yes. I am totally happy with it. That topper is pretty awesome. The topper is maybe the best topper ever. You know, I'm not going to pat myself on the back, but... You should pat yourself on the back. It's a cool topper. It is a cool topper. And it's something I wanted. I just wanted to make that happen. And we did. So earlier, I... I have to tell something. I have to say something else. By all means, the king has something else to say. The guy who really made the topper happen is Elliot Eisman with help from Harrison Drake and a couple of other guys. Good night. George did some work on it to get the head scanned and correct. And I wanted the feather. The feather is pretty awesome. The feather is awesome. So I did talk to Mark earlier, and I'm going to ask you the same thing. And you can't say Black Knight because I know that's the newest game. That's the newest game. Right. So aside from Black Knight, what is your favorite Steve Ritchie game? Black Knight! Sword of Rage! I can't help it! No, you can't say Black Knight, Sword of Rage. Yeah, I can't say Black Knight, Sword of Rage. So aside from that, I mean, I'm standing here, I'm looking at awards for Terminator 2, I'm looking at awards for other games, so what's your favorite Steve Ritchie game? It's okay to pick one. All right, I'll pick one. Star Trek, the last one. The newest Star Trek? Yes. Okay, that's a good game. 2012, 2013. So, you had a lot of fun making that game. I definitely had a lot of fun. We had a lot of fun. Okay, so Dark Trek's your favorite. What is your least favorite Sea of Ritchie game? Well, it was first called Ed Van Der Veen, but after that we changed it to Roller Games. Now, Roller Games is a good game. I know it is a good game. One of my unfavorites. He's right. World Poker Tour. It's not that I hate my play field work. I don't hate it. It's got everything but the kicks and sink, but the theme. You just didn't like the theme? They made me do it. You think if it was a different theme, the game would have been better for you? Yes. And I think I would have been way more into it. A game designer has to love what they're working on. Are you crazy? If we don't love what we're working on, we're not going to do as good of a job. I have to love it. I just have to believe it and believe in it that it will be a great game. Because why would I waste my time making a battle? That's true. Or a weak one. You are pretty passionate. I might be. A little bit. So we did announce that you're coming to the Texas Pinball Festival 2020. Definitely. And I don't think you're going to have another game by then. I won't. Yeah, there won't be another game by then. So Black Knight will be the Steve Ritchie game at the show. Yes. And with the new topper, if you haven't seen it, it's going to be awesome. Or it is awesome. It is awesome. So, smoking.
    73:09
    Smoking! All right, well, thanks, Steve, and we'll see you in Texas. Great to be here, Ed. Thanks for inviting me.
    73:21
    All right, everybody, this is Ed. I'm here with Mark Ritchie. I'm up here in Chicago visiting. Mark, how are you doing? Really good. How are you, Ed? I'm doing fantastic. Thank you very much, sir. So you and I are friends. A lot of people ask you, why do you always hang out with Mark and Steve? Because we were friends. You've been coming to the Texas Pinball Festival for a long time. In fact, we just announced you coming to the 2020 Texas Pinball Festival. And so I know you've done a lot of podcasts before, but I guess one thing that people always want to know is, of all the games that you've done, what is your favorite game that you've done? of yours. Indiana Jones. Now, you've got a prototype Indiana Jones downstairs in your basement. I've seen it. Yes, I do. It's got some cool stuff on it. It's got some different artwork and some misspellings on it. It's largely unfinished. It's pretty finished. It's a fun game. It's a great game. The game itself is finished. We do need to get some new decals on that. Decks, decals, condition of play field. Eh, you know. It could be better. But, so, would that be considered like, you know, at the end of your career when you're retired and you're done Would that be like your legacy with people, you know, Indiana Jones, that is the best game that you've done you're most proud of? Oh, God, I hope not because I'd like to do more. One of these days. So you're open to the idea of getting back in. Oh, yeah. Man, that would be fantastic, which reminds me, a lot of people ask me, we get questions all the time about cosmic chaos. And I tell people, I said, that was just a theme that we needed for the show for 2018, and you and I were hanging out in your basement that one day, and you had some good ideas, and we took that idea and ran with it as a theme for the show, and Blake did some artwork. But it was really just maybe someday, but that was not anything that we were actively working on. That was just kind of a fun thing to do for the show theme. When you talk to me about doing pinball or making a game, I'm going to try to make a game. I don't know what else to do with myself. Well, you did. You kind of have some stuff going on with that. You've got some ideas. You never know what can happen. So you never know. All right, well, I think it's not dead. I'll say that. So cosmic chaos is not dead. So maybe someday we'll actually see a finished game. That would be great. So what about your worst game? Do you have a worst game that you, if you could go back? Now, when I say worst game, I don't mean a game that you just hate, but I know things get cut in production, and you're forced to change things due to cost. So if there was a game that you could go back and finish or redo or change some things on it, what might that be? I would say Firepower 2. I think that was probably one of my, that was an early game for me, and it was probably my first step into conventional pinball because the game prior to that was, of course, Thunderball, which was completely off the chart. It was just off all over. What is it about Firepower 2 that you don't like or you want to change? I would have put more into it, I think. I was a junior designer then, and you learn things as you go. And at the time, I was very anxious. I remember I was very anxious about getting something that was marketable coming off of Thunderball. I didn't want to do that again. So things happen to you. You start to get tunnel vision. You want to get things done right. And for whatever reason, I wouldn't mind going back and maybe revisiting that game at some point. All right. Well, another thing that just popped into my head, because I've met your lovely wife, Trudy, and y'all met at Williams. We did. And so some people may not know that Trudy is actually in one of your games. Which game was that? She's in two of them. She's in two games. She's in Taxi. She's Marilyn in Taxi. and she did Babs in Diner. So she actually did some voice work for you. Now, was that at your request? I mean, because she had another position at Williams at the time. Well, at that time, when we did Diner, she was already out of Williams. She was on that baby. So you brought her back in to voice? I brought her back in just to do the voice. So there you go. So if you've got a diner or a taxi, that's Trudy Ritchie that you're listening to. So anyway, so that's pretty much it. Just a quick little thing. We're really excited about you coming to Texas in March, and I know people are going to be excited. So if you've got those trans lights or plastics or whatever, Mark will certainly sign them for you. And anything else? Looking forward to it. All right. I hope to see you designing games again one day. Yeah, well, you and me both. Thanks, buddy.
    77:30
    Ah, Steve and Mark Ritchie. You know, I never noticed that Steve's missing a chunk of his finger. That was like, that's not a story that you hear every day. That was very cool of you to get, man. I mean, that's the kind of stuff that Steve hasn't talked about because he's been to a million different shows. He's been asked all the random questions, but that's something that, you know, we've never heard. Yeah, it's more than just a piece of his finger. It goes down. It's his ring finger, and it's, like, down to his first knuckle. So it's, you know, that whole top half of his finger is gone, and, well, I don't know. I just figured most people didn't know that. I got to say, Ed, though, you failed me in that you didn't ask him if he kept the fingertip. No, he did talk about that. It was in the glove, but they threw it away. The doctor said they can't sew it on, so they just threw it away. But they never said they threw it away. They said we can't. He goes, I can sew it on, but it'll just fall off. And then she said, okay, well, then just go ahead and sew it up. So where's that fingertip? I would ask to keep it. He's one of the biggest badasses ever, both in pinball and outside of pinball. Just that story with him. I left my finger so I went and had some pizza. Well, he really is. He plays guitar. He rides motorcycles. He really is, man. He's a badass. Yeah, if that wasn't clear, by the way, to people listening, and I could see if people didn't have certain knowledge they wouldn't understand, he was talking about motorcycle riding, you know, motocross motorcycle riding. Right. He didn't necessarily say that. He was talking about these different motocross leagues and crap. But for Joe Schmoe, if they don't know that, they're going to be like, what was he doing? Like, was he in a car? What's a root ball? He was motocross. He was motorcycle riding. Yep. He was on board. And Mark Ritchie, I've got to tell you, for the body of work that Mark Ritchie has laid out, I can't believe he's sitting around waiting for somebody to call him. Right? That's the same exact thing I was thinking. Why is this guy not snatched up by Deep Root or Stern or some other company? I mean, I'm staring at Indiana Jones right now, one of the best games ever made. Get this guy in the studio making some new games. Yeah. Well, he definitely wants to get back in. I don't know. I know he's got a pretty good job with Playmatrix, Rothrills, so it's easy to want to jump back in, but the money's got to be there. I don't see him giving up his lifestyle just to go make pinball, but hopefully he does. I know he's got lots of ideas, and he talks about it all the time, so I know he definitely wants to get back into the game. Do you think guys can do both? Guys like Scott Denise, Scott doesn't work for Spooky. He just consults for them. He works for Pinball Life. Do you think that it's possible to, you know, to be a full-time member of, like, say, CERN, for instance, and have another job, or is it really something you have to be there all day, every day? I do it. I mean, I don't just do an artwork, but, you know, three artwork packages is no, what do they call it, sneeze in the woods. Right. I think as long as the two jobs aren't the same, I mean, you know. Well, yeah, you don't want to have a conflict of interest. You can't. Exactly. You've got to have a lot of free time. I'll tell you that it's a time situation where, like, I'm a single dude. You know, I don't have anybody to answer to. I can do my day job and then do my night job as long as I want and not have to worry about coming home at 2 in the morning and getting chewed out. And rightfully so if I had, like, a family and a wife. Like, I shouldn't be doing that. And Mark is married, so that might be an issue there. But anyway, it was good to hear from them, and thanks for getting that. That was cool. Yeah, appreciate that. And now it's time for our first inductee into the super awesome pinball hall of shame. Shame.
    81:01
    Shame. And now, the super awesome pinball show's latest entry into the pinball hall of shame. Shame. That's right. It's the super awesome pinball hall of shame. What is this for? Well, this is for pinball people who should feel shame. That's funny, dude. That's funny.
    81:28
    We don't plan on doing this every week, but every once in a while, someone's going to come along that needs to be inducted into the Pinball Hall of Shame. And this week, this first episode, the person who is being inducted is none other than the self-proclaimed king of pinball media, Mr. Zach Minney. Zach, no. We have a little recording I'm going to play of Zach on his latest podcast for This Week in Pinball, where you will hear him claim he had an idea for something. Let's take a listen. And, damn it, if I didn't get another category in that thing. Oh, what a ridiculous thing. Favorite pinball topper of 2019. There's already a mod. All right, so there you go. Mr. Zach Many claims that he had yet another brilliant idea and inventing a category for the Twippies for best topper. Wow, you are really full of shit.
    82:27
    Bullshit! That was my idea. And I have proof in my hand right here. You will hear this piece of paper. This is a letter from Mr. Jeff Patterson of the Twippies that states, to whom it may concern, I would like to share that Sir Christopher Franchi messaged this week in pinball on November 7th to suggest favorite topper should be a Twippy category. This suggestion by Mr. Franchi comes three weeks prior to Mr. Minnie's suggestion. Respectfully, Jeff Patterson, president, CEO, and creator of TWIP and the Twippies, pinball's number one fan and future Pinberg winner. Well, shit. I didn't think you had a case, but if Jeff Patterson is throwing his hat in the ring, then maybe there's something to this. Jeff Patterson gave me that letter. I'm not going to say he refused to come on because that sounds rude. He said that during Twippy season he does not do any podcasts, so I couldn't get him to come on the show. So he said the best he could do was offer that letter. So I have that. So into the pinball hall of shame goes Mr. Self-proclaimed media pinball king, Zach Minion, his lying bullshit. It was all me. Oh, oh, wait, wait. We got a phone call. We got a phone call on the super awesome hotline. Oh, nice. Oh, and it's Mr. Zach Manning. Let's take it up. Hello? Yeah, we're in the middle of recording. What's up? Oh, I was expecting a voicemail. Well, hey, it's Zach. I just wanted to, sorry for interrupting your show. I wouldn't have done so if it wasn't important. You know that. Man, franchise, I just want to reach out and apologize. I had no idea that you were the one that came up the whole best topic. Yeah, whatever. Fuck you. All right, on to the next thing. Did you sign up on Zach? Um, yeah. Oh, dude. He tried to steal credit. Fuck that guy. I'm still not getting a Twippy. No. Zach, we love you, man. You guys are butt kissers. Oh, and for those of you who hated me because you thought the trophy stomp at the Twippies was real, yes, this was a joke too. How do you do that? When you're head up high, while people here are complaining about nothing. I think I can learn a lot from you I think we all can Hello everybody, this is Christopher Franchi and I'm here to talk about artwork and how I do what I do. This is the first installment because the last installment was more or less a joke. I'm sure if you've heard it, you get it. That aside, I'm going to try to take the time as often as I can to share with you how I do my artwork for Pinball. So this first installment is going to cover how I draw figures, how I draw my characters. That's usually where I start. And what I've learned over the years from being a commercial artist is that you do not draw the characters as they are in your illustration, in your composition. You draw them all separate, and that way you can move them and rearrange them depending on what the customer needs. They might need something tall and skinny. They might need something short and fat. If you draw your characters individually, you can then manipulate them in Photoshop to create a wide variety of layouts and designs. So starting with the character illustration, I use cold press illustration board. Cold press has more of a tooth to it. The media you use, whether it's paint, colored pencils, whatnot, it grabs more to a cold press illustration board because a hot press illustration board is much more smooth on the surface. Therefore, it's a little tougher to get things to adhere to it. So prior to getting started on the illustration board, I first done my layout in paper. That's where you work out all the bugs. If your eye is crooked, if something in your anatomy isn't correct, You can work all that out on paper without destroying the surface of your illustration board. So once I get the drawing right, I then transfer it to my illustration board, simply using a graphite stick and scribbling on the back and transferring it onto the illustration board with a pencil, just by going over your line work. So once I have that, I then render that out with a very dark gray Prismacolor pencil. And that's more or less line work in dark things. I don't do a lot of features on the face with a dark colored pencil, because once you put that down, it's hard to get rid of, and it makes things look a little too harsh. So I'll go in with skin tone colored pencils and maybe render out some of the detail there. And once I flush out all of the detail and my pencil is complete, I then bring in the airbrush. Now with the airbrush, I basically used watered down latex paints. And I just more or less do a color fill. There's a little bit of shading involved where there's heavier color in some places and lighter color in others. But more or less, this is just a color fill to get the colors blocked in. After I do that, I put in a little detail with the airbrush. And then I move on to gouache. Now, gouache is a very flat, creamy sort of paint. If you're an artist, I'm sure you're familiar with it. It is the paint that I choose to use with a brush as opposed to acrylics. I like the way it blends better. I like the way it lays better. I like the way it dries better. It's much flatter. It seems to eat up a lot of the texture that a paintbrush might leave behind. So I then go over my pencil and airbrush artwork with gouache, filling it out with detail, with shading. I put in all my color work here, but I'm not focusing so much on sharpness here and clarity. I just want to get in the shading, the highlights, the color work, and then I move over to Prismacolor pencils. Now, as far as I'm concerned, there is no other brand than Prismacolor. They are the perfect pencil. What I do with the Prismacolor pencils is I then go over the gouache with the pencils and put in the detail. That's where all the sharpness comes from, all the outlines around the faces, around the eyes, around the lips, around the nose, the hair. That's where you can get in your detail. And then also, that's where a lot of the style comes from, and scribbling in highlights and shadows using line work, geometry and geometrical shapes and different sort of techniques, maybe taking rounded areas and sharpening them off with hard lines. That's where a lot of my style comes through, because when I'm basically done with a figure, I will then outline it with a black colored pencil, and then I will outline it beyond that with a signature colored sort of halo that's not a glow, but it's more of a secondary outline. You'll notice there's a lot of that in my artwork. After I finalize the character by rendering it out in Prismacolor pencils, I then put in my final touches. I'll go back in with black and white gouache, fill in the very solid areas, put in highlights, and there you have a final illustration. These illustrations are then scanned and brought into Photoshop. And that's where we're going to leave this episode and pick it up next time with How Do You Do That with pinball artist Christopher Franchi. That's me.
    88:38
    All right, there you go. And that was Art Lessons with me. Hope you guys learned something. I will be back every show to teach you a little something different. And don't forget, you can either go to our Facebook page, which is Super Awesome Pinball Show on Facebook, or email us at superawesomepinball at gmail.com and ask any questions you want, and I'll do my best to answer them. In the meantime, Christian came up with a great idea for this holiday, and I think he should tell you all about it right now. I thought it would be funny to talk to some kids and see what they thought about pinball, ask them a few questions that they probably have no idea how to answer, and see what they say. And we recorded it, and I think we got a really funny segment called Kids Say the Darnest Things, Christmas Edition. Here we go.
    89:26
    So if you were going to buy a brand new pinball machine, how much do you think it would cost? I think maybe it's $90,000. $90,000? I don't know. Maybe that's like as much as a Hummer. How do you know that? Oh my God, me too. Then no. Like $35,000. Okay. I'm guessing. Okay. $35,000.
    89:52
    $20. $20? I don't know, like $500. $500? $500 to $1,000. What do you think would be the coolest thing to create on a machine, and what would it do? I really like Harry Potter, so I think I'd create a Harry Potter machine. and it would be based on a Funko Pop. Oh, that's cool. How about some features of the game? What would you put in the game? I'd say Dumbledore mode, pieces like a wizard. What would be the coolest new feature for a pinball machine? Something for the ball to do inside the game. Maybe go around and round like a swan, and then draw over a heart, and then they end up in a squirt. It could, like, if you shake the pinball machine too hard, It could, like, break through the glass. Oh, my gosh. And then hit you on the head and give you a boost bump. What do you think would make kids your age more into pinball? A theme that they would like. Um, like, a video game based. So, a video game theme. Yeah. Um, Rapunzel or Ariel. Pokemon. Pokemon pinball? Nice. Why Pokemon? Um, because I love it. Jurassic World. Did you know there's actually a Jurassic World pinball machine? Yeah, I saw that on a picture. You did? Would you want to play it? Mm-hmm. What dinosaur would you want to be in Jurassic World? Uh, blue. Oh, the blue, the Velociraptor? Would you want an Ankylosaurus in there, too? No, I want to be the Ankylosaurus. You would be the Ankylosaurus? Mm-hmm. When you're playing pinball, what do you think a depth save is? Um trying to flip it this way when it almost goes down but you save it I would like smash the pinball machine You smash it yes like with a hammer yes you do a lot of damage to it yeah I know but you said death save so I killing it um it saves you saves you from death yeah that's a good guess yeah all right here's the next question what do you think a wizard mode is in a pinball machine a wizard mode would be you get a boost of your ball and then it automatically kills charmander so that would be in your Pokemon pinball machine? Like eight balls. So if you get the wizard mode, eight balls come out? Um, I think. What else do you think it could be? That like, there's this ball that has a picture of a hat on it. Alright. Um, a natural wizard who creates potions. He comes out of the pinball machine? And creates a good witch like, um, like Linda. How many points do you think you need to get a free game? Um, 18. 18 points. Okay. Actually, just 8. Just 8? Okay. 8 points for a free game. You're playing all day, huh? If you could come out with any pinball machine, and you could come up with the idea for it, what would you pick? I think it should be, like, everyone that makes pinball podcasts, like, everywhere on the pinball machine. all the people that make pinball punks on the balls. On the balls themselves? How about the artwork? Franchi. Franchi? Yeah. Do you know what Franchi does for pinball machines? No. He makes the artwork. He does the art. What do you think the coolest thing under glass in a pinball machine could be? I think I would really want Theater of Magic. If you said we're getting that on Christmas, I'm like... Like... You have an explanation. I don't have any idea.
    93:55
    It could, like, if you shake the pinball machine too hard, it could, like, break through the glass. Oh, my gosh. And then hit you on the head and give you a brief bump. How much does it cost to play one game of pinball? Maybe, uh, ten. Ten cents or ten dollars? Actually, um, eleven cents. Eleven cents? Okay. All right, so any closing thoughts? So what are your thoughts about pinball in general?
    94:23
    That I love it and I really want another one. So we have seven. How many pinball machines do you think are enough?
    94:31
    Maybe like three more than seven. Ten. I think we should get ten. It's going to be a lot of machines. As much as you have. I have five. Okay. Then five pinball machines. Okay. Why do you think they call the game pinball? Because you pin the ball. because there's a ball in it and then those little propeller things because they shoot it up in the air. Give me your thoughts about pinball in general. I like pinball. I definitely don't play it as much as you do, but I do play it. Anything else you want to say about pinball? I'd say out of 1 to 100, I'd say 90 for pinball. Cool. High five. Do you think you can play pinball if you have a big beard? Well, it's supposed to be girl crush. Is it supposed to be girl questions? No, just questions. Um, well, I'm a girl, so I'm still going to answer this. So, um, yes.
    95:33
    Well, that was awesome. I love that last one with the, can you play pinball with a beard? And she says, you're supposed to ask me girl questions. She doesn't understand that pinball is you and sex.
    95:44
    She was the same one that said, why do you think they call it pinball? And she goes, because you hit the thing and it hits the propellers and the ball flies up.
    95:52
    It hits the propellers. I'm trying to figure out what the propellers are. Anyway, we're moving on. Ed and I had a chance to talk to Mr. Butch Patrick, who plays Eddie Munster from the Munsters, when we were in Florida, at Freeplay Florida. He came up to my room. We had some drinks. We had some sex. And the interview went something like this.
    96:12
    We are here at the Freeplay Florida arcade show, and we are here with Butch Patrick, also known as Eddie Munster from the Munsters. Butch, how are you doing? I'm fine. Is this the Super Awesome Pinball Show? This is the Super Awesome Pinball Show. We appreciate you joining us today. We're going to kind of shoot from the hip and just ask you some generic questions. I'm sure you've never been asked any of these questions before. So when did you find out about the Munsters Pinball Machine? When did I find out about it? I don't know. I think my wife might have informed me about it. I don't really recall the exact moment. I caught it through the grapevine sun, but I don't remember the exact moment. Because I know we had you at the Texas Pinball Festival. Yes. But you knew about it before then because you were on another podcast that was not pinball related. And I think y'all were just talking Munsters nostalgia. And I remember you tell those guys that you had heard that there was a Munsters pinball machine coming out. Well, you know what it is. I have 21,000 people in the official Munsters fan group. And I suppose anything that Munsters that comes out into the universe, someone hears about it. And as soon as they hear about it, they want to be the first one to inform me. So I would imagine one of my minions in the group probably brought it to my attention or my wife's attention. So everybody knows that you, of course they know you as Eddie Munster, and they know you as Mark from Lidsville. Now, everybody, the Munsters, yes. Mark, not so much. No? Well, no, it's a distant second compared to the Munsters. It's amazing. I mean, they remember Puff and Stuff, they remember Lay the Law, but for some reason Lidsville, even though in the Fantasy of Crop show that's been rated number two after Puff and Stuff, for some reason the general public is not knowledgeable about it. It's surprising. It's weird. And then when they do know about it, they get a little surprised that I was in it, that I was the same person from the Munsters and Lizzo. Yeah. Yeah, a lot of people are surprised at that. Now, you've done all this stuff since then, but nothing that's been like reoccurring in character? You've done like TV shows and things like that? You single episode guest starring roles, about 75 of them, yeah. Love Boat? Never did Love Boat. No, it's funny, I did do a Star Trek, and I did do a Twilight Zone, and I did do a Love Boat. Those are the three that I would have liked done all three. Battle of Network Stars? Oh, hell no. That was too many to get to hide. That was stupid. The Lizzo days. The Lidsville days. That was, dude, yeah, the Battle of the Network Stars, that was funny. It was like, I never really wanted to be an actor, so as soon as I was 20, when I stopped acting, went into the private sector, but it was funny to watch those people running around in their spandex.
    98:21
    All right, guys, interesting question for you. You have to use your imagination. You want to sell your memoirs to a publisher. Yeah. Okay? Yeah. So you're in the office. Yeah. You're giving them a spiel. What story do you tell them to get them to buy your book? I got a better way. I got the title. I got the million dollar title. The rest of it's easy. Lice and Butch and then you die.
    98:43
    That is pretty good. That's the book right there. That's awesome. What was the story? Oh, the story was the behind the scenes of what went on with Yvonne DiCarlo and Marilyn Munster with Eddie Munster. He's not telling us. He's not going to tell us. There's going to be one story. What's the craziest story that you can tell people from all the stories? Oh, the craziest story about me just, okay, how about the time I, we had a record out in 1971, Sugar Lopez by Studio Band. Danny Sugarman from the Williamsfield Magazine and I were on a plane flying back to L.A. We'd become friends. He'd invite me to come up to the Whiskey A Go-Go, come to his house and pick him up. By the time I'm driving the 71 Mark III Lincoln, which was a really cool luxury car for a young kid to own, we go to the Continental Hyatt house where everybody was hanging out in the early 70s. That was the place to be in the rock world. And Iggy Pop's limo doesn't show up, so I offered to drive Iggy to the Whiskey A Go-Go for his show with Danny Sugarman who went on to write Almost Famous and he's like one of the most famous writers in rock history. So here I am with Andy Strickland, this girl in the front seat, and my girlfriend's in the back seat of a Diggy Pop. And he's preparing for his sit at the Whiskey A Go-Go, meaning he's getting an attitude adjustment in the back seat of my car.
    99:48
    You can use your imagination on what he was doing. I go into the Whiskey A Go-Go, I see this show, and I go, what is this all about? It was like my first punk rock experience with Prince of King from rock, Iggy Pop. How old were you then? I was 19. Wow, hanging out with Iggy Pop at 19? Yeah. That is incredible. Yeah. So I have a question for you about licensing. Now, a lot of people don't realize that licensing was done way differently back in the 60s and early 70s, and it wasn't until later on that artists and actors, you know, you had to license their likeness when things like pinball machines were made. So as far as I understand it, you don't get any kind of royalties off the Munsters for any of those early shows. Acting in the 60s was very much like being a baseball player before the free agency and the players' union came into play, which was you were owned by the studios, the producers owned you, you pretty much spanked on for an acting job you didn't have any control over, unless you were Lucy or Fred McMurray with Mike Lee Sunder, some very, very powerful person, Jackie Gleason. But otherwise, you were just a hired hand, and you came in, you did your job, and whatever happened with your likeness was the studios and the producers, until they changed that in the early 70s, much like baseball, the free agency. And it was just like that. My dad was a pro ball player. I made more money than he did, and I was happy to be getting paid as a 10- to 11-year-old kid more than a professional ball player. But the licensing issues and stuff like that never had any actors, didn't have any say in that until the early 70s. So when you were playing Eddie Munster, everybody right now, like the Brady House is a big thing, and everyone's talking about the Brady's, and it's kind of brought them back in. And they talk about their past and all the troubles and trials that they had as main child actors and then trying to make it into adulthood and stuff. Did you ever go through a time when you just hated the fact that you were Eddie Munster or, you know, you talk to people like William Shatner, and he went through a state where he hated the fact that he was Captain Kirk. He felt typecast. But then he came to terms with it later on, and he loves that he was Captain Kirk. And I know, of course, you toured the country promoting that you were Eddie Munster. Was there ever a time when you just, it was one of your demons, you hated the idea that you were Eddie Munster? There was a time that I was never really crazy about being an actor. I really considered it to be, like, second-class work. I didn't consider it to be real work. It was sort of like, I don't know, city work. It wasn't like a real guy's job. I didn't tell anybody about it, but it paid well.
    102:02
    From the time I was about 19 to 30, I pretty much didn't have a whole lot of respect for the industry. Had I, I probably would have never gotten out of it. But in 1980, MTV came on the air. My friend and I wanted to do rock videos, so we needed a vehicle to do a rock video around. We built up the Eddie and the Monsters group. I wrote the lyrics. We recorded a video. It was the first unsigned act ever to be on MTV, which at the time was very much a payola situation, pay to play, so to speak. and I got back together with Al Lewis because I couldn't be in two places at once. I had to be in L.A. He was in New York. He helped me out. We started talking about the Munsters again. I felt comfortable with it. People responded positively to it. Every DJ in the country was playing whatever happened to Eddie. It was on MTV. So I just sort of kind of got sucked back into it accidentally through MTV. And then one thing led to another and all the Comic Con was starting up at that time and conventions and there was a demand for it and I found that, wow, you know, I can go out and pretty much do a tour and get paid to be Eddie Munster again. and people seem to be liking it, so that's kind of how it all started, the full circle thing. Al embraced that he had a restaurant. Fred Wynn distanced himself from it because he didn't like the idea of being called Herman Munster. He probably got typecast for a while. He did. He got very much typecast with his voice and his antics, and everybody would see him on the screen and consider him to be Herman Munster in whatever he was doing. But Al and I, we took it and ran with it, and even since today, I'm still doing it. I'm a gearhead. I have Munster cars. I have a Munster coach in Dragula. So I found a great little niche marketing situation where I travel around the country, do all kinds of great stuff, meet a lot of nice people, and make a pretty decent living out of it. So since this is the Super Awesome Pinball Show, as we ought to talk about the Monster's Pinball Machine, of course, you know Chris did the artwork for it. Yeah. And so you've played it. You had a chance to look at it. What do you think? It played me.
    103:47
    I'm not very good at pinball, especially the new super over-the-top crazy pinball machines. Like this was like Century Overload. I mean, it's amazingly fast. It's amazingly active. He really is kind of like, you have to know a whole bunch about it to get some big scores. I mean, there's several levels of tears and stuff. I just play it for the bells and whistles and just have a good time and try to keep the ball in play. But I don't really know the inner cycling of the whole thing. But it's a great machine. I mean, I've heard other people just say that it's, you know, I guess they put their A-team together for making this machine. Do you think that the voice actors that play Eddie Munster and Marilyn, those are the two main cult brothers? other, you know, they've got actors playing all of the characters, but Eddie Monster is in the game quite a bit doing call-outs. Is that something they didn't like you, or? Yeah, yeah, I think they did a good job, yeah. I think you're on dope. I'm on dope? Eddie's not. Well, who's the, who's the, who's the, absolutely, I'm in the game. Well, because then I'm on dope. There's a girl that does Marilyn, and there's a guy that does Paul Lennon. Paul Lennon? Paul Lennon. Oh my goodness. Yeah, no, there's call-out clips where Eddie says, you know, spot, or is that what he does? Oh, those might be clips from the TV show. They didn't have something to do with it. So they're actually using voiceovers to include clips from the show. Yeah. That's what I thought. There you go. I clearly don't know shit about my own game that I just play, and I hear these call-outs, and I can't tell the difference between clips from the movie or from the TV show. See, you're on WDV, why is it Lidskill? Because he's all the best. That's the mask. I was there. There's also somebody here that actually was, like, in the development of the game. Yeah. So, yeah. You were promised a pinball machine when I did it? No, I wasn't. My wife led me to believe there might be a pinball machine in my future. I said, that would be great. I wasn't expecting it. But she got me a pre-dragged motor for my drag car, so that was a pretty cool thing. So she's good at getting companies to pony up stuff. I'm always getting free stuff. Whether I get a pre-pinball machine remains to be seen. It would be nice, but I'm not counting on it. So Windows closing, the longer the distance from the real estate? I will let her know that. Okay, so do you own any memorabilia from, and I don't want to talk about the shorts that you wore, but coloring books, any of the, I think you had Wolf Club. I had Wolf Club. It was given to me eight years after the show was over. I was out at Universal doing an Ironside, and the prop man came up and gave them to me. I unfortunately didn't take very good care of him, and he fell apart. And then I wound up selling them to someone. But we made a partnership, and I sold it to him, that we were going to create a remake of the Wolf of Dalton's Dullam for big money, which we did. We sold 93 of them at $1,500 apiece. Then I had another run Recently the last two years I've been selling a $750 version That a guy presented me one And it was a foam rubber one More lifelike than the original More accurate So we've been selling those And he just got an allergic reaction to latex So he had to stop making them After number 29 We were going to make 50 But yes, I have Wolfhull's number 2 I call him, I call him son of Wolfhull And he's actually got armatures in him And he's poseable But he's not the original It's like my car I'm the original but my cars aren't Who's weird? Are the fans of pinball shows Or the fans of comic shows? Oh, Comic-Cons. Pinball people are pretty regular folk. I mean, you get a few of them. Definitely, Comic-Cons are much weirder. Do you ever have any just crazy fans that just invade your space, and they just are like, oh, my goodness, it's Miss Patrick? Not too bad. Occasionally, yes. Nothing that I can't handle, and they just won't leave. You just excuse yourself and go to the bathroom or something and leave. But I've got to tell you, the funniest story about a fan didn't even happen to me. it happened to somebody else in Spandio Comic Con where you share a table with another celebrity. You're there for four hours and you give them the table and another celebrity comes in. So I'm coming up to my table and it's two in the afternoon and as I'm walking up to the guy who was sharing the table with me, he goes, the funniest thing that's happened to me, I've got to tell you. He goes, well, as I'm packing my stuff and he goes, I see this woman from across the room and she's galloping at him, galloping. Oh, Witch Patrick, oh, Witch Patrick, you're the greatest. Oh, Witch Patrick, I love you to death. Oh, Witch Patrick, I'm not good at Patrick Oh Well when will he be here When will he be here Oh I think it's great That's like That's one of the funniest stories I've ever heard Because it was just so funny She was oh my god Oh my god No I don't have too many Unusual stalkers Or anything like that Which is surprising Considering how much I'm out there And how many fans In the fan group In the Facebook I got like almost 50,000 people Between all my Facebook pages And Twitter And this and that So you'd think You would have more But I don't really have I'm very lucky. For some reason, the Munster fan base is pretty well behaved. Why don't you give the listeners your contact information? Sure. The exciting thing for 2020, I was touring with a 32-foot trailer, so I got a new trailer, which is two feet longer, with a wedge nose, and I'm getting rid of my Dragulets, so when I show up to events now, I will have a 14-foot, three-scene, five-puzzle escape room with a Munster theme that's called Mockingbird Maze. So I'm now traveling with a Munster coach and an escape room. Secondarily, while I'm on the road, I'm now doing a YouTube channel called Coach, like Munster Coach, to Coast. Like, you know, K2K, Coach to Coast. And we're going to be stopping along the way and doing really cool segments on everything from small town heroes to people with interesting paths to, you know, maybe bucket list challenges for me. Like this year, I drove an IndyCar. I flew in a World War II bomber. I flew in a biplane. All kinds of neat stuff. So we're going to be tooling up here to do interesting things that all of America has to offer. And when I do it, I have a Facebook friend, basically the shotgun will be in the Munster Coach, and we go out and we do all these anti-sex stuff for people driving the coach around. I'm excited about that. And that's about it. Just go to Munsters.com, and everything's posted there. Well, thanks for being with us. No problem. Appreciate it. It's been super. It's been super and awesome.
    109:26
    Well, that was a cool interview with Butch Patrick. We thank him for taking the time to do that with us. That was fun. We did not have sex. No, we did not. TMI guys but it's contest time our first contest that we're going to do that ties into the Munsters what I have to give away was Butch was kind enough to give us some signed photos so we have I believe three signed photos two or three I'm not really sure let's just say three no two we have two because one of them is personalized to me sorry so we have two signed photos and we have a very cool limited edition they only made 700 of these it's the soundtrack from the Munsters, the TV show, printed on purple vinyl. But when you think about it, like 700 is not a lot, so that's pretty cool. So we are going to give away a grand prize of a signed photo and an album to one person and then just a signed photo to the runner-up. And what we're going to do is we are going to ask you to send us a picture of you with your Munsters game or with a Munsters game. Maybe there's one out en route somewhere. Or maybe you've got some Munsters memorabilia. So anything Munsters, including a pinball machine, you snap a photo of yourself with it, post it on our Facebook page, and you're eligible. Now, we're not going to pick the one with the hot bikini or the one who's got the collection of $8 million worth of stuff that was worn in the show and all that. It's just going to be random. If you post a picture, your name goes in a bucket. It's as easy as that. And the winner gets the free stuff, and that's it. All right, we're going to go to what we're calling the pinball terminology graveyard. And what that means is we listen to quite a few podcasts, and sometimes there are words that just keep being used over and over and over. And you just keep hearing the same word used over and over again. And I do it myself, so that is something we're going to discuss right now. And now it's time to bury a word in the pinball terminology graveyard. All right, welcome to the first edition. Sorry, I hate to interrupt, but this is Christopher Franchi, the creator of the Super Awesome Pinball Show. I think that the spotlight should go on top of me. Yeah. Here to let you know that, unfortunately, this bit had to be cut for the following reasons. I'm going to go ahead and cut in right here, guys, and say that this bit is stupid. I'm sorry, Chris. This bit's stupid. Dude, I have to agree. I'm not feeling it. It's just not. It's just stupid.
    112:07
    We're moving on to the TPF update, and we're going to completely ignore that segment that was just prerecorded and happened. So here's the TPF update with Ed, and included in this as a bonus feature at the end, we are going to include Ed's story about the, what I call, the incredibly ungrateful Hulk. see what I did there and we're going to talk about Lou Ferrigno and what an unappreciative bastard he is oh easy there well he didn't even out the fucking elements like he didn't even care about how much cost or how much effort people put into it okay so TP update for the show here's the exclusive I just spoke to Barry Ausler and he has agreed to come to the show so this is our next Our next pinball celebrity that we will announce shortly here on the website and Facebook and in the email blast will be Mr. Barry Ousler, which is awesome because Barry Ousler was the designer for Doctor Who. And, of course, we've already announced that Sylvester McCoy is coming, and Sylvester McCoy is the main character, and he actually worked with Barry doing the voice call-outs and those kind of things for the game. So it's going to be a really good pair-up. And hopefully, I don't know what Barry's doing with Deep Root, but hopefully we'll get some information on that. That is an autograph opportunity bonanza. Yeah, wow, having all of those people there is going to be so satisfying.
    113:36
    Oh, and that just goes back to the pre-recorded bit that you guys did not hear. Thanks to Ed. It might have something to do with the fact that I would like the word satisfying to just fuck the hell off and not be used in a podcast anymore. But whatever. All right. Well, moving on. All right. So for all the latest news and information, you can go to TexasPinball.com or you can go to the Facebook page as Texas Pinball, and you'll get all the latest updates. You can subscribe to the Texas Pinball Festival email. Oh, Jesus Christ. Get on with it. All right. So during the first episode, I promised I would tell you all some stories about some of the Hollywood celebrities that we've had at TPF, one of which was Lou Ferrigno. So part of our agreement was we would give him a beautifully restored Incredible Hulk pinball machine, a Gottlieb pinball machine. And you are not going to believe what happened after the show when we had to ship the pinball machine to Lou back in California.
    114:35
    Can you at least give us a Lou Ferrigno story before we go? Gosh, you put me on the spot here. So this is all pretty much well documented on Pinside. There's a gentleman that part of my agreement with Lou Ferrigno was that we were going to give him a Hulk pinball machine. So Kevin Moore, so we found one, and Kevin Moore, a local guy, he restores this Hulk pinball machine. And for those people that were at the show and saw it, they'll tell you it's gorgeous. It is the most gorgeous, you know, got lip Hulk you've ever seen in your life. He's beautiful. So after the show, I wrap the pinball machine up, and American Pinball gives us a box for us to stick it in. So we shoved it in a box, and I wrapped that box, and I contract with the shipping company, and off it goes to California. Lou calls me a couple days later, and he says, hey, the game is here, and how well did you wrap it inside the box? And I said, like, you know, well, with pallet wrap? And he said, yeah. Is it wrapped, and is it, you know, pretty safe from water and stuff? And I said, well, yeah. I mean, I wrapped it pretty good. I mean, it should be fine, you know, if it's raining or something, you get inside. He said, well, it's in the back of my truck, and we're having these terrible rainstorms right now. It was like just, and this is when they were having the horrible flooding in California. And he's like, oh, it's just been raining for three days straight. So he didn't seem to throw a tarp on it? And I said, well, Lou, you need to take it inside the garage. He goes, well, I don't have a garage. And I said, well, you better take it in the house. And he said, well, I don't think my wife's going to want me to. I don't even want to put it. It's just going to have to, because I'm going to take it to my lake house. So it's just going to have to stay in the back of the truck until I can take it to my lake house in a couple of days. In the meantime, it's like still, you know, typhooning. That gives anyone who knows pinball, you know, chest pains hearing that your fucking machine is down there. My heart just thinks, and I'm thinking about how much work was done to this machine. I'm like, oh, my gosh, is this going to be completely waterlogged? So then he says, well, I'm taking it to my lake house. Can you recommend somebody to come help me set it up? I'm like, all right, well. So, of course, I go to Pinside, and I say, does anybody live in the area here? And I get one guy who says, yeah, I can help him out. So I pre-warn him ahead of time about what he might find because I'm preparing for the worst. So he knows. It's also a sad state of affairs when you have to help out the Hulk.
    116:57
    I can't lift it into my house. Yeah. So I guess there was some back and forth between Lou and the gentleman that set up the game with scheduling. And so when he finally went to set the game up, the game was perfect. I did a great job You know wrapping it I guess it didn't Suffer any damage Whatsoever And that was a big So yeah So for those that are Interested You can Look it up on Pinside The whole Back and forth Between You know It's all on there It's a pretty Interesting story But I got other stuff too That we'll go into later You know I got stories about About everybody That just Just putting on a show And just dealing with the I've learned a lot Dealing with celebrities Not that you're not A celebrity Chris But you know I mean No I don't Hollywood Hollywood-type celebrities. Real ones. Some of them are very cool. Well, they've all been pretty cool. Nobody's been just an outright jerk.
    117:52
    And that's why Lou Ferrigno is an ungrateful bastard. Several people think that, but he was a good guest for the show. It was just a clusterfuck getting in his game. Maybe it just wasn't important to him. I don't know. I just can't see leaving a pinball machine, an electronic item out in a truck in the middle of a typhoon. What a boner. Well, that's going to do it for episode number two. And this would be, I guess this is officially our holiday episode because we will not be back until after the holidays. So I would first like to wish the both of you, my lovely and stunning co-hosts, a happy holiday and a happy new year to you and your families and to everybody listening out there. Thanks so much for the support and for seeking us out and listening to us, and hopefully you're entertained and have some fun. Some people have called it overproduced, but I call it a show, and that's why it's a show and not a podcast. for trying to do something a little bit different. Hopefully you'll see the difference. There's definitely plenty of people who appreciate it and are taking time to listen. So thank you so much for that, and we hope that you have a great holiday, whatever you celebrate, and a great new year as well. Christian? Yeah, happy holidays to everybody. Thanks for listening. We've had a lot of fun doing this, and we hope you guys continue to listen. Have a great Christmas, happy new year, and we'll see you guys when we come back. Ed? All right, guys, I just want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and happy holidays. I wish everyone a safe and happy new year and thanks for listening if you guys have any thoughts about the episode or you want to just shoot us an email you can reach us at superawesomepinball at gmail.com we'd love to hear from you we might have a mailbag segment in future episodes if we get some good correspondence from you guys so we'd love to hear from you okay so that's going to do it for the super awesome pinball show episode number two we wanted to just take a second and remind you guys we are still doing Barlow's pin pets for the shelter animals dogs and cats. We're not quite ready on getting everything together. We'll say this. We are going to have some very cool prizes from Cointaker and from Chicago Gaming. So if you want to go ahead and drop off blankets and food and toys and whatever to your local shelter, take a picture and post it on our page. You will automatically be entered, but you'll find out later what you're going to get. On episode number three, we will reveal what the prizes are going to be. If you want to wait, go ahead and wait. It doesn't matter as long as we get these supplies that the dogs and cats need to them. Hopefully, you know, for a nice holiday, but whatever. We'll wrap all of this up in episode number three, let you know what you're going to win and when you're going to win it. So have a great holiday. On behalf of Ed, Christine, and myself, we'll see you in episode number three in about 4,000 weeks.
    120:27
    The commentary and opinions shared by the cast and guests do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the sponsors, Chicago Gaming Company and Cointaker. Their sponsorships of this show only serve to add to their continuing support of the pinball community.
    121:04
    Ladies, it's the bathroom. The bathroom. Okay, bye-bye now. Bye-bye. Bye. Bye-bye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye, goodbye. Goodbye, goodbye. Later, Dez. Goodbye, goodbye, good friends, goodbye. Is this over? I know I said it's over. Bye-bye. Bye-bye, bye. Goodbye. Good day, sir. Get the fuck out of here. I gotta go. I'll see you later. Wait a... Okay, okay, the show's over. Bye-bye. Hasta la vista, baby. Hey, you fucking chalupa sucks, dude!
    121:43
    So just to be kind and inform Zach, I decided to call him and let him know what the actual deal was, and it went something like this.
    121:59
    Hey, this is Zach Minney. Sorry I missed your call. Leave me a message and I'll call you back as soon as I can. Thanks. Uh, hey, Zach, it's Frenchie. Sorry I'm calling so late, but I just had to call and give you a message real quick.
    122:14
    Eat that, you fucking asshole.