Hello! That theme song. Yeah, I do that. Adam Stanley, Finger Snaps. Whoa. And Marshall hates it. Yeah, he doesn't. It's too aggressive for him. This is the Punk Rock Pinball Podcast. What episode is it? Maybe 27. Could be. I think. This one we're going to talk about. We're going to do some updates. Yeah. And then we're going to talk about Pokemon or Pokemon or Pokemon. All of them. However you choose to say it. We're going to talk about all of them. I know it's Pokemon, I think is technically the right way. I like Pokemon. A lot of people say Pokemon. We may say Pokeman. Yep. That was Chris from the Broke Downs turned me on to Pokeman. Yeah. Back when Pokeman Go was a thing. Yeah. So we may say Pokemon. We know how to say Pokemon, just for the record. Pokemon. Pokemon. but we're going to talk about pokemon pokemon pinball after some updates what you got what you got well we had our second tournament at prphq we did on friday it was a it was a friday night deal which is a lot for a friday it's a lot for a friday because you're working yeah um we had 30 people turn out that's a good turnout for a friday and the warm-ups were at 5 30 um and the tournament started at 6 30 we had people come from champaign peoria of course bloomington normal and chicago area yeah i mean that's a hall for a 5 30 start time on a friday so thank you everybody who showed up that was really fun we did um head-to-head match play it was uh yes head-to-head match play for two and a half hours for two hours we got nine rounds in we got nine rounds and the qualifying so after that that was the final result for the punk rock pinball association portion of the tournament which i'm so bummed about because i was in a nine-way tie to get in a cut for the cutoff well do you would you like because you can have the finals no for that so i mean do you want to change you just have to announce before the tournament well we can't do it now no we can't do it now because i said beforehand no i i mean what is the punk rock Pinball Association, you might ask? Yeah, what is it? The leaderboards are up live right now on punkrockpinball.com. There's also a landing page about it. If you click on the menu, that's why I had my phone up. In the main navigation, there's a thing that says Punk Rock Pinball Association. If you want to learn what it is, you can click that. And the leaderboard is also in that menu. Can you read the top five on the leaderboard? I'm going to read first the top five from our monthly tournament. Okay. So for the Punk Rock Pinball Association tournament on Friday, Joe Sharp was the winner. Mm-hmm. Evie, I don't know how, is it McGuire? But it's spelled weird. Maybe. M-C-T-I-G-U-E. From our Champagne League. From Champagne, EB, congratulations. She played hard. She beat the crap out of me on roller games. Mike Ravelli from Chicago was third. Shelly Sharp in fourth. Nice, Shell. And Tom Eaton was fifth. All right, Tom Eaton. Oh, tied with our buddy, Zach Morey. Wow. Which then made me tied for seventh. Nice. Just out of the top five. Nice. and you want to know the top five overall so on a leaderboard so far we have had um nine events 178 players that's amazing the kansas city folks are still at the top we're coming for you casey they've had three really big tournaments that was all over one weekend and it was they had 60 plus players and everyone mark mccolpin congratulations you're number one on the leaderboard with 179 points. We're coming for you, Mark. There's a Jeff Davis is number two with 178 points. And the creator of this leaderboard, Nick Greenup, is in third. All right, Nick. His Punk Rock Pinball player ID is number one. He's in third place, 168 points. James Skelly in fourth place, 159 points. Jeremy Larson in fifth with 158. Wow. Congratulations, Casey. The top person in our scene. Can't wait to get the scene leaderboards live. Eventually we'll have scene leaderboards. Not state, but just scene from each kind of local scene right now. Shelly Sharp is number one from our scene. Nice, Shelly. With 123 points. She's played five events. I love it. Yeah. I love it. Yeah. So that's the Punk Rock Pinball Association. Wait, so what you're telling me is Shelly is beating Joe. Shelly's beating Joe, yes. That's amazing. Yeah, because she's 16th. You got to go down a ways. I think I might be beating Joe. No. Joe's in 32nd with 97. And, yeah, I can't find me on here. I'm right around there, too, with Joe. Oh, no, I have 73 points. I'm in 42nd. You're a little bit lower. I've only played one. You've played two. You would have had a lot more, but Stephanie took one for the team in our first big, and that was the biggest tournament, and you took one for the team and withdrew to tournament direct. It needed to happen. So you should have been awarded bonus points. There's no such thing. It's fine. It's fine. but um so yeah so we did the head-to-head match play and then we did an amazing race final and we had this tiebreaker on firepower and let me just tell you that's where it all started to click for me yeah i had two house balls on firepower my last ball i exploded the game i I think I ended up with, I mean, not like a crazy score, but just like maybe 270 some thousand, which isn't a super great score. It's a great score with one ball. It was with one ball and it got me ahead. So going into Amazing Race, CJ was actually lowest seed. He went first and I followed him to start Amazing Race. and do you want to explain the format? So if you're unfamiliar, Amazing Race, it's a very fun format. So everybody that's made the finals, you start on one machine. So it's a little slow to start, but you play on one machine. The first machine in the Amazing Race finals was Grand Prix. It's an older EM machine. And the lowest seed plays first, and they stay with the game until somebody shoots a lower score. the person that shoots the lowest score on that game is out of the tournament. And then we go down the line and start playing on the next game. And whoever shoots the lowest score on each consecutive game is eliminated. Yes. So all you have to do, if there's 12 people, you just have to be the 11th best score or better. You can't be the worst. So CJ is a very good player. Yes. And typically in an amazing race, he would be one of the he would go like towards the end of the line. Yeah. And that's an advantage. You want to be a high. So if you're a high seed, everyone has to play before you. And the odds are somebody crapped it by the time you get to play. So you only have to shoot a low score. So I told EB amazing race is really fun. It starts slow, but it picks up after a while. But it wasn't the case on Friday night because CJ is a really good player and he's going to put the best game, the best score he can on the game. So after we did Grand Prix, we went to Uncanny X-Men. And then we went to Funhaus. Yep. And then we went to Mando. No. No. What's next? Funhaus. Oh, maybe it is Mando. Uncanny, Funhaus. Funhaus. I think it's Mandalorian. Mando, Munsters, Pirates, Cactus, Stranger Things, Gorgar, Roller Games, Batman. Black Knight. Black Knight. Yeah, that's where it all ended. It ended at Black Knight. Yeah. I put up some of my best games. I squeaked by an Uncanny. That felt really good. I don't think I beat CJ on that one, but somebody else got a lower score than me. Ripley's is after. Ripley's. Ripley's was after Funhaus. Sorry, everybody. So I, well, Ripley's, CJ put up a score. Oh, I think I might have beat him. I beat him. He put up like maybe six million. It was almost 10 million. Well, I beat him. So those are two long games right there. Yeah, that sounds like a low score, but 10 million on Ripley's, believe it or not, it takes a while. Believe it or not. It takes a while. So we did that. Then I went to Mando. I had two, well, three balls. What I thought was the end of my third ball, I had like 63 million on it. But then I got, for some reason, a ball save. Like I was walking away and like, oh, my gosh, ball save. I hear Shelly shout, like, ball save. Back in it. I don't know what I did. I just kept hitting it up the gut. and I ended up with like 511 million 571 million okay and CJ had gone before you and shot almost 300 million yeah so I'm like well that's gonna nobody's beaten that in an amazing race like extra balls are off and everything and then you go through and shoot 571 million it was bonkers yeah so I kept making it I kept making it I think I might have knocked CJ out on Stranger Things I think that's where he may have gotten knocked out. I can't remember. He did get knocked out on Stranger Things. Kept going, kept going. And it ended up being me, Joe Sharp, and Mike Rovelli. Yeah. I shouldn't say it in that order because Mike Rovelli won. He and Joe went head to head on Black Knight. I made it to Batman. Yeah. I was so tired. But yeah, they battled it out. Mike Rovelli put up a huge number for that machine. Yeah, shot almost just under $300 million. Pretty good. On Black Knight with no extra balls is pretty damn good. It was worth the drive from Chicago for him. So Mike won, Joe Sharp second, Stephanie third place. I can't remember, fourth and fifth. This is for the IFPA. EB, I think, was fourth. EB was fourth. Oh, no, I'm sorry. Amber. Amber was fourth. Congratulations, Amber. And then EB and then CJ, or then CJ and EB. I can't remember. Something like that. That was like your top five. Yeah. we also got the walking dead remastered oh yeah you did that last week when i was out of town yeah thursday yeah and we got rid of the x-men 2012 for funhouse 2012 x-men has gone to troy tilt amusements thank you troy we brought home a funhouse our buddy jeff rebuilt the flippers thank you jeff thank you jeff uh flippers are snappy and crisp powerful they feel real good I'm really sore. So I know we've been yammering a while and we haven't got to Pokemon yet. But I will say the one thing about The Walking Dead Remastered. Because there's been some hubbub about the new stern cabinets. It's Ikea. It's cheap. I'll tell you what. That thing's a tank. That thing is a tank. And the soreness of my arms can attest. Because the leg bolts go in so much tighter now. There is no give. that cabinet is rock solid you can hardly nudge this game and i think i pulled some muscles or did something and you need to nudge that game but i'm loving it i've played 45 games on it the game probably has 300 plays just over the weekend from from everybody playing it it's fun how many and you've played it probably 10 or 12 i'm gonna look i'm gonna look I can't wait for some real code I hope Stern you guys put out some real code soon it still has the license or approval code they're going to but the game is awesome the lighting is amazing I know we need to get the fancy lights on it yeah I tried it once Troy at Tilt gets the expression lights and the art blades and we'll be getting those I'll get a shaker motor for it I've played it 11 times my high score is 142 that's not bad that's not bad I think the GC on the game now is just under 400 million. CJ has it. Kevin Johnson is in second. And then Saturday and Sunday, we hung out at the HQ playing pinball. Today, we had Greg Halper in there. Yesterday, a friend, Jeff, came by, rebuilt the flippers. I cleaned firepower today and waxed it. Nice. Shiny. Feels good. It looks great. The balls are real shiny on that one, too. That one's got shiny balls. Kevin Kessler from Champaign was out today. Nice. Kevin Johnson is always there. He beat me two out of three at Firepower. We had some good scores. But, yeah, a big weekend. Lots of pinball. I probably played 150 games in the last four days. Yeah we played a lot Also on Friday Troy from Tilt came Yes His wife Julian his son Zach came up and he brought us a bunch of goodies for giveaways including a playfield a Star Wars playfield Yes. Star Wars comic art playfield. We spun the wheel, gave that away. Shelly Sharp won. After Troy won it. Oh, yeah. The first spin, Troy Smith from Tilt Amusements, the guy who brought the playfield for us to give away. He won it on the wheel. Yeah. And I said, that doesn't count. and he joked i think he's like i'll take it it was super nice of him he brought a bunch of other like uh giveaways that we used on friday night and we'll use for some other tournaments too but that was super generous yeah thank you for that troy it's cool to be able to give away a play field yeah really cool so yeah that was that was our weekend and i can't stop thinking about the walking dead i almost wish that i'd put it in the house marshall agrees he probably didn't catch that i said i wish i put it in the house he's like but i think the people at the club would probably appreciate that it's over there yeah we're gonna have to do a launch party yeah we'll get on the stern launch party list for that one cj picked up a fall of the empire from troy so we'll have to do a launch tournament for that i really want that game I really want that one. It's cool. We'll have to maybe get CJ's over in there at some point. Well, speaking of new games, the rumor is... The rumor is that the next Stern machine... Is Pokemon. Is Pokemon. Mm-hmm. I wonder if this is true, because it was either... I mean, George Gomez confirmed when he did his interview with Kerry Hardy that it is either Transformers or Pokemon. Now, George did the last Pokemon game. There is a Pokemon game? I mean, excuse me. I'm tired. Transformers? George did the last Transformers. And George is the main designer on this new game. Him and Jack Danger. So it would make sense that George would do the new Transformers. So it could be Transformers, but let's just, for the sake of this conversation, assume that it is Pokemon. Okay. So think about a game that is co-designed by Jack Danger. You know I love it. And George Gomez. I like a Gomez, too. I mean, I love the Jack Danger Foo Fighters. Love it. uncanny x-men i would love if it didn't you have to set that game up so perfectly and ours is not i love that perfectly i love how you really just don't know where the ball is going to go until you get real familiar with the game like the flow on it is so crazy on the uncanny x-men i think that jack danger just has some wild ideas and he really pushes pushes things it's not i feel like a Jack Danger game, you're not going to get... There's going to be some element of surprise to it. And I was kind of relieved to hear that, especially if the theme is Pokemon, that it was a Jack game, but that George is finishing it. Because one thing you can just about guarantee with the George Gomez game is that all of the shots are going to work. Because I think Jack was a little overly ambitious with the plunge on Uncanny X-Men. If your machine's not set up flawlessly, that plunge is just not going to make it around. Yeah. It's really cool when it does. Amazing. But I think he's pushing the limits of manufacturing capabilities. We're like, yeah, you can make a prototype that does it perfect every time, but now you have to make 4,000 of them. Well, God bless Jack Danger. God bless Jack Danger. I mean, and I'm not religious, but I'm happy that Jack Danger is in the world and pushing things in pinball. I agree. But also, God bless George Gomez. God bless George Gomez. Dog bless. Dog bless. George Gomez, too. Yeah, the two of them as a combo, I think whatever they're working on, we're going to pretend it's Pokemon right now. It's probably going to be fucking awesome. I think it's going to be awesome. And I want to talk about, so there's a lot of pinball podcast people and video people. A handful of them think that Pokemon is not a good pinball theme. Why? I think because they've lived under a rock for the last 35 years. Okay. Maybe that's a possibility. I mean. They think it won't sell. Well, I will say I remember being in my late 20s and having a Game Boy Color and playing the Pokemon game. Yeah. Like sitting on airplanes and just playing the shit out of it. Yeah. It's really fun. Yeah. I didn't do the cards or anything, but that's when – I know that before the Game Boy Color, Pokemon was really big, but I was not in the – I was not a target market for that. No. But it was a really fun game that I enjoyed playing, and I also, when the Pokemon Go – Yeah, we were doing that. We were really doing that. We would walk around our little town of Westmont in the middle of the night trying to – We had the police stop us. Yeah, we did. What was the barbecue place? Uncle Bub's. Uncle Bub's or outside Uncle Bub's. Me and Steph. And I think there was another guy, too. There was another guy or two just random dudes because there was like a gym there. Yeah, a trainer's gym. Yeah, where you can do gym battles. And there was a gym right outside of Bub's. And Bub's had closed because it was like 11. No, it was like 2 in the morning. Well, someone was working in there. And they were afraid to come outside. Uh-huh. because there's these people standing outside and so the cop pulls up like what are you guys doing and we're like we're just like catching pokemon and he's like what are you talking about and we all showed him our phones and we're like there's these pokemon the pokemon thing here yeah we would i mean that was fun living like in like right in the downtown westmont illinois because we could walk there were a few little gyms we could walk to yeah and the fountain across the way there always had some good ones like spawning so we'd be like sitting on the couch and we could see over to there you pull up the ave and be like oh there's a whatchamacallit like over there i don't know all their name the names of the critters but if it was a good one we'd like put some pants on like go over there and catch them walk a block and a half and then do that maybe grab some ice cream maybe get maybe get an ice cream that place was shut down by the health department well that was a couple years later but yeah but sometimes we would yeah i also played the the pokemon game on the game boy whatever year i played in the band squirt gun very briefly and went to the uk with them and i that was probably 2004 and i took that and it was one of the whatever game was out there and i played the hell out of that game like on the plane and you know just laying in bed on tour like playing that game my son jack was like into the cards as a kid we had all the pokemon video games so i feel like a lot of these other pinball creators it's funny because i almost want to call them boomers but they're like all younger than us yeah like of the pinball podcast people i think we're like some of the oldest ones well what are you but these guys to me sound like boomers they do where it's like what is i don't know pokemon all i know is a pikachu i don't know nobody's buying this like you guys don't have a clue out of touch out of touch with pop culture i think that here's the thing when i think because i think most of these guys are probably in their 40s late 30s early 40s the guys that are talking this way i mean we're out of touch also yes we are way out of touch and we know it yeah like we're not pretending to be in touch we don't have our like finger on the pulse of what's cool no but i can tell you is from like a marketing standpoint pokemon i think is the number one property as far as licensing in the world in the entire in the history of the world bigger than star wars dwarfs star wars it's gigantic yes huge huge huge and it's not because i saw somebody on a post today say being big doesn't mean anything titanic was the biggest one of the biggest grossing movies and never seen it so and so is the biggest art musical artist right now it's like that's pop music artist it's probably a one-hit wonder Flash in the pan. Boom. I said flash in the pan on my reply to that comment. That's the exact phrase I used. In Titanic, it's a one-time, it's a movie. It's here, it's gone. I know people still watch it. It's a movie. Never seen it. Pokemon spans multiple generations, but I think the generation that was missed are these guys that are in their early 40s because they are not old enough to have kids the age of my son. So I have nostalgia for Pokemon because I got into it when Jack was little, and I would get him the cards and I'd play the games with them, and I also enjoyed it. So I think there's guys in their 50s, if you have kids that are like 25 to 35, like you know pokemon but i think a lot of those guys in their early 40s like they have small kids now who aren't like into pokemon yet so like and there wasn't a big pokemon thing for the that that hit that age group like there's like a little gap where these guys in their 40s don't get it because they missed the little window there they missed the window they were like the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. Yes. Which, that wasn't us. But you also have, with the Pokemon, is the cards. Mm-hmm. And it's huge. Oh, my God. What if this new Pokemon game spits out cards? It won't spit out cards. There's that one baseball game that spit out baseball cards. There's no way it'll spit out cards. but what they can do don't say never it's not gonna spit out cards it'd be so cool what they can do though because there are hundreds of different pokemon yeah i know they evolve they evolve them remember with john wick with the contracts oh my god so there will probably be limited time you can catch this critter but you have to only catch them within these three days oh my god we're gonna have to get this game as soon as it comes out so if you're an operator because i might we watched the electric bat the the bat cast the electric bat arcade and they would say and we're talking about john wick here which was like not a huge selling game I love it. We've got one right over there. It was not a hit game. But they said whenever there was a contract for Wick, like people would be coming in like crazy to get the contracts on the John Wick pinball machine. So you're saying that they were maybe figuring out this thing with John Wick and it's going to be really big with Pokemon. I'm going to freak out right now. I'm going to freak out right now. Because if there's a... there's like a squirtle. Let's say you can get a squirtle, but he's only around for three days and you have to go scan in and hit like these shots to catch a squirtle. And if you don't get them those three days, you will never have a squirtle. Oh my God. Stop it. Stop it. Right. Oh my God. All right. So, oh my gosh, they'll probably do a better one than the squirtle. Cause he, he's like this. And then there's a whole thing where you can evolve them. if you get an Eevee, a little Eevee can evolve into a few different things. Yeah. He can be a Flareon. You remember this? Or did you just look this up? I played the game, so like, Eevee can be a Flareon. I don't know the other two, but Eevee can evolve into three different things. Yeah, I remember that from Pokemon Go. And then if you get your Pikachu, or you could choose not to evolve him. Like, you got your Pikachu, are you going to make him into Raichu? Do you remember we used to get in the car and drive to St. Charles or wherever to go find Pokemon? When people online were like, you can go find, there's a whole nest of Pokemon. I think we drove to Aurora to go get the Pokemon one night. Yeah. I was trying to find. Oh, my God. We got sidetracked because I was talking about the cars. And I was trying to find, because I think a lot of people, gem rate, don't understand how many Pokemon cards get graded by PSA. What is PSA? PSA is a sports and trading card grading service. So you send your cards in to them. They look at them under a microscope, basically. They give it a score from 1 to 10. And then they put them in these plastic slabs so they can get protected and they send them back to you. It's for like real nerds. Yeah. Which Mike is one. Which month is this? November of 2025. Last month. Last month. PSA card grading This is the category trading card games and non This is going to be like 90 of this are Pokemon cards Okay PSA graded 1 million cards in November of 2025. 1 million Pokemon cards most likely graded at PSA. CGC is a smaller grading company. 374,000 beckett grading 40,000 tag grading 37,000 sgc a thousand so 1.5 million pokemon cards graded in a month in one month last month of 2025 a million cards a month This is where I think a lot of these pinball people don't understand how freaking huge that this franchise is. And these are collectors. Some of these cards are worth hundreds and thousands of dollars. I mean, they're poking. So what I think is going to happen is much like what Stern did with D&D, this is going to introduce pinball to a whole fresh crop of people. Yep. Which is awesome. It's great. and these people are big collectors they're players like they like to play this the pokemon game which i don't don't understand this is pretty exciting i'm so excited i want it it's the one game where i'm thinking like do i need an le what you're not an le guy i'm not an le guy i don't own a single one well our cactus canyon is an le well we don't own a stern le we're stern pro people yeah we are pro people like do is the walking dead the only stern premium that we own or jaws jaws and the walking dead but if there was a walking dead remaster pro we'd have we would have a pro it just doesn't exist oh my gosh but the amount of things they can do with insider connected with this and if somehow they make it to where i don't think it's going to spit out physical cards it could though i mean it could because you know like not only was there that baseball game where it shot out cards but also safe cracker if you crack the safe you got a coin but i just got hit with the thing with cards i don't think it's going to spit out cards But if the machine, especially the LE, and I don't know if this isn't happening, Stern, you need to do this. The LE needs to come with a pack of Pokemon cards that are exclusive to the LE pinball machine because those cards will be worth as much as the pinball machine. Holy shit, that is a great idea. There needs to be like a gold-foiled Charizard and a gold-foiled Pikachu and a gold-foiled like some of these other guys. And I know a lot of these names, and I'm drawing a blank. Mike Vinikour, I know you're watching. Please, please, please tell George Gomez this. There needs to be a pack of Pokemon cards exclusive to the LE. That's a... Because if there is a pack of cards, if you're making 1,000 LEs, and if there is a Charizard where only 1,000 exist, that card's going to be worth $10,000. Period. Like a PSA 10 of that card will be a $10,000 card. Because Pokemon doesn't, they do these, in the cards they do these alternate art, which are rare but there's more than a thousand of the alt art i've pulled tons of those ripping cards if you had a pokemon card where you knew it was limited to 1000 and there was a pikachu and a chizard well i sometimes like to call charizard a chizard i call him chizard you made that up i know that card would be insanely valuable well even if it can't and that would make me buy an le i'm buying i'm pre-ordering an le if that's the case this pack of cards so Mike Vinikour if you guys haven't thought about that already maybe you have but if you haven't and someone does buy an ellie you can always send them those cards later you can send them the cards later do this stern say the ellie comes with the pack could be five cards could be ten cards look at the data make it the top five pokemon cards because there's one in the um evolving skies set and i don't want to mispronounce the name of the critter they're not critters but i like to call them critters he's not bitey it's a critter it's like a rayfeon or something like that okay but that's not what it is so you can flame me that i mispronounced the the pokemon if there's a pack of cards and they're like gold foiled or if they're foiled in whatever color you're doing the powder coat of the game, those cards are going to be worth as much as the pinball machine itself. I'm going to die. And you'll sell out the LEs instantaneously. So Troy at Tilt Amusements put me on your list for a Pokemon LE. Yeah. We're getting one. Good. Okay? Yeah. Okay. I'll sell a couple games from the club because we need room anyway. Yeah, okay. That makes me feel better then. Yeah, let's sell a couple games. we gotta get this le i don't even know if there'll be cards but mike tell you people at stern if there's not a pack of cards with the le machine there needs to be a pack of cards with the le machine make it happen it's not too late no because they don't have to ship with the game they don't have to ship with the game they could ship them to you six months after the game happened yeah yeah i think either which way we're gonna want the le oh my god i'm dying i'm like really excited about it now now that we're talking about like i forgot how much fun we had with the pokemon go it was so much fun capturing the guys giving them the dust because you need this special dust to evolve them so you're going to earn that in the game and then you got to pick which one of your guys you're going to give the dust to stardust or whatever the hell it is i've played so many of these games that it's shameful i don't remember the names of all the items but i'm 51 years old it's gone it's going well it's gone i feel like when we get the pokemon you know it has to go in the club we might have to get two greg halperin i don't think he watches greg needs to also buy one and put in a club and we'll put one in the house okay i bet he's he knows pokemon well here's the thing cj will need two. CJ might need three because our friend CJ is an operator. He also rents games. And it's going to be his top rental game, period. Guaranteed. Oh my god. I'm so excited. So this is supposed to be announced next month in January. Yeah, probably at CES. Which is like the first week of January. Or second week of January. I sure hope it's Pokemon and not Transformers. and i love transformers i know that's like yeah that doesn't really do much for me i got a box in the garage yeah i know we'll make a topper what's that we'll make a top yeah we'll make a little diorama topper out of my transformers toys the original transformer toys yeah but my my take on this if the game is good and i think it's going to be good because it's either going to be designed by Jack and George. And if it's not, if Pokemon is not Jack and George, then Pokemon is Keith Elwin. My God, are you kidding me? Because if Jack and George do Transformers, then Elwin is Pokemon. This is like almost a fact. Well, I feel like then there's going to be two bangers coming out in the first half of 2026. because has elwynn put out a stinky game i think his worst game is avengers infinity quest does it stink no no the layout's great the the code is convoluted but it's not a stink it is not a stinker no it's not a good game but like if you're gonna rank all of his that would be the lowest rank to if i were ranking i don't know about you yeah i don't really care for that one either but i don't mind playing it no it's not like shrek no and your guy lawler did that i know i love lawler but he really missed on that one lawler did a lot of games he did that one like he was phoning it in it was in the phone it in era of pinball yeah it's just a bad one That was just a bad one. But man, if. If either George and Jack or Elwynn do Pokemon. Crazy. So are you telling me that the next game is definitely a Jack George combo? The next Stern game is designed by George Gomez and Jack Danger. This we know to be fact. So, and we know that we've heard rumblings that Pokemon and Transformers, George said it's one of those. Yeah, because Carrie said, I was shocked George said this. I was shocked George even answered it. Because Carrie said, is it Pokemon or Transformers? And George smiled and he said, it's one of them. Does that mean that the other one is nipping at its heels? We don't know. I bet the other one comes out in like June, July or whenever Jaws got or whenever the Jaws 50th got announced. Was that June? Yeah. May? No, it was like June, maybe even July. OK, they were kind of late on that, though. I bet it will be like May or June for the next one. Here's a question. If George Gomez did the first Transformers, would he not want to have his name associated with the second Transformers? Because I figured it would be like, I figured it would be George on Transformers. I figured it would be George on Transformers because he obviously is very well versed on the theme because he's done it. Mm hmm. So he knows the world of Transformers. He knows dealing with that license. It might be a different licensor. For sure. I mean, that's an older game. It's an older game. And I don't know if this new Transformers is going to be based on the original cartoon. I chatted with our friend Chad Udell about this. Or the movies. Or the movies. Me and Chad would prefer the cartoon because we both enjoyed that as kids. It's all my Transformers toys are based, the ones based on the original show. But it could be about the movies. The movies were big. And the original Transformers game didn't have movie clips or any of that because it was a DMD game. So it would make sense if it was George Gomez on the Transformers, unless he's like, I've done one. I don't want to do another. I don't know. But this game that's coming, that's the George and Jack game, it was supposed to just be a Jack Danger game. It was going to just be a Jack Danger game, but then Jack got his new role at Stern. So George stepped in to finish this game. It was going to be just Jack Solo. Pokemon to Jack Danger makes a lot of sense. Because his games are whimsical and so is Pokemon. but it was also makes sense to take the biggest license you've ever had this is the biggest license stern has ever had it would make sense to give that to keith ellen maybe the best pinball designer of all time your current best pinball designer like he's he's got i'm not trying to uh you know i love a john borg i just bought another john borg we like a Brian Eddy we like a Jack Danger Keith right now is the best designer at Stern so it would make a lot of sense to give him Pokemon when you think about that it was going to be it was a Jack Danger game this next game was a Jack Danger it wasn't planned that it was going to be George Gomez so you're giving Jack for like his third like real he's done a home edition but for his third cornerstone game ever are you giving jack the biggest license the company has ever had probably not are you giving that to keith ellen so i will be excited if keith gets pokemon but i'm going to be sad that i can't get it in january i feel like that makes me feel like it's going to be a keith ellen because he is your mvp he's like cranking out the hits cranking out the hits and like kong got some flack over like the code and what it didn't have in terms of assets and i was one of the critics but there was no failure in the layout of that game no it's great there's no failures like in the rules of that game it's just in what they're showing me on the screen who cares i cared a little but I get it who cares because Pokemon, they're going to have Pokemon in it that I care so it's not like King Kong you might be expecting this kind of black and white retro experience whatever your King Kong was Pokemon's going to be Pokemon there's going to be Charizard there's going to be Pikachu there's going to be an Eevee there will be an Eevee in this game there will be a Squirtle there's going to be battles you're going to evolve guys you're going to catch them you're going to evolve them you could almost guarantee there's going to be limited ones that pop up on Insider Connected I mean that's a no brainer and if you're not doing that right now with the code you better get working on that they're doing that they're doing it they're doing that I just can wait to see it and I think it is going to long outsell Godzilla Oh God yeah And Godzilla is about to be the biggest-selling pinball machine ever made. That's what they say. That's what George Gomez said. Within months, it's going to be the biggest-selling pinball machine ever made. It will be Godzilla. In six years from today, Pokemon pinball will be the biggest-selling pinball machine ever made. But more importantly, what is the number one rated game on Pinside right now? Jaws. Yes. Is it still? I don't know. But when that happened this week, because I think all of the Jaws 50th reviews or ratings, whatever, in Pinside, they had enough to add it to the pool. I can't even tell you how many people sent me messages saying Jaws is number one on Pinside. Still number one, baby. That's right. Jaws, baby, and smashing Godzilla as it should. 9.658 score versus Godzilla. 9.148. You know why? Because it's better than Godzilla in almost every way. And to me, it's not even debatable. No. Not a debate. Jaws is the best, period. I sometimes think, what if Jaws wasn't our first pinball machine? Would we be here right now? Would we? I don't know. I don't know either. I mean, Keith Owen. It changed our lives. And his whole team. Yeah. I don't really know. I don't know all of the people who were involved in it. But, man, they just really, that was a grand slam. Like, Jaws pinball, like, changed our lives. It took over our lives. It's all we do now is pinball. You know what Shelly said to me the other night when we were checking people in at the tournament? Huh? She said, do I text you too much about pinball stuff? And I was like, no. It's like every other day. Like every couple days, you could text every couple hours, Shelly, if you wanted. Yeah, Shelly, there is no limit. No. No limit. It might be, if you're not into pinball, we're probably like insufferable to be around. kind of like when we lived in milwaukee and we told everyone how great milwaukee was all the time you probably it is great milwaukee we love it yeah i'm not gonna move back we're here in bloomington illinois now so we're gonna die i would move back though yeah i don't want to move again i just need all of our pinball people to come with us yes that's not gonna happen you never know i mean i wouldn't not move back because i didn't like it it's just We've got deep pinball roots here now. It's true. If it weren't for pinball people, I would move back to Milwaukee. That's how much we love you pinball people. I mean, and my family is here and I love being around my family. So like I'm talking like years in the future. Years I don't want to think about. but a main reason to not go back to milwaukee would be that like our pinball people here are we're too tight with them now so now we're we're here central illinoisians yeah and how do you move in hq that building has been moved by horses but i think they moved it some yards but they didn't move it like hundreds of miles no big limestone building they didn't so we probably couldn't get that moved no so we're staying so we're staying like we're staying and we're here in bloomington illinois for the duration okay but man i can't wait to see this pokemon pinball game and i think you other pinball content folks and i like a lot of you so some of I don't like. Some of the more negative ones. I think y'all are missing... You've lost the plot if you think it's not selling. You are out of your mind. Here's a hot take. There are a couple of people out there who are negative Nancys. I think that they are... I don't think they believe half the shit they actually say. I think they are just rage baiters. which makes it even worse because I don't think that those opinions, I really don't think that they are, um, I don't think they really believe those opinions. I think they are just always trying to say something sensational to like get everybody all riled up, which I think is so goofy in like, uh, in, in a hobby that you are participating on so much that you've created a podcast that you're going to talk about it and then you're going to bad mouth it all the time. yeah just that's lame it's super lame and so dumb it's just like talk about a cash grab yeah that is a cash grab because those those content creators also have these like real bullshit patreons where they're charging people for extra content cash grab it's a cash grab but i mean i'm not gonna slight somebody for doing a patreon if that's how if they want to put their stuff behind a paywall and people want to pay it that's fine i'm not it's kind of a cash grab but if you want to do it that i'm not going to judge you for that like well i will judge you for that mike won't but i will because like you know my band we did a 30-year like live version of our record that was on capital records because we don't own the rights to do that record on vinyl has to go through a whole big bullshit process because major labels are the devil but we signed the deal so whatever so we did a 30-year live anniversary that's a cash grab it's a cash grab yeah it's a cash grab we did a really good performance of it but it was super fun it was super rewarding but ultimately why did we do it so that we could have a version of that on vinyl that we could sell and and so technically it's a cash grab i would also say not only could you sell but you could sell to people who've been asking you for that it's true there was a demand and it made a lot of fans happy but the end of the day it's at least a little bit of a cash grab well we did we make a lot of money on that no no no so it's not really a cash grab because we didn't really hardly make any money on it and the plan wasn't that we're going to make thousands of dollars on this but you could call that a cash grab in a of sorts i guess you could i don't you know i guess you could i just think it's lame if you love a hobby and then you want to i know we've asked people to buy our merch is that a cash grab maybe probably but we We haven't made a profit on it, so I don't think it is a cash grab. No, because our merch sales are going to – you know what our merch sales do? If we make a profit, it's going to go to make more merch to send out to our tournament directors that are running Punk Rock Pinball Association tournaments. We give them away at our prizes. It's all to make pinball bigger. No, I know. Like we're not – if there's any surplus of money, which for us there has not been, it's either going to go to a pinball machine that's going to go at our HQ where people can play it, or it's going to go to Merch to send a tournament director throughout the country to give to people pinball players to wear, or to go into promoting our podcast or the Punk Rock Pinball Association to expose pinball to more people. so that is all like going back inherently not a cash grab well i just wanted to clear that up i do think a patreon is a cash grab stuff thinks a patreon is a cash grab i don't wholly disagree but if you want to grab a little cash i mean i'm there's a lot of work that goes into doing a podcast it's a lot of work so if you want to not go after sponsors and you want to monetize your listeners, go ahead. I'm not going to judge a guy or a gal for that, but it is a little bit of a cash grab. Well, we can differ opinion on this. It's fine. I just want tomorrow to be CES day so I can see this pinball machine, and I so hope it's Pokemon. Me too. But then part of me wants it to be Keith Ellum making Pokemon, but I think... We win either way. George Gomez is a badass pinball designer. And you combo him with some crazy thinking from Jack Danger. I don't know. Because George has made some of the best games. I'll tell you what, if it's Transformers, we're waiting. If it's Transformers, there's going to be a strong allure. because I like the shiny new game. I got that Walking Dead. Yeah, well. I got that shiny new game. But I did say, remember when we talked about one of our earliest episodes, I said, man, if there's a Walking Dead remaster, I'm going to get it. Yeah, I know. You've been saying it. I'm a man of my word. Yeah. CJ and I talked about that when we were driving home from Tilt where we got it. I'm like, I did say on one of our first episodes, like, man, I want it there to be a Walking Dead remaster. I love the John Barg. That game's great. I'm getting it. I got it. Well, you know what a wise man named Albert says? Play before you pay. Yeah. Unless it's Pokemon. I'll order that some bitch of a game before I see it. It's Pokemon. It's Stern. I love the Sterns. There's a George Gomez. if it's George or Keith Elwin or a Borg or a Borg like a Borg I need to see a Borg first but I own a lot of Borgs your Borg boy yeah but no offense to Borg I love playing the John Borg and he's one of my favorites I think technically Keith Elwin and George Gomez are better designers than John Borg but that's a different story for a different day okay i think their layouts are more dynamic than john borg layouts but man do i love to play a john borg layout but a borg layout wouldn't be right for pokemon no it's right for the walking dead yes it's right for the monsters i mean it would be right for metallica like do you imagine a metallica that's Keith Elwin, even though Maiden is. But I don't know. There's certain themes where it's like, that's John Borg. That's a Borg theme. Walking Dead is a Borg theme. Yeah, they're a little nasty. Or like if somebody should do a new Friday the 13th. Oh, God. Or Nightmare on Elm Street, either one of those. There isn't really a Friday the 13th game, is there? No, but I would love it. But that'd be a Borg. That'd be a Borg. That's a Borg. Like, mean, vicious stuff. Guardians isn't really mean, but there's some mean enemies in there. It's kind of mean. There's some nasty shots. But Pokemon's not for Borg. No. But Gomez makes sense for Borg. Ellen makes sense for Borg. Jack Danger makes sense for... I know what you meant. Pokemon. They make sense for Pokemon. We have to get dinner. We've got to eat dinner. We're tired. I don't know how long this episode is. Probably long. Yeah. But I'm excited. Me too. I'm real excited I am too We have something to look forward to Yeah I mean Christmas also Yeah If I have to sell a couple games Get the Selly I'll sell a couple games What are you going to sell? Uncanny X-Men Okay What else is over there? The Stern Pirates Really? Yeah Mando? I'd sell Mando But it ain't worth anything Okay I'd sell Cactus Canyon. Oh. But it's not mine. It's not yours? It's yours. Since when? You're the one who picked it out. Yeah, but then you're the one that loved it. I feel like that's the game that you decide. Oh, I didn't know that. Yeah. There's certain machines that I think you can decide and certain ones I think I can decide. I really like Cactus Canyon. And if Attack from Mars, Dean's selling that one. If anybody's looking for an Attack from Mars, we have a very nice one at the club. True. And so that's for sale right now. But I like kind of mix it like having a few things that aren't Stearns. But the Stearns man, that leaderboard at the club is amazing. So good. Yeah. Everyone just plays a game, walks over to the board like, where can I get on there? Except for Mike Rovelli, who clearly never scans into things. But I made him scan in on his black night and it was like five minutes of achievement. He's got like a thousand achievements because he just plays all the time and doesn't scan in. Now I know why. Uh-huh. Now I know why. All right. Yeah. Thank you for listening. If you've made it this far, thank you. If you're on Apple Podcasts, you probably did make it this far. Thank you for listening to us on the Apple Podcasts. Rate us and review it, if you would. Yep. Pretty please. Go over to Anxious and Angry. Look at his stuff. He's got some different holiday sales on different items. I don't know if our stuff is part of that holiday sale, but he's also baking cookies and sending cookies with a disclaimer that you might get food poisoning. So if you want Ryan Young's cookies, they look pretty good. He had these regular chocolate chips and like cream cheese or cheesecake, maybe cream cheese chocolate chips. Was it cookies and cream? No, it was either like cheesecake or cream cheese chips. They weren't chocolate. They were white. Probably like cheesecake chips. I've never heard of this. Me neither. Ryan Young's Cookies. Anxiousandangry.com. Get the merch. He knows a good cookie. Get some cookies that may or may not give you food poisoning. That's all we got. Yeah. Thank you for watching. Toodle-oo. Bye.