Warning, the following episode contains adult language and screaming goats. Listener discretion is advised. The Pinball Network is online. Launching The Pinball Show. This week on The Pinball Show, Dennis and I cover a range of pinball topics, including Ice Cream Shop Karma, Strange Toppers Incoming, Back to the Future, oh god, Stern Pinball Blowing Zach a Kiss, Minion Final Round, The Twibby Award Highlights, Pin Slash 2 Coming Soon, Miniature Bananas, Pinball Wall Y'all, Dr. Phil, Eating Crow, and I can't tell you why the pinball market is such a fickle beast. All of this and more on episode 53 of the Pinball Show. And away we go. Pinball is a game of skill. For some, it's a passion and a lifestyle. It's time for the Pinball Show. It's pinball with personality. The Pinball Show is back with Dennis Creasel and Zach Minney. This is episode 53. Dennis, how's your week been? I've missed you. I haven't seen you. I haven't heard from you in a couple weeks here. Why? I haven't been flying anywhere or anything. I know. I kind of bailed last week. It was last second. I was going on vacation in the spring break. Where did you go? Surely somewhere special that no one and no hordes of folks would go. I feel so guilty. It's like a trip of shame. I went to – It's just like you pulled out. You reached up on the shelf, Zach. I imagine you were there in your smoking jacket, pipe stuck between your teeth. You reached up on the shelf and pulled out the book O cliché. It was like, where would I go to send a message that we done? We done with the pandemic. We're done with what would a college kid do? And I'll tell you what they do, Florida. That's what they do, Zach. Not only any Florida. How is Florida, Zach? Yeah, I mean, look, Panama City is kind of trending down for spring break. Daytona, we've been there. We've done that. Miami is a little icky, if I say so myself. St. Pete trending up. So I went to St. Petersburg Clearwater area for spring break with the kids and with the wife. It was fun. It was nice. I can't say that I was always socially distanced, though, or I'd be lying. I am part of that problem. But I got a suntan to show for it. Wow. I don't know what to do. It's so hard to find the sun. And you know what? I bit it, too. Karma got me. A lot of karma going around. Karma got me because I did get a sunburn. But also, the flight's all messed up, and we had to delay the recording here a little bit, didn't we? I'm amazed we're recording at all. I would have just given up. That's my way of it. Yeah, but I did last week, and I missed you. Yeah, who cares? No one's even listening. Can't let Tony have more of you than me. Have you ever heard of an airline that has to ground because they run out of gas, but ultimately says you should have luck? Sorry. Find your own way home. I have not. But I find it interesting that you had to stress this, that you had to sleep in hotels. So where were you staying during Florida, just like on a park bench? I was staying in a condo. Oh, I forgot. You're a big-time pinball dealer. I had a condo. We tried to confine ourselves to the back 16 bedrooms. I did study biology in grad school. Yeah, we had a nice three-bedroom private-ish condo, and that was fine. But no, we had to sleep in the airport because they dropped us off in Knoxville. We were supposed to be in Nashville. And no, so I had to get a rental car. It sucked. So you know what? Did you rent a Prius? I didn't. I rented a Suburban. Well, you made it. And that's the important thing. So yeah, we had a good time. But karma bit me in the ass for not being as socially distant as I needed to be. I am the problem. But I'll tell you what else I found karma-wise was, it's kind of like a Seinfeld thing, But I pick up on these little behavioral things that happen both in pinball and in real life. And have you ever been to a really popular ice cream store? I don't know what that means. A really busy ice cream store. Oh, no. Never like where I had to stand in line for more than two minutes or so. So this ice cream, I guess I don't know why I'm emphasizing instead of saying ice cream, just saying ice cream. It's a fancier way. It's not a sorbet. They were super busy in the land. Gelato? Gelato. Did you get a gelato? Italian ice. It was pouring out the front door with social distancing, I might add, but at least 40 people in line. And, of course, the wife, I have to have ice cream. Like, she's pregnant. I've got to have ice cream. Kids have to have ice cream. 10 o'clock at night, got to have ice cream. It's spring break. Why not? So we stand in line like idiots, and we get to the front, and I hate this person. I loathe this person. Listener out there, if you're this person, come on. Don't be this person. You know how people do the little taste test? Okay. A little spoon and a little shot glass of ice cream or yogurt or whatever. First off, I think it's stupid. You get what you get. You take a risk. You don't need a taste. We don't taste cheeseburgers. I think it's silly when they ask for like, what does chocolate taste like? But if it's something weird, I can understand. And if I had to guess, you're a real oddball. You're like a praline type of ice cream eater. What was your favorite again? Strawberry. Okay, that was really cool. Yeah, you feel real smart now, don't you? I forgot that. I thought it was like avocado or something stupid. I like pistachio too. There it is. There's that stupid ice cream. It's a common ice cream. There are like three different companies at least that make it. It's not like Spumani where I can only get it from one make. Pistachio, stupid as damn ice cream. That's the other problem, people eat pistachio. Regardless, I hate people who taste test ice cream. I hate that, number one. Number two, if there's 40 GD people in line, son of a bitch, why are you taste testing at that point? Do you not have simple courtesy, listener, to look behind you, notice all the people behind you? Hey, that's a lot of people. It's 10 o'clock at night. There's kids back there. I'm not going to ask how the fucking cookies and cream taste. Oh, don't tell them to think of the children. Yeah. Kids are bred to stand in line. That's like what they're built for. Listener almost went into a song there. But, man, it is about the children. Don't taste test if there's a line behind you. It's common courtesy. That person was probably like, they had been in line for so long, they were going to savor that moment. No, it's an ice cream norm. That moment of victory where the customer is always right. Ice cream shop norm. They were the customer. And it all comes back to the karma, ladies and gentlemen. There is no karma. I hate that. No, I don't believe in it either. I hate that whole concept. It fits here. Follow me. No, there's no ice cream karma that's made up. And you know what? No, there is an ice cream shop karma because this son of a bitch, he felt it. Ice cream shop karma. Yeah, it happened. Shop with an E. Two P's and an E, my friend. Didn't one of the E's have a little accent? Yeah. In which direction did the accent go? Left or right. Okay. I'll have a story for you. That's perfect. You can edit out if it's too important. Let's hear it real quick, and then I'll give the conclusion. Your fancy name reminds me of years ago. We had an intern at the office, and it was in our marketing group sort of person. Did you hire the intern? No, I did not. She was not my intern. She was our communication conference planner's intern. We went through a period where the conference planner convinced the boss that she should have an intern to help with planning stuff. And I think we had three or four. And then he just sort of like aborted that and was like, we're not doing any more interns because he hated all of them. He thought they were all terrible. And I think even the person who had all the interns was sort of like only half of them were any good. I think we had four. Were they free labor, though? I mean, come on. You can't complain. No, no. We paid them. Paid internship. Wow. Yeah, we did paid internships. They didn't pay a lot, but they were paid. And so anyway, this one, she – I don't know. She was something special. She had a lot of really odd preconceived notions. Like she seemed to think that this was going to transition into a real job at the same place. Like she was going to get full-time employment once she graduated, even though she was told when she was brought on, this is just an internship. This is not a career path. This gives you experience. That's all it is. And once you are graduated, you would probably want a real job because we can't – I mean, we could keep you as an intern if you still want to make intern money. We'd be called an intern. But that was all we could do for her. So anyway, and she, like, moved all her stuff in there. Anyway, I'm getting beside the point. She moved all her stuff in. She did. She, like, put up stuff on the walls and stuff. I mean, to be fair, we had so much space. We gave her a full office. We had so much space in this building. Everyone had their own office. Everyone. It didn't matter how low on the totem pole you were. The interns had their own offices. So anyway, she's getting ready to graduate from college, bachelor's degree in marketing or communications or something. And she goes in to her supervisor in tears, Zach, in tears. And I know what you're thinking. You're thinking ice cream karma, but I told you that's made up. There's no such thing. So this was far more substantive. She was upset because she had ordered her graduation invitations for her family. You know how you get the fancy stock paper or whatever. I vaguely remember doing this. Thick paper? Yeah, yeah. Nice, like the 25% linen. And you're thinking, oh, I'm supposed to wipe my mouth with these. No, I'm supposed to write on them. It's the topper of paper. Yeah, I get it. Designed to be, you could use a fountain pen on them, all that. Love it. Anyway, she was so upset because her middle name is Renee, but it's Renee. Oh. She did not remember what direction the accent went on the E that had the accent. She couldn't remember if it was a front slash or a back slash. It was her name. Exactly, Zach. It was her name. It was her name. So this is what I deal with. This is my measuring stick to know where things fall. So your ice cream isn't impressing me. I hear you walk with a big stick. But sorry, Renee, out there. Here's a side note on internships. If you join an internship and at the end of said internship you don't have a job, you failed. You just suck as an intern. I never took an internship unless I knew I could own that damn place. And they'd be begging me to join the group after I was done. That's very ambitious. Yeah. Everything else is failure. But back to the… Yeah, first or last. That's what I heard. Pinball shoppy. Karma. You got to shake that ice cream before you bake that ice cream. So, he proceeded not only one taste test, listener, not only two taste tests, three. Three taste tests. Forty people behind him. Complete and utter asshole. So, here's where the karma comes in. He gets two scoops. Oh, he's so cute. Couldn't just give one, could you, on your waffle cone? Goes two scoops. goes to pay for it. Flabonk. The fucking, it fell off. But they just gave him a new one, right? The point is, Dennis. No, if he had to buy it again, that would have been. He multiple taste tested and he lost his ice cream. Good for him. And then he got it back. So he won. I smiled really big. I had my mask on so he couldn't see, but I wanted to show him. I just wanted to show him, hey, guess what? I saw that. And that is the ice cream karma coming at you. And then he got the ice cream again. He did, and I almost said something. He still won. I almost said something. He still won. I don't know why I'm turning into this old man. I walked in, and last thing, and then we'll go into the news, but walked into a restaurant. They were kind of hasty on having to take a table of six with four kids. We heard them. Again, behavioral cues, I pick up on those things. And then they came back loud, in a loud manner, as if they had to wait on us for our money. And when they got up and they were loud again, I said, you know what? Not interested. I said, family, let's go spend our money elsewhere. And the manager said, well, what's the deal? And I said, you know what? I don't like the attitude. I don't like any of this. I said, you've got to clean this up. This is bad. This is bad. That was a side note. But the karma, yeah, dropped his ice cream cone. They did give him a new one, which I thought was bullshit. I judged them. And I thought to myself, you know what? I was going to tip you because of that behavioral decision you made there. You just cost yourself a tip. That's not how he learns. No, no, no. I'm sure they realized that they didn't get a tip from you because you were upset because of the free ice cream replacement post-three-sandwich. I gave them the layer-to-david look. I'm sure they put that all together. I gave them the eyebrow raise like, you're going to do that? Not a good look. You're reinforcing multiple taste testings with a line of people. You are making this worse. You are the problem. I've seen ice cream places put a sign that says things like no more than one free taste. If I had an ice cream shop, I would make you pay for the tastes. And I would charge more than the fucking cone itself. Yeah, you want a taste? $10. Get out of here with the fucking taste. All of our shit's good. Oh, speaking of taste, I think I taste a little news coming this week from our correspondents. I wonder what their favorite ice cream flavors are. Do you think any of our correspondents are those people that do the taste tests? Which one of them? Cause. I'm going fucking Dr. John. I can feel it. It's time for TPN Industry News. Hi, this is Ken Rudberg with your Jersey Jack update. Today's update is 100% Guns N' Roses Let's Go. Guns N' Roses designer Eric Meunier posted a cheeky photo shoot on Instagram where he posed with not one, not two, but six crystals courtesy of the Pinball Industry Awards, including Best in Show for Guns N' Roses. It features such photos as Eric holding a crystal and looking at it intently, Eric laughing over a pile of six crystals, and Eric balancing a crystal on his head. Check it out! And in more news, there's nothing quite as exciting as another code update, which is what we got for Guns N' Roses. Turns out that the problem that I talked about last week has been resolved with now they're on version 1.19. Unfortunately, if you're on version 1.15 to 1.17, you're going to need to download your update onto a USB stick and won't be able to do it over Wi-Fi. These issues have been fixed with 1.19. And the popularity of Guns N' Roses continues to rise with it sitting at the top of the Pinside Top 100. In fact, there was a recent eBay posting for a collector's edition of Guns N' Roses that some might consider excessive at $38,000. A much more reasonable Pinside posting for a mere $20,000 might be a better fit for yours. and if it's anything like mine, empty, empty wallet. For the Pinball Show, this has been Ken Redberg. Hey, this is Kaz with a quick American Pinball update. While there's no major news to report on this week, American Pinball is hard at work on game number four as they look to get a new game out in the next few months, hopefully, as they want to have two new titles released in 2021. one. And also, artist Christopher Franchi announced that he's starting an art package for American Pinball, so this is good news that his art is going to be on more pinball machines. So I hope everybody has a great week, has fun playing pinball, and hope that everyone had fun watching the Twippies this past weekend. For the Pinball Show, this is Brian Costner. Hello and welcome to the Pinball Show's Stern News Update. I'm Craig Bobby. Well, this past week the topper world had to make room for Stern Pinball's latest edition. This time from the world of the underground comes the highly anticipated Stranger Things topper, which, let's face it, comes well after the release date of Christmas 2019, so Merry Christmas to all those that managed to grab one of these 649 US dollar choppers this past week as Stern's online store sold out almost instantly, and as Zach will confirm, I believe most distributors sold out as well, although you never know, hopefully there are more to come soon. But beyond that, it's mostly been crickets these past few weeks from the world's largest pinball manufacturer, as the expectations of an early April release date for Stern's next title is top of everyone's mind at the moment, with the hot money leading towards Something by Brian Eddy with a Keith Elwin Godzilla-based title slated for release later this fall. But again, who knows as Stern continues to be very good at keeping a tight lid on what they are currently working on. And a quick congratulations to Zach Mennie and Greg Bone for their twippy win last night for Best YouTube Content Provider for some of the best pinball content on YouTube in 2020. Job well done, fellas, and thanks for all the great video content this past year. That's all for this week. For the Pinball Show, I'm Craig Bobby. Catch you on the flip side. Matt Morrison here with your Chicago Gaming Company update for the week, and we've got... That's right, a whole lot of nothing from CGC, but I'm not going to leave you guys hanging high and dry. I've got a great interview coming up with somebody that might have a game over at CGC and maybe working on some other things for other manufacturers. So stay tuned for that in the next day or so. Alright, back to you guys. All this talk about ice cream is making me hungry. Now do you remember what my favorite ice cream flavor is? I like going caramel. What do they call it? I can't even pronounce it. I always feel like an idiot ordering it, but I love it so much. Dolce de leche or whatever that is. Oh, okay. I love that stuff. But I'm hungry. And I'm hungry for something that always cools my belly, and that is... Cowbell. No. That's close. Topper. Stern Pinball has a brand new topper. Did you see it? I did. The video or the pics? The pictures. You didn't see the video promo? I don't care. I'm never going to own this game, much less this topper. You might fall in love with this game. The rest of the world is. Stranger Things, ladies and gentlemen. Stranger Things now officially has a topper. And they're gone. No, they're kind of gone. These toppers are hot. They brought back that Infinity Lighting System. Is that what it's called? Infinity Lighting System? Like Xenon? Oh, like what they did with Space Invaders? Space Invaders. Xenon? Backglass? Yeah, where it looks like you're looking depth-wise into this. They brought it back for a topper. Bravo, Stern Pimple. I want to get to the bottom of who designed this one. I think it's overall such a cool, cool concept, a cool idea. They have the Demogorgon and Demodogs up there. RGB interacts with the code. But that infinity mirror, haven't seen that in forever. And at a price that I thought they're leaving money on the table, if I'm being frank. Oh, $500. $650 plus shipping. Oh. Not bad. for lights 2d plastics we're getting 650 up to a thousand not bad not bad so they finally released it not only did they finally release it but it's boom we'll show you video of it we'll show you pictures of it and we're going to start shipping them yeah so i came back from my salty vacation both literally and figuratively my salty vacation with one in the box ready for me to install it's going to be pretty maybe I should put a video up of it think I should do a video once you install one topper you've installed them all oh my gosh I don't think people are rushing out to my penis just inverted make videos of it so that makes me so sad I just I don't know I don't know what to tell you Zach that sort of low hanging like zero effort content doesn't mean anything to me but some people might like it I said it was inverted it's not low hanging it's inverted hanging I guess you can still hang invert. The topper itself, $650. It looks really cool. We have sold a fartload of them. And you know what? I want to do something special. I feel good. Fresh off a vacation, Dennis. We sold out initially. I had to take them off the website. I was like, Stern, how many do I get? What's my allotment this time? And I'm here to tell you that if you follow, like, subscribe to Flip N Out Pinball, to TPN, And you may be updated first with an additional allotment that I am receiving. Mm-hmm. You heard it here. I'm not going to advertise it yet. So, yeah, if you would like one of these toppers, do all of that stuff. Get a hold of me, and we'll put you in a queue. They're going to make several runs of this probably. But there more coming Don think they sold out yet No no So we got Stranger Things toppers We also had some teases Do you like a good tease Dennis I indifferent Indifferent to teases? Yeah. The mean ones or the sexual ones? Any. Or both. I like a good mean sexual tease. The Twippies was a good one. Yeah, you would. We'll talk about those here in a minute. One of the cameo announcers was talking about Back to the Future. I think it was the mayor in Back to the Future. I don't know what his name is offhand. What's a cameo announcer? Like the celebrity announcers on the Twippies. There's like a lot of celebrities, like Elijah Wood and Lando. And one of the Hogwarts, one of the Weasel Twins. What's his name? Weasel Twins. Weasley. One of the Weasleys. Oh, it's a service. Oh, the cameo service. Oh, okay. I'm sorry. I was thinking of a literal cameo. When someone shows up in a movie, they did a cameo. Yes, yes. Okay, so this was a paid thing. Yes, a celebrity teased. He was like, when are we going to get another Back to the Future? Do you think we're going to get one? Is that a tease? I've never used cameo, but I've known some people who have. Don't you just tell them what you want them to say? Maybe. Maybe, maybe not. This is such a reach. No, because look, here's my hypothesis here. Stern, Stern employee hosting, contract worker, Emoto hosting, right? Right, you got that. Then it cuts back to the host, Emoto and Jack Danger. Jack Danger pulls up his collar. Maybe I'm stretching. Maybe this is a dream grail theme for me. Jack Danger pulls up his collar as if, yes, this is happening, but I can't say anything. Oh, we're not inventing the news like this, are we? No, I prefaced it as a team. This is so tasteless. It was a tease. It was a tease. Maybe. It's not a tease when you just ask, hey, people love Back to the Future. Let's hire some Back to the Future person to say some stuff, including that maybe there's Back to the Future stuff. And then you're trying to link it all to the Harry Potter people do this, too. You're always pissing on my grill theme parade. It's my grill theme. It's already had a game. Don't worry about it. I don't like. Don't you worry about it. I like reporting the news and not just rubbish. But when it's Back to the Future, damn it. Oh, my gosh. I'm pushing it. I would deliberately try and imply this at any sort of basis in reality, given the source of how those are put together. Oh, I want it so bad. Ladies and gentlemen, this is a dark day for the pinball show indeed. I would just turn this off right now. Don't turn it off. We'll talk about it. We did pretty well in an awards show here recently. But until then, also, I want to thank Stern Pinball. finally they're coming to the the rebel side to the the good side the light side not the dark side they're dark star wars the stuff no we're talking about stranger things again uh they were kind of blowing me a kiss on on social media stern will not share anything that i touch it's just i think it's on a sign there stern if zach many touches it i don't care if it's helping us we will not share it but they did share a stranger things promotion in the new york magazine and their their facebook comments said trending up stranger things huh is that a stretch that's me you know trending ups in the urban dictionary and all this is one of those things that wasn't your idea that's been around a long time you can have but but hey as i as i have often given many a rant about this is pinball where everyone thinks their idea is super special it gets has to take credit for all the ideas i'm gonna let you have the back of the future as being a stretch this is not a stretch this is showing love this is conceivable i will give you that it is conceivable that they may have thought of it whoever came up with that wrote it thinking well zach says training up i could see it i could i'll be fair i'll i'll throw you this bone within the last two weeks i did trend up stranger things just saying now if they can just add stern marketing hashtag bye bye-bye. Then I'll know that's like a tongue in my throat and not just blowing me a kiss. Thank you, guys. That's as close as I get. I'll share fucking cats on top of pinball machines, but they won't share anything with me. I'm not bitter. You know my favorite thing? I don't know if it's in Pinball Enthusiast or what, but someone shares stuff with, I think it's called Pinball Pig, and this is like this huge pig that is in the pinball room. That's my favorite. I like Pinball Pig. Do you think you could own a pig? uh like legally i think they're i'm not sure if the city would allow it i'm talking about legalities here do you think you would you would prefer a pig over another uh arrangement of pet uh probably over a cat but not not over a dog here that's right no there's no loyalty in cats and i'm with you we're we are a uh we're an anti-cat podcast here oh there went the listen that's right that's a little overrated there sorry guys dogs where it's at but maybe pig I couldn't own a pig you know why no because I'd want to eat it because I love bacon and I love pork and sausage well you wouldn't have to make I mean I bet you could feed it bacon it'd probably eat it that's sick dude that makes me fucking sick what the hell is wrong with you what I couldn't eat bacon around my pet pig again Why not? With the norms. That's a pet norm. Dogs eat dog food around me. Because my ass will have the bacon karma come after me, and I will choke on a piece during my next Sunday brunch. There is no food karma. There is food karma. I decided there is not. Pork karma. Can't own a pig and eat pig. It's a faux pas. If you had a pet pig, would you name it Pork Chop Express? I may. That's cute. I like that. It's a pig pas. Or a pig pas. I'd be tempted for that or Spider Pig from the Simpsons movie. Very well done because I do love that. That's the only thing I remember from that movie. Jersey Jack Pinball is in the news. Eric Meunier visited TPN's final round pinball podcast with Jeff and Martin. I just finished listening to that episode. I was able to get through it because we were delayed in our record. Man, I'm telling you. Maybe our buddies over there, they're really getting some good interviews and kind of putting a gold standard on it. Just saying. Just saying. No pressure there, TLS. What I think is really nice with – and I've heard other podcasts as well that have achieved this, but their interviews are very conversational. Super, super conversational. The questions get at things that we don't know answers to. They're not afraid. Not afraid to ask them. Well, they could ask a little harder. Come on, Jeff Taylor. Step it up. Ask some hard questions, damn it. Yeah, but Eric Meunier was on that podcast. Fantastic interview the guys did over there. he was talking about a little tidbits that i took away you got to go listen to it yourself for all the details but he was talking about the factory currently being set up listener for standard body pinball machines and he's saying basically since they moved they've been standard body wonka standard body you got guns and roses standard body and he was alluding to and martin really kind of kind of pulled this out of him sounds like the next two likely going to be standard body as well now when i heard that part zach i'm curious did you get the impression though that despite well while eric as a designer is open to it that jersey jack pinball is done with wide bodies now beyond even two games i mean he really kind of forever he went into the parts thing he's like rotisseries that's right that's different i think they i think they are i think this the to me this was yeah this company is not going back to wide bodies because there was some discussion about you know how much work it would be just to bring pirates back because even the carousels aren't the right size sure yeah good point i do they need to i i would argue they don't know why bodies are they play worse than standard in almost all instances i agree i know it's not you know that's just my my own by and my own bias is very well known by people so obviously there'll be some that subjectively will disagree with me but that this is working for them and i don't mind i don't mind Look at the success of Wonka and Guns N' Roses compared to the success of their other pins aside from Waz. Oh, you're just trying to bring up the Hobbit hate. That's all this is. I see where you're meandering. But let's be fair. Waz didn't sell because it had a great layout. That's fair. Yes, that's true. It sold because it was a toy box. And it was a masterpiece for the time. It was a game changer pinball machine. Period. Some might say worthy of the Hall of Fame. I think they can, and I think they did. What else did Eric say, though? Well, he talked about envisioning, because he was talking about Wonka. If he had the shot on Wonka, he said when it comes to pinball machine design, he's just got to kind of conceptually feel out if it feels like that theme or the things he wants to put in it lends itself to a wide body or standard body. He said he's not opposed to it, but he even talked about Wonka, for instance. He wasn't ever a candidate for Wonka, but if he were, he envisioned that. he said he kind of plays around with it in his head, he envisioned that as a wide-body game. Yeah, with a mini playfield. Yeah. Yeah, and I'm glad he didn't, because, man. Yeah, I was too. Mini playfields. People, 80% of the time, they suck. There, I said it. I have to agree. I just don't. The Munsters one is actually one of the most creative, because it's not. Oh, I hate that one. The layout's a little different than, like, Shrek is the one I was really familiar with. Anytime you're changing the ball size, get out of here. I don't want that. Nobody wants that in pinball. It's bad enough on ACDC where they try to trick you. Oh, you hit it in the scoop. I swear it's doing a black hole and going down there. No, it's not. That was a full-size pinball down there at least. At least that, but even that I don't like. So what do you think of the upper play field on Game of Thrones? I really like that one. See, it seems like that would be one you would like. I'd like that one. That one makes sense. Feels good up there. There's plenty to do up there. It's got its own little things going on code-wise up there. You can get its own multi... I like that one. That one feels good. Satisfying. Most of those little ones, ugh, atrocious. ACDC, ugh, ugh. I stay away from the song. Don't put me down there. Tony, actually, my co-host on Eclectic Gamers, that's the song he likes to start with when he plays that competitively. Which one is it, Hell's Bells? I think it's Hell's Bells. No. I don't remember. I don't remember either. Yeah, I don't particularly like that. It's so boring down there. No, thank you. But yeah, he envisioned that as a wide body. He kind of puffed up his chest a little bit and was like, damn it, if I want a wide body and I envision it, then it's not like they're going to hold me back. But they're not making wide bodies. That's what it sounds like to me. Yeah, I think that the bean counters might hold you back. Mm-hmm, absolutely. Don't underestimate the power of the bean. There's a whole show about a bean, a Mr. Bean. You don't have too much to say, though. I don't like to watch Mr. Bean. Rowan Atkinson is the number one celebrity I've been compared to visually. See, I don't ever see that, but okay. I used to wear my hair longer. That would have helped. I also used to trip over everything. That would have helped. Get that nice short fade. How much would I have to pay you to get a haircut just like me, like twinsies? And you have to grow on facial hair like me too. That close fade. No, I don't. I'm not sure how I'm sure a skilled barber could could probably use thinning shears or something and bald me out but $1,000 I'd pay $1,000 if you got a matching haircut and I could hang out with you for a whole day you have to keep it for at least three weeks think about it and I'm not growing out a beard that would be so unprofessional Oh, it's got to be. Oh, you and your cats and beards. We got to go to a show, too. It's got to be a three-week during a show. He's talked about Slash showing off that GNR machine to all his buddies, his rock and roll buddies, and other bands and intellectual properties have actually reached out to Jersey Jack Pinball about creating machines. They've got people coming to them now. That's convenient. Five-finger death punch is just one or two games away. Disturbed. I would not mind a disturbed. They'd have to mix them. Give me Disturbed. Give me Five Finger Death Punch. Give me all of that stuff. Mainstream alternative rock. I like that. Mainstream alternative rock. No, I want Outkast, and I want Hey Ya as the wizard mode. I don't. Why is it? And then they could use the Jersey Jack camera for the shake it like a Polaroid section. I visualize that. Oh, I don't know why. I'm the opposite of people. When people are like, oh, they went too mainstream. I'm like, and that's when I started liking them. Oh, I'm not hip. Do you think they can make another band pin? Should they make another band pin? They can. Oh, should they? Yeah. I would not. When should they dip their scoop back in that ice cream bowl? I would wait another five years. That's it? Because it's going to be compared to GNR, and they're not going to get the assets. I think you're going to have to have Eric do it again, and I'd like to see him make three more games before then. So I'm at ten years. I don't think you would need Eric to make it a great game. Pat Lawler doesn't feel like a band-themed pinball machine designer. Neil Young would disagree with you. Okay. I think Pat likes Neil Young. And speaking of Eric Meunier, Dennis, JJP Social Media shared some images of this young award-winning designer Smiling ear to ear, if you guys haven't seen it, with his beautiful and quite sharp, actually, pinball industry award crystals. That made my day. I did see that. He was really rocking those. Well, he had one balancing on his head. That one scared me. It did because that was the big one. Is he really good at balancing things on his head? I don't know. I don't know. Maybe he has a flat top head. Did he ask you for a replacement? Because I guess we'd know if he did. He did not. I'm like, oh, please God, Eric. Like if that thing fell on your toe, you may sever it. So thank you to JJP for showing off those beautiful crystals. Oh, man, they're so pretty. But speaking of awards, the fourth annual Twippy Awards occurred a couple days ago, this last week. And I wanted to say really quickly just a special thank you to all of those who voted for the pinball show. We weren't really promoting people voting for us or anything, so it really meant even more to me personally. And likely to you, Dennis, that people went out of their way to say, you know what? Maybe they didn't ask for the vote, but damn it, I'm going to give them anyway. So we ended up in the top three. That was an honor to me to fall in the popular podcasting category there alongside the co-host with the most, Din Din Creasy. It's nice that some people like the show. So that's, yeah. And I would just say congratulations to all the winners. Full disclosure, though, Zach, that was on my dad's birthday, and I did not watch the show. Yeah, I know. You weren't able to see it. So I guess had I had, I'd have better understood the cameo thing you brought up earlier. Oh, that makes sense now. That totally makes sense now. Did your dad have a good birthday? Yeah, I think so. We did it through Zoom still. They're vaccinated, but most of us still aren't. Well, yeah, I'm the problem. And we don't do the Florida man thing. Yeah, you're Florida man now. Well, it's close there at the ice cream shop. You guys can go to the twippies.com for the winners, the vote breakdown. We'll go through some of the highlights. And I did do that. I did go and read those. And I will note that it did go – that was my big question in the wake of Pinball Industry Awards and the different audiences doing the selection was would we see differences in the results? Absolutely. Bearing in mind that not all the categories are exactly the same. But we did, and it played out as you and I had discussed. It sort of played out as I had thought, where there were fewer winners out of the Twippies, given the volume and what is well-known. I don't think that was surprising. That's what I had expected, but I wasn't sure how well it would shake out. Though what did surprise me was that of the three games I thought were going to be, I actually thought there would be three games that would win Twippies. Rick and Morty wasn't one of them, though, so I was quite surprised to see that. That one did actually pull out on top on several awards. Yeah, so it brought home three. Stern brought home three Twippies. I thought Stern may bring home more awards than that. Jersey Jack took the lion's share, nine awards. The cleaned house. Cleaned house. I'm not too surprised at that. I mean, the last few years it's always been pretty close between Stern and Jersey Jack, but Guns N' Roses just on so many categories is going to be seen on another level. Well, I think I say that because looking at the results, we'll go through some of them really quickly. I think there were some upsets. And listener, you're part of this population who voted potentially, and I think you guys as a whole got it wrong on some of these. Strong take, but it is what it is. You guys got it wrong. If we're talking about best music and sound effects, Guns N' Roses took it home there. Makes sense by a pretty large margin. Favorite homebrew pinball machine went to Sonic the Hedgehog Spinball by Ryan McQuaid. Congrats, Ryan. I think it was well-deserved, but not as handily as I would have thought. I thought he would have taken it home a little bit more than the Crazy Mansion by the Pinball Amigos. Not as popular from a media standpoint as their prior Despicable Me game. I mean, on social media, I've really only seen things about Sonic. So I guess based off of that, I would have assumed it did. But perhaps there's those that are in the know. I didn't vote in Homebrew because I wasn't familiar with enough of these games. and I didn't maybe those in the know really like what's going on in the crazy mansion sure absolutely we have best theme this is the theme in general some like this category some don't I tend to like it I still think a theme holds itself theme integration is important too but I like the best theme category Rick and Morty took that home over Guns and Roses and Stranger Things running off the top three there by a small margin but still took home an award there. Favorite pinball location? This is one that I almost feel like needs to be modified. Logan won it again. And that's not to say it's not the favorite pinball location. It's a popularity thing, so sure. They squeezed out a victory there over old school pinball experience in San Paolo, Brazil and Pinball Palace in Brunswick, Georgia along with Jack Bar Sunshine, etc. District 82 shout out! And Mom's Organic. one iPod. But yeah, favorite pinball location. It just feels like, what are we doing here? What are we measuring? I know we're trying to represent it. How do you feel about that category? I think I've been on record for years that I don't care for it. I thought so. I didn't want to zoom though. So I just didn't vote in it. It's my solution. Favorite pinball publication. What the hell? Where's Dennis Creasel at in here? I think I was in the list. Yeah, you were. You were sixth. That's bullshit. We're not smoking. Smoking that wacky tobacco. Now, top three. Twip was in two of the top three for favorite pinball publication, and Pinball Magazine was the other. Twip took it home. Twip won a Twitty. People seem to prefer pieces that are very news-oriented, I think. And that's been the case forever. I mean, Pinball Magazine usually has, I think on all the other prior goes, has won either for magazine or for newsletters, And obviously those have been very, the magazines have been more historical depending on what articles you read. But the newsletters have been current event. So I'm not particularly surprised at this. The one thing that I question here is because there's another upset, in my opinion, that Guns N' Roses took home that I don't believe it was deserved of recognition, just not the best. This is one of those little flags that I pin that doesn't mean a whole hell of a lot. But I wonder here, Guns N' Roses, the deep dive on that, which Jeff does at This Week in Pinball for all the games, so it doesn't really stand out. Okay, so that wins pretty handedly over Pinball Magazine and his Deep Root piece. Now, I think, objectively, the Deep Root piece brought way more than the Guns N' Roses piece, which makes me think, did we have a lot of, what do you call that, straight ballots? people just guns and roses oh I see yeah you mean like a little partisanship where people sort of vote in the guns and roses ballot could be yeah sure that Deep Root piece that was new I mean that was a lot of well I mean both were on new games but obviously Deep Root's a bigger mystery I suppose you could argue yeah and when looking back when people go to vote for it I think people would recognize that Deep Root more but on the flip side I do think you're right. I do think there's a bit of that straight ticket style thing is probably the most likely theory. Another alternative position could be, though, that taking content aside, Jeff wrote the Guns N' Roses piece better than he wrote the Deep Root piece. Okay. Remember, the Deep Root piece had to be screened for clearance for the NDA. So it was under the review of Deep Root before it could come out. That all had to get greenlit. So maybe it had been sanitized to a certain degree. And Guns and Roses was maybe it had a more creative flair to it or better linguistic choices because, I mean, I don't think that's the case. But I think they were both written well. It could be a multitude of variables here. Deep Root has kind of somewhat of a negative connotation to a lot of people. People may have thought, I can't, even though I love that article, I can't vote for it because a vote for that article is a vote for Deep Root. So maybe I don't want to be, maybe I don't want them to quote unquote win here. I don know why we analyzing this degree of pinball publication You didn win and I think it sucks What the hell No but I didn think I was really in I mean I knew I was in the list but I not in contention This is the part where many are going to assume that Zach is going to bring up the fact that everybody shit on me for creating an award show just so I could win, whereas Twip wins their own damn award and nobody says anything. No, I think that both the Guns N' Roses piece and the Deep Root piece, very exceptional pieces. I think they were both very well done and award-worthy in my opinion. So no, you're not going to hear that from me. I liked them both. I read them both. I guess I'm trying to remember what I voted, and I don't remember. I probably voted for me. It's been a while, though. I didn't save my ballot. Sorry. But what did I rank beneath me? I would do a special shout out to the Pinheads over there in the Cincinnati area with their sign. I like that. Best toys and gimmicks. Guns N' Roses took away this one. Now, this was one where on PIA's heist was the winner. Yeah, we see that fall to the fifth popular vote here. Exposure issue. Not even top three. Guns N' Roses, best toys and gimmicks? Depends if you're going to count the, you know, I could see it. I mean, the guitar-shaped ball lock. Do you count the hot rails as a gimmick and put it in with your toys rather than lighting? It feels more like an innovation. I can see it. But do they have an innovation? I don't think they have an innovation. Never mind. So I guess that falls in. I think maybe it just needs to be defined a little bit better there because they don't have a lot of – To a degree, the voter defines certain things. I mean, you can't get too – can you imagine? Do you really want your twit ballot where every single one of these things – You can with a group. When you have a group of media folks, for example, you can get more prescriptive because the group is well-versed in the topic. But when you're going to general public, you don't want these things to be all – at least I don't. I don't want them to be super prescriptive and telling me what counts as a toy. I'm a grown man. I can decide what a toy is. I do not need you to hold my hand. I think it's deserving because it's a loaded game, and I'm with you on the whole gimmick thing. And that's probably what a lot of people thought was Guns N' Roses had a lot of stuff in it. It wins twice. I'm not sure most voters really go through and analyze to the degree that I would. And maybe I'm being presumptive. Probably not. But most people aren't creating content in the hobby. They just enjoy it and consume within it. Absolutely. Favorite pinball virtual event. This, in my opinion, was where the public got it wrong. I love the Chicago Pinball Expo. A lot of people love virtual events. Clearly, by how much it won. I know. That's what's surprising. 10% over the second place. To me, second place, Pin Slash, is where it was at. It just was. Stern Heads Up Pinball Invitation was good, too. But, I mean, I'd keep that as three, four, five, whatever. I'm not as worried about that. But the Virtual Pinball Expo. Hmm. Pin Slash was my winner. Best theme integration. Guns N' Roses took it home. Duh. Favorite pinball website. Pinside, of course What else do we have here? Best Rules Avengers That's very similar to the Industry Awards Except here it was closer A lot closer Good point, I didn't even realize that Very good point Best Animations and Display, Guns N' Roses I can see that, JP for DeWin Favorite Pinball YouTube Channel I think this was a bit of a surprise Well, it was a surprise for Greg and I Winning was straight down the middle of Pinball Show But it was a bit of a surprise to us. We thought this was Todd Tuckey's year with TNT Amusements. Now, you didn't win straight down the middle than when YouTube last year did it? Correct. It was Papa that won last year. I thought this was TNT's year. We heard it last year. Todd Tuckey deserves some recognition here. He's the king of pinball videos. He got second place. It was close. It was very close. Very close. But congratulations to you and Greg for straight down the middle. We did bust our ass. I'm not going to lie. We busted our ass. We are very thankful that we received recognition from a lot of you voters out there. That stuff means so, so much to us that people are still watching and enjoying it. Our favorite, like I've said before, is when we do something that you guys don't even know we've done, but it was good enough to think that it was done by a manufacturer or something. You're flipping out YouTube channel. I usually think of your Twitch channel. Yeah, that's the one that I messaged. It's pretty high there, too. 10%. It didn't qualify. I messaged Jeff in the committee. That didn't qualify. It didn't have enough videos, but whatever. Best call-outs, Rick and Morty. That makes sense to me. Yeah. Even with Slash and the rest of the band, it makes sense to me. Best pinball mod, Stranger Things UV Like It. There it is again. Oh, look. It's actually a shell, Zach. Well, it looks like a lot of other people are going to like it, too. Now, the pinball mod, they opened it up to not just manufacturers, everybody. So we had that Twilight Zone interactive backboard by 86 pixels, and we had one of my favorites, the medicinal mod set of the Elvira House of Horse gargoyle casket. Very nicely done. Favorite pinball streamer four times in a row, Deadflip. And the only thing that surprised me here is not by a large margin. The lowest margin, I believe, ever since the Twippy's inception. I don't remember the prior percentage breakouts. Not even, what, 200 first choice flows? But you did have four channels that were all over 10%. I think that flipping out pinball being in the top three there, I love what we do. But over Buffalo, Papa, IE pinball, no, no. I'm sorry, BD, I love you. No, I do. IE pinball. I will say, I am very surprised, especially given how many viewers Carl has, that IE Pinball ended up this far down the... Is that because it's too competitive-oriented? Is that what that's about? Yeah, because, I mean, you look at these top three, they are very entertainment-focused. Right, yeah, I would say so. Yeah, a little close margin there, one and two. The guys from France are really, really pulling a lot of exposure overseas there. I like it. Best light show, Guns N' Roses. Absolutely. Yeah, I mean, come on. Stranger Things in there is number two. Holla! Favorite pinball topper. This, you guys got wrong. You guys got it wrong. Listener. What? No, they got it wrong. Look, I'm holding court as the topper king, and you guys effed up. No. Again. Let it be free. No. Oh, wait. Their topper is free. Oh. I almost want to quit talking because that was so nicely done. What am I going to do there? That was perfection, Dennis. Fuck your gut. That's why we're in the top three? Rick and Morty is not the best topper there People People I'm going to take a look at that Charlie, love you Bug, love you Squirrel, love you KT, love you Love you guys You created a topper for free Which is greatly appreciated But it is not as good as Elvirus It is not as good as the Hobbit topper by Elite It's not as good as Jurassic Park Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Western Or the Avengers topper Sorry What do you think? Agree? Disagree? Yeah, I don't really care. I don't vote in this category. I would almost... I'm sorry. This is me being a little snooty, but I would almost have rather... All right. While I have seen some things like the third-party limited run Hobbit topper... Nicely done. Limited edition. Elite pinball thing. Which looks really... Craftsmanship is there. On most toppers, I actually don't see craftsmanship. Okay. All right. So a little nod there. I see some pretty basic assemblies with some pretty basic functionality that mostly relies on blinding light shodes and coded integration to give you some sort of depth of immersion, which is fine. But when it comes to craft, there is no craft there. I'm not going to take a hard slant there, but I will say that Elvira sticks out amongst the crowd. It is a molded topper, molded gargoyles. Do you find that the part that sticks the most is the sticker of her face that they put under the molded lid? Okay. It could have been different. Yeah. It could have been different. I would have liked an LCD screen. You know, I had a whole book of stickers when I was four. But you're taking away from the functionality of it. It moves, right? It's molded. Yeah, it has a coil that moves. Yes. Such innovation. I had some problems with it. But no, I think that sticks out. Everything else is very 2D. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, okay. Eh, we get a little molding there. You get the eyeball moving around. That one's cool. But, no. That was the wrong pick, guys. Jurassic Park came with software. Rick and Morty's the wrong pick. What I was saying, snooty-wise, I'd rather Charlie have done this and Charlie and company done this as a good thing. Like, hey, Bear's a free one. We don't charge for droppers. But also make me a nice one. That comes across as me saying it. They didn't make people pick this. I would rather pay $500 for a really nice Rick and Morty topper. Because you know why, Dennis? Because last week I had to buy the Mondo figures because I'm going to make a custom topper for it. Those Mondo figures are like $100 in and of themselves. They're busy making games. You know, why they are a pinball company. Yeah, but people love toppers. Numbers don't lie. Apparently they really loved this one and they voted for it as their favorite. No, this is just the freaking pinball crown being pissy now. Remember, this isn't best. It's favorite. It's just the favorite. It doesn't mean it's the best. Speaking of people that are wrong, favorite pinball podcast. I'm joking, Kaneda. Freaking chill out. Kaneda's pinball podcast, four years in a row. Handily here. But. I didn't think that was surprising. Yeah, it didn't surprise me. I thought he'd take it home. Then the super awesome pinball show with all those fantastic interviews. And then the pinball show, our show, third place. Sweet. We got recognition. Shit, that's a song. It's more chant. More chant than a song. As I noted earlier, I do say thank you to those that voted, but we don't – at least I don't do the show in pursuit of some sort of recognition award. No, but it feels good. Yeah, well, I don't know. I didn't win one. No, it feels good being recognized, and it felt good. You know what felt almost just as good? This is the Snarky's Act coming out. It's all fun and games, all jokes, as Kaneda says. I love that Kaneda takes four wins in a row and still uses the precious acceptance speech time that he has to include none other than me and TPN. Damn it, Chris. Thank you, buddy. I love it. That was like me winning two. I was like, shit, I'll sit shotgun here. I'll take it. Go ahead and showcase me for the second year in a row. Thank you. Best artwork, Guns N' Roses. Whoa, whoa, hold up. Rop, rop. Preface, Dayne Henry Jr, rookie, coming in, doing his first pinball machine, as well as a combination of other artists, but kind of the focus was on Dayne Henry Jr here. Personally, chatted with him, interacted with him. I have a good relationship with him. Love his work. If you go back and look at his portfolio, fantastic work. He is a damn great pinball artist. Hopefully he does one every year. He's that good. his artwork was not better than Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles by Zombie Yeti of Stern Pinball, nor was it better than Avengers Infinity Quest by Zombie Yeti. I call it like I see it. Love you, Dane, but not yet. Not yet. Well, do you think the issue here is, if you look at the percent, I do see the thing with the first choice votes, but that's basically irrelevant because we're doing the ranked system, so you have to add the percentages up. Sure. So if you add the percentages of Avengers and TMNT, it easily passes Guns N' Roses. Did Jeremy cut himself in half? No, no, because no, it shouldn't have mattered. That's, I think, the league that Zombie Eddie is now in, that he has built himself into. TMNT, hands down, the winner. Hands down. I mean, I'm pretty sure I voted TMNT. I have to hedge a little bit because this one, it's all the artwork combined. And I don't know. Like back when I did PIA voting, I think I voted Avengers for Backglass and TMNT for Playfield Art. Okay. And they don't split. That's even more so my argument. You can – no. But you see, because of that, people might have been like, well, okay, I'll do Turtles number one, Avengers number two, and GNR number three. I mean, I can see people doing that. I like the Guns N' Roses art package. I agree with you that I liked it less than Turtles and Avengers. That's my point. That's my point. The only person that I see modern artist-wise that is capable of, in their rookie year, pulling out something that looks better than all the other artists was Zombie Yeti, Ghostbusters. That's worthy. One of his best. I think Dane's future work is going to be much better than Guns N' Roses. That's what I'm saying. Nope. Okay. T-M-N-T. So you got it wrong, people. Best play field, gameplay, and layout went to Avengers. I could see that. And game of the year, the big tuna, Guns N' Roses by Jersey Jack Pinball. Yep. I would have put my money there, too. Yep. Stranger Things holds it out. number five spot over hot wheels over heist over heavy metal booyah jump on the bandwagon that was your twippies a lot of highlights this year for the twippies one of the things for me dennis i don't know about you but i like the idea that jeff and company did the donations all the donations from like the stream and watching that uh during that event if you donated it went back to location pinball they raised three thousand dollars i know i i wasn't familiar with it probably because i i didn't watch so okay that's cool for me that was one of the biggest and best highlights there you can't argue with that that's just awesome and especially special shout out to titan pinball the only place i go for my silicone and that is not an endorsement because they don't uh they don't sponsor me in any titan why aren't you sponsoring us titan pinball giving one thousand dollars alone that's awesome that's awesome so highlight for me where was the idea of all the donations and like jack danger was streaming this as well i guess jeff and him agreed to that on dead flip so i mean that's even more i'm assuming bits and donations from there that's awesome all of this money for location pinball definitely a good cause near and dear to all of our hearts when are you getting out and playing some more competition pinball dennis oh probably once i i'm vaccinated i'll go to the locations again soon my friend within the month probably right hopefully we're opening up fully uh monday today this end but i qualified out of the fire phase prior phase but we only did that for one week the state decided it needed to open up even faster so Wow. I think April 6th, like no mask mandate in Indiana. That's crazy. Maybe that was fake news. I don't know. Another highlight for me of the fourth annual Twippies was the Game of the Year acceptance video by JJP. Wow. If you guys haven't watched the Twippies, do yourself a favor and spoiler alert. Sorry, a little too long for that. But Game of the Year acceptance video was so, so nicely done. It was like the nicest crafted piece in the entire program. Wonderful, wonderful job. Got me by the feels there. You know what the kids say? I have no idea. And last news piece, Pen Slash 2 has been announced. I don't know the official title. This is more of a, I've been told that Avengers is on deck. Your next Pen Slash virtual tournament is going to be using the Avengers pinball machine by Stern Pinball. Totally makes sense to me. I called that one like a year ago. Yeah, Pin Slash. I think they should just call it Pin Slash 2. I like that title. I don't know what you're working with there, Carl, but Pin Slash 2 works. I can see it on a t-shirt. I'd buy, buy, buy. And speaking of buy, buy, buy, we were giving, giving, giving away. That was a bad transition. They're not even buying it. They can win a free Hobbit play field. But we did the March Madness Topper Bracket Busters. And round one of my choices of best toppers of all time are now on the Pinball Network Facebook page. Go check them out. And right now, as you're listening, we've even uploaded round two winners. Those are going to be up today as well. So follow along. Remember, each correct response. You had to submit a while back, so if you're too late, you're too late. Each correct response is worth one point. We're not adding points the closer you get to the finals. No. one point regardless of the round. The person with the most points at the end wins a Hobbit play field. Second place wins their choice of a banner. Or if you don't want the play field and you want $250 off a wonderful Stranger Things topper, it can be yours. So follow along there. Make sure to like and subscribe. Alright Dennis, if I go too long without pinball market trends, you all know what happens to me. Ice cream karma? Yeah, I don't want to drop my ice cream scoop. See, we're so simpatico. What does that mean? I don't even know what that means. We're in unison. We're together. Two peas in a peapod. Aren't we? In a toilet. Just flush this. No. Pitbull! Market share time, ladies and gentlemen. Here we go. This is why we're in the top three. You know that, Dennis, right? I think all the competition quit. Head to head. Super awesome. Ladies and gentlemen, Dennis Creasel. Slap save. Special and lit. Man, we're going to see an emerging pattern of me being wrong on this segment of Pinball Market Trends. Coast to coast. And that's an example of why. I gave a reason why we're in the top three in the recent awards show. So Dennis just gave an even more rational and true reason why, and it is because of Dennis Creasel. Nicely done. Turning up this week, I know I'm a broken record, but numbers don't lie. I only report the facts, and if they are the same things week and week, I've got to keep reporting them. I'm going to report this to you here today. Turning up is Star Wars Premium Comic Edition. I'm not getting lazy. It's not like just a little low-hanging or inverted fruit. I wonder what an inverted banana would look like. My pee-pee looks like a banana. Not those little Brazilian ones. Not those. Is it a Brazilian? What is that? You know the little bananas? What is that? No, I don't know what you're talking about. Isn't there little bananas? Or am I thinking of little corns? Chinese food. Little corns. Corn cups. Little baby corns. Yeah, little baby corns. I think there's a little banana, too. Little banana. Star Wars comic premium edition. Not the pro. the pros they're hanging steady pretty good but damn it these premium editions the reason i'm trending it up is not to be a broken record because since last reporting it as trending up damned if it didn't trend up even higher than that this thing is as hot as a topper right now hot hot hot don't let it burn you the last time i was reporting this of them selling out them saying hey we're not even making these anymore these these comic book editions everybody's 1E1 now. People are finally realizing that I wasn't Win Schilling. I think people are finally realizing they're coming to fruition that I'm a pretty damn good indicator of what pinball machines are great and which ones simply are not. Takes them a little while but once they just open themselves up to the idea that maybe I do know a good machine versus a bad one, I'm right. Get in on it when I tell you they're good, damn it, because everybody wants one of these things so much so that recently on Pinside, one listed for $9,000. Ladies and gentlemen, that is the price of an LE pinball machine brand new. Used. $9,000. It's sold. I can't confirm what it's sold for, but you're seeing these prices continue to rise on the premium Star Wars comic edition. It's just a fact. Why is everybody just now coming around on this game, Dennis? I think they're just bored. No. All straightening up this week is a Pretty topper that I sit on my Stranger Things. It's got the infinity mirrors in it. It's got the LEDs in it. It makes you look like you're looking into the abyss of the Demogorgons and the dogs. RGB, baby. RGBs, they're selling. You better buy, buy, buy. Right now. And yes, that was a Win Schilling sensation. Or was it? You know, I don't even know anymore. Because when things are great, can I not sing? their, can I not rejoice on their greatness? What is shill? If you like something, can I be a shill if I really like it? Is that contradictory to the shill definition? No, I mean because being a shill actually is a very specific definition. Go ahead and marry him, Webster. Well, I was going to say that it's sort of, usually that's about trying to encourage for a customer sort of thing. So if you were promoting something for example that but i think in the case where people try and use the term shill for you it would be normally a shill pretends to give an impartial endorsement that's the difference they not when you being overly like this is the greatest thing since sliced bread look rgbs we haven seen those and except for the last 20 years oh i mean that you not you don pretend to give an impartial endorsement that what a shill does i see so that's like what all the influencers have been getting in trouble for on instagram and stuff is they're like hey look you should buy you should buy this sneaker and because it's got all this padding and you don't even know that they got paid for it oh it's like they're pretending to be impartial. That's an actual shill. It's like the celebrities that endorse the Buick, but then they really drive a Mercedes. Them? Right, right. Pulling up the definition here from, I don't know which dictionary I'm looking at right now. It says, a person who pretends to give an impartial endorsement of something in which they themselves have an interest. And the example they say is a mega millionaire who makes more money as a shill for corporate products than he does for playing basketball. Oh. Well, don't hate the player, hate the game. The other definition of shill is the term used for those people in casinos that act like they're enthusiastic. They pretend to be customers to try and get people to come over to the table. That's also a shill, a different type of shill. That's pretty dirty, though. That's just a liar. Is that not right, Mr. Britannica? I mean, maybe sort of like a synonym, I guess. I mean, those gambling shills, that's like a profession. It's like, hey, we need to get people over to this table, so you're going to come over and – they just act enthusiastic. So it's sort of – I heard about comedy clubs having this sometimes where there will be people in the audience that are professional laughers. They're plants. Not plants necessarily for the comedian, but actual professional laughers. I read about this once too. Their job is they have an infectious style laugh, and it's to try and get that room energy. They laugh in a way that makes other people want to laugh. True story. So I don't think that's who I am. But no. So in a way, no. You're never – even when I've made jokes about you Win Schilling stuff, in a way, I'm actually being super ironic because you don't ever present yourself as impartial. If anything, you act like you're so deep in the company's pocket as it to be laughable. So that's why it's such a joke. It's like no one can actually think you're a show because it's so transparent. It's so transparent. Yeah. I don't honestly don't care if you buy it or not it's going up on my machine and that's all I care about and it is trending up because they are selling like cold ice cream in St. Petersburg Florida 10 o'clock at night I know you if I knew that guy's name I'd be all Phil Collins in his ass I see you there saw you with my own two eyes alright also trending up this week oh this is a big trend Extendo Trendio that was a reference to a pinball It was pinball walls, y'all. They're all the trend right now. Have you ever seen a pinball wall? Nope. It's when somebody as beautiful and wonderful as intelligent and awesome as Johan Lunden from overseas, he created this decal to the entirety of his game room walls, filled it up with this collage of awesomeness and pinball, and it was beautiful. But I trended up because he put some A-list pinball people on there. I mean, fantastic pinball people. You ever heard of Steve Ritchie? Yeah, I might have. The Flow King. He was up there. Had a face of him. Steve prefers to be referred to as the Pinball King, by the way. Slow down there, Steve. That's a big king. We'll give you the Flow for now. No, he thinks he's earned the Pinball King because at all his titles combined, he is the greatest selling designer of all time. They don't release numbers anymore, so it's hard to say. Sorry, Steve-O. What about Dennis Nordman? He was up there, also known as the Ramp King. I mean, you can't... I've never heard that title bestowed on him before. You can't scoff there. The Ramp King, we have the Flow King. Holy shit. In comes the BMX biker himself, Borgie, the Bash King. That's fair. We got royalty here, people. The Flow King, the Ramp King, the Bash King. That was it, right? Or was there another designer? No? Was there anybody else listed? Yeah, there was one person. Owen? The third Flipper King? Wasn't even Owen. He didn't even make the list. Didn't make the cut. Guess who it was, ladies and gentlemen? Journey Out This Week is the Topper King himself! Mwah! Me! I made it. My beautiful face. See, I've been up too long. My beautiful face. Oh, that's creepy. So creepy. I loved it. Loved it. I wanted it bigger. I don't want to be on it. That's creepy. Almost was perfect because Four Heads, Mount Rushmore. I'm not saying Mount Rushmore and pinball. You just did. But I was up there. Your ego can't take this. This was a mistake. It took it and it loved it. I'm going to have to write to Mr. Johan. Num, num. Don't mess with the Johan. Love you, yo-yo. We can get him a Scott Danesi sticker. He's pronounced Johan, so it would be Jojo. Thank you very much. No, I met Johan at a show, but no other celebrity designers up there. No, it was just little old media Zach by himself. Twippy's my ass. I don't give a shit about no Twippy. Crystal, keep it. I'm on the pinball wall, y'all. Stern Pinball, you guys know my email. If you want me a couple rough CAD designs, I'll send them over if you guys are interested. Or if you guys want to win some more hardware, bring me on board. All's turning up this week is my man Ken Cromwell Love me some Crommy You know why he's turning up this week Dennis? Because he's friendly Rookie of the year award In the fourth annual Twippy Awards this year Ladies and gentlemen Rookie of the year Ken Ken Ken It's your day Kenny And we're not nicely done there With all your media expertise expertise. Please tell me you're at least smiling, Dennis. No, nothing? My head is in my palm. Dindy couldn't muster, Dindy couldn't muster, he couldn't muster up a congratulatory message, but I will. Usually I say, easy, easy, easy, but this week I say, Ashley Dunn, King Cromwell. Man, Ray Day, too. I would trend up Ray Day He was right there It's like Sophie's Choice You know, Ken Cromwell, you go Ray Day What are you going to do? Kill them both! No, you keep them both I'm going to give credit to Ken Cromwell Ladies and gentlemen, Ken Cromwell I'm going to give you one prime example of why Ken Cromwell Is so deserved of any award For a Rookie of the Year And that is simply put Guess who comprised, edited And filmed that thank you message From JJP and took no recognition for it. Pray day? Ken motherfucking Cromwell. Mike, fully drop there, Ken. Nicely done, buddy. Unfortunately, what goes up comes trickling down. Turning down this week, pinball is a fickle market. Quote. Dennis Griesel. Fickle beast, whatever. It's a t-shirt. We're working on it. Fickle market. Yeah, you're working real hard on it. Pirates of the Caribbean, Ellie. You guys thought they were $30,000. Get the boogie. They're not anymore. No one thought that. They're not. Man, they've plummeted kind of. Don't spend $30,000. Don't spend $20,000. Like, they're down. Down really low. I knew it was going to happen. You're talking about the possibility of rerunning it at some point. Maybe it's not off the table. There they go. Also trending down this week is me. Shit, I'm trending up on the Topper King thing. Hey, it's a fickle market we're in. One minute I'm up, next minute I'm down. Remember? Inverted, little miniature banana, chiquino. Me, I'm trending down because I'm eating crow. Nom, nom, nom, nom. Just a little bit, though. I'm eating crow on Quicksilver. Go ahead. Yeah, okay. Look how smug these fuckers are, Dennis. Driving their cars. and yeah, he said that was overrated and most overrated. Oh, look, I was a little wrong. I was able to play Schmitty's fully restored Quicksilver this last two weeks ago. Woo-hoo-hoo. Not a bad game. Not a bad game. Was that maybe just because I had the opportunity to play a brand new one, Dennis? You think maybe? That probably helped. Sure did, because I'm still not conceding to the fact that this drop target bang is a sweepable. Who gives a shit? It's design-wise in the wrong position. You got it way too close. But it's just you get excited over RGB LEDs still. I sure do. Like a child. I do. And I like spinners. Which is not something QuickTro Silver is known for. It's got that funky old side spinner. So I'm still – I'm not eating crow. I'm just sucking on his toe. You know what I'm saying? Ever sucked on a crow toe? Came off the top of my head. Sounds dirty. It's terrible. and I'm going to tell you, cut it because it makes no sense. I love it though. It makes no sense. Quicksilver. Don't let the people hear that. They're going to think that you don't know what you're talking about. Keep the illusion. Quicksilver's pretty good. It's pretty good. It's all right. Maybe it's because I'm playing... And the other one, because I'm eating crow on... I always shit on the Eagles. Poor Eagles. I always shit on that band. Yeah, they're hurting real bad with all their multi-successful albums. Hotel California is the biggest piece of shit I've ever heard in my life. I don't like the Eagles, but I was a little bit wrong. Stumbled upon a song that I fell in love with that I knew, but I didn't know it was the Eagles. Oh shit, it's like the heart thing again. So I was wrong. Turning Down is Me. You know what song that was? I guess, Dennis. Seven Bridges Road. Which they didn't write, but their version's the famous one. I'm familiar with that one. But no, and do me a solid, Dennis. I haven't sang for so long. Nobody's mentioning him in their podcast. We got top three in the awards. Can I sing just like a chorus of it? Okay A little chorus Really? Yeah Go ahead Oh shit I'm taking vids Ladies and gentlemen I didn't think he was going to say yes here Shit I'm not even prepared Okay Fuck now I'm all shy I like how you cleared your throat Like it'll help I'm all shy though now Okay It's so quaint Man You just sprung this on me like this Okay You want to get out your tuning fork? Maybe make sure you've got a C note. Alright, I'm ready. Sorry, that's it. Sorry. Yeah, I could actually tell what it was. What a lovely song by the Eagles. Love that song. They're a really good band. I don't know why you hate those songs. Generally, they suck. My voice is out. Don't judge me. I wonder if that will be the JJP sequel to GNR. It would be Eagles. You know what? If they just put that on a loop repeat, I'm okay with it. Get ready for ultra copyright strikes, though. I hear that their label is super aggressive. Are they? That's good. I hope nobody touches that stinky-ass IP. Except for that song. I just can't tell you why, but I love that song. save a buck or two and the pinball shows pinball market trends deals up that week that's pretty weak deals of the week this week we got two le's full flex that was my boobs guardians of the galaxy le by jam win out of marietta georgia on pin side g-o-t-g-l-e a lot of mods nicely done 8500 oboe i list this one because i kind of want this Anybody in Marietta willing to Get me this pin Prefer a local deal careful now I gave you a deal of the week He just said preferred he didn't say It's a mandate I know Shipping but the buyer is responsible for I don't want to call STI Oh well yes As a buyer that's your obligation come on Can't you drive It to me yeah and my Corolla That'll fit real well strap it to the Top I don't care I'll take a chance This is a pin that I've been looking for And kind of a trendy pin right now Guardians of the Galaxy They're no longer making the premiums Far removed from the LEs for sure A lot of people missing that Solid game One of those I think are just going to go down As just a very solid classic Modern Stern pinball machine $8,500 Oboe Now it does have some of the rippling clear coat But got you covered He's adding a brand new replacement playfield Free of charge This is a deal Sign me up. Bye, bye, bye. Hey, Jamwin, if you want to hang out with Topper King, get at me, bro. Also, another deal of the week this week, ACDC Let There Be Rock Edition. You never see these pop up. And for a cheap price, $79.50. Yep, Jack's Pinball outside of Jacksonville, Florida. Selling a very lightly used LEACDC Let There Be Rock. That bad glass alone, mirror, child. And that lower play field? Yeah, you can go Tony all up on it and pick the song, which we don't know. Yeah, I can't remember what song it was. But if you like ACDC, I think this is back in black with this one. That's tricky. They're both awesome. It does have a little bitty blemish on the right decal. It's a decal, people. It's fine. it's getting harder and harder to find let there be rock editions of ACDC and that 79.50 in my opinion probably leaving a little bit of money on the table even bye bye bye and ladies and gentlemen for deals of the what the fuck's going on there what the fuck is going on this week we've got I'm looking at my data here oh nice to hear there's no deals of the week besides one that son of a bitch at the ice cream shop that was tasting multiple tastes. There's 40 people! Shove that rocky road right up your arsehole. What flavor did he end up getting? I couldn't tell. I really wanted it for the show. I was going to ask him, especially after he dropped it. Stuck with the same flavor second time around. Didn't deserve it. It looked mocha-y. Not a chocolate, but a tan of some type. Maybe it was a praline. Frickin' praline weirdo. all those flavors, and you pick a nut. One of those guys. I don't know what it was. I almost wanted to trip him. Am I a bad person? I just thought the irony of tripping him on the second one. That's the only... Maybe. Maybe, that sounds... Yeah, I'm glad you didn't. Is that rude? That would have been mean. What if I would have given him a scoff, like a... Whenever he got a new one and didn't pay for it. One of those. Yeah, that would have been all right. Ladies and gentlemen, that was your pinball show. Pinball! Oh, market trends. Only on TPN. All right, Dennis, let's close down this sumbiscuit. Where are you going to be from now until then? I'm just shortening it so much now. Tell us your email. It's probably already Monday by the time we're done recording. Oh. So, yeah, eclecticgamerspodcast.gmail.com. People can always email over there, even about this show, and I'll read it and maybe respond. Or Facebook.com slash Eclectic Gamers Podcast. You can always message through that venue. Very nice. So we're going to taste test correspondent. You're going cause. I'm going Dr. John. We'll have to find out. My protege, Craig Bobby, no way. He's very considerate. Why would a Canadian even buy ice cream? It's so cold up there. They're considerate. What do they buy? What's hot? Chili? I think they eat a lot of chili up there. Probably their syrup when they put it on their waffles. Oh, my wife this last week had lobster bisque for the first time. She loved it. Okay. She loved it. How is that the first time she's had lobster bisque? She always just turns the nose at the look of it and smell of it. Loved it. Went back and got another bowl the next day. It was a good lobster bisque. I'm going to give... Well, maybe she doesn't like frozen lobster since you were on the coast. I just thought the name of the restaurant was corny. It was an Italian restaurant, but it was by the beach in a nice fancy hotel. It was called, instead of Linguini, it was called Seguini. See what they did there? Kind of turned me on. Yes. And I did have a drink because I wanted to fit in with all the cool kids and get kind of tipsy with my wife. And I drank something, and I swear to God I will not drink again another year. What are you known for here, maitre d'? What are you known for here, waiter? Oh, we do this drink. I'm not even going to give it away right now. But I've read the ingredients, Dennis, and it had maple syrup in it. I was down. Sign me up. If I can get drunk off something that tastes like syrup, yes, please. He came out and it had a little cap on top of it because it had smoke in it. Smoke. Real smoke. It's called old-fashioned. An old-fashioned. Old-fashions don't have syrup in them by default. I tasted no syrup at all. I tasted no syrup. All I tasted was whiskey. I have to look. Old-fashioned is a really old recipe, hence the name. It just tastes like bourbon. I thought that there's nothing fancy. Why is the smoke even in here? Old-fashioned cocktail, muddling sugar with bitters and water and adding whiskey. Oh, you know what it tasted like? The smell of an old-fashioned man. Who wants that in their throat? Old-fashions became popular a few years ago. Everyone thought that it made them sound sophisticated, and I think they kind of pissed bartenders off with the drink. I'm surprised that they brought that. I mean, they could have a modified version, I suppose, where there was some sort of maple syrup in it, but I don't know if that could save it. It was disgusting. Oh. Well, it doesn't sound very good. I hate alcohol. God, I hate alcohol. You know, one of my, though it wouldn't have been appropriate at an Italian restaurant, but I like mojitos. You know, I could see you as a mojito kind of guy. Still got a little bite to it, but still a little flair. It's because of the lime. Yeah. I can see, I hate them all. so yeah mojito i'm more of a you gotta fruit it up for me like i'm daiquiri or nothing i guess oh pina colada yeah i don't like coconut i don't i don't want to taste oh you're one of those i don't want to taste the beach no yeah i don't want to step on sand i rub that on my skin i do not drink that yeah so i don't know i just chug beer just to just to get drunk i hate alcohol unless I'm hanging out with JJ from Game Exchange at Chicago Expo. Whoa, TPF. And we're taking some shits. And speaking of, don't buy from JJ at Game Exchange. Buy from me, Zach, at Flip N Out Pinball. Our pinball machine showcase is award-winning Avengers Pro. I heard it's got one of the best layouts and designs this year. I don't know, two independent awards ceremonies claimed that to be. Best rules? It's Avengers. we also have Stranger Things Pro and Stock Avengers TMNT Pro, TMNT Premium Led Zeppelin Pro, Hot Wheels what's the next turn? better get on the list armors, banners you name it, if you want that Stranger Things topper you've called it around, people said we were out well, I may have held some for you guys, gotta like gotta follow, gotta subscribe and then we'll get you on that list, may take a while get you on that second round reach me at 812-457-9711 Warner, email me at Zach, Z-A-C-H, at, say it with me, flip the letter N, out, pinball.com. And watch Straight Down the Middle. I heard it's pretty good. TPN last week, I was on vacation. I don't know. Well, we should have, this week, a new Silver Brawl Chronicles, though. Oh, yeah. They say who they're covering yet? Not that I'm aware of. Oh, it's a good one. We were talking about him this week. For Dennis Creasel. I am Zach the Topper King Mini. And always remember to ask for at least three samples whenever you're anywhere important. And always practice safe ice cream eating. And don't be the taste tester if there's anyone, not much less 40 people. If there's one person behind you, don't taste test up. So long, everybody. I can't tell you why. I can't believe they reinforced by giving the, it was his fucking fault that he dropped the ice cream. What do you mean by self fault? Besides his, I know what you wanted. You want him not only have to pay for it, but then just send him to the back. Oh my gosh. Yes. Now that would have been, I would have tipped a hundred dollars. Nothing's wrong as far as I can see We make it harder than it has to be And I can't tell you why No, baby, I can't tell you why I can't tell you why Thank you.