Sometimes we're funny, sometimes we suck. Got a lot to say, but I'm not a bad guy. This program contains dirty potty mouth, cause we like to swear. Hey! The following is an Assholk Radio production. Welcome to the super awesome pinball show. With your host, pinball artist Christopher Franchi and Dr. Vinny Estelle Christian Lines. Sponsored by Cointaker.com, Chicago-Gaming.com, and BackAlleyCreations.com. Welcome to the super awesome pinball show. Hello all you pinball rock stars out there and welcome to episode number 23 of the new and improved Super Awesome Pinball Show. This episode we present is part one of our State of Pinball interview with Mr. Roger Sharp. Including a pinball celebrity packed game show, we also discuss the Pinball Hall of Fame's financial troubles, plus Christian and I's past few weeks in pinball. All of this and more on your favorite pinball podcast, the Super Awesome Pinball Show. All right, welcome everybody to episode 23. Thank you again to David Fix and Dennis Nordman from American Pinball for coming on the show last episode. That was an awesome interview. They dropped a lot of good info. And man, that got a lot of comments from the other people out there in the podcast world. I can tell you that it's obvious that he's excited. He's very confident about what's coming up from American Pinball. The biggest comments I think that we got were from people who weren't crazy about what he was saying about other podcasters. They were saying that you have to be in the industry for five years or have been around back when games were significantly cheaper to be an authority on things. But listen, while this sounded like an overgeneralization and like he was taking shots at everybody out there, it was definitely just geared towards one dude. So, yeah, it was. He wasn't commenting on anyone else. I talked to David today and I said, we're going to record the show in about two hours. Is there any one way to pass on? He said, yes, that the podcaster remarks, he said he kind of got a little long-winded in that, but they were all directed at a particular podcaster. And since he didn't mention that podcaster, I'm not going to say it now, but any of the people who I heard complain about it, it wasn't you. Right, yeah. So, yeah, and I think everybody knows who it was. And also, a lot of people were remarking about him cutting down American Pinball's product by saying, he's talking shit about Houdini, he's talking shit about Oktoberfest, and they're still for sale. And he said, that's right, I did. And those comments were deserved. The problems that we had with them, it was justified in him saying so. But he also said that the problems were corrected. So he didn't continue to dog them other than the problems that everybody has had with them by saying, you know, a lot of the people don't like the artwork on either one of them, really, but more so on Oktoberfest. And I think he acknowledged that he knew people had said that. He wasn't saying, yeah, it all sucks. But anyway, he wanted to pass along an apology to anybody who was offended by his podcaster remarks. He did not intend to offend anyone that it wasn't directed towards. And listen, I respect the guy for pointing out flaws in their previous strategy. The whole reason he was on the show was to present their new approach going forward and how they appreciate the things that they've done maybe not awesomely in the past and how they're going to fix them. So I understand why he did it. I don't think he was just trying to bash American Pinball. He's trying to say, here's the issues and here's how we're going to address them moving forward. Yeah, you can't fix something if you don't recognize what's broken. Right. He's just, he's recognizing the problem and you have to do that. You know, you're not going to get better. You're not going to grow. Nothing's going to get improved if you don't recognize that. And that's really all he was doing. He felt pretty bad about, you know, some people getting, you know, offended by what he said. But all in all, he stands by what he said as far as the product and what they're planning on doing to move forward and to make a better product and build a better machine. So. I agree. Also, David Fix was awesome enough to give us a Houdini Translate to give away, and all you have to do is answer this simple trivia question. All right, so the trivia question is, what is the official name of the Hot Wheels Collectors Club? If you know that answer, enter by sending your answer to superawesomepinball at gmail.com, and we'll select one random name out of everyone who answers that correctly. And we're also accepting bribes. Always. And I'll sign the Translate, even though I didn't draw it. Let's move into what's happening for this episode, because we have a pretty awesome episode. We have Roger Sharp with us, and he is going to tell us all about licensing. But before we get into that, let's crack into our last two weeks in pinball. And I think you've got someone special to announce that this week. That's right. Take it away, Juliet. And now it is time for our portion of keep your last two weeks in the pinball. Ooh, very pinch-wee-wee. Who the hell was that? How did you get that? That was Juliet, and she is our first in a series of international intros, for lack of a better term, but that's not so bad. I just got sick of hearing my own voice, so I decided to use the text-to-voice features with the miracle of the Internet. I love that. So every week we'll have somebody different come in and intro our weeks in pinball. You know, there's some amazing voices you can do. head-to-head had a contest when they used to do their show and one of the contests was do your best yoda impression so i actually went online and found a text-to-speech yoda it was literally perfect i sent it in they're like how the hell did you do that that's amazing of course i was ineligible because i didn't really do it but oh yeah what was your last week's like not a whole lot of pinball action going on my my beatles is actually still flipped up the place feels flipped up and I have not called Stern. I've just been too busy. Yeah, the pinball stuff going on in my life right now for the past couple of weeks has been really a lot of stuff I can't talk about, with the exception that I got today in the mail my new 2020 Twippy Awards metal coffee mug thing. I saw that. Where did you get that? Do you have that made or was that sent to you? It's on the Silver Ball Swag site. You can get Twippy stuff. They got a shirt, a mug, and hat maybe or something. They just have a couple of things, but the mug looked interesting. It's really small, though, actually. It's more like a teacup than a coffee cup. I'd have to set my Keurig on like eight ounces for this bad boy. Yeah, that's no good. You've got to get the big one. Yeah, so I just put it up on the little shelf of collectibles and things. It's fun. But, yeah, so still got to attend to the Beatles and get that taken care of. I got my Stern books in the mail. Ah, the paper flock books. Dude, I got them as well. I got in at the last minute and got it. Damien and Joe were nice enough to send it out. So I don't know if we got special preference because we had them on the show, but I'll take it because the book is really nice. You got the limited edition, though, right? I got the limited, and then I got the basic one. But, see, I can't figure out what's going on because I got the slash cover, split cover. Now, you designed that, right? You did the concept for that. Yeah, I just came up with the concept for it. I didn't illustrate it, and one of the problems with my review of this book, which I'll get to in a minute, is that there's no credit for the artist. I have no idea who drew my design. I would have liked to know. It's nice artwork, but I couldn't find it. Not in the book. So neither is Zombie Yeti. He did the cover for the mid-tier book, the limited edition one, and he got no credit anywhere. No signature on the front cover. I don't know what's going on there. But anyway, so what I did, since the only difference between the Slash book and the regular book is the dust jacket, I put the dust jacket on the low-end version of the book. Okay. Because for some reason, both of my books were signed, and only the mid-tier one was supposed to. The basic model should not have been signed, but it was. Not that I'm complaining. So I just put the Slash cover on the one. So now I have the limited and the Slash version and a spare regular version cover. Well, that's cool, man, to have two. That's how I work this shit. So I just got to get Slash to sign it, so then it'll be cool and stuff. But, yeah, you know, you've had a chance to take a look at it and so have I. Not super in-depth, but sadly, I do have a couple of complaints. Well, why don't you focus on the good? Let me hear the good stuff. Focus on the good? Both my books are signed. I thought it was a nice book, man. I'm enjoying reading it. I flipped through it a few times. I haven't gotten through the whole thing, but into my basement, I read a few pages every time I come down. I really enjoy it and not blast through it too quickly. But the paper, I think, is really good quality. The pins are well photographed. If you got the limited edition one with the slash artwork on the cover, it's beautiful and something you could definitely display. I think there are a couple of issues with how they presented every game, but I really liked the stories and the overview of CERN at the beginning of the book. And they went through how to create a pinball machine with a ton of different photos showing the different steps of the process, which was really neat. And I liked the color photos that they put in of the games because they showed different angles. They put in some fun facts. They put in a few other, you know, some information you might not have known about the game. But there was one glaring thing that was missing, and you brought this up, and you're 100% correct. Yeah, okay. So my problems with it, I didn't feel that the profiles were very extensive. They just got like George Gomez, Steve Ritchie, John Borg, Lonnie Roth, Dwight Sullivan. They didn't feature anybody in the programming area. They didn't even feature Greg Ferrer. Greg Ferrer is the art director there. Him and Steven, and now they have a new guy there, I don't know his name, do a ton of work for that company. They didn't get mentioned at all. There was a page about the artist, which I was surprised about. And it's just sort of a general bunch of paragraphs. It starts off with the early days, and the last half of it is Donnie and Jeremy and myself. So that was nice to get in there for that. But here's the problems that I have with the book. When I flip open to a layout for a particular game, to me, it reminds me of when you watch, like, those FBI shows, like CSI or anything like that, when they show the FBI wall with all the photos and the strings and the different things attached to it, this big mess of shit. That's what the layouts look like to me. It's just kind of busy for me. And one glaring omission is there are no credits for any of the games. You have no idea who designed it, who did the art, who did the programming, nothing. And that is key information. That's something that a lot of pinball people want to know. Any pinball fan, especially people who want to learn more about the games and the history of Stern, are going to want to know who designed every game, who did the art, who did the coding, at least. I was discovering a lot of games that I had never seen before in person, and I'm like, wow, who did this? Well, I have no idea because it's not in the book. It should have been there. That's a big swing and a miss. And one of the first games I went to was the Data East 89 Batman of the Michael Keaton, Jack Nicholson Batman movie game. And under the list of what the game contains, it said Pop Bumpers 1. And there's three in that game because I own it. But when I looked at the top down shot of the play field, you couldn't quite see the other two completely. You could just see the Pop Bumper cap sticking out from underneath a ramp. So when they had the game in front of them, they didn't take notes on what was there. They're just looking at the photos afterwards and trying to figure out what was there. So if anything else was hidden on any other games, didn't get in the list. So, you know, I don't want to poop on it. I know we had these guys on the show, but, you know, after getting it, there was only a couple of times I'm like, oh, cool. And the rest of the time I'm like, what the hell, you know? The fun facts to me are facts that everybody already knows. You know, a couple of them are interesting, but a lot of them are real basic. As we discovered later in the show, one of the answers to one of the trivia questions, so we don't spoil it, let's just say a major musician had a role in recording music for a game, and that wasn't even mentioned on that game. And this is a big-time musician in a big-time band. Right. It wasn't even mentioned. So I haven't gotten through the book. I just kind of skimmed it. So my review is kind of shoddy, I'll admit. So hopefully I'll have some nicer things to say after I can get through a little bit more. But those were my big beefs with it. I was really, really surprised there were no credits on who made the game. There's no excuse for that. That should have been there. No, I agree with that point. I think if you take it for what it is, which is a picture book, essentially, of all of the Stern games that have been made, I think you look at it a little bit more critically because you're an artist, so you have your own idea about what is pleasing to the eye that they probably didn't do in terms of layout and that sort of thing. But for my untrained eye, I think it looks good. It's a little bit crazy, a little bit scatterbrained on the page, but that's cool to me. I like exploring it and seeing what's on there. I did like the overview of all of the people who work there, although you're right, it's not as extensive as you would want from a book that was supposed to be all-encompassing of the company. It doesn't really go into a lot of the personal stories and that sort of thing that you would hope were there, and that even more so is evident on the game pages, because they are really pretty pictures of all of the games, but that's really all it is. It's not like an in-depth dive into each game. You don't really have a section of backstories behind the games. It's just basically pictures. So more information on each game, I think, would be really, really nice to have. But if you take it for what it is, I think it's better than a lot of books out there. It does fill a niche. You know, there aren't other books, a ton of other books out there like this. I always kept in the back of my head that this book is a celebration of 35 years of Stern. So it's not just a fun picture book. You know, this is information that should have been represented in a book that is an anniversary, a celebration of a company. You know, a company is the people. The people make the company. So, like I said, there's just really no excuse for not having that information. I know it was kind of a big disappointment. If they came out with version two and they added all that stuff into it, would you think this would be the all-encompassing Stern book? Or are there other things that you think are missing? The Ruby Slippers edition? Right, exactly. The Gold Dream edition? Yes. I'd be pissed if I had to buy it again. just to get the information it should have had. It's like buying a car without wheels and then go, well, now we have it with wheels. I'm like, well, now I've got to sell the one I have with no wheels to get the one with wheels. Everyone wants the one with wheels. Yeah, digital content. Make a database. But then again, see, that's still not good enough because I can go to the Internet pinball database and get this information. I would have liked to have had it all in one on my lap while I'm sitting on the couch. I don't have to look at a damn computer screen like I'm already doing all day and just discover this stuff as I flip through the pages. You know, oh, that's a cool game. Who did this? Oh, you know, John Borg. Nice. Okay. You know, just who did the art for this? I mean, I'm always interested in art. That was one of my big appeals to pinball, you know, when I was a kid growing up and getting sucked into it was the artwork. So, I mean, to be able to see all these games and all this great art and not have any idea who did it. Trust me, the cover. There's a credit for the cover art, and it's one of the paper flock guys. and I think he must have designed the base model, but it's the same credit in all three books. So he's basically getting credit for Jeremy's art and this other guy who did the splash art. Yeah. Even though they do, you know, it should have at least been, I understand you can't print it in the book if there's three different covers, or you could have done version whatever cover by this guy, but on the flaps of the dust jacket, they could have put the artist's name there that pertained to that particular cover. That would have been the smartest thing to do, but so I don't know. Well, I will say you're absolutely right. You know, credit where credit is due, both on the game and for the book itself. But the accessories, I don't know if you got the poster that comes with this. That was nice. It kind of showed all of the different games. And there was a set of pins that I got as well that had some cool games on them. If you order those, you're going to be happy. They're very cool. Yeah, I didn't get the pins, but I got two posters and I got two T-shirts. So if somebody wants a T-shirt, I got an extra. So 3X if you're a 3X. have at it. Nice. I've got two free X's if you have it, because it's not my size. I've got two to give away, really. Well, that's paper block. Some good, some bad. Hopefully you'll get your book, and people out there who get it will be happy. But there's definitely some issues. What else, man? There's nothing else going on for me. Why don't we get to the bright, sunny, shiny, delightful past that you've had. You've got, like, what, eight more legs in your basement now, you bastard? Yeah. I did get a few new pinball machines. You heard about Jurassic Park. That is here. That's beautiful. I'm happy. I'm really happy I bought it. Elwin is a genius. But I had to make a couple of tweaks on that, man, to make it play right. The left ramp wasn't registering the ball with really fast shots, so I had to kind of stent the opto switch behind the ramp a little bit so it was connecting with the other receiver. I had to mess with the ramp on the Raptor Tower as well. It's actually the wire form that goes into the ramp because it kept clunking into the wire form as it went up, and it would just brick all of the shots that I hit up there. And I took the roof off, and I looked in there, and the wire form was actually put in wrong. The ends of the wire form that were supposed to take the ball to the left flipper were underneath where they should have gone, so they were actually in the ramp, like, you know, at the top of the ramp. So as the ball came up, it would just connect with those and just brick out. So I loosened that, I pulled it out, I moved it up, and it's like, it shoots like butter now. But if you're bricking that shot, I would take the roof off of your tower and make sure that it's assembled correctly, because I've heard a lot of people complain that they can't hit that with any accuracy. So that could be an issue. And then Chris Marquette called January 5th. He called and said that he got a Led Zeppelin Pro. So I went out there and checked that out. Got to play, you know, 10 to 12 games on that, I would say. And it was better than I thought. You know, looking at the game on stream, it doesn't look like my cup of tea because it's just kind of, you know, the world under glass factor isn't necessarily there. but playing it and hearing the music and seeing the video clips and getting into the rules a little bit with Chris when we were there, I left feeling like it was fun. You know, it was a fun game. It's definitely got lots of flow, but it's not, you know, an on-the-fly shooter as I expected. So the first thing I saw when I went there was the art. The play field, like, I still enjoy. I still think it looks good. But the cabinet was a bit of a shock because of how different it is from everything else that's in that lineup. But it actually was kind of different in a good way because it just stands out a little bit. You know, it's got the Bugs Bunny birthday bash stuff going on, but it still looks okay in a lineup, and it's different from everything else. So if you like that, and it's not just going to get shoved into a lineup, it does stand out. That's the Led's Up in One album cover with the Hindenburg? No, it's the white one. The one with all the weird colored little squares and chunks of random shit? Yes. Oh, okay. I thought that was the premium. No, that was the pro, and the premium was the blimp, with the black and white almost. Okay. Dude, the lower half of the playfield in the Pro is so wide open. I was on FaceTime with you, and I just kind of took the phone from the base of the game, and I just tracked it up. And there is a lot of open space there that on the Pro is very noticeable. On the Premium and the LE, I think it's going to be a little bit better because you have that electric magic thing that comes up from the middle of the playfield. And then there's a section in the back right of the game that's pretty wide open, and there's like a diverter back there that just kind of stands out. But outside of that, it's a good-looking playfield. The World Under Glass, I don't know if it's quite there, but the blimp looks cool. The Icarus guy, who we thought would be completely annoying jumping up and down, actually didn't. Didn't annoy because it didn't get hit that often. I know it was. It kind of. Yeah, it kind of did. It kind of did. Yeah. The sound was great, dude. And one thing that I really will say that I loved about it was that when you start the game, the song kicks in, whatever song you pick. And it just plays. Like, everything else that's going on in the background is there to add to the song, but it goes from start to finish, the whole song. It's not like Guns, where you have to start a song mode to actually hear the music. So that was really cool. And once that one song ended, you would just kick into the next song. So if you're a Led Zeppelin fan, it's definitely positive, I would say, just because you can hear the music throughout the entire game. Yeah. And it's one for the ladies, too. I mean, if you're into Mangina, I mean, there's all over the place. So anyway, man. On the whole, pretty much what I expected, you know. I agree. Preparation H does feel good on the whole. On the flip, when Chris and I walked away, you know, we said that it was just fun to play. So that's pretty much everything that you want. All the other, you know, drama is secondary. If you're a fan of Led Zeppelin, you're going to like this game. Okay, move on. You got more. I'm looking at the list here. More delights for Dr. Pin. Oh, Jesus. All right, yeah, well, this last Sunday was pretty damn incredible, man. I got my second COVID shot, very minor sore arm afterwards, and pretty tired the following night. I passed out around 8.30, but no other side effects. So when it's available to you, please get vaccinated, get some normalcy back into our lives and into pinball. The two that are most prevalent out there right now are Pfizer and Moderna, and they are two shots, three weeks apart. That sounds like some 70s band with two guys with big beards. Pfizer and Moderna? Yeah. Please welcome to the stage. Yeah, so it wasn't... You sound like they were strippers. Please welcome to the stage Weiser Ladies, get out your pocket change for Weiser So anyway, when I got home from the vaccine Chris Marquette and Zach from Cointaker were already in my basement They were setting up my GNR LE Number 698 is in the house Dr. Pim Dr. Pim Dr. Pim Oh man, this game is so damn sexy The speakers that come with the LE sound great but we hooked up a subwoofer and a Bose soundbar. We turned them, you know, all the way up. I probably have hearing loss, but holy crap, the house was rocking, man. And if you're playing this game on a location where the sound isn't up or the lights aren't dark enough that you can really appreciate the light show, you really haven't played the game because it's kind of like a religious experience when you have all of those things coming together. Can't recommend this game enough. It's so awesome. But yeah, man, I'm getting used to it and getting used to the rules. If you guys who have had it for a while are giving you pointers on how to play it. On the surface, it's pretty easy to learn. Like, you just collect the band members, and then you start a song. But there's so many layers to it. You know, there's patches, and there's, you know, getting the multi-balls so that you can get your score up before you go into the song, and, you know, mini wizard modes and all this stuff. So it's a great game. It's a great home game. If you're getting your LE or your CE anytime soon, you will be very happy. Yeah. I'm going to come over and play it. Oh, yeah, dude. Get over here. I'll be there in eight hours. Okay. Hold dinner for me. That was my two weeks. I have... Well, no, there's one other thing. You called me with a surprise yesterday. Oh, yeah, I did. There have been some pretty cool things going on. So not only is the Powerball and the Mega Millions lottery through the roof, so I hope you bought a ticket for the $750 million. There's another raffle that is going on on the Pinball Enthusiast page. It's Joe Fox, who is a good friend of the show, a good buddy of ours. He is raffling off his Avengers Pro, which is completely pimped out with pinch stadiums and a topper and fully powder-coated side rails and armor, the arc blades. But he sold 69 spots for $100 each, and he is going to raffle it off on Wednesday. And it's tied into the Powerball. And just after this recording, we already found out that we lost. And you have a spot. You're number 66, and I'm number 47. So hopefully our Power Balls come up and we get some new pinball machines. Yeah. Well, you know, if those don't come up, if you get the other Power Balls, we can just buy, well, I mean, not we, you can buy shit tons of pinball machines with $700 million. Yeah, buddy. I'll buy you an Avengers. That is definitely for sure. You will get an Avengers. I'll even throw in a topper. I don't even get to pick. no whatever game you want man what would you choose if you could if you won the lottery and you could pick you know whatever pinballs you wanted space obviously is the limitation oh what would you buy buy a new house so that i could fit more because i'm already out of space i'd have to narrow to like the top three and i could go on for an hour about all the games i'd buy if i had a you know a zillion dollars right i want a creature i want a twilight zone and i want an embryon Those would probably be the top of the list. So what's with Embryon? It's a wide body. Usually I don't dig wide bodies, but it's so – my favorite thing about it is it's got these flippers in the out lane, and you get one shot when the ball goes through there. If you flip it at just the right time, you can knock it into the in lane. But if you whiff or you shoot too early, you don't get another shot. You only get one flip at it. And to me, that's just so much fun. It's so different. They just don't do stuff like that anymore. And it's just kind of, it's not your typical game. It's really just kind of weird. But to me, it's a good kind of weird. It's like, if I wanted to have an example of a funky-ass pinball machine, I would choose this one, and that would fill my need for weird, funky-ass wide-body. Right. It's cool. I like the artwork. I like the theme. You know, it's just trying to strange. It's got this egg, this, like, transparent egg with a creature inside or something, and spacemen and stuff. It's just fun. It's just fun. I'm looking at it right now. Yeah, the play field. It almost has like an alien vibe to it. Yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely, which is cool because I like aliens. Oh, you know what? Four. I'm going to add Big Lebowski. Yeah, dude, that is a great game. Those are the four I'd buy if I won a million dollars. So, yeah, there are a bunch. Join the Pinball Enthusiasts page if you're listening because there are a ton of these raffles that are going up recently. There was one for a topper that you could get for, like, you choose your own topper of all, like, hard-to-find toppers out there for $11 an entry. So, you know, if you're rolling the dice a little bit. The Stern Pinball Enthusiast page? It's just Pinball Enthusiasts. And also, there's tons of Project Pinball raffles and other charity raffles that are going on out there, too. So don't forget about those. Those are obviously going to a much better cause. And those are about $50 to $100 each to enter. And they are for new in-box pinballs, so not even used ones. These are new pins. Why don't we go into the pinball news right now and we can talk about another charitable thing that is going on in pinball right now. So let's go to the news. All right. And now, pinball in the news with your super awesome eyewitness news crew. Don't fucking just read news off the internet, you fat piece of shit. Well, first up in the news, it's recently been going around Facebook that the Pinball Hall of Fame is in trouble. Now, they used to be off the strip in this crappy little building where everything was just like flipper button to flipper button and everything was jammed in there. And now they're building this sweet ass huge thing. It says it's on the strip, but the guy in the video took the camera outside and there's like airport hangers. Yeah, but it is on the strip. It's far, far. It's before you actually get to the casinos. At this point, I had become extremely curious as to whether I could get a sentence out without Christian talking over me. Damn that Dr. Penn. Yeah, I'm like, I was wondering. I'm like, he's on the strip. Like, how did he get real estate on the strip for anything reasonable? Like, that stuff's designated for, like, ballet or, like, well, just for the chunk of land alone, it's $10 billion. Oh, geez. So, yeah, I always wondered why. Well, that's why, because they're way, way at the end of the strip. Down last house on the left of the strip. Anyway, so apparently it's, like, a $10 million project, but they're $500,000 short. Now, the confusion here with me is that I went to the GoFundMe page, and they're asking for $200,000. So, where are they going to get the other $300,000? I don't think they said that they were totally out of cash, but they said they were running low. And I think they still have some left, but something like $500,000 in debt at this point with some money left to pay it off. So, maybe it's just $200,000. I mean, just, in air quotes, $200,000. He says if they don't pay up, they don't get in. They've already sold the other building, but they have to be out of it in May, which means they have to have access to the new building by May to get all the machines in there. Otherwise, they're going to have to find a place to put all that shit, and that's going to be a... Imagine having to move all that twice. Oh, God. Not a good thing. And not being able to generate cash. Yeah. The building looks cool. I'm still trying to figure out how to do this. What, just a coin drop? Because when you go to that place, you don't have to pay to get in. You just go in, but you've got to pay to play the games. But you're telling me that a building with, like, I don't know, 100 machines or anything, that somehow that generates enough to buy a $10 million building? Dude, they were saying that on their normal days, just from Coindrop, they're making $2,000 a day. So that's 8,000 quarters? Is that right? Yeah, 8,000 quarters that you would have to be collecting every day out of the machines. That just sounds like a freaking nightmare to me. That sucks. Yeah. That sounds like hell. But these guys, you know, they do it. They've got tons of arcade games, tons of pinball machines, and apparently no one's paid, man. And it's all volunteer. It's a not-for-profit. And they donate a ton of money to charities. So these guys are doing it for the love of pinball and not to get rich or anything like that. So I feel like you are. Yeah. Well, it wouldn't be in this problem. I feel like they knew that they were going to be okay. I'm sure they're not writing in the black, you know, for a lot of their lifetime. But when they have COVID hit, obviously, you can't factor that in. And I think they were going to be fine before COVID. And now they're just not bringing stuff in. That's what they said. Yeah. So they were probably counting. They're probably figuring $2,000 a day and how much are we going to get over the next year and put that into it. And then you take all that away because there was nobody going into that place. Vegas was shut down. And it pretty much still is a ghost town. So, yeah, all that money is lost. But that's why you don't bank on what you don't have. I mean, it's easy to say now. Yeah, man. They thought they had it. That's the thing. You can never be sure. But if you have some extra cash that you can donate, I know times are tough for everybody. But I saw a post on Facebook by a guy named Scott Elliott, who actually won one of our contests. But he's a good dude. He said, when replay effects folded, many people voiced that if they had just known they were in trouble, they would have helped out. And Tim Arnold is letting us know now. So he said, I need this to be there for when the world gets back to normal. And I think that's kind of how everyone else feels, too. So donate if you can. Help these guys out. Yeah, go check out the video, too. You get sort of a tour of the building and all of that. It's going to be something. The thing I really like about it is the high ceilings because heat rises. So you've got a high ceiling. All that heat can go way up there and you don't have to sweat your ass off, you know, in this little, you know, well, I shouldn't say little, big arcade full of machines, a lot of them EMs that are just churning it out to eat. That's one thing I remember when I was there two years ago was that that place was hot. So you've actually been there. I haven't been yet. Yeah, I went there. Very fun. I think it's the only place that has the elusive circus pinball, which is the pinball that goes up instead of across. That's right. Python Angelos. Yeah. And if you remember my favorite shot in pinball, the elephant shot on circus pinball. That's hilarious, man. So is that to get from the first to the second level? I think it's on the second level that takes you to the third level. Okay. It's kind of weird. It's hard to remember because it's so strangely laid out. It's not like you're imagining that Star Trek chess set that goes up six levels and there's square boards. It's all open, and there's just different tracks and things, and you've got to try and shoot stuff at the right time when it comes flying around. It's very unique. The challenge is to get to the end. It's not like a code that you have to beat. The goal is to get to the top of the thing, and then you've won, basically. You've got to kiss the ball. I never got there, so I don't know if the ball just comes back out and you've got to try again, but that's the goal of this game. It's not to rack up points. It's to try and complete the thing. One of the greatest novelties of pinball, and one of the games that was going to be remade, I don't know where it is in the process, but the same guys who were doing Mafia were working on getting that one done as well. And I haven't heard from them in a while. I heard a rumor. Oh, okay. It's a good place to sneak the rumor in. And this is going to be good news for a lot of people. It's not pinball, but it is amusement-related because I wanted one of these games. and I hear someone is going to be remaking Ice Cold Beer. No shit, because that's really hard to find. Yes, exactly. I can't say who. I'm not saying anything more than that, but that's what I hear. That's cool. A buddy of mine really wants one. He's looked all over, and he came up short. And they're pricey, too. They're going for like $4,500. Yeah, they're expensive. It's crazy, but definitely fun. All right, moving on. All right, and next up in the news, we've got a ton of award shows going on right now. And first, obviously, the Twippy voting has gone live. Chris and I both voted. I think we both want to put out there that while it's going to be amazing if we win it, the Twippies absolutely do not drive us to do this show like a few have said in the past. We love doing it because it's fun. We get to talk to the biggest names in pinball. So Chris and I are going to try and go drama-free as a New Year's resolution this year. We're not responding to posts. Anything that increases drama for our show or the hobby that we love, Chris and I are going to try and just enjoy every other podcast out there and enjoy creating pinball content for you guys. And we're looking forward to doing it. And we've got some big plans coming up. Outside of maybe one guy, we have nothing but love for every media member and podcast out there who loves pinball. Yeah, exactly. There's been some things that have been said about us recently. And I only want to address it enough to say that it's not true and it's unfounded, but we're not going to respond to everything. We're not going to respond to anything anymore. By doing so, we're not admitting guilt or not wanting to put up a fight or anything like that. We just don't want to deal with it. And, you know, as Christian said, we want to be drama-free. We want to enjoy the hobby. And doing that stuff just brings it down. And there's no need for it. Christian and I don't make a nickel for doing this show. We do it for the love of pinball. And when you have to deal with shit, it really chips away at why are we doing this. It's supposed to be fun. You know, we always said to each other, if it stops being fun, we're going to stop doing it. We want to have a good time with this hobby. I know you guys do too. So let's just move forward with positive vibes, have a good time, look forward to an exciting Trophy Awards show and celebrating everybody who wins. So if you're nominated, good luck. I cannot wait to check it out. It should be a good show. Got a Moto Harney and Jack Danger doing it. And it's virtual again this year, which is kind of a bummer. But hopefully next year we can get it back to TPF and do it up proper. Absolutely. All right. More award show information. Yes. This is positive stuff because there are some other really cool award shows coming. Should we talk about the one that we got nominated for? Yeah, that's definitely one of them. Let's talk about that next. So, yeah, we got nominated for the Pinball Industry Awards Podcasting Excellence or something like that. It's not a favorite. It's voted on by a group of people, not the public. And we got nominated for that. So that's cool. Yeah, it's really cool, man. By the time our next episode comes out, the show will have already aired, I believe. Yeah, because it's airing on the 28th. Yes. At 8 p.m. Central, 9 p.m. Eastern. Definitely an honor to be nominated. Yeah, I'm sure they'll have a lot of surprises. I don't really know what to expect from the show, but I'm looking forward to it. I've talked to Dennis and David Dennis and Zach offline about what they're doing, and it sounds like it's going to be a lot of fun. So tune into that, and thank you for the nomination. You know, it's awesome to be recognized, and there are some great people in the media who nominated us for it. So that's cool. And then the Virtual Pinball Awards is a new award show. So now there's three in the sandbox, the small sandbox of Pinball. But this is cool because it's all about virtual tables, which is not something you and I have talked much about. Yeah, well, I know one that's not going to win an award, and that's the one that I bought for my niece. What's that one, the graphics on it are the Gottlieb Haunted House, but there's like 12 games in it. Yeah, how is that? It's horrible? It'd be great if there wasn't a delay on the flippers. Like, you know, it's not a game in space. Why is there a delay? I mean, it's all self-contained, like a video game. You should hit the button and the flipper should go. But there's a little delay. This girl's like five years old, and I'm trying to get her into pinball. And how do I do that when the ball comes rolling down and she hits the button, and then because of the delay, the ball drains, rolls off the flipper and drains. I'm like, you've got to be kidding me. That's no fun. It was like $300, too. I'm like, you know, it's like a smaller scale. It's like one of those one-up arcade things, but it's not that brand. I forget who makes it. I'm glad you told me that because I would have bought that in a heartbeat. Like if I had seen that somewhere, I would have bought it and just brought it home to try and get my kids into it as well. Don't get this one. The flipper delay just spoils the whole fun. I mean, I spent $300 on this thing, and she played it for about two minutes, and she's like, I can't hit the ball. And I'm like, you know, I wasn't really kind of watching. I was watching her, and so I leaned over and I watched, and I'm like, wait a minute, and I'm putting the buttons. I'm like, well, there's a freaking delay on here. And she played it for like another 15 seconds and then just kind of walked away, and I'm like, oh, great. That's a heart-wrencher, man. Yeah. You know, for the actual tables that people buy and install into their homebrew virtual pinball tables at home, or even the VP cabs, like those are pretty cool. and there's some really cool original games and that sort of thing. So I'll be interested to check it out, and hopefully we'll get more details soon on when that is and what it's all about. But if the guy who made that virtual Harry Potter table doesn't win something, then it's a jam because that was amazing. I saw some guy, it was like just kind of going through YouTube one day, and I came across one, I was watching it, and it took me about a minute and a half to realize, and it was only because of something that he said, but I was watching a virtual pinball game. Dude, there are 4K tables now that are so good quality. And there's like depth to them, even though they're on a flat screen. Well, even so, the movements and all, you know, like just everything about it. I could have sworn I was watching a real pinball game. Have you seen the virtual reality tables? I mean, I know you played the one here in my house, but there are some that are like Monster Bash or Attack from Mars. I didn't play virtual reality. Didn't you play Jaws when you were here? No. On Pinball FX3? Pretty sure you did. Or at least Chris did when you were here with us. Oh, was that the, you guys had the goggles on the video game or something? Yeah, yeah. No, I didn't get in and invite me to play that. No, well, you've got to get in on that because it is cool. Oh, yeah, I'll be right over. Eight hours from now. I can't wait until they have virtual tables that have all of the greatest games, like the Twilight Zones and, you know, the Attack from Mars. Is that one, the one you're talking about with the jaws, is that the one where Captain Quinn's, like, sitting out at the upper left corner? Yeah. Okay, I've seen that played. I've not played it. It's more cartoony. It's not exactly a table that you would play realistically, but it's a fun game. But I would love to get recreations of actual tables and maybe even have a real table with haptic feedback and a plunger and a virtual reality headset that went with it I think that would be really cool So hopefully that coming But anyway I digress I bet you I probably throw up playing Dude I definitely would I played a virtual reality shooter the other day where I was jumping off of asteroids, and I was in a cold sweat, man. I had to take that off. I definitely came close to barfing. I do not do well with that shit. I'm probably going to throw up all over the place. I'm going to throw up in your headset. I'm going to throw up. Hold the headset down. Oh, no, man. Well, it had to go somewhere. Dude! Yeah, and second thought, don't come over and play my game. That sounds right. Invitation revoked. Sorry, Dracula, you can't come in. So anyway, yeah, and don't forget the fourth award show, which is the Reach Arounds by the Fun Around Football Podcast. Did you hear the show where the Puppet Pals were on? Yes. I think Moppy said that he would like to give me a Reach Around award, and I don't really know how to feel about that. So thank you, Moppy. I'm honored. See, now that's the awards that you can actually buy. Yes, you can actually pay for the awards. Yeah, I mean, that's the way it works, actually, as far as I know, is all the awards you have to basically buy. I think there are a few that you have to do stuff like leave them a review or something like that. But most of them have a dollar value. So, yeah, you have to pony up some cash to get those. And then I think that's it. I think those are the four Pinball Award shows. Man, they're popping up like hotcakes over here. Also on the news, Jersey Jack Pinball turns 10 years old. So congratulations to everybody over there. Congratulations, Jack, the man who started it all. Yeah, there was a really good podcast by Ken Cromwell talking to Jack about that milestone. So check that out if you haven't heard it. Congrats on the 10 years. You guys have changed the landscape of pinball for the better. You've had to overcome a lot to get where you are today. So looking forward to many more years of Jack Pinball. But they've also started to manufacture and ship out the CEs, Guns N' Roses. And I had a few friends who got them this week, and they are freaking insane, man. They have so many lights on the outside of the cabinet that the light show kind of extends to the wall behind the game. So if you have a CE, you kind of have to put it off, you know, on its own so that you can really appreciate that on the wall behind the game. And then there was a nice piece on CNET covering the game. CNET is obviously a huge website, big tech site, and they were covering the game with Eric and Keith. And they went into, you know, Slash involvement, how they integrated the light show, all the assets that kind of went into the game. So check it out. It's a great way to spread the word of pinball. Yeah, I saw that. It's a real nice thing. Yeah, dude, I was in the OR, and we were finishing a case, and I was talking to this surgeon. Dr. Friends, you're not a dork. No, absolutely. That's exactly what I was doing. So somehow it came up that I play pinball, right? And fortunately, there's a few orthopedic surgeons and other anesthesiologists who are also into pinball. So I was talking to them about how I've gotten other doctors to kind of get into it. And the doctor I was talking to was like, oh, you know, pinball. I used to play that back in the day. It was really cool. And I said, well, you have no idea what's out there now. There's some really cool stuff that they've done. So I showed him that really flashy Guns N' Roses, you know, highlight video that came out when the game was revealed. And his jaw dropped. He was like, what the hell is this? So a week later, he tells me he bought one. So I'm doing good work for you, Jersey Jack. I'm getting some pinball sold. Do you want to tell the folks about the finest feature in the Guns N' Roses game? We posted this on Facebook, but man, this is like probably the highlight of my pinball life is actually getting into a pinball game. I don't think I've ever geeked out so hard when I put this code in and it actually worked. And our podcast popped up with our face in the Guns N' Roses game. So we are in the DNA of that game. If you want to check it out, you have to go to attract mode and you kind of want to hit both flippers together just to kind of zero things out. And then the code is CC for Christopher and Christian. So basically to get that, you're going to hit the left flipper three times than the right flipper once. the left flipper three times, the right flipper once, and then both together. But, man, to be in some small way part of that game, which is probably now my favorite game of all time, is pretty much as cool as it gets. So thank you very much, Eric, for doing that. It's going to get a little bit cooler, too, by the way. A little surprise for you. What? You'll find out in a couple of months. Dude, I don't know what you're talking about, but that has been my interest. This may surpass the glory of being on the screen on Guns N' Roses. Wow, man. because it's permanent. That's all I'm going to say. That's all I'm going to say. Just a little surprise for my buddy. I'm geeking out. That's awesome. Thank you, Chris. Thank you in advance for whatever this is. It's good to have famous pinball art friends. That is for sure. It's good to have friends like Eric as well, who was more than happy to slide that flipper code in. For people who don't know, because I don't think we've ever talked about this on the show, there's a flipper code in the Munsters as well, which you have to do it the same way. You hit both flippers, and then the code is CF5. five so it's three to the left one on the right six on the left one on the right five on the left one on the right and then hit both of them and you will not only get a visual surprise in the monsters but you will get an audio treat as well that's cool so yeah there's another flipper code for you anyway what is going on over at american pinball there are so many things that are coming out about american pinball and this is completely a rumor but i've heard at least two or three other podcasts talk about this, so it's out there. That doesn't mean anything, because once one talks about it, the other are basically talking about the other podcast. Absolutely. Totally unsubstantiated rumor here, but there is some smoke that the next game from American Pinball is going to be a game that Riot Pinball has made called Legends of Valhalla, and they only made about six prototypes of this game. It's basically a game about the Norse gods and Viking mythology, and it's a pretty cool game, man. If you Google this and you look at it, it looks like a game that would be really cool to have American Pinball make because they would obviously manufacture this and probably tweak it a little bit and enhance it as only a major manufacturing company can. But it's already a really well-fleshed-out game. I mean, they've got tons of code in it. The layout looks really cool. It's got a giant chip in it. And it's got some pretty fleshed-out rules with lots of modes and wizard modes and stuff. So check that out. I think people would actually dig that, even though it is an unlicensed theme, which people have been yelling about for a long time. I'm just wondering, nothing against Riot Pinball in this game. I'm just wondering if this is the best move for American Pinball at this point. And it's not because of that game. It's because of American Pinball's past and what they need to do in the future. I'm not 100% sold that this is their best move. I'm not saying that this game should never come out and they should never do it. I think maybe something else should come out before this. They need a hit. And while they may sell this game fairly well, I don't see that it's going to be a hit, like a stern hit, you know? Like Elvira is, or Batman 66, or Keith Elwin's games or anything like that. They need a monster. They need something to come in and just, like, you know, put them on the map. And then they can start talking around with the stuff. If this is the game, though, it might jive with the fact that David said that they have already gotten game five, you know, ready to go. because bringing in a game that's already well on its way of being finished could also help them put out two games this year, which is one of David's goals that he said on our last show. Another interesting thing is he also said on our show that they brought in, what was it, three or four junior designers. This could be one of them. Which, yeah, don't be fooled by the name junior designer. That doesn't mean that it's like a teenage kid that just got out of high school. You know, junior designer just means that they're just on their way in their career. Could very well be a 35-year-old man. So I'm wondering if, because they said that once we hear the names, we will know who they are. So I'm wondering if this is one of those. Yeah, I mean, the two guys who started this, Scott Gulick and Frank Gigliotti, I think is how you say his name. I probably butchered that. But these guys are well-known names now. I mean, you have to be into pinball to know their names. It's not like a Scott Denisey. But, you know, this game has been streamed. You know, it's been featured on This Week in Pinball. So these are guys that are out there. And the game looks fun. You know, it's not Kiss. It's not, like you said, it's not Batman 66. But it is a game that I think has the world under glass that American Pinball can do really well. And some really cool mechs and some cool toys. All right. Well, prices increased that stern. Those bastards. Did you hear about this, man? It's 500 bucks. The Elvira, I don't understand because it just came out. Batman, I can see, like, you know, it came out in 2016. That's like four years ago. Four and a half. And I know that there wasn't as big a profit margin as normal on that game because of what it takes to make it, especially that rotisserie thing. That's a big cost on that game, and they're difficult to make. So that one I kind of get because it has been four years. I mean, you know, shit goes up. Their prices on other games have gone up. And these are safe stagnant, which is the argument. Yeah, I don't know that was cool the way they did it because people went and put money down on it. They preordered the game, and then they came back and said, okay, your preorder is canceled, And if you want to re-pre-order, it's $500 more. That's not cool. That was the big issue that I had, too. Listen, they go up in prices. I know that the market is out there where they can raise their prices, and it's not a huge deal. But to actually cancel a pre-order and then make them pay $500 to get back on the list, I would say that sucks. Well, here's a little food for thought. If I'm at the store and I pull something off a shelf and the price tag right underneath the lip of the shelf says $3.99, And I go through the register and they say that it's $6.99. I say, well, the shelf said it was $3.99. They give it to me for $3.99. That's the way it is. So if you went out and you said it's this much, it's on you that, you know, you didn't raise the price before you did the pre-order. Customer is always right. To cancel pre-orders, you know, pre-order you're locked in. You're like, all right. And put down a deposit from what I understand. So that was the only issue I really had with this. They can raise their prices. They've been doing it for a long time. But for people to get cut after they've put in a deposit and then they have to pony up extra cash to get the game, that's kind of weak sauce. I know we have a lot of those guys on our show and all that, but you've got to take the good with the bad. We're seeing your praises all the time, but I can't get behind you on this one. Sorry. But, dude, prices are insane. So did you see, I think I sent you this picture earlier today, but there was a Guns N' Roses CE on Pinside for $99,000. And then today they cut $10,000 off the price. So now it's $89,000. bucks. We're going to get into that in a new segment that we have coming right after the news. All right. Next up on the news, Four Minutes Pinball Podcast came up with a new website, which is geared at renting pinball machines. I've been saying for a while that renting a machine is a great way to kind of get a game in your house without paying thousands of bucks for a new one box. Check out a game you like, learn the rules, et cetera. And I did rent a game and it was a great experience. So there isn't like one hub where you can go and find games that are for rent. And And these guys are trying to put that together. So Ian and Drew started a website called Pinswap. And you can go there if you want to rent a game, and you can post the game for rent. And if you want to rent a game, you can go there and see what's available in your area. So it's a very cool idea. They're putting a $10,000 insurance Ryan Policky behind every rental. And it's... Do they get a cut? Yes. So these guys get a cut of every rental that goes down. And part of it is maintaining the website and putting up the insurance Ryan Policky and that sort of stuff to justify the cost. Oh, of course, man. These guys are going to do it for, you know, just for shits and gigs. Like, this is, they could probably get some money. Imagine the finer boozes they'll be pounding down on the show now. That's right. Johnny Walker Black is now Johnny Walker Green or Blue. Yeah, Red Label. So, anyway, I hope that works out for them because it's a cool idea. You know, if it takes off and people are willing to do it, I think it's great. And who would have thought those guys, you know? The party guys, right? You don't see them sitting down with suits and ties and coming up with business strategies, but they're smart dudes. When they weren't chugging booze, they were sitting down thinking of good business opportunities. So more power to them. Yeah, that's cool. Congrats, guys. I hope it does well. I hope you make a lot of cash. Yeah. My birthday is coming up in September, so start saving. Nice. Do we want to get into the shout-outs before we get on to our new segment? All right, let's do it. So there's a bunch of shout-outs this week, just people that we want to just say, you know, hey, good job. Good on you, Raymond Davidson, for becoming IFPA's 2020 World's Greatest Pinball Player. He was number one all year last year, I believe, and he's taking the title again this year. There wasn't a whole lot of competitive pinball. Yeah, Raymond, don't get too cocky because, you know, I didn't play, so surely if I was in there, you'd be out of there. This is going to be for you. Yeah. You're going to hate me for this, but a guy named Oyvindmo from Pinside, I just got this random email saying that he donated to Pinside in my name. I have no idea who this guy is. I have no idea why he donated, but... See, not only do you give everything, you give everything. People are giving shit in your name. Like, what? I have no idea. Dr. Pin! Dr. Pin! Whoa! Anyway, I really want to say thank you to OiVidMo. I sent him a message on Pinside to say thanks. I haven't heard back, so you maybe just can say... How much work is a donation? So every year, if you contribute to Pinside, you get certain benefits. Like you can send emails through your regular email server. You can post images to your posts. There's a couple other things. But really, it's just to support the site and give back to them for all the content. Blah, blah, blah. Move on. Anyway, so yes. So it's like $30. Like $30. Yeah. I love you, Dr. P. Yeah. Dr. P. Dr. P. Dr. P. Dr. P. And dude, I have to bring up the fact that Ryan and Marty came back for a Christmas episode of Head to Head. Did you listen to that? Of course I did. As soon as I saw it pop up, I'm like, no way. And they totally didn't say anything. Like, it was just a surprise. Yeah, it was very cool. Jumped in. Yeah. It was sad. It was like, well, they left a little light at the end of the tunnel, you know, that they might do it again. But you know it's not going to be on a weekly basis like it was. And it just brings me back to the good old days. Seriously, man. But it was a great show. And I don't know what Ryan's doing these days, but I know Marty's got his hands full and all that. So I just wanted to say thank you for taking the time to put that together and all that. It was a nice surprise, and it was fun to listen to. Absolutely. And speaking of head-to-head, another guy who was a huge part of that is Joe Lemire, and we're giving him a huge shout-out because he just got engaged. That's right. Congrats, Joe, and your pinball collection on getting engaged. I actually thought he was getting engaged to Nick with all the time they spend together and play pinball. No, actually, he and Leslie Kozlowski, who is just freaking amazing. They're a great couple. Wish them all the best, and can't wait to hang out with them and hopefully toast their nuptials in the time coming up. Oh, I mean, you're Dr. Pin. I'm sure they'll send you free airfare and everything else. Dr. Pin, Dr. Pin! And finally, Pinball Profile. Huge shout-out to Jeff and his 10 most intriguing people in pinball. Not because it had anything to do with us or anything else, but just because it was a great summary of what's happened in pinball this year. And, you know, he highlighted some of the people in the industry and did a really good job of it. So thanks for putting that out. Well, he didn't highlight us, but he highlighted you. Again, you getting everything. Dr. Pin! Dr. Pin! Dude, you are going to get jacked. Nobody likes a bitter, bitter man. I'm just playing it up now. No, he did. He called you out for your service to your community, for going on the front line, being the doctor man. Yeah, that was very cool of him. Risking your health to help other people out. So well-deserved and good for Jeff for highlighting you on that. I'm a proud co-host. Thank you, sir. One more thing in the news. I want to introduce something cool that I am doing for you, our fine listeners, and that is the new Super Awesome Shoot of the Month Club. What I'm going to do, and some of you have seen the first design. It's been shown on our Facebook page, the Easy Glide Shooter Rod Lubricant. What I'm going to do is a limited edition t-shirt once a month. So the first one's going to start in February. So from February 1st to February 28th, you can order that shirt. Once that month is over, that shirt is gone. You can't get it anymore, and there will be a new one. So there's going to be a new shirt every month. It might have something to do with an alternative version of our logo or something about our podcast, or it might be something off the wall, crazy, whatever I feel like doing. I just wanted to do some T-shirt designs and offer you guys some neat stuff, but I wanted to introduce you guys to that. Check out our Facebook page for more details on that. Again, it's going to be starting February 1st with the first design, and you can see the first design on the page. So that's it. Dude, that's really cool. I mean, I knew you were going to make T-shirts, but I didn't know it was going to be like a thing, a little side gig. Thank you, Jeff, for facilitating that. It's going to be on silverballswag.com. We have fun shirts there now that you can check out. So go check that out, silverballswag.com, and look for the Super Awesome Pinball Show logo. Click on that, and you will see our fine wares. you're a true creative because every once in a while you'll just like send me a picture of something you've whipped together which is insane because you do it what seems to me like an incredibly fast process to create all this really cool stuff so I know that you just like to kind of zone out and create shit every once in a while just for fun and this would be a cool way to do that I like to fiddle around with art and just like throw out ideas like I want to get an idea for something and just you know make it happen because I have the ability to do that so it really pays to be grounded when you're a kid and just sit there and draw in your bedroom all day We want to get into our new bit? This is your bit, my friend. I'm along for the ride, so I can't wait to hear what you've got. Well, I used to have a radio show, and on the radio show, I did a thing called Franchi Pants Rants. And Franchi Pants was sort of my nickname. The people I did the show with, they called me that, so it just was a nice rhyme at work. And it was like everybody's favorite part of the show. We always get comments on that because I guess people like to listen to people bitch. Now, I don't want to do a whole show of bitching, but a lot of times there are things that pop up that you just kind of want to like, you know, God damn it, you know. And even in the world of pinball, this is not a bit that we're going to do every show. But when something comes up and it needs to be called out, this feature will shed a spotlight on it. So I think this intro says it all. I, your crotchety old man host, what do I do the best? Bitch. Bitch and complain. You young whippersnappers. So anyway, I will be your crotchety old guide through this bit we're calling Get Off My Lawn. The following segment contains shouting, yelling, screaming, curse words, and hot tempers. Buckle your seatbelt. This man's annoying, but his awkward rants are awesome. Are you talking about me? You're old. Croning like a geezer. If you're just an old man, you've got multiple sins. Go on your own. Get off my lawn. Today on Get Off My Lawn, I'd like to discuss pin vultures. What's a pin vulture? Well, I'm also a toy collector, and when I go to the store, I can never find what I'm looking for. Why? Because there's backdoor dealers, box snipers, Funko Flippers, anything you can think of. There's somebody who's got like a connection with somebody that works at the store, and they sell the shit out the back door, and then it goes on eBay for three times the price. Now we got a guy that goes by the name of Trombanope, on Kinside, trying to sell a Jersey Jack Guns N' Roses CE for $89,999. Firm! Oh, by the way, the game's been removed from the box, which means he's played it. And also, by the way, there's no shipping. You have to pick it up, because $90,000 doesn't get you shipping. No! Sorry. What a vulture fucking move. $90,000 for a game that costs, what, $12,000? That's a considerable markup. 75 times more? Fuck this shit. We have the right to resell things. It's our god-given right. It's the freedom of the- No! There's also such thing as being a total dickbag. And when you buy a game for $12,000 and sell it for $90,000, you're just a boner head. That's it. What a bunch of bullshit. Get off my fucking lawn. Alright. Okay. Hey, once that most true, you've got a jelly rose. Buddy, your abs, they true, have dead huge crows. Man, you're old. You're old. Well, that was a feisty new segment, Chris. While you go take a cold shower and maybe listen to some soothing Enya, we should go to a commercial break and then come back with the one and only Roger Sharp for the first part of a really amazing interview that I think you guys are going to enjoy. Rainy days and Mondays always get me down. We'll be right back. Guess what? I got a fever. And the only perspective is the super awesome pinball show. Oh, yeah! Super awesome. This show is sponsored by Cointaker, distributor of brand new full-size authentic stern pinball, Chicago gaming, raw thrills, arcade games, and much more. Also, a full line of dramatic pinball mods, LED glitter kits, speaker lights, custom laser LED toppers, playfield protectors, Valley Williams parts, pinball apparel, and much more. Get the latest releases and glam out your game room with Cointaker. Everything at your fingertips at Cointaker.com. Get your game on. Parker Brothers' new Gnip-Gnop is very easy to play. You simply tried to gannip your three balls through the hoops into the other side. And the other guy tries to gannop his three balls into your side. But while you're gannipping, he's gannopping. You're trying to out-gannip him while he's trying to out-gannop you. So gannip down to your store and grab the new game from Parker Brothers before they're all gannop. Gannip-gannop from Parker Brothers. It's been one day just in time. Well, hello, folks. Ed Ed Robertson here from Bare Naked Ladies. If you can hear my voice, it's because you're listening to the super awesome pinball show. And you do so at your own peril. You see, I know the people that make this show. They are rap scallions, scallywags, ne'er-do-wells. So continue listening. But don't say I didn't warn you. Now, back to our program. Well, it's about frickin' time. I am the God of Hellfire! And I bring you the super awesome pinball show. It's a cool show. And now it's time for Stump the Stash. A pinball trivia game where pinball celebrities try to pull one over on the man who said pinball, Roger Shark. Please welcome your hosts, Jim Chartendale and Jim Twiskey. Thank you, thank you. Hello, everybody, and welcome to Stump the Stash. My name is Dink Chartendale. Johnny, could you please tell the audience what our contestant will be playing for today? Sure thing, Dink. Today's contestant will be playing for the Patriot Canine Rescue in Aliceburg, Pennsylvania. Every correct answer the contestant gives will earn a 20-pound bag of dog food donated to the rescue on behalf of Cointaker and Stump the Stash. Back to you, Dink. Thank you, Johnny, and everyone say hello to Jip Whiskey. Jip, are you ready for today's game? You bet, Dink. Why don't you introduce today's contestant? Ever the spokesman for the game he loves, this man is famously credited for saving pinball. In 1976, his demonstration of the game as a skill-based amusement overturned New York City's 34-year-old ban on pinball machines. He's designed games for Stern, Williams, and Gameplan, and now does licensing work for assorted pinball companies. He was considered the best player in the 80s, and his sons, Zach and Josh, are currently ranked number 67 and number 45 in the IFPA. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the man who made the shot heard around the world, the man who loves to talk and talk and talk and talk pinball, Mr. Roger Sharp. Hey. Hey. Welcome to the show, Robin. That's an amazing introduction. It was a long introduction. We're going to take you through something pretty fun with the help of a lot of pinball personalities. Are you ready to take on our game show? Okay. Sounds interesting. Okay, so our first question is from Stern Pinball's George Gomez. George asks, Roger, what was the most interesting thing on your desk at Williams? I would say that my Rolodex or my desk calendar would have been two things that he might have mentioned and talked about. Or I used to have a little pad that was just basically an outline of a play field. Oh! That is the correct answer. Oh, wow. You got that one right. Good job. So the puppies have benefited from that answer. But tell us more about the pad. Well, the guys would come in, and you have to understand what the location was back in the Williams Valley days. I was along the front wall, and Pinball was in the back of the building at 3401 and upstairs. Video was downstairs. And some people would kind of come by, and they would stop, and I'd come over and visit with them during the course of the day or in close after work, which is never after work. But if they were coming in and talking about ideas, you know, whatever concepts they might have had or whatever thoughts, thematically or otherwise, I would have the little pad and be like, oh, okay. And I'd do my little circles. And it would be like, so the targets are going to be here and the ramp's going to be where? And we would use that kind of just as a way of putting down something in paper so that we both knew what it was that we were talking about. I figure that George Mr. Sketch Gomez would have a question regarding sketch pads. when it really came up with George, because we were talking about what he wanted to do on Corvette, and he was going to be doing the engine, and the engine was going to be rocking back and forth. So where? How? Oh, over here. So, yeah. Well, that's one bag of dog food. All right, Roger, our next question comes from Mr. Ed Ed Robertson of the quirky Canadian quartet, the Barenaked Ladies. I summoned fish to the dish, although one like a scallop could sell like this machine, because we're damn much a surprise man. Okay. Ed asks, this Western-themed EM has what could be considered a wizard mode, a very clever bit of engineering for that era. If you drop all ten targets in a single ball, then hit only the center two targets of the five target banks, they will repeatedly reset for 5,000 points. There are two acceptable answers. Oh, I think of Godly, and I think of Quick Draw. Oh! There's another bag of dollars. I don't know if that might be appropriate. Well, it is. Their correct answer was Quick Draw, which is the two-player version, and Fast Draw, which is the four-player version. Oh, shucks. See, I thought it was going to be a sharpshooter question. That may come up later, you know? And so he got into more depth, and I knew that I didn't have ten drop targets. You've got to rent another 20-pound bag of dog food for the puppies. All right. Next, CERN Pinball's Dwight Sullivan asks, in 1991 when Chris Grainer went to Hollywood to record speech for the Terminator 2 pinball machine with Arnold Schwarzenegger, what did Arnold originally say instead of the TJR written line, get the super jackpot? need an answer so i'm really gonna go blue here i don't think he's talking about the adult setting oh it wasn't so racy oh okay i'll back up for a second in terms of this one the interesting part with with all of that process specifically with arnold to get him to do any speech at all uh we were going to go with the sound of life and we sent a sample uh over to arnold who hated it thought it was terrible and chris happened to be out there absolutely and we got the script to arnold he's in trailer and says if that's all that they want then i'll do the goddamn speech and go from there so that was the front story what line well i do know the uh the fu i uh i swore to Steve Ritchie take it out now because we had it in when the game was prototyping and everything else in-house and i said i know this is going to slip it's going to go out there it is going to exist take it out now And I know that some people actually have that particular version for their games. So what was the line? Get the super jackpot. But the answer to the question was get the stupid jackpot. And every once in a while I feel like it does say that in the game. Oh, wow. Only because of his enunciation. Interesting. Yeah. But did the swear ROM come with the game if you wanted it when it was first commercially available? Or did that come out through like a pin side or something like that later on? probably would not have been pin-side because we're talking, you know, a thousand years ago. Right. As to whether or not anybody actually shared with me what the truth is, my assumption is that it never went out. Okay. Obviously, I know that it has existed. So whatever everybody did behind my back, I can't attest to. I can't account for it. Everybody knew that I was somewhat very deliberate in wanting to keep things somewhat on the straight and narrow. They probably were doing things, I won't say necessarily behind my back, but in front of my face. All right, next up from Mr. Joe Kamenko. What two pinball games have pinball and moon boots in common? Pinball and moon boots? Well, there was the old, it's actually old. It was the first stern pinball that they did as a solid state called pinball, which was done in the style of artwork of R. Crumb, for those who are knowledgeable about the old comic book look. Yeah, keep on truckin', dude. Yep, thank you. Great artwork. They actually did a full-size, God, this is, Jesus, I'm remembering because I have them, did a full-size poster of the Backlash. I mean, back then it wasn't train flights or anything else. And I just remember, God, how cool that was. And I used to have that up on my wall in my office in New York. So I would say that one, but talk to me again through this. What two pinball games have pinball and moon boots in common? Pinball and moon boots. Uh-uh. Need an answer. Do we give him a hint? I'm trying to think of a hint. There are two answers, obviously. Well, it's not time machine, and it's not the future. He said the two games are made by guys who actually made real NASA moon boots, if that helps at all. Actually made, well, it's not Apollo 13. Okay, that's one of them. That's one. And think of the world's crappiest pinball machine. That's a giveaway. God, let's not speak ill of Popeye. No, it's not that. Come on, crap here. What's a game that you really cannot have any skill at? What, you're talking about, you're not talking about Orbiter 1. Yes. There's another bag of dog food. Okay. All right. Stern Pinball's Zach Sharp, who you know well, asks, how many video games have you appeared in? Oh, wow. I guarantee you that he doesn't know one of them. NBA Jam. Yes. NFL Blitz. Yes. Atomic Castle. That's one he had not listed. Right, which is the one he does not know. Uh-uh. Need an answer. I don't think that I was in baseball. Power up. No, he didn't list that. The other two are sports games, though. Hmm. I mean, it's not a different... Oh, sorry. Hockey. Open ice. That's correct. but there is one more and it's basketball-based. Well, it's NBA Jam and also Showtime, but... Yes, he has NBA Hangtime. I think of those as being the same, I guess. Okay. I thought it should. Tell us about Atomic Castle. That's one that I don't know about. Were you actually... Was your image in the game? I was in costume in it. What were you dressed as? I think I was one of the marauders, one of the villains from, in quotes, outer space kind of thing. There was some crazy, crazy stuff. All right, next up from Stern's John Borg. What was John Borg's first game title he started to design at Data East, and what did it end up being? I think we stumped the stash. That is actually a stumper for me because I honestly don't. I thought John was going to come back and talk about the madballs that he created with his brother that I tried to bring to market for him. And I still have them here. They actually still work. Madballs came out. I mean, there was a toy called Madballs, wasn't there? Yeah, I know. But his were oversized and whatever. They had a chip in it, and it was some great stuff. And I had contacts with some of the toy companies and tried to get them all excited and kind of fell through the cracks. Interesting. I think we were either too early or too late in terms of the concept. But that's what I was trying to do for John. All right, so give me a hint on this one, because this, give me the year. Oh, he doesn't have the year. Let me tell him what the game was that he started. We could say this, within the past two years, both of these games have been re-released. And I don't mean redone, but I mean new games based on these titles. One of which is very close to me right now. Look over, look over my left shoulder. Christian's left shoulder. No, I was just going to say, even without looking over your shoulder, I did not think that John worked on Jurassic Park. He didn't work on the official game that came out. He started working on it, apparently, and then the game he was starting on that was initially Jurassic Park became something else. Yeah, the title got changed to something else, and then his game got a new IP. Frankenstein. No, it's a guess. Are we going to let him keep guessing? I'm going to let him keep guessing. All right, we're going to give you one more guess. So, yeah, it started off as Jurassic Park and ended up being what? I'm just thinking in terms of the overall geometry with the two kick-out holes on the left which is what he also did on Frankenstein again remember this title came out in the past two years a new game with the same license and that's what I'm trying to think of and try to remember what has come out in the last couple of years oh shut the fuck up I was getting rid of music I don't know how it goes Star Wars there you go You got it. You got it. There you go. See, what I'm thinking of, and I guess it's my approach to pinball, and obviously some of the brain cells aren't what they used to be, but I used to really have a photographic memory. I wasn't thinking of what the recent titles were. I was actually focused in on John's kind of signature element in terms of a design. I remember meeting Gary Stern for the first time. This was back in 75, and it's a story I might have told a couple of times, But it really became an entree for me a little bit into the industry at a time where I didn't really know a lot. And I was starting to do research for my book and all the rest of what eventually was going to follow. But I met up with Gary at Al Simon. Al Simon was a major distributor on the East Coast. And he was over on like 43rd Street and 10th Avenue, which is like the coin-op area for distributors in New York. and Al D'Python Anghelo who was one of the main people at Al Simon and Al Simon as well and Al was in business with uh Mr. Epstein Steve's dad so I mean there's a whole big thing there with Dave and with Al Simon and Al Simon was this you know old-time power broker that really controls the business but I I was happened to be visiting uh they had Big Ben so just give you a time reference which they had just gotten in and Gary was visiting or whatever else and I remember being introduced to Gary and to show you the level of lunacy that I had in meeting with him. It's like, so, this is the new game. It's a lot like Star Pool. Were they thinking of that in terms of the layout on the left side and the targets over here and this, that, and he just stood there stupefied. And I just thought that that's the way that everybody approaches things so that a few months later when I traveled out for the MOA show and met with Gary on the floor, Gary's opening entree to everybody this is Roger, so ask him anything about pinball and he'll tell you all this All right, well, next up it's Gabe D'Anenzio of Pintastic, and he asks, what was the name of the distributor that Sam Stern ran before he took a management position at Williams? God, it was in Philadelphia. That's correct. I don't know if it was Active Amusements or Banner. Al Rothstein was also in Philadelphia at the time. So was, God, Sharon Harris' dad. Those guys are the power brokers Um God Scott It's kind of a name It's a hyphenated name And the initials are SC Need an answer Scott Cross Company Scott Cross? Yeah does that ring a bell at all? No I never would have gotten that Okay It was either Banner or Active If anybody goes back and you know ever does research or looks. Al Rothstein was one of the main players in Philadelphia, and I'm talking back to like in the 30s and 40s. Oh, okay. It even somewhat predates Sam getting involved. Right. So those names, no, but everything was located around Broad Street in Philadelphia. Cool. Well, Gabe, the dogs thank you for no bag of dog food. Yeah, thanks, Gabe. You're an idiot. I know you are, but what am I? That was pretty large. I didn't have anything specific to, you know, It's an answer, but no. All right, next up from Stern, Mr. Greg Freres asks, Roger, what was the first game to have reels and speech call-outs? First game to have reels, speech call-outs. I consider this to be a trick question. Yes, yes it is. It's not as old as you think. No, I mean, the first game was Gorgar, obviously, as a talking game. And Bally had put up a game. It was Lost World that they put up the show that they did as a quickie to undercut what Atari was doing and also to undercut because they put in a tape recorder or something else to do speech on that. But something with speech and reels. You might want to think about who's asking the question as a little hint there. I am. And I'm trying to think of the body of work of Mr. Ferris. It's funny that you mentioned the word body. There's another hint. Hard body. It a good guess But that Another good guess Did Xenon have reels Uh depending on what you drank or even Nothing is finished. Maybe. It's a recent game. So it's relatively recent over the last few years. And Mr. Ferris was involved. It's also something Bozo the Clown said quite a bit. Need an answer! Whizbang So won't Nelly There you go Chris I think part of the stick should be We should lead him to the answer so that every dog gets more food That's right At least so I don't feel guilty We're at five bags We're doing good The story about the Gorgar show is true though So there's a tape recorder in the game? There was something and I'm sure that Greg probably remembers it And Paul Therese and Jim Patla and Greg Kamek, but there was something that they had done to kind of speed things through. They had heard that, God, I'm trying to remember what the game was. Atari's second game. Well, there was Atarians and then obviously a speech game. Superman? No. No. It's a bad one. It's a bad one. Superman became Stellar Wars, but there was another one where you had to spell out 58,000 letters or something. No. I can't remember, but they had another game. But it was going to be their third game, and I guess somebody at Valley heard what the theme was going to be, and that's when they popped out Lost World very quickly. So it wasn't going to be called Lost World. Middle Earth, that's what the game was. But at the same time, there was word out that Williams was going to have a talking pinball machine, and I think that they kind of wired something up so that their game had a little bit of speech as well. Fishy. All right, next up, Eric Meunier of Jersey Jack Pinball asks, Slash played a major role in the development of the latest Jersey Jack pinball pin, Guns N' Roses. He was also a driving force behind the original Data East Guns N' Roses game. There is also a third game that Slash has given credit for as a contributor. What is that game? You got me. This is a really tough one. I had never heard of this either. I don't know, Chris, if you have. It's a Sega. I mean, I know the game, but I had no idea he was involved. So it's a Sega game, and it involves 1998. 1998. So it would have been around the time of what, Maverick? It wouldn't have been Godzilla. I'm just trying to think what they had with the oversized display. He was involved in it? Apparently. He was given credit as a contributor. And it's not a music pin, which is interesting. I know, and there wasn't really, you know, music pins back then, and it wouldn't have been a video game like Tattoo Assassins that Joe Kamenko headed up to compete against Mortal Kombat. I'm sorry, doggies. You know, Christian, I think maybe tonight I'll go for a drive. You know, when you do, make sure you turn your lights on so that they glow. Yeah, I got that real expensive funky Dodge car that I might take out of the garage. Oh, gee, are you starting on Viper? Whoa! Yes, so he gets the engine. Viper night driving. Seriously? It was another bag of dogs. So what was he given credit for? It says, splash the music for the game. Who knew? Wow. I guess Eric did. That's wild. Next up, also from Jersey Jack Pinball, Jersey Jack himself, Jack Guarnieri asks, Roger is well known for legitimizing pinball in 1976 before the New York City Council. Who was the New York City Council president in 1976? The MAA head was Irving Holzman. His deputy was Ben Schakowsky. And if what Jack is asking about the actual city council board, Eugene Mastropieri was the councilman who advanced the whole notion of the new law. And the gruff, heavyset fellow in the picture that everybody knows, the gray suit, who gave me such a hard time. I, to this day, and I've been told, people have done research, so I'm giving you an answer that's a non-answer. but didn't know his name or anything else. I've always referred to him as the short, gruff-looking person with a gray suit. So who was heading up the commission? Paul O'Dwyer. Paul O'Dwyer? Yes. That's what it says on the sheet. I have no idea who that is. I don't either. But the other people that I gave you are legitimate people. There's also somebody else sniffing around the New York City Hall at that time as an intern. Do you know who that might have been? No. Mr. Jack Guarnieri himself. Seriously? Yeah. He was an intern at the New York City Hall at that time, but he said he never met you. I mean, I possibly would have remembered, but that's interesting. So I will take him at his word that that was the actual name of the guy. And I'll try to remember it when I'm asked again that it's Paul O'Dwyer. And that's going to do it for today. Tune in to our next episode as Roger continues his quest to earn those retired, hardworking pups a shitload of dog food. Until then, buh-bye. Good night, everybody. Motional consideration has been paid for by Stern Pinball Not just makers of fine pinball products But also a lifestyle brand And Chicken of the Sea tuna varieties What's the best tuna? Chicken of the Sea The Stash is a Mark Goodson Bill Todman production Good night everybody Got a little star Got a little star And now, part one of our interview with Roger Sharp, licensing and beyond. Thank you. Let's start off by talking about licensing. You're currently a huge help to a lot of pinball companies out there as a consultant when it comes to either acquiring or working through speed bumps that might come with a license. So how many companies are you working with currently, and do you even know all of the companies you're working for right now? Yeah, kind of like a gun for hire, I guess. So the companies I'm working with now, what we're looking at really are the pinball companies, forgetting about all the other companies and other fields and endeavors that I'm doing stuff with. So one, two, three, four, five, I guess. Okay. In some way, shape or form. There are others where admittedly, and people kind of know where I've been involved, where I'm waiting to see if they need me to step back in to do anything. I find it fascinating. And just in regard to whatever my role is, in very much the same fashion when I first started with Pinball, I kind of had access into all the companies to look at all the games and provide feedback and whatever else. And I find I'm gratified that people currently now, various companies, acknowledge the fact that maybe there are some ways that I can help them. And they know that whatever they wind up showing me, telling me, sharing with me will remain confidential between them and me. and it does not impact at all on anything that I might be doing for anybody else. That's great. Yeah, and you certainly pass it on to your sons who are both, you know, very invested into multiple companies and, you know, certainly know a lot of secrets that they cannot divulge. I've talked to them many times, and I've never seen them even hint at anything. Well, we're not trying to use all the information. You just don't even try because you know with guys like Josh and Zach that you're just going to get the Heisman immediately, so you don't even try. I don't even ask typically either because I never used to talk about work over the years when they were growing up. It was never like, hey, guess what? I just met so-and-so or we're going to be doing such-and-such. Nope. Everything was always ended at the front door. So these days, now that they're heavily involved, do they come back to you and say, hey, tell me about this? Because you didn't tell me about it at all when I was growing up. Did that ever happen? Yes, frequently. I think the part that I find interesting is that Zachary's role is what my role was at Williams. at around the same point in time of my life, and here he is heading up marketing. And I'm so proud of what he's been doing. Josh as well, in terms of raw thrills and what they've been able to do with IFPA and what he's been able to do in regard to helping out, overseeing, kind of being a wall that gets bounced off of for ideas and observations. Yeah, I mean, I think it's gratifying to see that the legacy kind of lives on. It was never intended to be that, but obviously they've embraced it. So it's good. But normally all I ever hear from them now is, what did you say? What did you do? Something just got posted. What did you say? What? Where? What? How? This is what they're saying about you, or this is what you said. Really? Oh, I didn't mean that. Right. We'll try not to get you in trouble with your boys on this interview. We'll run the rough cut by them first to approve it. That's right. So going back to the companies you're working with, You had mentioned that you do a lot outside of pinball. Are you still working in video games and slots and other industries as well? Yeah, absolutely. Okay. How many clients there? I'd say probably now. And it's a question of the totality of what my business is and percentage-wise, because I have a massive undertaking on behalf of one particular client that's going to be exponentially getting larger over time. But I would say maybe like a 60-40 split outside of pinball. So 60 pinball? No, 60 outside. Oh, okay. Just in terms of active projects, I think one of the reasons, and maybe we'll get into this, is just the nature of what's happening in various business sectors. You know, where are places open? You know, we talked about, you mentioned it, slot machines. Are the casinos open? Are any of the companies actually building product and placing it out there? You know, my most recent stint was at Every to kind of get them, you know, further along as a real strong competitor in the marketplace. And that has been accomplished. But looking at that world a little bit more so in terms of online, both real money and social, seems to be where the movement is. And we talk about pinball. Admittedly, yes, the factories are kind of working and scaling back up. But the majority of what's taking place is really for private sale and not placement in commercial operations. So, you know, we're at that tipping point. Right. And that tipping point obviously impacts somebody like myself in regard to what does somebody need? So am I going to actually look to get a license that won't be available until 23 or 24? Yeah, I mean, there's only so much of a window, and maybe we can get into that if there's any interest. Yeah, absolutely. How you structure licensing deals and terms and rights and such where you just can't sit on something, although some companies have been known to try to sit on things. Just to make sure as an expediency against their competition. So we're going to acquire this just so that we know that they can't get it. Right. At that point in time, you know, maybe we'll do something, maybe we won't. Yeah. And I've talked to your son Josh about Raw Thrills and how it's very difficult now during the pandemic to put games into amusement centers because nothing is open. And so that's a huge chunk of their business. Are there companies out there that are changing strategies entirely to try and adapt to the change? are most of the bigger companies out there who really thrive on the amusement industry saying, we need to Carl Weathers the storm. There's a light at the end of the tunnel. There's a vaccine. Let's just keep the business strategy as is. To answer the question, I think that some companies are structured in such a way that they're kind of victims of what's taking place, either from the lack of design and manufacturing capabilities, the lack of being able to initiate a new business model where some companies are able to be a little bit more fast file in doing that and can get a sales force together to potentially work with i'll call it big box retailers but not really because obviously they've been hit but being able to make their product in such a way that it is more suitable for private buyers right people wanting to bring things into their home as opposed to in some cases looking at some of the new mediums and i'm not telling tales out of school in regard to Rothschild specifically, but looking at a different business model to enhance what it is that they have in their portfolio that they can monetize. What can we do to bring this into this world? And seriously, in some ways, my role in much of it is, Roger, can you go back and get us an extension? Yeah. Can we just change the term? Because, you know, that game is not going to be out in, you know, spring of 2021. That's a question we were going to ask you. Yeah, we need extra time because the market's not there. So you go back through, whether it's the studios or sports leagues or agencies or managers or whatever else, and I think that everybody has been, at least from my standpoint in terms of who I work with, have been understanding of it because the black and white and the reality is just there. And whether it's family entertainment centers as a chain like Chuck E. Cheese and the whole thing that they can get out of bankruptcy or Dave and Buster's, which slowed down their expansion and have opened up some locations with a small percentage. But, you know, where are we at with movie theaters and with freestanding family entertainment centers, mall game rooms, restaurants that may have had a game attachment to it? I think that everybody's somewhat understanding to it, although I have to admit in some cases it makes it a little bit more difficult and challenging because they have financial obligations on their end to make their numbers. And it's like, Roger, I'd like to give you a break, but, you know what? for that extension, I need money. I have to get something across the bottom line. And truthfully, there has been, God, I've had a lot of transitioning in various organizations, studios and whatever else, with layoffs, furloughs, consolidation of roles. I'm blessed. I've been around long enough where I kind of know everybody or everybody kind of knows who I am in that world. Right. And across the board where I can navigate. So, you know, I can talk to somebody and reach out to somebody and suddenly find out, yeah, you know, December 20th was my last day. Oh, God, really? Yeah, but you know so-and-so, you know, reach out to them. The other part to it, and maybe we don't think of it in the same context, West Coast specifically have been all the fires and the floods. I've reached out to folks. I mean, forgetting about COVID, and we can't, but I've reached out to folks like last summer or whatever else. Hey, are you okay? Yeah, our family had to get evacuated. You know, we think the house is okay or this or that. So, I mean, there are personal lives that you wind up dealing with. And I'd like to think that I've established these friendships where I'm not being outside where the area should be for me to ask empathetically, how are you? And then it's not a question of just making a call saying, oh, thank God about the house. And by the way, that deal, that's not the intention for me. So, you know, it has hit home for me in a way that maybe for a lot of other people it doesn't. There's much more of an immediacy to it in regards to things that fall further outside of the health. Just the whole thing. And it's like, you know, talking to people, Raji couldn't believe what the air was like. Really. Just the class. I saw it on the news. Really. Oh, yeah. You know, we were wearing masks and doing whatever. You can't breathe. You got to stay in there. Oh, my God. So I don't know if that answers the question. Yeah, absolutely. A little bit. But that's okay. was very valid. And, you know, you think about coronavirus as the topic du jour, but there are a lot of other things that can impact your life and, you know, and the current state of gaming and video games as a result and pinball and all that stuff. So you don't always think of those things. So that is a very valid point. Well, and it also makes it more difficult, I have to tell you. 99% of the people working remote. So my Rolodex, if you will, mental or otherwise, thank God has, you know, personal cell numbers and things. Because if you're reaching In the office, in some cases, I've had situations where I have reached out to the office and I've heard back in like a month, month and a half, where it's like, oh, I wasn't checking my email. You must have been, right? Yeah, really. I won't cast. We'll edit that out. We'll edit that out. But I guess what I was going to say is that it becomes interesting because you don't know if they're still there. Or in some cases, and there's an organization that is multifaceted that has a couple of theme parks attached to it where they have changed a lot of the responsibilities of folks. So I'm reaching out and talking and whatever else, and it's like, oh, no, no, no, they're now over here. We've reorganized and restructured for this, this, this, and this, and it's not just by category of product, soft goods, hard goods, toys, games, or whatever else. It tends to be across the board, whether it is by portfolio content. content. So you try to navigate through all of that so that number one, and even to Chris's point that he just made, that you're getting to the right people in the right time frame so that you can go back, in my case, to your client to say, yes, it's available. No, it's not for now. Or I need to hear back from somebody who is off-site. And so they kind of reconvene. So it's not the way that it was before, but it is, I guess, whatever that new normal is for now and what it's going to transition into. Yeah, Warner Brothers was hit extra hard because right around the time that COVID hit, they had a huge turnover. Only 180 people. Yeah, yeah. Let's go around. And then 220 after. Yep. So there goes all the relationships and you got to start new ones and you're trying to start new ones while people are working out of their house. And I think a lot of people at first thought like working out of their house was fun so they didn't really do much of the working out of part and just hung out and watched Netflix all day. Yeah, I'll call them back later. But yeah, so that was sort of a double whammy. It really slowed up everything that had anything to do with Warner Brothers and stuff. Well, I mean, I think in some cases you're correct. I will say that some of the adjustments started back in the fall of 2019. So I was aware of who was coming in, where things were going to get folded, and admittedly working with them not only in the amusement game area but also in slots and gaming, kind of knowing both of those groups and where the bodies were going to be. So for me, there hasn't been a hiccup based on what happened at G2E and then follow-up meetings at IAPA and then more so follow-up at Toy Fair, which was one of my last conventions to be able to really kind of sit down and meet with folks. But I do know what you're saying, Chris, because I've heard that from some of the companies that have tried to do some things as follow-up on their own and then fall back to say, hey, Roger, can you get to so-and-so? I haven't heard from such-and-such. Yeah, that person is now moved over into a different category or they're no longer there. They're now at the studio. So, yeah. You had touched on how this has kind of pushed a lot of projects back and you've had to go and get extensions. What is the average shelf life for a license that you acquire? Is it variable based on the IP? It tends to be variable based on the actual product, not the IP necessarily. So, I mean, I'll give you the standards. And I think that most people would be upset by this. Standard tends to be three-year deals or five-year deals. That's standard term. Three or five. Are extensions negotiated up front? Like you said, we'll do it for three years and then we might be interested in another two. There's options to renew. You wind up negotiating that up front. Yeah. Those options to renew may be based on financials. If you have exceeded or met X amount as a threshold, it will automatically convert. You know, we mentioned before, I guess I'll use this as a reference, and sorry to go back in time and back to the quiz and the game show, but, you know, with Zachary asking about NBA. The NBA deal, which was done in, God, 1989, 1990 for NBA Jam, effectively for hang time, for show time, for NBA on NBC, for all the derivatives, tournament addition and everything else, was really predicated off of the first agreement. So there were, in quotes, extensions. There were new terms. I will admit that the financials kind of changed just based on performance. And there's a story behind that, but we don't have to get into it. It's not relevant here. But I think that typically you wind up having that put in. Now, in some cases, Chris, just so that you know, and you're probably familiar with it, there are some licensors that will not provide any kind of extension. It's set in stone. Three years, five years, ten years, whatever it is, that's it. You can do whatever, and if you have the greatest thing in the world, we're going to have to go back in and sit down and come back in with a new agreement. That was my next question. So when you do an extension, it usually is a relatively easier process than the whole initial negotiation. You can just say, hey, here's what we want to extend, or do you have to go back to the drawing board? In some cases, I'm going back to the drawing board. In some cases, it's like, well, we didn't realize what that was going to be, And I'm thinking of something in particular that had an incredible impact on the procedures and practices of this particular entity because the product was so successful and they felt that they weren't getting their just due. But I think that at times you wind up getting into a situation where there is an understanding. And that understanding, look, we're going to increase by 10%, whatever that is, the baseline. And in terms of the guarantee, whatever your royalty rates might be, in gaming, my royalties are split out because it's not only on a per unit, but it's also on a per day because there's rev share. So, yeah, I mean, you want it going through that dance? Ideally, when you're going in to kind of re-up, if you will, it's a simple amendment. Okay. Here's a page. Just sign it. We've agreed. Everything stays the same. And we're going out to 2026. We're getting another five years. Okay. Cool. Thank you. In pinball, like when Stern vaults a game, for instance, it's probably after the initial license has expired, I would guess. So is that usually just a relatively straightforward, as you just described, you know, here's the initial contract, can we just... I would assume that for Gary and Jody and John and whoever else is heading up those particular initiatives, that they're able to just kind of slide in and say, look, we're going to be doing a reissue, some new artwork, some new, some whatever. We anticipate, and this is just me, it's all hypothetical. Sure. It's the way I would approach it. We anticipate that we're going to be able to build an extra 100 machines, 200, 500. So we'd like to go on the basis of where we were and just extend with no additional payment and only just be paying you royalties. There's two ways it goes. One is it's a continuation of the royalties for default edition, or there's some, we'll call it nominal, payment for, in quotes, the new term and the new issue. So we're going to do this, but we're changing the artwork. When you initially have a contract with a game for a license, do you usually pay a certain set amount of money up front and then pay per game that sells as well? Like is there money on the front and the back end? There should be typically, and this is not always true, but standard operating procedure is that you're going to have some payment to effectively bind the agreement. so it's going to be money on contract signing okay and i won't get into some of the ways that i do things personally that make it different and more beneficial for the licensee but so you're going to pay some money and whether it is all of that or some portion with some calendarized way of other payments and then your royalties two ways one is your royalties and i'm thinking just not only with pinball but elsewhere your royalties can begin with product one this i mean you're just generating money, or it can go against whatever your guarantee was. And your guarantees may be annualized. So there's a variety of different ways. But yes, typically, traditionally, there is some participation on the part of the licensor to a product. Have I done things that are a flat fee, one-time payment? Yeah, absolutely. Whether that's music or whether it is, you know, again, some type of other asset where I just pay once. Thank you. and there may be a term attached to it. And if I'm still in business or still going, I may have to do a second payment. Or again, there's different ways to create and generate a working relationship that's going to be mutually beneficial for both licensor and licensee. Sure. Back in the day when I was working in licensing, I don't know if it's still this way, but like working with the studios, it was usually you would pay what they call an upfront guarantee based against royalties. So if you assume, you tell them how many units do you think you're going to make? what's your royalties is 7%, 5%, whatever it is against that. And then you give them, say, $20,000 up front, and you don't pay royalties until the royalties you earn succeed that amount. So once you would have paid them, say, $20,000 in royalties, from that point on you start paying royalties. So you're almost kind of giving them a loan, you know, based on what you think you're going to sell. Is that still how it goes these days? Yeah, I mean, I think that that tends to be more of the traditional approach. in regard to having the rule of thumb typically is when you're doing your forecasting, about 80% of what you've forecasted should be set aside for a potential bargaining position for your guarantee. Okay. So I think I'm going to make $100,000. So potentially, depending again on the category and the product, your guarantee may well be $80,000. And that's guaranteed. To buy your deal. I got it. That used to be the rule of thumb, and we're looking at T-shirts and other types of commodities, if you will. In the world of pinball, admittedly, much of the general rule of thumb has never really applied. At least it hasn't for me. It just doesn't make sense because we're dealing with a commercial entity. I mean, it's changed now, obviously, with home sales, but going back, and fundamentally for most organizations out there, studios or otherwise, they still view pinball as being something commercially that I'm going to find at the Santa Monica Pier game room or whatever else. You're not thinking that, okay, this is a product that's only going to go into Fred Smith's home. So as a commercial commodity, it's not something that we would typically see on a store shelf. Right. I guess that's the best way to describe it, where the numbers are voluminous. Well, let's jump back into what you do for licensing and pinball. So, you know, you're known as the go-to guy in pinball licensing to make something happen. And we had David Fix on our last episode, and he was commenting on how you're kind of his ace in the hole in terms of getting licenses because of all of your connections and what you can do. So, you know, what is it about your history and your contacts that make you so successful at getting access to an IP that other people may not be able to get? Well, I'm glad that he thought I was an ace in the hole rather than a joker in the deck. That's right. Look, I started with all of this back in 1987. And in many ways, the world of licensing has evolved and changed from that point now. And that's across the board. Licensing was kind of like an afterthought for most of the studios and companies. There wasn't a heck of a lot going on in the world other than apparel. So somebody's name or image was on the butt of a pair of jeans. Maybe there was something that was on a golf shirt. I mean, those types of things were the things that we were kind of used to as opposed to the transformation of toys and other commodities that really kind of took hold. And I think that the relationships that I was able to build and the way that I work, I guess I gained a lot of the trust and faith in people. I tend to be a person of, you know, man of my word. The way that I am, and God willing, it's something that both of my sons share. I'd like to think so, so at least it's on air now so everybody can hear that, is that you don't have to think twice about what you said to this person versus this person versus this person. I mean, I am an open book. And I think that everybody that I've ever worked with or encountered understands that they're going to get the inside truth from me. I'm not trying to play games. I'm not looking at it from the standpoint of does this benefit me, which may be a different approach to life in general. But I think that I've always tried to really be fair on both sides. So whatever I'm doing and negotiating on behalf of Williams Bally Midway or WMS Gaming or Scientific Games or Every or American Pinball or Jersey Jack or Stern on a couple of projects, I tend to value whatever those budgets are as being my money. So I'm going to go out of my way to make sure that I can carve out the best deal possible without screwing the licensor. I want to be able to tell them exactly and precisely what they should have an expectation for. You know, I touched upon a situation before just briefly in terms of the NBA, just using it as an example. When we first negotiated, I understand there had never been a sports league license in coin op. NBA Jam was the first. And the view of coin op business was not really great back at that period of time, forgetting about whatever transpired 10 plus years earlier in terms of overturning a law in New York. And there was great hesitancy on the part of the NBA to do anything. And admittedly, we had some new technology with digitized graphics and whatever else that we could do. But we did a different kind of royalty rate that I said to the NBA, the person I was dealing with, you don't want to do this. You are going to lose money. They did an inverted tier. They took more money up front and less money the more successful we were, bottom line. They didn't think that NBA Jam was going to be a hit. Well, they didn't know what the industry was. It wasn't a question of being a hit. They just didn't know how massive, if you will, the amusement game industry would be. When I went back in after NBA Jam and after Joint Edition, and there was time to kind of renegotiate, I was the first one that said, we need to structure things differently. We know, we were going to tell you, Roger, and I said, trust me, look at how much money you left on the table. Right. And, you know, I just don't want to take advantage of you. And I think because it's such a small world, people wind up knowing who you are and what you're about. I mean, I will speak very kindly of Joe Kamenko. Joe has an incredible reputation out in the world of business and licensing. There isn't anybody that Joe hasn't worked with and hasn't done dealings with. And Joe and I have actually worked together on some projects with Zynga and hit it rich. So I know our paths have crossed numerous times, probably going after the same thing. And I think that it's just a question of just trust and relationships. and I think that again, I am grateful humbled and appreciative of the fact that in many ways, and saying it in a nice way my reputation precedes me so if I'm walking through a licensing show yeah, I mean, it's everybody and it's, hi, this is my world and I'm comfortable with it even after all of these years to still be needed it's nice to know that people still believe that I have some of the go-to that I have and some of the connections where maybe I can make their lives easier. Well, it's hard to be consistently good, Roger, but in order to have the reputation that you have now, obviously you have to have proven yourself over the years, and that pays dividends over time. And I'm glad that you've gotten to the point where you can do that. I joke with my boys who think of me as being semi-retired. It's like, hey, the phone still rings. And the only thing that's been missing is the fact that my last travel was in March at the AEI show in New Orleans, and I've had to cancel all of my other travels. Some of it was going to be West Coast-based just to make the rounds and say hi to everybody. Some of it was going to be trade show-based. So those kinds of personal interactions I miss terribly. Fortunately, there's Zoom and Blue Jeans. And there's a thousand different things that people have done. Teams and things where I wind up getting on and being able to have, you know, in quotes, face-to-face things. But people know how I am. It's like I can't share my candy with them, cancel crown and break bread, but that'll be coming. If a company comes to you, I shouldn't say if, when a company comes to you to bring you on, is it generally decided after they've decided on a license or have they ever come to you to be consulted on which license to get? I think it goes both ways. I have a standard, if you will, I have standard fees, a structured business relationship that I abide by. And yes, I mean, I have people that come after me and say, hey, we have an interest in getting X, Y, or Z. Okay. You know, is it available? How much will it cost or whatever else? In some instances, I may do a little bit of initial digging, but in others, it's like, okay, how do we want to structure this? What do we want to do? And look, some of it has to do with, has there been a relationship in place prior? So this is ongoing, so I don't mind doing a little bit of a hunting expedition. There have been times, God, I'm thinking of a project for a Japanese company a few years back. Roger was like this. And I already knew that this wasn't going to happen because I had already gone after it on four other occasions. No. But it was like, okay, let me do this. And we structured things. And I did it on the basis because I already knew I'm willing to make the phone call, have the conversation, just to be able to go back to them and say, no, can't do it. But what I did, and hopefully this is kind of an answer to your question. I went back to them and said, would you consider, because I knew the kind of commodity that they wanted, would you consider these other options? Oh, let me talk to our creative people and see. And I said, I'll tell you right now, I don't know if any of these are available. I'm just coming back to you to say, here, what about these? And I say, probably like two months later, I got the phone call. And it was like, you know what? We decided we want this. Okay, let me see if I can actually get that. Right. That's cool. And I was fortunate enough to be able to get it. So there are times where we talk up front and it's not just a hunting expedition. There are also times, and we'll think again, in the past, it wasn't as if anybody came to me for Elvira internally. Dennis and Greg didn't say, God, Elvira. It was, I knew a couple of people. One was their former manager and former husband who had reached out to me to say, would we be interested in doing a pinball machine? And I went around internally, hey, have a chance to get anybody interested? And I immediately went to Jim Patla because we had just acquired Bally Midway. Jim hadn't done a game in a while. What do you think? And Jim kind of was ambivalent. Dennis was like there in a heartbeat. I was like, okay, it's yours. It'll work out for him. So there was some give and take in terms of me, in quotes, selling the dream, if you will, for making the presentation internally versus other times where I was like, Roger, we'd like to do X, go out and get that. And I think the same thing really holds true now in regard to my relationships that I have out there, which is I try to be really fair. I don't want to lead anybody down a path that doesn't make sense for them. God, we'd like to do such and such. Okay, well, I'll tell you what. Get me some concepts. What's the product going to look like? If it's a pinball machine even, you know, what did you have in mind? What assets do you need? Give me a list of stuff. What's your business forecast? What kind of budget do you have so that I can make my first foray with the best amount of information possible to see is this potentially something that can happen? That kind of leads us into the next thing we want to ask you, which was, you know, from a layman's perspective, it seems like licensing has become much trickier these days versus your time working with, say, Williams. Because, you know, it doesn't seem like you can just license rights to a property at large. You have to deal more with subcategories. Is that true? Oh, absolutely. I mean, you know, the point that I've made now, God, is so different from what it used to be with, in quotes, static art and a dot matrix display. You know, you wind up looking at content, and we'll talk specifically, because this is not a new situation for slot machines or gaming, because it's always had that visual component. So asking for footage, asking for likeness rights, asking for stems and splits, all of that is just part and parcel to what I have as my shopping list. With pinball, the best example I'll use, unfortunately, because I know it's not on anybody's list, was episode one. Why do you need that? I can't tell you. Because back then we weren't telling anybody about Pinball 2000. Oh. And working with Lucas, I can't tell you. the footage of jake lloyd doing this that or the other i can't tell you why i need the wire forms for wano cannot tell you cannot tell you and then finally when we were able to reveal we had another trip out to the ranch it was like oh my god now we understand and i guess i see i wasn't crazy i wasn't looking at it for a dot matrix display so i used that because i think fundamentally that might have been really around the full time of what you have currently now, which is, all right, I have an LCD. I need stuff. So you're asking for much more. You know, music has sometimes been separate. Sometimes it's been included. Speech, you know, as I said before, sometimes you get the ADR. Sometimes you don't. Sometimes you need to amplify it, so I need to get somebody into studio or I need to use a sound alike. It's the footage, really. And, you know, the example I'll give, if it makes sense to anybody, was for T2, for the video game. They needed, they being Jack and George, needed to have Robert Patrick face the camera in a particular way as the T-1000 for the final scene because he wasn't looking that way in the actual movie. Do you mind if you put the arms back on and then we're going to do this and digitize and whatever else? So the fact that you are working with intact film footage, how does that work for where your eye needs to be and how are you interacting with what is taking place on the play field and at various points in time? And how do I enrich that in some way, shape, or form? Can I, in fact, embed something into the footage? Something that is character-driven or it's a backdrop or something else, and I'm going to do some layers. So, yes, it becomes a much more intensive kind of experience in going after things where I will share this. You sure you want to do an LCD? Maybe you want to go back and do a dot matrix. How about a drum scoring unit? Huh? Alphanumerics? Can I interest you in that? I'm all for that. I'm all for that. Is it true that, as far as you're talking about ADR and stuff like that, is it true that you have to, even though the cost may be crazy, that you have to go to the original actor first, and they have to turn it down before you can approach a sound alike Okay in the case where an actor has what we call a right of first refusal because I gone directly I worked with talent versus going through the studio it depends on their contract Okay so it's not always the case, but it happens. Sometimes the actor is giving up those rights. Roger, you would think that if an actor was that protective of their likeness, that there would be some clause in their contract universally that saying a sound alike could come in and cover their lines would be off the table, but that seems to be a very common thing, and that's how you end up with the Boboli Bobos. and things that don't go over so well. So how do actors allow that? And how much of an issue is that when you're dealing with contracts? I think it tends to be an issue. And I think it tends to be the caliber of the talent and where they are in their careers. There are some things, in all honesty, that I have been dumbfounded by. It's like, are you serious? I get all of those people? Yeah. We have all the rights. You get the footage. You get the talent. And I'm talking about A-plus list talent where 10, 15, 20 years ago when they were starting out and working for scale or whatever else, and nobody was ever going to think that there would ever be any commodity, a T-shirt even, a greeting card that was actually talking, singing, or whatever else, or a pinball machine or a video game. Anybody would ever do anything with that. So you do have things that are like that, but you also have on the occasion, you know, I think we mentioned it before during the test. It was Arnold. I don't have final approval. And, you know, it's like, well, if that's all they want, then I'll do the goddamn thing. But, you know, there are other times where you want to go back in. And I'm thinking of the late Raul Julia. I need him to go in the studio because the way that he said certain phrases and speech calls in the movie, I need that amplified. Right. So it's not just the way that it was in the movie. It needs to be, you know, thank you. As opposed to however he may have enunciated it or what have you. So you wind up going back in and you're taking lines that are literally right from the script of the TV show or the movie. And I'm thinking of things that I've done with slot machines where you have people going back in and just doing their thing. Or I'm dealing with, in some cases, the son of somebody or the cousin of somebody. Oh, no, he does all the work for us. Don't worry. You can work with this person. I think that Joe and Gary for Shrek worked with Eddie's brother to do the speech calls for Donkey. It wasn't Eddie. It's amazing what you've done with such a modest budget. But you don't know that because they sounded totally the same. And there's a project that I'm working on now, cannot reveal who it's with or whatever, but it is a grandson of a particular character who has kind of carved out a little bit of a career doing speech stuff. It was a great find to be able to find that particular individual. And even on a couple of projects that I had personally, my Muppet game with speech, working with a particular sound talent that was approvable. So it has to be both ways. For Toy Story, I know Tom Hanks' brother is the voice of Woody because Tom Hanks doesn't want to bother him. His brother sounds just like him. Pitball podcasters and hobbyists in general love to talk licensing, usually guessing about limitations from the licensor or what could or couldn't have been used. Games like GNR or Rick and Morty seem to be the exception rather than the rule currently because they have either close to everything or everything you could want to put into a game. How often do you come across a licensor that just opens up the doors of the vault and says, go for it? Those are the rare times. But I'll speak to a situation that occurred because the machine's out, not in numbers because of what happened the past year. But the whole relationship for a South Park slot machine was incredible. with Crispy and Eric and the team working with Matt and Trey. We had access to everything. They did artwork for us. I was like, my God, are you kidding me? I mean, it was spectacular. Where initially I thought, you know, yes, I know that I can get this for us because there was a desire on the part of every to want to get this. We thought we could be a little bit edgier with content, and there have been some attempts in years past in the category of slot machines. family guy and others that didn't really do well but it was i think the timing is right and in all honesty the timing had not been right for south park where there had been uh some overtures from other companies and just everything kind of came together at the right time where i was still hesitant and reluctant because it's like it's one thing dealing with in quotes the the representatives are you really going to be able to get me oh yeah sure roger don't worry about just something's out the line. None of us know. And we did some upfront conversations and meetings just so everybody's on the same page. So nothing came out of left field and nobody was blindsided on either side because I didn't want to set myself and my company up for a fall saying, well, they told us we could have everything, but now we're getting pushback and we can't get this and they want to prove that. And oh my God. So I was hesitant and uniquely, incredibly surprised. And I think of that automatically compared to other times where I was surprised in a nice way. I will say with Demolition Man, Warner Brothers wanted to wash their hands of it because it's like, you know, Wesley's been impossible. You're never going to get sly to do it. And it's like, well, who do I talk to? Let me see what I can do. You know, we'll pick up some stuff because some stuff we could pick up, right? Because their rights were such that within the context of the movie, and again, no LCD screen, I could get them yelling, screaming, or whatever else for the unique speech calls that Dennis needed in that game from how he was designing. Having said that, it wasn't like anywhere in the movie they were saying jackpot. Right. Extra ball. Same player shoots again. And went through their people, and they were as accommodating as nice as could be. Where it was going to be, and I remember sitting down, it's going to be difficult. I guess they've really been a pain. I'm hoping that we can use a sound like or, and maybe Christopher, maybe this is something you've encountered. let me see if we can use a generic narrator because that becomes your fallback it's a character that does not exist at all in that universe you can't have anybody who's going to imitate them so it cannot sound like Tom Hanks it has to be this or it has to be approvable so yeah you wind up negotiating through that at least I do up front so that everybody kind of knows and I think now I go back to it it is a hardship for the LCD with pinball and the need and the desire on the part of so many to think that the only thing that they can do is a licensed theme. And the reason it's become much more of a hardship, I believe, is the fact that the numbers aren't what they used to be. We didn't go into anything at Williams Valley unless I knew I could move, what, 10,000, 12,000 machines? Wow. So it was out there in quantities and numbers. It didn't mean that I was spending exponentially more money than I would be negotiating now, But the fact that I'm looking at such finite numbers, and we mentioned before in terms of going back for vault editions, I'm doing things on a staggered basis because I don't have the ability, number one, to inventory, or number two, to know that somebody's going to come back in as a distributor, or in some cases as a dealer, to increase their order threefold or tenfold. I'm not sending to Germany seven containers of the original Black Knight, just as an example. And Steve's not going to go over for the big, massive unveiling of everything. Everything is much smaller. So you wind up having, at least for me, and maybe it's different for everybody else, wind up having a different educational model. And I think to your point, Christopher, as you mentioned before, Rick and Morty or Guns N' Roses, you have folks that are really into pinball. I mean, that makes things so much easier. You don't have to apologize for anything. They want to have a pinball machine. They think it would be cool. And by the way, we have some ideas for design, or we have some things that we can incorporate into our ongoing creative. Well, let me jump into that because, you know, David Fix, as I said, was on our last show, and he said he doesn't really want to get into a license for a game unless it comes with all of the assets that he and Dennis Nordman would want. So, you know, obviously that's going to raise the cost of doing business. Possibly. Possibly, right, unless you have the relationships to avoid those costs. But why wouldn't every company want to do the big push? I'm assuming the answer is money. Do you think there's a point where there are enough assets in a game that it will just sell as many as if you had all of the assets? Like, is there a balance there where, you know, the cost of the license outweighs the benefit? Let me answer it this way. I never would have done Apollo 13 and said that that's Tom Hanks behind the helmet. There was a slot machine company that did a Mission Impossible slot machine without Tom Antonio Cruz. I think that my attitude and belief has always been that you need to signature elements of any property. I don't care if it's music-based or it's film or TV. You need something for that eye appeal, and now even more so, you need it for the ear and whatever your senses are to carry it through. And if what you're going to try to do, which is not to do a parody, so you're going to come up with some derivative where, you know, Boodle's not the real thing, but... The Boodle's. Yeah, I mean, truthfully, yes. Yep, absolutely. So I think that, you know, does it make it more expensive? It can. It doesn't have to. I think that there has to be a practicality and a reasonableness as to what you need and what you want. I've just been involved with a project where the task was that, tell me kind of in range how much footage you're going to need. I'm not going to bind you to that, but I'm being asked because they don't want to think that you are going to be featuring a two-and-a-half-hour movie in this product. Right. Well, no. I just need, what, half hour? And we'll come up with a timeline in terms of how we're going to do our cuts and slices and dices. So it's not as if you're going to be buying the entire loaf of bread. Right. It's going to be X number, and within reason. And as you find yourself going through it, if you need to get more, better, or different, then you work on that because, God willing, you have structured the relationship. And I've always joked that I tend to be their preconception to grave, where it's kind of unique in terms of my role. Normally, whether as an employee or as an outside resource, here, I've done the license, contract's done, goodbye, so long. I stayed throughout the process. You know, the contract and everything, that's the dance up front. You know, the ladies' choice part is how are you guys going to do submissions? What assets do you need? How do we get approvals through? And I'll stay with you every step of the way so that I can become your creative liaison. I feel that that's an obligation in terms of how I approach all of my projects. But having said that, I think going back to the question, it becomes much more of a challenge for design teams to kind of envision through what it is that they might need. Because I don't want it to be something where, well, Roger, just get us everything. Everything is not reasonable. But I also don't want to harness anybody or restrict their creativity where it's like, well, if I tell you everything now, and I guarantee you, Christopher, any of the things you've ever worked on as a license, probably something has come up which has haunted me forever. I just need to get them a sketch no no no no I don't want to get them anything too soon because if they're not going to like it I'm going to have to stop I'm going to have to change it I'm going to have to oh oh oh and it's always pushing this way let me involve them let me invest them early on in the process and that has to do with everything nowadays it's not just an original sketch from a cabinet or a play field or a back glance right because I don't want Christopher to spend an inordinate amount of time doing fine line drawing and coloring until I already know that the direction and path he's taking, I can sell. Or in the case of Doug Watson, that he has to go back in and redo T2 because Arnold wants three faces. Well, you know, who knew? And that was at the last minute. Trust me. I mean, we had already gotten approval, and he had changed his mind midstream. But I guess what I'm saying is I never wanted anybody to take all of their time, all of their effort, all of their creativity, all of their energy, and just, boom, give me another week. give me another month, give me another, give me another, and it's like, no, let me babysit this. I'll sell the dream, and if there is a battle to be fought, we'll go through the battle and let me know, and it's worth the effort if I can actually win the war. So if I start to next generation, if Greg had to go in and put in more shuttles instead of less insignias, okay, well, so be it. Right. I just turned around to look at my T2 to see the three faces that you were talking about. It's kind of him in states of decomposition. Yeah, it is, as opposed to what Doug originally had, which was wonderful and marvelous, but he did a paint-over job. You mentioned the Beatles earlier, and I know because I was in on that from ground zero what an incredibly difficult and expensive license it was to get. So let's say for argument that J.K. Rowling or Warner Brothers would only sell a pinball company the Harry Potter license if they shelled out $2 million. bucks. Do you think that in a situation like this, a company should jump at the opportunity because it's such a sure thing and then charge significantly more for the game? Yeah, that's everybody's that's always at the top of everybody's dream thing. Harry Potter is always there. So let me answer it this way. I'm a fan of Harry Potter. In a single pinball machine, you're going to have all seven books. I wouldn't do it that way. Are you going to have seven different games? If you consulted me, I would say do three different games, one a year, and you consolidate like three years into one game, three years into the next game, and the final three years into the third game. No, no, and that part's fine. I still think to this day that the best execution was the original Williams-Indiana Jones where we had all three movies, the high points of all three, and again, not all three. Yeah, but the difference with that, though, is Indiana Jones barely changed within those three movies no no i trust you you got kids growing up you got kids growing up you know from youth to you know 20 somethings in harry potter so it would be really difficult to i mean because you not only if you got to take harry and take him from eight years old or whatever he was up to 24 but all the other characters because there's so many characters in that there's not enough room on one in different characters so the point i guess i'm making is is it worth two million dollars or Whatever else, if you're going to do multiple games, and you knew that up front, to your point, then the question becomes, what can you really spell to offset the investment? And more importantly, what assets do I get? If I'm doing a match-three game online, that's much easier in terms of being able to monetize and get the revenue necessary to cover the cost for something that might be a Harry Potter-themed online match-three world. I love that game, by the way. I play the heck out of it. I play the heck out of that game. I was going to say, they could work through a gym. That's what I worked on? Yes. The Harry Potter? Yeah. I did some artwork for that. We got Archmell and everybody. So, look, I know that Joe's going to get Harry Potter. I think that it's great. I think that it's going to be something that will knock everybody's socks off. I think the bigger problem is going to be, does it make sense financially, or does it become a loss leader? What kind of harnessing will JK put on the use of any of the content, let alone the rights to any of the talent? The fact that Alan Rickman is no longer with us, okay, how do I deal with that? So I think that, you know, if you can create a series and you know that your marketplace will embrace two, three distinctive Harry Potter games, they're going to cover the entire universe with their own storylines and everything else and their own character sets, because obviously Hagrid is really big here, but he's not so big here, so I want to make sure that, you know, I'm going to give you Hogwarts, but I'm also going to need to give you this, this, this, and this. and then the ultimate resolution of things and be able to get all of that footage, then maybe. But I think that there comes a point of diminishing returns where this is just me. I don't know if you chase after things financially just to say that you got it. There's a situation in the world of slot machines where I went after stuff and when the price got to a point, I just backed off. It's not my money. I went back to the company and I wouldn't do it. You know, I had the Beatles license, you know, 30 years ago. There was a game design. I had eight songs. A dear departed pinball designer, who will remain nameless, had a game all lined up, and it was 10 to 10. I said, yeah, I don't think so. He's like, seriously, really? And it was for a fraction, a fraction of the price. It was based on what my standards were back then. So I think that Harry Potter would love it. My concern is, how do you execute it to give everybody everything that they have an expectation for? Well, that's one concern, but also, do you think you could charge more for that game based on all of these things? Number one, that you've got a huge built-in audience, and it costs you more. Because I'm thinking along the lines of the way the Beatles worked. Because that was so expensive, they charged more, but the Beatles wasn't a multi-generational thing. So a lot of the younger people who weren't super into the Beatles were like, that's a ripoff. That game sucks. I don't even want to play it. I don't care. Like, just because of the price, they got this nasty stigma about it. Whereas I don't think that would happen with Harry Potter because it's cross-generational. Actually, it's more younger, I would say. In this day and age with $1,000 toppers getting, you know, sold out instantly, and it doesn't seem like there's a ceiling in terms of what people would pay for these games. Can you offset the cost of the license, you know, by discharging more? Yeah. So the question is whether or not people are going to step up and spend $20,000 three times for a $60,000 investment to get the entire series. How massive and big is that audience? You know, let's face it. I think, and hopefully I'm not speaking out of turn on this, I think that there is actually an IP that has been somewhat formidable out in the real world that is cross-generational, has appealed massively, that might not have performed as well as anybody would have expected if you had the Star Wars license. So, you know, the bottom line is... You were talking about Count Chocula. I thought he was talking about the changes. Or bootlegging. I think that, you know, it's a risk. It's a risk to say up front, again, looking at past performance, and, you know, it's not to say, well, there was other Star Wars games and everything else, but the price point that was spent to bring those to market, because I actually worked on one as well, wasn't as exorbitant as what we're talking about in this particular scenario with Harry Potter. And if it's going to be a seven-digit deal or a high six-figure or whatever else, then the question really becomes what kind of flexibility and freedom do I go after all of what I need what's my hit list look like what's going to be missing and again can you get people to pony up sure yeah is it going to be a sufficient quantity so I can sell I don't know 500 machines at twenty thousand dollars it's a million bucks okay that's so that's going to cover my down payment on my guarantee, but it's also cost me some money to bring it to market. So let's say it cost me $200,000 to $500,000 in development costs to get everything together. So I'm now out of pocket another half a million dollars to cover. More toppers. Sure. Like I'm saying, so when I start looking at it, then the question becomes, all right, when I scale back and give you the less expensive, whatever, not limited edition, that's now going to be $10,000 instead of six, how many more can I actually sell of that to offset it? You know, look, it's a little bit different than the days where an average, not necessarily an average game, a non-licensed game like Fishtails could do 12,000 machines. Those numbers don't exist anymore. And the production capacity of anybody, how long are you going to wait to get to the 5,000 machine mark? I mean, you're good in a sweet spot of about 2,500 to 4,000 machines at best over a period of time. That's it. And so the 500 of this, the 700 of this, the 200 of this, that's your beachhead. But that's not necessarily enough to live on going forward. So I think that Harry Potter is going to happen. It's going to be very costly. The numbers are going to be astronomical. It's not going to be like Supreme where you're going to sell one for $50,000 or whatever the crazy numbers are. And we get it out of the way. It's knocked out, and it's no longer the holy grail for everybody in terms of, oh, my God, the one thing that's missing in the world of pinball is that. and now we can all turn our attention to James Bond. Right. Well, you know, kind of speaking of that... Or whatever the next whale might be perceived as being. It doesn't seem like there are a ton of those grails that everyone wants. In most of the games that we're seeing now, at least a lot of them are going back to the well. You know, remakes, reboots of things that have already been done within pinball. What's your take on that? I mean, is it easier just to go back to a sure thing, or would you wish more people would take shots at new licenses is or even original themes? I think I'm disappointed. I guess it's the way that I describe it. I think that, look, it's a very fragmented market right now. And just looking specifically at Kimball, it's fragmented from the standpoint that it has to be a license. Oh my God, it has to be. You cannot do original themes. And we did pretty nicely for a couple of years at Williams Valley, integrating original themes like a medieval madness that people still have a desire for, even though it's not licensed, versus the T2s and the Addams Families of the world and whatever else. I think that that barrier to entry is unfortunate, okay? Because you're kind of predetermining what you have to do. Having said that, going back in and redoing stuff. Pinball industry has become victimized by what the world of entertainment has done. You know, you got something like Ant-Man that was going to be a one-off. It's done really well. Now, oh, we're doing a trilogy. Guardians of the Galaxy was going to be a one-off that was just secondary tertiary characters that's just a throwaway we're going to let Chris Crack go back to do Jurassic and other things but oh my god look at this, like Roots of Sensation oh my god, we're now going to do multiple movies and I think when things are structured up front and I'm thinking specifically of Lord of the Rings which I worked on for slots, fantastic project to work on, I think that you know there was an understanding that the magnitude of what Toklian has created is going to necessitate carving it out this way. And then, oh, by the way, here's this companion that maybe we'll consider doing, if these others are successful, the hobbits. So, okay. I think when you have something like that, that's fine. When we have all the spin-offs and everything else where you're trying to cannibalize, bastardize the Mandalorian, and now rogue this, and this character over here, there's going to be Boba Fett, and there's going to, I mean, we're going to expand this universe. And I think that what has happened with Pinball is that we are looking at things that people thought of affectionately. We talked before about Guns N' Roses. You can now approach it in a way that's totally different. I didn't understand why Stern felt the need and John felt the need to do another Indiana Jones. I thought it was funny. I would dare say that anybody wanting to do Addams Family, unless you're doing it as a remake, why would you even bother to do anything like that? It's kind of like, God, will they ever remake Forrest Gump? Oh, God, it would be such a great story. Can we follow Bubba Shrimp? The golden thong. The pinball. Yeah. So, I guess my sense is I wish, I understand there's a fertile ground to go back to doing things that have familiarity. I can understand and appreciate if any of the companies back when might have shorted production and that there was a demand and a desire. Let's face it, Doug has done very nicely with remakes. Right. I mean, he's proven that, guess what? I don't need an LCD in an LCD world. I can go back and do a 20-some-odd year-old game and be successful with it and maybe I can do others that I've identified and if there's a marketplace that is not necessarily totally satiated yet, I'm taking that up. Christopher mentioned before in terms of vault additions. You know what? We left some meat on the table. Let's go back in and let's do more of this. I think that's fantastic. Do I think that there are ways, Jurassic we talked about before, to do multiple iterations of that. Yeah, I mean, if it's a different take, and it is, it's a different designer who has this vision and this wonder of what he can create, then you go for it. And I'm not saying that that shouldn't happen, because I think there are some people who have their collections where they're going to line them all up next to each other, a la all three or four of their Harry Potter games are going to be on that one wall celebrating it. So I think that there's ways to do a mix and a match. I guess the only way that I would answer it truthfully is that there has to be a reason. There has to be something that is so apparent that was missing before, whether it's technology-based, whether it is different assets, whether there are things that were missed because over a period of time you come from a different perspective in regard to how you craft and articulate your storyline and objectives. That, yes, if you can justify it that way, then go for it. I don't think that's why makers are going back to the well for stuff like that. I think it's the same reason Hollywood is, which is we're going with something with a built-in safety net. It's proven, rather than take a chance, like look at the lesson, you know, Stern had with Stranger Things. Very hot property, didn't sell well, kind of tanked, actually. Whereas when you stick with something that's tried and true, I don't think Stern is like saying, well, you know, technology's changed, we can make such a better Star Wars game now. No, Star Wars is Star Wars, and you can't miss. Unfortunately, I think the problem with Star Wars was it was a Steve Ritchie game. And as much as I love Steve and what he does, he really caters to a particular kind of player. Whereas out on location, somebody walking up to Star Wars at like a Dave and Buster's or whatever, they're going to expect the Star Wars world under glass and they're going to look at that game and go, what is this? No, no, no. I totally agree with you on that. But I also think that, you know, if I go back to do another wrestling themed game, because there had been one before with a little mini play field and whatever else. And then I got back in and I do WrestleMania. Do I really need to do that? Despite the fact that I have a little screen. So I think, Christopher, to your point, yeah. I mean, you go the expedient route, which is, all right, there's a built-in awareness. So let's go for it. I think the other part to it, and I'll take exception on some levels in terms of Stranger Things, is the assumption that just because it is a hit show on Netflix that the primary audience happens to also be your demographic for pinball. Forgetting about the game layout and the design, the great anticipation, Brian Eddy is coming back. Oh, my God. And, you know, will it meet our expectations or surpass it? So he had a difficult hill to climb. Sure. But I think the real key is, and it's something that I pride myself on, is can I take a look at any particular IP, whatever it might be? And I do this a lot in terms of gaming. It may have all the right demos, but are those people playing slot machines? Are they going to casinos? Are they playing online? And I think for pinball, it's easy to say that something is a hit movie or a hit show. I would argue that sometimes you have to delve a little bit deeper and understand if it really is something that is going to codify a market with an urgency to collect, buy, or operate that particular thing. You kind of just touched on the answer to this question, but if you want to elaborate at all on this, the million-dollar question and kind of the tack in this topic of licensing would be, what makes the best pinball license? Do you have a set of criteria that you personally feel are needed to find the ideal pinball license? Yes. Okay. The first and most important is a design team that has a passion and enthusiasm and a burning desire to create a pinball based on that celebrity, that music group, that whatever. Somebody, I mean, I'll use the example, and I know we want to look forward, but I tend to look back referentially. I always think that you need to never forget the past because otherwise you're going to be, unfortunately, finding yourself repeating the past and sometimes not necessarily in a good way. We went out. It was John and Python and myself. We had Bugs Bunny's birthday bash. I think, again, that most people want to forget. Right. And Python had done some artwork with the Tasmanian devil and his wife. Oh, boy. And John was this huge, huge. I mean, we're talking about this manic Bugs Bunny fan. And we're presenting the artwork, the play field, what the back glass is going to look like. And the one point that came out was the Tasmanian devil's wife had on a polka dot dress, whatever the color was. Let's say it was green with orange polka dots. Oh, you can't do that. No. And John instantaneously and immediately. Back in 19, whatever, I'll use a date. 1957, episode six, she had that dress on. Nice. They called up. Creative people came up. where the headquarters for Warner Brothers came up, looked at the artwork, because obviously there was this disagreement, and it's like, oh, wow, yes, because they were getting ready to launch a brand-new Tasmanian Devil cartoon, and they were going to feature his wife a little bit more often, and guess what? That was her dress that she was going to be wearing. Wow, nice. So when you can go to the licensed store and know the commodity almost even better, that is an ingredient that I strive for, is that you know it. You know it. You're living it. you're breathing it, you're eating it. So that becomes number one critical. The other part, and we've kind of touched upon this before, is can you get everything that you need? If you can't and you're going to shortchange it or you're going to try to find a workaround because, oh, my God, I can get that, but I can't get all of it. I kind of joke from time to time, so when I'm buying the car, does it come with a steering wheel? Is that an option? What do I get? And what I don't want to have is creative people that wind up sacrificing their integrity, their vision. So when you ask, you know, what makes a good game, I think Christopher also pointed it out. I'm not taking pot shots at speed because I think his work is great, and I have a couple of his games in my house, and he's spectacular. He wasn't the right designer for something that Christopher pointed out was going to be a more general public. You needed somebody that wasn't going to be, I'll call it, flipper-dependent in terms of the design. You need somebody that could bat a ball around and have some fun. You need a John Boer. Well, I mean, it's the same scenario. I mean, potentially, John, or you can go back and take a look at any of the designers out there who have been seen as a more generous kind of approach to design, where it is the old saying of easy to learn, difficult to master. And some people say it's boring. Oh, my God. It doesn't have depth. It's too easy. It's too this. It's too that. You needed something like that that would have been appealing and captivating for the Star Wars fan. And if you take a look at the success that Stern had and Data East before the Star Wars games, or even to a lesser extent of what we experienced in Episode I, which wasn't all that bad, but if you take a look really at what Data East had done, they approached it that way. Those games were really remarkable games and admittedly sold more than the more recent vintage one. So there has to be something to that in terms of the approach and style. So I think that that becomes probably the most critical element that I see, and it's why I tend to emphasize before I kind of go on and make my pitches as to what do you have in mind. Do you have like a drawing, a concept, something? Because unless I'm believing in it, I'm not going to be able to really do my best job on behalf of my client and the potential project. And if it's just going to be a brand slap, I have to live with those things. That's my reputation that's on the line. And people are hoping that I am presenting them an opportunity that's going to be really good as opposed to something that's not so good. And there have been occasions, in all honesty, and this is across the board on a variety of projects, where the licensors come back to me saying, oh, we should have done more for you. It was our fault. Interesting. Do you know how crippling that is for somebody to hear that? It wasn't your fault. Or in some cases, it actually was. And people pointed out that I wish you would have done more, better, or different. But there were times where we fell down. I mean, is it just a financial thing? Because you would think that a company that had a license that was popular would want to showcase that license and put out as much as they possibly could to make the product better so that their license shows well. Why restrict things so much that you're left with a watered-down version of a license that doesn't reflect on them well either? Because sometimes it's an opportunity just for business. It's not something that they're pursuing. Right. You're coming to them saying, hi, I want to give you money. Oh, really? Okay, sure. And if you're not asking the questions, which unfortunately over the years has been the case by various manufacturers, there's a particular instance now that I can speak to it because I was involved. Nobody ever asked me to get the rights to her. She was available. You mean you didn't want her in the game? Oh. She was a central character. Get away from her, you bitch! Son of a bitch. They said they could have done it? I believe that they could have because I got the license. Okay. And it would have cost them more? No! Pardon the interruption, but just in case you didn't hear that the first time. And it would have cost him more? No. Andrew, give me a shout. Here, this is all the stuff I can get you. You want Michael Bing? You want these characters? Sure, okay. And Sigourney? All right, let me know, and, you know, we'll take it. No. Went on their merry way. A little bit different than Barry and Yap calling me, and all the word being about, you know, the big Lebowski. Can't get this, can't get this, can't get this. We really want this. Oh, okay. Well, at least you've asked me. I'll get it for you. Done. when everybody said, no, it's not possible. And Christopher and I had shared a story before in terms of the original Batman, in terms of what I was able to get versus not get, and I decided not to do the license because for my purposes, I couldn't get the likeness rights that I needed. So I think that there are times where if you have the ability to influence the decision-making internally, either as an employee or as an outside consultant, to try to steer the best decisions, that's what I attempt to do. And there are other times where you kind of shake your head and it's like, wow, I can't believe it. And I'll share something off topic, at least in terms of the category. We were coming through with a breakthrough technology and an approach with slot machines with Top Gun. Could not get Tom Antonio Cruz. I said I didn't want to do it at all. Could not get Tom, don't want to do it. And it was our immersion. Sit down, kind of an arcade cabinet if you've ever seen anything, if you've ever gone to a casino. And the design team came back to me and said, here, this is how we're going to do it. and all we need are these five characters on top, and we're going to have these jets fly by because the numbers and the reels are going to shake. We don't need them. We don't want them. If anything, you as the player are Tom. Oh, wow. All right, let me go to the studio and tell them. And we did a project that was not only incredibly successful on its own, but it carved out a unique niche in terms of cabinet design where we followed up with Wizard of Oz that just took off. Right. So in that particular instance, they sold me on the fact that, yes, we could do this without Tom. That's cool. But now when I talk to people who say, you know, one of the great holy grails is Mission Impossible, knock yourself out if you can get Tom. But otherwise, what are you going to do? Go back to the old TV series? Does anybody really care about Peter Graves? No, but Get Smart would be a fun pinball. That would be. What's the thing about the shoe phone? With Don Adams and Barbara Patton? Or Steve Carell? No, no, no, no. Don Adams. The original, yeah. Thank you. You guys are able to keep up with me, and I haven't worked you too much. I guess I will take a break. Man, that was a lot of fun. Stump the Stash with the one and only Roger Sharp. Be sure to tune in for episode 24 for the conclusion of our interview, the next half of our contest, and a ton of random questions that got really, really interesting towards the end. So you're going to want to hear that. And also find out just how many bags of dog food we're going to be giving to the Military Canine Dog Shelter on behalf of Barlow's Pin Pets Shelter Drive for 2021. Also, thanks to all the great pinball superstars for submitting a question to Roger. We all had a ton of fun putting this together, and his peers really got into the spirit of the game. So thank you all for submitting your questions. Don't forget to check out silverballswag.com for our cool swag, and be on the lookout for the new Super Awesome Monthly Shirt Club, featuring a new limited edition shirt every month. And with that, thanks for listening and supporting the show. Spread the word, and we'll have a kick-ass lineup for 2021. Happy New Year, and good night, everybody. See you next time. If you'd like to drop us a line or ask a question, we can be reached at superawesomepinball at gmail.com. Questions or comments may be read on the air. The original content of this podcast is copyright 2020 Asshat Radio Productions. The comments, your opinions, and the opinions shared by the cast and guests do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the sponsors, Coin Taker, Chicago Gaming Company, and Batgalley Creations. Their sponsorships of this show only serve to add to their continuing support of the pinball community. What we're doing, you angels, baby It's the property that's in pain Okay, okay, show's over, folks. Bye-bye. Bye-bye. Hey, your fucking chalupa sucks, bitch! Now it's time for some funny bloopers! Thank you, Johnny, and everyone say hello to Jip Whiskit. Jip, are you ready for today's game? You bet, Dink. Could you, just for my pleasure, could you say you bet dink one more time? You bet dink. I'm not sure if this is you bet dink. Oh, shit. I don't know why that's funny. I'm laughing because you're laughing. I just said, what? You bet dink. These names kill me, Dink and Jip. It was very satisfying. I'll get a light bulb.