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Episode 79_Talking About Star Wars

The Spinner Is Lit Pinball Podcast·podcast_episode·2h 30m·analyzed·Sep 20, 2025
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.035

TL;DR

Hosts discuss Evil Dead's success, Reno pinball scene growth, and upcoming tournaments ahead of Star Wars game deep-dive.

Summary

The Spinner Is Lit hosts Spencer, Dan, and Mark discuss recent pinball activities including local tournaments and new arcade locations, Evil Dead's limited production and collector appeal, and upcoming events. The episode primarily covers Spooky Pinball's Evil Dead—praising its theme integration, Bruce Campbell voice work, mechanical design, and reliability—while noting collector vs. casual player tensions around production limits. The hosts also highlight the growing Reno pinball scene and tournament activity before transitioning to the main Star Wars topic.

Key Claims

  • Evil Dead was produced in approximately 800 units and is already trading on secondary market for significantly above retail ($14,500 asking price for ~$10,000-$11,000 retail).

    high confidence · Dan and Mark discussing Evil Dead availability and secondary market pricing on Pinside.

  • Spooky Pinball stuck to their production limit decision and did not make additional Evil Dead units despite demand.

    high confidence · Mark explicitly praising Spooky for maintaining their production commitment.

  • Bruce Campbell provides custom voice work for Evil Dead with contextual one-liners that vary based on gameplay situations (e.g., comments on ball savers, drain speed).

    high confidence · Dan and Mark discussing specific examples of Bruce Campbell's voice lines during gameplay.

  • Evil Dead features a functional hand mechanism and turning head that integrate into gameplay, plus basement shot capabilities.

    high confidence · Mark detailing mechanical features and their integration into game design.

  • Reno Pinball Underground opened recently (described as opening 'this week') as a basement arcade in a thrift store featuring Evil Dead, Pirates of the Caribbean (JJP), Galactic Tank Force, Kong Pro, 50th Anniversary Jaws, and Banzai Run.

    high confidence · Mark describing new Reno location opening with specific game lineup.

  • Some Evil Dead units experienced extended downtime (two months) before becoming operational.

    medium confidence · Mark noting he knows 'people who got Evil Deads that didn't work for two months' before becoming functional.

  • Spooky's approach to game design emphasizes fan perspective over corporate constraints, contrasting with manufacturers bound by 'corporate tie-ins' or mass-market appeal requirements.

    medium confidence · Dan's editorial commentary on Spooky's design philosophy versus Stern and Jersey Jack.

  • A 24-hour tournament at Comet Kingdom is scheduled for November 1st coinciding with daylight savings time shift, offering 200%+ TGP (tournament game points).

Notable Quotes

  • “I think the biggest shame of it is...they're only making like 800 or whatever, and they're all gone and the game's already trading on the secondary market for well more than retail because it's just really fun, really well done.”

    Dan @ ~13:00-14:00 — Captures the core tension between collector FOMO and casual player access in the Evil Dead release.

  • “It has that spooky pinball feel where the software doesn't feel the most professional, but for Spooky and especially for Evil Dead, which was a shoestring movie even back in the day, like that kind of works, right? It totally fits.”

    Dan @ ~14:30 — Explains how Spooky's 'rough around the edges' aesthetic actually enhances thematic authenticity for cult properties.

  • “Every time I play, I go, man, it's perfect, just how he has the call-outs, and he's that monotone voice...and now when you hear it with everything else with the sounds, it's so perfect.”

    Mark @ ~15:30 — Describes how Bruce Campbell's initially criticized voice acting became perfect when integrated with game sound design.

  • “They're less hindered by their corporate alliances, their corporate tie. And they make the best possible game they can make with the stuff that they think is going to be the coolest.”

    Dan @ ~19:00 — Core philosophical distinction Dan draws between boutique manufacturers and major corporate entities.

  • “I fell asleep on him. I called him back about a half hour later. I woke up. I'm like, oh shit. I fell asleep on Dan.”

    Spencer @ ~38:00 — Humorous aside that reveals age-related fatigue challenges for aging pinball enthusiasts.

  • “If you want to play pinball for 12 straight hours, you can do that. You can just hop from one place to the other.”

    Dan @ ~31:00 — Highlights how multi-location pinball infrastructure in Reno enables extended play sessions with venue diversity.

  • “Even as crazy rare as JJP Pirates is supposed to be, which in the world of pinball, 1,000 units isn't that rare, but it's in demand. There's less Evil Dead's out there.”

Entities

Evil DeadgameSpooky PinballcompanyDanpersonSpencerpersonMarkpersonBruce CampbellpersonReno Pinball Undergroundvenue

Signals

  • ?

    product_concern: Some Evil Dead units experienced extended downtime (two months) before becoming operational despite overall game robustness, suggesting initial production quality issues.

    medium · Mark: 'I know people who got Evil Deads that...didn't work for two months, and then they finally got them up and running.'

  • ?

    collector_signal: Evil Dead units selling on secondary market (Pinside) for ~$14,500 against ~$10,000-$11,000 retail, representing 40%+ premium driven by limited 800-unit production.

    high · Dan/Mark discussing $14.5k pending sale on Pinside against retail price of '$10,000, $11,000, something like that.'

  • $

    market_signal: Evil Dead's limited production (800 units) and quick sellout generating intense secondary market demand and collector gatekeeping, creating tension between collectors and casual/location players.

    high · Dan: 'they're only making like 800 or whatever, and they're all gone and the game's already trading on the secondary market for well more than retail...it's just such a shame...if you can get one...there was none for sale on Pinside right now. There's like eight wanted ads.'

  • ?

    venue_signal: Reno Pinball Underground opened as basement arcade in thrift store with 18-game lineup including rare titles (Evil Dead, JJP Pirates, Galactic Tank Force). Daytime-only hours complement existing venues.

    high · Mark: 'There is a new location opening up in Reno...Reno Pinball Underground. So it is literally an arcade of pinball machines down in the basement in a thrift store...18 games...It is going to pretty cool. It's opening this week.'

  • ?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.450

0:00
This is the Nick Winter Show, and I do the entertaining, thank you. Let's go out with something really hot for these folks, a big hit out of 77.
0:09
Ah, Star Wars, nothing but Star Wars. Give me the Star Wars, don't let them in. Ah, Star Wars If they should fire wars Please let me Star Wars Stay And hey, how about that nutty Star Wars bar Can you forget all the creatures in there And hey, Darth Vader in that black and evil mask Did he scare you as much as he scared me? Star Wars! So there is Star Wars! Our seventh winner up here! Star Wars!
1:19
Hey, welcome to the Spinner's Lip Pinball Podcast, Episode 79. Talking about Star Wars. Or the Force is with us. We don't know. You choose. Talking about Star Wars.
1:37
So you kind of know what this episode is going to be about. I'm Spencer, your host, and with me, my co-host, Dan. Hey, how's it going, folks? And Mark. Hey, everyone. How's everyone doing? So before we drift off to a galaxy far, far away for a long time and a long chat, you guys have stuff that you've been doing. Dan, what have you been doing since the last episode? So we actually just had the CCPL Lodi Season 35 playoffs, and we had him at my house this year because of the situation with our usual host, Adam. He was in a work accident and just hasn't been up to having, you know, 20, 30 people over to his house to play pinball, and it was really, really cool. We had all of our usual suspects over to play some competitive pinball. We had a dozen games, and right before we were getting started, our friend of the show, Shannon, showed up with his new Evil Dead in the back of his truck. Oh, cool. Right? And I was like, hey, you know, can we set this up? And it's like, yes, of course we can set that up. So we drug it inside and we set it up and we actually put it in the, we kind of put it in the bank so that we could actually play it. and we had, you know, all 12 of our people in our bracket, and to tell you how competitive last season was, Alex was playing in B.

high confidence · Mark discussing upcoming 24-hour tournament logistics and point structure.

  • Reno Pinball Underground uses the code 'Lion Man' to access the basement arcade location.

    high confidence · Mark providing specific access code for the new venue.

  • Rick (apparent local champion) has grand championed most of Dan's personal games and is difficult to beat in home game tournaments.

    medium confidence · Dan discussing Rick's dominance in local play and on his machines.

    • Mark @ ~27:00 — Contextualizes Evil Dead's scarcity relative to other 'rare' limited edition pins.

  • “You know, I love the fact that we've got not a lot going here still. I haven't been doing much or nothing with pinball.”

    Mark @ ~44:00 — Indicates Mark's reduced pinball activity compared to his Colorado counterparts, suggesting regional engagement variance.

    • Comet Kingdom
    venue
    Rickperson
    Golden State Pinball Festivalevent
    Flipper Roomvenue
    Northern California Pinball Associationorganization
    Playfield Sports and Gamesvenue
    Press Startvenue
    Calnevavenue
    Pirates of the Caribbeangame
    Galactic Tank Forcegame
    Kong Progame
    Jaws (50th Anniversary)game
    Rocky Mountain Pinball Showevent
    Michael LaFriedaperson
    Hectorperson
    Pinbaseplatform
    Shannonperson

    design_innovation: Evil Dead's mechanical features (functional hand, turning head, basement shot) integrate meaningfully into gameplay rather than serving as cosmetic elements, enhancing thematic authenticity.

    high · Mark: 'Having a hand go back and forth and a turning head, and it wasn't just cosmetic, but it actually was functional with the game. Being able to shoot into the basement, it's just so good.'

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Spooky Pinball characterized as less constrained by corporate requirements, enabling prioritization of creative/mechanical 'coolness' over mass-market appeal or manufacturing cost reduction.

    medium · Dan: 'They're less hindered by their corporate alliances, their corporate tie. And they make the best possible game they can make...I think that they're fans of pinball, and they make pinball games to ask fans...they make the best possible game they can make with the stuff that they think is going to be the coolest.'

  • ?

    content_signal: Bruce Campbell's voice work in Evil Dead includes contextual one-liners that vary based on gameplay state (ball savers, drain speed, etc.), adding immersion beyond standard call-outs.

    high · Dan: 'They'll come up with little lines. Like, if you're waiting too long...Bruce will be like, what, are you waiting for a ball saver or something?...if you drain out too fast, it'll be all like, oh, man, you know, I didn't know how much you sucked at this.'

  • ?

    event_signal: Multiple upcoming tournaments announced: October 4-5 weekend tournament at Comet Kingdom, November 1st 24-hour tournament with 200%+ TGP, Rocky Mountain Pinball Show in Denver next weekend.

    high · Mark: 'Big tournament coming up over at Comet Kingdom...October 4th and 5th...And then on November 1st, we are doing it again. We are having the 24-hour tournament...will be at least 200% TGP.'

  • ?

    business_signal: Spooky Pinball honored stated production limits for Evil Dead despite secondary market demand and collector requests for additional runs, maintaining scarcity and resale value.

    high · Mark: 'I think that one of the best things about Spooky...they didn't make any more and go against what they said. It's good and bad...good from the standpoint that...your quote-unquote investment is going to be safe.'

  • ?

    community_signal: Reno pinball scene characterized as having highly engaged community-run locations with strong emphasis on machine maintenance and curation, differentiating from 'clunker' locations elsewhere.

    medium · Dan: 'Every one of the locations in Reno...they're all run by extremely engaged members of the community...they love pinball...the Reno pinball scene has got to be second to none these days.'

  • ?

    licensing_signal: Evil Dead's cult status and 'shoestring' production history create thematic resonance with Spooky's brand identity, making the IP better suited to boutique manufacturer than mainstream producer.

    medium · Dan: 'Evil Dead...is cult enough that it fits into your vibe where Spooky kind of generally does stuff that's not like super mass market...It's not...really right now the most culturally relevant, but the people that you want to sell it to have super fond memories of it.'

    • 3:16
    Really? Which, not surprisingly, he won. Not in a landslide. It was really competitive. There were some good players, and after a full day of pinball, I stalled out at sixth place, unfortunately. But our winners were Hector, and he got past Rick in the final round. Rick just went unopposed to that final round when things just went a little south for him. And who was our third place? Oh, Shannon, the evil dead man himself. Shannon took third place. So it was a really, really fun day and nice to have people over. The weather was nice. You know, my house, we play out in the garage. Even though I have an air conditioner, we like to play with the door open if we can. So the weather was nice enough pretty much the whole day for open-air pinball. And, you know, a humongous thanks to, you know, everybody who showed up to play and, you know, owning all these games and doing all this pinball-related stuff worthwhile. Also, it was great to see Adam, who did come to play and actually beat me. He took fifth. nice sounds like a lot of fun that's awesome so hector was the winner hector is the winner is that hector was the winner you know he's he is good he's he's super good he's he's so good you almost don't want to like him his wife brought chili and he married super well so you know we'll let him keep coming around i guess you had hector's wife chili that's just It's like you can live off that and Henry Chicken. I mean, that's like their own food groups now, you know. And we do a potluck, so we have Henry Chicken as well. Oh, man. In fact, we have leftover Henry Chicken. I love Henry Chicken.
    5:12
    Henry Chicken is the best. Everybody loves Henry Chicken. I had that when I went over to his house that one time. I think it was before Golden State or maybe it was before Pinnagogo. I can't remember, but it was awesome. I think I just chowed down on I don't know how many pieces of chicken. It was awesome. It's easier to just sit in front of the crock pot and just, you know, or just when he puts it on a plate or whatever, just eat, eat. You know, it's like this is so good. It's so good. Yep. Well, there's like a process to it, too. He like steams it. He like marinates it. Then he, the crock pots are steamed in the pressure. He pressure cooks it. Pressure cooker, that's it. Yeah. And then he finishes it on the grill. So it gets a nice caramelized. finish. It's amazing. And then it sits, you know, then it sits in the, you know, tinfoil thing all day and gets like thoroughly, thoroughly permeated with its own juices. So it's, you know, hopefully you like that umami because it's definitely got that, you know, soy sauce. Yes, she does umami flavor. Yeah. Super fantastic. That's awesome. Yeah. And I don't remember if we had talked before that about Folsom. I know I posted it on the website.
    6:22
    You posted it on the website, but I don't think we talked about it. Yeah, Alex won Folsom, so he took the A for Folsom, and then second was Jack, third was Mike Garcia, and fourth there was me. So I actually did better in Folsom this season than I did in Lodi, which is terrible because I play at my house in Lodi, and you'd think I'd be better. I did take second the week we played at my house though so not too bad hard to beat Rick on my own games he's grand champed pretty much all of them that guy lives a little too close to me so now as far as Evil Dead goes what was the feeling tone of people playing it?
    7:01
    oh I think everybody loves that game right? oh freaking good and I just think the biggest shame of it is and I mean I know for the collectors it's just a dream come true but I think for those of us who aren't necessarily just collectors but would like to have something just to play it, it's just such a shame they're only making like, what's it, like $777 or $800 or whatever, and they're all gone and the game's already trading on the secondary market for well more than retail because it's just really fun, really well done, a great theme, and the assets and everything have been used almost to perfection. It has that spooky pinball feel where it's like the software doesn't feel the most professional, but weirdly enough, for spooky and especially for Evil Dead, which was, you know, a shoestring movie even back in the day, like that kind of works, right? It totally fits. Like it vibes. Yeah. So, yeah, I mean, it's a really, really well done game. We didn't get through faultlessly. It did have a couple hiccups. but honestly for a game you know that's as new as it is and it's on early code like you know it got played every round somebody was always choosing it and uh yeah and then i think we played dollar games or straw ball or something on it after so yeah it was awesome it was just a tank man like it's a really really cool game and i think that uh you know i think that one of the best things about Evil Dead just as a theme and as a franchise is it's known enough that you're going to easily sell 1,000 or 1,500 or 2,000, however many that you'd want to sell if you're a small company like Spooky, but it's cult enough that it fits into your vibe where Spooky kind of generally does stuff that's not like super mass market, right? Like, even the stuff that they do that's super mass market, like Looney Tunes or Scooby-Doo, like, that stuff is kind of, you know, yesterday's, like, mass market. It's not, like, really right now the most culturally relevant, but the people that you want to sell it to have super fond memories of it. Like, everybody I know who was, you know, watching horror movies in the 80s remembers Evil Dead or Evil Dead 2 or Army of Darkness fondly. Right. Right, because they're all like goofy, fun, splatter movies. Right, and the thing that's amazing about that game is they got Bruce Campbell to do the call-outs. Which makes it. It makes it. That's what I love. Every time I play, I go, man, it's perfect, just how he has the call-outs, and he's that monotone voice before they were ripping on it saying, oh, yeah, he doesn't have enough intonation in his voice, and he sounds like he's scripted. And now when you hear it with everything else with the sounds, it's so perfect. It sounds great. Spooky is good at that, though, because they did the same thing with Rick and Morty. Yep. Like, if they get a named voice actor, they're good at putting a lot of, like, in-jokes in there where the celebrity voice isn't just going to be like jackpot, extra ball, stuff like that. But, like, they'll come up with little lines. Like, if you're waiting too long to shoot the ball, like, Bruce will be like, what, are you waiting for a ball saver or something? Or are you waiting for a ball search? Or if you drain out too fast, it'll be all like, oh, man, you know, I didn't know how much you sucked at this. Like, so it's pretty amusing. Well, I think what's really awesome about it is that Spooky did stick to their guns and not make any more for people that were saying, you know. I mean, it is the same that there's not a whole bunch made more than what they made, but they didn't make any more and go against what they said. It's good and bad. It's good and bad, right? It's good from the standpoint that, like, if you are a collector, if you are a spooky enthusiast, if you do have to own something that no one else has and you get your hands on one of those, you know, your quote-unquote investment is going to be safe. But it's too bad from the standpoint that, like, certain people who would probably love to see this game will have a harder time getting their hands on it. Yeah. You know, and it's just, you know, I kind of have that dichotomy, right, where I'm like, I can see why the collector would be like, this is great, right? I applaud them sticking to their guns and not devaluing my game. I wish that we weren't in a situation where that had to be necessary because I don't know why we live in a world where they made almost 2,000 Scooby-Doos and no one's excited about that. But, you know, this game, which is awesome, and I think people are probably way more into, they're making 800. Yep. And the other thing, too, to think about is I'm starting to feel more and more, I'm becoming more and more a fan of spooky pinball just because of all the magic that's in the game. I mean, there are so many mechs loaded into that game, and they're pretty reliable too. But just having a hand go back and forth and a turning head, and it wasn't just cosmetic, but it actually was functional with the game. Being able to shoot into the basement, it's just so good. And the feeling of it being a wide body, it is fast, and it moves great, and it flows great. I mean, they really did a good job with this game. I mean, I don't want to speak to Spooky Pinball on the whole for, like, reliability and whatnot. But they're heading in the right direction. Because I know that some of their games have had issues. Yeah. And, you know, I know that some of their support in the past has been, you know, I mean, it's been good. You know, they stand behind their product. But, you know, it's been difficult. I think this game is definitely, you know, as robust as you can hope for it to be, right? But, you know, I know people who got Evil Deads that, you know, didn't work for two months, and then they finally got them up and running. So I'm not trying to flag Spooky.
    13:19
    I think that the cool thing about Spooky and why we're fans is because I think that they're fans of pinball, and they make pinball games to ask fans, not saying that Elwin doesn't make a pinball game as a fan when he's working for Stern, not saying that, you know, the guys who work at, you know, Jersey Jack aren't making pinball machines as fans, you know, Steve Ritchie and whatnot.
    13:44
    But I think that they're less hindered by their, quote, unquote, corporate alliances, their corporate tie. And, you know, they make the best possible game they can make with the stuff that they think is going to be the coolest within the limits of their reality. Right. And, you know, I'm sure that the spooky pinball Evil Dead that they made is the one that, within the limits of pinball technology and being able to spend as much money as they can spend and still make a profit, that Bug and Charlie and Luke and those guys wanted to see. Yep. Where I'm sure at Stern, a lot more of it is like, what do we take out to meet the bomb? what's going to be easy to manufacture and what's going to hopefully have the most mass market appeal, which is something that I think that we'll be talking about when we get into our main topic today. Great.
    14:44
    But yeah, Feeble Dead rocks. So don't consider this a review, but if you can get one, we highly recommend it. It is quite choice. I was just thinking, Yeah, if you can pick one up. If you have the means.
    15:02
    Well, there was none for sale on Pennside right now. There's like eight wanted ads. And there was one for sale. It was pending at 14.5. Oh, wow. What was the price on that originally?
    15:17
    $10,000, $11,000, something like that. Yeah. By the time that it would have been time to get one, and it was way past the point in my life where I was going to be able to pull the dirt to the point in that game's production where I was going to be able to pull the trigger on it. Plus, right now, life-wise, I'm not like, hey, $10,000 on a pinball machine. That's fair. I just managed to scam together the money to buy my Indiana Jones back, so I'm happy with that.
    15:46
    Yeah. Well, with me, as far as what I've been doing lately, I had a chance to start in a league. We're actually having an every-other-week league over at Playfield Sports and Games that Michael LaFrieda is setting up. It's a small group. It's about 13, but I'm hoping more join before we actually get into the tiered Swiss type of format based on our record. But right now, we're still hoping to have more people. It's every Wednesday night, actually every other Wednesday night, the weeks after the league will be actual tournaments. So it's like every other week, tournament one week, and then the next week it would be a league. And it's kind of fun because it's only four games. It's a quick night. You know, you get there and start about 730 to compensate for people who have to work and you can't make it early like other tournaments that are available. and it's pretty nice to see that it's consistency. So people come every other week, and we'll always have pretty much the same amount of people or more. And it's a great way to have a cumulative score that we haven't done for a long while for an actual league that was IFPA endorsed. So I'm excited about that. The other thing that's happening, which is very exciting, is there is a new location opening up in Reno, yet another pinball location. It is going to be pretty cool. It's opening this week. Hopefully Wednesday is when the doors actually open for this particular part of the store. And it is called Reno Pinball Underground. So it is literally an arcade of pinball machines down in the basement in a thrift store. So it's right in Midtown. You can't miss it. It's pretty much on the way to press start, and it's only open during the days. All the details are on Pinball Map, so if you want to go in there, it's Reno Pinball Underground, and it is a place to play some really good games. One of them is a Evil Dead, which is awesome. In fact, short story, he sold it, and then he wanted it back, and he bought it back. So now it's back in, but instead of having it at a private location, it's now public for people to play. And the other thing he's bringing that is rare that you see on location is Pirates of the Caribbean Jersey Jack. So he's going to have that on location too. Yeah, I have to believe that that's one of the few places in the country that you can go and play Evil Dead. Yep, exactly. Yeah, it's not very common. Yeah, even as crazy rare as JJP Pirates is supposed to be, which in the world of pinball, 1,000 units isn't that rare, but it's in demand.
    18:49
    There's less Evil Dead's out there. Yes, exactly. And he has a brand-new inbox that he got of a Galactic Tank Force with the latest code on it. So he has that available to play. And then he got three new inboxes, including the GTF. GTF, he also got a Kong Pro, and he has a 50th anniversary Jaws. Plus, he will also have a Banzai Run. So there's some really good games. More modern, less classic. There's a couple thrown in there, but mostly modern games, but games that you don't get to usually play at normal places. So really excited about that, and best of success with him. I know that he's open only during the day, So people who want to play pinball in all hours of night, they can go over to Calneva, and he has games there as well to play. So it's kind of a nice little tradeoff. It's like you want to play during the day. You can go if you're not working or retired. It's great. On the weekend, you can go at least until 8 o'clock on Friday and Saturday. But it's supposed to be really exciting. When I was there last weekend, I was helping set up the machines, And at that time, I was helping him set up about 18 games. And we were putting all the legs on him and leveling him and taking him off the trailer and everything like that. And it's ready for showtime. So if you ever come down to Reno and you're in the area during the daytime, it's Reno Pinball Underground. And if you go on Pinball Map, you can just go and search for where it's located on the map, and you can't miss it. and if you're listening, you've got to use a secret code to go down in the basement, and it is Lion Man. So anyway, that's all that's happening in Reno. We still have the tournaments. We do have a pin golf tournament that's starting this Tuesday, which I'm really excited about. Jim finally got it together, and we did a little test tournament a couple weeks ago, and now it's the real thing. So it should be fun playing a nine-hole course and objective-based, of course, because that's a lot more fun. and hopefully we'll get a lot of people interested and he'll keep doing that with different objectives. So very excited about that. But anyway, that's pretty much what's going on in Reno. You know the great thing about that Reno pinball scene too is like every one of the locations in Reno, and you guys have a bunch now, they're all run by extremely engaged members of the community, right? Like they love pinball. they love you know the community they love the games being in great shape and you know so no matter where you go in Reno to play pinball I just don't think you're going to find a place that's just full of clunkers that are just sitting there to have a pinball presence like the Reno pinball scene has got to be second to none these days it's pretty awesome and like you said people are passionate and want to keep those games running the best they can so yeah it's awesome Right on, man. That's cool. You know, more pinball is always good in different types of locations. Yeah, and different times, too. So he's not – and he's technically not competing with Press Start because Press Start is open at 4, and his normal hours are until 4 o'clock. So it's like you can just hop from one place to the other if you want. If you want to play pinball for 12 straight hours, you can do that. Yeah. And speaking of that, I forgot to mention, there's a big tournament coming up over at Comet Kingdom on the, I think it's the 4th and 5th of October. That is going to be a weekend tournament. It's going to be huge. It's going to be a lot of classics games in it. It's going to be a lot of points. So there's going to be people coming from Vegas that are coming up, and there might be people from Sacramento coming down. I'm sure Rick will probably be coming down. So that will be exciting. And then on November 1st, we are doing it again. We are having the 24-hour tournament. So it's going to be a 24-hour tournament during the daylight savings time where it's going to switch back to normal time. And it will be that same time when the time switches. There will be a finals component to it as well. So it will be at least 200% TGP. So that will be a lot of points as well. trying to get as many as we can because the year is almost getting to December. And before you know it, they're going to be doing a drawing for a new pinball machine. So it's going to be pretty exciting. That 24-hour pinball thing, like part of me thinks, oh, my God, that sounds like the coolest thing. I want to go do it. And the rest of me knows that, like, man, after 11 o'clock, I would be asleep on the floor. Yeah, a lot of people were taking naps. And Jim gave us a coin if we could stay up the whole time and play every round. and I don't know with me it's just like it's basically like I was like the energizer bunny just keeping going and going and going and going and then I was like disappointed when there were only two hours left and I knew it was going to be over that's pretty sickening when you think about it no it's got to be great to still have that kind of stamina man yeah I'll tell you yesterday a coming off of hosting and then a day of work and then the playoffs. And honestly, you know, I've known I was going to have to do this for a month, and I probably started really getting things ready about 48 hours in advance, which just sort of speaks to modern life. I mean, I'll tell you, about midway through the day, you know, I started off fast. I had a great first round. I went to a tiebreaker. I won the tiebreaker in fairly convincing fashion. It was great. And then I don't even know why, man, but I just hit a wall, right? I was just like, oh, man, I'm ready to be done playing pinball.
    24:54
    And that definitely affects your performance, right? Because if you're not into it, it's really not physically demanding. But if you're not into it, you don't stay focused. You don't make your shots. You lose your timing. and the next thing you know, you're just, you know, blanking out around, which is what happened to me. Plus, you know, you get up to facing the guys who are going to end up winning. But, yeah, you know, I couldn't even imagine staying focused on pinball for 24 hours, let alone, in my case, just staying awake, man. I'm getting to the point in my life where it's like I get home from work and the first thing I'm thinking of is nap. in my chair and getting myself about a 20, 30-minute power nap. I know Spencer does, too. I talk to him on the phone. I'm like, what are you doing? Sitting in my chair? I'm like, yeah. I'll tell this story real quick, Mark. About a month ago, I called Dan. And so we're talking, and then I'm in my chair. Somebody's going to go in my bedroom, and I lay on my bed. And it was like, because I'm 10 years older than you guys. I'm going to be 60 in December. and I literally, and I feel so bad about this until Dan was so cool about it. Like, I'll call you back. I literally, he's in the middle of a sentence. I fell asleep on him.
    26:12
    I called him back about a half hour later. I woke up. I'm like, oh shit. I fell asleep on Dan. Oh, you okay, man? Now you know our conversation is scintillating.
    26:23
    It's so interesting and fascinating. Yeah, Spencer fell asleep mid-sentence. So I was out. And that's like what they're talking about. I can't do that stuff anymore, man. I'm just, even like last year at Golden State, I'm like, by about 8 o'clock, it's like, God, I'm having a good time, guys, but I gotta go get some sleep. Yeah. No, I get it. I get it. I think the hardest part is the aftermath when I have to teach, you know, a couple days later. It does catch up to me, and I'm like totally out of it. And I have, I'll admit it, I've fell asleep in class when I have those late nights, too. Oh, yeah. And it's pretty funny because they're like, Mr. Scoff, Mr. Scoff, wake up. Oh, yeah. Are we keeping you up? Yeah. It's like, oh, it's so peaceful in here. You guys are being so good.
    27:09
    Yeah. Anyway, looking forward to it. And, yes, I am doing it again. But I'm definitely going to try to get a lot of sleep beforehand.
    27:17
    Just kind of get those eight hours a night, which usually is not me. I usually get six and I'm fine. But I love the 24-hour turnaround. I think it's a blast. You guys should get no-dose. Get no-dose to sponsor. No, I don't even do no-dose, no coffee, no nothing. I just do water and nuts. How do you do that? And, like, trail mix. That's what got me through. Okay, good proteins. Hydration and good protein. Okay. Yep. It's like the no-dose thing, yeah, like that doesn't actually help because what happens is when it wears off, you just crash. You crash. Yep. Yeah. I remember in college I did those no-dose things and not a good idea. Yeah. yep so anyway yep but you made it through college but it must have worked I made it through college yep he made it through college because he didn't know where all the pinball locations were because it wasn't the internet yet that is so true but I did have it like in my in the union so I yeah that's another story but I definitely played a lot of pinball in college not competition I wish that I knew about it but then like you said I probably wouldn't have done as well in college if I would have played competitive.
    28:29
    So, yeah. No, I love the fact that we've got not a lot going here still. I haven't been doing much or nothing with pinball. It was mentioned after the last episode, or I think before, I'd done some work on Flash Gordon, putting some new springs in the drop targets. Got a couple of code updates. We're up to .095 on Dungeons & Dragons. The code's fleshing out I can't wait until it gets to 1.0 It's getting better every time Every update's getting better So just been playing those And you know in Pinbot And looking forward to the Rocky Mountain Pinball Show Which is next weekend Oh cool I bet you'll get to play A Star Wars baby huh I'm hoping Right now I'm trying to figure out a schedule Seth just got a new job He starts Tuesday He did orientation Mickey's at Taco Bell, so he's working every weekend. And I'm like, do I really want to drive all the way to Denver by myself? Malcolm will ride shotgun with me if he wants to go. But, you know, it's the kind of thing where all the boys have been dying to go back to Denver just to, you know, go to the city and putter around for the day. So we'll see how it goes. But, yeah, so if I do end up going, which I want to, and I probably will, I'll let you guys know. And if I put you on a trip report. Trip report from Spencer. There you go. We need a trip report from me. Yeah, we do.
    29:54
    Well, we'll have a trip report next month no matter what because of Pinnagogo. Oh, yeah. You guys will have that. For the record, Mark, I heard what you tried to do there. I heard you go for the transition, and Spencer just blew it out of the water. So good job, Mark. I heard it. I'm sorry, man. I'm sorry. It was just funny. It was funny. Mark's like, hey, you're probably going to play some Star Wars, huh? Wink. Wink, wink. Yeah. Yeah, we're going to go to Colorado.
    30:25
    Like Lavi James would build on the TV version of Caddyshack. Hey, everybody, we're going to take showers.
    30:35
    Like, what the hell is that? What's up the line? When this baby goes 88 miles per hour, you're going to see some serious stuff. Yeah, exactly. This does not work. No, we're fine. This is why network TV is dead. It's stuff like that because we just won't tolerate it.
    30:59
    I always watched movies on TV. I mean, you know, at the time, sometimes it was just any port in a storm, right? Yeah. No, you're right. You're right. Oh, my God. Back to the Future is going to be on regular TV? Again? This is amazing. I tell the kids about that, and it's like we had to wait for stuff. We couldn't just push a button and have it instantly. You know, we had to wait for things patiently. And they're just looking at me like, what is wrong with you, Dad? What country are you from? Yeah, I know. What time? Yeah, exactly. It's like, you know, okay, okay, you know, artifact. No, no, why did we get ready to transition to Star Wars? I'll keep this moving because we're already at 30 minutes.
    31:42
    I had in my head, Dan, you didn't talk about the volunteer party. Oh, yeah. There was a volunteer party? It was. It was a volunteer party. Man, if you want to hear about it, maybe you should just show up for it. Damn, that's funny. No, you know what? We had the volunteer party for Golden State Pinball Festival at the Flipper Room in Concord. It was put on by, of course, the Northern California Pinball Association, and it was hosted by Mike Moretti, who's a member of the board. A big thanks to Mike and his family and everybody who did all the work to show us a little gratitude for bringing games or working shifts.
    32:23
    There was good food, great games, you know, lots and lots of old friends showed up. It felt like the attendance this year, it was on the first day of football season, and I do know some people blew it off to watch football, which I'm like, guys, there's going to be 16 football games this season, right? But there's going to be one volunteer party, so show for the volunteer party.
    32:48
    But that was really good. My wife came with me because she really, really likes the Golden State Trail. She comes to it and spends multiple days there every year. So she wanted to come to the volunteer party. And, you know, we played lots of games. And for those who live in Northern California, if you haven't been to the Flipper Room in Concord, you should go there. It is a coin place, right? So you usually pay to play, of course, on the volunteer party. Everything's on free play, which is awesome. And they have one of the most eclectic mixes of games that you'll ever see. They did have an Evil Dead there, but then they have stuff there that, you know, you're just not going to see anywhere else. You know, Mars Trek and Stern Dracula, which is usually my stop when I go there, and Addams Families, you know, and Swords of Fury and just every game from every era, you know, the modern stuff, you know, Scooby-Doo. I think they have kind of a themed room, so they have like a jungle room and they have like a horror room and they have like a sci-fi room. They have a classics room. And, yeah, it's a cool location, tons of art, stuff you can buy. So, and then I think the other big part of it is just you're seeing people, maybe you haven't seen them for a few months, maybe you haven't seen them for a couple days, maybe you haven't seen them since the show, but, you know, you get a chance to sit down there and talk with people about sometimes pinball, sometimes not pinball, sometimes pinball adjacent stuff. I hung out with David Velaski for a bit. I hung out with Jody Dugan. I hung out with Timothy a lot, my man Timothy. You know, just all your pin bros and, you know, all your pin acquaintances are there. So, yeah, it's a great thing to do. Not necessarily, you know, a party, something you can go to, but getting there is real simple.
    34:52
    In the spring, just either volunteer for some shifts or bring some games to the Golden State Pinball Festival in May, and we will send you an invite, or Practical Steve will send you an invite. Which, by the way, Practical Steve didn't make it this year.
    35:08
    Come on, Steven, buddy. I didn't make it either. Guilty as charged. Yeah, but you weren't throwing the party. Yeah, that's true. It's not like you said, here, come to my house. And I said, okay, I'll be there. You're like, by the way, I'm not going to be there. Heidi will take care of you. It's like, okay, well, that sounds cool too. Steve sent the invite. But, no, he had some family stuff he had to take care of. So he was very missed. I know everybody loves and adores Practical Steve. So practical. You know who else didn't come?
    35:43
    Spencer. Yeah, and Miguelito. So, yeah, Practical Steve. Yeah, Mike didn't make it either. Michael Hosier, the commish, didn't make it. I didn't make it. So, yeah, Practical Steve, righteous dude. And Miguelito, another righteous dude. But we see Mike all the time. We don't see you. You got to get out of here for this, man. This is made for you. It is, and I always have such a good time, and I want to come, man, but it's coming off summer and back to school and, you know, Mike, man. And, you know, Vixen always got something. I always seem to have a car in the shop anymore or, you know, something going on. Look, throw some food on the floor. The boys will figure it out for themselves. And you and Rusty can just hop a plane, a train, or steal a car and get out here next September. You know, what I need to do is just make it a point to fly out and come out a day early, spend the day with my kids and my grandson, and then pop out and then hop a late flight back home.
    36:50
    So I need to do that. And then just stay long enough to go to Pentagogo. Man, I would love that. I was thinking about that too today. I would love that.
    36:59
    Just, I got to retire. Shinagogo, where it all began. I got to retire and sell plasma and, you know, so.
    37:10
    You waited too long. You could have sold the boys, but now they're practically men, and no one wants to buy a man. Yeah, well, you never know. So, you know, but, yeah. So no I glad because I wanted you to mention it because it such a cool thing You know in the Flipper Room if you ever find yourself in the Bay Area get to the Flipper Room It is a premier place to play pinball Look at really cool art. The folks that own and operate the place are just lovely people. And you'll have a good time, I promise. And like Dan said, they're an eclectic collection. It's always changing and growing. And they always keep everything in tip-top shape. So shout-out to them. And that's Mike Moretti and family. in case you missed that. I don't think you did, though. So, got anything else before we get into our main topic?
    38:02
    No. Nothing comes to mind. All right. So, we can now shift, even though I had a nice segue. Thank you, Mark. And I kind of dropped the ball on that because I was in TV mode. There we go. We'll claim a new term. I was in TV mode. We're going to take showers. dropping the ball is not accurate. You fumbled the ball and then kicked it into the other team's end zone. I did a Charlie Brown, right?
    38:34
    All right. So we're going to jump in and we're going to start from, we're going to do something a little different. As many of you listeners know, and if you don't, Stern Pinball released just a couple of days ago. Of course, you know, it's September of 2025. They released a brand new pinball machine, a brand new Star Wars game, based of course on the original trilogy, because let's be honest, it's the only one that matters. Yeah, I said it, okay?
    39:01
    It's true. I'll take it. Spencer, drop on the truth ball. It's true. Okay, so anyway, there's only one returner, and it's of the Jedi. We're going to go all the way back To the beginning Of Star Wars pinball machines So for the listener, pay close attention Because there's a couple in here you may not be aware of And if you've never heard of them That's okay, because we're going to edumacate you now So put on your dunce caps And let's rock this boat Alright, we're going to start out with The first one ever made And that was in 1980 made by Hankin Pinball in Australia.
    39:49
    350 units of The Empire Strikes Back. And they started production in June of 1980. That movie came out in May, so they must have been ahead of the curve getting the license. They only made 350 if you've never seen one. Have either of you guys ever played one?
    40:09
    I've never seen a Hankin Empire Strikes Back. I've heard of it, and I think for a long time, like, I think everybody thought it was kind of a bootleg, but it's not. It's a licensed real machine. Like, somehow this dude from Australia just reached out to George Lucas and said, Oi, we want to make a pinball machine, and Lucas was like, Yeah, I'm in. So I've only ever seen pictures and video, too, and if you've seen the back glass, It's like the movie poster with Darth Vader's head and the logo, but it's got that mirroring look. So if you ever see the Infinity Mirror, like in a Valley Space Invaders or in a Valley Xenon, so it's got that effect. It looks really, really cool, even on video, because I noticed you in person. And it's a wide-body game, and basically it looks a lot – the layout looks a lot like the Valley Space Invaders layout. That's exactly right. And I'm going to attest to this. No, no, turn in. I got to go for it. I got to play one. You did get to play one. You did. Where was that? It was at Chicago Expo. Okay. Okay, cool. Pinball Expo. Yeah, Pinball Expo. I got to play it because they had all the Hankin games all lined up in the free play area, and I had a chance to play it. And you are so correct. You read my mind, Spencer. It is very similar to the layout of Space Invaders. Very similar. It's definitely a wide body. It did look cool, like you said, with the back glass with the Infinity look to it. and it was kind of fun to shoot. It wasn't bad. I mean, there were some spinners here and there and drop targets, and it had that wide-body feel, but it definitely was more fun than playing Space Invaders. So, yeah, I really thought it was cool, and it's funny you say that because I played the virtual one, and I was thinking the same thing that you said, Dan, that it was like a bootleg. I was like, oh, this is like somebody did this unlicensed, and then when I actually saw it in person, I was like, oh, wow, this is actually a real game. So it was really neat to get to play it. But, yeah, I did get to play it. I played a couple of games on it, actually. And it was very nostalgic to be able to play a game that I played virtually and then see the thing right in front of me that originally I thought was just a bootleg. Well, because here's what's funny, right? And here's kind of why I was thinking bootleg was. And I'm sure Spencer can definitely elaborate on this, But in, like, the late 70s, like, Star Wars was a thing. And I know people think Star Wars is a thing now. And obviously it's bigger than it's ever been. But, like, it was a smaller world back then because there was no Internet. And, like, when something, like, swept through the popular culture, it was, you know, a wave. And even like somehow no domestic pinball machine or arcade manufacturer came down with Star Wars until the 1983 Atari arcade game, right? Right. Except for apparently Hankin in Australia. But there are lots and lots of inspired, quote unquote, inspired by games. And one of my favorites, you know, just to kind of bring up as a bit of an honorable mention, you cannot look at Firepower and not think that that ship is attacking the Death Star. Sure. Oh, yeah. Or Stellar Wars. Like, there are so many games that, like, they are Star Wars in all but name. Okay. I can think, like, three or four off the top of my head of arcade video games of that same era. Yeah, that's ridiculously easy. You look at it and go, those are Tide Fighters, you know. Right. Yeah, so the influences are definitely there. They just didn't want to get the license or whatever.
    44:06
    So, yeah, you know, to me it's baffling that, like, somehow somebody at Atari when they were doing pinball or somebody at, you know, Bally or Williams or especially Gottlieb, right? You kind of think this would be in Gottlieb's wheelhouse, but they also had some weird corporate ownership, Columbia Pictures, stuff like that. Maybe a Fox property was not going to be on the table. But it's insane to me that nobody reached on out and said, hey, can we make a Star Wars pinball machine? Since apparently George Lucas was amenable to such things. Yeah. Because there's certain things like that, like we've talked about in the past, Star Wars, Harry Potter, and there's Tron for some reason, which I don't truly understand, but I get why other people dig it. Basically, you put something, a market, a cool product, and it will literally print money, you know.
    45:06
    I don't think that's ever really been Tron's problem, unfortunately. No, but, like, the pinball machine is very respected. It's a good game, too. I mean, I like it. The pinball machine's great, but the movie was not a huge hit. The second movie did okay. The third movie's about to come out. Looks pretty good, actually. Which is insane to think that it's been like, what, 30, 40 years and we're on Tron 3, meanwhile we have like 17,000 Star Wars movies. Yeah. Even poor Indiana Jones has more movies than that, although probably not more good movies. Yeah, I was going to say, yes, not more good ones.
    45:40
    Again, the original trilogy. So just stick with those kids. The OT. So, yeah, so I'm glad you got to play the hang. I'm glad any time anybody gets to play a cool, unique, and rare game. This one, I don't know. Well, Melanie might have liked to play it. The next one on our list is the Sonic Segasa, which is a Spanish company, which is really weird because they had a few games in the EM era that made it to American shores. One off the top of my head is Prospector, which you may have played. It had Laurel and Hardy on the back glass. It's a fun game. But the Sonic Star Wars or the Sonic Sagasa Spanish Company, 1987.
    46:30
    Not a lot of info on this thing. Not a lot of pictures. I found a real short video on YouTube, 1987. No idea how many were made. It has kind of a cool ramp like the Munsters ramp where you shoot it and it kind of horseshoes back onto the habit trail. It has a single one of those. It's up the right side. You hit it up the spinner. It goes up, and then it pushes it back down to the left flipper. So it has some cool stuff in it for the time, but I don't know anybody who's ever seen or played one. You've never played one of those? I haven't either. You know what's interesting about, like, Sonic and Sagasa, I think? I believe that they had a Williams tie-in, because I think that they released Williams games. Like, didn't they do a version of High Speed?
    47:20
    Was that them or was that Taito? I don't know. Oh, it might have been Taito. Or Taito. You know, I know what you're saying, and yes, but I don't remember who it was. I'll have to look that up. So, but yeah. So, yeah. But another one that you're like, especially for that late in the game, because in the late 80s, like, Star Wars wasn't even really a thing anymore, right? Like, it existed, but after Return of the Jedi and then they had a couple cartoons and whatnot, like, Star Wars was sort of like, like, it still existed. And it was a big deal when they released it on video. And every once in a while, they would talk about bringing it back out to movie theaters or they'd do, like, a re-release. But, yeah, it wasn't like Star Wars was like that ridiculously in demand in the late 80s. No, it was a thing that was part of our history and part of our youth. And we loved it. Like I said, you could pick it up on video and like, oh, they're releasing, you know,
    48:19
    a 10th anniversary of the original Star Wars or something on video. So you get a new one, you know, some commentary or something. And that was about it, you know. It was – that was kind of a thing. I'll tell you this one too, you know, we talked about this, Stan, with no internet. I remember being a kid and being, you know, when the summer Star Wars came out, and it was my summer between fifth and sixth grade, and like there was a point in time where literally every, because you had no internet, so you had newspapers, magazines, television, the movie theater. And you go to the grocery, and that summer, like by July or August, You go in literally every magazine, TV Guide, People, Newsweek, Time, Life Magazine was still going at the time, I believe. I don't know if they're here anymore. Saturday Evening Post was still there. Every magazine on the cover all summer long was Star Wars.
    49:14
    You know, you go to your local record store and they'd be playing either the soundtrack, which I owned with the poster, or the 45 of the disco. The disco one. Which I have on 45. I own that, too. And those would be playing at your local record store or, you know. Or a gym class. I heard in gym class they played it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it was huge. So we'll move on to some more modern stuff. Hey, before you move on, I'm just looking at the artwork, and it's pretty cool how they integrated the Millennium Falcon into the shape of where the slings are and the inlanes. Oh, yeah, yeah. Pretty cool. Yeah, I'd never even heard of this until you mentioned this, so I had to go and check the picture. But, yeah, it's pretty cool. The artwork is very unique. I've been taking my vitamin D and doing my homework. Cool.
    50:10
    Before an episode. Dan, do you have anything else? No, I'm good on the Tegasa Star Wars. Sorry, I just knocked my desk lamp over. Oh, no, you're okay. All right, okay, cool. All right, so we're going to move on to, so we'll go from 87 to 1992, the first American release of a Star Wars pinball machine with the Data or Data East Star Wars. Is that correct or either both grammatically correct? I don't know. Data East, Data East. So designed by John Borg.
    50:43
    1992 with 10,400 units produced. So I know we all remember when this one was released. I mean, I would expect that we do.
    50:53
    And the interesting thing was, you know, 1994, we hadn't gotten to the re-releases yet, right? Right. Like, they still made a big deal of it being on video and Laserdisc and, you know, get it for the last time. I remember that was maybe a couple years later, those box sets. But when Star Wars came to pinball and video games, it was always a big deal. Super Star Wars, Super Star Wars Trilogy, Star Wars coming out on Nintendo. It seemed like you could actually play a lot more Star Wars games than movies. But when that pinball came out, like, we were stoked. Like, I thought that was awesome. I mean, it definitely was a day to eat. So it felt, you know, maybe a little rough. like I think all the Davies they didn't quite have the refinement of the Williams games of the era and this is I think one of John Borg's first games maybe his first or second yeah real early but like it's got tons of cool stuff to shoot at cool stuff in it yeah the art for the era is good you know if I think that that 90s Davies pinball art is kind of love it or hate it and I've always liked it. It's hand-drawn, but it's not, like, intricate. It's just, you know, everything's recognizable, and it looks like it was drawn on a pinball play field.
    52:18
    But more than anything, it had that banger music, like that Brian Schmidt soundtrack played through whatever Data East's, you know, Sega Genesis sounding sound system was, and just tons of voice calls. and, you know, DMD was still pretty new and it made a lot of use of the DMD and that weird gun handle shooter and the bopping R2-D2 with the light. The bopping R2-D2 was awesome. That was my favorite. The star with the door that you could shoot and just, man, I always thought that that game was fantastic and I was surprised, you know, and I know some people are just sort of like, yeah, David East, you know, Williams-Williams Master Race, but I've always thought that, like, that game was super fun, and I was a little bit surprised to find that some people don't. I know that the software is a little limited by the standards, even of the 90s, but, like, yeah, man, I always thought that game was awesome. That's one that, like, I've owned more than a few Data East, and that's one that I've never had, but, you know, I would not turn it away if I could get it.
    53:30
    Yeah. Yeah, it's a really fun one to shoot. And like you said, there's a lot of mechs in it. And it really does look like R2-D2 is, like, alive inside the machine. It's pretty cool. Yeah, it's the best R2-D2. It is, for sure. It has that personality of actually having an R2-D2 in your pinball machine.
    53:51
    And I do like the Death Star, how it opens up. That was cool. It has drop targets, right? But it has like this big hole almost that remind me of South Park, right? No, I think that was Trilogy. That was Trilogy? Trilogy, yeah. I don't think that they were doing that funkiness yet. It does have a drop target in front of the opening of the Death Star. Okay, all right. I get those two confused all the time. But I think it's a really cool game for a first or second game by John Borg. It definitely has that character of a variety of shots. with Cool Max to go with it. Well, how about the ball shooter? Yeah, the ball shooter where you've got to go up and down with the throttle. The ball shooter is cool, too. And you've got to lock the TIE fighter in the lock and fire.
    54:42
    Those little elements really, you know, I remember the first time I played it, I went, because I'd never seen it, you know, and DMDs were relatively new still. And I was like, oh, oh, that's okay. So when you shoot the ball, you're supposed to lock in the time bomb and try to hit it for, like, a skill shot. Cool. I just remember that. And then, like, Dan was talking about the music and, like, the disco. Yeah, like, was there a video mode of, like, dancing stormtroopers? It's been a while since I played it. And, like, almost like a disco Star Wars theme.
    55:16
    There's a video mode. I don't think that they're dancing, but there's, like, a video mode where there's a line of the stormtroopers, and, like, if you can hit the button fast enough, you shoot them, and if you don't, they shoot you. Yeah, yeah, but the music's like, it's forward music. I don't think it has anything to do with the music. That's just a weird memory. I don't know, maybe not. Maybe it's just all the music. I don't think they went for that until for a couple more games. Okay. I couldn't remember for sure, but it's because I need to play it again. It's been a while. I meant to get on one last year at this last Golden State because they had a couple, they had one beautiful, like fully restored. I meant to get a game or two on it, and I just never did. I should have. so yeah it's a fun game I'm looking at the art right now and I think it's really cool it's got that comic book art totally throughout the whole artwork on the play field and then it definitely does justice with the poster the movie poster that's right on the back glass so I think they did a pretty good job on it and apparently it was the best selling day to east I always thought for some reason lethal was But I guess it was the best-selling day to East even more than Lethal Weapon and Jurassic Park up until the Stern days. So that would be all the way through the Sega era. Really? That's interesting. You would hope for that with it being Star Wars. Yeah. Although Jurassic Park was pretty damn big in the 90s. Right, right. And Jurassic Park came out in the 90s, whereas Star Wars came out in 77 and, what was it, 77, 80? Help me out here. 77, 80, 83. 80, 83, yeah. Okay. And if you watch, I don't know if anyone's watched the recent stream that they did with John Borg and Jack Danger.
    57:01
    He wouldn't say the words Jurassic or Park, but he did say that, like, he started working on a dinosaur game and ended up working on Star Wars. Oh, interesting. Oh, that's right. That's right.
    57:14
    So I just looked up Lethal Weapon 3. So the run-on, and I believe you're right, Dan, the Daddy Star Wars up until the Stern era was their best seller, 10,400 units.
    57:29
    Lethal Weapon 3, 10,350 units. So Star Wars sold 50 units more than Lethal Weapon 3. I knew it was a lot. Lethal Weapon was everywhere. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Lethal Weapon was like the Data East Addams Family. You know what I mean? Like you could go to 8711 in North America and find, in that era, 92, 93, and find an Addams Family or a Lethal Weapon 3. Or a Terminator 2. Definitely the Addams of the Data East Terminator 2. Yeah, yeah. There you go. Or Addams Family or whatever. One of those games that's just ubiquitous. It's everywhere. But, yeah, so I thought that game was great, and I would put quarters in it until it got to kind of the early 2000s and just, like, there was one on location in Rancho for the longest time at Jasper's, and every time I went over there, I would plop a couple quarters into it until that game was just so tired. I was like, I can't even.
    58:34
    Jasper's Giant Hamburgers, they had, the last time I was in there, before I moved, they had a... Get away. Yeah, they had a Data East Star Wars for eons and eons.
    58:49
    And, yeah, I played that thing until that thing would play no more. They always bring it to shows, too. I've seen it at Golden State. Right? Yeah. Yeah, with 10,000. They're out there. Yeah, they're out there. I want to find another. I used to own one. I love that game. That's a great game. You own the Data East Star Wars? Oh, no, no, no. League of Elephants 3. I'm sorry. No. No, play it. I wish, no. Topics here, Spencer. Well, no, because you were talking about that, and I was like, I got sidetracked. Because I was busy looking up how many. You? No. Yeah, me? No, never. You never get sidetracked. You're always. I need to run upstairs and get another Coke and more. Oh, I think there's some Cokes in the downstairs fridge. I need to get some more dark chocolate Reese's peanut butter cups. So, anyway. What are you talking about?
    59:36
    Now it's time for snacks. Snacks for Spencer. Our new segment, Snacks with Spencer. What was our next Star Wars? Are we all done on Davey's Star Wars? I think we're done. I think we covered it. No, that was a great thing, though. Anyway, Davey's Star Wars, thumbs up. Thumbs up. And a big deal when it came out. Put Davey East on the map in a way, right? Yeah, that's cool. It really did. I want to play one now. I'm looking at it like, man, it's cool. This came out, it was going up against Adam's Family and Terminator 2. And it still sold 10,000 units. You knew they were serious when they got Star Wars. And they did good. And the level of detail is really good, too. I really like the level of detail. And you can tell they spent the money on it because, again, it's got all kinds of junk in it. It does. Yep. So up next is we flip over to Sega from Daddy East to Sega Pinball with the Star Wars trilogy.
    60:33
    This is actually Joe Kamikow and Joe Balser. Really not a lot on this game No production numbers But I think what's interesting is You could play up to six players On this game I wonder how often you ever get Six people playing on the same game At the same time I don't know man Especially on that game Because even being a Star Wars fan I always thought Star Wars Trilogy Just sucked It doesn't have much in it You know what? It's got a ton of stuff in it. Like, I don't think that's the problem. It's got drop targets, and it's got the X-Wing fighter that's a gun, and it's got the cannon that'll articulate. And it's just super clunky. Like, you can totally tell it's a balser. And I'm not trying to bag on Joe Balser. Like, he's made games that I like to play. But, like, by the standards of Sega games and Star Wars games, like Trilogy is clunky and it's ugly.
    61:40
    Like, that's my biggest problem. Like, the art, they went really full on with the Vader. Like, it looks like they used the art from, like, the DVD, not the DVD, but the VHS box set. Yep. The last VHS box set, at the very least. So, like, the sides are all kind of this weird modeled gold, and it has, like, an embossed version, like an embossed-looking version that's just the logo. then you get to the play field and it looks like VHS box art and I guess that's passable but it didn't feel very unique and just it's got that Sega curse of I think that they were like more is better like pack this thing full of ramps and crap and giant holes and all sorts of crazy things. I don't like how they did the TIE fighters, how they smashed them together. They don't even look like they could fly next to each other. Yeah, it's just... That looks really bad. and it's like a big black spot in the middle of the play field. That's so weird. And the Sarlacc pit was just like with the South Park, just a hole off in the side.
    62:41
    Yeah, just a big old jack, like a big old general. And that was probably like let's make pinball accessible, right? Like let's make targets that anybody could hit. Right. You know, and people will like that. And, you know, it's got a lot of assets. You know, it's got, I think, everything that you probably wanted to have in it. I think it took fails really hard aesthetically and from a gameplay standpoint. It's got the big round back box, the showcase. Yeah. It's not just bad. It's just not good. You know what I mean? It's bad. It's pretty bad. You said clunky. Now, it's a Star Wars game, so it can't be clunky. It has to be clunky. Clunky.
    63:27
    But, no, it, like, seriously is very McClunky. Yeah, it's very McClunky. But, no, I think it's lenticular, right? Like, it's got, like, a lenticular back box, and it's got the showcase. I think it's only the regular size display, though. I don't think it's, like, the super display. Right. Like, you could tell that, like, again, it was Star Wars, so it was a big deal, probably like a real kind of a last gasp kind of game for Sega. Yeah, and you can tell that they threw the kitchen sink at it. They did. The turret is cool, the cannon. Did it go back and forth or just stay stationary and then have the cannon? No, it moved and it, like, articulates when it fires and it's got lights. It's a tough game to shop. I remember watching Brian shop Henry's, and, yeah, it was definitely a bear to shop. A lot of unique parts on that one. So it does turn. It turns and it shoots. Yeah, that's pretty cool. I stand corrected. I did get it because I was looking over an Internet pinball database, and now I'm looking over at Pinside, and according to Pinside, 2,250 produced of the Star Wars trilogy. And it was, what, like 97?
    64:43
    Yeah, 97, yeah. So basically five years after they did the Daddy Star Wars. So, yeah. So Yeah that's kind of a eh The artwork was Morgan Westling Not a big Art name Those tie fighters really bother me They just look like they are just All smashed together Like they have nowhere to fly I mean like all Star Wars things I really want to like it Right like I really want it To be great Oh, sure, you hate it now, but when you play it. Exactly, and just, like, it's just not good. And you're right, those TIE Fighters are an eyesore. Yeah. It's very much, like, the perfect example, if maybe not the beginning, but of, like, the era of Photoshop corporate artwork on games. Definitely on the back line. Like, this is very much like Lucas is. They're like, you can do Star Wars. Here's what Luke needs to look like, and he needs to be this big, and here's what Leia needs to look like, and she needs to be this big, and here's what Han needs to look like, and here's how Darth Vader needs to be.
    66:00
    So, yeah, I mean, I don't want to keep beating this poor dead horse. The only plus is Leia has the Jedi look, so that's pretty cool. Oh, what, the metal bikini? Yeah, that's pretty cool. So you get Slave Leia, and you get... Yep. Yeah. You get trivia questions. Yeah, you do get Star Wars trivia.
    66:23
    And it is pre-special edition still, right? I think it was right around the time of the special edition, wasn't it?
    66:32
    Yeah. 97. What was the special edition? Yeah, but it's just Star Wars Trilogy. It's not Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition. Okay. Okay, well, hold on. No, no, no. According to Internet Pinball Database, the Star Wars Trilogy Special Edition is what it says. Oh, okay.
    66:54
    No, I don't think that that's right, though. I don't think it is either. So, hold on. Fact check. We'll have to fact check. Oh, no, I think you're right. It does say the Star Wars Trilogy, and then on the top it says Special, and on the bottom it says Edition. Okay. Okay, and three back glass, yes.
    67:17
    Okay, a pinball industry first. So it's a three back glass. We're all looking at the flyer. I love the flyer. Your father wanted you to have this when you were old enough. Thank Kenobi.
    67:34
    Realism National, because the only generation, man, that's, wow. Okay. I'll say this, right? Like, again, it feels like we're bagging on the game. But in the late 90s with the special editions, like, Star Wars began. Like, you could tell they were ramping up towards the prequel trilogy, right, towards the episode one. And so Star Wars all of a sudden became very much a big thing again.
    68:05
    Right. And this was probably where this came out was as part of that media blitz for Star Wars, Empire, and Jedi Special Editions, which for me was, I think, the first time I'd ever actually gone and seen those at the movie theater. I don't think I – maybe my parents took me to Star Wars when I was too young to remember it, but I don't remember going and seeing Empire and Jedi and all that at the theater. I remember seeing that stuff on video. On video, yeah. I kind of liked that late 90s era for Star Wars, and this should have been a slam dunk for me. And, yeah, unfortunately, my pinball sensibilities were beginning to be a little bit more refined by then, so it wasn't just like, oh, it's pinball and it's Star Wars, so it's great. It was almost like, oh, yeah, you know, I'd much rather play, you know,
    68:55
    Medieval Madness or Attack from Mars or any of those games. Like, it released into an era of some of the best pinball machines ever made. Mm-hmm. Yep.
    69:08
    And most Sega games were not that. No. I really, it pains me to say that because I like Sega. So I think I should own a Sega pinball machine, but, man, they're all kind of rough. Well, the Special Collectors Edition, here's a neat note. In an online discussion in 1997, Oren Day stated that Neiman Marcus sold a collector's edition of this game in their fall catalog, presumably that year. We don't have any pictures of it and don't know how many were in that edition, but Neiman Marcus had 12 collector's edition made of Sega's 1997 X-Files, where in that listing pictures of it can be seen. So I don't know what's different about the Neiman Marcus, if anything, but just some interesting trivia. Interesting. So, yeah. Oh, you know what we didn't mention about Day of the East Star Wars? Oh, what? It had a topper. Oh, right. I think the topper was C-3PO, and it looked almost exactly like the collector's box.
    70:19
    Okay. Yes, you're right, Dan. Like the action figure collector box. Yeah, it was like a very similar size and a very similar shape. Close enough to the point where when I first saw it, I was just like, oh, did they just reuse the collector's box? But no, it's like a hollow vacuum metalized box, I think.
    70:43
    They did one of these for Trilogy, too, but I can't seem to find any evidence of that. And it's also probably the cheapest Star Wars machine you can get. There's one for sale for $3,000 in L.A.
    70:54
    Wow. I wouldn't buy it unless I just needed to fill space with games, but if you want a Star Wars game for $3,000, there you go.
    71:04
    Cool. In this day and age, a $3,000 machine is a $1,000 machine when we were kids. Yeah. Pretty much. So, well, if you think things couldn't get any better or worse, depending on what you're thinking, we move on to 1999 and Star Wars Episode 1 on the Pinball 2000 platform oh yeah, alright, so you ready to go off the rails? yeah, so they made 3,525 units and of course the designer with lead design on this was John Papaduke most of you might know him better as J-Pop So, Dan, I'm going to let you start. I'll just hold back. All right. I love this game.
    71:53
    You love it? I had one, and I wish I hadn't sold it. Really? Okay. You know, it's not a great game from the standpoint of, like, it is a pinball 2000. It was only the second pinball 2000. And, you know, the property itself, I think, got, especially at the time, it got blasted, right? Like, I think it wasn't a great movie, but I think that it was a movie made by an older George Lucas.
    72:27
    And he didn't quite understand the magic that he had created in the 70s and the early 80s. But, like, Star Wars Episode I, the pinball machine, as a pinball 2000, is just good, stupid fun. It's got some hilarious modes. It's got a bunch of Easter eggs. It's got call-outs. It's got all the different material that you would want as far as, like, theming-wise. And when it's working correctly and it's set up, like, pinball 2000 is actually pretty cool. I meant 2000. I do. If you ever got a chance to like have one and to dig into like how they worked and how the menus and stuff work, like there's definitely some weirdness there. But there's also some stuff that like they're just starting to catch up with as far as like the things that you can go into the menus and see. The graphic, of course, could show you where on the play field like a switch was out or, you know, what the problem with the machine was. that had, like, really cool diagnostics for the era. And when it died, of course, you know, that took Pinball 2000 with it, we took a step back because the ongoing Sega Stern software hardware platform was still just the one they'd used pretty much since the late 80s, which was enhanced somewhat, but it became White Star when it became Stern. So just, like, as hardware, I like it. But as a game, I don't think it's unfun. Like, I think that it's got the cool lightsaber. It does kind of resort to some action figures. And the lighting on Pinball 2000 is always rough. But, you know, you got the cool dual stage, like, flipper buttons with the laser beams that you can fire. Right. And, you know, you got the hologram and the jump ramp kind of thing going on. And, like, I just, I think it's a fun game. And I just think that it gets pissed on because it was episode one. and because, you know, I was talking at the party and somebody was talking about how that game killed Williams. And it's like, no, Williams was dead before episode one. Just episode one was kind of looked at as the savior because, you know, it's a Star Wars game, so it's a big deal, and that was during kind of the Star Wars renaissance, right? And while it sold well it just didn sell well enough I think they sold like 8 of them which for that era was about that Well the other thing was they raised the price If you even wanted just to buy the kit after Revenge from Mars, they raised the price on that and then they raised the price on the game itself. And the operators There was a lot more technology and there was a Star Wars license attached to it. Right, right.
    75:20
    Yeah, I'm sorry, but go ahead. Yeah, you're right. you know, I mean, I'm not trying to, to, I don't think that raising the price of the game, $500 killed pinball. No, right. It didn't hurt. I mean, pinball was pinball was dead. Nick Castro had decided that they were going to move on with gambling. And, you know, he basically had to give the pinball people a chance, right? Maybe if the thing had been an Adams family level sensation and they'd sold, Oh, they sold 3,500, so they didn't sell very many episode ones. They must have sold more Revenge from Mars. 68,000 years of Revenge from Mars, yeah, according to Internet Pinball. Maybe if it had sold 20,000 units, it would have saved, you know, Williams Pinball or it would have got him, give him another chance. It would have space shuttled it, right? Maybe. It didn't space shuttle it and save the world. And it really did have that burden on its shoulders where it was like, if this game was a giant hit, maybe pinball can keep going. And it just wasn't. It wasn't big enough. Yeah. Now here's a question for you, Dan, and it always bothered me. Does it have an auto launch or not? Because whenever I get to the mini wizard mode when you're trying to defeat Darth Maul, it requires you to use the shooter, the plunger. Is that by design or should it auto launch? No, I think it's just a plunger. Yeah, it's by design. There's an auto launch. So that was one of the places that, like, Pinball 2000 got kind of weird. Yeah. The idea was that it's modular, right? Like, you're supposed to just be able to whoop out the play field, drop in the Revenge for Mars play field, change the trans light, and, like, there's a chip that you need to change. They call it a prism card. And then the theory was, you know, you can change the games back and forth. But Revenge for Mars is a launch button game. Right. And for whatever reason, and I think this is a J-pop thing, he didn't like launch button games. Yeah. Everyone he played was a shooter rod game. Right. So some genius, like back in the early mid-2000s, maybe late 2000s, 2010s, like there was a lot of like pinball 2000 modding. like they made a new hardware system for it. They made it so you could use a flat screen monitor instead of a CRT because those are getting hard to find. And somebody made a combination shooter rod launch button. Nice. Cool. And it's like, man, if you had a pinball 2000, that would definitely be one of the things to have. But apparently for people who are into pinball 2000, they're rare as hen's teeth. Uh-huh. Okay. I was just curious because it's like I always forget to launch it. when you're trying to defeat them. It's like World Cup soccer. Yeah. You have to know to launch your own multi-ball. If you look at all of Papadu's games, he's extremely heavily influenced in his designs from 60s and very early 70s Williams games. Interesting. Like with rollover buttons and just different features. Nothing, you know, the spinner, you know, like the spinner mechanism on Tales of the Raving Knights, stuff like that. You saw that in a lot of late 60s and early 70s Williams and some Valley games. Not that it's a bad thing per se. I love those features too. So just something to be aware of. Now, one thing positive that I did like about the Episode 1 Pinball 2000 platform was that the modes and the way that they integrated the clips and the assets was pretty cool.
    79:15
    Like, they did a really good job on that. Considering that was ahead of its time, it was done pretty well how they did that. And I did like it. It definitely fit with the theme. The modes were kind of rinse and repeat. That's how I felt with that game. But it was satisfying. It was satisfying when you got into the, you know, trying to defeat Darth Maul, and it got harder and harder. If you want to see a lot more on that, go back, if you haven't seen it, and listeners, if you have, watch it again. In fact, I'm going to go watch it again here, so I've been thinking about it lately, is the documentary on this, the Battle to Save Pinball. Oh, yeah. Battle to Save Pinball. Tough one to find, but yeah. Yeah, I own it. I have that. I have that on DVD. You know what's funny is I remember when they were making that, and it was actually originally called The Future of Pinball, which I think is a great name, even though it's a very ironic name, because it did come out during that era where, like, pinball was just dead. Like, and there were a lot of people, like a lot of Steve Ritchies and a lot of, you know, George Gomez's and a bunch of, you know, I think even Lawler might have even gotten Lawler to talk in it, and he talked about how Pinball died, how the world had moved on, you know, and even though Stern was out there just barely fighting the good fight, you know, like Pinball, you know, in 2005 or so, yeah, Pinball was just kind of toast.
    80:49
    And it's nice to see that it came back, but, yeah, I don't think episode one. Like, I think if you actually have episode one and you get a chance to spend some time with it, it's got some joy to be had. It's got some stupid stuff like Jedi musical chairs. Okay, I love that. Jedi musical chairs. It's not deep at all. No, it's not deep. And I think that as, you know, as the generation, as the Episode I generation grows up and, you know, they have fondness for the prequels. Like, I think the prequel stuff is getting a little bit more respect. But, yeah, within pinball, like, it's still a roundly disrespected game. There's a great podcaster and Internet personality that's a big Star Wars person but hates the last three. And his quote, and I like to use it often, is, after seeing a couple of the last few movies that Disney did, you will beg for George Lucas. The prequels look like, you know, the grand, you know, exhibition now. And not that they were ever bad. This is going to surprise both of you. To be fair, they were pretty rough. I remember a buddy of mine took me to go see episode two, and I wasn't going to go to the theater to see it, right, which tells you how disappointed I was by episode one. And he's like, I'll pay. And I'm like, man, I'm cool. I'm not going to put myself through this. He's like, I'll pay for an IMAX. And I said, okay, I'm not going to turn that down. Wow. And after the movie, we're walking out, and I guess that I kind of had a shell-shocked look on my face. And he's like, man, watching you watch the movie was better than watching the movie. Oh, man. He's like, there was a point in the movie where you jumped up and pointed at the screen, and I was like, R2-D2 can't fly.
    82:34
    That was messed up. What was that? I'm like, if R2-D2 could fly so much stuff about the original trilogy, it wouldn't make any sense at all. He's just trying to learn a thing about it. Where they lost me completely wasn't there. Because although Rusty, and she actually liked episode one and episode three, we both did. Her name for episode two is Dawson Creek in space.
    83:00
    But where they really lost me was with the second of the last three Star Wars films, whatever. I can't even tell you. It's so bad. The Last Jedi? Is that it? Yeah, where Luke Skywalker is like, what do you think? does this like, you know, walk in and take over and defeat everybody with a laser sword. It's like, motherfucker, you're a Jedi Knight and you don't know? It's called a lightsaber? It's like, why? Because I know he hated that film. You know, he was like, he loved the paycheck, he hated the film. It's like, I went, it's weird though, and I'm going to devil's advocate again. I think Last Jedi is actually a better movie than the other two sequels. It's, it tries to do something different and mostly fails, but, like, I think that Rian Johnson was really trying too hard to make Star Wars, like, you know, the Star Wars that I think that all of us think it should be, and then we all roundly rejected it. Right. But he wanted to, you know, he wanted to show that Luke Skywalker was more than just physically powerful, and he wanted to show, you know, that, like, characters, you know, operated in more than just, like, light side or dark side, which is why you had the weird Benicio del Toro character. And he wanted to show that, like, some of these people's actions had consequences, you know, when they did these rash, like, you know, daredevil bombing runs, and, you know, none of us wanted to see that. What he forgot was that it's Star Wars. We want to see our heroes be heroes and we want to see the good guys. And this was the one where the good guys aren't supposed to win, right? Because it's the middle. But we want to see the good guys be the good guys. And nobody wanted to see Luke Skywalker die.
    84:58
    I didn't want to see Han Solo die in the first one. I remember going to see the first movie and I was all depressed the rest of the day and my cousin's wife, who's younger than we are, is just like, oh, what happened? Did it kill your childhood? I'm like, yeah.
    85:13
    That's why the best interpretation of that is the South Park episode with Indiana Jones. That is not the best interpretation of that, although it is a funny-ass episode. It is. In a very disturbing sort of way. No, you feel that way. It's like, this is my childhood, dude. But I am going to say, as a Star Wars fan, and As a pinball fan, Star Wars Episode I Pinball 2000 is not that bad. If you like Pinball 2000 at all, you know, great. If you don't like Pinball 2000 because of the screen and because of the dark play field and because of its overall weirdness, I get it. You're probably the same person who just can't deal with the P3. Fine. I know that I'm not going to win you over, but, you know, there's fun to be had there, and it's cool and weird. Yeah. This will surprise both of you. I like the game. I totally feel like I took that segment over, Ben. What did you think of it, Spencer? Thank you. I really, you know, I don't love the game. I want to love it because it's Star Wars. But I think it's a very unfairly maligned game. And I think if you get, I don't own one, but I have one on location near me that I played quite a bit for a while. And I really liked it. I like Revenge for Mars better. But I think Star Wars is an unfairly maligned game, episode one. And really, yeah, like you said, man, it's got modes. It's got call-outs. It's a good layout. It's fun to shoot. You know, it's got the little jump ramp thing. It's got the buttons where you can shoot lasers. It's got some cool modes. I don't think it has the jump ramp, by the way. I think I was thinking of Revenge. I think you're right. Okay. But it's got cool shit. It's got cool shit. Yeah. You know what? It's got Jar Jar. But I don't think they overdid Jar Jar. Oh, you get to knock them down. so they obviously listen to their fans. They do, that's right. You know, you know what I mean? Like, Jar Jar went with Episode I. Jar Jar was the C-3PO of Episode I, so if you hated C-3PO in Star Wars, I mean, sorry, he stuck around for a while. At least they kind of got rid of Jar Jar quicker. I love C-3PO. He's always one of my favorite characters. He was my first Star Wars shirt, C-3PO and R2-D2. You guys know the story. I don't need to tell it again. So back when you picked out your iron-on and they put it on the shirt at the store for you. It was great, and that smell. At the Sunrise Mall. Yeah, man, or at the Tower Records, or, yeah, anywhere, yeah. You know what? And this is kind of Star Wars unrelated, but it is related to the Pinball 2000. I feel about the Pinball 2000 that, like, we never got to see what it could do. Yeah, yeah. They were just figuring it out. It would have been almost like if they'd stopped making P3 games right before they got to Weird Al or Final Resistance or Princess Bride or Portal. Like, you know, we kind of were just seeing the beginning of them like, this thing's pretty cool, and look at the things we can do with it. And maybe they were clumsy, but they were really just trying to demonstrate the technology at that point.
    88:22
    I think that had Lawler's game come out, his Wizard Box. Oh, man, it looks so cool. I think it definitely would have showed us some stuff because I think, you know, Lawler and Gomez sort of invented the whole idea of the hollow pin or the pinball 2000. And I think that Lawler probably would have done some really cool stuff with it. I think that Gomez was just like, get it to work. Papa Duke was probably assigned with, get them to buy it, make Star Wars. And, you know, I think that Lawler was the one who was going to be kind of stuck with, show them what it can do. Right. And, you know, yeah. I did get to play Wizard Blocks. It was a prototype, and I did get to play it. I can't remember where it was. Maybe it was Texas. Yeah, but there's not much of it, right? No. But it's not like guarded and complete. No. It was the same play field. Yeah, yeah. And then apparently there was going to be Playboy after that, which Pinball 2000 Playboy probably would have played well with a certain segment of the population. It probably would have sold really well. I don't think any of the Playboy games ever sold really well after the Bally one. Yeah. That's a topic for another day. Yeah, it is. And we can do a whole other episode on that because we're already an hour and a half in, and we still have three more games to get through. Let's do it. So up next, we go all the way up to 2017, and now we're in Stern's Spike System, Spike 2 to be exact, And it's the Stern Star Wars, designed by our good friend in pinball, the king himself, Steve Ritchie.
    90:01
    You know, it came out. Now, on the numbers, all we have on the LE, and that is 800 units on the LE, the pro and the premium, no idea, because they've done two versions of the pro and the premium. The original version with the photorealistic art, and then you had the comic book art, which was reminiscent of the old 1970s Marvel Star Wars comics. Which is pretty cool. I really like it. I really do. You know, and real quick side note, if you're into comic books like I am, lifelong collector since I was a little, little kid, they've been doing what they call passimiles. They've been re-releasing old, not just first issues, but epic issues of Marvel, DC, and some other comics. So if you want to get an Iron Man number one, or a Daredevil number one, or the first appearance of Punisher in Spider-Man, or the first appearance of Moon Knight, that would be World War V Knight number 33, I believe. Or the first issue. And they're just reprinting them. The only difference is the paper's not right because it's on modern paper, not the old pulp. It's glossier. I've actually picked up the Batman, the animated series comic, with the first comic book appearance of Harley Quinn. She actually appeared in the animated series. That was the first time you ever saw her. It was invented by Paul Dini. Exactly. And she was only supposed to be a one-off who was a hit and took on a life of her own and now might even be arguably more popular than Joker himself. Absolutely. But not to get sidetracked, but they re-released, I know, they re-released that first issue of the Star Wars movie adaptation of the comic book. So if you want to have one for $4 or $3.99 or whatever it is, It's got all the old comic book ads that first appeared in the comic, but it's called the Fast Simile, and you can get that. I've seen them. They look pretty good. Like I said, the only real difference is the price tag on the cover and the paper stock is different. But you get the story, you get the artwork, and you get to see all the cool ads for, you know, spud guns and x-ray specs and all that cool stuff. Which is awesome that it has all the original ads because, honestly, in a weird way in classic comic books, the original ads, and they were real consistent. You always had that Twinkies ad. You always had that ad for, you know, the stuff that you sold something, and then they would have like the million things you could get.
    92:52
    Seeds or Grit, Grit newspaper. Yeah, yeah. Comic book ads were always very much like another world, but, yeah.
    93:01
    But, yeah, so you had that. You had that. And, you know, the game, it's a good game. And at first, a lot of people had this impression of it, and I was one as well. I didn't take to it right away. It just, I don't think. I hated it. Did you really? You know, I didn't hate it, because it's Star Wars, man. You don't love it. It's grown on me. In fact, when they were giving it away about three years ago at the show, it's a Golden State Pinball Festival in beautiful sunny Lodi, California. I got a lot of time on the pros that were given away. And I'd only mostly played the LE either at the Joe's LE he had at Coin Op and then Henry's LE at his house.
    93:45
    And it really grew on me because I started to have some good game to start to understand the rule set a little better. I actually wouldn't mind having one. And it's got some, you know, it's early on with the Spike 2 system.
    93:59
    But, yeah, I mean, it is what it is. It shoots great. It's fast and blowy. Yeah. I just didn't like the cheap drain. That pissed the hell out of me. Pissed everybody off. And when you hit those targets, and it would just perfectly go right into the left out lane, and then it would do an auto launch, and it would do the exact same thing, and your ball is over. That freaking pissed me off. I wanted to kick that machine. But I will tell you, I've been converted. I actually borrowed a pro version from Marcus Peterson, and we did a temp trade. He took my Game of Thrones, and I had his Star Wars for a couple months. And I have to say, just like you, Spencer, it grew on me.
    94:43
    I really like the rules. The more I got into it and the multiplier at first, I, for like pretty much a whole year when it came out, I had no idea what those Xs did, what the green was, what the red was. I could have looked it up, but I didn't. I just was like, I have no clue what this is. And then when I tried to figure out what it was, I still couldn't figure out like, oh, if you hit the button, then you turn it off. And then if you turn it on green, then it counts for your shot. But then I didn't realize as I played it more in a home environment, I realized, oh, it drops from three shots to two to one. That's 40 times. It's like, holy crap, let's get this thing moving over. So it was a game in itself trying to trap the ball, then somehow hit the action button, switch it over by hitting the flippers when you're holding the balls without having to go all over the place, and then adjust it to where you wanted to make that shot. Of course, video mode was the one where you could just totally cash in if you got it 40 times. And it started growing on me. When I played it that way, I was like, this is pretty cool how they did the multipliers. It's totally unfair when you play it in a tournament. But if you know what you're doing, it really helps. I remember when I played in a tournament with Star Wars, I forgot to turn the multiplier on. It was on red the whole time while I'm making the shots. And I could have probably doubled my score. And it was funny because they even said, oh, Mark, you got to turn that on. You got to turn it on. And I was not paying attention, of course, and didn't count for any of the shots where I should have moved it around. But I really, I mean, it didn't have a lot of stuff in it. I was kind of disappointed with that. It did have the TIE fighter on a spring. I was like, oh, come on, that's really cheap. So, yeah, I guess I have to say that at first impressions I was not impressed and I was really angry more than giving it a chance. But my attitude has changed about it.
    96:43
    What are your thoughts, Dan? Oh, boy. You know, I'll tell you, I remember when it came out, and it was a big deal, right? Again, it was a big deal. Stern has Star Wars. It's going to be Steve Ritchie. It's going to have two ramps. It came out, and it was like a party at Brad's house. It was the first time I got my hands on it, and I was, yeah, very unimpressed. And I think that the big thing that really killed it for me, Like, it had three things going against it. Number one, it's got maybe the worst plunge in all of pinball. Yep. Like Mark was saying, like, the plunge basically kills you 30% of the time, which especially playing en route is probably supremely unsatisfying.
    97:33
    The other thing is just it does not have great art. And it was an era where I think that people were really starting to expect that the games were going to look better. you know it was the zombie yeti era and you know franchi was coming on the scene and uh dirty donnie was doing great art packages so you know everybody had seen batman 66 and everybody had seen i think it was aerosmith and i think that we all thought star wars would look a little bit better and it once again had that star wars trilogy really corporatized art but i think that the biggest thing that hurt the original stern star wars was the state of pinball, the way pinball was at the time and really is now. Our expectations were so monstrous. Yeah. Like, there was no way that that game was going to be everything that I think that we needed it to be at the time. It needed to be better than anything else to ever happen. And instead, what we got was we got a game that actually has kind of a cool layout. you know once you figure out that plunge you figure out that going for either of the skill shots is kind of a sucker's bet um at least while you don't have a ball saver and then once you figure out how the multipliers work and once you figure out what character to choose and once you figure out what spiff to choose there's some good shots to make there and there's some scoring potential and there's a lot of assets and there's clips from the movie there is a really bad admiral Ackbar impersonator.
    99:07
    But especially once you get it into an environment where, like, no one's standing in line behind you and you can put a dozen games on it, you know, you can start to kind of find the plus of it, and that is just not the right game to put the Star Wars license on. You know, the Hyperloop is cool, but, like, what does that really have to do with Star Wars? You know, the Death Star Egg thing is kind of cool, but it's almost impossible to hit. Oh, that drives me nuts, that fork. Tie fighter on a spring will always kind of suck just because even though the tie fighter itself is kind of a cool little toy, it just looks a little pathetic sitting there. Yep. But having put a lot of games on an LE and having put a lot of games on a premium, having put a lot of games on a pro, there is magic there. There is something to like. There is a lot of scoring potential. It's a great game for competition because it rewards knowledge, it rewards dexterity, and it rewards knowing the game. You're probably not just going to walk up to that game on your first play and whoop its ass. And it's got a great video mode. Yeah, it's got one. It's got all kinds of good graphics and voice clips, you know, lines from, you know, Harrison Ford and Carrie Fisher and Mark Hamill and, you know, all the real actors. And, again, a really piss poor Admiral Ackbar impersonator. So, yeah, it's really hard for, like, me to give the game, like, it's full due because it is flawed, but, like, it's cool. And it is a game that, like you were saying, Spencer, like if I had a chance to have that game at home, like I would bring it home. I would borrow one. I would buy it. You know, there's pros out there for five grand. If you really want one, you can go out and have one. They might even go down a little bit more because of the new Stern release. That's how it seems to go these days. But, like, I think that Steve Rich is, you know, more than just calling it Stern Star Wars since there's two more Stern Star Wars. I think Steve Ritchie's take on Star Wars was good. I just think that, yeah, it was not the right game for the moment, and it was not the right game for the license. Right. That's a fair assessment. Right. Good point, Dan. If you've not played one or don't have a lot of time and you can get access to one, put a few more bucks into it and enjoy it. with the play field without getting murdered that plunge killing you 30 to 50% of the time is pretty it does make you want to put your fist through it absolutely the reason I would play that game on location was when I was first traveling for my job I would go to Peppermill and Peppermill has a big arcade they had a brand new Star Wars Pro and for whatever reason, whoever set that game up, not only set up the replay value to be ridiculously low, but they set it up to be progressive. Oh, wow. So you could replay two or three times in one good game, and then you would lose, so the replay value would go down, and then you could replay two or three more times. And really, all you had to do was get the TIE Fighter multiball. Yep. You got replays instantly play with that. Yeah, before I even knew how to play the game, I was able to, you know, rack up, like, slide my card once and walk away leaving eight bucks in credit on the machine. Yep. And so, like, I would play a lot. Plus, on top of that, whoever set that game up was a player because the tilt was either non-existent or ridiculously liberal. So you can't know who's on the top of it. You could slide the sucker, like, a foot. You could, yep. And it would throw you, you know, ha, ha, ha, the emperor would laugh at you. And finally, like, I had the arcade attendant, some little girl walks up to me, and she's like, sir, you know, you're really not supposed to be sliding around like that. And I stopped. I said, you know what? You are supposed to. That's why it gives you a warning instead of just ending your game. And she's like, oh, okay. What? Oh.
    103:17
    I was like, there you go. I mean, I wasn't banging the games into each other, although I probably almost hit the change machine a couple times. Yeah, you could just dominate that game just for hours. So, yeah, I got a chance to put a lot of plays on it. It was like a $40 million replay or something? I don't even know if it was that high. Like I said, you would run it up, and then you would lose, and it would go back down, and then you'd run it up again. That's so true, Dan. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, because I would stay, you know, and I'm sure you probably played that game a few times, without staying in that hotel just specifically because I could work all day. This is before press start and all that. I could go downstairs, and they had, you know, six terms, right? They had Kith, and they had, you know, they had Metallica, and I could have one more thing. Ghostbusters. Ghostbusters, right, and they had a brand-new Star Wars. And I'm just like, you know, for 60 cents or 68 cents or whatever it comes down to with your card swipe. You know, anytime you checked in, they would give you a spin 10, get 20 coupon. Right, right. So I'd buy a card and it would last me like a half dozen visits. As long as I stuck to the pinball, I would have never ran out. But yeah, I just, you know, I played the crap out of it there. And so, yeah, you know, I just, I kind of learned, I kind of learned the game and, you know, I kind of learned to love it because, you know, I could play it basically for free. and it's a little less frustrating when you have the financial, you know, the financial punishment of a game isn't just like I put in a dollar, I played for 30 seconds, and I'm dead. Right. You know, like whitewater. I hated whitewater at first because I didn't understand the short plunge, right? So I'd plunge the ball, go all the way through, hit the pop-up for a couple times, go down the drain, and I'd be like, well, 50 seconds, 30 seconds, that's bad math, so I'm not going to play that game anymore. Right. And then later on I learned, oh, don't play it like a chump, and you can make your ball last a little longer. Now I can play Whitewater virtually endlessly. Yeah, absolutely. It's funny you say that, Dan, because my first exposure to Star Wars, the Stern version, is from Peppermill 2. So that's pretty funny you say that because you're right, there was no press start. There weren't many locations to play, and that was my go-to place was Peppermill, and they did have a new Star Wars, and I do remember exactly what you said about the replays. It was awesome. I'm like, I was always late where I had to go because I had so many replays I was trying to use up.
    105:44
    I would end up by 11 o'clock going up to my room, and I would always leave $6, $8 on the machine, and I'm sure when they power cycled it at the end of the night, it would just disappear. Yeah, probably. Yep.
    105:55
    You know, the proof is in the pudding on this title because it was first produced in 2017, and they were running these small batches, whether it be the original art version, the comic art version, all the way up until 2024, until they put it into the vault. And they kill it on location. They're always the highest earners. Yeah, because it's Star Wars. You know, it's Star Wars. It's Ghostbusters.
    106:20
    The recognizable themes really do kill on location. Well, maybe if you go back. Sorry, I didn't mean to get you over there. But if you go back and you kind of look at, again, when they released it, and that's all I'm saying about, like, the timing of it, as it was that, it's that weird moment, right, where, like, you're transitioning from pinball being primarily commercial to being primarily collector. And so I think that with the collectors, Star Wars was always a little too plain, a little too, you know, safe, a little too corporate. You know, when the comic art came out, I think that some people came around, you know, because they're like, oh, okay, now it looks better. And, you know, to a lot of home collectors, the look of the machine really matters. But, yeah, I think to operators, the problem was it was a little too rough. Right. So, yeah. So, yeah, you know, the casuals didn't quite get into it as much. I will say one more thing, though. There's one thing about that game that really, really annoys me. So you have four characters you can choose, right? Yeah.
    107:31
    Who are your four big Star Wars heroes? You have Luke Skywalker. Han Solo. You have Han Solo. You have Princess Leia. Who's the fourth character?
    107:43
    Chewbacca. It's R2-D2. I know, but, yeah, it should have been. Why would it be R2-D2? It should be Chewbacca. And the hilarious thing would have been if they did it as Chewbacca, replace all the call-offs with just Wookiee Roars. I would love it. I would love that. That's so true, Jim. You know, that's right. I mean, even if you use R2, just make all the call-off beefs. But, like, have it be Chewbacca, have all the call-offs be Wookiee Roars. Oh, my God, it would have been so cool. But Chewbacca got totally C-blocked. He got Wookiee blocked. Yeah. No, he did. You know, I never thought about that. It's like he didn't get his medal. That never occurs to me. With a 4 Chewbacca. He only didn't get his medal because he was 8 1⁄2 feet tall, and Princess Leia was like 4'10". She couldn't reach. You mean they don't have a Jedi stepladder? They didn't have the Jedi stepladder. You mean we couldn't have bent over? Yeah, we could have. Maybe he has a bad back. I don't know. And now that's my big pet peeve with the game because you said so, but you know what it was before, and then we'll move on?
    108:41
    It was the video screen. because I thought between that and then the TIE Fighter on a spring, I thought you guys are really putting this in. That was one of the first times they went really heavy on the video screen, though. Like it's kind of a thing now, but like back then, that probably was considered the toy on the game. And it fits, too, because they had to do the multiplier and it could change. It is pretty chintzy. It is chintzy. Yeah, it is. But it fits with the game. He doesn't mean the back box screen. He means the one on the play field. No, that's what I'm talking about, for the multipliers. Because you have to hit the TIE fighters that are floating above them. Yeah, it would have been way better to have had, like, Scolari Brothers drop targets or, like, practice canyon. Oh, sure. Drop targets or something to represent TIE fighters. Exactly. Obviously, the video screen was a lot cheaper. Yeah. Yeah, and I mean, I just, you know. And then why did the TIE fighters just stay static when you're doing the button, too? It would have been cool if they flew that, you know. It could have been so much better. Yeah, yeah. And the other thing I'll say, and then we'll move on to the next game, is the thing that annoyed me the most, number one, was the Death Star shot on the premium or the LE. It always got hung up, and then it would let go when it stuck, and it would drop right straight down the middle. That drove me nuts. And the other thing that drove me nuts is the multi-balls never lasted long enough. Never. They drained so fast that you couldn't even enjoy the multi-ball. It was a little too brutal. It was brutal. It was like Ninja Turtles. Like, you make a title that will appeal to younger players and young and old alike, and then you make the game so damn vicious that, like, everybody goes, yeah, fuck that. Man, those outlings just ate it up like hungry, hungry hippos, man. I mean, just nuts.
    110:28
    Yeah. But, yeah, it's still around. It's still at press start and still gets plays. Still a good game. I mean, they probably won't rerun it again because of the new game. But, I mean, yeah. I mean, you could count on every couple years, Stern was going to do a run of Star Wars. Yeah. Because, yeah, they would always, you know, 500 of those things will always sell.
    110:53
    Speaking of selling, we have The Mandalorian, which was the next Star Wars game in the lineup. And I know it's not the original trilogy, but it's still in the universe. So I included it. I don't think anybody's going to take exception with that. But the LE sold, what did the LE sell? I have the notes. 750 units. Yeah, it was like 700. Yeah, 750.
    111:17
    I love the fact that with this show, it came out, it was a new show, boom, hey, we have a new game. So it was like really current.
    111:26
    Yeah, it came out for season two. Yeah. I love the show. It's the first show in some years where the whole family, my dad, when he was still with us, me and Rusty and all the kids, we would make sure. It's like it's going to come out through. Okay, so we'll all sit. When I get home from work, we'll order pizza or something. We'll just all sit down as a family and watch the new episode of The Mandalorian. And we did that for every single episode of that show's run as well as when they did the season of the Boba Fett show. Really enjoyed it We all sit down as a family Like families used to do and watch a show together And we haven't done that since And that really made me feel good And I really enjoyed the show I enjoyed the game It was a little tough to figure out at first Again, it's a Dwight game And as you know, with a Dwight game You better, like, you gotta sit down Get pizza, get Chinese food Get Mexican, get something good Wrap up in a blanket Because you going to spend a weekend studying the rules Again I owned Dungeons and Dragons for six months and still didn know what the blue button did Okay?
    112:37
    What happens when it turns blue and red? Dad, and Mickey, how did you figure this out? Dad, it's on the apron. Shit. Read the directions. Read the directions, yeah. So, because you can buy Beskar.
    112:52
    That was complicated for me. I never knew what to pick on that. You know what? But then when you start to figure out how it's really cool, and again, Darren and I have talked about this pretty quickly. Within a couple years after it came out, you could pick up one pretty cheap. And again, I don't think – I think this is an unfairly maligned game. I think you need to really give it a chance. I would love to own one someday.
    113:14
    I think there's a lot going for it, and I think it's a really good game. Ramp was too steep. Ramp is kind of steep. And I honestly like a lot of certain games. I liked the mini play field on the Pro better.
    113:28
    Yeah. Okay. Where it wasn't a mini play field. Well, yeah. Yeah. I don't know. I like how it changed pitch. I like how it rotated. That is cool. But anyway, what the other – Yeah. Go ahead. Did you still live here when I had Mandalorian? No. You know, it came out, and I played a few games at that little brewery over in Ramson, not too far from my old house, and then I moved. Like, I mean, it came out and I moved like a month and a half later. So I think I came out. We played a couple games at your house when I was still flying back and forth for work. But beyond that, no. So Mandalorian for me was the first time that I ever owned the current game. Like I was telling you when you bought your Dungeons and Dragons, I'm like, there's something about, like, getting into a game early enough. and it's the current game and you're getting all the code updates and, like, your game is, like, the center point and it's kind of special.
    114:30
    So, like, I always kind of loved Mandalorian just for that. Like, I thought it was cool. And, like, I think, like you said, when it came out, those first couple seasons were really good. And it was the best Star Wars content in a long, long, long time and everybody was into it. And they didn't, you know, maybe they didn't quite understand what they had yet, but they very quickly figured it out and ruined it.
    115:00
    Maybe not completely ruined, but, like, it was really cool. So, yeah, for me, it was just like, oh, dude, Space Western and Star Wars. Yeah, Space Western, yep. So it's so good, and they were just getting, you know, banger guest stars, and there were a lot of cool characters. And so, yeah, you know, I really like the theme. And actually, I really like the rules. You can see where the rules were at the beginning, especially for Dwight, right? The rules were at the beginning of, like, what's happening now with Dungeons & Dragons, where it was really trying to have pinball be more than just like, okay, I'm going to hit the ball around and get a score. But you were kind of going on an adventure. An adventure, yeah. Yeah. You'd get equipment, you'd get ambushed. It wasn't persistent yet. That didn't happen until Venom, but you could sort of see the beginning of that. It just has a really kind of crappy play field. Yeah, that's the problem. That's the problem. Yeah, Eddie was back, and he kind of did his rehash of Attack from Mars with Stranger Things, which whether you love Stranger Things or hate Stranger Things, it's fine.
    116:14
    Like the more I play it, the more I'm kind of like I can see why people like this. But I never felt like it was. I felt like it was always like less than I expected from Brian Eddy and less than I expected for the franchise.
    116:28
    And so with Mandalorian, I at least applaud that it was something different. I like it's got some cool shots. You know, I think the pro mostly gets it done. You know, I could kind of take or leave the the rocking upper play field thing. but I really like that whoopsie-do three-way like turnabout ramp. Yeah, that was cool. Yeah. But, yeah, just especially on the Pro, maybe a little bit less on like your limited edition, like just the ramps felt really flimsy, and it almost had like a home edition playfield feel. There was a lot of like center target abuse, and it had the ship with the hanging mud flap target, which I always thought was a little chintzy feeling, and the completely static Grogu. It really didn't have anything going on for toys. So, yeah, it just didn't keep me. But I'll be honest, the only real reason that I sold my Mandalorian is because I didn't really understand buying games new in box. So I got – because I bought my Mandalorian early from a local collector, but I didn't buy it new in box. But I got on the list for Weird Al, and I said, oh, I need to come up with money, and Mandalorian was the quickest, easiest sale. which the ironic thing was I waited over a year and a half and by the time that you know I bought that game I've long since spent the money for my Mandalorian but I would buy it again I actually have a lot of fun when I get to play that game when I love the voice and the music they got good call outs by a real actor from the show you know yeah rest in peace I can't believe we lost him but uh yeah you know it had good call outs and it has really fun rules and just you know it has some stuff you can do to kind of buff up the play field. And, of course, tons and tons of botting opportunity thanks to a lot of genius modders, including our good friend Joe, who created Grogu Does Something. But, yeah, man, I think Mandalorian is cool. And I think, like you said, I think that it came out and people were like, shit, yes, the Mandalorian. And they bought it and they said, ah, fuck, I don't give a damn at all. And it doesn't feel very good to shoot, so I'm getting rid of it. yeah so yeah you can you can find mandalorians on the open market you know pretty reasonable to get more time on too and i i just didn't feel like i could get get acquainted and really know the game well on location it's one that i would rather enjoy probably in a home environment yeah it very much is a game that like the the way the shots and stuff work on it it's so much more fun to have at home because you you almost want to have like it's like you can blow it up right it's super easy to buy a piece of equipment like the flamethrower thing and put yourself into a situation where like you're gonna start a mode you're gonna use your flamethrower to like the play field you're gonna have the thing that gives you an enhanced ball saver you're gonna have the thing that gives you an extra add a ball and then you trigger the multi-ball in the mode and and boom you know big point explosion right like that's the whole idea like i'm playing a mode and I'm doing Ice Spider multiball and I have the flamethrower going and I have the extra armor and I have the Grogu vision and all the cool stuff that you can buy and put on your profile. But you don't get to keep it. In Dungeons & Dragons, the genius thing is you do all that crap and you find the sword of eternal truth or whatever, and then at the end of your game, when you start your next game, as long as you're using your Insider Connected, you get to keep that. So, Mandalorian, I think, was a little, like, if they did that now, and of course, again, have they not gone through that whole Boba Fett thing, and now they're going to try to make a movie, and they backed off on getting rid of Grogu, and all the stuff they did with that show. I think at this point, everyone who has made it is just tired of making it. I don't think they're even making it anymore, but it would be so cool for Mandalorian to have come out and been more like, yeah, the Star Wars RPG pinball machine. But it's got some cool shit, man. It's a fun game. Just don't pay too much for it. There you go. And add the metal ramp returns. Add the metal ramp returns. Yeah, add the metal ramp returns. You know what, you did that, and then I just got fly-offs, man. The plastic ramps are fine. They just feel chintzy. Okay. Yeah. All right. It looks cool. I had them powder-coated in kind of a best-of. I think Practical Steve has my machine. I believe he does. I think it went through me to Seth, and then it went to Practical Steve. It went to Practical Steve. That game is still out there. And I think that my Grogu does something eventually stops doing anything. I think you're right. I think we talked about that when we had Joe, the creator of the Grogu does something. I want to write a little golden book with that, with Grogu does something. Oh, Grogu does something. There was a little dude named Grogu who lived in a pinball machine. But, yeah, Mandalorian, cool game, kind of flawed. Good art. It's still fun. I like the art. Yeah, it was my moment of owning the new pinball machine. But, God, that feels cool for a while. Art was good because it had more earth tones that you didn't see a lot all the time. Yeah, the art's awesome. Yeah, art is good. Even on Maggie Martinez. And it's got a sick topper. The topper is killer. The beginning of topperflation where they're like, we can get $2,000 for this freaking thing. That started it. And morons will pay it. But, like, yeah, you know, it's just one of those things where, yeah, it is cool. When you see that thing in action, you're just like, all right, I got to admit, Like, if that thing was $500, I would have bought one. If that thing was $1,000, I would have thought real hard about buying one. But for $2,000, I'm like, ah, I'll just go buy another pinball machine.
    122:06
    It's not a bad game. It's a good game. It's definitely worth giving it a try. I think it's a good game, man. I think that there's a lot there to like. I can see why people don't, like, just like Stern Wars and just like Episode I, I can see why people don't like it, but I also don't get why the enduring narrative has become, oh, it sucks. Because I don't think it sucks. I don't think people think that Mandalorian sucks. I think that if any Star Wars game sucks, it's Trilogy. It does kind of suck. Yeah.
    122:46
    So talking about our Star Wars games, we're going to move on up, and we're going to mention this because it's part of the lineage, is the Star Wars Home Pin. And I say that because if you listen to our last episode, Episode 78, the Home Game, we talk in depth about the Star Wars Home Pin, which is still currently available at your local Costco retailer. And it's For what it is man It's a fun game Great beginner game For someone who wants to get into pinball Yeah absolutely And that's all we're going to say about that Because we've got a whole episode where we already talk about it So we're going to move on To the new game Star Wars Fall of the Empire I actually got a text from a friend Of the show, the Mighty Mo It's like what's the deal with this So I had to explain it because, you know, I said, well, you know, it's the original trilogy. And I said, you know, honestly, it's, you know, it could be called, you know, Star Wars, The Search for One More Dollar.
    123:49
    Star Wars 2, The Search for More Money. And so I'm pulling it up. Now, I don't know who did the artwork yet on this. I did check, and it's a voice actor, not Anthony Daniels, who does most of the call-outs at C-3PO, it is really quite good. He does a real good job.
    124:13
    Yeah, it didn't sound too bad. I could tell that, like, when you asked me, I hadn't watched the trailer yet. I watched the trailer, like, immediately after, and I was like, oh, yeah, that's clearly not the real actor, but, like, it's good. It's beautiful. It's a smart voice to use. Yes. Yep. Because if you know the whole story of R2-D2 and C-3PO, Lucas' whole vision was all the Star Wars movies were going to be kind of quasi-unrelated, like the Skywalker thing wasn't really supposed to happen, and that somehow R2-D2 and C-3PO would just always be there. Uh-huh. Yep. But, you know, obviously, the Mandalorian, those plans changed. Right. Chris Bartlett, a voice actor, a voice talent, or an actor. It might be a regular actor as well. But Chris Bartlett does the voice of C-3PO in the new Star Wars game. Real quick, just off the top of my head The two things that most impressed me Of the new game Not the walker That collapses like in Empire Strikes Back when you wrapped a Toe cable from the snow speeder Around it, that is cool, it's a cool Mechanical toy The magnet, the force magnets Where you can use the force And save your ball A la like Without a post like in Foo Fighters. Yeah, it's got like the like the golden eye or the Rob Zombie sort of magnet thing, but it's player controlled. It's player controlled, yes. And I think that's very, very cool because you can use the Force and save your ball when it drains. Or like Alice Cooper's Nightmare Castle. Yeah, exactly. That's what I meant to say, Alice Cooper. I don't know what I said, but I didn't say that. Well, because you can see it either shoots it back into the shooter lane or back up between the two flippers, so that's kind of cool.
    125:59
    And the other thing really impressive because you've had a lot of games lately with no pop bumpers, which is cool. I own one. But I like pop bumpers too. And I love, for so many years, it was real cookie cutter. You shoot all the way to the top. You roll down two or three possible in lanes into a bank of three pop bumpers, either to a little left of center or a little right of center of the top of the play field. That was the formula for pinball.
    126:29
    And it got kind of stale. and people are putting pop bumpers, just one pop bumper on the game, or none, or three, or four, or five, but they're putting them in different places. If you look at the game, they said there's two pop bumpers. One has the symbol of the rebellion. The other has the symbol of the empire, and they're on the left and right side just above the slingshots. Like Viking. Thank you. And, you know, that's one of my all-time favorite early solid-state games. I would love to have a Viking.
    127:04
    In fact, that's been on my mind. That and the Medusa a lot lately, both those games, because they're great games. But getting back to that, so once you get past that point on the game and the lower play field, it's the danger zone, man, because you hit a slingshot and or I was watching some gameplay video, and it's just out of control. And, I mean, you really got to fight to get it back onto a flipper and get that game under control because it's either going down the middle or to an out lane. And that really increases the level of anticipation, excitement, and anxiety, especially in a competitive setting. And I really like that. I think that's a really neat way to set up the game. I really, really want to play this game. And, oh, Daisy's come to help podcast. So does Daisy. So Daisy wants to play it too. The force will be with you always. Daisy the Jedi girl. So, yeah, man, what are your guys' thoughts? Artwork is killer. It feels like I have a huge Kenner toy. I don't know how they did it, but it looks really good, and it's a way of showing off your Star Wars toys.
    128:17
    I'm wondering if they had to get licensed from Kenner because it looks so identical to the artwork that's on the outside of the boxes with the toys. Yeah. Well, one thing to know about Kenner, Kenner no longer exists. It's now owned by Hasbro. Okay. All right. Thank you. Through like 15 acquisitions. Yeah, I figured Kenner was gone, but doesn't it remind you of your childhood? It sure does. Well, just like the box on the home pin. Yeah, like the box on the home pin, but this is like full color. Yeah, it really hits that nostalgia. The box on the home pin is in color, too. You're right. It's got a fucking overlay on it. It is. And I bet you that, like, when we were all, you know, we were all like, oh, my gosh, nostalgia and da-da-da-da-da-da. We were probably, like, four steps behind because Stern was, like, way ahead of us. Yeah. Because they were just like, oh, yeah, we're going to nostalgize our next game to the max. And they did.
    129:18
    They did. Whoever's doing their marketing right now, their art direction is, oh, that's Fambietti, right? Yep. He's killing it. I think that if you look at this game,
    129:33
    it is in almost every single way a response to the original Star Wars, which I'm sure sold perfectly well. But everything on it seems to be in response to the criticism of the original Star Wars. Even the stuff that we brought up earlier, right? Original Star Wars, art was lame. New Star Wars, art's much better. Original Star Wars, not enough toys. This thing, covered with toys. You've got a Death Star. You've got an Ad-Ad. You've got Jabba the Hutt. You've got a TIE Fighter. You've got the Millennium Falcon.
    130:07
    The original Star Wars, kind of weird shot map, a little frustrating. This Star Wars, straight out fan layout with a big wide open play field and plenty of shots to make.
    130:19
    How do you like that list for him? Original Star Wars, terrible Admiral Ackbar impersonator. New Star Wars, pretty decent C-3PO impersonator. Plus, they both have tons of movie clips. Plus, they both have tons and tons of content, you know. I think that, like, this game is basically them saying, look, we understand what we did wrong. Here's the Star Wars game, Mr. Home Collector, that you dreamed of. Mm-hmm.
    130:46
    Yep. And amazingly enough, just in time to counter-promote Harry Potter. right right smart right i mean i'm not trying to put words into stern's mouth but just as a as a you know outside looking in pinball affectionado like that all just makes too much sense right the center ramp you got the the lift ramp where you shoot it and get into hyperspace i love that the one thing that bothers me about this game right now and i don't know if you guys are on with me on this, when you first start a game, Yoda's eyes blinking like he's possessed by the devil. That creeps you the fuck out. I'm sorry, but like... Like the owl in Rush. Yeah. I'm going to have to put duct tape over that or something, because that's just creepy. It does look creepy. Thank you. I agree. You know what's kind of funny? If you look back at several of the Star Wars games that we've talked about, this is the third time and the third character that they've gone to that aesthetic with, right? On Davies Star Wars, you have C-3PO in that spot. On Trilogy, you have Vader in that spot. And on Fall of the Empire, you have Yoda in that spot. They all have light-up eyes. Yes. And they all, like, they all have a big just front shot taking up, like, the lower percentage of the play field. Mm-hmm. Somebody at Stern likes that. And I do think that, like, this is Borg's return. Obviously, there's some nostalgia among pinball aficionados, right? You know, so we're like, oh, John Borg getting another crack at Star Wars. I'm sure some of it is designed to evoke those kind of love-love feelings, but it's not a remake or anything. Like, it's completely different. I kind of was, like, halfway, like, when they started talking about Borg designing the new Star Wars and we're in this weird era of Stern doing these remakes or remasters or whatever. I was like, ah, dude, are they going to remaster Davey East Star Wars? Because that would be rad. Mm-hmm.
    132:53
    Although I would super love it if they had the, like, maybe as an alternate soundtrack, if they have the music from the 90s game. Because I will say this, I love the John Williams music, but, like, you hear that shit a lot. Yeah, it gets a little graded after a while.
    133:06
    I do agree. I know the Star Wars theme. I hear it in my sleep. Yeah. They went to the playbook, you know, and they're like, we're putting in the Star Wars theme because that's what everybody needs to hear. Well, they have places for other John Williams music for the Star Wars stuff. Like, if you go into the – and like I said, I have not seen a lot of gameplay or opinions or anything. I've just kind of saw the reveal, showed the trailer to my students. They were excited. I watched it again during my lunchtime. Yeah. And it looks fun, but I'm curious, like, what is the consensus right now as far as first impressions go from media, influencers, or whatever? I mean, obviously, that's their job to influence you, but do they like how it shoots? I mean, I guess that would be the next thing to talk about, but we really have the experience. Well, we're not going to walk on anyone else's podcast, but I will say that Don from Don's Pinball Podcast went to the early release party thing that Stern did, and he has a great episode on it. I'll listen to it. I'm sure that several other podcasters have done material on that now, as well as there's a nice gameplay video with Jack Danger,
    134:17
    the one-armed bandit Jack Danger, but he also has Ray Day and a couple of the other guys from the Star Wars design team. No John Borg. No, but our dear friend Mike Vinicore is there. And they're playing it, and they walk you through quite a bit, including a really nice use of the Force save. So highly recommend if you're interested in this game looking at that. I think that what you can tell from this episode is, you know, I'm a Star Wars fan. Obviously, I'm excited to play it. Obviously, it's a game that I would love to spend some time on. So hopefully we'll see one around here soon. I won't even lie. Like, if I sold a game or two and I all of a sudden was thinking, I need a new in-box game, anything with Star Wars or Star Trek in the title is going to be right up there for me. Probably not buying one new in the box, but, like, if an opportunity, obviously, you know, $10,000 fell into my lap tomorrow that I needed to spend, you know, I'd probably be very tempted. Right. Well, Joe is a huge Star Wars fan over at PlayStation Sports and Games. and he's going to definitely get a premium. He'll probably get multiples. Yeah, he probably will. So it will be available to play in Reno. I'm looking forward to when it releases and gets manufactured so it can be shipped out here. But it looks fun. It looks less complicated, and I have nothing else to say about it because all I'm seeing is video playing but nothing else. So we'll get to that when we get to play it. that's why we just call them first impressions boys and girls yeah I don't see a lot really wrong with this game so far I mean I just see a lot of good I'm hoping I'm right and the bigger screen which is cool the better sound system the spike 3 you know I wasn't going to bring this up because we're running long but man you just walked right into it Mark oh no it's not a bad thing, but, like, is it weird to anybody else that, like, this is one of the only times, other than, like, maybe, like, Gottlieb in, like, the early 80s where a manufacturer is actually making a big deal about the hardware system of their pinball machine. Like, I remember Gottlieb used to have a thing where they really, you know, talked about, oh, System 80, the System 80, da-da-da-da-da, this, that. Now Stern, like, they know that the pinball collector, again, And home market, right in the arcades, nobody would have cared. Put Star Wars on it. People are going to drop quarters in it. But in the home market, we're so thirsty for something new and something different, and we're so interested in what's going to come next, that on this game they're specifically marketing that it's Spike 3. Mm-hmm. But it is a rollout. Isn't that crazy? Like, I've never been here before. Like, before it was like the big change was always the display, right? So it was EM, right? So you had reels. And then it was solid state, so you had, you know, score displays. Then it was alphanumeric. Then it was kind of fancier alphanumeric, right? That's where you started getting like the System 11s where they do like the little rudimentary graphics like Funhaus. Then DMD, then LCD, then, you know, now bigger LCD. but now it's just like you can't really go too much different on the display, right, unless, you know, they figured out holograms again. Right. So now they're just like, oh, yeah, it's got better sound, and it's got, you know, a slightly bigger screen, and it's got better processing power, and there's more changes coming. Spike 3. Right. Hey, tune, ladies and gentlemen. And I was just like, oh, George Gomez, you tricky bastard. They need Bluetooth so you can go and hook up your headphones wirelessly. Well, JJP got that. Yeah, JJP's been doing that for years. Yeah, yeah. So that definitely exists, but I'm just saying, yeah, it's like how crazy is it that now the big thing isn't even the fact that it's the better game or the better art or that, but now they're actually selling the operating system. Yeah, you're right. And that's when you know you've hit like that weird level of saturation, right? Right. It's not enough just to have the next game or the next title, but it's just like what's the next game going to run on? And people have been speculating about Spike 3 since pretty much for a while. But, I mean, I remember it kind of started hitting hot and heavy when Metallica Remastered came out. Everyone thought it was going to be Spike 3. And, you know, I've heard Gomez talk about it several times where he's like, well, you know, we're going to start off with what we're doing in this game, but then, you know, eventually there's going to be more changes. So keep watching for them. And I'm just like, that's very, very interesting to me that, like, Spike 3 itself has become a selling point. Right, well with Metallica Remastered Even though it was a spike too soon With Dungeons and Dragons Had the new quieter Van To create the CPU Yeah, but that's a late feature Nobody cares about that I mean, if not, don't get me wrong If I turn on Ghostbusters right now Like in two minutes, you'll hear Woooo Yeah No, but I mean like the bigger screen Is something that you'll notice, right Like the speakers, notice that I guess it's probably an LE feature, but like they specifically lit up the speakers so you see the woofer and the tweeter now. Right, right. They have a woofer and a tweeter. You're going to notice that. And like I said, it's going to get engagement from collectors. Right, right. Because collectors, you know, they're modders, right? Like, you know, everyone's installing new speakers in their pinball machines and speaker lights and stuff like that. So now Stern can call attention to the fact that, oh, we're going to install this for you. and we have color-changing lighting and all kinds of cool stuff. So, yeah, it's really neat to me that, like, Spike 3 is now a thing, and Stern is selling it already. And it's interesting. You'd think they would probably release that, like, during the Consumer Electronics Show, but they obviously released it with a really good license. And the other thing probably is they just have to go head-to-head with Harry Potter. Like, they're not just going to let J.J.P. walk. I mean, and I thought originally, yeah, maybe they'll bring out, like, a little niche-y title and just sort of let J.J.P. do their thing for a while. But apparently the powers that be at Stern were just like, nope, you got Harry Potter, we got Star Wars. Bring it on, bitches.
    140:58
    And props to Stern for not raising prices, too, even with a new system. Yes. That's a great point. Great point, Mark. Thank you. Yep. So, boys, is that where we are? Are we trying? I think we're through everything in Star Wars land. Oh, talking about Star Wars. Those crazy Star Wars. When will they end? I think that was it. So we're going to go up to shout out some thank yous and wrap this up. Dan?
    141:28
    Oh, man, I'm exhausted. You know what? Big thanks to you guys. Big thanks to the whole CCPL community. The big thanks to the folks who put on the Golden State Pinball Volunteer Party. It was a great time.
    141:44
    You know, and as always, you know, thanks to my wife for putting up with all these shenanigans and every once in a while even getting involved in them. Nice. Mark.
    141:53
    Thanks to my wife for always putting up with this hobby and supporting me as much as she can. I had a little talk with her, so I'm kind of going a little less, going to tournaments. and it's important to spend time with your family. It's not always pinball in your life. So it's exciting to kind of ease off a little bit, and it feels pretty good. The other thanks I want to give is Jason Cummins for opening a new location to really pretty much bring his private collection to people who can play it out in the public. I think it's really cool. I mean, for a long time he's had it where it's always been like in a warehouse or at his home. And he just wants to have other people enjoy it in a regular business that's open to the public. And I just give huge props to him for doing that. And I know he'll always have some great titles to play that no one else can play. So thanks, Jason, for doing that. You know what, Mark, before you jump in, Spencer, I'll say this, man.
    142:55
    Hosting playoffs the other day and hosting at the house reminds me why I own 20 games. Yeah. Right? And you can own one game and play pinball, but at the point that you're owning lots of games, I mean, I'm sure that there's those collectors out there who just, they put them into an ice room and they just look at them and that's all they do with them. But I think that most of us, we want them to be played and we want them to be enjoyed. And one of the reasons why we have them is not just to show them off and be like, aha, look how great I am, but it's to say to your friends and to your pinball community, hey, get a hold of me. Let me know when you're in town. I'll roll up the garage door or I'll fire up the mini split, and we can drink beers and we can play some pinball and we can bullshit for a while. And I'm sure for Jason it's the same thing. He's got a gorgeous collection, and short of opening a museum or something, which, you know, God knows he could probably do with some of his super cool games, you know, this is the best way to get them out there where people can touch them and enjoy them and share the enjoyment with you. So I get it. And yeah, huge props to Jason, who I've, you know, hung out with and I talked to on a semi-regular basis. And he is just a guy who does pinball right. You know, he loves it for the right reasons. He's, you know, he's annoyed for the reasons that a lot of us are and you can't blame him, but he loves it for the right reasons. And he contributes much more to the hobby than he gets out of it. Absolutely. Not even ever meeting me and buying me when I came out up to his warehouse. That was a fun day. We all, the three of us, had a great time that day. We've got to find a way to get together more than once a year.
    144:49
    And Jason was a wonderful – Jason and his wife were wonderful hosts. Yeah, they're wonderful. And he's taking care of the games and takes pride in keeping those in awesome shape all around the Reno Sparks area. So, yeah, if you want to play all hours of the night, 24 hours, you can go to Cal Neva and play, and they play fantastic. So, yeah, huge props. It's a lot of work going to each location, obviously, you know, maintaining them and switching them around. I mean, he is known for switching games around all the time. so he always gives that variety to people so props to you Jason thank you go support his location please alright ok I'm up shout out next week so that would be September 19th, 20th and 21st in Denver, Colorado is the Rocky Mountain Pinball Showdown and Game Room Expo And that is back at Because they kind of moved around a couple times Or at least once So they're at the Denver Marriott Tech Center And that's at 4900 South Syracuse Street Denver, Colorado 8280237 And then you can just go To pinballshowdown.com And you can get the pricing And all the other cool stuff And you know they got a real cool poster this year. I think it's going to be their poster because it's their ad. It's got a real retro vibe to it, so hopefully I'll go next week and pick up a poster and I'll give you a trip report. But if you're in the area, the Denver metro area or adjoining states that are close by, try to make that show, man. Support the pinball shows near you.
    146:41
    Dan, what day is the pinnagogo? I just dropped it in the chat. Pinnagogo So 10-10 to 10-12. You did. Usual spot, Dixon, California.
    146:54
    Typically an absolutely wonderful show. There's going to be a fantastic tournament this year. From what I heard, it's going to be all System 11s. Nice. Oh, really? Cool. You better come out for this one. I know it will be streamed on Elk Grove Pinball, so you'll probably get to hear me talk about it a little bit, but I'd love to play in it. And it is probably, as far as admission goes, I can't quite find the prices, but it's typically, yeah, it's $30 for all weekend. That is just insane. If you're 13 and under, it's $20. Wow. So, like, you're not going to have more fun for less money.
    147:40
    Nice. Hundreds of games all on free play. They typically have a snack bar sort of set up, but there's actually quite a few decent restaurants in the adjacent town. Okay, cool. Support that show, man. Okay, so my last shout-out is to the godfather, Roger Sharp. He has a new website where he sells merchandise. It's defiantpinball.com, and it's official Roger Sharp license, man. And you can get, he's got sneakers, he's got accessories, the Wild River Rumble Universe. I have no idea what that is. And he has apparel. He has apparel. He has T-shirts and hoodies and crew neck sweatshirt, jumpers and tank tops. Oh, my. And he has, the shirts are really cool, man. So check out the website, man, and buy something and support the Godfather. He's in his retirement years. Give this man 20 bucks. for all he's done for pinball.
    148:43
    That is defiant.com. But it's Defiant Pinball. And just check it out. A couple of shows coming up. Check those out if you're in the area. So that's what I got, man. You guys got anything else? Where can they check us out? They can check us out on our home, our flagship at SoundCloud. Thank you, Dan. Lovely segue.
    149:03
    iTunes, Spotify, and wherever fine podcasts are sold. So, yeah, our Facebook page Our address to come listen to us Thank you to all the wonderful humans And aliens who support the show Literally around the world And the whole galaxy far, far away So the Force will be with you all Always Play pinball Keep America strong
    149:38
    Thank you.