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Episode 24 - Todd Tuckey (TNT Amusements)

Special When Lit·podcast_episode·1h 52m·analyzed·Nov 22, 2018
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TL;DR

Todd Tuckey chronicles TNT Amusements rise and pinball resurgence from basement hobby to 25,000+ parties.

Summary

Todd Tuckey, founder of TNT Amusements, discusses his 50+ year journey from buying a basement pinball machine at age 14 to building a major arcade/pinball resale and party venue business. He shares origins of TNT Amusements, his parallel film projection service career, relationships with key industry figures, and upcoming content including an interview with Alan Reisman (original Bally designer from 1977-1979) and a personal memoir book. Key insight: modern pinball production (10,000-12,000 units/year worldwide) is far below 1981 peak (182,000 units in US alone), though resurgence is real.

Key Claims

  • In 1981, six US manufacturers produced 182,000 pinball machines; last year worldwide production was 10,000-12,000 units

    high confidence · Todd Tuckey, discussing historical production volume data during podcast conversation

  • Todd Tuckey started his first pinball machine acquisition at age 14, purchasing a Criss Cross (Gottlieb) for $50 from a basement

    high confidence · Todd Tuckey, stating this is first public disclosure of these details which will appear in his upcoming book

  • TNT Amusements has hosted over 25,000 birthday parties, averaging roughly 900 parties per year (nearly three per day across seven days)

    high confidence · Todd Tuckey, citing milestone crossed earlier that year

  • Todd Tuckey's best friend Scott died at age 53 from undiagnosed colorectal cancer; Scott had declined colonoscopy screening at age 50

    high confidence · Todd Tuckey, personal anecdote about shared business partner and lifelong friend

  • Spooky Pinball's Total Nuclear Annihilation is 'the best game of the year' and 'an incredible street-level game'

    medium confidence · Todd Tuckey, opinion based on play experience at Pintastic

  • TNT Amusements has 1,450 YouTube subscribers on its channel

    high confidence · Ken Cromwell, asking Todd to confirm current subscriber count

  • Todd Tuckey's first accidental YouTube video occurred in 2011 when default upload setting was 'public' rather than 'unlisted'

    high confidence · Todd Tuckey, recounting origin story of TNT Amusements YouTube channel

  • Pinball sales have now surpassed arcade cabinet sales at TNT Amusements, shifting from neck-and-neck competition

    high confidence · Todd Tuckey, responding to question about current sales mix

  • An interview with Alan Reisman (original Bally designer, 1977-1979) conducted at Pinball Expo by Jeff (Arcade Hollywood) is ready for release on Arcade Hollywood YouTube channel

Notable Quotes

  • “If you ever research a game, you literally type in TNT Amusements and type in the name of the game, and literally a video pops up and it describes it.”

    Ken Cromwell @ ~0:03:00 — Establishes Todd Tuckey's cultural authority and reach within pinball community; acknowledges his content dominance

  • “In 1981, in the United States, the six manufacturers made 182,000 machines... Last year, how many do you think were made worldwide? I would say 10,000 to 12,000 would be my high end.”

    Todd Tuckey @ ~0:26:00 — Key industry metric showing dramatic production decline over 40 years; contextualizes modern 'resurgence' as recovery from much lower baseline

  • “Stern, Gary Stern, has done a wonderful job keeping pinball in the limelight. He really has. You know, like him or hate him, he's just done a great job.”

    Todd Tuckey @ ~0:28:00 — Balanced acknowledgment of Stern's industry leadership despite polarizing personality

  • “By the time you lay stuff in, sound effects, you float in graphics and titles, and you've got 12 hours maybe in a 40-minute video.”

    Todd Tuckey @ ~0:37:00 — Reveals massive production effort behind TNT Amusements' seemingly casual video content; explains why output is limited

  • “I think that's what people appreciate so much about your videos. It's not a typical walkthrough. It's not a typical how-to video. Yourself and your staff, you each have personalities. You've got stories to tell. It's entertaining.”

    Bill Webb @ ~0:39:30 — Identifies TNT Amusements' competitive advantage: entertainment value + education; differentiator from standard game reviews

  • “The Addams Family, Addams Family, Addams Family, Addams Family. It's all I hear.”

    Todd Tuckey @ ~0:32:00 — Demonstrates overwhelming collector/enthusiast demand for specific vintage machines; Addams Family is clear #1 requested title

  • “Every pinball has something great to offer. Every single pinball has something unique.”

    Todd Tuckey — Articulates philosophy underlying TNT Amusements' comprehensive coverage approach

Entities

Todd TuckeypersonTNT AmusementscompanyKen CromwellpersonBill WebbpersonScott BankspersonRick HoffmanpersonAlan Reisman

Signals

  • ?

    content_signal: TNT Amusements YouTube channel has become default reference source for pinball machine information; hosts confirm users search 'TNT Amusements + [game name]' as primary research method. Channel has 1,450+ subscribers.

    high · Ken Cromwell: 'If you ever research a game, you literally type in TNT Amusements and type in the name of the game, and literally a video pops up'

  • ?

    announcement: Exclusive premiere announced on Special When Lit: Alan Reisman (original Bally designer, 1977-1979) interview filmed at Pinball Expo with Arcade Hollywood's Jeff. ~50 minute interview covering early Bally years. Ready for release.

    high · Todd Tuckey: 'You heard it here on the Special When Lit Pinball Podcast... This will be the first you'll hear it, too... it's just about ready to go up on his Arcade Hollywood site'

  • ?

    product_strategy: TNT Amusements is severely constrained by editing/production time: Todd estimates 12+ hours editing per 40-minute video; he does all editing himself; large backlog of unedited footage (~10 videos pending); no assistant available.

    high · Todd: 'by the time you lay stuff in, sound effects, you float in graphics and titles, and you've got 12 hours maybe in a 40-minute video... I've got probably ten videos. I've got so much video on my computer here, I haven't had time to edit'

  • ?

    business_signal: TNT Amusements has shifted from arcade-dominant to pinball-dominant sales mix. Pinball is now majority of revenue; arcade cabinets relegated to 'as-is' sales for MAME conversions.

    high · Todd: 'The arcades were what we sold the most of. That has since changed... We are selling more pinballs than videos, yes... it's no longer neck and neck'

  • $

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.338

0:00
The special when lit pinball podcast is sponsored by Two Brothers Artisan Brewing, makers of pinball pale ale. Woo!
0:10
Coming at you out of St. Charles, Illinois, the special when lit pinball podcast starts now. Thanks for hitting that start button and taking the plunge.
0:23
Here are your hosts, Ken Cromwell and Bill Webb. Hey, what's going on pinball land? And welcome to a very special episode of Special Wind Lit Pinball Podcast. This is episode number 24. I am Ken Cromwell. And I am Bill Webb. And we've got somebody that is a special treat for you all. Highly requested. And his name is Mr. Todd Tuckey. And he's the owner of TNT Amusements. And I assume he's like one of the founding fathers of coin op. Whether it be, you know, service and sales and resales. I mean, this guy's been around forever. Everybody knows who Todd Tuckey is. If you ever research in a game, you literally type in TNT Amusements and type in the name of the game, and literally a video pops up and it describes it. And you can't have more fun watching a video on your favorite game than watching a TNT Amusement video. But Todd Tuckney, welcome to the show, buddy. How are you? Hey, thanks, guys. It's good to be here. I was very happy you asked me to appear tonight. Well, we had met each other formally at Expo this year, Chicagoland Expo. That's right. You were very nice in signing a card for, I think, each of us. Both of us, yep. Which I happily stuck in my little expo, what do you call that thing that holds your pass? Lanyard. Yeah, lanyard, lanyard. So it was like my good luck charm. Yeah. Did you have a good expo? Yeah, the expo was really good this year, too. I thought so. But I guess my most important question to either of you, at the expo, is there any chance, I mean, I want you to think back to while we were there, is there any chance I happened to do this to either one of you? Oh, right off the bat by the banner. Yeah. Do you know what that is? Oh, yeah. That's the eye poke. That's the eye poke, guys. Absolutely.

high confidence · Todd Tuckey, announcing upcoming content; this is described as 'first you'll hear it' on Special When Lit

  • Todd Tuckey is writing a personal memoir book to be published next year (self-produced with help from contributors)

    high confidence · Todd Tuckey, stating 'this will be the first time I'll have shared this with anybody because it's not even written yet'

    • @ ~0:44:00

  • “If you have a broken game, put up a sign that says, Monte Carlo is resting today. The Parry family is resting today. It sounds really nice. And then people, for some reason, it doesn't make the people... Everybody needs a break.”

    Todd Tuckey @ ~1:10:00 — Reveals operational psychology trick for managing player perception of maintenance downtime; humanizes machine experience

  • “I would run cartoons. I bought cartoons on the Internet. Well, not the Internet. They used to have film newspapers where every month you'd get a paper of films available to buy.”

    Todd Tuckey @ ~0:16:00 — Nostalgic detail about pre-internet film distribution channels; contextualizes Todd's pre-digital entrepreneurship

  • “You heard it here on the Special When Lit Pinball Podcast... This will be the first you'll hear it, too.”

    Todd Tuckey @ ~0:41:00 — Establishes Special When Lit as exclusive premiere venue for major industry announcements; reinforces podcast's cultural importance

    • person
    Jeffperson
    Gary Sternperson
    Jack Canaryperson
    Spooky Pinballcompany
    Chicagoland Expoevent
    Pintasticevent
    Bally Pinballcompany
    Gottliebcompany
    Addams Familygame
    Total Nuclear Annihilationgame
    Special When Lit Pinball Podcastcontent
    Mel Blancperson
    Walt Disney Studioscompany
    Arcade Hollywoodcontent
    Two Brothers Artisan Brewingcompany

    market_signal: Historical context: 1981 US pinball production was 182,000 units from six manufacturers. Current worldwide production estimated at 10,000-12,000 units/year. Modern 'resurgence' is recovery from much lower baseline, not return to peak.

    high · Todd: 'In 1981, in the United States, the six manufacturers made 182,000 machines... Last year, how many do you think were made worldwide? I would say 10,000 to 12,000 would be my high end'

  • ~

    sentiment_shift: Todd Tuckey acknowledges making critical video content about Bally's Medusa (calling it 'under the bus') but frames as youthful exuberance. This led to Alan Reisman (original designer) reaching out after watching videos, establishing positive connection.

    high · Todd: 'I posted that video, and I was kind of mean... I called Bally. You were kind of mean, right? Yeah, I kind of threw this under the bus a little bit... Alan told me he was coming to the expo'

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Alan Reisman (original Bally designer from 1977-1979) is actively re-engaging with modern pinball community; discovered TNT Amusements via YouTube; attended Pinball Expo as speaker; participating in content creation interviews.

    high · Todd: 'He started watching my videos... Alan told me he was coming to the expo and he was going to be talking there too'

  • ?

    venue_signal: TNT Amusements operates substantial party venue business: 25,000+ parties hosted since 1987 inception, averaging ~900/year (~2.5/day). Peak capacity was 5-6 parties per day on weekends. Decline in recent years due to emergence of competing party venues (bouncy houses, nail salons, game trucks).

    high · Todd: 'we crossed over 25,000... That's about 900 parties a year... back then, nobody had a hairdressing party or a nails party... The party business has slacked off for sure because you can now have a bouncing party'

  • ?

    product_launch: Todd Tuckey is writing personal memoir about coin-op industry history. Self-published, with multiple contributors helping. Will include previously unreleased details about early career. Expected publication next year.

    high · Todd: 'This will actually be the first time I'll have shared this with anybody because it's not even written yet. This will be part of my new book next year that I'm going to produce myself'

  • ?

    industry_signal: Modern pinball leadership identified as: Stern Pinball (Gary Stern), Jersey Jack Pinball (Jack Canary), and Spooky Pinball. Todd credits Gary Stern with sustaining industry despite polarizing personality.

    medium · Todd: 'Stern, Gary Stern, has done a wonderful job keeping pinball in the limelight. He really has. You know, like him or hate him... Jack Canary and his wonderful Jersey Jack Pinballs. And now we have Spooky Pinball'

  • ?

    collector_signal: Addams Family is overwhelming #1 requested vintage pinball machine by collectors. Todd described fielding constant requests with no relief. Reflects nostalgic/FOMO-driven collector behavior.

    high · Todd: 'The number one requested pinball, as everybody probably knows, is The Addams Family... Addams Family, Addams Family, Addams Family, Addams Family. It's all I hear'

    • 2:07
    It wouldn't be a Todd Talkie interview without the sound effects. And Todd's a one-man band traveling with his own sound effects today. So this is going to be a nice low-budget show for us as Todd's taking on all special effects. Thanks, Todd.
    2:19
    We love doing it. So listen, let me ask you this because you've been in the business forever. Can you give us a little bit of background on how you started in the coin-op business and eventually leading up to TNT Amusements? Well, it's interesting because this will actually be the first time I'll have shared this with anybody because it's not even written yet. This will be part of my new book next year that I'm going to produce myself. and I've had a bunch of people that are going to help along with it. And if it's okay with you, we'd like to touch on that book a little bit down the road.
    2:57
    That's how I started, though. And I'm going to have this more in detail, but everybody will hear this for the first time. I actually got my first pinball machine, believe it or not, when I was 14 years old.
    3:11
    And it was like $50, and it was in somebody's basement. and somehow my mother heard about it or something and we went over and grabbed it. It was called Criss Cross. Mm-hmm. A Gottlieb. I think it was Gottlieb. And I fiddled with it and played with it. It actually worked. But we didn't really know where to buy parts or anything. So we kind of, when the rubber broke, we used the rubber bands that my mother would have and we clowned around with a play with it. And the darn thing, I remember how reliable it was. And the back glass was pretty neat. And it worked. We must have fiddled with that. We probably fiddled around with that in our basement for maybe two years. And then we started to get more interested. And my best friend Scott and I, we befriended a local vendor named Rick Hoffman. He called himself Rick Hoffman Vending. Oddly enough, I just came across one of his machines that we bought in a package deal. Gosh, what's the name of it? It was just in a video I put out. And we zoomed in on this logo, and it brought back this flood of memories with Rick Hoffman because by buying games from him, I was able to purchase machines that he would pull off of his route. and Scott and I would start to clean them up a little and then selling them to Holmes. So from the very beginning, you had an in with an operator taking games off route and kind of refurbishing. That's right. And he would sell them to us for like $100, $150, and sometimes they'd break almost immediately. Other times they would last forever. But the mechanical games were super dependable. in terms of thinking that the hammering that Rick Hoffman's accounts gave them, when he gave them to us, you know, they were worn. They had dings and dents all over them and things. But he was thrilled because he didn't have to try to sell them on his own. Now, he did take the coin stuff out of them. He didn't want people competing with him. So I remember distinctly how the coin door would just have like a push button on it, and all the coin mechanisms, all that stuff was gone. He just ripped it all off. He just had a credit button installed. Yeah, it was just a credit button because he didn't want people competing, buying a game from him and then finding out that one of his own games he used to own is in this location. Sure, that makes sense. Right. So he really wanted it to be home-owned and nothing else, and he left his logos on them. As I soon found out when we got this game, Cosmos, that's it. Okay. I have a video of a really clever little game. And somebody came over. We put it in a bargain basement or a Craigslist posting of it and dumped it. And we did a little history on it then on that video. But Scott and I, we're the same age we were. He and I would tinker with him, and then we'd make a little money, and then we'd put the money into other things. It wasn't really not a business. It was more like sort of like a funky hobby. Hey, that's what we do with our podcast. Yeah.
    6:33
    Never know where we'll take you, though, right? Right. We're still in school, remember. So, I mean, I guess we're 16, 17, 18 years old. We graduated high school, Scott and I. We still had these machines.
    6:47
    We also had mechanical games. We had a stunt pilot. And Scott Banks kept that stunt pilot for years. He moved it to his new house. and I sold it about eight or nine years ago from his widow. Scott passed away. He was 53 years old and he did not go for a colonoscopy. If he had at 50, he would have been alive. So all your listeners, if you are 50, you immediately tomorrow, well, no, after Thanksgiving, you need to go and get a colonoscopy and you'd have to get one every five years. Now, if he had done that, he would have been alive. That's tough. I'm sorry to hear that, Todd. Very sad because all these years we did all this stuff together. Now, oddly enough, at TNT Amusements, Scott built for me on a little breadboard and parts from Radio Shack a remote control system to run my 16-millimeter projectors. Back when we were 18 years old, I'm 63 now. Scott would have been 63. And the darn things have never broken. It's never needed service, and the stuff's still working. You've collected 35-millimeter film, right, for years. Just 16. Reels, right? Or 16. I'm sorry, 16-millimeter. 35 is the theater size. Yeah, right. It's bulky and big, and you have to have a reel change every 20 minutes. I'm not going to be doing that, baby. And you've had some real kind of rare films that other companies had sought after from you, correct? Yes. I used to sell cartoons to Mel Blanc of all people. Wow. And I copied the checks so people would believe me. They didn't sell for much. I think back then the cartoons were maybe $75 each for a seven-minute cartoon. But I did have one Polaroid picture of me standing next to him when I was, I think, 19.
    8:46
    That was really fun. But we were selling movies back and forth. Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino. Wow. I just shipped. You wouldn't believe this. I had a Walt Disney featurette they used to make in the 60s, but it was something called a dye transfer technicolor print, and run Appaloosa, run. It was a story I liked as a kid. You know when you watch something when you're 14 years old and it sticks with you? So I found this print, and I bought it years ago, and I finally said it's time to dump it. So I put it up on eBay, and the high bid was like $121, and the print had some splices and some lines, but the color was stunning. And most important, it was a process they abandoned in 1970. They haven't struck any 16-millimeter Technicolor prints since 1970, and 35-millimeter they stopped in 73. Okay. But anyway, the winner was Walt Disney. Wow, that's incredible. I shipped it to the fifth floor of the Walt Disney Studios. I guess they were missing a 16-millimeter print of this. They probably had the 35. They had the negative. They had the DVD. But they wanted the 16. The only reason I had it is because as a kid I liked it. Yeah, for sure. You know, I watched it one more time, and I said, it's time to dump this.
    10:06
    It's like a pinball machine. You know, you play one game. You know, you play a really awful game like Motor Dome. And then you say, you know what, it's time to dump this game. A lot of that stuff, to your point, is nostalgic. And I find this a lot in pinball. Somebody buys a game that was so fun when they were growing up, and it just doesn't hold water as the times have progressed. So at one point it's a little bit of a letdown, but you're kind of torn. You want to give that piece of your childhood away. Well, that's the thing. Yeah, and some people keep it. Just like you don't know how many people come in here and they say they want to buy a specific game and only that game because they played it when they were at junior high school or they were in college. And they want that game because that game helped them pass the course. The Asteroids, I had so many people with that game because that game kept the people, kept their sanity, I guess you could say. Pinball machines, not as much, I suppose. the number one requested pinball, as everybody probably knows, is the Adam's family. Yeah. Adam's family, Adam's family, Adam's family, Adam's family. It's all I hear. Adam's family, Adam's family, Adam's family. Oh, it's that much? Right.
    11:21
    It's like, what happened? I said, let me show you Disco Fever. Right. Yeah, exactly. I'll take a home version of whatever you've got. So as we're still going back in the past, so, I mean, you're kind of buying and selling on the side. How do you incorporate or how do you start your business? How do you get TNT and use it? It's just up and running. Well, funny thing is, is I changed the name slightly. My original business was TNT, which are my initials, by the way. My name is Todd Nichols Tuckey, TNT. And my mother just thought that just flowed. She thought that was the greatest thing. However, when you're a young kid in school, in grade school, in middle school, and finally you're in junior high or something, And when you're sitting there on the bleachers in the gym on the first day of class and the teacher says, Todd Tucky?
    12:12
    And everybody scans to see who the hell would have that name. Todd Tucky. I like that. It's like a superhero. Nobody had Todd in the 60s. That was not a popular name. Now there's a lot of Todds out there. A lot of Todds. Oh, yeah. Not back then. There wasn't. And so I decided I'd just use the name. So my first business, I bought my, I remember I went and I didn't incorporate yet, but I signed up for a business name was TNT Projection Service. But TNT Projection Service, I would go to people's houses on the weekends. In almost every case, I'd have three or four parties on Saturday and two or three on Sunday, and I'd run cartoons for the kids. I bring a five-foot lenticular screen, and then I have a super-fast lens on the projector, so the picture was crisp and had deep blacks in it. It was also a short focal length, so I could fill this five-foot screen in a living room. Yeah. And the lenticular would angle the picture down at the viewers, so the picture was gorgeous. Then I had a 12-inch speaker by the screen, and I'd run a reel of cartoons, and that's how I financed TNT. Hey, I saved all that money. I would run cartoons. I bought cartoons on the Internet. Well, not the Internet. They used to have film newspapers where every month you'd get a paper of films available to buy, and I would buy mostly cartoons that the kids would know because that's what you wanted to appeal to. I wouldn't give the kids a choice of cartoons, but I'd have the reels assembled, and I was very popular. We call it Fun Flicks by TNT Projection Service. And you continue to pay homage to that, right? Because currently at TNT Amusements, during your parties, you still offer, what, 60mm films, right? That you're cartoons. I decided everybody, you have to fuss with this stuff because you've got to rewind it, you've got to clean it, and then you have to splice it. And then, of course, you've got to change the cartoons. I've done 31 years of birthday parties, over 25,000 of them. Wow. Here at TMT, and we now have children with their kids here. They were here as little ones, and now they're back. That's awesome. They have their kids, so we're hoping to go to another generation if I can last that long. Yeah, you'll be fine. That'd be cool. So the projectors are still running. Scott's system's still running.
    14:43
    And just take them down in oil and clean them. They're beautifully made machines, just like the pinball machines are so well built. and they'll last forever if you maintain them. And everybody knows these pinball machines are well built as long as they don't get wet. Well, pinball machines originally, they weren't meant to, at least my understanding, to kind of last a test of time, right? They were kind of disposable products. You'd go ahead, you'd grab another one in a half decade if you were lucky, and operators were moving them in and out. That's right. They were built for a five-year life, and then they could be destroyed or parted out or whatever. And that's what most people did. and there was no reason to keep an old pinball machine because it was old. Right. They never really thought there'd ever be this huge comeback now. Good gosh, it's big. Yeah, the resurgence of pinball is kind of taking me by surprise, especially. I come over kind of from the arcade side of things, and I just think, like, with barcades becoming more and more popular, having these games back out in the general public now I think has really helped, and it's kind of gained exposure, and it seems like there's a level of excitement that everybody wants to be, you know, a part of right now.
    15:55
    I agree. The pinballs, everything is making a comeback. But, you know, in 1981, in the United States, the six manufacturers made 182,000 machines. Crazy. Okay. And last year, how many do you think were made worldwide? 10,000? I would say 10,000 to 12,000 would be my high end. So it's not really coming back, but it's sure a lot more than it was five years ago. Yeah.
    16:31
    Stern, Gary Stern, has done a wonderful job keeping Pimble in the limelight. He really has. You know, like him or hate him, he's just done a great job. It seems like Gary's lasted the test of time. I mean, he's gone through one kind of dip in multiple days in the industry. And, you know, he's still on top of his game. He is. And Jack Canary and his wonderful Jersey Jack pinballs. And now we have the spooky pinball. My gosh, did any of you play that Total Nuclear Annihilation? Yeah. So, God, I think that's like the best game of the year. It's an incredible street-level game. Beautiful game. I couldn't believe how great it was. I played it at Pintastic, and I filmed it, but I haven't gotten that video up yet. I've got probably ten videos. I've got so much video on my computer here, I haven't had time to edit. These stupid videos, it's hard to believe, but by the time you lay stuff in, sound effects, You float in graphics and titles, and you've got 12 hours maybe in a 40-minute video. Maybe not that long, but you have to film it, too. And then occasionally you have to run another soundtrack. You've got to dub over something if something comes out wrong.
    17:54
    Well, I mean, let's talk about your videos for a second, because right now you're at, what, the 1,450 mark on YouTube. Can you tell anybody that's listening how they can find your videos on YouTube? Well, all you do, I mean, to find our channel, you just go on YouTube and type TNT Amusements. And then you'll find our channel has a little tiny hourglass up in the right corner someplace of the actual main channel where you can type in a specific game like F-14 Tomcat or Scared Stiff. Well, I would bring that up. I don't have a Scared Stiff video. Somebody just asked me. It just came out. I don't have one. That's crazy, right? I mean. We're filming it. We didn't get any in. See, and people say, why don't you have a video for this or that? And I said, well, we didn't really make videos until we accidentally made one live. And I think it was 2011, a guy says, can you send me a video of what it looks like before you bring it? He actually sent it that way, too. I think I've dealt with that before. And I sent it, and there's a place where you can make it public or unlisted, and apparently the default setting was public. So as soon as I hit upload and the video finished, it went live. And then I copied the link and I sent it to the guy. And then when I went back on the video site, I had all these questions and comments. I said, what the hell happened? And people loved the video, even though it wasn't meant to be seen by the public. You accidentally fell into your success, right? I did, and people liked it. And then we started adding the stupid jokes and the opening titles. And then we started to have somewhat of a storyline. But we kind of put it together as we go. But sometimes they say we have to do something in the middle of this, and we have to change the ending or whatever. But nothing is really scripted, except I do have cheats everywhere. I think that's what people appreciate so much about your videos. It's not a typical walkthrough. It's not a typical how-to video. Yourself and your staff, you each have personalities. You've got stories to tell. It's entertaining. So while the viewer is gaining information and educating themselves, they're also being entertained. It's kind of a genius kind of play on everything that you're doing there. I mean, and it's so well received almost universally. Most of the people like the format. And, you know, some people say one guy said there's not enough meat, and then another person said there's not enough eye pokes. So it's hard to get to the happy medium. But as I said, but once again, a lot of the games you see, like the Evil Knievel, for instance, I sent that video to the guy, the rough cut. I send the unedited version. I don't have time to edit them. I film it. I cut and paste it and send it to the guy. Are you doing your own editing? Do you have somebody else that's kind of helping you with that? Nobody wants to do it. Wow. My brother doesn't even know how to turn the computer on. So he says. Yeah. So I just do the edit because I'm sitting here answering emails, and then I can listen to the background and say, I don't like that. I want to cut this out. You know, as I said, the editing is not difficult, It's time-consuming. It's re-watching everything you've recorded.
    21:28
    Exactly. Sometimes, like the one video we posted, it was actually a bunch of footage we shot over almost a two-week period. I no longer film everything. There's just no – how many times can you watch asteroids? You just can't. So I skip stuff. Now, I did an in-depth Evel Knievel because I never did one before. And also the Knight Rider, even though it wasn't a shop one, I wanted to show some of that neat feature that it has, even for one of the first digitals. Every pinball has something great to offer. Every single pinball has something unique. But I'll tell you what's coming. Actually, this will be the first you'll hear it, too. You heard it here on the Special When Lit Pinball Podcast. In the Special When Lit episode. Right, 24.
    22:17
    Jeff, who is Arcade Hollywood. It's another YouTube channel. He had all this great equipment at the Pinball Expo. I bumped into one of the original Bally designers.
    22:30
    He actually started watching my videos. He started watching them, I think, Medusa. I don't know how many of the viewers out there remember Bally's Medusa.
    22:45
    Let me see. I'm just going to see when that was. I posted that video, and I was kind of mean. And, you know, I called Balli. You were kind of mean, right? Yeah, I kind of threw this under the bus a little bit. I was kind of mean, you know, but.
    22:59
    Can't be nice all the time, Todd. We should call him up and, you know, get this thing fixed and, you know, something like that. And, you know, that was kind of mean. But I got contacted by Alan Reisman. He grew up, well, he literally grew up with Balli. He started right out of high school and college right there in Bali in 1977. And he started watching our videos and commenting. And he had these really neat comments that he posted like on the spectrum, Bali spectrum.
    23:36
    But anyway, Alan told me he was coming to the expo and he was going to be talking there too. and one of the, you know, signing one of their... Yeah, seminars. Yes. Sure. And you had a seminar yourself there at Expo. I did.
    23:54
    We had a good turnout. I haven't gotten the video up yet. That's another one of the unedited ones. But Alan, I said to Alan, I said, his daughter was there too. I said, listen, I said, Jeff from Arcade Hollywood's got all this great equipment. Why don't we do an interview and talk about all this stuff? and he said yeah let's do it so in the back hall nobody saw us uh late at night uh he uh jeff brought two camera he had a two camera set up and lighting and the two of us sat down and we talked for almost 50 minutes and jeff filmed the whole thing uh clear we had we were mic'd so we had each of us had a lavalier mic and i understand jeff says it's just about ready to go up on his Arcade Hollywood site. So we're going to have this really in-depth detailed interview about the early years of Bally. Oh, nice. Between 76 and, I think he said he left in 79. Okay. So that's coming. And I'll have links on my... Todd, you've got a lot of things coming. You kind of have your hand in a couple different cookie jars. You're all over the place. You are a little bit all over the place. And it's funny because as we talk to you right now, It is, what, 7, 30, 8 o'clock Eastern time. You're still at TNT Amusements. You're dedicating some time for us. I got here at 10 a.m. I'm still here. I'll be here until probably 10, but we are going to go out to Applebee's tonight. Hey, nothing brings out a nice day like some Applebee's. But, you know, and I think it's important for us to kind of talk about this, because as we are a pinball podcast and we kind of focus on pinball, But TNT Amusements does not just service and resell pinball machines. Arcade machines, I think, may have been kind of what really got you guys going. Would that be an accurate assessment? The arcades were what we sold the most of.
    25:50
    That has since changed. So pinball has kind of taken over as far as majority of sales then over arcade machines? And, you know, I would say it's no longer neck and neck. We are selling more pimples than videos, yes. Okay. But, see, there's a difference, though. I'm selling a lot of as-is video games. And is that because people appreciate the patina and they want to work on their own stuff and get something out of a lesser deal? Is that kind of what it is? Yes. More and more people are buying cabinets to put, I guess, a mame in, but they want specific controls. So, for instance, yesterday somebody came and bought a 19-inch Mortal Kombat from us. As is, it was working fine. He's going to put a mame in it, but he's going to take the boards out and sell the boards to help pay for his conversion. Sure. We wanted that cabinet because it was compact. It was a 19-inch, I think it was a dynamo, but it was a nice, clean, compact cabinet. Right. That's what he had in mind going, and that was a really good idea for him. And we got rid of a game we didn't have to shop. We just took it the way it was. So if we can do that, and I used to never do that. I always wanted to sell stuff completely shop, But there's so many games out there now that people don't want. For instance, you heard earlier before the podcast that somebody wants us to come and pick up the Operation Wolf and the Nakari Warriors. They don't want anything. That game has become collectible to a point. Nobody wanted it for a while, but now people are looking for it. But you may get three or four requests maybe a year for that game. And I keep these massive wanted lists. Although, when I finally end up calling, like, you know, there's 10 people that want a particular game, you start calling the people or emailing them, and phone numbers are disconnected, emails are gone. Yeah. Or the people don't have a pot to pee in now. Yeah, I know. It's like I did not expect you to find that, Todd. I found one or whatever. So you can call 10 people, and you may be lucky if one ends up buying it. Right. So I just rely mainly I try that route but I mainly just post it on our inventory And there a bunch of people that believe it or not are checking our inventory daily Where can somebody go to check out your current inventory, Todd? Just the website, tntamusements.com, and click on the inventory icon. And then the coupon code, specialwinlift, gives you that 45% off, right? No, 100%. Oh, there it is. Right, but the shipping is $9,000. Yeah, that's the trade-off. Actually, we have a neat thing on the website. On the front page, you can click on one of the – we did one of the first Google 360s ever done where they come in with their camera and they photograph your whole place. Like panoramic, right? Right, and then you can walk through our showrooms and party rooms. That's cool. Of course, it's dated now. I mean, everything in the camera, everything in the walkthrough is sold. But people can at least get an idea what the showrooms are like, and then they may want to book a party. So, as I said, the parties keep going. People want to see if the place is for them, will the kids like it, that sort of thing. So you're not just a resale shop. You're not just, I mean, you are servicing, like you said, how many birthday parties have you done already? Well, we crossed over, earlier this year, we crossed over 25,000. That's amazing. How many parties do you guys do in a week on average, would you say? That's about 900 parties a year. Wow.
    29:49
    Our weekdays. That's almost three a day. Pardon? That's almost three a day in a seven-day week. How do you do it? On the weekend, we would have so many people. I remember the days when we had waiting lists and every possible slot was booked. So Monday through Thursday, we'd have two parties. Friday, we'd have three or four. Saturday, we'd have five or six. And Sunday, we'd have four or five. Wow. And people were hoping somebody would cancel or drop out. But when I was doing the parties, the only place that people were really booking parties, you could have a skating party back then. We're talking 1987. That's when I started them. I mean, you could go to the movies. You could have a bowling party. But there weren't the party places like they are now. I mean, back then, nobody had a hairdressing party or a nails party. My daughter just went to one of those. She got like a manicure and a pedicure, and she's like nine or something. It's like, how does that all work? In 87, they didn't have that, though. Yeah. See, so when I came along doing parties, nobody was doing them. The party business has slacked off for sure because you can now have a bouncing party. You can have a party at Home Depot if you wanted to. I think that game truck was popular for a little while, too, where people kind of came out with the consoles and the LCDs. That was a good idea. Yeah. And one of my neighbors actually bought a game truck franchise. Oh, my God, it was $100,000.
    31:23
    And I said, are you crazy? I said, just buy a truck and put the shit in it yourself. Yeah, right. You get a lot of Xbox Ones in there. He just got the trailer. And I said, come on.
    31:35
    We need to start the beer truck for adults. Yeah, no kidding. For when the kids have the bouncy house, like the beer truck just pulls up for the adults. There's like nine beers on tap in there. And, you know, IPAs and Mortal Kombat and Street Fighter. Yeah, the 19-inch Mortal Kombat will be in there. Yeah, you know, somebody did that. You know, there were people bussing around trucks of arcade games. But, you know, you never have the right one. Now, I'll give you an example. When we had the parties here, we always had at least 60 machines on the floor.
    32:06
    And not everyone works. It's just the way it is. You just can't keep them away. It's the nature of the business. It's just the way it is. You can never keep it working. I always tell people, this is an interesting thought, especially for those listening. If you ever have a game broken that doesn't work, I got this tip from somebody years ago. I had an arcade, and they have a game out of order, and it just doesn't look good when you put out of order. I mean, you can tell that the game is turned off, for God's sakes. But instead, if you have a broken game, put up a sign that says, Monte Carlo is resting today.
    32:47
    The Parry family is resting today. Yeah, right. It sounds really nice. And then people, for some reason, it doesn't make the people. It seems acceptable, actually. Exactly. Everybody needs a break. The game has to take a rest. So it's not broken. No, it's not. It's under renovation. So, I mean, with now pinball being so popular, and we've seen kind of the prices increase almost exponentially on these over the last, you know, five, ten years.
    33:20
    Let me ask you this, because you've been in this business for a long, long time. And for me to kind of pick your brain on this, I think, is a benefit for me. We've had this debate. We've had this talk. how high can these prices go for how long before a bubble hits? Well, I don't think they're going to go up any higher, honest to God. Here's why. I mean, you've got to agree with me. Chicago Gaming has started this fantastic idea of re-releasing these great games like Monster Bash and Medieval Madness. Everybody knows these wonderful games are coming out again. and they're not expensive, $6,000, $7,000, unless you get one of the deluxe editions, but I can't see people ever getting $12,000 for an original Medieval Madness again. No, not on the repop titles. Absolutely not. It's just not going to happen. The more they reissue, and remember, I mean, you get the rights, and there are certain games they probably will never be able to do, like the Terminator, because, you know, Universal has that tied up with, you know, rights. Licensing plays a huge role now, yeah. But certain games they'll never make, probably remake, probably not. But there's enough great titles that they could do that I don't think they're ever going to run out. But how many can you sell? I mean, Minimal Manus is a good example. I mean, they didn't make that many. when the game was made. A couple different runs of the remakes now. Yeah. Right. Yeah, you're right. Medieval Madness. I keep silent about the remakes. Nobody wants to tell you how many. It's sort of like, you know, I'm not going to tell everybody that, you know, we only made 210 or something. Right. People are always vague, especially now. Well, to your point, though, Todd, like Medieval Madness Attack from Mars, those kind of came out right before Pinball 2000, where kind of pinball crashed for the final time, well, at the time. So, I mean, you didn't see tons of runs of these games, and they are some of the more popular games, and it makes sense that they are being remade. Yeah, look at Circus Voltaire. I mean, it bombed. It was a disaster.
    35:37
    And I remember my distributor calling me up and saying, Todd, he said, we've got to close out on Circus Voltaire. If you buy 10, it's $22,000. Oh, my God. Wow. He says, I can finance it for $2,000. So you buy 10, it costs you $24,000, you make monthly payments. Yeah. So I bought 10 of them. Good for you. I put them up on the Internet. I keep saying the Internet. It's not the Internet. I put them up on my website. Well, let's see. No, I didn't have a website then. It would have been my mailing. You know what? There's something that just came to me. I used to do mailings. I had an eight-page brochure. It started out really crude. It was just a sheet that would list all the games that we had for sale, and I'd make a new sheet every month. The problem with the sheet is that, you know, somebody would walk in, and they'd say they want to buy, you know, the Spy Hunter that's on your sheet. And I'd say, well, I don't have any right now. Oh, well, it's on your sheet. And I'd say, well, I sold it a week ago. You know, and so it was difficult, where at a website, you can delete stuff as soon as you sell it. Oh, but the Circus Voltaire, we would put up on the leaflet because I had them new in the box, but I would have one on the floor, and I'd say, I have these brand new, and we were selling them for, I think they were 30. I started them at $35.99, brand new in the box. People bought a bunch of them, I guess, almost immediately because it was a brand new pinball. Yeah, right. And then I was down to like one or two, and I raised the last two to another hundred, like $36.99. But the problem is, I mean, I did that with Safecracker. I bought...
    37:19
    Safecracker, another Pat Lawler pin. Two or three of them. Guess how much they were brand new. Just guess. It was just absurd. $16.99. Oh, my gosh. $16.99 for Safecracker, but nobody wanted it. Yeah. And, I mean, the NBA Fastbreak was closed out at $16.99 at the Pinball Show. You could have gone to Pinball Expo and they had the NBA Fastbreaks at the Bally Williams booth. They had them in the box right there, sealed boxes, $16.99.
    37:51
    And, you know, they sold them. You can almost not even get a reproduced play field for $1,600. I mean, you're getting close. Yeah, it's nuts. The problem is this. The lady, I happened to mention the safe cracker because I got an email from a lady I sold one to. And she had paid $31.99 for it. And, you know, she said she's going to move and she wants to get rid of it. However, she's, quote, done her research and she knows what these are worth. And what am I prepared to offer her in cash for this? Now, I know it had the batteries in it. And, you know, and of course you say to them, did you change the batteries? And the famous line. What batteries? Yeah. Yep. Everything they forget. It's amazing what they forget. You know, so in one of your videos from a while ago that I watched, you were talking about buying these games used from operators. Demolition Man's, Twilight Zone's, all $800.
    38:55
    State sales right here in Philadelphia. Well, in Ben Salem at the time. they were importing them from overseas they were getting ship loads I mean tons of these machines sealed in boxes they were coming over and what they were doing though they were doing what they put the good stuff in with the bad and the vendor I mean state sales ended up I'm going to say they would be lucky if they broke even because they would pay all this money and then they'd open up I remember they opened up a Batman Forever, which has that, it's a Sega game with a large dot matrix display. And they stuck in there a regular size display. It wasn't even hooked up, but it was literally screwed into the thing. Long display. The game would never have worked. And then it was sold as complete. So, you know, they opened the game up and it's never going to work. And where are they going to get this big display from anyway? But when they bought the package, they were kind of all wrapped and sealed.
    40:02
    I remember there was a fun house with no logic board, which is not a big crisis. But, see, back then it was. There were no re-mates. No boards. And then I remember there was a Twilight Zone that was missing all the boards in the head. And there was different things they would get. So you'd wait until they gave you a closeout. So, you know, they try to sell them for one price. And then when they get down to the bottom, find out there's a bunch of stuff missing or whatever, you pick the games up for almost nothing.
    40:32
    But there was another company, Best Amusements in New Jersey. He would have auctions at his place, and he would import containers of these things, a lot of Gottliebs. I remember he had all these Street Fighters, and you could buy Street Fighter pinballs, but they all had issues. They may be missing stuff. They were like $250 a piece. Mario Andretti's, I remember he got a bunch of them. Playfields were worn. They put the wrong rubbers on them. The usual things, but they were definitely in need of touch-up, lots of touch-up and Bondo. And see, a lot of collectors nowadays, they don't want to deal with that. Unless they get them cheap. Now, I'll tell you what. Hey, there's another first. I'm going to be listing as a bargain basement a whole bunch of black holes.
    41:24
    We made three complete black holes out of this mess of them, and I think there's six left, five or six. I'm not sure how many. I'm going to put them all together and see what's in them. But I suppose somebody can make one or two out of them, but they're going to have to buy stuff. But, you know, bad boards, plastics missing, but you can buy the plastics, mechanisms missing, but just a lot of work, and I'm not doing them anymore. I went through hell to get these three, and it was just hell on wheels to get three, but we got $4,500 apiece for them. Is there a typical game or pinball machine or arcade game that seems to just resurface over at TNT over and over and over, something that you wouldn't mind throwing off a roof at some point if it came back in the door again? Actually, yes. What's the bane of your existence for games? Well, I can't say it on my channel, but I guess I can do it here because we probably don't have little ones listening. So if any little ones are listening, the parents need to cover their ears right now. Let's do a three-second delay here. There we go. Ears covered for little ones. There you go. We had a constant running joke with Gottlieb's Amazon Hunt, and we just got so many of them in, we called it Amazon C**t. Oh, hey-oh. See you next Tuesday. We had so many of them, and the cabinets were beat to shit. They came from Stan Harris, and he beat the shit out of them. So we would bring them in, and we'd spatter paint. We'd throw rubbers and bulbs on them. We got them running. Right. We would dump them at Christmas for like $500, $600, $700 apiece. Yep. We moved a lot of them. But the problem is they're coming back. Eldorado City of Gold was the one that kept beat ones on. He had all these beat machines, and he would sell them to me for like $150, $200 a piece. They'd be all wrapped up. Now, get this. He would strap the head to the body, and he'd use that steel strapping tape. Steel tape. Oh, yeah. Steel bending. Oh, my God. That's tough. Right. He's going to dig into your cabinet. Yeah, that's horrible. That's how he moved his games. When the games got that old, he says, it's just a pinball machine. You know, machines were not loved. They were just money-making machines, and that was it. And then they got dumped. And, you know, he dumped them finally. Everybody's so meticulous now. I mean, well, not everybody, but it's like, yeah, condition is king. Condition is so king now. And so all these things were just so awful looking, and nobody's ever going to bring them back to life, I suppose. You can have some beaters here and there, but you can't really spend any time with them because even if you put LEDs in them, they're still going to be beat. And the mechanisms are all beat, too, if you think about it. But those games at the time, people wanted a pinball machine in your house. Think about it. In 1988, 1989. Oh, that would be huge to have any coin operator's device in the house. It was the big present. And we were moving them so fast.
    44:48
    Christmas was hell. We were working seven days a week, and we would go home and get five or six hours of sleep in the shower and come back.
    44:57
    And we actually at one point, I stayed overnight a couple times in the Christmas time because there was no time to go home because people, the trucks had to go out, we had to get stuff delivered while the kids were at school, whatever. Those times are finished. They will never return. But, you know, we leave at reasonable hours. We may have one or two really late nights for Christmas time, but the mania is no longer there. It's no longer the big present. The big present in the house now is a big giant screen, you know, 4K or whatever. Yeah.
    45:33
    That's the big stuff now. And the games have moved into a different element in people's homes. Everybody, they get rid of their pool table now. Pool tables are worthless now. People are changing the pool table room into the theater. But then they'll put a cocktail table game in or one game in the house or a pinball machine. But they don't want a game room full of games. There are some of us out there that do want a game room full of games. But it's not the average buyer from us now. Most of our customers, and, you know, we have over, I think we've crossed, we're almost up to 14,000 customers over the years. You have a lot of repeat business. Somebody that buys something from you decides to trade it in and get something else. I mean, is that? Well, either they trade it in, like the Comet I mentioned earlier that we had in the van that we picked up. They sold it back to us. They bought it from us. I don't know. How much money did they make on you?
    46:40
    They did very well. I'm kidding. I'm kidding, Todd. That's a joke. When they bought the Comet, they probably paid $1,200, and then we gave them $600 cash for it. Yeah. And they had it 20 years, and they had a lot of fun with it, and they didn't have to put it on Craigslist and have the weirdos tramping through. I just put a Craigslist ad up for a Gottlieb Card Whiz. That's what it was, Card Whiz, $500. I have gotten three dozen inquiries about it. Is it available?
    47:15
    What's the lowest you'll go? I mean, nobody has actually showed up. What's the lowest you go is the worst question that I've ever guessed. And while I responded, it's $500. Yeah, right. That's the lowest I'll go. So, but as I said, it will sell, but the deal with Marketplace and Craigslist and the constant stupid questions, but you have to put up with that because I don't want to retail that thing. Well, and let me stay on this topic for a second because when we were telling people that you were coming on the show, we had a lot of people that were excited and they're like, hey, can you pass this along to Todd? Can you let him know this? Can you ask him this? And one of the most popular questions that we had, I mean, without obviously giving away like your industry secrets, people were really curious on what you thought was the most efficient or safest way to look into buying a used or new pinball machine. I mean, what method can somebody use where they don't have to kind of put up with a lot of the craziness? Okay, I'm going to give you a little secret. But if you're thinking of buying a machine, just like when I bought my house, you need to check for water. Now, we've had a lot of floods over the years. Whenever we get a flood piece in our building, inside the cabinet on the left wall of the machine with a black marker, like a magic marker or Sharpie, we put the letter F, meaning flood.
    48:48
    And then we know. See, nobody's going to know that's flood. they're going to say, oh, there's an F in here. Who cares, you know? It's inspected by F. Yes. Right. So then we know it's a flood piece, and we know we do not want to retail that. Now, in my warehouse, I have a Genesis flood. I have a Royal Rumble flood, a Hollywood Heat flood. Now, Todd, real quick, I just want you to know that on the other end of the table in the studio here, Bill Webb, who literally purchased a Transformers LE that went through Hurricane Sandy and is in the middle of restoring this. So for you to talk about a flood pin, this guy pulled a pin out of the ocean and is restoring it. So I'm loving the look on his face as you talk about this. Now, here's the funny thing. See, the saltwater is tough. If your game is in freshwater, you have a chance. Now, we got in a water world, and I'll never forget it. My God, I wish we had pictures. When we went to pick it up, the water, when we went to look at it, the water was up to Kevin Costner's eyeballs.
    50:01
    And I said, well, I safely say that the game is ruined, but the game was turned off at the time, which is a plus. So remember, all the circuit boards in your games, you can put them in the sink and wash them with soap and water. The dishwasher's been a lifesaver for some people. That helps a lot of people. It does not hurt the board as long as you dry it before you turn it on. But you don't put it in the dryer. That does hurt the board. Yeah. Yeah, you have to air dry it. You know, God set this up with the sun. Wonderful way to dry your stuff.
    50:38
    Comes for free. With life, right? But with the flood pieces like these, when they're in water, the machine may work fine once it's dried out. Once the transformer has actually been out in the sun for two straight days and all the water has been out of it, the game will probably power up, as long as it wasn't on when the water came. But the problem is, is down the road you might experience rust, new rust. Yeah, corrosion. And just like he's found out with the Transformers, I mean, it must have been hard to say no. Did he get it from the Allentown show? No, but I think it was there probably four years ago, five years ago. That's where it was. And I said, my God, it was low. I don't know, $800 or something. Well, I feel like I got ripped off, but thank you. Go ahead. I looked on the inside. Phil, come back. I was in shock. I said, my God. I couldn't believe the damage, but the salt water really eats away the stuff. We're going to send you the pictures because you wouldn't believe it now. It's been totally redone. He's on the final stages. But I digress, though. Going back to trying to, you know, somebody that's looking to buy something. Well, the first thing is the water. So you're going to check and look and see if you see rust and things. Now, re-import.
    52:02
    What are your thoughts on re-import? I had one rotten overseas deal, and I'll never do an overseas pinball deal again. I saw them advertised on eBay. In the beginning of eBay, mind you, they were advertising brand new, never used, Rocky and Bullwinkle, Tales from the Crypt, and Royal Rumbles.
    52:21
    And they were like $1,200, $1,300. But it was overseas. Yeah. So, now, your reader, your listeners, do not, overseas, we ship overseas all the time. A baby could do it. It's very simple to ship overseas, but you have to have a pallet that's rated for heat. Heat treated, stamped, and half the pallets made that you find are already stamped for heat treating. What's the general cost for you to get a machine out off the East Coast and overseas? You can ship almost, there's a wonderful place called IQGlobal.com.
    53:03
    IQGlobal.com. In about two minutes, you can have a quote. Two minutes. You type in where you want it to go, what country. It'll tell you what ports it can go to. Like in Australia, there's probably 15 different ports you can send it to. you tell them how much it's worth, where you are, and whether you have a lift gate, whether you're a resident or whatever, I can ship the game to almost any place in the world for about $600. That's not bad at all, though. Because it seems like within our own country, it's like $450.
    53:40
    That's right. But here's the funny thing. If I ship something to Australia, it has to go to California first. That's crazy.
    53:48
    Then it boards the ship and goes down. I can't ship anything cheap to Hawaii. Hawaii's $1,000. Wow, okay. Now, why is Hawaii $1,000 when they're going to pass it when they go to Australia? It's the port charges. Gotcha, okay. But the IQ Global, these ships come over to America, well, full of stuff, I should say. They're going back with nothing. They have to pay the gas. They have to get back. So they offer these great rates, and I have yet to have – Well, actually, I just had an interesting adventure. I'll tell you that in a second. But I've had no damage. I've had one pallet that damaged a pole position I just shipped to Richard May in England. Richard May as of top year, Richard May.
    54:37
    Nice fellow. And he had some damage to the bottom of the cabinet because the pallet fell apart. I mean, we started with a good pallet, but you can't be sure. But that was actually the first bit of damage we had. But we did have the IQ Global lose a Golden Axe 2. Oh, I had a Golden Axe 2. And this was beautiful. And we shipped it to them. I think it left here like September 10th. And he says, I haven't heard a word from the ship. And so when I inquired, the game was sitting in a New Jersey warehouse. Yeah. They didn't know what happened. So, anyway, it just left on the 17th. It's on its way to Denmark. So that guy is going to be thrilled if he's listening, too. Probably not because I think he's a video game collector. I guess a lot of you know that there is a big difference between a pinball machine collector and a video game collector. They're two different animals. I could not agree more than that statement.
    55:38
    For sure. Well, you saw it at the Pinball Expo. There were people pissed off that they had that Galloping Ghost wonderful, wonderful, rare arcade games, and people were pissed it was there. This room should have had pimples in it. He said, well, last year it didn't have anything in it. Yeah, I mean, it was an extra bonus. And they added a whole room of stock, guys. And Doc Mack, and he's out of Brookfield, and he does an excellent job. I mean, he's got a big name in the industry with arcades. I mean, he knows what he's doing. I think he's got either the largest arcade in the United States or worldwide when you think about machines that are under one roof.
    56:17
    I don't understand that. And I glad you brought this up And we do have to go back at some point to figure out what they need to look for for buying a machine because we keep We jumping around We are jumping around but that okay
    56:30
    Coming from, I came from the arcade side of things, and there's a certain kind of personality that you get used to in arcades. And I was always kind of told that, hey, the pinball people, you've got to look out for those people. Because if you think that we're bad in the arcades, you've got to wait out for the pinball people. And it's funny, it is a completely different, and I don't want to say higher level of expectations, but the personalities from what I've seen are completely different. And there are those that kind of cross between arcades and pinball, and I think that's kind of me. So I kind of got two dates to the prom, so to speak. But you're right, there are definitely different personalities and different animals in both sides of things. It's funny that you said that. What's your take on it, Todd? Uh, it's sort of like the person that collects Star Wars toys and the Simpsons toys.
    57:22
    Neither is interested in the other in almost every case. And that was proved at the Pimble Expo. But then there's the people like me, the cross people that like both. There's no, there's really no, I guess it depends on who got bit by the bug. See, remember, I wasn't a collector. I was in it because I was kind of fascinated, but I wasn't collecting anything. I really didn't start collecting my cabaret video games until my daughter, Tammy, showed all this interest in the games.
    57:56
    And at the time, I had games in my garage. I had a two-car garage that was detached from the house. Oh, perfect game. My wife said I can only keep games there. She didn't want any games in the house when I got married. We have, you know, if you get married, you write things down and you talk about things before things happen. That's where I made the mistake. You really shouldn't do that. But she said, you can have all the games you want, but they have to be in the garage. So I said, I can live with that. So Tammy loved the games so much. And so I said, well, you know, if I get a mini game, I can get more in the garage. So I started buying them simply because. And height-wise. As big as I could stuff into the garage. Kids can play cabarets a little easier, it seems, too. They're smaller, too. Yeah. Moppet videos, the little Moppets. So that's why I started. Then I said, hey, this is fun. Maybe I could collect them all. Realizing there's not that many. You know, there's only maybe 125 real dedicated cabarets ever made. I would have thought that would have been over 200 easy. I had over a hundred at one point I guess to your point a lot of them were conversion cabs right? I don't count them. If somebody converts a Pac-Man a real Pac-Man cabaret to a Rastan or something else that does not count. That's not a cabaret. It's a fake So I only meant the original ones and there weren't that many and I had some one of a kind ones and I actually have one of the five baby Pac-Man pinball videos that were made to be played sitting down. Oh. It was actually a cocktail table baby Pac-Man, but it had the video screen set up. So it's sort of like if you took a baby Pac-Man, the traditional one everybody out there knows, and you chopped the whole bottom of it off and dropped it down to the ground. So there was a little element where the coin door was way down. It was hard to get to the coin door. But the game was designed to be sat at and played in a chair. I've seen one of those here within the last two years, and it's the only one I've ever seen. And it was a show that was – Well, in five, I was told they were – and everybody had this opportunity to do what I did. I think it was 1996. I was at one of the shows in 95.
    60:26
    You know what? It was the show with the Big Bang Bar. Before, when they had the original machine available to buy, somebody had one for sale, one of the first 13. So it might have been 95 or 96. But anyway, a man had found the history. Somebody found the five knocked down baby Pac-Man machines. They were wood grain cabinets, and they were flat, but they were numbered or something. Okay, so they were serial numbered? Yeah. Okay. And he was able to put four of them, or either he or his buddy or somebody, they were able to put four completely together.
    61:08
    And with all the parts, the harnesses, everything was still there, but they were knocked down. The play fields are different. They have different artwork on them. And the control panel overlay was different. So completely different in some ways. But the gameplay was the same, and it was the same circuit boards, at least the ones we got.
    61:35
    And the guy had it there for sale for $1,600, and nobody batted an eye at it. My truck was there with my guys. Wait a minute, was it? I had a van, I think. I had a driver there with a van. I flew in. But he said, well, what do you do? He says, I'll sell for $1,600. So I wrote him out a check for $1,600, and I bought it. Anybody could have. and it was like the last day of the show. Were these considered kind of like prototypes, or were these like production? Yes, they were prototypes, and they decided not to make them in that size because nobody sits. See, it's different with a regular cocktail, but people discovered that when they sit down, they play one game of Pac-Man, and then they sit there and talk the rest of the night, and they don't get up from the seat. Yep. So the game doesn't make any money, and it ties up, you know, anybody who really wanted to play it can't get near it because some slob is going to... I never thought of it that way. Yeah, no kidding. That's interesting. And a pinball machine cocktail is even worse, because every time your ball goes down the toilet, you know, you have to get up, and then the next guy sits down. And then you have to get up, and then the next guy sits down. Right, right. Okay. And nobody wanted to do that, and that's why they kind of disappeared. Hey, let's have some fun here for a second, because you've been generous with your time, and there are a couple other subjects I want to kind of visit before we let you go here. But I'm going to do this. I'm going to name a manufacturer, and then I'm going to ask you to – you can take a second or speak right off the top of your head. One or two sentences on your general opinion on each one of these manufacturers. And these are going to be pinball manufacturers. Are you ready? Yep. Okay. All right. So first we'll start with the big daddy, Stern Pinball.
    63:21
    Innovative. keeping abreast of pinball activity, getting these great licenses, trying to keep pinball in front of the American public. Nice.
    63:38
    That's what I would say. How about this one? Are you ready? Uh-huh. Jersey Jack pinball. Classy is one word.
    63:50
    State of the art, another one. family-oriented, and not cutting corners. Right. Those all come to mind. You ready for another one? Yeah. Chicago Gaming Company.
    64:16
    Ahead of their time, incredibly innovative, and well-made. The equipment is well-made. Even vacation.
    64:33
    For the price, that thing was only $1,600 brand new, you know. That's what it was for the price. So they've done some really great things. And now, of course, they're doing all this wonderful stuff for us. All the new pinballs. And you know they were building all those wonderful cabinets for years for everybody. Churchill. Yeah, Churchill Gaming. Yeah. All right. How about this one? Spooky pinball.
    64:59
    Well, I've never met them. The America's Most Haunted I enjoyed. But they've come up with – they've taken remarkable jumps.
    65:14
    And they hit this high with this. I already have been raving about it, but the total nuclear annihilation is just an unbelievably landmark game with virtually no breakdown. So they've been fixing everything along the way, which is what a company should do. They're progressing. Absolutely. Every game they make is better and better. I've got two more for you, Todd. And this is a newer company now, and they have two titles under their belt with Houdini and now Oktoberfest, and that would be American Pinball. well well octoberfest it looks like me on the side of it that's right there were some comments about you being the bartender over there the todd tucky uh inspired uh bartender i'm a fan then right it's your favorite game you know what i got a chance how's your german accent because you could probably do some call-outs i got a chance to watch people play it and it looks like a lot of fun. I've actually not played it. But Oktoberfest, what a great theme. I mean, nobody ever thought of, you know, it's perfect. I would think that'll fit in in so many people's houses. Now, the Houdini was incredibly brilliant because they didn't have to pay the license. Because Houdini's will said he didn't want his name ever, nobody ever had to pay to use his name. So, and Houdini, now, look, Houdini is alive, and all these kids, people never heard of him before, and now he's still, 100 years later, after his death, he's still a little resurgent. Lots of things, yeah. I've got one last one for you. Go ahead. And a company in the making, and I'm not sure how familiar you are with them or not, but Deep Root Pinball. And they're the new pinball company that's out of Texas. I think the San Antonio area, headed by Robert Mueller.
    67:10
    Well, one thing everybody will agree, they've got all these people that are full of ideas and talent.
    67:28
    They have assembled a pretty nice staff. Oh, my gosh, yeah. And I'm dying to see what they're going to do with this. It's going to be tough because, you know, today you have to come up with these, you know, you have to keep doing new things.
    67:44
    You try to one-up the other person. How can they do that? How can they come in, in your opinion, and you're not exactly reinventing the wheel per se, but you'd have to come in and you have to offer something that might not have been offered. I mean, do you have any thoughts on what it takes to come in as a new company and take the – What sort of innovation you'd have to bring to the table to be different? What takes the consumer base by storm? What can you do?
    68:15
    See, that's something I don't know because I have people coming to parties here at TNT. I can walk around my party room and I can have Guardians of the Galaxy and then dialed in there. And then Lucky 7, which is like the first digital Williams. And I hear the Lucky 7 chimes going off and nobody playing the other two. Isn't that crazy? And I just don't get it. And I go in there and I say, well, God, I mean, Jersey Jacks that dialed in has the camera feature. and all these incredibly great innovative ideas. It's one of the best shooting pins in so long. And to your point, you talked about Jersey Jack kind of, you know, putting everything into these games. It's such an, in my opinion, as an owner, I mean, it's such an unbelievable pinball machine. It really offers an experience. Stunning. And I got a chance. You're going to just think this is all, but, you know, So I haven't played it enough, and I've got it sitting here, and I am so weary. The last thing I want to do is play a game because I'm – now, unless I'm doing a video about it, that's – in some cases, that's when I learn how the darn thing works. Like with the Knight Rider, the Bally Knight Rider, I had played it in the past, but I didn't know all the rules. so I had to actually spend 15 minutes knocking targets down because I can't play for s**t.
    69:56
    I can't play for s**t, but I can play. I can spend five minutes on any pinball machine and tell you everything wrong with it. Well, not everything. I did that contest out in Vegas when Fabulous Fantasies, Herb Silvers, had a Vegas show out there, and they had a contest. You have ten minutes to tell you everything that's wrong with the Twilight Zone. And then they had a separate contest to tell you everything that's wrong with the mechanical pin. I can't quite remember the name of it. But I came in first place on the Twilight Zone. Oh, picked it apart, huh? Nice. And I came in second place on the mechanical.
    70:34
    And I only had ten minutes. And they had to write down everything. In other words, they set the games up. Yeah, right, right. What was going on. But I couldn't play them. I mean, Twilight Zone is amazing, but, God, I can't play that game. I can't aim the flippers. I never figured it out. I just didn't have the time. See, in my leisure time, I do not play pinball and I do not play video games. I just don't. It's like taking your work home with you, I would assume. I'm worn out. When I go home, I can't deal with it. I do other things. I can understand that. I mean, and I think that speaks to simplicity of pinball rule sets. So to be able to sit down and kind of pick up a game and kind of know what you're aiming for and know how to kind of progress through a game says one thing. But when you're sitting down and you're not sure what to shoot at and you're not sure why you're not starting a mode, I think that can be frustrating for the casual player. Yes. And the casual player is what we're dealing with mostly. If you think about it, most of the people that walk up to the machine have never seen a pinball before. I can't tell you how many times I've told people, aim for the flashing lights. The first thing you should think about is the flashing lights. And I find one thing, I mean, this might help some of your listeners too.
    72:01
    I make it a little more personal. I said, the programmer who made this game, he's telling you basically what he wants you to do so you can do better. I said, you just have to figure out how to work the flippers. That seemed to work. I like that take. Yeah, and if you think about it, I mean, some of these legendary programmers, these poor guys, nobody gave a shit about them for years. Nobody gave a shit. they did they came in they did their job they loved what they did and all the company really wanted is how many did we sell these guys are pinball celebrities now now they are you know and they're getting there just do but for years they were just considered these knuckle brains that are programming or putting these toys on to make themselves happy and and they got paid for it And they loved it because they loved pinball. But now they're seeing all these people that love what they did. And the fact that they spent all that time, you know, programming like the, let's say, the high score tune that you might hear or listen to. Or they sat down and wrote these scores for, you know, the Swords of Fury score, which I love. And World Cup soccer score. or, you know, and then somebody sat up, spent all this time, you know, all the in-depth code that was written, my God, volumes of this stuff, and stuff I'll never see. I was going to say, a lot of the code nowadays will not be seen by 98% of people that are flipping pins. That's right. Yeah, definitely not. And just amazing stuff that's there. And then how about all the Easter eggs that I didn't even know about? I love Easter eggs. and they had all this fun. They were sitting there in these rooms and they said, let's make something. Let's do this. Let's do that. And nobody gave rats ass about it 25 years ago, but now they love it. Everybody says, wow, you spent all this time back in 1989, you know, making the cyclone or cyclone is like a masterpiece, but nobody, it was just to make money and then they were going to throw it out in five years. Yeah, yeah. Well, and I think now, I mean, obviously, because a lot of these pins are ending up in the home, they do have to offer additional challenges and enable you to kind of find your way through a pinball machine because something that was meant to go en route and take your, you know, five or six bucks isn't going to hold water with somebody that's going to have it in their collection for years. There you go. See, Gary Stern understood that, and he knew that, and Jack Ganeri.
    74:49
    Jack Ganeri got wind of that with that Wizard of Oz. my God. What a great game, Wizard of Oz. What a great it's perfect and you know you've got a game there that people will never tire of. I guess the biggest worry we really have with all the new stuff is what are we going to do in 10 years when it breaks? And you know that's a worry when people call me and they say well do you have boards for this? I say no I don't have anything. I said I can fix space shuttle, no matter what goes wrong with that, unless the damn battery's leaked, I can fix all these old games, but I can't fix any of the new stuff. I can't. Now, I suppose I'm 63. I'm not going to sit there and learn surface mount. But I think there's probably some younger generation that may start making circuit boards, replacement boards, where all these surface mount LEDs, for instance, will be able to change them themselves. There's probably a lot of people out there right now. Yeah. The pinball community is pretty strong in kind of keeping these machines going, I think. So, you know, if there was a fly-by-night company, and we've seen a couple that attempted and didn't get off the ground, even those machines are meticulously being gone through and trying to be serviced and, you know, be more playable. Listen, Todd, I think we might have you for another 10 or 15 minutes here. Did you want to kind of touch on recent events, what's been kind of going on with, I know you were kind of slated to do this 10-volume book deal that a lot of people were excited about. Is this something that you feel comfortable kind of talking about for a little bit? Yeah, I can tell you a few things. I mean, I had a lot of fun writing it. Did you want to just kind of let everybody know how it even came to fruition? Well, I was approached by a viewer, a YouTube viewer up in Canada, and he had a company that had a successful company, and he mentioned he wanted to – thought maybe a book series would be in order.
    76:56
    And I always – a running gag was whenever we gave a present out to somebody at Christmas time or something, I'd always tell people that it's my memoirs that we gave you or something. It was a running gag that I was never going to write anything. You've got a few running gags. Well, he thought it was a good idea because we at the time had 20,000 viewers. Now we're up to 25,000. There are subscribers and millions of views. And I guess he thought that if we sold this book, we'd have a ton of sales right off the bat. People would pre-buy the book before it was even written. and that didn't happen. And we sold some, but he was expecting hundreds and hundreds of sales. And, you know, if there's an Elton John concert and he's only in town for two weeks or two shows, okay, you have to buy tickets to it right away or they'll be sold out. There's only so many tickets that they're going to sell. But in the case of the book, you could just keep printing them. So unless there's an incentive, of like $10 off the regular price if you prepay for it, nobody really needs to buy the book until it's physically printed and actually out and you can hold it in your hands. So I think what happened is when the pre-sales were okay, but they were nowhere near what either of us thought it would be, that he decided he was going to not have me do the rest of the books. There were going to be other people writing for the books. And if you look at the back cover of the book, which I finally got a few days after many of the other people got their first copies, it says that the series will feature many experts in the pinball field. Not me. It's no longer my book. Going into this, you were kind of under the assumption that this was going to be a series of books in which were going to be based on your memoirs. That's right. We were going to cover 20 to 30 pinball machines in every edition. And the experiences I had with delivering Future Spa, we delivered that to a mental institution, for instance, and what had happened and different events and stories. The problem was all my stories were cut because he thought they were, you know, boring or whatever. So I might write five or six 8x11 pages, and one or two of the pages were cut, gone. So I'm spending all this time writing more and more stuff, and all this stuff's getting cut out. And I wasn't aware of it until the book came out. I knew the Funhouse story was cut because I got a copy of it. We were trying to get a forward written by a celebrity, and I saw an advanced copy of it, and the thing was edited. and I think, well, this is the one I wrote. But see, my contract didn't say that. If I had in my contract that my stories had to be presented complete and uncut, except for spelling errors and corrections, then I don't know, we wouldn't have had as many stories, but maybe it would have been. At any point, were you asked to provide a final edited copy of what you were submitting? I would send the stories as soon as I finished a story. I would write them on Sundays and off times because it would take three to five hours to write one story. And then I go back and I use the same program everybody has at Microsoft that it spell checks. Sure. And there's also a grammar check, and I check all that. And when I finished, I mean, the only criticism I got from them was that I used too many explanation points. they were reading them and they were finding too many explanation points and when you read something and see explanation points it means you're reading it and when you sit and cut a page or two pages out of your six page letter that means you're reading it so these weren't just printed right from my Microsoft copies they were read and I would have hoped edited or grammar corrected or whatever and sentences, I don't remember writing any sentences. I think typically, like if you're writing something, maybe you proofread it, but it's not your job necessarily to provide a final edit. Right. You're not an English major going through it with a fine-tooth comb. I mean, I can kind of go through a lot, and, you know, I fixed a lot of stuff, and I went back and corrected a couple of the stories when I found errors in the actual history where I had a wrong year, a wrong month. Whenever I found something, I tried to fix it before it actually went to print. Right. But, you know, I submitted the final stories I guess in late July.
    82:00
    And one of the stories never made it in because there was not enough room. The book ended up being longer than they thought and that's with all the cuts.
    82:09
    So it was like 235 pages. It was originally going to be 200 pages, but I wish everything was left in it. That's what I, you know, was sad. I mean, as you know, there's a thread on pinside.com, which kind of, everybody kind of weighs in on what happened with this book deal. And I think the general consensus over there is that you have people that know and respect you for your years that you put into coin-op, pinball and arcades. And everybody, the pensiders have been wonderful. My goodness, I was shocked because I was, of course, very embarrassed when the book came out. But I tried to blow it off and tried to say, well, the first printing, you know, things happen. And I thought that was all taken well. That people said, well, this happens. It's the first printing. Wait until we fix all the stuff in the second printing. And, of course, I was busy going through all the mistakes. I mean, the table of contents have all those spelling errors on the game titles. There's no spaces. I mean, just the table of contents. So I thought we were going to get this all squared away. And then Andrew actually printed this private email he sent to me about, you know. Now, he cleaned it up. He took out the foul language. And he also edited out some of the other stuff that was, you know, just foul. But it's just that I was completely shocked when I read this. I think a lot of people were shocked, Todd, because it almost seemed as if you were kind of immediately placed under attack. And I'm just using my words carefully here because it seemed like Andrew may have kind of overstepped his bounds a little bit, and you kind of took a more, in my opinion, a classy approach to the replies. and I can only imagine as being in kind of your shoes to have to kind of take a calm-headed approach and deal with everything on kind of a blow-to-blow basis. It had to be frustrating for you, as I would assume it is still kind of frustrating for you. Oh, yeah, and we have a counter. We've been working on this counter claim, you know, because I have all these e-mails I've saved, pointing out these things that were happening. And Andrew says he has stuff too, but I don know what he could possibly have As I said I think I got the short end of the stick because I have 140 hours of my time that I could have been spending doing other things And certainly now I will tell you, and it was actually his suggestion, that I should do my own book.
    84:49
    So, that is the plan. And all these wonderful people, you know, have stepped up to help when I'm ready. I have no plans on writing anything right now.
    85:06
    As you're typing story number one here. Chapter one, my interview with Special Ed. Well, you know, we've announced a lot of people have said, why don't you do your own book? And I just got a very nice email. As a matter of fact, I haven't had a chance to respond yet. But from Jonathan of Pinball Magazine. Oh, nice. And he has offered to publish the new book. And this is a seasoned guy. And he insisted on publishing it. For sure. He said, do you want to reinvent the wheel? And it was very kind of him. I have not responded yet. And that email came about, I'm looking here now, 16 hours ago. Yeah. But that was very kind of him because, you know, I'm sure he knows about me. Well, he must know about me. he says his TNT years with all of our guys and the girls at the shop because he watches a lot of the videos, I guess. And he knows, you know, how much we love the business and how much fun we have.
    86:09
    Well, he knows editing and publishing. I mean. Yes, he does. Tim O Magazine. I mean, that's somebody that's credible. His books are beautiful. Yeah. And they're high gloss and they're really nice. And it takes time. Now, here's the funny thing. my Frank who works for me, he didn't want me to sign that contract with Andrew. He said, Todd, you should self-publish this. You could do this yourself. And I said, yeah, but Andrew knows all about this, and he's got a team that's going to work with me, and he's going to do all this stuff. And Frank said, nope, you should absolutely do this yourself. You should do this. And my daughter said, Dad, how can you put a book out in three months? He says, you can't do that in three. It takes longer than that. And I said, oh, no, no, they're going to do it all. They're going to proofread it. They're going to this and that.
    87:01
    And you know what? It was one less thing for you to have to worry about. You're providing the content and somebody else is taking the ball and running with it for you. Yeah. I think the stories read well. So, like, if you read my stories, now remember, you're not reading the whole story. I had brought up the idea of putting a QR code, having two or three links in every story. So when I talked about, like, Grand Lizard, I had this whole section where we rented a Grand Lizard to the Colin Farrell movie. I can't think of the name of it now. But if you clicked on, I was going to have a QR code and say something like, if you click here, you can see the actual machine that was used in the movie or something like that. And a QR code for somebody that doesn't know, you have an app on your phone that reads a QR code. It looks like a bunch of black and white pixels. But when you put your phone to it, it will link you to the content in which you were meant to visit. And Jersey Jack uses it. I mean, cute, because my daughter, my younger daughter says she uses them all the time. they're all over the place you're sitting in the easy chair at home you're reading my book where you're sitting on the throne you always have your cell phone with you then all of a sudden i say something about this game and i said this blackwater 100 for instance uh well of course that story never that that story was in there but um it's like an instant footnote almost because it's taking you can immediately go and watch the video so you stop reading the book and then you watch the video because the qr code was going to hook you up to the minute when in the video where whatever I want to do. That's a great idea. Yeah, it is. I like that. Originally, they said, oh, nobody uses QR codes, I was told. Nobody uses them. That's the past. We ran this by people. Nobody uses them. And I said, I really want them in there. And he said, okay, we'll put them in. Well, when the book came out, they said, oh, the printer left the QR codes out. Told me that.
    89:04
    And where are the pictures of all my employees? He's, oh, the printer left all your employee pictures out too. That printer, that nasty printer. Yeah. That printer left. And do you know there's not a single picture of me in the damn book? Not one picture. Why would there be a picture of you, though, Todd? I mean, it's only about you and your memory. You know how many I post for? If you watch my video about the Vegas trip at the beginning of the Pinside Thread, they took dozens and dozens of pictures of me all over Vegas. Not one of them made the book. I saw those pictures posted on Facebook, and I thought that was kind of a nice little teaser to the book. I thought so, too. But, I mean, surely I could have had a picture of me holding the book on the back cover. It wasn't my book. It was my book. Obviously, you're disappointed and underwhelmed with how this all kind of played out, and it sounds like it might not be done as far as your side of things, and I can appreciate being discreet about that and not trying to push you for any additional information.
    90:07
    But in your opinion, though, do you think that there's a pretty good chance now that you'll consider self-publishing a book or a set of books or memoirs in which we can all kind of anticipate? And the book will actually start where we started our podcast today when I bought my first, you know, when I bought the first game, the crisscross, and when Scott and I started. And I'll start the book there. I'll go through, you know, buying, saving money, buying TNT, and there'll be information about the films. It's going to be a potpourri of pretty much everything that went on in my life over the years. But if people want to skip certain elements, they can. So I'll have a section maybe where I talk about specific pinball machines. There's a lot of different ideas I had, and there would only be one volume. I'm not doing two or three. There's going to be one book, period. How many pages? All the pictures in the damn book. How many pages in that one-volume book, Todd?
    91:13
    I'm just thinking of it right now. It's hard to say because if they're written, and I'm going to obviously have pictures to accompany it, But I'm not going to have three written pages and then 12 pictures of the same pictures you find on the Internet. Yeah. So I'm not going to have close-ups and four shots of every Pimble Machine ever made. The QR codes are a genius idea, I think, with that. And you know what? You're here to stay. You instantly go to it. And for goodness sakes, Jersey Jack uses them as Stern uses them. Yeah. So who's saying they're not being used? I mean, I think that's kind of backwards thinking, in my opinion. I think if they're not being used, it's just because somebody doesn't really understand their usefulness. And in something like what you're talking about, it makes perfect sense that I'd be able to instant link. In today's technology and having a phone or a tablet on you at all times, instead of having to search something manually or search for an episode number and a timestamp, a QR code just streamlines that whole process. Yeah, I guess to me it sounds like a good idea if you have, once again, you have to have the app. There still are a lot of people that don't seem to know about QR codes. I will grant you that. But the more they see it, they say, hey, I wonder what this is. And suddenly they're watching a 15-minute sequence on my phone. So their book is going to direct them to the right places. If they didn't have the book and the QR code, they may not know how to look. It'd be so easy to have a preface before you started actual turning pages and reading your book to explain to somebody what a QR code is, where they could download the QR app because it's free, and explain the usefulness. I mean, you could probably do that in three paragraphs, and it just makes sense. And, you know, at this point, you're taking old QR technology that's been around for a long time and educating people on how they can use it now, currently. Yes, absolutely. I think it'll be really helpful for people that are looking for more information anything else you want to get off your chest with this book at this point? as I said it was very disappointing I thought this would really help I'm getting older so I figured boy this will cement my place in the book world I actually thought that the way the book was written there's some technical stuff in there too that people could skip. But the way the book was actually written, with that it would introduce pinball and adventures. The book was supposed to originally be called TNT Pinball Adventures. But Andrew said that the TNT is trademarked with Turner Network. And Todd's Pinball Adventures, he said the word Todd is trademarked. I don't know about that, but that's what he told me. so it became pinball adventures and my name isn't even it doesn't even say by todd tucky even though i wrote most of the stuff in there i did not write the forward obviously i did not write the history of them all so that history of pinball is nothing of that is mine and there's a number of other pages that are kind of marked that they were written by collectors or whatever um but and the glossary is not mine either i had a different glossary um the whole thing just seems It's very strange, you know, and I can't, I don't know Andrew. I can't speak for him. I can only imagine he came into this with better intentions than how it actually pulled out. I would agree with you there. I think originally he thought that just getting my name on the book, we're going to sell, you know, 5,000 of these like right away. I really think he thought that. And, you know, we didn't sell 500. We sold 100. I think pre-sold 100 of the darn things. And he thought, well, how come your viewers aren't buying them? I said, well, Andrew, the book isn't even written yet. It's not been printed. All we have is a front cover. No one's had it. And I'll be honest with you. I mean, pre-sale anything in pinball is kind of taboo right now. I mean, especially books that haven't come out, Kickstarters and stuff. Yeah. I mean, I think everybody's just kind of cautious. They want to see something produced before they put their money down. And I don't think that's in direct result of lack of support of people that would have normally pre-ordered. I just think that's the nature of the beast right now as, you know, how things have actually come across within the last few years. I just think that's how it is. I would agree with you. I don't think anybody's going to do anything like that, pre-order something, unless they see the product is out and they've read reviews. and even the Amazon reviews. You know, in Amazon, my book was up there months before. I mean, and there weren't any even pictures on it. And Andrew told me he was going to advertise this and he's the master of advertising. And I said to him, I finally said, Andrew, Amazon has my book listed, but there's not a single picture. That's how you advertise and sell the book. You have pictures of pinball machines. You have pictures of this, that, and the other. So he finally got one picture of it, one. It seemed like you were doing more advertising for the book than anybody else at that point. Yeah. I pushed it in every video. He said I pushed it obnoxiously. I think there was like a discrepancy or a misunderstanding with how you were advertising the book and using it as like part of a leg leveler and things like that. That's just part of your nature. And it's not only the nature, but, you know, the guys poke fun of me. Yeah. It's just the way it is. I mean, we clown around all the time. I make these, you know, Dr. Smith sounds from Lost in Space. And, you know, you're ruining me. And then the bankruptcy. You know, thank God I've been telling people I've been going bankrupt for 20 years. Yeah. It's just the way it is and the Bentley stuff. As a matter of fact, somebody just sent me, it's in the next video, somebody sent me a bumper. They had a bumper sticker made about my Bentley.
    97:25
    So a fellow named Lee Bartholomew that follows the videos. We get a lot of stuff sent to us. We get coffee from all over the world.
    97:35
    It's really neat. People are very good to us. Our viewers love us. Well, most of them. You guys certainly have a following. And I was going to ask you, I mean, as we wrap this up, I mean, Is there anything personally that you'd like to say to your followers, whether it be on Pinside or Clobb or YouTube customers, with it being the holidays and Thanksgiving, you know, being in that area? Is there anything you want to just say to these people that have been supporting you and have just really followed you and look forward to everything that you guys do on a daily basis over there at TNT Amusements? Well, the guys, all the guys love the attention. they love their roles we don't specify it but we go with it if an idea comes up somebody says let's do this like the last video we had the snowball idea and I said well just go with it I didn't know Stephen was going to drop the snowball on my head but I just went with it because it's just the fun stuff you don't know what's going to happen but you react in the traditional way the characters do and I appreciate all of our comments or my viewers have all commented.
    98:47
    We get a lot of, if any of you read them, everybody likes certain things. They want the videos to be informative. And we try to teach every one of our viewers something new for every video we do. We try to have fun with them so they can watch the video with their family.
    99:08
    I try to be as careful as I can with the editing. but we want to be able to keep people from coming back. So people tell me when I go to these shows, my gosh, Frank and I were inundated. We signed so many cards for people and posed for dozens of pictures. That's got to make you feel great. Frank thinks it's great because he just never thought anybody knew who he was. And I said, no, Frank, your battery boards are big. He sold hundreds of them now. Well, you walk around with a little bag with the battery board price tag on it. All the pinball machines we'll save in 10 years, these pinball boards will still be running because the damn batteries didn't leak.
    99:51
    And even if the lithium leaks a little bit, it'll be trapped on the battery board. It won't be on the main board. But, you know, our viewers seem to love us very much. They're very good to us. They support us. And a lot of them bought the book. and try to help me out and such. And it was very nice, and it was overwhelming. When we went to the pinball show, how many people loved us. And we got treated to dinner a few times and lunch. And we got a chance to meet some people that had some rare stuff, talking to a lot of people. And a lot of people wanted to just talk about pinball in general, which is fun. I think, Todd, a lot of people just want to sit down and have a conversation with you. Absolutely. I mean, it's a treat for us to do this podcast because to just kind of sit down and have a casual conversation for a couple hours has been fun.
    100:50
    We've watched your videos over the years. Countless times. Yeah. So, I mean, we really, really appreciate that you were able to even take this time.
    100:58
    I know you're super busy. And you're not intruding on Applebee's time yet. So, let's do it. Perfect. How much longer? How much longer can we expect TNT Amusements to be operating? Are you planning on calling it quits anytime soon, or are you going to run this sucker down until you can't do it anymore? Any job you have, whatever job you have, if out of five days, if you are happy going in for the five days, then you're doing fine. So there's some days I don't want to go in because I know it's going to be a long day. I always start my morning at Daddy Pop's Diner.
    101:36
    I'm there for anywhere from an hour to two hours. Today I was there two hours. It calms me down. It gets me set my pattern for the day. I read the paper, the real paper, not a one-line paper. Tons of people there know me, tons of people. And it's fun. And then I come here, and I put the whole day in. I picture you walking in there, and it's like Norm from Cheers. Everyone's like, Todd! Todd, you sit down, Sam Malone comes up and throws you your drink of choice. And the guys, when I get to work, a lot of them are busy. A lot of them love doing what they're doing. Now, Stephen, for instance, today, he says, you're wasting me on the Stellar Wars. I told him to re-rubber it and put the LEDs and et cetera on the top. He says, Todd, don't you want me painting? And I said, I don't have anybody to do this. You have to do this game. Well, he did this beautiful job on the play field. I let him choose the colors and the man not only paints great but he did this beautiful job on his color selection I said just do whatever you want so every pinball I always get people say what should we buy what bulbs, I said every game is different you don't have anything written down it's you know we use everybody's different LEDs a lot of different companies offer some great deals package deals or whatever But the guys like having the freedom here. So I don't bug them. We joke. We throw things at each other. I can't really do a live stream because it gets salty.
    103:14
    I can imagine. It's not a good idea. Although we did some big chunks of footage. We did a few live feeds. We did. We did try it. The problem with live streams is, especially the old-fashioned way, when you were holding the camera up and down, the picture wasn't big. You couldn't put in any effects or editing or anything. And in a live stream, you don't really have the option of flying in things. I always like it when you're talking about a game. I think we were talking about the fireball game, and I flew in a clip from a picture of the old fireball marionette show. Right.
    103:56
    It's just a little add. Sure. It's just a little addition to the video. And it breaks up the monotony of the same thing that somebody's watching for a while, too. I mean, it's kind of the same with podcasting. I mean, just having a segment or two or some bumper music here or there lets people take a break from listening to us bumble around for 30 to 60 minutes. I had some possible exciting news. a travel channel. Somebody who's a higher executive, a lady, is very interested in me doing a reality show, and I've been filming some different things about it, but it's not pinball related. It's mechanical devices, mechanical marvels of America, and something on that line. She saw my reproducing piano video. I have this very, very rare piano in my house. It was made in 1920.
    104:54
    Almost nobody knows what a reproducing piano is. It's a player piano, but it adds the element of the person really playing it to it. All mechanically created with extra holes knocked into the paper. The reproducing role, when you run it on the special piano, the piano will change speeds, tempo, volume. It becomes automatic expression. And the last reproducer was made in 1936. And then they stopped forever. But these pianos still exist. So I talk about the piano. A little bit I researched. I flew some stuff in. And I made a really nice hour-long video. You can put the link in the show notes if somebody's interested. Absolutely. I don't remember. We should come up with some show notes at some point. I don't know. A few, yeah. She did. She watched the video and she loved it. She liked the way I talked and how I became emotional and this, that, and the other. So we've been filming stuff and, you know, I have to suddenly learn about something which I don't know anything about.
    106:05
    And then I talk about it. Oh, wow. So you're kind of like the expert going over things. Well, they watched my film strip projector video. Yeah, good for you, Todd. Made the video because I was putting this thing up on eBay. I wanted to get rid of it. So my kids were done with it. So I said, well, now I'm going to do an opaque projector video. Nobody the hell knows what that is, but it's this fascinating piece of equipment that's ended up in, you know, landfills for years. There are probably very few left in the world. But I'll do a video on that. But that's what they wanted. They said, I'm going to travel. I'm going to ride roller coasters. I said, really? Don't do well on roller coasters. Yeah, right. They said, we want you to talk about how they're constructed. It's some kind of a new concept. When will this start airing? When can people expect to see it? We only did sizzles.
    106:59
    Sizzle is, I actually have an example of it on our, we have a video called Trying to Sell a Reality Show. and I had all these different channels and none of them, there's several problems with making a reality show about pinball machines. Do you know what the number one problem is about a video game, pinball machine TV show is? Licensing. Yeah, I was just going to say. They have all the logos and everything. Right.
    107:28
    Or a roller coaster, you know, a wooden roller coaster from, you know, 60 years ago. Maybe that works. So, as I said, the footage is out there.
    107:39
    This sizzle reel, I don't have. It was done by another company. But we filmed a lot of it. We filmed new footage. They re-edited old stuff.
    107:52
    But nothing has happened. It seems to be dead in the water right now. I'm curious to see if it gains legs. I mean, I think it's a great idea. It wouldn't be the first time to hurt somebody. I'm not getting any younger. So I've been doing that for seven years. I started the reality show concept right after I got out of the hospital for my heart attack. Yeah. Seven years ago. And that's when we started filming and trying all kinds of things to sell the show. Like American Flippers instead of American Pickers. And then you just kind of go off on that tangent. The show was called Arcade Empire. That was the original. Well, Highscore was the first name. and then Arcade Empire was the next name.
    108:35
    As long as it's not called Pinball Adventures, I suppose, right? Yeah, that's a great title, by the way. That was Andrew's idea, and I thought that was a great idea for a book name. And as I said, it was all on Target for a while, but it's definitely derailed permanently, at least for me. But my own book series will be something different. I'll come up with a different name. We've got your back on the new endeavor. I have a contest. Name my book, you know. Speaking of contests, actually, how about we do this? Because we had spoken about running a contest for the listeners of the podcast, in which you generously said that you would treat somebody to a breakfast, allow them to get a tour, like the TNT experience. And if you were filming that day, maybe somebody can get their name in the lights and be part of an episode. Yeah, if you come to TNT, you do run the risk of being in the next show. I love that. You may suffer a couple slaps or eye pokes.
    109:35
    Uh-oh. Do I hear a sound effect coming? Eye pokes are easy. There it is. Uh-oh. There it is. Just remember that. So I can also slap, too.
    109:46
    So just be ready to get a slap or an eye poke. Well, why don't we do this, Todd? Everybody seems to be agreeable. Why don't we go ahead and we open up the contest to those and... Oh, it was still running. I'm getting eye poked. Why don't we have the listeners come up with some creative titles for your next new book, just as something to kind of gain some steam and get that going. And then we'll have you pick the title that you think would be funny, not that you're going to name the book that, but somebody that was creative. And assuming that person that enters is able to make it down to Pennsylvania to TNT Amusements, would you be open to running something like that? Oh, God, yeah. That would be fun. The only word you can't use is adventures. Yeah. If you get adventures, you get to spend somewhere else. Yeah, you have to come up with something different, something just as catchy. That's going to be tough. That's going to be a tough one. So this is what we'll do. We'll start the contest. We'll post the rules on the webpage. But come up with your best effort of what you think Todd's new book series, his new volume one, should be called. And please make sure that when you give the book title, that you also say that you're available to visit TNT Amusements. because we don't need somebody to win a contest that's not able to go out there and actually spend time with those guys out there. So let us know that you're able to visit. Yeah, make sure you're – Please, please. So all the titles are welcome, and then if you're able to visit TNT, make sure you let us know in the messages there on Facebook, and we'll do that. It'll be fun. I've got to say this, Mr. Tucky, it's been an honor and a privilege to have you on the podcast. We've had some pretty fun and fascinating guests. Yeah, it was fun. Yeah, we had a time. Boy, that two hours went fast. Well, I'm glad you didn't say it went long, because I know you're probably ready to get cranking over to Applebee's for a little post-20th dinner. But, hey, man, thank you so much. And if you don't mind, we'd love to have you back on the show whenever you want to come on and just talk pinball or arcades. And, you know, when your book gets going, we'd love to have you back on and talk about that, too, if you're up for it. I'm all for it. I'd love it. Thank you again for having me on, guys. Thank you very, very much, guys. Definitely. Thank you. Good night to all my fans, too. So that's going to wrap up episode number 24 of the Special One Lit Pinball Podcast. For those of you that are listening for the first time, we welcome you. And for those of you that have been listening, we thank you. And for those of you that are waiting to hear the buying tips from Todd Tuckey on what to look for when buying a pinball machine, we will have a completely separate upload for that in particular. So stay tuned for that. Special thanks to Todd Tuckey from TNT Abusements. For Bill Webb, I am Ken Caramo. Don't forget to take some time out of your day and play some pinball. So long, everybody.
    112:37
    The Special When Lit Pinball Podcast is sponsored by Two Brothers Artisan Brewing, makers of pinball pale ale.