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Episode 198 – Solid Full Red

Slam Tilt Podcast·podcast_episode·1h 57m·analyzed·Jan 10, 2023
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Analysis

claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 · $0.038

TL;DR

Stern leadership transition, Dean Grover obituary, Bond 60th LE criticized as $20k cash grab.

Summary

Slam Tilt hosts Ron Hallett and Bruce Nightingale discuss industry news including Dean Grover's passing (longtime Stern programmer), leadership changes at Stern (Gary Stern steps down as CEO, Seth Davis takes over), and extensive analysis of the James Bond 60th Anniversary pinball machine—a $20,000 LE designed by Keith Elwin featuring throwback single-level playfield design. The hosts criticize Bond 60th as overpriced and a 'cash grab' despite acknowledging it will be fun to shoot, and discuss licensing constraints from MGM/Broccoli family limiting game features.

Key Claims

  • Dean Grover, legendary Stern programmer who worked on Star Wars Home Edition, Beatles, Supreme, and multiple Cornerstones, passed away

    high confidence · Ron and Bruce confirm his death and discuss his competitive play history and prior podcast interview

  • Gary Stern steps down as CEO effective January 1; Seth Davis takes over as new CEO; Gary remains chairman of board; Dave Peterson remains vice chairman

    high confidence · Official announcement discussed; Seth Davis noted to have come from Disney, which concerns hosts

  • Shelley Sachs retired after 37 years at Stern; Michael O'Donnell (CFO, at Stern since mid-1980s/87) also retired

    high confidence · Direct announcement reference; hosts note these retirements signal changing of the guard

  • James Bond 60th Anniversary pinball is $20,000, has 4 spinners, ~10 drop targets, 2 flippers, single-level playfield, designed by Keith Elwin

    high confidence · Official price and specs confirmed; Keith Elwin volunteer design; 500 units production run

  • Pinball Brothers and Pedretti Gaming are merging to form Euro Pinball Corp and relocating production to new facility

    high confidence · Explicit announcement discussed; clarification that facility move is NOT due to factory fire (that was different European company)

  • Bond 60th licensing dominated by MGM (recently purchased by Amazon) and Broccoli family, who imposed severe design constraints including no multi-level modes and nerfing of stacked multiballs

    medium confidence · Hosts report rumors: modes ending when multiball starts, timer continuing in background but not counting; Broccoli family described as 'very hard to deal with'

  • Jack Danger designing Foo Fighters cornerstone with Tanya Klyce as lead; Brian Eddy designing second cornerstone with Dwight Sullivan as lead software designer; Zombie Yeti doing art on both

    high confidence · George Gomez interview on Pinball Network revealed cornerstone designer teams

  • Distributors still have James Bond 60th Anniversary units in stock; they are not sold out

Notable Quotes

  • “Only Bells tournaments from now on... The women are much better.”

    Ron @ early_segment — Positive contrast between organizing standards of female vs. male tournament attendees; reflects community event management dynamics

  • “We got rid of Gary because Gary didn't want to come on our show... The letters and all the abuse worked.”

    Ron @ news_segment — Self-aware humor about show's failed attempt to book Gary Stern before his retirement; reveals podcast relationship dynamics with industry executives

  • “It's literally just copy, paste, copy, paste, copy, paste, art. Both sides of the cabinet, the movie posters.”

    Bruce (or Ron) @ bond_analysis — Criticizes Bond 60th design as repetitive/lazy despite being $20,000 premium game

  • “It's a $9,000, $8,000 game... Not for $20,000. I just can't do it.”

    Ron @ bond_pricing_discussion — Direct valuation critique: hosts believe Bond 60th worth 50-60% of asking price

  • “Has there ever been a more pain-in-the-ass licensor that Stern has dealt with... than these guys? I think the original Star Wars game was probably pain-in-the-ass... MGM was just sold to Amazon. So now you're dealing from one company that was probably a pain in the ass to another company.”

    Ron and Bruce @ licensing_discussion — Identifies Bond licensing as particularly difficult; MGM/Amazon/Broccoli family complexity affecting game development

  • “I heard they're very hard to deal with... they're the ones who didn't want it, told them to pull the reveal, they're the ones taking forever, that code is still in like alpha stage.”

    Bruce @ licensing_constraints — Alleges Broccoli family responsible for reveal delays and poor code quality; suggests active interference in game development

  • “Keith Elwin said... I had a longer than usual break in between cornerstones. He did say cornerstones.”

    Ron @ cornerstone_discussion — Notes potential revelation that Elwin considers Back to the Future project either separate from cornerstones or not yet officially announced

Entities

Dean GroverpersonGary SternpersonSeth DavispersonShelley SachspersonMichael O'DonnellpersonKeith ElwinpersonGeorge Gomez

Signals

  • ?

    business_signal: Pinball Brothers and Pedretti Gaming merging into Euro Pinball Corp; relocating production facilities

    high · Direct announcement discussion; clarification that move is NOT due to facility fire (correcting earlier confusion)

  • ?

    community_signal: Slam Tilt podcast nominated for Twippies awards (again); hosts express gratitude to voters and hope for better placement than 'sixth or seventh like last time'

    high · Explicit mention of nomination; hosts note most regular podcasts nominated, indicating competitive category

  • ?

    competitive_signal: Keith Elwin designed Bond 60th as throwback single-level game (vs. multi-level modern trend); deliberate design choice to achieve 4 spinners in constrained playfield

    high · Direct Elwin commentary: 'I wanted to do a game with four spinners. And he got one.' Hosts note this is successful technical achievement within constraints

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Bond 60th criticized as 'copy paste' art design using movie posters on cabinet sides, with black spaces where no art exists; backglass just compiles all Bond actors; implementation described as 'lazy' despite $20k price

    high · Detailed visual critique by hosts; acknowledgment that game itself ('playfield... the least crappy looking thing') is mechanically sound but overall presentation is derivative

  • $

    market_signal: Industry concern about music-themed cornerstones becoming formulaic: Stern announcing consecutive music pins (Foo Fighters, uncertainty about second cornerstone IP); hosts express fatigue with music licensing strategy

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.351

0:00
All men are endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights. And among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
0:15
Have you anything to add, compatriot Beavis? Oh, okay. Yeah, let me think. How about this? All chicks shall be required to do it with us at all times.
0:30
A damn fine idea, lad. Hear, hear! Coming to you from beautiful upstate New York, this is the Slam Cell Podcast, the show about all things pinball. I'm your host, Ron Howlett, and my co-host, Bruce Nightingale. I am the co-host. I love when I'm the co-host. You're always the co-host. I know. And this is episode 198, verse of 2023.
1:09
God. I can't wait to go on vacation soon. I really can't. Vacation? Yeah. Oh, you're going on vacation? I'm going actually on a real vacation. Ooh, a real vacation. Where are you going? Dominican Republic, Haiti, Aruba, and Curaçao. Oh. Yep, on a cruise, baby. Oh, okay.
1:39
I'm trying to remember maybe a jingle from a cruise commercial, but I can't. Yeah, you really can't either. No. No, I can't think of, you know, what a slide world. Well, actually, no one outside this area is going to know that one. I've never heard that before in my life. The spirit of Massachusetts is the spirit of America. There you go. Yep, so I'm going on in February. So February will be a light month for us, but we'll have recorded hopefully 200 by then. So then we will have it. Ron can release it at its normal time to make everyone happy. Wait a minute. We won't have shows because of you instead of me. Yes, this time. Wow. And then after that, we're going to have Texas for you because I'm not going to Texas anymore. Oh. Nope. Using too much vacation. Even though the tickets all of a sudden are way cheaper there now.

high confidence · Ron confirms personal observation of distributor inventory

  • Bond 60th is appropriately priced as $8,000-$12,000 game but marketed at $20,000, making it a 'cash grab'

    medium confidence · Host analysis; comparison to Beatles game which had more complex mechanics at lower historical price point

  • Stern only has UL certification; JJP and Chicago Gaming also have old UL; no American Pinball, Spooky, Haggis, or Pinball Brothers have UL (may have CE)

    medium confidence · Listener correction/response to host inquiry about manufacturer certifications

  • “Dean Grover... was a programmer... He actually worked for Williams... and he's been working at Stern for a while. And he did a lot of the home pins.”

    Ron @ obituary_segment — Obituary recognition; establishes Grover's significant legacy across Williams, home, and Stern libraries

    • person
    Jack Dangerperson
    Brian Eddyperson
    Dwight Sullivanperson
    Tanya Klyceperson
    Zombie Yeti (Zombie Eddy)person
    Broccoli Familyperson
    Stern Pinballcompany
    Pinball Brotherscompany
    Pedretti Gamingcompany
    Euro Pinball Corpcompany
    MGM / Amazoncompany
    James Bond 60th Anniversarygame
    Foo Fighters Cornerstonegame
    Beatlesgame

    medium · Bruce: 'Stop with the music themes now... Let's try something different, please.' Hosts note two consecutive music pins ('the past two music pins have just been...' trailing off in apparent criticism)

  • ?

    licensing_signal: MGM (recently acquired by Amazon) and Broccoli family imposing severe Bond 60th design constraints: modes ending on multiball, timer continuing in background but not counting, delayed reveal, code still in alpha

    medium · Hosts report rumors as unconfirmed; Bruce claims to have 'seen it' and 'played it' but certainty qualification weak; describes Broccoli family as 'very hard to deal with'

  • $

    market_signal: James Bond 60th Anniversary distributors retain inventory; units not sold out despite premium pricing

    high · Ron's personal observation: 'Surprise, surprise. They are not sold out.' Indicates market resistance to $20k price point

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Zombie Yeti (referred to as 'Zombie Eddy') confirmed as Stern art department head; assigned to both 2024 cornerstone games

    high · George Gomez interview revelation; confirms previous KB signal about Zombie Yeti's role

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Gary Stern steps down as CEO; Seth Davis (ex-Disney) takes over; Shelley Sachs and Michael O'Donnell retire after 35+ years each

    high · Explicit announcements; hosts discuss implications of new leadership structure and Disney influence concern

  • $

    market_signal: James Bond 60th Anniversary priced at $20,000 but hosts assess intrinsic game value at $8,000-$12,000; characterized as 'cash grab'

    high · Extended analysis comparing Bond specs to Beatles (more complex, historically lower price); distributor inventory unsold indicating pricing resistance

  • ?

    product_strategy: Keith Elwin volunteered to design Bond 60th specifically with 4 spinners after expressing desire to build a 4-spinner game; described as licensor-driven request for 'throwback old school' design

    high · Direct Elwin quote and context provided from George Gomez interview; Elwin noted 'longer than usual break' between cornerstone projects

  • ?

    product_concern: Dean Grover's death represents loss of senior programmer with deep Williams/Stern library knowledge; described as 'lost asset' in pinball industry

    high · Extended obituary discussion; hosts note second podcast guest death (suggesting community mortality); Grover's extensive work history (Congo, Safecracker, home editions, multiple Cornerstones)

    • 2:38
    What do you mean way cheaper? Remember when you said, oh, we're going to drive there. They're like $500, $600, whatever. I know. Yeah, now they're like $200. I know. But they're not here. Not in Albany. Not in Albany, but they are in Rochester. Yeah, yeah. Rochester and Syracuse, it's cheap. But Buffalo and Albany suck. I don't get it.
    2:59
    We're good. We're cool here. Mm-hmm. So, we have a little different show normally. Different show normally? Well, yes. We're having guests, as we stated. Yes. Last time. Yes, we did. I could keep it a mystery, but they're going to be right in the show notes, so that's kind of stupid. But we're going to have the Twippy crew on. So, yeah, we'll be having the Twippy crew on. We'll be talking about the Twippies because, like I said in the last episode, if you can't win a Twippy, just bring the Twippies to you. Yes, and since we can't win one. But we did get – Well, you're nominated. I know. We're nominated again, so I have to say thank you guys for nominating us. And hopefully we do better than sixth or seventh like we did last time. Well, I did notice. If you look at the list, it's pretty much every podcast that's kind of regular, either monthly or more frequent. Yes. Pretty much got nominated. We'll go into the trippies a little later on. Yeah, yeah. Also nominated was Silver Ball Chronicles. What's that? My other podcast. I never heard of that before. Listen to on the pinball network. My co-host, David Dennis.
    4:10
    He's a little wacky. Yes. He's Canadian. That's the given. All right. So we're going to start off the new year. With bad news.
    4:21
    Dean Grover passed away, and I don't know how many out there know who that is. But if you don't, we're going to let you know. Yep. He was a programmer. He actually worked for Williams. So if you enjoy Congo, if you enjoy Safecracker, you've experienced his work. He has been working at Stern for a while Yeah, a long time And he did a lot of the home pins Like Star, what did he do? I think he did Star Wars Home Edition Yep He did Supreme Yeah He did Beatles Yes, he did And he's also worked on a lot of the Cornerstones I think more than is listed It doesn't list a lot of the Cornerstones he worked on Yeah, I agree That he did parts of and we had him on with the Zeppelin crew. Yes. With Tim Sexton and Raymond Davidson. Was it two years ago now? Yeah, I guess it would be two years ago now. Two years. And I actually knew Dean from Papa Days because he was a top competitive player. And he lived in Colorado.
    5:27
    And I didn't realize he had a lot of health issues. No, neither did I. I mean, if you listen to our interview, he does mention at one point that he can't leave because of his health. Because he has health. Something like that. There was a tidbit in there about that. But I had no idea. He had, I guess he had had a, it didn't say heart attack, cardiac arrest in 2009. Okay. And on the liver transplant, he had a lot of issues. But he was a nice guy. Very nice guy. A little story, like during COVID, we were doing, me and the Rock Fantasy crew, the Orange County pinball crew, were doing these Skype calls. And we did a couple of these tournaments where you would just go play one of your own games and try to, you'd have a target score, and however close to the target score you got, that's how the scoring was done. It was just, you know, you're trying to do anything to get through it. and Gene Grover actually joined one of them. That's cool. And he was there like, I'm going to play Beatles.
    6:37
    I was the only one on the call that knew that he did Beatles. I was like, of course you're going to do Beatles. Of course.
    6:45
    I feel bad for his family, of course. You know, it's another lost asset that we've lost in pinball. He was a great guy. He was easy to talk to, as you hear on our interview. and before that, you know. So, very sorry for his family and his friends.
    7:03
    Yeah, and it's the second guest that we've had that's no longer with us? Yeah, unfortunately, yes. That's kind of crazy. It is. We've been doing this too long. That too. That is true. Yeah, you've been putting up with me way too long. Way too long. But rest in peace, Dean. Yes.
    7:22
    So, let's see. A Bells tournament. Yes, you had a big Bells tournament. I had a Bells tournament in my house. And you know what, Bruce? What? Only Bells tournaments from now on. Why? Did them break anything? They brought their own stuff. Usually I have plates and cups and all. No, they brought their own. They're smart enough. Yes, they are. And they took everything back. Like when they left, it was like it never happened. It was just like, boop, everything's all put away. Everything's awesome. Cleaned up, ready to rock for next time. Yep. Only Bells Tournaments now. Guys suck. Oh, we do. The women are much better. And it went well. And here's a quote you don't typically hear in a tournament. Wow, this is going much faster than anticipated. We're going to add two more rounds. Wow. Yeah, you don't hear that in tournaments ever. No, but that's what you heard here. Yep. Everything finished on time. Everything went as smooth as could be, Bruce. Wow. Mm-hmm. So maybe it's me and Zach that are the issue. 100% you're the issue. No, I think it's Zach.
    8:31
    You know how hard he is to get along with. Come on. Lauren, a local, won the tournament. And she's the Albany Bells chairperson. I don't know how that works. But she's the one I've been trying to, you know, like, I have a location. You could play here. And I said, see? See what happens?
    8:54
    It's been a while. So how was your Christmas? Have yourself a merry little Christmas. I got a coat. I got a charging station for my phone, my watch, and my, when I finally get, you know, earbuds, you know. I got a charging station. That's what I got. Hmm. Yeah. Did you know I can't use earbuds? I know. My wife can't either. I have narrow ear canals. Yes. You have a small canal, boy. I haven't smoked.
    9:26
    Basically, it hurts like hell after I put it on. Same things with, like, earplugs. They hurt, like, most instantly, unfortunately.
    9:38
    Let's see. Oh, I got a Dilbert calendar. That was my two things. Yeah, I got my wife one of those in glass and stitched pictures, like an etched picture in a piece of block glass. It's pretty cool. with her and her dad. And her dad passed a couple years ago, so I found a picture that I thought she'd like. And I was the good husband. Oh. I asked my dad, what the hell do you want? He's just like, uh, shoe rack. There you go. Okay, so he got a shoe rack. All right. I don't know how he has so many shoes, but he does. He does.
    10:15
    Oh, we talked about the demo man in my league. Yeah. All the suggestions. Yes. When I showed up for the final week, they said it was fixed. And what was the problem? They didn't say. No one knew. But it's working now.
    10:30
    There you go. Isn't that great? That's a fail. Total letdown. That's a total fail. Yeah. We also had someone chimed in about we were wondering which pinball manufacturers have the old UL certification. Yes. And we have Stern, JJP Does, and Chicago Gaming. So it was year three. So that means no American Pinball, no Spooky. No Haggis, no Pinball Brothers.
    11:00
    They might have CE, though, Pinball Brothers, because I think anything you sell electronic in Europe has to have CE. Well, if they don't have CTE, we wouldn't want that. No. That's bad. Wow, that was bad. Thank you. Thank you very much. He's here all week. Try to be all. I'll tell you. No, but last week I was shaking.
    11:23
    I get no respect. No respect at all. You know, my wife's dad died. We had him frozen. Every time I get a beer, he falls out of the refrigerator. Oh. Thank you. What else was it? Because you mentioned, oh, Pinball Brothers. Yes. Did you see? They're joining forces with Pedretti, the company that actually makes the pinball machines. Hey, we make a good pinball. We make a good. In Italy, yes. Yeah, they make a good. they're going to combine into this combined company called Euro Pinball.
    11:56
    What do you think about that? Dead silence. Yeah. Hey, we make a good pinball. We just give away more parts than anything else. You know, when you get a pinball machine, we give you a second box. We give you parts with box. Hopefully it all works. Yeah.
    12:15
    They should give you that with an alien, just a big box. What's that big box that's with the game? Well, that's just the parts of all the stuff that will fail. It includes stand-up targets, a brand-new computer.
    12:28
    It's good. And if you send it back, you get money back. Okay. Because if you didn't have to use it. That could be a bit. Like, English pinball manufacturer, if they were going to send you a box of shit with the game, what would they send you? Well, pinball would be everything. Yeah, Stern would send you coil stops. No stops, no boards.
    12:50
    American Pinball, pretty much nothing, maybe. Spooky Server Motors. 3D printed items. They would not send you the manuals because they don't have it. Razor Blaze. Yeah, they cut away all that glue gun that they had in the old stuff. Oh, jeez.
    13:07
    Yes. Let's see. JJP, Playfields. Playfields, Shipping. What else we got? Bad Rules, some of the games. Oh. Especially that dialed in. You can't put that in a box. Shut up. Dialed in rules. It's mad with you people. Oh, damn it.
    13:25
    Oh, I'm so happy to be back. Yes. See, it's all fun. It's all fun and excitement until somebody gets insulted. Then it's even better. Uh-huh.
    13:35
    All right. This is a punch of news here. Let's see. Let's, uh, da-da-da. We got rid of Gary because Gary didn't want to come on our show. But he wants to go on other people's shows. Did you see this? Oh, what show did he go on? He's going on the Super Awesome Pinball Show. He is? When? Yeah, because they're asking questions. What do you want to ask Gary Stern before he retires? Well, wait a minute. I thought he already retired. I thought it was effective the first. It was, but, you know, that was the tagline. But, you know, we got rid of him because he didn't want to come on Slam Tilt. The letters and all the abuse worked. I don't think he knows who Slamshield is or cares. No, he read us once. He read an email once. How do you know? I know. Oh, you just know. Because he said no. He just ignored it.
    14:29
    Well, Gary Stern steps down as Stern Pinball CEO. Yes, he still is the head of the board, if I remember what they said. Yep. And Seth Davis takes over. Yes, so. Which is not a surprise because that's why he was brought in there. He was brought in there for that so we can all pay more money for our Insider Connected next year. Oh, God. They'll love it. Yes, he works for Disney, which worries me. Because you know how I love Disney. Yeah, Disney has not been too good. They have been really bad with their product lately.
    15:03
    I listened to one YouTuber, and, oh, my God, he just bashes Disney so much. And a lot of it is true. My wife's Stephen Bullock. Cool. I need to subscribe to whoever that is. Oh, you would definitely.
    15:16
    I will definitely send you the link. And if anybody else wants the link for that guy, I will send it. But I will not talk about it since it does talk about a certain part of Disney that people do not like. Certain part? Like She-Hulk. Oh, gosh.
    15:31
    Let's see. Also. Shelley Sachs left. She retired 37 years. Congratulations, Shelley. We wanted her on. I've asked a couple times. She doesn't want to do any interviews. No, no interviews. But the thing is, that also wasn't a surprise, being that Gary retired. And the fact, if you remember, when they had some recent hirings they announced, one of them was assistant to Shelly Sachs. And I was thinking, okay, there's the new Shelly Sachs in the future. And I would assume that's what happened. But also, Michael O'Donnell retired. And he's been there since day to east. Yeah, day to east, mid-90s. I mean, let's say 35 years. So that would be beyond mid-90s. 87. Very good math. I'm proud of you. Yeah, he's their chief financial officer. So he's been there forever. So the old guard going out, new guard coming in, new era.
    16:29
    Yeah. I guarantee Gary will still say, you know, what's on the line? We need a multi-ball and this and this. Yes, he's still on the board. Yes, you'll hear from him. He will continue as chairman of the board, and Dave Peterson, he's the money guy. I want to be investors. Will continue to serve as vice chairman of the board.
    16:49
    So there you go. So some change-ups there. Change-ups there. I don't understand some of the, why didn't George Gomez get promoted? George Gomez doesn't want to be the CEO. What's wrong with you people? Do people know how companies work? No, he wants to be in production. He wants to be a singer in the games. He makes the games. Don't get me wrong. I bet you eventually, maybe when he gets a little older, maybe he would like to be on the board. Because then you would have more control above. Maybe giving more money. Dude, he's in his 60s. How much older is he going to be? Maybe 70s. Maybe when I'm 80, I think I want to be on the board. But he is a very big influence in a lot of the games, including making games still, you know, with Bond coming out. He's the head of making games, basically. Yeah, he's the head of production. He really is. He's the... He really is. As in, yeah, that's his title, literally. Yeah, so... I'd rather have him at the helm than a lot of other people. And he's proven he can do the job.
    17:45
    And Bond is pretty good, except for the rules. They suck. We'll get into Bond. I have that on here. You do? We don't follow a list. Come on, stop. We totally follow a list. I got new CEO, CFO, Shelly Sachs retires. See? Yeah. Since I have it up on my tab here, the Pinball Brothers, Fidretti Gaming thing. and Euro Pinball Corp. The one thing I also wanted to mention is they're going to move, the companies are going to move production to a new facility. Yeah, because the first one burnt. No, that was the other company, Bruce. You're getting your European companies confused. Oh, that's right. That was the other company that we'd never seen a pinball from machine yet. That's the Super Hoop people. Yeah, that's the Super Hoop people. Who are also two companies who I can't remember their name. One designs the games, and then the other one actually makes the games. The one who made the games, yeah, the facility burnt down. Yeah. Partially.
    18:39
    And I can't remember them. They're European. I'm sorry. I'm an ugly American. It's only about America. There's only one football. That's American football. Soccer sucks. Yeah. America. Fuck yeah. All right. So we did have Queen pictures, and they showed video of Queen. Pinball players did. And music's awesome because it was a great music band. I don't know. The play field, there's nothing horrifically wrong about it. It's pretty boring. Yeah, but it's not like, is it a Halloween level, like what the fuck level?
    19:20
    No, no, no, not at all. No, no. The turd that is Halloween. I hear you guys are trying to sell yours. Not mine. I told him when he had it on order. And he's like, I'm going to sell Rush Ellie for my... Yeah, he sold Rush Ellie to buy Halloween. I'm like, no. No. And Rush is like, no.
    19:46
    That full baiter, no. And he's like, yeah, this game's not that great. No. It's not. I don't think rules will help that game. No. No, no, no, no. No, no, no. All right. There was yet another George Gomez interview. Yeah, gee, gosh.
    20:16
    With Joel Engelberth. It was off of the Pinball Network. He said, as usual, he said a lot of interesting things. And never miss the George Gomez interview. No, because you'll know more about the company than, you know. Yeah, he'll, like, I don't know. Are they letting him say that? I don't know. Well, he can say it. Yeah, I mean, he's like the one guy. I can't scold myself, so I'll just let it go. So he gave away who the teams, well, there's two cornerstones this year. Am I saying that right? Yeah, this year, because we're in this year now. Two cornerstones, and he gave the teams. So it's going to be Jack Danger's game with Tanya Klyce as the lead, and then the other one's going to be Brian Eddy game with Dwight Sullivan as the lead software guy.
    21:00
    And Zombie Eddy will be doing art on both of them. So do we think the Eddy game is Venom? Or do we just drop that at this point? It's just not that. That's not even a thing. I don't think it's a thing. You don't think it's a thing? Nope. Dangerous is supposedly Foo Fighters.
    21:16
    I mean, I've heard that forever. And I'm not hearing any different. So I'm going with that. Not a fan? No. No? I like the music. I don't stop with the music themes now. We've gotten old fans. So you like the music. You're just sick of music things. Yes. Okay. That's exactly, you know. So stop with the Marvel. Stop with something else. Let's try something different, please. Like what? I don't know, but let's try. Disney, Marvel, they own everything. I mean, what else are you going to make movies?
    21:47
    Maverick? There you go. There's one. See? There you go. Boom. You just pulled out something right out of your ass. Well, I thought JJP was already doing that. I see that as a Steve Ritchie game. Yeah, so would I. But, yeah, or something. Something.
    22:01
    Fast and Furious. I don't care, but something different. Give us something different? That's what you're saying, Bruce? Yes. Okay. But better than dialed in. Maybe. Again.
    22:14
    What's with the constant bashing of dialed in? What about Beavis and Butthead? I'd love to see that. Hello? What the hell, Bo? You going to make our goddamn game? Damn it. Something.
    22:26
    It's just music pins. Every year we have a music pin. Yeah, you got to have music pins. That's the way it works.
    22:34
    No? No. No? No. The past two music pins have just been... In my notes, I got Twippy nominated. Oh, we already did that. Yay! We got nominated! Yay!
    22:49
    Yay! Let's see. Head to Head had its annual episode. Yes. I love the boys. Oh, my God. I love the boys. I love Ryan Slade. And I love Mati. You guys got to do more than once a year. Yeah, I agree. I mean, come on. We should get them on. We should get them both on again. You're in the same country and all. I mean, don't you live like 10 minutes apart? Come on.
    23:10
    Let's do the ultimate source subject, the one that everyone is talking about, James Bond's 60th. Yeah.
    23:21
    Cash grab. I'll see you. Okay, so. No, folks. So let's go over for people who don't know. That's the Super LE designed by Keith Elwin. Throwback type game. Single level play field. Four spinners. They're going to make 500 units.
    23:41
    And I'm trying to remember what I said in previous episodes what I thought it would cost. I think I was close. Yeah, you were closest. It's going to be $20,000. Yeah. And not surprisingly, I think distributors still have them. Yes, they do. Surprise, surprise. They are not sold out.
    23:59
    So, thoughts? Well, full disclosure, I was on the list for one of these. What? Yeah, I was. I actually don't mind the artwork as bad as everyone in Bash against it. Ah, well, you don't want to hear my opinion then. I like that they at least have all five, or all the bombs in there. You know, that's cool. That's nice to see. Yeah, isn't there six bombs? There's six, there's six, yeah. I always forget about the one, there's only one. George Lazenby, you forget about him? Yeah, I always forget about him. He was bad, but he was the only English, you know, where he was really, you know. He was Australian. Australian, right. Right.
    24:36
    Yeah, I was on the list. And you saw it and you went, D-Check, D-Check, D-Check. Not immediately. I thought about it for a little bit. Then I kept watching the, they released the. Videos. There was a trailer video, then a features video, which the trailer video was public, and then the features one wasn't for a while. It was on the list. Yeah. I don't get it why they do that, but they're both out there now. They're both listed now. And I watched them a bunch of times, and it's like, I just can't do it. No. Not for $20,000. I just can't do it. It's a $9,000, $8,000 game.
    25:09
    It – okay. It is. So when we looked at this earlier, because there was the leaked mock-up photo. Yeah. It really wasn't that different from the mock-up photo. It pretty much is – No, it was pretty much – It is basically Bond movie posters on both sides of the cabinet. Yep. Including there's big black spaces, like where there's no art at all, which is weird. The back glass is just all the bonds. I mean, this is the ultimate copy and paste. Yeah. And I know George Gomez says they had to do a lot of work with upscaling the art, et cetera, and all that, but still, it's literally just copy, paste, copy, paste, copy, paste, art. It's both sides of the cabinet, the movie posters.
    25:55
    The back glass is all the bonds. Yeah. The play feel, the play feel actually is probably the least crappy looking thing. Yeah, I agree. That's what I like the best. It does a lot with, it's got the heads like the regular Bond does. Yeah. I mean, it looks like it's painted art, but it's, whatever. Yeah, it looks like, you know, Photoshop painted art. Yeah, Photoshop painted art. That's a new term. Photoshop painted art is what it looks like. I mean, it looks like it'd be a fun game to shoot. Oh, yeah. I think it'd be a great game to shoot. There was nothing in it that looked like, oh, my God, this is changing the face of pinball or anything like that. But it was never meant to do that. No, no, it's not. This game was something that the licensor, and speaking of licensors, has there ever been a more pain-in-the-ass licensor that Stern has dealt with, do you think, than these guys? Oh, I know. I think the original Star Wars game was probably a pain-in-the-ass for them. Yeah, but even they were able to get approvals for movie clips and stuff like that. Yeah. Well, don't forget, here's the problem you're not thinking about. I'm not thinking about? Okay. Yes. Yeah, truly. Truly. MGM was just sold to Amazon.
    27:10
    So now you're dealing from one company that was probably a pain in the ass to another company that was a pain in the ass while you're doing this.
    27:17
    And then you also have this, what's the name, Bercouli Brothers, or Bercouli, you know. No, no, no. It's not – okay, they're not brothers. Broccoli. It's Broccoli. And it's the daughter. Yes. I think Albert Broccoli, the original dude. Yeah, Broccoli. Originally, I think it was Broccoli and Harry Saltzman. Yeah. And the Saltzman was actually Canadian. And he had to bow out because he lost all his money and he sold off his whatever to get more money. So it's just Albert Broccoli. And then he died and his daughter took over. And I hear they're very hard to deal with. so we're hearing these ridiculous stories like well no but Amazon is a humongous company now you just bought a whole movie company took all their assets in and now you have this little company that wants to use these assets is that really on your radar the thing is they've made Stern look so bad they're the ones who didn't want it told them to pull the reveal they're the ones that are taking forever that code is still in like alpha stage oh it's terrible, it really is and I'm hearing ridiculous things now that I hope are not true, things like right now in the game, if you're in a mode and you start multiball, the mode ends you're nerfed the mode just ends well here's the thing, they're saying that that's like a licensor thing that the licensor's telling them, well that's two different movies, you can't have them running at the same time, god I hope that isn't True. It is, and the timer's still going in the background. What does that mean, the timer? So you have two modes going, you know, you have a mode going, and the multiball goes. The timer's still going in the background, but it's not counting for anything.
    29:03
    It's even worse than you would think. You would think, okay, we'll freeze it. If you want to freeze it and not double stack, totally agree. You have now another movie going on When you done with multiball it should go back to that Nope It over Ignored So you think that rumor true You can have two movies I've seen it. I've played it. Well, no. People are saying it's like that because that's the rumor as opposed to it's just not. I don't know. That's the way. I just don't know. Okay. But it's never happened before.
    29:31
    Yeah. I mean, I think they just, the art, I mean, it looks like ass. I thought the stepper motors for the scoring reels was cool. New scoring reels.
    29:43
    Implementation of that with the back box, terrible. Oh, with the – Cut out slots where the DMD – where the LCD display was. I was like, oh, my God. Why couldn't you just put this in the back glass and make it look so much nicer? Well, doesn't Big Juicy Melons and Pat's Can Crusher and Primus all have the reels? Yes. So they have the reels. But don't they all have one set of reels? Yes. So what happens when you go player to player? It just changes to whatever the score is? I guess, yes. And the other thing is they got a display in the middle of the play field, a small display. Yes. And that's not going to be playing movie clips. I think people think that's going to be playing. They said right on the Stern podcast they had the team for Bond 60th on there. And that was one of the questions. And they said, like, no, it's going to be for giving you instructions and telling you what to do. Yeah. So, yeah. The thing is, when you look at the thing, it's like, we'll use the Beatles argument. The Beatles has a ton of mechs in it for a single-level play field. It has, well, we'll compare. This Bond 60th has two flippers.
    30:59
    Four spinners. I think 10 drop targets. Yes. All right. Spinning disc. Then you have, what does Beatles have? 11 drop targets, four flippers, a spinning disc, a magnet thing at the top. Yes. A magnet and a spinning disc also. So if you're going to go, and Beatles is supposedly the most expensive license. So if you're going by that.
    31:27
    What the hell happened, honey? Well, I won't say $8,000 because of inflation. Okay, $10,000. Yeah, $10,000. maybe even $12,000. Yeah, $10,000 to $12,000. Like, I think if they put this out at $6,000, even at $14,000. Yes, you still have the most expensive pinball machine, but it's not that much more, and I think it's going to be a fun shooter,
    31:49
    but you're only selling it to you know, I don't know. It's really a cash grab. Yeah, and I've heard people, well, it's a license, they had to get the rights for all the bonds, Like all the likenesses. I don't. Someone can correct me, and I know a lot of newer stuff works that way, but I don't think it works that way for this. You mean to tell me Stern had to get Sean Connery's family's permission to use his likeness in the game? I think since it's on movie quips and movie stuff. I think it's when you sign up as Bond, you are given Eon the right to use your likeness as Bond. Yes. So when you need to use Bond, you pay Eon. Yes. You're not paying the actor. What the bloody hell, Masters? What the hell? Someone can correct me if I'm wrong there, but I'm pretty sure they did not have to pay all these different bonds to be in this game. No, no.
    32:42
    And I don't think this license was as expensive as Beatles. No. So it is a cash grab. Cash grab. But the thing is, I think the issue with this is you have a game, and the thing is, Ellen volunteered for this. Yes, she did. It's not like Stern said, you're doing, no, this was something that the licensor asked for. We want a throwback old school game. And Elwin threw his, like, I'd like to do this. Because an interesting thing Elwin said in this interview, he said, I had a longer than usual break in between cornerstones. Yeah. He did say cornerstones. I know. For everyone who thinks he's on, what, Back to the Future and it's going to be a Kapow title and all that, Either that or he considers that a cornerstone, even though it's a compound title. Who knows? It might be just, yeah. Or he could be trolling. Who knows? Yeah. But, yeah, he volunteered because he wanted to do this. And then when he started doing it, I wanted to do a game with four spinners. And he got one. He made a game with four spinners. I'm sure it'll be fun. Yep. It'll shoot great. I wish he got it. I wish he did buy it. And I think the issue with – and people don't realize this. They always – there were people bashing Ellen, like, how could he do this? And it's like you don't understand. It's still business. Yes. There's different departments that stern folks. There's a department who makes the games, you know, and he thought it would be cool to make this game. Then there's the departments that price the games, the business side. Yeah. They're different folks. You know, and I think this is the issue with this game is it's designed by the top designer out there right now, and it's designed for the pinball player. Yep. But it's priced for the rich bond collector. Oh, yeah. It's got to be on their website and paid or anything like that. Yeah, and the really rich pinball collector. But it's, oh, and insane locations that will buy this shit. Yeah. So if you're not one of those. Not us. Oh, you're not going to have one of those? No, but we have a pro. We have an LE. That's all we have. Not a super LE. Well, like Sunshine Laundry in New York City is probably going to get one of these. I know Ace Goge, that place in California, they're getting one of these.
    35:03
    If you're near some psycho collectors, there's got to be someone in Rochester getting one of these. I think one will probably, but who knows? So if you're not in a location that people are going to get this and you don't go to shows, you're never going to play this game. Yeah. And I think that's why people are so pissed.
    35:24
    Because it's like a player's game, but players aren't going to get to play it. Yeah. And then they blame the wrong people. Yeah, they do blame the wrong people. If you want to blame somebody, blame management. That's it. It is a cash grab. I can only say I hope with the money they made from this, it goes into Spike 3, some cool new mech, you know, something that furthers the games and makes them more awesome. Yeah. About $10 million in their pocket.
    35:52
    Mm-hmm. For 500 games. Not too shabby. Have you played Dr. No yet for the pro, or have you played any bonds? The only bonds I've played are at shows. Okay. Yeah, we got the LA last week. It came in Wednesday, and it's set up already at the Rochester Pinball Collective. Oh, where's that at? That's at 349 West Commercial Street in East Rochester, New York. suite number 2965. Woo-hoo! And it's the Thunderball? Thunderball.
    36:26
    Thunderball! Yeah. Wait, but does it play Thunderball? No. What? No. But I did notice it does not play the Bond theme all the time. Oh, that's good. What happens is, no, it's not good. Oh. What happens is they play the theme from, like if you go into a certain movie or a certain mode, it goes off the Bond theme and it plays the movie theme like you would hear not in the main, like not the main songs, like you don't hear Goldfinger, but you hear music that was in Goldfinger during one of the movies, like during the movie in the background at like volume 1 or volume 2 it's very low, you have to really squint in here but you hear it and you're like oh that'd be great to hear loud and nice and powerful and nope he got a squint in here you gotta like squint and we like you're up against the speaker going come on i can hear it barely but yeah uh it's okay the rules are terrible oh my god the rules are so fucking the shots i like the shots some are really fucking hard here's how bad the rules are there's a super skill shot.
    37:42
    The super skill shot is the right scoop right by the car. Right by the car. So the lower right. The lower right. So you go out, you got soft plunge or come all the way around? Come all the way around, and then you can either, sometimes you can bounce it, and sometimes they'll go in, or you catch it, you know, and then you hit the shot within five seconds. Now, scoring this game, unless you're, you can't stack, So it's really a grind sometimes until you start completing modes. But the super skill shot is 10 million points.
    38:16
    And literally, I sat for like six minutes playing the game, and I got like 15 to 20 million. These guys come up, catch the ball, shoot the super skill shot, 10 million. I'm like, what the fuck?
    38:29
    Who's our programmer for this game, sir? Who's the programmer? No, no. Excuse me, Ron. Ron, I'm asking a question. As a pinball aficionado and knowledgeable pinball, who is the programmer of Bond? Your favorite, Lonnie. Oh, okay. Okay, thank you.
    38:49
    So, yeah, since you have the cut-and-paste artwork, now you have the cut-and-paste rule guide. Oh, very nice. So there you go. It's just all perfect. Yeah, the rules are definitely alpha slash beta. And supposedly that's being delayed because they just take forever to get any approvals. Yes. I've heard ridiculous things. Like the person who approves it has epileptic seizures if they see the flashing display, so they can only look at one clip at a time. Literally, this is something. I don't believe that one. That's just silly. No, what if you were watching the Dwight game? Boy, you'd be dead on the ground. Oh, my God, this person will be done. Winter is coming Ghostbusters Very good You'd just be dead on the ground The other game It's going to be a Dwight Brian Eddy game It's like Williams Yeah. We're going back to 90s Williams here. Yeah. Great. That is great. Everyone loves 90s Williams, Bruce.
    40:08
    Come on, you do too. You have a Whitewater, an attack from Mars. Yeah. Okay. All right. Thank you for telling all the people that.
    40:21
    So the Bond 60th has a spinning disc with Oddjob's hat on it. Yeah, Oddjob's hat. So it's like they found where they got slash hats.
    40:32
    And they said, we've got a deal for you. They took the Avenger spinner, the Avenger spinning disc, and, yeah, put a hat on it. Yeah, put a hat on it. Yeah. Not 20K, guys. No, it's not 20K. Even if the real, I mean, what, so the only new technology in the thing, maybe the reels, how they're doing the reels. So is the new reel technology worth eight grand or whatever? No.
    40:59
    As I said, the implementation of it is really, it's just ugly. Oh, you don't like that? Yeah, because it's just one set of reels. What, four reels? Four reels. Four reels, and it's where the LCD usually is. And it almost, from a distance, looks like it's digital, like it's not even real. Yeah. Actual reel, which turned out to, Elwin changed his profile picture and Facebook to be the actual reels. just to show people that, yes, these are real, actual reels. And they look great. I think they did a great job with them. I was like, oh, you know, it's nice to see somebody using old technology to make it a game. But you wanted four players. You wanted four sets of reels. Yeah. No, I didn't want that either. Oh, it would be $30,000 for that. The other thing is the back glass actually does have, or it's either in the back glass or the LCD area, they have score thresholds on the top. So if you get over like 9,999 and 10,000 lights, 20, 30, 40. Plus they have a, if you roll it over, there's an over-the-top light.
    42:03
    I think there's like a tilt light. They try to make things more old school. I'd love to play the thing. Yeah, I can't wait if I can. I don't think I'm going to stand in line in Texas to play it. No. I mean, if the line's shorter maybe. But I'm sure, like I said, it's a game made for pinball players, but not priced for them. No.
    42:27
    Not at all. Yeah, it's a shame. Ain't that a shame? Do you think now, here's another question I'm going to ask you this.
    42:38
    If it was 15K, would you have bought it? Maybe. It's a much higher probability. Okay. 15K and 750 made?
    42:51
    I don't really go by. Yeah. Okay. I just want to make sure. I know what you're saying. Yeah. That's the other thing. There's only 500 of these, so some would argue, well, it's not like the Beatles had, what, 1964? Yeah. 1964. And this is only 500, so that's why it needs to be way more. Yeah. And there were so many, like, how many Platinums, how many, you know. Yeah, yeah. But I think they have, they were looking for the ceiling. I think they found it. Oh, yeah, because it's not selling as fast as they thought. No. And they had to pay for it by this past Friday, all the distributors. Yep. Yes, they did. So if they couldn't pay for it, it would go back into the pool, and they would ask the next distributor.
    43:33
    Yep. So. And I know those distributors still have them. Oh, yeah. There's a couple. Yep. It's not going to be as hard to find as you think. If you say today, like, hey, I just hit the lottery. I got $20,000. I want one. You can probably find it in a second. The distributor I was working through, Zach, Isaac, of Flippin' Out. He posted on Facebook, still got some. Yep. Some. Yep. There's not just one. Some. Oh, yeah.
    44:02
    I'm just bringing it to that point, too. Some. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, has Scooby-Doo sold out yet? Nope. I don't think so. Nope, you can still get it on their website as of yesterday. And TNA. I don't think that's sold out either. Nope. So maybe we've hit the ceiling, folks, and you guys are just getting a little nutty out there. Well, there is a recession and everything, you know. Oh, I know.
    44:24
    Oh, it's slowing down. Everything's slowing down. It's slowing down. Free money, no more. Mm-hmm. Free money, no more. Let's see. What else do I got?
    44:35
    I got something. I got a couple things. All right. Do I do that first or the ball back? We can do my thing so we don't forget. Okay. I'm old. You're old? Okay. I am old. You are older than me. I am older than you. Barely. And it gets closer every day. No, it doesn't. That's not how it works. Over the whole year's time, the percentage does go down. No. It does. No, you'll be the same amount of days older than me forever. But the percentage of your lifetime, it still gets closer to me. Sorry, it does. That doesn't even make sense. Yes, it does. Okay, so when you were 30 and I'm 32. We've gone through this conversation before. We're not going to do it again. My numbers are factual and no one's disputed me. No one's disputed you. Okay. I am undisputable with this. Yes, you're undisputable. What do you want to talk about? I am no longer a Fathom Mermaid Edition owner. Well, you weren't anyway. No, I owned a spot. You owned a spot. but now I do not own a spot. A local, one of our local friends, bought my spot. So you're 0 for 2. Because you had the Wizard of Oz. No, no, no, I'm not 0 for 2. Is there more? You had a spot for an original Wizard of Oz. No, I did have a spot for Rick and Morty, and I waited, so I'm actually 1 for 3. 1 for 3, okay.
    45:58
    So you're 1 for 3 on spot games. So now, yeah, you sold your Wizard of Oz spot, Now, you sold your Haggis spot. Yep. But I did keep my Rick and Morty spot and then sold it like three months after I bought it. Actually, six months. I had to get it for like six months. Well, and you also have a Scooby-Doo spot. I do. So, it could be two for four. I could be almost batting 500 or I could be down to 250. Right now, I'm batting 333. Very good. You figured all that math out by yourself. I am a mechanical engineer, I hate to say. So, that means you're good with averages. Math. Okay. Yes, because we use math and mechanical engineering. Uh-huh.
    46:38
    All right. Bruce bought two games in the new year so far. What? Already? Already. Two games? And one's off the list of our every time going on the show list. You mean the ones you beg for every time we're on the show? Luckily, one came from Mike Dimas, a good friend of the show. Hi, Mike.
    46:59
    He pointed us in the right direction for a rotation eight. You had to go to Canada. We did. Me and Zach got our passports out. Fastest we ever went through customs. Zach was thinking we were going to get nailed each way. So we go up to Canada. There's about a line of like 10 cars. And then they open a new gate. So, okay, we've got like three cars. We get in line. You know, we get in the line. Comes up. Where are you going? We're going to Melbourne, blah, blah, blah, Canada. What are you going for? Pinball machine. How much money are you bringing in? $1,000. okay have a nice day so we went up got the game now it's in this guy's basement in his house and this game is 38 inches wide and a beast so you can't like go up the stairs with it or anything like that you have to tip it on its side luckily we took the play field out but we get there and me and Zach are looking at it like oh I'm going to go up all these stairs okay we'll go downstairs check it out got a little bit of wear on it not bad I have a I almost have a If somebody has a play field, he's going to send me pictures hopefully this week, and I might be buying another play field for one. Of course. You know how I am. Wasn't it red also? Yes, it's red. Somebody painted it red. It's not a great paint job, but I actually think it looks better than the wood grain. So I'm up on that. The guy's like, hey, it boots, but it doesn't start a game. So we're driving back, and Zach's looking at the phone, because I actually had phone service up in Canada because of my unlimited Verizon plan. So he's looking at the schematics. He's looking at stuff. He goes, oh, it has to be in a certain position for it to play a game. Okay, so we get it back. We bring it inside the co-op like a day or two later. We put it in a certain position, and it needs a ball in the shooter, and not in the shooter lane, but in the out hole. Start a game. Boom, kicks out a game. We actually played the game on one position. but it does not rotate. So we had to work with the motor board. Whoever worked on this motor board should never work on a board again because they put the IC chip in backwards. They put the resistor in wrong, and they look like a three-year-old tried to slaughter all the transistors.
    49:17
    So we're up to that point. The chip just came in yesterday. Me and Zach are going to play with it next week. Hopefully we get it up and running. So when Ron comes out eventually to the co-op, since he's not coming next week. No. What's next week? Well, we'll get to that later on.
    49:36
    We will have a functional rotation eight. Will that be game 50? That would be game 50. Yes, I can finally go there. No more 49 game shit. Where are you putting that? Right in the, where the middle table is. It's going to be the table. So you'll have two cocktails in that area? Yes. Wow. Yep. Pretty neat, huh? Mm-hmm.
    50:02
    Then. You got another game. I got another game. One you've already had several times. Four times. This is the fourth. The fourth. Big game. There you go.
    50:13
    Found it at an auction. Went down. Bit on it. Grabbed it. Very happy with it. Best back glass I've ever seen for a big game. Yeah. I sent Ron pictures. Mm-hmm. No blotchy reds at all.
    50:27
    Well, it has red. It has red. Full red. Solid, full red. And I think I have that already sold.
    50:37
    What? I'm here to buy and sell, baby. So you didn't even want it? No, I knew somebody who wanted one, so I bought it, and he's like, I want it. And you said solid, full red. Solid, full red. And it's in sale. Okay. It's in sale mode. alright see but I gotta pay off some things with you know some things so it's just like a merry-go-round I might have a lead on a alien star ooh yeah that might be coming to the coop then and there was another game I'm looking at also that's just in the that's in the backpack burner mm-hmm but it could be a hurry time oh god no yes hurry Hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry, hurry. If you followed the show, you'd know what I'm talking about. Why do you want that one? I didn't think you'd like that one. That's the last one I want. Last turn I want. It really is. There's not many more I want. Maybe a Cosmic Princess, and it's okay, Cosmic Princess. It's not that great. You'll have to get it really quick, because it could be gone in a split second, man. Split second. It could be gone.
    51:50
    Let's see. What have I done? Well... Oh, I still got more repairs. Oh, you got more repairs? Up the ass? Up the ass. You just had ass repair? Ass repair.
    51:59
    Call me Farrah Fawcett. Call me. Oh, what the hell does that even mean? Because she died from colon cancer.
    52:09
    Luckily, mine got repaired. Oh, that's so bad. It is. But, yeah, just customers' games. It's getting a little overwhelming now. The back is filling up. Ooh, the back of the co-op. Yes. With broken games. Customers' broken games. Ugh. All right. Every fuse being wrong, oversized. I love how people just think, like, this 20-amp fuse will go right in the 3-amp fuse position, and nothing ever is going to burn up.
    52:42
    Yep, coil's burned up. Mm-hmm. All right. Well. What did you do repair-wise, sir? No real repairs. I did some moving. I moved because I had the Surfing Safari was still in the living room I wanted to get it downstairs yeah Surfing Safari yeah so I broke down the Dirty Harry Dirty Harry's going bye bye here you go folks it didn't go upstairs it's sitting on a pallet downstairs so then I moved I couldn't put the Surfing Safari where the Dirty Harry was because it's so tight. It's so tall. The system threes. Oh, and that bit me in the ass. Yeah, I will explain. So I moved the Dirty Harry. I put it on a pallet. Then I moved the World Cup soccer over to Dirty Harry's spot. Okay, so two games over, three games over. Yeah, so where World Cup soccer was, full ceiling there, so no problem. So now I've got to get the game downstairs. I've got to get surfing downstairs. By himself with his Escalera. With my Escalera. And none of that was an issue.
    53:58
    The issue is that I got to the bottom of the stairs. I knew it. You know, I had this in the back of my mind. I'm thinking, you know, the back box is so much taller than this. I hope it doesn't bite me in the ass here. And it did. It did. Because I got to the bottom of the stairs, and it's to explain to our listeners. It's kind of tight. But usually you get to the bottom of the stairs, you get the hand truck out of the way, and then you just turn the game, spin it so it faces the door. What is it? A, what would it be, 45-degree, no, 90-degree clockwise turn. And then you can bring it through the second door, and you're in. Yes, yeah. And I couldn't turn it. You couldn't get the dolly out, could you? I couldn't turn it. No, I got the dolly out. That wasn't a problem. I couldn't turn it. The back box is so much taller, there wasn't enough room to turn it. And it didn't make any difference. You can't go straight out because it's too wide the other way.
    55:03
    Oh, my. So what the hell am I going to do? And I have it all the way. It's at the bottom of the stairs. I got the dolly out of the way, and it's just sitting there. And I'm like, oh.
    55:12
    Where the hell is Bruce when I need him? And I'm looking, and it's like I might have a way to do this because where the shelving is on the side, there's some room between the stairs and the shelving. And if I could slide the game to the right, then I can turn, I can get beyond where the stairs are, and then maybe I can turn it. And I had about maybe a quarter inch to spare. Nice. And I was able, as soon as I got it turned, I was just like, yes, I win. And then it was easy. Then, yeah, then it fit right through and no problem. But, damn, Gottlieb, you with your weird, I mean, the thing is almost as tall as my Star Wars with the topper. Yeah, I know. It's so tall. They are humongous. They're so big. And while I was doing this, I noticed the coil stop on the left flipper had gotten loose. Like all the screws were coming out. So I could have swore I Loctited it. So Loctited it again and cranked it down. We'll see how well it lasts. Their flipper sucks so bad. I know. They go for one of the best designs ever. Yes, one of the best designs ever to the worst design ever. Yeah. What were they thinking?
    56:33
    We wanted to make it snappier feeling. And the flipper bats with the screws on them, I think they were both loose. I had to tighten them. It's going to be a maintenance item now every so many games. Tighten flipper bats. Tighten this. This is stupid. Yeah. So annoying. But it plays great. Everything works good. If I have time, I will stream it before I go to InDesk. Oh, that's right. You're going to InDesk when we have a tournament coming up at the Silver Ball Sloan. Ah, Rochester Pinball Collective. It's a birthday party slash bond. Launch party. Thank you.
    57:11
    And I get to go to a launch party today. Oh, for bond, I would have said. Yes, yes. So I got three launch parties in the next four weeks. Very nice. Yeah, we have pinball around us. Yeah, I don't get to go to RPC anymore. Oh. Why not? It's your own choice. It's your own fault. No, you keep scheduling shit during the other shit. How about February 25th? Is that a good date for you? I thought the thing in February that you're doing is the same time I will be at District 82. Didn't you have something February – where is it? No, it's 25th we're doing. So when's District 82 stuff? Hold on. Let me double check. I'm checking right now. This is a scintillating – Conversation of tournament talk. Yeah, no one cares.
    57:58
    Well, everyone wants to see you. That's why. Oh, wait a minute. Wait a minute. I think it's changed. I think you guys changed it. We did. You did. Yeah, you made it the next week. Yes, we did, because we didn't want to follow. Because the problem was, the past three tournaments have been Western York pinball nights for league. So it's like half our people are driving two times. Oh, wait a minute. Let's see. That going to be an issue That going to be an issue I probably not going to be able to make it I have a stair climb that weekend You don need to do that Yes I do I know I training for it I doing the stair climb No, we do it the opposite way in Rochester. We just push it down the stairs.
    58:43
    I mean, I could drive there after the stair climb, but I really don't want to do that, because then I've got to come back the next day. It's stupid. But we love you.
    58:53
    Come. No. Come to the pinball co-op. I don't think that's going to happen. We want you to stay. Come to Jamaica. Who are you, Jamaica? Yes. He picked up on that. I mentioned Sirford Safari. Are you supposed to be Rodney? Yeah. That's got to be me. The dragon who has a terrible, like, fake Jamaican accent. Come on. How you doing, man? Come on.
    59:20
    Later, Gator. Okay. Let's do the ball back. Oh, my. So we had a couple guest request emails.
    59:35
    And just to let you guys know, we have received them. One from Daniel and Dick. I think this was about the same guest request. So we have gotten your emails. And we will respond. You are in the queue. because you're in the queue, but it won't be until late February. Yeah, yeah. We have another guest. We have two guests coming up, and that will push us out, too. And then I'm on vacation for two weeks. Yeah. So we respond to everyone eventually, just to let you know. Yes, we do include everybody. We do.
    60:13
    Let's see. Wasn't it nice to have Zach last time, though? I love Zach. Does everyone love Zach? Tell us. Everyone loves Zach. That's where our ratings go down. Oh. Oh, wow.
    60:27
    Actually, I haven't looked. Let's see. You should look right now. Now you got me peaked. No. Ryan. This one's from Ryan. Ryan C. No, it's not Ryan C. It's another. There's more Ryans than just Ryan C. I know. What the fuck? Bloody hell. It says, hi all. Love the show. Thank you. Hopefully you voted for us on the Twippy. Oh, God. This is going to be like every, hopefully you voted for us on the trivia. No, we only can say it to the 16th. This is the only show we can say it on. Oh, okay. That's true. There's been a unique lot of items on our local Craigslist, and I'm interested to hear your thoughts on the rarity and possibly insane pricing on these. Okay, so hold on. I have to go into our email. I have to go into our ball bag. Yes, you have to go into our ball bag. It basically is text fixtures. Oh, gosh. Price reduction, nine early solid state pinball text fixtures, $8,000.
    61:34
    Let me see. I think there's some that were old ones, too, which is good. Hold on. I'm going to it. I want to keep this unique collection together. They will be sold as one lot only. They include a Bally display unit tester, a Bally MPU board tester, Bally solenoid board tester, Bally lamp driver board tester, an Atari pinball simulator. Oh, I'm getting simulated already. A Williams pinball simulator, Gottlieb tester number one for System 1 games. System 1, I see. Gottlieb tester two, also for System 1. Got Leave Tester 3 for System 3 games.
    62:14
    It was formerly advertised for $12K, didn't sell, so I have reduced the price to $8K. And still hasn't sold. No trades. I want to sell them all as one.
    62:25
    Yeah, I don't see 8 even doing it. No. It's great. Guess what? If you want to own testers, it's great. They take up a ton of room. You don't want to be pulling these out and putting these back together, So you have to have a big area to do this with. Second, you want to make money now off these things to actually make it worth your while. Guess what? Even with my collection at the co-op, most of these would sit there and just collect dust.
    62:52
    But some wouldn't. So it all depends on what you want it to be. I think he needs to break them up. The problem is he'll never sell the Atari stuff too easily. The Bally stuff he would sell. Yeah, the Bally stuff. Yeah, the Atari stuff. Even the Gottlieb 1 would sell. To the one or two Atari collectors out there, might like the Atari one. Oof.
    63:16
    You can keep your Time 2000 working, your Airborne Avenger, your Superman, your Hercules. No, Superman's different. How's Superman different? Superman needs a different board set.
    63:29
    Okay, I went too far in the future then. You did, yes. This is all the old stuff, which is bad. which is the... The Atarians. Yeah, the Atarians and everything like that. Yeah.
    63:40
    Okay. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. So you would not buy that? I would not buy it at that price. Okay. Maybe 5K. I'm being honest. Five or six. Not being insulting to the guy, but some of the stuff you're not going to sell and get a ton of money for. Some you will. Some you would make your money, like the ballet stuff.
    64:02
    Ryan continues to say, Regardless, I thought the items may be of interest and generate some discussion since both of you have done your fair share of repair on old machines. Are these test units even useful to someone in 2022-23 trying to repair their vintage Bally machines? Or is this seller completely off their rocker?
    64:20
    As I said, if you are just for your home collection, no, you don't need these. Guess what? I own 20, 30, or 25 Bally slash Ferns. That's my test bed right there. I knew it worked before. Let me put this board in there. Oh, this lights out, this lights out, this lights out. Okay, great. Now I know which ones I need to fix with the transistors. Just a little more work, but you can still do it.
    64:46
    If we're an actual collector, I don't know how useful. Because most collectors are going to have multiples of different generations of games, and they can just use them to test. Exactly. This would be more for someone who's repairing games for other people. Yeah. Or if you were, maybe if you had a big humongous, like a papa.
    65:05
    That kind of stuff. Mm-hmm. All right. Next mail is from... You gotta suck it up. I love this. It's from, I'll spell it, J-E-F-E. Jeffy? L-Jeffy. Ron, dude, you gotta suck it up and watch Ready Player One. Seriously. It kills me being a reading teacher that you admit to not reading. I'm sorry. But still, the movie was pretty cool, too. I understand your argument about trying too hard with nostalgia, but I'm not alone thinking that this story movie hits the mark. I personally would say commit to the audio book, but the movie is only a two-hour and 20-minute commitment, which is too long. Suck it up. Put on your big boy pants. Watch the fucking movie. Mm-hmm. I watched the movie. You did? Yes. And? That's all right. Oh, my God. Why was it just all right? It's just all right. I like the one character I liked. I looked it up. He's one of the Me Too guys that probably won't be in movies anymore. He was the guy that was in Deadpool. Yeah. Deadpool 2. He's the bartender guy. The character he plays, I thought he was hilarious. Yes.
    66:21
    But that's literally the one character that stuck in my head. Oh, and the guy that played the main inventor dude. Yes. They remind me of like a weird data. Yeah, but those are the only characters. I didn't realize until the end, like, oh, Spielberg directed it? Yes. And other things like the guy in the library dude.
    66:42
    Yeah. Yeah, I figured like, okay, he's probably the other guy. I figured that early. When he gives him the coin, like, okay, that's going to come in somehow. Of course. Yeah. But it was really cool. It was too long. Oh, no, it wasn't. When it was starting, what I thought was the final battle scene, I looked, there's like 40 minutes left. Like, Jesus Christ. It takes a while to play Adventure.
    67:05
    They didn't even get that right. I know. At least when I played Adventure, when you get the micro dot and you go into the room, usually you need to have another object in the room for the wall to disappear. You can't just bring the micro dot in there. I know. But in the movie, they just bring the micro dot in there and the wall's open. Yep. I digress, but it was a good movie. No, I watched two movies. Oh, my God. Hold on. I've got to sit down, Lord.
    67:33
    I watched that one. Okay. And then the other one I watched was Everything, Everywhere, All at Once. I watched that one. Never heard of it before in my life. Really? Yeah. Really, being totally honest. It was a hit movie. It's got short rounds in it. Remember short round? I remember him. Temple of Doom? Yeah. Goonies? Yeah, Goonies. The only two things I remember him in until I saw this movie.
    68:01
    That movie was awesome. Highly recommend it. You'll have to text me the thing, because I can't remember the title that you just said to me. Yeah.
    68:11
    It's everything, everywhere, all at once. It's like the metaverse or whatever. The same stuff that Doctor Strange does, but it's actually good. Oh, the multiverse? The multiverse, yes. It's a multiverse thing, but actually good. It's got Michelle Yao in it, or you. Oh, I've seen that. I saw the previews for that, and I went, nope. Oh, all in. Jamie Lee Curtis is awesome.
    68:34
    Yeah, Short Round is fucking awesome. It's great. Yeah, I don't know if I can do it. Yeah, sorry. Way, way better than Ready Player One. Way better. Oh, God, no. Way better. Okay, people, so give us your votes. Now you know the next movie to watch, and tell me what is better. Oh, that's easy. No, no, I want our fans. It's not Ready Player One, that's for sure. I want our fans. Our listeners. Yes. Our fans. Fans, boys. Yes, our fans. I get asked for autographs constantly. I don't know about you.
    69:07
    Let's see. What do we got here? This one, probably we'll have to get back to this one because I haven't read. I haven't read lately. I read when we first got it, but it's been a month, so. Yeah. I agree. This is from Blueberry Johnson. It was on Pinside. He sent a link to a Pinside thread that we'll have to look through because I haven't looked at it. I haven't looked at it lately. He wanted to know what we thought.
    69:33
    It's about a six-month saga to design, build, and unveil an original pinball machine at TPF 2023. I deal with it every day. It's called Zach.
    69:46
    All right. We will get back to that. Let's see. We got email from, well, it says Chris, but it actually is signed Robert Mueller, so this is going to be interesting. Given I am only one human being, I can only commit to one half of the Dumb and Dumber duo. As someone who lives literally 15 minutes from TPF, I would be honored to whichever half of Lloyd or Harry you prefer, should you totally commit to being the other? You'll have to pick your choice. I don't know who Lloyd or Harry is. Are those the guys in the movie? They're from Dumb and Dumber. Oh, okay. Oh, my God. Presuming it will be Bruce, it won't because he doesn't go to shows. I humbly request he form all sentences without Bruce Sissons for the entire weekend. I look forward to your legally binding engagement. I am a lawyer, after all, even if I am imprisoned.
    70:36
    Sincerely, Robert Mueller. Come on. Robert Mueller is not in prison. Not yet. No, he's never going to be in prison. I think he already has a new job. I think we mentioned that. Yeah. Let's see. Then I got one more from Glenn. Hi, Glenn. Former guest. Playing in a tournament this past weekend, and a friend of mine tells me how the premium – oh, this is about Black Knight Sword of Rage. Playing in a tournament this past weekend, and a friend of mine tells me how the premium has broken code. I ask, how so? He says, start a mode, get to the upper play field, and spam the stand-up target, and you can complete the mode without ever being in danger. I'm like, what? No way. Stern wouldn't leave a bug like that in the game. Fast forward 45 minutes, and I won the tournament on that game. And, yes, I completed the mode with the ball up on top, hitting a target that wasn't lit for a mode shot. Did I cheat? No. You exploited the rule. Exploited the rule. That's all it is. And I asked about that. I guess it's only if you go up there and you hit it without ever draining out of the upper play field, you can finish it. If you drain out of the upper play field, supposedly, then you can't do it anymore. So there you go. There you go. you've used the rules to your benefit. So now when you've, of course, I would ask why that was in a tournament. Yeah, pro you can put in a tournament. Did the other one? No. You're asking for pain there. Yep.
    72:02
    Let's see. That was the ball bag. And we should have guessed on in about five minutes. Yes. Perfect timing. I told you we had to go an hour and a half. Yeah, we had to go even earlier. See? It's going to be exciting. We're going to talk with the Twippy crew.
    72:19
    So we have our guests. Yes, we do. We have our guests. We have Will Otting. Did I say it right? Yeah. Yeah, that's perfect. Todd Tucky. And she may be coming on at some point, Amoto Harney. From Twip, the Twippies. The Twippies. This Week in Pinball Awards.
    72:41
    And Todd and Amoto are going to be hosting this year. and Will has kind of taken this over from Jeff, who was doing it in previous years. So wait a second. Hold on. Since the motor's not here, we got our shot. We can jump in. What? We're going to prove that we can jump in and fill in at CTA. Oh, she has.
    73:00
    No, Bruce. Bruce keeps wanting us to host for some reason. I did not want to host. I love that rumor. No, no. I got a better grouping. Screw Ron, me, and Dennis.
    73:16
    Dennis who? That would be awesome. From Eclectic Gamers. Oh, Dennis, because there's David Dennis, and then there's Dennis. No, no, no, no, Dennis. Dennis from Eclectic Gamers and me. Okay. We rock it. All right.
    73:29
    And then Ron's out of it. Then Ron doesn't have to worry about it. Well, before we get started with the Twippies, why don't we do some, you guys do some backgrounds on yourself for those who may have no idea who you are. Let's start with Will. Yeah. So my name's Will Otting. I jumped in with Jeff and TWIP about five years ago, working on the website and kind of being behind the scenes with Jeff so that he could put out the content, and I would focus on all the technical side of stuff. I also was on the TWIPI committee and helped out with the voting for the Twippies for that time period as well. So Jeff just recently decided that he wanted to focus more on his career, so he got out of the pinball ring, or at least the Twip ring, and so now I'm kind of taking up the mantle. I'm working on doing the Twip post. I'm now in charge of getting the Twippies all up and running and making sure it gets to the show and to the Texas Pinball Festival smoothly. So that is, you know, that's my background. Okay, Todd. Yes, that's me. Well, I've been doing this as a business since 79. I was involved in it for, that's 44 years now, but it's been longer than that because I got involved with it perhaps eight years before, but not as a business, just as a hobby. so I probably have more time and energy I think than anybody which is not that and you know a dollar I'll buy a soda out of my machine you know but still we're still up and running and every year is a challenge everybody knows that every small business I've sold well over 30,000 machines to over 14,000 people and companies over the years. I've actually kept track of those sales. I still use a Rolodex card system. I have it on computer, but it was... I do it mainly to piss off my haters. I'm involved right now with this nasty thing with the Punny Factory, the new smash hit pinball that's coming out from the new manufacturer, Pinball Adventures. Just, you guys are scumbag. But I didn't give any trouble, even though he caused it all. But other than that, I'm ruining my book. I was hoping to get this book out, and he's kind of screwed it up. And it's tied up with my lawyer suggests not to bother. But he says it's just going to cost you money. So other than that, it's, you know, we're pushing forward. We got our new Twippies coming up, and the interest level seems to be very high. That's what I've seen. So these are very important things, I think, in our business. So I think every year that you guys have done the Twippies, the interest and excitement has grown. I'm sure you see that. Yeah, thank you. And I want to say, Todd, the first name you hear when you talk to anybody that's just getting into pinball, All that is, I mean, your videos are what people are drawn to and what people find. How many videos do you have on your YouTube channel now? Well, edited, there's 17. I just uploaded 1,745.
    77:11
    Unedited and live, I have over 700. So I got, you know, over 2,500. That's why I was shocked that I didn't get nominated for the streaming because I thought I did so many damn streams. But everybody is feeling the same way. You can't hire everybody. You can't nominate everybody. The only thing I was going to suggest is a lot of people were unaware of the period of time to nominate people. Yeah, we definitely need to get that pre-vote period kind of more out in the public, more recognized. But, Todd, I just wanted to thank you for agreeing to join us as co-host for the Tooties. It's going to make it definitely humorous and a joy to watch. So I appreciate it. And it's important to get people, especially the kids, if you noticed, all of you, I'm sure, have noticed that our kid level is increasing because that's our future.
    78:11
    And getting in the children's house. People say the children are the future. They are. That is part of our goal as the Twippies, too, is to kind of just spread, you know, the knowledge of pinball and the hobby and make sure more people know about it. We do see that. We see it actually at shows. I've seen it at Allentown. Of course, you've been to Allentown, Todd. And, you know, you see families are coming more and more. So that's the bright spot of it. But, you know, right now, financially, I don't know if people have the extra income, as we would like to say, as they did maybe even a year ago. So it is a hard thing. But hopefully with the Twippies, we can actually show that there's greatness in this hobby and we can promote it in a positive way. Well, what are the Twippies, Will? What exactly are they? So the Twippies, we are a People's Choice Awards for pinball, and we celebrate the manufacturers, content creators, and anybody else that's out there trying to spread pinball and spread the love of pinball. So currently the voting is open. So it is a People's Choice. It's a public voting process. Voting is open now at the twippies.com, T-W-I-P-Y-S.com. It'll be open through the 16th of January So make sure to get out there and vote We definitely want as many people in the hobby To express what they like about what happened in 2022 About the games, about the content creators And we also have homebrew locations And multiple other categories out there for you to vote on So make sure to get out there and vote Do we have any in the future? I know you guys have a group of people that first set up the stuff. Do you see anything in the future being expanding on more awards coming out? Like more categories? Yes. Yeah. Every year we talk about other categories. This year we actually reduced the number of categories. That's why we're bringing that up for it every year alone. Yeah, we actually went down in some categories. And part of the reason for that was we kind of wanted to focus a little bit more on the show itself. And that show is going to be a live show. I know in the past we kind of put out the word that we might be recorded only and then put out like as a premiere on Google or YouTube later. But we've decided since then to actually do a live show. Some of that actually was from the input that Todd gave and the TPF crew that we work with there at Texas Pinball Festival, where the show is going to be. So it will be a live show. You will be able to watch it on our YouTube channel on TWIP. And that will be at Texas Pinball Festival in, I think it's March 25th, whatever that Saturday is. Yep. SmartPay. Texas runs. Yep. So, yeah, make sure to get prepared for that. And, you know, you can go and like and follow our TWIP YouTube channel so you can be notified when that's ready to go and up and running. Ron, you have your tuxedo all ready for... Yeah, no, I don't have my tuxedo all ready.
    81:30
    But you will get to vote on the following categories. We have Best Theme. and I'm doing this if you go to twippys.com, you will be able to put your vote in. The categories are Best Theme, Best Animations and Display, Best Toys and Mechs, Best Sound,
    81:54
    Best Rules, also known as the Lyman F. Sheets Jr. Award, Best Playfield Gameplay and Layout, Best Artwork, Game of the Year. Those are basically like your game categories. Then we have Favorite Pinball Streamer, Favorite Pinball Podcast, Favorite Pinball YouTube Channel, Favorite Pinball Mod,
    82:17
    Favorite Pinball Website, Favorite Pinball Location, Favorite Pinball Convention slash Event, and Favorite Pinball Topper. And then there's also a homebrew category. You can vote for your favorite homebrew. And the site has descriptions of all the different homebrews. It actually looks like it has videos for several of them, so you want to see how they play. There are links to some of them, yeah. And I do want to stress that, you know, when you go and vote, you do not have to vote for every category. If you feel you don't know enough about a particular category or don't want to go research about it, you can skip that category and everything's good. I also wanted to say that we use a ranked choice voting system, so you can vote for your first choice, second choice, and third choice. And we use those to kind of rate each of your choices, give them points, and we think that gives us a little bit of a better understanding of what people's favorites really are.
    83:16
    So what's the deadline again for voting? Deadline is, yeah, end of the 16th, January 16th. So we're about halfway through our voting process now.
    83:28
    And when you vote, it asks for your email. Do you have any safeguards in place so someone can't just vote 50 times with 50 different emails?
    83:38
    Yeah, we do. We have other data points that we look at, and we do have a whole process after the vote's done, after the 16th, where we will weed through all those votes. We'll get rid of all the duplicates. We'll get rid of fraudulent ones. We'll make sure that we have the best data possible to really represent what the community, the pinball community as a whole, was looking to vote for. We also, I know this is brought up multiple times too, there's this theory that there's a lot of paid votes or somebody's paying for votes. We, as a TWIPI committee, are actively looking at all those. And if we hear about it, we investigate, we have to talk to nominees. And I do want to stress that if you're a nominee, keep in mind, we have the right as a TWIPI community, our TWIPI committee, sorry, to remove your eligibility if we find there's anything that's questionable about your voting or what voting you got. So we do take it very seriously. You know, we think that the security is important. And we also, though, want to stress that we don't want to limit who gets the chance to vote. We want the pinball community as a whole to vote. We're not trying to be restrictive on who's voting for it. And we think that helps us just really determine who is the favorite. We want to represent the whole community. Now, I have another question about the voting. Sure. If somebody votes for the same thing first, second, and third, you're really not giving six points to somebody, are you? Correct. I want to make sure people understand that. Some people do that and think they're going to, I'm getting six points or somebody. It's not really that way. Yeah, and we do try to spell that out at the top of the ballot, that any duplicates in the same category will be eliminated. That's part of the process afterwards. We go through second choice, third choice, and make sure they're not the same as the first. So those that get removed, unfortunately, there's not a good way. Technically, we've tried to do that automatically, and there's no consistent way to really do that with the system we've got. So we just do it manually after the fact and try to make sure people know those will get removed. Okay. The ceremony itself, can you give us any insight or any preview tidbits since we have one of the hosts here and the organizer, what we have to look forward to? Sure, yeah. So we're kind of focused on voting right now, so the show is not yet, you know, we haven't really spent a whole lot of time getting ready for the show, but like, you know, Todd Tucky and Emoto are the co-hosts this year. It will be live at the Texas pinball festival. We want to give a little bit more time this year to the pinball locations. Kind of want to make sure that they get, you know, their time so that we can help. Like we said before, help like spread that pinball love to everybody else. So I think what we're planning to do is talk to the pinball locations and kind of get them to give us a little video about their location so that more people know, and that way we can show that off during the show. So that will be involved.
    86:52
    What else? Todd, do you have anything you want to talk about the show? Well, I thought the format last year was fine. I guess when you said you wanted to do like a rehearsal, did you do a rehearsal last year? yeah last year we didn't really get a good chance to do a rehearsal we met with the TPF crew beforehand but unfortunately didn't get the time we needed to really rehearse so like you said Todd this year we are planning to meet together to do a rehearsal we've also talked about doing a Zoom call to kind of do a dry run before we even get to Texas just to give us an understanding of the flow and how things are going to work, how we going to work with injunction with the video So we going to try to really focus on that to try to clean it up make it a better production for the actual PPF This is something very important that you have to think about. Twippies, in everyone's mind, is like the Oscars. So if anything goes wrong,
    88:04
    they're expecting it to be like this perfect show and production. That's what everybody expects it, and they don't realize that it's all done on a volunteer basis.
    88:18
    Nobody's profiting off the Twippies, you know, nobody. And it's a lot of trouble, a lot of work, but people just have this, I guess, feeling that, you know, it's getting paid for by advertising and all this stuff. So everybody's standard is really weird on this. Yeah. And that's what I have detected, you know, when people, you know, well, they should have done this, they should have done that. And I say, well, there's a whole bunch of things you should have done. Maybe you should join and help next year. Yeah, and what I try to stress is that, you know, the Twippies are, I mean, it's a celebration. We're trying to celebrate, you know, what happened in 2022, and that is our focus. We want that celebration to be for the manufacturers and those people that are getting awarded. and get some recognition for all the hard work they did. Now, I do want to say that we do have sponsors. The Twippies do have sponsors. It in no way makes up for the costs.
    89:20
    Yeah, let's face it. You can never get compensated for all the time and energy. That is very true. And it's supposed to be, you know, a high class. I'm going to lower the class down a little bit here. high-class event. I just want to know who's going to come up and slap you in the face one night. You said Oscars. That's true. That'll be Frank. That'll be my Frank. Frank will come up with me. And is Amodo doing all the video packages? Actually, no. No? Okay. We are actually farming that out. Her name's Casey. She does all the video for us for TWIP. We're going to have her do the video part, so that kind of helps free up Emoto to help run some of the other parts of the show and focus more on the production. And besides that, like, we're also doing, you know, this is, you know, our, my theory is, like, you know, prior prep is good. So we are also trying to come up with some information for our presenters because we also heard that some of the presenters really kind of didn't know what was going on as they were presenting. So we're hoping to get kind of an outline for them on what they need to know, how to use the mic, just basic information like that so they're prepped as well. All right. Sounds good. So Ryan Bruce, are you going to be at Texas this year? I am not. Bruce doesn't believe in shows. I don't believe in shows. I'd rather spend money on pinball machines.
    90:57
    I will be there. Wink, wink, there's your presenter. No. Yeah, I was going to ask. No. Are you interested in presenting? No.
    91:06
    If I was going, I would have definitely. Bruce would have done it. Yes, he would. Yes. Probably even got my best T-shirt tux out ever. T-shirt tux.
    91:16
    All right. I think that pretty much covered the Twiffies there. Yes. I have a question for you guys. We always ask this of our guests.
    91:25
    You've got to give us a game you like and a game you hate. Wow. Why is that? Wow. Todd, that's easy. Will's there. That's going to be hard. I don't understand. Let's start with like then. Let's start with like. A game you like. And why you like it. So I have not been in the hobby as long as Todd. so I have a smaller pool of machines to choose from. But the one I always get drawn to, the one that I think is the most humorous and I enjoy the most every time I play is Deadpool. So Deadpool is probably one that I can't live without at the moment. Nice. Nice choice. We're giving opinions on your opinions.
    92:12
    Which you normally do, right? Yes. What's the difference? I have, believe it or not, I have not had the option to play that very much because we sold so few of them, and I didn't have one in the shop long enough. I thought it was okay. My first reactions were it was okay, but it's not fair. I haven't played it, so I can't draw any more conclusions. I wasn't blown away. I was blown away with Stranger Things. I fell in love with that and the Munsters, and everybody dissed them and I thought they were great. And boy, did they go up in value. Jesus. You see, Bruce, Stranger Things. Stranger Things is the game. It's an incredible game. And they were sitting in my warehouse. Nobody wanted them. They were making fun of it and said, you guys are so wrong. And I bought a bunch of those underworld kits, thank goodness. And then suddenly they started to fly out the door and, you know, and that was that. and they went way up in value. But I think the greatest game made in the last, hmm, I'm going to say greatest game made since Theater of Magic. I just bought brand new for me. I have not bought a brand new game for myself since Theater of Magic, and I have it here at TNT for everybody to play because I want them to experience incredible, marvelous pinball at its very best, and that is TNA. It's an extraordinary, wonderful piece of equipment and brilliant design, just an amazing piece of the game. So that is mine. That's my number one game. Okay. All right. Games you hate.
    94:03
    Ooh. What's to start? I can go ahead since I started first last night. Like I said, I'm limited, but my game that I can never really get into is the latest Star Wars. I can't do it. It just doesn't do anything for me. Ta-da! Sorry. Sorry the whole time for the likes. There we go. I'm right up there. Woo-hoo!
    94:30
    Oh, God, don't tell John Borg. That's all Dwight all the time. Yeah, which Star Wars? The John Borg Star Wars or the Steve Ritchie Star Wars? There's multiples. So it'd be the Steve Ritchie. So I'd add the Data East Star Wars. I enjoyed it. It's the Steve Ritchie. It's the latest Star Wars. The new one. Oh, I kept, I was thinking Data East. There's so many Star Wars ones, yeah. There's four.
    94:58
    All right, Todd. What do you hate? Well, you know, it's the worst of every world, every point, and that's Motor Dome. It was an absolute piece of shit. And at every possible angle, it has one redeeming feature, that it is the only game. It started with this, and the next person that did it, they waited ten years and did it with a Frankenstein.
    95:29
    MotorDome allows you to select one of three levels to play, and the rules change for each level. It was a brilliant idea, but executed on the wrong game. You could play one, two, or three. If you play three, there's no memory. You have the late stuff starting at the beginning. If you play the easy one, it pre-spots stuff. But the gameplay is so wretched, and it's just... I just did another video on it pointing out all the horrible things. The sound and the art and the total lack of anything to do on this game. It was just, and it got through, and it did. You know, Road Kings did it a thousand times better. You know, I guess at the time, that's when they were listening. Remember the old days when each manufacturer was listening about what the other guy was going to make? And they all released a game within a few weeks of each other. You know, Monte Carlo and Millionaire, Strange Science and Genesis. I mean, it was just, it was so amazing back then. and they were all... So they're like fighting for the same theme? Yeah. They're making a haunted house theme, you know, or they're making a mad scientist theme. Even Capcom did it with pinball magic and theater magic, you know, and that kind of stuff. So it really was... That cabinet was horrible. It was that flakeboard shit that falls apart. Who made Motor Doom? Valley.
    97:04
    6803. It really, yeah. And the circuit boards were so close to the back, if you tried to push on the chips, you shorted everything the hell out. And they thought, what a piece of shit. And they had a screw-in light bulb. Yes.
    97:20
    Actually, actually, now there's something interesting. Valley, that was the only game in pinball history that had a bulb. It had to be a fluorescent. And the fluorescent's critical to light that back board. When the fluorescent, it's one of those Circuline bulbs, they're like $40. Although Steve Young has a pile of Bally Motor Doom fluorescent bulbs for sale for $7 each. So I actually suggested that people stock up. But that stark white in the back really helps the art, which is rotten anyway. But it was a Circuline fluorescent light in the back. Nobody ever did that. This might be the most hate anyone's ever had for a game that we've had in this segment.
    98:08
    They really hate Motordow. Well, think about this. That giant ramp. You know how big that ramp is? It's huge. It's the biggest ramp ever made. Biggest single ramp ever made on a pinball. And there's not one switch on it. Not one. In the front, when you enter it, there's a gate. So when you enter it, you push a gate. The ball goes up this ramp and swings around to a flipper, and you have one shot to shoot it up. If you miss it, it could come back to the flipper or it could go down one of the other two ramps. But when it goes down the ramp, it doesn't even hit a switch. So when you exit that big ramp, the game never knows you did. It's the stupidest, dumbest, I mean, you know. Motor Dome What's your price for Oh, sorry I like the Tina Turner Thunderdome Oh, God We don't need another hero We don't need another Motor Dome But everybody has to Everybody always asks me What's your worst game? So I finally had to think about it And say that's got to be it I mean, there's other weak games. I call them weak, but I don't hate them. There's a lot of weird games that should have been good, like Nineball. That game is so friggin' ass weird, and it has glitches in the programming, and they never fixed, of course. But it's a neat game when you play it. Everybody gets hooked on that, and they don't want to sell it. That's an odd one. I'm just coming up with odd games. We should have an odd game club.
    99:56
    Q. I win. Oh, Q. You know what? What an odd game. That's an odd game. You got Q. You got the, what's the other one with 30 zillion pop bumpers? Oh, that's the. Is it going nuts? I always get it confused. There's going nuts, and then there's the other Gottlieb. That's Ready, Aim, Fire.
    100:18
    Yeah, Ready, Aim, Fire has the five pop bumpers. That's fun. You know what? That game is actually fun. Ready, Aim, Fire. with no holes on the play field. I mean, you talk about no need for a driver board.
    100:33
    It just has to, there's no multi-ball, so it kicks the ball, it has a coil for the kick-out, it has a coil for the knocker coil, and the pop bumpers run off the pop bumper boards, and that's it. There's just like nothing on that game. But people, when we have it in the showroom, I've had a few of them pass through, people say, wow, this is kind of fun. It's very simple. You can master it pretty quick. I have a game in my showroom you guys have never seen in your life. You never will again. Michael Jordan? No, well, that one still shows up at shows. It's called Chuckaluck, made by the Game Plan Corporation. It's a cocktail table, or I like to say cocktail. at the drug. But anyway, it was to replace the real cigarette cocktail tables when they lost the contract to make it. So here we got this big company game plan. They came up with a set of decals to cover up the real cigarette advertising on the play field. And they changed it to Chuckaluck. And it's in beautiful condition, too. So I'm going to say There must be maybe half a dozen left in the world. I've never seen one in my life until I got this one traded in. It's really weird. So that's a weird one, Chuckaluck. It has nothing to do with the theme.
    102:02
    What is Q? I've never heard of Q before. Q was Stern's last game. Is it just the letter Q? No, it's C-U-E. Oh, oh, oh, oh. And then there's the flippers are reversed. Six produced. Yes. Yeah. There's like 16 pop bumpers on there? That's crazy. They're dead bumpers. Ah. That's how you hit them, and they, yeah. You try to get all the numbers. But one of them is a pop bumper. One of them is an actual pop bumper, yep. One at the bottom before the reverse flippers. It's absolutely wacky.
    102:44
    And it still has fitters. Still has spinners. It does. Because it's a stern and that's required. It has the word Q. It's the biggest title ever made on a game. It is a player. So it has two seven-digit glasses in there, or one seven-digit and one credit window. And there's six of them. And Rob Burke has one. By the way, I don't know if you're aware of this, Rob Burke is going to be opening in May perhaps the largest display museum gameplay where you can play everything of pinball video games in the world that's in Ohio Ohio, yes it's going to be huge and actually if you've gone to Expo you've played a lot of the games that you will see there correct, and he's got some really good guys that are overhauling them Last year's exit, not the one in October, the one before, his games were like all broken. And these new guys in one year got all that stuff cleaned up wonderfully. His games are gorgeous now. So he found the right men to get him running. And Jeff Oler has been filming at his new location. But they're not opening until May. They're going to have food. It's going to be a restaurant. It's going to be big. because he bought an old Kmart. I think that's what it was. There better be a Blue Light Special in there. Blue Light Special.
    104:16
    The Blue Light Special game. You've got to have that. That's a good suggestion. Maybe I'll suggest a Blue Light Special.
    104:25
    So, Will, any more Twippy stuff? No, I think we covered it. Just make sure to go vote out on Twippies.com and be ready for the show at Texas Pinball Festival in March. Emoto, what do you have to say?
    104:41
    Crickets. I don't know. It's going to be great. It's awesome. Fire it. Check out Marco Pinball. Fire parts there. There.
    104:53
    Okay. I do, though. I need to say that she's, I mean, I'm very grateful to Emoto. She's been a big help with the Twippies. She's a great sounding board. She's a promoter. She's a show wrangler. She does a great job. And she's part of the reason why I knew that even without Jeff that we could pull this off. Yes. Without her, it's not possible. So I definitely have to thank her for all her work.
    105:19
    Jesse, somebody posted this on my Twippy, vote for me Twippy. I don't understand why they do it like this, Todd. Apparently there is a period of pre-voting balloting. And if you aren't chosen then, you don't even get to put forward to be an option for a vote. But we already talked about that earlier. Yeah. What we could do is, and I think you should start the promotions like December 1st or even earlier, like Thanksgiving weekend, and say, look, we need ideas, vote for people, you know, and then start circulating. Yeah. Yeah, that pre-voting happens in November, and we definitely need to get the word out some more on that. You know, we've done it like one of the first few years we did it without the pre-vote period. But because we allow people to write in their nominees for like mod and the topper and the homebrew, it takes a lot of time to make sure and go through and kind of merge all those write-ins together and make sure we're getting the vote for the right people in the right category. So that's part of the reason we do that pre-vote is so that when it comes to actual final voting, it's really simple. You get your top ten or so, and it makes it a little easier for us then to round up those votes to get ready for the show. But we definitely need to get the word out more on that pre-vote.
    106:45
    All right. Well, thank you, guys. Thank you, Will. Thank you, Todd. And everyone, thank you, Todd. And make sure to get your vote in by? The 16th of January. Thanks, guys. Thank you, guys. Okay. Thank you. Appreciate it. Thanks. All right. Bye-bye.
    107:06
    That was Emoto, and that was Todd and William from the Twippies. Yep. No Emoto. Although she just messaged us. Whoops. Whoopsie.
    107:20
    That was good. Don't forget, there's another award show coming up. Yes, there is. The Pinball Network. Yes. They just have the pinball awards. Yep. And they changed it again this year, it sounds like, a little bit. What do you mean, again? It only had one year ever. I know, but still the same. They're making it better, I guess, you know. They're modeling it after the game awards. Yes. So they changed it. It used to be called the pinball industry awards. Now it's the pinball awards. Yep. And you can vote. Yes. Your vote matters. If you play enough pinball and stuff. Well, no, actually, there's the judges. Yes. Which we qualify because we have a podcast. But they haven't said if we've got it or not.
    108:03
    Yeah, I applied. I haven't gotten anything back. I applied, too. Yeah. I never got anything back. And the good thing about their thing is if you apply, whatever you're in, you don't have a comment on whatever you're in. So us podcasters, we don't get the vote on podcasts. We don't get the vote on podcasts. Which is the way it should be. Yeah, well, truth be told, for the trippies, I never vote on podcasts.
    108:25
    This is why we fucking lose. Because you don't vote for us, asshole. But they have, you can vote as the public, and it's something like your vote is like 10%. Yes. That's 10%. So you do have sort of a voice. And people were griping about the, well, it's only 10%. Well, they're not trying to do it as a popularity contest. No, that's, yeah, that's the whole point. That is one of the differences. That's the way you want to do it. That's why I think it's cool to have one. You have one. Probably already contested and won an award by the peers. By the peers. Yeah. What's wrong with that? You know, they can all coexist happily, folks. Pinball can be a nice, happy environment. Just like Pony Factory.
    109:12
    When is that coming out? Was that Pinball Adventures? Oh, it's never going to come out. Aren't they Canadian? They're Canadian, right? Eh. Yeah, eh. Yeah, where's that pinball, eh? Where's the pinball, eh? They're pissed that Rush got made before they released their game. Damn it. It's still Canadian. We can't out-Canadian that. No, we cannot. But, yeah, so we are the Slam Tilt Podcast. Yes, we are. This has been episode 198. You can reach us at slamtiltpodcast at gmail.com. Mm-hmm. And just think, this is not going to be the last award show we're talking about either.
    109:48
    There's another one? There's another one. Are you degenerate enough? I don't know. Am I? Are you getting subtle clues or not so subtle clues? I know. I know I am.
    110:03
    You are very degenerate, sir. I'm the classy member of the team. Classy Freddy Blassie. Pulled that one right out of my ass. Yes, Classy Freddy Blassie. He was a good friend of Andy Kaufman. Yes. He made a movie with him. He did. Or lunch with Blassie or whatever the hell was his name. They did it with dinner with Andre, but they had lunch with whatever. Yeah.
    110:27
    Well, you know, brother, I didn't do any wrestling references. No, you did not. That's right, baby. It's about the American dream of American pinball. When's Galactic Tank Force coming out, baby? It was supposed to be out last year. That's right. We're going to be two or three games a year, baby. We didn't make any games at all. Zero new games, baby. Yikes. I saw a clip of Dusty Rhodes playing in a charity basketball game. Oh, God, that would have been hilarious. It was fucking awesome. He's doing layups. He's draining three-pointers, running up and down the court. Like, holy shit. Damn. That's right, baby. I'm the All-American athlete.
    111:05
    It was crazy. I was like, wow, when did this happen? I want to see this game. Yeah, I'll post a link to our website now because I have to see it myself. Just look up Dusty Rhodes basketball. There's only like one clip or two clips. Okay, I'll look it up right now. Yeah, it's good. and our website is www.slamtiltpodcast.com you can check us out up in the upper right hand corner all our links are right there they're great I will be streaming Surf and Safari hopefully if I can get this thing edited quickly which is probably not going to happen I might start editing as soon as we finish And we love everyone in the pinball world. We love you all. So vote for us for the trippies if you care to, because I feel like we have to say that. We would love for you to vote for us because we have fun. And vote for Silverbrook Chronicles second. Second, yeah, of course. Yeah, and if on the other podcast I'll say it the reverse. Actually, we already recorded the other one. So, yeah, I won't get to do any plug for trippies on that. Oh, well. See, he treasures us more. So we've been doing this for six years. Going on seven. Jesus Christ, seven years. Wow, so much.
    112:24
    Oh, and thanks, even though he said we couldn't post it or anything, but thanks, Ryan C., for the kind words that you sent us. Oh, yes, yes. He is our love. We love us some Ryan C. Ryan C., we love him. Right. I think that's it. You sure? Hi, friends, or everyone. Oh, hi. Yeah, everyone in the world. Everyone in our clusterfuck. Thank you. Oh, hi, Zach. Hi, Zach. Hi. Fun with bonus. Fun with bonus, of course. Oh, we got one more thing. One more thing. One more fucking thing. Oh, my God, in this three-hour podcast. Yes. We're all in states.
    113:00
    Oh, we're all in the state finals, which are at Rock Fantasy, which this puts Bruce in a real weird position. Are you playing, Bruce? I am in. Oh, my God. You're not going to create a scene, are you? Me? You're going to be behaved? Yeah, I'm going to be behaved. Yeah. Because you and Zach are there, so I'm not going to have to listen to you and Zach just complaining the entire time. Oh, yes, you will. Zach is the number one seed. Yes, he is. Ron is number six. I'm number six. I get a buy. He gets a buy. He gets $60 guaranteed. Really? I didn't even know there was a buy. And I looked that up. I couldn't find anywhere that mentioned a buy. Yes, you get a buy. The first eight are a buy. That's because New York has the top 24 instead of the top 16. And we get Steph involved. The pinball princess will be there. Yep. She unfortunately has volunteered to stream. I don't know how she's going to do that. Oh, God, I don't know how she's going to do that. Basically, there's no way to get anything around there. And, yeah, they have three separate areas. Wireless is completely out. You're literally going to have to take a laptop and go to each game as it's being streamed.
    114:04
    I do not envy that. I don't envy that at all. Well, I do. Kudos to you. You are a maniac, Steph. I would never have asked you for that. So we get to go down and play at Rock Fantasy. I'm surprised you're not going down today for the Rock Fantasy. It's Sunday. I don't go down Sundays. Bond.
    114:26
    Yes, the world-famous Rock Fantasy, Bruce. Get it right. I love Rock Fantasy. Hey, Zach, what are you doing tonight? Oh, stop. Get my stream going. I love Rock Fantasy. I know you don't, but whatever. What else?
    114:42
    Dusty Rhodes is up on our Facebook page. That's right, baby. You can watch him. Make a three-pointer. Make a layup, baby. Lex Luger and Sting. Yeah, yeah. I saw Lex Luger and Sting and Barry Windham. It was like 6-6, so he probably could have actually played in the NBA. But, yeah. Cool. There you go. I think we're done. You sure? I've got to do one more thing. Oh, you've got to do one more thing. Oh, you've got to do your gimmick. And I don't know anybody. I've been so busy. You're going to look it up while you're doing it. I was so mesmerized. Thanks, everybody. We're starting off a new year, a year of excitement, a year of positive pinball-ness. We're still here, going to stay here.
    115:19
    Are we? Yeah, we're going to be. Yeah, we are. Don't worry. Not going anywhere that I know of. I don't either. You can thank Bruce. He convinced me to come back. Yeah. I wanted to end it, but he just wouldn't let me do it. I have to make you suffer. I got one you got one? I got one say goodbye Bruce goodbye Robert Sheedy
    116:05
    Oh my, my, I need to keep you alive. Oh my, oh my, oh my, oh my. Oh my my This edit's gonna Really suck Oh my my