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The Token Roger Sharpe Episode

Silverball Chronicles·podcast_episode·1h 6m·analyzed·Feb 23, 2024
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claude-haiku-4-5-20251001 (batch) · $0.021

TL;DR

Silverball Chronicles explores Roger Sharpe multifaceted legacy beyond the famous NYC courtroom legalization case.

Summary

David Dennis and Ron host a deep-dive historical episode on Roger Sharpe, pinball's most prominent advocate and legalization figure. The discussion covers Sharpe's early life in Chicago, his journalism career at GQ, his groundbreaking 1977 book 'Pinball!', his design involvement with Stingray, his famous 1976 courtroom demonstration that helped legalize pinball in New York City, and his co-founding role in PAPA (the Professional and Amateur Pinball Association). The hosts emphasize that while Sharpe's courtroom victory is legendary, it was one of many contributions to pinball's growth and legitimacy.

Key Claims

  • Roger Sharpe graduated from University of Wisconsin in 1971 with a degree in marketing

    high confidence · David Dennis states this as biographical fact in the episode

  • Roger Sharpe book 'Pinball!' was published by a mainstream publisher but never reprinted due to financial considerations around color printing and paper stock

    high confidence · Roger Sharpe quoted directly in the episode explaining publisher reticence and his cost concerns

  • Roger Sharpe designed Stingray (1977) with Sam Stern and Mike Kubin, which sold 3,006 units

    high confidence · David Dennis cites IPDB data; clarifies Sharpe and Stern designed the game while Kubin built the whitewood

  • The Super Shooter tournament in 1978 drew over 60,000 entrants across Aladdin's Castle locations, with 20 finalists and a car as prize, and was covered by major broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, NBC)

    high confidence · David Dennis relays Roger Sharpe account from TopCast episode; notes it was on live news

  • Steve Epstein owned and operated the Broadway Bar and Arcade in New York City for 35 years and was instrumental in co-founding PAPA with Roger Sharpe

    high confidence · David Dennis provides biographical details about Epstein; quotes Roger Sharpe competitive comparison

  • Roger Sharpe demonstrated pinball as a game of skill in a New York City courtroom hearing in the mid-1970s, playing Bank Shot and hitting a specific lit lane shot to convince committee members

    high confidence · David Dennis narrates the courtroom hearing story with specific details; notes this is the widely-known narrative

  • Pinball was banned in New York City but legal in most other places, including upstate New York and many other major cities

    high confidence · David Dennis discusses the legal landscape; Ron confirms upstate NY legality

  • Roger Sharpe was also involved in legalization cases in Chicago, Ohio, Virginia, and California around 1976

    medium confidence · David Dennis states this as 'little known fact' and credits Roger's TopCast episode for the information

Notable Quotes

  • “When I moved to New York City after I left school, New York City did not have pinball machines. Being in the situation that I was at with Gentleman's Quarterly, I thought this would be a nice way to try to meet people in the industry and maybe I could buy a machine.”

    Roger Sharpe @ ~20:00 — Reveals Sharpe's initial motivation for writing about pinball was transactional—he wanted to network and acquire a personal machine, not to save the industry

  • “It's something where pinball was going to either live or die. The business back in the mid-70s was going along nicely and didn't really need New York City. But I think that effectively they were on this quest to try to open it up for local operators, local distribution, and it would obviously benefit everybody.”

    Roger Sharpe @ ~45:00 — Sharpe himself downplays the narrative that he single-handedly saved pinball; he emphasizes the industry was already thriving and his courtroom role was one contribution among many

  • “Steve Epstein or myself, I used to say that Steve gets more of the highs, but not on a more consistent basis. I'm the better, more consistent player.”

    Roger Sharpe @ ~55:00 — Lighthearted competitive assessment of his peer Steve Epstein; reveals the interpersonal dynamics and casual culture of early tournament pinball

  • “Roger, why? [laughs] Roger says, I think that's the publisher. They had a nice run with it. They enjoyed it. But they never felt the need to go back and reprint.”

    [name withheld pending review] @ ~25:00 — Explains why 'Pinball!' remains out of print and expensive despite high collector demand—economics and publisher disinterest, not rights issues

  • “See this lane up here? This lane is lit. I'm going to plunge this lane.”

    [name withheld pending review] @ ~50:00 — Key moment in the courtroom hearing where Sharpe demonstrated skill-based play, leading the committee to immediately accept pinball as a game of skill

  • “Roger and Ellen had their wedding reception at the Broadway Bar and Arcade in 1978. Also, Lou Reed from the Velvet Underground had his wedding reception there. He played his custom game, Walk on the Wild Side. Isn't that cool? Okay, I made that last part up, but yes.”

Entities

Roger SharpepersonDavid DennispersonRonpersonSteve EpsteinpersonSam SternpersonMike KubinpersonIrving Holtzmanperson

Signals

  • ?

    historical_signal: Pinball legalization campaign in New York City mid-1970s, initiated by Bess Meyerson (NYC Consumer Affairs Commissioner) and coin-op lobbying association, with Roger Sharpe's courtroom demonstration helping establish pinball as skill-based game rather than gambling device

    high · Detailed narrative of courtroom hearing where Sharpe played Bank Shot and hit lit lane shot, convincing committee members; also involved legalization efforts in Chicago, Ohio, Virginia, and California around 1976

  • ?

    historical_signal: Super Shooter tournament (1978) was major mainstream media event with 60,000+ entrants across Aladdin's Castle locations, major networks (ABC, CBS, NBC) covering finals, and car as grand prize; represents early peak of pinball's mainstream cultural visibility

    high · Roger Sharpe account per TopCast episode; David Dennis notes major broadcast network coverage and scale of competition

  • ?

    personnel_signal: Roger Sharpe's design involvement on Stingray (1977) represents early crossover of journalist/historian into game design role at major manufacturer Stern

    high · IPDB credit for Stingray design; anecdote about Sharpe being at Stern factory and being asked by Sam Stern for advice on right-side playfield redesign

  • ?

    content_signal: Pinball! book by Roger Sharpe (1970s) became rare collectible commanding high secondary market prices despite original modest sales, indicating retroactive cultural valuation of early pinball literature

    high · David Dennis states book 'did not sell gangbusters' but now 'sells for a fortune on eBay'; Roger confirms publisher never reprinted due to financial considerations

  • ?

Transcript

groq_whisper · $0.046

0:00
High interest debt is one of the toughest opponents you'll face. Unless you power up with a SoFi personal loan. A SoFi personal loan could repackage your bad debt into one low fixed rate monthly payment. It's even got super speed since you can get the funds as soon as the same day you sign. Visit SoFi.com slash power to learn more. That's SoFi.com slash P-O-W-E-R. Loans originated by SoFi Bank N.A. Member FDIC. Terms and conditions apply. NMLS 696891. The Pinball Network is online. Launching Silverball Chronicles.
0:45
My tea is almost ready. Oh, your tea is almost ready. Almost. Testing my compressor here. Mmm. Ah! Yeah, it works. Thank you. That felt really great in my ear. I need like a limiter or something for the first part. I'm still getting a spike, but whatever.
1:23
Hello everyone, I'm David Dennis and this is Silver Ball Chronicles. With me this month is Ron, not going on a cruise, Hallett. How you doing, fella? I'm doing great. No, I've never been on a cruise. Did you know that Bruce Nightingale, who is the co-host of the Slam Tilt podcast? My other podcast, yes. Your other podcast. Did you know that he is now a consultant for Cruise Ship Vacations?
2:02
He is? Cool. I just thought I would plug that at the beginning there because people are very tired of me just plugging my financial services business. And Bruce beats me severely when we don't plug the other podcast. Yeah, it's all about making sure that you are kept in a safe and stimulating environment. Just safe. It's fine. This is a safe zone. This is a Ron safe zone on this podcast. So what's up, fella? What have you been doing? We're in like the end of January now. Are you sure you want to say where we are? You might have to cut it out later. Wow, we're somewhere at the beginning of 2024. Yes, we are. As you can see, last month, everybody, I totally blew the introduction to our part two of the Capcom debacle, Illinois Pinspace Ball Inc. I try to warn them, folks. I try to tell them to not mention current events because it just makes it really hard. There you go. What have you been doing? You been busy?

David Dennis @ ~52:00 — Host humorously admits fabricating the Lou Reed anecdote while confirming the Broadway Arcade was a celebrity venue; reveals the cultural cachet of pinball arcades in 1970s NYC

Ben Swikowski
person
Bess Meyersonperson
Ken Ludsfordperson
Joe Burleyperson
Bruce Nightingaleperson
Alvin Gottliebperson
Harry Williamsperson
Bill Gershperson
Sam Ginsbergperson
Gary Sternperson
Ellen Sharpeperson
Silverball Chroniclesorganization
PAPAorganization
Gentleman's Quarterly (GQ)organization
Broadway Bar and Arcadevenue
Stingraygame
Pinball!product

historical_signal: PAPA (Professional and Amateur Pinball Association) co-founded by Roger Sharpe and Steve Epstein in late 1970s, modeled on bowling league structure to drive repeat venue business and grow competitive pinball community

high · David Dennis narrative about Sharpe and Epstein conceiving PAPA as response to successful bowling leagues; positioned as distributor-level growth strategy

  • ?

    design_philosophy: Roger Sharpe's early game design philosophy for Stingray emphasized playfield skill mechanics; evidence suggests he provided consulting input on right-side redesign based on gameplay principles

    medium · Anecdote about Sharpe being asked for advice at Stern factory; redesign based on his input suggests consultative design approach

  • $

    market_signal: Early solid-state pinball game sales (Stingray sold 3,006 units in 1977) represent strong market performance that pinball manufacturers of today would consider aspirational

    high · David Dennis explicitly states '3,006 units, the amount of units that pinball manufacturers would kill to have today'

  • ?

    industry_signal: Pinball industry in 1970s was characterized by tight information control and insider gatekeeping, with manufacturers hesitant to cooperate with outsiders; Roger Sharpe's journalism credentials and publishing contacts gave him unusual access to Mount Rushmore figures (Harry Williams, Sam Stern, etc.)

    high · David Dennis notes 'pinball was still a very tight community' with 'doubts and apprehensions' from figures like Alvin Gottlieb; Sharpe's GQ credentials provided credibility that hobby researchers lacked

  • ?

    community_signal: Pinball community accessibility to legendary figures remains surprisingly high; Roger Sharpe is accessible at tournaments (Pintastic, Pinball Expo) for casual conversation despite his historical significance and autobiographical film

    high · Ron anecdote about people hanging out with Roger Sharpe at Pintastic on the floor; David Dennis emphasizes this is unusual for figures of his stature in other industries

  • ?

    historical_signal: Broadway Arcade (NYC, 1978) represents high-status pinball venue where celebrities and industry figures gathered; cultural prestige associated with early tournament pinball and arcade culture

    high · Sharpe's wedding reception held at Broadway Arcade; Roger and Ellen's association with venue; David Dennis mentions celebrity association (Gene Simmons reference)

  • ?

    business_signal: Publishing economics for specialty pinball history book (color printing, paper stock, etc.) create barriers to reprinting, keeping original 'Pinball!' book scarce and valuable; author retains rights but cost-prohibitive to reprint

    high · Roger Sharpe direct quote about publisher disinterest and his own cost concerns; David Dennis notes book was cut down from original conception

  • ?

    historical_signal: Pinball bans concentrated in major cities (NYC, Chicago) while legal in most other jurisdictions, including upstate New York; ban enforcement represented regulatory overreach and pushed business to black market

    high · David Dennis and Ron discuss ban geography; Bess Meyerson's legalization argument focused on black market elimination through regulation

    • 3:06
    Just working. You were out to California, eh? Oh yeah, was that since the last episode? Wow, that was a long time ago. That's what I mean, right? It's been a while. Yeah, I was in California. Very cool. Did you go to, what's the one that's out there, In-N-Out?
    3:21
    Oh, I thought you meant the tournament, In-Disc. No, no, no, no. I gotta find out about your burger habits. No, I didn't. I don't. Remember, I have reflux. I can't eat any of that crap. Oh, terrible. I was eating delicious and nutritious sandwiches and such and fruits and water and stuff like that. Speaking of eating, Jaws has been released. Yes, it has. And it doesn't eat the ball. Are you very, very sad about Shark No Eat Ball? I don't care. Look at you. Look at you. Obviously the minority. I haven't seen that many pitchforks outside of the factory at Stern since they released Ghostbusters.
    3:59
    Well, when it's their top seller for the whole year, it really won't matter. I'm sure Stern doesn't care either. I've added the show notes to SilverBallChronicles.com, so if you're looking for the show notes and they're not on the Facebook post or the Podbean post or however you found us, you can swing over to SilverBallChronicles.com to check it out there. And, of course, we always let everybody know that we have sold out over on Patreon at Patreon.com slash SilverBallChronicles. You know when you say that, we've sold out, I keep thinking, like, we've sold out. But no one can get any more Patreon for us. We've sold it all out. The marquee says sold out. Yeah, like you couldn't join if you wanted to. It would say sold out. You can get early ad-free access. You don't have to listen to my Patreon commercial. You don't have to listen to my financial commercial. You don't have to listen to Bruce Nightingale's cruise ship consultant firm stuff anymore. None of that. All you have to do is jump onto the $6 a month tier. That is our middle Patreon tier. You also get a sticker after three months sent out. But, like, the one you want to jump on is the elitist cronies. Those are the top tier perk individuals. We've got a few of them. And after three months, they get a Silver Ball Chronicles t-shirt. As well, if you are an elitist crony and I see you at Pintastic, I will bring you a bag of Canadian potato chips. You're going to Pintastic this year.
    5:36
    Yeah, I kind of have to. I mean, it's the biggest show that's drivable. Are you excited to see me again? Sure. You were there last year? Yeah. If you just want to say thanks to the show with no big commitment, you can go over to SilverBallSwag.com, pick up a t-shirt. We've got some great designs on our hoodies, mugs, and you can just buy a sticker there if you just want a sticker that way. But hey, you know what, Ron? What, David? We sold a t-shirt to Tasmania, Australia. Wow.
    6:14
    Maybe the Tasmanian devil himself bought one. That is, I bet you they are not tired of that joke. But I do know that it was sent to literally the other side of the world. How cool is that? And the only reason, besides of course the stereotypical reason of knowing where Tasmania is, is that my boots, my Blundstone winter boots are from Tasmania, Australia. Shout out to Blundstones, not a sponsor of the show. Any corrections comments from the previous episode?
    6:48
    I don't know. Did we? So I just want to say thanks so much for Dan Yu for sending us an email over at silverballchronicles at gmail.com. And he just dropped us a line, let us know that he really enjoyed the latest Capcom episode. But how about this from Glenn? Glenn let us know that he started his own YouTube channel called Tiltrek in which he does deep dives into specific games and he has won on Big Bang Bar. So go ahead and check that out. Swing on over to Glenn's Tiltrek. And that's it. We had no actual corrections. Just that good or no one's listening. One or the other. Oh.
    7:33
    Today's topic. Yeah, I saw this. Like, oh, we're going to do one on this one, too. It is pinball history, but I mean, everyone and their mother's done this one. Roger Sharp is hailed as the man who saved the game and is always a guest and topic for podcasters. We've fought long and hard to avoid giving Roger Sharp yet another ego-building podcast to spin his narrative propaganda. But here we are. Wow, poor Roger. Roger is one of the most important figures in pinball. One who rivals the industry giants and no, it's not just because he did something in a courtroom once. Yes, Roger did that thing in the mid-1970s where he helped legalize pinball in New York City. But that's only a tiny part of Roger's stunning contribution to the hobby we all love and enjoy. Hey Ron, did you know that Roger saved pinball in a courtroom in the 1970s? Well, we're going to talk about that because that's a very important historical thing.
    8:44
    Roger wrote about pinball. Roger played pinball. Roger promoted and evangelized pinball for many years before and after that thing that once happened that everybody talks about. Roger has been involved in the birth of tournament pinball, the second rise of licensing in the 1990s, and mainstream journalism outside of pinball. He also had a great film based on him and his relationship with his wife, Ellen, which also talked about a thing that happened in the 70s in a courtroom. Which we are going to talk about, right? For the people who have never heard about that thing that happened in the 70s in a courtroom. This is episode 36, the token Roger Sharp episode. What do you know about Roger Sharp? Seemingly everything at this point because I heard every story. So the funny thing about Roger is his accessibility. Roger is like legitimately just a guy that hangs out at tournaments and plays in tournaments and you can just have conversations with him. Most people who have had an autobiographical movie about them, who have been the subject of all of these podcasts and the like, it's funny that you can just hang out with Roger Sharp at Pintastic or Pinball Expo and talk about coffee and things like that. It's very weird, is it not? I've never really talked to him. What? Not about coffee and stuff, no. Yeah. You've never, like, talked to him? There was one time I've heard this story, that one time at Pintastic, a bunch of people just hung out sitting on the floor and he sat in a chair and told stories. Yeah, that sounds right. Like, that is pretty, pretty funny. Pinball's weird because it's small enough that you still have this accessibility, but it's large enough to still have its stars. I really enjoy that about pinball. Should we talk about Roger's early life? Sure, let's. Did you know that Roger grew up in Chicago, went to the University of Wisconsin in 1971? He graduated with a degree in marketing, where he ended up in New York City pursuing a career as a journalist. University of Wisconsin. Everybody knows the University of Wisconsin because it's, I don't know. It's in Wisconsin. And he graduated with a marketing degree, which is pretty cool. You know, marketing is a pretty flexible thing. You can fall into sales, you can fall into writing, you can fall into journalism as it would see with Roger. It's a very versatile sort of arts degree as opposed to like engineering where you're like right into one space and that's kind of it. Now Roger would often play pinball in university at one of the local pubs. Because journalism was really where Roger wanted to go after university. Roger was able to find a job at Gentleman's Quarterly, now known as GQ. GQ is an American international monthly magazine based in New York City and was founded in 1931 as Apparel Arts. It became Gentleman's Quarterly in 57 and GQ in the late 60s. Are you a subscriber to GQ, Ron? Ah, it's not really my thing. You know, it focuses on fashion, style, and culture for men. Through articles on food, movies, fitness, sex, music, travel, celebrities, sports, technology, and books are also featured. Yeah, it's like one of these ones where it's like, what books is George Clooney reading? And there's like on the front covers George Clooney with like his Omega watch and he's like reading a book. They had me until the fashion and fitness part. Yeah, you were all happy. Yeah, I was all in, and then, yeah, no, I'm not very. They're like, which cargo shorts are in this season? What graphic tees should you wear to a wedding? Actually, no, it's mostly like Hugo Boss stuff. So Roger, searching for an article on, you know, to get him published in GQ, wrote an article on pinball, which was his passion from university. Roger says, when I moved to New York City after I left school, New York City did not have pinball machines. Being in the situation that I was at with Gentleman's Quarterly, I thought this would be a nice way to try to meet people in the industry and maybe I could buy a machine. That was really the sole motivation. He needed an article. He likes pinball. And he was like, man, there's no pinball in New York. Maybe if I write an article, I can have a machine in my house. I can find out who actually makes these machines. That's actually pretty, pretty funny. It's pretty transactional. Also, you have to call it New York City. Isn't that right, Ron? Yep. Because if you call it New York, as most people do. As basically everyone that is not in upstate New York will just call it New York.
    13:38
    Exactly. And that's a thing for you people in upstate New York. Yep. Is that right? Yep. We all hate New York City, too. Why? It's like the greatest city on Earth. Yeah, okay.
    13:49
    So this spun off into pinball. As in a book title. Yeah, that's right. It's all capitals with an exclamation point. So you have to say it like that.
    14:00
    So Roger would go to libraries to do research for this article, but there was no information on pinball. There was no Internet back then. You'd have to go to the library. You'd have to look through those index cards. You'd have to use the Dewey Decimal System. Do you remember that, Ron? They still use it, so yes. But now you just can't look it up on a computer. You got to like look through the cards. So pinball was still a very tight community. The information did not flow out of pinball easily because it was still a rather new industry back in the 1960s. Roger says, Alvin Gottlieb being one and others had some doubts and apprehensions as to whether or not I could really do a book or get a book off the ground. Yeah, because, you know, there have been a number of people that have been talking about it and it was politically charged. Roger had credibility. OK, he had been printed before in legitimate publications. He wasn't just like you and I who were like hobbyists talking into microphones and throwing it up on the Internet. He was like legitimately published. So he had an in with publishing companies, book companies. He had contacts. So getting a book off the ground was probably something a lot easier for him than it would be for you and I just to try to make a book. And politically charged means it's illegal in a lot of spots. And it seems as it's contributing to the poor youth of the America and all that stuff. So if you're in the pinball industry, you're probably thinking, OK, what does this guy want to talk to us about? I mean, is this going to be like a hit piece? He set us up and how it's ruining the youth of America and stuff. Yeah. You know, here's somebody who wanted to learn about the pinball business and he eventually went to go meet people like the Harry Williams of Williams Pinball, Bill Gersh, Alvin Gottlieb, Sam Ginsberg, and Sam Stern, the father of Gary Stern. He met the legends, you know what I mean? These are the people that started pinball as it is today. Hey, we're not talking about Jersey Jack, who is a big contributor to pinball today, but he's not the ultimate beginner of that. Maybe he will be in 30 or 40 years when we look back at Jersey Jack, but these are like Mount Rushmore style kind of people. That's right. Pinball, the book, did not sell gangbusters. It did not light the publisher on fire, and Roger did not become a New York Times bestseller. But try to buy it now. But today, it sells for a fortune on eBay.
    16:46
    I would love a copy of Pinball. I think it would be a good read, and it's also just really cool to have, which I think is the reason why. I've also heard that there are not just a lot of copies floating around. If you got one congratulations And if you have one I would love to hear from you Silverball Chronicles at gmail Well if it so popular now why hasn it been reprinted Ah okay So this is the question right is why can they just reprint it
    17:19
    Well, let's ask Roger. Roger, why? Roger says, I think that's the publisher. They had a nice run with it. They enjoyed it. But they never felt the need to go back and reprint. I have all the rights to everything, and I've kind of toyed around with it, but it was never the right opportunity to do it. There was a financial consideration just because of the nature of the book, the amount of color, the kind of paper stock, and so on.
    17:42
    Yeah, it's not cheap to make a book, let alone like a legitimate actual. And that book was actually cut down. He had way more pictures and stuff that were going to go in there that ended up getting cut.
    17:53
    A lot of it comes down to finances, right? If it's going to cost him $300,000 to print a book, he better make sure that he makes $300,000 off of this book.
    18:06
    I'm just throwing that number out. I have no idea what it costs to make a book. I have a few clients that publish books. In fact, I'm writing a book at the moment. Whatever it is, I'm sure it costs less in Canada. Yeah, well done. But Roger, while he was doing a lot of this research and after the book, he kept up the contacts with individuals like Sam Stern. And he would, from time to time, travel to Chicago and hang out with the buds. So, one day while he was at Stern, he bumped into Sam Stern while he was working on a game called Stingray. Stingray is the water sports, no, not that kind of water sports. Oh, you're actually going to say that. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. It's from December of 1977. It sells 3,006 units, the amount of units that pinball manufacturers would kill to have today. Yeah, that would be good. This is designed by Roger Sharp, Sam Stern, and Mike Kubin. Mike Kubin. You don't remember Mike Kubin? The great Stern designer who made great games like Sea Witch? Later became Beatles? Oh, good stuff. Good stuff. But Roger designed this game. Stingray. Well, not really. But IPDB, which is the source that we use for a lot of our images, a lot of our statistical information, comes from IPDB.org. So please check them out. The Internet Pinball Database.
    19:40
    Yes, thank you. Thank you. They report that Roger Sharp and Sam Stern designed the game and Mike Kubin designed the Whitewood. Well, he built up the Whitewood. Right, so it kind of like you put, you screw the things literally into the wood and he's the one that kind of tweaks the shot. So what I've also heard is that Roger happened to be in the factory that day and Sam Stern asked him for some advice.
    20:09
    They would eventually redesign the right side of the game based on Roger's input. And I seem to recall the right side of the game is the weaker side of Sea Witch, isn't that right? It's not Sea Witch. Stingray? I'm pretty sure it is. Let me take a picture. Let's look at some pictures here. We love looking at some pictures. It's got that kind of weird spot that kind of goes up to the... It's fine. The software is the issue of Stingray more than the play field. Trust me on that. What's wrong with the software on Stingray? It's not good. It's another one of those... It's got like 55,000 scoops. It's got random crap that happens and you just end up winning when you shouldn't win. But you know what people love when we go into the Flyers? Yes, and this is an early Stern game, right? This is just after they had purchased Chicago Coin, probably a couple years. This is like one of their, not first, but one of their first solid state games. So you'll see things like digital display for scoring. This is a big deal now. Spinning target, drop target bank, dive into action, Stingray by Stern. Built-in test program, complete accounting program, improve ball action with an innovative playfield. Proven solid state microprocessor system, high score to date display and new sound. By proven solid state microprocessor system, we mean the one we stole from Bally.
    21:41
    And it's proven, it's proven to work. And they did have a slightly different soundboard, so I guess that's the new sound. It's kind of cool. It's like a neat little game. It's like you're underwater scuba diving. It's got a spinner on the left side. It doesn't have sound. It's got chimes. Oh, yeah, that's right. I don't know why it says new sound. Maybe it's our new chime box unit. That doesn't make sense. I think it's got the five, is it five chimes? It's got four bar chime units, Stern uses. And it's the same one that Kenball uses that was before it. So I have no idea what made him put that on the flyer. Maybe it was supposed to have electronic sound originally, and then it went back to it. That's interesting, actually. Well, I mean, when it comes down to it, this is the game that followed S.T.A.R.S., which was the other two-player game. And I mean, man, oh man, S.T.A.R.S., the official game of Slam Tilt Podcast. Well, actually, I think S.T.A.R.S. followed Stingray, but yeah. Oh, yeah, okay. But they're right. They're right. Yeah, and they have the bizarre, like, player one is the lowest score.
    22:50
    But, like, it goes up. It's very confusing. I'd love to ask someone at Stern why they did that. No one else did that.
    22:57
    Wow, okay. Well, could you read this line, Ron? Irving Holtzman and Ben... Oh, you're giving me this name.
    23:05
    Swakowski, okay. Okay. Irving Holtzman and Ben Swikowski were two principals of the New York State Association representing the coin-op industry. They did government lobbying for tax situation, court cases about people upset over a coin-op in their neighborhood. Ah, so this is where this thing in the 1970s that happened with Roger Sharp in a courtroom starts to kind of bubble up. There's a lobbying association, right, like the Chamber of Commerce for the coin-op industry, basically, in New York State. Well, interesting, Irving and Ben did not work for pinball companies. They weren't employees of pinball companies. They were working for this association, and they represented all kinds of coin-op. This would be jukeboxes, gambling machines, pinball machines, video, all of it, not just pinball. So in 1972, they mounted a campaign with Bess Meyerson, who is the Commissioner of Consumer Affairs in New York City. She was a proponent of ending the restrictions and getting pinball off the black market, legalizing the operation of pinball machines in New York City. Now that's the thing, right, when it comes to flat bans on things, is that it doesn't get rid of the problem, right? Look at prohibition. Alcohol did not disappear. Making marijuana illegal, it doesn't make it disappear. It just pushes it to the black market. And she wanted to get it off that black market in New York City. And the way to do that is to legalize it and regulate it. We can also mention that pinball was legal in most places. It was even legal in upstate New York. But it was not legal in New York City. I don't think it was what, Chicago wasn't legal. Basically, a lot of big cities, it was not legal. Yeah, because it was part of the seedy underbelly. Degenerates. Only degenerates do that. Yeah, well, we talked about how, for some reason, in all the biographies of our pinball designing episodes of pinball designers, their experience with pinball was when they were on vacation at some random out-of-state or out-of-city vacation location. They didn't, you know, stumble upon it at the local strip mall. Or in Roger's case, Wisconsin. In the hearing room. There's this whole thing. Everybody knows the story in the hearing room. Wait a minute. How about in case they don't know the story? All right. Give me the Coles notes here, my friend. The Coles notes? You don't have the Coles notes in the States? Basically, Roger came in as a consultant to demonstrate that pinball is indeed a skill-based game and not a gambling device. What's the difference between skill-based and chance-based? Just what it says. You need skill to actually do well at it. It's not just completely random. Yeah, you have to look at things and aim things and make a decision. You can control the situation. Where in a random, or a chance, is it sort of like every one in X amount of time something will happen. Now in the so he's been asked to come into a hearing room in New York City to display that you can actually play pinball as a game of skill because Roger's a pretty good player. He's been playing for quite a few years and he has his own machine at home. Now, this was not him coming in to, you know, argue with the team or he literally just came in with his satchel and his mustache to play a game of El Dorado. Roger says, It's something where pinball was going to either live or die. The business back in the mid-70s was going along nicely and didn't really need New York City. But I think that effectively they were on this quest to try to open it up for local operators, local distribution, and it would obviously benefit everybody. And I just want to say in that quote, he didn't say New York City, he said New York. So even Roger, as far as he's concerned, that's the only New York. So like here's the thing, okay, the narrative, and it's not a narrative that Roger Sharp has promoted, even though I joked in my intro about his propaganda.
    27:44
    The little known fact was that Roger was involved in Chicago, Ohio, Virginia, and California cases as well after this to also legalize pinball. And that was in about 1976, so slightly after this. Now, pinball was already in a boom in the 1970s. Roger talks about that. So he's not like, it's not like without Roger in a courtroom in the 1970s doing a thing that pinball would not exist today, even though that that is sort of the narrative in which pinball has promoted. Not Roger. Roger's very clear about that in his TopCast episode. The pinball was going along pretty good without him. He just happened to be there, and he just happened to do this thing with his mustache and his satchel.
    28:33
    But after this, did pinball boom again? Did the legalization and opening up of a massive market benefit sales? Well, you didn't give the story.
    28:42
    Everyone wants the story. The story is you're supposed to play El Dorado, Wow. And one of the people on the committee was kind of a hard ass and was like, no, no, no, no. This one's probably, this is rigged. Play the other one. The bank shot, which was the backup game. It's like, okay. So they brought that over and he just played it for a while. Like, I'm going to shoot this. I'm going to hit this. I'm going to hit this. And at some point in the demonstration, he just did the, like, see this lane up here? This lane is lit. I'm going to plunge this lane. So he plunged the lane At which point one of the committee members like, okay, that's it. Stop. Don't need to see anymore. And that was it. That was it. They were like, okay, yeah, it is a game of skill. And then they just get their big rubber stamp out. I don't know. It's a big stamp. They go clink. And they're like, there you go. So, I mean, like, yes, he did help in the legalization of pinball, but it's not the only reason for it. It wasn't the, you know, he's not like without him. It's not like their industry does not exist. But, I mean, credit where credit's due, Roger is a huge, huge legend in the industry. And without him and this story, there would be a different pinball industry. But, I mean, come on. He did a thing in a courtroom in the 1970s. And it was great.
    29:59
    It was pretty awesome. We'll get into the other stuff later about that. This also brings us into the next boom period. So as it became legalized in places like New York City and Chicago and those big, big, big cities in the United States, pinball goes through a massive expansion with solid state pinball. Right? This is when we're getting into games like 8-Ball. We're getting into games like Bally's Playboy. Things are going to take off on a rocket ship. Around this time, Roger would meet a person who would become a lifelong friend, Steve Epstein. Who is Steve Epstein, Ron? He was the owner-operator of the famous Broadway Arcade in New York City for 35 years. Broadway Arcade had a reputation for getting all or most of the new pinball games, and as soon as they were released, they would show up at the Broadway Arcade driving a lot of individuals to come and play. He also had really hard to find games later on in that 35 year tenure, such as Big Bang Bar. In fact, Roger and Ellen had their wedding reception at the Broadway Arcade in 1978.
    31:15
    Also, Lou Reed from the Velvet Underground had his wedding reception there. He played his custom game, Walk on the Wild Side. Isn't that cool? Okay, I made that last part up, but yes. Oh, you had me. I wonder if he would ask, like, can I have my own? Could there be a Lou Reed pinball machine? He would have been better off, like, can we have a Velvet Underground pinball machine? I think it would be nice if we had a kiss. A kiss? Why? He's not a kiss. I think Gene Simmons did hang out at the Broadway Arcade at least once. Yep, celebrities went there and stuff, yep. It was a big deal. Now, Steve Epstein was more than just the Broadway Arcade. Both him and Roger would come together and really toy with the idea of competitive pinball play. Roger and Steve thought about bowling leagues, which were really big in the 1970s, and that would be a good thing to replicate for pinball. They needed to come up with a scoring mechanism, competition, withdraws, to bring in that interest of pinball and create a sense of community. But most importantly, it would build repeat business at the Broadway Arcade and arcades across the country. The idea is, if you can get more people involved in leagues, you can get more people playing in competition, the more they will come back and grow pinball. It's sort of like a distributor promoting pinball, not necessarily to sell pinball, but to grow it and thus sell more pinball. I mean, as you mentioned, Steve owned the Broadway Arcade and more repeat business is a good thing. So what was this the beginning of? It was the beginning of the Professional and Amateur Pinball Association, better known as Papa. I mean, it took plenty of time to work on the scoring, the ranking system, but this was kind of a fun thing for Steve and Roger. They really legitimately enjoyed this. Now we come down to the real question. Who's the better player? Steve or Roger? Well, Roger says, Steve Epstein or myself, I used to say that Steve gets more of the highs, but not on a more consistent basis. I'm the better, more consistent player. Late in the 1970s, 1978 in fact, Super Shooter. The Super Shooter. We need something like this. Yeah, Roger, he helped oversee the Super Shooter and its final tournament in Chicago. Over 60,000 people entered the Aladdin's Castle tournament series all over the U.S. with 20 people reaching the finals. I think the prize was a car. So this was in the TopCast episode where Roger spoke about this He didn talk too many specifics Like a car in the 1970s was a big deal right Like what a car Four grand back That a big deal You know the major networks Not like you know ESPN Ocho or whatever Yeah, like it was legitimately a big deal. It was on live news. Roger says it was on live news. I mean, ABC, CBS, NBC had all the major networks were covering the pinball spectacle. It was astounding. Ken Ludsford won beating out Joe Burley in a decision that Roger didn't quite agree with. Well, he didn't like the scoring. Right. Yeah, I guess it's not that he didn't like the decision, but it's just the scoring structure of the event he didn't really like. And this issue was something that influenced Papa and the International Flipper Pinball Association, which we'll speak about later, rankings in the future. Yeah, basically Ken won. He got 5x on 8 ball. And there were other players that were far more consistent throughout the tournament, but he had like the one big game at the right time and won. And Roger didn't think that was... The format didn't really incentivize consistent play. Which is a big thing in current PAPA rankings and tournaments, right? Well, it's PAPA scoring. It's three-game series with a certain scoring system.
    35:36
    And it's looking for consistency over different areas. So, yeah, you can't just blow up one game, slaughter everyone, and you win. No. You have to be more consistent. What we're dealing with today when it comes to the IFPA, the International Flipper Pinball Association, and Papa Style Scoring can draw a direct link back to this one huge tournament run by Roger and Steve back in 1978. How cool is that? And one big ball of eight ball, which is a great game, by the way. I love eight ball. So Roger, of course, being very well respected in the pinball industry from the manufacturers and those he's built relationships with and the thing that he did in the courtroom one time, you know, he didn't he didn't look like everybody else in pinball. So his opinions were usually highly regarded amongst those in the industry. People like Kenny Anderson. Who's Kenny Anderson? Well, Roger, who's Kenny Anderson? Roger says, I was at a New York State trade show. Well, he said New York State. So that means it's not New York City this time. He put the state at the end to make you know that it's not New York City. Otherwise, he would have just said New York. Maybe it was in New York City, but it was New York State. No, New York State. But Roger says, I was at a New York State trade show and encountered Kenny Anderson with Game Plan. I'd known Ken from his days at Chicago Coin. He took me over to look at a cocktail table pinball machine that this company I'd never heard of was doing. Real Cigarettes was the brand on it. And he asked me what I thought. And I was like, oh, my God, you can't do cigarettes. And there's a lot of stigma attached to it. And the next one that they're doing was going to be Black Velvet based on alcohol. Then I said, those are like two things you can't do. Cigarettes and alcohol. So it's like, you know, pinball in the late 70s is having this coming out party. Party, right? Yeah, it's legalized. It's like mainstream and you want to make a cigarette in a booze game. Like, no. It's like American pinball coming out and doing hookers and blow. Not really the greatest of themes. So Roger and Lee Galbass, who was the president of Gameplan, along with Ken, went to dinner. AES Technology was a government tech contractor and Lee with his partner Mike Abrams saw a new market to enter and they spoke about the rise of video games like Pac-Man and manufacturing pinball and arcades. Roger says, My travels and having been around all of the secret backrooms of design and development and having had the opportunity to play every game up to that point from the previous 20 years meant I had a pretty good sense of the types of games that I enjoyed personally. So even then, Roger's getting to play all these games before they even come out. That's so cool. That's got to be like the ultimate sharp perk, I guess you could say. Which is passed down generations. We get to play this up before you do. Yeah, that's right. Now Gameplan approached Roger because they needed designers.
    38:49
    Just like today, they're looking to tournament pinball because they needed designers. Roger says, Wendell McAdams is there. He came over from Chicago Coin, but they did not have any hardcore designers. I took out a little piece of paper and I did some circles and squares and I held it up to Lee and explained what my drawing was. I said that it would be too expensive. He called Wendell and he comes in and I gave it to him and I gave it to him. They asked me dead looking straight in the face and said, would it be successful? I said, if I knew anything about pinball, yes.
    39:22
    Wow. Confident. Wow. Confident in his game. Just a pen and a piece of paper or a napkin. And what game would that be? That was Sharpshooter. The Cowboy and Mustaches theme from 1979 sells 4,200 units. So actually it was a pretty decent seller. For a newer company. Yeah. And anything that's sold that much today would be a hit. Yeah. Roger Sharp on design with Joe Juice Jr. and Ed Sabula.
    39:56
    Mechanics by Joe Juice Jr. Or Joe Joes. I never know how to say his name. Can someone please write us at, what's our email address? Silverball Chronicles at gmail.com. And tell us if it's JoJoce or JoJuice or another pronunciation. I've heard it multiple ways. And art by George Mullington. Roger was flying back and forth from New York City to Chicago while working on this project. Do you remember back in the day, Ron, when you could just commute between two major cities to design a pinball machine? And it was probably way cheaper. My goodness, it must have been really cheap to fly in the pre-9-11 era and not inconvenient. We've spoke about Joe before, right, Joe Joes? I'll say Joe Joes, you can say Joe Joes, one of us will be right. But Roger says, Joe Joes was very instrumental in making everything happen. My top right portion of the play field didn't fit. Now the spinner is overlapping with the kick-out hole in the lane and so on. Joe excuses himself, comes back, and altered where I'd had the spinner originally. And I said, well, that's great. I love it. Joe and I became very, very close. He was an incredibly talented and gifted person. Very hardworking. He's also no longer with us. He did some marvelous games. Joe did do some marvelous games.
    41:15
    He was big with Stern, right? Stern Electronics, Quicksilver, Dragon Fist. Then he went to Williams and did mostly engineering stuff. He's the one that made the upper playfield of Black Mac 2000 serviceable. That's the thing that people don't get, right? There's the designer, but then if they have a really good relationship with their mechanical engineer, that's what takes the game to the next level. Right. Is that it's it's it's easy. It's serviceable. It works. It's fun. Say what you want about Black Knight 2000. But that is the easily serviceable upper play field I have ever worked on. But this game also has a really cool art package by by George Moulton. Moulinton. And he had been doing coin op art really since the 1930s. And his first machine was a game called Gold Rush by Rockola, which was a flipperless payout game. That's how long he had been around. And we're talking like late 1970s now. One of those old timey pinball games. Could you imagine? He primarily drew for Williams after World War II from 1947 to 1967.
    42:27
    He also did a couple of Bally and United art packages too. So he was roped in to do in Sharpshooter, the cowboy and mustache theme. And he also did another space themed game from Gameplan called Supernova. So when we look at this pin over on IPDB, it's kind of got a unique flavor to it. They're trying to do this very world under glass thing.
    42:58
    It's a Western. Yeah, and it's like in a desert, like that Texas kind of theme, those old Western movies from the 70s. So if you made your own game, would you put yourself on the back glass? And would it be like in a hockey outfit?
    43:15
    It would. I'd be missing a tooth for no apparent reason. But George, he thought it would be great to put Roger in the back glass. So in the middle, Roger is the sharpshooter. And he's the sheriff. He's got the star right on there. He's got to be the sheriff. You could tell it's Roger because of the mustache. Yep, which really does fit with the Western. And remember, it takes aim with a winner. It's great. Okay, here we go. Game plan. We got to see. I just love the flyers. Let's take a look at this flyer. People love when we say the flyer stuff. Game plan. Shoots you into profits with a Wild West winner.
    43:56
    I like that. A Wild West winner. Look at the W's. Sharpshooter. Sharpshooter's unique full action memory holds over. Sharp Lanes, they're called Sharp. Kick-out hole, multiple value, rollover, specials, extra balls, lit spinner, and owl hole bonus multiplier. It also has an improved integrated accounting system. Sharpshooter brings an industry first. For the first time in the electronic age comes a pinball machine with million light for high score to date. It was what players want and the operators need to get more punch for their profit picture. It's like high score, right? It's like this is just about getting your initials in. We're almost there, right? So cool. It's a weird design, is it not? It's all right. It's not Roger's best game. I don't think we're getting to that on this episode. So it's got like seven drop targets on the left side, really close to the flippers. Very dangerous. But if you hit those targets, it comes back into where the right sling would be. And instead of having that Italian bottom left and right slings, it has two pop-upers on the right side. Dead. Die. It's a mean game, right? Have you played it? Have I played it? What haven't I played? Yeah, that's true. I played Locked this Monster, which was game plan, and there's only one of those. This is tough. This is one of the more popular, this is one of the bigger production games Gameplay never had, so you do see these. Yeah, if you're seeing a Gameplay game, you're probably seeing this one. Yeah, it's cool. It looks effective. It looks fun. It's got lots going on in the playfield. But this is kind of in that era where we still haven't quite figured out flow, so balls moving around, returning to the flipper. We're still in a very like catch the ball, set your shot, shoot the ball, control the ball. The pre-Steve Ritchie era? Like flow doesn't exist yet? We're still in, what is it, catch and hold or stop and shoot? Unless you played any old Stern games that have tons of flow.
    46:08
    We just haven't figured it out. Like some people are like, wouldn't it be good if we put two pop bumpers where a sling would be? And then they do it and they're like, ah, that's okay, but it's not really that great. So then they're like, well, we'll never do that again. So then they move on to something else. But they're still experimenting, and I'd say they're doing really, really well. I like the artwork, though, because they just put all the employees in it. I mean, like George's style was very realistic, and it often had women and showgirls and swimmers, ballroom dancers, sort of like this level of elegance and charm. It wasn't sleazy, you know what I mean? It wasn't like sleazy art. It was respectful and proper for like a 1950s gentleman, you know what I mean? It was really, really nice. Well, about the art, Roger says, I drove George crazy for the artwork because, as I told him, I did not want the Dracula artwork you did for Harry Williams' game that Stern had done. It had a lot of purples and things. I wanted it to be as realistic as it possibly could be. In fact, if I'd had it my way, it would have been black and white because this is my ode or homage to High Noon, which was a movie, for those who don't know. And I wanted it to be one piece of artwork. There's just been the showdown. I've shot the guy falling, and that's why the plastics on the playfield, Horses reared up are all looking back up. That was a daunting challenge for George to try to bring to life, but having said that, that was the process. If you look at that play field, right, you've got... Wait, so he actually shot someone? Yeah, not actually shot someone. He had just, oh yeah, I guess the smoke is coming out of the garden. I never even thought about that. Like, you just shot somebody. So if you're looking at this, on the back glass, there's two ladies down like, oh, oh, Roger, what have you done? And he has shot someone. Well, they're probably like, thank you, you killed the bad guy. Because you're the sheriff. You're not a corrupt sheriff, you're the actual good sheriff. If you then scroll down the playfield, so it's all one picture, you scroll down the playfield, you see the person he shot on the playfield kind of reeling back.
    48:07
    And then there's the other people standing around watching on the plastics and stuff. The idea is it's all kind of one piece of art. It's not a back glass, which is totally separate from the play field. You're supposed to look at it as one piece, which I think is pretty cool. I never realized that. Of course, I would have done it like the anti-hero. I would have had the bad guy. He's turned around because he actually got shot in the back and his gun is still the holster. You're terrible. I'm a terrible person. So you had alluded to the Easter eggs in this game. Yes, the lady on the right side of Rogers, Ellen Rogers' wife, and the lady on his left leg. Wait a minute, that would be his right leg. Okay, which side is it? I don't know. Okay, let's try it this way.
    48:54
    The lady on one side of Roger is Ellen, his wife, and on his other side was the then-wife of Game Plan legal boss. Her name was Marilyn. Yes, she was the wife of the Game Plan legal boss, whoever that was. Lee is the gentleman on the right side with the shotgun. His daughter is the blonde girl in front of him with their cat. Mike Abrams, the VP and partner of Gameplan, is sitting on the stool with his legs up, and Z's Cafe is an ode to Steve Epstein, who had a nickname of Zelmo. Lots of little fun bits in there. So, you know, people talk about, like, Zombie Yeti putting in, you know, interesting Easter eggs, or Gary Stern floating around in a tube, in an inner tube in the Jaws game. Like those kind of fun Easter eggs. Chris Franchi, awesome for doing those as well. That's just been a thing that pinball has done for years. The game went over, I would say, pretty well. Roger gave Gameplan three or four other designs to start on. Gameplan wanted to do more of just a mirror image of Sharpshooter because it was one of their bestsellers or the bestseller. They said, let's just do the same thing but flip it around a little bit because it would keep the cost down. Well, we're going to roll into the 1980s. Do you remember the 1980s, Ron? I do. I don't quite remember the 1980s. Because you weren't alive yet? Well, I was, but I wasn't really there for very long. I remember hair, spandex, remember Macho Man. I mean, of course. Yeah, that kind of stuff. But that's not much. I don't remember much of the 1980s. Anyway, in the 1980s, Roger served as an editor for Video Games Magazine, spending his time playing pinball and attending various industry events and trade shows. So he's working arm's length from pinball. He hasn't dove into designing. He hasn't dove into marketing within a company. He's not working for Williams or Bally. He's writing for Video Games Magazine, which is very much like a, I don't know, like a PC gamer of its time, maybe. Nintendo Power. I mean, it's not those names, but it's kind of the same thing. Were you a subscriber to Video Games Magazine? I would have been too young, I think. Magazines, I don't know if people get this. Magazines were a big thing in like the 70s, 80s, and 90s. Big business. I got Nintendo Power. I have them somewhere. That super cool but that like Pro Wrestling Illustrated or Portia Magazine or those kind of things Oh shout out to my Secret Santa in the Pinside Secret Santa thing by the way He sent me a 75 years of Porsche book like coffee table book Wow that is a way above and beyond sir Thank you so much But magazines were a big deal. In the late 1980s, Roger and Steve worked with AMOA, which stood for Amusement and Music Operators Association, to build a competitive pinball model because with their experience previously with Papa, they really wanted to draw more coin drop. They wanted to build a bigger community for operators. So AMOA reached out to Roger and Steve, who had experience. And this would become the International Flipper Pinball Association, or IFPA. Ah, which is what basically everybody in competitive pinball plays in today. It wasn't until 1991 that Papa held their first world championship, which I believe was in New York City. Roger spent some of his time getting to know Mike Stroll, who was the president of Williams in the 1980s. You'll know all about Mike Stroll from some of our episodes. Yeah, I remember him. Yeah, 1980s Williams thing. So we're talking about Flash, Firepower, Black Knight. Just name, insert Steve Ritchie, big hit game of early 80s here. Right. So he's a subject in Steve Ritchie episodes. He's a subject in Barry Ousler, Saves Pinball. You know, Mike Stroll was a big deal in the 1980s because that's when we were going through a pretty rough time and then a massive sort of upswing in the late days. He hired the right people. To roll that back to September of 1981, let's talk about Barracora. This is the sci-fi theme. The fish theme. Speaking of Barry Ousler, this game was a Williams System 7 board set game, 2,350 units, which is a far cry from what he had done at Gameplan and, for that matter, Stern. Yeah, Gameplan, a much smaller company, and they sold 4,000 units of Sharpshooter. Yeah, it's a standard body pin. It's designed by Roger Sharp and Steve Epstein, and this is sort of actually designed by Barry Ousler. Art by Doug Watson, and sound and software by Ed Sikoski. Another Doug Watson copy job. Yeah. What the alien looked like in the film Alien, Barakora is very much a lift, a homage of one of the artist Geiger's things. So, you know, again, you had mentioned Ed tend to get his inspiration, or Doug rather, tend to get his inspiration kind of from other artists. I wouldn't tell that to him, to his face though. He's a pretty big guy and he works out, big freaking arms. I remember that at the show, like, whoa, I better not mess with that guy. It's like, punch me. So the original theme for this game was Las Vegas. Yep. And it was totally themed around a roulette wheel inside the pinball machine. Yeah, probably on the center, I would assume. And this is not what happened. No. Roger says, I think there was a prevailing attitude that people didn't like Vegas as a theme. They liked the idea of gambling or what have you. Steve Ritchie called it loss bogus, so he kind of got shunted into a corner. No one paid a lot of attention to it. It was a totally different experience than a game plan. I was the only game in town for them. So Roger was like, people were like, at game time were like, oh, Roger, he's the man that did a thing in the 1970s in a courtroom. They also didn't have designers, but Williams has designers, so. And they got Steve Ritchie, who is at this time in the early 80s, like a god. And he's doing Steve Ritchie things, calling the other game crap. Las Bogus. Right, it's competitive.
    56:00
    That is so Steve Ritchie. So they kind of toss it off into the corner. But according to Roger Sharp, who was on an episode of Pinball Profile with Jeff Teolas, I've included that in the show notes. The original Las Vegas roulette wheel under the playfield, that became too complicated. It probably wasn't going to work. It might not have been that way. It was a bit gimmicky. Roger and Steve designed the rules and then they passed that off to Williams. Now that's where I want to really tie it in was the rules. That is kind of what sets Barakora out amongst a lot of the games in this era. Tends to be a tournament darling, right? Yeah, you see it in a lot of tournaments. Yeah, the layout was not as good as they wanted, and Barry Ousler was the fellow that the Williams higher-ups asked to help them out. They would return a few months later, they being Steve and Roger, to a game with their basic playfield, but everything was completely different. Gone was the roulette wheel, gone was Las Vegas, there were a couple of tweaks here and there, but it was a different game. Las Vegas was still there, as in all the top targets, but now it's spelled Barakora, with two R's for one of the targets, so it would fit. Of course, why wouldn't it? According to Barry, there were a lot of changes in the early design that Steve and Roger had put together. We spoke about this in detail in Barry Ousler Saves Pinball, a previous podcast, so go back and listen to that in the archives. But what did Roger think? Roger said, it did work out, although again, when I saw the artwork for the first time walking into the factory, And Steve Kordak took me down to the middle of the production line. What is this game I'm looking at from a distance? The striking face on it, a fish coming out of her head. Like, what the hell? I died. How do you even pronounce that? I think my biggest regret was Mike Stroll not listening to me and Steve Ritchie was making Black Knight. The company's focus has shifted. Yeah, we're getting into a situation here, right, where Steve Ritchie comes in and he's like, this is crap. And the leader, Mike Stroll, is like, okay, well, like, do what you can. This is kind of dumb. I don't know. It turned out okay. It's weird. But a lot of games were weird at that time, right?
    58:12
    It's fine. It's got lots of drop targets. But it's the rules. It's that whole upper lane change thing where it has double lane change. That's crazy talk. It's neat once you get used to it. But Roger says, Barakora had a chance to do multi-lane change so that it could take three lanes and have them function to six with double lighting up on top. And I also gave players the opportunity to play for either three ball or two ball multiball. So, I mean, there were these little touches, which were the rudimentary beginnings of where things were with solid state. Yeah, people are starting to bend their minds a little more kind of in the 80s. We've had an evolution of pinball. We've added, you know, multiball. We've added sort of sound and record keeping. The other thing that helped is, or hurt, thus helped, was they were going to start getting crushed by video games. So they cut back on the budgets. So what can we do to make the games interesting that doesn't require putting more stuff in them? Yeah, like physical things, right? Yeah, physical things. Well, you make the rules a little more interesting. So a lot of these early 80s games have a lot of that. Yeah, you got a lot of pro. You're paying this programmer. Or what's them putting in another 10, 20, 30, 40 hours, right, to make things a little more complex? And I think that that's pretty cool because it's made them kind of bend their head a little bit as to how I can improve things without adding another expensive drop target, Mick. But speaking of drop target, Mick, this is where Roger gets back into game plan with Sharpshooter 2, the return. Cowboy and Mustaches theme again. Exactly. It's a big theme, Mustaches. It did not sell 4,000 units like the other one did. It did not. November of 83, it sells 600 units. Yikes. Designed by Roger Sharp and Wendell McAdam. Art by Larry Day, who I think is really underrated with his pinball art. And Bruce Schaffernick. That sounds good. I thought that was pretty good. I only screwed it up kind of halfway through and then I corrected. Software by Raymond Merchant, or Ryman Merchant. Artist Larry Day told IPDB that while he does not remember the specifics of this machine, the signatures indicate that both he and Bruce Schafernik collaborated on the game working with Gordon Morrison from Advertising Posters in Chicago, which was an outsourcing artist. He literally doesn't remember doing the game even though he did it. Doesn't remember at all. Larry said he can tell by the way he signed his name in a circle that this game was early in his arcade art career, as that was how he signed himself in the early days. So he doesn't even know. It's like, oh yeah, I guess I did that. So the back glass, it's really good. Roger and Ellen are both sharpshooters together. They're both kind of hanging out back to back, shoulder to shoulder, two guns. Roger looks more like Tom Selleck now than he did before. The art style has significantly changed from the previous one, which I thought was pretty good, but you could tell it was an artist who had been around forever and had his style of art. This is really cool. And the hair.
    61:28
    God, I wish I had hair like that. Fantastic. What about the playfield itself? Huh? Two pop bumpers instead of a sling was a good idea, right? It looks pretty much the same as the first one. Wait a second. This is exactly the same. Okay, two pop bumpers down by the sling. It's got how many drop targets? There's seven drop targets on the left side. It looks like the same game. It's the same game. What are they doing here? Oh, let's take a look at the flyer. Maybe it'll give us some more. Oh, it does. The first line. The return of a classic.
    62:01
    Ah, like all of the other manufacturers at this time. They're going to their back catalog. Exciting sounds, lightning fast play, challenging playfield, magnificent graphics offering the captivating sounds of horse hooves, distant tom-toms, rifle shots, gunfire, bullet ricochet, dynamite explosion, coyotes, rattlesnakes, chuckwagon bell. Oh, wow. I love Chuck Wagon Bells. God, that is one of my favorite captivating sounds. So you like those, what was that, a dog food commercial that had the Chuck Wagon? It was Chuck Wagon, wasn't it? Love it. Just love it. So they're going to the back catalog because they know the cost, they have the parts, they're trying to just get it out the door, different art package. That seems fine, I guess. That is, I would say, a solid game. Is it better than the original Sharpshooter?
    63:06
    I don't know. I know I've played it before, but I don't remember if it was any better. Because most likely I played it at a show where I couldn't hear any of those wonderful new sound effects they were talking about. Like the Chuck Wagon Bell. Yeah, the Chuck Wagon Bell. That's just so exciting, Ron. So exciting. Coyotes? I wonder if it has crickets. Does it have crickets? Ah, that's a patented thing for Frontier. That's a Frontier thing. Yeah, yeah. That is Roger's entire career. No, it's not. Yes, it is. That's it. No, it's not. Are you sure? I'm sure. Okay. Well, I guess we'll probably have to do another Roger Sharp episode. This has been the token Roger Sharp episode. I'm so glad that we didn't spend all of our time talking about that thing that he did in a courtroom in the 1970s. Because there's so much more to Roger's career than that. Roger is on the Mount Rushmore of pinball along with like Harry Williams and Gary Stern and probably George Gomez because not of what he did in that courtroom that day in the 1970s, but because of all of the other things that he did and all of the things that he will do in our next Roger Sharp episode. So what he's saying is the courtroom thing is actually a bad thing. It just takes away from all the other stuff he did. Now I see where you're going. Do you see? I'm not crapping on Roger. I think Roger's great.
    64:31
    It's just he's done more and people don't care. Did you know Roger had a movie about him? We did mention that. Thank you. Soon to be YouTube music on your favorite podcast. Did you know that Mr. Dennis? Turn on automatic downloads so you don't miss a single episode. Please remember to leave us a 5 star or 4 star, whatever the highest star is, review wherever you see them. Join us on Patreon to support the show. Become a pro crony is the perfect way to say thanks and it starts at $3 a month. Want to get early access to episodes before everyone else? Have a strange love for stickers? Do you know what Discord is? Jump up to $6 a month premium crony. Want all other perks in a shirt after three months? Join us at $20 a month as an elitist crony. And don't forget, at Pintastic I'll bring you Canadian potato chips.
    66:06
    The End Oh, did you see? Google Podcast is going away. Yeah, I got an email on that. Let me see here. Well, please subscribe to us on whatever the hell Google Podcast is called. Yeah, it was, um, where did I get that from? So basically it's going to YouTube Music.
    66:56
    Very good, very good. I think that'll be good. So what I've done is I've tried to shorten the episodes a little bit. Yeah, I see that. Not a lot. That was 3,000 words instead of like 55 or 5,000. So it might be a little easier on me on editing as well as just listening in general. If this was a true Roger Sharp episode, though, it should be like four hours long. Most people overpay for car insurance, not because they're careless, but because switching feels like too much hassle. That's why there's Jerry, your proactive insurance assistant. Jerry compares rates side by side from over 50 top insurers and helps you switch with ease. Jerry even tracks market rates and alerts you when it's best to shop. No spam calls, no hidden fees. Drivers who save with Jerry could save over $1,300 a year. Switch with confidence. Download the Jerry app or visit jerry.ai.libsyn today. That's jerry.ai.libsyn. Marketing is hard. But I'll tell you a little secret. It doesn't have to be. Let me point something out. You're listening to a podcast right now and it's great. You love the host. You seek it out and download it. You listen to it while driving, working out, cooking, even going to the bathroom. Podcasts are a pretty close companion. And this is a podcast ad. Did I get your attention? You can reach great listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Libsyn ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements or run a pre-produced ad like this one. Across thousands of shows to reach your target audience in their favorite podcasts with Libsyn ads. Go to Libsyn ads.com. That's L-I-B-S-Y-N ads.com today.