Episode 11: Steve Ritchie and Video Game Themes with Jeff Rivera

Transcript

Speaker: Thanks for tuning in to the Loser Kid Pinball Podcast.

Speaker: We are on episode 11 and with me, my co-captain as always.

Speaker: I'm Scott Larson and with us for the second time is our special guest from the Pinball Podcast, Jeff Rivera.

Speaker: How are you doing, Jeff?

Speaker: I'm doing great.

Speaker: How are you guys doing?

Speaker: Good.

Speaker: Fantastic.

Speaker: I was going to call you the OPP, that Naughty by Nature song.

Speaker: Yeah, but that means something different.

Speaker: Yeah, no, no.

Speaker: This is a family podcast.

Speaker: I now realize that, but he's the original pinball podcaster, man.

Speaker: Okay, yeah, that's not really what that song means.

Speaker: I know.

Speaker: I Googled it.

Speaker: Don't Google it.

Speaker: People out there, please do not Google it.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: The OG would have worked.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I was going to say OG, but...

Speaker: I thought OPP would be cooler.

Speaker: We're going to co-op that acronym.

Speaker: Yeah, no, don't.

Speaker: You can't drive your kids in the car and have people say, Dad, what's OPP?

Speaker: Oh, we're off to a great start.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: Oh.

Speaker: You know what?

Speaker: What have you two been up to?

Speaker: Because obviously I can't drive this vehicle at this moment.

Speaker: Well, Jeff, why don't you take it away?

Speaker: What did we do?

Speaker: We went to the Rocky Mountain Pinball Showdown, didn't we?

Speaker: We did.

Speaker: I tagged along.

Speaker: Jeff already had everything booked, and so I tagged along and I said, hey, what flight are you taking?

Speaker: And by the way, can I sleep in your hotel room?

Speaker: And thankfully, it had two beds.

Speaker: It did.

Speaker: We pushed them together and we had a great time.

Speaker: We snuggled.

Speaker: That was a big spoon.

Speaker: Or a little, I can't remember.

Speaker: I don't know.

Speaker: Put Jabba back in the hut.

Speaker: No, great.

Speaker: We had a fantastic time at the show.

Speaker: Sure, we'll talk about that a little bit.

Speaker: Absolutely.

Speaker: Yeah, let's do.

Speaker: You guys were snapping pictures and sending them all weekend long.

Speaker: I mean, it looked like quite the party you guys were having going on.

Speaker: It was a riotous party.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: You know, it was actually, it was my first, um, my first event.

Speaker: Uh, and so I, I will say there was more to do than I thought.

Speaker: And I was also more tired at the end.

Speaker: And I think I got lost about 20 times and had to keep testing, texting people and saying, are you guys still around?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Uh, and usually I was.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: You should have just got one of those leashes like you put on your kids, you know, so that way you don't have to worry about them wandering off.

Speaker: No, it's seriously, I would just kind of wander off because I would because you'd play a game and then I'm less of a really good.

Speaker: I have a little bit of ADD on if someone is playing a pinball game for about 15 minutes, I kind of lose interest and I say, hey, there's one down there.

Speaker: But it was a lot of fun.

Speaker: I loved going.

Speaker: Why don't we start with a recap?

Speaker: So what did we do the first night?

Speaker: The first night?

Speaker: I think we played pinball.

Speaker: But mostly it was in the tournament area.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah, we played.

Speaker: Oh, yeah, because the main tournament qualifying ended on the first night.

Speaker: You had to play all those games the first day.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Or are you talking about the first night we arrived?

Speaker: Because the first night we arrived, it was the day before the show.

Speaker: Yeah, actually, the first night we arrived, I think, was the that was great because we got there.

Speaker: And because we were special guests of the show, we actually got in early and were able to go and see some of the some of the games set up.

Speaker: And we even were able to play Black Knight and we played the pro and the LA was set up.

Speaker: We got some games in on Wonka.

Speaker: Um, Oktoberfest, they were setting up, but we didn't get any games on that, that night, but it was really impressive to see everybody setting up their custom games and, uh, bringing them in.

Speaker: There was some really good talent there.

Speaker: Yeah, it was, it was, it was awesome.

Speaker: Um, getting there a day early, like you said, um, I usually get in the day of the show.

Speaker: So that worked out the way that worked out.

Speaker: I think I'll be going in the night before, uh,

Speaker: every time.

Speaker: So it was really nice to ease into pinball and not have to be my first like flip on a game in Denver being on the tournament.

Speaker: So, uh, but yeah, but day one was all about tournament stuff and we did quite well.

Speaker: I'd have to say.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: They, uh, I would say the Utah contingency did pretty well.

Speaker: So I, I entered, um, well, I, I did three tournaments.

Speaker: I did the, the main tournament, um, since I am,

Speaker: barely ranked um i qualified for the novice tournament and then um everybody can do the classics tournament and i really had a blast playing those classics games yeah they were set up so well um great selection of games super clean um every single one played perfectly um until barakora caught fire but that didn't have anything to do with what was set up it was just bad luck but uh

Speaker: Yeah, it was great.

Speaker: Had a lot of fun.

Speaker: Wait, wait, wait.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Barracora caught on fire.

Speaker: It did.

Speaker: And it was, were you playing it, Scott?

Speaker: No, no.

Speaker: It was Dan.

Speaker: Dan was playing it.

Speaker: It was about an hour before qualifying ended.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: All of a sudden, very, very strong smoke smell and a little bit of smoke under the glass.

Speaker: We opened up the coin door and

Speaker: it burped out a little cloud and one of the coils had locked on and burnt up and we had to cut the power to, to stop that.

Speaker: And so I was playing on the machine next to it.

Speaker: Just basically trying not to cough through that game, but.

Speaker: But I did it.

Speaker: I did have an interesting game on Barakora though, because I played it and I queued up on it and it,

Speaker: I played the game and they went to record the score and they tried and they said, huh, that's kind of weird.

Speaker: This isn't recording.

Speaker: They went and they looked and he said, you have no more entries, which it still probably wasn't a big deal because I was like solidly in the lower third of classics.

Speaker: But that was like a game I did really well on.

Speaker: So I was like, oh, well, so here's a pro tip for you.

Speaker: Next time you go into the tournament area, make sure you actually have entries left before you queue in on the game.

Speaker: Yeah, it helps.

Speaker: It helps.

Speaker: They need to have a mulligan role, right?

Speaker: Yeah, exactly.

Speaker: Yeah, I really did well on that.

Speaker: Can I just pay?

Speaker: Yeah, no, but I will give a shout out to to Brandon and Snow for running.

Speaker: such a great tournament.

Speaker: And one, they're both very approachable.

Speaker: And two, you can tell that they really like people and pinball.

Speaker: They were very personable and just welcoming to everybody who was coming up.

Speaker: And so being as that it was my first tournament experience, I couldn't describe it any easier than how they had it set up.

Speaker: Yeah, they did a great job.

Speaker: They really did.

Speaker: And they always do.

Speaker: And

Speaker: It just ran so smoothly.

Speaker: Problems were addressed very quickly.

Speaker: There weren't a lot of problems to begin with, but when there were, they were on it really quickly.

Speaker: And I actually thought the tournament format was a lot of fun for classics in the main were both different.

Speaker: But the way they did main is that

Speaker: everybody who played qualified.

Speaker: It just, whether you qualified for a division or B division, and then from there they set up a ladder system.

Speaker: So if you qualified really high, you got a few buys going into finals.

Speaker: If you've qualified low, you had to fight your way back up, but it was, it was really cool.

Speaker: Give everybody a shot.

Speaker: Cause all you had to do is catch a hot streak and you could, you know, have a chance at winning the thing.

Speaker: So it was a lot of fun.

Speaker: They did a great job.

Speaker: Don't know quite where I finished, but I made A finals and I won a few rounds.

Speaker: Yeah, well, I was in B, so I played right at the start and I won my first match, but then I immediately lost the next two matches.

Speaker: But I had a great time, so I'll definitely do it again.

Speaker: Yep.

Speaker: And then classics went well.

Speaker: I think I finished ninth in classics.

Speaker: Didn't one of our guys from Utah end up taking classics?

Speaker: No.

Speaker: But Dan finished third, I believe.

Speaker: Yeah, he was pretty high up there.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I think that Matt – didn't Matt win some too?

Speaker: I'll hurry and look it up while you guys chit-chat.

Speaker: No, it's fine.

Speaker: People are already tuning out in droves on our – Yeah, that's enough tournament talk.

Speaker: But Matt got a trophy at Navas.

Speaker: So anyway, everybody who went from our league, though, got some money.

Speaker: Okay, so let's actually talk about the most interesting story that we had on the first day.

Speaker: So this is the day after.

Speaker: So this is the real day of the show.

Speaker: So Jeff and I get up, and we look at our tickets and say, oh, there's breakfast.

Speaker: And for some reason on weekends, it's good until like 8 o'clock in the morning.

Speaker: So yeah, breakfast served from six to eight.

Speaker: So we said, yeah, okay.

Speaker: So we decided that's not what we're going to do.

Speaker: Um, so we actually went out, got breakfast and I have a Spider-Man downstairs.

Speaker: And so, uh, before the, uh, I packed up to go, I, uh,

Speaker: took the trans light out and anybody just, here's a pro tip for you.

Speaker: The first time you take a trans light out of a, um, you know, of a back glass, whatever the glass holder, it has some like gorilla tape on there and it is like prying a lollipop from a baby.

Speaker: It's just not going to happen.

Speaker: So I spent like about an hour trying to get it without ripping out that Translite.

Speaker: But I wanted to make sure that, hey, for Steve Ritchie to sign it, I need a Sharpie.

Speaker: So I didn't find one.

Speaker: So right after breakfast, we went and we grabbed a Sharpie and then went back to the hotel, dropped off our stuff, and then we immediately walk out of our room.

Speaker: And what happened, Jeff?

Speaker: Well, we ran into the King of Flow himself, Steve Ritchie, and we had ourselves a morning with him and it was interesting.

Speaker: So, yeah, we just were talking to him in the halls, we're walking down and we got down towards the entrance of the show and he said that he felt like an idiot, I think were his words, because he had forgotten deodorant.

Speaker: So he said he was going to catch an Uber and we offered to give him a ride to the grocery store so he could buy some.

Speaker: And he also needed liquor and he also needed some Sharpies.

Speaker: Can I pause you for one second?

Speaker: It's the most ironic thing because Steve Bowden has been pushing this for like the last three months that if you can afford to go to a pinball convention, you can afford deodorant.

Speaker: And all this time, it's just been Steve Ritchie.

Speaker: It's a subtle hint.

Speaker: It's a subtle hint to Steve to wear the deodorant.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Please proceed though.

Speaker: So yeah, we ended up taking Steve, uh, on a little shopping trip to get deodorant liquor and Sharpies.

Speaker: And he was kind of our buddy throughout the show after that, but it was, it was funny.

Speaker: He was telling stories as we were driving around and, um, we were shouting as, um, we needed to, to talk with him, but it was actually a lot of fun.

Speaker: He was, he was hilarious.

Speaker: And, uh,

Speaker: it was just kind of a funny way to start the show.

Speaker: It was the first minute of the floor opening as we were right about to step on.

Speaker: And instead we did a one 80 and walked back out to the parking lot to, you know, drive Steve around.

Speaker: But, uh,

Speaker: But it was great.

Speaker: We had fun.

Speaker: And then he was really cool about just goofing around with us afterwards whenever he'd see us.

Speaker: He's like, I remember you guys.

Speaker: You're the ones that got me the liquor.

Speaker: I think the best part about it, because he was like, I'm going to have that stuff left over.

Speaker: So I want to make good.

Speaker: He's on an expense account.

Speaker: So he gets some just because I'm sure he's going to be having people up to his room and I'll just

Speaker: or going to different rooms because people would bring pinball machines to their rooms.

Speaker: And so he was always like, I'm going to make sure you, uh, you get some of that liquor.

Speaker: Now we just laugh.

Speaker: I'm like, that's great.

Speaker: I'm not sure he's going to drink.

Speaker: Obviously he's not listened to an episode lately.

Speaker: No, no, no.

Speaker: But no, it was a, it was really great.

Speaker: And, uh, then went in and, um,

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And I guess that I'll kind of jump to Monday on that.

Speaker: I went to Steve Ritchie's seminar and afterwards there was someone who had a customized black night and he was heading in.

Speaker: to do the, uh, to someone wanted to show him something.

Speaker: And so he came over and we pointed out the customized black knight that had the, um, had basically a custom wire form and it shot up and then went across and, uh, dropped down into the, uh, left in lane.

Speaker: And so you didn't get a free feed up to the top.

Speaker: So it's a beautiful game though.

Speaker: Yeah, it's completely and totally restored and then just lightly modified.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I think the modification confused him.

Speaker: He's like, why would you do that?

Speaker: So there was a picture with you and Steve Scott where you guys kind of had arms over shoulders and he was pointing at the camera.

Speaker: What was that all about?

Speaker: You know what?

Speaker: So that was when he signed my Spider-Man Translight.

Speaker: So I made sure I took it over and he signed it and I was the last one in line.

Speaker: So we just talked a little bit and Jeff was there.

Speaker: And so we took a picture and then he made a joke and was pointing at the camera and I was laughing and that's what you got.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And then, uh, yeah.

Speaker: And, and then that day on Monday, uh, Jeff was out gallivanting around and right after I showed him that thing, he said, I'm hungry.

Speaker: Are you hungry?

Speaker: Let's go get lunch.

Speaker: Very spur of the moment.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So, uh, Steve, Steve Ritchie, uh, took me out to lunch and really the take home message from that is he's comfortable being Steve Ritchie.

Speaker: He's genuinely happy doing what he's doing.

Speaker: I think that it's revitalized him in the second half of his career.

Speaker: He's 69.

Speaker: He's still designing pinball machines.

Speaker: I got some tidbits from him.

Speaker: He goes to about six shows a year.

Speaker: He goes because he likes going and he likes seeing the people.

Speaker: Um, and he said like, you know, Stern's not paying him money to go to these shows.

Speaker: It's just him going out cause he wants to, you know, he still likes that interaction with people in pinball.

Speaker: And I just think he's, he seems genuinely happy doing what he's doing, which is really great to know that he's been doing this all this year and he still has that passion.

Speaker: I don't know how many people have the same passion after, you know, after working in industry for so long, but he still has it.

Speaker: Yeah, he does.

Speaker: It's a whole different Steve Ritchie than I remember seeing a few years ago.

Speaker: So it's great.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It was just fun seeing him like that.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I think it's, and I did ask him, I said, do you ever get tired of these shows?

Speaker: And he said, yes, but you can't show that.

Speaker: So I'm really, if you think about it, I'm going to six shows a year for, for a 69 year old guy.

Speaker: And that's really impressive.

Speaker: That shows some stamina and he's, you know, he still wants to get out there.

Speaker: So I really liked that.

Speaker: The king of show.

Speaker: Exactly.

Speaker: The king of the show.

Speaker: You know, okay.

Speaker: So I, I went to, I went to both Steve Ritchie seminars and I took a lot of notes, but I, uh, I don't want to bore you with a complete recap of it, but there are, um,

Speaker: There were some things that I really want that I thought was very interesting.

Speaker: One, he says, he said, you know, his job, and this is basically a quote, I make pinball machines to sell pinball machines.

Speaker: So he, you know, he's dialed into, that's his job is to make sure that Stern is able to sell his designs.

Speaker: He says the 80s retro is really big right now.

Speaker: He said, and I'm not sure how the pricing would be on this, but it was interesting.

Speaker: He said they sell games by the container.

Speaker: And so I don't know how that breakdown was, but I thought that was interesting that obviously it's kind of a bulk order situation for most things.

Speaker: I mean, obviously not all things.

Speaker: He said that they have 17 million parts at Stern at 26 cents a part.

Speaker: So I did a quick calculation.

Speaker: They have 4.2 million in inventory.

Speaker: Wow.

Speaker: Just in little parts.

Speaker: The interesting tidbit he dropped that on Black Knight,

Speaker: the left play field design was stolen and basically some industrial espionage.

Speaker: And that left hand side is flash, flash Gordon.

Speaker: It's flash Gordon.

Speaker: Huh?

Speaker: So yeah, that's, I thought that was, that was really interesting.

Speaker: Um,

Speaker: We asked him about his favorite Valley Williams game, and he said that Star Trek The Next Generation was.

Speaker: He said Jonathan Frank wasn't that into it, but Brent Spiner was, and so that's why data is very heavily featured in the game.

Speaker: Let's see, what else can I say?

Speaker: I'm trying to go through this quickly, so I'm not completely boring.

Speaker: Well, the one thing that you're telling us about, you're talking about Steve Ritchie's favorite designs from other designers.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So that's, let's see if I can find...

Speaker: Dennis Norden.

Speaker: So he said he liked Whitewater.

Speaker: Um, I don't know who designed Mata Hari, but he likes it.

Speaker: Uh, uh, very also he liked Comet, uh, Mark Ritchie.

Speaker: He liked Indiana Jones, the pinball adventure, uh, for, um, John Borg.

Speaker: He liked Metallica.

Speaker: Um, on Brian Eddy, he liked attack from Mars better than medieval madness, but he said they're both, you know, quite good.

Speaker: Um,

Speaker: on my notes, it says Ray Chancellor.

Speaker: I put date and I don't know if that's like 1789 or there's a, he said something and I couldn't hear what it was.

Speaker: So it's a pinball machine.

Speaker: That's a date.

Speaker: Greg Knitch is a captain.

Speaker: Fantastic.

Speaker: George.

Speaker: He liked Lord of the Rings.

Speaker: J pop.

Speaker: He said, none.

Speaker: And then of course everybody laughed.

Speaker: However, he said, he, he said, I'm kidding.

Speaker: He likes theater magic.

Speaker: Um, which Pat Lawler machine do you think he liked the best?

Speaker: Uh, I guess, I guess Jeff was there, so I'm going to be the one that's guessing.

Speaker: No, no.

Speaker: Jeff wasn't, Jeff wasn't at this one.

Speaker: Cause this was the second seminar.

Speaker: Oh, I'm going to go with whirlwind.

Speaker: Bonsai run.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: You know what?

Speaker: That would be interesting, but he said roadshow.

Speaker: He liked roadshow.

Speaker: So yeah, that, that was a little out of left field.

Speaker: And, uh, Jeff for Jessica, I asked, uh, Steve Kirk and he said he has three good ones.

Speaker: He said, uh, nine ball stars and I can't read my writing.

Speaker: Um,

Speaker: infinite disaster.

Speaker: I don't know enough about Steve Kirk, so maybe there's another one there, but anyway, whatever.

Speaker: Hey, I was writing really fast.

Speaker: The, the one thing he, it was interesting when he was talking about working with, with licensing and this was, this was interesting.

Speaker: And I think it's, this is certainly a fair assessment in dealing with any license and not just like the,

Speaker: you know, not just Disney, but it's just kind of any license.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: And he just said, um, I don't know how to make movies.

Speaker: They don't know how to make pinball machines, which, which is kind of, which is a fair assessment, right?

Speaker: Because I think that they don't, if you remember back to our interview with Eric, um,

Speaker: designer of JJP's Pirates of the Caribbean.

Speaker: He said he was asked, he's going to Disney and there's so many people he's working with.

Speaker: And he's like, they're used to designing like a lunchbox.

Speaker: And so you send off like one design and they're not used to sending, getting approval for all these things.

Speaker: It's like, I was asking for hundreds of permission to

Speaker: for what he did.

Speaker: And he said at the very end, they said, yeah, okay, I get it.

Speaker: I get why you're asking for all this stuff, but it's just so outside of what they normally do.

Speaker: I can imagine that it was a breath of fresh air for him to design black night, which is saying it's, it's licensed, but not, not really.

Speaker: It's not a, not a heavy license that they have to deal with, uh, actors and likenesses and all that.

Speaker: So, yeah,

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Anyway, Jeff did.

Speaker: Sorry.

Speaker: I took a long time talking about that.

Speaker: Do you have anything else to add or talk about that?

Speaker: About the actual Steve Ritchie seminars?

Speaker: Anything to add on like Steve Ritchie or just anything he said?

Speaker: No, I think it kind of covered most of the points that I thought that were the most interesting parts.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: trying to think if there was anything else that stuck out, but I think he got most of them.

Speaker: We asked about his design philosophy and he said he likes having the theme first.

Speaker: So he doesn't start on a design and then retrofit the theme on there.

Speaker: He said he does start with the LE.

Speaker: So he starts with the top of the line version of it and then figures out ways of scaling it back for the pro model.

Speaker: Um, so I, I, you know, I think that's good.

Speaker: He's on, on themes.

Speaker: He said they won't do another sports game, uh, cause they never succeeded.

Speaker: Um, and, uh, honestly, what sports theme has besides, well, can you even count world cup soccer?

Speaker: 94 is a successful sports theme.

Speaker: Um, yeah.

Speaker: And he, uh, he did mention, um, the, the one thing that was, uh, challenging.

Speaker: I did just barely read it.

Speaker: He talked about the challenges of, and we talked about this before, about making a game out of a game.

Speaker: And so if you have things like Monopoly or Wheel of Fortune or something that is a game anyway, and then you're trying to layer a pinball machine using those things, it's clumsy and doesn't really work.

Speaker: Well, it sounds like you guys had a blast.

Speaker: It sounded like it was quite the hoot of a time.

Speaker: Yeah, it was awesome.

Speaker: It was great.

Speaker: Made me quite jealous.

Speaker: But Scott did make it up to me.

Speaker: I don't know how he found the time, but in the middle of Rocky Mountain Pinball Showdown, he texts me, hey, this guy's selling his Jurassic Park because he knows that I've been looking for one for like five years now.

Speaker: And he's like, give him a call.

Speaker: So I call the guy.

Speaker: I'm like, is it still available?

Speaker: He's like, I posted it like 10 minutes ago.

Speaker: So I'm like, I'll pay you a down payment right now.

Speaker: You pull it off the website so no one else sees it.

Speaker: And I will pick it up as soon as I can make arrangements.

Speaker: And so we made some arrangements and I got it home and I'm pretty happy with myself.

Speaker: I was a little upset when it first got home because- Because of Jurassic Park.

Speaker: Well, no, not that it was Jurassic Park, but I bought it without even testing it, essentially.

Speaker: And I brought it home.

Speaker: And then once I got home, the T-Rex, I guess, on all Jurassic Parks has a hard time left to right movement.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: A lot of people just say, just turn off the left to right and just do the eating motion, which that works great.

Speaker: But I was frustrated when I first turned on and the T-Rex is sticking to one side.

Speaker: And then I asked him if the shaker motor worked and he said yes.

Speaker: And I got it home and it wasn't working.

Speaker: And come to find out that it was just turned off in the settings.

Speaker: So I turned it back on.

Speaker: And I was frustrated because I thought one of the buttons were missing for the... I'm used to Bally Williams.

Speaker: Like, I've never owned a Data East.

Speaker: And so just to have two buttons, I was like, what the heck is this?

Speaker: Yeah, it's a little clumsy.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And so I'm like, I'm missing a button, dude.

Speaker: Like, how am I supposed to go through all this stuff?

Speaker: And he's like, not my problem anymore.

Speaker: I then read up on pin side that, you know, you, you have just the two buttons and you use the start button as one of the also, uh, diagnosis buttons.

Speaker: So after I got all figured out and realized that seriously, the only thing that was broken on it is a switch that goes to the control room and the, the cabinets in fantastic shape.

Speaker: There's like one good,

Speaker: gouge on it but the rest of it's just shiny black and i'm pretty i'm pretty pleased as punch so you guys got to hang out with steve richie and i got to get a jurassic park so i'm pretty pleased it's a good trade it's almost the same

Speaker: Almost the same.

Speaker: Well, and this is the title my wife's been looking for.

Speaker: So once the kids start demanding so much attention, the new twins, I think she'll start playing it.

Speaker: So fingers crossed.

Speaker: Hey, always getting a game that your wife likes or your significant other likes is certainly a good move.

Speaker: I agree.

Speaker: So that was my, that's what happened in my last two weeks.

Speaker: So I'm not very eventful.

Speaker: So not as cool as you guys hanging out with Steve Ritchie and going to breakfast and being his chauffeur.

Speaker: Actually, you know what?

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: And Jeff, do you want to talk about the chicken and waffles?

Speaker: Yeah, they were fantastic.

Speaker: Breakfast place we went to, Early Bird I think is the name of it.

Speaker: Yes, Early Bird.

Speaker: Kind of just ended up there because it was cold.

Speaker: We didn't want to go to Denny's.

Speaker: Yeah, and it was not a chain place that was national that we knew of at least.

Speaker: So we went there and I think we both had, we're going to order something different, but the waitress said that the chicken and waffles are the most popular things where we both said, yeah, sure.

Speaker: Whatever goes that.

Speaker: And they were quite amazing and they left me full for the next three days basically.

Speaker: So yeah, it's a, it's a giant waffle covered with chicken, like a, I don't know, a deep fried chicken thing and like loaded with gravy.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And hot sauce.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And maple syrup.

Speaker: And we ate the whole thing.

Speaker: Each of us ate our own like giant waffle plate.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: That doesn't sound super delicious.

Speaker: I'm not going to lie.

Speaker: I'm not a huge gravy maple waffle or maple syrup.

Speaker: It wasn't like a heavy, like super heavy gross gravy though.

Speaker: It was good.

Speaker: It was good.

Speaker: It was good.

Speaker: It seemed like kind of like a biscuits and gravy with, uh, with fried chicken.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: But I would say it was really good.

Speaker: And you can't eat them every day.

Speaker: But it was certainly a good one.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Nice.

Speaker: So, Jeff, were there any other seminars that you went to that you thought were interesting?

Speaker: I did not get to make it to many of them because I was in tournament finals on one day.

Speaker: And, yeah, I just was not quite able to.

Speaker: So I would have liked to have gotten to more of them, but.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Hey, did you go to the, did you go to the American pinball one with me?

Speaker: I did not.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: So I'm going to give you a quick recap on, sorry, this is, this is Scott Larson's nerd report on, on pinball stuff.

Speaker: But so I went to Barry Osler's and it was really interesting because I,

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: One thing he said is that American pinball is hiring.

Speaker: So anybody out there who really wants to get into pinball and has any sort of unique talents, he said, send them your, you know, contact them, send them your resume because they're, they're bulking up.

Speaker: So, uh, I thought that was interesting and, and good.

Speaker: Uh, always having healthy, uh, healthy groups in the hobby is always excellent.

Speaker: Um,

Speaker: A couple things.

Speaker: They said Houdini, he said they sold kind of around 700.

Speaker: He said their goal is to get 10 to 15% of the market.

Speaker: And then later he said, so if we're selling about 1,000 to 1,500, then that would be a success for us.

Speaker: So at least according to Barry Osler, if Houdini

Speaker: 10% is 1,000, then that means they think 10,000 pinball machines are roughly being sold here.

Speaker: I don't know if that's a lot or not a lot.

Speaker: I can't decide yet.

Speaker: I think that with – it seems like with modern society that everyone's kind of partitioned off.

Speaker: We've talked about this before that there doesn't seem to be any super bans anymore because –

Speaker: There's no barrier to entry.

Speaker: And so people, they're not relegated to thinking of five or six really big bands.

Speaker: I mean, they, you know, I went to work the other day and I asked what music they wanted, what he wanted.

Speaker: And he said, how about Big Head Todd and the Monsters?

Speaker: And I said,

Speaker: okay.

Speaker: So I looked, I'd never heard of them.

Speaker: I looked them up and it was available.

Speaker: And so I think that people have the ability to find these, these niche, these niche sports and these niche groups and these niche ways of staying entertained.

Speaker: And so in many ways that has revitalized pinball into, Hey, it's a niche hobby, but there's a critical mass that keeps it going.

Speaker: And so I, so I think that that, I think 10,000 is actually, it's a healthy amount.

Speaker: It's not, it's not a hundred thousand, but it's, it's still a healthy amount.

Speaker: Well, what kind of numbers was 1992 doing between all pinball manufacturers?

Speaker: Do we roughly know?

Speaker: Well, there was more that, but it kind of steadily declined like 92 to 99.

Speaker: You, you just saw all the different manufacturers just close up shop except for a, except for Stern.

Speaker: So,

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Um, yeah.

Speaker: So his takeoff, um, so he said when he designed wizard of Oz, there were no limits.

Speaker: And so it was like, whatever you want to put in the game, they could, they could.

Speaker: So he's like, we went from like, you know, ramps to one upper play field to two upper play fields too.

Speaker: So he said that was, it's obviously a lot of fun to design a game, but you can just cram full of everything.

Speaker: They did Oktoberfest.

Speaker: I really wanted to ask him, what about Oktoberfest was his dream theme?

Speaker: Because this has always been his passion project.

Speaker: And so I kind of wondered.

Speaker: Now, we got to go and play Oktoberfest.

Speaker: Jeff, what did you think of Oktoberfest?

Speaker: So I've played Oktoberfest before.

Speaker: My big thing with it is it does a lot of neat, fun stuff, but it does so many things that it starts to kind of lose its identity somehow because everything starts to just feel like minor variations.

Speaker: The other problem with it is it's super, super long ball time type of game.

Speaker: And it needs to be much harder.

Speaker: Modes need to be kind of snappier and quicker if they're going to have that many modes in it.

Speaker: So like the code could be addressed, but the play field is just long, either long back of the play field shots that are easy to regain control of, or they're near the flippers, but they don't tend to cause a lot of danger when you make or miss.

Speaker: So

Speaker: The game just goes and goes and goes.

Speaker: It's fun to flip and shoot on.

Speaker: I just, it would drive me nuts having it at home.

Speaker: I'd get pretty tired of it pretty quickly.

Speaker: I mean, we had a game on it that lasted 53 minutes.

Speaker: I timed it.

Speaker: Wow.

Speaker: Was that Dan's game?

Speaker: That was the game where we played four players and we ended up just letting a couple of balls go at the end.

Speaker: So that was 53 minutes with letting some balls go.

Speaker: I felt really bad for the people waiting behind us.

Speaker: But I don't know.

Speaker: It's not a bad game.

Speaker: It's lacking some refinements that could make it a good game, I'll say.

Speaker: I will say, we didn't camp on the game.

Speaker: There was like two people behind us.

Speaker: If there were a bigger line, then I think we would have just played one ball and moved on.

Speaker: but we didn't feel that obligated to move on since the people were right there.

Speaker: And they, they seem to be interested in what we were doing.

Speaker: So I guess two, two of my takeaways, it is interesting.

Speaker: The longer you play on the game, they have these magnets that get activated, which I'm assuming is simulating you getting farther into the Oktoberfest celebrations and

Speaker: And so the ball is a little more squirrely when you're playing it.

Speaker: Um, now if you're, you know, if you're kind of a control, most good players are very controlled and you're trying to grab the ball and to, uh, do these controlled shots.

Speaker: And if the, if the game is fighting you a little more as you're getting in, which is theme appropriate, um, there has to be kind of that risk reward as the,

Speaker: as the difficulty ramps up, the points would have to go up exponentially because otherwise I think it would just get kind of annoying.

Speaker: I agree with Jeff.

Speaker: I'm not, I've said it before.

Speaker: I'm not really the best player.

Speaker: I'm competent, but I'm not an amazing one, but I could, I could shoot for a long time on it.

Speaker: My problem with it was, and I know that it's at, it's at a, it's at a, it's at a convention.

Speaker: And so,

Speaker: you're getting some power draw, the left ramp going up to the roller coaster is super steep.

Speaker: And that is really hard to hit, even with a clean shot, that's really hard to hit.

Speaker: So I can see that being very frustrating.

Speaker: Also, the wire form, the roller coaster wire form,

Speaker: really is one of the coolest looking things in the game.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: I know you're just watching the ball go on this big, long, uh, like wire form, but visually that's kind of one of the cool things in pinball is watching the ball do something.

Speaker: And so, although you could play long, most of your playtime is really on, you know, on the surface.

Speaker: And it seemed like it was, it took a lot of effort to try to get it above the play field.

Speaker: Yeah, that's true.

Speaker: So I wish that that wire form were used a little bit more just because it's fun.

Speaker: It looks really great.

Speaker: I understand when they were talking about Lord of the Rings when it was built and Gary Stern.

Speaker: It doesn't really make sense to have the Balrog do something every time.

Speaker: But Gary is the one who's saying, hey, we're spending, I can't remember how much it was, like $50 for this mech, which apparently is a lot in a build of materials.

Speaker: And he's like, I want it to be out there every time.

Speaker: And it's the same thing with Iron Monger in Iron Man.

Speaker: You pretty much see that every game.

Speaker: And it's kind of a big feature in what's going on.

Speaker: I don't know Iron Man would be that interesting if you only saw Iron Monger like one in 10 times.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So who knows?

Speaker: Maybe that's something that they can work on.

Speaker: But I thought it was a fun game.

Speaker: I think it'll do good on location.

Speaker: It certainly doesn't fit the theme of my game room.

Speaker: But I thought it was a solid game.

Speaker: I guess I'll put it that way.

Speaker: I wouldn't say an A+, but I thought it was a solid game.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker: I mean, not every game is a home run.

Speaker: It's just, it's not that.

Speaker: But again, it's not a bad game.

Speaker: Yeah, but you got to play.

Speaker: You put in a lot more time on Wonka, though.

Speaker: So talk about Wonka.

Speaker: Okay, yeah.

Speaker: So Willy Wonka's thing I was most excited to see, partially because I have a deposit down on one.

Speaker: So I just kind of wanted to, I don't know, confirm my choice to be in on that game because I still have time to, you know, obviously pull out if it wasn't what I thought it was going to be.

Speaker: Luckily, I...

Speaker: was quite happy with it.

Speaker: It just is a smooth shooter.

Speaker: There's shots everywhere.

Speaker: I mean, there are a ton of shots on that game.

Speaker: And Lawler always does that.

Speaker: Like Twilight Zone, every single angle seems to be

Speaker: coming from or leading to another shot and the game does that.

Speaker: Um, I mean, the artwork is, I, the criticisms to it are fair.

Speaker: Um, it doesn't seem so bad while you're playing it, but, uh, it sure sounds and looks happy when you're playing it.

Speaker: Um, um,

Speaker: But yeah, I was super happy with everything I saw with it to this point.

Speaker: I guess the production version is going to be a little bit different.

Speaker: They've made some geometry changes to the final version.

Speaker: So apparently the changes that they made make it even a little bit more challenging, which was good because I had pretty long ball times on it.

Speaker: But yeah.

Speaker: At a show, things are never quite as steep or as mean as I set them up at home.

Speaker: But I was glad to hear that it was going to be a little bit tougher, a little bit more challenging in the final one in the upper playfield area.

Speaker: So I don't know.

Speaker: I was just really happy with it.

Speaker: I feel like they got a real winner there.

Speaker: And it was kind of fun hearing other people's reactions to it, too.

Speaker: It seemed like it was pretty universally praised at the show.

Speaker: So one question I have for you, Jeff, I was listening to the head to head pinball podcast with Martin and the new co-host Joe Lemire, and they were talking about Willy Wonka and they said that it's kind of hard to see that upper right portion where the shots are out there underneath the screen.

Speaker: Did you feel that way as well?

Speaker: Or was it kind of set up differently where you could see it?

Speaker: So what I actually felt was that the shots, you don't see them very well, but I felt that they went very easily just by...

Speaker: the ball coming, if you, it felt like if you flipped it, it just went.

Speaker: And I guess the change is actually to make those shots a little bit less automatic.

Speaker: So, um, it was actually Butch Peel, uh, said that, uh, in the production version, it doesn't, it feels a little bit more challenging.

Speaker: Um, I don't know, um,

Speaker: how big of a difference it's going to be.

Speaker: But he just said that the people who've been play testing it are a little bit more happy with it.

Speaker: But I know what they're talking about when they say that they don't quite see those shots as clearly.

Speaker: And yeah, I can see that for sure.

Speaker: Yeah, it seemed that I had a lot of fun on it too.

Speaker: It feels, if you are a Pat Lawler fan and you like the trap up and surgical shots selection, you'll like the game.

Speaker: Pat knows how to make a game feel fun.

Speaker: And I think the Wonka theme works really well with his style.

Speaker: It is very, very Twilight Zone-y.

Speaker: I'll say that.

Speaker: If Twilight Zone doesn't turn you on, definitely play this one before you put some money down.

Speaker: But if Twilight Zone is your jam, I think you'd enjoy it.

Speaker: So does it feel anything like Roller Coaster Tycoon?

Speaker: No, not at all.

Speaker: It was, it's a very fun shooter and, and visually there's a lot going on.

Speaker: Um, I agree with Jeff and that the, the light show integration with the art, it does, it certainly looks more spectacular with their light show.

Speaker: I mean, the one thing Jersey Jack has consistently done is in visually tantalizing.

Speaker: So, um,

Speaker: It takes it to a different level with the game on versus it off.

Speaker: Cool.

Speaker: There were also a lot of little fun touches that I just don't know if they come across in streams or not, but the pop-upers singing the Oompa Loompa song.

Speaker: For some reason, that was just kind of cool.

Speaker: It was good integration.

Speaker: Yeah, they certainly, there's a lot of attention to the details on the Jersey Jack products.

Speaker: And by the way, so I also went to Butch Peel, his seminar, and he's one of the engineers at Jersey Jack.

Speaker: And it's amazing.

Speaker: He's a very down to earth guy, very much an engineer.

Speaker: And he's trying to help with the interaction of understanding, building these things

Speaker: What's the best way of describing it?

Speaker: Building these instruction manuals, but also working on having an online interaction one.

Speaker: So you're saying, hey, I want to go in and take apart this play field.

Speaker: And so you can click on it and it will explode it for you online.

Speaker: And it'll say, OK, this is how it looks assembled and this is how it comes apart.

Speaker: And

Speaker: really from a novice hobbyist, that would be hugely beneficial for me.

Speaker: And I know that's a crazy amount of work.

Speaker: Butch is so great to talk to and he's very approachable.

Speaker: He's one of the guys who when I was having, well, still haven't fixed it, but on my Wizard of Oz, that door, he's one chimed in.

Speaker: It's like, oh, by the way, it's this page on the manual.

Speaker: Go look there.

Speaker: So.

Speaker: Cool.

Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker: Just a quick recap too, though, Jeff, what did you think about the LE Black Knight?

Speaker: I enjoyed it.

Speaker: It shocked me how little there was to shoot for on the upper playfield, but it felt much more in line with the series than the pro did.

Speaker: I also have really warmed up to that game overall.

Speaker: I know it's hard.

Speaker: I know it's tough to grind out points on.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: But I think it's a good location game.

Speaker: I don't know that I'd be excited to own one, but I think it's one of those.

Speaker: It's just fun to step to.

Speaker: And the day after the show, I got back and I went to play our location one and threw some initials up and racked up a bunch of credits on it.

Speaker: It was fun.

Speaker: Nice.

Speaker: Yeah, I agree.

Speaker: I think the, uh, the LE, um, with the upper play field, it feels like a modernized version of black night 2000.

Speaker: So if you are a Black Knight 2000 fan or Black Knight slash Black Knight 2000, it is the logical progression to that.

Speaker: If you want like a stripped down and modified and I would argue faster version, the pro version is for you.

Speaker: I also think that it works really well in playing with friends because the ball times are going to be short.

Speaker: So you're not going to be waiting around a while because it is a brutal game.

Speaker: Yeah, it was cool to be able to bring back that whole aspect of Black Knight where you have a ball rolling, you're punching the lock bar to make it hop just a little bit so you can catch it on the flipper tip and try and get an orbit around the upper plate to line up another shot.

Speaker: Yeah, and having that missing from the pro, that's the biggest thing that's missing from the whole Black Knight feel.

Speaker: So that's back.

Speaker: Well, the pro is...

Speaker: is much more aggressive because the ball is constantly flying at you.

Speaker: It's there.

Speaker: There is no, there is no slowdown.

Speaker: I mean, with the, with the upper play field, it's a little slower.

Speaker: And I'd say the catapult lock is really cool.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: But yeah.

Speaker: And it's the pro version is drag racer.

Speaker: It's just going full speed all the time.

Speaker: Yep.

Speaker: Yep.

Speaker: For sure.

Speaker: Cool.

Speaker: And by the way, I actually got more time on,

Speaker: Jersey Jack Pirates.

Speaker: I'm more and more impressed with that game every time I see it.

Speaker: And I play more and more and find out there's all these little things that Eric put in there that still just blow my mind.

Speaker: I'm trying to appreciate it more, but it feels like that is such a giant undertaking that I still only understand about 20% of what's going on in that game because it's so impressive.

Speaker: It's like a big time digital pinball game where it feels like it's doing stuff that are only, you'd only seen a digital pinball game, but it's actually doing them.

Speaker: It's crazy.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It's like a Zen pinball machine comes to life.

Speaker: Yeah, I agree.

Speaker: It's amazing.

Speaker: Well, it's time to buy one and get down in your basement.

Speaker: Sounds like, well, I have two pirate, two pirate games.

Speaker: So that'll be my third one.

Speaker: Sounds like a plan, man.

Speaker: So,

Speaker: Well, cool.

Speaker: I guess if that wraps it up, I guess we'll move on to a little bit of news then.

Speaker: which is like nothing.

Speaker: The only thing that's come out, we've talked about this like the last couple weeks, it just seems like more and more is coming out slowly from deep root.

Speaker: Really, the takeaway from it is Robert Mugler's cocky, and we're supposedly seeing prototypes of Raza in November at the Houston Expo.

Speaker: You guys want to put in on this?

Speaker: I just hope he's

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: I mean, it's been the longest weird, bad, stupid story in pinball.

Speaker: So hopefully this is it coming to an actual resolution.

Speaker: If they're there, great.

Speaker: If they're not, it just sucks for the people being strung along.

Speaker: Yep.

Speaker: I do want to I really do want to see just see something happen.

Speaker: You know what?

Speaker: Here's my attitude.

Speaker: He's certainly, he's certainly coming off with a lot of bravado.

Speaker: Um, I, I also think he hasn't taken any money and he's also been doing at least something for the J pop people, which is something that he never had to do.

Speaker: So it feels to me that he's putting his money where his mouth is.

Speaker: And I, I like the bravado.

Speaker: I like him saying, bring it on.

Speaker: I also,

Speaker: If he is able to produce what he, what he is saying, then I'm all excited.

Speaker: Uh, and I think that the vibe seems very much in that Valley Williams, 1990s feel, which I really think we, uh, we could use more of.

Speaker: Well, cool.

Speaker: Yep.

Speaker: Well, the only other news that I could really think of that we haven't talked about, uh, the day, uh,

Speaker: like two days after we recorded, Nate Shivers came out with coast to coast and did his final episode of indefinite hiatus.

Speaker: Um, it's just crazy.

Speaker: Ending of an error, I guess.

Speaker: But I wanted to point out some stuff though, Jeff, that like he talked about how you guys were the inspiration for him starting that up.

Speaker: So really everyone should be thanking the pinball podcast for all the years of coast to coast.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I don't know that he wouldn't have done it on his own otherwise, but I do remember when he first started coming out with those episodes and he had just first started and Don and I had picked up on him and we started kind of mentioning it on the show.

Speaker: We were first impressed at the rate he could put them out, and then we were really impressed by the quality of what he could put out.

Speaker: And then everyone else started to recognize that as well.

Speaker: And it was a fantastic run they had with it.

Speaker: He's not done with his pinball media production stuff.

Speaker: We know he's just kind of changing what he's going to do.

Speaker: But it was a really good run for the show, and it was actually nice to hear him come back and at least give it a proper sendoff.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I agree.

Speaker: It's basically closing one chapter and opening a different one.

Speaker: It's, it's leaving one band and starting another.

Speaker: So, um, yeah, I, I think it's fine.

Speaker: He's certainly entertaining.

Speaker: He certainly knows how to be a PR guy and whatever he is involved in will be successful.

Speaker: So,

Speaker: I think people just need to, you know, a lot of people have complained of how he ended the episode.

Speaker: I'm like, dude, just it's, it's an entertainment thing.

Speaker: Just, it's a teaser.

Speaker: Come on.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It's what Marvel's been doing for 22 films.

Speaker: Just, it's a teaser saying that he's not done.

Speaker: He's doing something else.

Speaker: Just wait for it.

Speaker: And,

Speaker: Yeah, I'm sorry.

Speaker: If, if, if people have a problem with it, then they can take the money back, whatever they paid him.

Speaker: Oh wait, nothing.

Speaker: So they can, I'm sorry, this, this is for free.

Speaker: So if you're complaining about a free product, then, you know, just turn it off.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So, well, cool.

Speaker: That pretty much covers our news.

Speaker: I know some other stuff happened, but we're not going to talk about it.

Speaker: So yeah, if you're really worried about go on the interwebs, if you really want to dig that hole, go into Pinside.

Speaker: So,

Speaker: Yeah, if you want to watch A Flame War, just go to Pennside.

Speaker: I don't really care about the crazy drama.

Speaker: I guess my attitude is let's be nice to everybody in the sport, regardless of who you are, what your affiliation is, political, religious, sexual, whatever.

Speaker: Why don't we just focus on playing the game and not deal with the other stuff?

Speaker: Or why don't we just respect the other stuff?

Speaker: I'll just leave it at that.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So cool.

Speaker: Um, I wanted to hurry and do a time warp since we have Jeff on.

Speaker: I, I didn't, I did not warn you that this was coming cause I wanted you to, uh, I don't know.

Speaker: I want you to have your mind clear of the questions I was going to ask.

Speaker: So we're going to go back eight and a half years.

Speaker: You ready for this, Jeff?

Speaker: The date is October 6th, 2011.

Speaker: Um,

Speaker: This is the first day that the first episode of the Pinball Podcast came out.

Speaker: I remember.

Speaker: I've got show notes here.

Speaker: I took notes.

Speaker: This isn't necessarily what was in your show notes.

Speaker: I wanted to go over the news and rumors of October 2011 to see how much of this came true.

Speaker: You ready for this?

Speaker: Oh, okay.

Speaker: Let's see what we got.

Speaker: This is going to be crazy.

Speaker: Do you remember the Stern rumored next title coming out?

Speaker: In 2011?

Speaker: 2011.

Speaker: Oh, boy.

Speaker: You and Don had talked about there was leaked photos, so you guys were pretty for sure of it.

Speaker: And it looked like it was going to be a quick and fun, fast game.

Speaker: I can't think of it off the top of my head.

Speaker: I bet if I really, really thought about it, I could come up with it.

Speaker: It was Transformers.

Speaker: Wow.

Speaker: Yeah, unfortunately, it did come out.

Speaker: Well, that's what made me chuckle as I was listening to this.

Speaker: And you're like, man, Gomez is really good at fast, good designs.

Speaker: And I'm like, eight and a half years later, no one's talking about this game.

Speaker: And usually when they do, it's not that great.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: The news at that time was Tron update had come out.

Speaker: The last update.

Speaker: You hadn't owned one at the time yet.

Speaker: I know that you own one now, but you talked about how you.

Speaker: I do.

Speaker: Played one a lot at the local bowling L.A.

Speaker: I think is what you said.

Speaker: So.

Speaker: Something like that, maybe.

Speaker: Oh, yeah, it was a movie theater.

Speaker: Thank you.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And then there was more rumored titles.

Speaker: There was three pretty solid ones coming out from Stern.

Speaker: Do you remember what those were?

Speaker: Let's see.

Speaker: Boy, you caught me at a bad time.

Speaker: Would it have been ACDC?

Speaker: Yes, yes.

Speaker: Which at the time, you said that there was horns on the Stern logo, so you didn't know if it was ACDC or this other game, which was then another rumor.

Speaker: Uh-oh.

Speaker: Horns, horns.

Speaker: Remember, we were just three years after when the biggest movie event said come out.

Speaker: I think I'm really dumb right now.

Speaker: Are you talking in the background?

Speaker: Are you

Speaker: Are you phoning a friend?

Speaker: That's not me.

Speaker: Are you texting Bill?

Speaker: You're texting Bill, aren't you?

Speaker: No, I have no lifelines.

Speaker: Let's see.

Speaker: After ACDC, I'm having a hard time remembering back to 2011.

Speaker: That's actually the hard part here.

Speaker: So 2011.

Speaker: I know ACDC.

Speaker: I got that.

Speaker: I got mine in 2012.

Speaker: What movie would have come?

Speaker: Iron Man?

Speaker: Close.

Speaker: It was Avengers.

Speaker: Avengers.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Unfortunately, that came out as well.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: But the horns was misconstrued as it could have been Loki from Avengers.

Speaker: And so that plus John Borg at the time had a picture of Avengers on his desk.

Speaker: So that was the other fuel to the rumor.

Speaker: So, and then there was the, the other rumor was a project Alice.

Speaker: So I'm assuming this is what ACDC ended up being, but it's because Steve Ritchie and lemon sheets had come out and said they were working on project Alice and they were both excited about it.

Speaker: So,

Speaker: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker: And then you had two throwaway title names that you think that Stern was putting out there to throw off the scent, which I think is hilarious because one of them was Munsters.

Speaker: Yep, I remember that.

Speaker: And then the other one was Muppets.

Speaker: So seriously, out of all the titles that had been rumored, most of them had been made.

Speaker: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker: Oh, and there was one more rumor, which was Elvira 3.

Speaker: And the rumor was that was JJP's next game, and they'd only come out with Wizards of Oz at the time.

Speaker: Yeah, I remember that.

Speaker: That still has not made its way out.

Speaker: I can't see JJP doing Elvira.

Speaker: But I think that it's ready to be put out there at any time.

Speaker: I think they're just waiting for a Lolan production or

Speaker: some delay and they can just kind of plug it in.

Speaker: I think it's one of those evergreen titles that you can actually, the theme is not dated.

Speaker: And so you can still kind of put that in.

Speaker: I think that's what's going on.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Well, and who knows between Dennis Norman moving around and cause it was originally tied to him, wasn't it?

Speaker: Yeah, but he finished it before he left.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: No.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So, but anywho, that was your time warp.

Speaker: wow sorry there was a lot more too you guys crazy it was eight years ago well and what's funny is the first episode you guys kind of did like a title of the episode like a not a title a theme not the theme you're right right and the pinball pinball machine that you guys had picked out for that one was judged red so yeah yeah i remember that because don love that well that's the game that brought us together yes

Speaker: yeah so after listening to that i wanted to buy a judge dread so i still can't i like this good i am happy so yeah yeah crazy game i think you have to have it's it can't be your only game but it can be a you know part of a a smattering of a games you have so yeah if i remember right like that was before like even um pinball arcade was even out there was like

Speaker: Nothing was out yet.

Speaker: It was a weird time.

Speaker: It was the dead zone of pinball.

Speaker: That was before the pinnacle started because we had about 12 years of death.

Speaker: And then just 2012, it kind of started picking up again.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I mean, the crazy thing is that's when, um, Raza started was like right around the first couple of episodes that we recorded is when Ben heck and J pop teamed up to do that.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And, um, I think Allison made land was out then too, or at least, uh, the foam core stuff was, it's finally gonna, finally gonna happen.

Speaker: I guess it's, uh, who knows?

Speaker: I, I never thought wizard of awesome would have been a good theme and apparently it is.

Speaker: So yeah.

Speaker: Crazy how much has changed in eight and a half years, right?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So we've all changed.

Speaker: You know, here's the funny thing though, is this is now that they've kind of gone through and we've talked about the, the themes, like the, the themes that should be, or at least the bands.

Speaker: And, um, I was thinking that they could, they could actually make a pink pinball machine.

Speaker: I think that she would actually, she would sell.

Speaker: I think that I,

Speaker: You've been listening too much Franchi lately, man.

Speaker: No, seriously.

Speaker: Did he say that?

Speaker: Yeah, he's, I don't know, he uses Pink as a reference for all of his stuff he talks about.

Speaker: I've been kind of busy and haven't really listened.

Speaker: But I was just thinking of what modern artists would actually make a good pinball machine.

Speaker: I'm like, I think that would actually work.

Speaker: But anyway, that's just a side note.

Speaker: Well, speaking of themes, we wanted to hurry and talk about this.

Speaker: I was talking to you guys about it, and it sounded like you wanted to talk about video game themes in pinball.

Speaker: Because I know you, Jeff, used to work for Nintendo, correct?

Speaker: Not for Nintendo.

Speaker: but very closely with them.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: So between that and I know that we're all kind of into video games.

Speaker: I mean, for heaven's sake, Scott's got a two and a half foot Mario sitting in his basement.

Speaker: So until I steal it, but yeah, he does.

Speaker: So my question to you two, so my question to you two is why do you think video game theme didn't work out?

Speaker: Cause we've had like a joust where we had baby Pac-Man, two different super Mario brothers, a street fighter.

Speaker: Um, that's, that's what's coming off the top of my head.

Speaker: Is there, is there any other ones I'm missing in there?

Speaker: Um, yeah.

Speaker: Well, there's like a defender.

Speaker: I'm sure the space invaders.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: There's yes.

Speaker: Uh huh.

Speaker: I think the point,

Speaker: is they're hard to remember because they're just not that great.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Um, but I mean, I, I, I think there's reasons for it.

Speaker: And I think the reason for it is because they fall into one of two traps that either try and make it, try and recreate the video game experience through pinball, which does not work.

Speaker: So they definitely tried to do that through street fighter two, like,

Speaker: you're going to do your fights and you're going to, you know, bash the car like you do in the game.

Speaker: And none of it really works.

Speaker: You'd rather just play the game and pull off the special moves and all that stuff.

Speaker: Or, um, it's the other way where they've just taken kind of like a generic layout and they throw the video game theming on top of it.

Speaker: And it doesn't feel like anything except for just a thrown on theme.

Speaker: And, um,

Speaker: It's just tough because you go into it with such a strong mindset.

Speaker: Now, I know that's true with movies.

Speaker: I know that's true with like comic book themes and stuff.

Speaker: But video games, they're tied to a style of play so tightly that there are certain video games, especially the old popular ones, that you play them out of muscle memory almost.

Speaker: If you were to sit down and play like Frogger or Pitfall now, like the old Atari games, you'd probably

Speaker: playing the same way you did when you were four or five years old.

Speaker: So translating that to a different medium, it's just weird.

Speaker: It's really hard to do.

Speaker: I don't know.

Speaker: There's a lot.

Speaker: Do you think also, you know, another title that just came to my mind that I know is a total turd is Spy Hunter.

Speaker: That one's terrible.

Speaker: It's a weird one.

Speaker: That is a really weird, weird game.

Speaker: But I think the only is about a third of it.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I think the other problem too is, well, two reasons.

Speaker: I think that originally video games weren't as big.

Speaker: We've gotten to a place now that they're huge.

Speaker: Like some video game franchises are bigger than movie franchises.

Speaker: And so, but back then, you know, it was hard to market a pinball machine based off of a video game when video games were only, had only been around for five years.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: See, you're actually, you're wrong on this.

Speaker: You're wrong because you're dead wrong because when the reason why they made a joust pinball machine and a defender pinball machine is because that was when the early arcades were huge.

Speaker: And that was before the 1983 crash when that almost wiped out the video game industry or at least took it down to the brass tacks down there.

Speaker: But there was almost nothing left.

Speaker: And so that was them trying to stay relevant when arcades were taking over.

Speaker: But I agree with Jeff.

Speaker: It was a poor integration.

Speaker: It was almost like an add-on.

Speaker: It was a me too.

Speaker: It was a cereal box that has a theme that's tacked on it and says, now Cheerios with green colors because now it's Zelda different.

Speaker: pebbles or something like that.

Speaker: It's, it was, it was just branded that way.

Speaker: I think that really the reason why most of these things failed is because they had poor theme integration and they also just had poor designs for poor designers.

Speaker: They weren't good designers.

Speaker: I think that the three things that come to mind that I think would make excellent that would translate really well

Speaker: is I think a Super Mario Brothers game, a really good one with a good designer, would actually sell crazy.

Speaker: I think a Zelda game would actually sell crazy.

Speaker: Other things that could be done, Metroid, maybe.

Speaker: I think Metroid is a little more of a niche thing, but if you look at the two pillars that Nintendo has built their gaming system on,

Speaker: It's basically been a Mario game and a Zelda game, and that's driven the Nintendo series since 1985.

Speaker: And so if they were able to find a good designer and a good rule set that's able to work with the theme, I think it would be a huge hit.

Speaker: But you're not going to play the pinball machine like you play Super Mario Brothers.

Speaker: It's not the same, but I think the theme would still ring true.

Speaker: Well, and that brings me to my other question too, is do you think that if they did, do you think that there's enough quote unquote new guard into the hobby?

Speaker: Because my understanding is, is the old guard was kind of against video games because they felt like, and I don't know if this is true or not, but they'd felt like video games had kind of snuffed out pinball.

Speaker: And so a lot of them had like the true and tried pinball players that were years and years ago

Speaker: didn't want these themes because it was kind of a reminder of what killed off pinball at that point.

Speaker: So do you think that we could do video game titles now and then sell?

Speaker: I think you can.

Speaker: I always think you could.

Speaker: I just, yeah, they were just never given the same treatment as, you know, the other themes or the other licenses.

Speaker: And, you know,

Speaker: And it probably, I don't know.

Speaker: I don't know if it was because the designers didn't want to touch the game things because of that.

Speaker: But, you know, a lot of the people that worked on some of those games that were extremely popular were big time people in pinball.

Speaker: You had guys like Eugene Jarvis who were important in pinball were making games like Defender.

Speaker: And like, that's important.

Speaker: So I don't know if...

Speaker: Maybe just the teams weren't right.

Speaker: Who knows exactly what it was, but I do think you could make it work.

Speaker: You just have to try to not recreate, try not to recreate the game feel through pinball because I don't think that'll ever work.

Speaker: Video games, a good video game is based on extremely tight and precise gameplay and pinball's wild.

Speaker: So there's got to be some sort of

Speaker: different angle to come at come at the experience but yeah i i do think it would work i do they just gotta i think it would have to be the right the right license though i i don't think any of these shooter games you know like a halo game or something like i just don't think it that wouldn't work for me um i think you need more of a journey game or something with a storyline and i think that's where

Speaker: Mario and Zelda would work because it's almost like a movie theater movie license that you can craft a story around a journey around if it's a shooter game I don't know how much of how much theme integration you can really get

Speaker: Oh, come on.

Speaker: You don't want the Fortnite pinball machine?

Speaker: That terrible one that someone took a fun house and didn't even put like... Didn't it redo the play field?

Speaker: They just stuck stickers over the top of it?

Speaker: Oh, that was painful.

Speaker: Oh, man.

Speaker: But no, I get where you're coming from on the shooters and whatnot.

Speaker: I think, and honestly, the reason I bring this up is because looking at Black Knight Sword of Rage, I feel like it's got a very video game feel to it with the fact that you're trying to defeat boss after boss to get to the Black Knight.

Speaker: I think you could, same with kind of like Walking Dead where you collect items and stuff like that.

Speaker: I think that the video game elements are there.

Speaker: I think...

Speaker: I really think a Metroid game would do fantastic.

Speaker: The whole point of you're collecting Samus' items so you can power up to defeat the final boss.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: I think there's so much untapped potential.

Speaker: And really, how many more of these themes can we make that are... I don't know.

Speaker: I still think Munsters is a swing and a miss.

Speaker: That's just me personally.

Speaker: I don't know.

Speaker: But...

Speaker: Jack Danger has been pushing Pokemon.

Speaker: I don't know if Pokemon would be a good theme or not.

Speaker: I don't.

Speaker: But that's what they've been talking about for the last three weeks.

Speaker: When you're selling games, you're selling to people who are in their 30s, 40s, and 50s and possible 60s.

Speaker: You're really selling to people who have careers.

Speaker: They have some disposable income.

Speaker: That's when people start restoring cars or getting into an expensive hobby.

Speaker: I guarantee Pokemon doesn't really ring true, at least for my generation.

Speaker: I'm turning 45 this year, and I've never played a Pokemon game.

Speaker: I don't foresee me ever buying that unless it's a, hey, I'm buying it because my kid likes it.

Speaker: I think I have something that you identify with.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: But I could be in the minority.

Speaker: For some reason, Pokemon shows up every five years and goes really big and then goes into hibernation and then comes back.

Speaker: So maybe I'm the outlier here.

Speaker: I don't know.

Speaker: I know I would love to see a Legend of Zelda pinball machine.

Speaker: Yeah, for sure.

Speaker: Well, the soundtrack could be.

Speaker: Well, the thing is, both Legend of Zelda and Mario Brothers, they have intact pieces.

Speaker: sound packages that you could really repurpose very easily.

Speaker: And I mean, if you hit that button and it goes, and then launches the ball or whatever, I think that that really does like, Hey, this is kind of fun.

Speaker: Um, who knows?

Speaker: Uh, of course outside of, I just talked about Nintendo.

Speaker: Um, that's basically, those are still from like 1985.

Speaker: I know Zelda's kind of evolved since then, but Mario has kind of felt very similar.

Speaker: Is there any other video game franchise that you would think, yeah, that would work?

Speaker: The thing is with like, I think Mario and Zelda are the big no brainers because they are cross generational and they're also popular with the younger generation.

Speaker: So it's kind of hard to find anything that would

Speaker: be better than those.

Speaker: Um, other stuff that might work.

Speaker: I mean, I want to re-theme my Hollywood heat into a Metroid.

Speaker: I just keep getting set back on that.

Speaker: So I've always felt that that would be a good one.

Speaker: Um, outside of like the Nintendo side of things.

Speaker: I mean, if you had a fortnight pinball machine, kids would run up and play it.

Speaker: I just don't really see it translating that way.

Speaker: Well, shooter or survival type games.

Speaker: I just don't, I don't see it.

Speaker: I like the arena battle style.

Speaker: Um,

Speaker: it's tough like like racing games maybe but I don't think they'll ever do another racing game the only the only racing game that I could possibly see them do is like the getaway three or something like that's the only one I full throttle a fun game but the theme just sold nothing

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Hey, by the way, I don't know.

Speaker: Ratchet and Clank would be a good one.

Speaker: Ratchet and Clank would be good.

Speaker: God of War maybe would be good.

Speaker: I think a good one would be Resident Evil.

Speaker: And it's just because it's produced movies along with the video games.

Speaker: There's a lot of extra outside of it.

Speaker: And we seem to, in the pinball hobby, gravitate towards mature themes.

Speaker: Right.

Speaker: And so, I mean, Walking Dead did very well.

Speaker: And it didn't have any of the assets to it except for the title stuff.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So I think, I think it could, um, lend very well to a pinball machine, uh, incorporating, like trying not to die and stuff like that.

Speaker: Maybe if you're bitten by a zombie, you have a timed, you know, you got to get an herb before you time out and you end up getting forced to drain or something.

Speaker: I don't know.

Speaker: That could be a really dumb concept, but just stuff off the top of my head.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I could see it.

Speaker: Video games are tough, man.

Speaker: They're just really tough to translate.

Speaker: Well, I think it's also just a different style.

Speaker: Like when I grew up, I grew up really, I remember Pong.

Speaker: So that was like, I've seen everything going from really basic to really crazy advanced.

Speaker: And at least the early games, it was kind of, it was a repetition and a skill to repeatedly do the same thing.

Speaker: Modern games are completely different.

Speaker: especially like the the you know the World of Warcraft types or the you know just kind of that environmental games it's just different than hey jump over the barrel five times so I just think it feels different but pinball is a lot closer to the earlier ones where it's just one small skill that you're repeatedly doing

Speaker: they should do since since stern's got steve richie they just need to do mortal combat and then it'd be kind of like based like the deadpool style so you're still fighting on the screen be like street fighter too well no but then you can choose from characters like you would on uh pirates of the caribbean and they all have their own little perks to them yeah i don't know i think i think deadpool worked really well um

Speaker: I know that Jeff's less of a fan.

Speaker: I've actually grown more and more to like Deadpool and wouldn't mind having one in my collection.

Speaker: But yeah, I just don't see a fighting one really working as well.

Speaker: But hey, they pulled it off on Deadpool.

Speaker: I don't know.

Speaker: That was just my thought for the week.

Speaker: It's been on my mind for a while now because I grew up on video games originally and then I transferred over to pinball.

Speaker: And so I've always wondered why there hasn't been more, especially with a lot of these franchises that have been established for 25, 30 years.

Speaker: I mean, heck, didn't Zelda just have its 35th anniversary?

Speaker: I mean, it's up there for sure.

Speaker: May was Mario.

Speaker: Mario was 1984.

Speaker: I'm just kind of like, the problem with these bigger franchises, they tend to be more

Speaker: jealous and involved in how it's presented, which is why Disney and Lucas, they're notoriously challenging to work with because they're very focused on their brand presentation.

Speaker: And so I think that Nintendo would be just as challenging.

Speaker: That's a good possibility.

Speaker: Man, that's why they've never went after it.

Speaker: Well, they tried twice, and that was really bad.

Speaker: I think, though, that Nintendo is getting more and more license-friendly.

Speaker: We're seeing that with mobile games.

Speaker: We're seeing that with third-party developers making, like, Mario and Rabbids or the Cadence of Hyrule.

Speaker: I mean, that's an indie-developed game that's being lent Legend of Zelda assets.

Speaker: I mean...

Speaker: I think we're getting to that point where I think the iron's hot right now.

Speaker: If people want to start building that kind of stuff, they need to do it now before it starts going away.

Speaker: So just my thought process.

Speaker: I want to hear from you guys, though.

Speaker: I want to hear.

Speaker: We'll throw a poll up this time.

Speaker: Do you think video games make for a good theme for pinball machines?

Speaker: Yes or no?

Speaker: And we want to hear in your comments what your favorite one would be.

Speaker: Easy enough?

Speaker: I think they can do it.

Speaker: They should do a golden axe or an altered beast.

Speaker: Yes.

Speaker: Okay, maybe not.

Speaker: No, they need to do a, did you ever hear about that terrible, just, it was a one shot game in Japan.

Speaker: It was called, it was, it was made for the Wii and it was called Wii PP and it came with a harness with a Wii remote.

Speaker: So you could pee into toilets and then like cats would pop out of the toilets and you'd pee on their heads.

Speaker: I don't know what the Japanese were thinking, but that was some hot stuff over there, man.

Speaker: That's really bizarre.

Speaker: I would never buy that for my kids.

Speaker: So you never know.

Speaker: There's random things for everything.

Speaker: Are we ending on peeing on cat's heads?

Speaker: Is that really how the episode's ending?

Speaker: No, no.

Speaker: It's supposed to end on a high note.

Speaker: That's pretty high.

Speaker: Well, I think you'd have to be high to design that game.

Speaker: Oh my goodness.

Speaker: It's getting late.

Speaker: I think we need show notes next time.

Speaker: That really took a left turn.

Speaker: Sorry for the inappropriate not family funness there.

Speaker: Oh no, it's just bizarreness.

Speaker: I've never heard of that game.

Speaker: I think my brain just exploded.

Speaker: I'm not mad.

Speaker: I'm just scared.

Speaker: I thought you were disappointed.

Speaker: Not disappointed.

Speaker: I'm just scared.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: So, well, cool.

Speaker: Hey, is there anything that you want to relay to the public while we've got you on, Jeff?

Speaker: I don't know if there's, you know.

Speaker: Yeah, let me give my podcast co-host a shout out.

Speaker: Go check out softplungepinball.com.

Speaker: She's selling pinball merchandise now.

Speaker: So check it out.

Speaker: I will definitely check that out.

Speaker: I heard there's some good stuff on there.

Speaker: Go get yourself a Golden Girls t-shirt.

Speaker: It's pretty awesome.

Speaker: They might have sold out.

Speaker: It's possible.

Speaker: Did you know that my first, the first person I played, I talked to her about your, well, Jessica's website and I mentioned the golden girl shirt and I pulled it up and she said, I need one.

Speaker: Yeah, it's fantastic.

Speaker: So I'm pulling it up as we speak.

Speaker: I heard that there was an awesome web designer on this too.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I don't know.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Just so-so, right?

Speaker: We collaborated well.

Speaker: Anyway.

Speaker: Yeah, these are pretty cool.

Speaker: Oh, dang it, Jeff.

Speaker: I thought you were going to buy these booty shorts that say soft plunge on them.

Speaker: I think those actually did sell out.

Speaker: They did sell out.

Speaker: They sold out.

Speaker: Dang it.

Speaker: It's because you bought them all, isn't it?

Speaker: No, I didn't get a chance.

Speaker: They sold out.

Speaker: I thought he bought them for his new workout regimen.

Speaker: No, there will be more.

Speaker: Cool.

Speaker: No, awesome, guys.

Speaker: That's great.

Speaker: Well, I guess we should probably wrap this up because if we don't, we'll just keep on rambling, right?

Speaker: We'll just keep going crazy, yeah.

Speaker: Is there any shout-outs?

Speaker: Oh, we got you on, Jeff.

Speaker: Let's hurry and we've officially, I know we texted you this, but we officially dubs you or knighted you.

Speaker: I don't know what it's called.

Speaker: You're a loser kid, just like one of us now.

Speaker: Yeah, inducted.

Speaker: You're inducted.

Speaker: And we're trying to work on getting some swag so we can get you something official.

Speaker: Awesome.

Speaker: It's either a high note or a low note in your life.

Speaker: Wait, what?

Speaker: It's a note.

Speaker: It's a note.

Speaker: It's not a brown note.

Speaker: No.

Speaker: I still find it a high enough.

Speaker: I'm happy with it.

Speaker: Everyone's a loser compared to Raymond Davidson, right?

Speaker: He's number one in the world right now.

Speaker: We're all playing for second.

Speaker: Or worse.

Speaker: Scene never change if you're not the lead dog.

Speaker: We're in the same league as Keith Elwin.

Speaker: How does that make you feel?

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: I'm really close to that.

Speaker: So, well, cool.

Speaker: Uh, we appreciate you coming on Jeff and giving us an update of all the Rocky mountain pinball stuff.

Speaker: Um, I know it's a special show for you, so it was cool that Scott got to go enjoy that with you.

Speaker: So yeah, it was awesome.

Speaker: All right.

Speaker: I, I, after the show, I decided I'm on the hunt for a high speed, um, or an earth shaker.

Speaker: So cool.

Speaker: If anyone knows of a good high speed or an earth shaker, let me know.

Speaker: I might have a baby Pac-Man.

Speaker: I don't know if you'd want that.

Speaker: I don't know if I can maintain those.

Speaker: Apparently I'm going to get two of them along with an eight ball deluxe, but we'll see what happens.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Well, let me know.

Speaker: So, so how can we find you, Jeff, besides hanging out on, on our podcast?

Speaker: Um, eventually we're going to release a new episode of the pinball podcast.

Speaker: Um, Jessica was at the Northwest pinball and arcade show this last weekend.

Speaker: So we will get together and record this week.

Speaker: I'm fairly certain of that.

Speaker: The pinball podcast will be back soon.

Speaker: Um, other than that, just, uh, yeah, I, you know, see you around.

Speaker: See you around.

Speaker: Cool.

Speaker: Sounds good.

Speaker: So either check them out, pinball podcast or wherever Jeff's are found.

Speaker: Yep.

Speaker: I'm there.

Speaker: So cool.

Speaker: And how can they, how can they find us, Josh?

Speaker: You should plug yourself too.

Speaker: How can we find us?

Speaker: They can find us on Facebook at the Loser Kid Pinball Podcast, or you can reach us at Gmail at Loser Kid Pinball Podcast, or wherever you find your podcasts.

Speaker: We're probably there.

Speaker: I'm pretty proud of ourselves for the fact that we're on Alexa.

Speaker: If you tell Alexa, hey, Alexa, play Loser Kid Pinball Podcast, she'll start it.

Speaker: Yay.

Speaker: Oh, crap.

Speaker: And it's starting in the background.

Speaker: Sorry.

Speaker: Hold on.

Speaker: Actually, not to extend the show, but it was really funny.

Speaker: Stop.

Speaker: My kids were trying to be stupid with the Google Home the other day, and they tried to have it play a poop song.

Speaker: They said, okay, Google, play the poop song.

Speaker: Oh, yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: And there was all sorts of noise interference going on.

Speaker: It said, okay, playing the pinball podcast episode, I think it was like 19 or nine or something.

Speaker: We have one that's called poop bumper.

Speaker: And yeah, everyone had a good laugh about that one.

Speaker: All of a sudden it said, you're listening to the pinball podcast with Don and Jeff.

Speaker: That's awesome.

Speaker: That is fantastic.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: My kids were, were talking to Alexa and it ended up being like,

Speaker: There's a, it's like the toilet bowl guys or something.

Speaker: It was like poop and pee on the toilet seat.

Speaker: So they played that for like a week straight.

Speaker: Comedy gold.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: It's, it's, it's gold, Jerry.

Speaker: Well, on that high note, I think we should sign off.

Speaker: If you're still listening, then I feel sorry for you.

Speaker: So, all righty guys.

Speaker: Later.

Speaker: All right.

Speaker: Yeah.

Speaker: Sounds good.

Speaker: I need to grab some stuff because I'm flying out tomorrow.

Speaker: So, all right.

Speaker: Okay.

Speaker: Good luck.

Speaker: Thanks.

Speaker: See you guys.

Speaker: Bye.