Transcript
Speaker: Thanks for tuning in to the Loser Kid Pinball Podcast.
Speaker: We are on episode 97.
Speaker: I am Josh Roop.
Speaker: With me, my co-captain as always.
Speaker: Scott Larson.
Speaker: And Scott, it's getting Christmas time, and I know you've been eyeballing some of those sweet pinball machines.
Speaker: You thinking about getting anything?
Speaker: You know what?
Speaker: We're doing a major renovation on the house, and I still have my Guardians of the Galaxy in a box in the garage because I haven't been able to open it up.
Speaker: Um, if I had space and I weren't doing a renovation on the house, the, you know, get in the, in the waiting queue for the Mandalorian topper.
Speaker: If you're a big fan of that game, it's a, a,
Speaker: a great accessory to put on there.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And they're, and flipping out pinball, Zach and Nicole, many, they just got back from vacation and, uh, they got quite the stack of emails they're going through, but they have quite the stock in right now.
Speaker: So, you know, you want that Christmas present.
Speaker: They, their shipping is insanely fast.
Speaker: Uh, I noticed one of their customers had posted last week that they'd ordered on a Monday and had it by, it was like Wednesday afternoon.
Speaker: It was insane.
Speaker: So, uh,
Speaker: If you want that pinball machine, if you want those accessories, go check Flippin' out.
Speaker: They are great.
Speaker: I'm going to move on to our guest.
Speaker: Well, okay, but did you bring up Zach's epic mustache?
Speaker: Zach's – oh, my goodness.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: You know what?
Speaker: There's only one man in pinball that can pull off a sweet mustache, and it's not Zach because he looks like an 80s porn star when he tried to do it.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay, I was thinking it was channeling Magnum PI because I'm keeping it family friendly.
Speaker: But if there's anybody in pinball that I would grow a mustache to emulate, it is our guest today.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: And he needs no introduction.
Speaker: If you are, unless you have, unless you're new to pinball in the last two minutes, I hope you have at least heard the story about Roger Sharp and the infamous shot.
Speaker: We interviewed you, Roger, about two years ago, I think, during the pandemic.
Speaker: And you led us through the whole process of actually getting up to that, which was fascinating.
Speaker: But first off, welcome to the show.
Speaker: Thank you so much for coming.
Speaker: And you're always great to come on the show and we really appreciate you slumming it with us.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: No, thank you.
Speaker: I continue to joke that, you know, for those who are listening, if they're disappointed, it's not Josh or Zach, it's their dad.
Speaker: You know, what can I do?
Speaker: What can I say?
Speaker: Okay, but I do have a question, though.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Who would win in a three-way match between a 25-year-old Roger, a 25-year-old Josh, and a 25-year-old Zach?
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: Great question.
Speaker: What era games?
Speaker: Oh, wow.
Speaker: No, because, you know, the big thing, and I don't want to get too sidetracked or too long-winded.
Speaker: I'm trying to get better with that.
Speaker: But I think the problem that I've had recently as I've gotten back into competition, and I know I did fairly well some months back, my first tournament where I actually finished fourth and knocked out both Josh and Zach in the process.
Speaker: Oh, wow.
Speaker: I don't know the rules of the new games, but if what we're talking about, just the physicality and the ability to still have the kind of reflexes and concentration that I had at 25 without the ruptured discs, I will say humbly, there's no freaking way that either of my sons could match me.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Love it.
Speaker: And that's the correct answer.
Speaker: That's what I wanted to hear.
Speaker: That is awesome.
Speaker: I've had situations where
Speaker: You know, I've been on a morning news show in Indianapolis where they had a Mandalorian.
Speaker: And I remember talking to Zach saying, do I just go up the middle?
Speaker: What am I supposed to do here?
Speaker: Should have the middle on camera.
Speaker: And I wound up putting up the high score while we were waiting for a commercial break.
Speaker: And I just turned to him.
Speaker: I said,
Speaker: Just imagine how I was 50 years ago.
Speaker: If I can still do this kind of stuff infrequently.
Speaker: So that's my answer.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: That is the correct answer.
Speaker: That is great.
Speaker: Well, speaking of 50 years ago, you kind of had a little project come out this last couple months.
Speaker: And it's kind of – I think it's taken the pinball industry and hobby by storm.
Speaker: It's really been a wonderful movie.
Speaker: How did this even happen?
Speaker: Did you get approached?
Speaker: Did you approach someone?
Speaker: First, tell our listeners, if they haven't heard of the movie, what is this movie we're talking about?
Speaker: Okay, sorry.
Speaker: The movie we're talking about is Pinball, the man who saved the game.
Speaker: It's a biopic based upon Roger Sharpe's life and his influence on pinball and the infamous...
Speaker: court hearing i'm not going to say the shot because it's really not the shot it's more about the court hearing and uh it's wonderful i've i've watched this movie i watched it watched it a couple times while i had the opportunity and i i can't wait to own this movie it is i think everyone should have if you're in the hobby you're going to love this movie well thank you i think the part that surprised
Speaker: everybody just all say this as a preface is that it's not a documentary.
Speaker: It's actually a movie with, you know, with actors and people portraying me or portraying Ellen and our son, Seth.
Speaker: So, you know, I think that that's first and foremost.
Speaker: And to answer the question, really back in February of 2020, I was approached in a rather left field email and
Speaker: from Meredith and Austin Bragg, who were filmmakers.
Speaker: They had just done an award-winning short called The Piece of Cake, which I highly recommend.
Speaker: If anybody has, I think it's like 10 minutes or eight minutes, watch it because it is marvelous and wonderful and funny.
Speaker: But they reached out to ask if anybody had ever done a movie about me.
Speaker: And it was like, well, yeah, I mean, I've been in a lot of documentaries and
Speaker: new stuff.
Speaker: And it was, no, no, no, actually about you.
Speaker: And it was just like, huh?
Speaker: Who cares?
Speaker: No.
Speaker: And Josh, you just mentioned that you've seen the movie.
Speaker: So you kind of know that the setup for the beginning of the movie effectively is that
Speaker: condensation or consolidation of that conversation that we had initially, which was, okay, fine.
Speaker: And that's how we went.
Speaker: They had this idea.
Speaker: They had done some digging, looking at a project.
Speaker: Thought maybe it'd be a short, maybe it'd be a documentary.
Speaker: Did not think of it initially as being a feature.
Speaker: And lo and behold, after some period of time, we were talking.
Speaker: MPI, the Moving Picture Institute, that was backing this project, believed enough in Meredith and Austin Bragg.
Speaker: to say, sure.
Speaker: And we reached, they reached out to me and we communicated and reached an agreement.
Speaker: And I was still of the mindset that, yeah, this is never going to happen.
Speaker: This is kind of like a flight of fancy, but I'll play along with it.
Speaker: I mean, we're in the midst of COVID.
Speaker: What am I doing here?
Speaker: Other than just kind of waiting things out as, you know, spring became summer of 20 and going through a couple of script,
Speaker: treatments and story and plot lines and what we wanted to do and what I was comfortable with versus not comfortable with and on and on and on.
Speaker: So that's really how the process started.
Speaker: It was kind of like something totally from left field that I had never envisioned or expected and truthfully was somewhat humbled by the audacity of Meredith and Austin to think that there was really a story to be told.
Speaker: In terms of my life and then my willingness to kind of allow some things to kind of be dealt with in a way that made the movie wonderful.
Speaker: But I think of it truly as being a testament to Ellen.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: back in the early 70s who knew what she wanted, was her mindset, the whole idea of not just Me Too movements that we're dealing with more recently, but just the strength and fortitude of this woman.
Speaker: And I think that that's really the part that I stand back and I admire the most.
Speaker: And it puts a smile on my face
Speaker: because Ellie and I have just celebrated our 44th anniversary, 49 years together.
Speaker: Wow.
Speaker: She still remains somewhat understanding of the person that she has as being, I won't call her better half, but at least somebody that's here with her.
Speaker: Partner in crime.
Speaker: Partner in crime is probably good, although she has been complaining today.
Speaker: The house is just a shambles.
Speaker: We've got to do something.
Speaker: It's like, what?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: There's pinball in every room.
Speaker: What's wrong with that?
Speaker: Hey, can I have you talk to my wife?
Speaker: Because there's a lot of rooms upstairs.
Speaker: Right now, I have six games in the garage, and she thinks I need to par it down.
Speaker: I think I need to expand.
Speaker: We don't need kids' bedrooms.
Speaker: They're unnecessary.
Speaker: I understand.
Speaker: In fact, it's funny, Scott, when you say that, when finally both boys wound up leaving,
Speaker: Ellen's comment was, there has to be one room in this house that is for me.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: And it wound up being Josh's old bedroom that became her sanctuary.
Speaker: No, there can't be any games in here.
Speaker: There can't be anything.
Speaker: I have my special lighting.
Speaker: She had somebody come in, redid the entire room.
Speaker: And that is her sanctuary.
Speaker: So one room out of our house and garage and basement, the rest of it is all mine.
Speaker: Any pinball machines in the bathrooms?
Speaker: Not yet.
Speaker: Oh, okay.
Speaker: Not yet.
Speaker: Other than some toy ones.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: You could get a Varkon.
Speaker: That's a straight up and down.
Speaker: Well, you could.
Speaker: Yes, you're right.
Speaker: Versus my Azrak Hamway kind of little toy ones and my Papa pinballs.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, I got to say, I think that's the part I loved most about the movie was the relationship between you and Ellen and coupling that so well.
Speaker: I don't know you guys personally.
Speaker: I haven't spent a bunch of time with you.
Speaker: But after watching this movie, I felt like I got to know you guys personally.
Speaker: And I even sat down with Zach and Josh after Expo.
Speaker: And we talked about it.
Speaker: And they said it was pretty spot on.
Speaker: They felt like they did a couple liberties.
Speaker: They felt like... But for the most part, what you're seeing on the screen was a fairly accurate assessment of the relationship.
Speaker: And so it's something I think... Speaking to your 49 years, I think a lot of people aspire to that.
Speaker: And it's amazing.
Speaker: And it's something to look forward to.
Speaker: As a man that's been married for 15, it's like...
Speaker: it gives me hope and it's just awesome.
Speaker: I just, I love this movie.
Speaker: I have so many questions about it, but I'm like, I don't want to ruin it, ruin anything for Scott.
Speaker: Like how he made the shot at the end.
Speaker: Well, there you go.
Speaker: I do know the end at least.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: Now, when your approach was something like this, I mean, it would be easier, I guess, to do a procedural or do like a documentary style thing.
Speaker: But they actually, the approach was this is a love story and...
Speaker: The thing that you're working through together is this journey into pinball, like starting down the rabbit hole.
Speaker: So when did that transition start?
Speaker: You're like, well, we want to do it this way, more of like an actual story.
Speaker: I think it was early on.
Speaker: The focus, I mean, truthfully, and for those, I'll do a plug for Jeff Teolis, because I know that he interviewed both Meredith and Austin on one of his podcasts some time back.
Speaker: And they really kind of gave the story from their perspective.
Speaker: But
Speaker: Truthfully, it was kind of like, does anybody really care about me as a young boy?
Speaker: I mean, they really were viewing it from the standpoint of my life's journey and the fact that somehow pinball became this integral part of my growing up.
Speaker: And we kind of fast forwarded to college.
Speaker: Nobody needed.
Speaker: I mean, it was like nobody needs to know my relationship with my mother, my parents, my
Speaker: My sister was supposed to be a part of the movie as well.
Speaker: I mean, we got into the weeds a little bit more in terms of it being much more, I guess, autobiographical, if you will, where I thought that that was somewhat, you know, unnecessary.
Speaker: Look, I am incredibly grateful for what I have achieved in my life.
Speaker: Just let me put it that way.
Speaker: I never, ever thought that it would be the legacy that it has become.
Speaker: So looking back and, in quotes, reliving my life with them, I'm somewhat self-effacing, I guess, in some ways.
Speaker: It was kind of like being this person looking at the menu and saying, well, no, no.
Speaker: Not that.
Speaker: I mean, that's not really important.
Speaker: You know, nobody really cares about, and it's like, yes, they do.
Speaker: And I think that the intention always was after we started talking and it's been joked about, you guys know this, you've dealt with me before, you're enduring it now.
Speaker: I talk a lot.
Speaker: You know, I've joked that, you know, when I was in advertising years ago,
Speaker: I spoke in headlines and sentences.
Speaker: When I moved over in the magazine, suddenly I started talking in paragraphs.
Speaker: And that becomes the problem for me is that I am long-winded.
Speaker: And the conversations that we had, these Zoom calls to start with, you know, lasted for hours upon hours.
Speaker: You know, I think that somebody made a joke that during my seminar at Pinball Expo.
Speaker: So they asked you one question and it became a 14 hour movie.
Speaker: And then they had to kind of call back because you kept on talking.
Speaker: And it was like, you know, it was somewhat comparable to that of going through my life with them asking questions.
Speaker: And, okay, let me fill in the blanks.
Speaker: And this is kind of where it started and so on and so forth.
Speaker: And then consolidating and condensing it down into something that made sense in the scheme of things.
Speaker: I think that one of the concerns that we expressed, myself, Meredith, and Austin, and just looking at everything was, well, people think that this is a pinball movie.
Speaker: And oh, my God, they're not doing an overhead with a rig and people are not streaming pinball nonstop for an hour and a half.
Speaker: Will people from the outside world be curious and interested if they think it's a pinball movie?
Speaker: And understand that it's not.
Speaker: And Josh, thank you for pointing out.
Speaker: It is, you know, it's a love story.
Speaker: And it's, you know, with Ellen as one of the principles, obviously, in all of this.
Speaker: But it is that kind of like coming together of two people and a young man kind of finding himself through pinball.
Speaker: I mean, in essence.
Speaker: And would people in the outside world be turned off because they think it's only pinball?
Speaker: And will the pinball community be turned off because it's like, oh,
Speaker: well, there wasn't a lot of pinball playing in here.
Speaker: We thought it was going to be.
Speaker: So there was that balance of wanting to have a story that hopefully could capture people's attention, involve them where they actually cared about the characters.
Speaker: And I speak about that almost in a third person, but I really mean it that way to kind of be involved, but yet disassociated.
Speaker: Does that make sense at all?
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: In terms of,
Speaker: I didn't want to be heavy handed.
Speaker: in how I was treated.
Speaker: And there's a lot of things.
Speaker: And Josh, you mentioned that you had a chance to talk to Zach and to Josh, you know, after Expo.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, there's a lot of things that are pretty much spot on and there's other things where there are a heck of a lot of liberties.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And I didn't mind that about myself.
Speaker: You know, I can handle that at this point in my life.
Speaker: So again, Scott, to kind of follow up on it, I think that,
Speaker: There was an understanding that it was going to be like this.
Speaker: And then when it became much more voluminous, there was a question of, all right, how do we bring this in so that there is a reasonably solid story arc where we're taking people along to this journey and then ultimately this crescendo.
Speaker: And the crescendo, if you really think about it without spoiling it for those who haven't seen the movie, isn't just the courtroom.
Speaker: as Josh knows, because he's seen it.
Speaker: It's really like the final, the final scenes with, with Dennis who portrays me into a T he is just an incredible actor.
Speaker: So I think that there is all of that, that coalesces.
Speaker: Does that make sense at all?
Speaker: Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker: And you actually, you pointed on casting Dennis as you, uh,
Speaker: which is, is so important because for, uh, for all of us who are at least familiar with you and have talked with you, there's a, an authenticity that he brings that I, I watch him on, on the screen.
Speaker: And I think that is, he's channeling Roger Sharp.
Speaker: It's not, you know, I don't want to disparage the film, but Daniel Radcliffe dressing up like weird Al Yankovec, it still just looks like Harry Potter in a frizzy wig.
Speaker: Um,
Speaker: But with Dennis, you watch him on the screen and you're like, that's that's basically a good facsimile of who Roger is.
Speaker: So I was so impressed with the way you were able to integrate the personalities in the casting.
Speaker: It didn't it felt genuine.
Speaker: Well, thanks.
Speaker: And truthfully, I'll share a couple of anecdotes.
Speaker: And Dennis was magnificent.
Speaker: When we first connected, Dennis was literally one of my top picks.
Speaker: And we were fortunate enough to be able to cast him, that he was available.
Speaker: And when we first connected, and again, this is all during COVID, and we're doing a Zoom call.
Speaker: His first comment when we were on the computer face-to-face, he said,
Speaker: you know, some of the questions that are asked of you, my God, because he had watched, I guess, some of my talks at some of the pinball shows, but that was his, that was his learning curve, if you will.
Speaker: And what was amazing on a couple of occasions, and one in particular was at, I guess it's Sag Harbor.
Speaker: I'm trying to remember.
Speaker: And on Long Island, the second year,
Speaker: The second screening that we had for the Hamptons Film Festival, and I'm standing outside the theater after the Q&A and whatever else, and just kind of talking with Meredith and Austin.
Speaker: And this woman comes out, comes over to me, and she just says, you were just incredible in the movie.
Speaker: I just had to say something.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: It was Meredith who said, if you thought he was good in this, you should see him in Better Call Saul.
Speaker: And we all kind of smiled and laughed because truthfully, Dennis really kind of nails it.
Speaker: I think all of it.
Speaker: And even the way that we did the capture, look, initially the voiceover was going to be a voiceover that potentially was going to be me.
Speaker: And I thought, no.
Speaker: And then it kind of evolved into, well, there's this device we can have, you know, it being this interview and it will be an actor portraying you.
Speaker: And then we kind of went from there with Mike.
Speaker: It was a little bit different.
Speaker: Mike actually came out and visited with us for a couple of days.
Speaker: which I thought was great.
Speaker: He had just wrapped with West Side Story, the remake that Spielberg had done and came out.
Speaker: We were talking and I'm sitting in the room where he was.
Speaker: And it was like, do you mind if I set up a video camera?
Speaker: And just asking questions and getting into, you know, and to me, as well as looking back on some of the older stuff,
Speaker: that I've done that's been on YouTube or God knows wherever else that people have found where obviously I sound differently, talk differently.
Speaker: My mannerisms, the way I play pinball now with a bad back versus the way I was before.
Speaker: We kind of joked about it before as a 25 year old.
Speaker: as we played pinball here to just see.
Speaker: So let me see how you play, Mike, because we want this to be somewhat authentic.
Speaker: Just, you know, I want you to be comfortable, you know, kind of like, okay with this.
Speaker: And I think that that was, you know, that was one of the key ingredients as well in terms of Mike really capturing a lot of what I would call the nuance of me as a younger person and trying to, again,
Speaker: distance myself from it needing to be something that was dead on with either of them.
Speaker: And even the same with Crystal, who portrays Ellen.
Speaker: You know, whatever those liberties are, you want to get to the core and the essence of the character.
Speaker: But you want it to be somewhat true.
Speaker: although you want there to be enough latitude so that the actors themselves are not confined into a box because it wasn't as if anybody was putting on, in quotes, makeup to look like me other than, you know, the mustache.
Speaker: And in the case of Dennis, when he came in, I mean, for those who have followed Dennis's career most recently, he tends to have a goatee as well.
Speaker: And, you know, we were on air and I said, God, you know,
Speaker: I'm really sorry.
Speaker: I guess you're going to have to, Oh no, don't worry about it.
Speaker: It's okay.
Speaker: I'm fine with it.
Speaker: I said, okay, just want, just want to let you know.
Speaker: I mean, I've had them in the past, but not back then necessarily.
Speaker: So anyway, sorry, I digressed a little bit, but.
Speaker: Well, and going back to a statement you made earlier about how you were trying to find that happy medium of
Speaker: where casual audiences care about pinball and are pinball people gonna care about the general story?
Speaker: And I think they found that perfect balance because there's a bunch of moments.
Speaker: The one that really stood out to me is when you guys are trying to explain the Guardia.
Speaker: And it just simply is, I'm flying into the airport named after the mayor, and it was literally built on the ruins of an amusement park.
Speaker: That's how much this guy hated fun.
Speaker: And something just so simple and short, just an eight-second clip, right?
Speaker: But it explained exactly what this man...
Speaker: hated against pinball.
Speaker: And it was perfect.
Speaker: Just little things like that.
Speaker: And I love that the movie also, there's a couple of times it kind of makes fun of the autobiography of it.
Speaker: Or like, you know, how movies take liberties.
Speaker: And the current version of you, it was like, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Speaker: It didn't happen that way.
Speaker: You know what I'm saying?
Speaker: I loved that.
Speaker: I loved that they were like...
Speaker: brought it back to reality.
Speaker: It went movie-ish and then it came back to reality.
Speaker: It found a really... I don't feel like I've ever seen that in a movie yet.
Speaker: Unless if you're talking... I don't know.
Speaker: I felt like it did such a good justice of keeping the content true, but fun, not boring.
Speaker: And the other thing too is you started releasing...
Speaker: the pinball tapes with Nate's shivers on coast to coast.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Only a couple of those came out.
Speaker: How much we obviously, well, I've seen the movie, so I know that they play a part in the movie.
Speaker: I mean, they play a good chunk of the movie.
Speaker: Did they have to listen?
Speaker: Because Zach has all of the tapes on computer.
Speaker: He showed us.
Speaker: I was like, holy cow, there's a lot of recording here.
Speaker: There's a lot of time here.
Speaker: There is.
Speaker: Did that play a lot into the movie?
Speaker: Like, did they go through all that too to kind of get an idea of what to do with that?
Speaker: Yeah, they schooled themselves pretty well in regard to the first conversations when I guess they got over the hump of, I won't say breaking down the barrier, but getting me to think, sure, I'll go along with this for now because it's never going to happen.
Speaker: And, you know, and the conversations were great.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I didn't really take it seriously early on, but they had started to do their homework and I wound up providing to them the tapes.
Speaker: Here's all the people.
Speaker: Obviously, they had my pinball book, so they had the pictures and wanted to get them other stuff that I have in my own archives here to get them a little bit more familiar with the
Speaker: that part of my world and my life.
Speaker: So, so yeah, I think that there was enough and understand something.
Speaker: I'm taking nothing away.
Speaker: from the creativity of both Meredith and Austin, who are brilliant.
Speaker: I mean, they really, really are.
Speaker: When I initially looked to see what their background was, I was somewhat flabbergasted.
Speaker: It was like, oh my God.
Speaker: I mean, these guys are like for real.
Speaker: This is not like a little, you know, independent kind of self-funded, you know, we're going to start to do some kind of a Kickstarter.
Speaker: I mean, these are legitimate filmmakers and so is the Moving Picture Institute.
Speaker: Because they sold themselves on me as well as part of the introduction.
Speaker: Hi, we'd like you to watch Miss Virginia, which had won awards and it was based on this mother, this woman in the South who was fighting for educational rights, specifically for her son, but for others.
Speaker: And I looked at, you know, the litany of all of the stuff that they had been producing as this, you know, incredible force, but also as a kind of laboratory, if you will, for filmmakers.
Speaker: Hi, this is something that we are doing to support filmmakers funding and whatever nonprofit they've been
Speaker: in business for, you know, well over a decade.
Speaker: And here they are, you know, doing these incredible things and they're buying in on what Meredith and Austin, you know, want to do.
Speaker: So I think to the extent that we kind of worked hand in hand, there's a process.
Speaker: I wasn't familiar with movie making per se on this level.
Speaker: They did, I think there was five look books, which are short synopses of
Speaker: where they wanted the story to go.
Speaker: And they shared that with me, probably like we were a couple of months in.
Speaker: They were making notes and whatever, and I was like, here.
Speaker: And yeah, no, we don't have to go back.
Speaker: I mentioned before, we don't have to go back to when I was young, like a little person.
Speaker: No, we don't have to go back to here or we don't have to do this and so on.
Speaker: And really kind of condense it down into something that was, I thought, better.
Speaker: And then looking at dialogue.
Speaker: You know, when you start getting into scripts, there's a lot of stuff.
Speaker: And Josh, you've seen the movie.
Speaker: there's a lot of stuff that is literally word for word from me.
Speaker: Oh, really?
Speaker: You know, either Mike is saying and or Dennis is saying in the context of whatever the scene is.
Speaker: And there's other little things, a little embellishments and other things that I was very, very specific about.
Speaker: So your point, Josh, with Dennis and some of the asides of like, no, no, no, no.
Speaker: Hey, stop.
Speaker: Before you do anything,
Speaker: We had those kinds of discussions where it'd be, you know, on the Zoom call.
Speaker: No, God darn it.
Speaker: It's not going to be that.
Speaker: It cannot be that.
Speaker: And all right, we can do it this way.
Speaker: But people have to understand that I would never do this or this.
Speaker: I mean, I don't want to give away a lot of stuff, but much of that that is in there is my insistence of being somewhat heavy handed in how we were treating various scenes and subject matter.
Speaker: So, you know, in a lot of ways, I tend to view it as and I know that I'm listed as an executive producer, but I'd like to think that I was also somewhat of a collaborator as well in terms of the script.
Speaker: and how we kind of weaved everything together.
Speaker: So, you know, from casting on through to everything, to wardrobe, you name it, all of that, I was very much deeply involved in.
Speaker: And, you know, I wanted it to be right and wanted it to be authentic.
Speaker: And, you know, we haven't gotten into it, but, you know, even to the extent of the pinball machines, that was really critical for me.
Speaker: Every machine that is in that movie,
Speaker: are machines that were handpicked by me to be in the movie specifically.
Speaker: And yes, El Dorado and Bankshot, people know the legend of that.
Speaker: That's fine.
Speaker: But there are other things that are in there where I can tell you why those were important and critical and why it was appropriate for them to be where they were.
Speaker: So I think that, yeah, I mean, I'd like to believe that at some point in time, and I know that Nate has gone on to do more things professionally in his life, in his world.
Speaker: It was all because of son Josh that he said, you know, yeah, the tapes of the interviews from the book.
Speaker: Oh, yeah.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I got them in downstairs there in one of the file cabinets.
Speaker: I have six.
Speaker: Six, six foot high file cabinets of stuff.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: So that when I die, the boys are just going to have this wonderful, glorious thing of like, oh, my God, what has he left?
Speaker: And I'll let people pick through the bones.
Speaker: But I said, yeah, he said, you know, you should transfer those from tape.
Speaker: You know, I mean, we're looking, what, at 40 some odd years later.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Do they even still work?
Speaker: And it's like, I don't know.
Speaker: I guess it's not like it's in a humidor for cigars or a wine cellar kind of thing.
Speaker: And he said you should transfer that into new media.
Speaker: So I want to, number one, testing it here on literally the cassette recorder that I did the interviews on years ago, putting in new batteries in my little Sony cassette recorder.
Speaker: That worked.
Speaker: Thank God.
Speaker: Played it and it was like, oh, OK, so it still works good.
Speaker: And there was a place near here where I took everything in and said, here, just need you to take care of all of these.
Speaker: So that's what everything is living in now, which are all of these CDs of everything.
Speaker: And, you know, I had hoped.
Speaker: after Josh broke it down and said, you got to really share this and do this, that at some point in time, maybe all of them will become available.
Speaker: So the people who never heard Harry Williams voice before,
Speaker: never heard what Alvin Gottlieb sounded like or Sam Stern or Sam Ginsberg, I mean, or any of these people will have a chance to actually hear those interviews.
Speaker: And even to the point, because there is a point that I'm going to make here, even to the court case before the city council, I have that on tape.
Speaker: So the things that I've always told my sons about, yeah, right.
Speaker: It's just dad.
Speaker: He's embellishing.
Speaker: No, God darn it.
Speaker: It really did happen the way that I'm saying.
Speaker: And here it is.
Speaker: And it's a little bit muffled because of ambient sound.
Speaker: I guess at some point, Nate was working on that to separate out the background sound.
Speaker: And I'm not really good technically, but I guess he was getting it cleaner.
Speaker: And because I didn't realize that I actually had my cassette recorder there on the chair next to me when I was doing everything.
Speaker: So I'm hoping that at some point in time, all of that will kind of come to light just as a historical document.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: How did you select which games you wanted to place?
Speaker: And this does speak to your commitment to authenticity because a lazy person would say, oh, we just need some pinball machines.
Speaker: So you go in there in a 70s thing and there's an Addams Family and there's a medieval madness.
Speaker: So you actually...
Speaker: found all these things.
Speaker: And I remember Josh reached out and he said, does anybody have a video of the tilt for Eldorado?
Speaker: And I actually have a friend who has an Eldorado.
Speaker: And so I texted him and I'm like, hey, can you record that?
Speaker: tilting out to see what it is.
Speaker: And then I sent it to Josh, but that's like a level of detail that is not common in these types of projects.
Speaker: So how did you micromanage that to figure out which games you want to place where?
Speaker: It was a gift from Meredith and Austin to understand and agree with me.
Speaker: More importantly, from MPI to understand
Speaker: I'm really serious about this.
Speaker: I tend to be much more of a control freak.
Speaker: I am somewhat anal to the point of it probably being uncomfortable for some people in some situations.
Speaker: But I said, this is going to have to be.
Speaker: And thank God the community is the way that it is.
Speaker: The machines that were really specific, obviously El Dorado, Bankshot, Planets,
Speaker: was a critical one because in 1972, it was one of the types of machines that New York City allowed in based on what the ruling had been with Eleanor Guggenheim.
Speaker: Sorry, Bess Meyerson is the commissioner of consumer affairs.
Speaker: And it has a short, we kind of condensed a lot of things that in retrospect, I would like to have had them be a little bit longer, but it's okay.
Speaker: But
Speaker: I needed to find a planets, which was a Williams game.
Speaker: I'm not really a big pin side person or anything else, but Josh and Zach said, you should go on pin side.
Speaker: And you post something.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Insert Shub.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And it's like, okay, I don't know how to do this.
Speaker: Fine.
Speaker: And I went on Pinside.
Speaker: I could not do anything unless I paid money.
Speaker: So I paid whatever it was, $10 or $5.
Speaker: $10.15 for verification.
Speaker: Yeah, something to join so I could post something.
Speaker: And a guy by the name of Davin wound up answering.
Speaker: And I sent back and I guess...
Speaker: He wound up reaching out to Zachary to find out if this was really Roger Sharp.
Speaker: That's hilarious.
Speaker: So it was like, hi, I really need a planets.
Speaker: There's a movie that's coming and blah.
Speaker: So it was people like that.
Speaker: Kevin McCune.
Speaker: from classic pinball out of New Jersey.
Speaker: Just incredible.
Speaker: And all the people in that community of reaching out and saying, all right, I need a subway.
Speaker: I need a cowpoke.
Speaker: I need games from the mid-60s because we're going to focus here on that.
Speaker: I need games from the early to mid-70s.
Speaker: Nope, can't be older than that.
Speaker: Can't be this.
Speaker: Can't be this.
Speaker: And literally hand-selected from the collections.
Speaker: So this is what Kevin has access to.
Speaker: Awesome.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: From these, I want these, these, these, and these.
Speaker: And one of the things, in all honesty, is that Bally doesn't exist anymore.
Speaker: Williams doesn't exist anymore.
Speaker: The old Stern is the old Stern and Chicago coin, D. Gottlieb.
Speaker: So it was going back through all the appropriate rights holders, right?
Speaker: to ask permission, I'd like to feature these games from Williams from this era.
Speaker: What, what is the cost?
Speaker: Because there was a budget involved as well.
Speaker: And I stood up because I didn't know what the costs were going to be.
Speaker: I kind of had an idea because I used to be involved with it at Williams Valley Midway, when we had games that were being put into movies or TV shows or commercials, um,
Speaker: where I just told MPI, look, this has to be right.
Speaker: If there's a budget and it goes over, I will make up the difference.
Speaker: But I will not allow anything to be in there that is not time appropriate, era appropriate, and more importantly, games that have meaning for me.
Speaker: So I'll share one particular game without giving away anything.
Speaker: It is in the movie.
Speaker: It's Big Ben from Williams, 1975 game.
Speaker: It is the game that I wound up seeing at Al Simon, which is the distributorship on 43rd and 10th Avenue in New York City.
Speaker: when Aldi and Zillow introduced me to a fellow who had just come in from Chicago by the name of Gary Stern, who had just started at Williams working for his dad.
Speaker: And I remember asking him, so...
Speaker: when you guys sit down and go through and design games like Big Ben, is there a reason that it looks like Starpool over here?
Speaker: And I rattled off like four other games just in terms of what the layout was.
Speaker: And what wound up happening a few months after that, and this is 1975, was being at the MOA show in Chicago and Conner and Gary, and Gary may not remember any of this or disavow it, but it is true.
Speaker: Seeing him at the show,
Speaker: And his thing was, oh, this is Roger Sharp.
Speaker: He's doing a book or whatever.
Speaker: Ask him anything about pinball and he'll tell you all this incredible stuff.
Speaker: Because my approach to doing my research was, number one, back then, and I was much better with it, photographic memory.
Speaker: But I thought that everybody viewed their profession as,
Speaker: In such a way that I needed to know everything inside and out so that they knew that I was an authentic person, if you will, maybe the best way to describe it.
Speaker: So in that particular context, that was a critical game when I saw that it was part of somebody's collection.
Speaker: Oh, yes, I want that one.
Speaker: I need that one.
Speaker: I need that one.
Speaker: We saw like a five to 10 minute preview of it at Expo when you, when you gave your talk.
Speaker: And there's a point where I believe, you know, Seth's asking, he looks down, he's like, what's so great about Chicago?
Speaker: And so you talk about all the things in Chicago and he says, cause all these things say Chicago on them.
Speaker: Were you even familiar that Chicago was the place where all these things were made?
Speaker: No way.
Speaker: You had no clue.
Speaker: No.
Speaker: I mean, that came through in our conversations.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: And as I told them, I mean, the best way that I've always described now as an adult over these past few decades, I grew up pinball ignorant.
Speaker: I went to Wisconsin, University of Wisconsin, and became entrenched in pinball.
Speaker: And then I moved to New York and I'm in a wasteland.
Speaker: So I go from ignorance to just this, you know, incredible amount of a symbiotic relationship with pinball.
Speaker: And then I go to New York and it's all gone, you know, and I have to travel to New Jersey or other places.
Speaker: And, you know,
Speaker: No, I had no context at all.
Speaker: You know, I've said I may have mentioned this before and we were going to do it more so in the movie, but it didn't make sense that when I used to visit my older sister with my parents at the University of Illinois for Mom's Day weekend or whatever else, my sister's older than I am.
Speaker: In college, they'd have pinball machines there.
Speaker: And I play pinball.
Speaker: I mean, I didn't need to know what was happening at the sorority.
Speaker: I could care less.
Speaker: I mean, there's a somewhat of vast age difference.
Speaker: Well, it comes out in the movie.
Speaker: But yes, it's a difference in age where I don't know.
Speaker: You know, I'm just a baby brother.
Speaker: I don't know any of this.
Speaker: I don't really care who she's seeing or what's happening at the next big, you know, whatever.
Speaker: The opening part of my pinball book where I talk about standing on an orange crate.
Speaker: I mean, that's all true and real.
Speaker: The only thing that's not true is it wasn't a pinball machine.
Speaker: It was a baseball man run unit.
Speaker: Pitching back.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, my God, I still remember.
Speaker: So, so yeah, you know, that was something that we wound up doing to really kind of emphasize the fact that number one, I was ignorant about pinball.
Speaker: And totally so in terms of it being in Chicago.
Speaker: There's another part of it in terms of Harry Williams.
Speaker: I didn't know any of these people.
Speaker: There were no books.
Speaker: I did everything on the fly to start with.
Speaker: And it was from one meeting at a trade show or in an office to do interviews that you wound up piecing things together.
Speaker: There was this vast jigsaw puzzle of an entire industry.
Speaker: So how do I find the edges?
Speaker: And then how do I work in the middle parts so that I have an entire puzzle that's completed?
Speaker: And that was my quest.
Speaker: It took me three years of my life to do.
Speaker: So it was actually back then because there was no internet.
Speaker: You had to really kind of go in to microfiche and other files and
Speaker: You know, I've said it on a couple of occasions, you know, looking for research for the article for GQ magazine going to the New York Public Library and the stacks.
Speaker: looking up pinball and there was nothing.
Speaker: And let's see, flipper, tilt, pinball.
Speaker: I mean, I tried to think of any words that were pinball words to see is there anything.
Speaker: And the only thing that existed was an article in 1972 by Tony Lucas that I think was either in Esquire or in Playboy where it was on pinball and the game that was featured was Fireball.
Speaker: And I mean, it was all these crumbs that
Speaker: you find you know on the path and you pick them up along the way to kind of create the story and so again sorry to to be long-winded in answering the question but uh yeah i mean that scene captured my my understanding and my discovery of chicago so the other thought process i had too it's it's a very different environment now in the pinball industry i mean we've got almost
Speaker: I'm going to say rock star designers, right?
Speaker: There's people we put on pedestals and stuff like that.
Speaker: And it's very interesting to juxtapose with the time period of the seventies when you're doing these interviews, because it's almost these people are standoffish because the only people that come snooping around their offices, it seems are officials that want to shut them down.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: And so I guess my question is, I assume that's pretty historically accurate too, right?
Speaker: They were pretty standoffish with you when you started trying to do these interviews and whatnot.
Speaker: Oh, big time.
Speaker: You know, the door opened a little bit more readily at Williams because of Gary and that entree that I had in New York City.
Speaker: And my spouting about seeing this game and thinking, well, it resembles all these other games and not in a negative way, in a positive way.
Speaker: Hi, that must be the way that games are designed.
Speaker: And it was like, so who else are you going to see?
Speaker: And I had started reaching out and through again, through distributors that I encountered and found not only in 8th or 10th Avenue,
Speaker: in New York City, but outside in New Jersey as well.
Speaker: And meeting some people who were like second, some first generation, but second generation going back to the 30s.
Speaker: So getting all of that as a starting point
Speaker: And then, yes, I remember meeting Sam Ginsberg at the trade show and said, hi, I'm Roger Sharp.
Speaker: I'm doing a book, writing a book, and I'll be contacting you to do...
Speaker: To interview you.
Speaker: Yeah, I don't do interviews.
Speaker: Thanks.
Speaker: Goodbye.
Speaker: So long.
Speaker: I mean, everybody at that point in time, we didn't get into the weeds.
Speaker: I didn't think it was necessary for the movie.
Speaker: But from Williams and Bally, who were wonderful and great, and Billy O'Donnell and Tom Neiman at Bally, along with Bill O'Donnell and Ross Shear, Paul Calamari, Bob Hartling.
Speaker: I mean,
Speaker: All of these folks, Jack Middle, Joe Dillon.
Speaker: I mean, the list kind of goes on and on in terms of all the people and all the music.
Speaker: So we're giving you access to all of this.
Speaker: But Alvin Gottlieb, you're never going to get in to see them.
Speaker: Really?
Speaker: So everybody had this whole thing.
Speaker: Our doors are open for you, kind of, you know, up to a point.
Speaker: But Gottlieb never.
Speaker: And I remember sitting down and getting in to meet with Alvin Gottlieb.
Speaker: And one of the first things he did was he opened up a drawer, his desk drawer, and just...
Speaker: took out a whole slew of like envelopes and dropped them down on the desk.
Speaker: And I'm just sitting there and it's like, okay.
Speaker: And I know that James is there as well.
Speaker: I think for the first meeting to take pictures, but,
Speaker: Opened up one letter and I was like, hi, because I told him I'm doing research for a pinball book.
Speaker: I'd like to interview you.
Speaker: And it was somebody writing, saying, hi, I want to do a pinball book and I just need you to do blah, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker: And I remember standing back and saying, look, I don't want you to do anything.
Speaker: You don't have to write anything or do.
Speaker: I want to ask you questions and I will share questions.
Speaker: the interview with you afterwards so that you can have final say and approval.
Speaker: And I did that with everybody.
Speaker: If there's anything in here that you don't want anybody to know, I will, you know, absolutely respect that.
Speaker: Not a problem.
Speaker: And I remember with Alvin after being led to,
Speaker: to like the edge of the ocean from everybody saying, you'll never get in to actually being there and thinking, oh my God, I've accomplished something incredible.
Speaker: I remember after a couple of hours of talking, I knew more about Alvin and his personal life and his marriages and his children than I did about anybody.
Speaker: He was just such...
Speaker: such an incredibly warm and open person.
Speaker: And I just kind of ate it up.
Speaker: So to answer your question, it was pretty authentic of trying to get through to people.
Speaker: break down that barrier, have them believe that I'm doing a pinball book.
Speaker: Who wants a pinball book?
Speaker: And I know there's a comment made by a character in the movie that is pretty much dead on.
Speaker: You know, nobody wants a book about my wife.
Speaker: But I think that really what I wanted to do and I needed to do and hopefully not,
Speaker: It has stood the test of time, although not to the way that I ever wanted it.
Speaker: I wanted to pay tribute to these incredible human beings.
Speaker: You know, I've joked a lot, maybe not joking, maybe just making it as a statement, especially now that I'm as old as I am.
Speaker: I encountered men who are old enough to be my grandfather or my father.
Speaker: And we were able to talk about pinball.
Speaker: And we were able to talk about things far in advance of my being born.
Speaker: You know, being able to sit down with Harry Williams and say, wasn't that 1933, Harry, and not 1932?
Speaker: And, you know, because I'm resurrecting their memories, their accomplishments, you know, with Herb Jones, I was devastated.
Speaker: I got to Bali at a time when they were recovering from a massive fire that wiped out the majority of their historical records and files.
Speaker: It was like, oh, my God.
Speaker: And going around to visit the distributorships and trying to piece and parse things together.
Speaker: Nope.
Speaker: I remember asking Alvin, and maybe this sums it up the best, for everybody, and even now today, superstar designers or not.
Speaker: So, Alvin, what's your favorite game?
Speaker: Favorite game?
Speaker: Well, it's going to be that one, Spirit of 76.
Speaker: That's coming out next year.
Speaker: No, that's like the new game.
Speaker: What is your favorite game?
Speaker: And it was difficult to get him to give me a real answer because the history for them back then, and I think even now, was disposable.
Speaker: You know, when I was talking to Gary about the design of Big Ben and being similar to Starpool, when I started talking to the designers at the time, Gordon Horlick, Steve Kordak, Norm Clark, Wayne, and all the others, and asking those kinds of questions, it was like whatever the new game was that they were working on, that was their favorite.
Speaker: The other stuff just didn't exist.
Speaker: Subconsciously,
Speaker: they probably were picking up certain geometric parts, just the overall layout and design, but not thinking other than saying, well, that was really successful here.
Speaker: We see that in signature elements from designers in the last era.
Speaker: I mean, you can see what a Keith Elwin game looks like.
Speaker: You have a sense of the flow and the rhythm of what he does and some of the little nuances in terms of the overall geometry and ball flow.
Speaker: You know, the whole idea of Pat Lawler being a stop and start type of pinball designer, the better fluidity of somebody like George Gomez, who's always somewhat emulated way back when, Steve Ritchie, in terms of just flow.
Speaker: And you wind up seeing particular things where it's like, oh, it's an adaptation or he flipped it.
Speaker: Not in a negative way.
Speaker: It's just a comfort zone.
Speaker: And I think that, you know, what I discovered back then was,
Speaker: was that there was no keeper of history.
Speaker: Maybe that's the best way to describe it.
Speaker: And I really felt... There was no historian.
Speaker: You became the historian.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I mean, I will say that, yes, I did in a way that I had never thought of.
Speaker: I just wanted to pay tribute to these fellows for all the joy that they gave me.
Speaker: It's why it ripped out my heart, and I know we get into it and touch upon it in the movie, that the book that eventually came out was not the book that I originally wrote.
Speaker: So, you know, it's just the nature of the beast.
Speaker: And now here I am, this in quotes elder statesman.
Speaker: who have now reached the same status as some of the other icons.
Speaker: And hopefully I have a few more years left in me.
Speaker: But, you know, you hope to carry on the legacy of this industry and all the joy that it has provided so many millions of people.
Speaker: And at a time when I started in all of this, that wasn't the case.
Speaker: It was still an outlier.
Speaker: I mean, forgetting about the New York case or anything, it was like pinball.
Speaker: You know, most of these people did not necessarily jump up and down that this is what they were doing with their careers.
Speaker: You know, nobody really paid attention to the fact that David Gottlieb, on the success of D. Gottlieb and Company, funded Gottlieb Memorial Hospital just outside of Chicago, which is one of the leading hospitals in the country.
Speaker: That was done on the basis of selling pinball machines, for God's sake.
Speaker: So, I mean, there's all of this that I think all of us as a community should take so much pride in for number one, keeping it alive and what you guys do and everybody else and just helping bring that community together and understand that each of us are a small piece of history.
Speaker: It is us.
Speaker: And Scott, at least justify with your wife, honey, it's why we need an extra game in the house.
Speaker: Somebody has to shepherd these.
Speaker: Exactly.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: We need to be the gatekeepers and we need to be the archivists.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: I've got to ask one more question about the movie.
Speaker: I don't know if this is a spoiler or not.
Speaker: If you want to skip ahead, Scott, if you need to plug your ears, I've got to ask Roger, is it true you took your wife...
Speaker: to an adult entertainment store to play pinball while you were dating.
Speaker: It seems in the movie you hadn't been dating very long either.
Speaker: No, we hadn't been.
Speaker: Yes, that is true.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: Yep, yep, yep, yep.
Speaker: There's a wonderful moment in the movie.
Speaker: I just got to say that.
Speaker: Well, I just think it's hilarious that someone's going to an adult entertainment section for the very risky thing of playing a pinball machine.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Well, and, you know, again, it is part of the story, and I think a lot of people know it, but it's the one place where I found pinball in New York City just by happenchance.
Speaker: There was another place that I wound up finding down in the village.
Speaker: which was a record store head shop.
Speaker: And behind all the stacks of records and things, they had a couple of pinball machines.
Speaker: And in fact, one of the games that I played there a lot was Freefall, which became the basis of Sharpshooter as a design, because I really just loved that game, playing it.
Speaker: But there was no games.
Speaker: I mean, fortunately, as a Midwesterner, I kept my car
Speaker: Which everybody thought I was crazy, but it allowed me to drive out to New Jersey or Connecticut or other places, not just to play pinball, but primarily to get out of the city.
Speaker: And, of course, to find places where I could play pinball.
Speaker: What in the movie will that one...
Speaker: you're most proud of like a little known fact and two, what is your favorite part of the movie?
Speaker: There's a lot of little Easter eggs in the movie.
Speaker: I will say that the one that comes closest to me and I still get emotional about it was the ability to at least pay some tribute to my dear departed Steve Epstein.
Speaker: That was really important to me.
Speaker: to be able to do that.
Speaker: So that
Speaker: that stands out as something and they understood and knew, and there was actually supposed to be a longer scene with an actor portraying him.
Speaker: There is a character that is called Epstein, but it became much more just because of logistics and locations and timing and whatever.
Speaker: But, uh, that to me was, uh, incredibly special.
Speaker: Um, and I think, um,
Speaker: Probably the culmination of the movie without giving too much away and Josh, I know this, just the finality of it.
Speaker: The credits, which I didn't know at the time were going to be the way that they were done with the visuals that were there is really also very special to me.
Speaker: So some of the Easter eggs, I mean, there's pictures that are on the wall that are of my parents.
Speaker: I mean, little things that we put in, things that were part of Ellen and what she did and had.
Speaker: So, yeah, I mean, there's a lot of, I guess, personalization within the movie that, you know, people won't necessarily pick up on.
Speaker: But for me, it is very much heartfelt.
Speaker: And for me, it is truly, I mean, it's
Speaker: incredibly grateful and thankful that they were able to do what they did to accommodate.
Speaker: I must admit, Roger, this, it seems like you have lived your fullest life and right now you're just doing the side quests and you are, your life is, is awesome right now.
Speaker: And I expect when this thing release releases there, there's not a director's cut.
Speaker: There is a Roger Sharp cut and it's gotta be at least what?
Speaker: Three, four hours long.
Speaker: What do you say, Scott?
Speaker: That's the first episode.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Oh,
Speaker: Well, and the plan, just so that people know, more festivals coming up, waiting to be officially announced, looking at signing up a distributor.
Speaker: There is one that's somewhat on board, but I'm not at liberty to reveal anything at this point.
Speaker: Looking at international as well.
Speaker: The plan is
Speaker: Right now, with the way that films are being as fragmented as they are, is a theatrical release sometime in the spring, maybe March or April.
Speaker: I don't know what that means.
Speaker: I don't know if it's an AMC, a Regal, multiple cities, multiple days, weeks.
Speaker: Don't have a clue.
Speaker: Streaming after that, maybe summer, fall of next year.
Speaker: Don't know exactly, you know, whether it's going to be a Netflix or Amazon or Hulu or an HBO Max or God only knows what.
Speaker: So that's the plan going forward.
Speaker: And then after that...
Speaker: I don't know.
Speaker: I mean, I guess people still probably buy videos or something or whatever.
Speaker: Beats me.
Speaker: Betamax.
Speaker: They're going to want to buy them and bring them to Pinball Expo next year for you to sign them.
Speaker: That's what's going to happen.
Speaker: I actually did bring my pinball book to Pinball Expo, but I didn't bring it down when we were doing flipping the script.
Speaker: So I'll have to...
Speaker: I know I'll, I'll, I'll have to bring it again next year.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Please do.
Speaker: It'll be my sincere pleasure.
Speaker: But again, there is a hardcover available on Amazon that is listed for $10,000, 431 and 63 cents.
Speaker: Don't do it.
Speaker: Don't do it.
Speaker: Just sell off your Godzilla LE and you'll be fine.
Speaker: You got some money to spare.
Speaker: That is crazy.
Speaker: And we have talked about with MPI and some people that have been at the festivals.
Speaker: there may be some interest to re-release the book.
Speaker: Oh, absolutely.
Speaker: We'll see.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: If you can, now I, last time we talked to you, you said that may be challenging because you don't have the, the original, I guess, printer's copy or what you use to create the book.
Speaker: Cause I have the films.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: But I gather that,
Speaker: that things have gotten to the point in the world.
Speaker: You can probably digitally scan it and retouch it up.
Speaker: Yep.
Speaker: And more importantly, depending, hopefully I can actually add in more pictures that didn't make the cut because he ran out of pages.
Speaker: Maybe take more of the interviews that were not in the final book.
Speaker: and put those in well as well.
Speaker: So if it can be another 24 page folio added in, uh, I would be, I would love to be able to do that.
Speaker: And maybe this time actually read the book because I have never ever read the book.
Speaker: You've never read your own book.
Speaker: No, it was too painful.
Speaker: I don't blame you after watching the movie.
Speaker: It gives a glimpse and, uh,
Speaker: Yeah, I mean, that is very much, yeah, it's very much on target.
Speaker: And yeah, almost didn't happen.
Speaker: Okay, I do have a follow up question, though.
Speaker: There is another book that I know you want to re-release.
Speaker: I'm going to show you a picture of it right now.
Speaker: Oh, you got it.
Speaker: Oh, my goodness.
Speaker: I knew it.
Speaker: For those in the listening audience, it is Roger Sharpe's How to Get a Good Tan book.
Speaker: How to Get a Great Tan.
Speaker: Oh, Great Tan.
Speaker: By Roger Sharpe.
Speaker: But not really frying.
Speaker: Without frying.
Speaker: Only $1.99.
Speaker: So I have my very own copy of How to Get a Tan Without Being Fried by Roger Sharpe.
Speaker: I'll have to autograph that at some point.
Speaker: Yeah, I probably should have brought this one because this is the more collectible.
Speaker: And it's actually, this is in mint condition.
Speaker: Like even if you look at the spine, it's- Look at that.
Speaker: Yeah, this looks like it came right off the printer.
Speaker: There's a story about that.
Speaker: We'll have to talk about that at some point in time without blowing people.
Speaker: But yeah.
Speaker: So the best way for them to keep up with this process, is it the website?
Speaker: Because I pulled it up.
Speaker: It's pinballfilm.com.
Speaker: Does that seem to be the best way?
Speaker: Yeah, it really is.
Speaker: And there's a lot of wonderful information on there too.
Speaker: If you want to go check it out and just to see the actors in...
Speaker: in their outfits and stuff like that for the movie.
Speaker: It's great.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: I know that they've actually released a lot of stills from the last time I visited, which I thought that that was great.
Speaker: And if you click on the various producers and people, the pictures that are there, it will give you a little write-ups about them.
Speaker: So, you know, if anybody's interested in knowing more about Mike Feist or Crystal Reed,
Speaker: or Dennis Bustakianis.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, and I was going to say really quickly too, you've already got loaded up here.
Speaker: How many film festivals it's been at?
Speaker: 12 so far.
Speaker: You've won two awards.
Speaker: This is on IMBD and the two were from the Heartland.
Speaker: One was for Audience Choice Award.
Speaker: So...
Speaker: audience loved the movie and gave you an award for it and then the other one was the ifja directorial debut award so obviously this movie has been well done it's not just i i i can't stress this enough it's it feels like an actual movie you know a lot of times sometimes we think of like the hallmark specials right like the
Speaker: Well, it doesn't feel like a special interest movie.
Speaker: So a movie about like playing video games or a movie like that.
Speaker: It actually, this is a movie that you can take your family to who may or may not share your weird obsession with pinball and everybody will still have a good time.
Speaker: And Savannah, the SCAD, I think we won an award there that may or may not be on the IMDB website.
Speaker: But I'll share something that one of the day actors mentioned to me.
Speaker: We were sitting down before he was going to go on for his part.
Speaker: And it's somebody that I've seen in various films over the years.
Speaker: I mean, it was when you look at some of the other actors that are in the movie, there are going to be depending on the number of movies you've watched in your life that are not necessarily big special effects over the top superhero movies, but, you know, other things.
Speaker: And I remember we were sitting there and he was asking about this particular character because he was getting ready and he knew his lines and we were talking.
Speaker: And as he got up to go because he was getting called on set, he said, I just got to tell you something.
Speaker: this is a movie that people don't realize they're going to go need to see.
Speaker: And he went on and I was like, and I sat there because I had to digest what he said.
Speaker: And I was like, this is a movie that people don't know that they're going to need to see.
Speaker: Oh, wow.
Speaker: Oh, that was really good.
Speaker: I mean, as I looked over as he's walking away, where it finally sunk in.
Speaker: And I think the point that you guys have made, and I really am appreciative of it,
Speaker: is the fact that it really is, I think, a very heartfelt film where hopefully, whether you know who the characters are or the story, that you're willing to kind of let yourself go and become entrenched in the experience.
Speaker: And I have to say, number one, Ellen and I have not been in a movie theater completely.
Speaker: going back to probably early 20, maybe 19, 2019 with pandemic and the way that we've been.
Speaker: And my concern when we went to the Hamptons, which was the premiere.
Speaker: So the setup was going to be the premiere at the Hamptons for the Hampton Film Festival.
Speaker: And then I knew about Rain Dance.
Speaker: in London.
Speaker: And it was a great excuse for me to take Ellen to see my sister, who I hadn't seen in a number of years, and to see my nephew and niece.
Speaker: So those are the two.
Speaker: And it was like, you know, and wherever else.
Speaker: And Heartland actually wound up happening in Indianapolis was the festival asked if I would be available.
Speaker: And MPI reached out to me saying, hi, I'm
Speaker: would you be available to travel to that film festival?
Speaker: And it's like, well, yeah, I guess it's Indianapolis.
Speaker: It's only, you know, three hour drive for me.
Speaker: Sure.
Speaker: I'll do it and whatever.
Speaker: But anyway, going out to New York for the first time.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: We're going to be in a movie theater.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: I can try to deal with that.
Speaker: Still hadn't eaten in restaurants or anything else, but
Speaker: My big concern, other than my neurotic obsession in terms of wanting not to get infected or anything, was will an outside regular people audience like this?
Speaker: You know, for those who are familiar with the movie The Producers or the play, you know, was I Zero Mostel and Gene Wilder standing in the back?
Speaker: waiting for Dick Shawn to come out and do springtime for Hitler and thinking, oh, my God, we have a hit, which is a flop.
Speaker: Let's go have a drink and watching everything unfold.
Speaker: And, you know, I'm sitting in the audience with Ellen, and it's like, wow.
Speaker: And it's a packed audience.
Speaker: They are laughing at the right times.
Speaker: They are engaged.
Speaker: And it's like, wow.
Speaker: I mean, from what my insides were doing, which was not knowing if they were going to like it, are people going to leave in the middle?
Speaker: I mean, because you don't know, you know, at that point in time, I'm very, very close to, to the movie.
Speaker: I mean, it is me, but just the whole processes I've talked about with you, you know, will, will it be well received and getting through the movie and,
Speaker: was fantastic.
Speaker: The Q&A where suddenly I was like, here, come with us.
Speaker: And it's like, huh, you're coming up on stage too.
Speaker: And the questions that were asked, how they were engaged and picking up on things, and not just questions directed at me, but directing at the producers from MPI and Crystal was there, as well as a couple of the other actors from the movie and Meredith and Austin.
Speaker: And it was like, wow, this is great.
Speaker: So that was the kickoff for me was getting over the hurdle as to whether or not they would like it.
Speaker: And then the affirmation from from you, at least, Josh, as well as others that I've heard from people in the pinball community have also expressed a an appreciation for the movie.
Speaker: whether they know me personally or not.
Speaker: You know what?
Speaker: I went with my wife, to Scott's point.
Speaker: I went with my wife, and we really kind of liked it.
Speaker: It wasn't what we thought it was going to be, or it was.
Speaker: I mean, whatever it was, there hasn't been anything other than the feedback.
Speaker: God, his mustache is so bad.
Speaker: Jesus, couldn't you have done something with it?
Speaker: It was like, no.
Speaker: No, the mustache is fantastic.
Speaker: It needs to be that.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: So, I mean, that was one of the key things.
Speaker: I mean, you know...
Speaker: Number one, Mike wasn't able to grow his own.
Speaker: And even if he had 12 years, I don't think that he could have done it justice.
Speaker: Yeah, probably not.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: But, you know, that was the only thing people's, well, it was a little bit off-putting to see it that way.
Speaker: And it's like, no, no, no, no.
Speaker: That's, you know.
Speaker: That was a mustache.
Speaker: Yeah.
Speaker: Well, that actually just shows how...
Speaker: attentive to detail you are in that I was born in 1974 so I lived through this era and when I see pictures with the lighting with the clothes with everything I'm like that takes me back in time to that era like you were so meticulous on that and if you changed up the mustache that would distract because I know that that's not what it was
Speaker: Well, and Annie Simon, who was the fashion person.
Speaker: Nailed it.
Speaker: I would hate to show you all the pictures that Ellen and I pulled out from the closet, put on the floor and took.
Speaker: All right.
Speaker: Here's some of the clothes and stuff and things that Mike is much taller than I am now.
Speaker: And even before I lost the two inches because of my back, there's nothing that I should or could have given him to say, here, I brought this out of the closet.
Speaker: Right.
Speaker: do this, but Annie kind of nailed everything.
Speaker: So, you know, all of the support people and everything else.
Speaker: And thank you for pointing it out, Scott, because they really did do a fabulous job on getting things as authentic as they could.
Speaker: So thanks guys.
Speaker: Definitely.
Speaker: Well, we appreciate you coming on.
Speaker: I also want to thank you again for joining us on flipping the script on autism.
Speaker: Um, you know, it was amazing to have you on.
Speaker: I know Jen loved talking with you for that hour and a half and playing pinball.
Speaker: And, uh, I mean, just everyone that tuned in just enjoyed the casual conversation and, uh,
Speaker: It all went for a great cause.
Speaker: It still blows my mind that we were able to raise $27,000 for helping kids with autism.
Speaker: Well, sign me up for the next one that you do because for these kinds of causes, I'm there in a heartbeat.
Speaker: It was so fun for me to, even though I didn't play the game with you, I don't know if you recognized I was like a gargoyle on your shoulder.
Speaker: I kept watching you from behind to see how you were playing the game and it was just so much fun.
Speaker: to see that, you know, in person, uh, how, how you actually approach playing a game because it is, it's an art form.
Speaker: Yes.
Speaker: Well, a little bit more frenetic than my son's.
Speaker: Uh, I did make the comment to Jen.
Speaker: I said, don't let anybody know that I actually just cradled the ball because that's so totally out of character, but yes, it was fun.
Speaker: It really was.
Speaker: I enjoyed it.
Speaker: Okay.
Speaker: We'll put you back on the list.
Speaker: If we, if we ever do it again, yeah.
Speaker: Well, again, thanks so much, Roger.
Speaker: We really appreciate you for being on.
Speaker: No, my pleasure.
Speaker: You guys take care.
Speaker: And again, happy holidays to everybody whenever this airs.
Speaker: Hopefully the next year is a good, healthy and happy year for one and all.
Speaker: And you guys are the best.
Speaker: Thank you.
Speaker: Absolutely.
Speaker: Thank you, Roger.
Speaker: We really appreciate it.
Speaker: Yeah, it means a lot.
Speaker: If you want to get ahold of us, we are loser kid pinball podcast at gmail.com.
Speaker: You can also get ahold of us on all the socials, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Twitch, all at loser kid pinball.
Speaker: Uh, we were coming up to the end of the year.
Speaker: So we've got some fun stuff planned and, uh, can't wait to share it all with you.
Speaker: You got anything else for Scott?
Speaker: Um, I'll just say boom.
Speaker: Shaka-laka.
Speaker: Oh yeah.
Speaker: Well, I guess we'll see you in a couple of weeks.
Speaker: Okay, thanks.
Speaker: Shut up and sit down.
