WEBVTT - SYSK Selects: How Pinball Works 0:00:00.760 --> 0:00:04.080 Hey, everybody, it's your old pal Josh. And for this 0:00:04.120 --> 0:00:07.880 week's s Y s K Selects, I've chosen How Pinball 0:00:07.960 --> 0:00:10.880 Works one of my all time favorite episodes and it 0:00:11.000 --> 0:00:14.520 was recorded in September of two thousand fourteen, which seems 0:00:14.560 --> 0:00:17.480 like just yesterday, doesn't it well at any rate? This 0:00:17.560 --> 0:00:24.560 episode has it all weird history, electro dynamics, the tilt sign, everything, 0:00:25.040 --> 0:00:31.320 So I hope you enjoy it in good health. Welcome 0:00:31.360 --> 0:00:40.880 to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works dot com. Hey, 0:00:40.880 --> 0:00:43.600 and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with Charles W. 0:00:43.800 --> 0:00:47.000 Chuck Bryant, Do Do Do, and there's Jerry T Do 0:00:47.360 --> 0:00:49.879 and this is Stuff you Should Know the podcast. What 0:00:50.080 --> 0:00:55.040 is that the news? Oh? Yeah, I thought you're making 0:00:55.080 --> 0:01:01.120 pinball pings and no bells and whistles. No, it sounds 0:01:01.120 --> 0:01:04.520 like Vegas, Vegas like one big pinball machine. It is 0:01:04.800 --> 0:01:07.000 that you've been to walk through those casinos? Yeah, you 0:01:07.160 --> 0:01:10.480 just made my neck muscles tight. Man. I hate Vegas. 0:01:11.480 --> 0:01:14.960 I like Vegas. Yeah I wouldn't. I wouldn't. I don't 0:01:14.959 --> 0:01:17.240 want to live in Vegas or like go to Vegas 0:01:17.240 --> 0:01:21.440 every weekend or anything like that. Going to Vegas once 0:01:21.480 --> 0:01:24.720 a year once every couple of years. That's fine with me. Yeah, 0:01:24.920 --> 0:01:27.240 not for me. I mean I've been a bunch and 0:01:27.280 --> 0:01:30.600 I'm just I'm done. Oh you're done with Vegas. That's 0:01:30.600 --> 0:01:32.240 what you're saying that I don't see any reason to 0:01:32.240 --> 0:01:35.200 go back. I guarantee somebody you want to see, we'll 0:01:35.240 --> 0:01:37.560 have some sort of residency out there, and you will 0:01:37.600 --> 0:01:40.920 be back in Vegas when I'm like sixty. Yeah, like 0:01:40.959 --> 0:01:45.559 pavement will have a residence valleys. That's exactly I think. 0:01:45.680 --> 0:01:47.800 What's going to happen. Well, then you'll find me in 0:01:47.960 --> 0:01:50.480 living in Vegas, my friend. There you go. Yeah, see, 0:01:50.560 --> 0:01:52.560 I got your back on the Vegas train. But that 0:01:52.680 --> 0:01:56.320 sound yeah, it's like a million pinball machines that take 0:01:56.360 --> 0:01:59.400 your money. Yeah, faster than pinball machines. Yeah, And that 0:01:59.480 --> 0:02:03.240 was an early worry about pinball. Actually, as we will 0:02:03.280 --> 0:02:05.880 soon see, because I say chuckle, let's dive right into 0:02:05.960 --> 0:02:11.600 the history of pinballs. So pinball machines actually find their 0:02:12.280 --> 0:02:16.320 lineage back in the nineteenth century. There were um things 0:02:16.360 --> 0:02:20.440 called or what were they. I want to say bagat machines, 0:02:20.520 --> 0:02:25.640 but that's not correct. The bagate table, yes, the bagatel table, 0:02:25.760 --> 0:02:30.080 thank you. Um they were basically a cross between pool 0:02:30.200 --> 0:02:33.359 and pinball, use a pool queue and everything, and they 0:02:33.440 --> 0:02:37.480 sucked and nobody liked them. I think it looks pretty cool, 0:02:37.560 --> 0:02:40.320 does it. It looks and boring to me. Well, I 0:02:40.320 --> 0:02:45.800 mean it's if you're used to modern gaming, is not 0:02:45.840 --> 0:02:48.760 gonna thrill you. But I thought the look kind of neat. 0:02:49.320 --> 0:02:51.680 So the Bagatel table was there. It was in place, 0:02:51.720 --> 0:02:55.279 and in the eighteen thirties a guy named monte Redgrave 0:02:56.200 --> 0:02:59.079 came along, like, you can't not say that guy's name 0:02:59.120 --> 0:03:02.600 like that. Um. He came along and said, you know what, 0:03:02.760 --> 0:03:05.880 people just invented a spring. How did you say his name? Again, 0:03:06.080 --> 0:03:12.959 Montague Red like he's on lad on um um and uh. 0:03:13.240 --> 0:03:16.799 He came along and said, somebody invented a spring recently. 0:03:16.880 --> 0:03:20.320 I'm gonna add it to this Bagatel table. Yeah, make 0:03:20.360 --> 0:03:22.480 it less sucky. And then all of a sudden we 0:03:22.520 --> 0:03:26.880 have the the what did he call it, the ball shooter, 0:03:27.360 --> 0:03:30.239 which makes sense, that's what you'd call it. And now 0:03:30.280 --> 0:03:35.200 we had the first introduced mechanism of pinballs. Things are 0:03:35.200 --> 0:03:37.680 starting to take shape a little bit here. Yeah, but 0:03:37.760 --> 0:03:39.680 you didn't stick a coin in the game. What you 0:03:39.680 --> 0:03:41.960 would do is kind of like pool tables these days 0:03:41.960 --> 0:03:44.480 at a bar, you would go up to the keeper 0:03:44.560 --> 0:03:47.440 of the balls and say, here's some money, give me 0:03:47.520 --> 0:03:50.720 my balls, and let me go play the game on 0:03:50.760 --> 0:03:54.560 the bag of tell table. Yeah, And he would go, 0:03:54.640 --> 0:03:57.680 you know it sucks, don't you And you would say, yes, 0:03:57.760 --> 0:03:59.960 but it's the eighteen thirties. Yeah, And if I play 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:03.200 really well, then I can win free drinks and cigarettes. 0:04:04.080 --> 0:04:06.839 And they said, exactly, can you see a little twelve 0:04:06.920 --> 0:04:09.400 year old winning cigarettes and then going back to play 0:04:09.440 --> 0:04:13.720 more bagatel? Sure, So this is the way it went 0:04:13.800 --> 0:04:18.120 for many decades. People were miserable until the nineteen thirties, 0:04:18.680 --> 0:04:23.119 and there was this enormous explosion of innovation in pool 0:04:23.160 --> 0:04:28.560 table re um in the thirties, Like just almost everything 0:04:28.600 --> 0:04:30.599 that you think of when you think of a pool 0:04:30.680 --> 0:04:34.000 to a pool um. We've been saying, we've been saying 0:04:34.000 --> 0:04:37.039 pool table just for the last like minute. Why didn't 0:04:37.040 --> 0:04:39.599 you correct me? I thought you were talking about bull tave, 0:04:39.880 --> 0:04:42.560 I'm talking about pinball anyway. In the thirties, there was 0:04:42.600 --> 0:04:48.359 a huge explosion in pinball. Pinball, yeah, and um, everything 0:04:48.400 --> 0:04:50.359 that you think of when when you think of a 0:04:50.400 --> 0:04:53.760 pinball machine, almost all of it came about in the thirties, 0:04:54.400 --> 0:04:58.640 coin operation, the back glass, the thing that has like 0:04:59.040 --> 0:05:01.880 kiss or q hef neuron it or something like that 0:05:02.720 --> 0:05:06.160 stands up off of the playing field, the table um 0:05:06.880 --> 0:05:11.920 electric well, I guess an electric current running through it. Yeah, 0:05:12.160 --> 0:05:20.560 legs um, the tilt mechanism. Bumpers yeah, uh sounds yeah, 0:05:20.960 --> 0:05:25.479 score keeping, and then bumpers. Of course I think I 0:05:25.520 --> 0:05:27.960 said bumpers, did I not? I don't know, maybe, but bumpers. 0:05:28.080 --> 0:05:31.359 And then most of all, most importantly, chuck was the 0:05:31.440 --> 0:05:35.000 thirties led to a huge surge in popularity because you 0:05:35.040 --> 0:05:37.760 had the Great Depression and pinballs were cheap entertainment that 0:05:37.800 --> 0:05:40.320 were wide, widely available. You notice the one thing we 0:05:40.360 --> 0:05:45.279 didn't say though and all that innovation flippers, because still 0:05:45.440 --> 0:05:51.640 up until nineteen seven, you just bumped the thing to 0:05:51.760 --> 0:05:55.279 make the ball move. Yeah, there were no flippers, which 0:05:55.279 --> 0:05:59.839 seems very counterintuitive to pinball. And the flippers really changed. 0:05:59.880 --> 0:06:04.760 They fundamentally changed pinball, not just in the way you play, 0:06:04.800 --> 0:06:08.360 but in pinball is a game, because before flippers, it 0:06:08.440 --> 0:06:10.520 was a game of chance. It was the same thing 0:06:10.560 --> 0:06:15.960 as playing like um high low, basically like you had 0:06:16.000 --> 0:06:20.920 no way really of manipulating the movement of the ball. 0:06:20.680 --> 0:06:23.320 Well you shake them, sheen, you could without tilting. I 0:06:23.360 --> 0:06:25.240 mean that's what you did. Yeah, that was how you 0:06:25.279 --> 0:06:29.159 did it. Even still it the amount of skill it 0:06:29.200 --> 0:06:33.800 took was minute compared to the skill that could be used. 0:06:33.839 --> 0:06:37.039 Once flippers were introduced, pinball wizardry and it became a 0:06:37.080 --> 0:06:40.400 game of skill um. And then but before that, the 0:06:40.640 --> 0:06:43.120 like I said, things were popular. Get this um. In 0:06:43.200 --> 0:06:45.560 the early thirties, there were a hundred and forty five 0:06:45.560 --> 0:06:50.120 companies making pinball machines, and the field became so competitive 0:06:50.480 --> 0:06:54.680 and ruthless that by the mid thirties, like five years later, 0:06:55.000 --> 0:06:58.440 there were fourteen. Yeah, and most of those were based 0:06:58.440 --> 0:07:01.279 in Chicago, which became sort of the pinball capital of 0:07:01.320 --> 0:07:04.000 the world. And I've never been there, but I bet 0:07:04.080 --> 0:07:07.000 you anything, Chicago still has a lot of a lot 0:07:07.080 --> 0:07:10.240 more pinball machines than elsewhere, you know. I was trying 0:07:10.280 --> 0:07:13.520 to think of like this, researching this made me want 0:07:13.520 --> 0:07:16.400 to go play pinball, like researching sushi. Maybe we want 0:07:16.400 --> 0:07:18.720 to go eat sushi. And I was thinking, like, I 0:07:18.760 --> 0:07:20.960 have no idea where to go to play pinball, you know, 0:07:21.120 --> 0:07:23.080 And we'll go to my brother's house. Does he have one? 0:07:23.120 --> 0:07:26.520 He's got three oh, I love your brother even more now, dude. 0:07:26.520 --> 0:07:28.520 He built a whole game room, of course, because that's 0:07:28.560 --> 0:07:30.680 what my brother does. What does he have he has? 0:07:30.800 --> 0:07:33.640 Uh F he has a Tomcat F fourteen, which is 0:07:34.120 --> 0:07:36.040 the rip off of Top Gun. I've seen that one. 0:07:36.080 --> 0:07:37.320 He said. There's a lot. There were a lot of 0:07:37.400 --> 0:07:40.080 rip off games for a while, of movies and actual 0:07:40.120 --> 0:07:43.520 movie time games. Uh. He has black Hole, but not 0:07:43.880 --> 0:07:48.760 the movie, just another rip off game. I would love that. Uh. 0:07:48.760 --> 0:07:50.400 And those are both kind of old school. And then 0:07:50.400 --> 0:07:54.000 he has a Jurassic Park, which is uh. I think 0:07:54.120 --> 0:07:55.800 didn't they have like a t Rex that comes down 0:07:55.840 --> 0:07:59.160 and like eat your ball? I can't remember, I feel 0:07:59.200 --> 0:08:01.640 like all three of them. But yeah, and he also 0:08:01.760 --> 0:08:05.960 kicked this. He took an old um video game like 0:08:06.000 --> 0:08:09.760 stand up video game console and removed all the guts, 0:08:10.560 --> 0:08:15.120 got a computer screen and um computer and hooked it 0:08:15.200 --> 0:08:17.120 up in there too, where you can play all the 0:08:17.120 --> 0:08:19.200 old school games, you know those programs they have now, 0:08:19.840 --> 0:08:23.240 and change the screen vertically so it just looks like 0:08:23.280 --> 0:08:26.240 a regular arcade game. And you can go up and 0:08:26.240 --> 0:08:31.119 play Frogger and Space Invaders and Scott Bite Me Over 0:08:32.440 --> 0:08:35.880 and it's all free. That's so awesome. Man, he's like, um, 0:08:36.040 --> 0:08:38.720 Ricky Schroeder and silver spoons or something. But growing up 0:08:38.960 --> 0:08:41.320 yeah pretty much. Um. And I think the reason why 0:08:41.360 --> 0:08:44.200 I don't play more pinball over there is because, um, 0:08:44.320 --> 0:08:47.920 we're always playing ping pong. Yeah that's a game of skill, 0:08:48.320 --> 0:08:50.400 and I love ping pong. But I'll try and get 0:08:50.400 --> 0:08:52.320 in a pinball game. Man. I want to play some 0:08:52.400 --> 0:08:55.160 pinball so bad. Let's just go out to Roswell dude, Okay, 0:08:55.400 --> 0:08:57.840 do it right now. Uh. And I if I if 0:08:57.880 --> 0:09:01.520 I collected post, it would definitely be mid mid seventies 0:09:01.520 --> 0:09:04.959 and mid eighties from me. I would think, yeah, you know, 0:09:05.000 --> 0:09:06.920 all the bells and whistles and all that, the new 0:09:06.960 --> 0:09:11.120 fangled bells and whistles. They're fine, that's cool, but I like, uh, 0:09:11.280 --> 0:09:14.360 not so old that it's like electro mechanical, but not 0:09:14.480 --> 0:09:17.760 so new that it's like nothing, but like, um, plasma 0:09:17.800 --> 0:09:20.360 screens and stuff like that. Well we're in the middle. Sure, 0:09:21.160 --> 0:09:25.120 I'm the same way. My favorite game of all time 0:09:25.240 --> 0:09:29.319 pinball wise, Um, favorite game ever, gallagha. But a favorite 0:09:29.320 --> 0:09:33.360 game pinball wise was Adams Family Pinball. And then I 0:09:33.440 --> 0:09:35.720 learned in this article that is the top selling game 0:09:35.720 --> 0:09:39.640 of all time from Yeah, I think it was either 0:09:39.760 --> 0:09:42.920 Bally or Williams put that one out and they sold 0:09:43.200 --> 0:09:46.440 more than twenty thousand units of it. Dude, it's awesome 0:09:46.640 --> 0:09:48.320 and it didn't surprise me, and like, I have no 0:09:48.400 --> 0:09:50.840 affinity for the Adams Family, but it's the best pinball 0:09:50.880 --> 0:09:52.800 game I've ever played. And when I saw it was 0:09:52.880 --> 0:09:54.079 number one, I was like, well, of course it is, 0:09:54.120 --> 0:09:56.839 because it's the best one. You don't like the Adams Family, No, 0:09:56.960 --> 0:09:58.439 I mean I like it fine, but I don't. I 0:09:58.640 --> 0:10:01.120 didn't play it because of the movie. I played it 0:10:01.160 --> 0:10:03.719 because it was an awesome pinball game. And they had 0:10:03.720 --> 0:10:06.439 one at them all, not them all the bowling alley 0:10:06.480 --> 0:10:09.120 near me and Athens Bowling Alley. That's where I could 0:10:09.120 --> 0:10:13.960 probably go find a pinball machine. Huh yeah, maybe or 0:10:14.000 --> 0:10:18.440 maybe not. Sadly, I'm starting a quest, all right, um 0:10:18.600 --> 0:10:20.880 so telling you let's go to my brother's house because 0:10:20.880 --> 0:10:26.400 we can have a scotch okay. Uh So. Anyway, is 0:10:26.440 --> 0:10:30.560 when they finally invented the flipper. D Gottlieb Company introduced 0:10:30.559 --> 0:10:34.040 a game called Humpty Dumpty, and that was where what 0:10:34.120 --> 0:10:39.080 most people say the first modern game came about. It 0:10:39.160 --> 0:10:41.640 took at the lower flippers, all the innovations of the 0:10:41.640 --> 0:10:44.439 thirties and out of flippers and boom you got pinball, 0:10:44.679 --> 0:10:49.400 not pool table pinball pretty much, although the flippers weren't 0:10:49.400 --> 0:10:53.160 the same. It was the nineteen fifties the same person 0:10:53.320 --> 0:10:55.600 and came up with spot bowler and that was the 0:10:55.600 --> 0:10:58.920 first modern arrangement of flippers, right, and they were longer 0:11:00.120 --> 0:11:03.079 with that introduction or else a little later on. The 0:11:03.520 --> 0:11:08.319 first flippers they introduced were um, they were shorter, yeah, 0:11:08.360 --> 0:11:11.240 and they didn't face this They faced in reverse of 0:11:11.280 --> 0:11:14.319 the way they face now, which is weird. It was 0:11:14.360 --> 0:11:18.600 like they were working it out, yeah, beta pretty much. 0:11:18.840 --> 0:11:23.240 So it's funny that they introduced flippers in seven because seven. 0:11:23.320 --> 0:11:26.480 By the time flippers came around, pinball was illegal and 0:11:26.559 --> 0:11:29.760 most of the major cities in the United States, um, 0:11:29.840 --> 0:11:33.040 and had been for several years. I never I think 0:11:33.120 --> 0:11:35.840 I had heard this once and forgotten it, but pinball 0:11:35.960 --> 0:11:40.080 was totally outlawed because they equated it to gambling because 0:11:40.120 --> 0:11:42.520 it was not a game of skill, which and I 0:11:42.559 --> 0:11:47.920 guess because you've got prizes. Yeah. Um. Mayor Lea guardia Um, 0:11:48.000 --> 0:11:50.760 who you will remember from the Burlesque podcast, was a 0:11:50.800 --> 0:11:54.520 bit of a moralist. Although he was a wet politician, 0:11:54.559 --> 0:11:58.920 he was in favor of repealing prohibition. He hated pinball, 0:11:59.160 --> 0:12:02.360 hated it. He he thought it was a mafia racket. 0:12:02.400 --> 0:12:05.600 He thought that it robbed the quote pockets of school children. 0:12:05.679 --> 0:12:07.680 The forms of nickels and dimes came to them as 0:12:07.760 --> 0:12:11.560 lunch money. And he got an outlawed in New York. 0:12:11.679 --> 0:12:15.400 And once it was outlawed, he ordered like really dramatic raids. Yeah, 0:12:15.480 --> 0:12:17.640 right after Pearl Harbor, he said, you know what we 0:12:17.679 --> 0:12:20.440 need to do. The Japanese have just bombed us. We 0:12:20.440 --> 0:12:22.839 need to get rid of these pinball machines. And so 0:12:22.920 --> 0:12:26.800 let's go round them up, uh, like in a raid style. 0:12:26.960 --> 0:12:29.840 Let's smash him with sledgehammers. Let's dump them in the river. 0:12:30.360 --> 0:12:32.920 What they did, they dumped them in the river after 0:12:32.960 --> 0:12:35.719 they smashed. That's a very New York nineteen forties thing 0:12:35.720 --> 0:12:39.000 to do, exactly. I bet you they're still pinball machines 0:12:39.040 --> 0:12:41.200 down there, if anyone's brave enough to get into the 0:12:41.240 --> 0:12:45.160 East River. I don't think they are. Now we should 0:12:45.160 --> 0:12:48.840 say also give a shout out to popular mechanics who, um, 0:12:49.040 --> 0:12:53.000 we're working off in part really awesome article. They came 0:12:53.080 --> 0:12:57.600 up with eleven things you didn't know about pinball history. Um. So, 0:12:57.679 --> 0:13:02.000 from the forties until the mid nineteen seventies, if you 0:13:02.080 --> 0:13:04.840 wanted to play pinball in New York City and Chicago 0:13:04.880 --> 0:13:09.520 and l A most cities in the US, it was illegal. Um. 0:13:09.600 --> 0:13:12.959 You had to go to a pornography shop basically and 0:13:13.040 --> 0:13:17.840 go behind the curtain and play pinball. Is that weird? 0:13:18.400 --> 0:13:21.120 It's the weirdest thing we've ever said on this show. 0:13:21.200 --> 0:13:24.560 Until the mid seventies, and like there were still raids 0:13:24.640 --> 0:13:28.680 and pinball operators. A little five year old chuck, Yeah, 0:13:28.720 --> 0:13:30.680 I would have been dropped off at a porn shop 0:13:31.000 --> 0:13:34.000 to play pinball, which I'm sure your parents would have 0:13:34.000 --> 0:13:36.960 been happy to do. Well they did, and I played pinball. 0:13:37.600 --> 0:13:39.920 I didn't look at nudy people. Did you really know? 0:13:40.400 --> 0:13:42.800 I was gonna say, Man, you just blew my mind. No, no, no, 0:13:43.200 --> 0:13:48.040 And get this, The city of Oakland, Oakland, CALIFORNIAWN, just 0:13:48.120 --> 0:13:52.960 this past July overturned an eighty year ban on pinball. 0:13:54.040 --> 0:13:58.600 Free the pinballers. Yeah, good for them. Yeah, so pinball's 0:13:58.640 --> 0:14:03.160 band people are still playing it like crazy. Um. And 0:14:03.200 --> 0:14:06.960 apparently the manufacturers realized this as well, because they're still 0:14:07.000 --> 0:14:10.559 innovating and adding and making new games and machines and 0:14:10.600 --> 0:14:13.400 all sorts of stuff. Yeah. Well this is after World 0:14:13.400 --> 0:14:15.760 War Two, that where things really slowed down, obviously because 0:14:15.800 --> 0:14:18.520 of the war effort. Pinball was big. Dent was put 0:14:18.600 --> 0:14:21.680 in pinball manufacturing too, Yeah, like everything else. And then 0:14:21.680 --> 0:14:24.360 after the Fishies it took off again, and it also 0:14:24.400 --> 0:14:28.200 became um kind of a symbol of rebellious youth. And 0:14:28.320 --> 0:14:32.160 this popular Mechanics article points out, like the Fonds played 0:14:32.160 --> 0:14:35.360 a lot of pinball. I never considered that from Tommy 0:14:35.480 --> 0:14:39.440 Um from the Who's Tommy the Pinball Wizard? And Tommy 0:14:39.600 --> 0:14:45.200 both kind of rebellious like stick it in your ear LaGuardia. Yeah. 0:14:45.240 --> 0:14:47.040 I mean it seems silly now to think about that, 0:14:47.080 --> 0:14:50.040 But when Tommy came out, it was illegal, so pinball 0:14:50.200 --> 0:14:53.040 was sort of uh yeah, I guess it was just 0:14:53.080 --> 0:14:56.400 the rebels. Yeah, you're anti authoritarian if you played pinball, 0:14:56.560 --> 0:14:58.360 it was just an image of it. Yeah. And then 0:14:58.400 --> 0:15:02.880 the great Simpsons quote Sideshow Bob said television is ruined 0:15:02.880 --> 0:15:06.640 more young minds than pinball and syphilis combined. That one 0:15:06.640 --> 0:15:08.080 flew right over my head when I heard it the 0:15:08.120 --> 0:15:12.000 first time. I just thought, oh, that's silly pinball, but 0:15:12.040 --> 0:15:15.120 I didn't think about like moral turpitude. Yeah. I didn't 0:15:15.120 --> 0:15:18.080 get that one either, but I do now. So luckily, 0:15:18.600 --> 0:15:22.320 pinball was still widely available, albeit in the backs of 0:15:22.360 --> 0:15:26.560 pornography shops. UM. And the reason we say luckily is 0:15:26.600 --> 0:15:30.040 because somewhere along the way, a young man I think 0:15:30.040 --> 0:15:32.760 in his early twenties named Roger Sharpe, who is a 0:15:32.800 --> 0:15:39.280 magazine editor, UM, was called upon to save the pinball world. 0:15:40.080 --> 0:15:43.520 At a New York City council meeting. Yeah, they finally said, hey, 0:15:43.520 --> 0:15:46.280 city council, can we get a hearing on pinball machines? 0:15:46.320 --> 0:15:48.440 You guys are being ridict because it's a bicentennial of 0:15:48.520 --> 0:15:52.120 this country and we need pinball. It's as American as 0:15:52.360 --> 0:15:57.400 America gets as pornography. So they said, sure, we'll have 0:15:57.440 --> 0:16:00.560 a hearing. Because their intent was to prove that it 0:16:00.600 --> 0:16:02.280 was a game of skill and not chance, which was 0:16:02.320 --> 0:16:04.960 the whole rub in the first place. He brought in 0:16:05.000 --> 0:16:07.560 there a pinball wizard, game of chance is gambling. Sure, 0:16:07.680 --> 0:16:10.400 LaGuardia had a point, well sort of. I still don't 0:16:10.520 --> 0:16:13.560 get it, but this law was obsolete because they added flippers, 0:16:13.600 --> 0:16:14.880 and now it was a game of skill, but the 0:16:14.960 --> 0:16:18.040 law was still around basically, so they brought in their 0:16:18.040 --> 0:16:22.280 pinball wizard Sharp and Um. They brought two machines because 0:16:22.320 --> 0:16:24.240 if one broke down, they wanted to have a backup, 0:16:24.840 --> 0:16:27.480 and some jerk councilman, when he went to play the game, 0:16:27.520 --> 0:16:29.240 said no, no, no, no no, why don't you play 0:16:29.320 --> 0:16:32.040 the other game, the backup one? Yeah, the backup game. 0:16:32.440 --> 0:16:34.440 And Sharp started sweating because he was like, oh, I'm 0:16:34.480 --> 0:16:36.600 not very good at that game. Yeah, he never played 0:16:36.600 --> 0:16:38.480 it before. I'm a master at this one. But he 0:16:38.520 --> 0:16:40.680 was a pinball wizard, so I believed in him. Yeah, 0:16:41.040 --> 0:16:43.960 I didn't know what happened. Did you? Did you see 0:16:44.000 --> 0:16:47.880 the the documentary special Winlet No, Oh my god, it 0:16:47.920 --> 0:16:52.440 has footage of this. It's amazing and amazing documentary. All 0:16:52.480 --> 0:16:55.560 about pinball. I mean all about pinball is not so 0:16:55.640 --> 0:16:58.200 awesome documentary. I think it's one called Tilt as well. 0:16:58.240 --> 0:17:01.480 There is that's about a specific in history and pinball. 0:17:01.680 --> 0:17:03.760 I haven't seen that one, but it sounds pretty good too. 0:17:04.080 --> 0:17:08.000 But see Special when Let amazing, um n C Tilt two. 0:17:08.040 --> 0:17:11.760 It's what's the deal? So, um, Roger Sharp's playing, he's 0:17:11.800 --> 0:17:15.200 not really impressing anybody, and things are kind of going bad, 0:17:16.200 --> 0:17:19.240 and he decides to do a Babe Ruth call. He 0:17:19.359 --> 0:17:21.880 pulls back the plunger and before he releases it, he goes, 0:17:21.920 --> 0:17:25.320 I'm going up the middle aisle here. Yeah, And just 0:17:25.359 --> 0:17:27.680 so you know, if you've never seen a pinball game, 0:17:27.800 --> 0:17:30.199 you you pull the plunger, it shoots the ball up 0:17:30.200 --> 0:17:32.960 the right hand side through a trough and then it 0:17:33.160 --> 0:17:35.600 spits it out at the top. And what he was 0:17:35.640 --> 0:17:37.399 trying to prove is where I'm going to spit it 0:17:37.400 --> 0:17:39.560 out and where it's going to start its descent back 0:17:39.600 --> 0:17:42.360 to me. It's going to be in a very specific 0:17:42.359 --> 0:17:44.760 place in the center of the board, not on the left, 0:17:44.840 --> 0:17:47.840 not on the right, right up the middle. And um, 0:17:47.960 --> 0:17:51.720 he did it. And apparently right afterwards the city council 0:17:51.840 --> 0:17:55.000 was like, okay, we'll repeal it, like it's obviously a 0:17:55.040 --> 0:18:00.359 game of skill, like Roger Sharp single handedly, well double 0:18:00.440 --> 0:18:05.360 handedly because he was using the flippers, um, save pinball 0:18:06.160 --> 0:18:10.399 from illegality. I wonder if they said, yeah, fine, good lord, 0:18:10.480 --> 0:18:14.040 just it's legal. Get the machines out of here, get 0:18:14.040 --> 0:18:16.000 this loser out of here. But he is not a 0:18:16.000 --> 0:18:19.560 loser because he is currently still the number five hundred 0:18:19.600 --> 0:18:22.560 and thirty six ranked player in the world. I'm surprised. 0:18:22.560 --> 0:18:24.639 I thought he went on to be I think at 0:18:24.680 --> 0:18:26.359 the time he was number one, which is why they 0:18:26.440 --> 0:18:29.960 chose him. He probably was, but he's been falling ever since. Man, 0:18:30.080 --> 0:18:33.719 that's another thing in special win let Man. There are 0:18:33.760 --> 0:18:37.160 some like really good pinball players. Well, I've got the list. 0:18:37.800 --> 0:18:39.840 I'll quickly go with the top five. Number one in 0:18:39.840 --> 0:18:44.760 the world as of today, two thousand, fourteen August whatever 0:18:44.800 --> 0:18:49.080 it is. Keith Lwyn of the USA is number one. 0:18:49.320 --> 0:18:52.960 U s a Urian Ingle Brixton of Sweden's number two. 0:18:53.119 --> 0:18:59.399 Swede dimn Zack Sharp recognize that name that sounds vaguely 0:18:59.440 --> 0:19:02.359 familiar Roger's son. Yeah, he's the number three player in 0:19:02.359 --> 0:19:07.880 the world. That's awesome. Number four Danielle Celestino AXIARTI what 0:19:07.960 --> 0:19:13.000 was that? He's Italian, he's before. Jorgan Home is also Swedish. 0:19:13.000 --> 0:19:15.639 He's number five. There's a Canadian at six, a Sweet 0:19:15.640 --> 0:19:18.480 at seven. Than eight through twenty save one are all 0:19:18.560 --> 0:19:23.000 Americans and number twenties Josh Sharp. So his sons followed 0:19:23.000 --> 0:19:25.399 in his footsteps. That's great and are both top twenty 0:19:25.440 --> 0:19:29.639 ranks players. And I bet Josh is soups jealous Zack. 0:19:30.359 --> 0:19:33.600 Maybe maybe Josh is also He's like, I want to 0:19:33.640 --> 0:19:36.679 be a veterinarian, so I'm paying more attention to that 0:19:36.760 --> 0:19:40.560 kind of thing. Maybe so. Um So pinball was saved 0:19:40.800 --> 0:19:45.840 by Roger Sharp and um pinballs just kept going on 0:19:45.920 --> 0:19:48.840 and on. Apparently it had its golden day age. Um. 0:19:48.880 --> 0:19:52.639 It's widely believed between nineteen fifty eight, but it was 0:19:52.680 --> 0:19:55.080 also huge in the seventies, huge in the eighties, and 0:19:55.080 --> 0:19:58.080 then video games came along and all of a sudden, 0:19:58.119 --> 0:20:01.879 pinball was like uh, and it started to decline and 0:20:02.000 --> 0:20:04.800 decline and decline and decline and all I think we 0:20:04.800 --> 0:20:10.359 were down to maybe five major pinball machine producers, and 0:20:10.400 --> 0:20:15.399 by major, I mean the only ones um by Minora, 0:20:16.000 --> 0:20:17.760 because I mean, it's all it takes a lot of 0:20:18.080 --> 0:20:22.720 time and effort to manufacture a functioning pinball game. Yeah. So, 0:20:22.840 --> 0:20:28.160 um by the nineties there were just a couple left. 0:20:28.400 --> 0:20:31.040 Everybody was selling off their pinball divisions, and there was 0:20:31.080 --> 0:20:34.639 a company called Bally Williams, which were former competitors that 0:20:34.720 --> 0:20:38.760 emerged and this is what the documentary Tilt is about. 0:20:39.240 --> 0:20:42.000 They went to their pinball division and said, hey, you guys, 0:20:42.000 --> 0:20:45.679 are great in the pinball world, but the pinball world sucks. 0:20:46.160 --> 0:20:48.040 We want more money out of you guys. What are 0:20:48.040 --> 0:20:51.720 you gonna do that pinball? Yes, they came up with 0:20:51.760 --> 0:20:53.840 Pinball two thousand. They said, we will give you a 0:20:53.920 --> 0:20:59.000 chance to save yourselves. Figure out what will revive pinball 0:20:59.160 --> 0:21:02.320 for tree, and they came up with Pinball two thousand. Yeah. 0:21:02.359 --> 0:21:06.240 It's basically a hybrid of video gaming and pinball, where 0:21:06.280 --> 0:21:08.520 you have a kind of a standard pinball set up, 0:21:08.880 --> 0:21:12.440 but a video screen that's interactive. Yeah, as the back 0:21:12.640 --> 0:21:15.719 um backdrop no on the playing field too, so like 0:21:16.160 --> 0:21:19.920 holograms pop up on the on the playing board and 0:21:20.080 --> 0:21:22.880 like run away from the ball and interact with the ball. Yeah, 0:21:22.960 --> 0:21:25.040 it stinks though, and no one liked it. Have you 0:21:25.080 --> 0:21:27.840 played it? I haven't played it, but I saw videos 0:21:27.840 --> 0:21:29.720 of it and it didn't look like fun, and no 0:21:29.800 --> 0:21:32.640 one liked it. So the thing is is, like this 0:21:32.680 --> 0:21:34.960 one article I read pointed out like it wasn't given 0:21:35.000 --> 0:21:37.000 a chance to flourish, Like the idea was great, and 0:21:37.000 --> 0:21:38.960 the fact that they pulled it off successfully it was 0:21:39.000 --> 0:21:42.399 really something. Well, they built only two games, right, and 0:21:42.440 --> 0:21:45.600 I think each one had a few thousand production run. 0:21:46.240 --> 0:21:49.200 Um but there was Star Wars episode one, which here's 0:21:49.240 --> 0:21:52.399 my theory the reason Pinball two thousand went nowhere charge 0:21:52.400 --> 0:21:56.920 our biggs. Yeah, that the other one was revenge from 0:21:56.960 --> 0:22:01.480 Mars and um you can still find those you was today. Um. 0:22:01.640 --> 0:22:05.160 But despite the fact that Pinball two thousand was created, 0:22:05.600 --> 0:22:09.720 it was it was okay as far as successes go. Um. 0:22:10.520 --> 0:22:16.320 Bally Williams pulled the plug, which left one company Stern. Uh. 0:22:16.359 --> 0:22:21.960 There's a guy named Michael Stern, I believe, who inherited 0:22:22.000 --> 0:22:26.600 his father's business and um became the only people making 0:22:26.680 --> 0:22:32.119 pinball machines in the world. No. Yeah, man, had we 0:22:32.240 --> 0:22:36.720 been have we been recording this two years ago, we 0:22:36.800 --> 0:22:40.480 would have basically been saying, like, pinball's dead, it's on 0:22:40.520 --> 0:22:43.639 its last leg. There's one company making it. They've started 0:22:43.640 --> 0:22:47.080 to lay off their designers because of the economic crisis. 0:22:47.640 --> 0:22:50.080 Some of those designers went on, some of the Stern 0:22:50.200 --> 0:22:53.800 vets went on and founded a company called Jersey Jack, 0:22:53.920 --> 0:22:57.080 and for the first time in many many years, there 0:22:57.080 --> 0:23:01.800 are more than one pinball manufacture. There's two, right, But 0:23:01.880 --> 0:23:04.480 the competition has caused Stern to go back and rehire 0:23:04.520 --> 0:23:06.119 some of the people they laid off come up with 0:23:06.160 --> 0:23:11.000 new designs, and um they are. There's a pinball renaissance 0:23:11.000 --> 0:23:16.520 and nascent pinball renaissance just beginning to bud that could happen. Well, 0:23:16.600 --> 0:23:20.480