Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from house Stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, I'm welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh
Speaker 1: Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant, Doo Doo doo doo,
Speaker 1: and there's Jerry Doo and this is stuff you should
Speaker 1: know the podcast. What is that? Oh? Yeah, I thought
Speaker 1: you're making pinball pings and no bells and whistles. No
Speaker 1: sounds like Vegas. Vegas like one big pinball machine. It
Speaker 1: is that you've been to walk through those casinos. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you just made my neck muscles tight. Now, man, I
Speaker 1: hate Vegas. I like Vegas. Yeah, I wouldn't. I wouldn't.
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't want to live in Vegas or
Speaker 1: like go to Vegas every weekend or anything like that.
Speaker 1: But going to Vegas once a year, once every couple
Speaker 1: of years, that's fine with me. Yeah, not for me.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've been a bunch and I'm just I'm done.
Speaker 1: Oh you're one with Vegas. That's what you're saying that
Speaker 1: I don't see any reason to go back. I guarantee
Speaker 1: somebody you want to see will have some sort of
Speaker 1: residency out there, and you will be back in Vegas.
Speaker 1: When I'm like sixty. Yeah, like pavement will have a
Speaker 1: residence valleys. That's exactly I think, what's going to happen. Well,
Speaker 1: then you'll find me in living in Vegas, my friend.
Speaker 1: There you go. Yeah, see I got you back on
Speaker 1: the Vegas train. But that sound. Yeah, it's like a
Speaker 1: million pinball machines that take your money faster than pinball machines. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and that was an early worry about pinball. Actually, as
Speaker 1: we will soon see because I say, chuck, let's dive
Speaker 1: right into the history of pinballs. So pinball machines actually
Speaker 1: find their lineage back in the nineteenth century. There were
Speaker 1: um things called or what were they? I want to
Speaker 1: say Bagat machines, but that's not correct. The table, Yes,
Speaker 1: the Bagatel table, thank you. Um. They were basically a
Speaker 1: cross between pool and pinball. He used a pool que
Speaker 1: and everything, and they sucked and nobody liked him. I
Speaker 1: think it looks pretty cool, does it? It looks I'm
Speaker 1: boring to me? Well, I mean it's if you're used
Speaker 1: to modern gaming, is not gonna thrill you, but look
Speaker 1: kind of neat. So the Bagatel table was there, it
Speaker 1: was in place, and in the thirties a guy named
Speaker 1: monte Redgrave came along like, you can't not say that
Speaker 1: guy's name like that. Um. He came along and said,
Speaker 1: you know what, people just invented a spring. How did
Speaker 1: you say his name? Again? Montague, like he's on lad
Speaker 1: on um um and uh. He came along and said,
Speaker 1: somebody invented a spring recently. I'm gonna add it to
Speaker 1: this bagatel table make it less sucky. And then all
Speaker 1: of a sudden we have the the what did he
Speaker 1: call it, the ball shooter, which makes sense, that's what
Speaker 1: you call it. And now we had the first introduced
Speaker 1: mechanism of pinballs. Things are starting to take shape a
Speaker 1: little bit here. Yeah, but you didn't stick a coin
Speaker 1: in the game. What you would do is kind of
Speaker 1: like pool tables these days at a bar. You would
Speaker 1: go up to the keeper of the balls and say,
Speaker 1: here's some money, give me my balls, and let me
Speaker 1: go play the game on the bagotel table. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: he would go, you know it sucks, don't you, And
Speaker 1: you would say, yes, but it's the eighteen thirties. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and if I play really well, then I can win
Speaker 1: free drinks and cigarettes. And they said, exactly, can you
Speaker 1: see a little twelve year old, winning cigarettes and then
Speaker 1: going back to play more bagatell Sure, so this is
Speaker 1: the way it went for many decades. People were miserable
Speaker 1: until the nineteen thirties, and there was this enormous explosion
Speaker 1: of innovation and pool table re um in the thirties. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like just almost everything that you think of and you
Speaker 1: think of a pool, a pool um. We've been saying.
Speaker 1: I've been saying pool table just for the last like minute.
Speaker 1: Why didn't you correct me? I thought you were talking
Speaker 1: about bull tall I'm talking about pinball. Anyway. In the
Speaker 1: thirties there was a huge explosion in pinball, pinball or yeah,
Speaker 1: and um, everything that you think of when when you
Speaker 1: think of a pinball machine, almost all of it came
Speaker 1: about in the thirties. Coin operation, the back glass, the
Speaker 1: thing that has like a kiss or Hugh heff neuron
Speaker 1: it or something like that stands up off of the
Speaker 1: playing field. The table um electric well, I guess an
Speaker 1: electric current running through it, legs um, the tilt mechanism, bumpers,
Speaker 1: uh sounds yeah, score keeping. And then first, of course
Speaker 1: I think I said bumpers, did I not? I don't know. Maybe,
Speaker 1: And then most of all, most wortaintly chuck was. The
Speaker 1: thirties led to a huge surge in popularity because you
Speaker 1: had the Great Depression and pinballs were cheap entertainment that
Speaker 1: were wide, widely available. You notice the one thing we
Speaker 1: didn't say though and all that innovation, what flippers, Because
Speaker 1: still up until nineteen seven, you just bumped the thing
Speaker 1: to make the ball move. Yeah, there were no flippers,
Speaker 1: which seems very counterintuitive to pinball. And the flippers really
Speaker 1: changed things. They fundamentally changed pinball, not just in the
Speaker 1: way you play, but in pinball is a game because
Speaker 1: before flippers, it was a game of chance. It was
Speaker 1: the same thing as playing like um high low. Basically
Speaker 1: like you had no way really of manipulating the movement
Speaker 1: of the ball. Well you shake them sheen, you could
Speaker 1: without tilting. I mean that's what you did. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: was how you did it. Even still it the amount
Speaker 1: of skill it took was minute compared to the skill
Speaker 1: that could be used. Once flippers were introduced, pinball wizardry
Speaker 1: and it became a game of skill. Um. And then
Speaker 1: but before that, the like I said, things were popular.
Speaker 1: Get this um. In the early thirties there were a
Speaker 1: hundred and forty five companies making pinball machines, and the
Speaker 1: field became so competitive and ruthless that by the mid thirties,
Speaker 1: like five years later, there were fourteen. Yeah, and most
Speaker 1: of those were based in Chicago, which became sort of
Speaker 1: the pinball capital of the world. And I've never been there,
Speaker 1: but I bet you anything, Chicago still has a lot
Speaker 1: of a lot more pinball machines than elsewhere, you know.
Speaker 1: I was trying to think of like this, researching this
Speaker 1: made me want to go play pinball, like researching sushi.
Speaker 1: Maybe we want to go eat sushi. And I was thinking, like,
Speaker 1: I have no idea where to go to play pinball,
Speaker 1: you know, and we'll go to my brother's house. Does
Speaker 1: he have one? He's got three? Oh, I love your
Speaker 1: brother even more now, dude. He built a whole game room,
Speaker 1: of course, because that's what my brother does. What does
Speaker 1: he have he has? Uh F he has a Tomcat
Speaker 1: F four team, which is the rip off of top Gun.
Speaker 1: He said, there's a lot. There were a lot of
Speaker 1: rip off games for a while, of movies and actual
Speaker 1: movie time games. Uh. He has black Hole, but not
Speaker 1: the movie. Another rip off game. I would love that.
Speaker 1: Uh And those are both kind of old school. And
Speaker 1: then he has a Jurassic Park, which is uh newer.
Speaker 1: I think didn't they have like a t rex that
Speaker 1: comes down and eat your ball? I can't remember. I
Speaker 1: feel like all three of them. But yeah, and he
Speaker 1: also kicked this. He took an old um video game
Speaker 1: like stand up video game console and removed all the guts,
Speaker 1: got a computer screen and um computer and hooked it
Speaker 1: up in there too, where you can play all the
Speaker 1: old school games, you know, those programs they have now,
Speaker 1: and change the screen vertically so it just looks like
Speaker 1: a regular arcade game. And you can go up and
Speaker 1: play Frogger and Space Invaders and Scott Bite me over
Speaker 1: and it's all free. That's so awesome. Man. He's like,
Speaker 1: um Ricky Schroeder and silver Spoons or something. But growing up, yeah,
Speaker 1: pretty much. Um. And I think the reason why I
Speaker 1: don't play more pinball over there is because, um, we're
Speaker 1: always playing ping pong. Yeah that's a game of skill,
Speaker 1: and I love ping pong. But I'll try and get
Speaker 1: in a pinball game. Man. I want to play some
Speaker 1: pinball so bad. Let's just go out to Roswell dude, Okay,
Speaker 1: do it right? Now. Uh, and I if I, if
Speaker 1: I collected pinches, it would definitely be mid mid seventies
Speaker 1: and mid eighties. From me, I would think, yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: all the bells and whistles and all that, the new
Speaker 1: fangled bells and whistles. They're fine, that's cool. But I
Speaker 1: like a not so old that it's like electro mechanical,
Speaker 1: but not so new that it's like nothing. But like, um,
Speaker 1: you know, plasma screens and stuff like that. Well, we're
Speaker 1: in the middle. Sure, I'm the same way. My favorite
Speaker 1: game of all time pinball wise, um, favorite game ever, gallagha,
Speaker 1: but favorite game pinball wise was Adams Family Pinball. And
Speaker 1: then I learned in this article that is the top
Speaker 1: selling game of all time from yeah, I think it
Speaker 1: was either Bally or Williams put that one out and
Speaker 1: they sold more than twenty thou units of it. Dude,
Speaker 1: it's awesome and it didn't surprise me. And like, I
Speaker 1: have no iffinity for the Adams Family, but it's the
Speaker 1: best pinball game I've ever played. And when I saw
Speaker 1: it was number one, I was like, well, of course
Speaker 1: it is, because it's the best one. You don't like
Speaker 1: the Adams Family, No, I mean, I like it fine,
Speaker 1: but I don't. I didn't play it because of the movie.
Speaker 1: I played it because it was an awesome pinball game.
Speaker 1: And they had one of them all not them all
Speaker 1: the bowling alley near me in Athens Bowling Alley. That's
Speaker 1: where I could probably go find a pinball machine. Huh yeah,
Speaker 1: or maybe not. Sadly, I'm starting a quest, all right,
Speaker 1: um so telling you let's go to my brother's house
Speaker 1: because we can have a scotch okay. Uh So. Anyway,
Speaker 1: seven is when they finally invented the flipper. D Gottlieb
Speaker 1: Company introduced a game called Humpty Dumpty, and that was
Speaker 1: where what most people say that the first modern game
Speaker 1: came about. It took at the level flippers, all the
Speaker 1: innovations of the thirties and out of flippers and boom
Speaker 1: you've got pinball, not pool table pinball pretty much, although
Speaker 1: the flippers weren't the same. It was the nineteen fifties
Speaker 1: the same person and came up with spot bowler, and
Speaker 1: that was the first modern arrangement of flippers, right, and
Speaker 1: they were longer with that introduction or else a little
Speaker 1: later on. The first flippers they introduced were Um, they
Speaker 1: were shorter. Yeah, and they didn't face this. They faced
Speaker 1: in reverse of the way they face now. It was weird.
Speaker 1: It was like they were working it out beta pretty much.
Speaker 1: So it's funny that they introduced flippers in because by
Speaker 1: the time flippers came around, pinball was illegal and most
Speaker 1: of the major cities in the United States, Um, and
Speaker 1: have been for several years. I never I think I
Speaker 1: had heard this once and forgotten it. But pinball was
Speaker 1: totally outlawed because they equated it to gambling because it
Speaker 1: was not a game of skill, which and I guess
Speaker 1: because you got prizes. Yeah. Um. Mayor Lea guardia Um,
Speaker 1: who you will remember from the Burlesque podcast, was a
Speaker 1: bit of a moralist, although he was a wet politician.
Speaker 1: He was in favor of repealing prohibition. He hated pinball,
Speaker 1: hated it. He he thought it was a mafia racket.
Speaker 1: He thought that it robbed the quote pockets of school children,
Speaker 1: the forms of nickels and dimes came to them as
Speaker 1: lunch money. And he got an outlawed in New York.
Speaker 1: And once it was outlawed, he ordered like really dramatic raids. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Right after Pearl Harbor. He said, you know what we
Speaker 1: need to do. The Japanese have just bombed us. We
Speaker 1: need to get rid of these pinball machines. And so
Speaker 1: let's go round him up, uh like in a raid style.
Speaker 1: Let's smash him with sledgehammers. Let's dump him in the river.
Speaker 1: What they did, they dumped them in the river after
Speaker 1: they smashed them. That's a very New York nineteen forties
Speaker 1: thing to do. Exactly. I bet you there's still pinball
Speaker 1: machines down there, if anyone's brave enough to get into
Speaker 1: the East River. I don't think they are. We should
Speaker 1: say also give a shout out to Popular Mechanics, who, um,
Speaker 1: we're working off in part really awesome article. They came
Speaker 1: up with eleven things you didn't know about pinball history.
Speaker 1: Um So, from the forties until the mid nineteen seventies,
Speaker 1: if you wanted to play pinball in New York City
Speaker 1: and Chicago and l A most cities in the US,
Speaker 1: it was illegal. Um you had to go to a
Speaker 1: pornography shop basically and go behind the curtain and play pimball.
Speaker 1: Is that weird? It's the weirdest thing we've ever said
Speaker 1: on this show. Until the mid nineteen seventies, and like
Speaker 1: there were still raids and pimball operators. Little five year
Speaker 1: old Chuck, Yeah, I would have been dropped off at
Speaker 1: a porn shop to play pinball, which I'm sure your
Speaker 1: parents would have been happy to do. Well they did,
Speaker 1: and I played pinball. I didn't look at nudy people.
Speaker 1: Did you really know what I was gonna say? Man,
Speaker 1: he just blew my mind. No, no, And get this,
Speaker 1: The city of Oakland, Oakland, CALIFORNIAWN, just this past July
Speaker 1: overturned an eighty year ban on pinball. Free the pinballers. Yeah,
Speaker 1: good for them. Yeah, so pinball's band people are still
Speaker 1: playing it like crazy. Um And apparently the manufacturers realized
Speaker 1: this as well, because they're still innovating and adding and
Speaker 1: making new games and machines and all sorts of stuff. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well this is after World War Two, that where things
Speaker 1: really slowed down, obviously because of the war effort. Pointball
Speaker 1: was big. Dent was put in pinball manufacturing too. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like everything else. And then after the fifties it took
Speaker 1: off again, and it also became kind of a symbol
Speaker 1: of rebellious youth. In this popular mechanic starticle points out
Speaker 1: like the Fons played a lot of pinball. I never
Speaker 1: considered that from Tommy Um, from the Who's Tommy the
Speaker 1: Pinball Wizard? And Tommy both kind of rebellious, like stick
Speaker 1: it in your ear LaGuardia. Yeah. I mean, it seems
Speaker 1: silly now to think about that. But when Tommy came out,
Speaker 1: it was illegal, so pinball was sort of uh yeah,
Speaker 1: I guess it was just the rebels. Yeah, you're anti
Speaker 1: authoritarian if you played pinball, it was just an image
Speaker 1: of it. Yeah. And then the Great Simpsons quote side show,
Speaker 1: Bob said television is ruined more young minds than pinball
Speaker 1: and syphilis combined. That one flew right over my head
Speaker 1: when I heard it the first time. I just thought, oh,
Speaker 1: that's silly pinball, right, But I didn't think about like
Speaker 1: moral turpitude. Yeah. I didn't get that one either, but
Speaker 1: I do know. So luckily, pinball was still widely available,
Speaker 1: albeit in the backs of pornography shops UM. And the
Speaker 1: reason we say luckily is because somewhere along the way,
Speaker 1: a young man in I think in his early twenties
Speaker 1: named Roger Sharp, who is a magazine editor, UM, was
Speaker 1: called upon to save the pinball World at a New
Speaker 1: York City council meeting. Yeah, they finally said, hey, City council,
Speaker 1: can we get a hearing on pinball machines? You guys
Speaker 1: are being ridict because it's a bicentennial of this country
Speaker 1: and we need pinball. It's as American as America gets
Speaker 1: as pornography. So they said, sure, we'll have a hearing.
Speaker 1: Because their intent was to prove that it was a
Speaker 1: game of skill and not chance, which was the whole
Speaker 1: rub in the first place. They brought in there a
Speaker 1: pinball wizard. Game of chance is gambling? Sure, LaGuardia had
Speaker 1: a point, well sort of. I still don't get it.
Speaker 1: But this law was obsolete because they added footperson now
Speaker 1: as a game of skill, but the law was still
Speaker 1: around basically. So they brought in their pinball wizard Sharp
Speaker 1: and um. They brought two machines because if one broke down,
Speaker 1: they wanted to have a backup, and some jerk councilman
Speaker 1: when he went to play the game, said no, no, no,
Speaker 1: no no, why don't you play the their game, the
Speaker 1: backup one. Yeah, the backup game. And Sharp started sweating
Speaker 1: because he was like, oh, I'm not very good at
Speaker 1: that game. Yeah, he never played it before. I'm a
Speaker 1: master at this one, but he was a pinball wizard,
Speaker 1: so I believed in him. Yeah. Well I didn't know
Speaker 1: what happened, did you. Did you see the the documentary
Speaker 1: Special Windlet. No, Oh my god, it has footage of this.
Speaker 1: It's amazing, amazing documentary. All about pinball, I mean all
Speaker 1: about pimball is not so awesome documentary there is that's
Speaker 1: about a specific moment in history and pinball. I haven't
Speaker 1: seen that one, but it sounds pretty good too. But
Speaker 1: see Special Winlet amazing um and see Tilt two. It's
Speaker 1: what's the deal? So um. Roger Sharp's playing, he's not
Speaker 1: really impressing anybody, and things are kind of going bad,
Speaker 1: and he decides to do a Babe Ruth call. He
Speaker 1: pulls back the plunger and before he releases it, he goes,
Speaker 1: I'm going up the middle aisle here. Yeah, And just
Speaker 1: so you know, if you've never seen a pinball game,
Speaker 1: you you pull the plunger, it's shoots the ball up
Speaker 1: the right hand side through a trough and then it
Speaker 1: spits it out at the top. And what he was
Speaker 1: trying to prove is where I'm going to spit it out,
Speaker 1: and where it's going to start it's descent back to me,
Speaker 1: It's going to be in a very specific place in
Speaker 1: the center of the board, not on the left, not
Speaker 1: on the right, right up the middle. And um, he
Speaker 1: did it. And apparently right afterwards the city council was like, okay,
Speaker 1: we'll repeal it, like it's obviously a game of skill,
Speaker 1: like Roger Sharp single handedly, well double handedly because he
Speaker 1: was using the flippers. Um, save pinball from illegality. I
Speaker 1: wonder if they said, yeah, fine, good lord, just it's legal.
Speaker 1: Get the machines out of here, get this loser out
Speaker 1: of here. But he is not a loser, because he
Speaker 1: is currently still the number five hundred and thirty six
Speaker 1: ranked player in the world. I'm surprised. I thought he
Speaker 1: went on to be. I think at the time he
Speaker 1: was number one, which is why they chose him. He
Speaker 1: probably was, but he's been falling ever since. Man, that's
Speaker 1: another thing in special win let Man, there are some
Speaker 1: like really good pinball players. Well, I've got the list.
Speaker 1: I'll quickly go with the top five, number one in
Speaker 1: the world as of today, two thousand, fourteen August whatever
Speaker 1: it is. Keith Lwyn of the USA is number one.
Speaker 1: U s a Urian ingele Brixton of Swedeness number two,
Speaker 1: Swedie din Zack Sharp recognize that name. It sounds vaguely familiar.
Speaker 1: Roger's son. Yeah, he's the number three player in the world.
Speaker 1: That's awesome. Number four Danielle Celestino Axiarty, what was that?
Speaker 1: He's Italian, he's before Jorgan Home is also Swedish. He's
Speaker 1: number five. There's a Canadian at six, a Sweet at seven,
Speaker 1: then eight through twenty save one are all Americans and
Speaker 1: number twenties Josh Sharp. So his sons followed in his footsteps.
Speaker 1: That's great, and are both top twenty ranked players. And
Speaker 1: I bet Josh is supers jealous. Maybe maybe Josh is
Speaker 1: also He's like, I want to be a veterin area,
Speaker 1: so I'm paying more attention to that kind of thing.
Speaker 1: Maybe so. Um So, pinball was saved by Roger Sharp,
Speaker 1: and um pinball just kept going on and on. Apparently
Speaker 1: it had its golden day age. It's widely believed between
Speaker 1: ninety eight, but it was also huge in the seventies,
Speaker 1: huge in the eighties, and then video games came along
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden pinball was like uh, and
Speaker 1: it started to decline and decline and decline and decline,
Speaker 1: and all I think we were down to maybe five
Speaker 1: major pinball machine producers, and by major I mean the
Speaker 1: only ones. Um no, because I mean it's all it
Speaker 1: takes a lot of time and effort to manufacture of
Speaker 1: functioning pinball game. Yeah. So, um, by the nineties there
Speaker 1: were just a couple left. Everybody was selling off their
Speaker 1: pinball divisions and there was a company called Bally Williams,
Speaker 1: which were former competitors that emerged and this is what
Speaker 1: the documentary Tilt is about. They went to their pinball
Speaker 1: division and said, hey, you guys are great in the
Speaker 1: pinball world, but the pinball world sucks. We want more
Speaker 1: money out of you guys. What are you gonna do?
Speaker 1: Is that pinball two thousands? Yes, they came up with
Speaker 1: pinball two thousand. They said, we will give you a
Speaker 1: chance to save yourselves. Figure out what will revive pinball
Speaker 1: for they and they came up with Pinball two thousand. Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's basically a hybrid of video gaming and pinball, where
Speaker 1: you have a kind of a standard pinball set up,
Speaker 1: but a video screen that's interactive as the back um
Speaker 1: backdrop no on the playing field too, so like holograms
Speaker 1: pop up on the on the playing board and like
Speaker 1: run away from the ball and interact with the ball.
Speaker 1: It stinks, though, and no one liked it. Have you
Speaker 1: played it? I haven't played it, but I saw videos
Speaker 1: of it and it didn't look like fun, and no
Speaker 1: one liked it. So the thing is is like this
Speaker 1: one article I read pointed out like it wasn't given
Speaker 1: a chance to flourish, Like the idea was great, and
Speaker 1: the fact that they pulled it off successfully it was
Speaker 1: really something. Well, they built only two games, right, and
Speaker 1: I think each one had a few thousand production run. Um.
Speaker 1: But there was Star Wars episode one, which here's my
Speaker 1: theory the reason Pinball two thousand went nowhere charge R Biggs. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the other one was Revenge from Mars and um you
Speaker 1: can still find those used today. Um. But despite the
Speaker 1: fact that Pinball two thousand was created, it was it
Speaker 1: was okay as far as successes go. Um. Bally Williams
Speaker 1: pulled the plug, which left one company stern. Uh. There's
Speaker 1: a guy named Michael Stern, I believe, who inherited his
Speaker 1: father's business and um became the only people making pinball
Speaker 1: machines in the world. Still. No, yeah, man, had we
Speaker 1: been have we been recording this two years ago, we
Speaker 1: would have basically been saying, like, pinball's dead, it's on
Speaker 1: its last leg. There's one company making it. They've started
Speaker 1: to lay off their designers because of the economic crisis.
Speaker 1: Some of those designers went on, some of the Stern
Speaker 1: Vets went on and founded a company called Jersey Jack,
Speaker 1: and for the first time in many many years, there
Speaker 1: are more than one pinball manufacturer. There's too, right, but
Speaker 1: the competition has caused Stern to go back and rehire
Speaker 1: some of the people they laid off, come up with
Speaker 1: new designs, and um they are there's a pinball renaissance
Speaker 1: and nascent pinball renaissance just beginning to bud that could happen. Well,
Speaker 1: pinball is definitely a sort of an end thing now. Um,
Speaker 1: if you're super cool and you have some money, then
Speaker 1: you might have a pinball machine in your house like
Speaker 1: my brother. Um. It is a Apparently Sterns ratio of
Speaker 1: home sales to commercials sales has risen from thy percent
Speaker 1: to six of their total sales. So the market now
Speaker 1: isn't for arcades, because what are those. The market is
Speaker 1: for the person who has enough money to buy a
Speaker 1: pinball machine. You don't have to Well, yeah, if you
Speaker 1: want a new one, it's gonna cost you, But if
Speaker 1: you want like a vintage one, it's I mean it's
Speaker 1: hundreds still. I mean that's a decent amount of money,
Speaker 1: but the high like the Adams family wants less than
Speaker 1: five thousand. Man, that's the one that you need in
Speaker 1: the house. Yeah. So, um, I think my brother actually
Speaker 1: refurbished his. I think, I think I'm right. I think
Speaker 1: they weren't even working and he was able to fix them. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I imagine you can get him for way less because
Speaker 1: these are like fully refurbished, like polished, ready to go
Speaker 1: one um and a lot of them are starting to
Speaker 1: come from overseas because the demand in intege collectors UM
Speaker 1: items are like is rising so much that like seventy
Speaker 1: of them come from overseas. They're re importing them back
Speaker 1: to America. Well, and it's big in Europe because I mean,
Speaker 1: as evidence from that top ten, h two or three
Speaker 1: of them were European Swede Swedes look at them. So
Speaker 1: we'll get into how pinball actually works right after this.
Speaker 1: All right, So we've talked a lot about the history
Speaker 1: of pinball, which is way more interesting than I thought
Speaker 1: it would be. But um, we haven't talked about the
Speaker 1: game because I assume everybody has played pinball. But if
Speaker 1: you haven't, we're gonna break it down. Yeah, and it's
Speaker 1: actually it's pretty simple if you really think about it.
Speaker 1: There's two real components to the game. Now ever since
Speaker 1: time before, you seven flippers in the ball. Uh yeah.
Speaker 1: Everything else is just kind of ornamentation or whatever. But
Speaker 1: to play pinball, you need flippers and the ball because
Speaker 1: the point of pinball is too score points using the
Speaker 1: ball bouncing off of obstacles and all that stuff. And
Speaker 1: then to prevent the ball from going down the drain
Speaker 1: using the flippers. That's right there, you got flippers in
Speaker 1: the ball. That's right. You've got your flippers, um, typically
Speaker 1: at the bottom of the playfield, which is what it's called,
Speaker 1: directly above the drain on both sides. Um. A lot
Speaker 1: of games you'll see now have other flippers on the
Speaker 1: upper right and upper left that also do fun things,
Speaker 1: um like flip the ball. But you know a lot
Speaker 1: of times the ones at the top will flip it
Speaker 1: into the very special chamber where you can score tons
Speaker 1: of points. We'll get to the scoring here in a minute. Um,
Speaker 1: And you basically want to propel the ball up with
Speaker 1: your little plunger and then all the bumpers and ramps
Speaker 1: are there to score your points. And um, it makes
Speaker 1: a lot of noise, it's a lot of fun, and
Speaker 1: that's beIN ball. Yeah, I mean that's it for me.
Speaker 1: This article on how stuff works pointed out, like you know,
Speaker 1: when you're talking about scoring, which we'll talk about later,
Speaker 1: that's like doesn't mean anything to people who are playing pinball,
Speaker 1: most of us, because I'm just trying to keep the
Speaker 1: ball from going down the train. Um. But the way
Speaker 1: that pinball's arranged, as you get better and better at it,
Speaker 1: you'll learn that, Um, there are all sorts of combinations
Speaker 1: and tricks and stuff that you can do to really
Speaker 1: score some points. We'll get to that later on. I
Speaker 1: get ahead of myself. That's right. The ball itself, if
Speaker 1: you want to just talk hardware, it's one and one
Speaker 1: sixteen inches in diameter. It's steel in a ways, about
Speaker 1: two point eight ounces and can reach speeds up the
Speaker 1: ninety miles an hour when you see that thing shoot
Speaker 1: out of a one of the little chambers that will
Speaker 1: come back at you. It's going really fast, and that
Speaker 1: is um. Sometimes it will use magnets underneath the table too,
Speaker 1: because since it's a steel ball, you'll sometimes see a
Speaker 1: game that has like a like a spinning disk, like
Speaker 1: a vortex in the center of the table that will
Speaker 1: start at any given moment and it can catch your
Speaker 1: ball and keep your ball there with its magnet just
Speaker 1: sort of spinning in place, which is no good or
Speaker 1: it could be super good, depending on what you're after. Uh.
Speaker 1: Sometimes they do use a ceramic pinball called the powerball,
Speaker 1: and it is lighter and faster and immune to magnets.
Speaker 1: So a lot of times when you'll have multi ball
Speaker 1: going on, some of those other balls are ceramic, and
Speaker 1: that's when things get crazy. So as the ball is
Speaker 1: going around the table, um, it's hitting the bumpers, it's
Speaker 1: hitting the targets, and they're sending messages to them. Well,
Speaker 1: if it's post seventies six game to the motherboard that's
Speaker 1: keeping track of your score and all that jazz, and
Speaker 1: you've only got the three balls, that's that's a game. Yes,
Speaker 1: But there are circumstances where you can get more which
Speaker 1: will tell later. So Chuck, there's also another component you
Speaker 1: don't have to have to play pinball, but all pinball
Speaker 1: games have it now. It's called the black box. And
Speaker 1: if you look at a pinball table, you've got the
Speaker 1: field right, Yeah, the playfield, which is the board that
Speaker 1: has all of the bumpers and the stuff and the
Speaker 1: flippers and everything on it. And then at a right
Speaker 1: angle to that, coming off of it, you've got what's
Speaker 1: called the back glass. And connecting the two is called
Speaker 1: the black box. And this is where all of your
Speaker 1: electronics and your solid state stuff goes. Yeah, your backglass
Speaker 1: is not only gonna have your scoreboard and your information,
Speaker 1: Like they'll say things like aim for the aim for
Speaker 1: the canyon. You know, they'll give you hints and little
Speaker 1: tricks along the way. Look out for the t rex
Speaker 1: look out for the t rex um. But it's also
Speaker 1: to the backglasses where like, if you're walking through your
Speaker 1: arcade in its that's where you're gonna see, That's where
Speaker 1: your attention is gonna go. So that's where you see
Speaker 1: the Playboy models on both sides of you Hefner or
Speaker 1: kiss looking cool so it's it's sort of an advertisement. Hey,
Speaker 1: come put your quarters into me. It's shiny, it's colorful.
Speaker 1: It's been money designing those things, and uh, a lot
Speaker 1: of those have become art. Now they'll remove them and
Speaker 1: frame them and hang them on the wall, which would
Speaker 1: be wicked cool, I think it would be. But I'd
Speaker 1: rather have the actual pinball game. Yeah sure. Um. So,
Speaker 1: like I said, back in the seventies, they they introduced
Speaker 1: solid state electronics. Prior to that, all pinball machines were
Speaker 1: electro mechanical. And at first, when I was researching this,
Speaker 1: I thought like, well, okay, so solid state took over everything.
Speaker 1: That's not the case. Solid state took over basically the
Speaker 1: back class. Everything else is still electro mechanical, or it
Speaker 1: was up until the very very very recent times, although
Speaker 1: they still might be electro mechanical. So, um, when you
Speaker 1: hit a bumper with your ball and it makes it
Speaker 1: like bounce and vibrate and you get some points, that's
Speaker 1: because you set an electrical impulse using an electro mechanical
Speaker 1: assembly to the motherboard, the solid state motherboard that's keeping score.
Speaker 1: So the motherboard is now keeping score. It's um. Now
Speaker 1: they can use digital sounds, so they could add speakers
Speaker 1: to the back glass and all the stuff, but the
Speaker 1: actual function of the the pinball machine while you're playing
Speaker 1: is still electro mechanical. Yeah, that's old school. Uh. And
Speaker 1: there's about a half a mile of wiring in each one.
Speaker 1: And um, if you come over to my brothers, he
Speaker 1: will show you the guts. He has his rigged where
Speaker 1: you can pull down the back back glass look under
Speaker 1: the hood. Yeah, basically, and you know it just looks
Speaker 1: like a huge mess of wires and half as a lot.
Speaker 1: It's pretty crazy. Um does he wear like a chain
Speaker 1: wallet when he works on his pa? I don't know. Maybe.
Speaker 1: Uh So the playfield itself, which is what everything is on,
Speaker 1: is tilted at about six to seven degrees towards you,
Speaker 1: and it is made of wood. And it's also very
Speaker 1: old school, you know, so at some point someone makes
Speaker 1: this like a wood based like cornhole, and it's got
Speaker 1: holes drilled in it, and it's got stuff painted on
Speaker 1: it and a bunch of layers of finish to keep it,
Speaker 1: you know, to protect it and to make that ball go. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I mean that's basically it. It's pretty simple. Yes,
Speaker 1: some of the very newer ones um I guess from
Speaker 1: the twenty for century replaced the wood playing field with
Speaker 1: um uh, plasma screens or LCD screens. Yeah, but you
Speaker 1: know kids today, no thanks, um. But other than that,
Speaker 1: it's like screws and glue and would it's just it's
Speaker 1: fairly old school. Yeah, and still like entertaining. Pinball's challenging.
Speaker 1: That's why you hate pinball two thousand. Huh it was newfangled, Yeah, totally, like, hey,
Speaker 1: let's take something awesome and make it new for everybody.
Speaker 1: Like I hate that. You know, it's like taking some
Speaker 1: classic drink. Like you're a cocktail guy, so you know,
Speaker 1: let's add you know, let's had some some new oxygen
Speaker 1: eated something to the Manhattan. You're like, no, Manhattan's perfect.
Speaker 1: I don't know, oxygenated something. I just hate every Like,
Speaker 1: some things are perfect the way they are, and I
Speaker 1: think pinball is one of them. So, Chuck, you approached
Speaker 1: the pin ball machine, you put your quarters in and everything, um,
Speaker 1: and you either so you press the start button or well,
Speaker 1: once you press the start button, a ball should fall
Speaker 1: into the launch lane, which is the at the back
Speaker 1: of the launch lane is the plunger and some of
Speaker 1: the newer games, there's a solenoid which shoots it for
Speaker 1: you like a like a gun handle, trigger and stuff,
Speaker 1: instead of the plunger. Very clever, but again I'm into
Speaker 1: the like the plunger. Um one way or another, you're
Speaker 1: going to launch the ball. The advantage of a solenoid
Speaker 1: that launches it for your with the press of a
Speaker 1: button is that if you are playing a game and
Speaker 1: you're pretty good and the pinball machine decides it wants
Speaker 1: to see what kind of a wizard you are, it
Speaker 1: will send more balls into action. The way it does
Speaker 1: that these days is by using a solenoid. In olden
Speaker 1: days before the solenoid, say the eighties, Um, it's a
Speaker 1: little man inside. Well, you had to pull the plunger
Speaker 1: back yourself, and that meant you had to take your
Speaker 1: finger off of a flip for button. K man, Hey man,
Speaker 1: you better be quick. I kind of forgot about that,
Speaker 1: or you're dead. Yeah, that's why solenoids. That's the advantage
Speaker 1: they have. Yeah, I'll take that umu advancement that passes
Speaker 1: my bar. The solenoid is good. So let's talk about
Speaker 1: actual pinball play after this message. Chuck okay, scoring in pinball,
Speaker 1: like you said earlier, If you're a regular shmo like us,
Speaker 1: we're just trying to keep that ball on the table.
Speaker 1: But if you are a pinball wizard, then that means
Speaker 1: you know the game within the game and all the
Speaker 1: combination shots that you're specifically trying to hit in order
Speaker 1: to rack up the big, big big points. This is
Speaker 1: nuts to me. I have to tell you, I didn't
Speaker 1: even know that this existed until Yeah, I knew. I
Speaker 1: just you know, like, that's how poor my pinball playing is. Now.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm not any good either, But you you is
Speaker 1: your brother good? So you've seen him, Yeah, he's better
Speaker 1: than me. So they used this um in this article
Speaker 1: to use the example of a game called high Roller Pinball,
Speaker 1: and basically imagine this. While you're playing high Roller, um,
Speaker 1: you basically want to knock out some icons that are
Speaker 1: associated with poker. Once you've hit all the icons with
Speaker 1: the ball or something like that, so there're tiles that
Speaker 1: you knock down or whatever. Once you've hit them all,
Speaker 1: you've unlocked a game within a game. Yeah, and I
Speaker 1: think it starts with poker, and all of a sudden,
Speaker 1: you're playing pinball while you're also playing poker on the
Speaker 1: back class. Yeah, so like you're trying to hit a
Speaker 1: specific thing that will give you a specific card and
Speaker 1: a poker hand, let's say, And like you have to
Speaker 1: be you know, you have to You're trying to do
Speaker 1: this with your flippers game of skill, like we said, right,
Speaker 1: but at the same time, you're still playing your pinball
Speaker 1: game too, right, Well, I mean it's part of the game.
Speaker 1: So like you know, you'll know you've got the cards
Speaker 1: up on the backglass and I'll say, all right, I
Speaker 1: gotta hit that bumper to get a king. I'm aiming
Speaker 1: for that king the whole time. Okay, So if your
Speaker 1: brain hasn't melted yet, prepare for the finish. Once poker's done,
Speaker 1: there's like four or five other casino games that you
Speaker 1: play after that, and you play them in succession and
Speaker 1: and as you win them, you get closer and closer
Speaker 1: to this um special play mode called Casino Frenzy. That's
Speaker 1: what it's called in the high Roller Machine. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: after you've won all the game, the poker games not,
Speaker 1: but yeah, all the games, and so you're playing Casino Frenzy,
Speaker 1: and that's what's called a Wizard Award where it's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: this kid's good. Now we're gonna really let them or
Speaker 1: her up their points by playing a special round. And
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, the field is like flooded with
Speaker 1: balls and every bumper you hit is worth like hundreds
Speaker 1: of thousands of points and it's just scary and terrified. Yeah,
Speaker 1: multi ball is stressful for a guy like me. Same here, man,
Speaker 1: I just try and keep you know what happens to
Speaker 1: me and multi ball is I'll usually lose them all
Speaker 1: pretty quickly. Like I can't even hold onto the one
Speaker 1: because it just it stimulates me too much. I'm like,
Speaker 1: what what happened? Me too? And I'm like, as long
Speaker 1: as I've got one, I'm break even. But with um,
Speaker 1: with Wizard Award functions, um, that's when you start to
Speaker 1: earn even more points. But imagine having like three or
Speaker 1: four or five balls on the field and the computer
Speaker 1: in the machine is telling you, like, hit this combination
Speaker 1: and we'll give you like twenty million points. And um,
Speaker 1: if you're even in Wizard Award ball, you're a pretty
Speaker 1: good pinball player, I would imagine for sure. And that's
Speaker 1: just the high roller game. But most games have a
Speaker 1: couple of games within the game that you should look
Speaker 1: out for and um, that's how you get your free game.
Speaker 1: If you've ever uh locked up or been super good
Speaker 1: and gotten um, you know, they'll tell you on the
Speaker 1: backglass how much you have to have, like replay value
Speaker 1: thirty million um. And that's what you're shooting for because
Speaker 1: you want to get that free game, not just because
Speaker 1: it's a quarter or whatever, but because it's like a
Speaker 1: big award. You know. It's like entering your name on
Speaker 1: the in the top ten in Galica. Right yeah, Um,
Speaker 1: so I didn't understand this. When you get a free game,
Speaker 1: is that like three free balls or one extra ball?
Speaker 1: I think it's three. I think it's a full free game.
Speaker 1: That would make sense. That's why they keeps calling it
Speaker 1: doesn't like reset R. Yeah. You can also fall backwards
Speaker 1: into a free game with something called match where I
Speaker 1: had never heard of this. Every once a while, the
Speaker 1: computer will just flash like a random number between what
Speaker 1: zero zero and ninety I think, yeah, multiple of ten
Speaker 1: and um, if the last two digits of your score
Speaker 1: at that moment happened to match that number, then you
Speaker 1: win a free game. It's like a little lotto game.
Speaker 1: And I think I've gotten a free game that way,
Speaker 1: because I remember getting free games before. But being like,
Speaker 1: how did I get a free game? I must, I
Speaker 1: must have hit the mat. You like just turned into
Speaker 1: Christopher walking in the dead zone. I saw that not
Speaker 1: too long ago. That holds up do um. But as
Speaker 1: far as replay goes, it says that most machines are
Speaker 1: set so you have to be in the top ten
Speaker 1: to get a replay, and you can get a second replay,
Speaker 1: but they have it maxed out at a hundred and
Speaker 1: fifty of the first, so a double replay is tough. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean you're Tommy at that point, or your last
Speaker 1: name is Sharp Yeah, I guess so. Um. And then tilt, chuck,
Speaker 1: you know, tilt, it's synonymous with pinball. Tilt is where
Speaker 1: you are being well, basically where you've been punishing the machine.
Speaker 1: The machine says enough, hands off, man, and basically, like
Speaker 1: we were saying early pinball machines, Um, the only way
Speaker 1: you can manipulate them before the flippers was to move
Speaker 1: the machine. You can bump it. So the tilt mechanism
Speaker 1: has been in place to prevent people from overly cheating
Speaker 1: by tilting the machine. By it's really the old timey contraption,
Speaker 1: and I guess it's still in use. It's pretty funny
Speaker 1: how old school it is. Basically, they have like I guess,
Speaker 1: like a copper copper wire with a circle on the end,
Speaker 1: a ring on the end, and dangling in the ring
Speaker 1: but not touching. It is like a metal ballast, right,
Speaker 1: and it's connected to the machine. So as long as
Speaker 1: the ballast is just swinging around freely within the ring,
Speaker 1: you can tilt as much as you like, and a
Speaker 1: skilled player knows how to tilt without getting caught, right,
Speaker 1: it's part of the game. But once you tilt too
Speaker 1: far and the metal ballast touches the copper ring, a
Speaker 1: current is formed and all of a sudden it sends
Speaker 1: that to the motherboard, and the motherboards is tilt. This
Speaker 1: is your first warning, and apparently most modern games give
Speaker 1: you two warnings, and then the flipper stop working and
Speaker 1: you lose your ball, and that's just losing one ball.
Speaker 1: If you really get upset, if your ball is stuck,
Speaker 1: or if you're just having a bad day at the
Speaker 1: office and you pick up the front of the machine
Speaker 1: and slam it down, that's called a slam tilt. And
Speaker 1: they have these little leaf switches inside the machine for
Speaker 1: that and if they touch each other, that means you
Speaker 1: have really taken things too far, and that is shut
Speaker 1: it down. No game, not worth taking your ball. They're saying,
Speaker 1: leave the machine. You're not gonna win any cigarettes doing
Speaker 1: that exactly. And that's the uh, that's the slam tilt.
Speaker 1: That's pinball, baby, Yeah, I got nothing else. I don't either.
Speaker 1: This is very exciting. I'm glad we finally did it.
Speaker 1: It's been on my list forever ever since I found
Speaker 1: out it was illegal. Yeah, you're like, oh, I I
Speaker 1: gotta get into that. But that was like a couple
Speaker 1: of years ago. I feel like, yeah, when I saw
Speaker 1: a special winlet, nice man, everybody go see that? Is
Speaker 1: that on the old Netflix? I believe it is tilt?
Speaker 1: Definitely is all right. I think special Winlet might be
Speaker 1: to add that to the former queue, which they had
Speaker 1: to change because Americans are dumb. What do they call
Speaker 1: it now? It's not called a list because people are like,
Speaker 1: what's a queue? Really? Why was it spelled like that?
Speaker 1: I hadn't noticed that they did that. Oh my goodness, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've heard. That's the reason. It makes sense to me.
Speaker 1: I can't verify that though. Uh well, if you want
Speaker 1: to learn more about pinball, go check out special when
Speaker 1: let go check out kill check out the popular Mechanics
Speaker 1: article we mentioned eleven things you didn't know about pinball history.
Speaker 1: It's pretty awesome. And of course check out the article
Speaker 1: on how stuff works dot Com. Go to the search
Speaker 1: bar and type in pinball and it will bring up
Speaker 1: this article. Since I said search bar, it's time for
Speaker 1: listener mail. Yeah, this is via Facebook. Actually, um, in
Speaker 1: regards to our more Gallon's podcast, because one of our
Speaker 1: is it funny? I think it's more Gelan's. But you
Speaker 1: are literally the only person on the planet that calls
Speaker 1: it that fine, Um, Tyler Murphy are one of the generals.
Speaker 1: And the stuff you should know army and Facebook and
Speaker 1: email friend uh pinged, I guess a doctor end of
Speaker 1: his name, Chris Wells, and I was like, hey, dude,
Speaker 1: check this out. Do you know anything about this? And
Speaker 1: so he commented on there. I was like, hey, this
Speaker 1: is a listener mail. Can I use it? And he
Speaker 1: said yes. So he says he's only come across it twice.
Speaker 1: In both cases they brought stuff in, telling me it
Speaker 1: was eggs and bugs, eye along with my med technologists
Speaker 1: reviewed it under a microscope and it was mainly lent
Speaker 1: and hair follicles. One had some insight that it was
Speaker 1: not an actual infection and felt relieved. The other was
Speaker 1: very upset that I suggested otherwise, so he kind of
Speaker 1: got both ends of the spectrum. I would never treat
Speaker 1: um with an antiseptic I'm sorry anti parasitic med if
Speaker 1: I didn't think it was a real infection. The risk
Speaker 1: of causing harm versus fixing anything it's too high. Anti
Speaker 1: parasit meds can have all kinds of unwanted effects, from
Speaker 1: kidney and liver impairment, to lowering the threshold procedure to
Speaker 1: potentially being carcinogenic themselves. For every case of monsters inside
Speaker 1: me on TLC that goes undiscovered and later as found
Speaker 1: to truly have a parasitic infection, there are many more
Speaker 1: for there is no physical evidence of infection because they're
Speaker 1: simply not one. Uh. You feel really crappy as a
Speaker 1: physician though, when you have to tell someone that everything
Speaker 1: they brought into your office is all dust and lent,
Speaker 1: that there is no physical evidence for their ailments. The
Speaker 1: most important thing for a clinician. To remember is that
Speaker 1: even if this is all in their head or imagine
Speaker 1: or however you want to word it, the patient is
Speaker 1: still experiencing it, which is what we pointed out. So
Speaker 1: you need to try and treat the root cause, whether
Speaker 1: it be with continued reassurance in second opinion, within reason,
Speaker 1: or cognitive behavioral therapy or other means. And that is
Speaker 1: Chris Wells via our buddy Tyler Murphy. Cool. Thanks guys.
Speaker 1: Who Tyler is a teacher and in the summertime he
Speaker 1: works at the Big Putt Putt chain Putt Putt. No,
Speaker 1: that's it's like the Big Adventure Land or what I
Speaker 1: can't remember what it's called Hire Pirates Cove. Is that
Speaker 1: a chain? I don't know, it sounds like a chain. Anyway,
Speaker 1: that's what he does. Since it sounds like fun, It's like, man,
Speaker 1: I could totally do that would be yeah. Well, thank
Speaker 1: you very much you guys in uh, anyone else out
Speaker 1: there who has any further clarification on any episode we've
Speaker 1: ever done. We want to hear from you. You can
Speaker 1: tweet to us at s Y s K podcast. You
Speaker 1: can join us on Facebook dot com slash You should
Speaker 1: know you can Send us an email to Stuff Podcast
Speaker 1: at Discovery dot com and it's always good. Check us
Speaker 1: out at our home on the Web, Stuff you Should
Speaker 1: Know dot com for more on this and thousands of
Speaker 1: other topics because at how Stuff Works dot com