I Don't Know About That - Pinball feat. Steve-O

Episode Date: November 7, 2023

Finally... the episode Jim has been waiting for: PINBALL! We have Zach Sharpe from Stern Pinball (www.sternpinball.com) helping us out. Also joining us for the intro is Steve-O (@steveo). He has a new special called "Bucket List" which will start streaming on November 14th on www.steveo.com. Go there now to pre-order! ADS: HELIX SLEEP: Go to www.helixsleep.com/IDKAT and use code HELIXPARTNER20 for 20% off all orders AND two free pillows. JAMES ALLEN: Get 25% off your order when you go to www.jamesallen.com and use code IDKAT.

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That's jamesallen.com. Michael Jackson. Latoya Jackson. Jermaine Jackson are they all related think so think so documentaries would say that

you might find out I don't know about that with Jim Jefferies yes of course they're all related I just ran out of things to say poor Michael

that's what you thought of today I don't know I was I think with Michael Jackson okay so I think Michael Jackson was a ped, I think with Michael Jackson, okay, so I think Michael Jackson was a pedophile. I'm in the,

he was a pedophile camp, right? Some people are in the other camp, but it does surprise me that out of all the cancelable things in the world that like, the radio just throws on

Michael Jackson songs like no one's like, eh. Yeah. Eh, decide for yourself. When it comes to music, we definitely are a lot better at separating the art from the artist.

Yeah, yeah. Bill Cosby specials don't get paid, but Michael Jackson music gets paid. We should probably introduce our guests. Oh, people think it's you with a cold. Ladies and gentlemen, the one and only Steve-O is with us today for the first half of the podcast.

Very excited to have you here. His new special, Bucket List, comes out November 14th, and you can go to steveo.com to watch it there, correct? That's right. And I don't know if there's anything else you wish shot in London. I know that. Shot in London, England. What theater?

The Hackney Empire. Hackney Empire, yeah, yeah. I'll play there, yeah, lovely. It's really great. Yeah. And this is a multimedia event where I really just did awful things, terrible things. You'll remember I showed you a video of me ejaculating as I fell off an airplane.

As you jumped out of it. You jumped out of it. You had an arrow. He had a parachute on him. He didn't just fall out. Right. But he was coming as he has he left but you did something because you had to paint your dick a different color or something because otherwise it couldn't be shown in film did you paint it black i didn't

yeah how did that strangely make it smaller it was like it was very slimming that's why I always wear black, incidentally. I didn't even think about the potential repercussions of being in black dick. I remember Knoxville telling me, he said, that is the smallest black dick I've ever seen. Well, let's imagine how big these black dicks would be if they were white. They're even bigger. But why did you have to make it black? Also, you just showed it to me. Like, we're friends, but we don't chat on the phone or anything. Like, that's a risky move, doing that,

because it's like I'd show that to, like, a picture. Here's me masturbating and me coming to some people. You can get me too, but the aeroplane jump almost... If you just showed me a picture of you ejaculating, I'd be like, wow. But because you're jumping out of a plane, I'm like, ah, it's a stunt. It's so cool.

Exactly. I consider it the crown jewel of my entire career. Yeah, very good. And my objective with this bucket list project was to do just about solely things that I would not even be allowed to do for jackass. Like to push the boundaries beyond everything.

Like fully illegal. Like I had a medical professional in disguise. Okay, first of all, I want to say, I'm going to watch this. I'm a big fan of yours I haven't watched it yet

because I only got the link yesterday and I've got kids and everything I've watched the intro and how you got on stage and already that's my mind's

fucking blown I'm a big fan okay I'm sick to death of like comedians and look my last special was a bit bland in the back

it was just some wooden panels or whatever we're just curtains I love the TVs and everything that you're doing in a big theater that it looks like an old school special where someone's put effort

into the fucking thing. And then also, okay, so can I talk about the intro before we get to? Of course, man. Okay, so it starts off with you on your roof being picked up by Bill Burr in a helicopter. Not a small shitty helicopter, a big military grade fucking helicopter with a a small, shitty helicopter. A big military-grade fucking helicopter with a ladder dangling off it. Please tell me...

Okay, you're going to tell me you weren't, but was there a harness? Was there a... For when I was flying around, I was flying around all goddamn day. Yeah, of course. And there was a safety line that came up through my shirt,

which connected me to the ladder. But that wasn't going to help me when it was time for me to drop from the rope ladder. And also connecting to it and flying off your roof. You can see it's a still shot. Yeah, I just grabbed it and it picked me up and flew me off. You're a fucking man. Because Bill's not a stunt heli.

I know he's got a license. There's also a bit where Bill's just dunking him into the water. Then I gotta let go of the rope ladder while I'm dangling from the helicopter and land on the roof of my moving tour bus. So it doesn't help. So Bill flies over

the top. He's on a helicopter. Steve-O lands on the fucking bus. Climbs down the side of the bus, where he's met by his beautiful girlfriend, lovely, and I've forgotten her name. I've met her before. Lux.

Lux, I've met her before. Very nice. And he gets in the door, and then he's greeted by her with flowers. Yeah. Fucking brilliant. And I'm like this. I'll walk in from the left.

I'll walk in from the left, and I might in from the left and I might wear a suit jacket because it's a special. I'll put that much extra effort into the whole thing. Yeah, yeah. So you landed... So that was obviously real. Now, you also went through a power cable?

Yeah. They set that one up for me. I know that had to be because otherwise I pay my rates. I pay my council tax. I don't want you fucking around with the local power. Like that looked like a legit spark. They were wired.

They were like. Yeah, that was special effects. We're going to always take liberties on an opening sequence. Right, right, right. And jackass and everything else. But when the medical professional puts an IV in my arm and administers stolen general anesthesia drugs while I'm riding a bicycle, there's no trickery there.

Yeah. Standard. That's pretty standard. Oh, man. Okay. So we all, you know, my son is 10, about to turn 11. And I've, look, Brad Pitt was my weatherman. Yeah.

Right? I know Russell Crowe very well. I've met celebrities. But there's only one that my son is impressed by. Oh, wow. Is the fact that I'm friends with Steve-O. And I have made Steve-O FaceTime my son like i've got yeah i'll tell you the only other time i made okay my son's favorite movie when he was two or three was uh planes by pixar

and i did make dane cook leave a voice message as dusty crop hopper right he was pretty cool about it right he did the voice i mean but when when my son spoke to you you were like this hey like uh you're like mr beast or whatever like you he my son didn't you, you were like this, hey, you're like Mr. Beast or whatever. My son didn't shut up. He couldn't talk. He was just, oh, yeah. He froze up. He couldn't believe he was talking to Steve.

Because we watched the Jackass movies, but I watched them first. And then anywhere where there's a dick or loads of excess swearing or pubic hair or whatever, I fart. So we can get through a movie in 20 minutes. I can give you the PG rate. I don't mind a bit of via tooth being ripped out or someone hurting themselves, right? But I write down on a pad.

I don't even write my jokes down, but I write down on a pad all the bits where my son can watch Jackass again. And we go scene, scene, scene. It's my son's favorite time, right? Now, I will say this. One time, me and Jack took a pile of mushrooms. Jack's mother, that listens to the podcast,

probably not going to be happy about this. Jack doesn't do many illicit substances, and he took mushrooms. And what did we do while we watched mushrooms? We watched Jackass too. We watched Jackass too. And I turned to him, the greatest thing that's ever come out of Jack's mouth,

I said, women don't like this. Like, my wife hates the Jackass movie. I go, why don't they like it? And he turned to me and went, because they're stupid. Now, quiet. We need to watch them jerk off this horse. Yeah, yeah. And then he goes, now, be quiet.

I need to watch them jerk off this horse. Yeah, yeah. And then he goes, now be quiet. I need to watch them jerk off this horse. Yeah. I've been watching Jackass since I was seven. That was the DVD we'd have in the van. Yeah, that's good. So my brother and I have watched that. I just did Poopy's podcast. I heard about that.

You're a saint for doing that. Yeah. We just had this idea for a silly YouTube video where we would go on Cameo and order videos, make requests for celebrities to say and do just awful things. We asked David Arquette, we sent the request saying, I got my girlfriend pregnant and she wants to keep the kid, but we're just not in a position for this can can you

make a video trying to urge her to get an abortion you know and he wrote back this thoughtful response about how it's the woman's choice and he wants more and more considerate but we forwarded the the request on to poopiesopies had no problem. He read our script. He said, let's yank this butt out of the oven. We had every single celebrity that we sent a request to declined to do it. And we sent every single request to poopies who did 100 percent of all we had asked we had asked dennis rodman to stuff his his junk behind his legs so that he had a man giant yeah of course the funniest thing in the world world. And say, check out my man pussy,

which he declined to do. But for poopies, we said that this was for our grandmother's funeral. And then the video was to be played at grandma's funeral. Can he try to make grandma laugh in heaven one more time and then ask her to say hi to Jesus for him? He did it, right? No problem. Oh, no problem. He's a fun guy.

We kept going and going until we got his Cameo account suspended. There is no line for poopies, but there is a line for poopies but there is a line for cameo so the special you were starting to describe it so it's gonna be we just watch the intro it's a multimedia affair

it's called the bucket list after each bit I pay off the bit with this wildly explicit video that would never be allowed on jackass let alone netflix or anything like that i've got uh a vasectomy olympics it's an old idea i heard a joke when i was a young boy the joke was what's the definition of macho it's a man who jogs home from his own vasectomy. And I always wanted to be macho. I remembered that joke.

And I thought, I've just got to get a vasectomy and do way more than go jogging. Well, they're not that bad anymore, the vasectomies. They used to be a lot worse. Oh, no, no, no. I lied about my one. I said it was more painful. It was so my wife would leave me alone for a week

I had a bag of frozen peas next to the bed just so I could watch telly I was fine after two days but within two hours of the procedure oh no no no as soon as you leave

no it's ten days so you got the vasectomy I got the vasectomy and then I went bareback horseback riding to my little party we did all these things. We hung up like a piñata and had kids whack me in the nuts with sticks.

It doesn't need to work anyway. Even if you just jogged, it would have been funny. Right? It was a good laugh. Now, the thing is, I agree with you that a vasectomy is not as invasive. It's not as shocking of a procedure as maybe it once was. I didn't think it was that big of a deal. To look at the video footage, I thought,

well, it's a good thing I did all this funny stuff after. But the vasectomy itself is a little bit underwhelming. However, as soon as I brought this show on tour, we found audience members were completely passing out cold. And there's something about a vasectomy. It's underwhelming to most. But man, at the taping, we did two shows. Five people passed out at the first show.

And I know of three people that passed out at the first show. And I know of three people that passed out at the second show. You should leave water in the seats, man. I could not have planted this one guy. He was the second seat in from the center aisle in the second row. And he tried to get past his buddy, he fell out landed on his face and literally slid across the center aisle on his face during the taping

did you capture it? oh yeah the guy was very embarrassed about it like you know we went to still signed a release no he didn't we had to blur him he wouldn't sign but still you can just tell that you see that blur just the blur is even better in a way there's something yeah but but it's and then the

do you know what an epidural is yeah epidural is you get a four inch needle into the spine is what they give it to ladies before they give birth. They inject a drug into your spinal cavity, which renders you paralyzed from the waist down. So I found this very weird shady doctor character. Sure. You're not meant to do it. Yeah, he assumed a disguise and gave me this shot into my spinal cavity,

yanked out the needle, and I took off running to see how far I could go. If that wasn't bad enough, then once I collapsed into a paralyzed pile on the floor, then my buddies did rigorous experimenting to determine how paralyzed I was.

Now, you said these are things that you couldn't do on Jackass. Yeah, you can't. Was there medical, was there guidelines on Jackass where you said, oh, you can't? Well, you can't break the law. You can't steal. And so you've broken the law in some of these things. It's definitely illegal to steal generally anesthesia drugs

epidural drugs to administer them in a non professional environment because I always thought with jackass you couldn't like just one of you couldn't just go I'll cut my finger off with an axe

you know because that's like an illegal thing to do I don't know that that's illegal. I just think... I don't know if it's illegal. I think that was... Well, I'm just giving you an idea. Well, the idea's floated around. I'm not that original, yeah.

And I think it was just deemed a little bit on the dark side. However... I'll tell you, I've got one for you. I've got a good one for you. I don't know how we do this but if you could induce a kidney stone oh it's a winner and just film something from beginning i just had one my lady had one oh yeah oh it's a doozy it's a fact and then like if you know just to take it up a little just just don't drink for two days and try to really just raw dog it out.

Wow. Yeah. I've heard about kidney stones. Do you have a theory as to how you got it? Oh, I know the foods that gave it to me. Spinach. Okay, some people it's spinach and it's non, so I had oxalate was the thing I had.

So it was sesame seeds, peanuts, which I'm still going to eat peanuts, but sesame seeds have fucked me over in other ways. So sesame seeds, peanuts, beets, miso. Chocolate soy milk. Chocolate soy milk, but no other flavor of soy milk, right? But this is the thing is, like, the things that give me kidney stones, if that was your diet, you would be, oh, this guy's a pretty healthy sort of fella. Spinach.

I mean, Popeye. Yeah, spinach and fucking beets, man. Beets are meant to be a superfood. But yeah, the chemical oxalate is what gave it to me. But they reckon that there's something in sweet tea that does it as well, and they can't put their finger on it because there's a, it goes along with the Bible, but they call it the kidney stone belt in the South where they're all drinking sweet tea.

They're all getting kidney stones. So they're down in the kidney stone belt. But anyway, it might be a long game to just eat a lot of beets, sesame seeds, and spinach until you get one. Yeah. Just for our entertainment. There's our jackass brother, Danger Aaron, reports that he has no feeling in his pinky,

that it's just, I think maybe he can't even move it. Like, it's just of utterly no use to him. Dead appendage, yeah. And it is his wish that it be chopped off. But nobody can come up with a particularly cute way to make that. It is, yeah. Is it?

Okay, okay. Maybe you perforate it. I think I can crack this. And then you tie it to a truck. Yeah, I think tie a noose around it, jump off a bridge, and so that you dangle a bit until it's ripped off and then you fall. You've got to perforate it a little. They did that to his tooth already, so he's prepared.

Lamborghini or something? The problem is if it's Lamborghini, you pull your buddy arm out of your socket. That's why I said you've got to loosen up the joint. Maybe you put yourself in some type of bracket so that you have your arms in close then you bungee jump. I don't know.

I don't know. It's a tough one. But what is important is to end it up dressed as a rabbit's foot on a key chain. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You've got to cauterize it. To make it lucky. All right, so what other – are there any other stunts you want to tell us about?

I'm watching this special tonight. I'm already sold. I'll have to watch it first before my son can watch it before I show it to the 10-year-old. But, you know, I do the same thing with porn. That was a joke, everyone. I was joking.

I don't show pornography to my child. You and your son have a strange relationship. I wasn't even listening to you. Yeah, Forrest really left me dead in the water. No, I was like, when is this coming out? I was like, this will be a week before. You have a link, but this is a week before it comes out on November 14th. Are you in a relationship?

I'm married. Married, there you go. Because I want to highlight the fact that this is a beautiful love story. And that recognizing that for me to carry out all of these forbidden stunts would have implications on my relationship. That's sort of the glue

that holds it all together is how my fiance, you know, I mean, the stunts go in sort of a descending order of my fiance's approval. You know, she becomes more horrified as it goes. And this is the bucket list at the end.

You put a full stop to these stunts. They're never going to be this extreme again? Well, we... Because then I'll be praying for your divorce, brother. Just for the art. Yeah, we're... I mean, I'm not prepared to throw in the towel the question is am i gonna try to get um double d boobs in a boob job that and i'm glad to bring

this up for yourself well yeah yeah i think yourself i'm told to to not keep them in for more than three months because then the stretching is just going to be unmanageable. But for, let's say, two and a half months, I could just have a real go at seeing how much comedy I can drum up with double D boobs. Mate, if you put a pillowcase over your head, I'll tit fuck you.

And now I'm not there. Like if they're nice not this idea is really dividing you know I'm not my loved ones they're all pretty in unison but but

but you know some people see it some people don't and and I almost think that I just have to do it yeah

I yeah I look break the internet whatever I also there's that there's the one if you get them perfect and you do the shot and then you have the pan out to your head that's where it's you got the motorcycle helmet that just covers your whole face and so like you know in the bikini having

airbrushed all of my tattoos so that i'm no tattooless baby oil bikini full motorcycle helmet arguably very progressive what you're doing yeah oh i think so the message is love body autonomy yeah my body my choice baby. You know, I think everybody. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But whether that happens in the immediate or not so immediate future is really kind of a question. At the moment I'm just focused on the bucket list. Yeah. Right. Well.

November 14th it comes out. You go to stevo.com to watch it there. It's called the Bucket List we were like I said we were just watching the intro before you came in and that already was like

we're gonna watch we're hooked mate I'm a big fan of your comedy and I'm a fan of you as a guy well thanks man

going through my sobriety you were a bit of a beacon for me to watch I love that man how's it going with sobriety? I haven't had a drink in March 10th.

I'll be three years without a drink. Now, I'm not going to lie to you. I take weed, so I'm not going to lie. March 10th is my sobriety date. That's mine as well, man. Yeah, dear. Well done, brother. My big intervention was on March 9th.

Yeah, yeah. We count the first day that we didn't get loaded as our sobriety date. Oh, then it's March 11th. Yeah. I'd shake hands. That's Johnny Knoxville's birthday. Oh, right. March 11th, there you go.

Well, no, you were someone that I looked up to during that because I thought if you could do it. I appreciate that a lot, man. And I think you're a real funny dude, man. I'll plug this special as much as you need me to man i want everyone to go out and watch it i appreciate that a lot brother and and you gotta know dude that you're just a hero of mine in comedy i've always always just loved your shit man all right well we're gonna go off now i'm gonna fuck you

awesome man well hey dude thank you guys so much, man. All right, thanks, Steve-O. Again, November 14th, steve-o.com, the bucket list. All right, let's meet our guest. Please welcome Zach Sharp. G'day, Zach. Now it's time to play Yes, No, Yes, No, Yes, No, Yes, No. Judging a book by its cover.

Bum. I can tell by the way that Zach is dressed, he's going to talk about men who see prostitutes. Wrong. Is it pinball? Ding, ding, ding. Yeah, ding, ding, ding is the right noise to make. It's pinball. Zach Sharp is the director of marketing for Stern Pinball.

Zach is also a two-time world champion, earning the distinction as the world's greatest pinball player. And you can connect with all things pinball at sternpinball.com. Follow them on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, or X, whatever you like to call it these days, YouTube, and TikTok, Stern Pinball. Tell us a little bit more about yourself without giving away too much, Zach. Maybe about like, you know. Tell us whatever you want.

First of all, Zach, if you're the world champion in pinball, you're the man I admire the most on this planet. Oh, I like it. Good answer. I've met every comedian, but I've never been that impressed. Pinball is the greatest form of entertainment in the world. If you've never played pinball, go play pinball and you'll see why. Yeah, it is.

It's the best. I love it. Yeah, Jim got me into it. It passes time really quickly and it never ends. It never ends. You never win. You just keep going and the score can get higher and higher and higher and eventually, like life, your game's over yeah gravity always wins gravity always gravity always it is the metaphors

for life is is uh you know i have four testicles what nothing um all right zach uh jim is well i'm gonna ask jim some questions about pinball, and after he's done answering them, you can grade him on his accuracy. Zero through 10, 10's the best. He's going to probably know a lot, but we'll see. I played Godzilla for three hours yesterday. Yeah, and zero through 10, 10's the best.

Jack here is going to grade him on confidence. I'm going to grade him on how hungry I am, and we'll add those scores together. 21 through 30, you're a pinball wizard, Jim. 11 through 20, cupcake wizard. Zero through 10, diarrhea wizard. You don't want to be that. What's a cupcake wizard?

I don't know. I just had to find something in the middle that wasn't that bad. Are they all had to be wizards? I don't know. Sometimes I do different things with the categories. Today was wizard. Okay. There's so many things like, you know.

Like what? You get an extra ball. I know, but I didn't want to give away any answers. Special when lit. Ding, ding, ding. Jim, what are the origins of pinball? Like what games? Where did it come from?

Talk about that for a few. I've watched a documentary many years ago, and I get a little bit flustered on this. The origins have something to do with that. There was balls that used to just fall down and you could plunge the ball and it would come and it would go

and Pinko Pinko is a good example of it Pinko yeah Pinko that thing that falls down very popular in Japan Pinko

a game of chance it is where you just sort of and it's also a game on The Price is Right but yeah Pinko it falls down

the different pins and then you wait for it to fall down to a slot. And then it came in, they started putting flippers and pinball went from being... We'll get to that. This is the origins. Don't blow your whole load right now.

Plunger games, yeah, plunger games. Plunger games. And you know where that happened? I think it has something to do with the French for some reason. French, okay. What is a bagatelle table i think i'm saying it right now bagatelle it's it's uh it's a table in a long bit of bread yeah okay now i'm hungry yeah it's

it's a table that when you carry groceries it sticks out the top of your bag in a very presumptuous way. Only a brown paper bag. And only in movies, but never in real life. Rom-coms. I've yet to see a baguette sticking out of anyone's, but in movies it has to happen. Yeah. Okay.

Are you done with that one? Okay, baguette table. I can leave that as the answer. No, what did you say? What is a baguette table? Baguette, bagulle, bagatelle. I think maybe it's one where you make the ball go back and forth or something. I don't know.

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5% off a month free subscription or something you're getting 25 off a diamond 25 off your order when you go to jamesallen.com and use the code idakat idkat and use the code idakat at jamesallen.com for 25 off jamesallen.com when and where was the spring launcher introduced to pinball? Now, I'm going to say the spring launcher, everything goes back to Chicago. I know that pinball is heavily Chicago based and everything comes out of Chicago. So I'm going to say Chicago 1910. And why was it important? Because it was the first time we had a contraption in the actual sport

that you interacted with the ball rather than just knocking the table from side to side. Okay. So there was the first bit of skill. Because there is, like, when they say a lot of people who don't play pinball won't know this, but when you start every game of pinball, when you plunge the ball, even if you hit it with a button, there is – it's better when you plunge the ball, even if you hit it with a button, there is a skill shot

that will give you a nice amount of points straight off the bat if you can get it. And it's normally trying to get it into a certain letter, but there's a real great one like on Godzilla at the moment where if you plunge it right, you can just scoop through this other little hole and you get five million points straight off the bat. How was the pinball convention? One of the best things I've ever done with my life.

I could have spent four days there. It was 40 bucks to get in. Stern gave me free tickets, but my name wasn't on the list when I got there. You said they sought it all out for me. I get there and I was like, I know people at Stern. It was supposed to. I think Anthony was going to, but yeah,

Zach, I don't, Zach didn't do it. Zach didn't do it. Anthony, Jody fucking Dankberg, I rang up that prick. Nah,

Jody's a good friend of mine. Who's Jody? Jody's the one who's always helped me out with my machines and he comes and sees me every time in Chicago with his mate.

They're real nice guys. Jody came to my show that night, but I rang up Jody and he was at his kids' Little League game. And he's like, I'm at my kids' Little little league game and here i am i'm fucking selling at the chicago theater i'm like i'm not paying 40 and in the end i was just like you know what i might just pay to go in yeah yeah so i i paid to go some miscommunication somewhere there was some

miscommunication anthony was the one that led me to Zach. And so, Anthony, I'm sure will listen to the podcast and he'll feel bad somehow. It's for you. Zach, you know Jody, right? Of course. Yeah, yeah. Jody buys all the titles, the acquisitions and stuff like that. I know some things about some machines that are coming out because I spoke to Jody at Chicago. I won't mention it on the podcast.

But off air, I hear there's a new machine coming out that involves... I'm not going to say anymore, but you know what it is. You're like, I'm not going to say anything, and I'm about to say it. We're going to spoil the whole thing. They have to release it themselves. I can't be in charge.

When? I'm so excited. When were coin-operated pinball games introduced? Coin-operated pinball machines would have been around the same time as... I'm going to say 1910. And why was that important? make money man because otherwise what's the point of this we've just got a machine in our bar that's doing nothing yeah sure they're money making machines that's what a pinball machine is it's a revenue making machine um whoops just close that out. Which coin operator game was the first quote-unquote hit?

Oh, I don't know. No, I don't know that. I don't know that. I know things like, they're going to ask me when the flippers get introduced? Yeah, I'll ask you. When were electrification and active bumpers introduced to pinball? Electrification and active bumpers,

I'm going to say in the 1930s 1930s yeah okay when were flippers introduced and what game i'm gonna say the flippers were introduced in the 1930s 30 40 just before the war and the machine was Humpty Dumpty. Humpty Dumpty had the first ever flippers. All right. What technology jump happened in pinball in the 70s and then the 80s? In the 70s, I would say that would be in the 70s and the 80s would be when you would have had your first electronic score keeping screen at the back that because before you used to have the letters mechanically go bing bing bing bing bing bing bing bing bing and it went through the bumpers and all

that type of stuff but then the 70s 80s you started to have that little pixelated screen at the back that would start telling you you know replay you've got a special thing you're going into a different mode it would tell you things because before it never told you the different modes it was going in you would just have to know by following the lights on the on the on the playing field and by the score that was going on what was the first pinball machine with speech oh uh that would have been kit from night rider oh yeah night rider um the first The first one that actually brings in audio. So maybe that's what's happened.

Audio came in in the 70s and 80s. But I'm going to stick with my screen answer. Speech, though. Not just... Because there might have been sounds. There might have been sounds. Speech. You know, they talk to you.

That would have been... Yeah, that would have been early 80s. Let me think. A game of speech. I've played games that had speech that are older games like Taxi, which incidentally was made by Steve Ritchie's brother. Steve Ritchie is regarded to be the king of flow, one of the greatest pinball designers of all time.

And Taxi was designed by his brother and is also owned by Kenny Whitehead. Jason John Whitehead's father has a taxi machine. I'm just talking bullshit because I wanted to get away with it. Taxi and Helic. I used to own one too. Yeah, what's this? A fun machine. This is classic what he does when he doesn't know the answer.

I do know this and I can talk on it. Is it Taxi the TV show? All right, so we'll skip. No, but it's got a bit of that feel to it. It looks like Taxi, but it's got like Marilyn Monroe characters and you've got to pick up cars. That's another one. so we'll skip. It's got a bit of that feel to it. It looks like that, but it's got like Marilyn Monroe characters, and you've got to pick up cars. That's another one. You don't know.

It's fine. What was the first game of the electronic era to feature multiball? It was something. It was called something a Tron. It was like Pintron or something. It was Pintron. Pintron. Something like that.

Based on the movie Tron? No, it's not from the movie Tron. They didn't make up the word Tron. Tron was like you put on the end of things. Computertron, Jackatron, Melatron. I've never heard of the word Tron other than the movie. It's like a suffix On a lot of words

Okay my bad It's at the end of science fiction things From like the 1960s The Pintron Yeah Pintron Who invented the tilt mechanism Oh I will say that was Gary Stern

No I don't I don't know I'm going to say Bally's No I'm going to say Williams Williams Invented the tilt And all it is Is a little mechanism, like a little thing hanging down, a weighted thing hanging down, that if it swings back and forth,

it starts to realize what's going on. Who is the great – sorry. Who is the greatest – keep closing this out, Bax. Who is the greatest competitive pinball player of all time? Lyman Sheets. What? Is that a person? Yeah.

Lyman Sheets. Yeah. sheets yeah okay at its peak how many pinball manufacturing companies were there um at its peak in the early 1990s when you know they were selling really well seager i was saying like this is present day I asked present day this question might be you can just answer it and we'll talk about it I love the conversation 8 1990s 8 right

yeah we'll just now there's like I went to the pinball thing it used to be Stern Forever they almost died and then Jersey Jack

came in and they made some fun machines and now we've got like this company that made labyrinth and this other company that makes like this galactic girl type of one there's like there's a whole and then there's a dutch company that have been trying to bring out the um uh what's

that bowling movie with the guy that big lebowski they've been bringing out the big lebowski for a fucking decade they've been bringing out this machine for so fucking long that it's looking old yeah and they haven't quite started selling it yet like they're right like like i know there's people who have them but they only made like a small amount yeah it's got like a ball it's kind of fun and it's got like a right white russian it's like a fun looking machine but it needs a bit of a uh all right let's let's fly through a couple of these questions, and we'll get to it. Why was pinball banned in New York City? Because it was seen as a game of chance, and because it was a game of chance,

and it was not just New York City, it was other places as well, but because it was seen as a game of chance, they weren't allowed to play it because that was deemed to be gambling. Who was Roger Sharp? Roger Sharp, I might get this wrong, but I did watch the Hulu movie or whatever. I think Roger Sharp was the dude, I might have the name of the guy because he's still alive,

but the dude who actually went to court to show that it was not a game of chance and that you could be, like, I could play better than you because I've played it more and you could not play as good because you've never played it. And it's a game of skill, not a game of chance. And he went and actually played one in the courtroom to to show this yep roger sharp zach sharp is our guest by the way that's our name oh all right yeah roger's your date roger's the guy with the tash man

i'll tell you what the girl who played your mom in the movie willy willy woo yeah let's not talk about yeah i don't know what your actual mom looks like but the actress is something else hey what uh what's the name what's the name of the hollywood film about the life of roger sharp um uh um dirty rotten scandals oh yeah that was a i can't remember the name but i have I just watched the movie not too long ago. All right. We'll find out. Playing techniques.

What's nudging? Well, you sort of tap it from side to side. So if the ball starts, it's about to go down the side or whatever, you can hit it so it hits back in. What about trapping? Trapping, where you catch it in the flipper and you just collect the ball so you can give yourself a little breath and then you can think about what your next shot's going to be.

and you just collect the ball so you can give yourself a little breath and then you can think about what your next shot's going to be? And there was another question. I forgot that other question I was going to ask there. That's one thing I can do. I can trap a ball and I can pass it to the other paddle, and I think that's like a pretty good pinball player. What is a solenoid? Solenoids are the little things to make –

I'm not good with the technical stuff But to make the bumpers work and all that type of stuff Electronic thing to make things react When was the first pinball competition and who participated? It was Zach's dad and Humphrey Bogart Zach's dad, you don't even remember his name, we just said it Kenny Sharp I forgot him, what was his name. We just said it. Kenny Sharp.

I forgot him. What was his name again? Roger Sharp. Roger Sharp. Sorry, Zach. I don't mean to be rude. So Roger Sharp. No, it was Roger Sharp and Walter Stern.

They had a competition. Okay. Walter Stern. Because now I know I've watched interviews with Zach before, and his biggest problem with his dad is that his dad doesn't try to, let me get this right, your dad doesn't go for the big points. He's always aiming for the bloody ramps and the flashy looking shots rather than trying to break the machine down for points.

Was that correct? You said something like that? That is true. He likes the feel of shots where I'm competitive so i want to win so yeah it might be boring but effective i think of i think of points as well i find a machine then i break it down like there's a couple of machines in my life that you can't you can't beat me on the spider-man from the toby mcguire movies that's my i'm a fucking a god that machine best-selling i'm telling you i'm very good at that one very good at that machine. Best-selling pinball machine. Challenge accepted. I'm telling you, I'm very good at that one.

Very good at that one. Best-selling pinball machine of all time? Adam's Family. Adam's Family. Okay. How many hours does it take to build a pinball machine? It depends how many workers you've got. If it's just by yourself.

I've been to the Stern. In the factories. I've been to the Stern factory. I'll tell you what I learned about the Stern factory. Hell of a lot of microwaves. They must just go, lunch, and then everyone microwaves at once or whatever. But I've never seen a wall of microwaves like that. You get radiation in that place.

Anyway, but it's a factory line, just like building a car or anything. But when you look at it, there's – There's a number and a factor. In a pinball machine, there is like – I think someone said it to me before, a couple of miles of cabling in each one. It might be substantially more, substantially less, but it is a lot just of wires and all that type of stuff. They're not a very, when you open them up, they look like,

that's why Doc Brown built them a bomb out of used pinball parts in Back to the Future. How many hours? Give me a number. Okay, I'm going to say with labor from the time it starts to the time they're spraying the filter, I'm going to say it's 18 hours of labor to make a pinball machine. And then last question, how long does it take from inception to delivery?

Like they come up with the idea, we're going to make this machine, and then they're going to... I think you'd need at least a year and a half of development on a pinball machine, and then you'd need six months of manufacturing, and then you'd need trial and testing and stuff like that. You'd have to make a model, test it out, make sure it plays well, make sure the story's good, make sure the fun of the whole thing,

like the playability is there, and then they'd probably tweak it a bit and then they'd redo it, and then you'd have to bring in the voice artists and they'd have to record the voices and what have you. Zach, what did I say? How did Jim do on his knowledge of pinball? Zero through ten, ten's the best. You know what? He surprised me, but not because I know you're a big pinball fan,

so if I had to give a scale from one to ten, I'll give you an eight. All right. That's pretty good. Ding, ding, ding. How do you do on confidence? I mean, 10. 10, 18. I'm going to just give you a 10 on how hungry I am just because I don't want to make you a cupcake wizard.

You don't understand it. So you'll be a pinball wizard. All right. Deaf, dumb, and blind kid. I like how Forrest is acting like he's not hungry. I'm not particularly hungry. No, the category was supposed to be how funny were you. Oh, yeah?

Well, I wasn't very funny. And then you said, then you got a little bit like, oh, okay, I see what you're doing. So I said, I'm just going to be how funny were you. I am, but I wasn't very funny. And then you said, then you got a little bit like, oh, okay, I see what you're doing. So I said, I'm just going to say how hungry I am. Guys, separate. But you were funny. Separate. And I'm hungry.

Okay. What are the origins of pinball? I gave you a seven for your question rating. That's not right, yeah. Yeah, you know what that's to do? You judge him on how his questions are. Those questions are bullshit. We can start doing that.

I'm sure the fans will love that. What are the origins of pinball? What games do they come from? Jim said Pankow. Balls fall down, different pins. How is that? Yeah, you know, I mean, it was kind of a hybrid. I know not to hop around.

You got the essence of it right when you were talking about Bagatelle. So pinball originates from that French talking about bagatelle so pinball originates from that french game bagatelle from the 1800s and that was where you would have your spring-loaded plunger so those were around at the inception of pinball and you would plunge a ball and it would go down those little pins so that's where pin ball kind of came from was the ball would roll down those little pins into different scoring holes. The game from Price is Right is Plinko. And in Japan, it's Pachinko machines, which is usually more vertical versus horizontal.

Yeah. I had one of those when I was a kid. I had a Pachinko. Yeah. And how did Forrest ever become a gambling addict? You had a game that was just a chance where a ball fell down into a hole. My mom bought it. Yeah.

That's terrible. Now I know the origin story. Oh, my God. We just figured it out. Fucking hell. Batman, did someone just kill your parents? Fucking hell. I never thought about it until right now.

I actually was stuck on the fact that it's called pinball because of the pins. Zach was saying that. I go, oh, I never even thought about that, the pins and the pinball. And I wasn't even thinking about the fact that I'm a compulsive gambler probably because my mom got me a pachinko.

Cool, cool. Throughout the rest of the podcast podcast Forrest is going to stop every 10 seconds I just pictured young Forrest just sitting there I remember I remember

my mom bought it for me and she put it right next to my blackjack table in my room I'm glad my mom's not alive anymore this would make her very guilty

if she heard this okay bagatelle table so in France it was all this is all these were originated in France

so how did it get to the United States eventually like how does that like or how did it I guess we'll just go to the questions so we can talk about

when and where was the spring launcher introduced to pinball and why was this important? Jim said it was Chicago based 1910. First time interacted, bit of school. Yeah, I mean, I'm not a historian, but from everything that I know of, those original French bagatelle games had the kind of spring loaded plunger. But Jim got it correct. The first game with flippers was indeed Humpty Dumpty.

So he got that correct. That's really where pinball advanced from just this kind of plunger ball and you pray that you land in certain holes and you get paid out money and added much more skill to it. Yeah, I know you want to jump in, but I want to talk about Pachinko a little bit more here. i'm kidding uh do we do we know when the coin operated pinball games are introduced as well jim said 1910 it was to make money or yeah i mean even those french games they would pay out so you know you put in a penny push it in and depending on what scoring hole you landed in

you would get paid out so that's why there was always that kind of element of gambling tied to it because games used to pay out money. There was like all the French machines. One of them was called Smokin'. One of them was called Mistress. Mistress was if you got it in any of the holes, you won. Wow. If you got it in any of the holes you won. All right, so I don't know if we want to go back. There's electrification and active bumpers.

Frogwa. Do we know when that was introduced to pinball? I don't know the exact year, but you can definitely say with the advent of flippers and stuff, that's where you get a lot more electromechanical action okay and then what technology jump happened the pinball in the 70s and the 80s Jim said there's a pixelated screen on the back of so not quite so it when it jumped from electromechanical to solid-state so that's where you would kind of have that digital numbers. So like that kind of like fluorescent kind of orange numbers.

And then in the 90s is when you had your more, you know, not traditional, but your dot matrix display. And then currently we're in the LCD to error. Now we just got TVs in the back. I want to change my answer from, it not pin drive. It was pin bot. Pin bot. The first multibot? Yeah, pin bot.

Is that correct? Still wrong, but that's a good answer. That wasn't a bad answer. That was sort of the- The first multibot, you're saying, right? Yeah, but I got it wrong. Yeah, actually, the first multibot was from designer Steve Ritchie, and it was firepower.

I met Steve Ritchie on two weekends ago. I met him at the pinball convention. Yeah. And he was walking around. Didn't you take a picture with him? I did. I took a picture with him. You know, you must love pinball because Jim does not post a lot of stuff to Instagram.

I don't post anything. I don't post anything personal. You didn't even give it context. You're like, Steve Ritchie. You follow me, you either know who Steve Ritchie is or you fucking don't. But Steve Ritchie, and I was so excited to meet him. And he was walking around. He'd just designed for another company, the new Elton John machine.

And he was handing out the one sheets of the machine. He was walking around handing out his autograph. of the machine. He was walking around handing out his autograph. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It wasn't like he was sitting at a table and people lined up for his autograph. He'd just walk around like, there you have one.

At this convention, everyone would know him. Well, I knew him, but not everyone knew him. There was a lot of people that, look, I tell you what, that convention, man, 40 bucks, you take the kids, all the machines were free. It was a great day it was really good but i got really excited and took a photo with him and uh i think someone

afterwards tried to explain to him who i was yeah it did not register i didn't i didn't tell him who i was but someone else rushed up and pointed and went no that guy's yeah yeah a pinball enthusiast guys yeah yeah a pinball enthusiast that guy's gonna be talking about you in two weeks so be nice exactly yeah he's at the Chicago theater tonight no you and also like he's he's like he's not young you know he would have been better just sitting down he's like an older bloke and he's active he's walking around handing out his own autographs love it love it Love it. Love the chutzpah. And I don't even remember what I was going to ask there. Oh, yeah. Have you been to the place in Vegas, Zach, the pinball?

Yeah, of course he's been. Pinball Hall of Fame. Yeah. There's a game there. It's so old. It must be from the 50s or 60s. And you just hit the ball with a bat as the flipper. Oh, the baseball one. Yeah, and you get triples.

That's my favorite. I love that one. Yeah, yeah, and then it goes out, triple. Yeah, and then the guys go ding, ding, ding. They go around the thing. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a lot of fun. Oh, man.

I wonder if you can buy one of those somewhere. It'd be somewhere, but that one's really old. It's really old. I feel like it would break down a lot. Yeah, that one. We don't have these parts anymore. You'd need to know what you were doing but that one that one's real there's another one in there that's the circus one that's an upright pinball oh yeah that one's scary circus pinball circus which is i've never seen it anywhere but the

pinball hall of fame it's impossible i tried it's it's scary it's scary to me that one it's an upright pinball yeah so you gotta you to flip it up to a different level and flip it up to the upper bloody elephant's nose and through a clown's thing and this and that. And it's difficult. Wow. It's difficult. And if you get up to the top,

you feel like you're really doing something. Is that a Stern machine, that one? No, that was a Williams ballet machine. Do you guys have like a softball league? No. For a while, for a while there. Like when I bought Spider-Man, when I bought that Spider-Man, I was really at the beginning of the pinball revolution.

Pinball is as popular as ever now. And there's so many different companies opening up. And also, I think it's got a lot to do with guys my age who are really into it now, buying ones for their home and having the disposable income to actually get them. But when I got it, there was like three machines came out from Stern a year

and Stern were trying to sell a couple of thousand of these machines to have a nice little business. And now, fucking massive. Why do you think, what is your opinion, Zach on what the the resurgence of pinball what happened yeah i mean for me pinball is just something that can't be um replicated so you know a video game you memorize patterns you know every time you play super mario brothers or pac-man it's kind of always the same but with pinball every ball even though you're plunging it

the ball is wild and it's physics it's physical and every game is different and to jim's point you can't really beat a pinball machine you can get to a wizard mode but you can always get one point better so say that you got a grand champ score yesterday you can get a higher score tomorrow and from you know here to to eternity you can just keep playing and get a better score so it's just something that isn't replicable and for the new audience and the young wave of players people have pinball machines more and more in their house so you have a new generation that are growing up with pinball in their homes it's not just at you know a pizza parlor or growing up with pinball in their homes. It's not just at a pizza parlor or an arcade somewhere. It's in their home.

So I think more people are aware of it too. So my son now is 11. He's being brought up with pinball. He knows how to play pinball and all that sort of stuff. His friends come over for sleepovers or something like that, and they're always a little bit skeptical about the pinball machines. They want to play the video games, and they always come over the house and they're playing Fortnite and all that type of stuff,

but they always end up in the pinball room. They always end up in the pinball room. Every single time there's something about an analog machine, and then they've tried to make digital machines where they put the screen. I used to play. I play it still, but it's not as fun. It's not as fun. It doesn't have the real sort of thing

of the ball moving and all that type of stuff it's like Zach was saying like Jim is with exception of the Munsters you're better than me I have the high score on that

you've had the machine longer yeah but I played it all throughout COVID but you still were upset when I got your score anyways but Jim is better than me

but there are games while I still I'll still beat him and there's games sometimes like you said like he'll launch it and the ball still, I'll still beat him. And there's games sometimes, like you said, like he'll launch it and the ball just happens to go in this wrong thing. And there's like nothing, but you're definitely more skilled than I am at it,

but it's still, it's, but it's like baseball. The two teams, it's just such a sport. Yeah. But I, I,

yeah, I've only hit wizard mode once. And that's Spider-Man or that machine I've played back to wizard. Yeah. What is it? That's where you complete every single fucking task in the thing and it's called superhero mode there's just a red disc in the middle where you've done it all and then they're like we're just going to reset the whole bloody thing and start again you're too good zach when were you two-time world

champion are you current world champion or when was this no i like to say I love my child more than my rank, but no, in 2013 and 2018, I ended the year ranked number one in the world. So I was kind of quoted as the world's greatest pinball player. Was I right with Lyman Sheets? You know what? I'll give you credit on that. So you could argue that Keith Elwin is the kind of Michael Jordan of competitive pinball, but Lyman is definitely a good second choice. Yeah, I watched a few videos on YouTube. Lyman has a lot to do with working out how the scoring is done on the machines and stuff like that.

Yeah, the program. Yeah, the program. So he has a lot. But he could do some shots that seem pretty special to me that's one thing too is like he was kind of like my yoda so growing up in chicago and he worked you know with my dad um he helped teach me some of those kind of uh tips and tricks with the flippers i know jim you're kind of saying like oh you can post pass and cradle tricks with the flippers I know Jim you're kind of saying like oh you can post pass and cradle let a ball bounce over Lyman was kind of my mentor when I was a kid teaching my brother and I how to

play and kind of attack games differently versus just see ball hit ball and you know I dominated the Junior Circuit thanks to Lyman as like a coach I tell you what I okay so i'm not a big mansplainer because i don't know much about much but when it comes to pinball uh it's not good for me on dates or definitely not good for my wife if you want to push a woman away from pinball let her hang out with me for five seconds don't don't double flip don't double flip you just one flipper at a time wait for it to come it's so funny you're saying this because when I had the Munsters and Bianca, it was the same thing.

When I was there, I'd be like, if you do both flippers, I'd be like, hey, from there, hit Frankenstein now. She'd be like, don't tell me where to hit it. And my wife would do this. She goes, does the ball go a different place in the field from where the ball is on the on the paddle like on the flipper does it go different i go yeah if you wait till the end it goes more that

way and you go and i just looked at her like and i was like i couldn't have i couldn't have pushed her more away from pinball you're not the ambassador yeah no no no no i'm not good i'm not bad at teaching kids how to play pinball like Like, all right, you're doing well. But grown women, keep me away from a pinball. I'm terribly patronizing. It's like I'm not proud of this. This is a terrible attribute. As soon as you were saying it, I was like, wow, this is what I did to Bianca.

Then I just stepped away and I let her do her own thing. And I was like, oh, you got multi-ball. That's what I do now. I just walk away and I don't say anything. Hey, double flipping. Goodbuckle. That's what I do now. I just walk away and I don't say anything. Hey, double flipping. Good for you. That's your strategy. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

The ones where people, they just go like this. Tunk, tunk, tunk, tunk, tunk, tunk. But I've got footage of my son before he could talk. When I say before he could talk, he was like just about to turn two. He had five or six words on him and he could only really reach like one button at a time. His chin was, I have a picture

where his chin's on the glass. Yeah, his chin was on the glass. That's how far his arms are. He had to have his arms, his arms like this to play him. Like he couldn't play a wide body machine. He had to play

like just a standing machine. Anyway, and he could hardly talk and I saw him like bang, bang, bang. The balls were going around. He was playing really good and then it went straight down the middle where he couldn't play and he went him like bang, bang, bang and the balls were going around and he was playing really good and then it went straight down the middle

where he couldn't and he went up like this his hands went up and he went oh man and he couldn't talk and it was it was the most

that was the most communicative I've ever seen him the most communication I've ever seen come out of him was that moment where the ball drained

the most natural where I know what you're going through pal do your kids play pinball Zach? is that a imagine that yeah no i've got one kid and um it ebbs and flows but no he plays he's got a little step stool he just turned five and you know he loves jurassic park he actually really likes the music in iron maiden so you know i got a little metal head there and then i've got you know godzilla and avengers walking dead so i mean he he loves it yeah my son my son's man like look i've only got room for four pinball machines in my house and if i if i buy another house the next thing is i need

like a big basement or something if i had room for 20 machines i'd have 20 machines yeah i would have as many machines as i could fit and um so do you know the actor Dan Bacadal? He was in a sitcom with me called Legit, but he was also off the TV show Veep, and he was also Life in Pieces, a sitcom on CBS. He's been in a ton of things. He's been in a ton. If you Google Dan Bacadal, which his name is super easy to spell,

you'll know exactly who he is. But me and Dan, dan lives up the road and he has four machines and what we do now is he'll buy a machine or i'll buy a machine and then after about a year we'll swap machines so that we have new machines in our house he's got godzilla from i just got godzilla and i gave him mars attacks and uh um and then i think i'm gonna buy another one and he's gonna buy another one and we'll play for you. But I never give up Spider-Man because you know why I don't give up Spider-Man? My son likes Spider-Man.

It needs a real good clean. I need to clean the actual playing field really badly. It's gotten real dirty. But Spider-Man was the first thing I bought myself when I had a little bit of success. When I first was successful, when I came to America, I was about $50,000 in debt from another business deal that went belly up. And then I had like, I think I'd just done the HBO special.

I had a little bit of success and the treat that I bought myself, and I was living in someone else's house, but I just had a corner in a room. I bought a Spider-Man pinball machine, and fuck me, that was the happiest, I think quintessentially the happiest I've ever been is when that machine, and I've had kids and marriages and all sorts of stuff. Hopefully I don't hear this podcast.

But when that machine arrived in that big stern box, oh man, you couldn't take the smile off my face. Were you saying something, Zach? Sorry. No, I was just agreeing with everything uh jim was saying there i mean even my dad not to hop ahead to your questions we can yeah you know he lived in new york in a one-bedroom studio apartment and he had five pinball machines in there how my mom said yes to him in marriage I don't know you know he got kind of lucky there but you know he loved pinball and it kind of transcends Generations now I also think they're beautiful the artwork on them I think the box a lot of people think they're a garish thing

to have in a house because like I I had an interior decorator help me with my home I don't know how to decorate or anything like this and he was like this you want pinball machines and he just didn't know how to work it into anything and i was like yes i want pinball machines in every room and then he goes how about we just have your little pool house bit out the back i went okay we'll put the yeah but i i uh man i would have them everywhere if my if my wife let me i would get rid of one of the bedrooms and just pinball it up and i you know well that's uh my childhood and make my child sleep in the hallway because all my bedrooms are taken i got two kids in there they're all taken but uh uh oh man i love pinball let's jump

ahead here so why were they banned in new york city and then who was your dad let's talk about your dad a little bit yeah no no you're real dead on it so from the 30s to the 70s pinball just kind of had that stigma of gambling because the games used to pay out money and it was kind of like an antiquated law where even though pinball machines were being produced and manufactured in chicago That was one of the three metropolitan cities where it was illegal. So, you know, New York, Chicago, LA. And my dad, when he moved to New York, and he worked for GQ magazine, he kind of became known as a pinball expert. And he was brought in to testify and prove it was a game of skill not luck and he kind of went into the courtroom called his shot and they overturned it and it kind of helped legislation change that law

and now here we are i can't man who saved the game i can't think of another court case where they've brought in a machine for someone to prove something you know what i mean like like you could like we have oj simpson putting on the glove yeah you know what i mean and if the glove don't fit you must acquit you know that type of stuff but like having a machine you prove to us that you that's the most important his father's game is the most important game of pinball that's ever been played doesn't matter if it's a world series you want to hear a little bit more on that sure so they had a game there in a backup game and the first game that he was supposed to play the head defendant or whoever on the jury he thought it was rigged so he's like no i don't want you to play that one i want you to

play the backup game thinking that there is all this like voodoo happening of They are set, you know setting this up to rig like no I want the backup the machine So they actually swapped the machine that he was supposed to play on in the moment and he still proved, you know Skill by calling a shots. So little fun fact and what was the get didn't know that game which game it was or was it? Yeah, so the original game that he was supposed to play was supposed to be El Dorado, which is a game that's been kind of repurposed many times. There was like 10 drop targets in the back and then it ended up being a Gottlieb bank shot, which was like a pool themed game.

Now, is it true that your father went to an adult bookshop every day to play in New York? That is accurate. Right, because it was illegal in New York. The only place you could do it is in the red light district. So where they sold all the porn mags, they had a thing. So he went to this porno shop every single day, but he was only going there for the pinball. Wow.

Yeah, because he went to school in wisconsin and that's where he kind of was introduced to pinball and learned it was a game of skill and he just naturally gravitated towards it and then when he moved to new york he realized like why is there no pinball machines anywhere and then he found one at that adult bookstore let's just think that by accident there to play yeah, yeah. He just wandered in there. You couldn't use the internet. Your dad was going in there to buy porn. Let's be certain about that.

Because it's not like you could get an app and go, where are pinball machines near me? He had to stumble across it. Because there's no mate of his that's coming into work going, hey, I was buying porn the other day. Hardcore double penetration porn. And I'll tell you what they had in that porn place, a pinball machine. So I think in the movie or something,

they acted like he went in there to go to the bathroom or something, but you know what happened, right? I don't like to think about that, but yeah, fair enough. What's the name of the movie? The name of the movie about your dad, Roger Shaw. Kimball, The Man Who Saved the Game. I believe it's on Hulu right now. Is that where I watched it?

Hulu? It was on Hulu? Yeah. Apple TV, Hulu, YouTube. I got to see it. Who plays your dad in the movie? So the young version is Mike Feist, who's on West Side Story and some other stuff.

And then the older version, which is scary how good he is, is Dennis Buzicakari or cars he was on a better call saul and there's a lot of people who actually know my dad and they thought he was legit in the movie it's like oh yeah i saw your dad in the movie oh yeah no that older actor for a bit wait that wasn't your dad i've seen your dad interviewed and i thought for when i watched the movie that it was your father to begin with but then I realized it wasn't because

he was too good if that makes sense yeah because he was walking through scenes he was not an actor if he was just seated in a stool just talking

I would have believed it was your father but he was walking through scenes picking things up doing actor-y things and I went oh no no

and I actually had to google that when I was watching the film um and uh was your dad nervous do you know like when he had to be in the courtroom or was he just like i got this all right it's a guy walked into a porn store every day he was all right confident that's a good question you know what i i don't think he was because he was kind of begged to go into the courtroom. At first, he actually said, like, no, thanks.

I'm more interested in my career. He didn't really care about legalizing pinball because he just wanted to own a game and he got a game. So he kind of didn't care. So maybe he played a little more loose. Yeah. In the movie, he didn't care because he had his game already. Yeah. So what did he give a fuck for?

Yeah, I got it. He didn't care because he had his game already. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what did he give a fuck for? Yeah, I got it. It's like if you wanted to fucking make something illegal that I already own, TV, oh, no, never do that. I love TV. Let me ask the biggest questions we jumped ahead from.

Multiball, you said pinbot, right? We got that. No, firepower. Firepower, I'm sorry. Firepower. Firepower. What was the first pinball machine with speech? Gorgar. Gorpower. Firepower. Who was the, what was the first pinball machine with speech? Gorgar.

Gorgar. Gorgar. Sounds like this man got up. Gorgar. What is that? What is that one about? Gorgar. Some like mythical demon,

and it was like Gorgar speak. It's really bad, but it was the first game with speech. That was always, my favorite pinball machines have always been, like, like you get these ones that are movie themed, right? Of course, you get the movie themed ones.

And then you rock and roll bands. It's very popular. But I like just, you know, like Medieval Madness or Mars Attacks and things like this. Things that just, you're made up. Gorga. But I'll tell you the first pinball machine where I walked towards it like, oh, oh.

And I was a little kid. I must have been about 10. But people who know me, you'll know that my real last name is Nugent, like Ted Nugent. There is a Ted Nugent machine. And there was a Ted Nugent machine in a caravan park in central New South Wales, Australia, that my parents made us stay in for about four days. And all they had was this pinball machine.

It's not a great machine. It's a basic bitch machine, the old Ted Nugent machine. But I remember going, I remember running back, because I'd never seen, you know like how excited you get when you see your name on like a little license plate or a shot glass in a gift store? Imagine it on a pinball machine. I'd never

seen nugent written anywhere i didn't yeah so so i kept on playing that machine for that five days and then after that i was pinball mad what you would attend you know the machine i'm talking about it's like he's playing the glass is kind of cool he's like playing guitar and it's like like like like he's we we since know he's very into guns and there's like bullets coming out the end of it. That's actually a Stern Electronics machine. All right. And what year would that have been?

I want to say about 1984. Yeah, early 80s, I'd say. Yeah, okay. And then who invented the tilt mechanism? Was it Gary Stern or you said three answers? No. It was Harry Williams from Williams back in the day. Ah, okay. Playing techniques.

Nudging, Jim said tap side to side. Trapping, trap with flipper. I think that's right. There was another one that you sent to me, and I forgot to put it in here. I forget what that one was. That was a dead flip. So when you actually don't use your flipper.

Oh, when you just make it go from side to side? Yep. That's what it's called? Yeah. That one takes balls. A lot of people can't do that. I've got that fine. Like a lot of times when it comes out of the chute

and it pops back out of you, you pop it into the hole and it pops back out of you. So you don't move the flippers. It just kind of goes across or bounces from one to the other. Yeah, bounces from one to the other. That one has to take balls of steel to do that. But once you figure out how to do it. Well, the Adams, not that.

The Munsters has a thing where it shoots out, I think, from, I forget where it shoots out from, maybe, I can't remember his name. Herman. The Herman Munster. It shoots out, and I think you don't touch it because it hits one flipper and goes the other. So you got it, yeah. A solenoid.

Helps you get control. A solenoid. Jim said that's how bumpers work got it yeah um a solenoid helps you get control a solenoid the gym said that's how bumpers work is that what a solenoid yeah so it's like under the hood that helps fire flippers coils drop targets pop bumpers so yeah and that's like at the heart of all the all the pinball machines right so um and then the first pinball competition who participated was it your dad and walter stern no he actually helped run like the first pinball competition who participated, was it your dad and Walter Stern? No. He actually helped run the first big legit. It was called the Bally Super Shooter. It was on a Bally Playboy machine.

And the winner got a brand new car, a Nissan. That's good. I once entered a really big pinberg in Pittsburgh. They had a big competition. And I got really, really deep into this fucking competition. Like, I was, like, winning, winning, winning, winning, winning. And I was getting down to, like, the final, like, 20-something players or something like that.

I had to go to my show, man. The competition lasted too long. I had to be on stage. But I really thought about not going. Because I'd never done so well. I was like, I was up to the stage where people were watching me play on the screen. They had video screens of the playing field and people were watching me play. And I was like, but I remember in that competition as I got really far into it.

Okay, so I don't think you'll be offended by this, Zach, but there is a lot of nerds in the pinball community, right? It's safe to say. Darking. Yeah. All walks of life. Hey, I'm a bit of a nerd myself. I'm not like the popular nerd.

I'm not talking like, you know how girls are like, oh, I love nerds. No, you don't. You're like a guy with glasses who's a bit preppy looking. No, I'm talking about people with flaky skins who can't talk to you socially awkward socially awkward folk and the flaky skin the people would like they've got like hand brackets on because they're playing pinball so much they needed special like bowling gloves you know what i mean? Like, all right, chill the fuck out, right? Anyway, those people can be socially awkward, right? So me being who I was playing pinball in this competition,

I had one nerdy fucking pinball guy walk past me like he was out of an 80s movie and bump into my shoulder like this. Boom. Sorry, didn't see you there. And they keep going on. I'm like, are we fucking kidding here the fucking nerds have all fucking come together to get angry at me for fucking getting so far in the competition so i there was a a an active part of the crowd of watching the competition who actively didn't

want me to do well um zach let's talk about the last couple questions here how many hours does it take to build a pinball machine and how long does it take from inception to delivery? Just talk about building pinball machines a little bit. Yeah, no. So in terms of like people hours, it takes roughly 30 hours from start to finish in the factory to build a pinball machine. And then you kind of nailed it from a design perspective. It's roughly a year and a half from start to you know putting a game in a box so when we sign the contract of hey we're going to do a venom pinball machine to when it is going

into a box shipping worldwide it's around like a year and a half and why is everything why is chicago the hub or why was it or is it or what yeah yeah i mean it's kind of like detroit with automobiles i think the location of sourced parts and electronics it just it is the motherland of where pinball manufacturing has always taken place also loads of bars in chicago and months and months of shitty weather. Always. Like, you know what I mean? Like, you couldn't, like, L.A., it's very hard, you know, like, there's a lot of pinball bars in L.A. now, but, I mean, like, you wouldn't want to manufacture it here because people are outdoors all the fucking time

and then there's the people in San Diego selling surfboard wax or whatever they get up to. They're all doing that. Then you've got the people in fucking Texas. They're all shooting each other. Chicago just seems like the right fit. Yeah and and venom is coming out soon i guess that's why it's out now right it's behind your head yeah it's out now it's out now there was there was a big display of the venom game uh at the at the expo i played very good very good fun game yeah and i played

the the foo fighters one i put that's how i met that's how i met anthony the guy to get that i met zach uh because they were giving it away at a festival well they weren't giving away it was a That's how I met Anthony, the guy that I met Zach, because they were giving it away at a festival. Well, they weren't giving it away. It was an auction. That's right. What's a good bid for this? Yeah, yeah.

And I came in. This was very wealth. This was like Yellowstone wealth. Somebody paid like three times what it was worth. And on stage, I was like, you want to donate it to me? I'm struggling. Okay. All right.

This is a part of our show called Dinner Party Facts. Ask our expert to give us a fact, something obscure, interesting about the topic that can use to impress people. I don't know if it's going to be exactly about this topic, but I think it's more about yourself. Right, Zach? Yeah. Why not? Yeah.

Hey, man. What do you got? No, you tell us. Oh, okay. Yeah. So I don't have the picture in front of me right now, unless you want me to share my screen. I'll give it to Jack here and he'll make sure it gets put up in the, so people can see it. Yeah.

But yeah, so my dad worked for Williams Ballet Midway and they were the originators of Mortal Kombat. So a little fun fact, I am one of the small kids in the original mortal combat print ad there you are in the pink shorts oh wow oh that is cool i think you have another one too right oh that is cool oh yeah this is a little more embarrassing but why not um i was quoted as or anointed the geek calendar for hottest geeks in the Chicago, you know, red eye for pinball. So it's me kind of half naked on a pinball machine. I don't know if you're half naked. Yeah, that image resurfaces every few years. That's a nice one.

A little embarrassing, but why not? I'd go through the glass, me. I was saying you, just the Mortal Kombat thing, you must have had a fun childhood. I had the best. I'm biased, but. No, that sounds like a good childhood. Your dad owned pinball machines. Yeah, that was the guy.

You went to Mortal Kombat. If the movie's anything you go by, your mom was smoking hot. So, Zach, thanks for being here. And, again, connect with all things pinball at sternpinball.com follow them on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter YouTube and TikTok and as you said Zach just go out and play right

yeah go out and play Zach this is my favorite podcast ever I could keep talking I could talk for hours and I'm going to talk to you for a few minutes after we get off the podcast. Thank you so much for being on the podcast, Zach.

Hey, if you're ever at a dinner party and someone goes, the French had nothing to do with pinball, go, I don't know about that, and walk away. Good night, Australia.