Wedgehead Pinball Podcast

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In this episode Alan and Alex discuss the best games to trick your normie friends and family into liking and playing pinball.  We discuss the parameters of what we think makes a great gateway game, what makes a bad gateway game, and tips for making their first time playing more fun.

We are also now accepting questions for our 1 year anniversary episode, so send all your questions or comments that you want us to read and discuss on that episode to [email protected]

Note: We're not werewolves, but we are little swearwolves.  Sensitive ears be warned.

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In this episode, freelance pinball artist Jonathan Bergeron joins us from his studio in Montreal, Canada to discuss his life as a commercial artist doing gig posters and merch designs for bands like Mastodon, Guns 'n Roses, Suicidal Tendencies, Judas Priest, and many many more, as well as how he got pulled into the pinball industry as the artist for Stern's Jurassic Park.

He did 5 different dinosaur themed art packages for all the different editions of that game, and we discuss his transition into doing art for something as big as a pinball machine.

We discuss his other released pinball art packages on games like former guest of the show, Sean Irby's Eight Ball Beyond homebrew, Scott Danesi's Final Resistance for the P3 platform, and his latest project for Barrels of Fun and their first game Labyrinth!

...but you must be warned that we do happen to swear just a little bit in this episode.

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The man/myth/legend Roger Sharpe is back again on the show to speak more about the pinball renaissance of the 1990s.  In this second episode we dive more into some of the many people that made these games special.

We talk about designers like Steve Ritchie, Pat Lawlor, and Dennis Nordman. Programmers like Larry DeMar, Lyman Sheats, and Dwight Sullivan, as well as the sound design and musical compositions of Chris Granner amongst others.  Roger tells us some fantastic stories of licensing, the industry competition at the time, and how he feels about this decade of pinball and its lasting impact today.

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Alan and Alex are joined on the show once again by Roger Sharpe, aka the 'Man Who Saved Pinball' to discuss his career at Williams from 1988-1999 as the Marketing Director.  Roger tells us some great stories about getting hired, the merger of Bally into Williams, his role in licensing games, and more.

And we discuss a lot about the different technological advances that made this era of games so dynamic and interesting, from the software and rules, to the DMD display, to the big mechanical toys that were being engineered and put into these games, the 1990s saw a rapid rise and fall in pinball, but it changed the game forever.

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Alan and Alex are joined on the show by their friend Tyler White from LA to discuss Stern's Insider Connected platform, and why he loves to use it, and how he wants to see it grow into the future.

Stern's IC is a feature that has been on all their games since Godzilla (2021), and has retrofit kits to connect all their Spike 2 games going back to Batman '66 (2016).

We discuss what the new platform has meant through the eyes of players and operators, and how connecting pinball machines has changed the game for some, and not mattered at all to others.

But the boys definitely used some salty adult language throughout the episode, so this is the obligatory explicit warning for sensitive widdle ears.

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In this episode, our friend and member of our local Portland Pinball scene, Nate Tayloe joins us on the show to educate us on the weird case where Gottlieb chose to sue Paramount Pictures over alleged copyright and trademark infringement due to the inclusion of Gottlieb's "Silver Slugger" pinball machine in the 2000 movie, "What Women Want" starring Mel Gibson and Helen Hunt.

Nate learned about this case while he was in law school, and he wanted to bring this story of the case to our show, and discuss the nebulous issue of copyright in other forms of art.

We discussed in the episode a website where all known inclusions of pinball machines appearing in film are listed, but Nate couldn't remember the website name in the moment.  But in case you're interested, here's a link to it: https://www.pingeek.com/film/film.htm

As always though, this is an adult show and we sometimes use naughty words to express ourselves.

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Ty Ueda from Pop's Pinball Parlor in Boston, Ma. is back to defend another game on the show, this time it's 1993's Rocky & Bullwinkle and Friends!

Released by Data East and designed by frequent DOTH designer extraordinaire, Tim Seckel, this game probably barely qualifies as it seems to sit somewhere in the middle of truly hated or truly respected.  But Ty is an excitable boy and he LOVES this game so we thought it would be fun to read him all the bad reviews we could find.

As always though, we are big boys here; and as such, we talk with big boy language sometimes...this is your explicit content warning.

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We're joined again on the show by Greg Freres whom we spoke to in the last episode, about the legendary Bally Art Department of the early solid state era.  But in this episode we focus our discussions on his ascension to head of the art department at Williams/Bally after the 1988 merger,  guiding them through their wild 1990s pinball renaissance until they closed their doors in 1999.

After about a decade in between of working in videogames and freelancing, he returned to pinball as the new art director at Stern, and quickly ushered in their own golden era of pinball with a return to hand illustrated art packages for their games.

Greg just retired after 40+ years in the pinball industry, and we had a blast talking to him again.  But we are all adults here so...sometimes our language gets a little bit spicy.

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In this episode, Alan and Alex are joined on the show by long time pinball artist Greg Freres, and they discuss Greg's time working in the late 1970s and early 1980s art department at Bally, a truly remarkable time period for pinball art.

Greg tells us all about the different processes that revolutionized the industry, working under art director Paul Faris, and the fraternity bond that he shared with Paul, Kevin O'Connor, Margaret Hudsen, Dave Christensen, Tony Ramunni, and Pat McMahon.

Greg tells us some great stories from the absolute peak of Bally pinball, and how this rogue's gallery of young artists came in and completely changed the game with their bold and risque illustrative style.

Here's a bonus link to Greg's seminar from the Northwest Pinball and Arcade Show that we mention in this episode: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ChCqJVvGlL8 

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In this MEGA sized episode of the podcast, Alan and Alex discuss the rise and increase in the number of pinball MEGALOCATIONS with 100+ machines.

We discuss traveling to these pinball destinations, what to expect playing massive collections in warehouse buildings, and talk about our own experiences at some of these locations such as Past Times, Next Level, Pacific Pinball Museum, and the Pinball Hall of Fame.

There's some very cool and massive pinball locations popping up around the world, and we talk about them in this episode.

...as always though, we use naughty language and no-no words.

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