40 replies to this topic

[MG Brown]

 

Pinball News' list of public places to play Pinball in the Chicago area: http://www.pinballne...ago/index3.html

[MG Brown]

 

Pinball Rebel's Pinball locator: http://www.pinballre...ago&showmap=yes

[MG Brown]

I read these reports by print and web media of the 2014 Pinball Expo and wonder what our hobby/sport would be like it we had this sort of media coverage.
 
Pinball News Reports From Pinball Expo 2014
 
Two of the more interesting to me (of the many) videos in this report include a video tour of the game rooms where well over 100 pinball machines were available for free play by attendees:


 
And a video tour of the vendor hall:
 

[MG Brown]

Special Thanksgiving 2014 Pinball Magazine free download: http://www.pinball-m...ine.com/?p=2404

[MG Brown]

 

Pinball Magazine wishes you a very merry Christmas and all the best for 2015!

Our Christmas present for you: a free downloadable 32-page special Issue featuring:

• An interview with pinball designer John Trudeau
• Photo special: Dutch Pinball Expo by Santiago Ciuffo

Link: http://www.pinball-m...ine.com/?p=2431

Happy holidays!

Jonathan, Susanne, Paul, Eric, Santiago, Valeria

[MG Brown]

 

New free downloadable Pinball Magazine special: 

 

Veteran pinball designer John Trudeau discusses his latest game: WrestleMania 

 

Link: http://www.pinball-m...ine.com/?p=2440

[MG Brown]

 

Video tour of The Amusement & Leisure Show 13-15 January 2015 held at ExCel London Exhibition Centre. See if you can find the slot racing reference.

 

 

 

[MG Brown]

Pinball Expo Chicago: Still Flipping after 30 Years (article)

[MG Brown]

Today the first "Woah Nellie!" pinball came off of the production line at Stern Pinball. This game is a joint venture between Stern (manufacturing and marketing) and Whizbang (Dennis Nordman- design).
 
This game has been in development by Whizbang since 2009 with first hand built prototypes completed in 2011. The intent of the designers was to produce a game that looks and plays like a classic pinball machine, but uses modern electronics, sound effects and production methods. The creators call it "a fun retro-style game designed by knuckleheads".

In the following video, Jack Benson, the programmer of the game's software, plays the first production unit.


 

 
Here is the product flyer which certainly would be a great example for future slot car product announcements.
 

 

[Vay Jonynas]

I really like the classic look of that Whoa Nellie! machine!

 

 

Are there any more pinball shows coming up?

 

[MG Brown]

The 31st Pinball Expo in Chicago was held in September, with a great tour of the new Stern Pinball plant as one of the many featured events. Stern Pinball had two of the "production" Woah Nellie! (Big Juicy Melons) pinballs available for free play in the exhibitor hall of Pinball Expo 31. I was able to get a Woah Nellie! (Big Juicy Melons) t-shirt at the Stern Pinball factory for Terri.

 

Terri and I were fortunate to have dinner "with" Gary Stern and his entourage prior to Roger C. Sharpe's talk on the making of the iconic 1977 "Pinball" book. Roger was kind enough to take time to autograph my copy of the book.

 

The Pinball Expo 31 report is available to read on Pinball News here: http://www.pinballne...2015/index.html

 

Upcoming pinball and coin-op gaming events are listed on the Pinball News "Diary" page: http://www.pinballne...iary/index.html

[Vay Jonynas]

Pinball is real. Video games only exist as excited electrons. Turn the power off and the pinball is still there. Video games disappear.

 

 

 

Precisely!

 

 

[Vay Jonynas]

 

During the 2014 Pinball Expo, Stern Electronics announced that they will be collaborating with Whizbang Pinball to produce "Whoa Nellie! Big Juicy Melons^TM" in the first half of 2015.

 

 

 

Has anyone seen a Whoa Nellie! pinball machine in an arcade, bar, bowling alley, billiard hall. etc. yet?

 

[MG Brown]

There are a couple of places in the Chicago area that have them- I haven't seen them in person but I have been told they exist.

 

There is a website where you can search for what pinball machines are where, or where the nearest arcade is from a location. The name of the website escapes me but I am sure Google knows.

[Vay Jonynas]

Here it is:

 

 

Pinball Map

 

 

AndI I've found these three machines right here in Toronto!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Vay Jonynas]

I don't remember precisely where and when I encountered my first pinball machine but it must have been over sixty years ago and I've loved them ever since.

 

As a youngster in the early sixties I was usually required to attend supplemental Lithuanian language classes Saturdays between 4:00 and 5:30 PM during the school year. These classes were in the basement of St. Peter's elementary school just north of downtown London, Ontario on Richmond Street by the cathedral. Dreadfully inconvenient to be sure. 

 

There was a silver lining though. I'd be given $0.50 or so to go see a movie downtown prior to classes plus bus fare there and back. But St. Peter's was only about a mile and a half away from where we lived in Old South London. So I could walk there anyway. The bus fare I could then spend otherwise!

 

Sometimes I would indeed take in a movie. But often I'd elect to deploy my cash in other ways.

 

One temptation was a pinball machine at a diner that was right across from the Wishing Well Beverages bottling plant on Richmond Street which was on the southern edge of the downtown area about halfway to St. Peter's. I believe that it was this Gottlieb Sweet Hearts machine released in 1963:

 

 

 

 

 

But pinball machines were then banned in Canada as "illegal gambling devices" until January 1976. But when the new student recreation center at the University of Western Ontario was completed in 1971, it had five pinball machines! One of them was the Gottlieb 2001 released in 1971 which ended up becoming my own gateway machine to a lifetime of sordid pinball degeneracy.

 

 

 

 

Now I was seldom short of cash as a student and so I fed many a quarter into that machine. But it couldn't last. You see under the law it was an "illegal gaming device". Accordingly a City of London police officer appeared at the rec center after about three months, played the machines for two or three hours to satisfy himself that they were indeed illegal gaming devices which could very well corrupt students, policemen and whoever else for life, and the machines were gone for good the next day. Yes, seized they were by the fascist State!

 

While the draconian law was repealed a few years later, I've never forgiven the bastiches. Smash the State I say!

 

When pinball machines were legalized in my environs in 1976, two specific machines acted to set me on the path to permanent pinball degeneracy. These were both to be found at the York Hotel in downtown London directly across the street from the CNR passenger train station. The first was the Wizard released by Bally in 1975:

 

 

 

A very well designed game, it sold over 10,000 units which smashed Bally's previous production record of 5254 for a pinball machine. I had the game completely mastered and built up a total of nineteen free games on a single quarter one afternoon before I succumbed to fatigue.

 

The other game was in the other room by the old fashioned greasy spoon lunch counter attached to the York Hotel. (How I miss those greasy spoons now!) It was the Royal Flush machine which Gottlieb released in 1976:

 

 

 

 

 

I had my best run ever on this machine one afternoon. I'd hit everything and I had the machine lit up like a Xmas tree. I was already up to five or so free games but I wasn't even targeting the free game hole. My timing was so good that I was hitting the silver ball hard enough to propel/bounce it right off the glass and I just wanted to keep hitting. And then believe it or not but a hippie watching me with astonishment leaned on the machine so hard that he tilted it thus ending my best run of all time. I wanted to belt him!

 

So no, I've never needed drugs or alcohol. Pinball, model kits, slot cars, electric trains, comics, bubble gum cards and other baby boomer kids' stuff, muscle cars (with custom exhausts and fat tires), and rock music with hi-fi stereo components on which to play it were all it took to set me on the path to ruin. I don't know whether I should laugh or cry.