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Looking back on my boyhood and adolescence in South Texas,

I spent an incredible amount of time

in gas stations, honky-tonks,

and other off-the-beaten-path places trying to appear cool

while obsessively following the descent of a steel ball

down the playing surface of a garishly-lit machine,

a pinball machine.

I'd come in with my grandfather standing on pop crates

to play the pinball machines.

I think I was about eight years old.

I used to hang out at the corner store

and my parents were always lookin' for me.

I would go away with my grandparents

every summer and they'd say, "Hey, you're in the arcade.

Here's a roll of quarters, go have fun."

All these back-lot mom and pa stores and everything

had, uh, one or two pinball machines there.

Apartment houses would have 'em in the laundry rooms.

If you had a gas station where they weren't doin'

car repair anymore, they'd take the service bays

and fill 'em with pinball machines.

Playing at our local bowling alley was the place

where parents told you not to go.

I guess it was the kind of age when you don't want to do things

with your parents.

My parents used to think I was going to church

Sunday mornings and I'd be at the local hangout

playing pinballs.

I also remember my father dragging me out by my ear

saying that I spent too much money.

I used to sneak down there without telling anybody

and on my own, and practice like crazy.

There was probably a crowd hangin' around

a pinball machine and we used to have to wait

to play and line up your coin.

And you'd know which one was your coin.

I started playing at, like, the local café.

Took my books to study there.

It was a great break from studying.

Sometimes it replaced studying.

I used to steal pop bottles from the back of the gas station

and trade 'em in for three cents,

and when I had enough dimes to go play pinball

I would wander all over town just putting dimes

in pinball machines.

On a Saturday afternoon I'd run it up

to the highest amount that you could win,

which was about 15 games.

I would sell 'em for 50 cents.

Sell 'em 12 games.

Tell 'em to leave me three.

They'd lose 'em in about 30 minutes.

They'd leave me three.

I'd run it back up to 15 again, sell 'em again.

That's how we'd spend a Saturday afternoon.

If you say pinball, people are like, "What?"

Or, "What's that?"

I mean, there are many kids today

that--that don't know what a pinball machine is.

If you were growing up in the '60s, '70s, and '80s,

you could go to the movies, you could listen to the radio

and music, and you could play pinball.

And now here we are twenty years later,

and if you wanted to re-live a song that you remember

from your youth, you can put it on your iPod.

If you remember a movie that you particularly liked as a kid,

you can get the DVD of it, but when it comes to pinball,

since it only exists in the real world

and can't be digitally duplicated,

there is no place to play pinball,

and yet in everybody's mind

they remember those games from their youth,

and they come in here and they see something

that they haven't seen in 25 years,

something that was a major part of their youth.

You know, "The first time I kissed a girl,

I was playing this machine."

And they see that and they just get this look

on their face of pure nostalgia.

Kids today don't really understand pinball.

They come in looking for the Dance Dance Revolution machine

or the fighting video game or the really fast driving game,

and all they see are these pokey,

slow, old pinball machines that just go,

"Bing, bing, bing, bing, bing,"

and they don't understand it.

You look around here, all you see is old farts.

You don't see the kids that were playing pinball

when I was growin' up.

I mean, the kids today are just--

you know, that between the computer games

and the home games and the--

and the Nintendos and the Sega systems

and Gameboys and--

they just won't play pinball.

I can remember when I was growing up,

we used to eat all our meals at home,

and we used to go out for entertainment.

We'd go to the movies.

We'd go bowling.

We'd go outside the house to have our entertainment,

and now everybody eats out.

Everybody always goes to restaurants.

They don't cook at home very much,

but they get all their entertainment at home

through their big screen theater room

or their game room that they've got

in the basement.

Public places of amusement have been falling by the wayside

in America like crazy.

You can't find a pinball machine.

I mean, most arcades there's no pinball machine.

There's no more arcades in malls in most cases.

Even bars.

I mean, all the bars today have a Megatouch,

the jukebox, and a pool table, but no more pinballs.

I mean, very, very, very, very few.

Pinball is finished in France.

In England it's finished long times ago.

Right?

In Italy you can find one pinball.

In Germany, no one pinball.

In Holland, no pinball.

Even in Belgium, it was a pinball paradise.

No pinball.

It's finished.

You know, they said pinball was dead.

It's not.

I was very surprised that other people

were like this.

I thought we were just crazy.

It starts with one.

Buy another one.

And then another one.

Then, like, four.

And I was outgrowing the family room.

I'd buy 20 here, 30 here.

And then your wife starts to say,

"Uh, what's goin' on here?"

We got enough, no.

-Yes. -No.

Sixty games.

-Three hundred fifty or so. -Four hundred.

I'm close to 600. Sixteen hundred.

It was a very rapid decline into obsession, I think.

Come on this way.

Show you some more.

We have about 150 in here.

Once you get the lure of the silver ball in you,

it's like an addiction and you just can't stop,

and I just kept, you know--

it's like you got to have 'em all

'cause they're all just beautiful pieces of art.

You remember buying every one, where you got it from.

One time, when my addiction was really bad,

I bought a Barb Wire on eBay.

I thought it was a great deal.

I thought, "Gee, what am I doin'?

This is crazy to drive 24 hours to go get a pinball machine,"

and just as I'm thinkin' maybe I'm not gonna do this,

you know, Pinball Wizard comes on the radio

and I thought, "Nope, I'm goin'."

You know, and it was, like, my longest haul.

It was like, you know, 26 hours later

I'm finally home, exhausted.

Ended up comin' home with three machines.

They're up on this upper deck.

This is the first little deck that I built to get some room.

Pinball machines seem to be alive.

They--they really don't seem to be machines.

When you're playing, they're almost

like they're alive and the way they talk to you,

you find yourself talkin' to it.

Extra ball!

Sometimes I just come in to look at them.

You don't even have to play them.

You just come in and just admire them.

It's just a tribute to man's creativity.

I'll tell ya.

This was, like, a little guest bedroom but it's...

I had to squeeze more pins in here.

My theme though, I kinda have always dreamed

it might happen, but I really want to do the passion.

Uh, you know, people say, "You're crazy," but see,

I have a bac-- I was a youth pastor

and, uh, so I st--I-- I love the Lord

and I just can picture the passion play

in a pinball machine.

* Shine the light down on me * Shine the light for all to see Hallelujah, the ball is saved!

* Shine the light down on me * Shine the light

All my life, it was pinball.

This is very good game.

Well, when I am with the pinball

I look the pinball and I think I am in love.

It's my life, it's better to own--

It's better to collect pinball than to take cocaine.

Yes?

Like, some people are to spend the money

to drink or to eat.

I don't like to eat.

I like pinball.

Pinball and girls, but girls is finished.

I will not sell one.

I like them all, but is like my children.

I like some of my children better than the other.

Of course.

We're in the area that actually enjoyed pinball,

and we all kind of sort of hooked up

and the heart of the group plays every Thursday

and they don't miss.

Puts gas in my truck.

I mean, look at these guys.

Take a look at these people.

That's all they care about, is pinball.

I got girls, I got dates.

I go to concerts.

You meet all these people that--that are into it

and they'll all come over and you'll have a--

a big party every week.

Though Steve's still kind of a center.

He's kind of like the--

He's a--he's the leader.

If it wasn't for Steve--

1972, my dad bought one for my room,

and I was like, "I'll, you know, do my homework forever

if I have a pinball machine."

Of course that probably didn't work out.

From there on it just got pretty wicked, you know?

Now I've had--I've had 70.

I think I'm down around 50 now, but I've got them

in every room in my house.

We have a New York Jets pinball machine

and in here we have Maverick, which is a western-themed,

Mel Gibson.

Okay, now we're in another room of this crazy house.

We're in the pinball dungeon.

Which actually is being sold because I need to make room.

In here we have some more pinball machines to try.

We call this our "pirate shed" because we have a bar

in the back that's pirate-themed.

I never knew you could own your own pinball machine.

I mean, soon as I found out that

then that's when my whole life changed.

I mean, you've seen my bedroom.

I'd--at times I have 14 pinball machines.

The things I like, I'm very obsessive,

so--and I am a perfectionist.

Uh, these are the barrels from "Jaws."

So, if I collect something, whether it be pinball machines,

"Jaws" memorabilia, I think I gotta have it all.

Like it says, "I want to rock and roll all night

and party every day."

It was during the depths of the depression,

in the late '20s, early '30s where the coin-operated

amusement game industry kind of got birthed.

Out of that came pin games.

It literally was a name because there were various pins

that were hammered into a wood surface, using a little ball,

and here's the trap.

The games wound up evolving, if you will, in the 1930s.

Companies just mushroomed out of nowhere,

most of them located in Chicago.

In the end of the 1930s, beginning of the 1940s

there is an over proliferation of games literally everywhere

and there becomes an outcry.

"Children spending their lunch money."

"It's everywhere."

"We have to outlaw it."

"We have to regulate it."

"We can't control it."

In Chicago, scores of confiscated

pinball machines get a police escort

to their journey's end.

They've had this coming for a long time.

It was seen as a game of gambling

and there was a group of machines created

that were pay-out machines, so there was some relevance

to that, but by and large, the majority of product

that was out there was for amusement only.

In the case of New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles

being three major metropolitan areas as well as other areas

around the United States, pinball was banned.

It was this one.

Humpty Dumpty.

This was the first pinball with flipper.

I've seen so many changes in pin games,

but when those six flippers came out on Humpty Dumpty,

I said, "I got to do something like that," but me?

I was always ta-- taught never to put

too much money into a game.

I ain't about puttin' those six flippers on my game.

So, I put two of 'em and I put 'em

at the bottom of the game and that's somewhat

approximately with everyone ever since

and that makes me feel very, very, very good.

When we put flippers on a game you got a tremendous amount

of skill into the game.

Before that it was nothing but chance.

You were lucky.

You pushed the game, kicked the game in order

to get the ball to go where you wanted it to go,

but when the flippers were there, now you get

a certain amount of skill.

Gottlieb ruled in the '50s and '60s.

They were comin' out with new machines, like,

every three weeks.

Generally speaking, the pinball arcade,

which then, turned into the video game arcade

was the sort of logical descendant of the coffee bar.

It's very hard to remember this, but in the '60s,

coffee was considered the major social threat.

Because they were thought of as places

where kids got hyped up and then they acted out

in some sort of manic way.

Boys were thought to be flirting with waitresses,

and waitresses sort of hopped up on coffee

were jumping on the tables and dancing.

Before the city council in April of 1976,

I was enlisted, if you will,

by the New York State Association to testify.

Order.

Offered whatever expert testimony I could,

as well as a demonstration of pinball being a game of skill

as opposed to a game of chance.

Suddenly you could find pinball machines legally.

We were rock and roll in the '70s.

Business was booming.

Profit margins were huge.

Unbelievable.

Demand was sky-high.

Distributors were ordering it by the truckload.

When we started solid-state electronics

in pinball machines, we were on the leading edge

of technology.

I mean, it was an incredible cross-section at that time

of people playing pinball.

Diana Ross, Paul Simon, Lou Reed, Matthew Broderick,

studio musicians, politicians comin' in.

Limo pulls up and these four, crazy looking guys come out

and, you know, it's Kiss.

Very nice people that come in here.

Matter of fact, you'll find business people come in here.

You'll find musicians from the shows,

uh, managers from the different restaurants,

and the regular Broadway crowd.

The thing I'm the most proud of is the fact that we created

this environment where you would have

different social stratas all coming in,

standing next to each other, playing and interacting

with each other and walking out and going their separate ways,

never to really meet anywhere else,

and, you know, but in the arcade this was sort of an environment

that allowed a diverse amount of different people to come.

Kids would always want someplace to go,

something to do, and at that point in time

there wasn't a lot of options for that teenager,

whether it was just pre-getting their driver's license,

so, you know, their-- their--the--their lifestyle

had to be within walking distance

or a bicycle ride or something,

and I think that's what gave growth

to the arcade business.

Arcades had this air of "certainly not approved

by your parents."

"Naughty," or whatever, 'cause they could in there

and they could smoke.

It was usually dark.

You could kind of do what you wanted to do,

and that was a very male-crowd.

It was all young males,

fourteen to twenty five.

It wasn't like going to a Walt Disney movie

where the whole family could go along

and feel happy about it.

It was more like hanging out with your friends

and doing bad things.

I think at that time it was considered rebellious.

I think this was a bit of a Fonz-type activity,

a sort of downward-mobility, wasting time,

developing highly-refined skills in an area that was going

to be relatively useless in adult life.

Half of all our production went over into Western Europe.

Container loads of games.

I was astounded to find out that the first runs of games,

even in the heyday, went to Europe

instead of the United States.

The market was bigger in Europe.

And at that time I think the pinball machine

was highly Americanized and pe--and then people

were proud of that.

Proud to have, in a French bistro in Paris,

an American machine.

Everything came from the United States at that time,

glowing success, because people's mentalities...

United State is the paradise of the world.

And everybody understood the language of pinball.

Game over, tilt,

special targets, you know.

What is it that makes you stop and play one machine?

What makes you think,

"Oh, I'm gonna put my money in this one?"

And so you come up with, uh, rock and roll.

You come up with sex.

You come up with the--the-- all the things

that young teenage boys wanted to be.

I mean, you can look at the art.

It's definitely something

that's pitched towards young males.

There's not really a lot of female-friendly images on these.

Part of the adolescent male fantasy is, guns,

women with large breasts, magic spells, any violent,

misogynist thing you want is there on pinball.

A lot of these machines have um,love scenes on them.

Uh, you don't suppose there's any connection there?

I'm not in the supposing business.

What do you think?

Well, I don't know if you've ever followed

the motions of people's bodies while they're playing,

but you might be able to draw a connection there.

Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah!

You have those centerfold images

of young, rather buxom ladies,

usually blonde, staring out of the machine at you

to inspire you.

It's a sexual release.

I really don't understand why though.

But you believe it is?

Oh, I know it is.

No question about it.

Sexually frustrated people play pinball a lot.

And--and that sort of captured in that noise that's made

when you win a free game.

You know, there's that clunk noise,

which is supposed to alert everybody

in the environment that you are a--

you know, you are the man, and if you can do it repeatedly

or get clunk-clunk, you know, everybody's like--

notices that and they-- even if they don't show it,

their admiration for you increases.

A guy has a hot ball and it's just flyin',

and, you know, you're gettin' ready to become ruler

of the universe or somethin'.

You might have been playin' by yourself

and not too many people watchin',

but when they start hearin' those sounds,

then all of a sudden you'll see people gather around

to see that great ending of that, you know, ball.

I knew you'd come back.

It's number 174 with a circle.

It says "Williams Perky, 10-24-56."

Well, it's been in my blood since I was 12 and I'm 59,

so pretty major.

Should have known right away that I was gonna be a collector

and I didn't start collecting until I bought this house

in 1976, and the first game in my collection

is my favorite game of all time,

Gottlieb Slick Chick, April of '63.

It's in my bedroom up right now.

It's been up since I started my collection

and it's never gone down.

I have a--a--kind of my-- what I call my bible.

Whenever I go to shows, and I've been doing that

for a long time, I always copy down serial numbers.

And I have a binder that I've hand-typed,

since I don't do computers yet.

To me, I think it would be interesting,

I have 300 games, where they were at one time.

Egg Head, Flipper Clown, Tropic Isle,

Fashion Show, Cover Girl.

Were they in Joe's Bar and Grille

or somewhere down the street, or at a show?

Uh, I have a column for the date, the game number,

the players, notes.

It's because ten years from now

I think people would like to know

where their Twilight Zone was or their Addams Family

or whatever game it happens to be.

It's interesting to me.

I worked in the bowling industry for a lot of years

and the last bowling alley I worked at closed down

twelve years ago, and so I get up

and work on my collection every day.

I'm in it for the history of it too.

That's why I collect flyers.

That's why I collect what they call press photos.

Spiderman.

There's Circus.

They're chronological.

That's--that's all my--up here, all my photo albums.

I have about 6,000 pinball negatives.

This is Bally parts catalogues, and then this over here

is schematics.

There's a lot of games are missin' score cards.

How they get lost over the years

it's hard to believe, but they do.

I have 11 comic book boxes full of score cards.

In the front closet, there's lots of binders

in there also.

I was blessed with an unbelievable memory.

I mean, records, pinballs... jokes.

Did you hear about the Polish carpoolers?

They all met at work.

Isn't that good?

This front bedroom

has 26 woodrail pinball bodies,

all stacked, twenty four and two,

and approximately 250 backglasses.

Isn't that awesome?

I really don't think about what it's worth

'cause I really don't want to sell it.

I want to play 'em.

I want 'em to play like they did when the--

when they were in the-- comin' out of the factory.

That's why I spend the 40 hours and do the job right.

Rebuild the bumpers, rebuild the pop bumpers,

and rebuild the slingshots, and rebuild the flippers.

A lot of work, and when you're done and you turn it on

and it doesn't blow up you fe-- you feel real good.

I sort my parts out of the parts catalogue

by part number.

You never know when somebody's gonna need somethin'.

I'm gonna need more room.

I'm a people person.

I like people.

When I worked, it--it--it really wasn't work.

I looked forward to seeing these people on Monday

and these people on Tuesday and these people on Wednesday,

and I have, uh, a-- uh, I have--

I never had any brothers or sisters.

I was an only child, and, uh, my mom and my real dad

got married and divorced twice.

And they say it's kind of hereditary

but my--my real dad smoked and drank

and he was an alcoholic and I never did drank or smoked,

so bein' an individualist is...always been proud of.

I can--I--I'll-- I get high on life,

not on anything artificial.

Only 100,000 away from a game.

Oh, I didn't get it.

Four-eight would-- I was 10,000 away from a game.

The rush of being able to play

any game you have at any given time,

if I just push the button, is you can't explain it

to people, you know?

It's something you like and it's fun

and it's...enjoyable.

I don't know why some people have the bug

and some people don't, but I'm one of the ones

with the bug.

I wake up and do it every single day.

Part of my life.

Like an extension of my hand or something, I guess.

There's a joke that we have in the business,

which is "how hard can this be?"

Uh, people look in the box, they see it.

They'll be in a bar or they'll be with their friend.

They'll look inside and say, "Oh, how hard could it be

to build a pinball machine?"

Uh, and we like to just smile.

We just smile.

Chicago is the pinball capital of the world.

We make it here 'cause the people

who understand how to make it are here,

the tooling is here, we live here.

We need to have that fast turnaround.

It's all in Chicago.

I tell people that I've been in the pinball business

for, um, 61 years because I'm 61 years old.

This is where my father started me.

To understand that even today, with solid-state electronics,

we have 3,500 pieces in a pinball machine,

over half a mile of wire.

There's a lot that goes into makin' one.

There's more labor in a pinball machine,

more man hours than in a Ford Taurus,

which is built not far from here.

It's a progressive line.

Each person does a little part of it and passes it along.

Much like automobiles but by hand.

The volume of the game business as a whole, coin-op business,

is significantly down from what it was.

'92,'93, there were 100,000 pinball machines a year made

and there were 4 or 5 different companies or brands.

Today we're the only company making pinball machines

and we like to, well, yo-- strive to have 10 percent

of what that market once was, and then we'd have

a nice, small business.

If you drive a 1978 Super Beetle convertible,

it's very cool, but that's nostalgic

and it's not a great car.

If you have a new Beetle convertible, that's retro.

It's a modern car that has some of the--

some of the look and feel or coolness of it

and it--it's retro.

Um, we don't make games from the '60s.

We make games of today that are retro.

We no longer talk about being the last pinball manufacturer

'cause that sounds like we're gonna get out.

We're the only pinball manufacturer

and we intend to remain in the pinball business.

Every game designer who's worth anything

will tell you that what you're really trying to build

is a carnival game.

You're trying to build something that's easy to learn,

easy to play, and hard to beat.

You want to create hooks in a game, to hook them in,

to interest them, to keep them interested.

Destroy the saucer!

Something that's out there, on the edge of their ability,

that they can-- they can see sometimes

and achieve you--

you know, less times, that, that, um...

that keep them playing.

Super jackpot!

You get that implanted in your head

that you want to hear that.

This is Pavlov.

We're teaching you that when you hear a thing in a game,

it means something.

The best games are always the games

that left you one shot away.

"Gee, if I had just that one more shot

I know I would have gotten it this time.

I had two balls locked and if I just got

that last ball locked, 'cause I know I did it

last time, or I did it two games ago,

I just need to do it one more time.

One more time."

To design a pinball machine,

basically you start with a theme.

You then begin the process of "how do I lay out

an interesting pinball machine with the flippers

and things that represents where I'm trying to go

with all of this?"

The right lane feeds back to this flipper.

We build working models of things

and then we play with it, but it tells us

whether what we're doing is going to work or not work

or be fun or not fun.

Okay, this shows how we mock up what we do,

and then here's the final game.

This is what the final version of the game looks like

when it's finally produced.

Each one of these games is a year of your life.

In that year of your life, you always put your best effort

forward to make the game fun.

What you think will be fun, okay?

And you don't always hit it.

Uh, no game designer would lie to you

and tell you they always hit.

You don't always hit it.

The guy whose games I played

is one of the legends of the business,

Steve Ritchie.

Hi, my name's Steve Ritchie.

It's not so much what I wanted to be.

It's what people said that I was going to be.

They said that I was going to be a mad scientist

in a toy factory.

Even in grade school, and that's what I am.

I never thought that I would get to meet Steve Ritchie.

It's just, it's awesome.

I'm on cloud nine.

It's definitely an art.

Just to know the science of it is nothing.

You have to understand how the ball moves,

but it's also curves and things that the ball does

that make you feel satisfied, a nice sound, okay?

You send a ball through a hole and it goes "thunk!"

Locks in, stays solid, you know?

Doesn't bounce out.

Make a sound at the same time.

It's--that's art.

It is a work of art.

Being a programmer by trade I can appreciate

this is like a large 3D program to me.

All event-driven, and when it-- as soon as a, uh...

an event happens...

you can picture the electricity flowing through there

and different things happening.

I mean, for me, this is like a little, mini-world.

So when the ball's bouncing around inside,

it's having fun inside its own little world

and you're helping it along.

Maybe that's why I like it, 'cause I enjoy aquariums.

The little fish in the tank having fun,

the ball's having a-- having fun in here.

If you chart the history of pinball,

you'll see things go in and out of style.

Pinball has been through its growth spurts,

when it went from lights in the backbox to score reels.

From score reels to displays, and displays to alphanumerics,

and alphanumerics to dot-matrix.

Pinball lost a market of players

because of their technologically enhanced games.

Video-mode is a feature that allows me to play

a video game within this pinball machine.

The machines went a little haywire with their,

um, toys and all their different things

that they felt had to be on a game.

There's the biggest division among pinball players

in my generation.

Most of us would refuse to play the new highly electronic

pinball games.

They've made the game so complicated

that five percent of the people that play 'em

understand the rules.

I've always been into rules.

I'm into board games and I love strategy,

so to me it's about rules.

It's about achievement.

It's about goals.

You start a game and you start learning

about a game that you've never played before,

and you-- and you--and you go,

"Oh, I see, I-- if I do this and this and this

I get one of those and--

and three of those gets me a multi-ball.

I can do that, piece of cake."

You know, and then-- and then you do it

ten times in a r--

and then you play ten times in a row and you don't do it,

and--and you're like, "Oh, I can do that!"

For instance, in Pirates, a very obvious strategy

is to get "time-lock" lit.

You get "time-lock" lit by shooting balls into the disc,

up the left ramp.

The ball will bounce around for three or four seconds

while the post is up.

Then the post comes down and it still may bounce around,

and all the while you'll complete these lights.

You get the light to the end and that will light "time-lock."

Once "time-lock" is lit, I know that I'm good to go there,

so then I start-- then I get the ship multi-ball,

which is the ship-- I get the ship multi-ball

one shot away from starting.

So you shoot the ship, you shoot the ship,

you shoot the ship.

The ship will start to rock, and you know that when the ship

is rocking you're one shot away from starting that multi-ball,

and if I succeed I have a four-ball multi-ball

of Tortuga running with--

and the ship multi-ball is one shot away.

Then I try and shoot the ship with that fourth ball,

starting that multi-ball and--and--and I like that a lot

because then I can try to lock balls back into the disc

to create-- to get my multiplier up

while I'm create-- collecting jackpots

and super jackpots, and--and I...

I find that very satisfying.

Um, so that's just-- that's sort of a...

a low-level goal that I think anybody can achieve

once they've figured it out and put it together.

What we do is a business and what we build is fun.

It just happens to come in a box.

Pinball machine is a revenue-earning

piece of equipment, like a slot machine.

Money goes in and-- and an operator comes along

and collects the money.

The player is entertained.

Uh, he can win a free game.

Um, he, uh--he can be satisfied,

uh, uh, or have a great time

for a short time, uh, even with a little glory.

The knocker goes off in a crowded bar.

"Hey, I did that.

I made that go off, okay?"

When you hear them cussing sometimes

or trying to kick the game to get some action,

and you know that-- you know you're getting--

you're getting the results that you want, you know?

And you'll see them putting more coins in that.

You'll say, "Then I made it."

* Put another quarter in the pinball * Yeah put another quarter in the pinball * Another one, two, three

There's the collectors and then there's the players,

and then there's the people that just like to talk pinball.

They are almost every kind of person

you can talk about.

I mean, everyone jokes about there's some sickness,

there's some-- there's some insanity.

I don't know if any of 'em are really cool, you know?

But, it's kind of like the "geeky thing"

is probably the way pinball

is perceived by the outsiders.

How do you perceive pinball?

Uh, I'm an insider so I think it's really cool.

Uh, hello.

Uh, we are from Tokyo, Japan.

We are pinball lovers.

And then now it seems, you know,

almost like a definition of a nerd or a, uh,

a weird and marginal person to be caught playing pinball,

but maybe there's something attractive about that.

I'm the Jim Morrison of pinball.

They either love me or hate me.

I think he's great for pinballs.

I--I--I think the Pingeek is good.

I haven't--haven't met any-- anybody like him before.

I'm not a business man.

I'm just a hack carrying around a camcorder.

All my DVD's here are $10.

Now, I want to start with this one

because it is very hard to find.

I don't even know if anybody has this except me at this point

because this was ten years ago.

-Um... -I got it.

-Who? -I have it.

I love pinball.

I love the hobby.

My main objective here is to document

every pinball machine that is in existence,

up and running.

I want to show this one.

This is my biggest seller to date.

Cost me $22 to make in gas.

You know, 96 percent of my ideas pan out to money,

'cause I have years of sales and marketing experience.

Who would have even dreamed to tape video of a pinball show

ten years ago?

I didn't know this stuff would sell, did anybody else?

Pfft.

Then when you drain the ball, it kicks up over the switch.

This relay disallows this switch,

and then this drop switch--

And I could watch it over and over again myself,

if I had the time.

That was kind of weird.

I'm here to save a hobby that saved my life

because music has saved my life

'cause I collect records all the time.

I love music.

I love the movie "Tommy."

That changed my life, 'cause it was music,

and it was about pinball.

The arcades kept me going.

I was pretty much raised in arcades

because of divorce issues and just a mess.

My whole life, up till past couple years,

was just a nightmare,

and now I'm getting recognition, you know,

as this Pingeek character,

just this guy runnin' around with a camcorder.

Hold on, I gotta check my camcorder

'cause I think I got a bad angle.

I'm showin' my butt right now, hold on.

Um...

I'm single, and you got to be,

because if you have a family, forget it.

I mean, you can't be married and have kids and do this.

It will kill you.

You know, you can't do it.

If you met the right woman,

would you give up pinball for her?

Absolutely not.

I guess, uh, may, it-it-it would depend

on what type of woman it is.

You want "Pinball Fantasy"?

Sure, that looks pretty cool.

What would make me happy?

I'm Elton John at a baseball stadium by the show,

or something that I can go in a glitter outfit, you know,

and hop up on the stage and say,

"Hey, I've arrived for the show, and guess who my ride is?

It's this hot chick in leather pants,"

and I'm on a Harley, and in the back,

she drops me off, and she goes, "You're Pingeek,"

and I go, "Yeah."

Elton John was the ultimate showman in the '70s,

and I want to be like him, I want to be a showman.

I might be pinball's biggest fan.

I really don't know, but it's just going out,

having fun, saving a game from being thrown in the trash

and bringing it back.

You could call some of us geeks--even me,

because we're all into the game, you know?

And maybe that's not the coolest thing,

so, you know--but hey, we're havin' fun with it.

You know, everybody tells me what to do.

Everybody tells me to take these drugs.

I should be in an institution, I should be doing this.

I should have kids.

I should be doin' that.

I get so much crap advice that, basically,

I'd be dead and bankrupt if I listened to any of it,

and, you know, I do my own thing.

People need to slow down and get back to basics here

and talk to each other and, you know,

there might not be all this fighting and war and shooting,

and, you know, whatever happened

to just goin' into a bar like John Wayne?

You know, somebody said somethin' to you,

you punch him out

and then you have a drink over it later.

I give-I'm pretty go-- I've given up on mankind.

We're all gonna die.

I mean, it's--you know, it's inevitable,

and the air's not getting any better anyway,

but one person cannot save the world, I found that out,

but I can try to save this industry and this hobby.

I can do my best, I mean, you know?

Yeah, I'm definitely misunderstood.

I'm, you know...

Here's this landscape of things that are happening,

and-and I can effect that change

by the simple manipulation of pressing a button,

and by pressing a button at the right time,

that ball is going to be propelled into something

that's gonna hit something, knock something, do whatever.

You are the-the person that is, in some ways,

controlling your own destiny.

I used to think that it was man versus machine,

but I tended to back away and said,

"It's not really man against machine.

It's man with machine."

If I can sense the rhythm of that game,

the tempo of that game,

I wanna be working in tandem with it.

I don't want-- I'm not fighting it.

I'm not fighting against it.

I'm workin' with it.

You have to be in sync.

You know, I-I want to give to that game

and it's gonna give back to me.

Oh!

Holy cow.

Whoo!

I guarantee you, it's chemically similar

to, uh, that of athletes.

Uh, when athletes, you know, get in the zone

they feel as though they're watching themselves, you know,

run the ball down the field.

It's--it is transcendent.

Pinball reminds me of, like, dreamin' because, like,

when I'm playin' the game, it's like, uh,

I'm not really with, like, reality.

I'm just kinda watchin' this ball kind of float around.

It's like bein' in some place where you don't really know

what you're doin',

but yet, you're watching what you're doin',

and you're trying to concentrate on it, and it feels like--

it feels like a dream.

It really is a unique feeling to become one with the machine.

To-to tell that ball where it's gonna go

and have your fingers and your flippers

and your shaking ability put that ball

where it's supposed to go.

It's sort of a Zen,

when you're sort of meditating and you just--

and that's all you're concentrated on is the pinball.

You can forget everything else.

It just feels like, you know, here's the flippers,

and the more you get in the zone,

it just feels like the flippers are together

and you can't lose the ball out the middle.

You've built it up and built it up,

and now comes the big multi-ball,

the one you've been trying to get for 20 games,

and you play that, uh, for all it's worth,

and you stretch it out and you embellish it,

and you let all the people that are watching know that,

"look at this person, this person's just done

a very difficult thing here.

He must be-- he must be special."

Uh-oh.

Of course, when you get to put your initials on,

it's like, "There I am, I own this game."

I, uh--I put a lot of playtime in on this machine,

and I try to, I try to defend it.

It's my home territory, so I try to make sure

that people see my name in as many games as possible.

One particular day, when I was playing,

where I--I was just simply ahead of the machine.

The machine couldn't keep up with me and I was accumulating

so many free games, and I could not leave

'cause I did not want to lose these free games,

and eventually, after about three or four hours,

I had to go,

so in a sense, there's, there is a possibility,

you have the illusion that you've won.

There is something inevitable about losing at pinball,

and I think that's a blessing, because there's a feeling

often when you're playing pinball

that the machine decides when you need to go home,

and if you're tired enough, you'll start playing poorly,

and the machine notices that,

and it wipes you out and it sends you packing.

The object of play in pinball is a high score.

If you score enough, you win a free game.

The way to win is to control the ball,

either with the flippers

or by careful nudging of the entire machine.

You know, you see a truly skilled pinball player,

you realize it is a game of skill,

not a game of chance.

When I started, we started with small flippers.

You basically played, you know, gun and run,

run and gun.

Ball's coming down, boom.

And just pound away, just do it.

I mean, it's-- it's pure adrenaline,

and it's pure reflex.

It is the spontaneity of that reflex.

Now what you have are players who control

the tempo of the game.

I see it with my sons, in all honesty.

I mean, there are times where I just stand back

and I marvel at the fact that they have

the ability that they have.

One of the ways that I've become a better player,

and I think it's sort of the difference

between how I approach a game of pinball

and how our dad approaches a game of pinball.

I look at a game, I try to find a weakness,

and I try to exploit that weakness for my own gain,

whereas, you know, my dad will sit and shoot a ramp

over and over again for no points,

because the shot feels good.

And it's like--

It's very serious.

They train and they have training sessions.

This is a sport, you're gonna work a sweat.

I've seen some players play where their entire body,

like, floats up from the game.

You know, you're down there playin' for five or six hours.

To stand and stay focused that long, it's,

it's pretty draining.

I'm sore in my legs.

I'm sore in my shoulders,

underneath my arms, my calves.

You want to build up those pinball muscles.

I know it sounds crazy,

but we are athletes.

I've always wanted to be the champion of the world

in something,

and then I had to figure out what it was gonna be in,

and then I figured out that it's gonna be pinball.

And later on tonight, Rick Stetta, who's being crowned

the new pinball wizard of the world.

It was really in 1991, I think, Rick Stetta became our first

really recognized world champion.

Rick Stetta.

Thirty-two.

Sunnyvale, California.

World's best pinball player.

Well, I...don't really have a job.

I was the same person I always was

before I got all my publicity,

just a guy that went out and, and liked playing

the machines, and-- and, you know,

nobody...

nobody thought that much of me, you know?

Um, they thought, you know, I was pretty much, you know,

just some, some weird guy that was out doin' stuff

by himself,

and, um, just out of touch with life.

I started playing when I was 10 years old,

and when I was 15, I decided to dedicate my life to it,

become the best in the world.

I practice three to four hours a day, on the average,

and that's almost every day.

I miss about one day a month.

It's addictive.

You start thinking about when you're gonna get your,

your next one and where it's gonna be from,

and what it's gonna be like.

Yeah, it's the whole thing.

Pinball has gotten a lot more complicated nowadays,

and it's becoming more and more unclear to me

how people are getting big scores.

I was trying to see if my name was still on it, too,

but mine had actually fallen off of the number 1-through-25 list.

Besides, all the world really wants to know

is who's in the top ten.

Yeah, sometimes you see it all when,

when you're playing really well.

I can see a ball going toward the out lane

at 12 inches away,

and know that I have to do something right away,

and I'll nudge the machine, and when the ball gets there,

it just does this thing off the post and rolls in.

Like I knew, I could see it.

When I watched him, he does the routine

where he's, like, you know, just--

you know, like a mime or somethin' like this,

sizin' up the game and tips it a little bit.

He respects the game, he wipes it off with whatever.

and he's got this own routine that's only his.

Nobody can do it, but the body English and everything,

he's just one with the game,

and I want to do what he's doing.

The way I play, I've got this dance thing goin' on, you know,

and I could be, like, on one hand and one heel,

and then I'm making my decision how to hit that machine

from that odd pose.

But I would be in that spot because the way I play,

it was determined that that's where I was supposed to be

before that ball was there, and then I'd pop it

and change my stance and watch the ball roll in

and, and play the ball, and I'd st--I'd be amazed.

No matter how many times I'd see something odd like that,

each time that I would see it, I would be amazed.

I would hate to be 95 years old and look back on my life

and say, "You know, what I really wanted to do

was play pinball, but, gee, my mom told me

that I should get a career."

Pinball makes me feel very special

because I have pinball as my own world,

always something that's there for me.

Pinball is a prize,

a diamond in the rough that I have personally shined.

Pinball is something that's done something for me

that I had to discover for myself,

that was already there in a world that--

that gives us all kinds of input about stuff

that we don't even want to hear

other people's input about.

The input I got about pinball

was that it was something negative,

and I knew

that all that input was mistaken.

Pinball is a world of, of special rules and,

and unique opportunities and entertainment coming out

of seemingly nowhere.

I would even go as far as to say

as I am special because of pinball.

I always played pinball,

and my friends and I were always into it,

but we never had any idea that there was pinball competitions.

"Wow, we've got to go to these things

and I'm gonna go and annihilate everybody."

And we went to our first show and your heart would be pounding

and you'd be shakin' a little, and just so nervous that it--

it was really difficult to play.

You'd choke, you wouldn't do well,

and you have to wait a year till you get back

to try it again, you know?

Aww!

There's, like, 10 women and, you know, 200 men,

but pay no mind to it.

It's not as popular with girls as is with boys,

but we can play just as well.

There's a strong mental component to remain calm

and in control.

The best players will never do something

that affects the ball unless they do it for a purpose,

and ball control doesn't just mean

always catching the ball and holding it.

It also means putting the ball where you want it

so that you know where it's gonna be next,

not just where it is right now.

You know, people in A division, you know, it's, like,

it's just amazing to watch, watch them play.

Like, they-they do stuff that, uh, that sometime,

you would think was not possible.

And I think that it's special to see incredible play,

because it combines chess with true physical inner activity

and people who have, you know, the ability

to hold their concentration, have the reflexes, uh,

know how to dissect a play field

and the objectives and the rules,

into something that is as elegant as watching a ballet.

I would say most of my vacation time

is, uh, pinball shows.

My mother lives, uh, lives with me in New Jersey,

and I tell her I'm goin' to these shows,

She said, "Go ahead, enjoy yourself."

She says, "You gotta have some fun,

so go ahead, enjoy yourself."

Six million!

And basically, I'm a synthetic organic chemist.

Actually, uh, been working on, uh, they're trying to find

a treatment for, for Alzheimer's disease.

Fifty million!

I like chess, I like to solve math puzzles.

Gonna have to wait.

You know, I like, uh, bowling.

Then I'm a, I'm a big rail fan,

so I like to ride--

I like to ride subways.

I really haven't made it to, um, finals, and, um,

or made a tournament in a while.

I think I, I did it, I did it once in--it was '99,

and--but I got eliminated, unfortunately,

so I'm hoping to, uh, you know, to actually win

a major tournament.

* A storm is brewin' along the horizon * Clouds gettin' darker, but my sun is still risin' * Surprisin' villagers, flooding cities and towns * Down with the strong, and I could be cut down The Storm is, uh, my nickname.

I came up with it myself.

* To rectify, electrify your brain * Eyes closed in terror

I was born and raised in Manhattan.

I-I started playing pinball when I was four years old,

so pinball and I kind of grew up together.

I want to win, and I want to beat the best.

I don't go day to day thinking that I'm second-best.

It makes it much easier to live thinking that I'm the best

and I just haven't had my moment.

What's really important when you play pinball

at the world-championship level

is to get your mentality straight,

to be sharp, and to have a killer instinct.

Get in there!

Because everyone is so good that you need the mental edge.

I deliberately pump myself up to bring that killer instinct

up to the highest level,

so that's where it's a storm,

because you got two totally conflicting things.

You got this placid, Buddha, meditative state,

and you have this devilish fire,

screaming-madman state

going on at the same time.

And if you can balance those two things,

you'll be unbeatable, and sometimes I am.

And I feel like an outsider.

I feel kind of like someone that they all think

they're better than,

and I know for a fact that I can beat them,

and I haven't proved that yet.

There is enough of a skill element

that the best players always rise to the top,

but there's enough of a luck element

that everyone should have their day,

and I haven't had mine yet.

One of the gentlemen here, Neil Shatz,

has been in the finals three or four different times,

and it's, like, if there is a pinball god,

maybe they're cursing him because he's second place

or third place, and he's so great.

He deserves to win finally, and so if,

if I were to pick someone to win--

well, I'd pick me,

but, uh, if I were to pick two people to win,

I'd pick him.

I've taken, uh, second at PAPA.

I've taken second in Pinburgh, and second place in Arizona,

uh, second place at the Pinathon is Roseville.

Second at Expo I believe three times in A,

and then I won the B division.

I started the competitive circuit in, uh, 1992,

and then when I went to that first tournament,

I took second behind Rick and got a book for it,

and then I realized I was hooked at that point.

Sometimes, I've made mental mistakes and,

and then it's really tough to deal with.

It's frustrating, but other times

I think I've played to the best of my ability,

not made any mistakes, and it's that knowledge

of knowin' that pinball can deal you bad breaks

and it's no one's fault that, um, I think helps me deal

with a lot of those situations, but sure, yeah.

It's, it's tough, um, but I enjoy just

the thrill of competition, so I think that just

keeps me comin' back, regardless of the result.

Give me a typical moment this morning, guys?

Trying to, uh, last-minute qualify here.

And another thing too is just happening to have

my competitive career when, you know,

some true giants of the game were also, um, in their prime.

I mean, Bowen Kerins,

Keith Elwin, Lyman Sheats Jr.

Absolutely, I think those guys are simply better players.

Maybe none better than Lyman Sheats.

Lyman Sheats.

Lyman Sheats.

Lyman Sheats.

He's the best pinball player in the world.

I'm a game programmer.

I, uh, program, uh, pinball machines,

work with designers, uh, and, uh, basically

make the game do all of what it does.

While I was in college, it was around 1986.

You know, bein' in college, it's kinda

low-pressure, fun environment,

and it just, uh-- I don't know,

I just kinda took to it as a, as a very inexpensive

form of entertainment.

It was about five years after that

that I started competing.

There are, like, a couple techniques I try and,

you know, teach at first.

The easiest thing is to just hit the flippers,

uh, individually.

Uh, you know, just at separate times.

I don't know, you know, if people,

I see a lot of people, you know,

they hit both flippers at the same time.

The other is, it's pretty easy

to just not do anything,

um, in terms of when the ball is coming down.

I mean, I always, like, try and stress ball control

to people who, um--

You know, when they first play.

Try and get the balls under control

in multi-ball here.

I'm actually gonna try and get one of these balls

over the other flipper so I can make a shot,

score some points.

Sort of like that.

Lyman Sheats, never had seen him before,

and I watched this person methodically

do a passing shot over, make the shot, kick down, go up,

passing shot, over.

So--so, like that.

Bounce the ball over to the other flipper.

Now it's under control just because--

And I just watched in disbelief, and I said, "This is amazing.

This is incredible."

I'd never thought of playing pinball that way.

The what?

The what?

I don't even know nothin' about it.

What's that, pinball?

Pinball?

Play pinball?

World Pinball Championship.

Here we are.

World Pinball Championships.

I didn't even know they were having

a pinball championship here.

PAPA was actually started by Steve Epstein

in New York City.

He did the first six of them.

What exactly is PAPA?

PAPA is the Professional Amateur Pinball Association.

And then Kevin got the rights to take it over,

and then he built this place.

This is about 30,000 square feet of space

for about 350 or so pinball machines.

It was built in 2004.

It was finished about one day before the actual tournament.

We had the tournament.

Everyone came here.

Everyone had a great time, and within one week

there was a hurricane named Ivan that came up the East Coast,

and the, the little creek in front of here

overflowed its banks.

Well, the flood was five feet high

in some places,

and I was out here when it was happening,

and there was nothing to be done about it.

It destroyed 240 pinball machines

and about a dozen video games.

All of the machines were taken out front

and basically smashed for parts.

It was heartbreaking.

It was everything we had just finished, was washed away.

We call it the graveyard.

You never know when you need a part.

I was just frustrated and-- and wanted to get the place

cleaned up so I could decide if I wanted to try again.

It did prove possible to clean up and rebuild.

Kevin rebuilt it and purchased all the machines within a year,

and we got it open again

about one day before it was ready to go last year,

and we were ready to go again.

Uh, it's what I wanna do,

and I had barely really gotten started.

It seemed silly to only do it once.

You can have a great game one game, next game you'll look

like you've never played pinball before in your life.

* Yeah, yeah

* Yeah, yeah

* Yeah, yeah

* Yeah, yeah

There are a couple of people

who are really high-quality players,

very focused when they play, tough to beat.

You know, when they're having an off day,

that's the day that you hope you have your on day,

because they don't--they don't have off days very often.

* Hey

* Hey

* Hey

In the final rounds,

most players will put up huge games,

just because of the situation.

They, they rise to the occasion.

* Hey

Anything can happen.

One slip and the ball goes, and that's it.

* Hey

* Hey

* Hey

* Hey

* Hey

* Hey

* Hey

Okay, the first-place winner and new World Pinball Champion,

the incomparable Lyman Sheats!

It certainly presented an entertainment option

that was awfully compelling.

As much as pinball was sort of man against machine,

your ability to catch and move that ball around

and hit those targets,

video offered a completely new dimension.

In 1980, you could not possibly build enough video games

to saturate the market, it was impossible.

Little by little, the interest in playing

the pinballs went down,

and of course, the videos came up.

And all of a sudden, our income doubled and tripled overnight.

Then Pacman hit.

I couldn't believe how much money

they'd take in a weekend.

It just blew me away,

and then the pinball sat there almost forlorn-looking.

You know, like, "Come play me."

When video came in, it was such a big deal,

and all the people that had been playing pinball

got squeezed out.

What can you do in a video game?

You can't see anything except what's on the screen,

but when you're playing a pinball game,

you're playing actually a piece of equipment

that you can move around and control.

Video games you can play a few times,

learn the patterns, and beat 'em.

You can beat 'em endlessly.

You can beat 'em into submission.

Pinball machines, you can't do that.

You can only go so far and then it--

it just dominates you, so you always lose in the end.

There's not a closed-end loop here.

It's a pinball machine.

There's a beginning, but it's endless.

A video game, I got to the end, I finished it.

It took me, you know, 42 months and 10 hours a day,

but I finished the game, it is now done.

A pinball machine, you're never done.

The real back-breaker came

when home video finally hit the marketplace,

when you could go out and buy your Atari console,

where you could pop in the various games

and play right on your set.

Now kids weren't collecting in one spot

and having that social interaction.

They were now breaking down into sub-little-groups

of either myself playing at home,

or me and my buddy playing at home,

but it really spelled the end of, certainly,

the pinball era.

It was widely believed at the time

that videogames had usurped pinball

and there was no longer a need for pinball whatsoever.

And then one day, people got bored

with playing all these video games,

and the industry imploded on itself.

Pinball was back on the map again.

After a decade of decline,

flippers are flapping, bumpers are thumping.

Pinball is bouncing back.

The last coming of pinball would have been 1992, '93.

In those years, we built, oh, somewhere around

120-, 130,000 pinball machines that year.

I've had a steady connection to pinball

for the last 50 years.

I had a lot of life tied up in it.

It was sort of an identity that I, I grew,

and I didn't separate very well

the identity of me as the Broadway Arcade

and me as Steve Epstein.

Took me quite a few years after we closed the arcade

to really, uh, I had a pretty big long funk,

to be honest with you.

It wasn't a monetary thing that, you know,

I lost a big income.

It was really a presence and, uh, just the daily interaction

of the world that I had at my doorstep,

that I knew I was never gonna have again.

It was a life-defining moment

that, uh, saddens me,

and still saddens me, actually.

Big smile, Steve!

That whole '70s into the '80s into the early '90s

was a time when, you know,

the magic of pinball was out there.

The magic of pinball still exists.

It just has to reconnect with the people.

You know, I go out now and I see some of my old friends,

and I play pinball,

and that's, that's nice, but, you know,

having the Broadway Arcade was, uh, was a unique

and incredible experience that, uh, just never gonna happen

for me again.

I think one of the most difficult things

that anybody might encounter in their lives

is to be somewhat helpless

in the inevitability of an outcome.

So if you look at the, at the downside of it all, um,

pinball deserves a better fate than what it currently has.

In truth, it isn't a big part of our culture anymore.

In truth,

you might not want to print this, but...

pinball's slowly going.

It is an American invention.

It has been a big part of American pop culture,

but I'm not sure that...

anyone will care

in 10 to 15 years.

That's my thoughts, but I don't know.

Were pinball not to survive,

the world would continue,

but a little bit of the fabric of life would be gone.

I don't know if we can get to a point

where there is a precipitous

need and desire

by the general population for pinball.

I think that there is a fleeting sense

of one's naiveté and innocence

that games bring out,

and as we get older, for many of us,

we step away from doing those things

that gave us joy when we were younger,

and I think that that loss of innocence is tough,

and that is the tragedy of it,

because there is still something that is just

marvelously entrancing about pinball,

and everybody should try it, at some point in time.

Pinball is a game that

adds more to life.

Yes, I think it is definitely more than just a game.

I-I-I, it is such a unique experience that you cannot

replicate anywhere else.

I mean, you have a universe in a,

in a box under glass, and every time

you enter that universe, it's different.

You never know what you're gonna have.

You never know what you're gonna experience,

but whatever that experience is, of frustration, anxiety,

the pleasure of making shots and scoring,

I mean, it's all part of what life really is,

and I-I-I equate it much how life is.

You never know what you're gonna get around the next corner,

but you, you got to go and be involved in it.

I still get calls.

People still walk by that, you know, they look for it,

even to this day.

I mean, you know, it's very strange, very strange.

It was a great 35 years.

* Pinball

* Pinball

* Pinball

* Pinball

* Pinball

* Pinball