Stay ConnectedA biweekly pinball podcast brought to you by the people that run Wedgehead, a pinball bar in Portland, Oregon. Each week Alan and Alex discuss a different pinball topic, with a focus on location play, often with other interesting guests.
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If you have any questions, or might want to guest on a future episode, please email : wedgeheadinfo@gmail.com.
Copyright: © 2023 Wedgehead Pinball Podcast
Support the show: https://ko-fi.com/wedgeheadpodcast
In this episode, Alan and Alex are joined by Greg Dunlap, a computer programmer that worked at both Bally/Williams doing slot machines and then later at Pat Lawlor Designs, working on programming lightshows and animations for Early Stern Pinball machine titles like Ripley's Believe It or Not, Monopoly, Nascar, and Roller Coaster Tycoon. Hear about how a lifelong pinball fan becomes a a part of the industry he loves, and about what it was actually like.
Greg is a great example of one of the hundreds of unknown people that work as a team to create a final pinball machine. We had a blast talking to him about shooting the Monster Bash whitewood with Lyman Sheets and going out gambling on a riverboat afterwards, working with Pat Lawlor at his house during the early Stern years (aka the dark ages), and discuss what it was actually like being a regular person working at a pinball company, including watching the conception of the infamous Pinball2000 attempt to save the pinball department at Williams, and his time running the Pinball Outreach Project (or POP) with his wife when he lived in Portland.
Greg no longer works in the pinball industry, which we think makes this a uniquely interesting interview. We found it super interesting to hear a bit about the day to day life of being a pinball grunt, and we hope you will as well.
Episode is made by adults, so...we may swear sometimes.
Support the show: https://ko-fi.com/wedgeheadpodcast
In this episode, Alan speaks with Daniel and Ty from Pop's Pinball Parlor in Massachusetts about why they unironically love the 1994 Bally Williams Superpin: Popeye Saves the Earth.
This is the second edition of our "Die on this Hill" series, and I give them the floor to explain themselves about why they enjoy this terrible game so much, before reading them a slew of bad reviews and then get their reactions.
It's a good time, but we are adults and sometimes we use swear words.
Support the show: https://ko-fi.com/wedgeheadpodcast
In this episode Alan interviews Daniel and Ty, two buddies and pinball operators from New England. We speak about how they started operating games, what types of games they choose to operate, how to find locations and how they keep them happy, as well as some more nuts and bolts talk about fees and permits for running a route in the Boston suburbs and townships.
Plus we get to talk about their flagship location, Pop's Pinball Parlor in Somerville, Mass. and talk about the vibe of the place, and how they balance running serious pinball events like the New England Pinball League, with their weekly series of casual tournaments.
...also, we're all big boys so we swear sometimes throughout the episode.
Support the show: https://ko-fi.com/wedgeheadpodcast
Sample Definition
Pop Bumper : The round (usually) mechanism on the playfield of a pinball machine, often found in clusters, that contracts when the ball hits it, and slams it off into another direction, typically into another pop or two on the way out of the cluster. It's a randomizing mech found on most pinball machines from the 1950s until today.
This episode is here for some players who enjoy pinball, but are new to the hobby and don't yet understand all the nerdy pinball jargon that us pinball super-nerds spout off about without even thinking we are doing it.
I talk about eras, and attempt to define common acronyms like EM, VUK, and DMD, as well as talking about playfield parts and pieces like slingshots, drop targets, orbits, and more. I also discuss common pinball techniques like slap save, soft plunge, nudge, and tilt.
I hope that this audio glossary of terms will help you quickly understand what the hell the rest of us are talking about, and it should clear up any confusion that you may have from listening to some of our other episodes!
Special thanks to Derek, Laura, Azucena, and Gus for inspiring me to make this episode. This one is for y'all, and to any others new to the hobby yet eager to learn more.
For anyone that would care, there's just a little bit of adult language used in this episode FOR EMPHASIS!
Support the show: https://ko-fi.com/wedgeheadpodcast
In this episode, we are doing a special new segment which we hope to continue in the future. It's called "I'm gonna die on this hill!" and it's where we have a guest on to speak about and defend a "bad" game that they unironically love.
In this first DOTH episode we bring Zoe Vrabel back to talk about her DOTH game, Gilligan's Island.
Tune in to hear her explain (against all odds) why Gilligan is actually a great machine that is wrongly crapped on by the pinball community at large.
...as always, we're adults so we swear sometimes.
Support the show: https://ko-fi.com/wedgeheadpodcast
Special guest Zoe Vrabel joins Alan and Alex as they discuss the history of the popular casual team based pinball tourney format "Howdy Pardner!"
We discuss what it is, how it works, and what makes it so much different than standard pinball tournaments, and describe how Alan created the format from scratch to host each Thursday night at Wedgehead.
Zoe speaks from her background as a top IFPA player and tournament director, and why Howdy is such a great breath of fresh air into organized pinball, including why she enjoyed playing in and running it so much.
It's a rootin' tootin' good old time!
...with some swearing. *%$#
Support the show: https://ko-fi.com/wedgeheadpodcast
In this episode Alan and Alex talk about what Alex likes to describe as the "best thing that has ever happened to pinball!". Hear about what they are, when they started, and whose fault they are.
We discuss our opinions on them in general and talk about some of our favorites, and which ones should be deleted for good.
Are they fun and engaging, or inherently a bad idea?
...also we're adults, we swear sometimes.
Support the show: https://ko-fi.com/wedgeheadpodcast
In this episode Alan is joined by his business partner Chris Rhodes, and they form like Voltron into Wedgehead. We discuss how we met, the beginning of our pinball bar, the evolution and challenges presented by covid and the economy, and about what we feel makes us different from the rest with some occasional colorful swears.
Disclaimer: This episode was recorded in far from ideal circumstances, in our bar with makeshift mics, due to scheduling limitations with myself and Rhodesie. Thus, the raw recording was extremely noisy and echoey. I spent a lot of time trying to get this recording cleaned up and salvageable, and I think that while it's still noisy, it's at least listenable, so I am still releasing it for you to enjoy.
I am learning about audio recording and editing on the fly in my spare time, and am trying to get better with each episode. Some reverb and imperfections exist in the previous episodes too, but this is the most noticeable, and I really thought I wasn't gonna be able to get it to this point even, so I hope y'all like it. I learn a lot with each one of these, and I promise future episodes will be better.
Lesson learned: Don't record in Wedgehead itself, on bad mics!
Support the show: https://ko-fi.com/wedgeheadpodcast
In this episode Alan and Alex talk about the rise of the little guys in pinball, and what it means to have so many small and independent pinball makers. We discuss our experiences with some of these manufacturers and their games from both the operator and the home collector's perspective, and we talk about some of the positive and some of the negative aspects of this rapid rise in small scale pinball manufacturing.
It's a brave new world in the number of active pinball manufacturers, and we talk about what to expect, and what to avoid when buying boutique games in general.
As always, we're adults here so there's some swear words in this episode.
Support the show: https://ko-fi.com/wedgeheadpodcast
In this double length episode Alan and Alex talk about the brothers Ritchie, and discuss their favorite games from each brother, their individual styles and trademarks, address the Ritchie haters, and Alan tells a couple of anecdotes from the time he met them both at Texas Pinball Festival in 2019.
Hear us discuss the legacy of these two talented brothers, and compare their catalogue to one another, with the occasional curse word thrown in because we are some passionate boys, and talking about the Ritchie brothers gets us fired up!
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