You never see these around. For the longest time I had never played one, let alone even seen one. It was the only modern game I had never played. Months ago I expressed my desire to play one and a local fellow pinhead jonogo pointed me to a little laundromat just a few minutes from my house that actually had one. I went over there and it was out of order...of course. I went on April 21st and it had an out of order sign on it dated February 15th. I waited another month and went back, out of order again with a new out of order sign that was dated June 6th. I figured, this thing can't be making them any money and most cost a fortune to fix. I looked for operator tags and there was nothing. There is a skill crane with an operator tag on it, so I called them and it wasn't their's, so I thought the laundromat must own it. It is an unmanned laundromat so there was no one to talk to, so I started calling their help number and leaving messages and filing out comments cards and putting them under the door as instructed, but no dice. Never got a response and I was going to keep trying, but I was discouraged. I told jonogo about my frustrations and he did some digging and found out that an "Emergency Number" that was posted there was actually the owner's cell phone. That was the one number I didn't try since even I couldn't justify a broken pinball machine as an emergency. Jonogo called, talked to the owner and asked about selling. The owner jumped at the chance to sell and we negotiated a nice price last week. Fast forward to today and the deal went down. I am now the proud owner of a working (he thankfully had the game fixed again before I bought it), but filthy Popeye.

People can think what they want about Popeye but the game is super difficult (something I want in a home game) and has a bunch of stuff going on. And for the price, it was a no-brainer. I can't wait to really battle the game. My almost 3 year old has been saying he wants to play "Papi" pinball again since we went and played it for the first time last week so he will be pumped. The second pic is of him playing it on route at the laundromat. This game is very underrated and the issues of the eco-friendly theme and hidden pops are so exaggerated. People are missing out IMHO. Oh well, I can guarantee I will have a blast with it. Toot, toot!

ONCE AGAIN, A HUGE THANK YOU TO JONOGO! This probably wouldn't have happened without him. The guy is good people, but I don't need to tell anyone around here that, they already know!

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Thought I would post some more pics of the progress on shopping out the Popeye. I have been staying up way too late the last few nights working on it. Here are some initial pics of how dirty the machine was. Literally ever bulb in the backbox was out, all the flashers worked though. All lane guide and pop bumper bulbs out too. She played but was filthy.

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I didn't take a lot of before pics because they were so depressing. Anyway, I started tearing into it and breaking it down, adding leds, waxing the playfield, adding white rubber and colored post sleeves. There are lights working now that I bet haven't been lit in 15 years. It was coming along nicely. I couldn't find new white mini flippers for the upper playfield, so I pulled them and went to town on them with bleech white and a scotchbrite pad and they came out looking great. I also took apart the skill shot wheel and totally cleaned that. There are a couple of bulbs buried under it that you can only get to by removing the whole assembly, needless to say those were burnt out and it was terribly dirty in there. Cleaned all the boat plastics and all the other plastics. They were black with dirt, so even if the bulbs were working in most areas I am not sure you would have been able to see the light anyway.

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Got everything cleaned really well, bulbs and post sleeves replaced. White rubber in. Gave her a good waxing and started reassembling everything. Popeye is looking pretty good now. The cool white LEDs in the game go so well with the white boat plastics and white rubber. It's not all back together at this point, but it's amazing how good a game can look when all the lights actually work like they should.

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Here it is as it stands. Still not 100% finished. I have some more bulbs to replace and a couple of bugs to work out, but the game is back together and plays great as it is now. Night and day (literally as it was dark as night before) difference from what it was when I got it.

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