Enjoying the podcast. Stellar sound quality out of the gate. Keep up the good work!

Nice interview. Always enjoy hearing some discussion about the Gottlieb street level series, as I think it was a fascinating experiment.

Your pointy-flipper rage in action!

If you ever get a chance, I'd say take a look at the playfields. Just from a geometry standpoint, they are pretty interesting (to varying degrees). Even though they are all single-level, I'd say each street level game is laid out in a way that various parts of the field feel segmented out, with Title Fight probably being the most pronounced with three very different layout styles within the same game. Plus two games (Title Fight and Deadly Weapon) did that Game Plan tactic of putting a pop bumper where you'd normally expect a sling. But most of the layouts have pretty unique looks (Silver Slugger is probably the most conventional).

Of course, I'm just talking geometry. The PAPA guide lists Deadly Weapon, Title Fight, and Vegas as too easily exploited for good competitive play (Deadly Weapon due to the mystery award being way too unbalanced, the other two have high-value shots that are very easy to repeat). But not much to be done about that.

Anyway, I'd really love to see another single-level game with a highly creative layout. I think TNA shows that interest exists for such games, at least from time to time.

Rather than raw performance of dollars, it might be best to sort movies by U.S. box office performance.

Superman (1978): 3rd highest (#2 Animal House and #1 Grease)
Superman II (1980): 2nd highest (#1 was Empire Strikes Back)
Beetlejuice (1988): 11th highest (not listing all the others, #3 was Coming to America, #2 was Who Framed Roger Rabbit, and #1 was Rain Man)

For comparison, Ghostbusters was the #1 box office film in 1984.

So, I personally wouldn't consider Beetlejuice a huge hit at threatres given it didn't make the top 10 for the year (whereas the first two Superman films were both theatrical behemoths), though whether it is a cult classic depends on your definition (I tend to associate cult classics with being box office bombs, which Beetlejuice definitely was not, it was successful as 11th is still a very good rank, but I do think it gained more acceptance after home release).

I can't even remember if I saw it in theatres as a kid. I liked it. Weird movie. Saw the cartoon some, but I don't think it ever hooked me and I did not regularly watch it.

On topic, would I want to see Beetlejuice as a pin? It's not a theme that I feel strongly about, but I think it would be easy to program a story around. Superman I would be more interested in, though I have a lot more experience watching Superman II and would prefer the theme to use the first two movies (they are closely tied together, and I think having General Zod as an adversary in the game is too good to ignore). Three and four I wouldn't even reference, though.

Thanks for having me on, it was fun. Sorry to any Champion Pub fans, I was probably a bit harsh on that one.

My EGP co-host Tony likes Champion Pub quite a bit. I might put in a mouth-guard before we next record... just in case.

FHTNMCZFB would be a great acronym for describing tactically intense scoring strategy games, though I'd really need to buy a vowel or two in order to pronounce it.

Pinside is my only touchstone for current-event relevance in pinball. I had no choice but to exploit the words it provided. No choice!

Some say I'm the kindest person in pinball...