(this is off topic but I stumbled across a pinball machine with a dot matrix display with HD upscaling yesterday. That shit's so cool.)

Daaa I heard that..

RIP BARTH.

This isn't said enough.

The playfield looks super familiar, but according to ipdb.org there's no such machine. It's not uncommon for owners to modify personal machines though. What's weird is this must've been one of the first solid state machines (the first one was Spirit of 76), and with the ban lifted, a tie-in with a new Gottlieb machine would've been a huge boost for both parties, like it was in Tommy, or like Super Mario Bros 3 and the Power Glove was for The Wizard and Nintendo.

Pinball has always been my favorite sport, and yeah I consider it a sport. There are tournaments where you can win money (and pinball machines) all over the place, and the best part is that no two machines are the same: you're good at a video game? You're good at the same game on somebody else's nintendo. Not so with pinball. That and gravity always wins, so make gravity your bitch as much and as often as you can. And frankly, it's good upper-body exercise if you're actually playing and moving the machine and not just flipping. When I go out to the bar, it's always to play pinball, never to get drunk or pick up girls.. it's just me and the machine and the rest just happens. For me anyway, I know I've met the right person when they notice the replay sound and turn around. I know I'm not a rockstar, but I feel like one for a few seconds there. :)

Anyway, you can find out about local tournaments depending on where you are at pinballmap.com, as well as the machines themselves and the locations/conditions etc.

Yeah, it looks like the arcade owner spent some quality time with his Bally "Power Play" in order to make the movie themed pinball.

http://tinyurl.com/kotn2nt

Nice! That would've taken me forever. I just skipped around the movie and Power Play's there, next to Ted Nugent and Space Odyssey. Later on there's Playboy but the rest I can't make out from the cabinet art.

oh yeah speaking of Playboy in case anyone watches the link to the full thing I put above, watch out for boobs, and a really bad movie, if you're at work.

Looks like there was a DVD, which probably shows the machines with more clarity than the YT upload I watched, especially in the scene where they're hiding out with all the dismantled ones. Here's the whole list:

Arthur (the talking one which was a custom gottlieb)
Blue Chip
Buccaneer
Card Whiz
Cinema
Countdown
Disco
Dragon
Eight Ball
Grand Prix
Nugent
Jacks Open
KISS
Mata Hari
Paragon
Pinball Summer (the custom bally)
Playboy
Power Play
Space Odyssey
Surf Champ

Cool. So I had four of them: Mata Hari, Paragon, Nugent and KISS.

They've got that Bobby Orr table at The Bottom Lounge in Chicago. It kinda sucks.

The real late 70's is when pinball turned a corner, things just kept getting flashier and louder, and awesome..er. I was completely spoiled by 80's and 90's tables, most EM pins are super boring in comparison.

Crab Mentality, it's like all meta and shit

Oh there's definitely a van, but it's more of a Dazed and Confused Van, not quite a Supervan if you will. I had to watch the whole thing, and almost gave up all hope when the protagonist is playing the self-aware talking pinball machine which may or may not be his best friend.. something like that.. overall it's the same movie you've seen a million times, The Wizard but for pinball (surprisingly with very little (if any) brand promotion) and plenty of cussing, boobs and bar fights. And the obligatory 70s "fat kid who gets laid" who by today's standards isn't fat.. oh and boobs. Did I mention boobs?

The whole idea of a punk rock pinball gang decked out in leather isn't that foreign a concept to me, even now. There are several pinball/moped gangs in Seattle and Portland and they take it very seriously, right down to the bar fights. I used to be affiliated with one and one of our members had to get 16 stitches after a pinball tournament. They even have an inauguration which is taken about as seriously as The Freemasons, and matching outfits.

Hey zest.
Remember when we were gonna write up a cartoon treatment and then I couldn't get into the fb page and so as far as I know it never went anywhere? A 70's pinball gang-war might be just the thing.

Yeah. I was at a bar a couple of years and turned out talking to this guy from Seattle who was working on a "pinball zine" and gave me the first copy, but I think that was the only copy. It was very manga inspired. Hell, if Japan can make a manga about basketball and baseball, why not pinball?

The closest thing I've seen are little in-jokes here in Portland. If you watch the music video for Red Fang's song Wires, they destroy (among other things) an old Galaxy pin of mine that was beyond repair. For whatever reason the video is out of color now and backwards, but it's still a pretty good song. The joke is that the license plate says "WDX" (whiskeydicks) which is Red Fang and the pin has a "CFF" (crazyflipperfingers) sticker on it. I used to live within a one-block radius of both gangs so I never chose sides. I remain a free agent. The fight wasn't gang related (we're all friends) but rather a straggler.

There's about 600 functioning pins in bars here in Portland, and most people I know have at least 4 in their garage, so it'd be pretty easy to make, props-wise, and at least a few of us appear semi-regularly on Portlandia (I think I can say that now since the episode aired, not that the lawyers are looking at poetv anyway) and it'd be fun. :)

shit.. I'm becoming the ulillillia of pinball..

This movie felt more genuinely mean spirited than the average late 70s/early 80s drive in screwball comedy.