Pinball Hall of Fame in Spirit Magazine
Southwest Airline's Spirit Magazine is my favorite of the in-flight magazines. Every time I flip through an issue, there's always at least one or two articles that are right up my alley. This month, there's a nice, long feature on the Pinball Hall of Fame in Las Vegas.
From Spirit Magazine (photo by Phil Torrone of MAKE:):
Link to Spirit Magazine article, Link to PT's photo post on MAKE:“My brother and I learned to fix the machines using the Machinery’s Handbook,” (museum founder Tim Arnold) says. “Back then, in the early ’70s, you could buy a broken-down machine for 50 or 100 bucks, fix it up, nurse it back to health, and make 20 bucks a week off it. We ended up renting an 800-square-foot storefront in East Lansing. There were some minor details: Pinball was still illegal in Michigan, and we were under 18. We were putting machines in bars we weren’t supposed to be allowed into. My brother and I saw ourselves as bandits. It was organized crime, except that we weren’t very organized.” This was an impressive bit of technical entrepreneurship when you consider that the average college graduate in electrical engineering needs two years of tutelage under a skilled repairman to master the art of fixing old games.
Now all the games are beginning to bear the patina of yesterday. At the height of the pinball era in the early ’90s, the industry produced about 100,000 machines a year. Today only one company, Stern Pinball, remains, and it makes about 10,000 machines a year. “We have a saying: The last ice man makes the most money,” Arnold says. “Back in the ’20s, you had thousands of ice men in every city, delivering ice to every home. Then refrigeration came along, and nearly all the ice men went out of business. Nearly all. You still have a guy delivering ice to bars and restaurants. There’s room in every town for one ice man. That’s what the Hippie and I are.” He peered at me through his aviator glasses. “We’re the last of the ice men.”
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Strange. I had no idea that any in-flight magazine had anything interesting in it. Maybe I should start flying Southwest.
I love the PBHoF!! My wife & I drop $20-$30 every day we're in Vegas there. More fun than gambling!
I wasn't really around for the heyday of pinball but damn do I enjoy it. I learned of the PBHoF in the last year or so, and I intend one day to make a trek out there. One of the things that killed pinball (among others) was unwillingness/inability by the machine operators to put effort into properly maintaining the machines, which leads to busted machines and people not playing, and it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy that pinball is on its way out.
Incidentally, I learned that and many other things from an independent documentary about Midway's last ditch effort at keeping pinball alive, Pinball 2000. The best part is that there's a TON of bonus materials on the DVD. The guy (Greg Maletic) really did a fantastic job on this project.
Pinball... illegal in Michigan? In the 70s?
As soon as i'm off this dial-up connection, I'm going to have to do some reading.
Anyone got any insight into how or why? And what the thinking was behind it's legal status?
They must have been the guys that ran Pinball Pete's in East Lansing, Michigan. I played there in the late 70s. It's still there, I think.
THe latest Cranky Geeks has Dvorak taking a tour of it. http://www.crankygeeks.com/2008/01/episode_98_join_john_dvorak_fo.php
very cool place.
It was between 1980 and 1983 in Oxford, Ohio. While enrolled at Miami University, where I majored in Alcoholism, I spent many happy hours in a bar called The Balcony, where I mastered the art of playing for over an hour on one quarter. The machine was called Xenon and I got good enough to gain extra balls and extra credits to play chepa for a long time, assisted by a couple of beers and a healthy dose of Mother Nature. The multi-ball play was awesome and the game's machine voice would seducively announce "Xenon" I touched it in all the right ways.
#4 -- I had the same thought. Remember the game in the little pool room at the Galesburg House, 1972. But then, I also remember my dad saying that those quarters were all going to The Mob.
@5...yup, Tim and Ted ran Pinball Pete's in EL and Ann Arbor. Tim still lives in Lansing, in an old firehouse. After Ted sold out his half to Tim, he ran my favorite movie rental place, the Movie House, until Blockbuster moved in literally next door.
My wife got me a High Speed (1985 Williams) for Christmas 8 years ago, she bought it from Tim. Not just any machine either, but the one we played on our first date.
Dude, PBHoF is just down the road from me, I drop easily $20 every time I get a chance to go and play!
What always amazes me is how some of the machines from the 50's and 60's are so damn challenging!
Oh and Black Knight FTW!
#1 (Aaron)
Southwest has an unconventional method of seating arrangement, so it makes sense that the magazine would be unconventional as well. Instead of having assigned seating, they "preboard" via online RSVP 24 hours before the flight leaves. Then you show up, get in your boarding group, and get on the plane. It is definitely my favorite way of flying, because you get some choice of who you sit next to. (And, chances are, if you take a redeye for a shorter flight, you will have the row to yourself.) And like Mr. Pescovitz, I usually find something interesting in the magazines.
You can also hear a great interview of Tim (93 min - quite the storyteller) talking about the good-ole-days of arcades and of pinball as it changed from electromechanical to digital in that time:
http://www.marvin3m.com/topcast/showget.php?id=4