Pinball on NBC National News

[JonPurpleHaze]

I uploaded a video of this broadcast from NBC National News, on June 22nd to YouTube, it's a salute to the only Pinball Manufacturer left, Stern Pinball.
They mentioned the origin of Pinball and it matches one of my cats names, it's Bagatelle, wish i could replace one of those Stern pinball tester dudes!


YouTube - Pinball on NBC NN

 

[Tii]

i saw that broadcast in real time

 

[JonPurpleHaze]

Here's another clip that features Pinball Historian Roger Sharpe, at about 45 seconds into it you see folks destroying machines.....

YouTube - Pinball, Roger Sharpe and Family

 

[lio]

wish i could replace one of those Stern pinball tester dudes!

for a week maybe... i guess to a pinball fan it would turn out rather disillusioning. out of the love for the game we'd probably spend far too long testing every single game and would soon be fired for inefficiency
i don't think that working on the assembly line has anything to do with the "romantic" feeling we attach with pinball - it's probably pretty repetitive work, it's loud, the artificial light sucks... no, i don't think this would be the place to work at for a pinball lover.
i'd guess that most people that work there almost hate pinball in their private life.

 

[Flying Dutchman]

Good one, should make ppl. aware of the fact that Pinball is not gone but still alive!

 

[faralos]

I agree with the whole production line attitude. In the 80's i lucked out and worked for a private vendor(now defunct) in North New Jersey, in the USA, they had 360 stops varying from restaurants, to bars to pizza joints. we had over 5,000 machines total from Pool tables, jukeboxes, pins, shuffle alleys, video games and cigarette machines. this is where I fell in love with them all! I playtested each machine I cleaned, fixed but I wasusually alone either on location or in our shop! Having the shop keys made all the difference. On any given weekend I wasto be foundcleaning and 'playtesting' all the pins we had sitting around in our shop. So my bosses really had their work cut out for them, on theweekends I didn't get paid, ( I loved pins so much I was always there, anyways) so they always had nice and clean (and playtested) pins come Monday. It would have been a whole nother ballgame if I HAD to work an assembly line doing repitition work on them.