Episode 232 — The Adventures of Pinocchio: LIVE!

[Smigg. 509]

Speaking of pinball machines, I saw a Metallica one, and I thought "Wow, that's pretty cool, I might get that", thinking "What do they cost?  £500?"

As it turns out, they're like £7000

 

[EvRobert 1684]

I've never been to Vegas but now knowing there is a pinball hall of fame with the Demolition Man pinball game, gives me a reason to go

[RyanSz 3140]

19 hours ago, muttnik said:

I love that place, I got pretty good at the Stargate machine when I used to go. I love the two Mario Bros. machines as well even though I'm terrible at them. If it's Mario it's fun no matter the outcome. Last year or so they said it was going to move closer to or on the Strip, which would be a bummer for me (even though it would be closer to my house), but better for business and the tourists, but it hasn't happened yet.

Yeah it's still where it's been for the last 4 years I've been there, but to be honest it's pretty close to the Strip to begin with, so unless it's getting a spot in one of the casinos there I don't know where they could move it. I did like during my last trip that they now have a machine that basically is like the old Ultracade machines but instead of arcade games, it's all of the pinball machines within the Hall of Fame, shown on a flatscreen TV instead of a menagerie of various mechanical elements. Once I saw it I instantly went online to the company's site to see if it was for purchase there but it looks like a custom job for the Hall, meaning it probably cost an arm and a leg to have programmed for them.

[RyanSz 3140]

17 hours ago, Smigg. said:

Speaking of pinball machines, I saw a Metallica one, and I thought "Wow, that's pretty cool, I might get that", thinking "What do they cost?  £500?"

As it turns out, they're like £7000

 

I'm amazed at how pinball machines have not dropped in price over the last 25 years, because I remember being a kid and seeing in an old issue of Wizard Magazine a special anniversary edition of the Star Wars Trilogy machine being released for the remastered editions coming to theaters, and that thing was $7,600. I'm assuming that because of them being complex machines that have to be put together by workers rather than machines, along with shipping them safely makes them so much more costly. Also that Metallica machine is a great one, I've put tens of dollars into one at a local movie theater and it never gets old, though it can tilt quite a bit.

[Smigg. 509]

9 hours ago, RyanSz said:

I'm amazed at how pinball machines have not dropped in price over the last 25 years, because I remember being a kid and seeing in an old issue of Wizard Magazine a special anniversary edition of the Star Wars Trilogy machine being released for the remastered editions coming to theaters, and that thing was $7,600. I'm assuming that because of them being complex machines that have to be put together by workers rather than machines, along with shipping them safely makes them so much more costly. Also that Metallica machine is a great one, I've put tens of dollars into one at a local movie theater and it never gets old, though it can tilt quite a bit.

I love pinballs, but they never really caught on here.  

I remember playing on a The Who pinball machine.  I played it, doing quite well for myself, then the scoreboard just flashed "CHRISTMAS!!!!" and holy shit, there must have been 20 balls just drop down.

[RyanSz 3140]

46 minutes ago, Smigg. said:

I love pinballs, but they never really caught on here.  

I remember playing on a The Who pinball machine.  I played it, doing quite well for myself, then the scoreboard just flashed "CHRISTMAS!!!!" and holy shit, there must have been 20 balls just drop down.

Oh pinball machines definitely take cues from casino games and pachinko in drawing people in with poppy noises and bright flashing lights. The Metallica one has a multiball moment where the electric chair at the top of the machine lights up and shakes before launching about five balls in a frenzy and Ride the Lightning starts blaring from the speakers. At the Hall of Fame they have an early 90s WWF Royal Rumble machine and holy hell when I hit the proper ramp to get the "you eliminated them" flashing on the screen, I realize what it must feel like when someone wins a good chunk of money on a slot machine, because not even Macho Man Randy Savage could eliminate Yokozuna by himself, but I did it with relative ease.

[Smigg. 509]

There's actually another version of movie.  However, in this one, the puppet overthrows a South American government, and heads up a fascistic military dictatorship.

It's called "Pinochet-o"

[AlmostAGhost 2718]

1 hour ago, Smigg. said:

There's actually another version of movie.  However, in this one, the puppet overthrows a South American government, and heads up a fascistic military dictatorship.

It's called "Pinochet-o"

There's also one about Balki Bartokomous coming to live with his cousin

It's called "Bronson Pinchot-io"

[Cameron H. 23786]

4 minutes ago, AlmostAGhost said:

There's also one about Balki Bartokomous coming to live with his cousin

It's called "Bronson Pinchot-io"

There’s also the one where he becomes a sad wine drunk called “Pinot-cchio.”

[Smigg. 509]

4 minutes ago, Cameron H. said:

There’s also the one where he becomes a sad wine drunk called “Pinot-cchio.”

There's also one where a Filipino puppet tells people he's the descendant of a communist revolutionary

It's called "Pinoy Che-o"

[Cameron H. 23786]

7 minutes ago, Smigg. said:

There's also one where a Filipino puppet tells people he's the descendant of a communist revolutionary

It's called "Pinoy Che-o"

Then there was the one where he entered the pasta eating contest: “Pingnocchi-o”

[muttnik 476]

On 2/3/2020 at 9:17 AM, EvRobert said:

I've never been to Vegas but now knowing there is a pinball hall of fame with the Demolition Man pinball game, gives me a reason to go

You should, and there's plenty of fun things to do off-Strip, especially if you like hiking (easy, moderate, or difficult).

On 2/3/2020 at 7:20 PM, RyanSz said:

Yeah it's still where it's been for the last 4 years I've been there, but to be honest it's pretty close to the Strip to begin with, so unless it's getting a spot in one of the casinos there I don't know where they could move it. I did like during my last trip that they now have a machine that basically is like the old Ultracade machines but instead of arcade games, it's all of the pinball machines within the Hall of Fame, shown on a flatscreen TV instead of a menagerie of various mechanical elements. Once I saw it I instantly went online to the company's site to see if it was for purchase there but it looks like a custom job for the Hall, meaning it probably cost an arm and a leg to have programmed for them.

I think it's close enough already as well, but apparently they still want to move closer. I think they said around Mandalay Bay? Who knows if it'll actually happen though (I hope not).

[gigi-tastic 2322]

All this talk of pinball leads me to the only fact on pinball I know which is apparently it was illegal for a while because people thought it was gambling? 

From Wikipedia "Pinball was banned beginning in the early 1940s until 1976 in New York City.[41] New York mayor Fiorello La Guardia was responsible for the ban, believing that it robbed school children of their hard earned nickels and dimes.[41][42] La Guardia spearheaded major raids throughout the city, collecting thousands of machines. The mayor participated with police in destroying machines with sledgehammers before dumping the remnants into the city's rivers"

There's also a pretty interesting Slate article about it. Apparently it was banned in Oakland until 2014?!

http://www.slate.com/blogs/atlas_obscura/2015/05/29/pinball_was_banned_in_new_york_until_a_single_miraculous_shot_convinced.htm

 

this and I was always very confused by the rock opera Tommy I sometimes listened to with my grandfather as a kid.  I'm still not sure what exactly was going on there, I was very busy eating my Friday McDonald's ( we traditionally got McDonald's every Friday)

[Smigg. 509]

Time for another theory.

Maybe this whole movie was an origin story for Home Improvement.  Gepetto managed to craft a real boy with his high quality tools, and set up a DIY empire.  Gepetto passed away, and left his tool empire to a puppet that is the closest thing he has to a son, the company ended up getting sold to an American company called Binford.  However, the deal hinged on one caveat, Pinocchio wanted a new father figure. 

After being adopted by various people within the Binford corporate stucture and eventually, the responibility fell to company pitchman, Tim "The Tool Man" Taylor.  However, things started going awry when Tim met his wife, and they had two sons, that's where the problems started, because the sons were getting older, but their "brother" wasn't, and they started asking questions, so Pinnochio decided to fuck off out of it before this whole house of cards came crashing down, and then he went on to voice Simba in the Lion King.

So, what I'm saying is, everything that stars Jonathan Taylor Thomas is a long-running, nightmarish Pinnochio franchise.

[CaptainGeech 35]

On 1/31/2020 at 10:10 AM, i'll hold the mike said:

Fun fact about the Chicago Theater: stickers are not allowed in the venue, because someone might stick one on some vintage molding or something like that. So I was stopped mid-distribution of the "John" / "Tall" stickers that some of you may have seen there. 

 

I'm glad I got one! It lives on the bottom of my monitor so I never forget the legend of Tall John Sheer.

[Kumatame 0]

This movie made me very uncomfortable. Also has anyone else noticed that Jason interrupts June way more than normal and she sounds very not thrilled with it - especially in live episodes and this one i feel. Kind of makes it uncomfortable to listen to kind of like when John Glazer went on Pete Holmes podcast and he mentioned getting a role over Glazer and he then immediately goes cold. Kinda felt like that. I’m sure touring is very exhausting and stressful and must be especially so for june as she is a working mother/badass, but it just made me feel tense and i love the show and all 3 hosts so it made me worried. 
 

TLDR: Jason gettin a lil interrupty imo and it makes for a tense listen/kinda comes across like he’s hoggin the mic a lil

[gigi-tastic 2322]

So who exactly is Gepetto making all these puppets for? Is there a booming puppet/ marionette economy? Like besides that one evil puppet rival who is he selling to?. I feel like he's  either hoarding those puppets in his shop and if anyone tried to buy one he would have an emotional breakdown or something OR he's a crazed old man who keeps making puppets to fill his sad emptiness  and frankly  because there's no fucking SSRI 's in this world and I'm not even sure Lexapro could save this fucker. Like even of he didn't seem to be deeply depressed or ... Something, no sane well adjusted person had that many puppets and he honestly has them for no reason which is even wose. Like he's not a puppeteer. He just.. Makes them and that is a truly terrifying hobby even without *vague gesture at everything going on with this mess of a man* 

Honestly is Gepetto alone terrifying? Like we all agree he has to notify people when he.moved into their neighborhood right?

[gigi-tastic 2322]

On the topic of Pinocchio asking his dad to make him a girlfriend ( would that also make her his sister?) I think he kind of has to go with Geppeto's Real Doll service because can you imagine having to ask a human woman , honestly any partner, to (as June would say "take on" all Pinocchio's shit? That's just cruel. Better to have him meet someone else who understands some of his shared traumas. Or I don't know, crazy idea, maybe now that your human spend time with your family before you go off to fuck an American Girl Doll store, you hornt up freak of sorcery. 

[Smigg. 509]

14 hours ago, Kumatame said:

This movie made me very uncomfortable. Also has anyone else noticed that Jason interrupts June way more than normal and she sounds very not thrilled with it - especially in live episodes and this one i feel. Kind of makes it uncomfortable to listen to kind of like when John Glazer went on Pete Holmes podcast and he mentioned getting a role over Glazer and he then immediately goes cold. Kinda felt like that. I’m sure touring is very exhausting and stressful and must be especially so for june as she is a working mother/badass, but it just made me feel tense and i love the show and all 3 hosts so it made me worried. 
 

TLDR: Jason gettin a lil interrupty imo and it makes for a tense listen/kinda comes across like he’s hoggin the mic a lil

 

I think it's the energy of the live crowd that causes it.  Jason feeds off that, and is a more anarchic perfomer, so you don't know what he's gonna say, what he's gonna do, and because of that, will just blurt out a line there and then.  Which is why June is great for the live shows, because she's that calming influence.  So, she might get interrupted now and then, but she'll bring it back down, to make Jason much more impactful.

To put it into music terms, if this were a Metallica concert, Jason's "Battery", frenetic, fast paced, blugeoning power, June's "Nothing Else Matters", a nice ballad but has a punch when it needs it.  If I were assign one to Paul, he's "Enter Sandman", it's not a Metallica show without "Enter Sandman"
 

 

 

[Cinco DeNio 5290]

On 2/4/2020 at 11:54 AM, Cameron H. said:

There’s also the one where he becomes a sad wine drunk called “Pinot-cchio.”

At least he's not drinking Merlot.

[DanEngler 5249]

18 hours ago, Kumatame said:

Also has anyone else noticed that Jason interrupts June way more than normal and she sounds very not thrilled with it - especially in live episodes and this one i feel. Kind of makes it uncomfortable to listen to kind of like when John Glazer went on Pete Holmes podcast and he mentioned getting a role over Glazer and he then immediately goes cold. Kinda felt like that. I’m sure touring is very exhausting and stressful and must be especially so for june as she is a working mother/badass, but it just made me feel tense and i love the show and all 3 hosts so it made me worried. 

I can't remember whether it was on an episode or her social media but, when listeners raised this issue a few years ago, June released a statement that essentially said "I am honored that you all care and are speaking up on my behalf but everything's fine!" June has only grown in her power since then, and definitely knows how to shut people down with devastating precision when necessary. I get the feeling that tight editing and the lack of body language sometimes make the live shows seem more frenetic than they really are.

[muttnik 476]

 

 

 

 

On 2/4/2020 at 9:48 PM, gigi-tastic said:

 The mayor participated with police in destroying machines with sledgehammers before dumping the remnants into the city's rivers"

::infinite deep sigh::

[Ofcoursemyhorse 1043]

9 hours ago, Cinco DeNio said:

At least he's not drinking Merlot.

 

The dude that wrote that book came into my restaurant one night and proceeded to drink enough wine where he ended up passing out at his table for multiple hours. So he absolutely lived up to Giamatti's portrayal of him in that movie.