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#81 Data East Marilyn Playboy - The Classic Pinball Podcast

PodcastAnalysis updated 2d ago1 hr 4 min listenBy George
From the creator

Tom Ceckitti joins Dave and George to discuss his Data East Playboy. It has a custom translite and playfield graphics that transforms it into a Marilyn Monroe tribute. He then tells us about his...

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Highlights

  • Data East Playboy (1989) was acquired by Tom's company on trade about three years ago in poor condition with non-firing coils and board issues
  • Pinstein created a custom translight/playfield decal kit for the Playboy that was limited to approximately 20 kits
  • Only approximately 2,300 Data East Playboy machines were manufactured
  • Data East boards and operating systems from the late 1980s are largely interchangeable across their game lineup
  • Multimorphic had approximately 9-10 games on display at Texas Pinball Festival including two Weird Al machines
  • Pinbrew Fest had nearly 100% of games working and playable, compared to 60-70% at other shows like Expo
  • Tom won the 2021 Solid State Award at Pinbrew Fest
  • Tom has been collecting arcade and pinball machines for 25 years, starting at age 25 after discovering Ohio Arcade Collectors AOL chat room
  • Tom currently works running electronic dart leagues for a major Ohio operator and does not directly work with pinball machines professionally
  • Tom has a Rush Premium on order and is awaiting delivery

Notable quotes

“It completely changed the look of the game. It made it look like it was a modern Stern, just the way the artwork. And it's probably going to stay in my collection because of that, just because it's so beautiful to look at.”
Tom Chiquetti
“Data East in general didn't really do that great with their Translights and backglass. They're kind of, kind of hacky in general.”
George
“Pinbrew had the most games that were actually working and playable as far as what was on the floor. At Expo, I want to say maybe 60-70% of the games were working.”
Tom Chiquetti
“The Weird Al is going over like hotcakes. Everybody's loving it. It seems like it's like Multimorphic is going to knock it out of the park with that one.”
Tom Chiquetti
“It's like a whole new game in a way for me. But that's just me. I don't know what your impressions were.”
Dave
“I got into the hobby by... searching around, back when you had to dial up, make the awful sound, just to get on... Ohio Arcade Collectors or something.”
Tom Chiquetti
“I'm the only one here currently that actually enjoys pinball and wishes that they would start setting more.”
Tom Chiquetti
“Black Belt... It's an old Bally from 1986. They only made 300 of them... It's got an upper flipper that fires backwards towards you that goes up around.”
Tom Chiquetti

Entities

  • Jersey Jack· company
  • Multimorphic· company
  • Outer Edge· company
  • Stern Pinball· company
  • Pinbrew Fest· event
  • Texas Pinball Festival· event
  • Black Belt· game
  • Captain Fantastic· game
  • Data East Playboy· game
  • Mirror Mirror Star Trek· game
  • OXO Williams· game
  • Phantom of the Opera· game
  • Rudy's Nightmare· game
  • Rush Premium· game
  • Silver Ball Mania· game
  • Weird Al· game
  • Christopher Frenchy· person
  • Dave· person
  • Eric· person
  • George· person
  • Keith Campanelli· person
  • Pinstein· person
  • Tom Chiquetti· person
  • Tommy Skinner· person
  • Pinball Hall of Fame· venue

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