Wedgehead Pinball Podcast

The man/myth/legend Roger Sharpe is back again on the show to speak more about the pinball renaissance of the 1990s. In this second episode we dive more into some of the many people that made these games special.
We talk about designers like Steve Ritchie, Pat Lawlor, and Dennis Nordman. Programmers like Larry DeMar, Lyman Sheats, and Dwight Sullivan, as well as the sound design and musical compositions of Chris Granner amongst others. Roger tells us some fantastic stories of licensing, the industry competition at the time, and how he feels about this decade of pinball and its lasting impact today.

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Pinball restoration artist Ashley Ludwig (@ludwigsynopsis) is back on the show to defend her favorite trashy 90s pin, Lethal Weapon 3.
Made by Data East in 1992, and based on the hit series of odd couple buddy cop films, Ashley passionately tells us why she thinks that LW3 is actually better than the Addams Family, and we confront her with the heap of bad reviews we found for it all over the internet refuting her claim.
Obligatory swear word warning here: we cuss a little bit.

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Special guest Zoe Vrabel joins Alan and Alex as they discuss the history of the popular casual team based pinball tourney format "Howdy Pardner!"
We discuss what it is, how it works, and what makes it so much different than standard pinball tournaments, and describe how Alan created the format from scratch to host each Thursday night at Wedgehead.
Zoe speaks from her background as a top IFPA player and tournament director, and why Howdy is such a great breath of fresh air into organized pinball, including why she enjoyed playing in and running it so much.
It's a rootin' tootin' good old time!
...with some swearing. *%$#

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In what will surely be the most controversial episode of the podcast, Alan and Alex discuss all the different ways that people can choose to customize the setup of their pinball machines.
Pitch, tilts, outlanes, rubber types, toy and lighting mods, as well as software settings, we go through them all. We discuss the differences in setups, and we share our preferences for each category, whilst acknowledging that others are free to choose how to setup up their own games in their own ways.
There is no wrong way to setup your own games, but they are infinitely adjustable by nature, and we encourage people to find their own setup.
Remember: no matter your preferences, complaining about the way someone else setups their games is corny, SO DON'T DO IT!
Unless you see people swapping in colored LEDs for the GI, because that should be a CRIME!
...sometimes we swear a little bit, this is your warning.

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In this double length episode Alan and Alex talk about the brothers Ritchie, and discuss their favorite games from each brother, their individual styles and trademarks, address the Ritchie haters, and Alan tells a couple of anecdotes from the time he met them both at Texas Pinball Festival in 2019.
Hear us discuss the legacy of these two talented brothers, and compare their catalogue to one another, with the occasional curse word thrown in because we are some passionate boys, and talking about the Ritchie brothers gets us fired up!

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