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Wedgehead Pinball Podcast
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Episode 84 - The Bally Table King: George Christian

PodcastAnalysis updated 3d ago1 hr 2 min listen

Highlights

  • George Christian was an Iranian immigrant who adopted an Americanized name to assimilate
  • 8-Ball is the best-selling pinball machine of all time with 20,233 units sold, a record that stood until 1992 when Pat Lawlor's Addams Family sold 40,000+ units
  • George Christian refused to attend pinball expos for the last 35 years and is reportedly bitter about how his pinball career ended
  • After leaving Bally, George Christian opened a pizza shop in Melrose Park that closed within the last 10 years and kept a personal 8-Ball Deluxe in the lobby
  • Norm Clark mentored George Christian in a relationship described as mentor-and-apprentice but Clark did not receive design credits on Christian's games
  • Dave Christensen (Bally artist) allegedly snuck George Christian's original surname onto the back glass of Nitro Ground Shaker as a jab
  • Freedom (1976) was George Christian's first design credit and Bally's first solid-state game
  • Future Spot (1979) featured the 'horniest art package of all time' with art by both Paul Ferris and Dave Christensen

Notable quotes

George Christian is effectively a ghost, and on this week's episode, we are joined by our good buddy Ty Palmer to tell some ghost stories.
Alan (host)
His whole life story is shrouded in far too much mystery, and despite well over a year of us trying to uncover more details, we are still left with more questions than answers.
Alan (host)
I owned an 8-ball deluxe at some point. I cherished that machine... You can throw a brand new JJP or some boutique game across town and I won't go out of my way to play it necessarily. Hell no. But if a new George Christian game or new-to-me game pops up, that's something I will definitely go out of my way to go play.
Alan (host)
He didn't just fucking if you hated this and you just wanted to move on past that, you wouldn't keep like the biggest, loudest piece of your history in the lobby of your new business.
Ty Palmer
Their layouts might not look in a static way... but they're dialed and they let the rules really speak for themselves. And it's like they just make such addicting games.
Alan (host)
Nobody hears George's. But I think his games speak for themselves.
Ty Palmer
I've been thinking about Brian Eddy a lot just because of some of the hate that fucking D&D is getting for some reason... I can't hear all the hate opening up the cash box every day and just dumping out the quarters from it.
Alan (host)
It's one of those things where it's the sum of all, it's more than the sum of its parts because it's like yeah there's other bonus heavy games there's other games with all of these trademarks maybe but nothing else plays like a george christian game.
Alex the Waterboy

Entities

  • Bally· company
  • 8-Ball· game
  • Addams Family· game
  • Dolly Parton· game
  • Freedom· game
  • Future Spot· game
  • Nitro Ground Shaker· game
  • Melrose Park· location
  • Wedgehead· organization
  • Wedgehead Pinball Podcast· organization
  • Alan· person
  • Alex the Waterboy· person
  • Brian Eddy· person
  • Dave Christensen· person
  • George Christian· person
  • Greg Fraris· person
  • Henry Winkler· person
  • Norm Clark· person
  • Pat Lawlor· person
  • Paul Ferris· person
  • Ty Palmer· person

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