There’s no shortage of bad celebrity themed pinball machines. This time we wont rank them, well look at several different genres of bad celebrity tie ins:

THE BOX OFFICE BOMB THEMED MACHINE:

In 1991 Williams Pinball released a machine based on Terminator 2 and it was good. It had a gun trigger to launch the ball and a ton of Arnold’s catch phrases like “Ill be back” keyed to various game objectives. The film was a huge hit, and everything worked well together. Now the bad news: because of the success of this machine the production companies thought “Hmm. What well do is release the pinball machine simultaneously with the film. That way we can use the machine to market the film and popularize the characters and catch phrases. That’ll also help our merchandising sales.”

Unfortunately, this thinking led to a number of pinball machines based on films that were absolute bombs. For example, there wasnt a cooler cartoon than The Flintstones. So how do you screw up a Flintstones pinball machine? Just base the theme not on the classic Hanna Barbara cartoon, but on the horrible film starring John Goodman and Rosie ODonnell.

The all time low water mark (no pun intended) has to be “Waterworld”. Waterworld was released in 1995 starring Kevin Costner and quickly became the definitive big budget, no box office film replacing Michael Ciminos Heavens Gate and the Dustin Hoffman/Warren Beatty comedy Ishtar.

Playing a bomb themed pinball machine is downright surreal. The most pitiful thing is when the machine booms out a catch phrase from the film that no one is familiar with. Hearing Arnold bark out “I’ll be back” is cool. Hearing him do his catchphrase from “The Last Action Hero” not so much.

THE DUBIOUSLY TIMED THEME:

This genre includes themes that would have been pretty cool, except for the fact they were released well after the subjects popularity had begun to ebb. Gilligans Island would have been great back in the mid-1960s or even in the late 70s when a new generation discovered the show in syndication. In 1991 it was just creepy since nearly half of the cast members depicted on the backglass were dead. The Six Million Dollar Man was released in the fall of 1978, just in time for the shows cancellation.

Undoubtedly the strangest machine of this genre is 1994s Mario Andretti. The backglass didn’t display a picture of a young Andretti at the height of his racing career, but rather an image of grizzled old Mario Andretti. The smart move would have been to use his name, throw a bunch of race cars on the backglass and playfield and call it a day. Instead having the sixty-something race car driver on the backglass is vaguely akin to having your grandfather looking over your shoulder while you play.

ROOT,ROOT, ROOT FOR THE HOME TEAM:

A comment on the original celebrity theme article mentioned this genre and it is a good one. Its important to understand that the pinball industry has been based in Chicago for most of its history. Presumably for that reason there have been some machines featuring the local sports teams and stars. Chicago Cubs Triple Play isnt too bad due to the Cubbies national popularity. That’s not the case with 1978s Bobby Orrs Power Play, released not long after the trade that sent Orr from Boston to Chicago. Nationally, no one outside of Boston and Chicago cared. My hunch is that it was made to scam some free season tickets out of the Blackhawks management.

THE BAD CONVERSION FOR THE INTERNATIONAL MARKET:

This requires a little bit of an explanation: for reasons that Ive never been quite clear on it was common practice to rebrand a perfectly good game for the International market. Sometimes it was released by the US company, other times it was licensed to a foreign operation. Youd think that there would be some creative control over the rebranded themes. Youd be wrong.

While I have a good grasp on the US pinball demographic I have no idea who plays pinball internationally. Based on some of the re-themed machines its probably better I dont know. Mata Hari was a classic machine of the early 1980s. The German release was rethemed as the more foreboding Lady Death. This one at least makes sense as they had some Nazi imagery that Germans are understandably sensitive about (despite being historically inaccurate, since the real Mata Hari was executed during WW I). Less understandable is the retheming of a military themed game called Special Force in the US to the downright bizarre Special Forces Girls, featuring comely women in low cut, cleavage baring fatigues.

Ross Everett is a widely published freelance writer who covers travel, poker and sports handicapping. He is a consulting handicapper for Anatta Sports where he is responsible for providing daily free sports picks. In his spare time he enjoys fine dining, fencing and deep sea diving. He lives in Las Vegas with four dogs and a pet coyote.

Its been a rough stretch of CFL football for the Toronto Argonauts, and they may have hit rock bottom on Friday night. The Argos appeared to be on the verge of breaking their eight game home losing streak, entering the fourth quarter with a 25-14 lead but ended up on the wrong end of a 36-28 final score that ran their streak of futility at the Rogers Centre to nine games. It was also Toronto’s ninth consecutive loss to BC. BC improved to 3-4 with the victory, while Toronto’s record slipped to 2-5.

Lions head coach Wally Buono made no excuses for his teams bad first half followed by a solid second half:

“I’m not going to apologize for playing well in the second half. If we play any kind of football in the first half maybe we don’t have to do this. That’s football. Nobody asks you at the end of the day whether you stole a win, they ask you how many games did you win? The game is 60 minutes.”

Lions QB Jarious Jackson concurred:

“I don’t feel like we stole one at all. I feel like we went out and played like we should’ve played in the second half. Most of the first half we were trying to manage the game, trying to see what they were doing defensively. Offensively, you definitely want to manage the game until you know what the defence is going to call in some situations. It took us the first half but I think in the second half we kind of were able to predict what they were going to do and I think we did a good job of countering it.”

Toronto was generally pleased with the play of their replacement starting QB Cody Pickett. Pickett was named the starter after a dismal performance by Kerry Joseph the previous week against Montreal. Placekicker Justin Medlock also shined in defeat, tying a team record with 7 field goals. After the game, Pickett was less concerned about his performance than his teams struggles:

“It’s 20/20 that we needed to score another touchdown. Whatever we’re doing right now isn’t getting the job done.”

Argos head coach Bart Andrus was pleased with Picketts play in the losing cause:

“That was an ideal performance. Cody threw it well, was accurate and didn’t turn it over. The bottom line is we didn’t finish that one. When we do get it right for 60 minutes, it’s going to be a great thing.”

BC will welcome the Winnipeg Blue Bombers to Vancouver next Friday night. Toronto has a bye week, with the Calgary Stampeders providing the opposition on August 28th.

Ross Everett is a respected freelance writer who covers travel, casino gambling and sports handicapping. He is a staff handicapper for Anatta Sports where he is responsible for providing daily free sports picks. In his spare time he enjoys fine dining, fencing and deep sea diving. He lives in Southern Nevada with four dogs and a pet coyote.

First the bad news: Chinese Democracy is not the heavy metal sonic assault suggested by the early release of the title track. On the other hand, it very well may be the best album of the year.

Once a rock band reaches a certain level of success, they just cant win. If they try to keep growing as artists by exploring different sounds, influences or whatever they’ll hear people whining about wanting things the way they used to be. A lot of purists hated it when KISS took off their makeup, but they deserved respect for doing something different and trying to forge a new artistic path. On the other hand, if a band *doesn’t* do anything new and keeps playing their old stuff in the same way ad nausium they’re branded as a nostalgia act. Think KISS now”Gene Simmons eventually made the calculated, slightly cynical decision that commerce trumped art. Hes now content with giving fans the best representation of the KISS that their nostalgic desires long for”to the extent of dressing a new guitarist and drummer up like Ace Frehley and Peter Criss. Hes not breaking new ground as an artist, but he is backing a Brinks truck up to the Simmons household every night.

Axl Rose could have taken the same route with Guns n Roses. Patch things up with former lead guitarist Slash and they could have toured forever playing the old songs for nostalgic fans and made a ridiculous amount of money. To some extent, Slash has chosen this route with his band Velvet Revolver. They play similar blues based hard rock to vintage GnR, and brought in former Stone Temple Pilots vocalist Scott Weiland on vocals (who sounded almost just like Axl on a number of the early STP songs)

Axl refused to play the nostalgia game. Hes a very talented guy, but he doesnt have much of a knack for self promotion or media spin. While he worked on putting together a new version of the band and recording Chinese Democracy he let a variety of interests”not the least of which were his old bandmates”control the media spin. As a result, people had been brainwashed into thinking that the album was a stinker before it was even finished.

Many albums are fairly straightforward and are easy to figure out with a couple of listens. They fit a certain formula, with a power ballad, a hit single, a filler song, etc. Others evolve and change with repeated listening”different songs become your favorites, you notice new things about ones you thought you knew well and most significantly songs that you glossed over the first time around start to grow on you.

On Chinese Democracy is definitely an album that lends itself to repeated listening. A great case in point is the song ‘Better’ It doesn’t really jump out on first listen, but may be the catchiest pop song since The Killers first album.

One of the real triumphs of Chinese Democracy is the difficulty that a listener has in pigeonholing the songs. There’s definitely a lot of the piano based material first heard on the ‘Use Your Illusion’ releases but overall its evident that the band is breaking entirely new musical ground and even they don’t really know where they’ll end up. It’s very unpredictable and can be hard for a long time fan to wrap their head around, but once that happens its a very exciting sound.

Perhaps the worst thing about ‘Chinese Democracy’ is that a number of the songs have clearly been overproduced–not really surprising for an album that took so long to make. The best example of this may be ‘Madagascar’–the band has been playing this song live for almost a decade, but the finish product doesn’t have the same ‘edge’ or emotion that has been on display during live performances.

Thats a very small complaint about what is overall an amazing album. Theres nothing nostalgic about ‘Chinese Democracy., just the sound of a great band breaking new ground.

Ross Everett is a respected freelance writer experienced in travel, poker and sports handicapping. He is a staff handicapper for Anatta Sports where he is responsible for providing daily free sports picks. In his spare time he enjoys fine dining, fencing and deep sea diving. He lives in Southern Nevada with four dogs and a pet coyote.