In this pinball museum, the art is meant to be touched (with Evan Phillippe)

Vote for Call 'Em Like Museum in the 2026 Signal Awards

At the Pacific Pinball Museum in Alameda, California, there are very few "don't touch" signs. In fact, this unique collection actually relies on visitors' touch to keep things running smoothly.

"They actually function better when they're getting played a lot," says Evan Phillippe, the museum's executive director. "They seize up and they freeze when they don't ... The more they get played, the happier they are."

Today on Call 'Em Like Museum, Evan talks about the myriad challenges of maintaining the world's largest playable pinball collection, including what to do with the 1,200 machines that don't fit in the current space. He explains how the museum educates visitors through rooms like "Beyond the Backglass," the first exhibit to celebrate women's contributions to pinball engineering, art, and software. Plus: The small army of volunteers that keeps the games working, what kids who grew up with iPads think of pinball, and the downsides of being thrifty as a nonprofit museum operator.

Full transcript of this episode

Subscribe to the newsletter

This episode was hosted, produced, and edited by Eric Johnson from LightningPod

Listen to "Buzzers and Bells," my original short audio story about the Pacific Pinball Museum, on Twenty Thousand Hertz

Chapters
00:00 Introduction
03:01 Evan's First Museum Memory
07:12 A Tour of the Pacific Pinball Museum
11:46 Why It's a Museum, Not an Arcade
15:27 Fix-It Nights & Pinball Maintenance
21:46 Getting New Generations Into Pinball
27:19 Visitor Reactions & Pinball Nostalgia
33:17 Investing in the Museum's Future
40:50 Museum Inspiration & Tiny Details of Joy

Music: www.purple-planet.com

Images:
Museum exterior

Videos:
Suzanne Ciani on Omni: The New Frontier

Creators and Guests

Host

Eric Johnson

Podcast editor, producer, and consultant at LightningPod.fm | Working with entrepreneurs, journalists, businesses, and more to achieve their podcasting goals

Guest

Evan Phillippe

Evan Phillippe is the Executive Director of The Pacific Pinball Museum in Alameda, California.

What is Call 'Em Like Museum with Eric Johnson?

Call 'Em Like Museum is a weekly podcast exploring how museums really work, and why we love them. Host Eric Johnson talks with museum directors, curators, experts, and passionate fans about what drives them, from homegrown passion projects to world-famous institutions. Each episode digs into museum curation, exhibit design, and the visitor experience — plus the essential question: What's actually worth buying in the gift shop? Season One spotlights museums in the San Francisco Bay Area, including the Walt Disney Family Museum, the de Young Museum, and the Winchester Mystery House.

The first thing you see walking up to the
museum is our window front, which is kind

of small and set back from the street.

This is Evan Phillippe.

His museum doesn't sound like
any other you've been to.

Half the noise is patrons enjoying
themselves, yelling, screaming in joy,

screaming in unhappiness, or yelling
in sadness at a machine because the

ball drained right down the middle.

At the Pacific Pinball Museum, your
paid admission fee gets you unlimited

access to more than a hundred
playable pinball machines, but this

place is about more than just play.

We don't just say, "Here's a game."
We present the game within the

context of a decade, and this is the
artwork that's inspiring, and this

is what's being referenced in it.

There's even a first-of-its-kind feminist
exhibit called Beyond the Backglass.

The first exhibit to ever celebrate
women's contributions to pinball through

engineering, art, mechanics, software.

One of the games in this exhibit is
Xenon, featuring the work of Grammy

Award-nominated musician Suzanne Ciani.

I was very interested in getting the
whole composition to work, to think of

the pinball as actually playing a piece.

Because I think to add excitement to
the game that the background sound

should speed up as you play the game.

She worked on this game in 1980 for Bally.

She was the first woman that was
given carte blanche to do a real

deep aspect of a game, which was
all the sound, voice, and music.

To

a lot of people, these games are
time wasters, little diversions.

But after you go to this museum,
you start to see art, science,

history, culture, technological
breakthroughs, and much more.

This is Call 'Em Like Museum,
a podcast about how museums

work and why we love them.

I'm Eric Johnson.

Today on the podcast, can a museum
still be a museum when it's noisy

and bright and also extremely fun?

What does it take to keep these
old machines playable and working

decades after they came out?

And how can pinball unlock
memories from the past?

We hear from Evan
Phillippe right after this.

This episode is sponsored
by Transistor.fm.

If you are starting a podcast,
then you should use Transistor.

Upload your audio or video and
they'll publish your episodes to

Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube,

Pocketcasts, Overcast, and more.

Go to Transistor.fm for
a 14-day free trial.

When you sign up for the Call 'Em Like
Museum newsletter at likemuseum.com,

you'll get weekly updates on all of our
new episodes and you're automatically

entered in our gift shop giveaway.

Our 12 prize packages include
items from the museums featured

on this season of the show.

It's free, it's easy, and
it only takes a few seconds.

Just head to likemuseum.com to sign up.

That's likemuseum.com.

Good luck.

So I like to start off by asking everyone
about their relationship with museums.

What does the word museum mean to you?

That's a great question.

Wow.

Ever since I was a little kid, I've
just really enjoyed history to a huge

degree, to the point where I took
too many classes in college and only

needed a couple units but kept taking
them and almost got to a minor in

history, but just really enjoy it.

Have gone to museums my whole
life, whether they're big or

small, all over California and a
lot of the other Western states.

And I really enjoy the small kind
of homegrown little municipal

museums that are in an old house
that really get overlooked.

I really believe they have an
important cultural and historical

mission and you always learn
something and it makes it fun.

And that's always been
really important to me.

Where did you grow up and what was the
first museum that you remember going to?

I grew up on the bottom of the peninsula
near the South Bay, so Mountain

View, Palo Alto, Los Altos area.

Wow, the first museum I remember going
to, the first one that really left a mark,

was the Rosicrucian Museum in San Jose.

The Egyptian Museum.

The Egyptian Museum, which is absolutely
under the radar, has one of the largest

collections of Egyptian artifacts outside
of Egypt and London, and it's in San Jose.

It's absolutely amazing.

I remember going there as a
kid with school on a field

trip in, I think, second grade.

I know I went to museums before that.

The Academy of Sciences, probably, as a
2- or 3-year-old, but the Rosicrucian in

San Jose left such a huge impression on me
because of course Egyptian art and history

is absolutely fascinating and carefully
recorded and wonderful to just dive into.

So that one really left a mark on me.

Do you remember specifically what was
said to you or how it was presented?

What was it that triggered this feeling
of either wonder, or what did it do

for you at that age, do you think?

That was probably the age of everything.

You grow up in California and about the
oldest piece of California history you

can really touch with and connect outside
of all the Native American history would

be something like the California missions
that are about 230, 240 years old.

So it really stops in the mid-late 1700s.

So to be in front of even a minor
statue that's 2-, 3-, 4,000 years

old is absolutely mind-blowing.

And they have a recreation of
a tomb that you can walk into.

And since I've never been to Egypt and
I've never seen one myself, that's as

close as I've been even now to this day
as I've ever been to something like that.

So they had a really nice setup and
exhibit, but it was probably the age

of everything that was really hard
to wrap my head around as a kid.

So the Pacific Pinball Museum, you
deal in much more recent history.

How many pinball machines do you
have in the museum currently?

We have 105 that are playable.

And if we count the non-playable games
from the '20s and '30s and '40s that

are static exhibits — they all work
but they're a little too delicate for

patron play — that's another 15 or so.

So about 120 games.

The idea of clocking in, going to
work every day, being surrounded

by more than a hundred pinball
machines, sounds like the sort of

job that a 10-year-old would make up.

How did you get into this line of work?

How did you wind up at the museum?

I got lucky.

I have a marketing background and
they had a job posting just pre-COVID

for operations and marketing support.

I was really familiar with
social media and it was only

two blocks from where I lived.

I was looking to do something a lot
closer to my kids, be much more involved

in their schooling and upbringing.

I was in the PTA for their school,
so I thought I'd take a look.

I had been to the museum
before I knew about pinball.

I did not know the depth of its impact
on culture and history and how you could

tell what game [and] what year it was
from by the age and the look of the

game, the pop art that's on the game
and how that was social commentary.

I was just really lucky, to be honest.

I feel very lucky because it's a
great organization with great people

and a great mission and super unique.

Yeah, absolutely.

I've been to the museum several
times now — I've been very lucky

to go — but for someone who has not
been to the museum yet, I want you

to describe what they see and hear
walking in through the front door,

and then take us through the different
rooms and exhibits at the museum.

Sure.

The first thing you see walking up to the
museum is our window front, which is kind

of small and set back from the street.

At night it's beautiful.

The games glow and they're jewel-like,
so at night they're incredible

and it really draws people in.

But you almost certainly hear bells
and some of the voices of the games

and really a lot of the patrons,
half the noise is patrons enjoying

themselves yelling, screaming in joy,
screaming in unhappiness, or yelling

in sadness at a machine because a
ball drained right down the middle.

And that's really a huge amount of
the fun of the museum is hearing

people's reactions to games.

But when you first walk in, you'll
see our front counter where we

process patrons, you'll see our static
exhibit of games from the '20s and

'30s, which is part of a gambling
exhibit and pinball evolution exhibit.

And that leads into our history room,
which is games from the 1940s to the late

1960s, including Humpty Dumpty, which was
the first pinball game that had flippers,

from 1947, and people can play that.

And it's not just a static exhibit,
it's a playable game from 1947.

That's real history there.

The first one with flippers.

Yeah.

And it's really fun.

The flippers are on their sides.

They didn't know what they were doing.

It was a gimmick.

It was just an attempt to make
this game more interesting because

you just shook it before that.

And it ended up taking off because
people finally felt like they had some

sort of input and control in the game.

Maybe I could get better at this
like you get better at tennis

or baseball if you play it more.

And [it] never looked back.

So now everything of course has flippers.

So you walk through the history room
and we have these beautiful murals

on the walls by a really celebrated
artist from the Bay Area, Dan

Fontes, who recently passed away.

He did the giraffes in Oakland
as well that are on the posts

underneath the freeway, really famous.

You walk through that room,
you get to our women's exhibit,

which we're really proud of.

The women's exhibit is the first
exhibit to ever celebrate women's

contributions to pinball through
engineering, art, mechanics, software.

And it's the first exhibit of
its type anywhere in the world.

We're super proud of it.

Great games, really due for focus,
considering a lot of games are very

white male gaze oriented, especially
from the '50s, '60s, and '70s,

and now it's much more universal.

You walk through that room, you
get to our oddball exhibit, which

is one of my personal favorites.

And that's an exhibit of games that had
new divisive gimmicks and they're too

divisive so they never get done again.

So they're one-off games where we tried
something new, like someone had to try

flippers at one point, it took off,
maybe this will be the next flipper.

And it ended up not
being the next flipper.

So you have games that are extra wide,
extra tall, extra small, faster, slower.

You have games that are upright like
arcade cabinets that are played off

of mirrors to take up less space.

Incredible stuff there.

Super rare, can't find it anywhere.

It's one of my favorite exhibits.

All the games are really screwy.

Going through that room to
the very back of the museum,

we have our Lucky Juju room.

The Lucky Juju was actually the initial
name of the private arcade — which

eventually grew into the museum
— that was just in that back room.

This was 20, 25 years ago, right?

About 23 years ago.

Yeah.

And you would only come
there on Friday nights.

You would go in through the back door
through the parking lot just to a

single room with one jukebox and about
12 games from the 1960s and '70s.

And that's really where
everything grew from.

So that's a special room.

We've got a good mix of games in
that room, all really exciting stuff.

And you kind of horseshoe back on the
other side of the museum from there to a

1970s room, which has really great games
like Sea Witch and Harlem Globetrotters

and Evel Knievel and my favorite
jukebox, which has a lot of '70s and

'80s music on it, so I'm aging myself.

And then through that room, you get
into our modern room, which is games

from the '80s, '90s, and 2000s.

And it's still being produced today, so
we have games from 2026, but we have some

very special games from what's considered
the last Renaissance era of pinball,

which is the late '80s to the mid '90s.

Games like Funhouse and Twilight
Zone and Addams Family, incredible

games that everyone loves.

They really hit a stride.

It was the perfect balance
of speed, playability.

That's a fantastic room and
usually our busiest room.

This is not an arcade, even
though it might look like that

at first blush to a visitor.

Could you talk about the effect
that you want to create for people

who come to Pacific Pinball Museum
and how you distinguish yourself

from just a pinball arcade?

There are plenty of, even museum
in name, other arcades out there

that will have a collection.

Maybe they even have a collection that
has a variation of age ranges of games.

They have EM games, games from
the '50s, and modern games.

We have a really strong investment
in having games from the 1940s to

the 2020s and covering every era,
not just a couple examples, but

dedicating rooms to these decades.

And we also do things like put the
games in chronological order, make

sure there's a topper on top of that
game that describes why that game's

important, who the artist was, who the
designer was, the manufacturer, the year,

some important facts about that game.

We try to rotate the games often to
keep them fresh, and we have so many

that we're able to do that routinely.

But with the murals and the artwork,
we have dedicated curated exhibits,

so we really try to lean into being
a true museum as [opposed] to, say,

a private collection that someone
has and they're bringing it out

to the public, which is great.

And that makes pinball fun
and it's bringing pinball

back into the popular lexicon.

But we're really trying to educate folks.

We really try to tie it to STEM
backgrounds, tie into the culture, the

history, talk about pinball going back
to the mid-1700s when it really had

its ultimate ancestor and how that's
evolved to the game we know today.

So hopefully people have a lot of fun
playing, they reconnect, they have a

great social time, but they accidentally
learn something in the process.

And that means a lot to us.

Accidental learning is
one of my favorite things.

It's where you can do … It was
Randy Pausch who did "The Last

Lecture." Have you seen "The
Last Lecture" or read the book?

No.

He was a professor at Carnegie Mellon
and he gives this very famous lecture

where the idea is like, what if you
could give one lecture before you die?

And he had been diagnosed
with terminal cancer.

And so he's like, no, I'm literally
going to give the last lecture.

And he talked a lot about
what he called the head fake.

I like the idea of bringing someone
in under the premise of like, yeah,

we're going to play some pinball and
you accidentally learn about history

or you get exposed to the exhibit
you're talking about highlighting

the women's contribution to pinball.

You get them to think differently
than how they were when they came in.

And especially with our free play model,
if you went to a normal pinball parlor

that still used quarters and you saw
games from the 1950s or '60s, but you're

used to playing games from the '80s,
'90s or 2000s, you might say, well, I

only have a certain amount of money.

I'm only going to play the
games I'm familiar with.

I'm going to play these newer games
that I think are fast and fun and

exciting and bright, and I'm just
not going to play those older ones.

Because we have our model of free play
where you come in and you have that

single fee so you can play whatever you
want, if your favorite modern game is

being played by someone, you might as
well just play something in the meantime.

And we have these people branch
out and explore other eras and they

find out they're just as much fun.

We have people in their teens and
20s who end up playing games from

the 1950s and '60s and adore them
because of the different style of play.

It's the same game, but slower, five
balls instead of three, simpler scoring

and mechanics, and they're super fun.

So we don't get pigeonholed or
folks don't get stuck in a certain

era of games that they're familiar
with or they think they'll like.

And it turns out that most
folks like all the eras.

If you like pinball, you are going
to like something about a game

from the '40s the way you like
something from a game from the 2020s.

Another thing that you do that I think
is really interesting is that you

have these volunteer repair nights.

Can you talk about where that
idea came from and what that

does for you as a museum?

It's huge.

And as a nonprofit, it's
really absolutely necessary.

We genuinely couldn't operate without
a volunteer base that is supporting us.

Like most nonprofits that are run
correctly, margins are very tight.

You flip most of what you make
back directly into your mission of

preservation and bringing things
to folks, and that's what we do.

So we genuinely wouldn't have the
budget to maintain a onsite staff

of five or six repair people just
to repair things all the time.

So every Monday is the only day of the
week that we're closed at the museum,

and that's what we call our fix-it night.

And our fix-it night is where we have
between six and 12 volunteers come in.

We have an overall pool of about 20, and
it rotates and fluctuates just depending

upon when folks have time available.

There are a lot of retired mechanical
and electrical engineers, some

folks that worked in the video game
industry at arcades in the past,

and that's really how we function.

That Monday night is the five
hours between about 5 and 10 is

really when we repair everything
that's broken throughout the week.

The games are super
mechanically intensive.

They get played a lot.

That ball is actually pretty heavy.

A lot of people have not held a pinball,
but it is significant and it is going

around the playfield quickly and
it's hitting plastic and it's hitting

mechanical items that are moving
and counting scores, so they break.

We keep a running log and we tackle
that game by game every Monday night,

and we have a really incredible
success rate of getting almost 100%

back up by the end of Monday nights.

And that's really what we owe the
patrons in terms of a gaming experience.

The games need to work correctly.

They need to score correctly.

They need to have a good experience
because we do have other people in

the field that run very large arcades
or even things that are referred to

as museums — but maybe just a name
or maybe just for tax reasons — that

don't maintain the games the same way.

And that makes it a difficult experience.

It's not great for pinball if you
walk up to a game, spend money on

it, and it doesn't work correctly.

So we really try to make sure
every patron has a good experience.

We're just deeply
indebted to these people.

The volunteers are really
what make the museum work.

It's really telling
that it's every Monday.

I mean, lots of museums have restoration
where they have some piece of artwork

that's damaged and maybe every hundred
years or so they need to restore it.

But you have people in there every
single week, which really goes to show

how much damage, like you're saying,
how physical your collection is.

Yeah.

It is.

With something like a video game,
yes, you're talking about a screen

that might go out at some point.

You're talking about
buttons and joysticks.

With a game like pinball, it
really is more like a watch

or an engine that's running.

So there's a lot that
needs to be tended to.

What's really wonderful about these
games like old cars and like a lot of

mechanical items, they actually function
better when they're getting played a lot.

And so we're lucky that we have a
pretty good attendance rate throughout

the week, no matter the age of game,
because they actually really are

happier when they get played a lot.

They seize up and they
freeze when they don't.

So they get exercise the way they
need to, but plastics become 30,

40, 50, 60 years old, they do crack.

So thankfully we're able to get
a lot of replacements for those.

Why is that, that games are
happier when they're being played?

They just have so many moving
components and they use dry lubrication.

You would think that everything inside
these games would be just dipped in

some sort of Tri-Flow or some sort of
silicone lubricant to keep them moving,

but they really would get too grimy.

The game, the ball itself, and
all of the mechanics in the game

actually create grit over time and
that would just get really goopy.

So really the only thing that's
keeping all these contacts open and

everything moving is that they don't
have an opportunity to sit for a really

long time and develop, say, a surface
rust or get stuck in a position.

So the more they get played, the
happier they are, especially the

EM, the electromechanical-era games
from the '60s and '70s, are so

happy if they just get played a lot.

[They're] very reliable, and
because they were in bars and

billiards halls originally,
they're also built to take a punch.

They're strong games.

You can actually be pretty rough
with them and you won't break them.

They actually like it.

They're used to dealing with people
trying to tilt them and trying to

nudge the ball in a certain way.

Yeah.

Kick, tilt, push, shove,
depending upon how you play.

I'm terrible at it.

I tilt out the second I touch a
game other than the flippers, so

I don't, but there's some people
that are incredibly skilled at it.

I think for the longevity of your
collection, it's good that you

don't serve alcohol at the museum.

[laugh]

Mostly from the perspective that
they can't get poured into games.

If you go to a modern pinball game
in the popular model that exists now,

the barcade, which is really meant for
millennials and older Gen Xers that

are used to arcades but really want
to get a drink too and be social, very

often you'll end up with beer drinks
on those games and they actually have

beer seals that run around the glass,
which keeps it from leaking in too much.

And so did the old games, but now
that beer seal's 60 or 70 years

old, it's not super reliable.

But we also lean very heavily towards
having kids into the museum as well, which

keeps us from doing something like that.

And it's really important for us to keep
that pump primed with a new generation

that likes pinball, becomes familiar
with it, knows what it is, enjoys

it, so we can make sure that pinball
stays relevant and exciting for folks.

Do you have a museum story?

Maybe there was a time you got
lost, a time that you were moved

to tears, or a time you saw
something that blew your mind.

No matter what your story
is, I want to hear it.

Head to likemuseum.com and click
"submit a museum story." It

might end up on a future episode.

That's likemuseum.com and click
"submit a museum story." Hey, if

you're enjoying the episode, then
make sure to follow the podcast in

whatever app you're using right now.

It's free and it makes sure that new
episodes will show up automatically.

If you're on YouTube, then
hit "subscribe" there too.

Thank you so much.

Can you talk about the people who
come to the museum every week?

For someone like me, I'm a millennial,
I grew up loving the idea of going

to the video game arcade in the mall.

I'm the target audience for what you're
doing, but I'm wondering about this next

generation, kids who have grown up with
access to playing games on the iPad.

What is their reaction to playing
pinball and how do you get them engaged

in this very different style of gaming?

We really do have a huge age variation.

Pre-pandemic, 2019 and earlier, we
actually leaned heavy in an older

demographic, folks in their 60s
and older who remembered playing

pinball in bars and billiards
halls in the '50s, '60s, and '70s.

And we still have that crowd, but
post-pandemic, it's really shifted

to the Gen X [and] millennial
crowd and their families.

So you have Gen Xers and millennials
who are bringing their own kids to play

pinball and sometimes their parents.

The most magnificent thing is when we
get three generations of the same family

in the museum playing, and you would
assume grandpa would be on the older

games and the kids would be on the games
from the '70s or '80s and the grandkids

would be on the games from the 2020s.

It's actually all completely opposite.

It's the kids on the '50s games, the
grandparents are on the new ones,

the parents are floating between
everything, checking on people.

It's fantastic.

We have such a great response from kids
coming in because pinball is so unique.

It is something between
a sport and a video game.

Because [in] a video game, you're
dealing entirely with a screen,

you're trying to make points.

With a sport, you're generally outside,
but you can be inside and you're

doing something in real physical
time, in a real physical space, and

you have a ball or there's a lot of
movement, and pinball's in between.

It has both and it's in a finite space.

You're indoors, you're comfortable,
you're out of the sun, you're out

of the rain, and it's tactile.

There's so much feedback from the game.

You can hear and feel the game.

What you're doing is in real time.

Every game is like a snowflake.

Every game that gets played
is entirely different.

The ball moves and hits something in
a different order in a different way.

It's incredibly simple.

You just have two buttons.

There's no six or seven buttons.

You don't have to learn combinations
like you would in a video game.

You're really just trying to
keep that ball from draining.

So even kids who have never played
their entire lives who are 7, 8, or even

if they're under 20, I don't know if
someone's played pinball until they come

into our museum, if they've played before,
you pick it up in two or three minutes.

And you very often start in an era of game
that is flattering to your play style,

whether it's the slower games with five
balls from the '50s, '60s, '70s, or if

it's the newer games with three that play
a little faster, but are forgiving if a

ball drains immediately, it'll give you
another one, make sure they don't turn you

off by being too brutal at the beginning.

And once they find that game, they branch
out into the other eras that they like.

It's really incredible to see.

Very often, especially during the summer
like now, when we have field trips and

summer camps visiting, a 5-, 7-, or
8-year-old's first game of pinball might

be a game from 1952 and they really enjoy
it and they figure it out really quickly.

There's some intuitive aspect
to just hit the ball, make it go

someplace, and then see what happens.

It's sort of like … I saw someone online
once said, every baby is a scientist.

The're just constantly running science
experiments, just dropping stuff off

the high chair and see what happens.

A hundred percent.

It is so much fun, and
I will fully admit this.

I love pinball.

I enjoy it.

I will never claim to be a great player.

And if I do something cool on the playing
field, it's generally by accident.

If someone else is watching who knows
how this game is working and says,

"Wow, you just finished these three
steps to accomplish this," that's great.

I did it by accident, but it's still fun.

And that same experience
happens with kids.

They roll by accident into doing
something really cool on a game.

And then once you've done that,
you're kind of hooked and you start

playing different variations of
that game from different eras and

you discover each game has its own
personality and you find ones you like.

Maybe it's an extra-challenging
game and that's why you like it.

Or maybe it is just an easy
game and you can kind of zone

out and play it and enjoy it.

You can really play with what you need at
that moment because we have so many and

the game's so different from game to game.

When I was visiting most recently,
you were telling me about your

favorite game, Magic Circle, which
has kind of a Romani theme and

it's from the '50s or '60s, right?

It's from the late '60s.

The late '60s.

And it's the first one on your right
as you walk into the first room,

and it's also extremely difficult.

Is that a coincidence?

Did you do that on purpose to put
a really hard game right up front?

We really shouldn't
have that one up front.

[laugh]

It just works out in terms of the
age range and it is a fun game to

play if you know how to attack it.

It does happen to be
one of the first games.

I do think it is probably one of
the hardest games in the museum.

I really get a big kick out of the
fact it has this happy, friendly,

bright-and-poppy gypsy theme, and
then it just punches you in the face.

Its design is absolutely diabolical.

It just gets shot down the middle.

The flippers are spaced out extra far.

The kickers just throw things in the
outlanes, the tilt's hypersensitive.

It's just a brutal game and
that's actually what makes it fun.

I enjoy the juxtaposition between
the artwork and the game play.

It's really fun on that game.

Yeah.

What is your favorite thing that you've
heard a visitor to the museum say?

Anytime a visitor plays a game and
has to run back up to the front desk

to tell us what their experience was.

Ohh.

That happens pretty routinely
where someone … say, Safecracker,

which is a relatively rare
game we have from the '90s.

It's a smaller playfield that
gives you a coin if you accomplish

certain things in that game.

You don't run out of balls in that game.

It's actually a timer because
you're trying to safecrack.

And you get a coin, and it doesn't just
give you the coin, it actually rolls

out of the head and you have to grab it
during gameplay and try to put it in the

front to accomplish a different level.

So you're scrambling to grab this
coin while you're playing, and very

often people will just run up to
the front and say, "I got a coin.

What is this?

What happened?

What did I do?

What am I supposed to do with this?"
That's always really exciting.

We used to have a game called Orbiter One.

It's currently being repaired.

It was a game designed by NASA engineers
in the 1980s, and most people think

there's magnets involved because of
how weirdly the ball acts in this game.

It's actually just a convex plastic
form that has dips in these two

spinners that spin so fast you can't
see them spin and they grab the ball

and wing it around like a gravity well
and then throw the ball out again.

And everyone will run up to the front
desk and say, "Wow, the magnets are great

in that game." There are no magnets.

I thought the same thing
the first time I played it.

So that is always fun.

Probably the best story we ever had
was we have a game from the 1970s

by a company called Interplay,
which is a Spanish pinball company.

It's a relatively rare game.

It's called Dragon, and
it's a beautiful game.

We were able to get that game donated to
us in almost perfect brand-new condition.

It was still sealed in its factory box.

It is essentially a
brand-new game from the '70s.

It's rare.

Not many of them came
to the United States.

We had a gentleman visiting the Bay
Area with his wife from Spain and had

flown into the city and had visited
us on a lark because he liked pinball.

And he went through the museum, found
that game, played it for half an hour,

came up to the front with tears in his
eyes because he actually remembered

playing that game with his dad in
the early '80s in a bar in Spain.

Wow.

And had not seen that game
since 1982 or 1983, and it's

just an incredible connection.

I could never imagine that that
game would stand out that way to a

significant single person that way.

He only essentially played that game
the entire time they were visiting

the museum for two hours and getting
photos and video with his wife.

It was incredible.

And we do get a lot of stories like that.

Another gentleman with a game from the
'60s did not know we had the game that he

played while in college in the laundromat.

He put [himself] through college in
the late 1960s by running laundry

for everyone in his dorm room.

You would wrap it up in a
bedsheet, put it outside the door.

You would tag it.

He would pick up everyone's
laundry in a dorm room and he'd

run laundry the entire night.

Oh my gosh.

And deliver it back the next morning.

And that's how he paid
his way through college.

And he said the only thing that kept
his head screwed on straight was

this one pinball game he could play
so he could stay awake while running

laundry at night, the entire night,
to get all these dorms' laundry done.

And we had that game.

That game was, I think, Kings and Queens,
which is an EM game from the late '60s.

And he can't even remember
playing it, but he got good at it.

He would zone out and go half
asleep and play that game.

And we had the game, not the exact
one, but the same version that

he had played in the late 1960s.

So stories like that
are absolutely amazing.

We get them every week at the museum.

Yeah.

And you alluded earlier to the fact
that a lot of pinball machines, they're

designed for the male gaze, let's say.

I think that's the phrase you used.

Do you ever get people coming up to
you and being like, "Um, what's up with

this artwork or this theming here?"

We do.

We live in a very educated area.

I think a lot of people are looking
at the games and we present them in

context of the time that … And that's
really the job of a museum, of course,

is that we don't just say, "Here's
a game." We present the game within

the context of a decade and this is
the artwork that's inspiring and this

is what's being referenced in it.

For instance, we have a game called
Shangri-La, which is a beautiful game

and it has a Asian kind of artwork and
theme and it was during the Vietnam War.

The Vietnam War is interesting.

It's a really big cultural item.

It's absolutely leaning
into that area and decade.

We absolutely have people
come up to the front.

A good example is a game called Gigi,
and that game has kind of a Marilyn

Monroe theme, but also with clowns.

Okay.

It's an interesting
combination from the 1950s.

[laugh]

And people say, "What is the
deal?" And it's like, this is

a Marilyn Monroe caricature.

Not really sure how it got involved
with circuses and clowns, but it does.

The clowns and circuses are actually — and
carnivals — are a big 1950s pinball theme.

So there's an interesting crossover with
pop culture and what was popular at the

time, but people will absolutely come up
and ask us, "Why is the artwork …?" A

good example was Apollo 13, it's a '90s
game that's a really fun pinball game.

You see every actor from that movie
on the backglass except for Tom Hanks.

He's the one who either didn't
release his likeness or wanted too

much money, so they have a single
astronaut with a closed mask in the

middle and every other actor around it.

Oh my gosh.

So we'll have people say, "Where is he?
Is he inside the mask?" I think that's

what they were insinuating is that he's
in there, but no, you're not going to see

him because the license wasn't released.

Oh my gosh, that's amazing.

What year did you become
the executive director?

Three years ago.

Three years ago.

What do you wish you had known
three years ago when you took over?

What is something that if you could
have gone back to 2023 and told

Evan then, what would you say?

I think you always tread carefully
when you start a new job or a

new position somewhere and you
err on the side of being thrifty.

Use things we already have, let's
repurpose things that we already

have, let's recycle items and make
them work and people will be happy.

You'll save on the budget.

We've really, in the last year or so,
realized that making capital investments

into the museum itself immediately pays
off in terms of a customer's experience,

how well the patrons take care of
the museum if it looks nicer, that

adding more materials on walls, more
artwork lends to a greater experience.

So I really think the biggest one
would've been to say, be more aggressive

with spending money to improve the
museum experience, make the museum

look nicer, don't worry about trying
to reuse or recycle too many things.

It's okay to get something new because
really elevating the museum that way

really pays off almost immediately.

And when things are nice, people
take better care of everything.

And that's really shown itself to
be true as we've continued to grow

and develop more business yearly.

And I think that's the one thing that
I would've been more aggressive on.

Yeah.

And then looking to the future,
what's something that you

haven't been able to do yet?

What's your next around-the-corner
goal, if you're going to be deploying

those resources more aggressively,
what do you want to do in the future?

That's a great question because it's
really now the pie in the sky dream.

The museum itself is wonderfully
run, very, very concise, packed.

We're kind of out of room in terms of what
we can show with our existing collection.

Even though it is, as it stands, the
largest pinball collection that you can

play publicly in California outside of,
say, a show like Cal Extreme or Golden

State Pinball Festival or Pinagogo, which
are shows in California where you have

a lot of pinball games for a weekend.

We have the world's largest collection.

So we have 105 in the
museum that are playable.

We have over 1,200 more in a warehouse
out on the old Naval Air Station that

we rent from the city of Alameda.

Oh my gosh.

[laugh]

So having the world's largest
pinball collection is great.

It's just not fun if you're
not able to bring it to folks.

So really the ultimate pie in the sky
goal now, the main focus is retaining

and procuring a permanent home that's
large enough for the bulk of the

collection, which means we're focused
into 25- to 30,000 square foot buildings.

So large buildings with big parking lots
that are HVAC controlled to make sure the

collection's preserved because we have
games going back to the '20s and '30s.

So it should be AC, should be heated,
should be dry, should be dust-free,

should be carpeted, should be well lit.

We have a high bar to accomplish, and
it's just now something we have to do

because it really — aside from monetizing
that collection, bringing it to folks,

and seeing the proof of concept with the
smaller museum with 100 games work — we

know what we can do with 12- or 1,300
and we just have to make that happen.

It's just a slow process because
it's a combination of saving money,

fundraising, finding someone who's a
seller who will work with us and work

with our nonprofit status to maybe
give us a little bit of a break on

price and take some tax deductions.

And we know that person's out
there, we just haven't run across

them yet, but that's the main
goal for the next five years.

Yeah, makes sense.

So the main museum, the publicly
accessible part of the collection, as I

mentioned, it's in Alameda, California,
a couple minutes outside of Oakland.

Could you talk about how the
Pacific Pinball Museum fits into

the neighborhood that you're in and
what it's like with your neighbors?

The museum opened at a
really interesting time.

Alameda has two main streets, very
similar to Palo Alto where I grew up.

Palo Alto has University and
California, Alameda has Park

Street and Webster Street.

So they have a kind of east
end and a west end of Alameda.

We're on the west end off of Webster.

And the west end off of Webster
was in a rough spot for about 10

years because the Naval Air Station
had closed in the late 1990s.

It was a depressed area,
a lot of empty businesses.

It was considered the rough side of
town for decades after World War II.

It was the side of the town that
sailors hung out on when they had leave.

A lot of people living in Alameda
were told not to go to Webster Street.

Really interesting history.

When we opened originally 23 years
ago, it was a relatively quiet street.

A lot of empty storefronts, a lot of
vestige businesses from the Navy era

like tattoo parlors, bars, dry cleaning
are kind of the triumvirate of this

used to be a military town when you
have all three of those together.

And over the past 20 years or so, we've
seen it develop into this incredible,

diverse, eclectic boutique street that
has so many wonderful little businesses.

We are exceptionally lucky to have
the amount of restaurants and the

eclectic nature of stores that
are all around us within walking.

It really leans into our business model
of wristbands, which allows folks to

come in and out as much as they like
so that you can take a break after

an hour of playing pinball, which
is something you really have to do.

I have to do it.

Every now and then we get players which
are able to stick out four or five

hours dedicated, which is amazing to me.

Wow.

But if you take this break and you have
your wristband, you come back and forth

as much as you like, you visit local
stores, you get a snack, you get some

food, you get a drink, you come back.

And we're open late and we really … Not
only do we support the local street

economy and community, they support
us and we're very lucky to have that.

And when we look at this larger possible
future location, some other large arcade

collections in the United States do what
they have to do, do what makes economic

sense, which is they'll go out really far
out of town, they'll pour a big concrete

pad in a field, build a big metal prefab
structure, get all their games in there.

That's something they can afford,
that's something they can make work.

It makes sense.

We've really figured out that we need
to have those restaurants and other

shops to make a really interesting
day-long experience for folks.

So that actually really influences
where we look at in the future.

A big building would be fantastic,
but we need to make sure there's local

food and something else to look at.

If a member of the family gets tired
of pinball, maybe there's something

else for them to take a look at and
take a break locally so the entire

family doesn't have to leave at the
same time and then they can come back.

We're very lucky and it's
a great street to be on.

And I'm saying that as a biased Alamedan,
I've lived there for 20-something

years and my kids go to school there.

We really love the island.

We feel very lucky with the location we
are, with the neighbors that we have.

We've got a good relationship
with the city of Alameda.

We rent our large warehouse from them.

We've kind of danced with
different possibilities in terms

of a larger permanent building
with the city of Alameda.

We haven't gotten there yet,
but the discussions are always

really good and friendly.

So that's always open and
always something we're chasing.

So we feel really lucky
to be where we are.

You mentioned at the start of
our conversation how, as someone

who appreciates museums, you're
especially drawn to these smaller,

boutique, niche-type museums.

I am too.

That's how I've got interested
in this podcast, really.

Could you talk about the museums that
have inspired you, the things that

when you go to another museum, you
are inspired by how they work or how

they've arranged their collection
and what you've learned from them?

A good one that pops out immediately
— and of course they're on a different

scale with a different focus than us,
but I think the way their collection

is laid out is magnificent — is
the Oakland Museum of California.

So they have these three levels.

The first one is natural history.

You go up to the next level, you have
cultural and person history, and then the

top level is just a regular art museum.

So you have these three different
levels that you can float between.

They're divided up wonderfully,
but there's definitely crossover

connection between each of these levels.

They're all about California, but the
division and the way you can spend

an hour or two in each one and then
move up or down between them, I really

enjoy the way that museum is set up.

And it's influential with the
way our museum is set up in terms

of how we break these rooms into
different decades or types of games,

but you can wander through them.

It's not a hodgepodge collection
which is thrown together.

There's a lot of thought to
how this collection is set

up and how it's designed.

And I think the Oakland Museum,
at least as a big-museum example,

is a great example of that.

In terms of these little boutique
museums, which I've always enjoyed,

even though they're small, sometimes
they have amazing collections.

They have things which you would
expect to find in the Smithsonian

or a larger museum, but it's in,
say, the former governor's mansion

that's a small under-radar museum
in Oakland or Sacramento, and

they have incredible artifacts.

Really you get into the situation
where, oh sure, it should be at a

bigger museum or preserved differently,
but that bigger museum either doesn't

have the budget, doesn't know about
it ,or can only store it and not show

people, but you're looking at it.

And it's being brought out to
the public in this smaller venue.

And I think that's amazing.

And we have things in our collection,
I think, that surprise folks.

I think we're a big museum in terms
of pinball, but still to have the

only example of, say, a game from the
'20s, '30s or '40s, or one of five

prototype Atari video pinball games
from the late 1970s surprises folks.

It's really cool.

What is a small detail about the museum
that only you appreciate, that the average

visitor is not going to notice, but every
time you see it, you're like, "Ah, good."

People play so differently and
there are people like me who

don't move a lot when they play.

I'm focused, I'm enjoying myself,
I'm not going to move a ton.

I truly enjoy — even to the point
where sometimes people might in some

eyes take up too much space during
gameplay — I absolutely love seeing

people's individual reactions to games.

The body English, the excitement level.

Some people take up half an aisle
when they're playing a game.

They're leaning really far back out.

They're super animated.

Some people are just hyper-focused.

Some people yell, some people are quiet.

The difference with how each person plays
and exhibits joy or sadness at how a ball

has run is just absolutely incredible
to me in terms of human condition.

It's all different and it's all
wonderful, and I think even with folks

who take up a lot of space maybe when
they play because they're boisterous and

that might encroach on other players'
personal space ever so slightly during

a certain moment, I truly enjoy.

It's really fun to see because you just
know they're super engrossed in the game.

Yeah.

If you're in a museum gift
shop, what do you buy?

That is a great question.

I have the affliction.

I'm a bibliophile, so I absolutely
dearly have too many books and buy too

many books and buy books I maybe will
only barely prick into and not read

entirely or maybe never even get to.

I'm pretty good about that.

I do read a portion of them
at minimum before they go into

the huge collection I have.

So bookmarks, books, anything
[book-related] … It's really for the

last 15 or 16 years is really what my kids
would like that I would get to try to get

them … I'm already in the museum gift
shop because I'm there because I enjoyed

the museum and I enjoyed an exhibit.

What would make them interested or
encourage them to be interested in

something I am because I want to share
this exhibit or museum with them.

So what will they be interested in
that's connecting and bridging that?

But very often it's books.

Yeah.

It's always books.

And I have a real weakness for
the huge art, gigantic books which

really need their own coffee table.

They don't end up on a coffee table.

They end up on a huge shelf,
but I'm really weak for those.

I aspire to be the sort of person
who has a lot of coffee table books

of artwork and things like that, but
I don't even have a coffee table.

I don't either.

It's hard.

Evan, thank you so much
for coming on the podcast.

Great seeing you as always.

Yeah, absolutely.

Thank you.

Thanks again to Evan Phillippe
for coming on the podcast.

The Pacific Pinball Museum is
in Alameda, California, and it's

open every day except Monday.

One of my favorite things in their
gift shop is these little Lego pinball

machines, and you can win one of
these in our gift shop giveaway.

To enter, all you have to
do is sign up for our email

newsletter at likemuseum.com.

Call 'Em Like Museum is hosted
and edited by me, Eric Johnson.

It's produced out of my podcast agency
in San Francisco, Lightning Pod.

Our marketing specialist is Julia
Wild, artwork by Rhe Civitello.

Special thanks this week to the
podcast Twenty Thousand Hertz.

Last year I produced a ministory
for them about the sound of

pinball and that's how I met Evan.

That story was so much fun to do that
it gave me the idea to do this podcast.

I'll put a link in the show notes.

And thank you for
listening to this episode.

I'll see you at the museum.