This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed human. Hear that? That's what it sounds like when you plant more trees than you harvest. Work done by thousands of working forest professionals like Adam, a district forest manager who works to protect our forests from fires.
Keeping the forest fire-resistant synonymous with keeping the forest healthy, and we do that through planting more than we harvest and mitigate those risks through active management. It's a long-term commitment. Visit WorkingForestsInitiative.com to learn more. 10 athletes will face the toughest job interview in fitness that will push past physical and mental breaking points. You are the fittest of the fit.
Only one of you. Will leave here with an IFIT contract for $250,000. This is when mindset comes in.
Someone will be eliminated. Pressure is coming down. This. It's Trainer Games. Watch it on Prime Video starting January 8th.
Pshm. You won't believe what my new friend just told me about dinosaurs. Is your child having conversations you never imagined? Are they learning without realizing it? It's not a tablet.
It's not a toy. It's Miko Mini Plus, the AI-powered companion that turns curiosity into endless learning. Hear the future of playtime. Meet the extraordinary Miko Mini Plus. only at Costco.
Come for the Black Friday seasonal savings. Stay for the award-winning reporting. For a limited time, access to the Washington Post is just 99 cents. That's unlimited access to all of the posts for only 99 cents every four weeks. That's a great deal for the first year.
After that, it'll cost $12 every four weeks. You can cancel any time. But don't wait, this Black Friday seasonal offer won't be here for long. Go to Washington Post dot com slash iHeart and grab this deal before it's gone. That's Washington Post dot com slash iHeart.
The following ad is sponsored by PetsBest Insurance Services. You knew right away he's perfect. The one for you. Those puppy dog eyes, that cute little button nose. You don't even mind the drool.
When you find your perfect match in a dog or cat, the love is unconditional. Your budget, on the other hand, has realistic limits. Help protect your heart and your wallet with pet insurance from PetsBest. With plans starting from less than a dollar a day, you can get up to 90% cash back on eligible vet bills. PetsBest makes it easy to pick a plan that works for you and your bank account.
Find the perfect match for your perfect match at PetsBest.com. Pet Insurance products offered and administered by PetsBest Insurance Services LLC are underwritten by American Pet Insurance Company or Independence American Insurance Company. For terms and conditions, visit www.petsbest.com backslash policy. Products are underwritten by American Pet Insurance Company, Independence American Insurance Company, or MS Transverse Insurance Company and administered by PetsBest Insurance Services LLC. $1 day premium based on 2024 average new policyholder data for accident and illness plans pets age 0 to 10.
This is Lee Habib, and this is Our American Stories. And we tell stories about everything here on this show. And that includes your stories. Send them to ouramericanstories.com. They're some of our favorites.
Jeremy Sauceer is the Assistant Vice President for Interpretation and Electronic Games at the Strong Museum of Play in Rochester, New York. And he's also the editor of the American Journal of Play. Today, he gives us the exciting history of an American icon, an American original. The pinball machine. I would say Timbal is an American icon.
It traces its roots. Back to a French parlor table game called bagatelle.
Sometimes it would be in a form that looked similar to a pool table. The player would get to hit a ball, often with something that resembled a cue stick that we would use today in pool. Initially, the idea was to avoid pins there'd be these little wooden pins in a lot a lot of different versions of the game And eventually that evolved into where you actually had fixed pins. and scoring holes. Uh The kind of link that, you know, if you were to say missing link between Bagatelle and pinball happens in the late 19th century with an English immigrant to America, Montague Redgrave.
He Patents in 1871, what he called improvements in Bagatel. And that introduced the spring Loaded ball shooter, what today we would refer to as the plunger. The idea of also adding sound effects or sound to the game by putting bells on the playfield. The first pinball machines. made this type of game.
Into a coin-operated machine. It took that play field. And it essentially monetized it, right? It placed it in a wooden case. It put a piece of glass over the playfield to separate the player from the game.
As you think of ramps and flippers and all those things, that's starting in the 40s and 50s. The first game that introduces the idea of really like, let's have flippers to actually control and to bat the balls around is 1947. This game, Humpty Dumpty, had six flippers and they were on each side of the playfield. This changes pinball, right? It makes it much more interactive.
And that becomes Particularly important to the kind of public debates that are going to happen about pinball. The best example of this in the early 1940s is in New York City. Mayor LaGuardia bans pinball, actually does prohibition-style raids to kind of root out pinball. They had been associated and in some cases used in gambling, in essentially money laundering. I mean, you have these bans in Los Angeles, you have them in Ohio, they're all over the country.
There's all these associations and all these anxieties around. What are children doing with their time? The stories about kids stealing lunch money or stealing money from their parents to go to play pinball and it being a gateway to organized crime. There is a pinball moral panic. But you start to see that kind of breakup in the 1970s.
There's an important event that happens with the New York City Council in 1976 with a major pinball player at the time, Roger Sharp. In 1976, Sharp and a number of folks who are really in support of overturning that ban go before the New York City Council and in this sort of dramatic Babe Roos calling his shot moment. He plays a pinball game in a way that shows. the counselors that Pinball is actually a game of skill. He can tell them, hey, this is what I'm going to do, and I'm going to show you, this is how you can play pinball and affect what's happening on the playfield.
It was overturned with a vote of about 30 to 6, 30 to 5, 30 to 6. It's probably also worth mentioning that. In the 1970s, pinball was extremely popular. New York City also saw the fact that, hey, this is going to be a revenue generator, right? Because we can license and register all these machines and make money off of them.
But what's also happening is the introduction of video games. Uh Video games were making a tremendous amount of money, particularly in the late 70s and early 80s when there was an arcade craze. And so there was a tremendous amount of effort being made by the burgeoning video game industry. Kind of inject respectability into the coin-op industry as a whole. And so they helped to legitimize pinball, but they're also seeing that pinball is in some ways pushed out of the arcade.
A lot of what it becomes, I think, has to do with the influence of video games. You see video game-themed pinball games going into arcades. There's a Defender pinball machine, there's a Space Invaders pinball machine. What you also see is them trying to incorporate the form and some of the conventions of video games into pinball games. There's a game called Hyperball.
It took sort of mini pinballs, you had a trigger, and you're just firing balls at these targets on the playfield. It was difficult to understand. You were spelling out words, you were also trying to stop these bolts of lightning from coming down and hitting your base, and it just didn't work. You had that level of influence where it was really directly affecting the games. And then the other piece.
I think is that you now have these development teams that are led by designers, but you've got engineers, animators. It's a completely multi-sensory experience. It's really bringing people into these immersive spaces in this really beautiful marriage of technology, of art, of storytelling, and play that really comes together and I think kind of immerses you in what today is pinball. And a special thanks to Jeremy Saussier, who is the Assistant Vice President for Interpretation and Electronic Games and editor of the American Journal of Play at the Strong Museum of Play in Rochester, New York. Again, the story of the pinball here on Our American Story.
Lee Habib here, and I'm inviting you to help OurAmerican Stories celebrate this country's 250th birthday, only a short time away. If you want to help inspire countless others to love America like we do, and want to help us bring the inspiring and important stories told here to millions for years to come, please consider making a tax-deductible donation to Our American Stories. Go to OwamericanStories.com and click the donate button. Give a little, give a lot. Any amount helps.
Go to OwlAmericanStories.com and give. 10 athletes will face the toughest job interview in fitness that will push past physical and mental breaking points. You are the fittest of the fit. Only one of you will leave here with an IFIT contract for $250,000. This is where mindset comes in.
Someone will be eliminated. Pressure is coming down. Pit. is Trainer Games. Watch it on Prime Video starting January 8th.
Yeah. Shh! You won't believe what my new friend just told me about dinosaurs! Is your child having conversations you never imagined? Are they learning without realizing it?
It's not a tablet. It's not a toy. It's Miko Mini Plus, the AI-powered companion that turns curiosity into endless learning. Hear the future of playtime. Meet the extraordinary Miko Mini Plus.
Only at Costco. Come for the Black Friday seasonal savings. Stay for the award winning reporting. For a limited time, access to the Washington Post is just ninety nine cents. That's unlimited access to all of the Posts for only ninety nine cents every four weeks.
That's a great deal for the first year. After that, it'll cost $12 every four weeks. You can cancel any time. But don't wait, this Black Friday seasonal offer won't be here for long. Go to Washington Post dot com slash iHeart and grab this deal before it's gone.
That's Washington Post dot com slash iHeart. Every generation, every sacrifice, our nation's service members have stood up for our freedom, our families, and our future.
Now it's our turn to stand up for them. This year, you can honor their service in a deeply personal way by sponsoring a $17 Veterans Wreath. Each wreath is more than a symbol. It's a heartfelt tribute to the heroes who served and to the families who carry their legacy. Visit WreathsAcrossAmerica.org to sponsor a wreath today.
This isn't just a wreath, it's a personal gift to an American hero. Ah, greetings for my bath, festive friends. The holidays are overwhelming, but I'm tackling this season with PayPal and making the most of my money. Getting 5% cash back when I pay in four. No fees, no interest.
I used it to get this portable spa with jets.
Now the bubbles can cling to my sculpted but pruny body. Make the most of your money this holiday with PayPal. Save the offer in the app. NS1231, see PayPal.com slash promo terms. Points can be reading for cash and more paying for subject to terms and approval.
PayPal Inc. and MLS 910-457. This is an iHeart podcast, guaranteed human. Mm-hmm.
