Pinball is Flippin’ Awesome
Interview With Mike Moretti by Mel Bearns
We stopped by the The Flipper Room in Concord to chat with local pinball wizard, Mike Moretti, to find out more about how this amazing venture came to be and asked him a bunch of questions about the history of iconic pinball games, pop culture, pop art, and community.
Hi Mike, thank you for your time today! Let’s start out with an introduction and how and when The Flipper Room became a thing. And what fuels your passion and stokes your fire?
I grew up around art and artists and have been passionate about art my whole life. Along the way I discovered pinball and that became a new passion for me, and now both art and pinball fuel my fires in different ways. This all started out as a wholesale business almost twenty years ago we called APF – the Art of Picture Framing – and we served photographers, artists, and shops all along the 680 corridor. When the market crashed a while back it was shocking to see nearly half of our customer base disappear and the challenge became how to draw a younger customer base to our retail location.
Incorporating pinball into the picture framing business started out as a way to bring more PR into the mix and led me to becoming more involved in social media – because pinball is WAY more exciting than corner samples. And pinball features cool art and attracts cool people and this led to the creation of a whole community that has continued to grow. Building this community has become something I am also very passionate about and the fact that I am constantly surrounded by art and serving the needs of my customers – yeah, it’s pretty great! So to answer your question – it’s been about seven years since The Flipper Room was established, which is really a combo venture featuring picture framing, pop and lowbrow art sales, and pinball, and it is a great way to attract a young and diverse demographic – including hip older folks as well.
Mike Moretti. Photo by Mel Bearns.
Building this community has become something I am also very passionate about and the fact that I am constantly surrounded by art and serving the needs of my customers – yeah, it’s pretty great!
What is it about pinball that makes it such an incredible intergenerational cultural phenomenon?
Pinball is amazingly cross-generational because of its nature. There’s art, music, sounds – it’s tactile, organic, and physical. Basically it’s kinetic art. Every game is different, unlike video games that have patterns. In pinball there are no patterns, and you’re not playing against an opponent. You’re playing to beat your previous score or, like in some of the cool games from the 60’s, you’re playing to fulfill an objective. There are so many different themes, too. Like there’s literally something for everybody and playing pinball offers a genuine escape from reality.
Pop art and pinball are inextricably linked – can you share some thoughts on the how and why? And while we’re at it – what are some of your favorite artists in this genre?
When pinball got started pop culture and pop art were also on the rise and since then they have always gone together. Although, after the initial heyday of pinball, the games slipped in popularity and it got harder to find machines to play, but just like a bunch of other trends the popularity of pinball has continued to rise and fall and here we are today, riding a big wave.
As for some of my favorite artists – there’s Gordon Morrison – he’s responsible for a whole lot of fantastic art in the classic screen-printed comic book style. In the 70’s and 80’s most pinball machines were screen printed and designed to appeal to adolescent teens and young people. Dirty Donny is another great artist – we rep his work here at the shop. Then there’s Zombie Yeti – you can’t talk about pinball without mentioning Jeremy at this stage. And also Paul Faris who was super busy in the 90’s.
Photo by Mel Bearns
Which is the oldest pinball game in your collection and why did you want it as part of your arsenal?
Perfect question! Hands down it’s Moulin Rouge from 1965. I’ve been wanting this machine since we started putting pinball machines in the shop – our first one was Star Wars – but I said from the beginning I really wanted this game and one day we’re going to find one. It’s the perfect theme for us – it starts out with an artist painting a blank canvas for a client seated before the famous red windmill in Paris. The background is a clear mirror surface that starts lighting up as you hit the numbers to complete the painting, and if you succeed and finish the painting you get a free game. It really is the perfect game for a picture frame shop.
Photo by Mel Bearns
When pinball got started, pop culture and pop art were also on the rise and since then they have always gone together
Tell us about your role as the de facto Pinball Wizard of Concord and what community means to you.
My role? Well, I provide the machines, the power and the tech support for all the games, and I am very grateful to the techs in the area who helped me out at the beginning. This whole thing started with one machine in the break room, then it was two, then three. Then people wanted to play with them all the time and it got really crowded and loud and so I created the space for The Flipper Room to happen. And then we started a Tuesday night league with 8 people. Then it was 16. Then 32 and now we have 40 which is about as big as it can go in our space. Everyone in the league is super passionate and when I asked if we could take a break between seasons, well… they weren’t having it, so it pretty much never stops. We also do a Sunday tournament one time a month that pulls in different people. Like I said earlier, I’m pretty passionate about our community and it’s great that we bring people of all ages and walks of life together over something we all love very much.
Running The Flipper Room and your frame shop is a family affair – how does it all come together?
I front the frame shop and manage the day-to-day stuff. I’ve got an excellent crew and staff who have been with us for years doing all the work in the back of the shop – and my wife handles the deliveries. But I do everything related to The Flipper Room together with my wife and my little girls – although one is 15 now and I guess she doesn’t much care for me calling her a little girl anymore.
You’ve clearly passed on your passion for pinball on to your kids, and you started a program called The Little Flippers – can you tell us more about this?
Yeah, I started bringing my kids to the shop and they started to play pinball, then they started bringing friends in to play, and then their friends brought their friends – that’s what laid the foundation for The Little Flippers. At the time we were foster parents with the foster family network so we started donating afternoons to families and parents learning to become foster parents, and through this outreach of sorts this became known as The Little Flippers. We saw that not all kids latch on to sports or music, but pinball is something all kids can do with other kids and so this thing we started just grew. I was contacted by a location in Florida that had heard about it and wanted to be a part of it and so we started a chapter. And it’s spreading across the country - we now have 11 chapters and a twelfth chapter is about to form. It’s great to see this much enthusiasm from kids for pinball and leagues forming all over the U.S.
(Above photos from Instagram-@theflipperroom)
The Flipper Room participated at Creative Concord’s 2023 Art and Music Jam weekend and you’re back in ’24. What are some of the rewards of getting out and mixing it up with the public and how do you keep these games going?
Definitely meeting new people and introducing them to pinball is kind of the whole point. It’s really fun to see people play pinball again who haven’t played in years. Then there’s the kids who’ve never played before. And their parents really like it because even though it’s a game it’s not ‘screen time’ because they’re up and doing something social and physical and interacting with others. To play pinball you’ve got to get out of the house and be in a place with other people – where you can meet other players who have more experience and are willing to share tips, and of course it’s a great way to make new friends.
When I got into pinball I was fortunate to meet and learn from Tom Johnson of Tilt Electronics. He’s been putting pinball machines together and fixing them since 1968, and when he saw that I’d opened shop he basically came in and quickly became a family friend and showed me how these things work. He told stories about selling and assembling new pinball machines out of the box and here I am now, decades later and learning how they work and how to keep them going. I’ll never forget when I first started up and Tom said to me, ‘Welcome to the moving business!’ I didn’t really understand what he meant then – but I know now! At 250 to 400 pounds each it takes determination and commitment to move pinball machines around – especially to the park for the Creative Concord event.
Speaking of events – tell us about some that you participate in, and how can people find out more about these and get involved?
Yeah, we sponsor a bunch of events year-round and we do a big Halloween event every year. I mentioned we host tournaments and leagues and we have The Little Flippers for kids. We also partner with local businesses like Epidemic Ales and others. The best way to find out what’s going on and stay in touch is to follow us on social media and on our website – we’re very active on Facebook and Instagram and we’re always grateful for word of mouth referrals and recommendations.
Despite the ubiquitous presence of video and now augmented and virtual reality games, where do you see pinball in the grand scheme of things in the coming decades and what do you think will ensure its survival?
Pinball has a really interesting history and it’s been knocked down several times, but it always comes back and I expect it will go through dips and surges again, but in the end it will always rebound. History is cyclical. We have a book here at the shop on the history of pinball and reading through it there have been times when it looked like it was set to disappear altogether – but here we are now at a serious peak. And although only a very small percentage of the overall population – about 1% really – is involved with pinball, when you’re in the community it just seems huge and like it’s everywhere.
As for what will make it last – definitely programs like The Little Flippers that will create new generations of players who may fall out during their teen years, but there will be a time later when they come across a pinball machine and those early memories and experiences will come back from when they first started out playing as kids and they’ll start flipping again.
(Above photos from Instagram-@theflipperroom)