This week’s guest is Evan Phillippe from the Pacific Pinball Museum! We talk about how he and his team works to makes the museum more educational than an arcade; how they keep their collection working — and mostly, playable by visitors; and whether pinball means anything to a generation of kids who grew up playing games on the iPad. Plus: The downside of thriftiness, and the challenges of finding a larger home for the museum’s enormous collection.

Find the podcast on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify — or find your favorite app here! A full transcript of this episode is available here.

Last week, I told you about how I realized that museums were meaningful enough to me that I wanted to do a podcast about them. It’s no accident that the first one I’m profiling on Call ‘Em Like Museum is the Pacific Pinball Museum.

Twenty Thousand Hertz, which explores “the stories behind the world’s most recognizable and interesting sounds,” ran a competition in 2025, inviting listeners to submit their own their own fully produced short stories about sound. At first, I wasn’t going to enter.

Then, about a week before the contest deadline, I cold-emailed Evan: Could I come to the museum and interview you about the sound of pinball?

I rolled up two days later and got an hour-long unscripted history lesson, from the iconic buzzers and bells of early machines, to synthesized sound, to movie clips and full-length songs. On the drive home from Alameda to San Francisco, I was buzzing with excitement.

Twenty Thousand Hertz selected the story as a Silver finalist, and hearing it on the podcast was an enormous honor. But I also realized: There are a lot more people like Evan out there, passionate folks working in museums who are eager to share their knowledge with folks. That’s when the real work began.

— Eric

Everyone who subscribes to this newsletter before November 10 has been entered into our Gift Shop Giveaway! (Full rules here)

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One of the prize packages will include a mini Lego-sized pinball machine, which I bought at the Pacific Pinball Museum gift shop. It’ll come in pieces (naturally), with some simple instructions to put it together. I also bought one for my DVD shelf: An “Indianapolis Stones” machine, for my Lego Steven Spielberg to play.

The winner will also get stickers, postcards, and maybe some surprise goodies!

Before we go … here’s the episode of Twenty Thousand Hertz where you can hear my original story about the PPM. It starts around 16:17. If the embed isn’t appearing in your email app, try this link.