Replay: Pinball's renaissance on the Jersey Shore

Chicago may have the top score, but New Jersey is no slouch on the pinball scene. Maybe it's all the arcades.

"Jersey is a pinball state, for sure," said "Jersey" Jack Guarnieri, proprietor of Jersey Jack Pinball, one of only two factory-scale pinball machine manufacturers remaining in the world.

When travel show host Anthony Bourdain shot an episode on the Jersey Shore earlier this year, Southside Johnny took him to the Silverball Museum in Asbury Park. Favorite son Bruce Springsteen referred to "them dusty arcades" and the four-legged machines specifically ("as the wizards play down on Pinball Way") in his 1973 boardwalk ballad "Fourth of July, Asbury Park (Sandy)."

Speaking at his namesake company's Jersey Shore Pinball and Gameroom Show in Lakewood on Saturday, Jersey Jack talked about taking pinball to the next step in its evolution.

Jersey Jack Pinball made to order 2,200 "Wizard of Oz" machines and has pre-sold 1,300 of their next blockbuster-inspired offering, "The Hobbit," according to Jen Guarnieri, Jersey Jack's daughter and marketing coordinator for the company.

Jack Guarnieri recently announced banker and businessman Leonard Abess Jr. was seeding Jersey Jack Pinball with "millions" to fill pre-orders of "The Hobbit" game.

These machines don't look or sound like most of the pinball machines that you would see at the Silverball. They're outfitted with dynamic surround sound and 27-inch high-definition monitors built into the backbox.

"We took what pinball was and brought it into this century," said Jersey Jack, who it should be noted is actually from Brooklyn but has lived in New Jersey since 1989 and adopted the nickname while writing a regular column about pinball many years ago.

At Saturday's show, dozens of pinball enthusiasts of all ages hovered over pinball machines of all ages and mingled with Jersey Jack employees, who were easy to identify in their light blue T-shirts.

All manner of sound effects — coins being spit out of a slot machine, a bugle belting out a cavalry charge, "Over the Rainbow" from the Wizard of Oz — bled into each other. One of the employees also brought in his parrot, who added a squawk into the cacophony every once in a while.

In the middle of all that, collectors Bruce Zamost and Michael Karsen swapped stories on what pinball machine had piqued their interest lately.

Pinball is not some bygone artifact of Americana to them. It's quite the opposite, actually.

Video games, no matter how sophisticated, can't be timeless like pinball, Zamost said, because of the game's physical nature. It's not programmed, so the ball never bounces the same way.

"When you pull that plunger (to shoot the ball into the playfield), every game is different," Zamost said. "You have the novelty of having a new experience — guaranteed — with every single game."

Russ Zimmer: 732-557-5748; razimmer@gannettnj.com