After thinking about it for a few hours, he got back to me: "I'm not sure pinball would be legal today. I recently asked Sharpe what he thought would have happened if he had missed the shot. This modern take on the classic pinball game is so fun it’s addictive. Almost on the spot, the City Council voted to overturn the ban. He let go of the plunger and it did what he said. He pulled back the plunger to launch a new ball, pointed at the middle lane at the top of the playing field, and boldly stated that, based only on his skill, he would get the ball to land through that middle lane. So he made a final Hail Mary move that, to this day, he compares to Babe Ruth's famous called shot in center field. As he played the game, surrounded by a huddle of journalists, cameras and councilmen, he did little to impress City Council's anti-pinball coalition. This presented a problem: While Sharpe was intimately familiar with the first-choice game, he had never played the backup. Suspicious that the pinballers had rigged the primary machine, one particularly antagonistic councilman told them that he wanted them to use the backup. Fearful that this hearing might be their only shot at overturning the ban, the industry brought in two machines, one to serve as a backup in case any problems arose with the primary machine. To do this, they decided to call in the best player they could find in order to demonstrate his pinball wizardry - a 26-year-old magazine editor named Roger Sharpe. Their strategy: prove that pinball was a game of skill, not chance, and thus should be legal. The coin-operated amusement lobby (which represented the pinball industry) eventually succeeded in earning a City Council hearing to re-examine the long-standing ban. In 1976, the New York City pinball ban was overturned. And in The Simpsons, Sideshow Bob once proclaimed, "Television has ruined more young minds than pinball and syphilis combined." Filmmaker Richard Linklater makes use of this symbol in a significant number of his movies, with rebellious or outcast characters seen playing or talking about pinball in virtually every one. In all likelihood, The Who was using the game to portray the titular character as anti-authoritarian. The album's use of pinball is largely misunderstood by today's audiences, who may view the deaf, dumb and blind pinball wizard as quirky. And when "Tommy," The Who's pinball-wizard-themed rock opera album came out in 1972, pinball was still banned in much of the country. For example, the Fonz is regularly seen playing pinball in "Happy Days" episodes. If you watch a movie or TV show that was either produced or takes place during this period, virtually any time pinball makes an appearance, it is for the purpose of portraying to the audience that a particular character is a rebel. Because pinball was illegal for so long, it became a symbol of youth and rebellion.
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