
EP. #75: OLD-SCHOOL ARCADE GAMES with Billy Smith
From Let's Talk Ten by DAN FISHER
April 13, 2026 · 1h 1m
About this episode
Dan Fisher talks with Billy Smith about their favorite old-school arcade games and their cultural significance.
BILLY SMITH – owner and operator of Billy’s Midway Arcade in Hawthorne, NJ – joins Dan to talk about their favorite all-time old-school arcade games: Pinball, Skee-ball, Pong, Donkey Kong, Pac Man, Pole Position, Tetris, House of the Dead, even claw machines. It’s a fun and fast-paced conversation about the histories of these games and the tech wizards who created them; the enormous impact on they had on our culture, popular and otherwise; and why pinball is the most poetic of all the arcad...
People in this episode
Host: Dan Fisher
Guest: Billy Smith
Topics covered
- old-school arcade games
- gaming history
- cultural impact of games
- pinball
- arcade technology
Keywords
- arcade games
- Pinball
- Skee-ball
- Donkey Kong
- Pac Man
- gaming history
- cultural impact
Mentioned in this episode
Books & works: Pinball, Skee-ball, Pong, Donkey Kong, Pac Man, Pole Position, Tetris, House of the Dead, claw machines
Places: Hawthorne, NJ
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