Issue 2 of Pinball Magazine presents a doubly special cover story focusing on the career of pinball designer Dennis Nordman. Dennis worked for Bally, Williams, Stern, Jersey Jack, and as of just recently, Multimorphic. Dennis contributed to the design of a host of games including: Blackwater 100, Party Animal, Demolition Man, Indianapolis 500, Pirates of the Caribbean, The Wizard of Oz and others. In this exclusive interview Pinball Magazine discussed Nordman’s entire career with him, game by game.
However, when talking with, or about, Dennis Nordman, you simply can’t ignore pinball artist Greg Freres. Dennis and Greg worked together at Bally and Williams, producing some amazing pinballs: Dr. Dude, The Party Zone and the two Elvira-themed games. In 2009 the pair formed Whizbang Pinball, which resulted in the truly unique Whoa Nellie! Big Juicy Melons game. Greg joins the discussion on the games he and Dennis designed together and during the interview he revealed much more.
Below is part 1 of 3 of the first chapter of he Dennis Nordman interview in which Dennis talks about how he became a pinball designer. Please note: the same chapter in Pinball Magazine No. 2 contains more photos and images than are published below. To illustrate the length of the interview: the full first chapter is six pages in the magazine. The entire interview covers 90 pages in the magazine, not counting the contributions by others about working with Dennis Nordman and /or Greg Freres.
PM: Dennis, let’s start at the beginning. Did you grow up with pinball?
DN: No, interestingly I didn’t grow up with pinball. The first real exposure I had to pinball that I can remember was when I was probably eight or nine. My father took us to his friend’s place that we used to go and visit, and one day when we went over there he had a pinball machine. This was back in the late 1950s, so I don’t remember the game or anything about it.
