Caine's Arcade

My name is Caine, and I am 9 years old. My arcade is named Caine's Arcade. It's open on weekends only. And, it's really cheap. Caine does not pass by an arcade without stopping in. He loves tickets, playing games. He loves prizes. So it was only natural for him to build his own arcade. He loves to see how things are built. He takes his toys apart to see how they work. He can't put them back together, but he takes them apart. Caine spent summer vacation coming to work with me. We sell auto parts in East LA. My dad has a lot of boxes back there. We ship parts out. So I cut them up and make my arcade games out of it. My first game I made is a basketball hoop I got at Shakey's Pizza... and it's really cool. He taped it onto a box, and he offered people chances to play for a nickel. He started with that little game, and little by little it got fancier and fancier. And eventually it took over the whole store. I met Caine randomly. I had to get a door handle for my '96 Corolla, so I pulled into this used auto part store. And I just came across this elaborate cardboard arcade. I asked him how much it was to play. He was like "for $1 you get 4 turns. But for $2 you get a fun pass." Well, how many turns do you get with a fun pass? You get 500 turns with a fun pass. I got a fun pass. I made this fun pass expire in one month. And you get 500 plays on any of these games. It is a great deal! I started making my office. It has a speaker, so on the other side I can talk through. I got tokens, my business card, fun passes, and prizes. My first prizes I used my own toys, like the cars - my own toys. I used to like Hot Wheels when I was little. I work from the back office, so it kept him out of my hair all summer. He would work on the arcade, i would work on eBay. My next game I built was a soccer game. First of all, it didn't get no goalies. People said it was too easy, so I bought army goalies, and there are blockers. I tell them, "is it easy now?" It's pretty hard, so you get two tickets if you make in here. I give it a 4 stars. Hard game, challenging game. 4 stars. One day, Caine tells me, "Dad, I want to buy a claw machine." I say, "why don't you just build it?" So he got an S hook and put a piece of yarn on it, and then put a little track on top of the box. And then I said, "What the heck? He figured out how to make a claw machine with a string and a hook." Here are some sunglasses. These are the glass I like the most - star sunglasses. He buy calculators to put on every arcade game. I ask, "what's that for?" The calculators right here are for security to see if it's a real fun pass or not. On the back, the fun pass has a security number. So when you go here you turn it around and put the pin number in it. And press the check mark button and the big number comes out. That's how you know it's a real fun pass! My dad started the business in 1955. We have used auto parts. Most of our business has gone online because we really don't get the walk-up traffic like we used to. So Caine's chances of getting one customer is pretty hard. Caine is always waiting in front, sitting on his little chair and trying to convince people to play. But not too much luck. Caine's Arcade grand opening! But he never gets discouraged. He is always sweeping up and dusting off the game. Waiting for customers. He only wears his shirt on Saturdays and Sundays when he comes open up his arcade. And he is really proud of his shirt because he thought it up and he designed it. When Caine got back to school from vacation, he kept telling everybody that he got an arcade, and nobody believed him. So he won't wear his shirt to school because he's afraid that kids might tease him about it. He told them, "hey I got my arcade!" But they're like, "yeah, yeah sure." So one day, my secretary comes running into the office, "George, you'll never believe it! Somebody is playing in Caine's Arcade." And I go, "no way!" I was looking through the security camera and watching him. I'm playing miniature soccer, miniature basketball. And then, when you score a point, he would crawl into the box and he pulls out these little tickets out on the side of the cardboard. Like a real arcade, game tickets come from the bottom. And I was like, "this kid is a genius." Nirvan came back one day when Caine wasn't here and told me, "you mind if I make a short film about Caine's Arcade?" And I said, "well, actually, it's kind of a little joke around here, because you are his only customer." I was blown away. Caine has only sold one fun pass? Like the fun pass is an awesome deal. So Nirvan says, "well, what if I could get him a couple of customers?" I said, "that would make his day. If you could get him one customer, he would be happy. And at that point, we hashed a plan to invite everybody in LA to come play at Caine's Arcade. The idea was to do a surprise flashmob of Caine's Arcade on Sunday afternoon. I was thinking, "who is gonna come down to a junk yard on Sunday afternoon in East LA? Who's really gonna show up?" So then I made a little facebook event which a friend posted on HiddenLA which has over 230,000 fans, and all of a sudden it just started going viral. Nirvan put it on the internet, and all of a sudden, within an hour, we had NBC news here. Then it hit the front page of reddit, which is like being on the front page of the internet. I started reading the comments. "I wish I could be there - I live in New York. I wish i could be there - I live in Europe." And then I go, "wow!" It was getting big. The plan is I am going to take Caine to Shakey's Pizza. We are going to play some arcade games. We are going to eat lunch, while Nirvan sets up a big surprise party. Caine has no idea what we're doing, and when we get back, he is going to have the biggest surprise of his life. And the idea is to get as many people as we can to come out to Caine's Arcade, and just make his day. Caine is dying to have one customer show up to his arcade. So Caine is going to be the most surprised little boy in the whole wide world. Hey, we're ready. In about a minute, he is going to ride here. Hey Caine, can we go home early today? We had no customers. No. No? Come on, Dad's tired! No can do! No can do? We're back Caine. Wow! What's going on over here? Haha. Huh? [ cheering ] We finally got some customers here. [ cheering ] WE CAME TO PLAY. [ cheering ] Alright everybody, this is Caine. Hi Caine! [ cheering ] Caine, this is everybody. All these people came to play your arcade. Did you know they were coming? No. Are you ready to run your arcade? Yeah. Alright, what did you guys come here to do? WE CAME TO PLAY! Good. Welcome to Caine's Arcade. [ song ] Well the "C" could be for Cardboard And the "A" could be for Arcade But the "A" could also be for Auto Parts Cause in his Pop's shop's where it's made And the "I"'s gotta be for imagination Of which this kid's got a lot And the "N" oughta be for Noggin' Where the idea first got thought... But then the "E" (Oh yes the E!) Oh yes the "E" (Oh yes the E!) Well the "E"'s gotta be for Everybody (That's you and me!) Cause Everybody is who's invited To come on down and play If you've got the pluck to try your luck Come on down to Caine's Arcade Oh Caine's Arcade (Caine's Arcade!) Oh Caine's Arcade (Caine's Arcade!) It's the best cardboard arcade ever been made (Ever made!) So grab yourself a fun pass And y'all come on down and play If you've got the pluck to try your luck Come on down to Caine's Arcade [ cheering ] First of all, I want to know how you got all of these people. Are those your friends? So when I came back, I was like, "is this real life or was I just dreaming?" So I came out and there were real people in real life. Like they're really playing the games. I saw a lot of people, and I was like, "I don't know." It's probably a little parade around somewhere. And they were all like that... when i was right here. So I thought they were cheering for me, and they were. And I was proud.