The Rock-afire Explosion
From Freepedia
The Rock-afire Explosion was an animatronic robot band that played in ShowBiz Pizza restaurants mostly in the Southern United States from 1982 to 1991.
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The concept
The idea was to have a stage with a full cast of characters sing and entertain the patrons while they ate pizza and other food. The restaurant was geared almost exclusively to children, and had a full arcade in another section. The restaurant was frequently a host to children's birthday parties, much like its competitor and eventual replacement, Chuck E. Cheese's.
The robots were various animals ranging from a dog to a gorilla. They would perform medleys of classic rock songs, popular current songs, as well as unique numbers. At one point, a human talk-show host character was present, but was removed in favor of the character he replaced.
The characters had limited movement and never moved around the stage. However, they could mimic playing real instruments and had realistic facial expressions, enabling them to interact with one another and occasionally address the audience.
Late in their career, a device was installed that allowed restaurant employees to make a character move, and broadcast the character's voice over the PA system. The stage had three sections, with the band in the center section and other characters on the two side sections.
The band
Billy Bob Brockali - Country guitar. Took stage left of the band. He was the mascot for ShowBiz and his image was on most the merchandise. Billy Bob was a bear and wore a red and yellow-striped pair of overalls.
Looney Bird - Vocals. Looney Bird shared Billy Bob's stage. His head was the only thing ever seen, the rest of him supposedly hiding in an oil drum.
Fatz Geronimo - Lead singer, and keyboardist. Fatz was a giant gorilla and wore a tuxedo.
Dook Larue - Drummer and vocals. Dook was a dog who wore a space suit.
Beach Bear - Electric Guitar and vocals. Beach Bear was a "surfer" bear and wore beach shorts.
Mitzi Mozzarella - Vocals. Mitzi was a mouse and acheerleader.
Uncle Klunk - Guest star. Uncle Klunk was a man who performed a talk show skit along with a chracter named "Murray D. Bird". Took place of Rolfe de Wolfe and Earle Schmerle for a brief time period. Retrofitted with a Santa Claus costume and stage set for the holidays.
Rolfe de Wolfe - Took the far right stage of the band. Rolfe was a wolf, but less of a musician, and more of a stand up comedian and ventriloquist (providing Earle's voice), although he did sing and had a cymbal. Replaced temporarily by Uncle Klunk.
Earle Schmerle - Earle was Rolfe's hand puppet, although he had a personality of his own.
The "Break-up"
ShowBiz Pizza Place was similar to (and competed with) Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre, another restaurant chain that was popular in other parts of the United States. When "Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre" filed for bankruptcy in 1984, ShowBiz Pizza bought the company.
The corporation maintained the two restaurant chains simultaneously for a few years. Each continued their own stage shows and merchandise. However, relations between the company that owned and programmed The Rock-afire Explosion, Creative Engineering, and ShowBiz soon began to take a dive.
The company retrofitted the Rock-afire Explosion robots into a new show called Munch’s Make Believe Band (featuring the Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre characters), and reverse-engineered the programming of the robots themselves. Eventually, the ShowBiz restaurants themselves were converted to Chuck E. Cheese's locations, in a process called "Concept Unification".
Although some people thought the creativity and entertainment value of The Rock-afire Explosion was superior to Munch's Make Believe Band, the company had decided to shift its focus away from animatronics and more towards video games, food, and quality of service.
A discontinuation of the second robot band, in favor of a newer animatronic show called "Studio C" (featuring only Chuck E. Cheese), made sense from a business perspective. Profits did not suffer as a result of the discontinuation.
Both bands still maintain a cult following; Rock-afire records and merchandise originally sold at ShowBiz periodically show up on EBay.
