Saturday
05Jul2008
The Story of an Animatronic Band with a Dream, The Story of Rock-afire Explosion
Saturday, July 5, 2008 at 2:19PM
I owe Hunter at
Slashfilm for running with this earlier today:
Can there really be a documentary about Rock-afire Explosion?
If you were a kid growing up in rural Oklahoma and you
would legitimately get excited about the one or two times a year your parents
would take you to Tulsa and the old Showbiz Pizza Place at 71st and Memorial,
then you're both a little delighted and surprised that such a movie could exist.
At least I was. Or am.
Though the technology of an animatronic band was later
co-opted more successfully by Chuck E. Cheese (which was eventually owned by the
same outfit, as I understand it), Showbiz Pizza Place featured a very talented
band of robotic rock n' roll animals called the Rock-afire Explosion, and they'd
sing songs while you ate lousy pizza and lost your parents' money playing Skee-Ball.
Of course, looking back on it now, having a large
gorilla named Fats Geronimo playing piano a la Fats Domino might be a bit...oh,
what's the word...um...racist?
Still, when you're ten, it beat the hell out of the
animatronic Abe Lincoln at Disneyland.
There is a documentary, which they say will be released
this fall. You can get more information on the
MySpace page, or you can simply let the trailer
speak for itself. And it speaks volumes.
Man, how 'bout that slow talker from Alabama? If he doesn't hit your stereotype then you're stereotype is done broke, daddy. And if that guy's not weird enough, why not jam to Rock-afire Explosion tearin' up the new Madonna-JT single "Four Minutes"?
Uh-huh. That's the shit right there.
Reader Comments (1)
Talk about bringing back memories...
I clearly remember my 9th birthday party at a Showbiz Pizza Place in my hometown of San Antonio, TX. My parents were on the brink of divorce (although they didn't divorce until almost 20-years later - yep, fun stuff), so my dad felt like he had to buy my love by having me be the first kid on the block with an 8-bit Nintendo. I also recall that a handful of G.I. Joe action figures wound up going unaccounted for. I can only assume that a so-called friend(s) jacked them - bastards!
Also, was it my imagination, or was it that pitch black when the band played? I don't even want to know what could have gone on or went on while the band was playing...