Like many kid's that grew up in the 80's, I spent a fair amount of time at ShowBiz Pizza and/or Chuck E. Cheese's. Part of the reason was that I was an overweight child that hated sports but loved pizza and Skee Ball. Both places always seemed to be the default option for birthday parties, of which I attended dozens, though I never had one of own there (I always preferred the go-kart track, but that's neither here nor there).
Regardless, I loved burning of a sugar high in the arcade-room, but what I liked even more were the Animatronic characters that formed a band, "Rock-afire Explosion". This was like having a slice of Disney World right around the corner, and I fucking loved it! In fact, I have a theory that my love of Rock-afire Explosion partially explains my love for seeing live music today (although perhaps I just had a thing for singing gorilla robots and flashing lights, dunno).
I can still remember running like a bat out of hell from the arcade room and into the showroom the moment I heard the opening strains of music. Like other kids, I would stand, mouth agape in front of the curtains, which when parted revealed what at the time, was an incredible feat of technology, used to animate various mechanical animals who would sing, "dance" and generally blow my tiny mind.
The reason why I bring this up is because I have totally forgotten about these old memories until just yesterday. In between wincing at the Bears getting their collective ass being handed to them, my buddy showed me some YouTube clips of a few hard-core Rock-afire Explosion fans that have not only purchased the equipment from the closed restaurants, but have gone so far as to reprogram them with modern music.
This right here is all kinds of AWESOME! I hereby present to you, Rock-afire Explosion performing "Ms. New Booty" (as originally performed by Bubba Sparxx and the Yin-Yang Twins). These people either have too much time or money on their hands (or as my friend speculated, do not enjoy spending time with their family or friends). I don't really care why they chose this as a hobby, I just think it's cool (in a really dorky, sentimental way).
Regardless, I loved burning of a sugar high in the arcade-room, but what I liked even more were the Animatronic characters that formed a band, "Rock-afire Explosion". This was like having a slice of Disney World right around the corner, and I fucking loved it! In fact, I have a theory that my love of Rock-afire Explosion partially explains my love for seeing live music today (although perhaps I just had a thing for singing gorilla robots and flashing lights, dunno).
I can still remember running like a bat out of hell from the arcade room and into the showroom the moment I heard the opening strains of music. Like other kids, I would stand, mouth agape in front of the curtains, which when parted revealed what at the time, was an incredible feat of technology, used to animate various mechanical animals who would sing, "dance" and generally blow my tiny mind.
The reason why I bring this up is because I have totally forgotten about these old memories until just yesterday. In between wincing at the Bears getting their collective ass being handed to them, my buddy showed me some YouTube clips of a few hard-core Rock-afire Explosion fans that have not only purchased the equipment from the closed restaurants, but have gone so far as to reprogram them with modern music.
This right here is all kinds of AWESOME! I hereby present to you, Rock-afire Explosion performing "Ms. New Booty" (as originally performed by Bubba Sparxx and the Yin-Yang Twins). These people either have too much time or money on their hands (or as my friend speculated, do not enjoy spending time with their family or friends). I don't really care why they chose this as a hobby, I just think it's cool (in a really dorky, sentimental way).
3 comments:
Well said Jus, dorky would have been my word of preference too ;o)
If it makes you feel better - I was mostly into pretty dorky things as a kids too.
That said your dorky stuff is less dorky than my stuff
HAHA this is a funny post! Personally, I was more of a Discovery Zone/ Circus World Pizza kid. Chuck E. Cheese was a bit low-budget in my area growing up.
My brothers and sisters and I used to BEG our parents to take us to Showbiz, but they never would! I only remember going once in my whole childhood — a friend's birthday party. And I remember being equally dazzled by Rock-afire Explosion...
Mind you, it's not like my parents were cruel and unusual people — we had a local place they'd take us to nearly ever week in Seattle area — Keystone Pizza. It was similar, but didn't have a "live band." Hahaha.
(Heh. You think it gave you your love of live music... so cute.)
Nothing Golden Stays
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