Trivia / The Rock-afire Explosion

• Children Voicing Children: Shalisa Sloan was 11 when she was hired to voice Mitzi. She has continued voicing the character well into her adulthood.
• Colbert Bump:
  • The band gained wider recognition from modern audiences following the release of Five Nights at Freddy's.
  • In recent history the band (or at least some of its characters) have appeared in various films such as Just Go with It, Keanu, and even had their own documentary in 2008 (viewable in its entirety on YouTube)
  • Mitzi, Billy Bob and Fatz (though not named) appear in one of the commercials for Deadpool 2's Blu-Ray release coinciding with their appearance at 2018's San Diego Comic-Con, which has greatly improved their visibility in the last few years.
  • The band also appeared in the music video of "Electric Feel" by MGMT.
  • The characters appeared twice during the Mystery Science Theater 3000 Kickstarter telethon in 2021: the first time had them perform "Guitarzan" from the 1983 Fatz for President showtape with a new opening and closing from Billy Bob, and the second time had them perform the Jonah-era MST3K theme song with Aaron appearing at the beginning and end, the latter with his girlfriend Kerry.
• Creator's Favorite Episode: Duke Chauppetta (the voice of Dook) considers the Magic Night show the best one Creative Engineering ever produced.
• Crossdressing Voices: Aaron Fechter originally voiced Mitzi Mozzarella; this was derived from when a version of the Wolf Pack 5 show was quickly put together for the first ShowBiz Pizza Place as a placeholder show, and at the request of Showbiz Pizza the character Queenie Fox (who, contrary to earlier claims, was voiced by an actual woman, a female CEI employee) be retooled into Mini Mozzarella, a female mouse, to go with the pizza motif. In addition to recording new announcer spiels and Wolfman dialogue, Aaron also re-recorded Queenie's songs (most notably "Dragstrip in the Sky"). When the Rockafire Explosion finally debuted in July 1980, Aaron initially continued to voice Mini's successor Mitzi (in a more high, shrill-sounding voice that would better fit a girl mouse), until 1982 when an actual female, Monique Danielle, took over the role in two songs, before the then 11-year-old Shalisa Sloan (now Shalisa James), took over as the voice of Mitzi, a character she still voices to this day.
• The Danza:
  • Duke Chauppetta as Dook LaRue. While spelled differently (though it was spelled as "Duke" pre-1981), it’s still pronounced the same way.
  • In the ShowBiz-produced showtapes, Billy Bob was voiced by Bob West.
• Dedication: The song "Oh Dawn" from the Fall 1984 showtape was dedicated to Alyssa Dawn, Aaron Fechter's then-newborn daughter.
• Descended Creator: Aaron Fechter, owner of Creative Engineering and creator of the Rock-afire Explosion, also voices Billy Bob, Looney Bird, Rolfe DeWolfe and Earl Schmerle. He also used to voice Beach Bear and Mitzi Mozzarella in the earlier shows, as well as Fatz Geromino from 2007 to 2020.
• Disowned Adaptation: Fechter has no kind things to say about the ShowBiz-made showtapes produced without CEI's involvement in the mid-1980s.
• Executive Meddling:
  • In the Wolf Pack 5, one of the members was a fox named Queenie. She was (reluctantly) changed into a mouse named Mini Mozzarella for the first ShowBiz location at corporate's insistence.
  • When Uncle Klunk was introduced, ShowBiz didn’t like his initial characterization, so they forced CEI to retool the character. CEI hired a voice actor and outsourced the audio to another company (though they still did the programming).
  • During ShowBiz Pizza Time’s financial struggles in the mid-1980s, they decided to produce their own tapes in-house. After CEI responded with an unauthorized showtape around Christmastime in 1986, they gave back the recording rights to CEI, but not the programming rights (due to an incident in which a drunk employee during a party wiped out the programming for CEI's Liberty Show).
  • Billy Bob's red and yellow overalls were the result of a suggestion from ShowBiz marketing agency member Stan Emerson.
• Fan Community Nickname: The Rock-afire Explosion's fanbase is collectively referred to as the "Mafia".
• Harpo Does Something Funny: Both the unauthorized Christmas showtape of 1986 and the 1987 New Year's showtape were done completely unscripted, and in one take. The latter was done to make that show feel like a real concert.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: Many shows fell victim to this over the years, though they since resurfaced and were made widely available thanks to the internet.
• The Other Darrin:
  • As mentioned above, Fechter originally voiced Beach Bear and Mitzi, and voiced Fatz from 2007 to 2020 after original actor Burt "Sal" Wilson left the group due to a salary dispute. Wilson returned to the role in 2020, until he died in 2023.
  • The voice actors for the ShowBiz-produced tapes are not the actors from CEI’s tapes. To date, all but Billy Bob's voice actor (Bob West) and Rolfe's voice actor (Joe Conti) are still unidentified.
• Role Reprise: For the Yogi Bear showtape, Daws Butler and Don Messick reprised their respective roles as Yogi and Boo-Boo. For Butler, it would be one of the last times he voiced Yogi, as he passed away the following year.
• Tuckerization:
  • Billy Bob Brockali was named after David "Billy Bob" Irvin, a CEI artist and Fechter's college roommate, and Bob Brock, the founder of ShowBiz Pizza Place.
  • Rolfe was named after ShowBiz exec Rolfe Kennard, who was not amused when he found out about this.
• Voices in One Room: Shows in the 1980s usually had all the actors recording together.
• What Could Have Been:
  • As stated above, Fechter wanted Queenie Fox to be a member of the Rock-afire before Executive Meddling from ShowBiz forced him to replace her with Mini Mozzarella and later Mitzi Mozzarella.
  • Early promotional materials implied Birthday Bird would be a co-host and best friend to Billy Bob (despite being a static prop character), and Looney Bird (Billy Bob's actual best friend) would be a heckler to the Rock-afire.
  • While the Wolf Pack 5 was intended to be a temporary show, Brock loved it so much he floated using that in all ShowBiz locations. Fechter, however, wanted to do an improved version.
  • In the early 1980s, Creative Engineering was developing second-generation animatronics. During the Colander Head Telethon in 1983, Aaron Fechter showcased the G2 Mitzi, who had a wider range of movement in her arms and hips, allowing her to dance rather than simply flailing her pom-poms around; Mitzi also would've had a new outfit, consisting of a red dress over a white sweater, as well as red bows. G2 versions of Dook and Beach Bear were also planned: G2 Dook would have had articulated arms and wrists that would allow him to actually play his drumset, and G2 Beach Bear would have been able to stand up. At the same telethon, Aaron stated that eventually, they were going to develop animatronics that could walk around. Budget cuts at ShowBiz meant the second-gen animatronics were never installed.
  • Amid disputes with Creative, ShowBiz looked into replacing the band with licensed characters. Before they decided on Yogi Bear and Boo Boo, they considered Spider-Man, Superman, and Garfield. According to Jul Kamen in this article, ShowBiz also considered licensing a Transformers character around the time they got the idea of using the Statue of Liberty, which ultimately beat it out.
  • Also considered were various original characters, all of whom were never given names, as well as another stage integrating Yogi, Boo-Boo, and Snagglepuss.
  • One reason why Fechter refused to hand his characters over to ShowBiz Pizza Time, Inc. (in addition to the company offering little-to-no monetary compensation) was because he was planning a cartoon series based on the band. As of 2023, it’s unlikely to happen.
  • There was going to be a full Rock-afire Explosion version of the Pizza Time Theatre "History of Rock & Roll" showtape, produced by ShowBiz corporate. It never made it past a demo version, and a shorter version was included in the February 1987 corporate showtape.
• Writer Revolt: The Christmas 1986 showtape was made as a direct response to ShowBiz corporate producing its own showtapes; it was even released to stores without ShowBiz's knowledge or permission.
• Write What You Know: In the earliest shows, Billy Bob makes a new gas called "Gasahol" as part of a plan to solve the energy crisis. Fechter had previously made an energy-efficient car in the early 1970s, but it never caught on.

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