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HEEEEEEEEEEERE WE GOOOOOOO AGAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIN!
The Rock-afire Explosion is an animatronic show created by Aaron Fechter and his company Creative Engineering out of Florida, often considered to be one of the greatest animatronic bands of all time. First featured in ShowBiz Pizza Place family entertainment centers between 1980 and 1993, they are now found in very few locations.


The Rock-afire Explosion provides examples of:

  • The Artifact:
    • Beach Bear's cross-eye movement was a leftover from his crazier Dumb Jock persona.
    • Despite Beach Bear and Mitzi being recast with Rick Bailey and Shalisa Sloan in 1982, Aaron Fechter's vocals for the characters remained on the Happy Birthday Medley throughout the 1980s and even in an updated version in the 1990s.
  • Author Appeal: Fatz' obsession with Lawrence Welk and love of Cajun culture were inherited from his performer, Burt Wilson.
  • Awesome, but Impractical: In the "Gee, Our First Album!" cover photo, Beach Bear has a Gibson Les Paul, but his actual guitar is a fake one resembling a combination of a Fender Swinger and other obscure '50s-'60s electric guitars, likely because the Les Paul would damage his arms.
  • Bait-and-Switch: When Beach Bear convinces Mitzi that trying to hound Michael Jackson for autographs would ruin his day, she calmly replies that she understands... only to immediately devolve into ranting at how she'd rip off his shirt, hair and shoes just to make up for failing to get his autograph.
  • Continuity Nod: In the band's cover of "I Can't Get No Satisfaction" in the September 1990 show, Earl changes "cigarettes" to "Crayolas", a reference to an early Uncle Klunk showtape in which Klunk instructed the kids watching to not smoke Crayola crayons.
  • Characterization Marches On:
    • Looney Bird was originally The Alcoholic who constantly got drunk from testing Billy Bob's Gasahol. Later he became a Gadgeteer Genius.
    • Beach Bear started out as a Dumb Jock, complete with a dopey voice. Once Rick Bailey was cast, he became the wise, laid-back Deadpan Snarker we know and love.
  • Crossover: One 1987 showtape produced by corporate replaces Billy Bob and Looney Bird with Yogi Bear and Boo-Boo, with the former using Rolfe's mech.
  • Deadpan Snarker: Beach Bear is the one most likely to come up with quips.
  • Early Installment Character-Design Difference:
    • All of the characters' early masks (apart from Beach Bear, whose mask has remained the same) were very different, with more grotesque, exaggerated features.
    • Likewise, Beach Bear originally had gray fur and a wig (which was removed in 1984 to improve the character's appearance, until it was reinstated in the early 2000s), and at one point (as seen in the "Gee, Our First Album!" cover photo) Dook had gray fur as well.
    • Dook also had a completely different outfit.
  • Early-Installment Weirdness: The band had several differences in their early years.
    • Notably, Fechter also voiced Beach Bear, who was portrayed as a Dumb Jock back then with a voice to match, as well as Mitzi, who had a shrill, Minnie Mouse-esque voice.
    • Fatz and Dook's names were spelled as "Fats" and "Duke", respectively. The current spellings were adopted in 1981, likely for trademark purposes.
    • Looney Bird was originally referred to as the Looney Bird.
    • The Rock-afire Explosion had a more primitive logo originally, with the sign behind Fatz being attached to a tree instead of being a lit-up sign placed in front of it.
    • Excluding the birthday segments, the first showtape didn't have any interaction among the three stages, nor did the Rock-afire Explosion members themselves have any spoken skits (though an unused version of the "School Days" skit had the center stage characters interact with each other, with the plot being Dook and Beach Bear trying to convince Fatz to go to school, leading to the aforementioned song).
  • The Face of the Sun: The Sun, as well as The Man in the Moon, serves as a backup singer.
  • Faux Horrific: One showtape from the late 1980s has Beach Bear express his fears of "sidewalk surfboards" (skateboards).
  • Four-Temperament Ensemble: Among the center four:
    • Fatz: Melancholic
    • Mitzi: Sanguine
    • Beach Bear: Phlegmatic
    • Dook: Choleric
  • G-Rated Drug: In an early Uncle Klunk showtape, he warned the kids watching of the dangers of smoking Crayola crayons.
  • Grand Finale: Locations featuring the band ended with a best-of show hosted by Rolfe and Earl (voiced by different actors due to Creative Engineering not being involved in this show) while the animatronics underwent changes to be turned into Chuck E. and his friends.
  • Plucky Comic Relief: Rolfe and Earl are the two most humorous characters in the lineup.
  • Shoo Out the Clowns: The 1986 Statue of Liberty showtape replaces Rolfe and Earl (the two comic relief characters) with the Statue of Liberty, befitting the more serious nature of the CEI version.
  • Shout-Out: In the Tune Machine showtape, Fatz wants the audience to act like the audience on Wheel of Fortune.
  • The Smurfette Principle: Mitzi is the band's sole female member.
  • Take That!:
    • Rolfe is named after then-ShowBiz exec Rolfe Kennard, who was sometimes antagonistic towards Creative Engineering. While it was done in good fun, Kennard was not flattered.
    • In the third segment of the 1982 New Year's Eve showtape, Mitzi tells a bad joke. After the group argues about it, she can be heard saying "Well, what did you expect? I got it from Chuck E. Cheese!". Also doubles as Hilarious in Hindsight, given ShowBiz Pizza's buyout of Chuck E. Cheese's that ultimately led to the infamous Concept Unification process.
    • Duke Chauppetta (the voice of Dook) wrote "Child of the Rock" as retaliation for being cheated, as he felt Burt Wilson (Fatz's voice actor) was taking the spotlight from everyone else.
    • Billy Bob's performance of "The Star-Spangled Banner" opens with a jab at Christina Aguilera's infamous performance of it before Super Bowl XLV.
  • That Syncing Feeling: This skit involves Rolfe claiming he would be singing a tribute to Frank Sinatra, to the dismay of Earl. But Rolfe simply lip-syncs to a record of Sinatra's song "Witchcraft," and Earl notices something screwy when the record glitches...
  • Vocal Evolution: Several of the characters went through this as time went on:
    • Billy Bob originally had a thicker country accent and spoke in broken English, and Looney Bird's voice was originally higher.
    • When Shalisa Sloan began voicing Mitzi, her voice was more childlike (as she was 11 at the time). As Shalisa aged, Mitzi's voice gradually became deeper and more mature.
    • Burt Wilson's Fatz voice started out as very deep in 1980, getting higher and more expressive. When Wilson returned to the role in 2020, Fatz sounded more nasal and aged.

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