Sure you do. They’re the animatronic band who played at Showbiz Pizza (R.I.P.) in the ’80s to temporarily distract kids like me from expertly losing all their arcade tokens in 20 minutes. (I still have two of those things, trapped in this weird, tiny ceramic shoe, at the family homestead in Illinois.) I love this bit of trivia, from Rocka-fire’s Wikipedia page: "Looney Bird was originally portrayed as a drunk, but went on to become a tech nerd." A perfectly appropriate career progression. The robots recently covered Usher’s "Love in This Club" — because why wouldn’t they do that? You’ll definitely want to press play, below.
Anyway, this fall, they’ll become documentary film stars! Check out the trailer, and please relish the creepy/awesome slow pan of Mitzi Mozzerella’s abandoned metallic infrastructure at 1:03. I’d kind of rather join the band onstage for a two-hour ‘Alive’Again reunion than watch this movie. But as I haven’t laid eyes onthese creatures since I was like 7, I’m finding all of this oddlyfascinating. You?
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I was more familiar with the competing band at Chuck E. Cheese. Either way, one jerky move from a band member during your lunch and a sip-worth of coke was almost guaranteed to come out your nose…. good times!
Yeah, I remember that! They were four dogs called “The Beagles”.
My little brother was so scared of the keyboard gorilla that he hid under the table and cried.
I TOTALLY remember the Rock-a-fire Explosion!!! Thanks for the blast-from-the-past for this Illinois kid.
Was also terrified of the gorilla. Yikes!!
24 years ago I worked at a Showbiz Pizza in Springfield, OH (part of my job was donning the Billy-Bob Bear outfit)so I got to know these characters quite well. I gotta tell you, Mitzi was quite the diva, Billy-Bob had a bad chemical dependency and I don’t ever remember the gorilla performing sober. Its good to see that they came those tough years intact and still performing. Good times!
Oh yea totally! I was a huge Chuck E. Cheese fan and a Showbiz Pizza fan back in the day! I loved all those guys! LOL! I remember the Wolf with the puppet too!!! Who remembers Dolly Dimples??? And Helen henny??
I went to Showbiz with my family for my birthday when I was a kid. I was really excited, but I begged and pleaded with my dad not to tell the people who worked there that it was my birthday. I was scared I would have to interact with the puppets.
They also make music-video cameos: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UtUI5MC9tVM
This Illinois kid is still scarred from 20 years ago at the time I peeked under the curtain when they weren’t performing only to see them dark and paralyzed with eyes wide open! Gulp.
Wow. The memories. I used to have my birthday’s there and I loved when they would say my name. It was so much better than that Chuck E.Cheese show!
The movie coming out for this looks so amazing…..