I'm sure you don't need me to tell you who Chuck E. Cheese is. But unless you were in the right age bracket (i.e. children of the eighties), or were parents of people in the right age bracket, you might not be familiar with a certain diamond of yesteryear in the rock music/pizza parlor industry.
I, as you may know, was a child of the eighties. And I happened to reside a mere six mile drive away from an inimitable social hub known as Showbiz Pizza Place. They served pizza, as you might have intuited. And unlike Godfather's Pizza across the street, which housed a jukebox and a single stand up cabinet of Galaxian, Showbiz had a full on arcade. It was in this hallowed entertainment center that my impressionable hands first manipulated the controls of Crazy Climber, Time Pilot, Pac-Man Plus, and a little known footnote in pop culture called Dragon's Lair.
Arcades of nineteen eighty-something (one maybe?) had yet to be consumed by Skee-Ball and children's birthday parties. They were an adult gathering that happened to have an access point for kids. Showbiz Pizza opened the idea up to multi-generational entertainment. It was advertised to and for kids but it was still very much for the parents as much as the younglings. It was the cool place to go.
So that by itself is pretty much the prototype for Dave & Buster's, but Showbiz had that special something to bring it all together. It had the Rock-afire Explosion.
Let's go back in time. You walk into the seating area where you're meant to gorge on grease and pepperoni, and your eyes are immediately drawn to the proscenium stage in front of you which is flanked by two smaller stages on both sides. The curtains are all down and a suspense is prevalent in the room. The families and dates who have already been in there for some time know better than to strike up conversations about Cartesian Dualism, because something is going to happen. They're waiting for it.
Then a spotlight shines on the smaller curtain to your right, and the melody of a single acoustic guitar strums through the controlled hush. The drape rises to reveal an animatronic brown bear (about the size of an actual bear) lost in his own revelry like a folk singer or youth pastor. "Howdy folks," he giggles, "I'm Billy Bob. That's three B's, two L's, an I, a Y and an O!"
Billy Bob was the alter-ego for Orlando-based engineer Aaron Fechter. Billy Bob Brockali and the rest of the cast, as well as Showbiz's success, were ultimately the result of his creative expression and drive. Joining Billy Bob on his stage was his sidekick (the) Looney Bird, making for a spiritual pre-cursor to Banjo and Kazooie (minus the antagonism). Mirroring them on the left stage was comedy duo Rolfe DeWolfe and Earl Schmerle. Fechter voiced all four of these characters with a versatility that rivaled Frank Oz.
The technical specs behind all of these characters is the stuff of legend. Latex faces covering a complicated series of moving pieces created a seemingly endless variety of expressions, tics, and eyebrow movements. It was the kind of mechanical engineering that made Disney's Country Bear Jamboree look more like a Six Flags knockoff.
But all of the behind the scenes precision was really just a stepping stone to true greatness, which was the characters themselves. And that's what I want to talk about. Here then is what's behind the center stage curtain.
The Band
Let's see. We have a laid back Sun. And always exuberant Moon. A birthday cake wielding spider named Antioch (my latent arachnophobia still hasn't made up its mind about him). A frog that doesn't do anything. And Choo-Choo, the bear cub in the stump perpetually doing his best Whac-A-Mole impression (which Aaron Fechter also invented in 1976). And those are just the background characters.
First up in the main cast is Fatz Geronimo, a silverback gorilla who took inspiration from Lawrence Welk to become a musician. I'll pause now while that sinks in....
Fatz was the front and center keyboardist, and had a booming bass voice courtesy of writer/performer Burt "Sal" Wilson. He was also the most intimidating presence among an otherwise laid back ensemble. Under other circumstances, keeping children from crawling up on the stage between numbers would have been an issue. But Fatz looked like he was capable, and willing, to go all Five Nights at Freddy's on anyone who disrespected the barrier between performers and audience. Kids loved him, but they didn't dare mess with him.
Moving counter-clockwise was Mitzi Mozzarella, the mouse cheerleader. Being the token female member of the band, and the only one who didn't play an instrument, she was naturally relegated to songs and dialogue that required a female voice (originally a shrill falsetto from Aaron Fechter himself). In 1982 she was thankfully recast with Shalisa James, who at the time was eleven years old. With that decision came Mitzi's character development, as she aged along with her voice actress. To date, James is part of the a cappella group Toxic Audio, and is known for her extensive mental lexicon of song lyrics.
Just behind Mitzi is surfer dude Beach Bear, no real name ever given (he strikes me as a Marvin). He started off with a wild cartoony voice (also supplied by Fechter) until guitarist Rick Bailey took over. Bailey's Beach Bear was the unofficial 'fun' of the group. Personalities would clash on stage (and it wouldn't surprise me, off as well), but Beach Bear was the master of defusing tensions before they got started. If Rock-afire ever wanted to do a Mystery Science Theater-styled riff on, I don't know, a Chuck E. Cheese performance, Beach Bear would be the natural choice for the Crow lines.
Finishing out the cast is Dook LaRue, an anthropomorphic dingo drummer. From what I understand, Burt Wilson wrote most of the scripts and original pieces for the band, partitioning Fatz into the proverbial head role of the band. Billy Bob, being a combination Aaron Fechter avatar and Showbiz mascot was the clear heart. But Dook was the no-pun-intended soul of Rock-afire. You know that moment in every Marx Brothers film when Harpo drops his funny shtick and loses himself in his music? That's what happened whenever Dook took lead in a song.
His performer Duke Chauppetta was there at the beginning, before Shalisa James and Rick Bailey, when everybody else sounded like cartoon characters. And it's not to say that the original approach didn't work, but then Dook would croon out "Heartaches". Suddenly you were taken somewhere you hadn't expected to go. He was no longer an animatronic drum dog, he was a real canine musician being vulnerable. I'm sure different people who love the band cite any number of elements as the thing that made it special. And while I had a love of Earl's sarcasm, and a nine-year-old-boy crush on Mitzi, for me it was the credibility Chauppetta brought to his performance.
The Music
I know the eighties were thirty years ago, and thus closer in chronological proximity to what we called "the oldies" than our modern era of processed music, but Rock-afire was an actual education for Generation X. The Beatles, The Beach Boys, The Rolling Stones, and Elvis; all names in rock history I'd heard of but had either never connected with their songs or been introduced to them. Rock-afire changed all that.
Take the Beatles. One of the first Rock-afire performances I saw was a Beatles Medley of "You Can't Do That", "All My Loving", and "I Saw Her Standing There", with the lead vocals going from Beach Bear to Billy Bob and then to Dook. In addition to the fact that these three songs flowed into each other so well, they captivated my innocent imagination by their ordering. Beach Bear was clearly being two-timed by the love interest in question, so it made sense that she was cheating on him with Billy Bob. Mitzi was the logical character in the role of the cheating lover, which meant it wasn't really Mitzi herself moving through the band but a fictional character this fictional character was playing for the purpose of the narrative. Billy Bob would be relocating some distance away where he won't realize Mitzi has moved on to Dook. Again, I was nine, and this was the impressively adult story with no happy ending my little brain concocted.
And that's the thing, they didn't hold back. I mean, understandably there was a healthy amount of self censorship which we call 'adaptation'. But take the Elvis classic Little Sister, which barely stays in the confines of innuendo. Dook and Beach Bear don't even bother hiding the nature of the lyrics. I certainly wasn't aware of the sexual nature of the song when I was nine. But I respect the fact that they respected me enough to know that I'd get it when I was ready to. And it may be a bit blasphemous to say, but their version was an improvement over Elvis's. The same can be said for The Beach Boys' Catch a Wave where every complicated chord change is emphasized. Or Billy Bob's delightfully inappropriate homage to Mick Jagger in the Satisfaction Medley; it sounds absurd on paper, but it's a thing of beauty.
I'm of the opinion that rock music hit a plateau in the eighties with the addition of electronica. Since then we've had various styles come and go, but I can't think of a previously unused element that has been introduced to music since the synthesizer (and at this point, if a new element is forthcoming I can't imagine what it might be). But courtesy of Fatz's magic keyboard, Rock-afire was essentially on the cutting edge of music; being an homage to the oldies with an egregious eighties sensibility and a timeless feel on its own all at the same time.
The multi-layered musical elements are best examined in their Christmas shows, which I've mentioned in a couple of previous blogs. Disco Christmas was their showstopper, with every character getting their own song. Most people wouldn't think to include "Jingle Bell Rock", "Blue Christmas", "Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire", and "The Hallelujah Chorus" in the same medley, but it all fits together so seamlessly. 'Inspired' is the only word that accurately sums up the result. The Christmas shows also gave us Billy Bob's unexpectedly tear-jerking In December, Dook's powerful Why Can't Every Day (Be Christmas), and the cast ensemble of Twelve Days of Christmas. The first two, as best as I can tell, are original compositions that sit comfortably alongside the classic rock covers Rock-afire is known for. And Twelve Days is one extended exercise of spotlight stealing from glibber-than-he-looks Beach Bear.
That Certain Special Something
There's an X-factor that separates 'great' fictional characters from the rest of the spectrum. What that is, I don't know. And maybe nobody does. I just know how to recognize the result. It's in the Muppets, the Looney Tunes, Charlie Brown, Batman, Scooby-Doo, Star Wars, and so on. These are characters you feel like you know personally. Maybe we see something of ourselves in them because they're more human than we are, without the needless clutter we seem to pick up as we face the world daily. I would argue that Rock-afire is on that level.
Unfortunately, I don't think their 'greatness' has been fully realized...yet. The future of animatronics is probably not going to be the sole, or best, outlet for them. But nearly forty years later, these animals with instruments have stayed in my head, and in the heads of some very passionate collectors. The lucky few of us who got to see the band perform live were permanently affected by the experience. We knew these characters. We were sure that on our umpteenth visit they were starting to recognize us as well (I swear Dook looked right at me and winked). The Happy Birthday Medley was specifically for us, and the Beatles Happy Birthday was specifically for the adults. And I'm positive we all imagined some sophisticated scenarios that took place once those curtains closed.
Fatz probably had the most active life outside of Showbiz, appearing as a solo act in piano bars, and dating around. Billy Bob was so busy as Showbiz's mascot/figurehead that he wouldn't have had time for much else except laundry. Mitzi seems like the type who would keep her personal life very separate from her professional life, and I imagine she would value normalcy once she was in street clothes. Dook and Beach Bear were likely the closest offstage even if they didn't realize it. I could see them both spending really late nights working on material together, often just crashing in the dressing room, and still never really learning all that much about each other. Rolfe was probably the only one who actively kept an eye out for the next thing, acutely aware of how fleeting fame is.
And unfortunately he'd be right. Like so many stars burning brightly, Rock-afire faded. And it's a real pity, because there's so much life left in the old Looney Bird. One wishes that the Cartoon Network would make an offer to reunite the band and let them tour. And solve mysteries. There's always hope. More viably, there's always the internet. If it's true that nothing ever disappears from the internet then Rock-afire is officially immortal.
And with that, I want to leave you with Rock-afire at its peak, namely their cover of the ENTIRE Abbey Road medley. Every section of the extended track is perfectly assigned to the different characters, with Rick Bailey seamlessly inserting himself into the fray for what may have been the first time, Shalisa James showing off her A-game, and Duke Chauppetta demonstrating how much versatility he had as a singer. Even "Her Majesty" is accurately recreated with the mistimed chord edit. The whole performance is a labor of love, laced with the confidence that the Rock-afire Explosion had nothing to prove to anyone but themselves. And it was our privilege to watch them fly.
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