The Rock-afire Explosion Performs Black Eyed Peas

The 2008 documentary, THE ROCK-AFIRE EXPLOSION, introduced me to the actual workings of a ShowBiz Pizza Place (I had literally only heard about in songs; we were a Charles Entertainment Cheese family, thank you very much). But it also familiarized me with its animatronic band and how that had sprung its own subculture of nostalgic fans that sought out, rescued, and refurbished the robots to continue rocking out in their herky-jerky manner.

As shown in the doc, these mechanical musicians were originally created by Aaron Fechter and eventually the audio automatons would go on to all other sorts of locations as ShowBiz Pizza Place faced increasingly dire financial situations (eventually consumed by the corporation headed by Mr. Cheese himself). But there was a fanbase that loved the experience from their youth, had a nice dash of engineering know-how, and figured out a way of combining their skills with nostalgia to reinvent the robot reverie that delighted them so much.

One such devotee was Chris Thrash (featured in the documentary), who worked with Fechter and other Rock-afire Fanatics to turn the programmable players into a cover band that would perform for specific requests/fundraisers for followers as well as just general little songs. These are featured on the YouTube channel fanprograms, and here’s a 2011 video where these alarming animal androids cover “I Gotta Feeling”, the 2009 hit by the Black Eyed Peas.

Take it away, you horrible nightmares!