Rock Afire Explosion: Then and Now.

The Rock Afire Explosion show used a three stage design, giving the show flexibility in the presentation of its shows.

Center Stage - this was the largest and main stage that was used. Located on center stage were Dook LaRue, Fatz Geronimo, Beach Bear, and Mitzi Mozzarela. Also to be found were the "prop-characters" - Baby Bear Choo-choo, Antioch, Frog, Sun, and Moon (and the Owl in the very earliest stages). Surrounding the characters was a forest scene, complete with assorted types of trees, grass, rocks, stumps, and a background sky. At the heart of center stage is the Rock-afire Explosion lighted sign behind Fatz. His keyboard, the Magical Tune Machine, also has the words "Rock-afire" printed across it. It was quite a brilliant design, as the rest of the show appears to radiate out from this focal center point.

Stage Left - this was Billy Bob's stage, and included with him was his sidekick the Looney Bird and the "prop-character" Birthday Bird who was seated atop Billy Bob's guitar. Smitty's Super Service Station was the stage setting, and everything took place outside of Smitty's. The scene was that of a distilling operation - aside from moonshine jugs scattered about, there was a campfire that heated a still, which had a winding tube leading to Looney Bird's economy-sized Easy-Flow Oil barrel. In the late 1980s, ShowBiz altered the Smitty's backdrop to become the "ShowBiz Pizza Campground".

Stage Right - this was Rolfe and Earl's stage. It was quite difference in appearance from the other two stages, as this one looked to be inside a lounge or club. The ground was carpeted, and there were only a few decorations, a multicolored rain curtain, a half-rainbow in the background, an applause sign, and a cymbal that Rolfe was able to hit to accentuate a bad joke.

While considered dated today, when built, show used state of the art technology. The puppets were animated by pneumatic valve banks which are controlled by means of 4-track synchronized audio. The audio originally came from dual reel-to-reel players, one that held the main showtape, and one that had a birthday/special shows reel. When Cyberstar was added, the audio and video was contained on S-VHS tapes.

Two of the tracks go to the sound system for stereo sound (left and right speakers), and the other two audio tracks contain the programming signals. These signal tracks are fed into the computer (a custom designed set of driver boards contained within a gray file cabinet and affectionately known as the "graybox"). One signal track travels to the top drawer of the cabinet and the other signal track goes to the bottom drawer, and that controls the two sides of the show.

The signals tracks are also passed through a DBX box that converts the analog audio into a square wave that the graybox can understand. The signals are routed inside the graybox by the playback boards, and sent to each character driver board, which then sends the signals to the individual valve banks telling them when to pneumatically fire off each movement.

After Rock Afire saw its resurgence on YouTube. The show's programer and creator, Aaron Fechter began creating new shows. He still uses the original 8-bit computer equipment.

One thing the Rock-afire excelled at was the show lighting. Aside from the yellow, blue, red, amber, and green ceiling and ground flood lights, the Rock-afire had several special effects lighting including Rolfe's applause sign, Dook's bass drum, and Billy Bob's campfire and gas pump. Perhaps the most impressive of all lighting was the Rock-afire Explosion sign, and Fatz's Tune Machine. Both included a series of lights in assorted colors that could keep time with the music and create dazzling displays of light - it also didn't hurt that both were equipped with a special strobe light to really intensify things.

Spotlights were also an important aspect of the lighting. Each character in the Rock-afire had an individual spot. There were also some special spots that accentuated other stage elements, like the Sun, Moon, Antioch, and even Beach Bear's guitar.

One unfortunate aspect of the Rock-afire Explosion is the unrealized future that they may have had. Just as Creative Engineering was about to make a huge breakthrough in its character development, Showbiz pulled the plug on the Rock Afire explosion show. R&D funds disappeared and production of the Rock-afire Explosion was completely halted. Many future projects were never implemented, or even completed.

A new version of Mitzi was being created that had new arm and hip movements. She had the ability to actually dance by swaying at the hips and bringing her arms in front of her body with smooth, sweeping movements. A new version of Beach Bear was planned that had the ability to stand up off of his surfboard, and big plans were made for the updated 2nd Generation version of Dook. The updated Dook had new arm and wrist movements, which gave him the ability to play a full set of drums. He could swivel at the waist, and play drums that surrounded him, raise his arms to hit crash cymbals above him, and even reach one arm across the other while playing. It is believed that eventually every character was slated to have a 2nd Generation model, or at the very least, some type of animation upgrades.

In the early 1990s the Rock-afire Explosion was given a drastic makeover. The show was brought up to date and down in size by utilizing the much smaller "Mijjin" style animatronic characters. New features such as revolving stages and dance choreography (Dancetronics) were introduced, making the New Rock-afire much more versatile than the Classic version. Adding to its versatility, the New Rock-afire could be purchased with extras like karaoke, or downsized versions to fit different customer budgets.

The Stages

The New Rock-afire Explosion went above and beyond the limitations of the Classic show, in regard to always presenting different stage appearances. The Classic show had 3 stages which could be used in various combinations. The New show also had 3 stages, but the side stages were each able to rotate, delivering two completely different views. That meant that when all 3 stages were open, 4 different stage combinations could be presented. Add that to the revolving characters on center stage (the platform able to rotate 400°, and the individual characters could rotate 540° on their individual bases) and the stage was constantly on the move!

Center Stage - similar to the Classic Rock-afire, the center stage was the largest and most active of the 3 stages. It contained three of the main characters - Billy Bob, Fatz and Mitzi, who were all located on a circular plate, allowing them to rotate back and forth and continually change the appearance of the center stage. Behind them were large animated speakers, and some 90s style decorations on the walls (there were a few versions of the stage with various decor). The typical center stage had the band's name spelled out in red and green neon lights behind the characters.

Stage Left - this stage had two different sides, one that had Dook's Junk Yard, and the other had a big screen TV. The Junk Yard stage had Dook standing outside of what appears to be a pink dog house and in the distance large piles of "junk" can be seen. The television side of the stage houses a giant pink TV, with fuzzy animated rabbit ears for antennae. The wall paper behind it is also laced with bunny prints.

Stage Right - just like stage left, stage right had two different sides. One side featured Looney Bird sitting at the desk in his laboratory. Surrounding him are test tubes, radios and other electronic devices, and a computer that's completely covered in yellow feathers that was able to rotate. The other side of stage right had Beach Bear standing next to a building and beneath a palm tree. Within the building was a window that featured an additional Looney Bird head peeking out. An animated coconut also fell from the tree and hit Beach Bear in the head.

Design / Additional Development

The development of the New Rock-afire Explosion dates back to 1991. Creative Engineering contracted an engineer named Chris Lanusse, who had previously worked to develop miniature animation, to help bring the Rock-afire down to a more friendly and appealing size. Under the direction of Aaron Fechter, Lanusse was given the task of using his miniature designs to build larger animatronic characters. Several modifications were made to Lanusse's original miniature designs, as the larger scale proved to be troublesome when increased weights and stresses came into play.

Once the work was completed however, the Mijjin was born - Mijjin being a play on the word "midget". The initial prototype was quite incredible, both in its complexity and expense. In order to bring it down to an effective cost-point, certain animation cuts were made, and production began on the new figures. Their first usage was in the 1992 Mijjin's Show, which included Billy Bob, Fatz, the Mijjinator DJ, and a cast of several human characters. The New Rock-afire was completed in 1994/95.

Technical Info

The New Rock-afire Explosion ran very similar to the Classic show, however, due to the added element of video, data was contained on S-VHS tapes. The New Rock-afire contained over 200 movements - compared to the 189 movements of the Classic show. The Mijjin characters also differed slightly from their Classic counterparts. Whereas the classic show was entirely pneumatic, the Mijjin characters had a few movements that were controlled by servos (particularly the eyes and eyelids).

One of the most unique features of the New Rock-afire was the patented Danceatronics technology. Whereas characters rotating on a platform had been done in the past, this new feature allowed groups of rotating characters on a rotating stage appear to dance together when programmed in identical synchronization. Detailed information regarding the patent can be found here.

The Show-Selector package was also available with the New Rock-afire Explosion, as was an additional karaoke fixture. These were separate features that were not included with the base package.

Stage Lights

The lighting for the New Rock-afire was also similar to the Classic show, with each character having an individual spot (6 total), and an assortment of stage floods. The scripted "Rock-afire Explosion" neon sign behind the characters was also animated, programmed to blink on and off along with the music.

History / Legacy

Despite the advancements and new technology that was created for the New Rock-afire Explosion, the updated show was never given the exposure it probably deserved. Relatively few customers purchased it, and of those who did, very few are left in operation today. The animatronics scene has seen a decline since it's dominance in the 1980s, and the New Rock-afire was introduced around the time the audio animatronic trend was fading out.

Aspects of the Mijjin animatronic characters weren't entirely stable. A lot of work still needed to be done to prevent breakage that never got done. The New Rock-afire was not as reliable or structurally as sound as the Classic show and Creative Engineering didn't have the opportunity to fix that. Perhaps if the New show had sold more units, and a greater demand had been placed on upgrades, many of these structural deficiencies would have been corrected.

SOURCE: showbizpizza.com