Showbiz Pizza Place!

The Schlitzie

The Schlitzie

Sr Member
RPF PREMIUM MEMBER
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Hey guys, I haven't really posted any of my projects on here for ages! I recently saw Tested had a video about a designer toy being released and also watched a video about the restoration of one of the animatronics from the Rock-afire Explosion. Well it brought up some great memories of growing up in Florida and my parents taking me to Showbiz Pizza Place. An uncle actually worked there at the time. Anyways, I got nostalgic and decided I had to have some prop from it so I thought the easiest would be a sign.

I've been fabricating this one out of EVA foam just because of how easy and quick it is to work with. It's roughly 22 inches long and I intend to wire it up with leds to simulate the light bulbs.
 

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hellz yeah this is sweet!
i use to go to showbiz when i lived in florida too!
i miss the arcade and singing rockafire explosion band.
and surprisingly the pizza was way better then chucky cheese. :)
 
Hehe, yup it rocked. The animatronics blew me away. It's funny but I don't even remember if the pizza was any good I just remember seeing the show as many times as I could and playing a lot of arcade games.
 
Already have a plan on the leds?

If you don't, an idea would be to use a 555+4017 circuit (pcb with ICs, & components are pretty cheap on ebay) to give it the chasing/sequencing effect. Just don't use the 1k resistors or red leds that come with it, but instead use a smaller resistor and wire a few yellow leds in series off each of the 4017s outputs.
 
LTsmash1200 said:
Have you ever watched the documentary? It's pretty interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTmhS6hcY-A
Click to expand...

Yes, it's very interesting, but also a little sad and pathetic. The part where we see the shop on the guys property where they made the animatronics and everything was just dropped in the middle of work and abandoned. The guy just lets the sop sit, untouched like a frozen moment in history. Just a bit creepy. I think he just refuses to let go of his once had glory.
 
I did watch it. It is a little sad but interesting.

LTsmash1200 said:
Have you ever watched the documentary? It's pretty interesting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTmhS6hcY-A
Click to expand...

I haven't planned the leds yet. Did the signs have a chasing sequencing effect? I've only looked at stills.

Luke0312 said:
Already have a plan on the leds?

If you don't, an idea would be to use a 555+4017 circuit (pcb with ICs, & components are pretty cheap on ebay) to give it the chasing/sequencing effect. Just don't use the 1k resistors or red leds that come with it, but instead use a smaller resistor and wire a few yellow leds in series off each of the 4017s outputs.
Click to expand...

Funky said:
Yes, it's very interesting, but also a little sad and pathetic. The part where we see the shop on the guys property where they made the animatronics and everything was just dropped in the middle of work and abandoned. The guy just lets the sop sit, untouched like a frozen moment in history. Just a bit creepy. I think he just refuses to let go of his once had glory.
Click to expand...
 
I don't remember either it's been so long, hehe! I might have to rewatch some videos on youtube. Maybe I'll see some other possible props in the process. Yeah the sign in the commercial does have a pretty fast sequence to the lights, hmm. I might not go with a %100 accurate sequence just so that people don't have seizures while looking at it.

Luke0312 said:
I was thinking they did, but then again it's been almost 30 years since I was there, lol.

In this commercial, they do sequence, but not all the way around, every 3rd or 4th starts a sequence. Shown at the 27 second mark.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1OIUH0mSFQU
Click to expand...
 
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I thought it was a bit sad too, but if you look at his YouTube channel it seems like he’s gotten a bit of a second wind since then. He’s still doing tours of the shop, restoring old animatronics, and he actually programmed and provided a set of them for Cee Lo to use in his Vegas show.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
Right on.

Hehe, you'd think CeeLo would try to shake off a creepy image after the whole rape allegations thing but no...he just goes with it by having a backup band of creepy animatronic animals with cold lifeless eyes. CeeLo's Rock-afire Explosion!

LTsmash1200 said:
I thought it was a bit sad too, but if you look at his YouTube channel it seems like he’s gotten a bit of a second wind since then. He’s still doing tours of the shop, restoring old animatronics, and he actually programmed and provided a set of them for Cee Lo to use in his Vegas show.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
 
I'm trying to get over that nasty flu that's going around so I had some time today to chug along on the sign.

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I'm making 2. They look a little rough at the moment but after I add the letters I'm gonna heat seal the foam and clean up the imperfections with some quick seal and give it all a few coats of plastidip.
 
The handful of times I went to the Showbiz near us, the pizza and animatronics were just time wasted where I could be playing video games! :lol

Good luck with the flu. I had it over most of Dec. so it set what I was working on back.
 
I was pretty little so I sucked at video games and burned through my allotted tokens pretty fast, hehe.

Thanks man. Yup, I heard it was a nasty flu/cold so when my kid got it I just took him to the doctor.

Sluis Van Shipyards said:
The handful of times I went to the Showbiz near us, the pizza and animatronics were just time wasted where I could be playing video games! :lol

Good luck with the flu. I had it over most of Dec. so it set what I was working on back.
Click to expand...
 
Me too. I re watched the documentary and it looks like the animatronics were kinda...extra creepy looking after they switched over and reskinned the characters. Apparently Chuck e Cheese had tastier pizza but I remember them both being kinda greasy.

Boy oh boy what a treasure trove of molds in that Creative Engineering shop just collecting decades of dust and all that stuff just rotting. Kinda depressing. I guess he's slowly selling what he finds in that shop that might be of interest to makers or collectors....

d_jedi1 said:
Always loved it when it was Showbiz.
Hated it when they switched over to Chuck-E-Cheese.
Click to expand...
 
The Schlitzie said:
Me too. I re watched the documentary and it looks like the animatronics were kinda...extra creepy looking after they switched over and reskinned the characters. Apparently Chuck e Cheese had tastier pizza but I remember them both being kinda greasy.

Boy oh boy what a treasure trove of molds in that Creative Engineering shop just collecting decades of dust and all that stuff just rotting. Kinda depressing. I guess he's slowly selling what he finds in that shop that might be of interest to makers or collectors....
Click to expand...

He's apparently still using some of the molds, making new stuff, and he now sells an animatronics learning kit for kids out of the Creative Engineering shop. Check out his youtube channel, it's TheRockafire, he doesn't seem anywhere near as downtrodden as in the documentary.
 
Is he casting new stuff? That's pretty cool! I was under the assumption that it was old stuff that had been around for ages. But that would make sense I mean I saw a latex face he was selling that looked really nice but some of those latex parts like the gorilla feet and hands were just crumbling to pieces in one video I saw that was a couple years old. That animatronics starter kit looked really cool but $900...outta my budget unfortunately. Those mini Billybob bears were a neat idea, using the same fur that they used back in the early 80's that was leftover in the shop.

I wonder what a full set of the Rock-afire Explosion would run nowadays...

I watched a video where he was digging out a set of the Wolf pack 5 from his shop and getting them ready to ship out to a collector. Out of curiosity I looked up were the set went and apparently they were in a tourist attraction and the guy went crazy and was on drugs and was vandalizing the park and the place got shut down, he went to jail, and the animatronics were abandoned...Funtown Mountain, I think was the name of the place.

LTsmash1200 said:
He's apparently still using some of the molds, making new stuff, and he now sells an animatronics learning kit for kids out of the Creative Engineering shop. Check out his youtube channel, it's TheRockafire, he doesn't seem anywhere near as downtrodden as in the documentary.
Click to expand...

Yeah I got the same impression from the videos i saw. I'm sure the interest from nostalgic collectors and such is encouraging him. I'm glad, that was a kinda depressing limbo the shop was in it seemed like.
 
Last edited:
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