In 1980, Robert L. Brock and Creative Engineering opened Showbiz Pizza Place. Brock opened the chain after a split with Chuck E. Cheese owners, Pizza Time Theatre. Showbiz Pizza was a Chuck E. Cheese style children’s pizza place featuring a horrifying animatronic animal band.

Showbiz Pizza was hugely successful due to the rise in popularity of games at the time, but it still had to compete with its rival, Pizza Time Theatre.

Pizza Time Theatre had been founded in California by Atari founder Nolan Bushnell. Bushnell attracted Brock, who was at the time the owner of many Holiday Inns.

Fearing for his investment, Brock partnered with the upstart animatronics company Creative Engineering to found Showbiz Pizza, to create their main attraction that would terrify thousands: The Rock-afire Explosion.

The Rock-afire Explosion, featured a hillbilly bear in overalls who played the bass named Billy Bob Brocktail; Looney Bird, a bird that hid in an oil drum and popped out to sing from time to time; Dook LaRue, an astronaut dog who played the drums in his spacesuit; Fatz Geronimo, a gorilla modeled after Fats Domino and Ray Charles who played the Keyboard; Beach Bear, a sarcastic surfing polar bear who played the guitar; Mitzi Mozzerella, a cheerleading mouse who sang and the duo of Rolf deWolfe and Earl Schemerle, a wolf and a sentient ventriloquist dummy that would perform stand up in between the band’s musical sets.

By 1984, Showbiz Pizza was riding high. They had just purchased all assets from the now bankrupt Chuck E. Cheese’s Pizza Time Theatre; it seemed nothing could stand in the way of Brock and his band of terrifying misfit animals.

However, relations began to sour between Showbiz Pizza and Creative Engineering.

Showbiz wanted Aaron Fechter, founder of Creative Engineering, and creator or The Rock-afire Explosion to sign away all licensing and copyrights to the band. This would create a schism between the two, and in 1990, Showbiz Pizza and Creative Engineering officially separated.

Soon after, Showbiz Pizza decided to rebrand itself to CEC Entertainment, and by 1992, all Showbiz Pizza Places in the U.S. were converted to Chuck E. Cheese restaurants.

And for 16 years, that was the last anyone heard of The Rock-afire Explosion. Fechter had to lay off most of the staff of 300 at Creative Engineering, and as of 2010, he was the company’s only employee.

Then in 2008, Chris Thrash, a Phenix City, Ala. car salesman, purchased an unused band with the intent of opening the Showbiz Pizza Zone.

While the Showbiz Pizza Zone flopped in 2010, Thrash stills programs and rents out the band to private parties.

Then a buyer in Jordan ordered a new band directly from Fechter, but the sale fell through, and Fechter was left with the set. He began to program the set to perform pop songs and uploaded them to YouTube. The videos gained millions of views, and in 2013, Cee Lo Green rented the band to perform “F*** You” with him at a live performance in Las Vegas.

While this story seems odd enough on its own, what’s truly puzzling about it is why these animatronics were ever preserved to this degree.

They were never high-art, or even pop culture. They were a sideshow, a gimmick that was used to attract children to come and eat cheap pizza and play arcade games.

And yet, a few people have worked to preserve these oddities as if they were inherently deserving of rememberance.

It could be the horrifying nature of these machines that creates the demand for their preservation. With horror games such as “Five Nights at Freddy’s”  being centered around how uncanny these machines are.

Or maybe it’s passion, the passion of a man for his creations, the passion of the nostalgic fans who grew up going to Showbiz Pizza restaurants to see The Rock-afire Explosion that has driven the desire to preserve these side-show attractions years after they fell out of the popular favor.

But if I’m being honest, it’s probably because they are some of the scariest things in existence. And should be destroyed. Preferably with fire.

Alex Bertsch is the opinion editor for The Dakota Student. He can be reached at [email protected].