They were abandoned to rot, but thanks to these heroic fans, many of the beloved animatronic
characters from classic animatronic bands were saved and brought back from the ashes.
Today, we'll tell you the stories of some of the most famous abandoned and rescued animatronics.
But first, if you consider yourself an animatronic fan, go and follow these three channels right
now!
Links in the description and in the comments!
The King!
/ Jared Sanchez
The history of Chuck E Cheese Pizza is long, interesting, and complicated, and we've talked
about it before in previous videos.
But the short of it is that it was created by Nolan Bushnell, co-founder of Atari.
Nolan wanted to create a place where families could enjoy the games of an arcade while eating
pizza and enjoying a live show, and so Chuck E Cheese was born.
The live show for this new concept was obviously, the famous animatronic band, but when it debuted
in 1977, it was nicknamed the portrait Show because the characters were behind 4-foot
tall picture frames.
By 1979, many restaurants had also added "Cabaret" shows in separate rooms of each restaurant.
Some of these shows were modeled after actual music artists like the Beagles, The Beach
Bowsers, and The King!
The King was a 9-foot tall animatronic lion dressed in a style resembling Elvis Presley
and was programmed to sing Elvis Presley songs, most of which were the original recordings.
Everything was doing great, but in the early 1980s, Chuck E Cheese started having problems.
In an effort to get with the times, some changes were made, and one of these changes included
The King.
The King was rebranded and turned into King Kat.
The Elvis theme was left behind and turned into a Michael Jackson inspired character.
His clothes were changed, and a new wig was added.
Sadly, these changes were not enough to save the chain, and in 1983 Chuck E Cheese declared
bankruptcy.
ShowBiz bought all the assets of pizza time theater inc and brought both companies together,
naming the new company Showbiz Pizza Time Theater Inc but left the two restaurants as
separate entities.
After this happened, the cabaret shows started slowly being retired, which ended up in The
King being abandoned.
The King's animatronics were destroyed, auctioned, used for parts, and some of them were stored.
And you would think that this was the end for this royal character, but nothing would
be further from the truth.
Here's where Jared Sanchez comes in!
It all began in 1992 when Jared went to Chuck E cheese on his 12th birthday.
It was at that moment when he became amazed at The King animatronic.
That same year, Jared went back to Chuck E Cheese and learned the unfortunate news that
The King had been retired.
This tormented him for a long time, until ten years later, he found a user on eBay,
selling a King animatronic for $25,000.
This is a pretty hefty sum, but it did not stop Jared from talking with the owner and
trying to convince him to sell the King to him.
It took him ten years, but Jared convinced the owner to sell him the animatronic for
$10,000 and in payment installments, and that's how Jared became the owner of his first King
animatronic.
Jared spent months replacing its cylinders and learning to sew so he could fit him with
new fur.
He figured out how to make the King work with a modern computer instead of its old reel-to-reel
machine and learned to program each of its movements painstakingly.
In 2016, Jared transformed his master bedroom into a studio, took singing lessons so he
could voice the character, and brought the King back.
After this, Jared rescued a second King animatronic that he found at Captain Dave's roller rink
in Michigan.
He called this new character King Puff and took him on a road trip from Michigan to Tampa
in the passenger seat.
Then, he managed to get his hands on not one but two other King animatronics!
These last two animatronics were stored in a warehouse, and Jared was able to strike
a deal with the owner.
He helped them clean out the warehouse, and they gave him the animatronics for free.
He named one of these animatronics King John, in honor of their former owner and customized
him to be playing a keyboard.
The other one was called Four.
This King animatronic doesn't have any cosmetics, and he is hilarious.
Jared and his animatronics are creating a new concept called Roboloquist.
Animatronics and humans interacting on a live show.
This new type of entertainment is fantastic and very interesting.
And the key to all of this is that this magnificent show is Jared.
He programs the animatronics and lights, writes, sings, and also does the voices of all the
animatronics.
And it's no small feat.
A short 3-minute sketch can take a week to be created.
Today, Jared's goal is to continue working on this type of entertainment and to reach
more and more animatronics fans so they can enjoy his content.
If you are an animatronics fan and even if you're not, go check out Jared and the King's
channel.
Their content is amazing and so entertaining, and it is such a great way to honor one of
the best characters from the original Chuck E Cheese.
Rock-Afire Explosion Animatronics / Connor Leschinsky
We mentioned before how in the early 80s, Chuck E Cheese was having problems, and one
of the main reasons for these problems was the arrival of Showbiz Pizza as their main
competitor.
When Nolan Bushnell became interested in expanding Chuck E Cheese, he found Robert L. Brock,
who was supposed to be his principal investor.
But due to different factors, Brock ended up investing in a new project called Showbiz.
He developed this new project with the help of Aaron Fetcher's Creating Engineering company.
And for this new project, the team created the iconic Rock Afire Explosion animatronic
band.
This new band had full-bodied animatronics that had very fluid movements and several
facial expressions.
Time passed, and the relationship between Showbiz and Creative Engineering began to
deteriorate since Creative Engineering had the rights to the image and recordings of
the animatronics and Showbiz wanted them to give them up without any compensation, ShowBiz
took all kinds of control from creative engineering and forced them out of the company.
By the time this happened, Showbiz owned Chuck E Cheese already, and they decided that they
would change all of their locations to Chuck E Cheese as part of the company's rebranding.
And the Rock Afire Explosion Band was replaced by a new show called "Chuck E. Cheese & Munch's
Make Believe Band."
So, Creative Engineering started selling their show to other restaurants like Circus Pizza,
Pistol Pete's Pizza, and Billy Bob's Wonderland.
But, these places were closed little by little, leaving very few of the Rock Afire explosion
bands in operation.
This meant that many of the band's sets were abandoned and left in terrible conditions.
But fortunately, this was not the end of the Rock Afire explosion!
Many of these bands were saved from complete abandonment by fans, and such is the case
of Connor Leschinsky!
Connor is passionate about animatronics and spends his time rescuing and restoring them.
Since Connor was a kid, he would take apart toys when they stopped working to see how
they worked.
This led Connor to become a mechanical engineer, and he has applied all this knowledge into
restoring these abandoned animatronics.
Connor began back in 2015 when he purchased Rolfe and Earl from the Rock-afire Explosion
off Craigslist.
Luckily, they came with all the required components needed to function; and were just missing
the overall cosmetics to cover its mechanical structure.
That when Connor decided to start posting videos on his Youtube Channel.
The test for these animatronics was the first video he posted.
After these animatronics, Connor purchased a Billy Bob and Looney Bird but later sold
those to buy the Okefenokee Bear Revue band mini-set, which contained Billy Bob, Fatz,
Mitzi, and Looney.
He also got two variations of Beach Bear, Dook, and Looney Bird, which were part of
"New Rock-afire Explosion."
In total, he currently owns ten complete characters.
Eight of them are from the Classic Rock-afire Explosion, and two of them are from the New
Rock-afire Explosion.
Connor uses the original setup for the animatronics.
He was able to purchase several pieces of the original show controller, known as the
gray box, through collaborating with other collectors.
Show tapes for these animatronics were recorded onto reel-to-reel tapes, which were acquired
from various sources, such as other collectors or eBay.
The only problem is that show tapes have begun to degrade to the point where they affect
the quality of the audio cause they're about 30 years old, so soon, he will have to switch
to digital by using a surround sound setup.
It usually takes him about three months to restore the animatronics, depending on the
available parts and his work schedule.
But the longest time he's taken to find a part was three years, for an Earl puppet cosmetic
for Rolfe Dewolfe.
To restore the animatronic, all the components have to be disassembled to clean the pieces
and later see which ones are in good condition, and see which ones need to be repaired or
bought.
After this, the cosmetics have to be fixed and cleaned.
The latex masks he gets directly from Aaron Fetcher from Creative Engineering and Jack
from SPT Productions helps with the painting of details for the
masks also.
While all of this sounds very cool and fun, Connor thinks that the most challenging and
fun part is finding the animatronics.
Keeping an eye out, constantly scanning through the internet, and asking around knowing if
anyone may have an animatronic for sale or when a store is going to throw them out.
Currently, Connor is in the process of restoring his 11th character, who will become Chuck
E. Cheese by salvaging random, assorted parts from people/businesses that no longer need
them.
His work is very impressive, and it is incredible to see the before and after of all the animatronics
that he has restored.
Connor's passion for robotics and animatronics continues to grow, and it won't be going away
anywhere soon.
Because as he says, there's always something out there that needs rescuing to be restored!
And so, he will continue rescuing and restoring animatronics and sharing his passion with
all animatronic lovers through his YouTube channel.
So again, animatronics fans everywhere, go check out his fantastic work!
There a link in the description so you can check out his fantastic channel!
Tex Critters Pizza Jamboree and Play Circus Band / Cavity Sam
The 80s gave us many incredible animatronics bands, and one of these was Tex Critter's
Pizza Jamboree band.
This band was created by legendary Disney Imagineers Larry Nikolai and Rolly Crump for
a new entertainment center focused on families that had arcades, T.V.s showing the most popular
channels of the time like MTV, small theaters that showed 3-D movies, and of course the
fantastic Tex Critter's Pizza Jamboree band.
The band's members were Skeeter, Cal, Tex, and Roxy.
Each animatronic weighed about 300 pounds and was eight feet tall.
This entertainment center opened in 20 different locations, but sadly, 1984 was a terrible
year for Castle Entertainment due to the high cost of managing branches.
This led the company to close most of its complexes.
Tex and the company were sold to Magic Landing and relocated to the park's pizza parlor,
where they continued playing until the park's closing in 1988.
The park was abandoned from its closing until 2009, leaving Tex and company in a terrible
state, becoming worse and worse with every passing day.
It's unfortunate to see something that was created to entertain and give joy end up in
such a terrible state.
The park was demolished in 2013, but thankfully, animatronics fans managed to rescue and rebuild
many of the animatronics of the different branches and give them a second life.
One of these fans is Andrea, better known in the community as CavitySam.
Andrea has had a lifelong passion for all things vintage and antique, and so she has
spent most of her life collecting.
She became an animatronic fan thanks to the 90s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the King
Kong animatronic that used to be on the Universal Studios Hollywood studio tour.
Ever since she saw them, Andrea was fascinated by how they looked and moved and wanted to
know how they were built.
Today Andrea owns 17 animatronics, including a simple two-movement animatronic of The Warblettes
from Pizza Time Theatre, which gave Andrea a basic understanding of how everything came
together in an animatronic.
Barney Bear and Ellie Elephant from the Circus Playhouse band, which she was able to get
after a friend found them posted on Facebook Marketplace.
And, of course, the animatronics from the famous Tex Critters Pizza Jamboree.
When the previous owner abandoned the show, two effects artists acquired them and then
tried to sell them with no luck.
So they decided to list them on eBay, where Andrea found them and won them for a very
low price.
She got these animatronics back in 2016 and has been slowly working on them over the years,
but she didn't have the proper resources to restore them until mid-2020.
From then until now, she's gotten the Tex Critter's show about 80% restored and the
Circus Playhouse show about 40% restored.
To restore them, they begin by doing a movement test, which is connecting the character to
an air compressor and manually pressing the buttons on the valve bank.
Then they do a teardown and deep cleaning of the animatronic frame.
While the shells are removed, we repair any broken fiberglass by laying new fiberglass
cloth and resin over it.
They replace any nonfunctional cylinders and valves.
Also, any parts that are scratched and chipped are stripped, sanded, and repainted- And any
parts that are needed are made from scratch by Andrea.
Before they reassemble everything, another movement test is done.
If everything is good, it's time to reassemble the character and do any finishing work that's
needed.
Nowadays, Andrea and her boyfriend Bobby are in the process of securing the rights to the
characters for Circus Playhouse and Tex Critter's, which will allow them to produce new show
tapes for them and bring them back into the public eye.
There are absolutely no plans to put them in a restaurant or public place, but fans
will still be able to see them in person and on YouTube.
They have contacted someone involved with the creation of the show tapes for Circus
Playhouse, and he turned out to still have the master tapes for the show.
He offered the tapes to them, along with the rights for $2000.
So Andrea is hosting a fundraiser to help raise the money so that these tapes can be
acquired, digitized, and released to the public.
Meanwhile, Andrea will continue restoration work until the shows are functional and then
try to find a place where they can be set up on stages, fully functional.
If she can obtain the character rights, she will be producing new content for them, such
as new show tapes, merchandise, and other fun stuff.
The goal is to keep these characters from fading into security and reliving childhood
memories for so many people.
And keep them alive for future generations!
You need to check out Cavity Sam’s channel to see her amazing work and animatronics!
We’ll leave a link in the description!
All of these amazing creators and restorers are a perfect example of the passion that
runs in this great animatronics community.
So please, go check out their channels and support them so you can learn more about what
they do!
And also don’t forget to subscribe to our channel for more animatronics and theme park
stories!