80's Strike Back - Showbiz Pizza aka Billy Bob's aka Chuck E. Cheese's

        Check out my gorilla friend's keyboard solo!

    
    Before there was Chuck E. Cheese's there was Showbiz Pizza. Just imagine Chuck E. Cheese's with skee ball, plastic ball pit and of course Whack-A-Mole, throw in  an 80's decor..replace the mouse with a robotic rock band led by a toothless redneck grizzly bear named Billy Bob and BAM! you've got Showbiz Pizza. 

More after the jump...

   Showbiz Pizza was half kids video game playground ...half dining area.  Equipped with booths and seating along with .... ya know, just your average robotic lip syncing bear band concert hall. As kids we would run, jump, play video games, ask parents for quarters, play games, ask parents for quarters...(you see the pattern here) ,however, since Showbiz Pizza ,like Chuck E. Cheese, was more of a birthday party gathering place than a place just to go and eat, there would come that one dreaded moment (at least for us ADD acting kids) where we would have to stop playing and act like we cared that it was some one's birthday. Que whole birthday routine...presents...singing...eating our pizza and cake as fast as possible just to get back to the fun and games......but then something a little different would happen. The lights would dim in the medium sized dining area of Showbiz...located less than 50 feet away was a stage with a red curtain blocking any view of what was about to happen. Once the lights were dim the curtain pulled back and there they were. A full life size robotic band made up of various instrument wielding wild animals. The band would then seem to start playing their instruments as generic rock music played on the loud speakers and the bear began to talk and sing. 

"You gonna finish that piece of pizza?"

The scariest part had to be keyboard smashing gorilla. Not only is he very realistic (imagine how he looked at 5 yrs old) but he was hugeeeeeeeeeeee. I would always want to sit at the booths furthest away from the stage. I was afraid that at any moment my gorilla friend would hop down from the stage and maul every last one of us. Guess my line of thinking was that I'd at least have a head start on everyone else, after all, you don't have to be fast....just faster than the slowest person there :) It figures that this would only be the first of many of my animatronic moments as a child that I clearly remember as being horrific...but you will hear all about that in a later post. :) I'm still finding more info about this mysterious mechanical animal band and will update this post as more is discovered......