Animatronics: Exactly Like Being in Rock 'n' Roll

Wow, thanks everybody for the sweet well-wishes and offers of help and prayers on my family's behalf. Really. That means a lot to me. As Amy, my sister-in-law pointed out, my mom is indeed young and tough and healthy as a horse, and I have no doubt she'll pull this off in record time and amaze her doctors. My folks also have a huge support system of family and friends who are doing a super job of making sure they're looked after. It's a rotten situation, for sure. But it could've been a lot worse, and in the end, everything will be OK. Mostly I just needed a moment to gush. But thanks so much for the prayers. That stuff works.

Because I don't like having a depressing story as my lead entry, I'm going to go ahead and move on. What I want to talk about today is this:



Jake saw this recently on one of his millions of tech geek blogs and totally froke out. They're making a movie about the Rock-afire Explosion! he said. Isn't that awesome?! he said.

What's a Rock-afire Explosion? I said.

Turns out I missed out on a few things growing up in Idaho. One of these things was watching animatronic bears perform "Black or White" by Michael Jackson in a dingy, noisy pizza parlor that's filled with screaming children covered in pizza grease and seizure-inducing arcade games. Even if there had been a Rock-afire Explosion in Idaho Falls, which I'm going to guess there wasn't, I wouldn't have seen it anyway. My mom didn't allow our family to patronize establishments like that. I distinctly remember her picking me up from a birthday party at a place like that once and telling me in the car on the way home, "Jaz, that is what Hell is like." That was probably the wrong thing to tell a kid because I immediately thought that, if that's really case, Hell rules.

Jake agreed to sit down with AD and talk a little more about the Rock-afire Explosion and what it meant to him.

AD: How old were you when you first encountered the Rock-afire Explosion?
Jake J. Michaelson: Probably 8 or 9.
AD: So the late '80s?
JJM: Yeah.
AD: Was it at a Showbiz Pizza Place?
JJM: Pistol Pete's Pizza.
AD: Your mom allowed you to enter these dens of sin?
JJM: Yeah. Actually, maybe she didn't even know about it. I don't think we ever went as a family. I think it was somebody else's party.
AD: But the Rock-afire Explosion made an impact on you.
JJM: Yes.
AD: Why was that?
JJM: There were a couple of reasons. They did a few songs I'd never heard before, for example "16 Tons" and now every time I hear that song I think of that big, creepy black gorilla singing it. I don't even know who actually sang it. More in general, I had very conflicting feelings because on one hand I was terrified. It looked like something out of a horror movie. Like "Chucky" or something. But I was also mesmerized by them. I couldn't look away.
AD: Judging from the trailer, it sounds like they had a pretty huge effect on some people. Does that surprise you?
JJM: Frankly, I did not know until I saw the trailer that it was a chain thing, so I had no idea there would've been such a cult following.
AD: Why were you so excited to see they were making a documentary about it?
JJM: It was really the people who were the fanatics about it. I found them more interesting than the animatronics. I was interested in the human story behind the Rock-afire Explosion show.
AD: Bull. You just want to see that gorilla again.
JJM: (ignores AD, continues surfing net on laptop and melts into mournful baritone rendition of "16 Tons")
AD: Yeah. That's what I thought.



JEM

P.S. After watching this video again, Jake just pointed out that this Chris Thrash guy absolutely IS J.F. Sebastian from "Blade Runner".