You’ve probably heard of the Rock-afire Explosion, the animatronic band that once graced the stage at Showbiz Pizza.

Maybe you’ve seen the 2008 documentary about them, where director Brett Whitcomb dives headfirst into a crowd of obsessed Rock-afire superfans. Or you’ve seen the work of Chris Thrash, an Alabama man who purchased a full Rock-afire set-up, coaxing them to perform Usher’s “Love in This Club,” and other modern classics.

But if you’re of a certain age — let’s say around 28 to 35 — there’s a chance you discovered the Rock-afire as a child, and that Billy Bob, Looney Bird, Mitzi, Beach Bear, Rolfe, Earl, Dook, and Fatz left their own impression on you—be it one of amazement or terror.

Long after the Rock-afire’s demise in the early ’90’s, long after the lights went out at Showbiz Pizza and children turned to Playstation and SnapChat over skee ball and animatronic bears, the Rock-afire are still with us.

In Barboursville, West Virginia, at Billy Bob’s Pizza Wonderland, they’re on a perpetual reunion tour. They’re alive, but not well. In Barboursville, The Rock-afire are—quite literally—falling to pieces.

Aaron Fechter & The Rock-afire Explosion, Orlando, Florida. (Photo by Pablo Iglesias Maurer)

In Orlando, Florida—a friendly place for weird, animated figures—Aaron Fechter swings open the door to his workspace. Fechter—the man who created the Rock-afire—has offered a tour of his studio, a multi-level warehouse, cradle, and grave.

Fechter founded Creative Engineering, Inc. in 1975 to produce an energy-efficient automobile — the Jutta. The car, which looks a bit like a go-kart, never took off, and Fechter turned his attention to animatronics.

First came the “Hard Luck Bears,” modeled after Disney World’s wildly successful “Country Bear Jamboree.”

“We were trying to do a Disney-type show,” Fechter said, “to sell to amusement parks all over the country.” To get the Rock-afire Explosion, he crossed that bear show with another one of his creations — the “Wolf Pack Five.”

In 1979, Fechter signed an agreement with Bob Brock, owner of Showbiz Pizza Place, to install his newly-minted band in the restaurant’s first two locations: Kansas City, Missouri and Jacksonville, Florida. The show was a hit, and the restaurant rapidly expanded. Fechter owned 20 percent of the chain and provided the animatronics, while Brock, with the other 80 percent, funded construction and operation.

In the ’80s, Showbiz was every kid’s dreamland; the kind of place you’d probably visit on a birthday or after bringing home a spotless report card. You didn’t go there for the food, you’d go to burn your eyes out playing Rad Racer or Pole Position. You’d go for the skee ball, the air hockey, the ball pool…

But most of all, you’d go for the Rock-afire Explosion. Smack dab in the middle of the place, spread across three stages, was a larger-than-life band of animatronic figures. Stage left, were Billy Bob on banjo, a down-home bear from the Tennessee mountains; and Looney Bird, a multi-colored bird who’d pop out of an oil drum.

Front and center was Fatz Geronimo, an intimidating (but soulful) gorilla positioned behind his keyboard, the “tune machine.” To his right was Dook LaRue, the most talented canine drummer in the land. Rounding out the center stage – Beach Bear and Mitzi Mozzarella — the band’s only female member.

When I was a kid, my eyes would drift stage right, toward Rolfe DeWolfe and Earle Schmerle. Rolfe was the snarkiest of the bunch, a disco-obsessed wolf who’d introduce the rest of the band and trade barbs with Fatz, often referring to him as “a big fat monkey.” Schmerle was his sidekick, a puppet permanently affixed to Rolfe’s right arm who was all too eager to knock him down a few pegs.

The band performed a variety of songs — all recorded by Fechter and a motley crue of musicians back in Orlando. Between sets, they’d do skits that sometimes seemed a little risqué for the six to twelve-year-old demographic. At one point, tired of Earle’s antics, Fatz turns to him and threatens to break his neck. Good family fun.

When it was going strong, Showbiz had hundreds of locations, and 325 Creative Engineering employees were turning out animatronic bands around the clock. But suddenly the bottom fell out. By 1984, Showbiz, on shaky financial ground, bit off more than it could chew, and merged with an equally shaky Chuck E. Cheese. Fechter—Rock-afire’s creator—had been told to stop producing shows, and after the merger, those up high delivered an ultimatum: turn over the rights to the Rock-afire Explosion, or the band would die forever.

Fechter refused and the Rock-afire disappeared from Showbiz—which had melted into Chuck E. Cheese. Not entirely, though. The new owners mumbled something about “concept unification,” invented new costumes and faces, and created a bastardized bunch of characters. Chuck E. Cheese called them “Munch’s Make Believe Band.”

The whole process can be seen in an instructional video for Chuck E. Cheese employees. It’s heart-rending. Billy Bob, Mitzy, Looney Bird, and the rest of the bunch come undone like glaciers. We see them purged, taken apart, stripped to bare bones. A calm Southern narrator reads what sounds like Ikea-like instructions for death. “Disconnect air lines…”, “remove Fatz’ piano….”, “Remove Billy Bob from the stage.” And suddenly, they’re gone.

Dust to dust.

Billy Bob’s Pizza Wonderland, Barboursville, West Virginia. (Photo by Pablo Iglesias Maurer)

It’s something no grown man should do, but I drove 16 hours—from Nashville to West Virginia—to reconnect with the Rock-afire and see them play. One of Barboursville’s social hubs—an anchor of a strip mall on the edge of the village—is Billy Bob’s Pizza Wonderland, a modern-day rendition of Showbiz Pizza Place.

Billy Bob’s was buzzing, with shrieking kids working a smorgasbord of arcade machines and stuffing their faces—like animatrons—with cheap pizza. Overworked parents sat at tables, dazed by the roar of video games.

The Rock-afire were hiding in plain sight, the curtains drawn on three tell-tale stages in front of a hundred empty seats. But there were instructions, crudely taped above a button on the wall: “DO NOT PRESS BUTTON MORE THAN ONCE FOR SHOW,”

I did, the curtains parted, and there—for the first time in 25 years—was the Rock-afire Explosion. But the characters had changed. Mitzi flailed one arm while the other lay lifeless next to her. Her eyes were fixed in a dead stare, as though she’d had a stroke. Fatz had had a face transplant, his new mask glued crudely to the hair surrounding it. Beach Bear’s face was torn above his right eye, and he looked more like a badly battered fighter than a carefree beach bum. Billy Bob had clearly been picking that banjo for a bit too long, his fingers ground down to the bone.

Rolfe and Earl were nowhere to be found—their curtain hadn’t opened. So I climbed onto the stage and peeked inside. There they were, lifeless and frozen, staring at the rest of the band, waiting for a cue that would never come.

I sat there for 20 minutes or so, listening to the music through their heavy breathing—their worn, badly adjusted pneumatics. The Rock-afire Explosion had become the Rolling Stones of animatronics, soldiering on long past their expiration date.

Dook LaRue, Barboursville, West Virginia. (Photo by Pablo Iglesias Maurer)

Aaron Fechter sold this particular Rock-afire set to Rex Donahue — the proprietor of Billy Bob’s — in 1989, when he realized his band didn’t have a future at Chuck E. Cheese. For years, Fechter provided Donahue with spare parts and support to keep them up and running. “I was delighted with the idea that we’d have a perfect show in West Virginia,” said Fechter. “This would be a pilgrimage for Rock-afire fans, right in the middle of the country.”

But over the years, the relationship between Fechter and Donahue soured. In the summer of 2013, Donahue contracted Fechter to deliver a new control system and four new masks. Fechter traveled from Florida to Billy Bob’s to deliver the setup and train Donahue and his employees on how to use the control system. Donahue gave Creative Engineering a $4,000 deposit, and another $800 for the masks.

When Fechter settled down to work, he found the band in shambles and the characters lifeless. The air valves that control their movements were full of water. A drier in a compressor had broken, causing thousands of dollars in damage. Fechter, with the help of a couple of Donahue’s employees, tore the band down and went to look for the stuff he needed to repair it.

The next day, things got ugly. A furious Donahue told Fechter to fix everything: he wouldn’t pay him a red cent until the entire show was overhauled. When Fechter balked, Donahue became violent, threatening Fechter and his girlfriend, who had travelled with him to West Virginia. Fechter retrieved his control system (which still needed work) and left, fearing for his life.

“The next morning,” Fechter said, “I’m waiting for his call and when it finally comes in, he announces to me that he’s called the police, that he’s filed a police report on me, and that they’re looking for me. And if I’m on my way out of the state, they’re going to catch me, they’re gonna pull me over and I’m gonna stand in front of a grand jury in West Virginia.”

What happened then is a matter of dispute. Fechter made it safely back to Florida, and hasn’t stopped thinking about his damaged characters.

“We got a daggone thing against him for embezzlement,” Donahue told me over the phone. “If his little ass comes back to West Virginia the police will get him and I’ll get him too. They like them damn guys from Florida, them guys in prison here like them guys. And them damn women [in prison] like them damn girls, too.”

When I ask him for the police report, he balks. He can sense that I’ve talked to Fechter. “You’re just trying to get information for him.” Turns out there’s no police report, and there was never any warrant for Aaron Fechter.

In any case, Donahue hasn’t forgotten about Fechter. “When I get through with Aaron,” he tells me, “the son of a bitch won’t even be able to eat a White Castle… I’m gonna wait for him right here, I’m gonna hit him with a cow turd right in the face when he gets back.”

Trapped in the middle of all this are The Rock-afire. When Fechter withdrew, Donahue hired an independent technician to fix his set-up, and it shows. Between the fake masks and the jarring, violent movements, the Barboursville Rock-afire are a sorry sight—dim, distant West Virginia cousins of the real thing.

Fatz, in all his glory, Orlando, Florida. (Photo by Pablo Iglesias Maurer)

Creative Engineering is a quiet place these days. Fechter is the company’s only employee, and his workspace has gotten smaller. A couple of years ago it was badly damaged when a cylinder of “hydrillium”—a cooking gas Fechter had been experimenting with—exploded, knocking out part of a wall and nearly blowing the roof off.

Fechter is a born story-teller, recounting events 30 years gone as if they happened yesterday. As we stroll through the upper floor of his studio, he tells me about the time that Michael Jackson came to Creative Engineering, “the week before Thriller came out.” Fechter had the Rock-afire play Jackson a medley of Beatles songs, and several weeks later, MJ bought the rights to the entire Beatles catalog. True story.

Wounded animatrons are everywhere. A Rock-afire set done up as aliens is pegged against one wall, while the “Wolf Pack Five,” slumps along another, undergoing restoration for a new buyer. In the basement, things go from creepy to surreal. Piles of masks and molds line shelves and a Billy Bob has melted—literally melted—into the arms of father time, his latex mask melted onto the skull beneath it. As I round a corner, anyone’s worst nightmare: a full animatronic “Wizard of Oz” set. My camera meets the eyes of the scarecrow.

In another room are the ruins of the studio used for many of the Rock-afire recordings. Fechter clicks on an old Wurlitzer keyboard and plays a few notes. “After the blast,” he says, “this was one of the only things I kept down here, so I can come down here and play whenever I want.”

In a group of crates at the center of the basement is perhaps the building’s most remarkable feature—the very last Rock-afire explosion, unmolested, never taken out of the box, indifferent to the carnage around them. Fechter tells me he’s waiting for the right offer.

In this basement, lit only by flashlight, Fechter strings together a few more warm, silky chords on the Wurlitzer. The notes ping off the walls of the place, haunting and beautiful.

It’s getting late. I’ve been at Fechter’s studio for hours. What I thought would be a quick trot down memory lane has turned into a surprisingly intense rush of nostalgia. We head back upstairs, to the centerpiece of his studio, a fully functional, perfectly maintained Rock-afire setup. They play a couple of songs—“Puttin’ on the Ritz” and “Cheek to Cheek”—and I feel 10 again.

Afterwards, the translucent curtains close, and the painted sky behind the band glows with that special hue of green only seen at dawn. At his keyboard, Fatz gazes skyward, his eyes lit up like two golf balls under a full moon. Maybe he’s thinking of the good old days.

Or maybe, just maybe, he’s planning his band’s next great comeback.

Fatz and company before dawn. (Photo by Pablo Maurer)