The Rock-afire Explosion were an animatronic band comprised of anthropomorphic animals that played in Showbiz Pizza Place restaurants in the USA through the 1980s. After closing down many of these setups found their way to enthusiasts. Here’s one such setup, performing MGMT’s Electric Feel.
Perhaps even more obscurely, a documentary is currently being produced about car-salesman Chris Thrash, a guy who recently purchased the rights to Rock-afire Explosion with an aim to resurrect them and the Showbiz Pizza Place. (via Penny Arcade)
First of all, apologies if you arrived here excited by the pretense of the crappy (yet oddly endearing) 1980s cartoon of the same name. Here’s something very arguably better. Adam Phillips, the guy who created the superb Bitey Castle shorts, has been commissioned to produce a number of brief animated cartoons to promote the new 4th edition of Dungeons and Dragons.
Meanwhile, Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins over at Penny Arcade and Scott Kurtz from PvP have put together a podcast of, essentially, eight hours of them playing Dungeons and Dragons around a microphone. With the wrong people this really could be the dullest thing on earth but it somehow manages to remain entertaining throughout the four half-hour and a bit podcasts they’ve already put out. Stick this link into iTunes or your podcast grabber of choice: http://www.wizards.com/dnd/rsspodcast.xml or, iTunes users, try this - more here, though you’ll need to sign up for a free account to access the pages.
They’re also doing a little strip to accompany each show.
I always love looking at optimistic views of the future from the past… and here’s a good one. The Usborne Book of the Future: A Trip in Time to the Year 2000 and Beyond, which was originally published in 1979. Chapters include “Robots: Science and medicine”, “Future Cities: Homes and living” and “Star Travel: Transport and travel”. (via Boing Boing)
It reminds me of the old EPCOT attractions from Walt Disney World like Horizons and Spaceship Earth that were also built around that time.
If you like this it’s also worth checking out the Paleofuture blog for all kinds of fantastic retro visions of the future.
I only managed to catch the last fifteen minutes of Frost and Pegg’s Perfect Night In when it aired on Channel 4 a couple of months ago but, thankfully, a selfless guy by the name of FrostituteMayo (presumably a big Nick Frost Fan) recorded and YouTubed the whole lot.
Essential viewing for anyone that grew up in the UK through the 70s and 80s. (thanks David!)
It seems that I’ve found the original inspiration for this fantastic German comedy-horror short “Forklift Driver Klaus” (video above — Caution: Contains simulated gore) at Boing Boing.
They sure don’t make TV commercials like they use to. This fantastic ad was for one of my favourite games as a kid, Burger Time, on the Mattel Intellivision. “We’re closed now!”
Jenny at The Blackwing Diaries has a great set of scans from this 60s Disneyland book “How to Draw Goofy: A Walt Disney Character Model Guide”. I particularly like the quote from Walt Disney himself.
A 24-minute long tribute to Walt Disney World’s Tomorrowland from 1971 through 1995 and includes many many memorable classics including the Wedway Peoplemover, Flight to the Moon, Mission to Mars, Autopia, Dreamflight, Carousel of Progress, Space Mountain and the Skyway. The film is put together from home video, official Disney film footage and concept art. I remember much of the stuff here and I, like many others, have watched the land struggle to find its footing in this more cynical age. (via BoingBoing)
Tick Tock Toys: A cavalcade of images and ideas: Just stumbled upon this old website from Dan Goodsell; he’s the guy that does the great Mr. Toast stuff. It’s a collection of all sorts of photographs of old theme parks, cartoon characters, newspaper ads, food and commercials. I didn’t realise until now that he’s the same guy that produced the Taschen “Krazy Kids’ Food” book that I have at home. (via John K) | Comments (0) »
A bit early, but it’s the last chance I’ll get. Thanks for reading! I’ll leave you with another great post from Stuff from the Park. Not only does he have a fantastic poster from Disneyland, New Year 1962 but there’s also a fantastic photo of the Pirates of the Caribbean model used in the 1965 Disneyland 10th anniversary show.
I’d never heard of Santa’s Village… boy, have I been missing out! Thankfully, Jordan Reichek fills me in… and Google helps me find even more crap than I could ever dream of! Apparently, the park opened in 1955 (the same year as Disneyland) or 1957 (depending on what reports you read!) and closed in 1998.
Update: I’ve also just noticed this fantastic collection of images from Universal City Studios in the 60s and 70s on the same site. It sure was a lot smaller back then, and it looks like that flash flood has been “scaring” visitors for over 25 years! Have a root around further for shots of Knotts Berry Farm and Ghost Town and Will Rogers Park.
