ROCK-AFIRE EXPLOSION Review

Rock-afire Explosion is a documentary that chronicles not only the history of the Showbiz Pizza franchise, but also the resurgence of the chain’s popular robotic house band.

Chris Thrash, an obsessed fan to put it mildly, tracks down the original creator of the robots, Aaron Fechter, and purchases an entire set of fully functioning characters so that he can have his own Rock-afire Explosion band. He sets the band up in a pull-barn behind his house where he can have the characters laid out in a similar fashion to how they were in the old Showbiz Pizza restaurants. Thrash eventually gets the idea to re-program the characters to play contemporary hit songs by User, Shakira, and MGMT. Thanks to hundreds of thousands of hits on YouTube, the Rock-afire Explosion has seen since seen a resurgence in popularity.

I’m fairly sure the filmmakers intended the film to be a celebration of the Showbiz Pizza chain, but I couldn’t help but also feel a sense of sadness for most of the characters in the film. For fans like Chris Thrash, it seems like they are trying to re-capture the happiness and innocence of their youth by purchasing these animatronic characters. This isn’t unlike a more typical middle-aged adult who pines for his days when he was the highschool quarterback or she was a cheerleader. It’s just Thrash and his friends have a more quirky obsession. It did seem like some of that wonder for these collectors had dissipated because they now had to worry about fixing and maintaining their expensive investments, rather than simply enjoying the band as they did when they were young.

For creator Aaron Fechter, what was once an extremely lucrative business that employed hundreds of people in the 80’s, has turned into an empty rundown warehouse full of scraps and random parts from old unsold Rock-afire Explosion bands. Fecter’s robots are still technically amazing, even though it’s been 20 years since they were originally created. He still seems to have trouble getting back on his feet, despite his obvious talent, and finding someone interested in investing in his business ideas.

While on the surface Rock-afire Explosion may seem like a light film that is played more for laughs, I found it to be much deeper. I think everyone can relate to Chris Thrash and his yearning for a time in his youth when life was more innocent, and it was natural to be awestruck by simple pleasures.