If you ever traveled to the inner United States in the 80s or spent time on YouTube in the 00’s, you likely know the Rock-afire Explosion. It’s the animatronic musical mascot tableau that delighted and possibly creeped out thousands of Nintendo playing teens at every installment of the now-defunct ShowBiz Pizza Place chain. It would become repurposed in recent years as Usher-singing viral video bait (see above).At Vice, Hunter Stephenson shares the 2009 documentary about this very strange machine and the strange man who invented it:The best explored subject in the doc is Rock-afire's inventor, a Floridian named Aaron Fechter. By his late 20s, Fechter's creations had him overseeing a multi-million dollar business and several hundred employees. With his army of bootleg stoner-Muppets, Fechter managed to sneak secret message into the mass-manufactured act. For instance, Fechter waxes environmental with the inclusion of an impatient bird intoxicated-from and surviving-on oil. That shit went over fatheads then, one detail that makes the doc worthwhile. Fechter's ambitions were cut short, due both to a rush by investors who over-expanded the franchise, and to changes in tech-fashion.Read more at Vice, and watch the documentary in its entirety below:Photo courtesy Brett Whitcomb/Brad Thomason
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