They were abandoned to rot, but thanks to
these heroic fans, many of the beloved animatronic characters from classic animatronic bands
were saved and brought back from the ashes. Today, we'll tell you the stories of some
of the most famous abandoned and rescued animatronics. But first, if you consider yourself an animatronic
fan, go and follow these three channels right now! Links in the description and in the comments! The King! / Jared Sanchez The history of Chuck E Cheese Pizza is long,
interesting, and complicated, and we've talked about it before in previous videos. But the short of it is that it was created
by Nolan Bushnell, co-founder of Atari. Nolan wanted to create a place where families
could enjoy the games of an arcade while eating pizza and enjoying a live show, and so Chuck
E Cheese was born. The live show for this new concept was obviously,
the famous animatronic band, but when it debuted in 1977, it was nicknamed the portrait Show
because the characters were behind 4-foot tall picture frames. By 1979, many restaurants had also added "Cabaret"
shows in separate rooms of each restaurant. Some of these shows were modeled after actual
music artists like the Beagles, The Beach Bowsers, and The King! The King was a 9-foot tall animatronic lion
dressed in a style resembling Elvis Presley and was programmed to sing Elvis Presley songs,
most of which were the original recordings. Everything was doing great, but in the early
1980s, Chuck E Cheese started having problems. In an effort to get with the times, some changes
were made, and one of these changes included The King. The King was rebranded and turned into King
Kat. The Elvis theme was left behind and turned
into a Michael Jackson inspired character. His clothes were changed, and a new wig was
added. Sadly, these changes were not enough to save
the chain, and in 1983 Chuck E Cheese declared bankruptcy. ShowBiz bought all the assets of pizza time
theater inc and brought both companies together, naming the new company Showbiz Pizza Time
Theater Inc but left the two restaurants as separate entities. After this happened, the cabaret shows started
slowly being retired, which ended up in The King being abandoned. The King's animatronics were destroyed, auctioned,
used for parts, and some of them were stored. And you would think that this was the end
for this royal character, but nothing would be further from the truth. Here's where Jared Sanchez comes in! It all began in 1992 when Jared went to Chuck
E cheese on his 12th birthday. It was at that moment when he became amazed
at The King animatronic. That same year, Jared went back to Chuck E
Cheese and learned the unfortunate news that The King had been retired. This tormented him for a long time, until
ten years later, he found a user on eBay, selling a King animatronic for $25,000. This is a pretty hefty sum, but it did not
stop Jared from talking with the owner and trying to convince him to sell the King to
him. It took him ten years, but Jared convinced
the owner to sell him the animatronic for $10,000 and in payment installments, and that's
how Jared became the owner of his first King animatronic. Jared spent months replacing its cylinders
and learning to sew so he could fit him with new fur. He figured out how to make the King work with
a modern computer instead of its old reel-to-reel machine and learned to program each of its
movements painstakingly. In 2016, Jared transformed his master bedroom
into a studio, took singing lessons so he could voice the character, and brought the
King back. After this, Jared rescued a second King animatronic
that he found at Captain Dave's roller rink in Michigan. He called this new character King Puff and
took him on a road trip from Michigan to Tampa in the passenger seat. Then, he managed to get his hands on not one
but two other King animatronics! These last two animatronics were stored in
a warehouse, and Jared was able to strike a deal with the owner. He helped them clean out the warehouse, and
they gave him the animatronics for free. He named one of these animatronics King John,
in honor of their former owner and customized him to be playing a keyboard. The other one was called Four. This King animatronic doesn't have any cosmetics,
and he is hilarious. Jared and his animatronics are creating a
new concept called Roboloquist. Animatronics and humans interacting on a live
show. This new type of entertainment is fantastic
and very interesting. And the key to all of this is that this magnificent
show is Jared. He programs the animatronics and lights, writes,
sings, and also does the voices of all the animatronics. And it's no small feat. A short 3-minute sketch can take a week to
be created. Today, Jared's goal is to continue working
on this type of entertainment and to reach more and more animatronics fans so they can
enjoy his content. If you are an animatronics fan and even if
you're not, go check out Jared and the King's channel. Their content is amazing and so entertaining,
and it is such a great way to honor one of the best characters from the original Chuck
E Cheese. Rock-Afire Explosion Animatronics / Connor
Leschinsky We mentioned before how in the early 80s,
Chuck E Cheese was having problems, and one of the main reasons for these problems was
the arrival of Showbiz Pizza as their main competitor. When Nolan Bushnell became interested in expanding
Chuck E Cheese, he found Robert L. Brock, who was supposed to be his principal investor. But due to different factors, Brock ended
up investing in a new project called Showbiz. He developed this new project with the help
of Aaron Fetcher's Creating Engineering company. And for this new project, the team created
the iconic Rock Afire Explosion animatronic band. This new band had full-bodied animatronics
that had very fluid movements and several facial expressions. Time passed, and the relationship between
Showbiz and Creative Engineering began to deteriorate since Creative Engineering had
the rights to the image and recordings of the animatronics and Showbiz wanted them to
give them up without any compensation, ShowBiz took all kinds of control from creative engineering
and forced them out of the company. By the time this happened, Showbiz owned Chuck
E Cheese already, and they decided that they would change all of their locations to Chuck
E Cheese as part of the company's rebranding. And the Rock Afire Explosion Band was replaced
by a new show called "Chuck E. Cheese & Munch's Make Believe Band." So, Creative Engineering started selling their
show to other restaurants like Circus Pizza, Pistol Pete's Pizza, and Billy Bob's Wonderland. But, these places were closed little by little,
leaving very few of the Rock Afire explosion bands in operation. This meant that many of the band's sets were
abandoned and left in terrible conditions. But fortunately, this was not the end of the
Rock Afire explosion! Many of these bands were saved from complete
abandonment by fans, and such is the case of Connor Leschinsky! Connor is passionate about animatronics and
spends his time rescuing and restoring them. Since Connor was a kid, he would take apart
toys when they stopped working to see how they worked. This led Connor to become a mechanical engineer,
and he has applied all this knowledge into restoring these abandoned animatronics. Connor began back in 2015 when he purchased
Rolfe and Earl from the Rock-afire Explosion off Craigslist. Luckily, they came with all the required components
needed to function; and were just missing the overall cosmetics to cover its mechanical
structure. That when Connor decided to start posting
videos on his Youtube Channel. The test for these animatronics was the first
video he posted. After these animatronics, Connor purchased
a Billy Bob and Looney Bird but later sold those to buy the Okefenokee Bear Revue band
mini-set, which contained Billy Bob, Fatz, Mitzi, and Looney. He also got two variations of Beach Bear,
Dook, and Looney Bird, which were part of "New Rock-afire Explosion." In total, he currently owns ten complete characters. Eight of them are from the Classic Rock-afire
Explosion, and two of them are from the New Rock-afire Explosion. Connor uses the original setup for the animatronics. He was able to purchase several pieces of
the original show controller, known as the gray box, through collaborating with other
collectors. Show tapes for these animatronics were recorded
onto reel-to-reel tapes, which were acquired from various sources, such as other collectors
or eBay. The only problem is that show tapes have begun
to degrade to the point where they affect the quality of the audio cause they're about
30 years old, so soon, he will have to switch to digital by using a surround sound setup. It usually takes him about three months to
restore the animatronics, depending on the available parts and his work schedule. But the longest time he's taken to find a
part was three years, for an Earl puppet cosmetic for Rolfe Dewolfe. To restore the animatronic, all the components
have to be disassembled to clean the pieces and later see which ones are in good condition,
and see which ones need to be repaired or bought. After this, the cosmetics have to be fixed
and cleaned. The latex masks he gets directly from Aaron
Fetcher from Creative Engineering and Jack from SPT Productions
helps with the painting of details for the masks also. While all of this sounds very cool and fun,
Connor thinks that the most challenging and fun part is finding the animatronics. Keeping an eye out, constantly scanning through
the internet, and asking around knowing if anyone may have an animatronic for sale or
when a store is going to throw them out. Currently, Connor is in the process of restoring
his 11th character, who will become Chuck E. Cheese by salvaging random, assorted parts
from people/businesses that no longer need them. His work is very impressive, and it is incredible
to see the before and after of all the animatronics that he has restored. Connor's passion for robotics and animatronics
continues to grow, and it won't be going away anywhere soon. Because as he says, there's always something
out there that needs rescuing to be restored! And so, he will continue rescuing and restoring
animatronics and sharing his passion with all animatronic lovers through his YouTube
channel. So again, animatronics fans everywhere, go
check out his fantastic work! There a link in the description so you can
check out his fantastic channel! Tex Critters Pizza Jamboree and Play Circus
Band / Cavity Sam The 80s gave us many incredible animatronics
bands, and one of these was Tex Critter's Pizza Jamboree band. This band was created by legendary Disney
Imagineers Larry Nikolai and Rolly Crump for a new entertainment center focused on families
that had arcades, T.V.s showing the most popular channels of the time like MTV, small theaters
that showed 3-D movies, and of course the fantastic Tex Critter's Pizza Jamboree band. The band's members were Skeeter, Cal, Tex,
and Roxy. Each animatronic weighed about 300 pounds
and was eight feet tall. This entertainment center opened in 20 different
locations, but sadly, 1984 was a terrible year for Castle Entertainment due to the high
cost of managing branches. This led the company to close most of its
complexes. Tex and the company were sold to Magic Landing
and relocated to the park's pizza parlor, where they continued playing until the park's
closing in 1988. The park was abandoned from its closing until
2009, leaving Tex and company in a terrible state, becoming worse and worse with every
passing day. It's unfortunate to see something that was
created to entertain and give joy end up in such a terrible state. The park was demolished in 2013, but thankfully,
animatronics fans managed to rescue and rebuild many of the animatronics of the different
branches and give them a second life. One of these fans is Andrea, better known
in the community as CavitySam. Andrea has had a lifelong passion for all
things vintage and antique, and so she has spent most of her life collecting. She became an animatronic fan thanks to the
90s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the King Kong animatronic that used to be on the Universal
Studios Hollywood studio tour. Ever since she saw them, Andrea was fascinated
by how they looked and moved and wanted to know how they were built. Today Andrea owns 17 animatronics, including
a simple two-movement animatronic of The Warblettes from Pizza Time Theatre, which gave Andrea
a basic understanding of how everything came together in an animatronic. Barney Bear and Ellie Elephant from the Circus
Playhouse band, which she was able to get after a friend found them posted on Facebook
Marketplace. And, of course, the animatronics from the
famous Tex Critters Pizza Jamboree. When the previous owner abandoned the show,
two effects artists acquired them and then tried to sell them with no luck. So they decided to list them on eBay, where
Andrea found them and won them for a very low price. She got these animatronics back in 2016 and
has been slowly working on them over the years, but she didn't have the proper resources to
restore them until mid-2020. From then until now, she's gotten the Tex
Critter's show about 80% restored and the Circus Playhouse show about 40% restored. To restore them, they begin by doing a movement
test, which is connecting the character to an air compressor and manually pressing the
buttons on the valve bank. Then they do a teardown and deep cleaning
of the animatronic frame. While the shells are removed, we repair any
broken fiberglass by laying new fiberglass cloth and resin over it. They replace any nonfunctional cylinders and
valves. Also, any parts that are scratched and chipped
are stripped, sanded, and repainted- And any parts that are needed are made from scratch
by Andrea. Before they reassemble everything, another
movement test is done. If everything is good, it's time to reassemble
the character and do any finishing work that's needed. Nowadays, Andrea and her boyfriend Bobby are
in the process of securing the rights to the characters for Circus Playhouse and Tex Critter's,
which will allow them to produce new show tapes for them and bring them back into the
public eye. There are absolutely no plans to put them
in a restaurant or public place, but fans will still be able to see them in person and
on YouTube. They have contacted someone involved with
the creation of the show tapes for Circus Playhouse, and he turned out to still have
the master tapes for the show. He offered the tapes to them, along with the
rights for $2000. So Andrea is hosting a fundraiser to help
raise the money so that these tapes can be acquired, digitized, and released to the public. Meanwhile, Andrea will continue restoration
work until the shows are functional and then try to find a place where they can be set
up on stages, fully functional. If she can obtain the character rights, she
will be producing new content for them, such as new show tapes, merchandise, and other
fun stuff. The goal is to keep these characters from
fading into security and reliving childhood memories for so many people. And keep them alive for future generations! You need to check out Cavity Sam’s channel
to see her amazing work and animatronics! We’ll leave a link in the description! All of these amazing creators and restorers
are a perfect example of the passion that runs in this great animatronics community. So please, go check out their channels and
support them so you can learn more about what they do! And also don’t forget to subscribe to our
channel for more animatronics and theme park stories!
Where can I get a used animatronic Maybe an old show biz animatronic