Robot Animal Bands

Thanks to Whitney Matheson's fantastic PopCandy blog I'm riding a completely unexpected nostalgia wave right now. She did a post today on a documentary about these animatronic robots that used to play at pizza chains aimed at kids called Showbiz Pizza Place. It sounds very similar to one of my favorite movies from the past couple years King Of Kong and I can't wait to see it. Here's the trailer, it looks fantastic.

I have never been to a Showbiz Pizza King, but I was treated to a wonderful place in Toledo called Major Magic's All Star Pizza Revue as a kid where they had a similar band. Far as I know, it's still there. The last time I went there was in college, when we met up with some family friends with younger kids before Christmas. The video games were rad, the balloon machine still worked, the pizza was still not-so-great and Major Magic's band was still rocking out, though looking a little more rickety than I remember.


Unfortunately I couldn't find any video that didn't suck to show you what it was like (the two best candidates included a mom trying to get her daughter to dance in the dark near the band and two teenage thinks who think they're funny and aren't), but I did find these Rock-afire tracks done by a guy featured in the documentary who purchased the entire band and set them up in his house, programming them to play current songs.

Like Fergie's "London Bridge."

And Usher's "Love In This Club"

Now I have a new dream item for my future man cave. The more I think about it, the more it's looking like my man cave might have to be a whole separate house. Food for thought...

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