Four Little Shavers (Ice Cream Emporium)

The Four Little Shavers are an animatronic cabaret act used in Pizza Time Theatre restaurants.

They appeared in 3 locations only, these being the Pizza Time Theatres in Tampa, Florida, San Antonio, Texas and Brandon, Florida. They were first installed in August 1981 at the Tampa, Florida location. They appeared in a room named the Ice Cream Emporium which was an Ice Cream bar, a concept tested by Pizza Time Theatre Inc. at the time. The show was fully phased out of these stores by the mid 1980's. All 3 sets were presumably destroyed, but one set has been discovered, restored and now performs at the Volo Museum in Illinois.

There were 4 members of this band, Nolan (holding the towel), O'Nolan (holding the cup), Curly (the bald man in the chair) and McNolan (holding the broom). They were similar to the Beagles/Beach Bowsers in terms of mechanisms and general appearance.

Placement
In the standard installation of the show detailed in the Pizza Time Theatre Theatrical Standards Manual, the characters would stand in a line, the order being Nolan, O'Nolan, Curly, McNolan (from left to right) in front of a barber shop themed scene. This featured a desk, bottles, mirrors and a barber pole at the back. However one of the locations had a different design, which had a black and blue backdrop with shelving and bottles painted onto it and a sign reading 'Lou's Place', and had Nolan moved to the far right of the stage.

Showtapes
No showtapes have been found yet for the Four Little Shavers. However the Theatrical Standards Manual details that they would sing songs from the Buffalo Bills and some other Barber Shop Groups.

Movements
The known movements on the Four Little Shavers are as follows: Their Body Sway movements are accomplished using the exact same assembly used by the Warblettes, except with only the middle head used. It starts with them tilted left and the cylinder will push them over so they are tilted to the right. Only Curly has mechanical arms which can move, the other three have tubes that connect to props (e.g. McNolan's arm tubes connect to his broom) which can move about as they move to give the illusion of there being arms.

Curly is supposed to have 3 total arm movements but at the Volo Show, only 1 of them seems to be operational (Right Arm Twist). It is possible they are either damaged or this could potentially have been an early version which didn't have these extra movements.

There are no photos of the mechanisms, but it can be safely assumed that they are very similar to the Beagles/Beach Bowsers mechanisms, which there are photos of, since they use the same design and system.