Bear-A-Dice Stage
Billy Bob's Bear-A-Dice Tropical Jamboree otherwise referred to as either Billy Bob's Bear-A-Dise Tropical Jamboree or simply as just Bear-A-Dice is a Rock-afire Explosion trailer show that utilizes the Mini Stage setup of characters instead of a full Classic Stage setup.
History
There isn't too much information as to the behind the scenes development of the Bear-A-Dice trailer show. However, according to one of the technicians who work on the show (Carl), he says the characters were built in the year of 1982, while the trailer show itself would be assembled in around 1998. It's not clear if the trailer made it's rounds on the North American State Fair circuit during 1998 or not, but the show has been photographically documented as early as 2004 on ShowBizPizza.Com.[1]
The Bear-A-Dice show has been really infamous for it's condition back between the late 2000's and early to mid 2010's. Overtime, the characters' cosmetics had severely deteriorated, movements have been abnormally rearranged than intended, and even to the point where real sand added to the stage would make its way into the airlines of every character causing massive mechanical issues within. Thus, the Bear-A-Dice's condition was extremely poor around this time and remained that way for many years.
In early 2017, the Bear-A-Dice show was sent back to Creative Engineering to be refurbished and repaired by Aaron Fechter. Cosmetics were replaced and inner workings of the figures was tackled to where they returned to a great operational status. Screens were added to the stage to show video feeds along with segments previously not heard on the trailer show taken from therockafire YouTube channel. After about 6 months of work, the Bear-A-Dice returned to the State Fair circuit in August 2017 in a mostly restored state.
Even with the restoration, some technical aspects were ignored during the refurbishment which has led the entire show to malfunction on more than one occasion. From earliest footage of the complete refurbishment at the Kentucky State Fair, some instances of the footage showed the characters resetting their movements while a show was still occuring, leading up to the programming signals to blare afterwards. Aaron has explained in the comments of this video that it was caused by a short circuit in the lighting, which he didn't work on, rather the technicians did when the show was sent back after repairs. Aaron also admitted there are things he wasn't satisfied with (Billy Bob's new mask job) as a result of a time crunch he had to meet. [2]
After the run in the Kentucky State Fair, the technical issues got worse to the point one of the control panel boards fried up. As a result, the show did not ran the entire time it was at the Massachusetts State Fair due to the replacement boards not being able to arrive during the time it was there in the month of September. [3] When the show arrived at the South Carolina State Fair of October of that year, the boards were replaced and the show was operational for the run. Surprisingly, it didn't have as much technical issues as it did during the previous two locations, but it wasn't completely rid of all its issues.
Documentation of the Bear-A-Dise has been slim past 2017, and the only new progress said from the technicians around 2018 or so was that everything needed to be reprogrammed and it will be done in Indiana where another tech (Raymond) primarily works in. Since then, word about the show has been silent until an eBay listing appeared in 2020 putting the entire trailer show up for sale. However, after the listing, it's been assumed that it was never sold and probably is still with the techs and/or the North American State Fair circuit currently not in use and it's unknown if it will resume public showings ever again.
Gallery
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Billy Bob
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Fatz Geronimo with custom keyboard front
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Mitzi Mozzarella
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Looney Bird without barrel, in the middle of being restored by Aaron Fecther
