Beach Bear (Animatronic)

Manufacturer: Creative Engineering

The Beach Bear Animatronic (Also the 3-Stage Jasper T. Jowls Animatronic) was one of the main Rock-afire Explosion animatronics produced by Creative Engineering Inc. for Showbiz Pizza Place restaurants.

History

The animatronic would first be developed in April of 1980, before debuting at the Jacksonville, FL (9820 Atlantic Blvd) on August 14th of that year. His character was based off the previous Beach Bear (Wolf Pack 5 Animatronic) from the Wolf Pack 5 animatronic show Creative Engineering had developed. This time, instead of standing up, he would be a sitting animatronic, though still keeping his nature of being the tallest member in the band if stood up. This early showing and design would continue for the next five Showbiz Pizza Place locations, that being:

Tulsa, OK (7108 S Memorial Dr) (09-15-1980)
Overland Park, KS (10510 Metcalf Lane) (09-29-1980)
West Des Moines, IA (1431 22nd St) (10-13-1980)
Independence, MO (4039 S Noland Rd) (10-14-1980)
Topeka, KS (1301 SW Gage Blvd) (12-01-1980)

The next Beach Bear to be developed would be sent to Tampa, FL (1707 E Fowler Ave) on January 1st of 1981, this would feature more standardized mechanical changes to the bot, mainly in the replacement of hollow aluminum frames for solid aluminum ones, and different air cylinders. Later on in the year the first six shows would be recalled from their stores and replaced with the newer animatronics, scrapping the old bodies for parts, with only a Looney Bird and Fatz left in-tact. This makes it hard to discern what exactly the differences were from the early Beach Bears to the standard ones outside of these universal changes. Beach Bear animatronics would continue to be produced up until 1983. The January batch would be the last used inside Showbiz Pizza restaurants, and would be kept and stored for future openings, while Creative Engineering would continue to produce bots until June. Now with a surplus of bots, these would need to be sold to other family entertainment centers. Outside of attempting to sell the Rock-afire Explosion show on its own, in November of 1984 the Moon Rockers Stage would debut at the IAAPA expo in Orlando, Florida. This changed all the characters to have new cosmetics in an alien setting. Beach Bear's was notably the only mech known to be changed, where a wooden board was bolted to the front of his head to support the giant latex mask of his new character, Quasar. In 1990 one last batch of bots would known to be produced. It isn't clear if Beach Bear was part of this batch, as the only known bots would wind up at Hillwood Strike & Spare in 2003, that being a Billy Bob, Mitzi, Fatz, and Looney Bird, the standard Mini Stage character selection. The Mini Stage in general meant that slightly fewer Beach Bears were produced compared to others, though only by a few.During Concept Unification , Beach Bear would now become Jasper T. Jowls, a country singing hound dog, wearing his overalls, along with a cow-print shirt, a cowboy hat, and holding now a cheese themed guitar. The stump and surfboard would become an aluminum cylinder with painted vents facing outward. None of Beach Bear's cosmetics would survive the transition, outside some stores deciding to keep his Guitar, or having him use Billy Bob's, due to him being taken off the stage and used for spare parts going forward. The only mechanical change outside of the lowering of air pressure for his movements, and later diagnostic changes to the air flow in the cylinders, was the swapping for his blue eyes with Rolfe's brown eyes. Another process which some stores would also choose not to go forward with. In April of 2001 a major change would come for all Jasper bots in stores. Their previously latex masks would now be changed out for furred plastic ones, to reduce costs for the rapidly deteriorating latex. Around this time stores would also be offered the ability to purchase new eyes for their 3-Stage characters, now with smaller pupils and more detailed irises. Store owners were also encouraged to repaint the eyelids with Rust-Oleum Painters Touch spray paint, with Jasper's color being code #1977, a deep brown color. The choice of color may be a reference to the opening year of the first Chuck E. Cheese's location, however it is unknown if this was intentional.

Design

The bot is a white bear in surfing attire, sitting on a surfboard on top of a tree stump. A silver guitar is in his hands in which he plays during performances. His movements are mainly focused on enhancing the animation of him playing his guitar, with him being able to rock back, lift his head up, cross his eyes, fling his legs up in the air, and lift the head of the guitar up and down while strumming it. Originally, Beach Bear wore a blonde wig on his head in all Showbiz locations. This remained the case until May 1984 when Aaron Fechter, CEO of CEI, decided that removing the wig would improve the appearance of the character. A letter was sent to all Showbiz restaurants requesting that Beach Bear's wig be removed, and he remained that way until Concept Unification⁽¹⁾.

Mechanical Structure

Movements

The bot features sixteen movements in total, with the majority being in the right arm and head. The head mech is a combination of the mech seen on Mitzi Mozzarella and Rolfe Dewolfe, but with the eye cross mechanism seen in Looney Bird. The main body mech shares the same mech as Billy Bob, outside of the neck attachment to tilt the head. The only unique piece is the stump and leg mechanisms. The base of the pelvis is built in a way to make the surfboard attachment easily rock with the animatronic's body movements. The legs have loose knee joints as well, allowing them to sway up and down with the leg kicks.

Movements

All of its movement bits start at the beginning of the Grey Box bottom drawer. None of these were changed for Concept Unification .

Movement	Number
L Lid	1
R Lid	2
Eyes Cross	3
L Hand Slide	4
Guitar Raise	5
Head L	6
Head R	7
Head Up	8
L Leg Kick	9
R Leg Kick	10
R Arm Raise	11
R Arm Twist	12
R Elbow Twist	13
R Wrist	14
Body Lean	15
Mouth	16