Beach Bear (Animatronic)
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 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)
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 |
Parts
TODO: Standardized parts section, use older versions of this page to gather the image galleries and info for the parts.
A segment of Trivia Night performed at Dreamfactory.
Apr. 14, 2022
A segment of Trivia Night playing at Volo Auto Museum.
Jul. 31, 2024
A segment of Trivia Night playing at Volo Auto Museum.
Sep. 27, 2024