Gulliver's Kingdom Stage

Earl Schmerle on 2023/09/24

Gulliver's Kingdom has a retrofitted Rock-afire Explosion show renamed to 'Hard Luck Bears' located in the The Liliput Land Theatre, the character positioning is the same to the original Rock-afire Explosion set-up except the characters themselves feature different clothing and all have replacement bear masks. The stage itself features the usual 3-stage design however with a large rectangular platform in front and 2 water fountains embedded within, the characters Antioch and Choo Choo are not on the main stage and are instead located on the rectangular stage in front, Looney Bird also used to be located under this stage⁽¹⁾ but was moved to Billy Bob's stage with the shows restoration. Billy Bob and Looney Bird's stage has the Antioch cloud as Antioch no longer needs it, Rolfe and Earl's stage has a platform behind the character with a rotating automation band made up of foxes and a frog created by Heimotion these automations used to be on all the time but are now connected to a flood light signal.⁽²⁾ Rolfe's stage also features a modified version of the rainbow prop with a beehive and honey pot instead of pots of gold.

History

The show was installed in 1995 and ran off the original Greybox control system created by Creative Engineering Inc, the show also came with an original showtape; produced by Gulliver's and programmed by Creative Engineering Inc; sometime within the 2000's this was changed out to a new control system where Gulliver's staff would program the new showtapes by themselves. The show in this state stopped being shown publically in 2016.

Restoration

On 27 February 2022 Instagram user 'xan_rock_afire_fan' announced that he would be restoring all 3 of Gulliver's Hard Luck Bears shows.⁽³⁾ The restoration included a full mechanical restoration, a switch to the 'BlueBox' control system, Looney Bird being relocated to the Rock-afire standard position and the shows lights being switched over to LED lights, with only the spotlights staying as the original halogen lights. The show room got a repaint and artwork of the characters designed by Instagram user 'rockafire_guy' painted on the back walls.⁽⁴⁾ This show as of now plays original Rock-afire Explosion showtapes as well as fan made showtapes and runs regularly with every open day of the park Gulliver's will sometimes run fan conventions⁽⁵⁾ ⁽⁶⁾for the show and the other animatronics in their parks.

Animatronics

Animatronic	Serial	Manufacturing Date	Origin
Rolfe & Earl	N/A	N/A	Creative Engineering Inc
Dook Larue	N/A	N/A	Creative Engineering Inc
Fatz Geronimo	N/A	N/A	Creative Engineering Inc
Beach Bear	N/A	N/A	Creative Engineering Inc
Mitzi Mozzaerlla	N/A	N/A	Creative Engineering Inc
Billy Bob	N/A	N/A	Creative Engineering Inc
Looney Bird	N/A	N/A	Creative Engineering Inc
Choo Choo	N/A	N/A	Creative Engineering Inc
Sun	N/A	N/A	Creative Engineering Inc
Moon	N/A	N/A	Creative Engineering Inc
Antioch	N/A	N/A	Creative Engineering Inc

Character Changes

Earl Schmerle

Earl Schmerle is unchanged from his original Rock-afire Explosion design.

Rolfe DeWolfe

Rolfe DeWolfe wears a new outfit featuring a plad shirt, and is using the bear mask of previous Creative Engineering character Repete Thornsberry.

Dook Larue

Dook Larue wears a new outfit featuring a red t-shirt with yellow spots and blue overalls, his arms are furred and he wears a propeller hat, his character mask is of previous Creative Engineering character Billy Boy. His drum set has the snare and kickdrum replaced with wooden prop drums.

Fatz Geronimo

Fatz Geronimo wears a new outfit featuring a white shirt and a plad suit and bow tie, his hands and feet have been replaced with bear claws, his character mask is of previous Creative Engineering character Billy Bill. Fatz Tune Machine organ has a wooden covering with a custom logo.

Beach Bear

Beach Bear remains mostly unchanged compared to his Rock-afire Explosion design, instead having plad shorts and using a lighter colored Billy Bob Guitar.

Mitzi Mozzarella

Mitzi Mozzarella wears a new outfit featuring a patterned long sleeve shirt, a plad overall dress and a straw hat, her shoes are original to the Rock-AFire Explosion design but feature blue socks, her character mask is of previous Creative Engineering character Pete Thornsberry.

Billy Bob

Billy Bob is unchanged from his original Rock-AFire Explosion design, he features his '1990's standard' character mask.

Looney Bird

Looney Bird is unchanged from his original Rock-AFire Explosion design, his plant has been replaced as the original has went missing.

Prop Characters

All prop characters are unchanged from the original Rock-AFire Explosion designs. (Sun, Moon, Choo Choo, Frog, Birthday Bird & Antioch).

Trivia

Backstage the show still uses the original Creative Engineering Inc audio rack, this audio rack has the serial of '5-83 15-2'. Fatz organ has the serial of '5-83 12-8'. There is an automation of Gully Mouse (The parks mascot) sitting next to Billy Bob's stage (This character is inactive).⁽⁷⁾ The address for Gulliver's Kingdom is; Temple Walk, Matlock Bath DE4 3PG - United Kingdom. Many buildings in the park have the former planes from the 'Billy Bob's Bi-Planes' ride that used to be at Gulliver's World. The park has many animatronics and automations around the park from many different manufactures mainly Heimotion, Aldridge and Space Leasure; due to this the Liliput Land Theatre showroom used to have a variety of bear automatons before restoration.