Thursday morning.
Hi!
The deal: Things became really busy over the last few weeks. As busy as I’ve been in a long time, and too busy to run Dino Drac right. Rather than put up really weak no-thought content (yeah, even weaker than a Twizzler robot), I decided to just get through the storm and return to this once it passes.
I’m finally over the hump, but I’d say there’s about a week left before I can really dive back into the site. But, I’ll be back with fun stuff soon enough. Hope everyone had a great 4th, even if it was doomed as a midweek blip. See you soon!
Hah! I meant Fatz Geronimo. Stupid soundalike names.
Super Jaclyn- You have to write “strong” in the html brackets for bold; “em” is for italics.
Daviel McKaye- Kinda weird that they made a puppet based on Fats Domino a monkey. Those were less P.C. times, I suppose. Why is it they never made the drummer an octopus? It’s so obvious.
All I remember is that at age 3 or 4 I was scared to death at a Chuck E. Cheese and started crying loudly. Apparently I caused a bit of a scene. My Ma was glad to leave anyway; she recalls it was noisy as heck.
I have very vague memories of Showbiz Pizza from when I was tiny. We had a local place that was similar called Peter Piper Pizza and I loved that stupid place. They didn’t have any animatronics or anything, just a ballpit and a big arcade. I had at least one birthday there.
The first and only time I went to CEC was sometime in the mid 90s for my oldest nephew’s birthday. I don’t recall having anything resembling a good time.
[strong]Hoverbored:[/strong] To this day I have only a very vague idea of who Fats Domino was. Basically all I know is that he had a neat name, so I’ve probably been their target audience all along. Around the time when I was in the second grade the name of my school was changed from Seminole Elementary to something like Sandal Eagle Elementary. At the time they played it off like they were honoring our principal, or maybe he was the superintendent or something, but I have a sneaking suspicion it was some kind of “stealth PC” thing. It just hadn’t caught on yet at that point.
The Octopus drummer totally had to have come up in some kind of planning session, but it probably would have required eight times as many animatronic doohickeys and eight times as much programming as the others. Probably not too cost effective.
I’m guessing this is also why Billy Bob’s best friend is nothing more than a bird head in a trash can.
Random aside — I love the fact that “doohickeys” doesn’t trigger the spellcheck filter but “animatronic” and “spellcheck” do.
Did anyone ever go to Circus Playhouse? Same deal with the pizza, arcade games and animatronic animal band. The piano player was also a monkey–an orangutan.
Modok – I went to Circus Playhouse!
I remember they had “Whack-a-Devil” as opposed to the “Whack-a-Mole” at Showbiz.
Damn I love whack-a-mole, or the alternate version with alligators, or any game where I get to vent my frustrations with some form of mallet. Also, all this talk of Showbiz/ChuckECheese made me think of the Daria episode where she makes her parents and Quinn accompany her to a place called Pizza Forest where people in animal costumes sing to them.
When I was a kid I had a dream that Fatz Geronimo jumped his keyboard and chased me around Showbiz. I was never the same at birthday parties.
I keep seeing commercials for a place called “Dave and Busters” and I want to go. It looks like a grownup version of Showbiz/Chucky Cheese. But they’re isn’t one in Iowa, so I have no idea why they show their commercials here.
Daviel,
The reason for the ELECTRIC FEEL song being done by the Rock-a-Fire Explosion is because they were in the REAL video by the group MGMT.
Click my name. They don’t show up until the end.
If DinoDrac could be a franchise eatery/arcade thing, I could see a big animatronic DD singing “I Put A Spell On You” while playing a sax. But there would have to be other characters as well, denizens of Tyrannovania, or wherever it is Dinosaur Draculas come from.
Maybe Matt should consider registering the Dinosaur Dracula trademark…
King JLA, Dave and Buster’s are really fun! It basically is an adult CEC. After a certain time in the night, you have to be at least 21 to enter, I believe. Drinking and arcade games, WIN.
@kingklash – I would so go to a DinoDrac version of CEC…oh yeah and I’d bring my kid too. It would have to serve Purplesaurus Rex of course
denizens of Tyrannovania – love it, Matt should get a copyright on this stuff before someone makes a friggin mint off this idea!
I gotta say, “The Facts of Life” is so insanely maudlin it’s hilarious. I’m watching an episode where Tootie has a hearing problem and the girl with Cerebral Palsy was there for some reason. I have nothing against people with C.P., but just what does this girl’s presence add to the plot?
Did I ever mention that I can do a really good impression of Mrs. Garrett? She really does sound lie a parrot.
@Manimal – That’s awesome! I never would have thought to check out the original video for the song. I’m kind of stunned that Aaron Fechter is still involved with it after all these years. Mindblowing.
Finally got my happy ass over to the DinoDrac. Everything looks great and what’s even better is seeing that renewed passion from Mr. Matt. I will try not to be a stranger like i was the past 2-3 at X-E.
Welcome back phunq
Man I can’t wait for Sunday… MOTHER EFFING BREAKING BAD. I am excite. Still kinda sad about them offing Gus, but at least I’ve still got Mike- AKA World’s Deadliest Grandpa, as the boyfriend and I like to call him.
Dave & Buster’s is pretty cool. I’ve only been there once, but me and the wife had a pretty good time. She got some tasty, not to mention nice looking, drinks, while I had the usual beer. The games were fun, but I wish they had more arcade games, rather than more skill/ticket games. If you haven’t been there I’d recommend checking it out. And come to think of it, I don’t think I’ve ever been to a Chuck E. Cheese. I know I wanted to when I was a kid, but I don’t think I ever saw any on any trips. Then again, I was always playing with toys or video games in the car whenever we went anywhere.
Forget Chuck E. Cheese, bring back Major Magic!
@Cheetara I am more excited for Breaking Bad this weekend than I am for my birthday (also this weekend) or The Dark Knight Rises next weekend. I cannot wait to see what depths Walt sinks to this final season.
@Brandon – I have it on good authority that Walt abandons his criminal empire and gets his old job back. We spend the entire final season watching him grade exams.
It sounds boring, but it’ll be really exciting. The series finale has him decide whether class participation pushes Johnny up to a B-minus.
Dinosaur Dracula: we got the Phunq. You know it’s classy, because it starts with PH! And the Q stands for Sauce.
There’s a Dave & Busters within 30 minutes of me. I need to drive up there and check it out. If they have DDR, they can have ALL my money.
I haven’t been to Dave n Busters in a lil while because its kinda outta the way and would be expensive as hell to have a cab take us there n back. However there’s a bar/arcade called The Boneyard which is pretty much a mini version of D&B which is also a good time (although they need more pinball machines) and also is closer. I’d have to say though that my fave bar/arcade would be Barcade. I went to the one in Brooklyn a couple years ago and WOW! It features All classic arcade games that only cost a quarter to play PLUS awesome microbrews on tap as well (expensive but DAMN tasty). The wall out front had an AWESOME mosaic of a space invader as well. Highly recommended!
Ch ch ch ha ha ha….
Brandon: Breaking Bad on Sunday, Dark Knight Rises at the end of next week, then the week after that I’ll be vacationing in New Orleans/Texas. Excitement!
How is it that there are no Friday the 13th movies anywhere on cable today? It’s criminal I tell ya.
Anyone have any series favourites they’ll be watching tonight? Or any other films they like to watch on this notable day?
Click my name to get funky on this, the first Friday the 13th in DINOSAUR DRACULA history.
Friday the 13th, II and III…you can keep the rest. Love that F13 pIII intro, sound like a 80s porno. Gonna make that my new ringtone. The Hub has Gremlins 2 on at 11 PM it’s no F13 movie but at least they’re trying to keep the spirit!
I hate to do it……but I HAVE to do it. My review for “The Rock-afire Explosion” (Showbiz Pizza) documentary.
http://inthequeuereviews.wordpress.com/2012/03/29/the-rock-afire-explosion/
In case you are too lazy to click the link….or you don’t like to read….I’ll tell you this, I think if you REMEMBER Showbiz you’ll enjoy it, if you don’t know what Showbiz is, I’m not sure you’ll get anything out of it.
Oh, also I drop a Pooyan reference….if that means anything to anybody. And it probably doesn’t.