A Mini-Stage seen at the Hillwood Strike & Spare in Nashville, Tennessee before it was bought by Funtown Mountain and removed.
The Mini-Stage is a stage format designed for smaller ShowBiz Pizza restaurants operating in smaller towns and cities to present The Rock-afire Explosion during the early 1980s. The stage used a modified version of the show, displaying only four characters. Due to this only lasting for a few years, the Mini-Stage saw very limited usage.
The Stage
The Rock-afire Explosion Mini-Stage contained four characters from left to right: Mitzi Mozzarella, Fatz, Billy Bob, and Looney Bird. Standard props such as Smitty's Super Service Station were used as well as some that were customized specifically for the Mini-Stage. One prop was a wooden sign reading "Used and Abused Tars" containing a stack of worn out tires, The Singing Flowers (which would sing backup vocals), and Bad Frog.
The Curtain Valance Artwork designs for Billy Bob and Looney Bird were an exclusive for this stage. While the 3-Stage had Billy Bob and Looney Bird using the same artwork areas, the Mini-Stage had different designs for them. The artwork had Billy Bob riding a skateboard while Looney Bird was shown full bodied and with shoes.
History
Creating the Mini-Stage version of the Rock-afire Explosion was something that Creative Engineering was unenthusiastic about, but was convinced by ShowBiz Pizza to design. The stage was given very limited expositor, and was installed at only five restaurants. Due to the arrangement of the characters, shows had to be specially programmed, and because the stage was missing the remainder of the band, only certain shows and songs could be played anyway.
By 1983, Showbiz came to the realization that the Mini-Stage was not a very cost effective solution and made the decision to discontinue its usage. The existing Mini-Stage shows were converted into 3-stage shows.
In 1994, a Mini Stage was bought by Tweetsie Railroad in North Carolina. It went by the name "the Hooteany Hoedown". They ran it up to par with CEI's show, until 2001, from when it was removed. It is unknown where it is now.
Surviving Mini-Stages
Although only five Showbiz Pizza restaurants used the Mini-Stage, a few are known to still exist.
In 2002, a Mini Stage was purchased by Hillwood Strike and Spare in Nashville, Tennessee and was restored, but later put on static display in a state of disrepair. In 2015, the Funtown Mountain amusement park in Kentucky bought it and was likely going to be restored to operating condition along with the Wolf Pack 5, if not for bowling alley's closure.
Another surviving Mini-Stage is the "Bear-a-Dise Traveling Show", which is a traveling show that preformed at the Kentucky State Fair in 2012, 2014, and 2015, the St. Joseph County Fair in South Bend, Indiana in 2013, and at the Big E Fair in Springfield, Massachusetts. However, this show is in very poor condition.
External links
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