Odyssey Fun World is an indoor amusement park located in Tinley Park, Illinois and fomerly in Naperville, IL. Both locations had operating New Rock-afire Explosion shows up until 2016. The shows were removed from the two stores in January 2019.
History
Odyssey Fun World first opened it's doors in Chicago area in the year 1994. They commissioned Creative Engineering to provide both stores the New Rock-afire Explosion, which at the time was recently finalized since production started in 1992. Their restaurants were one of the first installations of the NRAE in a public venue.
Sometime around 1997, the Tinley Park OFW store managed to rescue parts from the NRAE Lite in Magic City of Waukegan, Illinois (located just nearby their facilities) after it's closure, which has led the store to gain another set of Dancetronics (Mijjins) for spare parts. It can also be presumed that they also acquired several of the showtapes made for the place as well.
The shows at both locations often had holiday decor during the 2000's. An example being Naperville's NRAE having a Christmas overlay in November/December 2005. During this time, this was when the shows started to go downhill in terms of maintainence. Stage left's curtains were disabled in Naperville at the time for unknown reasons. Proceeding afterwards, the turntables on center stage and stage left broke, leaving Fatz and Mitzi off to the side with Billy Bob in front on center stage, and Dook being hidden on stage left permanently.
At Tinley, the NRAE there was less maintainence than at Naperville. Just like Naperville, center stage's turntable broke down in the same exact position as described above. Most of the characters were deteriorating quicker because of the low on upkeep. Masks and cosmetics started to fall apart as each year progressed, making the characters look offputting to the customers who come and visit.
Fate of the NRAE Shows at OFW
Sometime in mid 2016, the Rock-afire show at the Naperville, location went out of commission due to numerous technical issues and deteriation on the bots and cosmetics. Odyssey Fun World had been trying to raise enough money to have the show fully repaired by Aaron Fechter, who personally offered to repair it. Despite these efforts, unfortunately, it did not get properly restored and was since left abandoned in the store.
Prior to that, the entirity of the Tinley Park NRAE went out of commission. Since then, the stage became a place for storage. Piled onto the stage were some extra chairs, the Magic City Mijjins collected in 1997, and loads of miscelleanous materials. Several of the characters' cosmetics were getting worse than the condition it was already in the mid-late 2000's.
No updates were given to either location's shows in terms of restoration in 2016 nor 2017. This went on during 2018 too, as more junk was added to fill space. Suddenly, on January 6th, 2019, the Naperville Location closed permanently. A short time later, the Tinley Park show was removed. The only NRAE piece that still remains to this day is the stage. It has been stated by the employees that they plan on using it for karaoke or other live performances.
Both OFW locations' stage parts and bots were split up and taken by several Rock-afire fans. The three notable people being Damon Breland of Smitty's Super Service Station fame, David Ferguson who is the creator of the Bluebox and owner of Goofy Gas Fillin' Station, and Jacob Goldberg: founder of Jasper's Dog Den.
As of May 2020, the Tinley Park location is currently remodeling their entire store while the original NRAE stage base, curtains, and valance are intact, meaning the end of the jungle-themed era that has been around since their opening.