Bryan Stalder
Contributor

The Five Nights at Freddy’s film franchise returns to theaters on December 5 with the highly anticipated sequel, Five Nights at Freddy’s 2. The first movie was a massive box office success in 2023, grossing nearly $300 million worldwide despite mixed reviews. Based on the viral indie video game series created by Scott Cawthon, the films expand on a fan-favorite universe of haunted animatronics and sinister lore.

But long before FNAF terrified Gen Z, the seeds of its animatronic horror were planted in the imaginations of an earlier generation—thanks to a themed entertainment center named The ShowBiz Pizza Place.

In 1980, the first ShowBiz Pizza Place opened its doors right here in Kansas City at the Antioch Shopping Center (2726 NE Vivion Rd.). The restaurant was the brainchild of Robert L. Brock, a local Holiday Inn franchisee, who partnered with Aaron Fechter of Creative Engineering to compete with Chuck E. Cheese. What set ShowBiz apart was the Rock-afire Explosion, an elaborate animatronic band featuring characters like Billy Bob, the banjo-playing bear; Fatz Geronimo, the bedazzled jacket–wearing gorilla on keyboards; Mitzi Mozzarella, the mouse pop star; and even a giant spider named “Antioch,” a nod to the mall where it all began.

In 2022, Managing Editor Dorri Partain wrote about ShowBiz Pizza for the Northeast News.

For families living in Northeast Kansas City, ShowBiz Pizza was just a quick 15-minute drive over the old Chouteau Bridge. Many from the so-called Xennial generation (those born between 1977–1985) still remember celebrating birthdays there — equal parts thrilling and terrifying —  as the animatronic characters sprang to life under the spotlight, then froze in eerie silence once the curtain closed. More than a few kids dared to peek under that curtain, only to meet the lifeless stares of the Rock-afire cast.

ShowBiz would eventually merge with Chuck E. Cheese in the late 1980s, phasing out the Rock-afire Explosion in a process called “Concept Unification.” By the early 1990s, the ShowBiz brand was gone, but the uneasy charm of smiling animatronic animals never truly disappeared.

Kansas City briefly saw the Rock-afire Explosion make a comeback in 2018, when the short-lived Rockafire Bar opened at 334 E. 31st St. The venue featured the band performing updated songs for a new generation, but it closed just a year later. Today, the only publicly operating Rock-afire band can be found at Billy Bob’s Wonderland in Barboursville, West Virginia, where fans gather each July for an event known as BillyCon.

Decades after Antioch Mall hosted the first ShowBiz Pizza, that same unnerving feeling would inspire Scott Cawthon’s Five Nights at Freddy’s, a video game that later spawned comic books, movies, and more. First released in 2014 on the digital platform Steam, this indie horror game transformed childhood nostalgia for pizza-party robots into one of the biggest video game franchises of the last decade, spawning sequels, books, merchandise, and now, blockbuster films.

So when you sit down in the movie theatre to watch Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 this December, remember: it all (kind of) started right here in Kansas City—where Antioch Mall gave life to Billy Bob, Mitzi Mozzarella, Antioch the Spider, and a legacy that still creeps into pop culture today.