Circus Pizza

I was thinking about Circus Pizza, especially after that last post where I mentioned going there (West St. Paul). When I was about seven my dad came up from Mexico and was staying at the Days Inn in downtown St. Paul which is now the Holiday Inn. It was near my birthday so one day he picked me up from school and we took the bus down Robert Street. I remember being worried that since my dad didn't live in Minnesota we would get lost and that I wouldn't make it home. I didn't know where we were going, and was definitely thrilled when we arrived at Circus Pizza.

Circus Pizza was the Chuck E. Cheese of Minnesota until they were bought out by Chuck E. Cheese in 1999. It was better though, because they had the animatronic band "The Rock-A-Fire Explosion," which is now super hyped because of the emergence of the new Youtube videos featuring reprogrammed Rock-A-Fire groups playing hits like Usher's "Love in this Club." I actually read an article about the guy reprogramming these in SPIN a few months ago, but completely forgot about it until I was searching for Circus Pizza images (which I could not find, unfortunately). Here's my favorite one, with the band playing MGMT's 'Electric Feel." The gorilla rocks so hard.



On birthdays it was the best because you got a birthday package, which included pizza and tokens for your whole party for about $50 bucks (this is a guess). I have a great picture of me Shannon Joyce wearing birthday hats from my 6th birthday, which I will have to find in my mom's boxes of pictures the next time I go over there. The Rock-A-Fire Explosion is behind us, covered in spit balls, which was always a part of the tradition. Another great experience on your birthday was the money-cage, where you would get trapped in a booth with blowing Circus Pizza money and you'd have 30 seconds to grab as much as you could. In the end you would get that number of tickets, and inevitably spend those tickets redeeming crappy prizes that would break before you got home, or super balls.

But my favorite thing to do at Circus Pizza was to play (and hopefully beat) the Simpsons Arcade game. I felt like I was getting over because my mom wouldn't let me watch the Simpsons when I was little so I got to indulge with the game. The only time I beat it in fact was that winter day in 1994 with my dad. It was my greatest achievement up to that moment.



I am kind of glad they tore down Circus Pizza, because I think I would be sorely disappointed to go back now and see torn vinyl chairs, a semi-functioning animatronic band, and eat burnt thin crust pizza in a poorly lit room. The magic would be gone, and that is something I never want to lose.