Part of Gillian’s Wonderland Pier has magically come back to life

If you brought your kids to Gillian’s Wonderland Pier in Ocean City or went there as a kid yourself, you were bummed when they closed down last year.

Well, a small but magical, although some might say haunting, part of that childhood experience has been resurrected and brought back to the stage a few blocks away.

The animatronic band, those crazy anthropomorphic robot musicians and singers that once performed at Chuck E. Cheese’s before being brought back from extinction by Gillian’s in the late '90s, is once again having its DNA-in-amber moment.

They’re baaaaaack.

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A former Gillian’s Wonderland employee acquired the animatronic bands, yes, even the monkey band, in April and then cut a deal with Gigi’s Italian Restaurant to have them plugged in-uh, perform there.

Proof that either real magic can happen or that you can’t keep a good nightmare down, the animatronic bandmates are once again brought back from oblivion. Love them or hate them, tapping your toe to their rendition of “Cotton-eyed Joe” or checking your kid’s closet to make sure that giant bird’s not lurking there, they are performing daily.

If you never caught them on their original Ocean City residency, here's a sample.

They’re holding court in a party room at Gigi’s and are finding bigger crowds coming looking for them as word is getting out. Andrew Boylan, the former pier worker who bought the animatronics for $10,000, says, “The fan base was too strong. Everybody wanted to see them out in public. I just shopped around South Jersey to see if any amusement park or any family gathering would take them.”

They ended up there at Gigi’s only four blocks from where they used to be. If you still miss the rest of Gillian’s, I get it. But at least these rockers are back.

Opinions expressed in the post above are those of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Jeff Deminski only.

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