Tried two versions of blender and got the same results (2.76 and 2.75a ). I finally tried a third version (2.73a ) and it seemed to work. When selecting the quick explode effect, the image selected turns to a solid color. If you click the eye of explode effect it shows the image being there or change to edit mode it shows the image being there. When you make the explode visible again it shows the image as a solid color. I tried copying the quick effects file to the latest version ,but that didn’t correct the problem.
Turn off ‘Cut Edges’ in the explode modifier or use generated texture coordinates
Thanks for the help. Turning off cut edges did the trick(2.76 version). Looks like I need to read up on blender. I checked out 2.73a version after reading your reply and it displayed the image with cut edges turned on, so there must have been a slight change in the later versions.