Aaron Fechter

Aaron Melvin Fechter (born December 22, 1953) is an American mechanical engineer, entrepreneur, voice actor, singer and musician who owns and operates Creative Engineering, Inc. (CEI). He is best known as the creator of , an animatronic show featuring a variety of characters created primarily for Showbiz Pizza Place restaurants throughout the 1980s. A fallout between Showbiz and CEI, along with the chain's dwindling revenue, led to the show's decline and eventual removal by the early 1990s.

In CEI's early beginnings, Fechter intended to manufacture fuel-efficient vehicles, but the company's focus soon shifted to the animatronic industry. The company later developed other products and concepts, but they failed to gain commercial interest. Fechter also claims to have been instrumental in the early development of , an arcade game from Bandai that became popular in the late 1970s, but his involvement was never officially recognized. His animatronics gained renewed interest decades later, when fan-made Rock-afire Explosion performances set to modern music began appearing online in the mid-2000s. They also partially inspired the horror video game franchise, Five Nights at Freddy's.

Early life and career Aaron Fechter graduated from Edgewater High School in Orlando, Florida. In 1973, he graduated at the age of 19 from the University of South Florida, where he was a member of Tau Kappa Epsilon fraternity.

Fechter's father was an early investor in CEI, helping it enter the animatronic industry. Early projects included The Scab, a single talking head; Willie Wabbit, an anthropomorphic rabbit; and a fortune-telling machine called Lazlo The Great.

Showbiz Pizza Place In 1980, Robert L. Brock opened the first ShowBiz Pizza Place restaurant in Kansas City, Missouri, featuring Creative Engineering's Wolf Pack 5 display. Although ShowBiz wanted the "Rock-afire Explosion" (RAE) concept, RAE was still in the final stages of development when the first store opened. The pizza chain also featured such amenities as an arcade and restaurant tailored to accommodate both children and adults. Brock owned an extensive chain of Holiday Inn hotels, considered the largest of its kind at the time.

Brock originally partnered with Pizza Time Theatre but backed out after discovering Fechter's work. CEI was given a 20-percent ownership stake in the chain and retained all rights to characters, animation, and show development. Little Queenie the Fox was converted into a mouse and briefly became known as Mini Mozzarella at the first location. Her name was changed a final time to Mitzi Mozzarella as ShowBiz expanded and used RAE in future locations.

Following financial troubles in the mid-1980s, Showbiz explored the possibility of reverse-engineering the animatronics and producing their own shows. This led to a feud with CEI, which was unwilling to relinquish the rights needed.

In 1985, Showbiz purchased competitor Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre (CEC), which had filed for bankruptcy a year earlier. After failing to make progress with CEI, Showbiz severed ties with them in 1986. It began replacing the RAE with CEC characters in 1989, forming a new show called "Munch's Make Believe Band". All Showbiz locations, which were renamed Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza, were eventually converted by 1992.

Other ventures

During CEI's involvement with Showbiz, the company also pursued interests outside of the restaurant industry. They explored the production of toys, including Billy Bob, Fatz, and Mitzi animatronic dolls that had the ability to play pre-recorded showtapes, narrate fairytales, and connect to an Apple II for custom programmability.

CEI invested $1.5 million in research and development of a secure messaging device called the Anti-Gravity Freedom Machine, capable of sending electronic messages over a phone line.

Carbohydrillium project In 2010, CEI began research on an alternative cooking fuel derived from graphite and water called Carbohydrillium, billed as safer and less polluting than propane. On September 26, 2013, a catastrophic failure of a high-pressure carbon steel canister led to an explosion at the Creative Engineering warehouse in Orlando. A company operating as AquaLux had a similar explosion in 2001 at their plant in Largo, Florida, which at the time was blamed on a leaking fuel storage tank.

In media and pop culture Renewed interest in The Rock-Afire Explosion began with the release of several YouTube videos in the mid-2000s, such as "Ms. New Booty" by Chris Thrash, in which fans recreated several new RAE animations depicting modern musical themes. This led to the 2008 documentary, The Rock-afire Explosion, which explores the rise and fall of RAE and the influence of the childhood memories it created. Fechter, Thrash, and others were interviewed.

In 2014, indie game developer Scott Cawthon released Five Nights at Freddy's, a horror video game that takes place in a family entertainment restaurant setting similar to Chuck E. Cheese or Showbiz Pizza Place locations in the 1980s. Character and location designs from the Five Nights at Freddy's franchise notably resemble those of said establishments. In a Reddit post, Cawthon has spoken fondly of Showbiz Pizza Place and Fechter, but avoids implying connections between the two. Cawthon planned to include images of animatronic parts that he obtained from Fechter himself in the 2019 game Five Nights at Freddy's: Help Wanted, but ultimately decided against their inclusion to avoid negative attention toward Fechter.

In the 2016 film Keanu, by Keegan-Michael Key and Jordan Peele, a cat named Keanu jumps through the window of a fictional, abandoned building that used to manufacture animatronics.

In 2025, Lyrical Lemonade released a music video for P.O.V. by Clipse featuring Tyler, the Creator. In the video, the three perform the song in an abandoned dinner hall with several CEI characters miming the lyrics with them, both in "costume" and stripped down to most of their mechanical parts.