Lolcow Aaron Fechter - Delusional inventor, animatronic daddy, racist jew

[heavycream]

IIRC he's still using that same Apple II to program the animatronics.

Yes he does. The only thing he's changed is he now keeps the shows stored digitally rather on reel-to-reel tapes.
He also is using an out-of-date controller unit to send the signals to the character, something he developed and called the 'grey box'. That's been a large point of contention among the more involved fans of the rockafire. Most of the other collectors manage their show on an open-source version called 'bluebox' that allows programming with much superior precision and makes overwriting and changing existing programming more seamless. Aaron has been on a mission to sue and shut down every other hobbyist using this device with their rockafire show (because it's not his one and he can't get all the revenue from being the only person able to do maintenance for them).

Aaron made a big celebratory post (or a few) about the Rockafire Bar that was opening up in Kansas City some years ago. This was a big deal for him as it would be one of the only public-viewings of the show besides Billy Bob's Wonderland in WV, the owner of which he catastrophically fell out with. However, when the owner of the Rockafire Bar decided they'd rather use the Bluebox and not his controller, he cut support to them too. The bar has since closed because it became too expensive to run with the Rockafire and sold off their show.
It seems that, despite what he says, Aaron is less concerned with preserving the Rockafire and more concerned with milking them as much as he can before both he and they die.

Side note - OP doesn't mention how he attempted to open up his own restaurant chain after the collapse of his relationship with Showbiz; Looney Bird's.

Spoiler

This was also another failure in his streak of failed projects. Of note is that it utilised the New Rockafire Explosion, a horrific, butchered version of the show Creative Engineering devised in the early 90's.

 

[Jewelsmakerguy]

Yes he does. The only thing he's changed is he now keeps the shows stored digitally rather on reel-to-reel tapes.
He also is using an out-of-date controller unit to send the signals to the character, something he developed and called the 'grey box'. That's been a large point of contention among the more involved fans of the rockafire. Most of the other collectors manage their show on an open-source version called 'bluebox' that allows programming with much superior precision and makes overwriting and changing existing programming more seamless. Aaron has been on a mission to sue and shut down every other hobbyist using this device with their rockafire show (because it's not his one and he can't get all the revenue from being the only person able to do maintenance for them).

Aaron made a big celebratory post (or a few) about the Rockafire Bar that was opening up in Kansas City some years ago. This was a big deal for him as it would be one of the only public-viewings of the show besides Billy Bob's Wonderland in WV, the owner of which he catastrophically fell out with. However, when the owner of the Rockafire Bar decided they'd rather use the Bluebox and not his controller, he cut support to them too. The bar has since closed because it became too expensive to run with the Rockafire and sold off their show.
It seems that, despite what he says, Aaron is less concerned with preserving the Rockafire and more concerned with jerking off them as much as he can before both he and they die.

Side note - OP doesn't mention how he attempted to open up his own restaurant chain after the collapse of his relationship with Showbiz; Looney Bird's.

Spoiler

This was also another failure in his streak of failed projects. Of note is that it utilised the New Rockafire Explosion, a horrific, butchered version of the show Creative Engineering devised in the early 90's.

You thought that shit was horrifying? This is what those robots looked like before the full RAE cast was used:

Spoiler: Spoilered because of uncanny valley

 

[heavycream]

You thought that shit was horrifying? This is what those robots looked like before the full RAE cast was used:

Spoiler: Spoilered because of uncanny valley

View attachment 1312206

Yeah.
Isn't it odd that the more people left Aaron's team, the less creative his output became?
Rather than making an actual 'new rockafire show' he just ripped off the same basic animatronic that was used in this show (the Mijjins). Then he dressed it up in 6 different costumes to represent the rockafire characters, while the original show had different mechanisms to suit each character and their respective instruments.
The Mijjins were in every way cheaper made than the original rockafire which, when it debuted in 1980, was near-disney quality. Rather than having pneumatics to move all parts, their eyes ran on servos, which led them to look more sunken and for them to wear very rapidly over time. This is why the two New Rockafire Explosions that were still around in public are nightmare fuel now. Not to mention that Aaron didn't forsee how putting characters that require elaborate air-hoses to run under the stage would not suit being mounted on a rotatable turntable.

 

[Christ4President2024]

Oh Jesus Christ this guy... I watched his documentary and then looked up more about him and it's just sad. I can't help but feel a bit bad for the guy, his entire life peaked in his early twenties and if I remember right, his company and everything completely tanked before he was 30 and he just never could come back from it. That's got to have messed him up pretty good.

Weird, I had the opposite reaction when I saw the documentary. I myself felt like a loser after seeing how much this guy had accomplished in his 20's

 

[Paul Barker!]

I’ve been on a shipping wars and just found an episode featuring him. He’s not in it for very long, but there’s a bit at the beginning where he damages one of his signs while moving them. Thought it might be of interest here. Link

 

[heavycream]

I’ve been on a shipping wars and just found an episode featuring him. He’s not in it for very long, but there’s a bit at the beginning where he damages one of his signs while moving them. Thought it might be of interest here. Link

Yeah, about that. I recall him saying in a couple YouTube videos that he was intending to write a book and he would then tell all the secrets about what happened 'behind the scenes' on the shipping wars episode. He hinted very heavily that a lot of it was complete dramatised and fake. As a bit of a Rockafire Explosion weirdo, I know some of how they described and showed the show functioning was completely fake.
(Ref: https://youtu.be/GbesEWSt8Jo?t=626)

 

[Jewelsmakerguy]

Yeah, about that. I recall him saying in a couple YouTube videos that he was intending to write a book and he would then tell all the secrets about what happened 'behind the scenes' on the shipping wars episode. He hinted very heavily that a lot of it was complete dramatised and fake. As a bit of a Rockafire Explosion weirdo, I know some of how they described and showed the show functioning was completely fake.
(Ref: https://youtu.be/GbesEWSt8Jo?t=626)

It's been five years Aaron, where's the fucking book?

 

[Vaffanculo]

It's been five years Aaron, where's the fucking book?

Well, nobody gives a flying fuck about Shipping Wars, so that definitely isn’t gonna happen unless his shekel sniffer detects potential profits.

 

[Vaffanculo]

BLM is over according to President Fechter.

 

[heavycream]

Encase anyone is interested in what Aaron and Creative Engineering were like in their height, here's an interesting video for you. It's also somewhat of an 80s time capsule, very Devo-esque.

This was the '1983 Save The Colander Telethon'; one might say that Aaron and Burt 'Sal' Wilson (the voice actor of Fatz, the gorilla, and the main musical talent behind Rock-Afire shows) unwittingly started Pastafarianism.
The impetus of this show was Showbiz cutting funding to Creative's research and development team and told them not to make any more shows, this was their attempt to sway Showbiz corporate otherwise.
The audience is comprised entirely of local Showbiz employees and Creative Engineering employees. This includes footage of many of the engineers/musicians/voice talents/artists (many of whom contributed to multiple departments) performing improvised comedy and original songs.
It goes to show that Aaron absolutely was not solely responsible for the Rockafire Explosion and yet today takes full credit of it. However, there is a reason that Sal, Jeff Howell and others who worked with him now refuse to contact him. That's another story in itself, but it makes this footage all the more bittersweet.

More sperging about Aaron's megalomania:

Spoiler

Aaron likes to assert that the Chuck E. Cheese shows that stripped down and affixed themselves to the Rockafire's corpses are desperately awful without his talent and expertise, he calls them soulless, corporate, uncanny, janky etc. But the lack of decent original content that actual reflected passion of its creators was lost with Sal, Rick Bailey, Duke Chauppetta, Jeff Howell and the other actors/musicians behind the Rockafire, not Aaron. The quality of the actual animatronic robots was lost with the team of engineers and mechanics researching and developing the technology at Creative, also not Aaron. He made about as big of a contribution to the Rockafire as an 'executive producer' does to a cartoon. Now he gate-keeps the fandom on his thrown of rotting failed, half-baked inventions.

The reason Sal cut ties with Aaron, in short, was because Aaron had commissioned him to help with making new content for the Rockafire's YouTube shows, but then refused to pay him for his work. It's also a well known fact that, due to his litigious nature, nearly everyone that has ever offered to help Aaron has been sued or harassed by him later on. And anyone who has attempted to work on preserving the future of the Rockafire explosion has also faced his wrath, notably, one kid volunteering as a tech at Billy Bob's Wonderland to restore their show.

 

[The Grimace]

Something else to note about Aaron's relationship with Whac-A-Mole, the game itself was invented and Japan and Creative Engineering simply localized it (read: produced them in the states, it was still moles with a hammer). Saying Aaron "invented" Whac-A-Mole is an Italian man saying he "invented" noodles because he brought them from China.

 

[FluffyTehFennekin]

Something else to note about Aaron's relationship with Whac-A-Mole, the game itself was invented and Japan and Creative Engineering simply localized it (read: produced them in the states, it was still moles with a hammer). Saying Aaron "invented" Whac-A-Mole is an Italian man saying he "invented" noodles because he brought them from China.

Wow, I didn’t know that! I always thought whac-a-moles were a western creation.

 

[Christ4President2024]

BLM is over according to President Fechter.
View attachment 1338715

I'm sure all the 11 year old FNAF fans who follow him will appreciate that insightful take

But the lack of decent original content that actual reflected passion of its creators was lost with Sal, Rick Bailey, Duke Chauppetta, Jeff Howell and the other actors/musicians behind the Rockafire, not Aaron. The quality of the actual animatronic robots was lost with the team of engineers and mechanics researching and developing the technology at Creative, also not Aaron.

Is this meant to imply that the demise of Creative Engineering was due to the voice actors/musicians getting laid off? As far as I know, the cuts to Creative Engineering staff weren't made until after Showbiz had already ceased funding. To save money, Showbiz wanted to create their own shows and program the animatronics in house. The nail in the coffin is when Aaron refused to hand over the copyright to the Rock Afire characters, and Showbiz cut ties altogether

He made about as big of a contribution to the Rockafire as an 'executive producer' does to a cartoon

That's bs. The guy started the company, created the characters, and did much of the engineering/voicework himself

It goes to show that Aaron absolutely was not solely responsible for the Rockafire Explosion and yet today takes full credit of it.

Nobody is solely responsible for anything by that standard. He seemed to speak highly of the engineering team, sculptors, voice actors, etc in the documentary I saw a while back. Am I missing something?

 

[heavycream]

Is this meant to imply that the demise of Creative Engineering was due to the voice actors/musicians getting laid off? As far as I know, the cuts to Creative Engineering staff weren't made until after Showbiz had already ceased funding. To save money, Showbiz wanted to create their own shows and program the animatronics in house. The nail in the coffin is when Aaron refused to hand over the copyright to the Rock Afire characters, and Showbiz cut ties altogether

No, not so much the demise of CEI as a company, more so the demise of the Rockafire intellectual property. Aaron is incapable of making good music. The characters have no future with a man that can't write, can't sing and can't perform. He wants to sell merch, make movies, cartoons, etc, but he has no way of making it appealing to a mass audience.

That's bs. The guy started the company, created the characters, and did much of the engineering/voicework himself

His father started it and had a big part in running the company. Yes, Aaron had a huge influence in it, but without funding from Showbiz and without his dad at the helm, it definitely started to slip out of his grasp.

Nobody is solely responsible for anything by that standard. He seemed to speak highly of the engineering team, sculptors, voice actors, etc in the documentary I saw a while back. Am I missing something?

There was actually a lot of behind the scenes footage cut from the doc. I don't have it to hand, but I recall hearing about it from various people, including some of his former employees like David Furgeson, who Aaron now resents.
He does speak very highly of his employees, yes, but he has a reputation for treating people who disagree with him like crap too.
He speaks highly of people who worked for him in the 80s, after he started having to fire people, his interpersonal skills degraded and his treatment of his employees worsened.

My opinion of Aaron is very much like most peoples' opinion of John Kricfalusi. Both definitely have or had talent, but squandered it through a combination of being stuck in the past and toxic personalities.

 

[Pizza Planet Alien]

Been lurking without an account for awhile, but as soon as I saw this thread I knew I had to sign up.

There is lulzworthy dirt on this guy going all the way back to the 80s. His life peaked in 1983 when Showbiz Pizza was at its height and he's been desperately looking for a replacement sugar daddy ever since. But he always fails because he's a malignant narcissist with an obsessive need for control and an ego that can be seen from space. He constantly hints at projects that are going to bring back the glory days of 1983 but are tossed aside as soon as they don't pan out. None of his failures are ever his fault, either. No one in the entertainment/leisure industry will have anything to do with him unless they specifically want the Rockafire and have to deal with him because he's such a pain in the ass and has very public meltdowns on social media whenever he doesn't get his way. He also loves him some DMCA takedowns and copyright strikes and will constantly threaten people with no money with lolsuits. The Rockafire is the one successful thing he's done in his life and he's been riding it hard and squeezing the life out of it ever since.

It's going to take me awhile to get everything together, but here's something to get started...

Aaron was a business partner and part owner of Showbiz Pizza back in the day. He had a minority stake in the company but the other executives still had to get his approval for company decisions. With the exception of Bob Brock (the other owner) the executives hated him. Showbiz HQ was in Texas and Aaron was in Florida so they did conference calls. As mentioned earlier in the thread, Aaron is the voice of Billy Bob the bear, which was also the Showbiz mascot. During these phone meetings Aaron would sometimes call in as Billy Bob and refuse to acknowledge being referred to as himself. Can you imagine a bunch of executives dressed in 80s business suits sitting at a conference phone grinding their teeth while talking to a dumb hillbilly bear?

Sit back folks, there's more to come soon.

 

[omori]

Been lurking without an account for awhile, but as soon as I saw this thread I knew I had to sign up.

There is lulzworthy dirt on this guy going all the way back to the 80s. His life peaked in 1983 when Showbiz Pizza was at its height and he's been desperately looking for a replacement sugar daddy ever since. But he always fails because he's a malignant narcissist with an obsessive need for control and an ego that can be seen from space. He constantly hints at projects that are going to bring back the glory days of 1983 but are tossed aside as soon as they don't pan out. None of his failures are ever his fault, either. No one in the entertainment/leisure industry will have anything to do with him unless they specifically want the Rockafire and have to deal with him because he's such a pain in the ass and has very public meltdowns on social media whenever he doesn't get his way. He also loves him some DMCA takedowns and copyright strikes and will constantly threaten people with no money with lolsuits. The Rockafire is the one successful thing he's done in his life and he's been riding it hard and squeezing the life out of it ever since.

It's going to take me awhile to get everything together, but here's something to get started...

Aaron was a business partner and part owner of Showbiz Pizza back in the day. He had a minority stake in the company but the other executives still had to get his approval for company decisions. With the exception of Bob Brock (the other owner) the executives hated him. Showbiz HQ was in Texas and Aaron was in Florida so they did conference calls. As mentioned earlier in the thread, Aaron is the voice of Billy Bob the bear, which was also the Showbiz mascot. During these phone meetings Aaron would sometimes call in as Billy Bob and refuse to acknowledge being referred to as himself. Can you imagine a bunch of executives dressed in 80s business suits sitting at a conference phone grinding their teeth while talking to a dumb hillbilly bear?

Sit back folks, there's more to come soon.

Oh hell yes.

 

[Pizza Planet Alien]

Today I will share the story of Aaron's wall fixation.

So in 2014 the company that owned the taller building next door to the Creative Engineering warehouse decided to demolish it. The two buldings shared a common wall, but since the other building was taller there was about 17 feet of wall extending above the roof of the CEI warehouse. Aaron wanted that wall saved because he had a dream of painting a mural on this wall because it was visible from I-4. A dream that was so important to him that he never bothered to have it done in the approximately 35 years he had owned the warehouse.

This happened shortly after he blew up part of the warehouse messing around with an explosive gas. I don't know if he didn't have insurance on the building or he did and the insurance company refused to pay because messing around with explosive gas wasn't covered, but he had to pay for repairs out of pocket and resorted to e-begging. In either case, he sure wasn't going to pay the $40K it was going to take to reinforce the wall so it had to go.

Someone he knew in the country music business (I hesitate to call him a friend because I don't think Aaron has any real friends) volunteered to pay for a graffiti artist to come out and paint the wall for him. And thus after two days this eyesore was birthed into the world...

Surely this artistic masterpiece deserved preservation, right? Apparently the city and the other building owner didn't think so, as they went ahead with the demolition anyway about 10 days later. Anyone else would have just written it off as a lost cause. Aaron decided to film himself acting like a Karen, wasting the Orlando PD's time, screeching at the demolition crew and blowing a gasket over an ancient TV antenna that was apparently super important to him but not important enough to move to a safer location.

I like how the only way for him to estimate the damage to his building (which amounts to some bricks on the roof) is the cost to replace the entire fucking wall. And how he is all surprised Pikachu that the workers weren't picking up the bricks after he wrote that he'd call the police on anyone who tresspassed.

It was all for naught because the wall came down anyway but at least the Orlandoites were spared seeing midget decapitated Billy Bob and Fatz having a stroke on their daily commute.


The end.

 

[kevintheguy0]

I've been a fan of the Showbiz concept for a long time and didn't know about this forum thread until tonight. I'm no fan of Fechter's however. Thought I could add my two cents and maybe answer oddly specific questions you guys might have.

I don't exactly think he understands that he is indebted to the fans who brought the Rock-afire into the public eye- now termed "copyright thieves'.

Don't get me wrong, I respect the inventorial spirit he has and had - he and the talented people at CEI built a specialized computer to send emails over a phone line in 1983. That's kickass. Unfortunately, they didn't get around to marketing it until 1996.

Nowadays, since it's only him I laugh at the fact that he still thinks that he's a businessman. Whether or not he has a good idea he'll fuck it up in how he goes about it. And only the cool kids (read: people who give him money) can have it. He thinks that he offers family-friendly content in such a way that allows the n-word if it's with his blessing. The programming system which allows the contemporary setlist described that the owner of the Rock-afire bar has existed in some form or another since around 2004.

You may recognize the name Chris Thrash, as he was one of the fans who programmed these new songs which contributed to the Rock-afire's Youtube fame. The Rock-afire Explosion documentary, featuring Thrash, Fechter, and some other fans - all of whom are now "copyright thieves" and who spread "fake news" - really is a great watch if you have a night to spare. I'd wager that if it wasn't for this documentary film, a whole lot of the spotlight Fechter has had wouldn't be around.

A lot of his whines talk about how he needs money and somehow, it will invariably bring back the magic that once was. Someone earlier in the thread mentioned Looney Bird's, his rival family entertainment center concept. His Orlando pilot location opened in 1999 and closed by 2003. A couple of independently-owned locations also popped up and lasted a short while. At what cost CEI's "consulting service" was offered and continued I don't know but I'd imagine that's a factor (besides it just being really hard to own your own business) that Looney Bird's closed. Aaron played another character there - Looney Joe.

Back when I didn't know any better, I suggested a good way for him to condense his money, at least a little. Stop paying for dead domain names. They're funny now since they show other fluttered ideas of his, like a community-based argument resolver, a prototype for his premium channel idea, The Starlauncher, and of course the Looney Bird's webpage.

Yeah, I've shared an email or two with him back a long time ago. I might break them out if I can find them.

I'm sure if I wasn't so tired I could talk some more, but for now - remember CEI's policy on stupidity.

 

[Pizza Planet Alien]

It's worth noting that Aaron posted the CEI policy on stupidity around the warehouse when he had a whopping one employee who also lived there. So in spite of the generalized audience language in the message, there's no doubt who it was referring to or intended for. He was just being a passive aggressive douche.

It came back to bite him in the butt because he's a cheap dumbass though. The guy wasn't even being paid. He was working on some kind points basis where he could cash the points in for collectibles and stuff. Aaron got to determine how many points the guy got per job, so he ended up getting almost nothing and started selling Aaron's shit to other fans out the back door. Once Aaron figured out what was going on he tried to have the employee arrested, but since he had no inventory system to tell what was missing or clear employment contract and the guy could just say he got the stuff as payment the cops couldn't do anything.

This lead to them trolling one another really hard and the guy eventually posting Aaron's skidmarked underwear on eBay. There's even proof. Names redacted because if you're in the fandom you know who it is already and if you aren't it's not important.

 

[Coolio55]

This lead to them trolling one another really hard and the guy eventually posting Aaron's skidmarked underwear on eBay. There's even proof. Names redacted because if you're in the fandom you know who it is already and if you aren't it's not important.
View attachment 1499749

View attachment 1499750

View attachment 1499754

Awsome post dude.​

The best part about this is knowing that Aaron wears boomer underpants. Those look like the sorta thing deeker would draw