Welcome Guest [Log In] [Register]


Retro Pizza Zone

Forum Member Stats
News
More News




-------------------------


Current Admins
---
VJ / VJ
---
Matt The Franchize / Matt
---
Nace / Brandon
---
RetroGirl / Cindy


-------------------------


Current Moderators
---
CavitySam / Andrea
---
Rockafirecheese / Jacob
---
80sgirl / Stacy
---
avengerchucke / Jack (T)
---
CECWestCoast / Isaiah (T)
---



-------------------------


Current Number of Members
---
Admins – 4
---
Moderators – 5
---
Members – 871
---
Total Members - 880



-------------------------

-------------------------
Please give a special thanks to our TESTERS for helping us set up the forums, and find any issues we had to fix! Without them we wouldn’t have this open for you!
Thanks to our special helper on this large scale project, whom of which without their help, this wouldn't be possible!
And of course, THANKS TO EVERYONE!!

-------------------------

New announcements are constantly released! Make sure you always check the Announcements forum for new topics. You'll get your notices there, and updates of anything going on. In addition to that, we're always trying new things, which is why the forum always gets tweaked. If you have suggestions, be sure to submit them in the Suggestions forum!

-------------------------

Remember to check 'The Pizza Office' section of the forum (or contact an Admin or Mod) about the rules, or if you have any questions and/or suggestions!

-------------------------

If you wish to have your name changed, please request a Change of Username from your Profile.


-------------------------

If you need any help, be sure to contact ANYONE on the staff team, via PM! You can find the staff names on the left side scroller!!

-------------------------

We would like to extend a very big Congratulations to our 2 newest mods, Jack and Isaiah!

-------------------------



-------------------------

10/10/14
The GRAND "RE"-Opening of the forum is TODAY!! October 10th! This new and inviting atmosphere was recreated with a cool new look for all users, past/present/future to touch back with their old roots!! Hope you like it here, at the RETRO PIZZA ZONE!!

-------------------------

2/8/15
There's always new things happening on the forums, and y'all are helping it bloom faster than a flower in Spring! Don't forget to check out your favorite topics, and continue the conversations!

-------------------------

--/--/15
WE HAD A BLAST setting this up for you all! On the center scroller, you see us thanking everyone on the staff team, but we should be thanking you! THE FANS! You inspired us to touch back to our roots, with a LARGER "play area", with more to talk about, more to do, and more people to see! We surely hope you enjoy it here, and even share about this new era!

-------------------------

8/8/15
As we aim to make your experience more enjoyable, we're always trying out new things!! In the near future, there MIGHT be some new things coming to light, as we help to make this place what it should be! As well, I'm marking this day as the day some updates happened!! XD The Member scroller has been updated, and things are in the works!!

-------------------------

4/1/16
THIS IS MY FORUM, AND I'M TAKING OVER, WITH AS MUCH CHEESE AS I WANT!! I HOPE Y'ALL ENJOY YOUR STAY, HERE ON MY FORUM!!! CHEESE!! CHEESE!! CHEESE!!

-------------------------

4/1/16
We got the forums back, and it's been a very eventful day!! We think Rick needs a bit of a break though, and during that time, be sure to check out the new theme!!

-------------------------

2/23/17
Ladies and gentlemen, we'd like to announce that we've updated a few things! Feel free to extend a congratulations to our new mods, and continue to have fun!

-------------------------


Welcome to Retro Pizza Zone. We hope you enjoy your visit.


You must be at least 16 years old or older, unless approved by an Admin.

As well, refrain from using character names for roleplay, and try to refrain from using company names.


You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free.


Join our community!


If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features:

Username:   Password:
Add Reply
  • Pages:
  • 1
Snap's Blast To The Past Museum
Topic Started: Dec 11 2014, 02:57 AM (4,836 Views)
Evan
Member Avatar

Can anybody provide or point me to any information about what happened with this place?

I know there was a fire in 2010. What was the cause of the fire?

What happened with the remains of his RAE?

On his Youtube Channel there is a mention of a lawsuit. What was that about?

The post fire video is very sad considering how awesome this place looked and how beautifully his RAE ran.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Clockwork
Member Avatar

I saw that depressing video that showed the charred remains of the RAE. I'm pretty positive that any of their parts were beyond use, and were probably scrapped. :(
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
TheLooneyBird
Member Avatar

The cause was reportedly arson but that was never proven.

The remains of the characters were removed and sold to another private collector who was attempting to restore them. Unfortunately that was years ago and at last known contact they were still not in working order.

The lawsuit was with Aaron Fecther who was victorious.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Evan
Member Avatar

TheLooneyBird
Dec 11 2014, 11:49 AM
The cause was reportedly arson but that was never proven.

The remains of the characters were removed and sold to another private collector who was attempting to restore them. Unfortunately that was years ago and at last known contact they were still not in working order.

The lawsuit was with Aaron Fecther who was victorious.
Very interesting. Reading what I can find online about this now that I know a few more details.

Thanks for the info!
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Evan
Member Avatar

After doing some reading, in my opinion, that lawsuit and situation seems kind of messed up but it is what it is.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
John95
Member Avatar

Why did Aaron sue?
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Evan
Member Avatar

From what I gather from my reading, and please someone correct me if I am wrong, using copyrighted characters without permission.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Evan
Member Avatar

http://tfooq.wordpress.com/2007/12/03/booty-booty-booty-booty-rock-afire-explosion/

An old article and presumably posts from Fechter, Thrash, Snap and others that gives some insight into the lawsuit. Just very interesting to me.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
80sgirl
Member Avatar
Electroidal Animal Doctor
I don't know Aaron, but from what I've read he seems to be a nice guy if you stay on his good side and go along with him. But he does seem to have a berserk button when it comes to his characters and he wants everything his way. I have no problems believing that is what ultimately cost him his relationship with Showbiz and Billy Bob's Wonderland.

That's one of the reasons why I think it would be hilarious for someone with a full RAE to get 3-stage Chuck's cosmetics, swap out Rolfe for Chuck and do a combined show.

The meltdown would probably be epic.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Cavity Sam
Member Avatar
Don't Smoke Crayolas!
80sgirl
Dec 14 2014, 04:45 AM
I don't know Aaron, but from what I've read he seems to be a nice guy if you stay on his good side and go along with him. But he does seem to have a berserk button when it comes to his characters and he wants everything his way. I have no problems believing that is what ultimately cost him his relationship with Showbiz and Billy Bob's Wonderland.

That's one of the reasons why I think it would be hilarious for someone with a full RAE to get 3-stage Chuck's cosmetics, swap out Rolfe for Chuck and do a combined show.

The meltdown would probably be epic.
As someone who creates characters, I don't see his protectiveness over the RAE as anything 'crazy/weird' like a lot of people seem to view him. I wouldn't be very happy at all if someone took my main character, Belle (an 80's glam werewolf) and started using her however they pleased. Like Aaron, I have rules about what people can and can't do with her.

The difference here, of course, is that the RAE used to be corporate mascots. And nowadays, if people don't know of Aaron and his character rules, they're going to assume that they're either no longer copyrighted or not take into consideration that the characters are no longer corporate icons. At this point, they're Aaron's personal characters much like my characters are personal to me. And there's a business aspect on top of that as Aaron is using his characters for profit (which there's absolutely nothing wrong with). Which I can relate to as well, having a small following around my character (the last time I held an auction to have other people's characters drawn with her it fetched $100, more than twice the normal cost of a drawing from me).

Just my two cents. I don't see Aaron as being strict or crazy with his characters. He's just doing what he can to protect them and still profit off of them.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
VegaNova
Member Avatar

80sgirl
Dec 14 2014, 04:45 AM
I don't know Aaron, but from what I've read he seems to be a nice guy if you stay on his good side and go along with him. But he does seem to have a berserk button when it comes to his characters and he wants everything his way. I have no problems believing that is what ultimately cost him his relationship with Showbiz and Billy Bob's Wonderland.
This.

I've been on both ends of this and like you said, as long as you play by the rules everything is great. It's just hard when the goal posts keep moving, which is why I basically don't play anymore. If that makes any sense.

Bottom line is Aaron can do whatever he wants with his characters, they're his and he owns them and legally that's the only argument that matters for anything at the end of the day.

I was fully behind his desire to make sure his characters weren't out getting defamed and being "made to say" things that were detrimental. Unfortunately for Aaron, modern technology and private ownership of his characters made programming them possible, and people now had the ability to make them perform or say awful things if they chose to. So for me, it wasn't as much a matter of protecting copyrights as it was just not wanting to see characters I love being posted online with horrible things coming out of their mouths. I think anyone who actually cared about anything would want to see it protected like that.

When the RAE started gaining pop culture momentum in 2007/2008, he passed up some nice media opportunities because he felt they were unbecoming of the characters - the one that immediately comes to mind is a script for an episode of MTV's Human Giant. It was pretty crude and vile (I read a copy of it) and I thought he was right to pass on it.

But like all Internet fads, interest started dwelling. And the next thing you know, here the RAE characters end up onstage with womanizer Cee-Lo singing "F*ck You". Nice.

Again, it's fully in his right to allow that if he chooses, but it's my right to hold the opinion that it's BS and goes against all the things that were once so seemingly important.

At any rate all this discussion of the lawsuit brings back a horde of bad memories for me. That whole time period has halfway been repressed in my mind, as I've found myself going back in my personal files and drudging up a whole load of details that I've somehow managed to block out. There was so much more involved than just copyrights and YouTube videos - it involved harassment, online libel, business arrangements gone sour, hacking of personal accounts, etc. It was seriously a mess. I'm not going to delve into details as I've spent the last five years or so trying to not have to be bothered with it, so just know that it was really bad and the fact that it resulted in litigation should surprise nobody. The pettiness and ego on all parts had gotten completely out of control and without a lawsuit I don't know how much worse it would have ended.

But at the end of the day the takeaway here is that there were no winners in this. Aaron may have been victorious, but that amounted to very little by the time all was said and done. Aaron really lost out, as more time was spent dealing with this mess than capitalizing on the tiny window the RAE had in the spotlight. That got squandered. Those that were responsible for putting the RAE in the spotlight (David, Thrash, and Snapper) all ended up losing out. I feel like I lost, as this whole ordeal took much of the passion I once had for this hobby out of me. The fandom lost, as Aaron had to tighten his grip on the characters, not to mention the overall rift and distrust this caused between he and the fans. And maybe I'm being melodramatic here but I believe the public at large lost a chance for the RAE to actually have a comeback. The stars only align like they did during that time period very rarely and I don't ever see it happening again.

Animatronics are done. The Rock-afire is done. There was an ounce of life and fascination put back into both of them when nostalgia combined with modern pop culture. But the internet moves fast, as does people's interest and focus, and the fad has passed. Aaron always told me that he feared the attention the RAE was getting would be like the "dancing prisoner videos" which were also very popular for awhile then faded into obscurity when people got bored. And that's exactly what happened.

Now that the attention has passed and the dust has settled, the fandom is more or less back to the way it always was - just us hardcore fans left still talking about it like it was before the burst of Internet fame. It's not a fad to us. Which is why I keep doing what I do with SP.com - originally it was a project to accumulate knowledge for myself but lately has been more a tool to pass that along and iron out the misconceptions people still have about the history of CEC and the RAE and how and why everything happened.

The Rock-afire will always be my true love but CEC is the only entity that's really relevant today to the public at large. So my angle and "place" these days is to try to document and archive all the history I can and keep it alive for those who care enough to learn it. This is a mindset I had to come to personally just to keep from walking away from it all completely after all the drama went down a few years ago.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
80sgirl
Member Avatar
Electroidal Animal Doctor
You know him better than I, and I agree he has the right to profit from his characters and protect them by whatever means he sees fit. As I said in another post, he's undoubtedly a smart and passionate guy. Go along with him and you're fine.

But there's a difference between protecting what's yours in a professional way and making enemies by making it all personal and being a prima donna. There are comments he's made on various web sites and blogs even before the whole new show business came about that make him look like an unprofessional, vindictive drama queen if you don't go along with him. He posted them under his own name, so they're not hard to find. He might not be that way in real life, but that's how he has presented himself through his words.

Edit: This was in response to Mac Tonight. VegaNova posted while I was writing this.
Edited by 80sgirl, Dec 14 2014, 10:41 PM.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
ScriptexStudios
Member Avatar
Thicker Quicker Picker Upper
Reading the comments of his post-fire video, he mentions a place called Envision was suing him along with Aaron's lawsuit. Does this company have anything to do with what happened with the fire and everything? I'd like to know more about that.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
toycollector

The video of the Rock-afire Explosion singing "Ms New Booty" is still on Youtube. I watched it just a second ago. I find the whole lawsuit between them to be really dumb and pointless. I wonder if it's why so few new RAE videos are being made. Most of the Youtube videos are from 2008-2009.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Cyberhawk
Member Avatar

bump
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
PaulKTF
Member Avatar

I'm kind of glad the RAE "fad" is apparently over. Most of us here were around long before it started and I think I've had enough of seeing videos of the RAE programed to rap songs or whatever. Ugh...
Online Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
WF72
Member Avatar

Good news, Chris did get Snap's show and has been restoring it.

http://nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=32&threadid=77298
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Cyberhawk
Member Avatar

WF72
Oct 5 2015, 07:02 PM
Good news, Chris did get Snap's show and has been restoring it.

http://nintendoage.com/forum/messageview.cfm?catid=32&threadid=77298
that was mid 2012 who knows what happened i have heard that he made a partial payment on a bot from Arron and never ended up getting the bot or the money back
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
ShowbizPizzaFan
Member Avatar
ShowbizPizzaFan
Chris lost everything, the details are personal info.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Fidget Newton
Member Avatar

ShowBizPizzaFan94
Oct 5 2015, 07:35 PM
Chris lost everything, the details are personal info.
source?
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous)
Go to Next Page
« Previous Topic · ShowBiz Pizza Place · Next Topic »
Add Reply
  • Pages:
  • 1

P
R
O
F
I
L
E
User Avatar