[2] 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.

[5] He founded Creative Engineering Incorporated (CEI) in 1975 for that purpose, but in order to raise money for the project, he resorted to selling smaller inventions door-to-door, such as his "Leaf Eater" contraption that collected leaves from swimming pools.

Early projects included The Scab, a single talking head, Willie Wabbit, an anthropomorphic rabbit, and a fortune-telling machine called Lazlo The Great.

[6] By 1978, Fechter had finished work on the "Wolf Pack 5", his first animatronic series featuring multiple characters including The Wolfman, Fats, Dingo Starr, Beach Bear, and Queenie the Fox (later changed to a mouse and renamed Mini Mozzarella).

[5][6] In 1980, Robert L. Brock opened the first ShowBiz Pizza Place restaurant in Kansas City, Missouri, featuring Creative Engineering's Wolf Pack 5 display.

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.

As with The New Rock-Afire, "Marvelously Electronic Animation" debuted as a karaoke, trivia and video recording area that features a NRAE Looney Bird Robot that is controlled with The Anti-Gravity Freedom Machine.

[11] In 2010, research began on an alternative cooking fuel derived from graphite and water called Carbohydrillium, billed as safer and less polluting than propane.

[2][14] A company operating as AquaLux experienced a similar explosion in 2001 at their plant in Largo, Florida, which at the time was blamed on a leaking fuel storage tank.

This led to the 2008 documentary, The Rock-afire Explosion, which explores the rise and fall of RAE and the impact of the childhood memories it created, with interviews of Fechter, Thrash, and others.