Somebody Rescue this Mitzi!

[BeachBear'sGirl]

This poor, poor Mitzi is apparently stashed away in the rafters of some random building in a waterpark in Indiana. She caught someone's eye and has become a part of their artist portfolio. Can someone rescue her?! I guess the only way would be if her current owners would be willing to part with her. I doubt they even know who she is. Also...does anyone know who any of the other characters are that she's been stashed up there with? The artist is obviously confusing that fox next to her with Rolfe, but some of them don't look familiar at all. :-/

"It was once a Rock-afire Explosion" :
Mitzi and some random fox character I am not familiar with who the
photographer seems to mistake for Rolfe.
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?ref=mt&listing_id=29218668

"Mitzi Mozzarella":
A solo shot of Mitzi. I can't tell if she's in as terrible of shape as I fear
she may be, due to all the weird blond wigs and her grandma dress.
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?ref=mt&listing_id=29219046

"Childhood Memories":
Some totally unfamiliar chimp and Moose character who are stranded
with the same fate as poor Mitzi. Her current band-mates?
http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?ref=mt&listing_id=29219461 (http://www.etsy.com/view_listing.php?ref=mt&listing_id=29219461)

[Harmony Howlette]

That's not Mitzi.

[Partyhog]

Mizi has different colored fur...

[Rockafirecheese]

That's not Mitzi.

Yeah, unfortunately those aren't Rock-afire characters........

[BeachBear'sGirl]

Yeah the Mitzi-esque character is the only one who looked familiar to me, but she's obviously just a RAE wannabe now that you mention it...I did just now notice that she's brown. I was having trouble figuring out how much of the coloring and such was actually there and what was photo manipulation. I didn't think the rest of them looked familiar but she somehow did look like a Mitzi under all those nasty blond wigs. I still feel sorry for her, but not quite as much cause yanno, she's not family ;) Thanks for clearning that up guys. I think I will sleep a little better now.

[Cheese670]

In the last picture the moose is from Bullwinkles Family Restaurant. I am not sure where this is as I live in Southern Indiana not Northern. My guess would be Old Indiana Fun Park that was closed in 1996 due to a train accident that caused the park to go backrupted and now used as "amusment park storage". The other big park up in Indiana is Indiana Beach Family Water Park because I know they have a lot of old picnic shelters that they don't allow visitors to use. The only park I really go to in Indiana is Holiday World. :D

[captslappy]

This is a knock off character. I can tell by the eyes, the shape of the head and the mask. Someone made this.

[joshferrell]

aren't those refurbished wolfpack 5? or at least a couple them look like it...

[Isabella Price]

I found these pictures a few months ago and have been trying to figure out where these characters originated from.

[Cheese670]

They almost look like someone bought a bunch of animatronic character and pieced together the working parts from all of them! LOL! Very plasible.

[Mr Munch88]

I believe the fox in the first shot is from Sally's Daniel and the Dixie Diggers. I know Ive seen the chimp somewhere too, but cant remember where.

[captslappy]

None of this stuff is from Creative Engineering. It looks like an assorted collection of animatronic characters of differnet makes that was probably going to be used to put a show together and then just ended up as display pieces.

[BeachBear'sGirl]

None of this stuff is from Creative Engineering. It looks like an assorted collection of animatronic characters of differnet makes that was probably going to be used to put a show together and then just ended up as display pieces.


Thank you! That settles that. I have been doing a lot of digging trying to decide if any of them could be CEI, that's pretty much what I was hoping to determine for sure, didn't want to waste time finding the place until I was sure there was something worthwhile

[Cheese670]

It is still an interesting find for an amatronics fan even though it's not CEI. Understanding the compition is how to get ahead in life. ;) I say good find!

[Mr Munch88]

The monkey might be from the monkey business band from grand prix pizza in florida....

[Rockafirefan]

It is!:bb_happy2:

[BeachBear'sGirl]

I actually corresponded with the person who took these pics, and she has been trying to figure out for a while what the characters are. She actually said she been perusing the pics on this site (and linked a few in her reply even) for quite a while and even pointed out a WP5 pic where Mitzi looked a little brown. Anyway, I hope she will be heading over here as I mentioned the thread to them and I am sure she will be happy with the info already here, because this is already more info than she had :)

[Cheese670]

I actually corresponded with the person who took these pics, and she has been trying to figure out for a while what the characters are. She actually said she been perusing the pics on this site (and linked a few in her reply even) for quite a while and even pointed out a WP5 pic where Mitzi looked a little brown. Anyway, I hope she will be heading over here as I mentioned the thread to them and I am sure she will be happy with the info already here, because this is already more info than she had :)


SWEET. *thumbs up*

[BeachBear'sGirl]

SWEET. *thumbs up*

She did the registration thingy yesterday, so as soon as she is approved I am sure we will hear from her :D

[Isabella Price]

She did the registration thingy yesterday, so as soon as she is approved I am sure we will hear from her :D

Awesome! Looking forward to it!

[agnisflugen]

hi, my name is mandie, AKA agnisflugen, and i'm the one that took the photos in question. every year my daughter and i would go up north, to this hotel called Spring House Inn for our birthday. it is located in porter county, over by the indiana dunes state park. we would then catch the train in chesterton and go to chicago for the day. down the road from the hotel was this water park called "splash down dunes" located at:

150 East US Highway 20
Porter, IN 46304

well, we decided one year back in '06 to check it out, and that's when i first noticed the oddly placed animatronics off to the side of the park. inside a storage barn that was converted into a picnic area..there was a hodge podge of other things that didn't really go together, such as a ball pit., and an old show biz pizza plastic maze thing;, some super cool arcade games like breakout and pac man, as well as the misfit animatronics stashed up in the rafters. i was strangely drawn to this place, but my daughter was more interested in the water slides, so we quickly moved on to the water attractions. but i never forgot what i saw there that day.

we didn't have enough money to go back to the spring house inn that next year, but in 2008 we came back, and this time i brought my camera. i headed straight for the old barn, and sure enough, the misfit animatronics were as i remembered, looking all disheveled and out of place. i snapped some photos, but not many, you see, i'm fairly light skinned and i think the sunblock i had used was expired because i had gotten horribly burned that day and i was in agony....now i'm regretting that because per the following website splash down dunes closed for good last summer:

http://www.wsbt.com/news/local/59990542.html

so that means the items within the park are going up for auction, but i have yet to find an article detailing when that will take place, i did however discover upon further investigation that before this was a water park, this location was formally known as "the enchanted forest"

http://www.rcdb.com/4615.htm

i have been looking up old photos and post cards of the enchanted forest amusment park, hoping to find the origin of the animatronics. i didn't find any photos as of yet, but i did stumble across this youtube video commercial, and in it for a brief second is the mention of an animated show:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9zVnu1A2GU

that doesn't really help identify the animatronics in the barn, but maybe explains why there mismatched characters and sets from a time long forgotten....i also tried looking on flickr and google to see if anyone had taken any current pictures of the rogue animatronics from the water park rafters, and i haven't found any others as of yet. i only snapped a few photos myself, but here's a link to the photos i took that day, unedited this time, so you can make out more detail:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/anecdotes_with_agnis/sets/72157624091305462/

in any event, i just wanted to say, i didn't meant to cause such a controversy with my photos. i had spent alot of time trying to research the origin of the animatronics, but apparently my efforts were in vain.. i was at least able to determine the where abouts of some of the characters from the showbiz website, such as the moose from the Bullwinkles Family Restaurants:

http://www.showbizpizza.com/photos/misc/bullwinkles/index.html

and the monkey appears to have come from an old animatronic show called the Monkey Business Band from a pizza place in florida:

http://www.showbizpizza.com/photos/misc/animatronics/index.html

but i was really stumped with the female mouse-like character. one of the things that made me think it was mitzi was the fact that there was part of the smitty saloon set sat aside along side the animatronics, and i later learned that the smitty saloon sign was part of a set that was only used in a mini stage set, which could only be found in 5 locations, one of them being anderson indiana....and curiously enough, if you check out the 3rd picture of the wolf pack 5 photo set and click on it to make it bigger, you will see a brown fox that has mitzi like characteristic:

http://www.showbizpizza.com/photos/misc/wolfpack5/index.html

a prototype maybe? i don't know. it certainly is a mystery to me . its seems as if someone had collected vintage animatronics over the years and the owner at the water park must have acquired them when he purchased the property, and then stuck them in the rafters of that barn as an after thought?!?

again, i apologize for causing such strife in this forum....i had no idea the rock a fire explosion had such a following, or that such a forum existed....... i was so inspired by those forsaken characters in that barn....i just hope some of the info i presented helps someone get one step closer to their origin and perhaps finding them a new forever home....

[Partyhog]

ha ha. At least we have a leadnow. Congrats also, you are the person to fost the longest post ever on this forum! No just kidding. Good job.

[Rockafirefan]

According to the video, Enchanted Forest had a pirate show.

[captslappy]

No need to apologize. We are just into this far more than the average person and anytime something like this pops up it generates a lot of discussion. We are always intrigued by photos like this and of course always want to get the story behind the source and find out where the stuff originated. I wouldn't look at this as any kind of a negative or problem at all. It was great to see these photos and hear about this.

[BeachBear'sGirl]

No need to apologize. We are just into this far more than the average person and anytime something like this pops up it generates a lot of discussion. We are always intrigued by photos like this and of course always want to get the story behind the source and find out where the stuff originated. I wouldn't look at this as any kind of a negative or problem at all. It was great to see these photos and hear about this.


I second that. Don't apologize! It was actually pretty neat finding those and researching them...I'm sure it felt much the same way that it did when you saw them in person. If anything, you've made a contribution to the community, so I'd say thanks :)

[agnisflugen]

thank you for not chastising me! i understand about being passionate about something, for me it's baroque flutes. whenever i see someone listing a clarinet or an oboe as a flute, i get all riled up! i can't tell you how many nights i have stayed up hours past my bedtime just ogling pictures of antique flutes only to wake up the next day with bloodshot eyes but i simply can't help myself! i just wanna rescue them all.......

[Cheese670]

thank you for not chastising me! i understand about being passionate about something, for me it's baroque flutes. whenever i see someone listing a clarinet or an oboe as a flute, i get all riled up! i can't tell you how many nights i have stayed up hours past my bedtime just ogling pictures of antique flutes only to wake up the next day with bloodshot eyes but i simply can't help myself! i just wanna rescue them all.......

I hate when people call my Tenor Recorder a clarinet. *shutters*

[captslappy]

I suspect you probably got bombarded by emails especially by younger fans. They mean well but they've scared more than a few people off. Some of the people in this group don't really have the best social skills. We've had problems in the past with finding someone involved with Pizzatime Theatre or Showbiz and everyone has to be the first to contact them and end up driving them off. Likewise, those same well meaning people are bad to jump all over something like this in an effort to "set the record straight". So I certainly hope that didn't happen to you and I'm glad you showed up and joined us.

[agnisflugen]

UPDATE! THIS JUST IN!

i was contacted yesterday by someone that recognizes these animatronics from their childhood. according to them they are from the
now closed Celebration Station Family Fun Center that was up north in merrillville indiana. this is what he wrote:

"Celebration Station was very close to Showbiz Pizza Place as far at what it offered. There was pizza, games, kids rides and the band itself! I want to say their names were along the lines of Doc Fox, Major Moose, Pricilla Purr, Daniel L. Bones and there should be an older monkey and the mascot of the place, Harry Hound somewhere up in the rafters. There was also something like three of four gophers that would pop up and sing near Harry Hound. I remember the place well, because I was a huge fan of Showbiz Pizza and when the place closed this was all we had left. There were no Chuck E. Cheese's around, and this place was something like an hour and 15 minutes away. "

he has offered to scan some old photos of the band when they were in their prime if anyone is interested in seeing them....

just thought i'd keep you all abreast since this was once heavily debated.....

[RetroGirl]

I'd love to see the photo! Thanks for the info.

[Empire1983]

Hi everyone, it turns out that it is a small world after all. I am the person that contacted the person above. Pretty much my info is what you see in the posts above. We went to Celebration Station every now and then. It was about an hour and 15 minutes away from our house. It was closer than any Showbiz was once the Logansport, IN location closed. My parents were not big fans, but being good parents, they took myself and my sister to it when we were little. It was a two story building with a huge game room on one end of the building and the show room on the other end. The middle part of the complex was where you could find the little rides and the ball pit room. The stage area was a one stage on top of the other. The first time we went it had a panda playing the drums and a different set up on the bottom stage. I think it was suppose to look like a radio station of some sorts. When we went back a year or two later, the bottom stage now looked like an old time saloon with the characters dressed for the part. The upper stage did not share this theme. Also, a giant monkey (the one in the set of pictures) had now been placed on the drums. I have a set of four photos I would be more than happy to up load. Give me a couple of days to find them and get with my friend who knows how to do all of this. She is the brains behind most of my operations. I know Celebration Station closed sometime ago and the building was demolished. This was a huge building along I-65 and now it's just an empty lot next to a Hooters. The mini-golf, go-carts, everything was wiped off the map. Which is kind of sad. The building had a huge picture of their mascot, Harry Hound I think, on the side of the building, so you could not miss the place. When I find the photos where would be the best place to post them? Thanks and have a great night! :rolfe:

[WickedWonder1]

I actually went to Celebration Station when we'd visit Merrillville. I remember their show, but I'm sure I dismissed it as "Not as good as the Rockafire" and didn't pay too much notice. We only got up there 1-2 times a year so I'm not sure when it closed, but I do remember the building was standing a while after it closed down.

[Charon the Sabercat]

The Celebration Stations had animatronics in them? I only got to go once when I was little, and I never saw them. ("Tons o' Fun Pizza", where our local Rockafire was located, was cheaper, so we always went there instead.)

[nace888]

Yeah the Mitzi-esque character is the only one who looked familiar to me, but she's obviously just a RAE wannabe now that you mention it...I did just now notice that she's brown. I was having trouble figuring out how much of the coloring and such was actually there and what was photo manipulation. I didn't think the rest of them looked familiar but she somehow did look like a Mitzi under all those nasty blond wigs. I still feel sorry for her, but not quite as much cause yanno, she's not family ;) Thanks for clearning that up guys. I think I will sleep a little better now.

If you look, you will also notice that the 'MITZI WANABEE' has a dog type muzzle, whereas Mitzi actually had a mousey nose, lol.

[agnisflugen]

that's so cool! i would have never known the their true identities if it hadn't been for this forum! i wonder what happen to those animatronics after the water park closed down a few years ago.....

[captslappy]

Celebration Station had Sally Corp's Daniel and the Dixie Diggers. All shows were removed from the stores about 5 years ago and they no longer have animatronics. Yes, the Mitzi in that picture is from an unknown maker and is not a Rock-afire character.