Willie Wabbit (Animatronic)

Source metadata
Type	Animatronics
Start date	1976-08-09
Tags	Creative Engineering, Willie Wabbit, Willie Rabbit (Animatronic), Willie Wabbit (Animatronic), Tom Williams, Aaron Fechter
Contributors	PTT1977fan, Tobsters ;-;, Anonymous, sudo-trans-pony, Newbie editor, PizzaEntertainment, TutorialTimeYt

Willie Wabbit was the first animatronic character built by Creative Engineering in 1976 to advertise Mystery Fun House in Orlando, Florida. The Bot was placed in a small glass kiosk at the Orlando Fashion Square near the Sears and Roebuck & Co(Orlando Fashion Square near the Sears and Roebuck & Co) and later at the Orlando Interantional Airport.The exact fate of the bot is unknown,though it was most likely trashed by the Mystery Fun House.

History

In 1976 Creative Engineering would be commissioned to create an animatronic to advertise The Mystery Fun House in Orlando Florida. Aaron Fechter would enlist the help of Tom Williams,a former employee of The Main Street Design & Development Company who Aaron had previously worked with,building a control system for a shooting gallery,and initially was supposed to do more,notably a replacement control system for the Colonel Vernon (Animatronic) figure,however this was never completed as Aaron and The Main street group had payment struggles,so Aaron stopped working with them.Shortly after this Main Street went out of business.This led Tom Williams to team up with Aaron which led to the creation of Willie Wabbit.Tom built the actual figure and mech of the rabbit while Aaron built the control system.

Willie was revealed to the public at the entrance of the Orlando Fashion Square on august 9th 1976 at 11:30 AM with his reveal being filmed and later brodcasted by WKMG-TV(at the time called WDBO-TV).He was installed in a glass kiosk with black edges,and topper with the Mystery Fun House name and branding near the Sears and Roebuck & Co.

At an unknown point Willie was moved to the Orlando International Airport for his "permanent" display.The Bot was apparently programmed to multiple audio tracks that would play at random, unlike most CEI bots which used full showtapes. The bot also had a coin slot that made Willie move. The bot remained most likely until the early 80's when it was removed.

There's no concrete info on what happened to the bot after he was removed but there's reportsthat at some point he was stored in a warehouse owned by Mystery Funhouse,however he is not there anymore,meaning he was likely taken out of that warehouse and probably trashed

Design

The bot was a rabbit that wore a red tuxedo with a white patterned undershirt, a black bowtie, a flower and glasses.He had gray fur with lighter eyebrows and a buck-tooth.

Movements

Judging by the available footage the bot had 9 movements

Movements
Mouth
Eyebrow Wiggle
Ear Wiggle
Head Turn Left
Head Turn Right
Body Turn Left
Right Arm Twist
Left Arm Twist
Feet Wiggle

Additional source metadata

Field	Value
manufacturer	Creative Engineering
unitsProduced	1

Import provenance

Imported from Cheese-E-Pedia at source revision 274f085c7132d784f81b7a4cbd96e7a0922db854. Source material is provided under CC BY-SA 4.0.