Mitzi Mozzarela was the only female vocalist in the Rock-afire Explosion. Being a cheerleader, she ended up becoming an important role model for young girls. She was also strongly promoted by ShowBiz, being heavily featured on merchandise - second only to Billy Bob.
Like most of the other characters, Mitzi's origins began with the Wolf Pack 5. The female character from the Wolf Pack 5 was Queenie the Fox, however when the band was placed into the 1st ShowBiz Pizza Place, they requested that she be changed into a mouse to go along with the "pizza" theme of the restaurant (and quite possibly to play off the connection of the already popular competing character, Chuck E. Cheese). Creative Engineering reluctantly agreed to make the change, and Mini Mozzarela was born.
When the Rock-afire Explosion was developed, Mini became Mitzi. She was given a cheerleader outfit, complete with saddle shoes and pom-poms. It was still a play on the 50s style character of Mini, but this new appearance had a broader range of application. In the beginning, Mitzi played a rather small part in showtapes and had almost no speaking roles. Aaron Fechter was Mitzi's original voice… which was high and squeaky and didn't lend itself to songs very well. Briefly in 1982, Mitzi was voiced by Monique Danielle, who portrayed the character very closely to Aaron's original vocals. It wasn't until late 1982 when Shalisa Sloan at the young age of 11 took over as the voice of Mitzi that her character truly began to take shape.
Shalisa was quite the vocal prodigy, and her age gave Mitzi a tender realness that breathed some much needed believability into the character. She began to take on a personality of an actual young girl of the 80s. She started singing pop songs that children of the time could relate to, making her a favorite among kids. In fact, a few times actual references to Shalisa's age were placed into showtapes - making her the only character to actually "age" from year to year. In retrospect, Mitzi was a little less bright than some of the other characters. She was sometimes laughed at for making mistakes, and the other characters were notorious for making little comments at her expense.
Mitzi was one of the few characters to have a "2nd generation" animatronic developed. A newer version of Mitzi was created that had a bendable waist and arms that could reach around in front of her, enabling her to actually dance on stage. Unfortunately due to budget cuts within ShowBiz, this second version of Mitzi never made it past the prototype stage.
It should be noted that Mitzi's character and relevance to young girls was valued by ShowBiz so much, that it was held onto even after Concept Unification removed the Rock-afire Explosion from their restaurants. Her cheerleader persona was more or less transplanted into Helen Henny and lives on to this day.
Meanwhile, Mitzi was placed into the New Rock-afire Explosion along with the other characters. Her new 'mijjin' sized character was typically adorned in a black shiny dress, and often times did not have her traditional blonde wig.
Mitzi has always been a fan-favorite and to this day is one of the most revered Rock-afire characters. Shalisa James (Sloan) has been quite involved with Creative Engineering in recent years, helping to keep the character of Mitzi alive by appearing on Billy Bob's Newsblast and also performing in entirely new shows such as "Hips Don't Lie". Shalisa has always been very welcoming toward the fan community, often taking time out of her busy schedule to meet with Rock-afire Explosion fans.