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If you’re a fan of Chuck E Cheese’s, you’d know that most restaurants are home to Munch’s
Make Believe Band; an animatronic show that plays throughout the day. Although this group
of characters are the ones we’ve come to know, this wasn’t always the case.
Chuck e Cheese’s opened its doors on May 17th, 1977 in San Jose, California under the
name Chuck E Cheese’s Pizza Time theatre. It was the very first family restaurant to
integrate food, an indoor arcade and animated entertainment. As they say, its where a kid
can be a kid. Nolan Bushnell, founder of Pizza Time Theatre, was very found of the Walt Disney
Company. It was a company he looked up to and wanted to work at but never got the chance.
The introduction of the animated animatronic figures in the Pizza Time Theatre restaurant,
was sort of Bushnell’s tribute to the Walt Disney Company since they were known for their
audio animatronics.
In 1980 another little entertainment pizza restaurant opened called Showbiz Pizza Place
and although it was a very similar concept to Pizza Time Theatre, both the restaurants
did very well in the early 80s when the video game industry was booming. In 1981, Pizza
Time Theatre went public on the stock market but with any ups theres gonna be some downs
and the video game crash of 1983 took a big hit on Pizza Time Theatre. In 1984, the company
filed for bankruptcy and showbiz pizza place bought off all their assets and now owned
Pizza Time Theatre. Both companies remained separate entities until 1989 when they started
to merge and brand all the restaurants as Chuck E Cheese’s by 1992. With the merge,
Munch’s Make Believe Band, the band we all know today, was born, and left behind in history
were many different characters part of the Pizza Time Players that are now extinct. So
today, lets take a look at the Top 10 Extinct Chuck E Cheese’s Animatronic Characters.
Number 10 to 8 The Original Gang
When Pizza Time Theatre debuted its first animatronic show in 1977, it was referred
to as the portrait style show where the figures appeared in portraits on the wall. The gang
was called the Pizza Time Players and its main cast of characters were: Chuck E Cheese,
Jaspar T Jowels, Pasqually, Crusty the Cat and the Warblettes. Crusty was one of the
original band members in 1977 and according to this Pizza Time Theatre menu, he was the
“Cat’s Meow” Meow, meow, meow, meow
in singing and joke telling and was the Chuck E’s straight man. Crusty’s time at Pizza
Place Theatre was short lived and became the first character to be retired and go into
extinction from Chuck E Cheese’s. This only happened in 1978 and he never made it out
of the original store in San Jose, California. When he was retired in 1978, he was then replaced
with Mr. Munch who is still a character that can still be seen today at Chuck e Cheese’s.
Another little fun fact is that Crusty the Cat was also voiced by the original voice
actor for Chuck.
Now every great band needs backup singers and the Pizza Time Players were no exception.
In 1977 they opened with The Warblettes who provided the background vocals for the band.
The Warblettes were three singing crows and considering Nolan Bushnell’s inspiration
from the Walt Disney Company, it wouldn't be surprising if there was some influence
on these three characters from the singing crows in the 1941 animated feature film, Dumbo.
In 1978, the Warblettes went into a brief extinction and were replaced with the Mopsey
Sisters who were 3 singing mops but luckily they were only used for a year then the Warblettes
returned. During the late 80s with the construction of the Rocker and C-Stages, the Warblettes
flew the coop and became extinct in the restaurants.
Number 7 to 4 The Guest Stars
Before Pizza Time Theatre went bankrupt and was sold to Showbiz Pizza Place, the Pizza
Time Players featured a variety of animatronic guest stars. These characters appeared in
the original portrait style show as well as in the newly designed balcony stages. All
the guest stars utilized the same animatronic figure but were just re-skinend as a different
character, and had their backdrop changed to coincide with the appropriate show tapes.
The first guest star appeared in 1978 and went by the name Foxy Flanagan or Foxy Colleen:
she was a female Irish fox who performed Irish Style songs. Next was Madame Oink, a Pig that
spoke with a French Accent who’d OINK anytime someone told her a joke; She also premiered
in 1978 and I guess you could say she’d try to hog the spotlight while she was on
stage. Now after Madame Oink was Sally Sashay; a disco singing skunk. She didn’t have a
very long run and only appeared in 1979 then got the boot. Next came Harmony Howlette:
a tomboyish cowgirl coyote from western Texas. Harmony stayed with the band from 1981 to
1982, while Madame Oink was also still used until 1983.
Once Pizza Time Theatre filled for bankruptcy in 1984, Madame Oink became the last guest
star to be featured, then Helen Henney, who was a past guest star for the portrait stage
in 1978, was her replacement on the balcony stage. At this moment in 1984 all the Pizza
Time Player guest stars, minus Helen Henney, became extinct and were never seen in the
spotlight again.
Number 3 & 2 The Cabaret Stage
A little while after the opening of Chuck E Cheese Pizza Time Theatre in 1977, locations
began receiving a Cabaret stage that was added to a separate room in the restaurants. These
Cabaret stages would feature animal characters who’d parody and impersonate famous musical
artists; not to mention the names of the characters were pretty punny. The Beagles were a group
of animatronic dogs who were designed to parody and look like The Beatles. They were able
to be seen in the restaurants performing to Beatles songs until they were replaced by
the Beach Bowzers, who utilized the same animatronic robots and were retrofitted to fit the old
figures. The animatronics remained dogs with each figure designed to look like a member
of The Beach Boys and would perform to Beach Boys songs.
Also to appear on the Cabaret stages was The King animatronic. He was a 9 foot tall lion
that was designed to be an Elvis impersonator with the hair, white suit and guitar, just
like Elvis Presley Himself. Later down the line, some of the The King animatronics were
retrofitted to become The King Cat who was a Michael Jackson themed character. The animatronic
was given a new wig, sunglasses, a red sequence jacket and a glove; just like MJ himself was
famous for. The King Cat was said to be Chuck E Cheese’s last hope for success since the
company was on the brink of filing for bankruptcy. Only a few restaurants got the King Kat installed
before the company went bankrupt in 1984. The remainder of the restaurants kept the
Elvis inspired character The King, and the last figure was said to have been around until
1995.
It should also be noted that at the time, these cabaret figures were programmed to the
original artists song tracks. This would have required a music license to use the songs
for the shows and was most likely very costly for the company. By the mid 1990s most locations
had all the Cabaret acts removed. They became extinct with the focus of animatronic entertainment
now being in the main Showroom.
Number 1 Munch Jr.
Once the company officially merged, all restaurants were branded as Chuck E Cheese’s by 1992.
This meant that pervious Showbiz Pizza Place locations with the Rockafire Explosion Band
had their characters retrofitted with the Chuck E Cheese characters. One Rockafire character
was Choo-Choo; a baby bear who lived in a tree stump. During the switch over Choo choo
became the munch Jr character who, as his name suggests, is a mini version of Mr.Munch
with one tooth and an orange propeller cap. He’d be seen bouncing up and and down to
the music, but never spoke. Since the mid to late 1990’s all of the Munch Jr animatronics
were removed, either due to children vandalizing the characters or they just weren’t working
properly anymore. Their areas were boarded and carpeted over and from that moment he
became extinct. Now to this day though, this is still one Munch Jr animatronic hanging
around. It’s at the Wilmington, North Carolina location. Its not in working condition so
its only a matter of time probably until he’s removed and joins the rest of the animatronics
in extinction.
Present Day Now depending on the Chuck E Cheese location
you go to, some of the restaurants got an update to the Studio C stage in the 90s which
just included the Chuck animatronic. So in a sense the other band members have already
become extinct at some locations. But in a recent announcement in August 2017 from CEC
Entertainment, they announced the first major overhaul of the restaurant in 20 years. This
overhaul includes the removal of the animatronic band members in favour of a large dance floor
and the frequent appearances of their live costumed characters. Tom Leverton, CEO of
Chuck E Cheese’s, said that “the animatronics have become the side show” and “the kids
stopped looking at the animatronics years and years ago.” This overhaul is only set
right now to take effect at 7 of the restaurants in the chain, but the company seems to think
that this new design will eventually be carried out in the other 500 or so stores. So this
would mean that the Chuck E Cheese animatronics will all take their final bow, become completely
extinct and go down in the Chuck E Cheese history books.
So, whats your opinion on the recent announcements made by Chuck e Cheese’s of the removal
of the animatronics in the restaurant? And if you could bring back or save one character
either from the extinct animatronics or the current band members, which one would it be?
Leave a comment below and start a conversation.
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