Chuck E. Cheese's Animatronics: Where To Find Them?

Chuck E. Cheese, the American entertainment restaurant chain, has long been known for its animatronic bands, which have been a fixture of the kids' play place since its founding in 1977. However, in recent years, the company has been phasing out these animatronics in favour of more modern attractions. As of November 2024, only a handful of locations were reported to still have the animatronic shows, and that number is expected to decline further. So, are there any Chuck E. Cheese restaurants left with animatronics? The answer is yes, but they are becoming increasingly rare.

Locations with animatronics

Chuck E. Cheese, the American entertainment restaurant chain, has been phasing out its animatronic bands from locations across the US. The company is in the process of remodelling its restaurants, replacing the animatronics with interactive dance floors and large screens featuring Chuck E. and his pals in animated form.

However, as of May 2024, five locations have been designated "legacy and new" stores, meaning they will keep their animatronic bands. These are:

• Northridge, California
• Nanuet, New York
• Charlotte, North Carolina
• Hicksville, New York
• Springfield, Illinois

In addition, a Reddit user has compiled a list of locations that still have animatronics as of January 2025. These include:

• Tallahassee, Florida
• Norwalk, California
• Decatur, Alabama
• Toledo, Ohio
• Torrance, California
• Muncie, Indiana
• St Cloud and Maple Grove, Minnesota
• Novi, Michigan
• Fayetteville, Arkansas
• North Edmonton, Canada

The history of Chuck E. Cheese

Chuck E. Cheese is an American entertainment restaurant chain founded on 17 May 1977 by Atari, Inc.'s co-founder Nolan Bushnell. The first location opened as Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre in San Jose, California. It was the first family restaurant to integrate food with arcade games and animated entertainment, thus pioneering the "family entertainment centre" concept.

Bushnell, who grew up in Utah, worked as a games division manager at the Lagoon Amusement Park while earning an electrical engineering degree from the University of Utah. It was during this period that he learned the business side of the entertainment industry, studying the leisure habits of consumers and figuring out ways to market to those habits. After graduating, Bushnell moved to California with the hopes of becoming an engineer for Disney. When that attempt failed, he went to work for Ampex Corp, a video equipment maker in Redwood City, California, where he befriended a co-worker named Ted Dabney. The two began discussing the idea of starting a pizza parlour that incorporated Disney-esque entertainment. They soon began scouting locations to see if they could turn this concept into reality.

It was during this time that Bushnell and Dabney visited the University of Stanford's computer laboratory (SAIL) to see Spacewar!, the world's first video game. Bushnell had the idea to create a cheaper version of the game that could be marketed at the consumer level. With the pizza parlour idea on the back burner, the two focused on developing a cost-effective Spacewar! clone, leaving Ampex Corp and founding the company Syzygy to market the game. In 1971, they successfully completed the game, which was titled Computer Space. Although it was far from a success, it led to the development of PONG, which was hugely successful when it was tested in a Sunnyvale pub.

Although Atari soon found success, Dabney left the company in early 1973 after having a falling out with Bushnell. Profits at Atari continued to explode over the next few years, and in 1976, Bushnell sold Atari to Warner Communications for $28 million. During the sale of Atari, Bushnell also signed a five-year non-competitive agreement. He remained as the head of Atari, but many of his ideas and pet projects were ignored by his new corporate bosses. One project, however, had already been given the green light: Warner Communications agreed to fund the building of one restaurant featuring Bushnell's concept of animated entertainment.

Bushnell created The Atari Restaurant Operating Division, which explored several concepts before reverting to his original idea of using audio-animatronic characters in a pizza restaurant. One of Bushnell's first moves was to hire Gene Landrum to become the Atari Consumer Division President and general manager of the Atari Restaurant Operating Division. Landrum had recently worked with Atari doing a market study for the Atari VCS (2600) and was tasked with fleshing out the pizza parlour concept. He began seeking people to build the animated puppets, and the only company that responded was a small outfit located in the high desert of California called Fantasy Forest Manufacturing. Its owner, Harold Goldbrandsen, believed he could figure out how to build the puppets, having primarily fabricated mascot costumes. When meeting with Bushnell and Landrum, he noticed they had a mannequin wearing a rat costume, which Bushnell had purchased at the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions (IAAPA) convention, believing it was a coyote. This led to the restaurant being tentatively named "Coyote Pizza". However, when the costume arrived, its long pink tail indicated it was actually a rat, and the name was changed to "Rick Rat's Pizza". The rat became the company's mascot, and the name "Chuck E. Cheese" was eventually chosen, as it was alliterative of Mickey Mouse and forced a person's mouth to smile when said.

The first Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre opened on 17 May 1977 in San Jose, California. The 5,000-square-foot former brokerage building was the first restaurant of its kind, offering a combination of pizza, animated entertainment, and an indoor arcade. The most unique aspect was the animatronic show, featuring life-sized animatronic critters placed in faux picture frames that entertained guests throughout the day. The Pizza Time Theatre was groundbreaking and became an immediate success.

Improvements and innovations continued to be tested at the pilot store, including the addition of revolving guest characters who would periodically join the animated cast to keep the show fresh. Despite its apparent success, Warner Communications was disinterested in the concept and was eager to shutter the restaurant so they could better focus on Atari's struggling entry into the home video game market. Warner finally sold the restaurant and concept ownership to Bushnell in June 1978 for $500,000. Bushnell quickly incorporated the business into Pizza Time Theatre, Inc. and formed a team to open additional units.

By the end of 1979, Pizza Time had eight units open, including the first two outside of California. In June 1979, Bushnell signed a $200 million co-development agreement with Robert Brock of Topeka Inn Management, which handed Brock exclusive franchising rights for opening Pizza Time Theatres in 16 states across the Southern and Midwestern United States. This led to the creation of a new division within Topeka Inn Management called Pizza Show Biz, which was formed to implement an aggressive development program for the Pizza Time Theatre restaurants. However, Brock and his associates soon became unhappy with the idea of being franchisees and sought a way to venture out on their own. In November 1979, they found what they were looking for in Creative Engineering, Inc. (CEI), a company out of Orlando, Florida, that had been operating since 1975. CEI was originally incorporated for the purpose of manufacturing the inventions of its then 21-year-old president, Aaron Fechter. At the IAAPA convention in New Orleans, Louisiana, in November 1979, CEI exhibited two fully animated shows, which caught Brock's attention.

Two weeks after meeting with Fechter, Brock contacted Bushnell and demanded out of the co-development agreement on the grounds of misrepresentation. Bushnell refused to release him from the contract, so Brock began discussions with Fechter about forming a new company. In December 1979, Brock severed ties with Bushnell and declared the co-development agreement void, signing a pre-incorporation agreement with Fechter to create ShowBiz Pizza Place Inc. ShowBiz was to be 80% owned by Brock and 20% by CEI. Brock outlined a plan to begin using CEI's animation with the opening of their second store, with the first store utilising Pizza Time Theatre's animation. This gave CEI the time and opportunity to create a new animatronic show that would be exclusively used for ShowBiz.

ShowBiz Pizza Place opened its doors on 3 March 1980, in Kansas City, Missouri. The restaurant was very similar to Pizza Time Theatre, but there were some key differences. The Wolf Pack 5 show, featuring a group of singing animals inspired by the Rocky Horror Show, entertained guests throughout the day. What was going to be the cabaret was transformed into the 'disco room', and Billy Bob, a character loosely based on a figure from CEI's Hard Luck Bears animatronic show, was introduced.

With the pending litigation hovering above both companies, Pizza Time and ShowBiz embarked on an aggressive expansion plan. The number of new stores that opened during 1980-1982 exploded, with competing stores often being opened within sight of one another. In order to stay ahead of their competitor and gain a greater market share of the pizza entertainment industry, both companies continued to innovate and enhance their entertainment, albeit with differing philosophies. Pizza Time Theatre quickly jettisoned the original animatronic show format and placed all the characters together on one single stage to improve the focus on the show. ShowBiz, on the other hand, was intent on having an animatronic show that was as sophisticated as possible, with CEI going to great lengths to hide the fact that their characters were machines.

In 1982, the contested lawsuit between Pizza Time and ShowBiz was settled out of court, with ShowBiz agreeing to pay Pizza Time a portion of its profits for the next 14 years. Despite the settlement in favour of Pizza Time, the two companies still engaged in heavy competition. As the companies battled for customers, Bushnell placed Pizza Time in the hands of others while he invested his interest and time in other ventures. When Pizza Time went public in 1981, it increased Bushnell's worth to around $70 million. Bushnell's goals were to start a company, manage it to a stable and successful point, and then move on to new projects. It was time for him to move on, and he founded a company called Catalyst Technologies to springboard his new products.

However, 1983 would spell disaster for Bushnell and his personal projects and fortune. In the US, the great video game crash hit, mainly due to a massive amount of cheaply made and look-alike games that flooded the home market. Pizza Time Theatre lost $15 million, while Atari, the video game giant, lost $539 million. By July 1983, Pizza Time was beginning to hemorrhage money, reporting its first loss ever at $3 million. Bushnell believed that Sente, his long-delayed return to the arcade video game market, would cure all of Pizza Time's troubles once he was able to debut the company, finally free from the non-compete agreement he was still bound by. He also refused to let go of Kadabrascope and Zapp's, two new subsidiaries within the company. The successful year-end to 1983 that Bushnell had anticipated never came, and in February 1984, he resigned as chairman and CEO.

Straddled with debt and losing close to $20 million per month, Pizza Time Theatre Inc. filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection on 28 March 1984, reporting a loss of $58 million incurred in 1983. Although ShowBiz had apparently won the "pizza war" against their competitor, they weren't in much better condition, having faced a months-long sales decline. ShowBiz was no longer opening new stores, had resorted to closing down nearly a dozen low-volume units, and complete unused Rock-afire stage shows were beginning to pile up in storage at CEI. Ironically, the arguably most valuable asset left to Pizza Time's remaining estate was the settlement agreement that was still owed by ShowBiz. In a mutually beneficial manoeuvre, ShowBiz decided to embark on a merger with Pizza Time, swallowing up the remains of their assets and purging the debt that ShowBiz owed. In order to make this purchase, Brock, who only owned 80% of ShowBiz, had to buy 10% of the shares from CEI, giving him the 90% needed to proceed.

In 1985, Richard M. Frank joined the company as president and CEO of ShowBiz, replacing Brock, who remained CEO and chairman of Brock Hotel Corp. Frank decided to take the reins at ShowBiz Pizza Time after visiting several ShowBiz and Pizza Time Theatre restaurants and observing the children running around and loving the concept, despite the fact that the stores were run down and the service wasn't very good. He made the difficult decision to close around 100 of the least profitable locations. ShowBiz's parent company, Brock Hotel Corp, was also facing dire straits, and with the help of the Hallwood Group, major financial restructuring was undertaken. In order to stave off bankruptcy, debt was renegotiated with 96% of Brock's creditors, and the proceeds gained from closing the less profitable units were enough to pay off the remaining debt. Overall, Brock Hotel Corp's net worth went from a negative $64 million to a positive $55 million, and the company emerged with a new board of directors.

The restructuring was completed by mid-1986, and further changes were made to help stabilise in-store sales at ShowBiz and Pizza Time restaurants. Focus was placed on food quality, execution, parent and child satisfaction, marketing, and finances. In order to chase off teenagers and make the restaurants family-friendly, rules were put in place preventing anyone under 18 from entering. All but the most popular video games were removed, and more redemption games of skill were installed. New entertainment ventures were explored as part of the Attractions Development Program, ranging from minor cost-saving entertainment enhancements to full-scale changes, such as toying with the idea of removing the Rock-afire Explosion from ShowBiz restaurants. It was also during this time that ShowBiz learned how to program the Rock-afire shows, going so far as to produce their own in-house showtapes.

The changes made during the merger wiped out the original Manufacturing, Sales & Licensing Agreement between ShowBiz and Creative Engineering, replacing it with the Settlement and Licensing Agreement, which gave Creative ownership of the unused shows that were still in their possession and removed ShowBiz's exclusive rights to the Rock-afire Explosion. It also gave ShowBiz more flexibility with the content and control of the Rock-afire Explosion shows that remained in their restaurants. An outside company, Creative Presentations Inc., was hired to do some of the add-on retrofits, such as the Liberty stage, which was installed system-wide across ShowBiz stores in 1986. With aggressive marketing and major remodelling, profits began to increase, and in 1987, the company opened its first new store in over three years.

In the late 1980s, several existing Pizza Time franchises used outside animation due to the availability shortage of Pizza Time animation during the company's slow years. By the end of the decade, these stores received the new Chuck E. Cheese stages – the first new stages to be produced since the balcony stage in the early 1980s. The two new stages were very similar and used retrofitted balcony characters. The original was called Chuck E.'s House (aka the Rocker stage), which featured the characters on a porch and inside of a house, and a later version called Chuck E's House Façade (aka the C-Stage), which was a scaled-down retrofit. The Rock-afire stage was also altered slightly, with Billy Bob's stage changed from Smitty's Super Service Station to the ShowBiz Pizza Campground.

In 1988, Brock Hotel Corp changed its name to Integra (A Hotel and Restaurant Company) and soon after announced plans to spin off ShowBiz Pizza Time into a publicly traded company. By the end of 1988, Integra had dispersed 90% ownership of ShowBiz Pizza Time Inc. common stock to Integra shareholders, and in early January 1989, ShowBiz common stock began trading on NASDAQ. Unfortunately, after making ShowBiz its own publicly traded company, Integra never recovered, and the company filed for bankruptcy in mid-1992.

Once ShowBiz was on its own, new ventures were undertaken, including a major rebranding effort known as Concept Unification. By September 1990, all ties with Creative Engineering had been broken, and nine ShowBiz stores had removed the Rock-afire Explosion characters, retrofitting them to resemble the Chuck E. Cheese characters. As profits stayed steady and, in many cases, increased, more and more Rock-afire stages were converted into Munch's Make Believe Band. The Porch and Rocker stages were also transformed into a similar version of the Make Believe Band. Concept Unification lasted for approximately two years, and by 1992, all restaurants were united under the single banner of Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza.

The early 1990s brought outside competition, forcing ShowBiz to adapt to the new market. Discovery Zone, an indoor jungle gym with many hands-on activities aimed at children, became a source of major competition. Sales at restaurants began to slow, and following disappointing sales in 1993, ShowBiz Pizza Time dropped the word "pizza" from the restaurant name, rebranding it as simply "Chuck E. Cheese's". A new kid-friendly version of Chuck E. was also promoted, giving a thumbs-up gesture in the new restaurant logo. In 1995, the company began major remodels, which included new features such as Kid Check kiosks to bring parents additional peace of mind while letting their kids run around and play, and free attractions such as Skytubes. Chuck E. himself was officially changed from a rat to a mouse and was given a new kid-friendly image.

In 1997, a new test stage called the Awesome Adventure Machine was marketed. Although the stage was too complex and unstable, it paved the way for the Chuck E. Cheese stage show concept known as Studio C, designed and produced by Garner Holt Productions. Studio C contained only one animated figure, Chuck E., with the other characters present only on television monitors. With all units now completely themed to Chuck E. Cheese, ShowBiz Pizza Time, Inc. changed its company name to Chuck E. Cheese Entertainment, Inc. in 1998. Phase II remodels began, increasing the number of games and rides and upgrading the prize redemption areas. In July 1999, Discovery Zone filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, and CEC Entertainment bought out their remaining assets and intellectual property, eliminating its only major competitor and securing itself as the dominant family entertainment centre in the US.

The early 2000s proved to be a boon for the company, with sales increasing and new locations opening constantly. Phase III remodels were instituted in 2000, with a focus on enhanced games and rides, and all-new Toddler Zone and Skytube improvements. The 300th company-owned location was opened in March 2000, and franchised locations were aggressively purchased back by the company. With the company no longer franchising in the United States, franchisees who were wanting to expand found themselves unable to grow their business and instead opted to sell their units back. The company also tested new "small town" Chuck E. Cheese's locations featuring an all-you-can-eat buffet, a costumed Chuck E. on the floor at all times, and a charge for admission at the door. Ultimately, these locations were given a scaled-down version of Studio C, suggesting that the influence of animated characters was still important. In 2003, the 400th company-owned location was opened, and in 2005, the 500th location was opened.

Phase

The future of animatronics at Chuck E. Cheese

Chuck E. Cheese, the American entertainment restaurant chain, has been phasing out its animatronic bands from locations across the United States. The company has been undergoing a strategic transformation towards modernisation since 2020, introducing digital entertainment features such as screens, digital dance floors, and trampoline areas.

The animatronic bands, which have been a fixture of the restaurant since its founding in 1977, are being replaced in favour of these interactive features that are designed to appeal to a new digital generation. The company CEO, David McKillips, has stated that this decision is not only due to changing technological tastes but also the difficulties and expense of maintaining the animatronic groups, which are decades old and require dedicated technicians to ensure they are functioning properly.

However, there has been some pushback from customers who are nostalgic for the animatronics of their youth and feel that the new features are giving children even more screen time. As of November 2024, approximately 53 locations still featured the animatronic shows, and this number was expected to decline over the next year.

In response to the negative feedback, the company announced that, in addition to the Northridge, California location, three other sites would be keeping their animatronic stages: Charlotte, North Carolina; Hicksville, New York; and Springfield, Illinois. These sites are being positioned as "legacy and new" stores, offering both new features and a nod to the past.

While the future of animatronics at Chuck E. Cheese locations appears to be limited, with the company embracing digital modernisation, there is clearly still a demand for this type of entertainment. The "legacy and new" stores may offer a successful model for the company to continue to cater to both new generations and nostalgia hunters, as well as providing a unique experience in a market that is increasingly focused on digital screens and interactive features.

The Chuck E. Cheese menu

Chuck E. Cheese's menu offers a wide range of food and drinks to satisfy all taste buds. The star attraction is, of course, their pizza, with a variety of options to choose from. You can create your own pizza by choosing your size, crust, and toppings, or you can select from their specialty pizzas, such as the Homestyle BBQ Chicken, Spicy Hawaiian, Signature Meatball, or the Spicy BBQ Piggy. They also offer combo deals that include pizza, drinks, and discounted gameplay.

In addition to pizza, Chuck E. Cheese also serves wings with a range of sauces, including hot buffalo, smoky BBQ, sweet chili, and lemon pepper. Their menu also includes sides like cheesy bread, French fries, and an app sampler that combines cheesy bread, wings, and fries. For those with a sweet tooth, they offer cakes, a giant chocolate chip cookie, and churros with cotton candy, sour apple, and blue raspberry sugar.

For drinks, Chuck E. Cheese provides a variety of refreshing PEPSI-COLA® products, as well as beer and wine at select locations. They also have a salad bar with over 20 items, including toppings, cheese, and fresh sides.

Chuck E. Cheese also offers various deals and discounts, such as their Birthday Club, which provides free gifts, gameplay, and upgrades. They have weekly specials like Topping Tuesday and Winning Wednesday, as well as military discounts and online sales on their Fun Passes.

Chuck E. Cheese's international expansion

Chuck E. Cheese has been expanding internationally since 1981, when the restaurant opened its first international franchise in Australia under the name Charlie Cheese's Pizza Playhouse. The company has been cultivating business relationships with international partners in Latin America, South America, and the Middle East since 1986.

In 2013, Chuck E. Cheese's president of the International Division, Roger Cardinale, announced a multi-year plan to bring several new stores to Central America. The company opened its first store in Panama in 2013, and in 2014, it opened new locations in Mexico and Saudi Arabia. As of 2014, the company had 21 operating stores outside the U.S. and Canada, with an anticipated 10 more to open that year, including one in Trinidad.

In 2024, Chuck E. Cheese announced plans to expand into the United Kingdom, with target cities including Glasgow, Manchester, and Bristol. The company also has plans for additional international locations in Jamaica, Guyana, and another in Jamaica by 2025.

As of October 2024, CEC Entertainment owns and operates approximately 465 Chuck E. Cheese locations in the U.S. and Canada, with 96 franchised locations in the U.S., Puerto Rico, and 16 countries worldwide. The company also operates 96 Peter Piper Pizza restaurants in the U.S. and 13 in Mexico.

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