Chuck E. Cheese (character)

Charles Entertainment "Chuck E." Cheese is the anthropomorphic rat mascot of the Chuck E. Cheese's chain of family entertainment centers. According to the Chuck E. Cheese's website, he was born February 5, 1943 in New Jersey.

Pizza Time Theater era

Chuck E. was originally found in Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre, a restaurant founded by Nolan Bushnell (founder of Atari) in 1977. An animatronic Chuck E. along with other characters, known as Portrait Animatronics would perform music and shows in picture frames overhead while the customers enjoyed pizza and games.

As more restaurants opened, the amount of animatronics was expanded and the "Pizza Time Players" were formed. This group featured Chuck E. himself, Crusty the Cat, Jasper T. Jowls, Pasqually, Helen Henny, the Warblettes, and many other characters, most of which have been retired. In the later restaurants, cabaret shows in separate rooms were created, featuring Dolli Dimples, a blues singing hippo, Artie Antlers, The King (who sang Elvis Presley tunes), The Beagles (Beatles) and The Beach Bowsers (Beach Boys).

Merger

After the acquisition by Showbiz Pizza Inc and subsequent concept unification, The Rock-afire Explosion (the animatronic band of ShowBiz Pizza Place) was turned into the Chuck E. Cheese characters. The current incarnation of the characters is called "Munch's Make Believe Band", and includes Chuck E., Helen Henny, Mr. Munch, Jasper T. Jowls, and Pasqually. There were also prop characters such as Pizzacam (who would hide inside a speakerbox and would pop out and dance to the music and sometimes be the announcer of shows or sing backup), Munch Jr (who would hide inside a chrome barrel and bounce up and dance to the music), Building (who would sing backup and act as the announcer on several shows), and the Moon (which would also sing backup, act as the announcer on several shows, and was the only character from the Rock-afire-Explosion to be kept intact). In some restaurants a full animatronic band can be seen, either on one stage or two stages, which use animatronics known as Cyberamics. The bands that used to be Rock-a-fire animatronics (prior to concept unification) are known as three stage shows, which use animatronics made by Creative Engineering. But in newer restaurants (or ones that have undergone remodeling) a single Chuck E. Cheese animatronic stage is seen with the other band members in puppet form displayed on a TV screen. This is known as the "Studio C. Stage," and it is manufactured by Garner Holt Productions. There are 4 variations of this stage, Studio C Alpha with a 32 movement animatronic, Beta with a 16 movement animatronic, Cappa with a 16 movement animatronic, and Circle Of Lights (which sometimes doesn't have an animataronic) also with a 16 movement animatronic. ^[1]

During customer's birthday parties, a Chuck E. Cheese mascot will come out on the floor and perform a birthday show along with the other employees known as "cast members." In recent promotions, the Chuck E. mascot would come on the floor with a manager and give free tickets away to children.

References