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Chuck E Cheese‘s opened its doors on May 17, 1977, in Winchester Blvd, San Jose, California, under the name Chuck E Cheese Pizza Time Theatre. It was the very first family restaurant to integrate food, indoor arcade and animated entertainment. their slogan “Where A Kid Can Be A Kid.” was trademarked by Nolan Bushnell Co-Founder of Atari. Founder of CECPTT was very fond of the Walt Disney Co, it was a company he looked up to and wanted to work but never got the chance. The inspiration of the animatronic figures in the PTT restaurant was a nod to Disney’s audio animatronics. In 1980, another little place named Showbiz Pizza Place. Even though they had competition with each other by having the same concept for themselves both restaurants were very successful at the peak of the Video Game industry. in 81′, PTT (Pizza Time Theatre) went public on the stocks, but in 83′ went with the infamous Video Game Crash which meant that CEC was struggling, in 1984, the company went bankrupt and was sold to Showbiz and sold everything to them, and was separate until 1989, when Showbiz and Chuck E Cheese merge and branding all the restaurants to CEC Pizza by 1993 and MMBB was born and left behind in history with all of the extinct of the Original Cast that are now Extinct.
When PTT debut in Winchester and Kosser in 1977, the bots were referred as the Portrait Style when the bots are in portraits when performing. The were known as Pizza Time Players and the cast was Chuck E Cheese, Jasper T. Jowls, Pasquale, Krusty the Cat, and the warblettes, Krusty was one of the original band members in 1977 and was voiced by Ed Bogas. According to his description he was the cat’s Meow, singing and joke telling. His time at Pizza Time was short lived and was the first character to retired and didn’t make it out the original restaurant in 1978. When Krusty retired in 1978 he would then be replaced by Munch and was voice by the same voice actor John Widelock for chuck. Every band need back-up singer and the pizza time players were no exception. In the original location they opened with the warblettes who provided the background vocals for the band. they are 3 singing crows and considering Bushnell’s inspiration with Disney’s singing crows in Dumbo. In 78′ they went into a brief extinction and were replaced by the Mopsey Sisters for a year then the warblettes return. During the late 80’s for the Rocker and C Stages the birds flow the cope and was no longer used in any of the restaurant.
Before PTT went bankrupt and was sold to Showbiz, the PTT players featured had a variety of animatronic guest stars, these original characters were used in both the Portrait and Balcony stages and all of the guest stars utilized the same Cyberamic animatronics but reskinned as a different character and had their backdropped change to coincide with the appropriate show tapes.
The first one was an Irish fox in 1978 called Foxy Colleen who performed Irish styled songs.
The next was Madame Oink, was a pig that spoke who’d oink anytime someone told her a joke and was around the same as the fox and tried to “hog the spotlight” when she was on stage.
The third was Sally Sashay and was a Disco Singing Skunk and was once again short-lived and only appeared in 1979 and got the boot.
Next come Harmony Howlett, a tomboyish cowgirl coyote from Western Texas, she was used from 1981-82 while Oink was still being used until 1983.
Once the company filed for bankruptcy in 1984, Madame became the last guest star to be featured, then Helen Henny, was a past guest star for the Portrait stage for the Kosser location in 1978 was her replacement on the Balcony. To this day, all of the Pizza Time guest characters besides Helen Henny were all extinct.
A Little while after the Grand Opening of the First Chuck E Cheese’s in Winchester, San Jose California, locations began receiving a piano bar lounge that was added to a separate area in the restaurants dining room. The First piano bar cabaret act to open in the restaurants was Dolly Dimples, who was a singing piano playing Blues and Jazz hippopotamus and was the first Chuck E Cheeses animatronic to have a full body.
Dolly made her first appearance in 1978, at the second PTT in Kosser, San Jose. At first, when creating the animatronics, they used to use latex and fiberglass to create the faces of any of the animatronics. Any character after Kosser, San Jose, the company began to use a mixture of plywood and foam for their faces. In videos of Dolly you can tell the difference of the appearance of dolly from the second restaurant towards other restaurant later on. The first looked more rounded and more realistic while the other is sharper and more jagged.
Now not she can move her head and arms side to side, blink, and move her mouth, but she was created with an extra chest movements which allowed it to move up and down. During her time, she only had two showtapes were ever created for her with the first in 1978, and the second in 1982.
In 1980, she was removed in some locations to make way for a new cabaret figure but she was still could be seen in certain locations until 1984
In 1980, PTT decided it was time to switch up their cabaret act, so the next character to be featured was Artie Antlers. Artie was a soulful classic rock piano playing moose who was retrofitted from the Dolly Dimples animatronic in some restaurants. he had all of the same movements that Dolly was capable of except the chest movements, the weren’t enabled in the programming for Artie. Artie wore a shiny blue tuxedo and was his signature look, but there’s a few differences between different animatronic models for the character that were created. When Artie was first introduced, originally his antlers were made out of wood, but after his first year of performing, they experienced issues. The character would often stop suddenly and the pressure of the rough movement resulted of the antlers breaking, so they found something to fix the problems of Artie’s Antlers.
in the early 80s, a company by the name of Riordanco created a lightweight polyurethane banjo used for Banjo used for Jasper T. Jowls. But back then, they actually used to use a real banjo for Jasper, But the weight of it added extra pressure to the animatronic that caused the figure some problems. So Riordanco polyurethane banjo solved that issue. While the company was called up once again when Artie’s antlers began to break, so riordanco created a lightweight styrofoam antler for the character. Shockingly, none of these new antlers ever broke.
Another difference seen in Artie’s appearance was his nose. Originally, it used to be black but then the company changed the nose tip in favor of more prominent nostrils which more better resemble a moose.
Now Artie only had one show tape created since in 1982, the company decided to give Dolly that second show tape instead of Artie. With this decision, the company decided to create yet another character as an alternate to either to replace Artie or Dolly.
When the company needed a replacement for Dolly or Artie, next was BB Bubbles. she was a pink circus elephant that sang at a high pitched voice. She also played on a piano and sang what Pizza Time Theatre described as a saucy and sultry selection of songs.
BB was either retrofitted for the Artie or the Dolly animatronics depending on the location, since not all switched from Dolly to Artie. She was introduced into Chuck E Cheese Pizza Time Theatre in late 1982 to early 1983. But was extremely rare and only place in a handful of restaurants. Her Original movements were the usual eye, head, and mouth movements, as well as arm movements to play the piano. There was one other movement unique to BB Bubbles, which was the Trunk movement. During the animatronics retrofitting they reused Dolly Dimples chest movement for BB’s truck, which allowed it to move back and forth.
BB Bubbles was the last cabaret piano bar player to be installed in the restaurants, before PTT went bankrupt and was sold to Showbiz Pizza Place in mid 1984. By the time Concept Unification came around and was completed in 1992, All the Cabaret Acts were officially extinct.
A Little while after the Grand Opening of Chuck E Cheese Pizza Time Theatre, locations began receiving a cabaret stage that was added to a separate room in the restaurants. These Cabaret stages would feature animal characters to parody and impersonate famous musical artists, not to mention the names of the characters were very punny.
The Beagles who were a group of animatronic dogs that were based off on the Beatles, they were able to be seen performing and perform their songs until they were replaced by The Beach Bowsers, who were the same animatronics robots and were retrofitted to fit the old figures. The animatronics were each were supposed to look like a member of The Beach Boys and performed the Beach Boys Songs.
The Infamous one was The King animatronic, he was a 9-foot Lion and was designed to look like Elvis Presley. But later, some of the king animatronics were retrofitted to looking like a Michael Jackson theme character and named The King Cat, it was given a new wig, sunglasses, a red sequins jacket and a white glove like MJ.
The King Cat was known as Chuck E Cheese’s last hope for success, since the company was in the brink of filling for bankrupt. Only a few of the restaurants got the king cat animatronic before and after the bankruptcy, the remainder of the restaurants kept the original king animatronic, and the last one was said to have been around until 1995.
It’s also bad to mention, at the time these figures were programmed to the original artist song tracks and would need a license to use the songs for the songs and was one of the reasons why the company went bankrupt and by the mid-90s all of the cabaret acts removed.
In 1981, Chuck E Cheese tested out a new concept in select restaurants which was an ice cream parlor called the Ice Cream Emporium. it was tested in a few locations on the cabaret stage side of the restaurant.
In 1981, the restaurants that didn’t have a piano bar act had another cabaret stage act called the Beagles, who were a group of animatronic dogs that were based off on the Beatles, they were able to be seen performing and perform their songs.
While the ice cream parlor test brought along a set of very rare characters in the restaurants called the little shavers. They were retrofitted from the beagles animatronic and were a barbershop quartet made up of 4 members. their names were actually inspired by Pizza Time Theatre founder Nolan Bushnell. Four Little Shavers were designed and produced by Harold Goldbrandsen and the Fantasy Forest Manufacturing wing of Pizza Time. The background theatrical set, complete with mirrors, shaving mugs and barber pole was designed by animator Randy Nelson
In the far left is O’Nolan with a shaving cup, Curly sitting in a chair with the towel draped over his chest, McNolan holding the broom and dustpan, and Lastly, Nolan on the bottom left. Their showtape consisted of vintage 1950s recordings from one of the most famous barbershop quartets of the era, the Buffalo Bills (quartet). Now all the Littie Shaver characters were able to move the head, bodies and their mouths, but their movement became rather limited.
Their Body Sway movements are accomplished using the exact same assembly used by the Warblettes (Cyberamic), except with only the middle head used. It starts with them tilted left and the cylinder will push them over so they are tilted to the right. Only Curly has mechanical arms which can move, the other three have tubes that connect to props which can move about as they move to give the illusion of there being arms. Curly is supposed to have 3 total arm movements but at the Volo Show, only one of them seems to be operational. The Arm Up movement is nonoperational, possibly from a bad cylinder. The Left Arm Twist movement is entirely absent, with the left arm being made of foam and thin metal strips. This movement was possibly added after Volo’s Curly was produced.
He made appearances at the Carrollwood Villages in Tampa, and Brandon, Florida locations and one in San Antonio, Texas Ice Cream Emporiums.
The Ice Cream Emporium concept would never see wide-scale release, and by the mid-1980s, the Four Little Shavers would be retired from all locations. The show was fully phased out of these stores by the mid 1980’s. All 5 sets were presumed to be destroyed, but one set has been discovered, restored and now performs at the Volo Museum | Volo Auto Museum in Volo, Illinois.
Once the companies were officially merged by 1994 all restaurants including all of the Showbiz Pizza Place had them retrofitted into all of the Chuck E Cheese Cast Members. One Rockafire character was named Choo Choo, a baby bear that lived in a tree stump. During the switch over Choo Choo became Munch Jr who is a mini version of Mr Munch with 1 tooth and an orange propeller cap, he’d be seen bouncing up and down to the music but never Spoke, Since the mid 2000s all of the Munch Jr animatronics were removed, their areas have been boarded and carpeted over and joins everyone else in extinction. At one point they had one more Munch Jr animatronic hanging around, and was the Wilmington North Carolina location. It had to no maintenance to the Munch Jr animatronic and now joins the rest of the animatronics in extinction.
Pizzacam is a rare character to be seen in the restaurants. They were able to be found on the 3-Stages that were originally the Showbiz Pizza Place stage locations that were converted during Concept Unification. Pizza Cam appears beside Pasqually using the Looney Bird animatronic from the Rockafire Explosion band at Showbiz Pizza Place, he’s a blue TV Camera with a lens as a nose and a mouth that moves. He’d be housed in a speaker box that was Pasquale’s drum set, and would pop up sometimes singing for background vocals and would also occasionally introduce segments. During the mid-1990s, Pizzacam was slightly redesigned. He was given a new camera lens nose made using a single plastic piece rather than being made of separate pieces and would (in most cases) lose the teeth in his mouth. His mask was also slightly redesigned.
Now over the years, the locations that had a Pizza Cam animatronic began removing the character and the speaker box from the three stage due to them being in poor condition. Apparently the latex mold for the Pizza cam had been discarded by CEC Entertainment and was no longer available to create new molds. So as of now there is Only 1 Pizza Cam left, and its at, originally at the laurel Maryland location before being transported to the Pineville, North Carolina location. Before with the ones they were around weren’t in the best conditions, and even had 3 black molded pizzacams.
Beginning in the mid to late 2000s, the Pizzacam animatronics began to be removed from the 3-Stage locations due to poor conditions. Locations that removed him also boarded up his trapdoor and carpeted it over. Some locations additionally moved Pasqually to the center of the stage afterwards while others only removed Pizzacam himself, choosing to keep the speaker in his memory.
Laurel, Maryland’s location was the last location to have a Pizzacam with a latex mask (albeit without his teeth). This location received 2.0 in June 2022. Their Pizzacam was sent to the Charlotte (Pineville), NC location two years later to be added to their 3-Stage as part of the 2.0 remodel for Legacy Locations that Pineville was receiving. Pizzacam was installed on June 18th, 2024 in time for the Grand Reopening and was properly operational. The speaker box used at Pineville was originally from Madison, TN. His mask (reused from Laurel) was repainted in January 2025.
Pizza Cam is extinct but still alive in the Legacy Stores.
Depending on the CEC Location you go to, some the restaurants got an updated Studio C in the 90s which only had the Chuck animatronic, so technically the other characters have already been extinct at some locations. In August of 2017 it was announced that CEC that select stores would receive a new test concept, in which it would remove all of the characters in favor of a large dance floor and having the frequent appearance of the live costume characters. CEC Removed their famous tokens and half of their locations due to COVID-19 and for a second time for filing for bankruptcy. By 2024, all of the restaurants with the animatronics were removed in favor of the dance floor.
