Every BANKRUPT episode ever... Step one - Founder has a vision Step two - Founder works hard to build a successful company Step three - Private Equity Firm buys company Step four - Bankruptcy

@dancooper6002

10 ай бұрын

As usual people tend to miss certain key drivers of the decline and fall of businesses like this so lets set the record straight. Although the decline of Chuck E. Cheese (CEC) was certainly in part due to changes in tastes which made the concept feel dated, these were surmountable changes. The bigger issue, and one that is a common thread with many of these chains collapsing, was a decline in the middle class which was their market. Middle class America was what CEC was built to serve and as the middle class has shrunk the ability of CEC to exist as a profitable business has shrunk as well. This is a common theme seen in other retail and food bankruptcies over the last several decades. The decline of the middle class in turn is a result of many bad trade, economic, industrial, environmental, fiscal, and tax policies.

@birdo623

10 ай бұрын

Don't forget the mouse getting busted for possession in the mid 00s🐭💊

@909SportRider

10 ай бұрын

@dancooper6002 Why do you copy and paste the same comment 20 times over and over again? Sure you can blame "bad trade, economic, industrial, environmental, fiscal, and tax policies" as the cause but the fact of the matter is that Chuck E. Cheese (CEC) failed to adapt and evolve to the changing trends in society. Any company that fails to adapt, will die. Just some some companies still struggle to have a solid mobile friendly online presence in 2023, more and more of those companies get left behind soon to meet their final days. Any truly successful business cant just stop innovating and adapting to changing trends once they think they hit the top, or just like we see with Chuck E. Cheese (CEC) they too can quickly fall flat on their face.

@VultureSkins

10 ай бұрын

Somewhere in there is usually also 2008 and/or rich people having no idea what’s relevant lol

@fireshorts5789

10 ай бұрын

you forgot the part where rapid expansion before economic downturn

I really hope we're nearing the end of the "minimalistic", flat corporate design of the 2010s. It's time for fun to come back again.

@lovelydolltime8006

9 ай бұрын

Same. Minimalism is the stupidest, ugliest, and most boring "design" I've ever seen.

@spungbopscarepans

8 ай бұрын

@@lovelydolltime8006i know! give me my fruitger aero back, corporations!

@kyckrox1

8 ай бұрын

@@donk8105yeah fr I used to shit in the play place and run it in but it just made it more wacky but then Elmo pulled up on my cousin and shot him with lazar guns and he’s dead

@sammyjaohnson5631

7 ай бұрын

the chuckecheese that i used to go to still got the old design and even the old yellow sweater chucke logo

@rockycomet4587

7 ай бұрын

​@@donk8105That's the first step to gaining immortality.

Kids growing up today will never know how it felt to be a superstar when you had your birthday party there back in the day. You were literally a King or Queen.

@Lizzy-vv1pr

9 ай бұрын

I heard they used to sell cake and have a party room in McDonald's

@Minny_Paul

9 ай бұрын

Interesting.

@dominikz.1376

3 ай бұрын

(Edited), a hahahahahahaha

@wonkygirl9056

2 ай бұрын

My son had a birthday party there, it was a blast !! 🎉🥳😃

@DasNordlicht91

2 ай бұрын

If you had a birthday at Chuck E. Cheese, your local bowling alley, or Laser Quest, you’d be the coolest kid ever in school.

It went from a fun old school Disney experience to Orwellian Cafeteria with flat screens.

@qossupreme8312

6 ай бұрын

@@donk8105RAT CASINO ahhhahahahahahah

@Melanie-de5iq

Ай бұрын

I KNOW

@Rdctd6969

22 күн бұрын

Everyone is terrified of a nightmarish, dystopian hellscape, in the distant future, not realizing that they're already living in it.

As someone who has studied business and has a sister in childcare, if you cut corners in a kid-oriented business they WILL notice. everytime one of these companies tries to go "fancy" and "modern" and loses the magic, kids don't want to go anymore. That kind of thing has RUINED many a restaurant in my town.

@LeoMidori

10 ай бұрын

Honestly this is true with adult venues as well. Malls generally got ugly and boring, current restaurant interiors and exteriors, and plenty of other public places suffer from having lifeless, uninviting atmospheres. Call the late 20's century tacky or loud in their aesthetics if you want, they were FUN or at least homey!

@realmackle

10 ай бұрын

@@0annonymous man what kinda meth are u on

@kelandryyemrot1387

10 ай бұрын

I feel like you shouldn't even need to study business to figure that one out. Idk... pretty sure there's something about knowing your target audience too, but it's clear the people in charge haven't spent much time with kids. All you need is a few hours to figure out what they want... and it's not modern. The parents probably want peace and quiet... so uh... stick to pleasing the kids. (As an adult, I don't want bland modern either...)

@KingOfGaymes

10 ай бұрын

Exactly I mean look at McDonald’s now, it’s just a gray building and it’s sad

@beautyholic5592

10 ай бұрын

@@KingOfGaymes And it's still one of the most popular franchises in the world? Not sure if conclusions are being drawn based on nostalgia and emotions versus actual facts.

If I was in charge of Chuck E. Cheese, I'd rebrand one or two restaraunts and theme them back to their original 1981 design, complete with retro arcade machines of the time. A lot of their fanbase are now adults, so it would be a hit for both nostalgia and parents showing kids how the restaurant was like when they were their age. But what would I know?

@Tactical_Hotdog

10 ай бұрын

Hello, you!

@mariecarie1

10 ай бұрын

I mean, it might be a hit for the adults, but it’s hard to say if the kids would like it. They might not relate with the dated arcade games or the animatronics (especially if they were like the 80’s). Although they’d might love all the climbing-sliding stuff, if they weren’t too scarred by COVID and fear of gErMs.

@lunayoshi

10 ай бұрын

I 100% agree with the retro arcade games part. Those were always why I went to a Showbiz/Chuck E. Cheese. You have a birthday part there with a couple of friends and you all get together to play The Simpsons or TMNT and you got yourself an awesome time. BTW, I love how with KZread's username revamp, your name is just @Larry. There are no other Larrys, just you, lol.

@alice45-fgd-456drt

10 ай бұрын

@@mariecarie1 Mmm I agree with this. A lot of parents today think that just because they had a great time with these things in the 90s, it means that it's universally fun for kids. Today you can buy fancier things than anything these arcades can offer in your local toy store. Personally I would love a retro arcade, but for the kids it would be very much a one time thing, like watching a black and white movie, or visit a museum.

@everythingsalright1121

10 ай бұрын

Given how FNAF is so big these days theming it like the 80s would either work well or very poorly lol

One thing that wasn't mentioned here is the amazing coupons that Chuck E. Cheese offered in the mid/late 90's, as well as the extra awards to kids for good report cards. As a single mom, those coupons for buying a large pizza and getting 40 or so extra tokens for my kids was invaluable!! If not for that, we couldn't have afforded to go there. But thanks to that, we spent many happy days at Chuck E. Cheese. 😀

@agr0nianTV

2 ай бұрын

That's awesome! I wonder if any places still give rewards for good report cards like that. It's such a good reward and promotes kids taking school seriously which is really damn cool!

I remember as a kid losing interest in chuckecheese when they took away the tickets. Collecting the tickets and buying stuff with the physical ticket itself was so much fun as a kid. Digital ticketing took that magic away.

@dingowingo7977

4 ай бұрын

I remember that same feeling at the roller rink, having to fill out paper work to get a stupid card really took the magic away. Having those tickets spit out the machine and carrying them around showing your friends the long chain of tickets was the best part (whoa you got that many tickets from that game! I need to try it too!), not to mention grouping the tickets together to get the big prize. That one change effected the reward and dopamine hits you would get from the tickets.

@eva.1749

8 күн бұрын

@@dingowingo7977yeah and the machine that used to eat the tickets so you could get stuff! i remember loving that munching sound as a kid

As an adult there is no way I would have ever been able to deal with being in a place like Chuck E Cheeses without alcohol.

@louiearmstrong

10 ай бұрын

Many CECs sold beer I think

@Micheal1075

10 ай бұрын

@@louiearmstrongMost of them sell craft brews now

@demonlver13

10 ай бұрын

Mine sells beer to this day. Take my kids to same one I used to go to as a kid

@azn1011

10 ай бұрын

teachers or people who work at day care centers don't need to drink alcohol 🤷‍♂

@VultureSkins

10 ай бұрын

@@azn1011literally nobody said that so idk what your point is lol

Losing the singing puppets is not what killed Chuck E's It was all about the games and tickets. In the 80s the place was absolutely crammed with great machines for 1 or 2 tokens. When it started costing 4 -8 tokens to play anything, and home gaming got better, there was no reason to go outside of friend's birthdays

@DxBlack

10 ай бұрын

...that wouldn't explain why the company was dying in the mid 2010's, since home-gaming was a powerhouse in the mid 1990's.

@xBINARYGODx

10 ай бұрын

@@DxBlack reread the post - it cost more to game, and home gaming got better.

@cozza819

10 ай бұрын

I'm not American I thought this was the obvious reason. in the past 15 years not many kids are going to be that interested in basic arcade games when they have hyper competitive endless mobile games and console games.

@jeffreymodesitt3345

10 ай бұрын

I feel like CEC could’ve easily capitalized on the absolute booming popularity of FNAF in the mid to late 2010s if they just kept their animatronics around, therefore getting revenue from people who want to see what inspired the series, sure it isn’t what killed the brand but it certainly didn’t help their case

@donttouchmysilver8202

10 ай бұрын

No it was the puppets 😂

As a person who LOVED Chuck E Cheese as a child, this is a heartbreaking story. But since becoming a parent since their last bankruptcy, I appreciate my local CEC because my daughter is absolutely OBSESSED! Luckily we didn’t get the complete modernized concept. We have the play pass now but the building itself is still old school, which brings a small feeling of nostalgia while making new memories with the next generation

@Randomsass

Ай бұрын

I can't belive Chuck e cheeze's Essentially Copied FNAF

@QwertyCruz

19 күн бұрын

@@RandomsassFNAF came after Chuck E. Cheese, so it’s actually the other way around.

It looks silly now, but if you were a kid in the 80s or 90s, Chuck E Cheese was super fun. The animatronics were really cool, having an arcade in a pizza shop was amazing, and the pizza(to a kid) was good.

Chuck E. Cheese is what fueled my love of clinking, shiny coinage. Hearing the company replacing them with flimsy, dull cards was heartbreaking.

@jacobsaggytits4551

10 ай бұрын

Not only that but as well as the paper tickets. My location got rid of the munchers and just recently this customer screwed me over because some kid brought in 1000+ tickets and made me count them all by hand. But worst of all they were the impatient type

@thecov3n

10 ай бұрын

Recently went and you can imagine my disappointment lmao when I received a card instead of being able to get coins 💀… I was so confused. I will miss getting those small cups and filling them up with coins or searching the floor for tokens 😫

@mikeohawk95

10 ай бұрын

I just can’t believe it

@jacobsaggytits4551

10 ай бұрын

@@thecov3n the coins are still used but just for certain games. the cups however are gone for good

@louisinese

9 ай бұрын

@@thecov3n After every arcade starting using them it was inevitable.

It's amazing how many companies seem to not realize why they are successful

@mariecarie1

10 ай бұрын

After changing owners so many times, it’s easy to lose the original concept and focus of what made a business great to begin with. The heart of the business gets lost in the transfer.

@jack-l1gma

10 ай бұрын

@@mariecarie1 Well put

@Emppu_T.

10 ай бұрын

It happens when an outsider buys and manages the business.

@grayrabbit2211

10 ай бұрын

See also Google & KZread.

@karenwang313

9 ай бұрын

It's what happens when the people who make a business what it is leave and some rando takes over.

The dark-and-dingy look was a feature, not a bug. If it it's not dark, dingy and windowless, it's not Chuck E. Cheese. I was a kid going to CEC in the 80s and that's how I fondly remember it. All of the shots in this video of brightly-lit stores are unrecognizable and charmless.

@princessmarlena1359

6 ай бұрын

🏆

Chuck E. Cheese holds a lot of nostalgia for me and i guess it has come to what Jake said “the place where the kids that could be kids have finally grownup”.

@princessmarlena1359

6 ай бұрын

I used to love going there with my siblings. We were there with the ball pits, sky tubes, and animatronics.

The facts that the tubes no longer exist is depressing. Growing up as a kid rushing through the tunnels and ball pits was a high I will never reach again

@spartan7375

10 ай бұрын

the taking of the tubes is a crime that shall never be forgotten nor forgiven

@cat-le1hf

10 ай бұрын

THEY TOOK THE TUBES? Whoever decided that should face the wall.

@VultureSkins

10 ай бұрын

Smacking my hands against the clear plastic until my mom/grandma take notice 😔

@ABlueyFan

10 ай бұрын

My mom complaining I’m too old for the tubes

@MrRoomba-Youtube-Sucks

10 ай бұрын

As a guy who used to work at a chuck e cheese I can confirm that the main reason was the tubes are too difficult to maintain. Cleaning those things of kid vomit and various other semi-fluids is a nightmare that no one wanted to deal with.

One of the biggest mistakes I think was getting rid of the animatronics, people nowadays make jokes about them but during their golden years in the 80s and 90s when they were well kept and the company put effort into the shows and birthday parties, it was a huge draw for families because it was so unique and iconic, no other kids place had something appear so extravagant. Also, for the birthday shows, you could tell the employees cared and loved what they were doing. In all the VHS and home video recordings you see, all the workers had a smile on their face, were genuine, and had fun singing the songs and dancing which then rubbed off on the families, friends, and atmosphere of the location and it showed. In the 80s, 90s, and even in the early 2000s before its decline there were dozens of birthdays held there daily and every location was bustling.

@Jake76667

10 ай бұрын

i disagree with you: i always found the chuck e cheese animatronics to be creepy & ever since they announced they were getting rid of the animatronics in all of there locations, i was pretty glad by that

@sakunaruful

10 ай бұрын

There are still a few locations open in San Bruno, Brentwood, and further away in East Bay Area.

@AnEverydayGamer

10 ай бұрын

We always had mine and my sisters birthdays there. Even have some home movies from the early 2000s with the animatronics somewhere. Simpler times.

@dancooper6002

10 ай бұрын

As usual people tend to miss certain key drivers of the decline and fall of businesses like this so lets set the record straight. Although the decline of Chuck E. Cheese (CEC) was certainly in part due to changes in tastes which made the concept feel dated, these were surmountable changes. The bigger issue, and one that is a common thread with many of these chains collapsing, was a decline in the middle class which was their market. Middle class America was what CEC was built to serve and as the middle class has shrunk the ability of CEC to exist as a profitable business has shrunk as well. This is a common theme seen in other retail and food bankruptcies over the last several decades. The decline of the middle class in turn is a result of many bad trade, economic, industrial, environmental, fiscal, and tax policies.

@VultureSkins

10 ай бұрын

@@dancooper6002exactly, glad someone said it

CEC was my childhood. My grandma took me there when I was 4, and ever since, we'd go every Friday night. I loved the place so much! I'd play the games, eat the pizza, and watch the animatronics. It was a nice routine we established! Me being Autistic made me super invested in the animatronics and even considered them to be alive and my best friends. They comforted me, basically. Growing up, I never had a lot of friends since I always struggled to make any. So, I befriended inanimate objects like cars, boats, my toys, and the CEC animatronics. Jasper was and still is my favorite character. He inspired me to learn how to play the guitar! When I got my first phone, I recorded the characters so I could rewatch their songs on the go. I started this in 2015 but had to stop in 2022 because the last location with a stage in my state removed their animatronics. That was a horrible shot to the heart, especially since I was still dealing with the loss of childhood location that I went to every Friday night. It closed in 2020 cause they couldn't afford to pay the landlord. It was like losing my family.. I've known that location almost my whole life.. My faith in CEC honesty started to fade even before all of that, largely due to the fandom being so toxic (they bullied me and wouldn't shut up about the animatronic parts they somehow got) and the content that CEC creates getting horrible as time goes on. They stopped covering songs, changed the demographic to kids and everyone anymore, and they stripped the characters of their personalities and much much more. They made a lot of bad decisions with the entertainment, the characters themselves, and how they run stuff. I'm very ashamed of what CEC has become, and I honestly am very sad that I will never be able to look at them the same ever again.

@nicks4802

9 ай бұрын

Its horrible to hear the fanbase made you feel that way. I feel for you, people can be really rude when they like something too. They get defensive and become easily offended. Keep your chin up

@averagecat4220

9 ай бұрын

@@nicks4802it takes one person to enjoy something, it takes more than one to ruin it.

@nicks4802

9 ай бұрын

@@averagecat4220 not always, but certainly most of the time. A few bad apples spoil the bunch as they say. Those people put a bad mark on the fanbase is all they’ve done. Hope they feel real big about it.

@ralsei_ze_fluffy_boy

6 ай бұрын

Northridge, CA is keeping their ‘tronics.

@cecwaterbury

6 ай бұрын

@@ralsei_ze_fluffy_boy Yes, but it's out of my way. I can't leave New England.

As a kid I really liked the dimly lit aesthetic at showbiz, felt like a nightclub for kids

@sethisevilone02

5 ай бұрын

Yeah that helped make it feel special

Given the maintenance costs I’m not surprised that they decided to do away with the animatronics, but getting rid of the free attractions and the tokens was stupid. Kids love small shiny things, not boring plastic cards. And when people feel they are getting something for free they will, ironically, probably spend more money because the ROI is higher than if they walked in knowing they would have to pay for every attraction

@VROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM

10 ай бұрын

Exactly, these greedy companies try to rip off everyone for every little thing. But when you feel like you're getting more value and it's fair you're more likely to go there and also keep spending and having fun because it's worth it.

@Brandon-qd2lb

10 ай бұрын

It's just way easier to maintain and cheaper with the cards I'm sure

@AR7271

10 ай бұрын

@@Brandon-qd2lb cheaper but not unique.

@scubajoe3321

10 ай бұрын

Nobody watched them anyway the animitronics were boring to children

@DavidWsTrainVideos

10 ай бұрын

Exactly. I took my two-year-old now three to Chuck E. Cheese’s and his favorite game. What is the games that you swipe your card and you got a token. But unfortunately, every arcade it seems is going to the plastic play cards. I think there’s only one arcade here in the metro Vancouver area in Canada. That is still tickets and tokens and that’s a place called jungle jacks in Maple Ridge. It’s sad.

the thing i really hate the most with modern brands is the lack of colors. ive noticed a trend within all brands and companies, not just cec, that take their brand associated colors and mute them or replace them with boring beiges and creams. like this is especially egregious for childrens entertainment companies, idk who decided that the late 2010's- early 2020's was going to be defined by fuckin. taupe and steel gray. but i just wanna have a lil conversation with them

@manictiger

10 ай бұрын

Yeah, that's puzzling to me, too. It makes sense that the residential "meta" right now is Coventry gray with white trim, but I don't know why they would do that with logos and brands.

@robinbegley1077

10 ай бұрын

"ultra modern minimalism" seems to be the ideal of modern society. Where everything is a beige, empty box. Boring, nonthreatening to anyone. Devoid of any reason for anyone to think your business isnt an available storefront.

@crimsondynamo615

9 ай бұрын

You’d almost think the heads of these companies were some kind of lizard species and their eyes demand the changes to the logos and iconography of the brand so as to not harm their delicate lenses. Harsh curves and dull colors and simplistic shapes.

@OnionChoppingNinja

9 ай бұрын

Bland sterile and emotionless, what they call "Futuristic". I f**king hate it! I applaud any company that dares to give this trend the middle finger and take the opposite route with bright colorful and lavish designs.

@kyckrox1

8 ай бұрын

It’s cuz the Sesame Street gang still all the fucking colors it all makes sense bro holy shit it makes sense

The memories. Games, dim lighting, pizza, slides, ball pit, mouse hole tunnels under the stage, the smell of feet and cheese, etc.. Pizza time theater was the best version.

I'm an MBA student and even though I tell myself I hate my schoolwork, I always find myself watching these case studies in my downtime as I play video games lol

It's always sad that every "rebranding" to "fit with the times" always boils down to "adults not thinking how kids will enjoy things". And even as someone who never went to Chuck E. Cheese as a kid (poor family, yaaaaay), this still made me sad.

@HawkbitAlpha

10 ай бұрын

I let out an audible groan as soon as Jake started showing the shots of the "2.0" designs. It looks like a really dull children's hospital, not an amusement center.

@seanspartan2023

10 ай бұрын

You weren't missing much imo. As a kid, I'd rather go to an arcade for an hour and then get pizza that costs a lot less but tasted better...

@Emppu_T.

10 ай бұрын

The adults are the new children

@PsRohrbaugh

10 ай бұрын

​@@Emppu_T.So? I had a poor childhood and never got to go to one. I'd be down to have a few beers, some pizza, and play arcade games with friends.

@Emppu_T.

10 ай бұрын

@@PsRohrbaugh what i mean is i see less restaurants for families. This is not an attack on single people

I was so excited to bring my nephew last year. He finally was old enough to understand arcade games and I hyped it up sooo much. We walk in the doors, there’s no fun climbing structures anymore, probably 1/5 of the games, and it’s not a fun colorful place anymore. The 5 year old came up to me the other day and said “I just wanna tell you bowlero is cooler than Chuck E. Cheese”. I was like I know kid I know

@Rckstrroma5

10 ай бұрын

Dave’s even cooler

@Balrog-tf3bg

10 ай бұрын

It’s Actually sad

@jmathiason

10 ай бұрын

I had the exact same experience with my daughter. I was so excited to take her and the locations here are all sad now. The climbing structure & ball pits were so much fun and now they’re gone. The games are pretty lame and many of them were broken when we went. It’s dirty. It feels kind of gross. My daughter had an ok time but has never asked to go back. She prefers other places.

@davemccage7918

10 ай бұрын

I actually like the new rat design. The 90s Charles Entertainment Cheese was so ambiguous; I couldn’t tell what he was supposed to be.

@luigifan4585

9 ай бұрын

should have taken them to a Round1 it doesn't feel nearly as minimalistic or dreary as current CEC

You can tell your age based on what Chuck E. Cheese you prefer. Personally, I hated the "cool Chuck" era of the 90s. And I loved the dark, seedy, pizza bar of the 80s. Going to that old version felt like an adventure.

@princessmarlena1359

6 ай бұрын

I love the ‘80s version as well. The ‘90s version and later was awful.

As an 80's kid: it was like having your own "weird Enchanted Tiki Room" - you are correct.

As someone who's into architectural design, especially vintage or historic styles, it annoys me how companies decide to make something all bland and boring because "modernnnnn", which is a problem thats prominent with not only Chuck E. Cheeses, but especially Mc.Donalds and many other prominent food chains. Like, the wood style of the 70s is oddly comforting and I'd even go as far as to say it's beautiful, like some elaborate cabin or lodge, and even the 80s, 90s and 2000s design were charming and had their own distinct character that the modern facilities now lack. Obviously some designs from those eras can become dated, but at least give the "modern" redesign some bright colors other than white, brown and muted green-

@BrightSunFilms

10 ай бұрын

Couldn’t agree more

@TheTrueAdept

10 ай бұрын

No, a major problem is that wood is more costly to use and maintain... only very recently did wood get less costly...

@juliadagnall5816

10 ай бұрын

It wouldn’t be so bad if absolutely everyone wasn’t doing the exact same thing. I mean, I like muted color palettes and clean lines… but I don’t know who the fast food chains are trying to fool. A gray building and new wallpaper is not going to substantially elevate the dining experience.

@fanboyofabandonedthings481

10 ай бұрын

@@TheTrueAdept Fair point, I just wish they did something that would make their brand stand out more, rather than generic family restaurant no.1,009,890. I just don't see how a gray building with occasional posters dotted around is gonna make a kid feel like a kid rather than an office attorney.

@fanboyofabandonedthings481

10 ай бұрын

@@juliadagnall5816 Exactly! Most restaurant buildings and locations just blend together in this modern, boring office aesthetic with no distinct personality or eye catching elements. Like, Mc.Donalds in the 1950s and 1960s, their drive through restaurants were bright and vibrant, with large golden arches that served as a beacon and made it stand out from the neighborhood! And now, they pretty much just look like any other fast food place, no unique or fun character relating to the companies mascots or once elaborate branding, and the only reason you knew it was a Mc.Donalds was the signage and the very small amount of yellow. It may be cheaper and easier to do, but why would I wanna go to Chuck E. Cheese when I can go any other similar restaurant that has arguably better pizza and customer service?

Something that I've always found interesting is that from the '90s right up until they were discontinued, Chuck E. Cheese's animatronic characters had their performances programmed via a single 1.4 MB floppy disk that was swapped out on a semi-monthly basis. And I've heard that a small community of people have been tracking down these floppies and are trying to reverse engineer the code to work with Arduino-based robots, so Charles Entertainment Cheese and pals may have an unexpected revival in the future.

@c.rutherford

10 ай бұрын

I find that just fascinating that you can run those animatronics off a floppy disk! I bet a lot of those old characters ended up in people's man caves to be sure. Anyway its ironic I bet if they opened a new theme restaurant in our town with animatronic animals the city would descend on it like locusts. They crave anything new and curious. And if the food was good the lines would be from here to Tuesday

@Hectorlph

10 ай бұрын

This sounds like the start of an animatronic horror film lol

@scanida5070

10 ай бұрын

@@Hectorlph That‘s literally the motherfuckin‘ plot of Five Nights at Freddy‘s: Help Wanted

@ryukagesama

10 ай бұрын

​@@HectorlphRise of the Robot Rodents

@tacticallemon7518

9 ай бұрын

@@c.rutherfordThe moon landing only used like 4mb of memory Which, back then took up a whole moving van

As a kid going to Chuck E Cheese honestly it was a place to play arcade games . Wasn’t too expensive so I can see why parents would choose to let kids run off some energy. Late 90s early 00s were the best .

Chuck E: I've got this perfect idea to bring people back! No more animatronics, no more tokens, no more tickets, no more old artwork, no more stage shows, no more colors, no more retro

Nolan bushnell is a f’n pioneer and genius. He literally established the USA gaming industry. F’n legend.

@DevilSurvivor69

10 ай бұрын

He wasn't the only person behind Atari and they didn't even create the first home game console lol.

@WarzoneVincent

10 ай бұрын

All hair Ralph Baer.

@cozyeden

10 ай бұрын

it’s ok to just say fuckin

@BDBD16

10 ай бұрын

@@cozyeden Fuckin' a cozy, fuckin a.

@TheWizardOfOunce

10 ай бұрын

You can't forget William Higinbotham with "Tennis for Two" and Steve Russel/Martin Graetz/Wayne Wiitanen witn "Spacewar!" The true pioneers

I've always thought it was crazy that they abandoned the animatronics. It was such a cool and interesting concept, and obviously one that worked for some time. Especially these days with the popularity of Five Nights at Freddy's it seems like they'd latch onto that market as much as possible.

@idealsurrealism9587

10 ай бұрын

Yeah they went the complete opposite route for some reason

@fanboyofabandonedthings481

10 ай бұрын

I think its even more crazy because they literally have (or had, depending on whether or not they've completely retired them) a rule where the animatronics would need to be DESTROYED when they're no longer needed, and alot of the animatronics that did survive only did so by chance. I feel it would've been better to actually go out of their way to put them up for auction since there are people who will pay dividends for them, or preserve them in some capacity since, like in a little museum dedicated to the company's past! Though there is a place like that already, and it's Smitty's Super Service Station, which is an epic 80's goldmine that's dedicated not only to Chuck E. Cheese's history, but also Showbiz's!

@olliegoria

10 ай бұрын

Likely because the suits didnt want their brand associated with a horror series revolving around child murder

@dancooper6002

10 ай бұрын

As usual people tend to miss certain key drivers of the decline and fall of businesses like this so lets set the record straight. Although the decline of Chuck E. Cheese (CEC) was certainly in part due to changes in tastes which made the concept feel dated, these were surmountable changes. The bigger issue, and one that is a common thread with many of these chains collapsing, was a decline in the middle class which was their market. Middle class America was what CEC was built to serve and as the middle class has shrunk the ability of CEC to exist as a profitable business has shrunk as well. This is a common theme seen in other retail and food bankruptcies over the last several decades. The decline of the middle class in turn is a result of many bad trade, economic, industrial, environmental, fiscal, and tax policies.

@909SportRider

10 ай бұрын

@dancooper6002 Why do you copy and paste the same comment 20 times over and over again? Sure you can blame "bad trade, economic, industrial, environmental, fiscal, and tax policies" as the cause but the fact of the matter is that Chuck E. Cheese (CEC) failed to adapt and evolve to the changing trends in society. Any company that fails to adapt, will die. Just some some companies still struggle to have a solid mobile friendly online presence in 2023, more and more of those companies get left behind soon to meet their final days. Any truly successful business cant just stop innovating and adapting to changing trends once they think they hit the top, or just like we see with Chuck E. Cheese (CEC) they too can quickly fall flat on their face.

I’d love to see a video on David’s Bridal. Weird company, so many bankruptcies. I worked there for a year while they were going through it and the policy changes pay changes and other changes were bizarre.

@Pugetwitch

7 ай бұрын

We need this

@MrWolfSnack

4 ай бұрын

There's one of those here - or was - and I always thought it was a local company. Never knew it was a chain.

They had the worst pizza. I never had my birthday party there but I remember going there for other kids birthdays. The ball pools and the games were the best part. The animatronics always freaked me out, especially when they would still blink and move while they were not playing music. An abandoned Chuck E Cheese with animatronics would be freaky as heck.

Literally the only reason I knew this chain existed as a kid was because it was a surprisingly common sponsor for PBS during the early 2000s.

@boydixonentertainment

10 ай бұрын

Hurts even more when you keep seeing those ads even though there was never a Chuck E Cheese location in your city.

@electricvehiclehead

10 ай бұрын

It’s true

@BigAl_00

10 ай бұрын

Same here bud I miss those ads. I went to one once and I went to my local one at a shopping mall for a job a year and a half ago. I didn’t get the job. It’s sad this company fell from grace, I do prefer Dave and Busters tho.

@DrawciaGleam02

10 ай бұрын

Yep, and saturday morning cartoon blocks.

@WhoDidWhat17

10 ай бұрын

and i'm pretty sure they don't sponsor PBS Kids anymore yet several stores still have a poster with the PBS Kids logo on it, it's really interesting.

These new stores somehow look more liminal and depressing than if they'd left them alone.

@dazasc3994

10 ай бұрын

truly soulless

@thecarrieshot6411

10 ай бұрын

Always loved the old design a lot because it was a lot more inviting. Now it looks generic and lifeless

@TheCriminalViolin

10 ай бұрын

Yup. They look very institutional. Like a school, prison or asylum.

@GetDougDimmadomed

10 ай бұрын

Went to DeWitt, Iowa to take my cat to the vet. They still have a classic styled Pissa Hut with the red roof, and everything is themed original. It was surreal to see, and was a breath of fresh air. O wasn't around back then, but I'm more inclined to spend money at colorful, tasteful restaurants like the old Happy Joe's in my town and that classic Pizza Hut. I hate the rebranding to depressing, flat colors like grey McDonalds.

@TheCriminalViolin

10 ай бұрын

@@GetDougDimmadomed I agree wholly. I really miss the dine-in Pizza Huts myself. Relics of a past long since to the wayside sadly. The dim lighting inside was so signature to dine-in Pizza joints and something I absolutely loved about them. Made it way more comfortable and enjoyable of a experience.

As a 90s kid, I remember the heyday of this franchise well! Your bankrupt and abandoned stories are so well done!

At every friend’s birthday party, my anxiety levels directly correlated to how close the party table was to any horrifying animatronics. Those dead eyes…those clunky, terrifying movements…

@nicks4802

9 ай бұрын

I was that kid. I was freaked right out, but wasn’t a cryer. It made my spider senses tingle like a MF’er though, until i left the table and went back to playing arcade games. I NEVER got too close to those robots…. Those potentially killer robots…

@thatredsunburst

9 ай бұрын

​@@nicks4802was that a FNAF reference

Man, Chuck E. Cheese back in the early 90s was epic! From the invisible hand stamps to the big cup of tokens and dragging a bunch of tickets, that place was pure nostalgia good times.

@StevieWeebieLee

10 ай бұрын

I agree.

@scubajoe3321

10 ай бұрын

The pissed filled play area

@fred5149

10 ай бұрын

I miss those days ..the ball pit was the shit lol

@JoelJames2

10 ай бұрын

@@fred5149filled with shit too

@tendingourgarden

10 ай бұрын

Seriously! I felt like I was entering the coolest club with those invisible hand stamps that they would scan under the black light.

I remember going to Chuck E. Cheese as a kid. If you told me back then that the company would end on its knees going through bankruptcy within less than a decade, I would’ve called you crazy. Yet…here we are.

@Rokaize

10 ай бұрын

You understood what bankruptcy and financial insolvency was a a kid?

@patrick383ironworker

10 ай бұрын

If only had you known the history of just about every experience chain restaurant, you wouldn't be surprised at all . Save rainforest cafe!😅

@Chris-Clips-Games

10 ай бұрын

@@Rokaizeyou underestimate Austin’s power.

@lucathesadman

10 ай бұрын

How are you surprised? It wasn’t doing that well in 2013 either 😭

@valkein_the_shaman_

10 ай бұрын

@@patrick383ironworkeryes sir.

Former employee here, (2013-2016) and let me tell you... Visted chuck e cheese in the late 90s and early 2000s for many birthdays, and still have tons of VHS tapes of it. Used to go to the Bell, California location a lot. Full band still till this day but it sure doesnt look the same. Now when i started back in 2013 at the Walnut Park location it was fun to work for them, but little did i know that it was the final years of "making magic". I used to actually get into the mood when being the Mascot, danced around and all that. But once CEC Dick Frank sold to Apollo Entertainment and appointed Tom Leverton as CEO it got terrible. It became more about profits than the customers opinions. Hours were cut so bad every year for trying to "beat last years numbers". Which meant to drive up more sales with less employees. Instead of 3 gameroom attendants on the weekend, its now 2. Instrad of 2 cashier's its now 1 and another doing salad bar and Prize counter/merch. Somtimes they had the same chasier doing all 3 of them. Cashier, merch and salad bar. It was terrble. Customer complains went up about broken down games, long lines at the prize counter dirty tables, dirty resrrooms and more. Then dictrict managers would come down on us about it, well we siad "we need more hours and employees". They would then be like nah. We were overworked and underpaid. I climbed the ranks in that place but CEC was leaving a bad taste in my mouth. They lost lots of good managers and GMs when they wanted GMs to work 10 hour shifts, especially those that were already making over $100,000 a year. I worked in a area were customers were always aggressive and mad for some reason, and when they complained about something they had a fighting stance like gangster kind of thing which was stupid. But anyways some employees were threatened and when told to leave Managers would come in and defend them, instead of the cast member. Everything for the company like if it was the first and only job they had. I was becoming like that too but good thing I left.

@perfectdark287

10 ай бұрын

I worked there from 2014-2017. Everything you said is 100% accurate

@Pugetwitch

7 ай бұрын

Sheesh, they fell off in the early nineties AFAIC.

@flat4wankel

11 күн бұрын

The location on bell, was were i grew up going 😢not sure now if it still there? So sad what happened to CEC

My lil son - from 2000-2005 or so, wanted, demanded to have his birthday at Chuck E. Cheese, Murrieta. Also, neighbors', friends', families' kids wanted B-day parties at CEC. It was great - could host everyone, kids w / tokens, B-day attn., and NO MESS or cooking. So worth it. I still have the photos...lovely memories, great pizza, too.

@lyndastarwriter8507

9 ай бұрын

Just suit up and show up! Never did pay much attn. to the animatronics...the kids were too busy running around from interactive site, to arcade games, back to the table for a bite of pizza, then off again...and so it went for a good three hours...

This is going to sound odd, but as a 10 year old in 1980, there was something great about the dark, slightly seedy, slightly sinister feel of the original concept. It gave a feeling of mystery, especially with the creepy animatronics. It was glorious. The 2.0 remake had none of this.

@VROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM

10 ай бұрын

I agree. I mean back then we were all outside in the bright sun all day. Going to a cozy dark theater was a nice change. And it's less stressful, you kind of blend into the shadows and don't stand out. Your parents aren't watching you every second or have you on a leash like these days. You just ran around this giant theater with your friends and brothers.

@hackman669

10 ай бұрын

89s was boss! As a 90s kid I envy you!!! 202os post suck!!

@thelastdadonearth

10 ай бұрын

It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia just recently put out an episode mocking a Chuck E. Cheese type amusement center and how it's become too safe and clean and not as fun.

@JH-pe3ro

10 ай бұрын

As someone who was born a bit too late for the original CEC/Showbiz, I still noticed a marked difference in how much visual concepts of the late-70's-early-80's revolved around that kind of dark, seedy look. It was the same kind of look in films like E.T., in restaurants(Round Table Pizza kept it going for decades), and in commercial art like the backboxes of pinball machines or magazine advertisements. Contrast with the stuff from 1985 onwards, which is more "Miami Vice", or maybe "Peewee Herman". I'm pretty sure the explanation has to do with demographics: the late 70's are when Baby Boomers were really getting into their careers and starting to form families, and since they were the biggest cohort the dominant aesthetics were following them around, so once they started having the kids the look changed from mysterious and erotic towards brighter-and-cleaner.

@BoobarellaNippleton

10 ай бұрын

YAAAAASSSSS!!! The 80’s dank! Such a specific atmosphere for our generation! Like entering this cacophonous dungeon of wild, flashy fun with seemingly endless potential…the fun was only limited by your ability to earn them tickets!!!!

Thank you for this! While in college I worked for Showbiz Pizza, so I can confirm two things: First, there's nothing like having to make pizza in a (short sleeve) white dress shirt and bow tie to motivate you to actually STAY in college. Second, your description of an emphasis on quality was a real thing. We made all our own pizza dough from scratch every single day, then let the buns rest 24h to proof properly. We prepped all our own veggie toppings too from cases as well - I still vividly remember going through and cutting up cases after case after case of green peppers, and I still don't like them to this day. Everything was made to-order, from these and other high quality ingredients, and it was actually pretty darn good pizza. This is also where I learned that it takes about 7 1/2 minutes to make, bake, and hand over a pizza for delivery assuming you have a conveyor / blower style oven. Those things were great and very fast!

@TechGorilla1987

10 ай бұрын

Nothing like a Lincoln Impinger pizza oven. Still the industry standard.

@johnwilliams3075

10 ай бұрын

@@TechGorilla1987 We used to make cheesy/garlic breadsticks for us in the kitchen with the leftover pizza dough. If we had gotten those on the menu we could have made a ton of $s!

@TechGorilla1987

10 ай бұрын

@@johnwilliams3075 That's the times when pizza companies, as you said, made fresh dough and let it cold proof for 24 hours. There is STILL nothing like dough treated that way. I used to frequent a pizza hut with my ex-wife. We never had to order or wait in line, we just sat, and Lynn would bring us our food in good time. I always got a pepperoni pan pushed back in to the oven the length of the peel for that extra crispy texture. They would also open a can of anchovies and run them through the Lincoln on an empty pan to crisp them up. Then they put them on the pizza for me. It was sublime. I spent a couple of years servicing commercial cooking equipment so I developed a fondness in case it isn't obvious.

@spyder000069

10 ай бұрын

As an a 80's kid I remember the great pizza of ShowBiz more than I remember the rest of the place. :^)

@lunayoshi

10 ай бұрын

Thank you for your insight! As a kid in the late '80s and early '90s, your point of view was really interesting to me. Among my elementary school, Showbiz/Chuck E. Cheese was sort of known for having the best arcades and tube slides while having some pretty sucky pizza, but we didn't care. The animatronics were pretty cool.

Me and my brothers had many birthdays at Chuck E Cheeses, memories that I hold dear. It’s crappy to see what it has become but nothing can last forever.

@princessmarlena1359

6 ай бұрын

Exactly.

Chuck E Cheese was a great place to take our kids in the late 1980’s. The kids loved getting tickets and then buying stuff. I have such good memories of the kids just being kids. (Their slogan at the time). The animatronic show was fun, though it was the video games and rides that brought the kids in. The pizza was amazingly good - they put some sort of garlic butter sauce on it after they came out of the oven. So much better than the local Pizza Hut. We stopped going after the kids grew up a few more years and Chuck E Cheese wasn’t “cool”. Still a great time out for not much money and wonderful memories of our young family.

My earliest memory is of being lost in a Showbiz Pizza. I was 4 and my grandparents had taken me there and in the dark, I couldn't find them. But I wasn't afraid because I was with BillyBob. A person in a BillyBob mascot suit was holding my hand and walking me around the place to look for my grandparents. And while I can't remember much else from then, I remember the absolute sense of safety and security, knowing that everything would be okay because I was with BillyBob and BillyBob wouldn't let anything bad happen. And that's the kind of stuff people need to think about when they have a business that tailors to kids, I think. That a kid can look at their mascot(s) and know that this is a safe person and it's a person they WANT to be with. Which means they'll then WANT to go to that restaurant/place/whatever and that's how the business gets that persons money and loyalty. Removing the animatronics, imho, was a huge mistake. Having the stage shows was a way for the kids to get to know the characters. Their personality, their likes and dislikes, and thus giving the kids an opportunity to have a favorite and so on. Kids are highly personable and if they get a favorite something, they'll nag and whine and beg and ask their parents for every and anything of that character. It's just another missed opportunity by the people in charge. Makes me wonder if these powers-that-be people ever consulted with someone or someones who have heavy experience in childcare and all.

@fanboyofabandonedthings481

10 ай бұрын

Aw, that Billy Bob story was really sweet!

@gircakes2

10 ай бұрын

The animatronics grossed me out as a kid for some reason. I turned around to face away from them while I ate.

@princesskristan

9 ай бұрын

Aww! What a sweet story!

The Chuck E. Cheese where I live went from being a nice family oriented place, to being a haven for troublemakers. I started noticing this around the mid and late 2000s. Decent and well behaved families stopped taking their kids there to avoid problems and confrontations. As a kid who grew up in the 80s, it’s sad to see what happened to it.

@submariner103182

10 ай бұрын

This became true for a lot of locations. There was one incident in St. Charles, MO (look it up) where the mom of a kid celebrating a birthday got angry at the kid's father, and apparently said to the kid at one point: " you better say goodbye to your dad, because it's the last time you'll see him." Anyway, her current boyfriend showed up in the parking lot and shot the dad and grandfather.

@mariecarie1

10 ай бұрын

This is what happens when we throw morals out the window. Everyone goes feral. Big shocker I know

@poolee77

10 ай бұрын

N's

@canag0d

10 ай бұрын

@@submariner103182What does this have to do with Chuck E Cheese? This is stupid anecdotal evidence.

@SittingBearProd

10 ай бұрын

Everyone is scared to say what they are thinking lol including me

The worst thing is the owner got killed when he put on one of the bunny suits and the spring locks keeping the machinery tucked away broke… what a tragedy….

That's quite a history for this company. I never would have known as a little kid that this company actually went bankrupt for the first time ten years before I was born, because it felt like they were on top of the world when I was growing up in the late 90's/early 2000's. It seems like right around the time I was getting a bit too old for Chuck E. Cheese is when they began to have their current struggles. My generation is perhaps the last to have any sort of connection with the more tangible, analog past that defined the second half of the 20th century with its ball pits, animatronics, climbable tube structures, etc. whereas today's kids have grown up in a primarily digital, screen-based world where everything they want is on their iPad. It seems like the company is shooting themselves in the foot by removing those more tangible features in favor of more screens and removing all of the bright rainbow colors in favor of more neutral, minimalist tones. Kids are going to feel like what's the point of going if they already own touch screens themselves and adopting these more drab colors will make kids feel like they're being dragged to the dentist rather than having fun. It could also be the case I saw in another comment that the conditions that made Chuck E. Cheese successful 20-30 years ago have completely changed and there's no longer as much of a middle class that can afford to go to these sorts of places as often as back then. Also undergoing a leveraged buyout at a time when you're already struggling is a recipe for disaster as we've seen time and time again on this channel along with a global pandemic preventing people from congregating at any one place is really quite the cherry on top. Quite frankly I'm a bit astonished that they're still around at all given all of these factors, we'll see how much longer they persist into the future.

I got to spend a few young birthdays at Showbiz in the late 80s and early 90s. That dark and dingey look was actually quite comforting, and my friends and I couldn't have been happier! That new bland corporate look is depressing as hell. I wish kids today could have the experience we had back then.

@CheetoFireCat

10 ай бұрын

Yes showbiz was a lot of fun back then..I'm glad some people remember it.❤

@BernieLeVeque

10 ай бұрын

I remember when my local ShowBiz was turned in to a Chuck E. Cheese. It was so sterile, bland and aimed at a younger audience compared to ShowBiz. It is my opinion that this was the start of the downfall.

@anniemae3858

10 ай бұрын

I remember my sisters friends getting a limo to go to show biz for a birthday lol the memories

@GuitarAudiologist

10 ай бұрын

@@donk8105 Ha! Man, we did it all back then. Not having a smartphone strapped to our faces worked wonders for taking risks, living life and actually enjoying it! Got the battle-scars to prove it.

I was homeschooled so spent a lot of time at Showbiz/Chuckie Cheese. The animatronics were both fascinating and terrifying to me.

@amogusenjoyer

10 ай бұрын

Wait why did you spend a lot of time there because you were homeschooled? Genuinely asking :)

@jonasthemovie

10 ай бұрын

This makes no sense

@kutter_ttl6786

10 ай бұрын

By being homeschooling, was going to CEC the only way you could socialize with other kids?

@retrofan4963

10 ай бұрын

I find animatronics awesome, especially the Rock afire Explosion.

@profoundcake

10 ай бұрын

@@amogusenjoyer because my mom needed something to do with me during the day

I'm surprised you didn't bring up Chuck E.'s brief stint as a vtuber. A last-ditch effort by an intern to make a bit of money amidst company bankruptcy, and all they did was sit in a dark room with a Chuck E. puppet and play video games on twitch. Amazing stuff.

@FizzisCriticCorner

8 ай бұрын

PAWGARZ!

When you were there as a child, you always waited to see which kid was going to pop first during the animatronic show. With out fail, there was always some kid who couldn't take it, and would begin hysterically crying. Good times. Btw Showbiz was my place.

Chuck E. Cheese's in 90s-early 2000 was the best. Today, it's not the same. It'll never be the same.

@grayrabbit2211

10 ай бұрын

80s beat it.

@thecov3n

10 ай бұрын

This 😤

I have just recently gone back to the CEC since 2010. I’ll be honest I was beyond disappointed, especially when I looked at things through a child’s eyes. 60% of the games were not in service, and there was nothing free besides the dance floor for the kids to do. Even then the dance floor was only open when Chuck came out. The food was even more sad then I remember. I can understand getting rid of the animatronics, the tickets, and even the tokens. However, getting rid of the tubes and the toddler area was a terrible mistake. Most of the building is just empty space with no tables and the rest is crammed in one tiny corner. As a low income kid CEC was like a cheaper version of Disneyland, and I’m so sorry todays low income children will never get to experience that. 😢

I think people understate the changes in the dine-in space. Based on price point, the lower-scale restaurants make more through takeout/delivery than in-store vs upscale restaurants still making a significant amount of their revenue through actual brick-and-mortar locations. Look at McDonalds now vs in the 2000s, now everything is delivery, back then every McDonalds was packed out, the same applies with Pizza Hut, now most of their physical locations are small stores on some corner that doesn't even have any seating area because it's focused more on the delivery aspect. Every business was affect in this way in the industry unless it's very upscale where people actually get dressed to eat out.

I have never set foot in a Chuck E. Cheese, but I visited a Showbiz Pizza once, during the late 80s. As a single adult, I knew nothing about this restaurant, except that it made pizza. On a Saturday about 7:30, I was hungry for a pizza, and decided to give it a try. I walked in, and the place was a total zoo. There must have been 200 kids in the place. I should have turned around and walked out, but I was hungry and there, so I got a pizza. One of the most bizarre eating experiences of my life. I don't know if the kids liked the singing bears, but they thoroughly creeped me out. And the noise. The pizza was okay, but not good enough to ever go back.

My biggest regret is not paying enough attention to the stage show as a kid. When I was young I just wanted to go play the games.

@imwastingmytimeonthis677

2 ай бұрын

@@donk8105oop-😭

They totally squandered on their potential when Fnaf became a thing, they could've done a partnership and made a couple stores novelty Fnaf recreations. I think people forget that kids absolutely adore horror, and the recent mascot horror craze that's taken over kids online media is a testament to that.

@sethisevilone02

5 ай бұрын

Eh it wouldn't look good for them to partner with a franchise that is known for child murder Horror fans would love it but mainstream audiences would hate it

I used to love Chuck E cheeses growing up, it's a shame to see it die, but times have changed, and I understand why. I grew up in the early 90s going to the one in Toronto for Special events (we were broke, so it was not very often) and it was the coolest thing ever.... Animatronics, Pizza and Video games ..... skip to 2020s and kids will see animatronics as scary (FNAF) Pizza (well that's still cool) and video games why bother going out when you have them all at home?

Late 90s chuck e cheeses was the best. You would carry all your tickets in a bag, carry the tokens in a cup with a hole in it. They used to weigh your tickets. You could always find extra tokens in the bottom of the ball pit. Then they would give you tokens for bringing your report card. Those sunday nights after church, tht place was sure packed.

the worst thing about the new chucky's is how bright it is. The coolest thing in the 80's was how dark it was, it was a fun place to run around like a whole different little world.

@secretsquirrel6718

9 ай бұрын

Yeah. I remember ours had a room full of Strobe lights. I hadn't ever seen that before and it was wild.

@losingmymind611

4 ай бұрын

​@@donk8105smoking had been discontinued by the time I was old enough to go (late 90s) but our CEC was still nice and dark and full of wild lights. It was great.

I chatted with a dude that worked on maintaining those animatronics. One story he told me was one day he was walking by the currently playing bears. Stopped and listened due to hearing something was off. If you ever worked maintenance or operating machines, your ear can easily be tuned to anything that is off and broken. He reach under the female bear and felt around a bit, came back out with oil all over his hand. There was this family sitting nearby, he said out loud, "It either got to be a leak or its that time of the month again." The entire family lost it LOLing.

@scubajoe3321

10 ай бұрын

Maybe it got er excited 💀

@nyanpirethecat2257

10 ай бұрын

Actually that female bear is a mouse named Mitzi Mozzarella.

@FireCat_P

10 ай бұрын

If this is a CEC or Showbiz location you're referring to, I kinda doubt that story. Theres no oil used in those animatronics, only lubricant for the pnuematic parts. Oil would severely damage it

@techwolflupindo

10 ай бұрын

@@FireCat_P And that was on his hand. It was a bad seal leaking air plus lube.

@FireCat_P

10 ай бұрын

@@techwolflupindo the hands on cyberamics don’t have any pneumatics or lubricant, it’s a solid piece

Finally a good timeline to this story. I have been a fan of both showbiz and CEC and a have heard parts of the story everywhere but never understood it now thanks to this video i can.

I remember going to chuck e cheese as a kid with my parents whenever it was my birthday, it was the coolest thing because it felt like you were on top of the world, you eat pizza, celebrate your birthday and you can either dance to chuck's band play music or play in the arcade area, it's depressing nowadays to see it turn from a place where a kid can be a kid to a place where kids don't go there anymore and they sell alcohol

It feels weird seeing Chuck E Cheese the way it is now. I grew up in the 2000's so i didnt get to see the animatronics in their great condition, but i loved that as a kid. It showed that other kids also loved this place i liked, i was always excoted to find a random token, wondering when id go back to spend them. Now its unusually bright, it doesnt feel like people go there to have fun, its just a brightly lit building with some games and maybe a play 'park'. It hurts but maybe one day they'll go back to their roots.

@scubajoe3321

10 ай бұрын

Idk but like as I was born in the 2000s nobody cared about the robots

@nightfuryobsessed5488

10 ай бұрын

@@scubajoe3321 i liked them cause they looked dumb lol

@themaskedtalker2171

10 ай бұрын

​@@nightfuryobsessed5488I loved them because they were derpy-looking. Then, I realized they looked creepy. Then I got s little older, saw a video on how animatronics were built, and was fascinated by how they worked.

The 2008 crash is what killed the brand's happy atmosphere. Before then, people had things to be happy about and would show it when they went places, even work. But after the crash, the threat of foreclosure on millions of people laid an air of depression on everything. Slowly but surely dragging everything down. People stopped truly enjoying life, and it really showed in places like chuck e cheese. The workers, under huge stress as most of them (much like my mom at the time) were worried their homes and cars might be repossessed and the bank may even go bankrupt, losing their life savings. Being a kid was just different after 2008...

@VultureSkins

10 ай бұрын

…I’m pretty sure it was actually because people could no longer afford to go there, not that they *did* go there but everyone was too depressed to enjoy anything

@covert0overt_810

10 ай бұрын

the next crash is gonna make 2008 look like childs play

@AdamSmith-gs2dv

10 ай бұрын

And then we had 2020 which made everything worse

@johnlovesbridge

10 ай бұрын

Everything was different after 2008. 😬

@thomgizziz

10 ай бұрын

Yeah it was different in the 80's and 60's and 40's and 20's and you just don't understand. Crap happens all the time and neither you nor the time was special.

I worked with a man named Gene Patrick who worked with Nolan Bushnell. He was responsible for much of the show music the characters did originally. Programming the movements was laborious and took days. Programming done on original commercial/industrial PDP-11 computers with 8 inch floppy discs! The animation was very expensive and high maintenance due to the combination of electronics, mechanics, and pneumatic air actuators. But at the time, other than Disney, it was pretty unique to have one in your home town!

I remember this. I and my siblings, as well as our classmates have a lot of fond memories of Chuck E. Cheese. I remember and loved the Ball Pit, sky tubes, arcade games, the animatronic characters show, and the prize tickets/counter. I loved playing Bad Dudes, Spy Hunter, TMNT, The Simpsons, etc.

I'm honestly surprised Chuck E Cheese hasn't gone the route of Pizza Hut, Burger King and Taco Bell and done a complete nostalgia-filled rebrand to rake in that sweet, sweet millennial cash. As cynical as I am about that stuff, I could 100% say it'd work in some degree (probably more older people than children, but hey that could be an excuse for said older people to drag in their child relatives to ogle robot rodents)

@ChuckE.CheesesIllinois

10 ай бұрын

They actually are in the works for something like that rn

@Cotelw8345

10 ай бұрын

A lot of there history is gen x and millennials kids. That is when they did there best. They will be around as long as the kids still want to go. Mostly from those generations. Dad and Mom can tell there kids when they went there. So there kids will know about it.

@lunkee6972

10 ай бұрын

They should have like an adult night every week to capitalize on that :)

@scubajoe3321

10 ай бұрын

​@@lunkee6972😂

@solusdeath

10 ай бұрын

The vibe was different hearing a coin enter the slot and you hear the game turn on. Was better then.

I do find infinite irony in ditching the animatronics because “kids like screens” or whatever right before the biggest friggin’ thing kids play on the screens is about animatronics at a pizza place. Imagine the money they’d be raking in if they kept them and then did some undercover marketing thing where people on fake accounts take TikTok videos of the animatronics with stupid text like “I swear it looked at me yall”

@robinbegley1077

10 ай бұрын

Companies: If we make everything a screen, people will want to come here! People: if everything is a screen, I can just look at it on my phone from home. I don't have to go there.

It’s crazy how big businesses and business managers don’t seem to know what they’re doing 🤔

My kids grew up in the 90’s and Chuck E Cheese was our favourite place to go, esp during their birthdays. It was so fun that even the adults in us played the arcade games. It was all the blaring noises of the machines and animatronics, the shouting and screaming of happy kids running around the place and the reasonably priced good food that made the place memorable to us. I still have some of the tokens my kids didn’t have a chance to spend and just sat in their drawers. Those were the days…

Chuck E. Cheese went from feeling like a miniature Disney World to Dave & Busters for toddlers. I miss it when they used to market toward families of all ages like Showbiz Pizza did, nowadays you walk in and you feel like you've walked back into a kindergarten classroom or something. The animatronics will always remain a relic of the chain's glory days

@poolkennedy7611

10 ай бұрын

More like for school age children

I think ditching the animatronics, right around the time that Five Nights at Freddie’s starting going viral was a massive error. When I was a kid in the early 90s, I thought they were super lame and paid 0 attention to them, but you better believe I would have been fascinated with them if I was familiar with FNAF.

@TPLS2

10 ай бұрын

For real and if they had somehow gotten Scott to allow them to use the characters they could have made horror related pizza experiences with the fnaf characters. It sucks that they didn’t try to do this in the height of fnaf being popular.

@kmb957

10 ай бұрын

Willy's Wonderland did it better.

@espion2KX

10 ай бұрын

​@@TPLS2seeing as FNAF mirrored the chuck e cheese murders, I don't think that was something they wanted

@scubajoe3321

10 ай бұрын

It wasn't a massive error at all its a game where CHILDRENs CORPSES got stuffed into A ROBOT blud you ain't cookin at all bro thats the last thing you want your company to be tied too lmfao

@FrenchFryCheese04

9 ай бұрын

​@@kmb957leave

I have early memories of visiting a Chuck E. Cheese's when visiting my grandmother and loving EVERYTHING. Pizza! Video games! Playgrounds! It planted in me a love of such spaces that has never died…but my standards did rise as I've aged. It's hard to find such places that I still enjoy, but I'll never tire of the concept. I also unironically love Sunny Eclipse in Tomorrowland at Disney's Magic Kingdom.

I will never forget all the magical moments I gave to kids who are adults today, both in the costume and later in management and later in corporate.... As a side note, it wasn't a matter of "expense". It was how seriously the people who ran those locations took it.

I grew up with Chuck E. Cheese in the early 2000’s, and it’s sad to see how it’s changing. I’m gonna miss the old atmosphere, and especially the animatronics. Chuck will always have a special place in my heart.

@saber-san6270

10 ай бұрын

Been to Chuck E. Cheese occasionally, had a good time there.

@Nightshooter4951

9 ай бұрын

Extremely sad I’ll miss it when it goes

@ButterflyFeels

9 ай бұрын

You really were checkin' for the animatronics? lol What was your favorite one? What was it about it that you loved so much?

@n00traC

9 ай бұрын

@@ButterflyFeels well as a kid I didn’t focus on them too much, as a matter of fact I was scared of them, but as I grew up they started to be the main draw whenever we went. My favorite is Jasper and Chuck, and honestly I loved their dynamic chemistry. All of them had good moments in their scripts, and just seeing how they seemingly seemed alive made me develop a love for animatronics.

@ButterflyFeels

9 ай бұрын

@@n00traC yeah I was scared of them a bit as a kid too.😅🦋 I def can see what you mean.

Chuck E. Cheese is a classic! It’s sad to see it fall so far from what it once was.

@hackman669

10 ай бұрын

Sad 😓😩😥

@satisfied656

10 ай бұрын

Times will always move forward🤗

Last time i went to Chuck E Cheese, i realized they ditched the tokens and tickets entirely and swapped to the generic play pass bs which i despise of entirely. The tokens and tickets is what made it fun imo. Just sliding a token in and mashing the triggers in Aliens just gave a rush of dopamine from it. Its so bad that i got 2 old brown tickets sitting in my wallet 24/7, to remember the old times and i aint even 30 yet

@lovelydolltime8006

9 ай бұрын

I remember going to Chuck E Cheese in 2017 and being very disappointed that they replaced the iconic tokens with those stupid credit cards. Kids these days sadly won't remember the physical gold tokens and physical tickets with green and purple printed text on them. :(

The font and colors are so perfect for the logo

Without paper tickets, gold coins, ball pits, tunnel jungle gyms, and the un organized arcade machines scattered throughout every knook and cranny, Chucky Cheeses will never be chucky cheeses. I loved that place as a kid to go play. I would never go there for pizza or for what it is now LOL Dave and busters is what it use to be but bigger and better.

@princesskristan

10 ай бұрын

I MISS THE SKY TUBES! Those were so much fun

Wow. I can’t imagine my childhood WITHOUT Chuck E. Cheese. My little sister and I would beg our parents to go like every single weekend 😂

@sexygeek8996

10 ай бұрын

I can ... because there was no Chuck E Cheese where I grew up.

Chuck e Cheese was the greatest place on earth to me being born in 1993, I had several of my first birthday parties there, on my 28th birthday as an adult I had the day off and no plans, as a joke I decided it would be funny to stop by Chuck E Cheese for the first time in 20 years to get a pizza for lunch(their pizza is better than everywhere else, extra sugar in the sauce) fight me. I got a beer and ordered a pizza, the place was almost deserted, maybe one grandma and a toddler other than me and my 2 roommates. There was no physical prop games, only 3 ski ball tables and a bunch of touchscreen TV's with app store games on them. They literally had a doodle jump machine... a free app store game you had to pay to play on essentially a 30 inch touch screen TV turned 90°. There was no animatronics , no playground, and no cool physical or mechanical games like when I was a kid you could control this rc monster truck in a glass dome with a plastic steering wheel that would crush rubber cars and it looked real, once the game was over the crushed rubber cars would pop back into shape and I'd do over again. It was kind of dumb but it was unique, and I loved it.

Chuck-E-Cheese was fun when my brother and I were kids in the ‘80s/‘90s. I went a couple of years ago with my parents and our family friends. I took my American Girl Courtney doll with me as she’s the 1980s historical character so likely would have gone to CEC. I liked the animatronics well enough, growing up. Luckily I can still see [different] animatronics when I go to Stew Leonard’s grocery store.

Oddly enough, despite news about this bankruptcy they still managed to build a whole new Chuck E. Cheese's near me over these past few months. It even got all the way to a grand opening without issues

@zmanr2090

10 ай бұрын

Same here, it opened last year, I took my then 2 1/2 year old and was disappointed that the slides and climbing maze and ball pit etc... were not there, just the games. I was like, what happened, we have not been back. I can just bring her to Dave and Busters and have better food.

I genuinely have no idea how Chuck E. Cheese could go out of business. I know it’s a generally dated concept, but every one I have ever been in over the last five years in multiple Texas locations is packed.

@LeonardoHakaisha

10 ай бұрын

C*vid really killed a lot of businesses, especially those that already had questionable sanitation practices before those years. I'm also in Texas and every chuck-e-cheese I've ever been was dirty with greasy kid fingerprints on everything in there. The food was really mediocre as well...I think as a kid, chuck-e's is pretty cool, but for the adults it just couldn't appeal anymore.

@KingOfGaymes

10 ай бұрын

The virus killed a lot of stinky dirty kid play places, Chuck was one of them sadly

@WhoDidWhat17

10 ай бұрын

When I went to my local CEC over spring break this year it was packed, and it's never like that all that often.

From what I've seen here in Columbus Ohio, they seem to be doing decently enough as of a year ago, they opened up a new location in Easton where the Spirit Halloween seasonal store used to be. This is their second location in town, the first being out by the casino. I don't know how well the first location is doing, but I've walked by the second and have looked in the windows. It's not packed, packed, but they seem to be doing well enough. I do plan on going in at some point in time to try out some of the Arcade games. Whether it's enough to return them to popularity, we'll see. Dave & Buster's is the adult version of Chuck E Cheese, with more mature games and the serving of alcoholic drinks. Due to graphic content of some games, you won’t be seeing the likes of Street Fighter and Time Crisis in a family oriented establishment like Chuck's. That's asking for a lawsuit

Always came to Chuck E Cheese's during my childhood years. trying out all the arcade machines and playing around inside the tubes and slides. Great times. 😇

As a child who grew up there in the early 80s I can tell you what I loved about the place. MY Chuck E. Cheese was basically a dark arcade/play area. The dark lighting made the place seem bigger. The entrance to the arcade had a regular entrance and a kid’s size only entrance through the play area. At various birthday parties my friend’s and I would bolt for the kid sized entrance and go through the dark maze-like play area. The arcade though was the stuff: REAL video games not the crap ripoff stuff off today. The arcade usually had older kids in there so that made the place seem even cooler. Like, if the big kids are there, this place must be awesome. The last time I was in one was about ten years ago and it was awful. Brightly lit, everything was dirty and made of plastic, kids just trying to get tickets, spending ask kinds of their parents money just to get a prize worth fifty cents. Those stupid crane machines and other garbage money vacuums. If I ran the company I’d get back to making it a place where kids nag their parents to go to. Add some mini golf outside and maybe some laser tag and go carts! Make it a destination!

@nampyeon635

10 ай бұрын

Yes, this! Bring back the dark Chuck E. Cheese that felt cool inside. My Chuck E Cheese in the 80's and early 90's had a parents room with a big projector screen. It was smokey and dark as hell. There were no windows in that huge location. Being brave enough to enter the giant theater where the terrifying animatronics might spring to life at any moment was a rite of passage for kids.

@staringcorgi6475

10 ай бұрын

I wish more real vgs were in arcades instead of mobile game rip offs

@nicholaskania9106

10 ай бұрын

Yeah, it was similar to ShowBiz Pizza Place. The lighting was dim and it was practically dark in the showroom. I just don’t know where the marketing people got in there head that increasing the lighting would also increase the sales. The dark lighting was part of the experience. And this is especially true when watching an animatronic show

@staringcorgi6475

10 ай бұрын

@@nicholaskania9106 that’s bc showbiz pizza place was a pizza time theatre franchise

@scubajoe3321

10 ай бұрын

The last part yes

One of the most unique experiences of my childhood. Was so happy running around getting lost with friends doing whatever you wanted to do whenever and losing track of time. 98’ to 2005 was my last visit. The one here is always an empty parking lot. This is part of what made that era the golden era to me along with the greatest shows, games, movies, and early internet. I miss those times

I remember that first Chuck E. Cheese, stood up in what used to be (IIRC) a failed bank in Town & Country across from the Winchester house. As soon as it opened up, we used to ride our bikes over and "sneak" in (at least originally, all minors needed to be accompanied by someone 18 or over; we were about 14 or so) by piggy-backing on any adult who entered the place. As long as we behaved, nobody would question it. My friends and I spent a LOT of money there... I still have one of those original tokens in a scrapbook. That semi-landmark location was torn down twenty years ago, as was the entire T&C mall it was in, to make way for Santana Row.

@JP-rf7px

25 күн бұрын

Lived in SJ for 12 years. 1974-86. Was that the mall that had a restaurant called the Country Kitchen? Made a great grilled ham and cheese on sourdough sandwich. But I miss Fung Lums on Winchester even more. Lemon Chicken!! Yumm!

@MrJest2

25 күн бұрын

@@JP-rf7px Maybe - I never went to that restaurant; although I do vaguely recall a Country Kitchen maybe in Los Gatos on Bascom. And I do think I ate at Fung Lums a few times, yes! The first C.E.C was in the mall directly across Winchester Blvd. from the Winchester House and the Century Theaters. There was a theater in that mall, too, although it was a "second run" and "special event" sort of place - couldn't really compete with the big Century domes and their first-run show slates. The C.E.C was tucked away in the north-west end of the parking lot behind the "main mall shops".

I’m not going to lie it would be pretty cool if they made a Chuck E. Cheese for adults, old-school video games and alcohol whole place designed for not kids but the big kids 🤣

@HellcatM6

10 ай бұрын

It's called Dave and Busters, Google it

@bellamcfaul8259

10 ай бұрын

In a few Texas cities there’s a place called Cidercade- it’s a cider brewery and old school arcade combo. You pay $10 to get in and it’s free to play as many games as you want, you only have to pay for drinks. Idk if they’ve expanded beyond Texas but if there’s one near you, I’d definitely recommend.

@jessamaris4590

10 ай бұрын

Free Play has a number of these types of locations, there’s hundreds of old video games and pinball along with a full bar and food

@katiemcfadden4658

10 ай бұрын

Ah yes, home of fruit ninja tabletop.

@gothtarrare

10 ай бұрын

Round1, baybeeee!!!

I find it funny that the significant revival in the interest of animatronic mascots with the advent of Five Nights at Freddy's and the mascot horror genre did absolutely nothing to save Chuck E Cheese's obsolete business.

@tomassiqueira5172

10 ай бұрын

I was looking for this comment

@Katie-xd1nt

10 ай бұрын

im still suprised no ones tried to licence the characters to make a restruant

@fbidumbbee

10 ай бұрын

it could be mostly because they didn't really embrace it, that and (if i'm not mistaken) a good handfull of locations at the time didn't have all of the animatronics if they had any at all

@Katie-xd1nt

10 ай бұрын

@@fbidumbbee oh totally. I also don't mean a full retheme just change some locations in big tourist areas into "freddy fazbear's"

There was a trucker who worked three seperate companies. He said the moment your company is bought by a equity, it's better to pack your bags, save as much as you can and prepare for the end while lining up a new job. now everytime I watch these videos I remember him saying that. It always is so damn true. What's a shame is that I myself only had a handful of experiences with Chucks. My mom was too poor to bring us to it. Part of me wishes I got to experience it more growing up. But even those handful of times are ridden with nostalgia. My mom would take us every year to Arcade Disney in Orlando (we lived two and a half hours away) and we would have dinner at a restaurant after it all. She would spend $25 bucks for wristbands to play endless games with us. It was good memories tbh, sometimes if things were good we would watch a movie, hit up the arcade and then go eat. Chucks was there for bdays or on occasional days one or twice a year. I always loved the pizza because it was the best I've tasted. I guess it was just because I was hungry fudging about with all those games.

I’ve followed you for maybe 8 years and the flash of you with a beard… makes me realize how time changes haha. I remember comments of people saying you laughed too much etc. Keep being awesome.

Changes in technology definitely helped with Chuck e cheese going bankrupt too. We went from animatronics to VR.

@emontrewaters3530

10 ай бұрын

Facts

@FatherAxeKeeper

10 ай бұрын

which i'm sure people will get tired with eventually and want something real/tangible again. it's the mighty circle.

@alice45-fgd-456drt

10 ай бұрын

@@FatherAxeKeeper I doubt you'll find people wanting extremely creepy animatronics back tbh.

@FatherAxeKeeper

10 ай бұрын

@@alice45-fgd-456drt lol

@wingedhussar1453

10 ай бұрын

If Chuck cheese changed their tech to vr they vould have stayed open. The old tech wasn't fun anymore