Chuck E. Cheese, a chain of family restaurants, is set to phase out its mechanical animal band from over 400 locations by the end of 2024, except for one in New York and one in Los Angeles. The brand’s CEO, David McKillips, described this as the “most aggressive transformation to date”. The character was originally created as the mascot for a restaurant proposed by Nolan Bushnell (founder of Atari) in 1977. The original costume for Chuck E. Cheese was an old-fashioned vest and bowler.
In 2012, the mascot was given a new look, with a new logo using a 2D caricature of Chuck E. and an altered wordmark. The company struggled with depicting the character in the right format, leading to the change to a Rockstar version of the character, who played guitar. Jaret Reddick, the frontman and guitarist for the band Bowling for Soup, replaced Brannan.
The mascot change was likely a marketing decision to make the character more appealing and less associated with the restaurant. The main character, “Rick Rat”, was initially called “Rick Rat”, but the board told him that people would not want to go to a restaurant whose mascot was a rat.
Chuck E. Cheese is the titular mascot, a mouse (formerly rat) who is the lead singer and guitarist of the band. Helen Henny is the other lead singer.
📹 The History Of The Chuck E. Cheese Mascot, Robot, & Logo
Here is the 3rd installment of my “History Of” series In this video I go over the history of the Chuck E. Cheese mascot costume, …
📹 Evolution of Chuck E Cheese! | Chuck E Cheese Character History
▻https://goo.gl/forms/0YVY4d7p03FEExgz1 ◅ Lots of cool Chuck E Cheese content at showbizpizza.com Original Chuck E …
The biggest surprise to me was that the guy who sang the Phineas and Ferb intro also voiced chuck. Also, when Chuck found Pasquales kitchen, Pasquali chased him around with a rolling pin for a while until he realized his talent and then Matt Pat got to it, and he made a whole theory about it. Now theres lore.
Still remember how when I was a kid, I was very afraid but also very intrigued by the animatronics at Chuck E. Cheese’s. I was like 6, and at some kid’s birthday party. Normally whenever I’d go to Chuck E. Cheese’s with just my family, whenever the show was happening, I’d play in the arcade or something. I could better tolerate the show then because the arcade room was always separate from the stage and restaurant area. So I didn’t have to look at the animatronics so much. But when I was at this kid’s party, we were being served pizza at some tables right by the stage, and I wasn’t allowed to leave the room when the show began (plus I also wanted to try and overcome my own fear). I still couldn’t tolerate really looking at the animatronics. So I remember crawling under one of the tables that just so happened to have a pole right in front of it. If I sat right, the pole would cover Chuck E., who was definitely the scariest looking of the bunch. And that’s how I was able to even remotely sit through the show that day. Lol. Sitting underneath a table, behind a pole, trying to eat some pizza while probably also using one hand to cover my ears (the sound from the show was always too loud and painful for me) while probably also trying not to cry. Lol And now here I am, 20 years later and feeling a twinge of sadness knowing that the animatronics show has been totally taken out of the restaurants now.
I went to Chuck E Cheese once in my childhood and I remember going there after seeing Monster Jam back in 2002. I was too young to remmeber Showbiz Pizza, but I do remember seeing “Concept Unification” on YouTube several years ago and that creeped me out instead of making me sad. As for the overall evolution of Chuck E Cheese the mascot himself, I can pretty much say that he literally looks like he’s aging in reverse besides going from human sized mascot to small CG Stuart Little style in the commercials. At least I’m glad I’m not a kid or one of today’s kids because the Chuck E costumes falling apart would’ve been terrifying.
Avenger Chuck E = Best Chuck E, and you can’t change my mind. I just have so many memories of this version of Chuck E., HE was the one I wanted to go there and see. Also, out of all the other Chuck Es we’ve seen, he was the one who seemed most like a kid, and I think children could relate to that a lot more.
I think rockstar Chuck is the most kid friendly out of all of them, I grew up with avenger Chuck and he was terrifying. He was a giant, and he was intimidating. Rockstar chuck is smaller and looks less intimidating. Also all the costumes before avenger Chuck are all extremely terrifying, idk who thought that was a good idea, I’m shocked that kids actually liked 70s and 80s Chuck.
I miss the doiby and vest. I know they’ll never bring it back but I really wish they would. Imagine if they rebranded back to the PTT days, make him a jerk again, make him a rat again, bring back the fourth wall breaks. Maybe they could even create animatronics that truly reflect the classic designs. Eh, a girl can dream…
I can actually answer the question about the modified Chuck that looks like it’s using one of the animatronic masks…. It’s because it is. Some branches were allowed to do whatever after heads needed to be retired and they needed to wait on a replacement on occasion. So that one used a modified version of the animatronic masks.
About that 1993 redesign, Duncan Brannan did not voice Chuck E. once the redesign took place; although he did voice Larry the Technician, who was properly introduced around that time. In actuality, Scott Wilson stayed as the voice of Chuck for the showtapes, but would be replaced by Duncan Brannan completely in January 1994.
I went to Chuck E. Cheese’s probably around 2009 and I wanted to go again and begged my mom every year until Rockstar Chuck. He made me so angry that I didn’t want to go anymore. The inconsistencies with commercial Chuck and the one in the actual restaurant bothered me when I was little and idk if I was the only kid that payed attention to that kind of thing because when I’d tell someone they’d look at me like I was crazy.
38:10 Didn’t you Know that Garner Holt Productions not only did animatronics For Many Disney Parks and Chuck E. Cheese, But that also made Animatronics for Many Thomas and Friends Events and Theme Parks in the Us from 2014 and onward, Mostly the Day out With Thomas Events, where they were contracted by Mattel to manufactured a series of animatronic faces of Thomas for use at Days Out with Thomas events. The five Thomas dummies and Brooklyn Eastern District Terminal #15 were updated from their model series appearance with a CGI Series-style face and animatronic features, allowing them to “talk”. They also provided the face for Percy unit the same year. The company later manufactured models of Percy, Gordon, James, and Emily for Thomas Land and Thomas Town at Kennywood along with Thomas. These models feature animatronic faces and are used in both meet and greets and a series of live shows. Guests can also climb into Percy’s cab and interact with various buttons, levers, and knobs to activate sounds and lights.🙂🙂
20:33 the reason for the weird voice is because Scott Wilson didn’t want to fly out to the show’s location to do the voice so after this one show they were able to get Scott to come out he explains this himself in a 2011 article where fans are having a discussion about all things Chuck E Cheese with him. He also hilariously said Because Chuck E Cheese was the main character, it was his least favorite to voice 😂😂😂😂.
Yep, the Chuck E. Cheese’s that was in my hometown I went to as a kid in the late 1990s had the “Cool Chuck” logo on its’ exterior, and the mascot costume was also in the “Cool Chuck” clothes, but the animatronic Chuck E. still had his tuxedo and derby hat (it was either a 2-stage or a Road Stage, but I remember they were DEFINITELY Cyberamic bots). Whoa, Sid and Marty Krofft were involved in developing Chuck E. and his friends?
I have the weirdest memory of being in a Chuck E. Cheese restaurant when I was much younger and there was an individual animatronic on a stage with purple spangly curtains. I can not for the life of me remember which character it was, I just remember they had it running without sound so it would just turn its head and blink its eyes like it was looking around.
I remembered going to Chuck E. Cheese all the time when I was super young, one of my favorite games there is the nicktoons racing game. I also remembered fond memories of the red car. As I grew a little older, my parents thought I was getting too old and the food was trash, so in 2012, not so long after Chuck was changed into a rockstar, we stopped going
I remember the first time I saw the 2012 Chuck E. Cheese in commercials. It was the first time I genuinely hated something. I was at my grandma’s house and I remember talking with my cousins about how bad the new design was. And thanks for pointing out that Chuck E. Cheese sings the Phineas and Ferb opening, it’s now ruined for me.
One thing I’ll always hate is that i wasn’t around during the prime time of the restaurants. As someone who didn’t grow up in the 80s, 90s, or 2000s it will always suck to me that I can’t experience these old shows, vintage things like this have always interested me and seeing one of the old animatronics in person would be so cool in my opinion
I’d LOVE to see the other characters in a “History of” series. Now since I never EVER was took to a Chuck E. Cheese growing up. I didn’t get to experience any of the shows or characters. Now not sure why I never got to go to one or even brought to one but I do know my sister did. Now since then I have been to 2 different ones. 1st Time The first one I ever went to (not sure what town it was) but my sister and her husband at the time with my neice (who was still pretty little at the time) stopped at one. I was kinda excited since I hadn’t ever been to one. I was in my early 20’s at the time but didn’t bother me. Was always into mascots and animatronic of characters. It was only the Chuck E. Cheese animatronic that was there. The updated one. Oh didn’t say what year but I’m guessing early 2000’s to late. It was the one where’s behind the desk like thing but you could see his feet below. As I watched the show they also showed older clips of the older full body animatronic characters. Since I didn’t know anything about those it threw me off a bit. That was when my sister told me about going to one of the restaurants when she was younger. I started asking questions about everything I saw seeing in the articles. I also remember seeing full body costume characters and the puppet versions too of his friends in the clips. But since she really didn’t know anything but how she remembered them was all. Not sure if when I went back home if I did research on the characters. 2nd Time The second time was when a town (which is about 30 minutes from where I live) opened up a Chuck E.
This article was very informative. Also this sparked a memory of when I was little (Like 5 or 6) I used to love Chuck e Cheese, I used to look it up on YouTube everyday and it didn’t matter which decade he was from.I used to draw him too like I would draw like an “Old vs. New” Chuck e Cheese thing and I would draw 90s Chuck e (Avenger) And Rockstar I think… And I put a vs. between them. I even had him as my wallpaper on my toy tablet, Rockstar Chuck is the one I remember fondly because my childhood basically took place in the entirety of the 2010s (I was a weird kid (●__●) p.s I love some your content (mainly you history and suit up vids), keep up the good work Nathan!
42:19 … And a forward hat. :3 I’d say the reason why Rockstar Chuck looks like he has a full-blown makeover is simply because they finally cut all ties to the designs based on the very first rat costume Nolan Bush bought all these decades ago. I get a feeling we’re not gonna see an animatronic version of him never time soon.
I realized that Chuck had a vampire costume for Halloween, with vampire fangs and a vampire cape, you forget to show everyone that costume. Oh! I just remembered that I have a Chunk E. Cheese costume too. I had mouse ears, pants that had the same color as the jeans the Chuck E. Was wearing, red shoes that kinda looked similar to Chuck’s shoes, And a shirt that looked like Chuck E’s shirt with the yellow C. And I also had a mouse tail. When I went to Chuck E. Cheese with my mom, her younger sister Kathlene, and my brother Jackson, I found Chuck E. And he had a red tail, and I thought he would had a gray tail. This was a little strange. I think got carried away. Haven’t I?
The connection between CEC and Funimation actually goes deeper, as some of Funi’s voice talent were in the CEC movie, most notably Chris Sabat (voice of Vegeta, Piccolo, Shenron, etc) was the voice of Munch in the movie. This also goes the other way around as Duncan Brannen did some voices for Dragonball Z (most notably, he voiced the evil Babidi) along with other Funimation Productions. Not to mention, both companies reside in Good ol’ fashioned Texas as well.
56:55 I’m actually developing something up for Chuck-e-Cheese. A possible cartoon show. The whole reason I started it was because of how people tend to treat these characters poorly. I love FNAF, but characters from Showbiz really made me appreciate them for what they did. Characters with ACTUAL PERSONALITY. Plus, the presents of the other characters seem to have been mitigated. I just don’t like how people don’t see the characters behind the animatronics.
My father used to go on trips to america when he was younger, since his parents were divorced and his dad lived in america he would usually stay there on summer breaks of school. He had friends in america too and would go to birthday parties or have birthday parties at his local chuck e cheese. Im sure it was in the late 80s the reason i know this is because my dad tells me stories about his trips to america and even showed me pictures from the chuck e cheese. i dont have the pictures of the parties anymore as they got lost somewhere.
Avenger chuck will always be my favorite 💯like the new Chucky ok but I prefer avenger chuck bc I had my party when I was 6 I’m currently 18 and have applied at CEC hopefully I start I plan to get all the secret (well if there’s any left) Edit: omg the same person who sung the Phineas and Ferb theme some was chuck e cheese 😟😟😟whatttt
I see a lot of nostalgia-influenced opinions here As someone who’s not from US and never heard of chuck e cheese until idk few years ago, I must say the rockstar chucke is my favorite I get it that you’re all nostalgic, but I think there’s literally nothing wrong with the new design, I even think it looks way better (doesn’t have the “how do you do fellow kids” energy anymore) Rockstar chucke is cute and is the nicest to look at, can’t change my mind The only bad thing about it is the logo, but it’s not the fault of the chucke design and more of the general logo simplification that’s going on
As someone from the late 20s who grew up with Rockstar and Avenger Chuck I love both equally and it’s funny my mom worked at Chuck E Cheese as her first job and we would usually go to her location. Good times and gotta say can’t wait to go back to my moms local so we can see if they have 2.0 Edit:From a year later I will say that one thing I prefer now is the voice Jarrett Reddick wrote and sang one of my favorite songs, Endless Possibilitiy from Sonic Unleashed
I think out of all of the places that exist in the world Chuck E cheese has the biggest history ever at least in my opinion it does because the place was open in 1977 years before I was even born I was born in 2007 in case you didn’t know so I never got a chance to go to the old Chuck E cheese Pizza Time theater but I have seen several commercials of it an even now in the present 2023 Chuck E cheese is still open to the public unfortunately though they did a complete remodel and remove the animatronic characters quite frankly I was never a fan of those animatronic characters I still hated to see them go but since I’m 16 now I don’t go to Chuck E Cheese’s as often as I used to but I still really like it there
Yo Nathan I actually got a story with the 2000s Chuck. But if you if you ask if I have went to the restaurants sadly no but I saw the ads on the PBS kids DVDs. After that I went to Sam’s club and I saw the Nesquik bunny products and I have mistake him for Chuck E Cheese because how similar they look. Also I have a question. What if CEC keep the same chuck e but added modern features. More like the Nesquik bunny. Darn I wish we could live in that timeline. But yeah that’s my story with the 2000s Chuck I hope you find that interesting. 😊
13:44 context and yes this is gonna be a every fnaf fan boys dream but originally when they were moving him to a stage instead of picture frame they needed a free way and a quick way to do it so they made the head some what wearable it was fully wearable but in return the animatronic had no head so it was scrapped what you see there is probably one of the very few times it was used I should not this change only happened for less than a week, 4 days to be exact.Due to this almost no one knows about it being for such a few time but you can find the research and evidence from the release of Chuck E. Cheese to 1984 after that there is no more evidence due to the crash of Chuck E. Cheese until the reopening
Okay, if I’m being COMPLETELY honest, I actually like Rockstar Chuck. It’s the one I’m most familiar with anyway. Plus, the others (other than maybe Avenger Chuck) give off gross vibes. Like – “get away from me and my food” aka vibes. I’ve only been to Chuck E Cheese like three times tho. The one it was has always been sketchy and I’m probably not going to again as the place is even more so due to the Toys R Us directly next door being abandoned.
13:32 i think that the costume was getting washed so they used the spare cosmetics from the animatronic chuck i know people can wear the head but i saw the eyes so they might have gotten a prototype costume from cec to test it so the robot and the mascot look identical or they were just repairing the animatronic so it was moved but that’s what i think.and it might have also been a prototype commercial chuck
I’m gonna be honest, I like the rockstar Chuck E costume. It looks cool, it’s comfortable for me to wear and I clearly can see how the design of it can go well with at least the energy of performers such as myself. I know the nose is a weakness but it looks great if it’s perfectly intact. Besides, avenger Chuck had weaknesses too. The ears were perfectly capable of coming loose and I’ve seen incidents happen in store because of such, also the legs could be easily ripped up you name it. And I’m sure derby hat era costumes had some malfunctions one time or another. I appreciate rockstar Chuck the mascot for how cool it is.
The avenger truck you talked about that was a restaurant in like some in Alabama it was a Chuck E. Cheese place and before new rock fire explosion in Chuck E. Cheese were in court all the Chuck E. Cheese restaurants close and then those one restaurant that was Chuck E. Cheese and I had a rebranding and then they had a different mascot and that was the looking avenger Chuck E. Cheese and he has different kinds of plushy‘s and a different stage like it’s like white station they had like Chuck E. Cheese in the middle in the whole space area
Fun fact also that Duncan brennen did the voice actor of Chuck E. Cheese he also has a YouTube website and he also did the voice of you know it everybody kids tv 📺 show called barney and friends as shown on 31:26 Duncan definitely had Chuck E. Cheese and barney and friends vibe if you listen 👂 to Duncan’s voice very closely as shown on 31:47-31:54-31:58.
You missed an animatronic in the mid 90s there is a Chuck E. Cheese animatronics that was different it showed Chuckie wearing a red baseball cap and I was actually in a Chucky animatronic that was in his cool truck outfit but instead of like a star behind them there is a bedroom behind them with toys but I don’t know if this was actually an in some locations or not because I don’t because I never seen that type of Chuck E. Cheese animatronics in a full 3 stage you missed two voice actors for Chuck E. Cheese
As for the Avenger Chuck mascot, it seems like there are some discrepancies in its portrayal. It doesn’t quite capture the essence of the Avenger Chuck we know, resembling more of an outdated version. It’s disconcerting to see it deviate so much from the cartoon design, which was undoubtedly more accurate and appealing. Here’s hoping for a positive shift in the creative direction.
Maybe you can talk about different animatronics they had and so much different animatronics stage since there are a lot of different Chuck e cheese stages and so much different characters and there were different versions of Hellen Henny and munch and Jasper and pasqually and there were 3 different character animatronics on the piano like dolli dimples arty antlers B. B. bubbles and they had 4 different girl animatronics instead of Hellen Henny like foxy Colleen Sally sashay harmony howlette madam oink
Nathan you forgot some costumes back in the 1990s when showbiz and Chuck e.cheese combined and made Chuck E. Cheese’s pizza their were some costumes of the band because in the music article together we got it by Chuck E. Cheese there are costumes of Helen munch Jasper and pasqually so yeah this was just a update hope you read my comment