At Chuck E. Cheese you can act like a kid,
You can have more fun then you ever did!
You can wiggle, you can giggle, you can flip your lid!
Chuck E. Cheese’s, where a kid can be a kid!
Look at that punim! This is the face that launches a thousand memories for me. Be honest: Who among my age group didn’t celebrate at least one birthday with The Big C and his Pizza Time Players? (American responses only, please 😉 )
It used to be that the childhood birthday party spot was McDonald’s, with its Happy Meals and Playland and silly characters like Grimace or Mayor McCheese (tangent: I would so eat my own head if I was a member of the McCheese clan). But then Chuck rolled into town, with his flashy arcade, cardboard-flavored pizzas, and animatronic stage shows. How could a purple glob and a scary clown ever compete with all that?
To be fair, if you aren’t a child, this might qualify as one of the modern circles of hell. Constant electronic video game noises, seizure-inducing light displays everywhere, screaming children, mediocre food…oh yeah. Dante would have definitely considered this a suitable punishment for someone.
Still, there was something so very magical about this place when I was 7 years old. This was the first non-Disney place where I ever saw animatronics up-close, and I remember being mesmerized by how they moved, how they blinked, how they talked (apparently, I was too young to notice the accompanying whir of servos each time they moved).
The last time I ever went to Chuck E. Cheese’s for myself was, strangely enough, my Junior year of high school. We and the Seniors decided that we wanted to go for our Christmas party (of course we didn’t call it a holiday party; we were fundamentalists, dammit!). So the last day of school before our Christmas break, we loaded up into a bus and headed off. We were practically the only ones there minus a handful of little toddlers and their moms.
Still, the games were all running, the pitchers of Coke were coming fast and furious, and we were just happy to be away from school. The one disappointment was that the animatronic characters weren’t on. I guess they didn’t think we were a big enough crowd to warrant the expenditure of electricity it took to fire up the Pizza Time Players.
That was okay with me, though. I’m a big mechanical nerd. I love to take things apart and see how they work. So while everyone else was either off in the arcade or scarfing down pizza, I climbed up onto the stage to check out the how of it all. Minus a few apathetic glances from the staff, no one even noticed…or so I thought. So I happily poked and prodded at Chuck and his band for a little while before walking back to the front of the stage.
Now picture it, if you will: I’m standing on the stage, right in front of Chuck E. Cheese. In his “off” position, his paws are at his sides. Right near the stage is the table where some of my friends are sitting, along with our homeroom teacher, who is chaperoning us. I start telling them about how cool all the animatronic characters look up close. Suddenly, the stage flickers to life. The lights blink on, the soundtrack fires up, and all those dull, silent animatronics spring into action. Next thing I know, Chuck’s paw is heading where no mouse paw has gone before. Or since.
Yes. I was goosed by Chuck E. Cheese.
Needless to say, I side-stepped as quickly as I could to avoid any further animated sexual advances from Mr. Cheese and jumped down from the stage. I couldn’t see any staff, but I have no doubt that there was laughter at my expense. I sure know there was from my classmates…and my homeroom teacher.
To be honest, I laughed, too. Hell, I still laugh at that memory. How many people can honestly say they’ve been goosed by a rodent? I think the only other memory of CEC that competes is when we went for my little cousin’s birthday. Someone dressed in a Chuck costume came out to greet all the kids…and then there was a “wardrobe malfunction” and his foot fell off. Now tell me that’s not more traumatic than a little goose.
Surprisingly enough, Chuck E. Cheese is still letting kids be kids. He has, of course, undergone an update or three since I was little (the photo with this post is of the Chuck I remember [but, no, this is not the Chuck who copped a feel]). And sadly, violence has found its way into Chuck’s world, such as several incidents in Pennsylvania. It’s kind of pathetic when adults choose to act in these ways in a place meant to bring joy to children.
BUT…if you’d like to reminisce about the “old skool” Chuck and all his friends, head over to ShowBizPizza.com. ShowBiz used to be competition, but then CEC ended up taking over Showbiz and all the characters joined forces. Or maybe I
