For decades, Chuck E. Cheese's Munch's Make Believe Band has performed at countless birthdays, end-of-season Little League parties, and other celebrations. Chuck E. Cheese and Helen Henney on vocals, Mr. Munch on keys, Jasper T. Joles on guitar, and Pasqually on drums.
This colorful pizzeria-cum-arcade chain is dominated by a troupe of robot dolls, where kids run wild and play games for prizes in between bites of pizza.
Their final curtain call is about to begin.
By the end of 2024, the animatronic performances, which are endearing and nostalgic, if perhaps a little creepy for audiences, will be phased out in all but two theaters. The chain has more than 400 locations in the United States, including one in Los Angeles and one in Nanuet, New York. The band's departure comes as Chuck E. Cheese recently underwent what the company's CEO David McKillips described as its biggest and “most aggressive transformation yet.” ”
Outside: Animatronic band.
In: More screens, a digital dance floor and a trampoline gym.
The coronavirus pandemic forced hundreds of Chuck E. Cheese stores to close, and the company filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in the summer of 2020. Since then, company leaders have worked to adapt Chuck E. Cheese to the modern era. A screen might be more exciting than an old animatronic band with limited movement and erratic eyes.
“Kids are consuming entertainment in a different way than they were 10 or 20 years ago,” Mr. McKillips said, sitting at a Chuck E. Cheese booth in Hicksville, New York, on Long Island. “Kids of all ages really enjoy entertainment on screens.”
For now, Munch's Make Believe Band still plays daily at the Hicksville location, which sometimes hosts as many as 20 birthday parties starting at 8 a.m. on weekends. But by the end of the summer, the band will be done playing. Last show there.
The band will then be removed and replaced with jumbotron-sized televisions, more seating and a digital dance floor. (Chuck E. Cheese did not say what will happen to the animatronic figures after they are removed from hundreds of locations across the country.)
“The band is in perfect condition.”
Not everyone wants more screens, trampolines, and new games. On a recent Wednesday afternoon, Kendall Maldonado, 12, of Queens, wore his Chuck E. Cheese costume and danced next to the band during one of their final performances in Hicksville.
“I grew up with tickets and tokens,” said Kendall, a self-proclaimed “superfan” who has visited dozens of Chuck E. Cheese stores in the New York area and one in Puerto Rico.
Kendall's mother, Jennifer Molina, 43, said she took her son to Chuck E. Cheese's for the first time when he was 3 years old. Like many young children, Kendall was a little scared of Chuck E. Cheese at first, but later grew accustomed to the giant rat.
“He's been a fan ever since,” she said.
Molina said Kendall wanted the band to continue.
“The band is in perfect shape,” Kendall said. “Sometimes kids hit them, and it's very disrespectful because they're just doing their job and performing.”
Since Chuck E. Cheese announced in November that it would be phasing out Munch's Make Believe Band, some parents have been scrambling to take their kids to its final performance.
Caitlin Rubenstein, 30, general manager of the Hicksville store and another store in Hempstead, New York, said some people recorded videos of the band to preserve their memories.
Rubinstein said it's “bittersweet” to see the band he's been a part of since childhood retire.
“I was so happy to go to Chuck E. Cheese on Friday night,” she said.
First it was a coyote.
Chuck E. Cheese was founded by Nolan Bushnell, co-founder of the pioneering video game company Atari. In a 2017 interview with the Smithsonian Institution, Bushnell said his experience with arcade games, which sold for about $1,500 to $2,000 a unit, turned into a pizza shop with games that could fetch up to $50,000 a unit. He said it sparked his desire to open a new one. With coins in his lifetime.
Bushnell said he was also inspired by a family trip to Disneyland, particularly the Tiki Room, an attraction with animatronic birds, tiki gods and flowers.
“We can do it,” Bushnell recalled thinking at the time. “But it would be nice to have a mascot.”
Initially, the mascot was going to be a coyote, and Bushnell planned to call the new business “Coyote Pizza.” Mr. Bushnell declined to be interviewed, but he told the Smithsonian that he went to buy a costume that he thought was a coyote.
“I conveyed that to the engineers,” Bushnell said. “I said, 'Let this person talk.'”
But a problem arose. The costume Mr. Bushnell purchased was not a coyote, but a rat with a tail.
“I had never seen it from the waist down,” he said.
Mr. Bushnell considered keeping the rat costume and renaming the restaurant and arcade Rick's Rat Pizza, but was persuaded to avoid having “rat” in the name. Mr. Bushnell decided to name the location Chuck E. Cheese. (Charles Entertainment Cheese, according to the company)
The first Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theater opened on May 17, 1977 in San Jose, California. The theater was conceived as a place “where you could go, eat, play and spend time together as a family,” McKillips said.
“Animatronics was a band that played cover songs and original songs,” he added.
The band went through many changes, but its mainstays were Chuck E. Cheese, Helen Henney, Mr. Munk, Jasper T. Joles, and Pasqually. In some places, there was a band version called Studio C, with just Chuck E. playing solo.
Chuck E. Cheese's in Los Angeles' Northridge neighborhood maintains a five-member band, but the Nanuet, New York, location is home to Studio C.
Today, Chuck E. Cheese has more than 600 stores in 16 countries, with more on the way. The chain's popularity has spread to pop culture, with loose references in video games, movies, and TV shows. That includes an episode of “It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia” where the gang visits Risk E. Rat's Pizza and Amusement Center.
The horror film “Five Nights at Freddy's,” released last year, depicts a night guard at Freddy's Fazbear's Pizza battling a group of vengeful animatronic characters. The film was released weeks before Chuck E. Cheese announced the end of its animatronic band, leading many to speculate that the horror movie spurred the company's decision. The company said at the time that this was not the case.
Screens are “where the future moves.”
For anyone born after the mid-1970s, visiting Chuck E. Cheese feels like part of American childhood. As chains modernize and introduce animatronic bands, Christy Linares, 33, general manager at Chuck E. Cheese in Paramus, New Jersey, said not much has changed.
The Paramus store no longer has an animatronic band and was recently renovated to include more televisions, a digital dance floor and a trampoline gym, but Linares, who sometimes takes her kids there, said her kids still enjoy the pizza. They are said to be eating and playing games. “Chuck E. Cheese is still the same,” she said.
Employees said they have seen children shift their attention to screen-based games in recent years. Reena Gill, 17, a birthday party coordinator at the Paramus store, said she has noticed that children are “gravitated toward things from that era,” citing the popular Paw Patrol game as an example. .
Hempstead's general manager, Ms. Rubenstein, said the interactive screen game was a hit.
“That's where the future is in motion,” she said.
In another adaptation to the digital age, the chain is doing away with numbered hand stamps for visitors and exits to prevent children from wandering around or leaving with people they didn't come with. will be checked. Instead, family selfies are taken at the entrance and checked at the exit.
On a recent Wednesday, Maricel de los Reyes took her son Sam to a Chuck E. Cheese store in Paramus. It was their first visit since the coronavirus pandemic began, and their first without a band.
Did they miss it?
“No, I don't think it was a big deal to us,” she said as Sam left to play the game. “It was a place to play games, eat, and just hang out.”