Latest / Ridiculous History / The Strange Tale of Charles Entertainment Cheese, Part Two: Betrayal and Nostalgia

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The Strange Tale of Charles Entertainment Cheese, Part Two: Betrayal and Nostalgia · Ridiculous History

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Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
0:27
Speaker 1: the show Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so much
0:31
Speaker 1: for tuning in. Let's give it up our super producer,
0:34
Speaker 1: the Man, the Myth, the leg of mister Max Williams,
0:37
Speaker 1: Maximus to the maximum. He's there, he's our guy. We were.
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Speaker 1: We were singing to each other again off air. I'm
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Speaker 1: Ben your knoll and our all fair conversations are generally
0:53
Speaker 1: kind of fun. I think most times on this show,
0:56
Speaker 1: what would you say else? Good? I say completely agree,
1:03
Speaker 1: that's uh. These are the fun times, the fun podcast times.
1:07
Speaker 1: M Yeah, and uh. This had me wondering, this is
1:11
Speaker 1: totally unrelated. But before we get rolling today, we were
1:15
Speaker 1: talking about a smooth criminal right by Michael Jackson. Well,
1:19
Speaker 1: we were just sort of all three humming along. We
1:22
Speaker 1: were just checking in and making sure we were all okay, yes, yeah.
1:26
Speaker 1: And it reminded me of our good friend of the show,
1:29
Speaker 1: Annie Reese of Savor and stuff. Mom never told you fame.
1:34
Speaker 1: I'm sure she's irritated by that song. And I was wondering.
1:39
Speaker 1: I was trying to guess, do you guys have songs
1:42
Speaker 1: about your name? And if so, how do you feel
1:44
Speaker 1: about them? Nole, I'd imagine the closest is the first
1:46
Speaker 1: Noel you would you would imagine correctly, And every time
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Speaker 1: someone sings that at me, they think they're the first
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Speaker 1: one to have ever done it. Bully for them was
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Speaker 1: what I say. Go on thinking that, Yeah, I'm wondering
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Speaker 1: if you guys can guess which one I've always gotten.
2:03
Speaker 1: Let's man something maximum Maxwell silver hammer, Oh yeah, Max
2:11
Speaker 1: bang bang Yeah. The murder eyest of Beatles songs, right,
2:17
Speaker 1: songs basically about a school shooter that uses a hammer,
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Speaker 1: and I am cursed, I would say. With the Michael
2:27
Speaker 1: Jackson song Ben, which is about his friend who is
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Speaker 1: a rat. Uh and there's also Benny in the Jets,
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Speaker 1: I don't even want to give it airtime, but I
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Speaker 1: just gave it to you. It's already living rent free
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Speaker 1: in all of our minds. It doesn't go anywhere. The
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Speaker 1: song does a mohair suit. No. I read it in
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Speaker 1: a magazine. Oh so, so wait, let's maybe we stay
2:51
Speaker 1: on the rat because um, that was for a movie,
2:54
Speaker 1: do you know that? Starting Crispin Glover, I vaguely remember
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Speaker 1: hearing that I've never seen the film. The movie is
3:00
Speaker 1: about Crispin Glover, who I think it's actually a remake
3:03
Speaker 1: of like a movie from maybe with a Vincent Price
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Speaker 1: movie or so. It's about a dude who like controls
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Speaker 1: rats with his mind, like the way you control corvids
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Speaker 1: with your mind. It's definitely a connection. Oh shucks. Yeah,
3:15
Speaker 1: when when noelan or ride or die, mister Matt Frederick
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Speaker 1: and I were on the road most recently, we had
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Speaker 1: a weird moment. We were at a fancy grocery store
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Speaker 1: and I thought a pack of hard boiled eggs, and Noel,
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Speaker 1: I think for a moment you thought I was just
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Speaker 1: going to eat them. I didn't know you were the eggman. Not.
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Speaker 1: I'm baffled at people buy hard boiled eggs by themselves,
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Speaker 1: the Walrus Sun if you're not the eggman. Oh gosh, uh,
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Speaker 1: we're going so many places. We had a segue anyway, Yeah,
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Speaker 1: I've fed those to the crows, so they were not
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Speaker 1: I wasn't just sitting eating goblin mode. And then you
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Speaker 1: got the chastised by just a regular Joe, regular fella
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Speaker 1: for eat for feeding the rows because apparently they're like,
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Speaker 1: I don't know that it emboldens them. Yeah, you call
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Speaker 1: them Sky rats. So if you're listening, sir, I didn't
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Speaker 1: learn a thing and will not change my ways. This
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Speaker 1: segue holds though. We're talking about a rat of today. Yeah, yeah,
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Speaker 1: we are talking about one of the most famous rats
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Speaker 1: formerly rats in all of American culture. And this is
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Speaker 1: part two of a two part episode. We're talking about
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Speaker 1: the legendary Charles Entertainment cheese. Now. No, we left on
4:36
Speaker 1: a bit of a cliffhanger in part one. That's right,
4:39
Speaker 1: things were really heating up. In June of nineteen seventy nine,
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Speaker 1: a guy named Bob Brock, not Bob Rock, the Metallica producer.
4:51
Speaker 1: Bob Brock wanted to get an exclusive franchise deal with
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Speaker 1: Pizza Time, the Pizza Time theater franchises, so he signed
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Speaker 1: a two hundred million dollar code development deal with our
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Speaker 1: friend mister Bushnell of Atari fame and animatronic singing robot fame.
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Speaker 1: And this gave mister Brock exclusive franchising rights to Pizza
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Speaker 1: Time theaters in sixteen states across the southern and Midwestern US,
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Speaker 1: And it gave him some pretty specific superpowers that maybe
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Speaker 1: our mister Bushnell might not have fully realized at the time. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: and it was pretty bold, pretty aspirational. The contract aimed
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Speaker 1: for a target of two hundred and eighty five stores,
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Speaker 1: two hundred of which would be directly operated by TIM,
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Speaker 1: which is Bob Brock's company, and another eighty five will
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Speaker 1: be subfranchised out. And this was pretty big money because TIM,
5:55
Speaker 1: that's short for Topeka in Management, would be ponying up
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Speaker 1: the capitol to build these locations and they were going
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Speaker 1: to spend about a million dollars a pop. This was
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Speaker 1: pretty cool for a while for a bit, because during
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Speaker 1: nineteen eighty Pizza Time theater flourished. They added dozens and
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Speaker 1: dozens of stores to their crew. This included both franchised
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Speaker 1: as and corporate owned locations, and there were even some
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Speaker 1: international locations. Things grew really quickly, and sometimes in the
6:31
Speaker 1: world of corporate business, when things grow quickly, they can
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Speaker 1: grow quickly out of hand. It only took about a
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Speaker 1: year for Brock's deal to show its ugly side. Brock's
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Speaker 1: firm had received training on how to run all these
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Speaker 1: Pizza Time locations, and there's definitely a science to it, right,
6:56
Speaker 1: and once they had the information, once they knew how
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Speaker 1: to conduct day to day business, they went back on
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Speaker 1: their contract, dude, and they opened up their own competing
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Speaker 1: chain of restaurants, which they called show Biz Pizza. Yeah.
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Speaker 1: And it's funny because essentially they were like their own copycats,
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Speaker 1: and they joined the ranks of a bunch of other
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Speaker 1: copycat kind of you know, futuristic robotic pizza restaurants, including
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Speaker 1: a place called Bullwinkle's Family Restaurant, which is cool. I
7:29
Speaker 1: imagine that would have an intellectual property tie in with
7:32
Speaker 1: the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show featuring the iconic Moose and Squirrel.
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Speaker 1: A place called Celebration Station which sounds like a delightful
7:40
Speaker 1: place to have a slice, fair Play Pizza Theater, which
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Speaker 1: sounds a little innocuous and kind of dull. It's like,
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Speaker 1: that's not where the real fun happens. That's where everything
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Speaker 1: is just equitable. That's like hundred percent fair play pizza.
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Speaker 1: That doesn't sound like anyone's taking many risks there, Major
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Speaker 1: Magic's All Star Pizza review that sounds like a good time.
8:05
Speaker 1: And then a place called Harazmatazz love it Yeah, and
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Speaker 1: bush Nall said that they had around twenty of these
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Speaker 1: copycats that they were competing with, and now, going back
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Speaker 1: on that contract, Showbiz was essentially the most popular of
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Speaker 1: these these knockoffs. Right. And by the way, we're getting
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Speaker 1: a good bit of this information from the actual history
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Speaker 1: of Showbiz Pizza on Showbiz Pizza dot com, slash history
8:34
Speaker 1: slash index, dot aml and a really great article from
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Speaker 1: Fast Company with a fabulous name called Robots Pizza and
8:40
Speaker 1: Sensory Overload. The Chuck E Cheese origin story by BENJ. Edwards, Yeah, correct,
8:46
Speaker 1: and the article by Binge Edwards is I think one
8:50
Speaker 1: of the go to reads here. It's a long read,
8:52
Speaker 1: but it's worth it, so right at the top long read,
8:56
Speaker 1: so the fit and do check it out, folks, because
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Speaker 1: it is worth it anyway. As Edwards as Edwards rights,
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Speaker 1: Brock had a reason for this betrayal. He discovered a
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Speaker 1: new kind of animatronics technology that he thought was better
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Speaker 1: than what Bushnell's team had created. This is the work
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Speaker 1: of a guy named Aaron Fetcher of creative engineering that
9:22
Speaker 1: you might recognize from some documentaries of Days gone By,
9:27
Speaker 1: which I love. Fetcher had developed these huge, full body,
9:32
Speaker 1: life size animatronic characters. He called them the rock Afire Explosion,
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Speaker 1: and they had smoother movements than the Chucky Cheese cyberamics
9:43
Speaker 1: characters they were like, and they're a different crew, right,
9:49
Speaker 1: but if you look at what they're doing, it's one
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Speaker 1: hundred percent pulled from the Chuck E Cheese playbook, which
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Speaker 1: itself has some notes of plagiarism from the mouse. So
10:01
Speaker 1: this is like, this is a bridge too far for
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Speaker 1: Pizza Time, right, And it's funny because you know, I
10:07
Speaker 1: think we all were a little confused as to which
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Speaker 1: one of these stores we actually remembered from our youth,
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Speaker 1: because you know, I think me and you Ben were
10:17
Speaker 1: a little older than Max. Uh. No specifics need be named,
10:21
Speaker 1: but I do remember Showbiz Pizza, and I always assumed
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Speaker 1: that Showbiz Pizza and Chuck E Cheeses were the same thing.
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Speaker 1: I don't remember Pizza Time Theater, but I do remember
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Speaker 1: maybe they were like remnants or something like that, or
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Speaker 1: like little you know, some of these like fake posters
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Speaker 1: for these bands or whatever, these you know, robot musicians
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Speaker 1: that maybe had still some branding from that, but they
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Speaker 1: were originally separate entities, right. And because when this, you know,
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Speaker 1: Showbiz Pizza came out with the with the higher quality animatronics,
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Speaker 1: it did really really well, and that did not sit
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Speaker 1: well with Bushnell. He actually sued Brock's firm and eventually
11:04
Speaker 1: one what's called like a profit garnishing judgment, which I
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Speaker 1: imagine it's sort of like if you sue over like
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Speaker 1: a song that copies you, then you end up entitled
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Speaker 1: to all or a portion of the earnings from that song,
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Speaker 1: like a blurred lines kind of situation. Yeah, and unfortunately
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Speaker 1: this judgment came too late to be super useful to
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Speaker 1: Bushnell and team because they were trying to turn Pizza
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Speaker 1: Time from a kid's place to more a what they
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Speaker 1: called a diversified leisure or a leisure company. In their
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Speaker 1: nineteen eighty two annual report, you can see this, Bushnel writes,
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Speaker 1: we believe the nineteen eighty three will be a time
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Speaker 1: of growth and change in which the transition from a
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Speaker 1: specialized restaurant concept to a diversified leisure company will be evident.
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Speaker 1: They're trying to go They're doing a daven Busters is
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Speaker 1: what they're trying to do. David Busters for Everyone was
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Speaker 1: opened in Dallas in nineteen eighty two, so he may
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Speaker 1: have been aware of something like this, but he definitely
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Speaker 1: had his finger on the pulse and it wasn't a
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Speaker 1: bad instinct. It just maybe was again too little, too late.
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Speaker 1: The timing is everything, and I'm sorry, guys. I keep
12:20
Speaker 1: referencing this show Halt and catch Fire because I am
12:23
Speaker 1: like in the thick of it, and now in the
12:25
Speaker 1: show where I am in season four. It's now the
12:28
Speaker 1: early nineties, and the show has been you know, following
12:31
Speaker 1: the explosion of technology, including video games and companies like
12:35
Speaker 1: Atari since around this time. And what you see time
12:38
Speaker 1: and time again in the show against like a fictionalized
12:41
Speaker 1: kind of like alt history version of a lot of
12:43
Speaker 1: these things that really really happened, for example, like the
12:46
Speaker 1: you know, the development of the World Wide Web and
12:49
Speaker 1: all of that. Timing is everything. You can have the
12:52
Speaker 1: best idea in the world, but if it's not ready,
12:56
Speaker 1: if consumers aren't ready for it, or the content isn't
12:59
Speaker 1: there yet to fill it, then it's gonna it's not
13:01
Speaker 1: gonna fly right right, And that could be a huge issue.
13:07
Speaker 1: In early nineteen eighty three, Pizza Times balance sheet was
13:11
Speaker 1: looking bad. One slight push in the wrong direction could
13:16
Speaker 1: fell the company entire and this push came in the
13:21
Speaker 1: form of a US tech stock crash. Investors who are
13:26
Speaker 1: a pretty sensitive bunch, were immediately frightened. And when tech
13:33
Speaker 1: investors get frightened, as we can see in the in
13:36
Speaker 1: the current days of the United States, there are a
13:39
Speaker 1: lot of ramifications. Once the tech sector got scared in
13:44
Speaker 1: the stock crash of eighty three, they started cutting ties
13:49
Speaker 1: with Atari. Atari became a shadow of its former self.
13:53
Speaker 1: People didn't want to invest in tech, so lines of
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Speaker 1: credit dried up for Bushnell's firms. Pete Time stock fell
14:01
Speaker 1: from twenty six dollars per share all the way down
14:05
Speaker 1: to four dollars per share, and then wait, it gets worse.
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Speaker 1: It plummeted further to two dollars and fifty cents a share,
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Speaker 1: and then, wait, it gets worse. Pizza Time came out
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Speaker 1: and confirmed it had been losing money for three fourths
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Speaker 1: of the previous year. Yeah, I mean, we already talked
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Speaker 1: about the hefty price tag on each one of these locations,
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Speaker 1: a million nineteen eighty three bucks, you know, per pizza restaurant,
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Speaker 1: with over two hundred and forty locations across the US,
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Speaker 1: even sometimes you know, in smaller cities that maybe did
14:44
Speaker 1: not necessarily have the audience yet to support these they
14:48
Speaker 1: were making a big play and maybe I think definitely
14:52
Speaker 1: overplaying their hand here, because you had folks like showbiz
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Speaker 1: that it maybe already learned from the inside, you know,
15:01
Speaker 1: how to ease in a little bit more, you know,
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Speaker 1: to dip the toe into the market, maybe not spend
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Speaker 1: every single dollar, you know, in the same way the
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Speaker 1: Pizza Time Theater had. Also with all these copycats, you
15:13
Speaker 1: were getting a little bit of saturation with this whole
15:17
Speaker 1: concept because again, like you can't really exactly copyright this concept.
15:24
Speaker 1: You can copyright actual characters and the way they look
15:27
Speaker 1: and all that stuff, and as we know, it's not
15:29
Speaker 1: that hard to just tweak a few little details, and
15:32
Speaker 1: you can even get away with ripping off Mickey Mouse,
15:35
Speaker 1: but you can't really copyright the idea of a robot
15:38
Speaker 1: driven you know, entertainment pizza arcade joint. So people were
15:44
Speaker 1: almost a little bit tired of the concept at this point,
15:46
Speaker 1: and it was a little bit of like kind of
15:49
Speaker 1: brand confusion too. I think may have because again we're
15:52
Speaker 1: talking about the stuff when we were kid. We had
15:54
Speaker 1: serious brand confusion many many years later. Which one is
15:57
Speaker 1: which we don't know and there's a reason for that
16:00
Speaker 1: because of what's about to happen. That's sort of the
16:02
Speaker 1: answer to the questions that we have. Yeah, and we're
16:12
Speaker 1: going to get some more information here from Anna Green
16:16
Speaker 1: writing at Mental Floss the Chuck E Cheese, Showbiz, pizza,
16:20
Speaker 1: robot wars. Who doesn't love a robot war? Yeah, Rockham
16:24
Speaker 1: Sockam Yeah. Everybody listening after twenty forty, I guess, But
16:28
Speaker 1: so they they really like the novelties wearing off. You
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Speaker 1: describe it perfectly. And Bushnell also is aware of the problem.
16:37
Speaker 1: It's not just that the industry has expanded with all
16:41
Speaker 1: these competitors, it's that Chuck e Cheese itself has expanded
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Speaker 1: way too far, way too fast. He had this interesting
16:50
Speaker 1: quote where he said Chuck e Cheese was so new
16:53
Speaker 1: that when we would first open a unit in Saint Louis,
16:55
Speaker 1: you wouldn't have enough capacity. It was just okay, bar
16:59
Speaker 1: the door. But that lasted for about a year and
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Speaker 1: a half. Then people would settle down. They didn't need
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Speaker 1: to go to Chuck e Cheese every time Grandma came
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Speaker 1: to town. They didn't need to go to Chuck e
17:08
Speaker 1: Cheese once a month. They found that we'll do the
17:10
Speaker 1: kid's birthdays and we'll go somewhere on special events, and
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Speaker 1: the frequency visits dropped from ten a year to three
17:16
Speaker 1: a year. He had racked up additional debt twenty two
17:22
Speaker 1: million dollars in debt because Bushnell had been using Chuck
17:25
Speaker 1: E Cheese money to fund other startups. Yeah. Can I
17:30
Speaker 1: say real quick, I've got an expression that I use
17:33
Speaker 1: a lot in my regular life and it comes from
17:35
Speaker 1: a TikTok video of this kid. And he's got a
17:39
Speaker 1: paper plate with Charles Entertainment cheese on it, and it's
17:43
Speaker 1: got some some like chocolate chips on it, and he says,
17:47
Speaker 1: chocolate chips on the Chuck E Cheese plate. Oh yeah, baby,
17:52
Speaker 1: oh yeah. So whenever something's awesome, I say, man, that
17:56
Speaker 1: is chocolate chips on the Chucky Cheese plate right there.
17:58
Speaker 1: Oh yeah baby, Oh yeah. Okay, I had to. I
18:01
Speaker 1: had to fit that, and I promise my kid I
18:02
Speaker 1: would fit that in. Okay, yeahs Because you know, this
18:05
Speaker 1: branding is still with us, and it did manage to
18:08
Speaker 1: kind of, you know, insert itself into into the zeitgeist.
18:12
Speaker 1: And then we're going to get to the now of
18:14
Speaker 1: Chuck E Cheese. But at this point they are not
18:17
Speaker 1: doing well. That is not a good play, my friend.
18:20
Speaker 1: That is not chocolate chips. On the Chucky Cheese play
18:22
Speaker 1: to use that money to fund other startups, because we
18:25
Speaker 1: know startups. This is the era, the beginning of startup culture.
18:30
Speaker 1: You know this like kind of Silicon Valley, like fake
18:32
Speaker 1: it till you make it attitude, And we know that
18:35
Speaker 1: most startups fail miserably, and that money evaporates, and if
18:40
Speaker 1: you're just pulling it from the kiddie from you're already
18:43
Speaker 1: struggling business. That is a recipe for disaster. Yeah, many
18:47
Speaker 1: startups these days are created entirely in hopes of selling
18:51
Speaker 1: them to a bigger company later. It's a different mentality
18:54
Speaker 1: than what you would want for for restaurants. So Bushnill
18:59
Speaker 1: and team have to file for bankruptcy in nineteen eighty
19:01
Speaker 1: four as a result of all these deletarious factors. Bushnell
19:06
Speaker 1: gets pushed out. Showbiz buys up the failing franchise, and
19:10
Speaker 1: it operates both Chucky Cheese and Showbiz locations independently. Because,
19:16
Speaker 1: probably because at this point Chuck E. Cheese was so
19:19
Speaker 1: well known that they want to kill him off, they
19:22
Speaker 1: renamed the company Showbiz Pizza Time, which does sound like
19:26
Speaker 1: the name of it does sound like the name of
19:30
Speaker 1: several weird off brands restaurants I've been to in other countries.
19:36
Speaker 1: Someone's like, make something sound America, call it pizza time.
19:40
Speaker 1: No give it, hit it with that. Rasmu'tazzi pizza time.
19:44
Speaker 1: We don't even know. It's not even to start it
19:45
Speaker 1: on Rasmua task. I was talking to you. You met
19:48
Speaker 1: my friend Steven when we were out in La and
19:51
Speaker 1: I was talking to him about this subject and he
19:53
Speaker 1: was like, I swear I went to Chuck E Cheese
19:56
Speaker 1: and Showbiz Pizza at different times when I I was
20:00
Speaker 1: a kid growing up in the eighties. And the answer
20:02
Speaker 1: is quite possibly, definitely. It is that kind of a
20:05
Speaker 1: Mandela effect, though, you know what I mean, where it's
20:08
Speaker 1: like which one was it? Was it Shazam or was
20:11
Speaker 1: it Kazam? Was it Chuck E Cheese or was it
20:13
Speaker 1: show It was probably both. And then there came a
20:16
Speaker 1: point where you'd probably have ones that were under one branding,
20:19
Speaker 1: that worked in that area and that already were doing
20:22
Speaker 1: good business. They just left well enough alone. And then
20:25
Speaker 1: they you know, they probably monitored it and saw which
20:27
Speaker 1: ones were doing better, and they left them as they
20:29
Speaker 1: were because but they also they shared characters. At this point.
20:32
Speaker 1: If I'm not mistaken right, because I remember the song.
20:35
Speaker 1: There was a commercial it was Showbiz Pizza where a
20:40
Speaker 1: kid can be a kid, and then later it became
20:43
Speaker 1: Chuck E Cheeses where a kid can be a kid.
20:46
Speaker 1: And that's why I was super confused, because they did
20:49
Speaker 1: coexist simultaneously, and then I think they were kind of
20:52
Speaker 1: squashed together. And now there are no more show businesses.
20:55
Speaker 1: There's only the mouse the big Cheese. We'll get to this.
21:00
Speaker 1: So right now, Bob Brock and Fetcher are victorious, but
21:08
Speaker 1: only for a time. Remember Fetcher is the creative guy.
21:12
Speaker 1: Brock is more the corporate money centric type. So Fetcher
21:18
Speaker 1: loses out. Shopiz is still hemorrhaging money, and management says, okay,
21:24
Speaker 1: part of the reason this is not more profitable is
21:28
Speaker 1: because those rock of Fire explosion acts are just increasingly elaborate.
21:33
Speaker 1: They're increasingly expensive, so they start sidelining Fetcher and they
21:38
Speaker 1: use voice impersonators to play his characters. Fetcher is getting
21:42
Speaker 1: increasingly disillusioned with the corporate world and he starts tinkering
21:46
Speaker 1: with other projects. He builds new animatronics, high tech rock
21:50
Speaker 1: afire toys that honestly a lot of people couldn't afford
21:53
Speaker 1: he starts working on the anti gravity machine. He called
21:57
Speaker 1: it it's a predators, sounds like a predecessor to email.
22:01
Speaker 1: They could send messages over telephone lines. And then in
22:05
Speaker 1: nineteen ninety his company, Fetcher's Company, Creative Engineering, was kicked
22:09
Speaker 1: out of Showbiz completely. Fetcher lost the war. He was
22:13
Speaker 1: able to take rock Afire Explosion with him because he
22:16
Speaker 1: refused to sell the character rights to Showbiz and he
22:20
Speaker 1: was convinced. He was like, I believe in my rock
22:22
Speaker 1: Afire gang. I know that they can do something outside
22:26
Speaker 1: of this pizza joint. So he said, I'm going to
22:29
Speaker 1: keep working on the robots. And because Showbiz no longer
22:34
Speaker 1: had the rights to those characters, this is where the
22:35
Speaker 1: confusion occurs. They converted the remaining Rock a Fire robots
22:41
Speaker 1: into Chucky Cheese characters, replacing their exteriors and kind of
22:47
Speaker 1: a Westworld style thing. They left the original machinery intact.
22:51
Speaker 1: This was called concept unification. And there's another example of this.
22:56
Speaker 1: It's a little conspiratorial. But if you go to the
22:59
Speaker 1: Hall of Press Residents, right everybody knows Disney Hall of Presidents,
23:03
Speaker 1: you'll notice that one in particular, it looks very weird.
23:07
Speaker 1: It's it's the statue or animatronic character of former President
23:13
Speaker 1: Donald Trump. It looks a lot like somebody started building
23:17
Speaker 1: it with the intention that it would be President Hillary
23:20
Speaker 1: Clinton and then had to change it. Oh man, election
23:24
Speaker 1: came through. Pull up a picture. I'm telling you, that's
23:27
Speaker 1: super cool. I actually was. When I was at Disney recently.
23:30
Speaker 1: I intended to go to the Hall of Presidents, but
23:32
Speaker 1: it's one of those things that happens on a schedule.
23:34
Speaker 1: You can't just wander in, and I just missed. I
23:37
Speaker 1: missed the timing for it because the fireworks happened, and
23:40
Speaker 1: I wasn't going to miss that obviously. But this is
23:43
Speaker 1: super interesting, Ben. This like reskinning of these like you know,
23:47
Speaker 1: Terminator exoskeleton kind of guys. And as we I think
23:51
Speaker 1: we mentioned briefly, there is a you've alluded to a
23:53
Speaker 1: minute ago. There's a really cool documentary called I think
23:56
Speaker 1: it's just called the Rock a Fire Explosion Band or
23:59
Speaker 1: maybe just Rocks. It's easy to find and you could
24:01
Speaker 1: watch the whole thing on YouTube actually, but Fetcher is
24:04
Speaker 1: a main character in it, and it basically is about
24:07
Speaker 1: all of these Rock a Fire super fans that kind
24:10
Speaker 1: of band together these aren't rich people. They band together
24:13
Speaker 1: and buy the Rock of Fire Explosion animatronics from Fetcher
24:19
Speaker 1: or I think that's right, because they buy it from
24:20
Speaker 1: and then they say they build it and then like
24:22
Speaker 1: a trailer, didn't make it all the way to the end.
24:25
Speaker 1: So I'm not quite sure what the but this is
24:26
Speaker 1: good that way. I'm not spoiling it for anyone. There's
24:28
Speaker 1: definitely some intrigue and it shows you Ben. You we've
24:31
Speaker 1: talked about this off air, the kind of nightmarish hellscape
24:35
Speaker 1: that is fifteen of these things skinless and pantomiming there
24:41
Speaker 1: whatever lip sync things at the same time, like a
24:44
Speaker 1: row of lucky cats that like a Chinese novelty store.
24:48
Speaker 1: You know, it's really really pretty scary stuff. And clearly
24:53
Speaker 1: the impetus for games like Five Nights at Freddy's, which
24:56
Speaker 1: is like the jump scares with these like creepy you know,
24:59
Speaker 1: rock a Fire animatronic robot things. Absolutely yeah, and the
25:03
Speaker 1: documentary is well worth a watch. Spoiler the Rock Afire
25:09
Speaker 1: Explosion show, those characters are. They end up being sold
25:14
Speaker 1: to other restaurants and entertainment centers, which further amplifies the
25:18
Speaker 1: possible Mandela effect because you could have seen them at
25:20
Speaker 1: someplace completely different like Pistol, Pizza Pizza, Billy Bob's Wonderland
25:25
Speaker 1: and so odd. All right, so Showbiz has unified its concept, right,
25:34
Speaker 1: and they're still facing outside competition. One of their biggest
25:40
Speaker 1: competitors becomes something called Discovery Zone. This is an entertainment
25:44
Speaker 1: center targeted toward kids, but it's a different vibe. They've
25:48
Speaker 1: got an indoor jungle gym, they've got a lot of
25:50
Speaker 1: hands on activities, interior playgrounds, education driven. I don't know
25:56
Speaker 1: why when I hear Discovery I think maybe it's like
25:59
Speaker 1: there's you know, optical illusions or something like that, or
26:02
Speaker 1: there's something. Maybe I'm totally wrong. It's because I worked
26:05
Speaker 1: in a place called Fort Discovery that was actually run
26:08
Speaker 1: by the US military and it was like a science
26:11
Speaker 1: e type museum. So Discovery Zone probably not that. But
26:15
Speaker 1: then hands on activities, I do have to assume there
26:17
Speaker 1: may have been some sort of educational component when I
26:20
Speaker 1: hear hands on activities, mostly mma cool hand to hands right,
26:26
Speaker 1: yea with pizza death in a steel cage. Right. So
26:31
Speaker 1: the sales at Showbiz start to slow down and there
26:35
Speaker 1: are more disappointing sales in the early nineties, so Showbiz
26:40
Speaker 1: Pizza Time drops the word pizza from the restaurant name,
26:44
Speaker 1: and this is where they start just calling it chuck
26:47
Speaker 1: E Cheese. They get a new kid friendly logo of
26:50
Speaker 1: Charles Zinte mid Cheese and he has like a thumbs up, like, hey,
26:56
Speaker 1: we passed our health inspection. And in night five they
27:01
Speaker 1: begin a series of massive remodelings. They called this Phase one,
27:06
Speaker 1: and they added kid check Kiosk, which like, let's parents
27:12
Speaker 1: have a little more security with their children. They also
27:14
Speaker 1: added free attractions so that it didn't feel like it
27:19
Speaker 1: was a continual money sink when you took your family
27:22
Speaker 1: to visit. Chuck E himself officially goes from kind of
27:27
Speaker 1: ratlike to definitely a mouse. They said enough time has passed,
27:32
Speaker 1: and then they tried something. They tried something weird. They
27:37
Speaker 1: got really experimental. They made something called the Awesome Adventure
27:42
Speaker 1: Machine in nineteen ninety seven. Okay, okay, tell me more.
27:47
Speaker 1: By the way, Discoveries own not educational at all, and
27:50
Speaker 1: to this day there now there are only two locations
27:53
Speaker 1: at malls, one in Kentucky and one in Ohio. So
27:56
Speaker 1: they clearly didn't win the war either. And just in here,
28:00
Speaker 1: that's actually a remake. I was researching the same thing
28:03
Speaker 1: as you know. It turns out those two are just
28:04
Speaker 1: paying homage to the original Discovery Zone, so the original
28:07
Speaker 1: is not even around at all. Right, they went, they
28:10
Speaker 1: liquidated in two thousand and one. Got it? Do the
28:13
Speaker 1: sound cute back right now? Great? All right? Awesome? Uh
28:32
Speaker 1: we love it when we can fit that one in organically.
28:35
Speaker 1: So yeah, this awesome adventure machine. It's a little mad
28:40
Speaker 1: science pictures. Someone say it's too complex, it's unstable at
28:45
Speaker 1: this stage, and then the corporate type going, I don't care,
28:48
Speaker 1: I put it in. The restaurants said it. The children
28:52
Speaker 1: send it to the cheating demain. So this thing, though
28:56
Speaker 1: it didn't work out in nineteen ninety seven, it was
28:59
Speaker 1: a new kind of a test stage and it gave
29:01
Speaker 1: rise to the Chuck E Cheese stage show concept called
29:05
Speaker 1: Studio C. Studio C only has one animated figure that's
29:10
Speaker 1: child's in a tabit cheese. Yep. I've seen this version too,
29:13
Speaker 1: and as an adult with going to kids' birthday parties,
29:16
Speaker 1: and it was definitely not what I remembered and contributed
29:19
Speaker 1: to my confusion. And this is this is important because
29:23
Speaker 1: it's a huge cost saving measure. The other characters are present,
29:26
Speaker 1: but they're on TV monitors, so you only really need
29:29
Speaker 1: one one cyborg. They're not cyborgs. Honestly. It reminds me
29:36
Speaker 1: of the way a lot of roller coasters now or
29:39
Speaker 1: at certain amusement parks are doing more the like motion
29:43
Speaker 1: video stuff rather than actually having to build tracks, you
29:47
Speaker 1: know what I mean. And then obviously the really high
29:49
Speaker 1: quality ones like Disney and Universal, they'll use both sometimes,
29:53
Speaker 1: you know, but it's a real cost saver if you
29:55
Speaker 1: don't have to actually move around or have the real
29:58
Speaker 1: estate required to have a big old track. Same with
30:01
Speaker 1: all of these seriously expensive moving part you know, animatronic
30:06
Speaker 1: figures that break down and have to be maintained and
30:08
Speaker 1: all of that kind of stuff, so um smart on them.
30:11
Speaker 1: You know. It's sad that the kids of this era
30:14
Speaker 1: won't remember the terrifying joy that was the Rock of
30:19
Speaker 1: Fire explosion bando. Yeah. And to the point about roller coasters,
30:23
Speaker 1: it's also way less expensive insurance wise. You know, I
30:29
Speaker 1: can't get decapitated by a video. Uh yeah. And many
30:33
Speaker 1: years ago at the local amusement park of note here
30:36
Speaker 1: six Flags Over Georgia, someone did die. They get decapitated.
30:44
Speaker 1: Yea true story. So there are business reasons behind a
30:48
Speaker 1: lot of these entertainment choices. Now in the story, all
30:53
Speaker 1: of the units have been completely turned over, remodeled, and
30:58
Speaker 1: themed to Chuck E Cheese Luke Patians. So Shobiz Pizza
31:01
Speaker 1: Time Incorporated changes its company name to Chuck E. Cheese
31:06
Speaker 1: Entertainment Incorporated in nineteen ninety eight. Which, yes, I know
31:11
Speaker 1: that's a little bit like saying VIN number or ATM
31:14
Speaker 1: Machine Charles Entertainment Cheese Entertainment Incorporated. But they're they're making
31:19
Speaker 1: it work. And then they move on to phase two remodeling. Ah.
31:23
Speaker 1: Phase two, that's when they really start leaning into what
31:27
Speaker 1: you aptly described as a casino for children kind of environment.
31:33
Speaker 1: And again, you know, as an adult who has you know,
31:35
Speaker 1: been to a few casinos, not my thing. It's not
31:38
Speaker 1: something I would have clocked at all when I was
31:40
Speaker 1: a kid, because you just get thrown into these places
31:42
Speaker 1: and you're like, wow, this is amazing. But they all
31:45
Speaker 1: lean much more heavily on gaming rather than like actual
31:49
Speaker 1: console video game cabinets, you know where you're like playing
31:52
Speaker 1: you know, a preexisting property. These are more like roulette
31:55
Speaker 1: type games. To earn tickets that you can then exchange for,
31:59
Speaker 1: you know, thing like stuff that are as we know
32:02
Speaker 1: even in like David Buster's similar model, but they at
32:05
Speaker 1: least have like cool video games. And I'm sure some
32:07
Speaker 1: Chucky cheeses have video games, but I seem to recall
32:09
Speaker 1: when I went very light on the actual branded video
32:13
Speaker 1: games that we know and love, like the you know
32:16
Speaker 1: whatever Tetrises of the World and things like that. Much more.
32:19
Speaker 1: These either either dinky little rides, you know, like the
32:23
Speaker 1: little airplane it just goes like back and forth, like
32:25
Speaker 1: at the grocery store, or these kind of games of chance,
32:29
Speaker 1: and we know that that stuff really can get under
32:32
Speaker 1: your skin and kind of feed this like addiction of
32:36
Speaker 1: I've got to win the thing, I gotta get the stuff.
32:38
Speaker 1: You know, I've got an itch, yeah yeah, and doctrinate
32:47
Speaker 1: them young. Right. This this is weird, but it is successful.
32:52
Speaker 1: In July of nineteen ninety nine, Discovery Zone files for
32:57
Speaker 1: chapter eleven bankruptcy Child's Entertainment. Cheese Entertainment, Incorporated buys out
33:04
Speaker 1: their remaining assets and intellectual property. This gets rid of
33:08
Speaker 1: their only major competitor and they become the dominant family
33:13
Speaker 1: entertainment Center in the United States. Back to Shopiz Pizza's
33:18
Speaker 1: official history, they say the early two thousands were boon
33:22
Speaker 1: for the company, sales increase. They were constantly opening new locations.
33:27
Speaker 1: They go to Phase three remodels where they say, we're
33:30
Speaker 1: gonna have new enhanced games, We're gonna have a toddler zone,
33:35
Speaker 1: we're gonna disc with all that stuff was lifted from
33:38
Speaker 1: Discovery Zone. That, yeah, one hundred percent, so they're like
33:42
Speaker 1: Discovery Zones. Main thing was these ball pits and you know,
33:47
Speaker 1: tumbly kid environments. You know that you could run around it.
33:50
Speaker 1: We all probably had a place in our youth that
33:53
Speaker 1: was maybe more local or regional. For me, it was
33:55
Speaker 1: a place called put Putt Golf and Games. And they
33:59
Speaker 1: kind of follow the same model. You could see it
34:01
Speaker 1: happening because you know, you have to keep up with
34:03
Speaker 1: the Joneses, right, and they have these giant play places
34:07
Speaker 1: that would be up in the up of the sky,
34:09
Speaker 1: kind of connected to the ceiling. We have one here
34:11
Speaker 1: in Atlanta that I think is relatively regional called Andretti's
34:14
Speaker 1: that's like a go kart kind of joint, and they
34:17
Speaker 1: have one of these like sky tube kind of situations too.
34:20
Speaker 1: So this copycatting because the stuff isn't exactly intellectual property,
34:25
Speaker 1: it always runs rampant when somebody kind of cracks the
34:27
Speaker 1: code one hundred percent. Yeah, I mean, another great example
34:32
Speaker 1: would be the baseball cap. Right, no one can really
34:36
Speaker 1: nope own that. You just own what goes on. It's right,
34:40
Speaker 1: you know what, we should check into the history of
34:42
Speaker 1: the baseball cap. By may be incorrect, but that'll be
34:44
Speaker 1: a way. That's a good idea. Let's just make a
34:46
Speaker 1: note of that. Yeah, that's a really good idea, history
34:49
Speaker 1: of the baseball cap. We're cooking live, folks, Okay, So
34:52
Speaker 1: Chuck e Cheese. They are so successful that they say
34:56
Speaker 1: we're no longer going to sell franchises. They open the
34:59
Speaker 1: three hundred company owned location in March of two thousand
35:04
Speaker 1: and then they start buying back the franchises from the
35:08
Speaker 1: individual operators or owners, and a lot of yeah, a
35:12
Speaker 1: lot of them. They wanted to expand they're like, my
35:15
Speaker 1: two Chuck E cheeses are doing really well. I want
35:17
Speaker 1: to build a third one. And then corporate would say,
35:20
Speaker 1: we don't do that anymore, but we will buy yours
35:23
Speaker 1: back from you, and so they buy up all of
35:27
Speaker 1: these different units, and they even try for a minute,
35:30
Speaker 1: they had something that I never visited, a small town
35:34
Speaker 1: chuck e Cheese that had an all Euthenet buffet, a
35:37
Speaker 1: costume Chucky on the floor, and they charged submission to
35:41
Speaker 1: the door. But eventually these were all given that studio
35:46
Speaker 1: see animatronic treatment because people still went for the animated
35:51
Speaker 1: characters they did. That was the kind of selling point
35:54
Speaker 1: because at this point you haven't, like I said, you know,
35:56
Speaker 1: whether it be regional or like a massive national chain.
35:59
Speaker 1: Most people have a thing like this in their neighborhood,
36:04
Speaker 1: you know, in their city. There was a place, you know,
36:06
Speaker 1: another place where I grew up that was called Fundsville
36:10
Speaker 1: and it was all this kind of stuff they had,
36:12
Speaker 1: like bumper boats and basically like an always on kind
36:16
Speaker 1: of carnival kind of atmosphere. So to have that extra
36:20
Speaker 1: selling point, which was the show aspect of it, was
36:24
Speaker 1: about the only thing that they could provide that was
36:26
Speaker 1: any different than any of these other spots one hundred percent.
36:30
Speaker 1: You know, that's that's the main draw. You don't go
36:34
Speaker 1: to McDonald's and not expect French fries, right, So this
36:38
Speaker 1: because what makes it different from any other places then,
36:41
Speaker 1: So anyway, the cool Chuck era could not last. A
36:46
Speaker 1: cool Chuck era is the way our pal doctor Zach
36:50
Speaker 1: decided to phrase this, and I agree with him. The
36:54
Speaker 1: company is heading, like the rest of the United States
36:57
Speaker 1: into the Great Recession, and it was able to keep
37:01
Speaker 1: itself in the black during this time, but a lot
37:05
Speaker 1: of the tricks that used to stay afloat we're starting
37:08
Speaker 1: to run thin. This is a novelty concept, which means
37:11
Speaker 1: that what it is no longer a novelty to people.
37:14
Speaker 1: They're just gonna stay home or they're going to go
37:17
Speaker 1: play in the park. These franchises that they have been
37:22
Speaker 1: absorbing were increasingly scarce. The company had saturated the market.
37:27
Speaker 1: They couldn't expand much further, and they said, okay, we
37:30
Speaker 1: got to stop opening units as quickly and as widely
37:35
Speaker 1: as we have. We need to offer we need to
37:40
Speaker 1: offer other paths right to ourselves. So they begin reoffering
37:46
Speaker 1: franchise options in the United States to save the company money,
37:51
Speaker 1: and they're going to use that money to invest in
37:53
Speaker 1: their existing stores. And this is something that a lot
37:56
Speaker 1: of companies should do more often. Instead of opening the
37:59
Speaker 1: new stuff, you got to invest in what you already
38:01
Speaker 1: know works. And you like how I say that with
38:05
Speaker 1: companies as as though all industries are the same. It's
38:09
Speaker 1: a little broadbrush there. But anyway, the company started to
38:15
Speaker 1: remove their free entertainment options too in a lot of locations.
38:19
Speaker 1: No more skytubes, no more toddlers, owe just more games
38:22
Speaker 1: that you have to pay to play or in stores
38:25
Speaker 1: that had the room the stuff you mentioned earlier, nol
38:28
Speaker 1: bumper cars, other other premium attractions, like how when you
38:32
Speaker 1: go to six Flags you still have to pay for
38:35
Speaker 1: laser tag even though you already paid the price of
38:38
Speaker 1: admission to get into the park. Max you get it.
38:40
Speaker 1: That's unfair, so lame, so lame. So in the summer
38:45
Speaker 1: of two thousand and twelve, Chuck E. Cheese Entertainment, Incorporated
38:50
Speaker 1: was trying to catch up with the times. They knew
38:53
Speaker 1: all of the things that we're talking about, you know,
38:55
Speaker 1: the these are this a company that's run by you know,
38:58
Speaker 1: relatively smart people, and they know that you can't you
39:01
Speaker 1: can't rest on your laurels or whatever, rest on your
39:05
Speaker 1: cheese pizzas. That's horrible. But I'm saying it because I
39:08
Speaker 1: said it, and I said what I said. A lot
39:10
Speaker 1: of this was about kind of modernizing the character and
39:15
Speaker 1: what was popular in the two thousands, Pixar, you know, cgi,
39:20
Speaker 1: let's let's let's make it where people can like Really,
39:23
Speaker 1: that's what Disney was really all about two a lot
39:25
Speaker 1: of these like three D rides. You know, I'm focusing
39:28
Speaker 1: more on like video and than the on actual movement.
39:31
Speaker 1: So they wanted to catch up. And they're turning at
39:33
Speaker 1: this point Chuck E. Cheese Charles Entertainment into a rock star.
39:38
Speaker 1: They were either rebranding the voice, making him a cool
39:41
Speaker 1: skater guy kind of if I'm not mistaken, right, yeah,
39:44
Speaker 1: yeah he is. He's getting too cool for school. Most
39:50
Speaker 1: of the press did not like this. They said this
40:00
Speaker 1: is disastrous. They said, this isn't popular. It's not going
40:04
Speaker 1: to be popular. The general public was like, what have
40:07
Speaker 1: you done to Charles? I love the idea of the
40:09
Speaker 1: press having an opinion of it. Yeah, yeah, I mean,
40:12
Speaker 1: we gotta weigh in on this. Chucky Cheese rebranding still happens.
40:16
Speaker 1: That still happens now. You can find all kinds of well, actually,
40:19
Speaker 1: I bet we could find some think pieces about Chucky
40:22
Speaker 1: Cheese in the modern day. Maybe. Anytime nostalgia is at play,
40:25
Speaker 1: you are going to have stakeholders, people that are gonna
40:27
Speaker 1: wear how dare you you know, like the super fans
40:30
Speaker 1: of Rockefire Explosion featured in that documentary, or surely has
40:33
Speaker 1: something to say about all of it, or literally any
40:37
Speaker 1: Marvel film or sci fi franchise shout out to star
40:41
Speaker 1: trek Max. So look, the company knows that this is
40:47
Speaker 1: not translated into profits or sales, and so they say, Okay,
40:52
Speaker 1: we're going to release our annual report. It's plaintext. It's
40:55
Speaker 1: the kind of thing you haven't seen since the early
40:57
Speaker 1: nineteen eighties when Pizza Time Theater or bankruptcy. And in
41:02
Speaker 1: twenty fourteen, Apollo Global Management acquires Charles Entertainment Cheese Entertainment, Incorporated,
41:10
Speaker 1: and they buy the five hundred and seventy seven stores
41:14
Speaker 1: across the world for about nine hundred and fifty million dollars,
41:18
Speaker 1: making Chuck E. Cheese a privately held, wholly owned subsidiary.
41:23
Speaker 1: Kids don't care about this, just cutting to the chase.
41:27
Speaker 1: Kids don't care about any of this behind the scenes stuff.
41:31
Speaker 1: What they care about is whether something is interesting and
41:35
Speaker 1: entertaining to them. It looks like at least per folks
41:38
Speaker 1: like Kitty j Over atmash Dot com that children are
41:42
Speaker 1: increasingly less engaged with robotic musical characters. So twenty seventeen,
41:49
Speaker 1: Chuck E Cheese announces they're gonna revamp their locations. They're
41:53
Speaker 1: gonna remove some animatronic acts and stages. They want to
41:59
Speaker 1: make a large dance floor where children can conga with
42:03
Speaker 1: a live Chucky Cheese that comes from a back room.
42:07
Speaker 1: And when he comes out, he makes it rain. He's
42:09
Speaker 1: throwing tickets out everywhere, and then he's like, dance with me, Chee.
42:16
Speaker 1: Dad's to the Beyesie the rats. Who is now pie
42:20
Speaker 1: pipering the children? Yes, some reason that just conjured up
42:25
Speaker 1: an image of like a Hunger Games like style, like
42:28
Speaker 1: a movie like postystopian like world where we all dance
42:32
Speaker 1: for Chuck E Cheese. Yeah. No, he's a god. He's
42:35
Speaker 1: worshiped as a god in this version of reality that
42:39
Speaker 1: you're describing back really quickly. Just just just that one
42:42
Speaker 1: thing that always stood out to me. I don't think
42:44
Speaker 1: I ever did it. I think you only got to
42:46
Speaker 1: do it if you were the birthday of a person.
42:50
Speaker 1: Do you remember the cage you'd go into where like
42:52
Speaker 1: money and tickets and stuff would blow around and you
42:55
Speaker 1: just had to grab your grab it with your little fists,
42:59
Speaker 1: get as much as you can. Good. It's a weird one.
43:02
Speaker 1: Max was nodding emphatically. Man, I'm not sure if you
43:05
Speaker 1: remember that or not. Oh yeah, that's yeah. It was
43:09
Speaker 1: like a wind tunnel kind of thing where I would
43:11
Speaker 1: like blow all around really hard to actually actually grab.
43:16
Speaker 1: I also have never been in one of those two,
43:18
Speaker 1: but I know people who have been in them, and
43:20
Speaker 1: I've always I don't know, might people signful towards them.
43:23
Speaker 1: I've feared one with actual cash. Yeah, oh yeah, that's
43:27
Speaker 1: a that's a thing too. Yeah, and that is the
43:29
Speaker 1: earlier days, that is more difficult to catch. So if
43:32
Speaker 1: you if you listen, if you were playing one of
43:34
Speaker 1: those as a kid and you weren't able to get
43:37
Speaker 1: as much as you hoped, don't feel bad. A lot
43:40
Speaker 1: of adults have a hard time too well. And I
43:42
Speaker 1: think to your point, Bend, it originally was mainly cash,
43:47
Speaker 1: and then I think that probably got a bad rap
43:50
Speaker 1: because a cash is filthy, uh, and it's probably just
43:53
Speaker 1: rubbing all around on your little child body. And also
43:57
Speaker 1: it just kind of feels a little ikey, not just
43:59
Speaker 1: because the German bits, but just because of the like,
44:02
Speaker 1: I don't know, capitalism kind of hipsters is like, come on, children,
44:07
Speaker 1: just grabbed for the cash. It's sort of like that
44:09
Speaker 1: scene in Batman, you know, where he's throwing the fake
44:11
Speaker 1: Joker dollars and everyone's like rioting in the streets. That's
44:14
Speaker 1: started the vibe that it imparts. And this is where
44:19
Speaker 1: this is where we get closer and closer to the
44:23
Speaker 1: modern day. Now, the live mascot thing does make sense
44:27
Speaker 1: because kids like, that's a Disney formula again. Kids love
44:31
Speaker 1: engaging with the live mascots, right, and now we have
44:36
Speaker 1: to ask how far this can go? Unfortunately, do you?
44:41
Speaker 1: According to a press release just a few years back,
44:44
Speaker 1: in June twenty twenty, Charles Entertainment, Cheese In Entertainment Incorporated,
44:51
Speaker 1: excuse me, Charles Entertainment, Cheese Entertainment, Incorporated, filed for Chapter
44:55
Speaker 1: eleven bankruptcy and this was predicted. This it seemed almost
45:00
Speaker 1: inevitable as the pandemic reared its head. They had a
45:06
Speaker 1: pretty in depth financial reorganization and this came about entirely
45:11
Speaker 1: due to the massive hit they took during the early
45:14
Speaker 1: days of COVID nineteen when pretty much every restaurant in
45:18
Speaker 1: Arcade was shut down. The same store sales fell by
45:25
Speaker 1: more than twenty percent in the first quarter. Without getting
45:29
Speaker 1: into the financial weeds, what you need to know is
45:31
Speaker 1: that Chuck E Cheese needed a two hundred million dollar
45:35
Speaker 1: loan just to get through bankruptcy, and this would allow
45:40
Speaker 1: the chain to reopen their closed stores and continue operations
45:44
Speaker 1: like carry out and delivery and stuff as well. And
45:48
Speaker 1: it all looked lost, it all looked for not. However,
45:52
Speaker 1: get this a little bit of good news for a second.
45:54
Speaker 1: Six months later, CEC Entertainment announces they pulled themselves out
46:01
Speaker 1: of bankruptcy. They were financially healthy. Their restructure did away
46:05
Speaker 1: with seven hundred and five million dollars in debt. And
46:09
Speaker 1: that's like, that's where you learn America, baby, am I right?
46:13
Speaker 1: Like if you were a corporation, you know, bankruptcy is
46:17
Speaker 1: just sort of like a situation you get into and
46:20
Speaker 1: then you're gonna be fine if you restructure. It's very
46:24
Speaker 1: very strange stuff. But before we get to like tangents
46:27
Speaker 1: trivias in our last updates, we got to say something
46:30
Speaker 1: about Bushnell. He's a pioneer man. He still has a
46:34
Speaker 1: thing about restaurants. He has become a restaurant tour. He
46:38
Speaker 1: has founded or taken over several restaurants over the past
46:41
Speaker 1: forty years, and he even tried something similar to showbiz
46:46
Speaker 1: with something called you Wink Letter, You Wink. Okay, it's
46:52
Speaker 1: a restaurant where tables get touch screens in two thousand
46:55
Speaker 1: and six. It's sort of like what Chili's. It's sort
47:01
Speaker 1: of like so many places, do you know, Yeah, I
47:03
Speaker 1: mean you will look to touch Look. I guess this
47:05
Speaker 1: is two thousand and six, so this is I don't know,
47:08
Speaker 1: pre iPad, pre robot sushi restaurant, right, So so you
47:14
Speaker 1: know this would have been again timing, right, because then
47:17
Speaker 1: you have this whole business model kind of upended by
47:22
Speaker 1: you know, easily available technology that any restaurant can just
47:26
Speaker 1: install an app on and have a thing plugged up
47:28
Speaker 1: to a charger on the table where you can like
47:31
Speaker 1: spend ninety nine cents on playing a word game while
47:34
Speaker 1: you wait so you don't have to talk to your family, right, Yeah,
47:38
Speaker 1: I mean this is the thing. He's still if this
47:41
Speaker 1: is the thing, if you are pioneer in a concept
47:44
Speaker 1: right in any shape, form or fashion, then you are
47:48
Speaker 1: taking on a risk that other people simply do not
47:52
Speaker 1: have to take on. This is why leap frog, this
47:55
Speaker 1: is why the concept of leap frogging technology exists. And
47:58
Speaker 1: a lot of those competitive in this character entertainment restaurant space,
48:04
Speaker 1: a lot of them were benefiting from the risk that
48:07
Speaker 1: Bushnell took in his career, which spans, as Fast Company
48:12
Speaker 1: put it, spans well into a half century. Bushnell never
48:16
Speaker 1: stopped chasing this idea of entertainment and socializing him food
48:22
Speaker 1: and drink. He you know, Pong was the first game
48:26
Speaker 1: that had required two players, and Pong ended up in
48:30
Speaker 1: a lot of restaurants. The end of that article, honestly,
48:33
Speaker 1: it kind of falls into like this shout out or
48:39
Speaker 1: this tribute to Bushnell's work, And I'd like to just
48:45
Speaker 1: hit this one thing that really stood out from the
48:48
Speaker 1: Fast Company article. They say, maybe that's the secret behind
48:52
Speaker 1: chuck E Cheese and during relevance. It's not about technology
48:56
Speaker 1: or singing animals. The place is a cultural trojan horse
49:00
Speaker 1: brought families together, helped arcade games become acceptable, and made
49:04
Speaker 1: eating into family entertainment. I think that's very nice. It's
49:09
Speaker 1: a very nice thing to say. I don't know if
49:11
Speaker 1: it's the first to the post in eating as family entertainment.
49:15
Speaker 1: We'd have to figure out when, Um, oh, what's like
49:19
Speaker 1: medieval times? That was probably eighties. Doesn't that seem eighties?
49:24
Speaker 1: It feels maybe nineties. It feels fifteenth century to me. Oh,
49:28
Speaker 1: they got you, they got Max. No, this is true.
49:32
Speaker 1: I mean, look, it's sort of the family restaurant, you know.
49:36
Speaker 1: I mean the idea of even something as simple as
49:38
Speaker 1: like a free coloring book for kids, you know what
49:41
Speaker 1: I mean, Like just this idea of a place where
49:43
Speaker 1: you could all come as a family, there's something on
49:46
Speaker 1: the menu for everybody. Even the idea of a kid's menu,
49:49
Speaker 1: you know, like that was kind of innovative at the time,
49:52
Speaker 1: and so I think all of this kind of springs
49:55
Speaker 1: from that. And and honestly, you know, Bushnell was, um,
49:59
Speaker 1: you know, we talked about how he was sort of
50:01
Speaker 1: like fascinated by these family restaurants and wanted to kind
50:05
Speaker 1: of take them into the into the next generation or
50:08
Speaker 1: whatever in the future. So I mean, these these concepts
50:11
Speaker 1: were just sort of escalations of things that definitely already existed.
50:15
Speaker 1: But times nineteen sixties, no joke, no joke. So there
50:21
Speaker 1: we go. Okay, all right, just had to put that
50:23
Speaker 1: out there. Get in frestory of the family restaurants. I
50:29
Speaker 1: just want to know, like when like history of family restaurants.
50:33
Speaker 1: It looks to be the rise of family restaurants started
50:35
Speaker 1: after World War Two and has grown into an important
50:38
Speaker 1: part of that makes sense. It was this idea of
50:40
Speaker 1: kind of like this was something that was attainable for everybody,
50:45
Speaker 1: you know, Like in the seventeen hundreds, this article on
50:48
Speaker 1: gun through two ds dot com, which I think is
50:51
Speaker 1: a family diner of some sort, but they point out
50:54
Speaker 1: a gun through two D's and the seventeen hundreds, it
50:56
Speaker 1: wasn't uncommon for wealthy families to send a servant to
50:59
Speaker 1: pick up dinner, you know, which was then eating at home.
51:02
Speaker 1: The idea of dining out in general as a family
51:06
Speaker 1: was was not really attainable. It wasn't until you know,
51:09
Speaker 1: the early nineteen hundreds that children were even allowed into restaurants.
51:15
Speaker 1: You know, I'm not gonna say let's all be time travelers,
51:20
Speaker 1: but I think there are certain restaurants that probably shouldn't
51:23
Speaker 1: have They should have age restrictions, you know what I mean,
51:26
Speaker 1: not just bars, but like like you know, you're out
51:28
Speaker 1: on a really nice candlelit romantic dinner with your you know,
51:32
Speaker 1: one and only of the month, and then you probably
51:35
Speaker 1: don't want a screaming child, or maybe that's your ambiance.
51:39
Speaker 1: I don't know, only if it's on theme, you know,
51:42
Speaker 1: if that's like the theme that you've chosen for your baby. Really, well,
51:47
Speaker 1: congratulations on your promotion. Let's go have a romantic celebration.
51:51
Speaker 1: It's screaming child, bistro, screaming child. I did have a
51:56
Speaker 1: couple of things that I discover when I was looking into, um,
51:59
Speaker 1: how how COVID affected the Chucky Cheese, you know, Empire.
52:05
Speaker 1: We talked a little bit about that. You know, they
52:07
Speaker 1: did file for bankruptcy after you know, amassing more than
52:11
Speaker 1: a billion dollars in debt. They were able to raise
52:14
Speaker 1: some funds and now I believe they're in the process
52:17
Speaker 1: of restructuring. But there were a couple of interesting stories
52:20
Speaker 1: that really kind of hit home. For example, apparently they've
52:24
Speaker 1: been doing that ghost kitchen thing that a lot of
52:27
Speaker 1: restaurants do, where like, you know, they sort of came
52:30
Speaker 1: up during COVID where you were using a kitchen in
52:34
Speaker 1: a brick and mortar restaurant in order to serve food
52:38
Speaker 1: for another restaurant brand. So you would essentially like lease
52:41
Speaker 1: out part of your kitchen. But that's not exactly what
52:44
Speaker 1: what Charles did. They actually created a kind of phony
52:48
Speaker 1: Italian restaurant called Pasquali's Pizza and Wings and just served
52:53
Speaker 1: their chucky cheese fair, you know, to unsuspecting online diners,
53:01
Speaker 1: because I mean, let's be let's be honest, y'all. I mean,
53:03
Speaker 1: chuck E Cheese pizza ain't ain't all that it's not
53:07
Speaker 1: that good. Well, I bet you that somewhere there is
53:10
Speaker 1: a person putting their heart and soul into what they're cooking,
53:13
Speaker 1: and you can tell. But as a rule, generally, yeah,
53:17
Speaker 1: chuck E Cheese is not going to be the same
53:19
Speaker 1: pizza as your local mom and pop store. Yeah. I
53:22
Speaker 1: know most of us have that bad experiences. I'm just
53:24
Speaker 1: defending the one person out there whom I hope, who
53:28
Speaker 1: I hope is breaking the stereotype or exceeding expectations. And
53:35
Speaker 1: as of you know, the restructuring, This may not be
53:39
Speaker 1: the most up to date information right now, but more
53:42
Speaker 1: than thirty four locations that were open when coronavirus hit
53:48
Speaker 1: have closed, and that's in you know, states across the country.
53:52
Speaker 1: And piggyback on that research, Associate Extraordinarires, Zach Doctor z
53:56
Speaker 1: Williams found a pretty interesting and slightly disturbing detail about
54:02
Speaker 1: what happens when a Chuck E. Cheese location is closed.
54:06
Speaker 1: The Chuck E Cheese costumes and I believe the animatronics
54:11
Speaker 1: are the very least the light heads that go on
54:13
Speaker 1: them are decommissioned in a pretty alarming and brutal way
54:19
Speaker 1: that really fits in with Max's dystopian kind of like
54:23
Speaker 1: god like scenario where Chuck E. Cheese is worship only
54:27
Speaker 1: in this situation, he's actually sacrificed. There's video that surfaced
54:32
Speaker 1: of employees at a location that was being closed smashing
54:38
Speaker 1: the cartoon character head with a sledgehammer, like ripping the
54:45
Speaker 1: covers off magazines. Yeah, yeah, and apparently this is a
54:50
Speaker 1: corporate policy because it makes sense, right because you wouldn't
54:54
Speaker 1: want that head to fall into the wrong hands and
54:57
Speaker 1: then have the brand like be smirched. Who knows people
55:00
Speaker 1: could wear them and like do crimes, you know, so
55:03
Speaker 1: you just don't. They had to just get rid of him,
55:05
Speaker 1: They had they had to smash it up. Yeah. And
55:08
Speaker 1: there's that great Atlas Obscure article right by Paula Meggia
55:12
Speaker 1: which talks about this in detail why Chucky Cheese has
55:16
Speaker 1: a corporate policy about destroying his mascot's head. You might say,
55:20
Speaker 1: I don't want to I don't want to go to
55:22
Speaker 1: the new Chucky Cheese. I want the animatronics. I know
55:26
Speaker 1: the company might be weirdly defensive. They still have where
55:30
Speaker 1: they do have robots, they're still powered by a floppy disc.
55:33
Speaker 1: That's a true story. Check out the bite for more
55:36
Speaker 1: on that. Shout out to nor I'll sabay. But if
55:39
Speaker 1: you yearn for that nostalgia, folks, and nostalgia is a
55:43
Speaker 1: heck of a drug, then never fear. You can go
55:46
Speaker 1: see a collection of memorabilia from the old days of
55:49
Speaker 1: showbiz Pizza in Sandy Hook, Mississippi, thanks to Damon Brenlan,
55:55
Speaker 1: the owner of Smitty's Super Service. No, no, I I
55:59
Speaker 1: haven't been to this place. I've actually barely been to
56:02
Speaker 1: many locations in Mississippi, just regular places. Not even think
56:07
Speaker 1: I've ever been to Mississippi ever. Well, maybe the first
56:10
Speaker 1: time we go, we go to this Smitty's Super Service.
56:16
Speaker 1: This sounds fantastic. He's got fully functioning animatronics. It's set
56:21
Speaker 1: up to look just like the restaurant and that's funny
56:23
Speaker 1: because I wonder how he got around this, because I
56:25
Speaker 1: mean with the rocket fire explosion stuff, they bought it
56:28
Speaker 1: directly from the dude who created them, who would not
56:31
Speaker 1: sell the IP. But this goes against the whole idea
56:35
Speaker 1: of them destroying the stuff because a big part of
56:38
Speaker 1: the Apples Obscure article, or the point that the writer
56:41
Speaker 1: makes is that they're they're basically exerting control over their
56:45
Speaker 1: trademark because they wouldn't want these things to be like
56:48
Speaker 1: available on eBay and for someone to literally do what
56:51
Speaker 1: this person, Damon Breland is doing at Smitty's Super Service.
56:55
Speaker 1: So I'm confused as to how he's operating under the
56:59
Speaker 1: radar like this without the power of Charles Entertainment Cheese
57:04
Speaker 1: Corporate coming down on him like a sledgehammer of the gods. Yeah,
57:09
Speaker 1: it's an interesting question, and if it's not love for
57:12
Speaker 1: the world, then we'll have to get back on the
57:14
Speaker 1: road and check it out. We hope that you enjoyed
57:19
Speaker 1: this week's two part episode, folks. Obviously the nostalgia is
57:24
Speaker 1: strong with us. We hope it's strong with you. This
57:28
Speaker 1: story goes in so many directions. We want to thank
57:31
Speaker 1: as always superproducer mister Max Williams for hurting the production
57:36
Speaker 1: cats here. Who else should we think? Oh Giles's entertainment
57:39
Speaker 1: cheese duh. I don't know, man, he gives me the creeps.
57:43
Speaker 1: I kind of liked his youthful rock star rebranding to
57:46
Speaker 1: be honest. Thanks to Mac Williams, of course, Zach doctor
57:52
Speaker 1: Z what a guy and big big thanks to Eve's
57:56
Speaker 1: Jeff Christopher Hasiodes, Casey, Pegram Casey and uh and reluctantly
58:04
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland ak the Quister. You can actually see a
58:08
Speaker 1: video of of of us in our other podcast iteration
58:12
Speaker 1: Stuff They Don't want you to know, hanging out with
58:14
Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland in real life at a miniature golf course
58:18
Speaker 1: historical miniature golf course in Austin, Texas called peter Pan Golf,
58:22
Speaker 1: talking conspiracies and just joshing around on the links, the
58:26
Speaker 1: mini the miniature links. Yeah. I don't think it's out yet,
58:29
Speaker 1: but it will be soon. You can take a look
58:31
Speaker 1: for that at our other shows social media stuff they
58:34
Speaker 1: Don't want you to Conspiracy stuff show on Instagram. Keep
58:37
Speaker 1: a lookout for that video. It's a fun one, yeah,
58:40
Speaker 1: especially if you like nostalgia. Uh, I don't know. Man,
58:44
Speaker 1: this has actually weirdly enough, it's made me kind of hungry.
58:48
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, is this about lunchtime? It's close. I think
58:51
Speaker 1: we can swing it. Yeah, let's mail the littles's orders
58:54
Speaker 1: some middling pizza. We'll see you next time, folks. For
59:05
Speaker 1: more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
59:09
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.