Chuck E Cheese's - Where a Kid Can Be a Kid (1980)

I was at Chuck E. Cheese's a couple months back. I was upset to see that the ball pit had been removed. Now there's just extra seating. I also remember the pizza being much better when I was a kid.

I was being punished is why I was not allowed to attend my classmate's birthday party there. I refused to sit out at recess, but I don't remember what I did wrong that I had to sit out for.

I went to a few of my fellow students birthday parties there when I was little. I was not allowed to attend one of my classmates birthday party there because I was being disciplined.

So that why there is no more Discovery Zone huh. Seeing that DZ was better I'm pissed at Chuck E. Chesse's now. Now my son can't experience the awesomeness that was Discovery Zone.

O_O Chuck E Cheeses bought out Discovery Zone?! NOOOOOOOOOOO! thats why theres no more...

The Chuck E. Cheese that I went to when I was little was crappy. The animatronics were all breaking (this was in the late 80's) and the ball pit smelled like pee. Me and some friends went back to that same Chuck E. Cheese when we were in high school and the animatronics were just as bad and the ball pit had been removed because kids were getting lice in it. All and all it was fun for the whole family!

Sadly I never got to experience Chuck E. Cheese until I was almost too old for it. Although my girlfriend wants me to take her sometime and we're both over 20. :-\

I remember this commercial, but The Showbiz Pizza version. Is that on here somewhere?

you guys go far too deep into this.

The company was founded in 1977 by Atari founder Nolan Bushnell as Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre, with its first restaurant in the West Side of San Jose, California on Winchester Blvd with company headquarters in Sunnyvale, California. The first location was no larger than a standard corner pizzeria. It contained several video games, and a dining room theatre that featured singing animatronic characters, which was a unique attraction at the time.

The company soon began to franchise and expanded very quickly, mostly in the Northeastern United States, as well as its home state of California. The fortunes of the company were so closely tied to the expanding video game market that, when the popularity of video games began to stall in the early 1980s, so did Chuck E. Cheese's popularity.

In 1984, Pizza Time Theatre, Inc, filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and was purchased by competitor Showbiz Pizza Place, which also featured pizza, video games, and singing animatronic characters. The company then changed its name to Showbiz Pizza Time, Inc. It was also at this time that Richard M. Frank became the CEO and decided to change the target audience from the 10 to 17 years age group to the 0 to 12 years range they have today. Both the Chuck E. Cheese's and ShowBiz names continued to be used until 1992, when Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza became the name for all of the restaurants.

In the late 90's the company found new competition from Family Entertainment Centers such as Leaps and Bounds, and Discovery Zone. Other fast-food chains such as McDonald's had also began to expand their soft-play offerings. This shift in the market caused the company to slightly overhaul the concept to include similar play areas, such as "SkyTubes". In 1998, the company changed its name to CEC Entertainment, Inc. In 1999, they would purchase competitor, Discovery Zone. The company is currently known as CEC Entertainment Concepts, L.P.

An update on an earlier comment/question by Jaiekeyz as well as BC_Anselmo ..... Chuck E. Cheese was originally called Pizza Time Theater and Chuck E Cheese was it's main mascot - If you check out the video again you'll hear them mention Pizza Time Theater near the beginning and also see it on the marque at the very end of the video underneath Chuck E Cheese logo - The first location was in San Jose, California back around 1975 at what was once called Town & Country Village

Dear god, I had to take my nephews to CEC, a few weeks back. They totally suck now. Absolutely no video games, a couple of rides, the animatronic show was broken, and the pizza tasted like cardboard.

Chuck E. Cheeses died when the video game industry crashed. That was really the only reason to go - wall to wall video games.

To answer Jaiekeyz question there was 2 places one was Showbiz Pizza, and the other was Chuck E. Cheese. I know that in Colorado many places called Chuck E. Cheese and Showbiz Pizza, Showbiz had a bear, and Chuck E. was a mouse. Chuck E. Cheese had closed down, but Showbiz remained. After a while Showbiz Pizza then became Chuck E. Cheeses, so I can not explain why, but that is the best info that i GOT.

Am I crazy or did Chuck E. Cheese's used to be called Showbiz Pizza? Anybody recollect that??

Chuck E. Cheese was the best back in the 80's. All of the arcade games and animatronics made it so fun.
The Chuck E. Cheese in my neighborhood had tunnels underneath the main stage that looked like swiss cheese. You could crawl through them.
Does anyone else remember that?

do your kids play the coin-op Hungry Hungry Hippos machines in the Chuck E. Cheese arcade?

The only time I ever went to Chuck E. Cheese's was when I was 4 years old. I loved thier pizza and I remember playing Hungry Hungry Hippos in their arcade area with my dad too. It was at the Chuck E. Cheese's around King's Highway in Rahway, NJ.

This was back when Chuck E. Cheese's was called "Chuck E. Cheese". This place is supposed to be a place where kids are supposed to have fun and do whatever they want...well, it's kind of hard to enjoy when you're being stalked by a big grey furry rat wearing a suit!

Kids love it. Absolute hell for adults. My husband refuses to go there.

musicradio77, just to let you in on it, they went down in the early 90s after a kid died from food poisoning, somewhere in southern U.S.

I used to go to Chuck E. Cheese's when I was a kid since they had it in Puerto Rico. I haven't been there in years.

Meh... Chuck E. Cheese was good for it's time, but the animatronics used to scare the hell outta me! Plus, the pizza was terrible!