Featured image credit: Ben Schumin
What a year for legendary bands. New wave icons Devo retired from live performance. Rock gods Kiss called it a day. And now Munch’s Make Believe Band is packing it all in… with one notable exception. Wait, you don’t remember Munch’s Make Believe Band? Surely you’ve had the singular experience of gumming your mouth up with processed mozzarella while being serenaded by the official Chuck E. Cheese animatronic band. If not, your chances of experiencing this staple of kinder-rock just narrowed dramatically. Chuck E. Cheese locations across the country are ditching their animatronics for more modern modes of entertainment. But there is one location where the band plays on. And it’s great news for nostalgic Angelenos. The historic Chuck E. Cheese band is taking up a permanent residency in one location and one location only. And it’s in Northridge.
The Changing Face of Pizza-Adjacent Entertainment
Out of Chuck E. Cheese’s 568 global locations, 400 are currently in various states of renovation, each in the U.S. Of these locations, only 30 retain remnants of the classic Chuck E. Cheese animatronic band. And soon, that number will dwindle to one singular location.
Chuck E. Cheese band is no longer a feasible (or, in some cases, appreciated) attraction at the family-oriented restaurants. Technology, even in its most trivial forms, continues to grow in leaps and bounds, changing public tastes and expectations with it.
Several Chuck E. Cheese locations already offer interactive dance floors incorporating cutting edge technology for toddlers who want to bust a move. Not to mention state-of-the-art wall-sized screens beaming CGI mascots. And the video arcade is still there, albeit with titles appealing to today’s children. Some restaurants are even incorporating trampolines. Because combining pizza, kids, and trampolines doesn’t seem like a disaster.
Cult Interest in the Wake of Chuck E. Cheese’s Animatronics
It may seem a strange time to sever ties with such a hallmark feature of the restaurant chain. It trails a current pop culture fascination with outdated animatronics. This cult following was catalyzed by the Five Nights at Freddy’s franchise. Started as a series of video games in which a security guard of a pizza joint must survive five nights terrorized by possessed animatronics, it was somewhat unsuccessfully adapted into a feature film just this year.
In 2021, a slightly better-received low-budget Nicolas Cage horror film, Willy’s Wonderland, also seemed to mine heavy inspiration from the Chuck E. Cheese animatronic characters. Even earlier, similar themes were explored in the 2019 horror comedy The Banana Splits Movie. At least no pizza was involved in that last one.
The High Cost of the Chuck E. Cheese Animatronic Characters
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But there’s more than shifting public interests behind the restaurant’s decision to remove their historic animatronic rockers. Over the decades, the outdated automatons have been an increasing target of vandalism. And this piles on top of the already astronomical cost of maintaining the sensitive bots.
While all of the Chuck E. Cheese animatronic bands are programmed at a central Texas location, routine maintenance has to be conducted onsite. And that’s become a process both too costly and cumbersome for the family-oriented pizza parlor. Thus we’re coming to the end of a plan started back in 2017 to do away with all animatronics at Chuck E. Cheese locations. Except one, of course.
A New Take on Dinner Theater
Chuck E. Cheese debuted in San Jose in 1977 as Chuck E. Cheese’s Pizza Time Theatre, the brainchild of Nolan Bushnell. Hot on the heels of co-founding the Atari video game company, Bushnell conceived the idea for a family-friendly restaurant that also offered video arcades and animatronic shows. A visit to Bay Area pizza spot Pizza & Pipes sparked his inspiration. Notable for featuring a live Wurlitzer organ player, Pizza & Pipes lured patrons with piping hot pizza and piping hot tunes.
While Bushnell was transfixed by this contemporary take on dinner theater, he wasn’t thrilled at the prospect of dealing with artistic temperaments. But a chance visit to Disneyland’s Enchanted Tiki Room helped him to further develop the idea of what would become the Chuck E. Cheese animatronic band. Upon seeing the mechanical parrots lurch to life as if by their own accord, harmonizing with blinking totem poles, Bushnell recognized a way to provide family entertainment without live performers. But there was still a gulf to bridge between the concept and what would eventually become known as Munch’s Make Believe Band.
Rick Rat’s Pizza
Bushnell has since admitted that he didn’t put a ton of forethought into a mascot for his innovative pizza chain. After paying a visit to a show hocking, among other things, costumes for amusement parks, he grabbed the first raggedy costume to catch his eye. We can only imagine Bushnell’s attention to detail in this matter since he believed the costume to be that of an anthropomorphic coyote. “Our code name for the place was Coyote Pizza,” he explained to the Los Angeles Times.
It wasn’t until he checked in with his development team to survey the progress on his animatronic canine that he was informed, to his surprise, that he’d not hastily purchased a coyote costume at all. Nor was it a mouse as Chuck E. Cheese casuals are wont to believe. The original Chuck E. Cheese was, in fact, a rat.
After his plan of rechristening the restaurant Rick Rat’s Pizza was summarily shot down by a wise marketing team, an early concept of the Chuck E. Cheese character began to take form. In those days, he wasn’t a clear beacon for pizza-chomping preteens, but rather something of a grizzled, cigar-puffing carnival barker.
But Bushnell had also envisioned the Chuck E. Cheese animatronic performers as equal opportunity entertainment for the adults in the audience. After all, animatronics were still a relatively new concept in 1977… at least outside of a theme park.
The Earliest Incarnation of the Chuck E. Cheese Band
Even with a primitive draft of the Chuck E. Cheese mascot in place, Munch’s Make Believe Band was over a solid decade away. After the rat-turned-mouse and his animatronic pals debuted as busts in picture frames, they transitioned into the Pizza Time Players. In this incarnation, they stuck to cover songs safe for young ears.
Following an early line-up change in which Crusty the Cat was replaced with Mr. Munch the…uh… purple thing, the sky seemed the limit for the official Chuck E. Cheese band. But with their success came competition. In 1980, rival pizza chain ShowBiz Pizza Place introduced their own animatronic rock band: The Rock-afire Explosion.
The Very Real Rise of Munch’s Make Believe Band
Perhaps as a result of this rivalry, the Pizza Time Players were constantly evolving and finetuning their live set, introducing original numbers and phasing out less popular animatronics. In 1989, the power dynamics of the band changed and, to reflect this new direction, they changed their name too. Thus Munch’s Make Believe Band, swathed in tuxedos, made their official debut at Chuck E. Cheese locations across the country.
Their infamous rivalry with The Rock-afire Explosion, one that prefaced the Oasis versus Blur hysteria that gripped the UK in the early 1990s, was famously captured in the cult 2008 documentary entitled The Rock-afire Explosion. As its title suggests, it’s not exactly an unbiased piece of journalism.
Chuck E. Cheese historians would likely agree that the classic line-up of Munch’s Make Believe Band included:
- Chuck E. Cheese (mouse) – lead vox
- Mr. Munch (alien) – keyboards
- Jasper T. Jowls (dog) – guitar
- Helen Henny (chicken) – backing vox
- Chef Pasqually (human) – drums
The Chuck E. Cheese Band’s Northridge Residency
For most of the world, the time to catch Munch’s Make Believe Band has passed. At least without some significant travel involved. But Angelenos, especially those living in the San Fernando Valley, have a distinct advantage where the Chuck E. Cheese band is concerned. That’s because the classic line-up of Munch’s Make Believe Band will continue to perform daily at the restaurant’s Northridge location at 8425 Reseda Boulevard for the foreseeable future.
“We want our fans to know that the decision to keep the band here is meant as a gesture of love and gratitude as our legacy continues to evolve in new ways,” Chuck E. Cheese President and CEO David McKillips clarified in a statement. But just as there is more than a single reason behind the decision to shutter the remaining Chuck E. Cheese animatronic bands, there are other reasons why Northridge was chosen for their eternal residency. For one: Northridge’s animatronics are in surprisingly great condition.
But Northridge is also one of the oldest Chuck E. Cheese locations still in operation. In fact, it was one of the first of the brand’s restaurants when it opened its doors in 1983. You wouldn’t know it to look at it though. It has several of the hallmarks of the renovated spaces including a modern video arcade, CGI-saturated screens, and state-of-the-art interactive disco floor. It also just so happens to have the last standing Chuck E. Cheese band. And as long they don’t come to life and attack Northridge security guards, that’s a magical thing.
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