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The face of the Chuck E Cheese’s restaurants
is Chuck E Cheese himself who’s full name
is actually Charles Entertainment Cheese’s.
He’s been around since the company was founded
in 1977 and you could probably consider him
in some ways an American entertainment icon.
When you visit Chuck E Cheese’s you’re
bound to see Chuck waking around, interacting
with everyone in the restaurant.
Now next to the animatronics, meeting chuck
e cheese has become one of the staples of
visiting the restaurants.
Now the Chuck E Cheese restaurants themselves
have a long history and with the natural evolution
of time, the Chuck E Cheese character has
gone through some changes.
Specifically in this video we’ll be looking
at the character’s changes through the mascot
walk around character as well as the looks
used for marketing purposes.
So today we’re gonna be talking about the
Evolution of the Chuck E Cheese Character!
The Development Stages
So we’ll start right at the beginning in
about 1974.
During the development of the restaurant,
its founder, Nolan Bushnell, also co-founder
of Atari, was at the IAAPA Expo, which is
the the international association of amusement
parks and attractions expo.
There he saw what he thought was a generic
coyote costume.
He ordered it and began designing the restaurant
around this costume calling it Coyote Pizza.
Well Bushnell received the mascot character
and then realized it had a pink tail and was
in fact a rat.
You can see how the original rat costume Bushnell
received had a lot of fur and did in fact
look like a coyote.
So after this discovery, the restaurant was
then gonna be called Rick Rat’s Pizza featuring
Ricky Rat; which you could say was a nod from
Bushnell to Disney’s Mickey Mouse.
Ricky Rat, Mickey Mouse- both names have the
same flow don’t you think?.
While the costume was in Bushnell’s possession
during the development stages of the restaurant,
Rick Rat became the unofficial mascot of Atari
in the mid 70s.
Well in the end the Ricky Rat name didn’t
end up actually panning out because it was
deemed to not be kid friendly, but we all
know what name they ended up going with, and
here Bushnell describes why they chose the
Chuck E Cheese name
Because we wanted the smile.
Chuck E. Chuck E Cheese.
We wanted the smile.
We wanted this name so that you couldn’t
say it wouldn’t smiling.
And its true.
Right now try saying Chuck E Cheese without
smiling….
see?, when you say cheese it forces a smile.
Which is also why we say cheese when we take
pictures!
Cheese
The 1980’s
When the Chuck E Cheese’s Pizza Time Theatre
restaurant first opened, Harold Goldbrandsen
is the man responsible for making and designing
the Chuck E Cheese mascot.
It was based on the original costume Bushnell
purchased from the IAAPA Epxo and still had
that long snout and those really large teeth.
It looked like a rat, which you could say
wasn’t the most inviting look.
So to soften up the Rat’s appearance they
gave him a red derby hat, a yellow undershirt,
a paisley vest, and to top it all off, a bow
tie.
This look was used from the opening of the
first Pizza Time Theatre location in 1977
until around 1980.
Now in the early 80s, the company began to
grow and Pizza Time Theatre was having trouble
maintaining the consistency of Chuck’s costume
design due to material availability.
So in May of 1981 Chuck was given a new yellow
and red diamond vest which was silkscreen
printed to ensure every vest would be the
exact same.
Now this commercial also features the articulated
Chuck E Cheese walk around character that
was able to blink his eyes and move his mouth.
Hang in there Howie.
Through our research it appears that the articulated
chuck e cheese character was only used for
promotional commercials through the 1980s
and didn’t regularly appear in the restaurants.
Now sometime in the early 80s, the Chuck walk
around character in the restaurant seemed
to have received new face features including
red rosy checks and a red lower lip.
Through the 80’s this seemed to have become
the standard face look seen in the restaurants.
But I gotta say it looks a little cheap compared
to the old design
Sometime between 1983-1984 Chuck was given
a plain red vest which can be seen here in
this commercial from 1984.
Now comparing the articulated character to
the normal mascot in the restaurants, Chuck’s
commercial snout had much softer features
and was less narrow than the character in
the resultants.
This probably had something to do with the
mechanism needed to make the mouth move.
It seems that commercial chuck is also the
only time he appears with whiskers…but here
at the restaurant in 1986 you can see just
how long and pointy Chuck’s snout really
was.
The mid 80s is also the time when Pizza Time
Theatre went bankrupt and was purchased by
Showbiz Pizza Place.
Although they remained independent restaurants
for the first few years there was some crossover
between Chuck E Cheese characters and the
ShowBiz Pizza Place Characters.
During this time Chuck continued to sport
the red vest and derby hat into the early
90’s when the company started the merge
and brand all restaurants as Chuck E Cheese’s.
Where a kid can be a kid!
The 1990’s
Around 1990, Chuck ditched the red vest and
debuted his Tuxedo look that included gold
lapels and a red bow tie.
They still kept the red derby hat which now
matched the red bow tie to go along with Chuck
new classy look.
Now it seems like this maybe could have been
done as a response to better resemble Mickey
Mouse.
He also wears a tuxedo and bow tie and has
the same color palette of red, yellow (or
gold) and black used for Tuxedo Chuck.
This may have just been a coincidence or maybe
it wasn’t.
Tuxedo Chuck was only used for a couple years
and throughout this time, the company realized
that the character needed to be more hip.
They placed him in a yellow shirt but still
kept the red derby hat which came across as
a really odd merge of two looks.
It’s also safe to say that in the 90’s,
chuck’s face received a redesign and upgrade
giving the character much softer features
which you can see especially in his checks.
He was given a wider check structure and smile,
a softer- less pointy snout with elongated
eyes and smaller ears.
This new look actually better resembled the
articulated animatronic character seen in
the commercials from the 80’s.
Between 1994 to 1995 Chuck E Cheese got a
complete overhaul and “Cool Chuck” was
the next version to appear in the 90’s.
The most notable differences of Cool Chuck
was the company’s decision to ditch the
red derby hat in exchange for a baseball cap,
and the loss of the character’s tail.
There were various colours of hats and styles
of shirts used but Cool Chuck, who was now
seen on the company’s logo, hung around
for advertising purposes from 1994 until 1997.
The Avenger Era
Probably one of the most iconic changes made
to Chuck E Cheese was the look that was referred
to as “Avenger Chuck.”
Now, this look debuted in 1997 and the physicality
of the character was the same as cool chuck,
but this is where he received the purple and
green Hat, purple shirt with the yellow C,
and the green shorts.
You can tell that the company was really trying
to make him appear a lot cooler and relatable
to the kids of the 90s with the inclusion
of the backwards snapback and the skater gloves.
This look appeared in all the advertising
beginning in 1997 but this time it was in
the form of animation.
It also appears that from the late 90’s
and on, the mascot characters were phased
out of the commercials with animation being
the medium of choice for the character.
Avenger Chuck was solely used for marketing
purposes while Cool Chuck was still seen as
the walk around character in the restaurants
from the mid 90s until around 2001.
Cool Chuck also remained in the company’s
logo until 2004 when Avenger Chuck with the
thumbs up took over.
Avenger Chuck began making his appearances
in the restaurant around 2001 and by 2004
this new look was completely rolled out in
all the restaurants as walk around characters.
Now although the company stopped using mascot
characters in the commercials, there was one
ad from m around 2008 that included the avenger
walk around chuck e cheese.
It also appears that in the mid to late 2000’s
the company also tried implementing a toothless
Chuck.
Not too sure how many were produced or the
magnitude of this change, but it sure seems
like its was helping the company decide the
direction they wanted to take the character
in next.
Present Day Rock
Beginning in 2012 CEC entertainment debuted
the current look of Chuck E Cheese as a response
to the company’s ongoing dip in sales.
This more contemporary rockstar look was probably
the most drastic change in Chuck’s appearance
ever.
He pretty much looks like a completely different
character.
He received much larger ears, his eyes are
now green and are spread out much further
across his head, his nose is larger, the cheeks
are much wider and his teeth became smaller.
He was also given a slimmer body frame along
with jeans, a similar shirt to what avenger
Chuck wore and he lost his hat.
Honestly the face proportions resembles a
lot of the proportions of Mickey Mouse which
I’m sure had some impact on this design.
With the implemented new design being such
a drastic change, there was a mixed response.
Some restaurants even refused to use the updated
rockstar walk around character saying their
avenger walk around characters are still in
good shape able to be used.
Another notable change in Chuck E Cheese’s
appearance is his scale.
In the commercials from the 90’s, the animated
Chuck was the same height as the kids, but
with the introduction of Rocker Chuck, his
scale was brought down to the size of an actual
rat.
Over the course of 40 years its pretty fascinating
to see the character’s evolution going from
a pointy nose rat to this friendlier Mickey
mouse type version.
So what’s your favourite version of Chuck
over the years and how do you feel about the
complete redesign he received in 2012.
Do you think he looks a lot more like Mickey
Mouse?
Leave a comment down below and start a conversation.
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