What was Chuck E. Cheese like back in the 1980s?

[AtariTexas]

I remember little kids jumping into the pile of balls, and emerging with balls stuck to the side of their head

 

I guess the employees had way to much fun in there

[Syzygy1]

was there Space Fury? Or Rolling Thunder? Any of my favorite cabs?

[Ransom]

I can still remember where some of my favorite cabs were at my local Chuck E. Cheese's. I could probably find Missile Command, Sprint, Tron, Vanguard, Kangaroo and Football if I was put in there blindfolded and with earplugs, even today. But I can't remember at all where Pac-Man, Defender, Galaga, and Robotron were. Strange how memory works.

[Syzygy1]

I can still remember where some of my favorite cabs were at my local Chuck E. Cheese's. I could probably find Missile Command, Sprint, Tron, Vanguard, Kangaroo and Football if I was put in there blindfolded and with earplugs, even today. But I can't remember at all where Pac-Man, Defender, Galaga, and Robotron were. Strange how memory works.

And where were they?

[Syzygy1]

Sorry to double post, but on Retro Pizza Zone, someone found an image of the original 1977 CEC. The only image we have. Take a look.

 

 

Pong is there on the far right with Sprint and some black machine. (And by the way, what does PSE stand for? I'm asking about the company who made the Maneater game.)

[Nutsy Doodleheimer]

Sorry to double post, but on Retro Pizza Zone, someone found an image of the original 1977 CEC. The only image we have. Take a look.

 

 

Pong is there on the far right with Sprint and some black machine. (And by the way, what does PSE stand for? I'm asking about the company who made the Maneater game.)

Awesome picture!! By the way PSE stands for. Project Support Engineering.

[Syzygy1]

Awesome picture!! By the way PSE stands for. Project Support Engineering.

wow

 

Does anyone know what the machine between Sprint and Pong was?

[R.Cade]

Here is a Youtube video with pictures of the early animatronics...

 

 

Also, here some other photos from 1979.

 

http://www.cracked.com/quick-fixes/the-surprisingly-dark-origin-story-chuck-e.-cheese/

Edited July 19, 2015 by R.Cade

[+save2600]

http://www.showbizpizza.com/home.html

[Opry99er]

^^that is cool...^^

[VectorGamer]

Sorry to double post, but on Retro Pizza Zone, someone found an image of the original 1977 CEC. The only image we have. Take a look.

 

 

Pong is there on the far right with Sprint and some black machine. (And by the way, what does PSE stand for? I'm asking about the company who made the Maneater game.)

 

The biggest clue for me were the controls on the cabinet in the middle. It's Atari's Starship 1.

[Syzygy1]

 

The biggest clue for me were the controls on the cabinet in the middle. It's Atari's Starship 1.

 

Bravo! Thanks! 1977 was a big year in gaming! Still wondering if Atari 2600 games were there for playing, just like how at some arcades Wii U or Xbox One is there for playing.

[+save2600]

Sorry to double post, but on Retro Pizza Zone, someone found an image of the original 1977 CEC. The only image we have. Take a look.

 

 

 

 

 

…I never saw a CEC that looked like this, but this room looks identical to the dining room of our (now long gone) Shakey's Pizza. Almost the same_exact_layout and decor sans the CEC stuff of course, where there was a bar counter where you got ALL of your drinks (beer, wine and soda), buffet was to the left, dining area and a game room off to the right.

 

I'll have to ask some of the natives if the Shakey's Pizza used to be a CEC BITD. Might have been!

[Syzygy1]

I had a grudge against Ninja Gaiden back in the day so when I went to CEC in 1989 (I started going in 1987) I played NG only to see the game over screen. Then I started breaking the machine. I REALLY wanted Ryu Hayabusa to die. Maybe that's because I went on the Ryu Must Die BBS so often.

[Clint Thompson]

Showbiz Pizza was rad as hell when I was a kid - though I just really loved the skee ball. I don't remember the pizza being awful and for my age at the time, I was really into the animatronics... Billy Bob was kind of creepy but he didn't bother me... my sister on the other hand was absolutely terrified of him and I just remember her screaming/balling her eyes out every time he got near. I'm sure there's a photo of that somewhere and if I find it, I'll post it =)

 

[Syzygy1]

Showbiz Pizza was rad as hell when I was a kid - though I just really loved the skee ball. I don't remember the pizza being awful and for my age at the time, I was really into the animatronics... Billy Bob was kind of creepy but he didn't bother me... my sister on the other hand was absolutely terrified of him and I just remember her screaming/balling her eyes out every time he got near. I'm sure there's a photo of that somewhere and if I find it, I'll post it =)

 

SHOWBIZ.JPG

Five Nights at Showbiz

[CDS Games]

When it first opened in NE Philadelphia, it was arcade game paradise All the main areas were on the right of the entrance. There was a large main dining room with the animatronic stage show in the back (furthest from the entrance), a much smaller and quieter dining room in the front (which had some sit-down arcade games in place of a few of the tables), and in between was a gigantic game room filled with just about every early-80s arcade game you can imagine. There are games there I'd never seen before, and haven't seen since, including Mouse Trap, Baby Pac-Man, Cliff Hanger, Kick, Fire Truck, and Thief (still one of my favorite Pac-Man clones), in addition to more well-known games like Defender (and Stargate), Popeye, Pac-Man (and Ms. and Super), Centipede (and Millipede), Missile Command, Frogger, Q*Bert, Dragon's Lair, and so forth. It was frequently updated with the newest games. Name a game from that era (except, oddly, Space Invaders), and it was probably there. It was arcade heaven, and I loved every chance we got to go (which wasn't that often). I still rememeber that era fondly.

 

That must've been the one I went to a couple of times. I dimly remember an elevated platform against the wall on the left side with games on it....and the reason I remember it is that's where I first saw and played Spy Hunter. Made a beeline for that machine every time I went.

 

But yeah...it was a phenomenal place as a kid. Now I'd probably nitpick about the food or whatever, but who cared back then? The Animatronics were definitely not a draw...I think I saw all of one show and realized it was for the younger kids.

[Raygunn]

Chuck E Cheese was awesome back the late 70s and through most of the 80s. An arcade WITH PIZZA? (and the pizza was pretty good back then...) There were many more like it, but Chuck E Cheese was what I had and it was great!

 

Edited July 28, 2015 by Raygunn

[Syzygy1]

Chuck E Cheese was awesome back the late 70s and through most of the 80s. An arcade WITH PIZZA? (and the pizza was pretty good back then...) There were many more like it, but Chuck E Cheese was what I had and it was great!

 

THAT WAS THE VIDEO I SAW! The guy commenting, "You got one of those video things!"

 

Also, I'm using Ryu Hayabusa as the mascot for my DisneyQuest protest!

[+wood_jl]

I grew up in Anchorage, Alaska, in the late 1970s through the 1980s. Things changed a whole lot, during that time.

 

In the l1970s, Anchorage was a really quaint, distant town. While nobody lived in igloos, everything was just a little off. Frequently, television was behind, as tapes were *physically* mailed up to Alaska, since satellite connections were few and far between. Feature movies in real movie theaters were a couple weeks behind, too. Hell, even today, you have to have a bigger dish - like twice the diameter - of the standard DirecTV dish. Fortunately, you no longer need a multi-thousand dollar several-feet-across (and rotates) dish, like a few rich people did, that I saw growing up.

 

So, when Chuck E. Cheese came to Alaska (Anchorage), it was a game changer. This would have been about 1983. It was a magical place. We were all playing 2600 (or 400/800 if you were lucky like me) versions of the games, and Chuck had a smorgasbord of games in one place, along with pizza, which every kid likes. For a boring and remote (at the time) place like Anchorage, to receive a piece of joy like Chuck E. Cheese was an epic happening. It felt magical, going there. Alaskans had never seen anything like it, in their quaint world. To this day, I can still recall the excitement I felt, after ordering pizza and being handed a stack of game tokens that came with the pizza order. It sure was great!

 

Amazingly, it stayed in business for many, many years. I left Anchorage about 12 years ago, and I think I went back to it about 2 years prior to that (so we're talking about 14 years ago). It was a disaster. The carpet was dirty. The pizza was as bad as any frozen pizza you can do at home. There were still games, but a fraction of what there were, when I was a youngster (now, I'm talking about the 1980s, so it's still pretty amazing this place was still making money). I mean it used to be wall-to-wall games upstairs, and now there were huge gaps in the game lineup, and I mean that physically, with huge gaps where full-sized arcade machines had been removed.

 

The animatronics were deplorable; they'd still turn them on, but some would work and others wouldn't, and the fur on the bears (or whatever they are) was dirty and nasty-looking. I was astounded that - if they weren't going to maintain them - that they'd have removed them and the stage they were on. Who knows now (I'm 14 years gone)?

 

But to get back to the original point, it was a magical place, for a kid of 1983. Being in remote (at least then) Anchorage, it was a Godsend. I really had a lot of fun there, and I'll always have fond memories.

 

Back about 14 years ago when I was last there (which I was talking about, earlier), there was a girl I knew in high school (man, that was a long time ago) with her kids there. They were not thrillled at all. I can only imagine how much bored kids would be now, with iPhone 6 in their pocket and Xbone/PS4/PC at home.

 

It was a unique time to grow up, when Chuck E. Cheese mattered, and I look back fondly upon those years, much as Atari User Groups, which were likewise a phenomenon of the time.

[+save2600]

...Fortunately, you no longer need a multi-thousand dollar several-feet-across (and rotates) dish, like a few rich people did, that I saw growing up.

 

Hahaha, those are called C-band sat dishes. Besides Cable, VCR's, Beta, Laserdisc and CED's - THOSE were really the shit back then!

 

Oh and did_not_know you grew up in Alaska - neato!

 

[Nutsy Doodleheimer]

Chuck E Cheese was awesome back the late 70s and through most of the 80s. An arcade WITH PIZZA? (and the pizza was pretty good back then...) There were many more like it, but Chuck E Cheese was what I had and it was great!

 

https://youtu.be/CKS2xJcx8G8

That is awesome! Thanks for sharing! :thumbsup:

[Syzygy1]

When did the Skytubes get introduced?

[Raygunn]

I know here it was in the early 90s when they started the the conversions from Showbiz to Chuck E Cheese. Before that it was the ball pit.

[buttertweet]

I might be the only one who actually LIKED the pizza. It had sort of a smokey flavor to it, maybe they used smoked mozzarella or something, but it is a very distinct taste that I haven't had since. I've had the pizza at the current version of CEC and it is pretty non-descript. Really wish I could capture that flavor again. With perhaps a tad less grease.

 

Every day, just in case it was someone's birthday, the wall puppets would sing the birthday song. Instead of "Happy birthday dear so-and-so" they would just sing "Happy birthday, happy birthday" which I always thought was weak, but hey, mass production.

 

I remember some reeeal obscure games showing up at times, including Gypsy Juggler and Leprechaun. That last one was by a company called Moppet, but I misread it as "Muppet" and always hoped Kermit the Frog would show up at some point. No such luck.

 

Favorite redemption prizes: root beer flavor candy sticks and Chucky-themed Rubik's cube. Always took me a long time to earn prizes because I am about the world's worst skeeball player.