A Eulogy to the end of the Animatronic Era
November 16th, 2023, will undoubtedly go down as one of the saddest days in pop culture history. Six years after first announcing that they were phasing them out, that’s the day that Chuck E. Cheese announced they’re completely eliminating animatronic floor shows.
While, back in 2017, it may have seemed like a smart choice to place less emphasis on them, and chief executive Tom Leverton was probably right when he said kids would be more engaged by interactive videogames in the dining hall rather than pre-recorded shows delivered via technology that was cutting edge in 1989, today the decision is more questionable. In the interim, the cult videogame Five Nights at Freddy’s- built on the nostalgia for/surreality of 80s/90s era pizzatainment restaurants- turned into a certifiable phenomenon, and we’re only weeks removed from a blockbuster adaptation of the movie having hit theaters to major box office. Could Chuck E. Cheese have quietly monetized the film’s success for themselves by keeping the animatronics in place? Or, conversely, is this an attempt to distance themselves from what’s a pretty gnarly horror franchise that, while nowhere near as visceral as, say, SAW X, is still steeped in a mythos involving pedophilia, child murder, and amateur taxidermy via puppetification?
Regardless of the motivations- or wisdom of- the decision, for everyone above the age of thirty, it marks the sad passage of one of our last relevant links to a bygone era. Though Chuck E. Cheese has never been a restaurant that’s catered to adults—unless you’ve got kids of your own, odds are you haven’t set foot in one for a few decades—there’s always been the comfort of knowing that those guys were still out there. You could pass by a location and know that, inside, kids were being entertained by the same quaintly engaging ‘bots that you were once enthralled by. There was a continuity. For all we nostalgia junkies displeased by the way the world turned out, there was one last oasis where the 80s never died.
And now that’s over.
For many of us, this isn’t the first time this has happened. I’m old enough to have seen the fall of Showbiz Pizza, Chuck E. Cheese’s one-time-rival, eventual owner, who dominated the pizza-and-robots scene back in the good-old-bad-days of the late 1980s, when pizza-and-robots was a viable business model. For those who got to experience it, Showbiz was a beautiful thing. There was something very special and unique about the formula and ambiance that Chuck E. Cheese never quite recreated, as hard as they tried. There seemed to be a slightly more grown-up aura about Showbiz—still kid friendly, but talking to us, rather than down at us.
While Chuck E. Cheese had its own explicitly kiddie oriented characters, Showbiz had the more broadly-appealing Rock-afire Explosion, an animatronic pop band fronted by a bass-voiced gorilla (indeed, FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY’S characters owe more to the Rockafire Explosion than Chuck E. Cheese, with Freddy Fazbear, Foxy, and Carl being direct analogues to Billy Bob Brockali, Rolf, and Earl, respectively). With its darkened front windows, selective lighting, and painstakingly detailed décor (down to hand-drawn faux posters for movies starring Rock-afire characters), Showbiz worked hard to create a world-within-a-world, giving you the sense that when you stepped inside its doors, you were entering a separate reality of arcade games and mediocre pizza and really great robots. Going to Showbiz wasn’t a Saturday at the carnival or going out for ice cream; it was something sacred, something you did once or twice a year so as not to lose the magic. In Showbiz, you were somehow made acutely aware of the coming cusp of adulthood, and with that awareness came a profound appreciation for the fleeting joy of youth. Somewhere in the back of your mind you were waiting for the day to come when you couldn’t fit in the rides anymore, or they wouldn’t work properly, and you understood that a passage had just been made; and that you’d been gently ushered into another stage in your life in the best atmosphere possible.
It was a sad day when Showbiz made that transition itself. They actually won the pizza wars in the mid-80s, buying out Chuck E. Cheese but continuing to keep the two brands separate. When licensing issues arose in the late 80s between Showbiz and Aaron Fecter, the creator of the Rock-afire characters, it spelled curtains for the franchise. Throughout the early 90s, every Showbiz was quietly and unceremoniously transitioned into a Chuck E. Cheese, the advanced animatronics of the Rock-afire band stripped of their fur and repurposed into Chuck E. characters. I remember having my birthday at Showbiz, only to see it transformed a few weeks later; within the span of a very short time something that had been important and almost mystical to me was gone, replaced with a pale, diluted imitation. It was probably my first lesson in ephemera and impermanence.
I was pleasantly surprised to discover a few years ago that my memories of Showbiz aren’t unique. There’s a thriving Showbiz community online, populated by older Millennials and younger Gen-Xers who’re similarly nostalgic for their own lost days in the arcade. Some of them even made a documentary several years ago called THE ROCKAFIRE EXPLOSION that, while lacking in some of the key areas for a doc, works very well as a tribute and memorial (for anyone interested in the halcyon days of 1980s pizza-robot-arcades, it’s on Youtube, and I recommend it). I haven’t looked at any of their forums yet but I can imagine that their sense of loss is palpable; while the community is largely dedicated to Showbiz there’s still a place of reverence for Chuck E. Cheese as the successor to its mantle, and with much of the love there heaped on the animatronics, it’s rather like a long-running soap going off the air. The glory days may be past, most of the cast may be gone, and the original writers aren’t there anymore, but what was there was something of the original, no matter how tangential.
With the wave of 80s nostalgia showing no sign of abating, and a least one, if not two FIVE NIGHTS AT FREDDY’S sequels in the works, maybe we’ll get to see those lost days return. Those animatronics are worth too much to scrap and adult arcades are becoming a thing. Maybe, like some things we lose or let go, they’ll come back around to us; a little older, a little worse for the wear, but still welcoming; still there to remind us of a time gone and lost, but found again.
As an Englishman we never had Chuck E Cheese but I’m just commenting to say that this is a wonderfully beautiful article and you really captured the essence of going to these arcades. Hope you had a merry Christmas and hope you have a great 2024.