A Brief History of Animatronic Restaurants

[Music] sometime during the mid-2000s i found myself at our local chuck e cheese for my brother's birthday it was the closest thing we had to an arcade nearby and if you went right when they opened you could have the entire place to yourself for about two hours our chuck e cheese hadn't been updated in a while so not only did it have many old rare arcade games such as the original star wars shooter and a dragon's lair cabinet but it still had a stage full of instrument-wielding animatronic mascots playing for a room completely empty saved for my mother my brother and myself during one of these yearly trips i spoke to a manager who lamented about what the location had to do in order to keep the animatronics running replacement parts were scarce and sourced from other chuck e cheese locations that had scrapped the band entirely they were loud outdated and as other families began to trickle in it was easy to see that the band no longer captured children's attention the way it used to even back then the days were numbered for munch's make-believe band but there was a time when animatronic technology was cutting edge when people would crowd sidewalks just to hear a bird talk about them or when children would sit and wrapped attention to hear a fake band's latest hit this rudimentary technology left a lasting impression on a generation of kids and its impact on popular culture can still be felt to this day [Music] in the early 60s walt disney's imagineers were brainstorming ideas for a revolutionary new restaurant experience featuring hundreds of singing birds the idea was to create a dinner show that didn't require human actors and birds with their movements limited to wings and beaks seemed like a good place to start as the attraction continued on through the planning phase it became more and more intricate until eventually the decision was made to switch it from a sit-down restaurant to a full-fledged show it was feared that guests would be so caught up in the bird singing that they would never want to leave so the enchanted tiki room opened at disneyland in 1963 and introduced guests to a new invention audio animatronics audio animatronics right audio animatronics audio for sound see and electronically animated by sound in order to clarify that the show did not in fact feature hundreds of live singing birds a single parrot animatronic was placed outside the building to greet people as they passed by this figure was one the barker bird and he garnered so much attention from guests that he destroyed the flow of traffic in the area while this eventually led to his removal he showed the world what this brand new technology was capable of and disney wouldn't stop there great moments with mr lincoln the carousel of progress and it's a small world followed soon after while imagineers wouldn't immediately revisit the concept of an animatronic restaurant experience they definitely paved the way for animatronic technology to become an important entertainment staple and in the following decade two different restaurant chains would throw their hats into the ring in the fight for pizza supremacy in 1977 in san jose california nolan bushnell one of the co-founders of atari opened the first chucky cheese pizza time theater with his business partner jean landrum for years even before atari was king of the video game world bushnell had been toying with an idea for a carnival-themed restaurant as atari grew and grew bushnell was eventually able to revisit the idea and reframe it as a way to create a child-friendly environment where kids could play atari arcade machines arcades themselves had a bad reputation for being hotbeds of teen crime and arcade cabinets were also commonly located at unchild friendly locations like bars and strip clubs bushnell eventually settled on creating a pizza restaurant as kids could play the atari branded machines while they and their family waited for their food but a kid-friendly arcade wasn't enough bushnell wanted entertainment and he wanted entertainment that could run non-stop for hours live actors needed breaks inspiration struck during a trip to disneyland where bushnell encountered the enchanted tiki room while most people leave the tiki room tired of birds and wanting a dole whip bushnell had found a solution to his problem audio animatronics right audio animatronics up until this point animatronic shows have been an exclusive part of the disney experience but pizza time theater would change all of that the original characters were designed by atari artist bob flamate and costumed by harold goldbranson cyan engineering best known for engineering atari's first home console the 2600 brought the characters to life chuck e cheese's first mascot was a cigar smoking rat named charles entertainment cheese who according to the chuck e cheese company themselves was an orphaned rat who helped children celebrate their birthdays to make up for all of the birthdays he missed growing up [Music] the first chucky cheese animatronics were in portrait frames depicted from the waist up and their movement was very limited but with the characters placed all around the eating area high above guest heads it created an incredibly immersive experience for young and old alike in 1980 pizza time theater's animatronics were upgraded to a waste of balcony stage it was around this time when the chain's animatronic figures became known as cyberamics what this actually is amounts to is electronic puppeteering only instead of having strings you have button switches and uh joysticks i live in uh in one place and commute to fantasyland they have become real to me i've talked to them they come in late on their queues i'll say well mike come on chucky you know or come on jasper you can do better than that and they come back and they do better they do do better yes indeed things seem to be going all right for pizza time theater as it crawled into the 80s bushnell had left atari bought the rights to the pizza chain from them five hundred thousand dollars and it was now free to do whatever he wanted which included rapid expansion across the globe however it wouldn't be long until another animatronic restaurant would explode onto the scene aiming to drive charles entertainment cheese mercilessly into the ground all you big poppas little fathers and all you crazy cats out there i'm the wolf man coming at you almost live and in person direct from orlando the animation capital of the world it is my distinct pleasure to give you a brief gross encounter of the animal kind with the coolest collection of critters to ever break your face i give you racks and [Music] in 1978 creative engineering founded by aaron fector debuted a new animatronic show called the wolf pack five at iapa the international association of amusement parks and attractions this not only attracted the attention of the show floor crowds but of hotel franchiser robert brock who had recently entered into a deal with nolan bushnell bushnell had told brock that he didn't know about any other animatronic makers on the scene despite having met with fector years prior seeing and out to his contract with pizza time theater brock stuck a deal with fechter to open their own pizza parlor showbiz pizza in 1980 featuring fector's fictional band of the rockafire explosion appearing tonight on three stages at showbiz pizza place the rocker fire explosion summer vacation as well vector's company creative engineering found itself struggling to keep up with demand a showbiz pizza began aggressive expansion the small company went from 30 employees to 300 almost overnight they were churning out animatronic shows day in and day out while brock controlled the restaurant side of things pushing to snatch prime real estate out from under chuck e cheese's sniffling rat nose it soon became apparent that the business was stretched too thin and profits were not coming in nearly as quickly as they had hoped it seemed as though showbiz pizza's days were numbered then the video game industry crashed in 1983. for years atari had been the king of the american video game market dominating the entire industry and introducing living rooms across the country to home video game consoles but a lack of quality control within the company as well as dozens and dozens of copycat systems flooding the market caused the entire thing to crash bushnell still had a lot of assets tied up with his old company and with the major losses he faced during the crash chuck e cheese's pizza time theater was forced to file for chapter 11 bankruptcy in 1984. showbiz pizza despite going through their own financial struggles swooped in and purchased the company soon after ballooning their locations to a whopping 359 some of which were right across the street from each other showbiz eventually closed 100 locations and halted the continued manufacturing of new rockafire explosion animatronics this led to a soured relationship with aaron fechter who found himself faced with losing the rights to his characters or walking away from showbiz entirely he chose the latter this resulted in all showbiz pizza locations rebranding to chuck e cheese locations and a company-wide transformation of the existing rockifier explosion animatronics into a new chuck e cheese themed band this was a process known company-wide as concept unification in which the existing props and skins were removed from the rock of fire explosion characters leaving them no more than a skeleton of tubes and metal over the course of a week the stage was refurbished and new details were added back to the skeletons if you've ever been to a chuck e cheese with the full-bodied animatronic band featuring charles entertainment cheese helen henny jasper t jowls mr munch and pasquale pea pie plate you're likely in an old showbiz pizza place chuck e cheese and showbiz pizza paved the way for other companies aside from walt disney try their hands at animatronic entertainment and during the 80s and 90s a lot of copycats arrived on the scene one notable one was bullwinkle's restaurant featuring the classic cartoon characters rocky and bullwinkle as well as dudley dewrite and underdog in the early years these shows were installed at family fun centers a chain of entertainment complexes that originated in the 60s today very few of these shows remain in operation and all of them have been downgraded from the original versions another notable example especially because its concept is something wholly different from an animal-infested pizza parlor is rainforest cafe the first rainforest cafe opened in 1994 at mall of america and it was a rainforest themed sit-down dining experience that featured very rudimentary animatronic animals this included monkeys hanging from the ceilings a gorilla a bow constrictor an elephant and an alligator located in a wishing pond out front also in the gift shop of most rainforest cafes is tracy tree a talking tree with a face that awakens and shares facts about rainforest conservation when people pass by these figures are nowhere near as complex as those found in chuck e cheese restaurants but they serve their purpose in immersing the guests in the rain forest while they dine in the 90s chuck e cheese narrowly managed to come out on top again emerging as the victor of the children's play place wars beating out its competitor discovery zone as well as disney and mcdonald's brief forays into the market and through it all munch's make-believe band played on however beginning in 1998 new chuck e cheese locations would include only one animatronic character a more modern version of charles entertainment cheese accompanied by a television screen as the old 80s technology began to break down an upcate became more expensive more and more chuck e cheese locations began retiring their rundown band and while new show tapes continued to be distributed to locations that still had the old figures the end was quickly drawing near in 2014 scott cawthon a small time independent video game creator released his latest project five nights at freddy's the game which takes place in a chuck e cheese like pizza restaurant features an animatronic band of its own however this game was a horror game and the player at night watchmen trapped in a small cramped office trying to survive the night as the murderous animatronics attempted to break inside the mechanics are deceptively simple the player hops through different security feeds closes the doors and the animatronics are near and keeps one eye on the power meter all times trying to survive until six o'clock in the morning for five whole nights the game managed to catch the attention of prominent youtubers and after that mainstream popular culture animatronics were suddenly well known again but as horrific murderers not all the kind of image chucky cheese wanted to convey perhaps related to the five nights phenomenon though the company has never verified this chuck e cheese made the announcement in 2017 that they would begin phasing out the animatronics entirely replacing them with a large dance floor this initiative was part of an overall restructuring which included replacing tokens with play passes making birthday packages more affordable and trying to entice adults to use empty tables as workspace with coffee and free wi-fi erin fechter is still roaming around his sprawling warehouse of all deteriorating animatronics surrounded by the ghosts of his former employees while he was never able to propel the rocket fire explosion to the heights he wanted to when he walked away from showbiz with their rights he now programs new shows for restaurants and theme parks as well as post videos of his own animatronics from his warehouse were used in the background of the keen peel movie keanu including the melting moose the thing of my absolute nightmares and the rock of fire explosion performed alongside celo green for his las vegas show hardcore fans and animatronics worked tirelessly to preserve them hunting down refurbishing those that had been damaged learning how to program new shows and collecting videos and merchandise from these almost forgotten characters it's a niche hobby but an important form of preservation for a technology that is slowly dying out technology comes and goes and unfortunately as the years passed animatronics become rare and rare with even large theme parks for growing animatronic figures in lieu of screens hologram technology which allows thousands of people to cheer on fictional vocaloid idol hatsune miku has become incredibly impressive with a vast number of cheaper alternatives available animatronics have become a novelty an intentional statement instead of a convenient solution oh hey it's been brought to my attention that there is a somewhat animatronic woodsy out there and he is only ten thousand dollars so i'm going to ten thousand dollars immediately in order to purchase this bird here's my cash tag don't actually give me ten thousand dollars unless [Music] you

Channel: Snellby Reviews

Views: 396,464

Keywords: animatronics, chuck e cheese, pizza time theater, showbiz pizza, nolan bushnel, aaron fechter, creative engineering, cyberamics, five nights at freddys, fnaf, rock a fire explosion, rockafire

Id: od0_tG-ViwM

Length: 15min 12sec (912 seconds)

Published: Sat May 09 2020