Chuck E Cheese vs ShowBiz Pizza | Where a Kid Can be a Kid | 3

Business Wars

Wondery

History, Business, David Brown, Management

4.6 • 13.2K Ratings

🗓️ 4 December 2024

⏱️ 41 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Is nostalgia alone enough to keep Chuck E. Cheese afloat in 2025? As the chain continues to crawl its way out of bankruptcy, they’ll need to win over the next generation of kids — or perhaps, their parents — to keep the arcade lights on. Ben Coley of the trade publication QSR Magazine joins David to discuss how Chuck E. Cheese is making money these days, and whether they’ll be able to stick it out for another 50 years. Later, Ross Brakman of the American Treasure Tour Museum shares the origins of the animatronic bands that came to define Chuck E. Cheese and ShowBiz Pizza Place all those years ago — and the love that adults and kids across the world still have for these characters.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Wonderry Plus subscribers can binge all episodes of Business Wars Chucky Cheese versus ShowBiz Pizza early and ad-free right now.
0:08.0	Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts.
0:16.6	I'm David Brown, and this is Business Wars. For nearly 50 years, Chuck E. Cheese, short for Charles Entertainment Cheese, has been entertaining families with arcade games, prizes, gooey cheese, and of course, an animatronic house band.
0:53.8	Chuckie Cheese brought the concept of eat entertainment to the masses.
0:57.4	No longer did you need a ticket to Disneyland for your kids to enjoy the musical
1:00.8	stylings of a giant mouse while you ate your dinner.
1:03.5	Ladies and gentlemen, we proudly present an exciting new musical review
1:07.8	with your merrymaking master of ceremonies, Chuck E. Cheese.
1:12.7	That's me, Chuckie Cheese.
1:15.4	Ha ha!
1:15.9	Your host, Widermost!
1:18.1	Later on, rivaled Showbiz Pizza Place would introduce a similar format, introducing the
1:22.9	rock of fire explosion as their house band.
1:25.9	Its star was a one-toothed bear named Billy Bob, who Julia Roberts
1:29.8	even dressed up as while working at showbiz as a teen. Here she is telling the story on the Ellen show
1:35.5	several years back. I wore a bear costume and brought out the birthday cakes. It was like, you know,
1:41.3	it was one of those places where you go... Like a Chuckie's cheese.
1:44.5	Yeah.
1:45.0	Yeah.
1:46.9	Ultimately, the two companies would merge.
1:49.1	And Chuck would come to rule the school.
1:54.2	But by the mid-2000s, the hype for these kinds of places had died down, and Chuckie cheese struggled to get customers in the door.
	...

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