The Good Ol' Days -- A Sad Review of Chuck E. Cheese
The coolest thing about having a three-year-old son is that you get to hang out with three-year-olds and do things with them without being too guilty, whether it’s going to the movies to see a kiddie movie, feeding ducks stale bread and popcorn at the duck pond, or spending a couple of hours guilt-free at the local Chuck E. Cheese restaurant. One of my sons’ friends had her four-year-old birthday party Saturday at Chuck E. Cheese, so I got to spend a couple of hours there and thought I’d type up this quick review.
Those of you lucky enough to remember the original Chuck E. Cheese and Showbiz Pizza restaurants probably have the same sentimental feelings attached to the restaurants as I do. While I don’t think I ever had a birthday party there, I attended several other kids’ parties and have great memories of the place. There were small rides, there were lots of arcade games, but most importantly there was that huge animatronic band that took the stage several times an hour, singing classic hits and interacting with one another.
My sad review of Chuck E. Cheese is that most of that is gone. Upon entering the restaurant, I went right to the stage area and found that it had basically been removed. In its place were several large flat panel television screens. To the left of the screens were several smaller televisions sunk into the wall. To the right I noticed one small stage, which housed the one remaining animatronic figure, Chuck himself. As the screens announced “It’s SHOWTIME!” the figures I remembered from my youth appeared only on the television screens. The curtains around Chuck pulled back and he performed and sang along, but it just wasn’t the same. The band has left the building.
And speaking of leaving the building, so have most of the games. Our Chuck E. Cheese restaurant now has four arcade games: Star Wars Pod Racer, Cruisin’ USA, Arctic Thunder and a Neo Geo cabinet. Everything else in the restaurant was either a ticket redemption machine posing as an arcade game, a ride, or some other game (such as skee-ball and air hockey). Trust me, I looked – there were no games to be found.
I have to say, I felt a little disappointed when we left. Not for me as much as for the kids. Now I know how my father feels when he tells me about the good ol’ days of hot rods and stuff. I’ve seen the movies, I’ve been to car shows, but when it boils right down to it, it was simply an era that I will never experience and can never truly relate to. I had that same feeling walking out of Chuck E. Cheese, looking at all the kids dancing in front of big plasma screens and trying to trade in thousands of tickets for a small stuffed idol. Someday, when my kids are playing in my home arcade, I’ll try to explain to them what it was like “in the good ol’ days,” but I’m not sure that they’ll every truly understand.
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that you could play in have been removed, and replaced by a complicated series of slides. Also, when I was a kid I remember them having a maze under the stage that you could crawl through. That was quickly removed though when some kid got stuck under there. My cousin's wife was a manager there a few years back and she said that, in the slides I mentioned a few sentences back, kids would constantly climb to the top of the slide and (ahem) use the restroom. Oh yeah, they don't sell beer there anymore either! Ah well, it still holds plenty of fond memories 
Originally Posted by Flack
. So my mom knowingly knew I was just lazy and didn't want to go to school, so she asked me if I wanted to go play games. HECK YA! I threw a cough in occasionally, but my mom said stop pretending. But I can recall playing so many great games there for hours. The game room was nothing BUT video games. Games I played as a kid and loved was Peter pack Rat, Dragon's Lair, Jungle Hunt, Galaxian, Galaga, Frogger, Asteroids, and I even remember they had this built in race track with remote control cars. It had 4-6 cars and people raced against each other. That was fun! My 2 nieces hate the place because they don't have any games, so they go to Oddessey Fun World in Illinois to play in the 3 story tunnel fun land thingy and play games, they could care less about rides. I don't see Chuck E. Cheeze have anything going for them. I remeber the food was pretty darn good, the pizza was dripping grease, way back then, don't know how it is now. Anyone? I do mis the old days, the 5 arcades you could go to in a 10 mile radius, are now but a distant memory. Sad... 
