In the Chuck E. Cheese restaurant, the bright green digital floor pulsated in sync with the kid’s pop music. Two-year-old Julian was busting out some good moves, until the curtains started to rise on a stage across the dance floor and his mom, Marcela Alvarez, scooped him up in her arms.
“Look at that, who is that? It’s Chuck E.! Say ‘Hi, Chuck E.,’” the 34-year-old Northridge mother told her son as Munch’s Make Believe Band was revealed. The fictional group is the animatronic house band that has rocked out in front of generations of fans in the chain’s hundreds of restaurants.
And this particular animatronic group, in a Northridge restaurant, will be the last band standing.
Chuck E. Cheese recently announced it will be removing the feature from all other locations, leaving Munch’s Make Believe Band in permanent residency at Northridge.
The change comes as the company changes with the times and modernizes its entertainment with upgrades to most locations that will include a new dance floor, a large video wall and screens and popular kid-focused arcade games.
“Like any band, and any brand, Chuck E. Cheese is evolving with our families. Kids and families today are consuming entertainment very differently. They’re used to cutting-edge technology and they’re consuming it through digital screens,” said Melissa McLeanas, vice president of global licensing, media and branded entertainment development for Chuck E. Cheese.
Founded by Nolan Bushnell, the co-founder of Atari, the first Chuck E. Cheese Pizza Time Theatre opened in San Jose in 1977 as one of the first interactive entertainment restaurants for families.
The first restaurant was on Winchester Boulevard, a parcel now part of Santana Row. A more high-profile location opened a few years later, with a 30-foot mouse looming over the interchange of Highway 101 and Tully Road.
Chuck E. Cheese, the face of the chain, made his debut in 1980 and a few years later he started Munch’s Make Believe Band with the purple monster Mr. Munch on keyboards, Jasper T. Jowls on guitar, Helen Henny on backing vocals and pizza chef Pasqually on drums.
The band, which at first played kid-friendly cover songs and later Chuck E. Cheese original pop songs, was an instant hit with families.
“I took my young kids in the late ’80s and later my kids took their kids there,” said Tommy Gelinas, the founder of the Valley Relics Museum. “For me, it was a great location because it was close and it had animatronics there.”
When Gelinas heard on the news that the location was remodeling, he showed up asking them if they could donate any items to his museum. But the store administration told him they were going to keep iconic pieces of art and décor along with their original animatronic band.
“The fact that they’re keeping the original animatronics there is fantastic,” Gelinas said. “It will make it a landmark Chuck E. Cheese for sure.”
The Northridge restaurant, which opened nearly 40 years ago, was one of the first locations launched by the company, so there were nostalgic reasons for keeping the band performing there.
“This band in particular, and this location in particular, has really been a special part of our brand and a place where that band has really been preserved in a special way. So as we made the decision to evolve the brand and introduce new forms of entertainment in our venues we really wanted to pay homage to our legacy, and, really, it’s a love letter to our fans,” McLeanas said.
She also said the Northridge restaurant, in a shopping plaza on busy Reseda Boulevard, could become a bit of a musical destination thanks to the permanent house band.
“That band is going to have a residency. There’s always a place to visit them,” she said. “Northridge will be the place to see the animatronic band.”
Reporter Olga Grigoryants also contributed to this story.
