Why did cabarets last into the '90's?

[PaulKTF]

It seems to me that the time to remove King/Beagles/Beach Bowsers would have been around 1989 when stores were being remodeled anyway. I'm trying to imagine walking into a CEC with the porch stage, and King or Beach Bowsers in the side room and that had to have been weird...

Besides; when they removeded King; wouldn't they have to remodel the store to remove the little side room anyway?

[pizzacam]

Why would it be weird? lol the format of the main stage shows was still the same and it's not like anyone ever said that the cabaret acts were exclusive to PTT, CEC just took what worked from both places and kept certain things and got rid of others... and no they wouldn't have to remodel to take out side rooms either... Hell, some stores out there still HAD these former cabaret side rooms up until phase 4 since phase 4 requires a store to tear down any walls in the place. I know the San Jose store which is already Phase 4'd still has it's old Dolli room and it's just used as another dinning room and has a few TVs with the show playing. Also some stores like the one here didn't HAVE a cabaret for the King...he was right there in the main dinning room too. I think once the remodels around 1995 came where walls were being cut to half walls was more the best time for them to be yanked and they were. Not to mention the showtape format they were switching to wouldn't allow time for the cabaret acts that were in the same main dinning room to play without sigificant interuptions of the main show.

[captslappy]

The cabarets were gone by the late 80s. The Beagles and King were technically lounge shows. BB Bubbles, Artie Antlers and Dolli Dimples were the side shows that were considered to be "cabarets".

[PaulKTF]

The cabarets were gone by the late 80s. The Beagles and King were technically lounge shows. BB Bubbles, Artie Antlers and Dolli Dimples were the side shows that were considered to be "cabarets".

Ah; see I can never get those two terms right. Okay; but you know what I meant. :)

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Why would it be weird?

Because they were going to all the trouble of putting in the porch stages and re-painting the stores anyway. It just seemed like as good a time as any.

[pizzacam]

LOL yeah but remodels to a business(doing well) is nothing man...

In the end remodels MAKE money for most businesses. Hell our business went up just after a new game package. I think if the shows worked still they figured why get rid of them. Alot of them WERE actually moved during this '89 phase 1 remodel. I know "My" King at the Walzem Rd. location was moved to the corner next to the C Stage during the phase 1 remodel in 1990. So I guess if they felt like doing anything to the side shows during those remodels it was to just relocate them like they did with our King. I think moving him to that same side was a great move because you didn't have to them move or look the other way when he played. You could just focus on one side to see both shows.

[PaulKTF]

LOL yeah but remodels to a business(doing well) is nothing man...

In the end remodels MAKE money for most businesses. Hell our business went up just after a new game package. I think if the shows worked still they figured why get rid of them. Alot of them WERE actually moved during this '89 phase 1 remodel. I know "My" King at the Walzem Rd. location was moved to the corner next to the C Stage during the phase 1 remodel in 1990. So I guess if they felt like doing anything to the side shows during those remodels it was to just relocate them like they did with our King. I think moving him to that same side was a great move because you didn't have to them move or look the other way when he played. You could just focus on one side to see both shows.

That sounds so cool! I would have loved to have seen King right next to the C-Stage. Did he have his lighting set-up and neon sign installed at that time?

[pizzacam]

That sounds so cool! I would have loved to have seen King right next to the C-Stage. Did he have his lighting set-up and neon sign installed at that time?

Yeah except that's when for some reason I've yet to find any documentation on, or reason other than maybe they just broke it during the move, but they switched to another neon sign that simply said "KING" and for some reason the one at "My" location was pink! I wish I had a picture of it... I only had from 1990-1995 to snap one damn picture but like alot of us thought about SPP or PTT you think it'll always be there. Anyway... so yeah like in the picture of the king at the Louisville, KY location...we had that sign too except it was pink. Still looked cool though especially with that soundtrack(King 90) cause it gave him kind of an island/tropical feeling ya know.

1737

Also in the move across the showroom is when they nixed the pop-up benches. Which DOES make sense. So then in 1992 we were one of the first locations to get a 2-stage upgrade. So THEN that was really cool to have the 5 full bodied characters AND the King and we must've had a SUPER tech at that time cause I remember our show and King always working perfectly!

Ahhh, SUCH great memories and great times during that era. 8->

[PaulKTF]

I bet they got replacement signs made locally instead of getting new ones from corporate (just a guess, though).

Seeing that picture of The King makes me wish I could go back to that time period and see the show again. :( I've heard all the tapes of course but it's not quite the same as seeing it in action.

[captslappy]

I've considered making one for my Dolli Dimples someday although Dolli never had one. To my knowledge only King and Beagles had neons (as far as side shows go).

[PaulKTF]

That'd be pretty cool- give her sort of a nightclub vibe... Maybe her name in cursive in purple neon? That could be really cool.

[chuckecheesefan98]

... Hell, some stores out there still HAD these former cabaret side rooms up until phase 4 since phase 4 requires a store to tear down any walls in the place. I know the San Jose store which is already Phase 4'd still has it's old Dolli room and it's just used as another dinning room and has a few TVs with the show playing.

The old PTT in Newington, NH, still had their King lounge room up until the remodel in 2006. Just a couple tv's and a CEC flashing sign up on the wall, like the one they have on the 2-stages. They did have all the late 80's parody posters in the room, I thought that was cool. That and the biggest set of skytubes I've ever seen in person.

[pizzacam]

Yeah I remember Kerry's pics of that store...

The Arlington, TX location still has the King's lounge area... It's like the Toddler area now. You can see it in this pic I took in 2009 there in the hall way next to the salad bar. It has kiddie rides and a few booths. ;)
1738

[Rapid T Rabbit]

At Union NJ during the franchise era, they had the Beach Bowzers through 1992 when the store was renovated for MMBB. After that, they were replaced in the store by a large-screen TV that simply carried CEC-TV from the showroom (which on rare occaisions was switched over to regular TV when there was a very major sports event going on). Although the walls surrounding the cabaret came down at that time, there was still a waist-high partition retained that separated this area from the rest of the game room. On top of all that, during my years there everybody kept referring to that corner of the store as the Beagle room even though U-NJ never had them.

That layout continued all the way through the end of the franchise in 2003, and then another year more until CEC corporate finally phasered (IV) the entire store.

[Partyhog]

I've seen small side rooms like the one pictured above at former SPP's, any idea why that is?

[Rapid T Rabbit]

I've seen small side rooms like the one pictured above at former SPP's, any idea why that is?

Showbiz Pizza, as well as some original PTT's used those side rooms as the "TV Sports" room, where major league sports were tuned in on weekends so parents and their friends could "watch the game" apart from their kids who presumably would be playing games elsewhere in the store.

Prior to late 1992, U-NJ had such a TV sports room (separate from the "Beagle" room I described above) held over from the PTT era but afterwards the space was combined with the existing show room (that had a balcony show) to form a larger show room for MMBB.

Being that CEC today supposedly is promoting families playing together, that could be one reason why these TV sports rooms were eventually eliminated.

[Don'tSmokeCrayolas]

I am glad in many ways that the lounge acts continued into the 1990's, as I would've never saw them otherwise.

As I've previous said during my time here, being born around the time of the King Kat retrofit meant that I was unable to fully appreciate these characters until their later years.


I not only never saw King Kat, B.B. Bubbles, Dolli Dimples, Artie Antlers, or the Little Shavers, but this site was the first time that I'd even heard of their existence.

I saw The Beagles most often, but both The Beach Bowzers and The King each had stores that I considered to by their "home base" within my state.