Did you know 2004...

[dheineCECfan]

...marks the 20th. anniversary of the year (1984) when Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre went bankrupt? It was saved out of bankruptcy with the merger of ShowBiz Pizza Place thanks to Bob Brock who in 1979 turned down an offer with Nolan Bushnell to open midwest CECPTT franchised locations and strike on his own with Aaron Fechter's Creative Engeneering by launching CECPTT rival ShowBiz Pizza Place. The SPP/CEC partnership would remain until 1990-1991 when then renamed company ShowBiz Pizza Time, Inc. dropped the rights to the ShowBiz Pizza name and Creative's Rock-afire shows and focused heavily on Chuck E. Cheese and the Chuck E. Cheese's principal restaurant name.

[captslappy]

actually Darryl, I may be wrong but I believe 1983 is when they filed. I could be wrong but that is what I have always heard. Both my local PTT's closed in late 83 I believe.

[dheineCECfan]

Well, actually, I guess 2004 is also the 20th. anniversary year of the merger of ShowBiz Pizza Place and Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre (the merger occured around August/September 1984 and it wasn't until Summer 1985 that Billy Bob and Chuck E. Cheese were first seen together in TV commercials and print ads promoting the "Tickets to Summer Fun" instant win game contest promotion).

[captslappy]

Yes you right. PTT filed for Chapter 11 or 13 in 1983 and many stores began closing in late '83 including both locations I used to visit. The merger which gave birth to Showbiz/Pizzatime happened in 1984. Due to the closing of the 2 stores I went to, I started going to Showbiz Pizza about this time instead. There was one near where I lived and my mom did not know where any other PTT stores were. It was not until about 1994 when I was a senior in highschool that I went back to a CEC location. My local Showbiz began using the CEC walkaround about a year after they merged so I still saw lots of Chuck E, but I did not see the other CEC members or a CEC robot again until I visited the Lewisville Tx CEC store. The management was very rude to my friend and I who were paying customers. We ordered a pizza and just wanted to see the show. THey made us feel very unwelcome because we were in our teens and did not have small children with us. As a result, I did not return to CEC again until last year. I have recently started going back to the Lewisville store again which now has a Studio C show. The MMBB was retired about a year ago at that store.

[dheineCECfan]

But during the CECPTT bankruptcy pre SPP merger: Did a few more CECPTT franchised locations open in some cities? One example: The Union New Jersey CECPTT opened in August 1984. My former CECPTT (later converted into Little Caesar's Family Fun Pizzaria and much later Caesarland before it closed in the late 1990's - nowadays a Lazer Tag arena is in the former CECPTT/Caesarland location) in Hoffman Estates, Illinois opened for business in April or May 1983 about several months before the CECPTT bankruptcy.

[captslappy]

Its possible but it seems like a bad business move when the company was in danger of going out of business. Many locations including the 2 PTT stores I regularly visited were closed during this time period.

[Shiney Happy Jenn]

The less profitable stores were closed during the first 3 years of the "hostile takeover"....so yes, many of the locations that were not profitable were slammed.

Other locations, like Union for instance, were probably built and slated to open before news broke that the Company was going under. It would have been a waste of money for Showbiz Inc. to just dump what had already been invested in the PTT's still under construction. Those few stores that did manage to open during that bleak time were probably already at a point where it made more business sense to open them. Union was a good location anyway, as there was nothing around it to compete with at the time it opened.

Just a therory....

[YoungCaliHottie]

i stopped going to cec for the same reason! when i was a teen i would go to cec to eat pizza and watch the show with my friend aj, while my parents were across the street at the mall. and they were always rude to us also cuz we were teens and had no kids. stupid thing is the employees were mostly teens too.

[Shiney Happy Jenn]

Teens hanging out at PTT became a "issue" after Showbiz took over the place. Once they were in control, they actually passed new standards out to locations to try to discourage teens from coming in and hanging around. It's hard to beleive. but CEC started out as a place for teens and young adults..NOT children! Teens and 20/30 year olds were the target audience when Nolan started the place up in 77'. Times change all things and society thru the years has forced CEC to change as well, and that eventually ment that teens were somewhat not wanted.

It was'nt that teens were bad ( though in some cases i'm sure they could might have been:b ) ...it was mainly because CEC in the late 80's was targeting younger kids. Moms did'nt like having the older kids and teens there so to cater to this new demand, CEC started weeding somewhat. Back in PTT's time (77 thru 83) it was THE place to be seen if you were a young adult. teens and folks in there 20/30's would go to PTT and hang out to play the video games. It was THE cool thing to do then. It was at the height of the Arcade Game Craze, and everyone who was anybody was there playing videogames in a arcade like this.

When the craze died in 83', PTT was hurt badly and eventually this was what made then fold. When Showbiz bought them out, the first thing they did was change the target audience. This was done primarily to survive in the harsh times. Many stores passed new rules that teens could not come in unless they were purchasing food. Our own location did this in the late 80's to try to drive the teens out. The Company then changed all the games to be more kiddie-friendly as they then changed there target audience to even younger children and Moms primarily. In the mid 90's Kid Check was introduced to further "filter out" the undesirables ( teens primarily) and cater to the demand by today's parents to have a 'safer" enviroment. The Company also phased out most video games that held older kids interests. By 1998, CEC was a Toddler Land that no teen would go anywheres near now!

[dheineCECfan]

So CECPTT was first considered for teens/young adults who mostly like use quarters and tokens to play the video games and pinball games there besides having pizza and enjoying the animatronic CECPTT Pizza Time Players show?

As for kids going to CECPTT (and CECPTT rival ShowBiz), they had to be assisted by an adult if they were 18 and under.