ISSUE #12 - May, 2001
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Well, I went to Chuck E. Cheese's last month. I know that sounds like nothing special, I'm sure that most of you go there all the time. Some of you work there, so CEC's is probably like a second home to you. The last time I set foot into a CEC's was well over a year ago (Jan 2000). I guess most of my reason for not going was my own stubborness. I refused to give the CEC company any more of my money due to a problem last year (see June 2000 Bulletin). But anyway, my girlfriend and I decided to have dinner there. I must say that she was a real great sport for listening to my endless jabbering about CEC facts and tidbits that no one in their right mind should have knowledge of.

We vistited the Ft Collins, CO Chuck E. Cheese store on April 26th. We first had to wait in the kid check corral. We were told by the manager that (I believe that she was the manager anyway) that if we weren't there for a party we could just let ourselves in, although I can distinctly remember getting snapped at for doing that during a previous visit to this same store. The manager was very nice and friendly to us and she deserves proper credit for that. I was really surprised by the quality of the pizza, it put most of the other pizza chains in town to shame. The only problem was that it took them (no exaggeration) 20 minutes to deliver our small pizza to our table.

The Ft. Collins store still uses the Rock-afire retrofit 3-stage show, and they've given the mechs new cosmetics. They look more friendly and less scary than the CU cosmetics, but some of them are downright awful. Take Pasqually for example - his new mask covers only the front of his face. There's no neck for him, so when he tilts his head back you can see a huge dark gap between his chin and his body. It's really quite pathetic - I'll be going back soon to snap some pictures so you can see what I'm talking about.

The only part of that night that really set me on edge was what they did while we were eating. They were playing the "Chuck E.'s Rockin Rhymes" showtape and during an intermission the sound was muted. They shut off the sound because some hippie lady and some kids were doing a reading of jazz poetry for everyone in the showroom. We won't go into what a torture that ordeal was - but what bothered me was that they show came back on and the characters continued preforming in silence. Even my girlfriend commented how there was just "No magic anymore" to the show. It would have taken them no more time or energy to just temporarily shut the show down instead of muting it. It was really sad.

Other than that it was a rather enjoyable experience. Someone gave me an idea awhile back to start making a "catalogue" of CEC and RAE restaurants so people will know what to expect when visiting them (like what show they have, how good the service is, etc.) People could submit descriptions of their visit and so forth. I might start something like this. If anyone would be interested in helping with this project, just let me know. Who knows, maybe in a few months this site could have an unofficial online catalogue of CEC restaurants.

See You Next Month,
- VegaNova