ISSUE #58 - October, 2005
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During September I was able to take a cross-country roadtrip out east to meet up with some old friends and new faces. On the stretch begining our trip we passed through Kansas City, so I figured why not stop by the CEC's in the Antioch Shopping Center (the 1st ShowBiz location). Not knowing the area I was nervous of stumbling into a "ghetto-cheese's" if you catch my drift. Although the Antioch center was aged and partially vacant, the area was nice enough. When we went in I was immediately taken back by the scale of the building - it was quite large. It was layed out in the traditional 'ShowBiz' style, but the rooms were larger as were the halls and walkways. The showroom was HUGE - much larger than any I had ever seen. We sat toward the back, far away from a tired 3-stage MMBB that was nervously fidgeting, pretending to still work.

This has been covered pretty extensively on the message board and everyone has offered their opinion which for the most part has been negative. And with good reason - it messes with the 'magic' appeal the show holds. Those who visit this website (ie - the ones who care enough about CEC/SPP to think about it while NOT at the restaurant) became fans because of the animatronic show. Of course we're going to be upset when financial matters cause the show to be degraded.

The rest of the store had a strange layout, and in my opinion, much wasted space. It looked like the store had been through a few remodels. A smaller sitting area that was coupled with a massive empty storage room looked to be where the original Disco Room once was.

Once we got back home, we visited the newly opened CEC in Greeley, Colorado. It has the new look and layout, as seen in many of the newer CEC showtapes (the purple and red color scheme and new logo). The look of the store was nice, with a colorful interior and a few interesting wall hangings such as giant plastic tokens and tickets. It was however my first visit to a small-town CEC and I was extremely unimpressed. Our first mistake was going on a Sunday afternoon. The place was absolutely packed - we had no choice but to sit by the game room surrounded by screaming kids. We sat down and waited for our food (one large pizza) trying to scope out the new restaurant while blocking out the screaming. For literally 15 minutes I sat and watched a little girl crying and screaming in the tubes area for her monther. I finally couldn't take watching her crying face any more and Joshua, who was with us, alerted a cast member who finally came to help the scared girl. Good thing the employee took care of it, because if I would have found her mother I probably would have slapped her for being so negligent.

While we waited for our food, going on 30 minutes now, the crowd cleared and we were able to move into the showroom to watch a craptacular Studio C cappa show with random movments in full force. What a waste of animation. I noticed the downgraded movements immediately. He was missing many of his arm movements, allowing his wrists only to turn directly down. To the kids looking up it might appear as though he was waving at them, but from eye level he looked truly homosexual with the stereotypical wrist kink. I couldn't even concentrate on the show songs because it was so prevalent. And the random movements are as horrid as I imagined. They're random alright, and make it look like Chuck's not doing anything, just a spontaneous twitch here and there.

There is a moral to this story. CEC is making money - hand over fist - despite all of the concerns us fans have had about the show quality becoming so lame in recent months. Children who are only 3 years old are easily impressed and don't thirst for sophisticated entertainment they way us older fans do. Parents who have more money than brains are more than happy to fork over mega-bucks for a 'Chuck E. sitter' to babysit their kids. This combination of target demographics allows for shotty entertainment to be quite profitable. It's sad, but us fans are the last of a dying breed. But either way, I commend CEC for taking this business route. With every terrible showtape and budget cut made, you are only cementing the notion of the Rock-afire being the greatest animatronic show of all time. One of which I will soon have for fans who are sick of the CEC cutbacks to come and watch.