Your Number's Up, Chuck

Chuck E. Cheese has gone through many transformations in his forty year lifetime, going from a sleazy back alley rat to an extreme skateboarder to a more realistically sized mouse. If the rumors of his company's mounting debt and impending closure are true, Chuck may take on the same role as Geoffrey the Giraffe and the nameless clown from KB Toys... as another face in the unemployment line.

I have fond memories of Chuck E. Cheese... not so much in its current incarnation, but as it was originally envisioned in the late 1970s, as a way for former Atari CEO Nolan Bushnell to remain in the video game industry without violating his non-compete agreement with Warner Brothers (and we'll get to them later; there's important news on that front too). It was ostensibly a pizza restaurant, but nobody went to Chuck E. Cheese for the food... or those creepy animatronic robots.

The 1980s Chuck E. Cheese experience, portrayed
with distressing accuracy by The Simpsons. Look,
it was a different time. A stranger, more disturbing
time. But at least we didn't have COVID-19
back then, no sir!
(image from Frinkiac)

No, it was all about the dimly lit arcade, chock full of your favorite video games and even a few you never knew existed. I was lucky enough to be invited to a Chuck E. Cheese for a friend's birthday party, and it was a defining childhood experience. Who could forget the glorious sensory overload of well over a dozen arcade cabinets, strobing their screens to catch your attention and singing out in a chaotic yet alluring digital cacophony? (And oh yeah, occasionally getting whacked in the face with the tail of a disgruntled employee in a rat suit, but we won't get into that part of the experience.)

That Chuck E. Cheese has been dead for a while now... the restaurant switched to rides and redemption machines in the 1990s, and more recently phased out its robot animal performers, turning them into a bitter memory (and the basis for the appropriately haunting Five Nights at Freddy's video game series). However, the news of the company's financial peril suggests that there may be no Chuck E. Cheese of any kind in the near future. Looks like kids will have to be kids at the halloween stores and Hobby Lobbies that will sprout up in their place.

Scorpion's idea of a long-distance connection,
prior to AT&T's purchase of Warner Games.
(image from the Monster Wiki)

Oh yes, I mentioned Warner Bros. earlier. The former owner of Atari and the current owner of its arcade division may be done with video games entirely, if parent company AT&T has its say. It's currently looking to unload Warner Games on another publisher, to relieve some of the debt from its purchase of the movie studio. How much debt, exactly? $165 billion, according to Eurogamer. How much is Warner Games actually worth? $4 billion, according to the same source. I'm not a finance whiz here, but AT&T's math needs a little work.