ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, September 10, 1996 TAG: 9609100009
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: DALLAS
SOURCE: MICHAEL PRECKER DALLAS MORNING NEWS
As this fast-paced society heads for the millennium, change looms everywhere. We all must adapt - even large, fuzzy rodents who like to sing, hug kids and make pizza.
Take, for example, Chuck E. Cheese.
The character whose name adorns 316 pizza-and-games restaurants in 45 states is undergoing a high-tech metamorphosis. He's fun, he's hip, he's not just a robot pretending to sing songs at your kid's birthday party anymore.
``Chuck E. Cheese is still an exciting property,'' says Dick Huston, executive vice president of ShowBiz Pizza Time, which is based in Irving, Texas. ``We didn't want to get rid of him, but we had to find the way to bring him up to the '90s and make it fun.''
Huston is standing at Ground Zero of the revolution, the Chuck E. Cheese at Montfort and LBJ in North Dallas. Corny rock parodies are blaring, lights are flashing, and gizmos are whirring. The Chuckster himself, more animatronic than ever, is presiding over the first redesigned showroom of his cheesy empire.
Unchanged is the employee inside a furry Chuck E. costume who periodically makes the rounds greeting guests - but, like the Disney characters at the theme parks, never talking.
Gone, at least from here, are the five clunky automatons who have entertained a generation of preschoolers by appearing to make wisecracks and sing and play drums on the showroom stage.
``At Disney World, the characters look real, and kids are used to that,'' says Rosalyn Dittman of Plano, Texas, who's watching the old-fashioned show at a store in Richardson, Texas. ``These movements are kind of jerky.''
``Chuck E. looks like he's had a stroke,'' says Gaye Martin of Dallas. ``It is pretty cheesy.''
The two moms have brought their kids to a birthday party, where 5-and 6-year-olds seem pretty content - if a little passive - as they munch their pizza and watch the show.
But company executives are listening to the moms.
``Kids are exposed to so much nowadays and they get pretty savvy,'' Huston says. ``Our 15-year-old robots aren't going to excite kids after the age of 4 or 5.''
There is another factor. The oversize characters - Helen Henny, a perky fowl; Mr. Munch, a purple gorilla; Jasper Jowls, a floppy-eared dog; and Pasqually, a fleshy, mustachioed pizza maker - may seem a tad big and threatening to small children.
``My kids like them now, but when they were really little, they were scared to death,'' says Marsha Farmer of Plano, another mom at the Richardson party.
Rethinking the robots is just part of an overall revamping going on at the chain. Huston attributes that to the emergence of Discovery Zone, the indoor play emporiums competing for the same kids' devotion and the same parents' dollars.
``It was a real wake-up call for us,'' he says. ``On a weekend you'll go to Discovery Zone or Chuck E. Cheese, but not both. There's just so much money to spend.''
We'll leave this to the dining critics, but Chuck E.'s handlers say he's improved the pizza. Beyond dispute is a revamped play area, with more plastic balls to fall into and lots of tubes to crawl around in.
``The one area we struggled on was the showroom, which is really our showcase,'' Huston says.
Last week the company threw a party to show off the results. Men and women in full business attire chowed down on pizza, mingled with the kids who star in the videos and posed for snapshots with the live Chuck E. - who, for a change, didn't have to bend over to dispense his hugs.
The Big Rodent literally has taken center stage, at the controls of his Awesome Adventure Machine. The colorful and wonderfully cluttered cockpit is fashioned from about 500 garage-sale items, ranging from toys and hubcaps to a bathroom scale and a flyswatter.
His buddies have been banished to huge video screens on either flank, ready for two-dimensional action. There are lots of flashing lights and all-too-powerful speakers.
The idea is that rather than stand around and lip-synch song parodies, Chuck E. and friends can embark on, well, awesome adventures.
``This new stage gives them so much more flexibility,'' says Steven White, who writes material for Chuck E. ``It's not just a movie or a video, and it's not just a robotic stage. Each time you change the software, you're going to get a dramatically different look.''
For the premiere episode, scripted by White, Chuck E. discovers the restaurant is out of cheese. He and the crew blast off to find a moon that can supply some more. After about five minutes of plot, puns and sight gags, all is well.
``We're not going to take Chuck E. Cheese and Jasper Jowls and re-create `Independence Day,''' says White, who also has written various Barney the Dinosaur shows. ``But you want to entertain kids and take them somewhere, and make things happen that can't happen anywhere else.''
It's just a prototype, and Huston says there are no plans to install more Awesome Adventure Machines until the company gauges customer reaction. But he's pretty sure the concept is here to stay.
So is John Rice, vice president of marketing for Showbiz Pizza Time, which owns most Chuck E. Cheeses in the country and is scheduled, in two to three weeks, to take over ownership of the Roanoke restaurant, now owned by Dallas-based McBiz Inc.
If the new Awesome Adventures format is successful, Rice said, "we'd probably over the next two or three years bring it to the rest of the country. This was definitely designed to bring us into next century."
So far, he said, kids at the updated Dallas restaurant have given the new-and-improved Chuck E. Cheese a thumbs up. Showbiz plans to track response for three to six months before moving ahead, though.
Meanwhile, Roanoke customers should notice few changes when Showbiz Pizza Time takes over Chuck E. Cheese. The name will stay the same, as will the food and the service.
"We may bring in some new promotional programs," Rice said. "And we may do some things to spruce it up a bit."
LENGTH: Long : 112 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: KRT. Chuck E. Cheese's outlets still are hip enough forby CNBthe '90s. color.