Hey! According to this web site, the spider from Showbiz was named after the shopping center at which the first Kansas City Showbiz showed up. Whoo-hoo! I used to go to that Showbiz!
I miss Billy Bob and Mitzi, the cheerleading rodent. Chuck’s place just ain’t so much fun, if you ask me.
I think Dave & Buster’s is the much kinder grown-up alternative to CEC. But I don’t know whether they allow kids.
Wow. That was a rush. I can remember every single one of those characters from Showbiz, along with the sights, sounds and smells. My biological father used to take me there and dump $5 worth of tokens in my hand at a time because he was too lazy to think up something to do. This means ever other Saturday for years 1980 - 1987 I was in Showbiz. Ah, the memories. Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (“Soon, Kaliba? will rule the world!”, “We walk from here!”), Spy Hunter, Rampage, skee ball ($5 worth of playing gets you a plastic whistle!) and even in the early days with Frogger, Joust and PacMan.
I’ve never been to a CEC but it has to suck compared to Showbiz. I might have to buy me some of those tokens. . .
Just the fact that some of you have a nickname for this place is proof that it is evil.
When my husband and I started calling Bob Evans “The Bob” I knew it was all over.
Your plan sounds good, but my son is too little to let go alone in there (or so I think).
I should have expected to be exactly as I found it. However, my boss, who normally hates ALL chain restaurants and is something of a snob, gave it two thumbs up. She lulled me into a false sense of complacency. So along with the lights and noise, I was smacked in the face with a sense of cruel betrayal as well.
Yeah, almost four isn’t really a prime CEC age. My kids are 10, 7 and 7, so it’s a little easier.
I’d have to think long and hard about taking a three-year-old to CEC.
Four is too young. We took my peanuts at 3 1/2 and 4 1/2 and they did have a good time, but it was too much work for mom and dad. Plus the hooligan quota and CEC is quite high. Ten year olds that you are pretty sure will be in prison by 16.
They, however, begged to go after hearing about it from daycare. They haven’t begged to go back, they’d rather go to the pool, or Camp Snoopy in the Mall of America, or the “Dinosaur museum” or even just the playground.
Never eat at a restraunt where the mascot is a rat.
Words to live by.
I think I love you. That reaction to Overstimulation Station…it’s my reaction. My sisters took SpazNephew Monkey there for his fourth birthday and I was ready to KILL after five minutes in that place. Too much shit going on at once. And we were there on a slow night! :eek: It was the piped-in screaming noises that did it for me. If ever I needed to turn a nice child into a screaming brat, that is the place I will take it.
According to my Older Sister, I hated places like that when I was a SpazKitten. I’d create more children like me so those places would go out of business, but that would be bad. For me.
Me too! I cried when the shut down the local Showtime at the mall near my grandmother’s house and turned it into a Chuck E. Cheese. My uncle would always take my sibs and I to Showtime at least twice every time we would visit and we loved it. I loved the whole gang, esp Mitzi the cheerleader and the wolfman with his handpuppet. How UNREAL was that? An animatronic character with a HANDPUPPET on his left arm?
I’ve only visited CEC’s ONCE and that was one near my parents house on my brother’s sixth birthday (same night as the Gulf War was declared) and I swore that I would never set foot in that disgusting place again.
Now I remember why,after reading the OP.:mad:
IDBB
Comedian Tim Wilson wrote a song called “Chuckie Cheese Hell”. (Scroll down, it’s track number 4.)
I never visted anything like CEC when I was a kid, though my parents (my dad in particular) took me to plenty of token arcades.
So, are we having the next MI Dope at Chuckie’s, then? :::d&r::::
I have a friend who once worked at CEC. You think it’s bad going there for a while, try ALL DAY!
I don’t know how she came through with her sanity. Then again, maybe she didn’t, most of my friends are nuts. 
But…but…it wasn’t in Antioch center was it? It was on Metcalf, across the street from Metcalf 103. I remember going there when it opened on my birthday. I was 23.
OK, five, but who’s counting?
What a brilliant idea, Res! Let’s have it up here, at mine! I’ll meet you there! I promise!
Showbiz ruled. Chuck E. Cheese is but a pale imitation. I went to both a lot when I was a kid, but I noticed that they always started with cool stuff, and slowly went downhill.
Ahh… yes. Here we have a bit o’ gee-oh-graf-e-kal confusion: you’re thinking of the Antioch which runs through Overland Park. The web site is referring to the Antioch which connects with Vivion Road in Kansas City North, Missouri. Overland Park’s Antioch Shopping Center has a Tiffany Town; its Northland counterpart has a Fu Kee Chinese buffet.
I’d only eat at one of 'em if I were you–and I wouldn’t necessarily choose the buffet…
At any rate, as anecdotes would have it, I, actually had an early twenties birthday celebration at the CEC (Showbiz way back when you went, of course) you remember; my date for the evening (Abby, I think her name was) promised me a fun time that night, and as we headed over to the Metcalf CEC, I hoped that we were gonna hit the Hooters a few hits down the shopping store row.
Didn’t happen. On the bright side, at least, Chuck E. Cheese didn’t show up in tight clothing. I hope. That memory seems suspiciously faded…
Of course, the Showbiz I attended the most times as a kid was in Shawnee, Kansas. We also went roller-skating at Coaches in Shawnee. Thankfully, Chuck E. Cheese didn’t show up there in tight clothing, either.
[old geezer voice] Back when I was a kid, we didn’t have a Showbiz or a Chuck “Evil” Cheese. All we had was Skateland USA and we liked it that way! Anyone who was anyone in elementary school had a birthday party at SUSA. There weren’t any evil animatronics or video games out the wazoo, just a large skate rink for the big kids and a dinky one for the little kids. We had roller skates, not your new-fangled “inline skates”, and we skated for hours until we went home! And we liked it that way! [/ogv]
Actually, I stopped liking SUSA the day I bruised my tailbone on the skate brake. That was not a good day. I never went to another birthday party their again.
I went to Chuck E Cheese’s once. I hated every minute of it, and to top it off the pizza made me puke. I never went anywhere near another CEC again.
I think I may vaguely remember Showbiz. If my memory isn’t just pulling things out of its ass, I think I remember it being much better than CEC.
Hey, CrankyAsAnOldMan the thought of your little one’s heartache brought a tear to my eye. 
Maybe you could tell him that when performers are on stage, they can’t stop the show in the middle, and this is why CEC continued on with the show? This might explain it to him without too much pain. I don’t know how to explain why he can’t access CEC after the “show” is done though.
I hope you find a nicer place to go and have fun with Cranky Jr. and his friends.