"Let Me Tell You A Tale..."
Chuck E. Cheese was a landmark destination of the late-80s and early-90s for pizza and video game fun. It's popularity in the mainstream took a dive in the last two decades, thanks to the home video game consoles and ease of delivery pizza. Though, an argument could be made that "Five Nights at Freddy's" has helped the corporate fun house regain some of its customer base. But, nothing as terrible as child murder had ever happened at a Chuck E. Cheese...right?
Reddit user, u/arandomkid2, wanted to know about the worst moments in Chuck E. Cheese's house when they asked:
Former and current Chuck E. Cheese workers, what are some of the worst things to happen to you while working?
A Cake Disaster
One time at Chuck E. Cheese when I was working there some food fight broke out and one kid chucked his entire cake straight at chucky and the he cried about how "he didn't get a cake". The kids mom went into the bathroom and she was in there for a good 15 minutes, I went in there to ask what was up and I saw her having a mental breakdown, turns out she spent hours making that cake special for him, and it was all ruined in about 30 seconds
Stab E. Pencil
I was the technician at a Chuck E. Cheese in high school. One day i was covering someone and I had to wear the suit and do the show. On my way back to the room, a little kid runs up to see Chuck E, and stabbed me in the ankle with a pencil as hard as he could. I rushed into the back room and took off the pants portion of the suit, pulled down my sock, and a bunch of blood poured out. Didn't even go home early, boss just had me stand at the door.
What Kind Of Owner Is Chuck?
Didn't happen to me but somebody got stabbed. We actually hired a bouncer on our busiest days because we attracted the trashiest people.
There was also a ton of sex in the Chuck E closet.
Same Kid?
Had a complaint that a kid was dipping toilet paper in to a women's toilet then eating it. He was. Same kid beat me mecrillessly while I was wearing "the Rat in Hat" suit, while screaming "MAN IN SUIT!"
The best was a complaint about the same kid eating from other families tables. He was, and he looked them dead in the eyes while doing it.
These were all different days.
At Least There's An Upside, Right?
Former: Anytime a kid threw up in the ball pit was an especially horrible day. There were several instances during the 6 years I had worked there, but these times were quite memorable.
There were two ways you could do this, 1. a large, both sides opened, cardboard box, to cordon off the affected area (saying it was a "slow" day and other kids weren't splashing all the balls around...) We had very large netting bags so that you could gather all the balls and take them outside and they would be sprayed off... or 2. If the spew was all up in the ball pit then ALL balls had to be gathered, sprayed off and the inside liner that held the balls had to be wiped down and cleaned.
Only "good" thing about having to take out all the balls, was that you could find some pretty good stuff that happened to be in peoples pockets and fell out (money, pocket knives, and even rings)
Naked E. Gross
The worst part was wearing that rat suit after this this one dude was in it. He took it serious and would get up on the prize tables and get the kids to chant CHUCK E, CHUCK E....I could freakin hear it back in the kitchen over the noise and music.
Dude was butt a-- naked in the suit. And he sweat, alot.
Best part was though was taking the left over pizza dough into the back lot after closing and having a 1v1 death match throwing softball sized dough balls at each others heads.
When The Inmates Run The Asylum
I worked at a Chuck E. Cheese in high school in a wealthy area, so I got the bright idea to neatly fold and rip off the part of the bill that stated, "Tips are included in the cost." They weren't. I got my coworkers in on it and eventually we started presenting the bills to each other's parties and saying, "if you'd like to tip your host they can only accept cash" to plant the idea in the parents' head. One day we got caught. I got blamed. I wasn't allowed to host parties anymore. Instead the GM hired his family and friends and allowed them to abuse my system. It was a gold mine, because sometimes I would take home $200 in cash as a 16 year old. I didn't even make that in 2 weekends of hourly pay.
At Least You're Creative?
I worked at CEC as my first job. On more than one occasion kids went up to the sky netting (?) (basically a birdnest made out of rope suspended in the air) and would take a sh-t. Naturally, since it was netting the sh-t would fall through and on to anyone who happened to be below...
After this happened a few times we decided to move the carousel ride (which had a roof) under the birdnest so at least it would land on the roof and not someones head.
Ugh, Parents
Worked at CEC for nearly two years during high school and then again later for another year. The worst parts almost always had to do with the parents of course.
It was just after I started, I was 15 and spent the first few months there working the game room floor. This lady came up to me saying one of the machines was not giving out tickets and I needed to check it out for her. I sat down on the stool to open up the panel and check things out, during this time she began rubbing my back saying how cute I was and how much of a help I was being. It was about this time I realized she reeked of booze and was drunk. I quickly sprang up from my seat saying I had to get some tools from the back. I went and told the games manager what happened. I'm not really sure what happened after that as I stayed in the back for a while. Next time I came back out she was gone thankfully.
Don't Take It Anymore
I worked at one for several years, I didn't have extremely horrible things happen to me tho. I was a Game Tech, which meant I would unclog tokens and perform minor repairs on games while also delivering pizza to tables and cleanup. Things I can remember that did happen that were weird/funny were;
- Having to escort drunk people out of at closing, cashiers would try to limit peoples intake but when others would buy for them they could still get plastered.
- Parents fighting over video games, never had an issue with kids, it was always the parents wanting their little snowflakes to play on some game (usually skee ball). We were told not to try and break them up, manager would just call the cops. So i would go over to them and say they could either leave or deal with the cops, they always left before the cops arrived
- Got hit with skeeballs a few times when going up on the lanes to unclog a ball or fix something, nothing major, but it got to the point of making eye contact with all the kids before going up with warnings i would throw them back...
Making The Best Of The Worst
I have a good friend who used to work at Chuck E. Cheese. Him and his fellow co-workers conspired over the span of a few months to steal the various piece of the suit. They would claim that "this part got ripped" or "some kid messed up this part and we had to throw it out", untill they had a full suit. For what reason you ask? Literally just to take turns showing up to parties in the full suit to make a bunch of drunk people super stoked.
Seriously, Adults Are The Worst
Not my story, but my dad's. This was decades ago.
He worked as the man in the suit, and all his friends knew it. He had this one friend, we can call him Gene, who liked to take things over the top. He was working and suddenly, my dad hears a roar. He turns to see his buddy Gene sprinting at him, full speed, no stop in sight. Boom, my dad is on the ground, head off and the only thing heard was the screams of young children.
My dad got fired that day.
SWARM
Ah. This happened 15 years ago or so. I I was designated to be the big cheese himself, a glorious honor (haha), and the fact that I was one of the only guys that worked there which meant I was almost always the chosen one for that hot a-- suit.
This day a football team was having a party there (10 or 12 year Olds or something). my manager knew what was going to happen.me though... My young niave brain only had innocent thoughts about making the children happy. Then the coach playfully tosses me a football (in my vision at least so I actually caught it).
It happened, a hoard of 10 year olds descended upon me in the cramped area between to long tables. Valiantly as I tried these little demons proceeded to tackle me onto the ground, I thankfully didn't break anything and I kept my head from falling off while being knocked around, but I was p-ssed. As soon as they got off me I got up and left to go to the back and take off the cec outfit.
All This In 9 Months?
Former employee of ~9 months
- Very old woman peeing on the carpet in the entrance while standing up
- Cleaning pee out of the sky tubes after a complaint that it got in a kid's eyes and he couldn't see
- Walking into the bathroom to find an abandoned pair of underwear with poop in it. Took everything I had to not throw up when throwing it away
- While in the Chuck E suit, being asked by a large black man wearing all blue "why you got all that red on, cuh?"
- Asking a mute girl if she wanted to put her candles on her cake and being told "she can't talk" by her parents
There were definitely many more less-than-enjoyable experiences, but these are the ones that stand out to me.
No, Really, Parents, WTF?
I saw two families going at it, throwing punches, cursing and spitting because one of the kids took some tickets from one of the arcade games that didn't belong to him. Cops had to be called and both dads got arrested...
A List Of Awful
Former employee, 6~ months in high school.
- A family racked up a ~$300 bill and tried to pay for it with food stamps.
- Two families got into a fight during their kids birthday party and had to be escorted by the police out. I later found one of their weaves on the table.
- I got kicked in the crotch while in the Chuck E. suit... I'm a girl, and it still hurt.
- A little girl asked me when the "real" Chuck E. was gonna come out because I was "too short" to be the real Chuck E.
- A mom wanted to show her kid that under the costume, it was just a real person and asked if I would take off Chuck E.'s head to show her daughter. I did, and the kid got even more freaked out thinking that the mouse had engulfed me.
I've repressed a lot of the memories. But this is what I can remember.
Run A. Way
Thank you, unnamed Chuck E. Cheese employee who saved naive, desperate for employment me by answering my question about employment with "You don't want to work here."
You are a hero.
Just...Just All Of It, Huh?
Former Manager checking in from like 10-15 years ago with a throwaway. I have a few worsts, I have divided them up below.
Actual worst: The time a custody dispute carried into a birthday party for a three year old. Multiple people had guns and knives, someone actually fired at the mother, and someone else tried to cut the father. This caused a full on riot resulting in a lock down. Luckily we were very close to a police station and no one was seriously injured.
Hilarious worst: Two employees having sex in the "Chuck E. Closet" (Where employees could go change without being in the way of the kitchen or in sight of the kids) while one was wearing the Chuck E head. This was bad because once the closet was unlocked/open you were in sight and we had lots of horrified parents and terrified children and it was really hard to not laugh.
Creepy worst: One of the animatronics failed and became possessed. We were about two weeks away from becoming a Stage 2 store, (next level of upgrades/improvements including removing the animatronics) so they told us just to let it go and try to keep it in check. It sounded demonic and would turn on at random, like in the middle of the "Happy Birthday Song" it's head hit a point that it couldn't turn anymore and got stuck moving a few inches back and forth and then caught on fire while trying to demonically still sing...
And I Quit? I Quit.
"Hey, Sir, someone left a whole bunch of brownies in the sky crawl."
They weren't brownies...
H/T: Reddit
