CEC Entertainment (Cheesyverse)

CEC Entertainment is a company that is headquartered in Irving, Texas. The company owns and operates multiple family entertainment center/restaurant chains, including Chuck E. Cheese's, Showbiz, and Peter Piper Pizza. The company primarily serves the US, along with other countries such as Australia, Canada, Mexico, and Japan.
==History==
===Pizza Time Theater, Inc. (1977-1984)===
Pizza Time Theater, Inc. was founded in 1977 by Nolan Bushnell. It's primary goal was to operate the Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theater restaurants. In 1978, the company broke off from it's parent, Warner Communications, and became it's own company. 1984 saw the company go bankrupt, and they later merged with competitor, Showbiz Pizza Place.
===Showbiz Pizza Place, Inc. (1980-1984)===
In 1979, Topeka Inn Management, which was owned by Robert 'Bob' Brock, struck a deal with Pizza Time Theater to franchise 260 locations across the US. Robert, who was disappointed with Pizza Time's current animatronics, turned to Creative Engineering with their superior animated figures. Bob asked Pizza Time if he could include Creative's animation in his first CEC, but it didn't work out. He instead broke contract, and started up Showbiz Pizza Place where his first CEC location would have been. After Pizza Time Theater went bankrupt, Showbiz offered to merge with the failing company, so they did.
===Showbiz Pizza Time, Inc. (1985-1997)===
Once the two companies merged, the company tried to standardize things across both chains. This included similar showtapes for the animatronic shows, similar marketing, similar merchandise, and even similar store design. Also around this time, Concept Unification was put into effect, making all Showbiz Pizza locations into Chuck E. Cheese ones. Some locations kept the Showbiz name, until 1993 at least. Later on, the restaurants name changed from Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza, to just simply Chuck E. Cheese's. In 1996, the iconic "Avenger Chuck" design would be created, which made their restaurants even more popular. Around this time, Showbiz Pizza Time started to work with third-party companies to produce their animatronic shows, in which they still do today.
=== CEC Entertainment, Inc. (1998-2011) ===
In the following years, the company didn't really change drastically. The Avenger design was still primarily used, even becoming apart of the chains primary logo in 2004. This was until 2012, when sales for the company went down.
=== Corporate Revision (2012-Present) ===
In early 2012, John Shirley was appointed as CEO due to the declining sales. The first thing he did was slightly redesign Avenger Chuck to look less like "A 90's relic", to a similar, yet more timeless design. The other characters got this treatment in late 2012. In early 2013, a new member was revealed for Munch's Make Believe Band, and it was Crusty the Cat. This was done as a marketing stunt to boost attendance, and it worked, with revenue going up during March of 2013. Later that year, it was also announced that Showbiz Pizza Place (now under the shortened title of "Showbiz") would return under a partnership with Creative Engineering, with most locations with a 3-stage show being converted back into the Rock-afire, through a process known as Concept Revision. In 2014, CEC Entertainment bought Peter Piper Pizza. 2015 saw Showbiz introduce talking walkarounds, with Chuck E. Cheese's following behind in 2016. 2017 saw record revenue due to all of these great changes to the once stagnant company. That year also saw the new Live Show Dance Floor concept put into all three chains.
== See Also ==
* CEC Entertainment Commercials
* CEC Entertainment Training Videos
* List of CEC Entertainment Products
* List of CEC Entertainment locations
* List of Concept Revision Installation Tapes
Category:Cheesyverse