CEC Entertainment Holdings
CEC Entertainment, Inc. is the company that owns and operates Chuck E. Cheese's restaurants. The company was previously known as ShowBiz Pizza Time, Inc. before taking its current name in 1998.
History
In 1998, the company renamed itself CEC Entertainment, Inc. Part of this renaming was related to a move from the NASDAQ to the NYSEhttps://cecentertainment.gcs-web.com/ In 1999, CEC Entertainment, Inc. bought out competitor Discovery Zone Chuck E. Cheese's celebrated its 30th anniversary in 2007.[3] Currently, there are 590 open locations throughout North America, South America, and the Middle East.
In 2012, CEC Entertainment announced that their mascot would receive a redesign. Jaret Reddick [1], lead singer of the musical group Bowling for Soup, was hired to become the new voice of Chuck E. Cheese, after having been voiced by Duncan Brannan for 19 years. The Redesign is now animated in CGI. The replacement of Brannan with Reddick was met with backlash [2], but the company issued the following statement: "Brannan was not fired from Chuck E. Cheese's, rather we simply chose to utilize new voice talent for the original music we have written as part of a TV advertising campaign in partnership with The Richards Group. On several occasions prior to the release of Chuck E.'s new single last week, we communicated to Brannan that his primary responsibilities with our in-store entertainment group would not change. There is still plenty of opportunity for Duncan to provide more of his voice talent and services for Chuck E. Cheese's in the future if he chooses to do.”
References
- ^ "Chuck E Cheese Chain Mascot Gets An Overhaul". csmonitor.com.
- ^ "Chuck E Cheese Transforming Into A Rock Star". chicago.suntimes.com.