Intro to Lost Media

Welcome to Cheese-E-Pedia! This introduction article will help you get started with the basics to venture into our tons of articles.

The Lost Media of the animatronics community, also referred to as ‘data’ in it, is vast and full of interesting stories. Here is a list of notable things yet to be found.

Pizza Time Theatre

Commercials

In 1979 Pizza Time Theatre would do an ad campaign called the ‘Great All-American Pizza Show’. This included the The Great All-American Pizza Show! (Radio Ad), which has been found, but also the The Great All-American Pizza Show! (Commercial), which has only had storyboards surface.

The Pizza Time Theatre 1979 Spot (Commercial) also premiered that year with lost footage of the Concord, CA (1975 Diamond Blvd) and Citrus Heights, CA (7614 Greenback Lane) locations.

Finally, the Pizza Time Theatre 1979 Animated Spot (Commercial) would have scans of its animation cels leaked online in August of 2022, featuring Chuck E. Cheese, Pasqually, and a kid. It is currently unknown if this commercial is also the prior spot filmed at Concord and Citrus Heights.

Kooser Main Show

The Kooser Main Show & Dolli Showtape is semi-lost showtape, being the debut tape of the second Pizza Time Theatre store, San Jose, CA (1371 Kooser Rd). Its Dolli portion has been widely available, as it was rereleased for Cyberamics in 1979. The main portion however has only had a few snippets of its confirmed 12 segments available. Interestingly, shots of the programming room at Kooser during the supposed run of this tape shows two differently labeled tapes at different times. This suggests that either the main tape was copied due to wear, a revision of the tape was made, or an entirely new tape was created, meaning more lost media.

Showboat

Showboat is another lost tape from San Jose, CA (1371 Kooser Rd), this time exlusively played during its debut of Cyberamics in the week of April 21st-27th, 1980. A poster, advertisement, reviews, and a stage photo have been found, yet nothing from the actual tape has surfaced.

Dr. Quack

Dr. Quack (Cyberamic) is a lost Cabaret test character that debuted at the Simi Valley, CA (71 Tierra Rejada Rd) location in 1980. Their showtape is confirmed to have been made up children’s songs and nursery rhymes. Two different designs of the character have also been seen, both at the Sunnyvale, CA offices. The character has often been confused with the name of the Pizza Time Theatre diagnostic showtapes, which are usually labeled “Dr. Dux Diagnostic” or “Dr. Duck’s Diagnostic”.

Full Speed Ahead Revue Show

Full Speed Ahead Revue Show is a potential lost showtape that was exclusive to the 1982 PTT Convention (Event), which debuted on October 2, 1982 at 8:30am in Hawaii. It is unclear if this was a show performed by the dressed up Chuck E. and Madame Oink costumes confirmed at the event, a video showtape of Cyberamics (The event features a video of Cyberamics in action later in the day), or actual Cyberamics were brought to the event.

Chuck E. Cheese’s

Strike it Up

Strike It Up is one of the most infamous pieces of lost media in the fandom. It was a live show that lasted only 3 months between August and November of 1996. Only home recordings were available to the community until a stereo version of the audio was uploaded in 2022, revealing the song was originally set to appear in the 1996 Chuck E. Cheese's Awesome Tune Tracks. [1][2]

Despite this, full video and showtape signals for the tape have never surfaced, despite almost every CEC showtape having some sort of rip online. No listings or images of the in-store tape have ever appeared online. Over time enough home videos would surface to be able to view most of the video feed second hand. In December of 2021 a single second of raw footage would be shown after the original Studio C Premiere was found, with the clip appearing in Segment 2.[3]

A CEC corporate employee, Donovan Marcelle, would occasionally do livestreams on Instagram throughout the early 2020’s detailing his progress on programming upcoming showtapes. During one of these livestreams, after constant pressure from the community, he would show the original master tape for the 3-Stage variant of the show. On September 11th, 2022, Donovan would start a stream showing a potential DVD rip of the tape, before cutting the disc up with scissors to mess with his viewers.[4]

Cyberamics Betamax Videos

Cyberamics Betamax was an early form of the Cybervision update to stores that included video with showtapes. Two stores contained this test with exclusive video footage paired alongside its shows from January of 1987 to sometime in 1988 (likely March of 1988).

Some of the footage would be reused with rereleased segments in 1988, which were sent out to all stores. In 1989 more segments were rereleased, but with their video remade in the newer bluescreen style of 1989’s Cyberstar production. Since all of the betamax tapes are lost it is also possible these releases had changes from their rereleased counterparts.

ShowBiz Pizza Place

1989 Breakfast Birthday Promo

SPP Faith / Dreams / Kids, a showtape released in August of 1989, was found in a home video to have a lost clip inserted into its first intermission segment, just before the countdown. It says:

‘Something different is happening at ShowBiz on Saturdays. [Rooster crowing, indescernable noise] What’s more fun than Saturday mornings at ShowBiz? A birthday party breakfast at ShowBiz. [Children cheering]’

The home video doesn’t point the camera at any TVs during the segment, keeping the video lost media. Any other promotional material or offers for Saturday breakfasts at ShowBiz are also lost if they exist.

References

  1. https://youtu.be/00jqSXcRsTw
  2. https://youtu.be/AJd7w7HWcH0
  3. https://archive.org/details/studio-c-premiere-show
  4. https://youtu.be/yTMRMxk7SCI