Winchester Chuck E. Cheese V2 (Animatronic)



Winchester Chuck E. Cheese V2 is an animatronic used at the San Jose CA (Winchester) Pizza Time Theatre from 1978 until it was replaced by a standard model Cyberamic in 1980. It is an upgraded version of the original animatronic.

History
Shortly after the Kooser Rd Road Pizza Time Theatre location opened, PTT requested Fantasy Forest Manufacturing to update the Winchester Chuck E. Cheese's to be standardized like the Kooser location. Once the Winchester Blvd. location upgraded their show to standard Cyberamics in 1980, Chuck E. was relocated to the Pizza Time Theatre Sunnyvale, CA Corporate Office.

Once Pizza Time Theatre went bankrupt, Jul Kamen, a costume designer, rescued it and two other animatronics from Winchester, Pasqually and Jasper T. Jowls. Jul Kamen had the three animatronics on display in her home, even creating specific patterns to have Jasper and Chuck E. match the curtains in her home.

After the SPP / PTT merger, Jul Kamen gave permission to the newly formed Showbiz Pizza Time to display the Winchester animatronics in their Support Center. The three animatronics were rigged to a button to short Pizza Time Theatre skit. The characters wore down to a point where they could not properly function. Brian Hagan of the Entertainment Department made an attempt to repair the characters, even replacing the original cylinders with the newer Bimba branded cylinders. However this got to a point where they had to be turned off and only had the skit audio playing.

In 2004 during a remodel, the Pasqually and Jasper animatronics were destroyed; presumably ordered by Gene Cramm. Chuck E. was rescued by the Entertainment Department and displayed in the programming room.

Gabriel Vasquez urged Jul Kamen to get the Chuck E. animatronic back into her possession. Sr. Director of CEC, Paul Teneyuca, managed to return the animatronic back to Jul Kamen. The next summer she moved and no longer had the space to put the animatronic. In 2011, Jul got into contact with Gabe and sold him the animatronic, however Gabe also didn't have the space to put it on display so he then sold it to Travis Schafer in 2014. The animatronic now sits on display with Crusty The Cat.

On April 1, 2023, Travis announced on Instagram that he donated both Chuck and Crusty to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. The bots are currently set to be on display at an exhibit on computers and video games in the 20th century in July of 2023.

Cosmetic Design
This updated Chuck E. Cheese for the first location was the first three dimensional Chuck E. animatronic. It was now capable of moving it's head and body unlike it's predecessor which couldn't.

Chuck E's head is more rounded and smaller. Chuck E.'s face does not diverge too much from the at the time walkaround, the only major difference being that his eyes were more rounded compared to it. The fur is also lighter over all, his hands are absent of fur however.

Chuck E. now has a comically large cigar in his left hand, and a wired microphone in the right. He also sports a black bowtie and a patterned Brown and Yellow vest over a yellow dickey with black buttons. Chuck E. also keeps his red derby, this time being more short and rounded. Most of the cosmetic parts were made out of Latex and Faux Fur.

Internals
The majority of the animatronic's mechanics were built onto the fiberglass body, leaving a mostly empty interior. As for cylinders, it appears that a majority of the head used small single acting cylinders for certain movements. The metal base Chuck E. was built on was bought up to an angle so it could come out of the frame more. An additional note, the body turns dictated the movement of the left arm like the future Cyberamics.