Winchester Chuck E. Cheese V1 (Animatronic)

The Winchester Chuck E. Cheese V1 bot is an animatronic which debuted at the first Pizza Time Theatre location at San Jose, CA (370 S Winchester Blvd) in May of 1977. It would be surpassed by an upgraded design at the store a short time later.

History

Proof of Concept Animatronic

The animatronic first began as a concept prototype made by Harold Goldbrandsen and his team at Fantasy Forest Manufacturing. This initial concept had the same general shape and style as the final animatronic, but took many more queues from the Ricky Rat Walkaround, being without clothes, a pink stomach, and more fur coverage around the mouth.

Final Animatronic

The final robot would be done by the store's opening, complete with a plaid vest, yellow shirt, pink bowtie, and the iconic red derby hat.

Version 2 Upgrade

The bot would later be upgraded to the Winchester Chuck E. Cheese V2 animatronic sometime in 1977 to 1978. This would be a complete overhaul of the bot, allowing more movements, alongside an added microphone and cigar. It would be upgraded alongside the Crusty the Cat animatronic presumably to raise the quality standard of the show.

Corporate Move

After the upgrade to the V2 bot, the V1 would presumably be sent somewhere else for storage or display. It isn't clear where the bot was located, though by 1980 the corporate office would be moved to its final California location in Sunnyvale, CA, where the bot can be spotted displayed in an unknown room. By this point the V1 bot was also given a microphone, though it is unclear if this change was made after its removal from the Winchester location.

Current Whereabouts

Nothing has been seen of the animatronic after its last seen appearance at the Sunnyvale, CA office. It is suspected the bot was destroyed during the corporate move to the Showbiz Pizza Time Corporate Office in Texas in 1984, though since there is no confirmed reason for the bot's disappearance, it is unclear if the bot currently still exists in private hands or not.

Design

The design is the first ever iteration of the classic Chuck E. Cheese design, being the first time the character was given clothes. Chuck sports a plaid vest with a yellow undershirt. He adorns a pink bowtie alongside his later to be iconic red derby hat. Unlike later iterations of the hat, this is the only design that has the yellow stripe be a piece of fabric overlaying the derby, rather than being a painted portion of the hat.

This first iteration was also the only Chuck design for the time that had grey eyelids, with the previous iterations having tan eyelids, and later ones having light blue eyelids. The mouth shape would heavily influence the Winchester Chuck Walkaround and other early versions of the costume character heads, with the mold on the costume being almost the exact same but upsized.

Only the upper half of his body is visible, and his entire design is encased inside a picture frame, giving the illusion of him being a picture sprung to life. His background consists of just a single blue sheet, which would continue to appear in later iterations of the shows as blue curtains.

The microphone seen on the Winchester Chuck E. Cheese V2 and Kooser Chuck E. Cheese animatronics would be added to the V1 design at an unknown date, presumably after its move to the Sunnyvale, CA corporate offices. This would keep him in line with his other portrayals at the time.

Movements

Due to the lack of internal pictures or videos of it moving, it is very uncertain what movements the bot had access to. Only what's been confirmed by the creator has been stated. Despite the eyes being in different directions in multiple pics, this is likely the use of googly-eyes rather than an eye movement, which are shook when the head is turned.