So apparently Chuck E. Cheese lore is a thing
I stumbled across this beautiful new world in a tweet from Twitter user @friendbow about the fact that Mr. Cheese is canonically an orphan.
RIP Mr. & Mrs. Cheese
Think about this for a second. Of all the possible backstories for an over-sized anthropomorphic mouse robot who works as a lounge singer at a child casino, the person in charge of character development for CEC Entertainment decided his parents being dead was the best option. Captivated by this, I naturally decided to follow the trail and see just how far the lore goes.
Most of it seems to stem from a book called "The Story of Chuck E. Cheese". The book has no author listed but Chuck E. Cheese's itself, as though it were simply the embodiment of the corporation, the enfleshed form of the lore that exists in the minds and hearts of every employee of the pizza and arcade chain.
The plot of this biography- or, more properly, hagiography- is so wondrous, so unique that I cannot but think that it must be a true story. I truly believe that no human writer could create a legend of this caliber.
The story begins with Cheese moving into St. Marinara's Orphanage. We are not told what event necessitates this, or where he moves from, so we can only assume that his parents' fate was so horrific as to be unrecountable.
Cheese loves to sing, particularly the song "Happy Birthday". His penchant for birthdays turns out to be a prominent theme throughout his life, although he does not know his own due to his lack of parents. Perhaps this is merely a cruel irony, mentally torturing him forever and driving him to seek solace in others' birthdays. Or perhaps this ignorance about the beginning of his life is the source of his birthday obsession. Maddened by having been robbed of this fundamental piece of information about himself, alienated even more thoroughly from his family than he already would have been, he is determined to someday solve the mystery, and if not, then he will ensure that no other child suffers the same fate as he.
Apparently, his only other passion is Pong, which he plays so much that he wins a trophy and $50 in a tournament. Cheese uses this $50 to buy a one way ticket to New York, which raises a number of questions about this orphanage. Do they regularly allow their charges to move off on their own? Do they even keep track of their kids? For a second, I thought that perhaps he was simply living in the walls of the orphanage and was not actually a resident on account of being a mouse, but the fact that he was able to win a Pong tournament and buy a bus ticket indicates that he is anthropomorphic enough to have been treated more or less equally with the human orphans. On the other hand, perhaps he was discriminated against due to his species, and that is why no one cared about him taking off on his own. (Wait. Is Chuck E. Cheese otherkin? Oh God.)
In any case, he arrives in New York homeless, so he squats in a pizzeria- right above the kitchen, in fact, which is quite certainly a health code violation. He successfully hides from the chef, Pasqually (who was named, it would seem, by an alien attempting to guess what an Italian name sounds like), until one night he mistakenly assumes the unfortunately named cuisinier to have gone home for the night.
Upon discovering a mouse running around his restaurant, our pizzaiolo is rightfully concerned and chases the rodent with a rolling pin. (This seems to me a rather poorly thought out pest extermination plan, and I know that I would certainly be fired for doing that in the kitchen I work in, but we can show the man some grace for being in a panic).
The would-be exterminator- or murderer, depending on your point of view- has his victim cornered, ready to strike the fatal blow, when all of a sudden, the mouse begins to sing. Freaked out at this frightening development, Pasqually drops his weapon. After the initial shock of a singing mouse wears off (the trauma would take several additional decades to go away), he proclaims (in a definitely accurate and not at all offensive Italian accent) that his establishment has been saved.
The reason, of course, is that he has realized that he can exploit this desperate singing mouse for profit. We had not previously known that his business was in trouble, but it is not terribly surprising given his poor maintenance skills; and besides, capitalism is excellent at creating crises.
Anyways, Cheese nearly destroys the restaurant by freezing up at his first performance, only to be saved by his uncontrollable urge to sing happy birthday. From there, they hire more singing animals and turn the place into a casino bearing his name, eventually expanding across the country to turn children everywhere into jazz club frequenters and gamblers.
So, uh, yeah, remember that when you have kids and want to take them for some family fun. (Don't worry, there might be booze in it for you).
