It comes a time in everyone's life where being a kid is just the greatest thing. Being able to live young and free without bills and responsibilities, and being able to go to places like Chuck E. Cheese and Toys "R" Us… Oh, wait, that's right Toys "R" Us no longer exists… You wanna know why? BECAUSE KIDS AREN'T BEING KIDS. And I'm here to declare a fight to protect Chuck E. Cheese's, and why!
Toys "R" Us Shut Down/Kids Are Numbed To Being Kids:
So if you've been living under a huge rock (and that rock happened to be under the sea next to the Titanic), you'd know that the beloved toy retailing company Toys "R" Us has shut down. Going into the '90s kids dead nostalgia of having fan favorite companies from childhood die off, just like with KB Toys and Blockbuster. But, why? Why are childhood companies dying off? It's because kids are now numb to the idea of being kids. It sounds ridiculous to hear but it's the honest truth.
Behind the truth of the economic decline and bankruptcy within these companies, children nowadays just don't want to be kids. Or even in the other hands of parents not allowing kids to become kids. In today's society, you can find many kids playing with phones and tablets rather than legos and barbies. Stated by a WebMD source, "roughly 69% of 11-14-year-olds own phones and tablets. While on the other hand, 8-10-year-olds are in the 31% of having phones and tablets."
That's a really big percentage of 100% between the ages of 8-14. This is what caused Toys "R" Us and Blockbuster to die down. Kids would now rather watch YouTube videos and play with apps like Musical.ly and Snapchat rather than pick up a movie to watch or go to the toy store and buy a Spider-Man action figure or a baby doll. Parents would rather shut their kids up with a phone or tablet rather than have them run wild with toys and make noise. Or some parents would say that Toys "R" Us was a bit expensive and would rather buy their kid something they can use for a long time.
But besides putting blame on the parents and kids, let's look at we could do to help keep one of our last childhood companies from shutting down…
What Can They Do?:
Change up the pizza
Let's be real here, yes Chuck E. Cheese is a pizza place for kids but their pizza honestly isn't the best. Kids love pizza, especially the parents and older siblings too. But their pizza could be a bit more improved, it really does taste like melted cheese on breaded cardboard. Like, come on Chuck! Give us better pizza!
Replace/Reboot the Animatronics
So my editor, Mia, made a good point to me a few days ago before making this, the animatronics are f***ing terrifying (well, not in those exact words but you know). Like honestly, have you not seen the Chuck E. Cheese animatronics?
https://movieweb.com/chuck-e-cheese-revamp-retires...
They are the reason the terrible and cringe-worthy "Five Nights at Freddy's" franchise even exists. You can't tell me that if you saw Chuck E.'s animatronic at night, you wouldn't cry. It's a big-ass rat that looks like he's done cocaine for 40 years and never passed the 6th grade. Yeah, the animated rat looks cute, but it's not Mickey Mouse cute. If they change up their style and throw out the animatronics, they'll definitely attract more kids and customers.
Make Games & Getting Tickets Better
Okay so when you go to a place like Dave & Buster's and Chuck E. Cheese, what's the best part about the place? THE GAMES AND PRIZES! The prizes are the best parts of the whole thing. It makes the whole trip a great time, and much more memorable and worth it. However, some games don't give out the best load of tickets, and that honestly sucks. I could be a little kid trying to enjoy the most of my time playing a racing game or a crappy pinball game and just receive only 4-8 tickets. When the super awesome prizes are worth a hundred thousand or close to a million tickets.
And let's be real here, neither you nor your parents have enough money to spend on giving you more coins just so you play the same game(s) for five more hours and not even guarantee you'd get the biggest prize. Thus leading you to come back again and again till you finally do. Which is probably like 20 or more rounds of going back to Chuck E. Cheese. So I'd say, make more fun and exciting games, and make getting tickets more accessible or fun! Honestly, I and many other young people don't wanna spend our time and coins playing basketball and skeeball just to get a good number of tickets, only to win a lousy eraser or a mood ring.
Overall, we've got to protect Chuck E. Cheese, it's the last place kids have to be kids. With Toys "R" Us dying off, many people such as myself and others do miss the nostalgia or going to places like Chuck E. Cheese and Toys "R" Us. But kids nowadays don't want that, and we should push them to! We can't let a childhood nostalgia die off again! Let's be kids!
