In early 1977 Fantasy Forest (a cosmetics team working in Victorville California lead by Harold Goldbrandsen) was contacted by Gene Landrum. Gene was trying to find teams and companies to make the characters but fantasy Forest responded first. Nolan and Gene Aimed for a “soft rat” (Soon to be known as the Big C himself, Chuck E. Cheese) for a mascot costume and animatronics (along with other characters like Jasper and soon to be munch) based off the concept drawings made by Bob Flimonte and a man Rob (both worked for Atari as some of Nolan’s team members came from Atari). They met up in Sunny vile and discussed plans and designs for the characters. Harold Goldbrandsen and Fantasy Forest worked alongside Larry Emmonds and his team to make the bots. The bots were made of fiberglass, cloth, latex rubber, and used pneumatic technology for their movements. In May 17th, 1977 on 370 south Winchester boulevard, the very first pizza time theatre opened with the bots. According to Michael D. (Last name censored for privacy) the bots were only partly stilted in their movements and were only looking “mildly off” but still keeping the whole “animal theme”. In early 1978 the honey bun footage was made, showcasing the bots and were shown to have flaws such as chucks mouths not moving and Jasper's hand being cracked off. This is cause these were technically prototypes and one of them belongs to Travis of showbizpizza.com, here is the footage https://youtu.be/hNei4Rq6KZ8
In November 1978,on Kooser Road San Jose another Pizza time Theatre opened and had another set of Fantasy Forest bots. These models were a lot more cleaner and did not break down as much and had cleaner designs. More accurate to the illustrated designs featured around the restaurants. You can see them perform here in this footage made in 1979 for a television show called "Real People" (special thanks to CEC Nevada)
https://youtu.be/EdKLsomLbtY. they were so well made most likely due to the higher budget.
Lets skip 5 years later, the year is 1984. Nolan Bushnell (the founder of CEC) leaves the company after Gene does the same. Since at that point, Showbiz pizza place took over. sadly, in 1985 the Winchester location was closing and got rid of the original Fantasy forest portrait bots. It wasn't until the last second where Jul Kamen was able to save Jasper, Pasqualy, and Chuck at the cosmetics shop in Milpitas . Kooser as well had to get rid of them and soon, all bots were destroyed or stored away. One of the bots (Gen 1 Chuck) was saved from corp by none other than Harold Goldbransen. According to Travis of showbizpizza.com, A crusty prototype was given to a man named Paul Linden. Paul is believed to be from the showbiz side since he did not know who Crusty was and he did not know that he was in the Winchester location. After another few years, Jul had an agreement with CEC corporate in 1997 about having the bots rest at headquarters. according to
showbizpizza.com "sometime around the time of the bankruptcy Jul Kamen got the three portrait bots. She wound up moving from CA to TX and went to work for ShowBiz once they acquired PTT in the merger. They were talking about making a little museum at the HQ in Irving and she let them borrow her portraits to put on display. Had contracts saying if they ever gave up on the idea that the bots would revert back to her. This was in the late 80s. She left the company in 91 I think and somehow all that was forgotten about. So when they remodeled in 2004 Gene Cramm gave the order to get rid of them (and per company policy, that means destroy them). That’s where Jasper and Pasqually met their doom. Chuck would have been destroyed too except the guys in Dept 18 snuck him away and had him installed in a tucked away place in their department"
After that, Jul gave the bots away to Gabe (pizzacam) in 2005 Who had the Big C until 2012. According to Gabe, It wasn't easy owning chuck. Chuck needed to be installed and he didn't have enough room to keep him so he sold Chuck to Travis, the man, the myth, the legend. According to Travis, "In 2012 I came into contact with Paul Linden who told me he had Crusty (which he believed was a prototype character that was never used). Paul was from the ShowBiz side so he must not have realized that Crusty was indeed used at the first store. Anyway he was getting ready to move and didn’t want to take it so he sold it to me for $1200, which included the original character artwork as well. It was quite a steal honestly". when receiving the bots, the bots needed to be restored. But luckily as of now, they are fixed and look nearly perfect with a few things needing to be changed and fixed. thanks Travis!
