Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Chuck E. Cheese Worse Than Mos Eisley Cantina

"You will never find a more retched hive of scum and villainy. We must be careful."

That quote is from Star Wars Episode IV, the agreed upon second best of the original three. Obi-Wan offers that insight and advice to Luke Skywalker right before they both enter the most dangerous bar in the galaxy, which apparently has nothing on Chuck E. Cheeses nationwide. Read this entire article, and be shocked at the violence that awaits those who dare to enter the cesspool of prize tickets and cheese grease.

So here's the story. Chuck E. Cheese bills itself as a place where "a kid can be a kid," but it sounds like a better slogan would be "where an adult can be an asshole." Here is how one man described his local Chuck E. Cheese after one of the many fights that broke out there:

"It was like something out of a Quentin Tarantino film," says Mr. Zielinski, referring to the "Pulp Fiction" director. "What parent is going to take their kids to a place where there is alcohol and pistols being brandished?"

Brandished! And get a load of this:

In Brookfield, Wis., no restaurant has triggered more calls to the police department since last year than Chuck E. Cheese's.

Officers have been called to break up 12 fights, some of them physical, at the child-oriented pizza parlor since January 2007. The biggest melee broke out in April, when an uninvited adult disrupted a child's birthday party. Seven officers arrived and found as many as 40 people knocking over chairs and yelling in front of the restaurant's music stage, where a robotic singing chicken and the chain's namesake mouse perform.

Can you imagine a more horrifying scene than 40 adults crushing each other's skulls with skee balls while animatronic monsters played "Happy Birthday," their dead eyes indifferent to the whole scene? That is grim, folks. No one wins if that's how your day ends.

Security measures are being beefed up, though.

Amid pressure from local politicians, some Chuck E. Cheese's have stopped serving alcohol and added security guards who carry pistols.

What better way to celebrate your child's 8 years on this planet than with a pizza party and a fire fight. Although this story doesn't really count as "news," per se, ComedyandPolitics is nominating it for our first ever "Excellence in Journalism" award.

Also, this Gawker analysis of the article is really funny.

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