Chuck E. Cheese recently rebooted its longstanding skateboarding rodent in favor of a guitar-wielding rock star rat.
The company is clearly trying to do everything in its power to stay relevant to the modern world. Back in May, it announced plans to start producing gluten-free pizzas, presumably to appeal to the tiny percentage of our population that actually has a gluten sensitivity and to appeal to 100 percent of the population that believes "gluten-free" is shorthand for "super-healthy."
While we have fond memories of eating cardboard pizza and dumping our parents' money into arcade games and skee-ball, we can't help thinking that a YouTube commentator might have nailed this one:
"so they changed him from an early '90s character to a mid-'90s character" -SpookyAC130Spectre
We called around to a couple of Valley Chuck E. Cheese franchises. They said they were aware of the mascot change but, as yet, there is no official word on new costumes or mascots on the way.
Of course, change isn't a bad thing and it's entirely possible, judging from this early-'90s training video, that Chuck E. Cheese Executives have been right to move the brand forward when it all starts to get a little creepy.