Chuck E. Cheese is Using Child Labor to Cook Pizza
the commune's Red Bagel smells a big fat singing rat 

Monday, Feb. 4, 2002
This week’s story was unearthed by Vince Melbone of West Virginia, who forwarded it to me. Thank you, Vince—for you’ve helped shine the spotlight on a crass and cruel exploitation of children, and this time neither Kathie Lee Gifford nor Disney are involved.

The culprit this time is Chuck E. Cheese. Where a kid can be a kid? I think not. Where a kid can be an unpaid source of exploitable labor is more like it. And this doesn’t happen in a third world country or Canada where you might expect it, all. This happens coast to coast in Chuck E. Cheese establishments.

I went to Chuck E. Cheese myself to investigate Melbone’s claims, and was shocked by what I saw. Well, not all that shocked since Melbone explained it all intricately beforehand, but I was a little surprised to see it actually happening.

Kids, everywhere. Filling an area called the “play place” where they ran about untamed like wild frogs. Kids climbed through plastic tubes lining the roof, kids bounded euphorically into pits full of plastic balls, kids rode on electronic horses and mouse-driven cars all around me.

Without Melbone’s heads up, I might have assumed it all innocent. Little would I have guessed kids are being fueled by sugar and run rampant around these restaurant “play places” in order to amass static electricity. Yes, for the price of a small Coke (with free refills) these unsuspecting kids are supplying Chuck E. Cheese with invaluable static electricity which is then converted to electricity to cook their pizzas, power their token- sucking video game machines, and yes, even keep the giant mouse singing in his country drawl.

I was aghast, Red Bagel-style. It was there before me the whole time but I never suspected. Signs asking the kids to take their shoes off before playing, kids then scraping woolen socks through these plastic tubes, acting like little generators. And somewhere underneath the walls all that electricity sinking back into the combine that is a Chuck E. Cheese franchise. On top of that, the pizza sucks and that whack-a-mole game is impossible to win.

I’ve tried several calls to the head of Chuck E. Cheese, but most of these calls are met with responses similar to, “What are you, a nutjob?” That’s fine, Mr. Cheese, play coy. I’ve gone head to head with bigger fish than you, which is not to say real fish, but opponents in general, and I’ve always come out on top or somewhere in the middle or lower. This will be the same case.

In the meantime, we must combat this aberration in smaller ways. Vince Melbone suggested a nationwide boycott, but those never work, no one has yet to register my boycott of Brian Eno records. Instead I recommend going to Chuck E. Cheese with your children, taking up valuable seating space, but DO NOT ORDER ANYTHING TO EAT. And whatever else you do, DO NOT LET YOUR CHILDREN FUEL THE COMBINE. I cannot stress that enough, though writing in all caps certainly helps.

Also, it is of the utmost importance you do not attempt to play the whack-a-mole game, no matter how enticing it looks. You have to hit the moles like about a hundred times harder than is normal and it still doesn’t register what is clearly a whack. I could write a column on that alone. In fact, I may start tomorrow.