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This might be a topic many aren't familiar with, so I'll provide background on this scenario:

In 1977, Atari founder Nolan Bushnell opened the first Pizza Time Theatre restaurant in San Jose, CA. The restaurant's main draw was arcade games, but it also had pizza (as the name implied) and an animatronic show starring an early, rather nasty version of Chuck E. Cheese. Three years later, in 1980, former PTT co-developer Robert Brock teamed up with Aaron Fechter, founder of Creative Engineering Inc. and creator of the Whac-A-Mole, to create ShowBiz Pizza Place. SPP was practically identical to PTT in concept, but by comparison, ShowBiz's animatronic show, the Rock-afire Explosion, was much more advanced that PTTs show, the Pizza Time Players.


Here's what a typical Pizza Time Theatre animatronic show looked like. Known in fan nomenclature as "The Balcony", these animatronics didn't have any legs, were rather limited in motion, and had exaggerated proportions.


Here's a typical Rock-afire Explosion animatronic show, as seen at Creative Engineering in Orlando, FL. These animatronics were full-bodied, had more realistic proportions, had a much wider range of motion, and were rather expressive.

The difference in music style was also night-and-day. While both were essentially cover bands, there was a difference in what music they would use. The Pizza Time Players tended to use slower, older songs such as old country songs and Broadway showtunes. The Rock-afire Explosion, meanwhile, went with classic rock, and had a special affinity for The Beatles, dedicating two showtapes to their music (they even did a slightly cut-down version of the entire Abbey Road Medley, even including "Her Majesty" at the tail end of the tape).

Anyway, Nolan Bushnell sued Robert Brock and his company, Topeka Inn Management, for breach of contract. Brock counter-sued citing misrepresentation. The case was settled out of court with ShowBiz agreeing to pay PTT a portion of its profits over the next decade.

Things were going well for the two companies, with PTT going public in 1981, until the Video Game Crash of 1983. As PTT was so reliant on arcade games as its main draw, they suffered dreadfully. In 1983 alone, PTT lost $15 million, and by 1984, Bushnell's debts were insurmountable, resulting in Pizza Time Theatre, Inc. filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy. ShowBiz immediately bought the foundering company to create ShowBiz Pizza Time Inc.

At first, Pizza Time Theatere and ShowBiz Pizza Place continued to operate as two separate concerns, but then new management came in and tried to force Creative Engineering out just so they wouldn't have to pay licensing fees for the Rock-afire Explosion. This came to a head when, in 1986, Creative essentially lost the band, which now had its shows programmed by ShowBiz corporate. These shows used ShowBiz employees imitating the voices of the original Rock-afire voice actors, and were overall terrible, with shoddy programming, terrible puns, voices that sounded way off, and an overall cheap and overly-positive feel as opposed to the sometimes cynical and adult feel of previous shows that had helped create the illusion of the Rock-afire Explosion being a real band and not a bunch of Country Bear rejects.

This came to a head with the 1986 Happy B-Day Liberty show, which featured two separate shows: one by ShowBiz corporate, and the other by Creative. The ShowBiz show was campy, super-positive, and used the same old overused traditional American songs, while the Creative version was dead-serious, with higher production values, a better setlist with songs such as "Coming to America" by Neil Diamond and "Born in the USA" by Bruce Springsteen, and throughout the 15-minute show, not a single joke was cracked as opposed to the ShowBiz version. The Creative version even featured a moment of silence so everyone could appreciate being American citizens. Later that year, Creative sent out a Christmas showtape to all ShowBiz locations. This tape was ten minutes long, not authorized by ShowBiz corporate, and was done completely without a script in one take. The tape consisted of the characters sitting around talking about what the spirit of Christmas means to them, singing variations of "Deck the Halls" with "boughs of holly" replaced by whatever they thought the spirit of Christmas meant to them (with accompanying humorous lyrics). They also thanked the store managers for maintaining them, and stated their intent to stay together forever.

This was enough to convince ShowBiz corporate to ease up on Creative. While they never gave the programming rights back, recording would once again be done by Creative. ShowBiz now turned to trying to license other characters to replace the Rock-afire Explosion. They looked at using Garfield and Spider-Man, before striking a deal with Hanna-Barbera. And so, in 1987, three ShowBiz locations trialled Yogi Bear. This rather unusual showtape saw Billy Bob replaced by Yogi, and his sidekick Looney Bird reskinned as Boo-Boo. The Rock-afire animatronics were once again voiced by ShowBiz employees, while Yogi and Boo-Boo were voiced by their original voice actors, Daws Butler and Don Messick, respectively. Aside from the show's script and a few publicity stills from a newspaper article, nothing else has surfaced regarding this show.

Things began to sour between Creative and SPT again in 1989, when ShowBiz tried to pressure Aaron Fechter into signing the rights for the characters over completely. Aaron refused because they wanted the characters for practically nothing, and he had aspirations to make a Rock-afire Explosion cartoon (it still hasn't happened, and probably never will). It was at this point SPT had had enough, and began a process known as Concept Unification, in which the Rock-afire Explosion shows were reskinned into Chuck E. Cheese shows. The Pizza Time Players shows were also reskinned and retrofitted with new stages (most of the Cyberamic animatronics even gained logs, and Jasper and Pasqually gained new arm assemblies as they were now playing a guitar and drums, respectively, as opposed to a banjo and an accordian). The best elements of both bands (the characters of the Pizza Time Players and the look and feel of the Rock-afire Explosion) were combined to create a new band called Munch's Make-Believe Band, a concept that exists to this day.

Fechter was utterly disgusted, and in September 1990, Creative Engineering severed all ties with ShowBiz Pizza Time. This was all SPT needed to accelerate Concept Unification. By 1992, all Rock-afire shows had changed over to Munch's Make-Believe Band, while the Pizza Time Theatre shows took until 1994 to change over. The last "Portrait" show was removed in 1991, while the last "Balcony" show disappeared in 2001, all replaced by 1-Stage, 2-Stage, or "Road" Stage shows (Road Stages have a full-bodied Chuck E. Cheese, while the rest of the characters are still half-bodied). Most 3-Stage shows have been removed and replaced by the Studio C show. Studio C uses a single Chuck E. Cheese animatronic, but on the plus side, this animatronic is very advanced, having been built by Disney's regular animatronic supplier, Garner Holt.

As for Creative, they tried to stay afloat after losing their biggest customer, selling surplus Rock-afire Explosion shows and continuing to create new shows throughout the 1990s. They also created the New Rock-afire Explosion show, which featured smaller, more articulated animatronics known as "Mijins"; it didn't sell well and is now a critically-endangered species. Creative also made a Wizard of Oz show, a few misc. animal animatronics, and even tried opening a restaurant chain called Looney Bird's in the late 90s, which failed miserably. Now, Creative is a shell of its former self, with Aaron Fechter the only remaining employee. He does manage to keep the lights on by providing consultation, and after a video of a privately-owned Rock-afire Explosion show went viral in 2007, the band has seen a resurgance in popularity, appearing in films such as "Just Go With It" and "Keanu" and an "Aquabats" episode, and a few animatronics were even used in promotional material for "Deadpool 2", without Aaron's permission (though he's very thankful for the free publicity). Meanwhile, Chuck E. Cheese's is poised to replace all of its animatronic shows with dance floors where kids can interact with costumed characters.

Now here's why I told you all this: what if things went differently? Let's say relations between ShowBiz Pizza Time and Creative Engineering didn't deteriorate, whether because someone other than Richard M. Frank took the reins of SPT, or Frank wasn't anti-CEI? Would Concept Unification go differently, or even happen at all?

Here's how I see this going: the Pizza Time Theatre locations still become Chuck E. Cheese's, and the Pizza Time Players still become Munch's Make-Believe Band, but ShowBiz Pizza Place remains as-is and the Rock-afire Explosion not only remains, but improves. During the early days of ShowBiz, Aaron Fechter had big plans for "Generation Two" animatronics. This included a Dook LaRue animatronic that could actually play the drums rather than just tap a single drum and cymbal, a Mitzi Mozzarella animatronic that could actually dance rather than just flail her pom-poms unconvincingly, and a Beach Bear animatronic that could stand up off his surfboard. Aaron eventually even wanted to go as far as to have animatronics that could walk around (in my opinion, though, that would be extremely dangerous, as such technology would undoubtedly have military applications and ran the risk of sparking a new arms race between the United States and Soviet Union over war robots). After the failure of Uncle Klunk, an animatronic talk-show host who could pick up objects (he failed because nobody found him funny), these were put on the backburner, along with a Paul McCartney animatronic.

So let's say Chuck E. Cheese's and ShowBiz Pizza Place coexist. I see CEC being marketed towards kids and families, while SPP is marketed towards teens and adults. And while CEC would try to be hip and cool, SPP would stay true to its roots and actually make fun of 90s culture. There would also be a running gag of the Rock-afire Explosion and Munch's Make-Believe Band constantly competing and trying to one-up each other.

But what do you think? How would a modern ShowBiz Pizza Place look in this scenario? Is it even plausible?
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