Testing Chuck E Cheese animatronic at History San Jose Collection Center (circa 2017)

This animatronic Chuck E. Cheese character and operating console/controller were originally installed at Foothill College Electronics Museum in Los Altos Hills, California. A label attached to the console reads, "Foothill College 10-27-82 1/2 Chuck A.A." According to a Los Altos Town Crier news clipping dated December 15, 1982, the 8-foot exhibit was donated by Pizza Time Theater, valued at the time at $24,000, and first presented at the museum's Christmas Open House.
It was transferred to History San Jose in 2003 as part of the Perham Collection of Early Electronics after the Foothill Museum closed its doors.
Volunteers at History San Jose worked on restoring operation of the animatronic in 2017-2018. In this video recorded at History San Jose's Collection Center, the character runs his sound routine, consisting of broad comedy, while running through some of the pneumatic movements. However, the air compressor was turned off at the time, so the movements are not as energetic as they would be with full air compression.
According to information obtained by a collector Mike Scherpenberg, this is not a regular Chuck E. Cheese character. It is actually The King character (a lion character that performed as Elvis). Based on the button configuration, the control rack is also set up for the King. The only full body character that existed in 1982 when this set up was created and donated to the Foothill Museum was the King which is why they used this character's frame to set this up.
A standard Chuck E. Cheese character only has 8 movements. The King and several other side show characters (known as cabaret or lounge acts) had extra movements and used 2 character boards. This robot has 2 solenoid boards in it and connects to the 2 boards. Aside from the mouth movement, the King's movements are set up differently from Chuck E. Cheese. The EPROM on the processor board should be capable of also running King skits. It will not run the main stage show tapes and consequently, one would not be able to run this character as a normal Chuck E. Cheese robot if you tried. Even if you had the controller for the main stage, the movements would not match up correctly if you tried to connect this character to run a regular main stage tape, as the movements are in a different order.
Part of the Perham Collection of Early Electronics, the animatronic is housed with History San Jose's Collection, Object ID 2003-1-194.