Chuck E. Cheese and Uncle Sam

Ok, I think I have found the internet equivalent of bigfoot here. I have called a couple chuck-e-cheese restaraunts and asked friends of mine with kids who frequent this dive if they remember anything like this coming up but nobody even knows what I'm talking about.

I first got wind of this on truthout. (thanks DP) I was immediately suspicious, an internet search found only very biased (anti-military) sites covering the story. (there was even a protest march!)


So the story is this, the kids watch a chuck-e cheese video that shows happy soldiers and marines being happy in their happy tanks or whatever.


I am not 100% sure that this never happened, but it really doesn't look like it did. Is there anybody out there with a real, first-hand account? Here are some I found on the net- let's just say they're less than perfect news sources...

from -
http://call2action.blogspot.com/2005/09/war-for-latinos.html
(I ain't saying it's a biased source, but ...
Ok I am saying it.)

Recruiters are devising new and often unexpected ways to penetrate daily Latino life. "I went to a birthday celebration at Chuck E. Cheese's," says Sanchez, a 25-year-old single mom from San Marcos, California, just outside San Diego. "We were watching a puppet show when all of a sudden a military song is playing in the background. I thought that was weird but kept watching. A couple of minutes later, all of us were looking at pictures on a TV screen of people in the Army giving food and supplies to kids in Iraq. My friends and I thought that was really weird--and got out."


from truthout
(another very biased source)
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/090205C.shtml

When the birthday party settled into eating pizza and birthday cake, a second feature began. A series of large screen TVs came to life to show Chuck E. Cheese TV. The program was, at first, MTV-like. Performers in large animal garb sang and danced through an idyllic scene with herons and alligators. A man clad in a blazing yellow shirt and red vest skipped across the screen, singing and snapping his fingers to the lively music. The scene shifted to a person dressed in a dog costume fishing in the lake with 3- and 4-year-old children and then shifted again from pictures of the children to mothers holding small babies. Although it was disjointed and a bit crazed, it was what one might expect at Chuck E Cheese.

Then my jaw dropped: the MTV segment shifted to a promotional piece compiled by the Department of Defense! The promo showed happy, smiling soldiers in Iraq handing out toys and candies to delighted children. This was followed by a series of scenes showing war planes, tanks and more happy soldiers. This production lasted for 5 minutes of the 15-minute CEC TV show. Throughout the segment, the large animated puppets' eyes shifted toward the TV as they nodded in approval and clapped. Then their eyes shifted back to the children, who were spellbound by the movie


from:
http://www.newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/news/people/columns/intelligencer/14303/index2.html
(here's one that sounds legit, but seems like a second-hand account when you read it!)

"Intelligencer: September 12-19, 2005"

Chuck E. Cheese Wants You
Is the military targeting the birthday- party set?
Last week, members of the Park Slope Parents Association were alerted to a new threat: Republicans bearing pizza. The mother of a 3-year-old reported that she was shocked to see “promo films for military recruitment” playing at her local Chuck E. Cheese’s. The 500 franchises of the amusement-park-like pizzeria were screening a two-minute montage of smiling soldiers handing out toys and candy to Iraqi kids (set to “America the Beautiful”). According to Chuck E. Cheese’s VP of marketing Dick Huston, this segment, created from footage donated by the Defense Department, began showing at the chain around July 4. “There was no firing of weapons,” notes Huston. “It was meant to honor our troops and the humanness of what is occurring. It is a nice, innocent piece. It’s pretty warm.” Still, customers complained that this was inappropriate for a child’s birthday party. “I guess people could interpret it as prowar, but we support what our troops are doing over there—helping kids.” So is Chuck Republican? “We don’t know what he is.”
—Shana Liebman

I guess I also have trouble seeing the harm in it, so they show some soldiers and airmen at work. (not at work, work, but you know, filling up gas tanks, etc) so whats the big deal?
When I was a kid I watched MASH, so what?

The thing that is most interesting of course, is I don't think anybody ever really did this! I think it was all a lie.

Maybe its because I just watched "Shattered Glass" (great movie, watch it)