In 1977, while at Atari, Bushnell purchased Pizza Time Theatre from Warner Communications. It had been created by Bushnell, originally as a place where kids could go and eat pizza and play video games, which would therefore function as a distribution channel for Atari games. The Pizza Time Theatre / Chuck E. Cheese's also had animatronic animals that played music as entertainment. (Bushnell had always wanted to work for Walt Disney, but was continually turned down for employment when he was first starting out after graduation; Chuck E. Cheese's was his homage to Disney and the technology developed there.) In 1981 Bushnell turned over day-to-day food operations of Chuck E. Cheese’s to a newly hired restaurant executive...