Former Employee Warns Parents That Chuck E. Cheese Is Even Grosser Than John Oliver's Exposé
The yuck goes far deeper than that filthy ball pit and the weird innuendoes from the company's founder covered in Oliver's piece.
hedgedhog111, Ollyy / Shutterstock; Canva Pro Recently, comedian John Oliver's 2023 history of Chuck E. Cheese from HBO's "Last Week Tonight" has gone viral all over again, and it's renewed interest in some of the more bizarre and gross things he uncovered.
But a guy who worked there in his teens said it was far worse than what Oliver hinted at.
The former employee warned parents that Chuck E. Cheese is even grosser than people think.
Chuck E. Cheese has been the butt of jokes for years about how germ-infested and filthy it is — and if you ever put your foot into a wet spot in the ball pit as a kid, you know exactly why!
When John Oliver profiled the company last year on his HBO show, he touched on the usual things we laugh about when it comes to the iconic kids' pizza chain: the cleanliness issues, the rumors that the company recycles pizza slices, and the viral brawls that often erupt among parents at kids' birthday parties.
But Oliver also highlighted the strange sexual undertones of Chuck E. Cheese and the bizarre innuendos its founder has made.
Oliver first touched on the bizarre animatronic hippo in Chuck E. Cheese's band, Dolli Dimples, who used to make flirtatious comments to patrons and had breasts that would bounce when she sang. Kind of an odd choice for a birthday party venue for kids!
Weirder still, though, were comments that the company's founder, Nolan Bushnell, once made at a conference, which you can hear at the 24:42 mark in the video above.
"You can't imagine the weird things that people do from inside of a Chuck E. Cheese costume," Bushnell said. "The other thing that you don't know is the weird, weird things that employees do in the Chuck E. Cheese changing room closet — locked door, small space."
Yes, you read that right: In Oliver's peerless words, "I'm pretty sure the founder of Chuck E. Cheese just admitted that people [expletive] in the costume closet and jerk it in the mascot suit. That is the guy responsible for your childhood memories!"
Photo: Debby Wong / Shutterstock
And according to TikToker and former employee Chris Bautista, Bushnell wasn't kidding. He said the reality at his Chuck E. Cheese location was even worse.
Bautista warned parents about the unsanitary and sexual things he witnessed at the Chuck E. Cheese he worked at.
"I just watched John Oliver take an entire episode to expose Chuck E. Cheese," Bautista said in his TikTok, "and… I have some piping hot tea, so parents, please watch."
He began by warning that Chuck E. Cheese in his opinion is "not suitable for anyone who's not an adult" because the constant sexual goings-on that Bushnell joked about are "extremely true." He said that his "randy" fellow teen employees were doing "naughty things… daily."
Bautista went on to say that the location he worked at was as notoriously filthy as has been joked about for years. So much so that they got rid of the ball pit because it was "impossible to clean." But that was the least of the cleanliness worries.
Pointing out one of the restaurant's play structures, the "Sky Tube," he said that not only did they never get cleaned, but they were frequently used by employees as places to make out — and much more. Brace yourself, because it gets so much worse.
Photo: Shadowspeeder / Shutterstock
Bautista detailed a day when a 3-year-old was "playing in the sky tube, and they come out of the sky tube with what the kid thought was a balloon, but it wasn't a balloon." It was, in fact, a discarded condom. And the child "had it in their mouth."
BRB, gotta go walk out into the ocean and let the depths claim me!
Other former employees agreed that Chuck E. Cheese is even grosser than you'd think, in exactly the ways Bautista described.
"I worked at Chuck E. Cheese's here in TX for quite some time too and some things he mentioned are 100% true!," another former employee wrote in the comments on Bautista's TikTok.
"As an ex-employee for several years… All TRUE!" another wrote, and several others chimed in to confirm that at the very least, their Chuck E. Cheese locations were never properly cleaned.
And tons of parents commented that they'd always gotten a weird vibe from the pizza place and would never take their kids there. "I have been telling my kids that Chuck E. Cheese is closed for repairs since they’ve been able to ask to go," one mom wrote.
Yeah, sounds like that might be a good idea.
John Sundholm is a news and entertainment writer who covers pop culture, social justice and human interest topics.