Hey Arcaders…
I got some very interesting news about two things that make me very very happy… And spark my memories of my youth and some of my arcade experience… Most of you know I worked for Chuck e Cheese in 1998 I was a technical manager… I would fix all the games and the animatronics and a lot of the kitchen appliances when I was employed by them and learned a lot from that company. Well unless you didn’t hear the news Chuck e Cheese is opening their own brand of adult arcades kind of like a Dave & Buster’s It’s called Chucks Arcade!
I have some video to show you of the location in St. Pete which also houses some of the animatronics! They are at in Tyrone Square Mall… (Fun fact- this very location was a Fun N Games- where I started with the company in January 1990- and I was the youngest assistant manager in the company !)
But then I was absolutely floored when I heard the news that mystery fun house was going to open an arcade… Through Chuck e Cheese. Now if none of you have ever experienced mystery fun House it was 1970/1980s kitschy fun that doesn’t exist anymore at least not in Orlando… there are a lot of places you can go today to get that kind of feeling but mystery fun house was its own vibe. They had the aforementioned mystery fun house itself which was a walk-through attraction some parts scary some parts fun some parts very psychedelic 1970s.
And when that was over the fun wasn’t over at all because once you stepped out you were in the middle of an indoor strip mall that had all kinds of souvenirs various stores throughout the building as well as a Chuck e Cheese styled restaurant which in fact housed old Chuck E Cheese animatronics that were redesigned as the characters at mystery Fun House. They were called the Wizz Bangs!
And then at the end was the coolest arcade I’d ever been in It had games from just about every era especially when I moved here in the early mid ’90s they still had an environmental disks of Tron sitting in the corner in 1994…
Then sadly it closed. The giant wizards head was left outside to rot which broke my heart. The building itself was used for Westgate Resorts The company whose owner actually built mystery funhouse in 1976. They used that building as a call center for Westgate for many years until eventually it was demolished.
But now as of this past weekend we now have a new mystery fun house and it’s located at a Westgate resort down in Kissimmee I’ll be including video and hopefully very soon I will go visit the place myself and do my own video there as well.
I can’t wait to visit! I hopefully do a review soon!
Keep Playin’ Like It’s 1981!
The Arcade Archives! 
I remember as a kid during the 90s when commercials for Chuck E. Cheese were all over the place, and I do mean all over the place. Then there was also commercials for Showbiz Pizza as well but the Chuck E. Cheese ones just had something else in their commercials that grabbed my attention. And the Mystery Fun House was one whose commercials I also used to see. There used to be times where I would sometimes see it when my folks and I would drive down that road, even though we never went in, though I wish I had.
But it looks like that opportunity may be back again, so here’s hoping I can make some time!
For me, just point me in the direction of some games and I’m good! 😀 😁
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