Past Forward: Farewell, My Animatronic Friends

In an attempt to vertically integrate the video-arcade market, Nolan Bushnell opened the Chuck E. Cheese Pizza Time Theatre in San Jose, Calif., in 1977. Bushnell had cofounded Atari, the company that created Pac-Man and Pong, and so he knew the economics of coin-operated games. He didn't want to just produce the games; he wanted to collect the quarters, too.