Chico Cheese Pizza Tokens

Chico Cheese (originally Chico Cheese Pizza e Diversao) opened on April 5, 1994 at Avenida das Americas 777 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Founders Allan Sanford Levine and Carlos Alberto Machado da Silva had originally wanted to bring Chuck E. Cheese to Brazil, but, unable to afford the franchise rights, built their own near-clone of the concept instead. The venue was an early hit thanks to promotions like awarding kids free game tokens for good report-card grades, and in 1995 a second location named Circo do Chico Cheese opened in the Via Parque shopping center on Avenida Ayrton Senna 3000. The animatronic stage show, the Chic-Chic Band, was built by the Sally Corporation using recycled figures: Chica Chica the fox (keyboard) and Blim Blim the beaver (drums) were Miss Foxy and Bucky from Bubba & the Badland Band, while Colonel Boli Boli the sheepdog (guitar) was Colonel Beauguard from the trio version of Daniel & the Dixie Diggers. Two costumed mascots, Chico Cheese (red shirt with a yellow C, with a Chuck-E.-Cheese-style tuxedo variant) and his cousin Peperoni, rounded out the show floor. In 1996 ShowBiz Pizza Time, Inc. sued the company over the name's resemblance to Chuck E. Cheese's, and the brand ended on February 22, 1999 after an overnight kitchen fire burned the original Avenida das Americas location to the ground.