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Where A Kid Can Be A Kid



Estimated reading time — 2 minutes

When I was a child my father owned a janitorial company that worked almost every night at our local Showbiz Pizza Place/Chuck E. Cheese’s. He would often bring me to work with him so I could play all of the arcade games without having to wait in line. He’d even spark up the towering animatronics and let me watch them play their “Happy Birthday” songs and other quaint jingles. It was so much fun…until the curtains closed and it went dark.

A part of me hated not being able to see the fake animals, especially the wolf and big gorilla playing the keyboard. It would get so dark once all of those circus lights stopped undulating, but knowing they were hiding behind the curtains severely spooked me. Another part of me was glad I couldn’t see them, with their large plastic grins, bulging eyes and blink-less stares that trapped the false joy of their act. Anything that can remain that happy in the dark, imprisoned by crimson drapes, and frozen in time until the puppeteer presses “go” is just sinister in nature. Even the empty arcade, full of fantastic memories of the day past, sits dark, quiet and abandoned. There is something very unsettling about a place that can bequeath equal parts joy and dread when the sun sets and the doors are locked.

I’ve long since taken over my father’s company and we still hold the contract for this haunted place. Tonight is the first time I’ve brought my young son with me to work so he can enjoy the arcade like I once did. My hope is that when my son finally builds up the courage to pull back the curtain to view those plastic beasts, he isn’t greeted with the same malevolent stare that looked down unnaturally upon me.

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Credit To – StupidDialUp

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41 thoughts on “Where A Kid Can Be A Kid”

  1. Matthew Steele

    I didn’t know they were robots when I was a kid. I would have found that so cool. I thought they were jsut peple ins uits.

  2. Christopher Clayton

    I think that the spirits of the animatronics travels from place to place since the franchise is so wildly popular and is all over the U.S. Don’t you think?

  3. The first and only time I went to a Chuck E. Cheese I was scared of the person in the mouse costume , and everything there so I had to leave my friends birthday party now realize I was only like 4 or 5

  4. Interesting point of view on a normally cheery subject. Instead of many heavy scares or a continuous slow scare you slowly assembled an eerie atmosphere. A very tasty pasta with a unique taste. 8.5/10

  5. I never went to a Chuck E. Cheese before, yet the wording still gives me a nostalgic feel. Very well paced. It leads me to believe you have a great talent for Fridge Logic, which is refreshing in a creepypasta.

    My only complaint is the very ending. I see that subtlety was the key ingredient here, but in trying to be so subtle, the wording almost feels too abrupt, like you weren’t quite sure what to do to keep the story short but stay true to the pacing.

    I’m a firm believer that less is more in many mediums, especially horror. Yet I guess the wording I’m looking for is… showing versus telling. You painted such a vivid picture for us, but then you slapped the last words right on the picture. Does that make sense?

  6. Wow…
    Looking at this, I will never look at that robot band the same way again- then again, they always had a reputation for creeping me out.

  7. I always was scared of the robot band… I still am scared of them. I used to roam the tunnels for hours and then play arcade games but I would keep away from Chuck E. Cheese and the robot band. This was creepy enough for me. As memory serves, I felt the same way. Only.. I felt that way when the lights were on…

  8. creepy mac-n-cheese

    pretty cool great story but its really not creepy..i was expecting for the band to come after you or something more creepy but it was pretty good 7/10

  9. I actually had to look twice and scroll down a bit. Couldn’t believe it finished so quick. So much potential to this pasta…….

  10. Hm, this was interesting. I didn’t find it scary or creepy, just factual. As a cild I always thought this way when I went there. So for me this was not scary, but sort of a nice way to re-visit my childhood memories knowing I’m not the only one who felt this way.

  11. “Anything that can remain that happy in the dark…”
    I don’t know why, but this little phrase just resonated with me.

    I really liked the stage you set, but you never actually started the show! Where’s the action! You left me with just the memory of the hairs on the back of my neck standing up.

  12. This description micropasta played with an interesting theme: dualism. The first act set the swivel with the happy memory of childhood play, then the second contrasts this with the sinister side. Everything flips after dark; I liked how creepy everything was with the curtains drawn, letting imagination wander. The smooth descriptions, while puffing up too grandiosely at points, managed to capture the uncanny valley nature of stopped dolls.

    The narration kept with the tone, seeming slow and deliberate with memory – I especially liked the hesitation before ‘big gorilla’. The music was nicely atmospheric and didn’t call too much attention to itself. That said, the narration sped up too much at some points, and paused at odd moments.

    Critically, I didn’t think the pasta went far enough with its themes. The ending paragraph sort of skipped, IMO, to an epilogue. To the ‘fun then scary’ an ‘alive then dead’ dualism could’ve been played up (as the ending too-faintly hints); were the dolls weary of their looping acts? Did they plot behind the curtains?

    Overall, a nicely done descriptionpasta that could’ve done more. 7.2/10

    1. Sepia, I almost always agree with your reviews, although I’ve never replied to one before. You write so eloquently (at times your reviews are better written than the pastas you leave them for), I’m seriously beginning to wonder if you’re a college professor or something… An English professor with a penchant for horror? :D
      At any rate, this time I feel a little more strongly for the pasta than you do. I thoroughly enjoyed this pasta, partially for its nostalgia and perhaps a bit more for its imagery. The two together are a powerful tool in writing.
      I did, however, think that this pasta was a little rushed at the end. There’s a definite lack of finality there. But in some ways this is endearing as well; this is one of few pastas that could happen in real life. That it’s just a man reflecting on his childhood fears and wondering if they will, in turn, reflect onto his son… Well, I think that may also be what makes this pasta great. 8/10

      1. Thank you! ^_^ Haha, if I were a college professor I’d be far too swamped with work for any significant hobbies XD

        I admit I don’t have much in the way of Showbiz Pizza nostalgia, so that could be why it resonated with me a little less. I agree with all your points though; the literary, everyday aspects were quite agreeable.

        1. I wasn’t sure where to post this, since I’d be interrupting pastas, but it looks like I won’t be able to post reviews regularly for an amount of time, due to the necessities of moving. Hopefully I’ll still be able to lurk though.

          Good luck everyone and thanks!

    1. I always was creeped out by the robot band, I never knew why although I refused to get too close to them when I was young.

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