Pizza Showtime was a family restaurant and entertainment centre operating in

Perth, Western Australia Perth is the capital and largest city of the Australian state of Western Australia. It is the fourth most populous city in Australia and Oceania, with a population of 2.1 million (80% of the state) living in Greater Perth in 2020. Perth i ...

from 1980 to 1984. Similar to the American Chuck E. Cheese chain it was a sit down pizza restaurant complemented by arcade games, and

animatronic Animatronics refers to mechatronic puppets. They are a modern variant of the automaton and are often used for the portrayal of characters in films and in theme park attractions. It is a multidisciplinary field integrating puppetry, anatomy a ...

characters. The restaurant was located in the now demolished Grand Theatre building located at 148 Murray Street (a site now occupied by Grand Theatre Lane, showcasing a small cafe, and multiple storefronts). It featured '

space invaders is a 1978 shoot 'em up arcade game developed by Tomohiro Nishikado. It was manufactured and sold by Taito in Japan, and licensed to the Midway division of Bally for overseas distribution. ''Space Invaders'' was the first fixed shooter an ...

' style game consoles built into the customer tables (operated with tokens) and an animatronic stage show featuring a dog named 'Bert Newhound', a piano playing kangaroo known as 'Melton Pom' (next to joey), singing koalas with 'Lottie' being the lead, a wise cracking horse by the name of 'Ned Kelly' a dingo named 'Ringo Dingo', and a fiddle playing American bear who went unnamed. The animatronic robots cost "in excess of $100,000" and are claimed to have had "more movements than any

Disney The Walt Disney Company, commonly known as Disney (), is an American multinational mass media and entertainment conglomerate headquartered at the Walt Disney Studios complex in Burbank, California. Disney was originally founded on October ...

character". Australian actor

Jack Thompson Jack Thompson may refer to: Sports * Jack Thompson (footballer, born 1892) (1892–1969), English footballer who played for Sheffield United and Bristol City * Jack Thompson (1920s footballer), English footballer who played for Aston Villa and Brig ...

provided the voice for the "Ringo Dingo" character. Pizza Showtime closed down around 1984 and the robot characters were dismantled and sent to Sydney. The restaurant was originally intended as a starter for a chain of 'Pizza Theatres' around Australia, owned and operated by Allied & Leisure Industries, along with Paul Gregory under the supervision of A&L founder Malcolm Steinberg, who is the current owner of the Timezone arcade game franchise. The building was subsequently converted to an Asian foodhall and was demolished in 1990.

References

{{Food chains in Australia Animatronic attractions Defunct restaurants in Australia Defunct restaurant chains Pizza chains of Australia Pizzerias in Australia Defunct pizzerias Restaurants disestablished in 1984 Restaurants established in 1980 Restaurants in Perth, Western Australia

See also

References