In what may be the greatest discovery to come out of the Pizza Time Theatre Fandom ever, the prototype recordings for when Chuck E Cheese and his character (then known simply as Big Cheese) has been found! Unfortunately the original is in pretty poor condition, and very quiet, so I attempted to restore the audio to levels more pleasant to the ears.
The recording is dated October 7th, 1976, making it the oldest known bit of data detailing the development of The Pizza Time Theatre. Script was written by Robert "Bob" Allan Black and produced by Gene Landrum and Nolan Bushnell of Atari, as well as Edward Noel Bogas of Ed Bogas Productions. The tape features an unknown voice actor (assumed to be John Widelock) playing both The Big Cheese and Crusty. While not confirmed, it may also be the audio performed by Harold Goldbransen's prototype animatronic for when it was displayed for investors.
Restoring this tape made me discover new information about it, specifically how the VA is looking at an image of the character (presumably the Rick Rat costume) to gauge a voice from him. This results in a more droopy, tired and older version of Chuck E, far more mellow than the voice they eventually went with. The high pitched horns at the beginning may also be practice for the band Big C talks about throughout the tape, although the more likely explanation is that they were tuning the audio equipment to a certain tone.
This audio was a pleasure to restore and a real welcome find, I hope we get more data on The Big Cheese in the future!