There is this idea that conspiracy theories are decades old and are only about dead celebrities or history. This is completely untrue as seen in our next conspiracy theory which has caught a lot of heat in the media lately thanks to Youtube star Shane Dawson in his latest conspiracy theory video. The conspiracy is that Chuck E. Cheese recycles leftover pizza slices and puts them together to form a new pizza and resells it. Sounds crazy, right? Maybe not.
Upon researching, I discovered that this has been a theory on reddit for over a decade. Multiple people have taken pictures of the pizzas they received and they look odd. The pizza slices are uneven, often there are gaps in the pizza, and the pepperoni slices don’t match up. Take this image for example:
This is the pizza Shane used in his conspiracy theory. First of all, the cheese and the pepperoni side don’t match up at all. There is an obvious on inch gap between the cheese and pepperoni. Second, the slices are all so uneven. Some slices are thin while other are comically large. Is this poor quality control or a puzzle of multiple pizzas? Lastly, the pepperoni slices don’t match up at all. In a normal pizza when a pepperoni gets cut in half you can match up the two pieces, but on this piece there are whole missing halves and none of the slices match up. Something just doesn’t add up.
One suspicious looking pizza doesn’t mean Chuck E. Cheese should face major health code violations though. So I looked for interviews with former/current employees to see what they had to say. Here’s what one former employee said:
“All the slices are from the same pizza, it’s just when the pizza comes out of the oven, they place it on a cutting board in order to slice it. The slicer is very large and kind of heavy, so some ppl have a lot of difficulty trying to cut the pizza perfectly. That’s why some slices are different sizes then others. After the pizza is done being cut, the cook slides it onto a tray to carry out to the guests. It’s when the pizza is being slid off of the cutting board and onto the tray where it gets kind of wonky looking, because some slices are still staying together, while others are sliding all over the place. Usually, we’ll try to fix it so it’s all together and looking decent, but on the weekends when it’s packed and the kitchen is super backed up, we’re just trying to run the food as quickly as possible, resulting in pizzas that don’t look as good.” source.
Shane Dawson also interviewed an employee off camera and said her demeanor seemed nervous when asked about the pizzas and that she overall alluded that the pizzas were in fact recycled.
My Consensus: I give this a thumbs...middle? I’m torn on this one you guys. The picture of the pizza is suspicious no doubt. Yet, the interview with the employee brings up a very logical explanation. Besides, Chuck E. Cheese is not known for gourmet food so it makes sense the pizza isn’t exactly aesthetically pleasing. Overall, I’m leaning more towards a thumbs down but something about that photo is keeping me in the middle.
I urge you to watch Shane's video, it is very informative and pretty funny.