Bullwinkle's Tokens

Bullwinkle's Entertainment

Bullwinkle's Entertainment, previously known as Huish Family Fun Center & Bullwinkle's Restaurant, and originally known Bullwinkle's Family Food n' Fun is a chain of family entertainment centers.

History

Pre-Bullwinkle's

In 1979, David L. Brown obtained licensing rights to use intellectual properties from the Jay Ward Productions and Total Television catalog. Brown's first project involving IPs from these two studios came in the form of Bullwinkle's Call of the Wild Show, a live stage production. Call of the Wild toured across several venues in North America, including the Lagoon Amusement Park, between 1980 and 1981.

Bullwinkle's Family Food N' Fun

Succeeding the success of the live tour, Brown began conceptualizing another endeavor involving the iconic characters.

Bullwinkle's Family Food N' Fun Restaurant, meant to capitalize off the success of Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre and ShowBiz Pizza Place, would open its first location in Santa Clara, California on June 14, 1982. Similar to its competition, the restaurant offered a variety of electronic games and rides, food items, merchandise, and an animatronic show as its flagship attraction. The Fantasy Fountain Show, a series of water and lighting effects set to popular music, served as an alternative attraction in the main showroom during intermissions for the animatronics.

Fred Hope, owner of The One and Only Animation Company, requested for the return of the original voice actors from the cartoons. Thus, June Foray and Bill Scott who had provided the voices for the characters in the original cartoons returned to Jennifudy Studios on May 21, 1982 to reprise their roles as Rocky, Natasha, Bullwinkle, and Dudley Do-Right respectively. For unknown reasons, Paul Frees did not reprise his role as Boris. The scripts and music for the animatronic segments were produced by composer Bill Broughton.

Following the opening of Santa Clara, some changes were made to streamline the restaurant experience going forward. AVG Technologies would succeed The Only Animated Display & Design Company as the manufacturer for Bullwinkle's animatronic shows from 1983 up through the early 1990s. To cut down on installation costs, several characters oversaw a slight decrease in mechanical movements, with Tennessee Tuxedo and Chumley being phased out from the show entirely. With the two removed, dialogue was changed to certain segments to fit the current cast. Now Corey Burton plays Boris, and UnderDog talks. Sadly, Wally Cox passed in February 15th, 1973, so Bill Scott would voice Underdog. Corey Burton provided voice lines for Snidely Whiplash, as Hans Conried died from a heart attack just five months prior to the opening of Bullwinkle's. A majority of aspects present in Santa Clara would be adapted for future locations.

Huish Family Fun Centers' gets involved

During the 1980's, Huish Family Fun Centers would purchase three franchised locations for Bullwinkle's, with these being relegated to the restaurant portions of the fun centers instead of stand-alone locations. A condensed animatronic show featuring Rocky, Bullwinkle, Boris, and Natasha (with one location even including Tooter Turtle and Hoppity Hooper as well) was constructed for these smaller integrations by AVG.

Fantasy Fountain Shows were also part of these smaller shows (but were removed in later years). By April 1991, the Huish family would purchase the entirety of Bullwinkle's to merge its operations with their Family Fun Centers. From 1992 to 1999, new Bullwinkle's locations (named Bullwinkle's Family Restaurants after the merger) opened within the Huish Family Fun Centers in California, Oregon, and Washington state.

Some time after 1993, the restaurants introduced the WYME TV broadcasting feed of television screens. These utilized new 2D animated skits and birthday-centric songs in conjunction with showings of original Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoons that would screen alongside the animatronic and fountain shows. The project would be spearheaded by Scott Wilson, who had been laid off by Showbiz Pizza Time, Inc. management at that time, ending his tenure with the Chuck E. Cheese's franchise. Wilson, along with fellow CEC voice actors, Annagrey Brooks Wiechman (Helen Henny) and Charles Stewart (Jasper T. Jowls), provided their talent for the new birthday songs. Wilson also took on the voice role for Bullwinkle, as well as Dudley Do-Right, for the animated skits.

Bullwinkle's gets downsized

From 1999 to 2000, Huish Family Fun Centers gave Bullwinkle's exposure to the east. By reusing AVG mechs of Dudley, Underdog, and Snidely, Dreamation, (who had replaced AVG animatronic faces with new ones since 1988) along with Mozingo + Wallace, would create new locations in Raleigh, North Carolina, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and Medford, New York. Unfortunately, a ride accident occurred on June 23, 2001 at the Medford location, leading to the closure of many locations.

Bullwinkle's today

As of March 2025, there are three locations still operating. These locations can be found in Tukwila, Washington, Upland, California, and Wilsonville, Oregon. All operate as Family Fun Centers. The Tukwila location is the last location to still operate an animatronic show. It is theorized that their Turn Table Stage may be removed.

Painted Control Tokens

These types of tokens were used to be directly inserted into games to deal with malfunctions and to test the games to ensure they were working properly. They were not to be handed out to customers. The tokens were then taken out of the token counter's inspection tray during the collections and were not included in the games tracked game revenue. After a collection, the painted or control token (also known as manager tokens) should be fully replenished.

Below are some examples of spray-painted tokens that were used as control tokens.