A Chuck E. Cheese employee has been arrested while dressed as the mouse character.
Florida police arrested 41-year-old Jermel Jones while he was working July 23 after he allegedly stole a customer’s credit card the month before and used it for multiple purchases totaling $105.57 throughout the month of July, according to a police report obtained by E! News.
The owner of the debit card—who had visited the Chuck E. Cheese location for her daughter’s birthday party on June 28—noticed fraudulent charges on her card “from establishments she did not shop at,” with her flagging transactions at 1Smoke Shop, Whataburger, Circle K, Time Saver and more shops. She then allegedly visited one of the locations, obtained footage of one of the purchases and “immediately recognized the suspect as an employee at Chuck E. Cheese,” per the docs.
After officer Jarrett Cruz of the Tallahassee Police Department was dispatched to the children’s pizza place and confirmed Jones was on duty, he approached the employee, who was wearing the mouse costume.
“As I approached Jones, I grabbed his right arm while giving the verbal instruction, ‘Chuck E, come with me Chuck E,’” the report stated. “Jones immediately started tensing up locking both of his arms forward in front of his chest and attempted to pull away from my grip on his right arm.”
After the policeman informed Jones he was being detained, Cruz noted that the mouse was placed “into double locked handcuffs and escorted to my marked patrol car,” according to the doc.
Jones denied having anyone’s credit cards, saying he didn’t know anything about making purchases at a meat market or smoke shop. When police searched his body, Jones informed officers he found a credit card that day but told them, “I never used it.” Authorities then found a receipt allegedly matching one of the fraudulent purchases, per the report.
Following the arrest, Jones was charged with felony counts of credit card theft, criminal use of personal identification information (such as bank information) and fraudulent use of a credit card over 2 times/over $100.00.
In response to the situation, which also circulated in photos on social media, Chuck E. Cheese said it has addressed the situation internally.
“We are aware of an incident involving a part-time employee arrested at our Tallahassee location on Wednesday, July 23,” the company said in a July 24 statement to E! News. “We have taken the appropriate action concerning the subject employee.”
For secrets behind some of the most well-known characters, keep reading…
Hello Kitty Isn’t a Cat
Many fans were left purrrrrfectly confused after this revelation.
“Hello Kitty is not a cat,” Jill Cook—an executive at Sanrio, the company behind the character—explained to Today in July 2024. “She’s actually a little girl born and raised in the suburbs of London. She has a mom and dad and a twin sister Mimmy who’s also her best friend. She enjoys baking cookies and making new friends.”
While the news may have surprised some, Cook wasn’t the first to share this insight. As a matter of fact, Christine R. Yano—a professor of anthropology who penned the book Pink Globalization: Hello Kitty’s Trek Across the Pacific—had also previously confirmed that Hello Kitty isn’t a feline.
“Hello Kitty is not a cat,” she told the Los Angeles Times in 2014. “She’s a cartoon character. She is a little girl. She is a friend. But she is not a cat. She’s never depicted on all fours. She walks and sits like a two-legged creature. She does have a pet cat of her own, however, and it’s called Charmmy Kitty.”
Other fun facts about Hello Kitty? According to Sanrio, she is five apples tall, weighs three apples, was born on November 1 (making her a Scorpio) and dreams of being a pianist or poet.
Goofy Isn’t a Dog
Gawrsh! Did you know this fact?
Bill Farmer, who’s provided the voice of Goofy for decades, explained why the Disney character can talk while Mickey Mouse’s pet Pluto can’t.
Goofy is “not a dog, but he’s a canine,” the voice actor said on an August 2024 episode of Popcorn Podcast with Leigh Livingstone and Tim Iffland. “So it’s kind of like a wolf is not a dog but it’s a canine—same thing. Goofus canis, that’s what he is. Or, he’s a MOG—he’s a man-dog.”
However, Pluto, he added, is a “regular dog”—a blood hound as it turns out.
Squidward Isn’t a Squid
You’ll want to get to the (bikini) bottom of this discovery.
SpongeBob SquarePants‘ creator Stephen Hillenburg once revealed that Squidward Tentacles is actually an octopus—not a squid.
“This is Squidward the Octopus, SpongeBob’s grumpy next-door neighboor,” he shared in the 2005 Case Of The Sponge ‘Bob’ video resurfaced by BuzzFeed. “I like the octopus for this character because they have such a large, bulbous head, and Squidward thinks he’s an intellectual so, of course, he’s going to have a large, bulbous head.”
But if you’re wondering how Squidward can be an octopus when he has only six legs instead of eight, Hillenburg had an answer for that, too—noting “it was really just easier for animation to draw him” with fewer tentacles.
Blue From Blue’s Clues Was Originally an Orange Cat
Break out your handy dandy notebook and jot this one down.
“One of the things that nobody knows is that Blue was originally a cat,” the show’s co-creator Angela Santomero said in the 2006 special Behind the Clues: 10 Years With Blue resurfaced by Mental Floss. “First his name was Mr. Orange and then we’re like, ‘Uh, maybe Mr. Blue.'”
But according to the special, Nickelodeon was already working on a series about a cat—leading animators to toss out the original idea and redesign Blue as a dog.
Doug Was Almost Named Brian
Now this really isn’t funnie, er, funny.
But as it turns out, Doug Funnie from the cartoon series Doug was almost named Brian. As for what led to the change?
“I just thought Brian was too fancy of a name,” Doug creator Jim Jinkins told HuffPost TV in 2014, “So, I geared it down, and started calling him Doug. If you think about what that sounds like, it sounds incredibly average, and that’s what I was trying to do: express from that point of view.”
Boo From Monsters, Inc. Isn’t Her Full Name
This fact is so good it’s scary.
In Monsters, Inc.: An Augmented Reality Book, the name of Boo—the little girl who accidentally ends up in Monstropolis and befriends monsters Mike and Sulley—is revealed to be Mary Gibbs, according to BuzzFeed. And if the name sounds familiar, it’s because it’s the real-life moniker of the actress who provided the voice of Boo.
Need more proof? In the movie, there’s actually a scene where Boo is sorting through some of her drawings and fans can spot the name “Mary” scribbled at the top of one of the pieces of paper.
Minnie Mouse Has a Longer Moniker
Speaking of names, while Mickey Mouse’s girlfriend is often called Minnie Mouse, according to the BBC, it was revealed in 1942 that her full name is actually Minerva.
