The New Face of Chuck E. Cheese: A Les Paul-Playing Mouse

It looks like Chuck E. Cheese, the kid-friendly national pizza chain, has officially ditched its longtime, retro-rodent mascot in favor of a younger, Les Paul-playing mouse. (You can even see what looks like a tiny Gibson logo on the guitar's headstock if you look closely.)

The company introduced the hip new mouse -- and what appears to be a new logo, "Chuck E. Rocks" -- earlier today on its Facebook page, next to the text, “You’ve Never Seen Chuck Rock Like This Before.”

Reaction has been mixed. Facebook comments include:

•"I like the new look. He is fit and trim and active!"

•"Chuckie's face doesn't look as friendly, especially in the guitar pic. That might be a problem"

•"My brother works there."

Expect to see more of the musical new mouse online, on TV, in print ads and wherever guitar-playing mice congregate.

As an aside, according to ABC, no one was more surprised by the mouse-swapping news than Duncan Brannan, who provided the voice of the old-timey, baseball-cap-sporting mouse for more than 20 years.

Click here for more on that story, which has even less to do with guitars than the rest of this blog post.

Regardless, it's nice to know Chuck E. Cheese thinks we're cool!

Damian Fanelli is the online managing editor at Guitar World.