Chuck E Cheese

The founder of restaurant chain Chuck E. Cheese's (formerly Chuck E. Cheese's Pizza Time Theatre) is none other than Nolan Bushnell, founder of the computer game company Atari.  This explains rather a lot, actually, although not how both Atari and Chuck E. Cheese are still in business after the precipitous decline of the arcade in the wake of the console gaming boom.  Anyway, one version of the story is that at least in the beginning Warner Bros. was willing to sink all sorts of cash into Bushnell's side projects as long as Atari was going strong, which certainly would have helped get the chain off the ground.

"Chuck E. Cheese" was based on a "coyote costume" acquired at a trade show.  Bushnell then noticed that it had a tail, and realized it was actually a rat.  Oops.  Still, it worked, so who's complaining?  The marketing agency named it "Chuck E. Cheese" "...because it was a three-smile name, just saying it forces a person's mouth to smile."  In its early incarnation it was only one of the various animatronic characters (rather than the primary mascot).

And as long as I'm doing name research, the name Atari is from the Japanese word atari, used to indicate a threatening position in the game Go (a favorite of Bushnell's).