Yes, he is an animatronic. This is probably what you would call a "Fourth Generation" bot, but it is the generation used from the late '70s through most of the '80s. They went through three generations at the first two stores within about a year and a half and there was only one bot per character for each generation before the 4th. He had the cigar up until late 1979, and there were about half a dozen stores using this type of bot by then so they may have had a cigar.
This is what he looked like when I got him:
No nose, no right forearm, trashed eyes, eyelids didn't work, a plastic tab for teeth and a half-assed reproduction for a jaw. This was actually an improvement over what he looked like when found back in the early 2000s:
His previous owner cleaned him up, replaced the fabric on his snout and made a jaw. Then the owner lost interest and didn't do anything with him for 7 years before deciding to sell him on eBay to raise funds for another project. The first two pics are from the listing. It was a BIN listing with a best offer, so I sent an offer and he accepted. There are only about a dozen 1/2 body Chuck bots known to exist and most are incomplete and in need of restoration. It's been a really fun and rewarding experience. I met a lot of really cool people who have helped me out. And yes, I got him working again. He's one of two known to be in working condition. I bought an animatronics controller so I can program him for new material. Still getting the hang of it, but here he is singing a song from a promotional LP released in 1985. It was probably a local production and the bots were never programmed to perform it, until now.
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