Alejandra Brady -- the head of communications for Chuck E. Cheese -- tells TMZ ... all the speculation about the discontinuation of its animatronic creatures -- affectionately known as "Munch's Make Believe Band" -- being a direct result of "Five Nights at Freddy's" is total bunk.

While it makes sense some might think one directly led to the other -- seeing how the videogame-inspired flick came out 2 weeks ago, and it's all about killer animatronic robots at a defunct Chuck E. Cheese-like play place -- Brady says nothing could be further from the truth ... this decision to phase out the machines has been in the works for a while.

Brady tells us the CEC brass have been wanting to pivot into the 21st century for a while here -- believing that having live performers do their Chuck E. Live! Show will be a better experience for guests ... and it'll be completely state-of-the-art and interactive.

Whereas the old bots would just stand there and jerk around with levers and pullies -- this new show is going to be completely rebranded ... and more importantly, it's been the game plan for years now, dating back to 2017 when Chuck E. Cheese first announced this move.

The latest news folks heard the other day about ditching all the animatronics was actually just to let 'em know that the old school robot show is gonna happen at only one location going forward ... and that would be Northridge, CA -- which they call the "residency" show.

Of course, people conflated that announcement with the release of 'FNAF' ... and figured Chuck and co. were running scared based on the flick -- again, it shows murderous bots.

That's not the case, though ... Brady assures us they've been looking for a change for years now -- and it just so happens to going down during this 'FNAF' craze -- call it coincidence!